Cake flop

 Last month I was looking through the Southern Living magazine and saw an article about one of their most requested recipes in the history of the magazine.  The recipe is for Hummingbird Cake and I knew I had to make it -- Sarah's birthday was coming up soon, my grandmother used to make Hummingbird Cake, and the cake has cream cheese icing!  I had no choice, but to try it.

The cake has simple ingredients, and this version has 4 layers with a custard filling between the layers.  I made the custard the day before so it could spend the night in the refrigerator.  My layers came out of the pan cleanly and the custard tasted delicious.  I stacked the cake together:  cake, custard, cake, custard, etc.  Everything looked great.  Then, I turned to whip up the cream cheese icing.  It was delicious, too! 

I was creating a masterpiece!

When I turned back to wrap the cake in cream cheese deliciousness, this is what I found:



 It was funny, I tell you!  I got the camera to capture such a beautiful swan dive, then got back to work salvaging the remains.  It is more fun than you may know to have your hands covered up to your wrists in cake and custard!  I slapped the cake back in its place, anchored layers together with toothpicks, and quickly sealed the whole disaster in a thick coat of cream cheese icing.

 

The result was still a little sketchy so I topped the whole thing off with flowers.

 

The flowers helped, but the sparkler birthday candles saved the day. 

 

That, and the smile of the birthday girl!



Vegetarian Ziti

About a month ago I volunteered to cook supper for about 20 people who are in town for the summer.  A friend of mine volunteers at an inner-city ministry and she had posted on Facebook that they needed help feeding the interns who have come to work there.   I really don't know anything about it at all.  Just that some people are in town doing something good for someone else and they need to eat.  I can cook, therefore, I can help.

Cooking for 20 people is a challenge when you are trying to prepare a meal that most people will like without breaking the bank.   I wanted to take something that tasted good, but was economical, too.  So, I decided to take Baked Ziti.  My version is very simple:  ground beef, pasta, cheese, and a mixture of homemade and purchased spaghetti sauces.

Yesterday was my day to feed the group and on Sunday I received a reminder email.  All of  the details in the email were what I already knew - have the food at the community center at 5:15, cook for 20 people, etc.  Then I saw this line:  "One of our interns is a vegetarian, if possible provide an option for her please."

I have never even thought about vegetarian cooking!   I have prepared vegetarian meals, but not with that specific thought in mind.  The baked ziti would still work for most of the interns and I had already planned to bring a salad, but that didn't seem to be enough of an "option" for the vegetarian.  I had to head out on some uncharted territory to find an additional dish to bring. 

After looking on AllRecipes.com for some ideas, I invented my own recipe and it was amazing delicious!

Baked Ziti Alfredo with Summer Squash

*  Melt one stick butter in large pan.

*  To the butter, add 1/2 large onion, chopped, and 2 summer squash, chopped

*  Saute until onion is clear and squash is softened, then add 1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic.

*  Add 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour.  Stir and cook for 1-2 minutes.

*  Add 2 cups half-and-half, 1 cup milk, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper.  Cook over medium heat until thick and bubbly.

*  Add one jar Ragu Alfredo sauce and 12 ounces ready made spaghetti sauce.

*  Boil 1 box ziti noodles in salted water until just tender.

*  Stir together the sauce and noodles.  Pour into 9x13 pan.

*  Top with shredded mozzarella cheese and bake at 350 degrees until cheese is melted and barely beginning to brown.

Banana pancakes for a rainy Saturday morning

So, I was listening to Jack Johnson on the Ipod and I thought, "Banana pancakes must be really yummy if you want to name a song after them."

A few weeks ago I found a recipe for them on Cooks.com and made some for me and Daryl.  They were really good!

Today, when we woke up with three little grandchildren and a rainy morning I knew that banana pancakes were the only thing that would do for breakfast.

 "The more you eat, the happier you are."

                                                      Daniel Greer

Here is how I made them this morning:

Banana-Chocolate Chip Pancakes

2 ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup buttermilk
2 cups pancake mix
3 eggs, separated
chocolate chips

Stir together the bananas and buttermilk.  Add the pancake mix.  Stir in the egg yolks.  Beat the egg whites until a little frothy, then add to the pancake batter.  I added some more buttermilk to get the consistency right.  Add a few chocolate chips to the top of the pancake after you pour it on the griddle.

Granola in my yogurt

I have become a fan of getting a yogurt parfait when I am at a fast-food place.  I figured out, though, that the reason I like it is not because of the nutritious fruit and yogurt, but because of the crunchy granola.  Since I eat a fair amount of vanilla yogurt at home I decided to make my own granola.

I think mine must be way too healthy because it doesn't taste nearly as good as the McDonald's version.  Most of the sweetener in mine is honey - maybe that is the problem.  It also got a little too brown in the oven.  

Other than that, it is a reasonable first attempt.  When I find a better, more tasty recipe, I will share!

Creative adrenalin

I think I am running on a little creative adrenaline lately.  I have been overflowing with ideas for cookies to bake, dresses to sew and quilts to piece.

These cookies were for a bridal shower.  I know you can't tell, but they are pink and white.  

This little dress was for Lily for her birthday.  I made a dress for Bella's birthday, too, but forgot to take a picture until after it was wrapped.  The dresses aren't similar, but they share the same silly chicken.

During this overload of creativity, I am sad to say that the bathrooms have not cleaned themselves and the floors have refused to stay swept.  Hopefully, some house cleaning adrenalin will hit me soon.

Time travel cookie day

Decorating sugar cookies takes me back in time.

For Ben's first birthday we gave him a Fisher Price barn set. It is the one with the hayloft door that says "Moo" when you open it.  Instead of wrapping the barn for him to open, I used it as a decoration and theme for his party.  I set it out on our built-in china cabinet and laid out the barnyard.  The horse ate out of his trough while the sheep munched on grass in its fence and the farmer rode his tractor.

That was one of my first adventures in icing sugar cookies.  I used gingerbread men cookie cutters and made little farm people to eat :)

That was almost 30 years ago, though, and I am out of practice, to say the least.  These cookies are for a party for Lily and Bennett.  I really wish I had done a run-through about week ago.  I would have made my mistakes on cookies for me to eat instead of on cookies for someone else.  I did find out that polka dots cover a lot of flaws.

While looking online for recipes I found a fantastic site.  The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle is a blog all about decorated cookies.  With her help my cookies didn't spread too much and the icing worked perfectly.  If she would just jump on over here and use her talent on the actual decorating, I'd be set!

They are pretty cute, though, aren't they?

The fall outside my window

Here is our view looking out the window above the kitchen sink.  This was yesterday afternoon when it was a little rainy, a little breezy.

Kind of makes me want to wash dishes.

A Day of Simple New Recipes

When I search for something new to cook, or for a basic recipe for a staple like rice, I almost always turn to The Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook.   The connection I have with this book is strong!  On Saturday I decided to try some new recipes and they were all three really simple and good.

Breakfast:  Country French Omelet

Boil a couple of red potatoes.  When they are tender, cut them into cubes and brown them in a skillet in a little butter.  Scramble some eggs with a little milk or water.  Add chopped chives to the eggs.  In an omelet pan, pour in your egg mixture and make an omelet!  Put the potatoes in the center of the omelet before you fold it over.  You'll be surprised how yummy this is!

Lunch:  Egg Salad BLT

This is nothing more than making egg salad and putting it on a BLT sandwich.  Absolutely delicious!

Supper:  Lemon Basil Grilled Tuna

Grate the rind from one lemon into a bowl.  Add the juice from that lemon, 1/4 cup of olive oil, and 1/4 cup of chopped basil.  Mix together and pour over tuna steaks.  Let it marinate for a couple of hours then grill the fish.

I have started making notes in my cookbooks when I make a recipe.  Things like, "This doesn't taste as good as it looks."  Or, "Cooked this the day we had a wedding planning meeting."   Sometimes I just write the date, but I'm always glad that I took the time to do it.

On this day I should have written, "Yummy!  Cook it again soon!"

Wrambling Wednesday

1.  In my continuing series of Roast Chicken Month, I did roast the third chicken.  It didn't turn out very well.  The recipe was wonderful because it was one of Emeril's recipes and he has never let me down!  It may have something to do with having sweet grandchildren with me all day that day.  Come to think of it, I don't think I became a good cook until I didn't have little children around.  Wonder why?  It must take a lot of concentration for me to get the recipe right!

2.  Speaking of Months of Foods, October is National Pizza Month.

3.  Speaking of October, my birthday is on Monday.  My Big 5-0!

4.  Speaking of pizza and birthdays, I think I will go celebrate in....

New York City!!!

Thanks to my great husband, we are leaving tomorrow to spend a week in Manhattan.  Ben, Abbie, David, Sarah, Jackie, and Corey will join us there on Friday for one big, huge, fun birthday party.  We have never done anything like this, and may not ever again, but we are all REALLY looking forward it!  I'll definitely be checking out the New York pizza!

Jackie had a business trip to Hartford, Connecticut this week.  When she goes there she takes the train from Philadelphia and rides right past New York.  As she came through she took this picture on her phone and emailed it to me.

I'll let you know how my pizza pilgrimage goes!

Thankful Thursday

It was just one of those day.

One of those days when you think life doesn't get any better than this.

First you have helpers to make the chocolate chip cookies,

watchers to watch the cookies cook,

and eaters to gobble them up.

Yep, I'm thankful!

The Three Lives of a Kitchen Table

Before Daryl and I got married all those years ago we went furniture shopping at TG&Y.  Which is the equivalent today of buying furniture at Target.  The first thing we bought was an oak table to go in our kitchen dining area.  We stained it, polyurethaned it, and used it that way for about 13 years.  The table is in so many pictures taken during those years.  Pictures of aunts sewing curtains before Ben was born, David's third birthday when Jackie was 10 days old and all I could do was put a candle in a piece of cake someone had brought to the house, a great pic of David with a face full of chicken pox.  It even held the wedding cake at Jackie's first wedding on her third birthday.  BUT, all of those pictures were taken before the digital age and I don't have a scanner...

When we moved to Florida our kitchen was all white and not as large as the one we had in Montgomery.  The oak table took up so much visual space that the room felt very cramped.  So, Daryl painted the table white.  Several people told us what a bad decision we made, but it wasn't their kitchen  or their table, for that matter!  I wanted it white!

A white kitchen table never worked at our house here, though.  I was over my white phase.  What to do, though?  Daryl had worked so hard on that paint job and I felt a little inconsiderate to think about changing it to something else.  So the table went to the basement.  And that didn't feel considerate to the table!  After two years I decided that it was time to make a decision and get the table back in service.

My first idea was to  paint the whole thing black.  I have a friend with a black table in her kitchen and I love the way it looks.  But, David and Sarah just refinished a side table at their house by stripping the paint off the top and painting the legs.  Even though I have never stripped furniture before I decided to go for it and get to work.

When I first got down to the old oak finish, I actually talked to a table.  "Hello, old friend."  And it talked back.  "Ahhhhhh.  Now I can breath again."

Not really.  The table didn't respond to me.

Here it is today.

I love how it turned out!

If you look to the right of the kitchen table you can see my dining table.  I'm on to the next refinishing project!

Roast Chicken Month - Chicken #2

Yesterday I roasted my second chicken in as many weeks.  I think I like this idea!  It is a super simple meal, but the taste is gourmet!

The recipe this week came from "The Marshall Field's Cookbook".  While it includes several steps over a 24 hour period, nothing is difficult, and the result is worth every, little bit of effort involved!

Roasted Garlic Chicken

1/2 cup roasted garlic cloves (about 2 heads)
2 cups water
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/2 lemon, cut into 4 wedges
2 bay leaves, crushed
1 (3 to 4-pound) whole roasting chicken

Roasting garlic:  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Place 1/2 cup peeled garlic cloves in the center of a piece of aluminum foil.  Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil over the cloves and fold the foil over to form a loose packet.  Place the packet on a baking sheet and roast for 30 to 40 minutes, until the garlic is very soft and light brown.  Allow to cool before using.

Combine the garlic, water, salt, pepper, and olive oil in a blender and puree until smooth.  Squeeze in the juice from the lemon wedges, reserving the rinds, and blend to combine.  Stir in the bay leaves.

Place the chicken in a large resealable plastic bag or a bowl.  Pour the brine over the chicken and toss to coat. Add the lemon rinds and press the air out of the bag and seal tightly or cover the bowl with plastic wrap.  Refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Remove the chicken from the brine.  Season liberally on all sides with salt and pepper.  Place the chicken, breast side up, on a rack set in a a roasting pan.  Roast for about 1 hour, until the juices run clear from the thigh when pierced with a fork.

Let the chicken rest for 10 minutes, then cut it into portions and serve hot.

~~~~~~~~~~

I did a couple of things differently from this and it turned out okay.  I rubbed the bird with olive oil before I salted it, and I cooked it at 450 degrees for 30 minutes and at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.

Delicious!

Roast Chicken Month

September is National Chicken Month.  I know this only because my youngest sister told me.  Not because any of these girls mentioned it.

Now close your ears, girls, because the tagline after National Chicken Month is....Taste the Possibilities.

A couple of weeks ago I read an article that mentioned some top chefs who would choose a roast chicken as their last meal.  Ina Garten has said that her husband's favorite meal is roast chicken.  So, to celebrate Chicken Month, and to find out just how good one can possibly be, I am planning to roast a chicken each week.

Last night I cooked the first one.  I adapted a this recipe I found on FoodNetwork.com and it was delicious!  The secret of this recipe seems to be using enough salt.  You salt the bird when you first bring it home - inside and out - and then add more salt just before cooking.

If you want your house to smell like you are a fabulous cook, then I would recommend roasting a chicken!  When you taste it, you will know you are a great cook!

Smoothie thoughts

A few weeks ago we had a conversation with a woman who swears that her Vitamix is the best thing since sliced bread.  I listened to her talk about how she makes smoothies in her Vitamix.  She throws in spinach and peas just for fun!  She throws in the watermelon seeds with the watermelon and the Vitamix just chews those things right up!  And watermelon seeds are so full of zinc!  (Yawn.)  And she has lost 8 pounds since she bought her Vitamix!

Wait...  I'm awake.

Lost 8 pounds?

Next thing I know, I am on the internet researching Vitamix machines.  They are super-powerful blenders, used by all the top chefs, blend so fast that the heat generated by the blending can make ready-to-eat soup (the soup actually gets hot), and they make great smoothies.

And they cost $500.  For a smoothie maker.

SO, with the losing 8 pounds still in my head, I decided to pull out my $30 blender and see what it would do.  I haven't graduated to spinach and watermelon seeds, but my beginner efforts are really yummy and healthy.  We started out with bananas, strawberries, frozen blueberries, vanilla yogurt, a spoon of orange juice concentrate, a little apple juice, and some ice.

I'm sure hoping that it isn't the spinach in the smoothie that causes the weight loss.  I think I had better keep doing my workout DVD just in case.

Food Dreams

I had a colonoscopy yesterday morning.  And, boy, did it put me in a bad mood!  Not because of the procedure itself, but because of the preparations for it.

As much as I hated drinking the gunk you have to drink, the worst part to me was that I was told that I had to have a restricted diet on Saturday and couldn't have any solid food at all on Sunday.  On the weekend!  What were they thinking?

All week I worried about if I could survive a day without eating.  I wondered if I would remember to not eat.  I kept feeling like I would mindlessly start munching and not even know it!  To prevent this I wrote down what I would eat on Saturday night and Sunday.

MENU

Saturday supper - Cream of chicken soup

Sunday breakfast - hot tea

Sunday lunch - chicken broth

Sunday supper - Sprite

Snacks - Water and Sprite

There are times that are very instructional to me about my most basic makeup and this is my lesson learned over the weekend:  I don't eat to live, I live to eat.  I read cookbooks like novels, hanging on every word and ingredient. There are so many recipes to try and so little life to try them in!  One of my relatives and I have talked about how different we are in this way because she mostly cooks the same few things each week with a rare new recipe thrown in.  I love to try new recipes and will try a new way to cook an old favorite at the drop of a hat.

I knew how disturbed I was when I started dreaming about food!  I dreamed one night about chicken-fried steak and last night I dreamed about chili dogs.  

Life should be back to normal for the rest of the week and, hopefully, these dreams will stop.  I am already thinking about the salmon I want to grill for dinner tonight....

Key Lime

I made a Key Lime pie this week for one of Daryl's clients.  It is so simple and I thought I would share the recipe with you.

Key Lime Pie

1 can Eagle Brand condensed milk

4 egg yolks

1/2 cup Key Lime juice

Stir together the Eagle Brand and egg yolks.  Add the lime juice.  Pour into a pie crust and bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.  Use any type crust you like, but I make mine out of Keebler graham cracker crumbs  using the instructions on the box.

Let the pie cool on the counter top for a while, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold.

For the whipped cream on top, beat 1 cup of heavy whipping cream together with 1/3 cup of powdered sugar until it looks like it does in the picture.  Not really!  I hope you and I both can make it prettier next time!

Some people add green food coloring to Key Lime Pie.  I guess that is because they think it should be green since the outside of a lime is green.  The juice isn't green, though, and I like mine to be the natural color.

That's it!  It is a perfect dessert in the summer since it is cool and simple.  

And it reminds me that I really want to go to Key West one day.

Salt or Not

There are two types of people in the world.

Type #1 - People who do not put salt on their fruit

Type #2 - Strange people who put salt on their fruit.

And many times they are married to each other.

I would like to give a little preemptive suggestion to my Type 2 husband:  Please salt the fruit after you put it on your own plate.  I think the Bible says somewhere that a little salt salties the whole batch and I would not like salt in my batch of fruit.

Thank you so much!

Basil Pesto

One day this week I was bored with nothing to do.  Not really, but I was wasting time by surfing the internet. I surfed on over to The Pioneer Woman and saw that she had posted a recipe for Pasta with Pesto Cream Sauce.  

Well, two things about that post worked for me.  I had no dinner plans, yet.  And, I have basil!

Lots of basil!  It is growing in the garden in places where it wasn't planted.

In a brick....

and on the walkway.  I figure that if it wants to grow there, who am I to tell it not to.  But, I sure can use some of it!

So, I got about this much.  The recipe calls for 3/4 cup and after I got the best leaves and packed it down well, this was about right.

I use walnuts instead of pine nuts.  Don't know why I started doing that, but I think it had something to do with the price of pine nuts.  

It really was delicious.  For dinner that night I made the Pesto Cream Sauce and served it over chicken breasts and pasta.

Thanks, PW!

Comfort food for a cold May evening

 When I was in Oklahoma recently, I wanted to cook something for dinner that might taste good to Mom.  She had been in the hospital almost a week, hadn't eaten for half that time, and was at the mercy of the hospital "room service" the rest of the time.  I looked in the refrigerator, found a rotisserie chicken and some cooked carrots, and thought of chicken pot pie.  Not having a memory for recipes, I searched online and ran across a blog that was talking about the Marshall Field's Cookbook.  On the cover was a picture of our dinner!

The recipe for the pot pie was included in the blog and I adjusted it a little for the ingredients at hand.  It was delicious!  My next website to visit was Amazon.com where I ordered my own copy of the cookbook.

Yesterday was an unusually cool and breezy day for May and, once again, I thought of chicken pot pie for supper.  And, once again, it was wonderful.

The secret to the flaky crust is that it uses butter, and plenty of it.  

I froze most of the recipe in these cute little dishes for us to eat later.

This is the one we ate last night.  And even though it was good on a cool May night, I am pretty sure we will enjoy it on a hot July evening, too!

Here is a link to the recipe on the the Simply Recipes website.  I used chicken breasts instead of a whole chicken and substituted dried thyme instead of the fresh.  I didn't use the sherry or the fresh parsley, either.  Okay, maybe I just used the idea of this recipe :)

Bon Appetit!  (I just watched Julie and Julia again.)

Public Service Announcement

It is possible that everyone else on the planet knows about this.  But I didn't know about it until about a year ago.  There is an age-old problem of the roll of plastic wrap or foil falling out of the container while I am attempting to tear off a piece.  And it is very annoying.  Who knew that the ends of the boxes had tabs that could be pushed in to hold the roll in place?   Did you know this?  Am I the only ignorant homemaker?

 Don't answer that.

Now everyone can go into their kitchen and start securing their rolls.

You're welcome!