Has it Been That Long??

My, how time gets away from me!  Although I have not committed to post recipes on a consistent basis, I had no intention of letting so many months go by!  Even though I have not posted any new recipes recently, I visit my blog often when I am home or traveling because I have found that it is a great way to store recipes rather than printing recipes and filling numerous books or recipe files.  This paperless recipe filing is wonderful and it travels well! 

Over the past months, I have accessed my recipes from my son and daughter-in-law's home in Tennessee as I visited our new grandson, Cade.  Holly had to go back to work for five weeks before school was out for the year so I had the precious opportunity to stay with them for two weeks and while I was there besides taking care of Cade (joy, oh joy!), I cooked a few meals. A couple of the recipes I accessed while I was there were shrimp scampi and cheddar biscuits.  If you are like me and love recipes, consider saving the links to all your favorite sites on a blog.  You don't have to make it public but it's a great way to save recipes without having a plethora of paper in your cabinet.

I have been busy, as usual, baking and trying out new recipes.  I have discovered several new recipe sites.  As I was searching for an ice cream cake recipe, I came upon Laura in the Kitchen.  Her site includes many demonstration videos and some tempting treats.  I made her Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Filling and Ganache and the Oreo Ice Cream Cake for our April/May Celebrating You birthday event in May.  The cake was oh-so-moist but I wasn't a big fan of the peanut butter filling.  Next time I think I will opt for a traditional buttercream or maybe even the stabilized cream from my triple chocolate cake.  The Oreo ice cream cake was perfect and loved by everyone!  It would be a great dessert for you to try this summer for a special treat for your family/friends.

We had the privilege this month to go on vacation with our boys and their wives (and our new grandson!) to the ocean--our favorite place.  Each family was responsible for cooking the dinner meal and I took a couple nights.  What a nice treat to be cooked for!  Our youngest son enjoys cooking and made a great meal of chicken fajitas, guacamole, cheese dip with nachos.  Emily made a delicious baked spicy chicken spaghetti (I'll have to get her recipe and post it later).  Since we could get fresh shrimp, I opted for shrimp scampi again since it's one of our favorites and I also made fish tacos.  This recipe came from the Pillsbury bake-off last year and is very good.  One night I made the banana cream supreme which is a Pampered Chef recipe.  It is a delicious and oh-so-easy dessert to make.  I chose to buy a graham cracker crust rather than make it in a springform pan (I was on vacation after all)!

Last night we had an ice cream social at church.  I was surprised to find that very few families at our church own an ice cream freezer.  There were only three of us who made homemade ice cream--two of us brought peach and one brought strawberry.  In a taste test, the strawberry ice cream won.  So much for the five-star recipe I found on My Recipes.com.  It was good but a bit too sweet.

So as you can see, I have been busy in my kitchen and in other kitchens which may explain why I haven't posted much recently!  Until next time . . .

This One Is for Jared

I have been cooking for my husband and sons for a total of about 32 1/2 years, and when I make one of their favorite recipes, I can't help but think of them.  Today's recipe, banana cake, always makes me think of Jared.  This is one of his favorite desserts along with coconut cream pie.

I acquired this recipe the first year Jeff and I were married and living in Houston, Texas.  I worked at Tenneco, Inc., in the internal audit department with a woman by the name of Wanda.  Her mother made this cake and Wanda brought it to work one day.  I have been making it ever since.  (There is a whole history inside every recipe!)

If you have few good ripe bananas, consider making this--it might just end up being one of YOUR favorite recipes!

Click here for the recipe.

Hostess Has Nothing On Me

How long has it been since you have had a Hostess cupcake?  You know--the chocolate cupcake with the white cream filling inside and the chocolate ganach topping with the signature white stripe on top?  It's been a LONG time since I have had one but I decided this week that I wanted to make a filled cupcake for our February birthday celebration.  My sister happened to have this marshmallow cream recipe and shared it with me along with a couple tips about how to successfully fill the cupcakes. 

I started with a basic Devil's food cake recipe.  Using an old-fashioned ice cream scoop, I scooped a level scoop of batter into my large greased muffin tins and ended up with nicely rounded topped cupcakes.  I made the filling while the cupcakes were baking and made the ganach while the cupcakes were cooling.To fill the cupcakes, I used my Pampered Chef apple corer and gently pulled a section out of the center of the cupcake, keeping the "plug" in tact.  I piped the filling into the hole I had created and filled it almost to the top.  I then cup off about half of the cake from my "plug" and inserted the stub back in place to cover the cream.   Holding the cupcake gently, I dipped the top into the ganach letting the excess drip back into the pan.  I put them in the refrigerator to set up.  Meanwhile, I melted semi-sweet chocolate chips and white chocolate chips (separately) and piped heart shapes out onto waxed paper, refrigerating them to set up also.  Just before serving, I simply placed the hearts on top of the cupcakes pressing the tips gently to "glue" them into place. 

The cupcakes were very good and one of our guests, Jerry, made the comment that Hostess had nothing on me!  Thank you, Jerry.  Come any time! We love a happy guest!  Hope your birthday was special.

Click here for a printable version of the recipe.

Granola Cereal Take 2

My husband is a big cereal fan and especially enjoys grain cereals with raisins and nuts. If you buy much cereal at your house, you know that while the cost is going up, the size of the box is going down. So I decided recently to make my own granola mix and after two recipe trials, I think I've found a winner. The two recipes were very similar (oats, dried fruits, nuts), but the ingredient that made the second recipe stand out was the sweetener. The first recipe has maple syrup as its sweetener while the second recipe calls for brown sugar and honey. The other thing that set the second recipe apart is that the dried fruit isn't actually baked with the granola which keeps them nice and soft. They tend to dry up when they are baked.

The granola is good with milk and also makes a nice topping for yogurt. I haven't had the opportunity to figure out how much it costs to make a recipe, but I'm sure its significantly lower than the boxed cereals at the grocery--and probably a lot better for you. Give it a try and see what you think!

Click here for a printable version of Homemade Granola.

Tyler Does it Again

My favorite Food Network chefs seem to go in cycles.  I find one, make many of their recipes, watch their program over and over again, then get a little tired of them and move on.  (Sounds like my past relationships with hair dressers!)  My new favorite chef is Tyler Florence.  I love to watch him cook--he makes everything look so good.  I will have to say that every recipe of his that I have tried has had wonderful flavor.

So it just seemed natural to turn to Tyler recently when I was looking for a new recipe for shrimp scampi.  I was not disappointed.  This recipe has a very fresh and sigificant flavor.  I have made it a couple times recently because it's a very quick but hearty meal.  Watch Tyler make this dish.  You will be inspired!

Refreshing New Remake!

At times one of the hardest things about meal preparation for me is coming up with side dishes and different salads to serve with a main entree.  I can get in a rut and get very tired of the same old thing.  That's why I was delighted this week to find a remake of a salad from my childhood that was delicious and really, in my opinion, even better than the original recipe.  My husband has never liked carrot-raisin salad.  Something about horrors of the cafeteria lunchroom.  Personally, I didn't buy my lunch much at all when I was in school.  Mom usually provided with us a sack lunch that contained a sandwich, "nice" fruit and a cookie.  I preferred Mom's lunch over the cafeteria soup/sandwich any day--except for the day they served grilled cheese and tomato soup.  That day, I opted to buy.

Anyway, back to the carrot-raisin salad.  I ran across this recipe on "Once Upon a Plate" blog this week that had a refreshing remix of this old favorite.  It doesn't call of a "recipe" but rather simply grating a Granny Smith apple (skin on), grating carrots, tossing in dried cranberries and walnuts (I used pecans simply because that's what I had).  To dress the salad, squeeze the juice of a lemon, add a little honey, sugar or sweetener, and a dash of salt over the mixture and toss lightly. 

And there you have it--an easy, tasty salad.  I am happy to say I have successfully banished my husband's school cafeteria horrors.

Plan B

One night last week my plan for dinner was a dish in my old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook called Chicken Supreme.  It's a baked chicken dish that has great flavor but takes time to bake.  After working at the church all afternoon, I got home at 5:00 and decided that I didn't want to wait until about 6:30 to eat.  Now the question was, what to fix with the bone-in chicken breasts I had thawed out.  There across the page from the Chicken Supreme recipe was a beautiful picture of fried chicken.  These days I try to stay away from fried foods, but I decided it would be a nice treat for a cold winter evening.  Okay--so fried chicken--Plan B! 

What goes best with fried chicken?  Mashed potatoes, milk gravy, peas and golden cornbread.  I turned my oven on "broil" (or so I thought!) and inserted my cast iron cornbread muffin tins and began to assemble the rest of the meal.  I cut the breasts in half, started heating my oil for frying, double coated the chicken (first in seasoned flour, then in for a swim in milk and egg, then for a second coating of the flour), and got it into the hot grease.  I made my cornbread batter, peeled and diced potatoes and got them on the stove.  I put my peas in a dish and seasoned them with dried onion flakes and got them ready for the microwave.  After turning the chicken to allow the second side to brown, I decided it was time to put the cornbread in.  I donned my oven mitt to take out my sizzling hot tins...only I realized when I opened the oven door that it was not sizzling--in fact, it wasn't even warm.  Instead of hitting "broil" then "on" I hit "broil" and "off" which I have done several times recently!

Plan B:  Make fried corn bread!  Now, if you aren't from the South, you may not be familiar with fried corn bread.  As Paul Deen says, "In the South, we fry everything."  I had never had this version of cornbread until I got married.  My mother-in-law, whom I have referred to before, was a wonderful cook, as was her mother.  Katherine made fried cornbread for particular meals--fried cube steak and chipped beef and gravy.  I became a fan.

So Plan B seemed like a good fit for tonight's meal.  The best part of fried corn bread is that it is quick.  Using the same batter for corn muffins or sticks, you heat a skillet or griddle and make pancake-like rounds and cook them until they are golden brown.  Keep them warm in the oven (hit "bake" then "on!") while you make a stack.

You can eat these cakes with butter like you would a normal piece of cornbread or you can layer your mashed potatoes and gravy on top, my particular favorite.  Either way, they are a tasty, quick cornbread addition to any meal.

In summary, it's always good to have a Plan B!  I hope you'll give mine a try.

Click here for a printable version of the recipe.

A Party Fit for a Queen

The ladies at our church are beginning a new Bible study this month.  Our study is "Esther--It's Tough Being a Woman."  If you're familiar with this book of the Bible, you know that Esther was chosen to be the queen to Xerxes, so as we planned the introduction to our Bible study, it just seemed appropriate to make it fit for a queen.  We decorated the fellowship hall with pinks and purples, provided goody bags with makeup samples (remember the beauty regimen Esther and all the other contestants went through?), and served a banquet of desserts. 

We began our evening watching the Anita Renfro's William Tell Mom.  Wow--it IS tough being a woman when you hear all we are responsible for!  We all took the Lipstick Personality Test (check yours out!), then enjoyed some tasty desserts and tea.  Following our refreshments, we watched the introductory session to the Esther study.  It was a special evening.  I know the Lord has some great things in store for each of us over the next 20 weeks.  If you live in Eastern Kentucky, I invite you to join us each Wednesday evening from 7:00-8:00.  If you have never thought of God's word being filled with intrigue, I urge you to fasten your seat belt and hold on tight!  There are highs and lows, dips and turns like you can't imagine!

I made Ina Garten's orange-cranberry scones--a must if you're entertaining a queen!  We served various flavors of teas and I also decided to dig out an old recipe for a spiced tea mix.  It turned out that both were big hits.  If you want to treat someone like a queen, mix up a batch of scones (yes--there's LOTS of butter in the scones, but if you make them dainty, you don't need to feel guilty!), stir up a recipe of spiced tea and lift your pinkie high!  We may not be Esther, but as followers of Jesus Christ, we are daughters of the King and personally, I can't think of any other royal family I would rather be a part of!