Thanksgiving 2011 #15 - Mixer

Today, I am grateful for my red KitchenAid mixer.

via

I love the bold color!

I use it for almost all of my baking. I was asked to make dinner rolls for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, and my KitchenAid saved me from having to knead the dough by hand. Yeah!

The rolls are still baking, but hopefully I'll get a nice picture of them tomorrow.

What were you thankful for today?

Thanksgiving 2011 #5 - Halloween Cheesecakes

Today, I'm thankful for how great my cheesecakes turned out!

We're having a Halloween party tonight at my parent's house Yes, I know Halloween was last week, but for the past few years we've celebrated at my parent's house the following Sunday, and I was asked to make a dessert. I hope these taste as yummy as they look.

What are you grateful for today?

New blog: Tale of Two Sisters and Their Kitchens

Yep, that's right...

I've started yet another new blog! This one is inspired by my friend's blog RecipeShoebox. I wanted to have a blog devoted to my successes (and probably some failures) in the kitchen. My little sister thought it would be fun, too, so together we've created a blog to swap recipes and share kitchen stories.

I'm so excited!

Please check out Tale of Two Sisters and Their Kitchens. If you like what you see (remember, it's just getting started), go ahead and leave us a comment. We love comments. Almost as much as we love followers. Why not do both?

Creative outlet

Several weeks ago, I was wandering around Michael's while Jeff was picking up paint supplies.

I thought, "Hey! I want to do something creative, too."

Jewelry making? No.

Painting? Uhn-Uhn.

Floral Arranging? Nope.

Hmm... what's a girl to do?

I was wandering around aimlessly trying to think of something that would appeal to me--that I could have some fun with.

And then...it hit me...CAKES!

I'd researched fondant cakes before, and now I decided that it would be a fun creative outlet for me. I bought a few new cake pans, a cake leveler, and a fondant cutter (none of these are technical names). I was excited to give it a shot!

I made my own marshmallow fondant last week. I had intended on making some fancy cakes or cupcakes for our YW Garage/Bake Sale but couldn't ever find the energy. Instead my first attempt at a fondant cake was for my niece's birthdays. We were celebrating both Selena's 13th birthday and Susie's 7th birthdays. The cake turned out to be more for Selena, as it was decorated in her favorite colors--orange and pink!

There were definitely some flaws, but I thought it turned out really well for my first attempt. Everyone else thought so, too.

Selena wanted her picture taken with the cake. When she was posing, she said, "I want you to make my wedding cake." I was honored! I figure I have at least 6 years to perfect my cake decorating!

Journal Topic: Describe your cooking skills and your favorite thing to cook

I’d say I’m a moderately good cook, but I generally consider myself more of a baker. When my family gathers on Sundays, I’m usually the one to bring dessert.

I do cook dinner for me and my husband. I love to try new recipes. They don’t always turn out, but it’s fun to give it a try.

My husband’s favorite thing for me to make is grilled chicken (on our Griddler®). It’s so easy and simple; it’s probably our most frequent dinner. I usually serve it with potatoes and corn or green beans. So easy, so simple, so delicious!

Click here for a link to all the recipes that I've tried (and blogged about).

Recipe: Krusczyki

For Mother's Day, my step-mom put in a special request for an angel food cake. I was happy to oblige. Unfortunately, it left me with a lot of left-over egg yolks.

I scoured the Internet for a delicious way to use up the egg yolks. Most of the recipes I found were for sponge cake or something that would be baked in the same type of pan as the angel food cake. Now, that wouldn't work for me because, well, I had an angel food cake in that pan!

I was delighted for find this recipe for Krusczyki on Allrecipes.com (posted by SHARONA669). I'd never heard of it before, and there was no picture to go along with the recipe, but I thought I'd take a gamble.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
14 egg yolks
1 pint sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
8 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups shortening
1/3 cup confectioners' sugar for decoration

Directions:

1. In a large bowl mix together all ingredients except shortening and confectioners' sugar. Stir into a ball, then turn dough out onto a floured surface . Knead dough for 1/2 hour. If you have a mixer with a dough hook attachment, mix for about 15 minutes.
2. Let dough rest for 10 minutes.

3. On a floured surface, roll out dough to 1/4 to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into strips that are 3 inches long and 1 inch wide. In the center of each strip, cut a 1 inch slit, lengthwise.

   

   Pull one end of the strip through the slit to form a bow.

   

   (This is my interpretation of making a "bow". They kind of look like little bow ties, right?)

4. In a frying pan or an electric skillet, melt shortening and heat to about 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). in a frying pan this would be on medium high heat.

5. Place cookies in hot oil. Cook on both sides until lightly browned then remove to a paper towel.

6. Dust finished cookies with confectioners sugar.

I brought these over for Mother's Day brunch. Everyone loved them!! They are not a real sweet cookie but are more like a little doughnut. I was surprised at how well they were received.

Dinner Last Night: Chicken Enchiladas

I found this recipe for the Easiest Chicken Enchiladas Ever on my friend's blog. It sounded so good!

But... I didn't have any enchilada sauce. :-(

I was going to go online to find my own, but instead found this recipe for Easy Chicken Enchiladas on Allrecipes.com. It sounded really good, too.

I had to make a few modifications:

• I only had about 2-3 oz of cream cheese, so I added1/3 cup of sour cream as well.
• I used a can of chicken instead of the chopped, cooked chicken breast.
• I had some leftover white beans in my fridge, so used those instead of the pinto beans (I used the same amount of beans as chicken, using the empty can as my measurer).

These turned out to be so delicious! I'll definitely make them again. They are not saucy like regular enchiladas, which I actually kind of enjoyed.

Jeff even liked these so...two thumbs up here!!

Dinner Tonight: Mexican

Dinner turned out so great tonight! Mexican rice, black beans and cheese quesadillas...all from scratch! I was so impressed with how tasty everything turned out.

A week or so ago, my friend taught me how to make Mexican rice from scratch the way her mother-in-law taught her (Her mother-in-law is from Mexico). I had to modify it slightly with what I can in my cupboards/fridge, but I was so happy with the results. It was very flavorful. Unfortunately, some of the rice was still a little hard, so it's definitely not perfected.

The black beans I made a few days ago and just had to reheat. These were not from a can! I did a quick soak with them (boil for two minutes and then let sit for a few hours), and then I boiled them for about two or so hours, adding salt during the last 1/2 hour or so. I thought they turned out delicious, but Jeff didn't really get a chance to taste them by themselves because they went right into a taco soup. On their own tonight, he said they were delicious, which made me smile.

No secret to the quesadillas. We just love those!!

Oh So Simple Bean Soup

I've had a pound of white beans in my cupboard for more than 2 years, so I thought I should try to put them to good use. I soaked them yesterday, so they would be ready for me today.

I tried looking for a good recipe to use, but nothing was jumping out at me, so I decided to do a little experimenting. This is NOT something I usually do.

Feeling a little daring, I put the beans in some fresh water, put it on to boil, and started grabbing cans from my cupboard.

Here's the end result:

Oh So Simple Bean Soup

1-15.25oz can whole kernel corn, drained
1-10.75oz can cheddar cheese soup + 1 can of water
1-15oz can of crushed tomato + 1 can of water
1-15oz can of tomato sauce + 1 can of water
1-15oz can of chili beans
1-15oz can of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 lb of dried white beans, soaked and cooked
1/4 cup of Wahoo! Chili (Tastefully Simple)
1 1/2 T Garlic Garlic (Tastefully Simple)
1/4 c minced onion
1 T salt
1 tsp basil

Combine all ingredients in a large pot. Simmer for at least 30 minutes until hot and flavorful.

I topped this with Texas Toast(R) Cheese & Garlic croutons. Yummy!

Cookies NEED eggs

Jeff asked me to bake some cookies after dinner last night. I had found a recipe for Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies on my friend's family recipe blog, and he agreed that they sounded delicious.



So, I mixed them all up, and popped the first dozen in the oven. Then I started to clean up and realized there was no egg shell on my counter.



Ooops! I had forgotten to add the egg.



While the first dozen was baking, I had already put the next dozen on the pan--ready to put in the oven. After a minute or so of hemming and hawing (is it OK to mix in the egg after the chocolate chips have been stirred in? what effect will no egg have? will the egg mix properly after the fact?), I decided to toss the dough of the 12 uncooked cookies back in the bowl, and go ahead and try to still mix in the forgotten egg.



Turns out, cookies really do need eggs. The first dozen tasted OK, but they didn't stick together very well.



And they didn't flatten as they should have.



We were left with very thick, dry, crumbly cookies.

Thankfully the remaining 2 1/2 dozen were delicious! Moist, chewy! I love the flavor combination of the peanut butter and chocolate chips.

If you're wondering what an egg exactly does in cookies, check out this website that I found this morning. It answers this very question plus gives more great information about the egg.


P.S. Is forgetting eggs a pattern? I also forgot eggs when making pancakes back in 2006. Perhaps since it was more than two years ago, it's not a pattern. Let's hope.

Banana Blueberry Muffins

I made these muffins last night to enjoy for breakfast this morning. I was looking for a healthy banana muffin to use up some frozen bananas that have been in my freezer for quite a long time. I was a little hesitant to make these, as there were quite a few negative reviews. Overall it was still rated with 4 stars, so I decided to give it a try.

They turned out to be delicious and filling! I even brought a couple into a co-worker, and she agreed that they were yummy. This is definitely a recipe I will make again and again.

My frozen bananas were about 2 cups, so I decreased the egg whites to 3 instead of 4, but that was the only change I made to the recipe.

Ever Wonder...

Have you ever wondered how you can figure out the nutritional value of your favorite home cooked meals?

Check out this link:
http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php?process=resubmit&count=6

It is the easiest way to do this analysis. I've seen other links around where you need to tediously find the ingredients from your recipe in their database. Not with this one! All you need to do is type in your recipe, enter the servings, and hit ANALYZE RECIPE.

If it doesn't recognize your ingredient, it will display a red or orange flag next to that item. You can re-word your ingredient, so that it can be found in their database.

Happy analyzing and healthy eating!

Ymmm...Pie...

The Peña kids spent the night after Selena's birthday.

When AJ woke up, the two of us went out and picked some raspberries and rhubarb. When I asked AJ what he thought we should make with the raspberries we'd picked. Without hesitation, he said, "Pie!" By this time, Selena was awake, and the three of us made one raspberry and one raspberry-rhubarb pie.

The pies were tasty! And it was a lot of fun to spend quality time baking with my niece and nephew. :-)

Here is a pic of the pies we made.

Misc

Yum Yum!!

For Thanksgiving, I made a pumpkin cheesecake. It turned out picture perfect, so I had to post a pic online.

My sister, Treva, is the pie maker in our family, and she makes some delicious pies. I think this past Thanksgiving she brought 6 or 8 pies to Thanksgiving dinner. Unfortunately, I was in MN and was unable to partake. I probably should have tried my hand at making a pie in her honor, but I chose to make a pumpkin cheesecake instead. It certainly was delicious. Maybe next year, I'll make a pie, too. :-)

early Thanksgiving 2006

We celebrated Thanksgiving a little early this year (the Saturday before), because Nathan came for a visit. I made the whole spread--9 lb turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, green beans, cranberry sauce and applesauce and pumpkin cake for dessert.

It was fun to do, but I was a little pressed for time. Dinner was supposed to start at 5 p.m. (We'd invited the Elders over as well, and they had a baptism at 7 p.m., so timing was essential), but the turkey didn't cook quite as quickly as I'd calculated. We ended up eating around 5:45. :-( Everything tasted good, so I think I'd do it again--without any morning plans. (I'd spent the morning at a PartyLite regional meeting, and hadn't gotten home until 1:45 p.m.)

Here is a pic of our Thanksgiving dinner table. We even used the good dishes.

I would have liked to have gotten a few more pictures from the evening--with the missionaries, Nathan, Jeff and I, but we were too short on time, and I wanted the Elders to be able to eat.

I saved the turkey carcass after dinner to try my hand at making some homemade turkey soup. Here's a pic:

The soup turned out pretty good, but it could have definitely used more salt and more substance. I put in celery, carrots, turkey (of course), potatoes and orzo pasta. Next time, I'll definitely add more of everything and no orzo pasta. I thought that would be good, but it got too mushy and was a weird slimy texture. Next time, I'll think I'll use spirals. With only 3 of us at home, we'll be eating soup for quite awhile! :-)

I also made some baking soda biscuits--from scratch--to accompany the soup. I'd never made them before. They tasted pretty yummy, but they didn't rise all that much. Maybe that's the way they're supposed to be...

Canning Applesauce

The Apples, Apples, and More Apples post didn't give me enough apples to satisfy my apple curiosity.

(I made apple cobbler, German apple pancakes, sliced 3 quarts to freeze, and made one batch (1 qt) of applesauce to freeze.)

So I went and picked up another bagful of apples.

I made an apple crisp.

Today I made and canned 6 pints of applesauce! (I decided to can instead of freeze because our freezer is full!!) It was my first time canning since helping my mom when I was a little girl. I was going to can yesterday, but I didn't have any canning tongs. And it's out of season at Wal-mart for canning supplies.

I called a sister in my ward to see if I could borrow hers. She gave me her canning pot, too. I was very grateful for her helpful advice and for letting me borrow her supplies. Unfortunately, I did not use her pot. It was too big for our stove (in my opinion), and it was too intimidating for me. Everything I'd read said the bottles needed to be submerged with 1 inch of water covering the jars. I didn't see how it was possible to do that with the pot she gave me, so I just used my own deep pot.

I did lots of research on the Internet about canning before starting this venture (that's how I knew about the 1 inch of water cover). I kept looking for advice on how to can without a canning pot (with rack for the jars). I'd read that the jars should not touch the bottom of the pot, so I searched and searched for a way to get around this without purchasing a specific tool. Finally I found something that would help me! They said to put a towel in the bottom of the pot in prevent the jars from touching the bottom and breaking (from the heat?). So...this is what I did today. I also only did two pint jars at a time. It took me 2 1/2 hours to complete the process.

I still have quite a few apples remaining, so I may make more applesauce on Friday. We'll see...

Egg-less pancakes...Oops!

Yesterday morning, I thought it would be nice to make some pancakes for breakfast for our little visitor. Nathan was visiting us for the weekend. Nathan is my stepson; he is 7 years old.

Unfortunately, I kept getting distracted by him and by Jeff that I accidentally forgot to crack those eggs into the batter before having Nathan mix it all together. When I was putting them on the griddle, the batter seemed a little thick. I just added some water to help the consistency.

I didn't really think too much about it until an hour or two later. I don't know why I was thinking about the pancakes again, but I just couldn't visualize cracking the eggs. That's when it occurred to me that I had forgotten them. Oops!!

Turns out...maybe the pancakes didn't really NEED the eggs! They tasted just normal to me. In fact...they were delicious.

Still, next time I'll try to remember to add 'em.

Apples, Apples, and More Apples!!

A sister in my ward had a lot of extra apples, so I thought, "Why not? Free apples are tastier than those from the store."

I'll probably freeze most of them to use for pies and baking during the winter.

Of course, I've been using some right away!

Last night I made a delicious Apple Cobbler.

Homemade Cream Filled Individual Sponge Cakes

We had a ward dessert social tonight. It was potluck, so I found this recipe for homemade Twinkies (R). I changed the recipe to make them more like homemade Suzy Q's (R). I was surprised to find only one remaining when the clean-up began!

I was so excited to try out this recipe. Just ask Jeff. He said I was giddy like a school girl! I have to admit I was pretty silly. I thought the procedure of making these would be challenging, but it was surprisingly easy.

Below is the recipe...

Homemade Cream Filled Individual Sponge Cakes
Submitted by: TNthree Rated: 4 out of 5 by 9 members
Prep Time: 45 Minutes Cook Time: 30 Minutes
Ready In: 1 Hour 15 Minutes Yields: 24 servings
"Yellow cake bars are frosted with a shortening and evaporated milk filling in this homage to the famous snack cakes."

INGREDIENTS:
1 (18.25 ounce) package
yellow cake mix
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup white sugar
1 (5 ounce) can evaporated
milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:
1. Bake cake according to package directions in a 9x13 inch pan. Cool and cut into bars. Cut each bar in half lengthwise to make two layers.
2. In a large bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer until creamy. Beat in shortening, a little at a time, until fluffy. Gradually beat in sugar. Combine evaporated milk and vanilla and beat into filling, scraping the bowl, until fluffy.
3. Sandwich the bars with the fluffy filling.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2005 Allrecipes.com
Printed from Allrecipes.com 9/10/2006

Banana Oatmeal Cookies

I had some bananas in our freezer that I needed to use before our move. Individual snacks move much more quickly in our home, so I found this recipe for banana oatmeal cookies. These turned out wonderfully; although, I did need to decrease the cooking time to around 9-10 min. If you have overripe bananas, this is an excellent recipe!


Banana Oatmeal Cookies III

Submitted by: JoAnn Bork Rated: 4 out of 5 by 12 members
Prep Time: 15 Minutes Cook Time: 15 Minutes
Ready In: 45 Minutes Yields: 36 servings

"These are delicious moist cookies which freeze very well and a great way to use those overripe bananas."

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup shortening
1 egg, beaten
1 cup mashed ripe bananas
1 3/4 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Cut in shortening until almost no lumps remain. Stir in the egg and bananas; mix well. Finally, stir in the oats and walnuts. Drop by teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are browned. Remove from pans immediately to cool on wire racks.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2005 Allrecipes.com
Printed from Allrecipes.com 7/23/2006