Category Archives: Snacks and Appetizers

Chocolate Chip Double Berry Scones

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Chocolate Chip Double Berry Scones 2-001

I can hear the outcry now… “MORE scones, lady!!!??? What the heck?? Can you do anything but scones or citrus pies or risotto!?”

Yes. yes, I can. But I wasn’t thinking the other day when I, on my Facebook page asked everyone which they would prefer- these scones or a quick bread I am trying. They chose the scones. Sooooo, being a woman of my word, I made them. Because honesty is just how I roll. Well, when I trip on our land, downhill quickly is also how I roll but I won’t blog about that. Though photos would probably be hilarious.

Moving on- been interesting in our household lately. My (very pregnant) daughter and her boys are with us through mid August while her husband goes through Basic Training and AIT (the on the job training for whatever you will be doing part of the military) so having 2 extra little ones (they are 3 and 6) has been chaotic to say the least. But I love knowing that when they move, they will, for a time at least, until it fades, have some memories of living with gramma and grampa. My daughter is due in a few weeks so I’ll have time with the baby (girl) for a while too :-)

Plus, I’ve been having some health issues again. Not gonna go into detail here yet but I’ll cue you all in when things are more settled as to treatment. Until then, I’m just gonna continue to bake fattening things for all of you. Why? Cause I lurves you of course!!! Seriously. You have no idea what it means to me to know that people actually come here to my tiny blog, read my inane words and sometimes actually even make the foods I post.

These scones turned out delicious. I got the base recipe from The Pastry Queen Cookbook (you should have noticed by now that I love this cookbook) but changed it around. I just KNOW you’re surprised at that news. The only problem I had (which is my fault not the books) was shape. After I added the berries, I didn’t want to knead the dough, thus mushing the berries and toughening the dough, so I just reshaped it. BUT… I wasn’t able to get it back into a decent circle. so I tried making it more rectangular and cutting the scones from that. It turned out rather laughable :-P These taste absolutely amazing… light, tender, flaky with a perfect mix of berries and chocolate and an orange glaze that just complements it all. But the way they look? Kinda wonky lol. But I promise you; you won’t care once you make some and taste them how they look. Also, you may have better luck shaping the dough than I did ANYWAY thus negating the issue. So don’t let looks fool you. Just look at the nicely glazed surface… see the pieces of berry peeking out alongside some chocolate. Then go bake. And I promise… no more scones…. for a few days anyway :-P

Chocolate Chip Double Berry Scones

  • 3 cups flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, COLD
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
  • zest from one large orange (about 1 to 2 tablespoons)
  • 1 cup semi sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup fresh raspberries
  • 1/2 cup fresh blackberries
  • Glaze-
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 2 teaspoons orange zest
  • 1/3 cup orange juice
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a buttered baking sheet with parchment paper then butter the paper.
  2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (as always, you can use these directions with a hand mixer), combine the dry ingredients on low speed, including the orange zest.
  3. Cut the butter into small pieces, then add to the flour. Beat on low speed until the butter is in small pea sized pieces. Then add in 1 cup of the cream and the vanilla and continue beating on low speed. You want the dough to come away from the sides of the bowl in a clean ball of dough, no floury remnants left behind. If it still looks dry, add more cream, about a tablespoon at a time until it forms the dough ball.
  4. Turn out onto a lightly floured board and gently knead the chocolate chips into it. You’re not trying to work the gluten up like in bread dough. That will make the scones tough.
  5. When the chocolate is incorporated, gently pan the dough out into a fairly thin circle or rectangle. Lay the berries down on one side of the dough, then fold the other side down over them. Press gently to seal.
  6. Reshape the dough (circle if you want wedges, rectangle if you want squares or diamonds) and cut into either 10 wedges or if making squares or diamonds (for the diamonds, cut into squares then cut them in half diagonally), cut into 12 pieces. Brush each with some of the leftover cream and sprinkle with sugar.
  7. Bake at 375 for about 15 minutes for wedges or 10 to 12 minutes for squares or diamonds. You want them a nice golden brown on top.
  8. For the glaze- in a small bowl, mix together the glaze ingredients. Whisk well to get rid of lumps.
  9. Pour the glaze out onto a shallow lipped plate.
  10. Dip the top of each scone into the glaze. Let dry for about ten minutes then dip each one again. Let dry a bit before serving though when they are warm and sticky they are awfully hard to resist :-D

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Chocolate, Cherry & Pistachio Scones

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Chocolate, Cherry & Pistachio Scones

Chocolate, Cherry & Pistachio Scones


I’ve mentioned a couple of hundred times by now that I’m not one of those people who does things by the seasons. Nope, I’m that weirdo at the grocery store with no coat and flip flops when it’s 20 degrees out. I’m the reason you’re smelling bbq and woodsmoke in January and suddenly craving grilled chicken. I’m the one making heart cookies in August. While at the same time making a nice comforting warming beef stew or chili. I’m that person posting Pumpkin bread in May and having everyone who comes here (all two of you hehe) wonder what the heck I’m on and why I’m so bass ackward.

Yes. I’m weird. This however is why you like me, right?

*crickets*

From what I’ve seen, most people tend to seem to bake scones during the Winter, many times even around the holidays. This may have something to do with everyone being far wiser than I and not turning on their ovens in the middle of a heat wave. I have never claimed wiseness though so it’s all good. I claim only insanity, a warped sense of humor and an unhealthy love for Cheetos and almost any sort of Gummy candy (right now my current addiction is These Brachs Juicy Berries Gummies. Oh my gosh, I love them and talk about lack of wisdom… it’s unwise for a bag of them to be near me or I’ll eat every.single.one.

But… today wasn’t about gummy candy (tonight when I watch Glee however, all bets are off). Today was about scones. This recipe was originally an Ina Garten one but I found it long ago on the now defunct blog “Gingerbread Bagels”. I don’t know the blog closed of where Lindsey, the owner, disappeared to, but I still think of her and hope she’s ok. Originally, this was just dark chocolate and dried cranberries but we all know I’m genetically incapable of doing a recipe the way it was written. So now I have left my mark on this one and love how I changed it :-)

These scones are probably my favorite scones ever. They are flaky and tender… a little bit crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. The chocolate and cherries go so well together and the orange zest and almond extract add a lovely flavor to these. Add in the yummy pistachios and the bit of crunch they add and it’s scone Heaven.

You know the drill. Get to baking!

Chocolate, Cherry & Pistachio Scones

  • 1 1/2 cups mini chocolate chips
  • 1 5 ounce bag dried cherries
  • 1/2 cup chopped salted pistachios
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons orange zest
  • 1 1/2 sticks COLD unsalted butter, diced
  • 1/2 cup COLD heavy cream
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon almond extract
  • Glaze-
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 to 3 tablespoons heavy cream (may need more or less to make glaze drizzling consistency)
  1. Preheat oven to 375. Line a buttered baking sheet with parchment paper and then butter the paper.
  2. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and orange zest in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add in the cold butter and mix on low speed with the paddle attachment until the flour has only small lumps the size of peas left in it. (Alternately, do the same with a hand mixer or pastry blender)
  3. Whisk together the 2 eggs, 1/2 cup cream, vanilla extract and almond extract. Pour slowly into the flour mixture and continue mixing at low speed until dough comes together in a sticky ball from the side of the bowl.
  4.  Dump onto a lightly floured board. Pat down into a circle of about 3/4 of an inch thick. Cut into 8 wedges with a lightly floured knife or pizza cutter.
  5. Lay close together but not touching on the baking sheet. They will rise and touch as they bake and you’ll have nice soft sides where they do, crispy ones where they didn’t.
  6. Bake at 375 for about 17 minutes or until they are nicely browned and firm on top. Don’t over bake or you’ll lose that great texture!
  7. When done, let cool for about minute in the pan, then carefully transfer over to a wire rack to finish cooling.
  8. For glaze, simply whisk together all the glaze ingredients in a small bowl. Drizzle over the cooled scones.

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Extra Rich Corn Muffins With Homemade Honey Butter

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Extra-Rich-Corn-Muffins-With-Homemade-Honey-Butter

Extra-Rich-Corn-Muffins-With-Homemade-Honey-Butter

I think I’m completely incapable of making a recipe that is 100% good for me (you, my family, the rest of the world). I instinctively search out the worst for you version of…well… everything. Ice cream? I go for the high fat premium stuff. My homemade bread puddings? I have to cover them in a puddle of heavy cream and if the recipe called for making it with low fat milk, you’d better believe I’ll be substituting cream. I am not, surprisingly enough, a huge sugar fan. My weakness is anything creamy and/or buttery. Richness is my downfall.

That of course is why, even though I lost almost 50 pounds last year, I’m still overweight lol. I am, I think, totally unwilling to live a life that isn’t filled with rich and creamy foods. This and the fact that I’m old, not that pretty,  saggy and practically toothless is the reason that the modeling world never need worry about me taking it by storm and shoving out all the young girls. However, if I were to give all the supermodels one or eight of these muffins, they too would end up with my love for rich foods and that would be the end of the modeling world as we know it. Hey… I may be onto something here. THIS is the way to get normal sized models featured more. Just FEED the poor women; make them realize how yummy food is lol.

And these are pretty yummy. They come from The Pastry Queen cookbook which is a damned awesome cookbook and one that I plan on using often. The only thing I would change about these would be the ratio of flour to corn meal. They could use a bit more of the cornmeal flavor, less of the flour. So next time I will probably increase the cornmeal one cup, decrease the flour one cup. I also cut the sugar down to about 1/3 of a cup because I am of the school that says cornbread should either be not sweet at all or just barely. ANDDDDDD, I used frozen corn because it’s too early in the year for fresh here and canned corn should be outlawed… nasty nasty stuff.

Extra Rich Corn Muffins

  • 3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
  • 3 cup heavy cream
  • 3 large egg
  • 3 1/2 cups flour
  • 1 1/2 cups cornmeal
  • 1 cup sugar (I used 1/3 cup)
  • 2 tablespoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup fresh, frozen or canned corn (optional)
  • 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese (optional- my addition)
  • 1/4 cup canned chopped green chiles (optional- my addition)
  • Honey Butter-
  • 1 cup softened unsalted butter
  • 1 cup honey
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional- I prefer it without but some people like the addition of cinnamon)
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or line 24 muffin cups. I used 12 muffin cups and a 8 count mini loaf pan.
  2. Pour the cream, butter and eggs into the bowl of a stand mixer (this can all also be done with a hand mixer or even by hand if you have strong arms :-P ) fitted with the paddle attachment.
  3. Add the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt on top. Mix at medium speed just until the ingredients are combined and not lumpy. Stir in the corn (and the cheese and chiles if using)
  4. Scoop the batter into the prepared pans, filling them about 2/3 full. This is a very thick batter, almost more dough like than batter like so don’t think you goofed up when it’s thick.
  5. bake at 350 degrees until they are a light golden brown and spring back when touched, about 15 minutes.
  6. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool slightly but these are best served warm, like most muffins. They reheat nicely in the microwave however.
  7. For the honey butter, put the butter and honey in a small bowl (the cinnamon too if using). Beat at medium speed until smooth and creamy. taste and add more honey if you like it sweeter. Store this in the fridge covered will as it will pick up refrigerator odors if not covered.

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Extra Rich Cinnamon Rolls With Cream Cheese Icing

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Extra Rich Cinnamon Rolls-001

Surprise, surprise… a recipe from me with the words extra rich in the title. Never expected that huh? Not with the dearth of fattening recipes here. What makes these extra rich? Mashed potatoes in the dough. Get back here! Sheesh. Ever had potato bread? Same idea, different result. I didn’t make a batch of garlic mashed and shove the extra into cinnamon rolls *gags a little*. Mashed potatoes (plain, NOTHING added; just the taters) are very common in yeast bread. They add a richness to the dough but with no potato flavor. They also make the dough more tender and help it to rise better. matter of fact, when you make mashed potatoes, it’s a good habit to save some of the cooking water if you make yeast risen doughs often. You can sub it for part or all of the liquid (part is better if the original recipe calls for milk) and you will see an amazing difference in the finished product.

These cinnamon rolls were supposed to have pecans in the filling, but if you follow my facebook page at all, you may have seen my update about the two pans of burned pecans. Sigh. talk about idiocy. I put one in to toast then had a major “ooo, shiny thing!” moment and forgot about them. Slapped myself around for a bit then put in another pan. Words With Friends on facebook may or may not have had something to do with the other pan burning. Needless to say, after about 12 dollars worth of pecans torched, I was not trying again. So the rolls have raisins in half the batch. Feel free to sub pecans (I will put the amounts for either one in the recipe). Just stay away from word games when toasting them. Also, this makes a HUGE batch of rolls. I got 2 13×9 pans with 12 each and 6 more in a 8×8 pan. In my household which currently consists of myself, hubby, two teen boys, three boys 6 and under and a pregnant woman, they will get eaten. But in “normal” homes, you may want to cut this in half. Or make your neighbors happy.

This originally came from The Pastry Queen Cookbook. Adapted some for a stand mixer and ingredients changed a LITTLE but not much.

Extra Rich Cinnamon Rolls

  • 2 medium russet potatoes
  • 4 packets dry yeast
  • 3/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, melted
  • 3 large eggs
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 9 cups flour (I TOLD you this was big batch) (I actually used more like ten cups; it will depend on the moisture of your potatoes)
  • Filling-
  • 4 cups pecans, toasted for about 8 minutes at 350 degrees then coarsely chopped or 3 cups good quality raisins (not dried shriveled rocks)
  • 4 cups firmly packed brown sugar (I used dark brown)
  • 4 tablespoons cinnamon (no, that’s not a typo… look at the amount of ingredients and this makes sense)
  • 1 teaspoon nutmeg
  • zest from one large orange (optional)
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, melted
  • Icing-
  • 1 8 ounce package cream cheese, room temp
  • 1/4 cup heavy cream
  • 3 to 4 cups powdered sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon orange extract (optional)
  1. To make the rolls- fill a large pot with water and set on high to boil. Peel and chop the potatoes and add to the pot. Cook until the potatoes are tender. Reserve three cups of the cooking water, then drain off the rest. Mash the potatoes and set aside. Let the potato water cool until it is between 110 and 115 degrees.
  2. In a medium bowl,  combine the cooled potato water, yeast and the one teaspoon of sugar. Stir until the yeast is dissolved. Let sit until foamy, about five minutes.
  3. In a large bowl, whisk together the potatoes, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 cup melted butter, eggs, salt and yeast mixture.
  4. Pour mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer. Turn mixer onto low and add the flour, in 3 cup increments. If the dough still seems wet (you want slightly sticky but not obviously moist) add more flour, a 1/4 cup at a time. Don’t go over 10 cups. Again, it’s ok if the dough is somewhat sticky. If you make it too dry, the rolls will also be dry. Sticky dough equals tender moist rolls in the end.
  5. Place the dough in a large greased bowl, making sure to oil the top of the dough some and then cover with a clean towel. Place in a warm place to rise and let rise until doubled in bulk, about an hour.
  6. Meanwhile, mix together the brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and orange zest (if using) in a large bowl. Prepare 2 13×9 inch pans by lining with foil then greasing the foil. Heat oven to 375 degrees.
  7. When risen, punch down dough then divide it  in half. On a floured board or counter, roll half into a 1/4 inch thick rectangle. Brush with half the butter,  sprinkle with half the brown sugar mixture and half the raisins or pecans. Carefully roll the dough up from one long end. Roll as tightly as you can.
  8. Using a sharp serrated knife, cut each roll of dough into 12 to 15 pieces. This will depend on whether or not your roll ended up bigger than 1/4 inch and looks like it is about the length of an adult python. Place 12 in each 13×9 inch pan. If you get more than 12 from each roll,  foil and grease a 8×8 inch pan and put the remainder in the 8×8 pan. Allow to rise until puffy but not quite doubled, about 45 minutes
  9. Bake at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes or until a nice light golden brown.
  10. Let cool in pan set on wire rack.
  11. For icing, combine icing ingredients in a medium bowl. Beat until smooth and creamy. Spread on slightly warm rolls. But first, eat about half of it straight off of a spoon then blame me when your husband asks why there is so little icing for the rolls.

 

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Ham, Cheddar And Herb Scones

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Ham, Cheddar & Herb Scones

I’m feeding my inner Brit today…and my inner Scot… and my inner whatever other ethnicity likes scones. The thing is, in real life, I have not a drop of Brit or Scot in me as far as I know.  Lots of German, some French, a touch or two of Irish (I think it’s the good at bull**** part of me), some Native American and some African American. I am the quintessential mutt.

I like pretending I’m Scottish though. There is little more fun than going into a store and loudly talking in a Scottish accent. People gawk big time. One would think they had never seen a Scot walking around Wal-mart before. Ok, so maybe they haven’t. An Indian accent is fun too since I’m light haired and extremely light skinned and don’t fit the genetic mold of what one would expect from a person speaking with a thick Indian accent.

Most fun however is Russian. My husband is fluent or close to it in a few languages and we have a habit of going shopping and somewhere, ineveitably, he will begin speaking Russian, usually very loudly and usually pretending to be irate over something silly done by Americans.

I, not knowing a lick of Russian, end up as his straight man, using a thick Russian accent to tell him that he is in America now and to speak English and not act like he just came over from the old country. We are American now and he needs to speak the language! Again, the looks are priceless hehehe.

We don’t have very exciting lives.

And I am fairly sure we need to be institutionalized

But before that happens, I want to share this scone recipe (do you say scone rhyming with cones or scones rhyming with cons? I’m a cones person myself) with you. As much as I love sweet scones, savory ones have a larger portion of my heart and my waistline. This one is chock full of cheddar cheese, diced ham, some garlic, some green onions and some dried dill. These smell amazing as they cook and they taste even better than they smell. There is nothing like a fresh, warm scone drowning in butter… unless it’s a fresh warm scone drowning in butter, served with a cup of tea. My idea of Heaven involves both those things. It also involves   ice cream, whipped cream and Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris hand feeding me peeled grapes but that’s another story.

Ham, Cheddar And Herb Scones

  • 3 cups bread flour
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 2 tablespoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 1/2 cups heavy cream
  • 1 cup diced ham
  • 1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese plus more for sprinkling on top
  • 1/2 cup sliced green onions
  • 1 tablespoon dried dill weed
  • 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
  1. Grease the bottom of a nine or ten inch round cake pan. Preheat oven to 350.
  2. Stir together the flour, salt, baking powder, dill weed and garlic powder.
  3. Make a well in the center and pour in the ham, cheddar cheese and green onions. Mix lightly.
  4. Pour in the cream and using a wooden spoon, stir the dough just until evenly moistened and you have no dry flour left in the bottom of the bowl.
  5. Pat the dough down evenly into the prepared cake pan.
  6. Score them almost all the way through into 8 to ten wedges
  7. Bake at 350 degrees until the top is a nice golden brown and a wooden skewer comes out clean. When done, turn the oven off and sprinkle a little bit (or a lot) more cheese on the top of the scones. Put back in the oven just long enough to melt the cheese.
  8. Turn out of pan onto a wire rack and let cool at least ten minutes before cutting. Cut the scones into wedges using the score marks as your guide.
  9. Serve warm with butter. These can be reheated by nuking for about 20 seconds.


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Caramel Apple Snack Cake

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Caramel Apple Snack Cake-001

…Or dessert cake, or breakfast cake, or eat this when the kids aren’t looking cake, or late night snack cake or..well, you get the idea. I mean it has apples in it so it can be for ANY meal, right? So what if the apples are really a can of pie filling and they are surrounded by ooey gooey bits of caramel!

I know I’ve mentioned before that I have never been one to cook by the seasons. If I want Pumpkin Bread in July, I’m having pumpkin bread. If I want to grill out in January, I grill out. Hey, I never claimed sanity. So when I decided to make something appley  (what? Appley is a word… honest it is!) for my husband because he loves apple desserts, I didn’t give a darn that according to blogger standards, the time for apple desserts is in the Autumn. I’m a rebel! A rebel I say!!! Or something like that.

Right away,  I knew what I wanted to do. I have a recipe from Food.com that I use often for Chocolate Covered Cherry bars  that my husband loves. So I played around with it and changed it to apple. I then added a healthy disgustingly large dose of caramel and a bag of cinnamon chips. I have to admit, this is really good. Not fancy by any means but so darn yummy! It’s moist, filled with apples and caramel and cinnamon chips. The edges are slightly crispy and sticky from the caramel and you never get the same bite twice. this one has apples, this one caramel, this one both and so on. This is a great family dessert and one I know I’ll be making again…probably tomorrow :-D

Caramel Apple Snack Cake

  • 3/4 cups butter, room temp
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 can apple pie filling
  • 1 bag cinnamon chips
  • 1 bag caramels, cut into quarters
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and then line a 13×9 inch pan with parchment paper. Grease the parchment paper well.
  2. In a large bowl, combine the butter, sugars, vanilla and eggs. beat well
  3. Combine the flour & baking soda in a small bowl. Combine with the butter mixture.
  4. Fold in the apple pie filling, cinnamon chips and caramel pieces.
  5. Spoon into the prepared pan. Bake at 350 for about 35 to 40 minutes or until top is nicely golden brown and a wooden skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
  6. This is good warm, served with ice cream or room temp..or cold..or frozen stiff..or boiling hot..or…or..or..


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Playing Favorites

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Almond Pecan Praline Bread

Almond Pecan Praline Bread



You know how your parents always said that they didn’t have any favorites among their kids and they loved you all equally? They lied. We ALL play favorites. Not intentionally, not maliciously, but we do it anyway. It’s human nature. With people (your kids or whoever), you can love them all just as MUCH, but there are always people you click with differently..better..on a deeper level somehow. That’s the same reason you end up with a spouse or partner. You…just…click.

It’s no different with foods. Everyone has favorites. Foods or flavors that just click with you. Most of us (the normal ones anyway) love chocolate and will use any excuse to eat it. Others love vanilla anything. Put something with lemon or other citrus in front of yet another person and they will devour it. What’s one of mine? Other than all of the above lol?

Almond. Not so much the actual nut To me, they tend to be rather flavorless and I don’t like the texture, though slivered or sliced and toasted is a whole different story. but no, I mean things flavored with almonds. be it almond extract, almond paste, almond filling, marzipan, whatever, I absolutely love anything with almond flavoring. And I add it to as many things as I can think of that it will go with.

One of almonds favorite places to call home is in my stomach in baked goods. Cookies, yeast breads, coffee cakes, muffins and on and on. It’s yummy in all of them. My favorite way is in a quick bread. We love quick breads here anyway (keep my husband away from my Chocolate Chip Banana Bread or nobody else will get any.) so making one with almond flavoring in it was a natural for me. But I couldn’t leave well enough alone and added some praline pecans to this one.

This is just a basic quick bread. The fun comes from the almond flavoring and the pecans. They totally make this bread. Spread this bread, still slightly warm from the oven, with raspberry, cherry or apricot jam and you will be in heaven. Those fruits are so complementary to almond. This is great for dessert, breakfast, a snack or just cause you’re darn cute and deserve a slice or twelve.

Almond Pecan Praline Bread With An Almond Glaze

  • 3 cups flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 14 cups sugar
  • 1 1/4 cups vegetable (or canola) oil
  • 1 1/2 cups milk
  • 2 teaspoons almond extract
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 6 ounces praline pecans
  • GLAZE-
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 teaspoon almond extract
  • 3 tablespoons milk (more or less as needed to make drizzling consistency)
  1. Grease and flour 5 mini loaf pans. You can also use cooking spray. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. In a large bowl, mix together all your dry ingredients, except for the pecans
  3. In another bowl or a large measuring cup, combine your wet ingredients.
  4. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and dump in the wet ones.
  5. Mix JUST until combined. As I’ve said before, don’t overbeat quick breads and muffins. You will end up with tough tunneled bread.
  6. Fold in the pecans, then spoon or scoop the batter into the prepared pans.
  7. Bake at 350 until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
  8. Let cool in pans on wire rack for about ten minutes if you plan on then turning them out or just leave them in the pan on the rack until completely cool if giving them away… though I’m not sure why you’d do that.
  9. To make the glaze, just combine everything in a small bowl. Drizzle it over the cooled breads.
  10. Eat. Say Yum!


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But Yet I Love Him Anyway

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Baked Garlic Parmesan Wings

I love my husband dearly. He is the most wonderful man on Earth in my eyes. He is gentle, kind, loving, funny, has a level of intelligence that puts me to shame and is damned cute too.

Yet, if the Lord had wanted to pick someone more different than myself in the area of food tastes, he couldn’t have found such a man.

I love mushrooms. He says “Ick. Fungus.”

I love sushi. His fish better be baked or fried and with the rice on the side with gravy.

I love milk chocolate. He doesn’t much like sweets (so he says…until I bake) but his chocolate needs to be dark, preferably with orange.

I love steak. He prefers chicken or a hamburger.

I want my hamburger medium rare. His has to be no less than medium well.

I love brussell sprouts and hate carrots. He hates brussell sprouts and loves carrots.

I like ribs. He hates them.

I love fruit and veggies. Other than canned vegetables, getting him to eat fresh fruits or veggies is nigh near impossible.

Years of motherhood and never getting a hot meal has made me almost prefer room temp food. His food must be hot enough to scorch off your taste buds.

But the worst…. the absolute worst (well, other than the not liking sweets thing. That one is hard to handle.) is that my husband, my best friend, the man I will spend eternity with, will not eat chicken wings. Not even one bite. Says there isn’t enough meat on them. I’ve tried to show him the error of his ways with plump juicy wings but he still won’t try them.

Not even these wings I made tonight. Crispy, buttery, redolent of garlic and Parmesan cheese. Simple, easy, yet filled with flavor.

He.Wouldn’t.Even.Try.ONE.

Yet I love him anyway. In spite of these major flaws. Go figure. (Love you darlin’!! <3 )

So please. Make me happy. Make these wings. Eat them. Drip buttery garlicky goodness on yourself. And pity my husband. And pity me… knowing that I had to eat more wings than was good for me due to my husbands stubbornness and poor poor food choices. Sad. So so sad.

*Wipes grease from chin and sobs a garlic scented sob* Continue reading →

Snickering Over Doodles

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19

 

Snickerdoodle Muffins. Yum!!

I think I’ve mentioned before that I was a weird kid haven’t I? Not that this comes as a surprise to any of you who read my blog.  I have to say though, I came by it honestly. It was all the fault of my brother and sister. They corrupted me. Yep, yep yep. All laid at their psychological doorsteps. There was the time they filled the washing machine with tons of soap and it overflowed everywhere. When confronted by our dad, they said that I did it. Hello?! I was so young I don’t really even remember this happening, it’s just one of those passed down family stories. Point being, if I was that small, how the heck did I reach the washer? But, dad bribed me to “tell the truth” with an offer of jello. I’m a sucker when it comes to jello so I fessed up. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get the jello.

That was just one of the many ways they warped my poor tender psyche. There were also words which have stuck with me to this day and still make the five year old stuck inside my feeble minded middle aged body giggle hysterically. Like the word doodle. To you and you and you it means a sort of random drawing right? I don’t want to know what it means to YOU, you sick puppy. :-P

Not to me though. Nope. Done been warped, I tell you. It’s all his fault *points to my brother and wonder if he sees this*. Doodle to me still brings up mental images of a coloring book I had as a child that, on the cover, told me, in gaily colored words, that one of the fun things to do inside was to “doodle”. And I giggled. My brother giggled. My sister giggled. I’m pretty sure the dog giggled. Because to us,  doodles were a certain part of the upper female anatomy. We were kids… thinking of that part made us giggle. Lots. How did the word doodle come to mean boobs… breasts… cleavage, knockers, hooters…well, you get the point. I have. No. Earthly. Idea. I need to ask my brother. He’s even older and more decrepit than I, so he may know how that word came to be the word for boobage in our admittedly strange household. Continue reading →

Carrots Are Yucky

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27

Really. They are. Would I lie to you? I love you all to death so I would never lie about something as important as the ickiness factor surrounding those orange…things.

I don’t like carrots (in case the above sentences didn’t clarify that). I will eat baby carrots if they are cooked almost to the point of mush and then covered in about 16 pounds of butter per carrot and salt. I will eat carrot cake. I mean c’mon, it has cream cheese frosting and is gooey and…well…it’s cake. I can forgive it for having carrots.

I’m also that person who, upon getting one of those bagged salad mixes, picks out every single carrot shred out of my bowl and throws it in my husbands serving. Raw carrots are even yuckier than cooked ones.

But… BUT I say! I like carrot cake. So when I saw a recipe for a quick bread that had a strong resemblance to carrot cake or would once I got through with it, I knew I had to make it. The original recipe is from Food And Wine. For the most part, I was true to the original but I seriously wanted it to be a bit more carrot cakeish but in quick bread form. That way if I wanted six slices for breakfast, I could honestly say that 1) I was NOT eating cake for breakfast and 2) it has carrots in it so it’s good for me. Right? So I added more spice to it, a TOUCH more oil (and I do mean just a little; just enough to increase the moistness w/out compromising the stability of the bread), raisins and the crowning touch of a cream cheese glaze.

This is good. Really good. I may or may not have eaten three slices already and scraped all the excess glaze out of the bowl with my tongue finger.

Don’t judge me.

Tender moist cake bread, stuffed full of raisins and sweet spices and a tangy sweet and creamy cream cheese glaze. And oh yeah, those orange things. What are they called again? Oh yeah… carrots.

Go buy some orange things and some cream cheese.

And you’re welcome. Continue reading →