Monday, May 31, 2010

Blueberry Buckle


Oh, I just wanted to say before you snarl up your nose after seeing the shortening in the picture and think I'm totally gross, you would never know how many things actually have shortening in them. So my point is, unless you want to eat fresh fruit, then don't be a shortening snob, LOL!
I hope everyone is having a wonderful Memorial Day! We've had a fantastic time with my in-laws. We took the kids' to ride the paddle boats at the lake and they loved it! Unfortunately the baby just started running a fever, I'm thinking the ear infection from last week is back! Everybody else went to the flea market. I was sitting here thinking, I'm alone (baby is napping) what shall I do since this is a rarity for me! Of course-BAKE!! What else can I do besides worrying over the baby, I will bake my worries away :-) So I had some fresh blueberries calling my name in the fridge. I only used 1 cup in the recipe, b/c the kids' would have a fit if I used them all. They LOVE fresh fruit and their Momma likes it in desserts :) It was very weird not to have any little helpers around! I found this recipe on allrecipes.com. I haven't tried it before, but rarley there's a dessert I don't like :)

Cream 3/4 cup sugar with shortening and egg

Mix together flour, baking powder and salt. Stir into creamed mixture, alternating with milk.
Mixture will be thick; Stir in blueberries.
*Full recipe will be at the bottom*
Mix topping ingredients in a bowl, use 2 knives or a pastry blender (which I really love!) keep chopping away at it till it looks like this:

Put crumbly mixture on top of dish



Ingredients

3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup shortening
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups fresh blueberries
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, softened
*Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease one 8x8 inch pan.
Cream together 3/4 cup sugar, shortening, and egg.
In a separate bowl mix together 2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir into sugar mixture, alternating with milk. Stir in blueberries. Pour into greased 8x8 inch pan.
To make topping: Combine 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, cinnamon, and butter. Sprinkle over cake batter.
Bake at 375 degree F (190 degrees C) for 25-30 minutes.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Happy Memorial Day!

I'm a little bit early, but I wanted to wish everyone a happy Memorial Day! I hope you get to spend it with loved ones! We are fortunate this year to get to enjoy our in-laws company over the weekend. Yes I'm being serious! I'm very blessed to have wonderful in-laws, going to try out a new recipe tomorrow, something with chocolate, YUM!!

Friday, May 28, 2010

Funny Saying :)

Face powder may catch a man, but baking powder will keep him!

TGIF!

Normally I'm thanking God that it's Friday b/c that means the big kids will be out of school and my husband will be off from work. But today I'm also super excited b/c it's not only Friday, but the last day of school!! Now summer can officially begin :-)

TGIF! Pizza time!



**I know that's not the best picture, but that's all I could do,it was the only thing left! I was going to take a pic of the whole thing, but Nicholas (my 7 yr old) just couldn't wait any longer! He informed me that he broke his old record. I asked record for what? He said for eating his pizza that hot, LOL! Gotta love boys and their records :)

***Every Friday is normally pizza night. We always watch a kiddie movie or do board games with the kids'. This has been our normal routine for years now. I guess with summer here and no school our routine has been thrown off! But at least we still had pizza for lunch :) Will try to take a picture of the whole pizza next time. I really hope you attempt to make the pizza crust, it's the most simple thing in the world to make and doesn't require alot of ingredients and is very easy too! Plus what kid doesn't love getting their hands into some dough??
Ingredients you will need:2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil OR vegetable oil
3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

*In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and brown sugar in the water, and let sit for 10 minutes.
Stir the salt and oil into the yeast solution. Mix in 2 1/2 cups of the flour.
Turn dough out onto a clean, well floured surface, and knead in more flour until the dough is no longer sticky. Place the dough into a well oiled bowl, and cover with a cloth. Let the dough rise until double; this should take about 1 hour. Punch down the dough, and form a tight ball. Allow the dough to relax for a minute before rolling out. Use for your favorite pizza recipe.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. If you are baking the dough on a pizza stone, you may place your toppings on the dough, and bake immediately. If you are baking your pizza in a pan, lightly oil the pan, and let the dough rise for 15 or 20 minutes before topping and baking it.
Bake pizza in preheated oven, until the cheese and crust are golden brown, about 15 to 20 minutes.

*I always pre-bake all my pizza crusts, only b/c I like mine crispy. You just take the dough w/out anything on it and stick it in the oven and bake for around 7-8 minutes, then take out and do your normal toppings. Oh, the speckled things on the crust aren't anything gross, LOL! I also add basil to the wet dough mix and garlic powder. I like flavor in my crust, this is optional and it really makes your dough "pop" with flavor!!


Thursday, May 27, 2010

Oatmeal No-Bake Cookies



Ok, so not exactly from the oven, but nonetheless, yummy and made with love :)

-These are quick and so easy to make. Perfect for days when you are short on time, or you're not feeling well but the cookie jar is empty!

Ingredients you will need:






-2 cups white sugar
-1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
-1/2 cup milk
-1/2 cup butter (1 whole stick)
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-pinch of salt (one good shake from shaker)
-1/2 cup peanut butter
-3 cups quick cooking oats


*Melt butter in lg. saucepan, add sugar, cocoa powder and milk. BOIL for one minute, remove from burner, stir in vanilla, salt, peanut butter and oats. Mix well.
*Drop by a spoon onto wax paper
*Allow cookies to cool (will harden as they cool) for at least 1 hour.

-I don't know about you, but my kids' have never let these cookies go untouched for that long :)

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Virginia Light Rolls



I like to experiment with bread recipes until I find one that I absolutely adore! This is one of those recipes! It's from THE BREAD LOVER'S Bread Machine Cookbook, by Beth Hensperger.






Virginia Light Rolls
-1 cup plus 1 Tbls Milk
-3 Tbls honey
-2 Large Eggs
-6 Tbls butter, cut into pieces

-4 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
-1 1/2 tsp salt

-2 tsp SAF yeast OR
2 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast


*Place all the indgredients in the pan according to manufacture's instructions. Program machine for DOUGH cycle and press START.
-Dough ball will be soft, but after a few minutes of kneading, if it is to "wet" add no more than 2 to 3 extra TBLS of flour, you still want it to be somewhat "wet" or soft.

*Remove dough from pan and turn out onto a lightly floured surface. (I always use my Tupperware Pastry Mat for this) I just take some flour by hand, or cup, spoon, whatever (or my Pampered Chef shaker) throw it on the mat/counter and just kinda rub it around some, then take dough and dump it out of the pan.

Just punch it a time or two and throw it around, you don't have to roll it out here if you don't want to. Divide dough in half (I use a little knife to cut it)

Set one half to the side, cover with upside down bowl, or just throw your bread machine pan on top of it while you work with the other dough.



*To make Crescent Rolls: Take the divided half and roll it out with rolling pin, my little helper is my 3 yr old son! cut dough into a pizza, 1st go up and down, side to side and then cut the triangles, (I hope that made sense!)
>

*Take the longest end and start rolling up from there


*If you just want regular round rolls, just cut into equal portion numbers and roll around in your hand, the wonderful thing about homemade is you don't want it to look perfect, imperfections are okay. After all, if you have little hands helping you (and I really hope they are!) then you won't even notice the differences in the rolls when you see that big smile on their cute little faces :)

*Put on baking sheet and spread about 1 TBLS melted butter over the tops with a pastry brush, or just take your fingers and dip and spread, kids' love that! cover with a clean dish towel and let rise for 45 minutes.


After it has risen, bake at 350 in a pre-heated oven for 18-20 minutes. Put some honey butter on them and enjoy!



Goes great with any meal :)



Happy Hump Day & a Book Review

It's been many years since I've heard that expression. I remember we used to say it all the time in grade school. In case you're thinking something else, it means Happy Wednesday, the middle of the week, after you pass the "hump day" then it's smooth sailing to the weekend (grin)

Today I want to share with you one of my very favorite cookbooks. It's called
THE BREAD LOVER'S Bread Machine Cookbook by BETH HENSPERGER




I'll be making some delicious dinner rolls from this cookbook today that I will post later on. My book has lost the dust jacket somewhere along many moves. It also has some crayon scribblings from one of my sweet boys. This is my go to book for bread machine recipes.

*MY REVIEW*
THE BREAD LOVER'S Bread Machine Cookbook is a must have for any bread machine owner! Not only does it offer the classic recipes such as white bread and sweet breads, but offers many artisan breads as well. There's also a section on making jams, preserves and chutneys with your bread machine!
Along the way there are tidbits of helpful information called Baker's Hint's. Every single recipe is prefaced by the story of it's origin or something pertaining to that specific recipe, which I found very interesting. I just can't say enough great things about this cookbook.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Red Velvet Cake


This is one of my favorite cakes. I was first introduced to this beautiful cake by my lovely mother-in-law. She's been making it for years and got it from Willard Scott. Not personally, but from a magazine :)

-2 1/2 cups self-rising flour
-1/4 cup red food coloring (2) 1 oz. bottles
-1 cup buttermilk
-1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
-1 tsp baking soda
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-1 1/2 cups sugar
-1 tsp Hershey cocoa powder
-1 tsp white vinegar
-2 Lg. eggs

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients with an electric mixer. Spray three 9" round cake pans with Pam. Bake for 20 minutes.

ICING/Frosting (whichever you prefer to call it!)

1 1/3 sticks butter, softened
10 oz. pkg cream cheese, softened
1 box confectioners sugar
2 cups pecans OR walnuts, crushed

Combine butter, cream cheese, and sugar. Beat till fluffy. Fold in 1/2 cup chopped nuts. Decorate with the other 1/2 cup nuts. Chill for 1 hour before serving.



**I also want to mention that this cake won me 3rd place in the Sugar Plum Fairy contest. A photo of my cake was in the newspaper, of course I was the only one that knew it was my cake, but nonetheless, that is my claim to fame :-)

My very 1st post!

My oldest Son bought me a PILLSBURY DOUGH BOY fridge magnet on it with this saying:

Nothin' Says Lovin' Like Somethin' From The Oven!


I think it is very true! Everything is better when it's homemade with lots of love! There's nothing better smelling than a wonderful aroma of something baking in the oven. One whiff of freshly baked bread, big round soft cookies, delicious cakes, or chocolate brownies and you're hooked!

My plan for this blog is to include pictures and tutorials with each recipe. I always love to see the actual finished product, makes it more appealing to fix it!

So take those aprons out and get baking and don't forget about the tiny hands that are always eager to help :)