Butter Cookie Recipe

At church we are having a cookie sale next weekend. In talking with another baker she told me she was making butter cookies. Since it has been a while since I made cookies I asked if she would share the recipe so I could bake it. The recipe is simple and is for a fairly traditional Dutch butter cookie.

1 C Sugar
1 C Butter
2 C Flour
1 tsp baking soda

Cream butter and sugar. Add in flour then baking soda. Bake @ 325°F 12-15 min. Will be light in color but don't overbake.

While warm they literally melt in your mouth and fall apart. While cool they are yummy as well. Chris says they are too good for the kids to try. Though since the recipe only made 2 dozen he may also eat all of them before tomorrow.

Almond-Honey yum

I've stopped trying to categorize if I make a bread, a cake, a muffin, or some thing else. Since the kids call everything I put in the oven "yum" I'll go with that.

1 C Butter
1 C honey
1 C almond butter
4 eggs
2/3 C Tapioca
2/3 C millet
2/3 C brown rice
1 1/3 C oats
2 tsp baking soda
1 TBS gum

Cream butter. Add honey and cream some more. Add almond butter and cream even more. Add eggs and mix thoroughly. Slowly add the dry stuff then portion into containers to bake @ 350°F.

This is the first recipe in a while that I haven't had cinnamon or vanilla in, but Chris says they will be yummy. They went into the muffin cups well so that's always a plus. I'll update with a picture, though it won't be much different than a lot of other pictures.

Divinity Recipe

2 ⅔ C sugar
⅔ C white
⅔ C water
¼ C egg white
2 C nuts
1 TSP vanilla

Combine sugar, karo, & water in pan. Cook to softball stage. Have egg whites beaten stiff, beat in half of mixture, pour in thin stream. Continue beating put other half of sugar mixture on stove and cook to hard crack, then add to egg mixture. Beat until dull add vanilla and nuts, pour in buttered pan.

Pumpkin Cake Recipe

I haven't posted a recipe in a while. This is weird for me. Very weird indeed.  I've had an issue getting workable pumpkin this season though the one I processed this weekend was quite good.  I also got around 6 cups of puree so I'm happy with it.  I even had to lop off a fair bit of the top because it had some bad spots in it so I think I would have gotten around 8 cups of puree. It was a white pumpkin and those are new to me this season.  I'm finding them to be a bit sweeter than the orange ones and a bit milder on the taste. This is good as I haven't had my typical "pumpkin spice" season.

In true-to-form fashion I found a recipe online for a carrot cake.  Yes I know carrot cake is not pumpkin cake.  However as I was convincing myself to get out of bed when G woke up screaming this morning I was looking for a way to use pumpkin that would be easy to transport but wasn't a bread and wasn't a pie.  I still haven't made pumpkin pie but think one is coming as I can't freeze the remaining white pumpkin.  I made half a dozen substitutions or so but here is the link to the recipe I found and used as inspiration.  I find the cake to not need icing (rare for me since when I could eat wedding cake Chris got the cake and I got the icing) and it is delicious as it stands. It is also super moist and fluffy which is odd for gluten free stuff.  I'm going to make some cream cheese icing but not tonight as I need to go to bed. 

Cake recipe:

1/2 C agave nectar

1 C canola oil

4 large eggs

1 Tablespoon vanilla

1.5 C brown sugar

2.5 C Flour (3/4 C tapioca 1/2 C brown rice 3/4 C sorghum 1/2 C sweet white rice + 1 tsp xantham gum + 1.5 tsp gelatin)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon each: ground ginger nutmeg allspice

2 cup pumpkin

 

Preheat oven to 350°F.

 

In a large bowl (I used a 4 cup mixing cup) whisk the liquid ingredients (sans pumpkin or the first four things) together. In a mixer (because I refuse to mix things without one anymore) mix all the dry stuff (everything from the brown sugar to the spices in order of ingredients). Mix it some more because you want to make sure everything is well distributed.  Add the wet to the dry. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl with a spatula and then add in the pumpkin. 

 

Distribute into appropriate baking pan -- either a couple of 9x9 squares or a couple of circles or a muffin/cupcake pan (which is what I used since I have several children coming over for a birthday party the end of the week). Bake in preheated oven until they smell like they are done and bounce back to the touch. Let cool (or don't like Chris and I did) and then frost/ice. 

 

I got 32 cupcakes out of the batter. Here is a picture of the yummy cupcakes.  

Chris asked if we had to share them with the kids and that most will want the cake not just the frosting.  Which since A wanted sugar coated sugar with icing on it for breakfast this morning is saying something.  

Yesterday was a pretty impressive day for G -- he went most of the day with the same diaper on as he went on a toilet while we were out all day.  Chris put him on the toilets we visited in Charlotte and he went on every single one! Then when we came home he simply refused to potty on the toilet.  Bah!

Empanadas

We got some oil for fried chicken and it had a recipe for pumpkin parmesan empanades. We made them a few weeks ago with pumpkin and then tonight with butternut squash. It is easy but takes a bit of time, as all fried foods do.

Dough

3 C floor
9 TBS butter
Enough milk to make the dough stick together

Filling

Oil to sauté onions/leeks
1 leek to the green part or 1 cup onion
1 TBS Thyme
0.5 TSP salt
Pepper
16 ounces of pumpkin
0.5 C ricotta cheese
1 C Romano or parmesan or asiago (or a combination)

Make the dough and chill for a bit.

Wait the onions and spices together. Add in the vegetable and stir. (Stir while hot and evaporate some of the water since we used fresh vegetable).  Add in the cheeses while still warm to help melt and blend it all together.

Make small pouches with the chilled dough and fill with filling. Fry in oil of choice until browned on both sides. They come out super yummy. G sat here and hummed the entire time while doing his happy dance. A thought the dough alone was fantastic both times and ate more of that than the finished product. They store well and are good for a while. We had them a week and change after we made them and they were still good. A has helped roll the dough both times and G has learned to climb well enough that he helped today. Watching is the first part of learning and both kids are doing well in that regard. 

We've not done much except work and go to school lately. We are both wondering what's going on with us being here and hoping that it all works or for the better.

We seem to have found a good church for now. They do a lot of kids stuff and have several families. We're just going that we can build some relationships and survive here.

We are working with A and her being kind. She is super concerned with things and what is hers. It is starting to bother us as we are curious why the obsession is there. She isn't using nice words and it is a sign of the day care she is at because of the way they interact there. She then brings it gone. We are hoping that something will change in our situation before G gets into the 2 year old classroom because a lot of the problems seem to stem from that room. We shall see.

Here are a few pictures.  A with the butternut squash we got a few weeks ago and have made several meals of. G with an empanada. Just the yummy empanada.

Cookies

Since my boss wanted cookies for his birthday I device to see what I could do. He has recently decided to go gluten free, and has type 2 diabetes. Needless to say, I took the challenge. Here is my fun recipe. 

1/2 C butter
2/3 C white sugar
2/3 C agave nectar
2 eggs
4 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 C almond butter
3 C oats

Preheat oven 350°F. Cream butter and sugar. Add agave and continue to cream together. Add the eggs, vanilla, and baking soda. Continue creaming. The eggs are a binding agent here so the more they are crammed the better they will hold stuff together. Add the almond butter and oats. Put on cookie sheet and bake until browned.

They puffed up really big in the oven then fell. I'm still baking them and added a bit of gum to the second batch as the first spread out a lot. Apparently almond butter doesn't bind quite as well as peanut butter.

On other notes, A tried to paint her tongue blue with kids crest tonight. She won't be doing that again soon. She has mellowed out after moving up at her current school. G tries to creep these days and will pull up on anything. Everyone at the school says he's really advanced... This works me because clearly they haven't dealt with kids on the early end of the spectrum. There is a 14 month old who can barely stand though and that seems more normal to them...

Oatmeal Muffins

Since I discovered that I can have oats I try and put them in anything I can. The fact that G likes them as well also helps these days.

Since we were dating Chris has tried to convince me that an oatmeal raisin cookie is the perfect breakfast food. Well, I haven't ever been a fan of raisins so that is a problem for me.  Last week I discovered a fun oatmeal raisin muffin recipe. This week I altered it to have chocolate chips instead of raisins.  Both versions of the muffins have earned praise for taste, so here is the fun recipe.

1/3 cup butter
2/3 cup oatmeal
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup water
1.5 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup milk
1 egg
1/3 c oats
Cinnamon
Allspice
Vanilla

Preheat oven to 375°F

In a saucepan melt butter. Add in the original 2/3 cup of oats and half of the brown sugar, cinnamon and allspice.  Caramelize the oats then add the water and rest of sugar.  Stir that until it gently boils. While it is cooling mix the rest of the dry ingredients together in an appropriately sized bowl. Mix the egg and the milk in a separate container. Mix all of it together and add whatever goodies (raisins, chocolate chips, etc) in with gentle folding. Put in muffin pan and bake until it is done. :-)

Other than baking fun, we've been enjoying a lot of time outside. We finally have warm weather in the afternoons. Both kids have enjoyed our deck.  We even have started allowing A to ride her tricycle or blow bubbles out there alone.

Palm Sunday has come and gone. This is already holy week. We will see what this week brings. Hopefully all is well by you as you prepare for Easter.

Thanksgiving

I made jerk baked beans modified from the recipe here. I used what bacon we had, agave nectar for sugar, no garlic, but 2 shallots in place of garlic and onion. I also didn't make the seasoning separate. I just put everything in the crock pot. In the seasoning part of the recipe I substituted paprika and some cumin for the cayenne. I also used an entire bunch of green onions up to the greens as opposed to just 2 tsp. Cooked in the crock on high for 6 hours, stirring occasionally.

Overall we had a good day. We played outside in the sunny snow some, cooked some, cleaned some, played some. A woke us up early and was already dressed. Hopefully she won't do the early bit tomorrow, but the self dressing would be nice. We are slowly getting over the jealousy thing, and hopefully will be able to put it behind us soon.

G is doing well. Eats, sleeps and makes diapers. Is overall a pretty chill baby at this point, and hopefully that will last.

As both kids are sleeping I should be too. Hope everyone had a great turkey day and enjoyed a tryptophan nap.

Peanut Butter Scones

So peanut butter has been a big deal lately. A loves it and will eat spoonfuls of it these days. She has always had a thing for it. Since it isn't quite pumpkin season (that's next week as next week is September and September is when I get rid of last years frozen pumpkin if we have any left) and we wanted scones for this wonderfully cool mountain morning (it is about 50 outside), I made peanut butter-oatmeal-chocolate chip scones. I made a variety of scones actually all with a peanut butter-oat base.

Recipe:

2 c flour (I used 1 c sorghum, 1 c brown rice, 1/2 c oat, 1/2 c arrowroot powder + 1/2 tsp gelatin + 1 tsp gum)
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 c oats
1/4 c cold butter in cubes
3/4 c buttermilk
1 egg
1/2 c peanut butter
add ins: chocolate chips, raisins, nuts, whatever you want really

Pre-heat oven to 400F. Mix the first five ingredients well. Add in the butter bit by bit until you get a cornmeal consistency. To the buttermilk add the egg and whisk together. Add the buttermilk mixture to the dry mixture.  Add the peanut butter. As you shape the scones put your add-ins in and work them in well. The original recipe called for doing this all by hand, but I'm a lazy baker and used my kitchen aid. On a parchment paper lined cookie sheet, shape the dough into a circle that is about an inch thick. Cut the scones, but do not separate them. Bake until done (they bounce back, a toothpick comes out clean, however you can tell something baked is done) which for us was about 20 minutes. Should make around 8 scones.

As you can see, my math was a little off as I grabbed the wrong measuring cup for the flour. I used six half cups as opposed to six third cups. Thankfully I realized it and was able to adjust the mixture so that I really made a 1.5 recipe. I ended up with a lot of scones, so the freezer will get some. I did a few plain, a few with raisins, a few with raisins and chocolate chips, and some with just chocolate chips. Here is a picture of what they looked like when they went into the oven (and there is another wedge on a 2nd cookie sheet):

And one of what they looked like when they came out:

After they are done do let them cool and re-cut them.

I apparently need to get the recipe book they came from, Baked, so I added it to my Amazon wishlist.

Happy Baking! If you decide to try this recipe please let me know what you think!

Monday Morning

Last weekend was Mother's Day and we had a lot of fun. I made a peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip scones. They were tasty and fairly easy to make. The recipe is originally found here. Of course I made a few modifications, but they turned out rather well and everyone liked them. They are so good that when we go places for vacations I'm contemplating making some before hand so that I can eat them while on vacation.

Yield: 12 scones
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 35 minutes

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour --  2/3 C Sorghum, 1/3 C Arrowroot, 1/3 C Oat, 2/3 C Rice
1 cup traditional rolled oats
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
¾ cup buttermilk -- Sour Cream
1 egg, separated
½ cup chunky peanut butter --Its peanut butter, just make sure it is room temperature and will mix well
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Raw sugar, for sprinkling -- Cinnamon Sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.
2. In a large bowl  Mixer, whisk together the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, and baking soda. Add the butter and mix until it looks like corn meal or pie crust before you add water.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the buttermilk sour cream and the egg yolk -- I used a 2 C measuring cup and simply used it to mix the stuff together.
4. Make a well in the flour mixture and pour the buttermilk mixture into the center of the well, then add the peanut butter. Using a rubber spatula, very gently fold the mixture together until it starts to come together. Add the chocolate chips and gently knead with your hands (in the bowl) until just incorporated.  Pour the sour cream/egg mixture into the mixer and mix on low until just mixed. Fold in the chocolate chips with a spatula. Be careful not to overmix the dough.
5. Turn the dough out onto the parchment-lined baking sheet and pat it into a round disk about 8 inches in diameter. Whisk the egg white, then brush the top of the dough with the egg white, and sprinkle with the additional sugar.
6. Cut the dough into wedges (do not separate them -- I separated mine and they lost a bit of their shape) and bake for 18 to 22 minutes, or until the scones are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes, then re-slice and separate them. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely, or serve slightly warm. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days.

After Sunday comes Monday though, and we had a Monday. No sooner had I walked into work and turned on my computer did I get a call from my manager to go to A's day school. I didn't get a reason or anything, just to go. I did and A was jumping (with a chair involved somehow) and managed to put one tooth through her lip completely and a second one almost all the way through. All of the teeth looked fine and she was bleeding a little. I was against taking her to the emergency room because clearly she wasn't in pain or anything really, it was just oozing a bit. I felt strong-armed but did it anyway. I took her to urgent care as a compromise and it took three hours. Ugh. However, they ended up glueing her lip back and off we went. The worst part was numbing the lip, but that was over quickly. Here are a couple of pictures from our first Urgent Care trip:

Oozing blood and such

After we were going back to school, she was hungry and tired and not sure what to think about the lip. The white spot is the numb area.

Kitchen Experiments -- Key Lime Meringue

So we had some key limes to use. A lot of key limes in fact. Enough key limes that when juiced made over 1/3 C of juice. So what to do with key lime juice became the question. I  decided to make a key lime meringue. I essentially took an Alton Brown lemon meringue pie (found here) and modified it a bit. The biggest modification was substituting key lime juice for the lemon juice. I noted the modifications with italics. (Yes, I believe I can modify something that even the great Alton Brown puts down as a recipe.)

Ingredients
Lemon Filling:

4 egg yolks (reserve whites for meringue)
1/3 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 cups water 

1 1/3 cups sugar -- I used half regular sugar, half vanilla sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup key lime juice + a splash of lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon finely grated key lime zest

1/2 TBS vanilla
1 (9-inch) pre-baked pie shell -- I used a basic pie crust recipe that had no foods I couldn't eat
1 recipe Meringue, recipe follows

Directions

 

Adjust the oven rack to the middle position. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Whisk egg yolks in medium size mixing bowl and set aside.

In a medium saucepan, combine water, sugar, and salt. Whisk to combine. Turn heat on medium and, stirring frequently, bring mixture to a boil. Slowly add in the cornstarch at this point. Boil for 1 minute, or until clear. Remove from heat and gradually, 1 whisk-full at a time, add hot mixture to egg yolks and stir until you have added at least half of the mixture.

Return egg mixture to saucepan, turn heat down to low and cook, stirring constantly, for 1 more minute. Remove from heat and gently stir in butter, vanilla, lemon juice, and zest until well combined. Pour mixture into pie shell and top with meringue while filling is still hot. Make sure meringue completely covers filling and that it goes right up to the edge of the crust. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until meringue is golden. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. Make sure pie is cooled completely before slicing. Refrigerate before slicing to ensure it is cool through.

 

Meringue

4 egg whites
1 pinch cream of tartar I didn't add any since I didn't have any
2 tablespoons vanilla sugar

Place egg whites and cream of tartar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form and then gradually add sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form, approximately 1 to 2 minutes. Use to top key lime filling.

 

The meringue is nothing special but the vanilla sugar makes it taste a bit calmer with the tartness of the key limes. Beware this much key lime is eye popping tart.

Chris really likes it and I really like it. It would work well with the lemon filling as well. I think I would make the same modifications to the lemon pie (vanilla and such) as I did to the key lime pie. Chris thinks it is better than lemon meringue, though that may be what happens next week as we have a bunch of lemons that need to be used soon. :) I will probably make some lemon poppyseed muffins and then a lemon meringue pie. 

 

This was my second attempt at a meringue ever and my first attempt at a meringue at altitude. It didn't rise as much as I would have liked, but we will see if it gets better with the lemon meringue. I knew I couldn't do it last week because of all the rain, so it was nice to get the drier weather the past couple of days.

 

We originally thought of making a traditional key lime pie, but since cheesecakes at altitude are practically impossible we opted to try something completely new. As with most of our kitchen experiments it turned out well. Even scrapping the pan for the filling was tasty stuff. 

 

Okay, after writing this I suppose I need to go get a piece of pie.

Pumpkin Scones

Well it is pumpkin season. Now to get into a million ways to cook and bake pumpkin. :) We bought a few from the fruit stand a week or so ago, and now we need to use them! Chris started by baking the daylights out of the pumpkin. He literally scooped all the goop out and then baked it for about an hour. The skin ended up peeling off and we got around 5 cups of pureed pumpkin from the small one. We also got a lot of pumpkin seeds. Since I've already made pumpkin bread, I decided to make pumpkin scones. I made some modifications to the recipe that is found here.
Since it only made 8, I doubled it, changed the flours and a few other things as well. They turned out pretty much exactly like the picture!

• 1 cup Millet flour
• 1 cup sorghum flour
• 1/2 c brown rice flour
• 1/2 c tapioca starch
• 1/2 cup gf oats
• 4 tsp guar gum
• 2 tsp gelatin
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 TBS pumpkin pie spice
• 12 Tbsp salted cold butter, cut into chunks
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 TBS vanilla
• 4 Tbsp milk or cream
• 2 large egg

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Dust the parchment paper with brown rice flour. Set aside.
2. In the bowl of a mixer, place all of the dry ingredients. Run the mixer until the dry ingredients are well blended.
3. Add the cold butter, and mix on low until butter is cut into pieces, about the size of a pea. Add the pumpkin puree, milk and egg. Run mixer just until dough comes together in a ball.
4. Turn the dough out onto the baking sheet. Dust your hands with brown rice flour, and quickly form the dough into a 10-inch circle, approximately 3/4″ thick.
5. With a sharp knife, cut the dough into wedges. Carefully move the wedges apart, leaving at least 1″ between them so that they will not touch when baking.
6. Brush the tops of the scones with milk or egg white, and sprinkle with course sugar. Bake in preheated oven for 14-16 minutes, or until golden brown. -- I didn't brush or sprinkle my scones and they are tasty.
7. Remove from oven and allow to sit for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Drizzle with Spice Glaze and serve.

Using the fresh pureed pumpkin made these very fresh. There also isn't a lot of sugar and a low carbohydrate index since the flours are more protein based then carbohydrate based. The spice glaze is also found in the link, but it is basically a TBS of milk to 1/2 c powdered sugar and some pumpkin pie spice blended. 

Overall we had a great weekend for cleaning house. We got a fair amount cleaned, so now to simply keep it clean. We have a bit more time at home this week since Chris doesn't really have students to deal with, so there may be hope for us after all.

I've looked at a different daycare center and will hopefully be able to start A there sometime soon. I got a weird look today when her teacher told me she was trying to bite another kid and my response was, "Well, you created this problem so you have to deal with it. She doesn't bite anywhere else. I asked if this would happen a couple of weeks ago, and you said probably not. I've worked hard with her and not biting, so since you taught her to bite, you get to teach her not to bite." (In case you didn't know, A was getting bit at least weekly there for a while. She even got bit twice in one day by the same child once.)  I've got to talk with them about the cloth diapers yet. They were thinking safety pins and plastic pants, so hopefully we will be game when I make an application appointment.

Work for me is interesting. I am learning a lot and liking it. I've sort of become an editor of sorts, and have decided I really do enjoy technical writing. I'm working with SOPs and Test Methods, and Method Validations and all sorts of documents. Hopefully it will help the people at work be more efficient and get stuff done.

Black Forest Bread Pudding

Okay, so bread budding, seriously Carolyn? Yes, I have always really really liked, okay, loved, bread pudding. For the past several years since I haven't had any bread I've been missing out. Last week when I made cupcakes for A & Chris, my cupcakes failed to hold together. There should have been enough gum, but they just didn't stay as cupcake, and crumbled well coming out of the tin. Well, I decided that I couldn't just throw the crumbs away, so what to make? I decided to make bread pudding with the crumbs. Here is the recipe:

I used a Paula Dean recipe that is heavily modified.

1 cup vanilla sugar (the recipe called for 2 cups granulated sugar, but since I used cake I figured I could cut some sugar here)
about 4 ounces cherry jelly
5 large eggs, beaten
2 cups milk
1 Tablespoon vanilla
3 cups crumbled chocolate cake
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup chocolate chips (original recipe was for pecans, but I put in chocolate chips instead)

For sauce:

1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 c butter, melted
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoons vanilla
1/4 cup alcohol (brandy, godiva, etc)

Mix together the sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla. Pour over the cake and let sit until oven is warm.

Preheat oven to 350F, grease/line a 13x9x2 inch pan.

Crumble together the brown sugar, butter and chocolate chips.

Pour the bread mixture in the pan. Cover with the chocolate chip mixture. Stick in the oven and bake until "set", 30-45 minutes.

For the sauce: mix everything sans alcohol in a saucepan over medium heat until sugar is melted. Remove from heat and add the alcohol. Pour over the bread pudding.

Chocolate Cake

Since it is birthday month I really want to make a chocolate cake. I have a mini oven, so sheet cakes are a bit more difficult. However, a cool thing with us being at 3000 feet is that my flours rise. Here is the recipe I used to make a chocolate cake.

3 Cups flour mix (1 c brown rice, 1/2 c sorghum, 1/2 c oat, 1/4 c tapioca, 3/4 c millet, 2 tsp guar gum, 1 tsp gelatin)
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/3 Cup cocoa
1/2 cup butter
2 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon vanilla
4 eggs
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup milk

Butter and flour 2 9 in circle cake pans. Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix dry ingredients together in one container, mix the cream and milk together as well. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time waiting a bit between additions to make sure the egg is incorporated thoroughly. Add the vanilla with the last egg and beat on medium speed for a couple of minutes. Slowly add the dry ingredients and the milk to the egg mixture, alternating and ending with milk. Cream until smooth. Divide into two 9 in circle cake pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

Bailey's Fudge

Since it is St. Pat's soon, I figured something a bit festive. It didn't turn green quite like I wanted, but it is tasty and seasonal. It is dark and rich beyond measure though. I'm tempted to try it with different flavors of Bailey's now, so we'll see.

12 oz Baker's Unsweetened chocolate
24 oz Hershey's Special Dark Chips
2 TBS Vanilla
3/4 C Bailey's
3.5 C granulated white sugar
12 oz (1 can) evaporated milk
1 C Butter

1. Line a 9x13 pan with foil.
2. Chop the chocolate into small pieces.
3. Mix the chocolates, vanilla and Bailey's in a large bowl and set aside.
4. Bring sugar, milk & butter to around 230. (Most recipes call for soft ball and this is just below that stage. It still sets and it helps keep it from getting too grainy after a few days, so I go with the lower temp.)
5. Pour boiling potion onto chocolate mixture. Stir seven times clockwise and then once counter clockwise to help melt the chocolate and make it extra smooth. Continue with this stirring method until all the chocolate is melted.
6. Pour in lined pan and chill.

What you do after that is up to you. You can cut it for people or just eat it as it is.

I've made this before and it turned out really well. Like I said, it took me over 2 weeks to get rid of the fudge and it never granulated. :) Since I was wanting to make it for St. Pat's, I hadn't gotten around to buying the evaporated milk. I didn't want to go to the store this weekend, so I looked up ways to make your own. Chris got upset with me, "Why mess with something that is awesome and isn't broken?" he kept asking me. I eventually caved to him and made it to the store to buy a can of milk today. However, if I wanted to use heavy cream in a 1:1 replacement I could. I could also take 2 1/4 C of milk and boil it down to 1 C (or that ratio) to make the evaporated milk as well. We may see how it goes next time I try something devilish.

Next up: Peppermint Patties I just need to get the peppermint extract.

Marbled Brownies

I've made this recipe a couple of times now, and I'd like to put it here for my future use. Or use when I'm not home.

6 oz of chopped chocolate
12 TBS Butter
4 eggs
1.5 C granulate sugar
1 C almond flour
1/4 tsp gum
8 oz softened cream cheese
vanilla

As with brownies in general, you melt the butter and chocolate together while you blend 3 eggs with 1.25 c of sugar. Then after the chocolate mixture has cooled a bit you add it to the egg mixture. Then add the flour and gum to the gooey mixture. In another bowl, beat the 4th egg, 1/4 c of sugar, cream cheese and vanilla. Pour the brownie mixture in a 9x13 pan. Add the cream cheese mixture to the top. Use a spatula to marble the two layers. Bake at 375 for 30 min or so, until top is springy and/or a toothpick comes out clean.

As a variation: I added a 1/4 c of Baileys to the cream cheese mixture and it turned out great. Also, I've put some espresso in with the chocolate and butter mixture to make more of a mocha brownie. A third way would be to add some cinnamon somewhere.

Graham Crackers

First let me say that I love graham crackers. I love that you can put peanut butter on them and make sandwiches. I love that you can crumble them and form all sorts of good stuff with them (crusts, in soups, etc). I love that you can dip them in things and it just adds to the flavor, not subtract anything. I just never thought that I would ever be able to make them. As with most stuff though, it really isn't that difficult! So happy and they are so tasty! A friend of mine got a gluten free Christmas cookie cookbook and I saw a graham cracker recipe inside. So that I can have it again once I return the book to her, I will put the recipe with my modifications here:

1.5 C brown rice flour
1/2 C cornstarch (I'd like to try tapioca or arrowroot starch next time)
1/3 C packed brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder (or about 1/4 tsp baking soda)
3/4 teaspoon xantham gum (I used guar gum)
1/2 tsp cinnamon (I would definitely use more next time, probably closer to a tsp)
6 TBS salted butter (The recipe actually calls for some salt and unsalted butter, but I just use salted butter)
5 TBS whole milk (I used about 3 TBS 2% milk with about 2 TBS cream)
1/4 C honey (I used maple syrup since I can't have honey. I'd suggest using slightly less milk if you use maple syrup since the syrup is a bit thinner than the honey. Alternatives I want to try: molassas and agave nectar)
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract (I used about 1 tsp of my vanilla)

Mix dry ingredients together. Add in butter like you would for a pie crust (small pieces slowly), it should resemble course meal when it is ready to add the liquid. Mix the milk, honey, and vanilla together in a small cup (I used the measuring cup, it worked well). Slowly drizzle the liquid over the dry ingredients and blend until completely incorporated. Separate into 2, wrap each section and chill.

Chill this dough for a long time (overnight, it says up to 2 days) -- it is very important to roll out cold dough.

Once chilled, preheat oven to 350. Roll out until fairly thin, recipe says a quarter inch. I found I liked them thinner so they were crispier. Then cut into squares, circles or whatever you like as it works similar to a sugar cookie. (This is the one time I've ever wanted to have cookie cutters) Place on a cookie sheet (I used parchment paper under them and it worked well) and bake 15-20 minutes until golden brown and your desired crispness is obtained.

They pass the Chris test as well: I had to try the second half after baking to make sure they were thoroughly done. Chris had already brushed his teeth and rinsed his mouth, apparently the graham crackers were still good after that. :)

Now we will see if they last long enough to be put into crusts or sandwiches or whatever as opposed to simply being eaten since it has been so long since I had graham crackers.

Eggnog

Chris made eggnog tonight! We're trying to add some variety with what we drink and this just seemed like a good seasonal favorite to try. Chris followed the recipe and it turned out really well. We'd cut back on the sugar and add a bit more cinnamon and nutmeg. We were of the paranoid variety and washed our eggs before we put them in the drink.


http://www.instructables.com/id/Eggnog-Recipe/?ALLSTEPS

Pumpkins

  This weekend we went to a nearby pumpkin patch. Well, it was an Abbey that had pumpkins, a corn maze, a hay ride, etc. It was quite nice actually.  We had perfect fall weather, as you can see from the pictures below. The corn maze was entertaining and we had to try and get 8 different punches through the maze. A slept on Chris's back for most of the maze, but it was a lot of fun. After we did the corn maze we looked for carving pumpkins. We found some, but will have to do the actual carvings this week. We managed to get them home and hollowed out, but not carved. We were having friends over for games, so we went down that route over stressing about carving the pumpkins.  We also found a pumpkin to bake with, so hopefully it will turn out well. I want to make fresh pumpkin puree and found a stupid easy recipe for it.

First wagon ride. This was shortly before A decided to taste the pumpkins...

A family photo with our pick of the pumpkins

Linda holding a pumpkin that's a big as her!

Yesterday was a good seasonal day for us here. We started with pumpkin cinnamon rolls. They were a bit wet and I was concerned they wouldn't roll right, but after letting the dough dry in the air, they did okay! We made pumpkin ice cream (I melted the pumpkin puree in some cream early in the day, then let it cool before making into the ice cream and it worked quite well -- no pumpkin chunks or separation) for dessert. I also made a butternut squash soup for dinner. It was super easy actually so here's the recipe!

1 Leek
garlic
3 lbs butternut squash, peeled, seeded and diced
2 medium pears, peeled, cored, and diced
1 yucca root
1 qt chicken stock
3/4 C apple juice
4 good sized parsnips
olive oil

slightly brown the leek and garlic in olive oil. Then add the squash, pears, yucca, and liquids. Let the mixture boil, then reduce heat and simmer until everything is soft. While the soup is simmering, thinly slice the parsnips for parsnip chips as garnish. Brown the parsnips in olive oil to use as garnish on the soup. (I salted them since I wanted them to be kind of salty, like a chip!) After the soup has simmered, puree it and serve with the parsnip chips.

I modified the recipe, using pears for apples, and yucca root for potatoes. I imagine that if you wanted to make the soup with those things it would also be quite tasty.

Pasta and Fabyan VIlla

Pasta is something we like and would eat more of if it wasn't so expensive.  Because of this I've been experimenting with the pasta roller some.  I made some chickpea/rice/yuca pasta yesterday.  It turned out quite tasty and as always, making pasta is easy.

1 C Chickpea
1 C Yuca
1/2 C Rice
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
4 TBS olive oil
3 TBS water

Really only use the water until it is wet, like you would when making a pie crust.  The dough should stick to its self.  After you make it, roll it out with a rolling pin, rolling it as thin as possible.  Then you can cut it how you like, or use a roller and make it thinner.  You can make lasagne noodles by just letting it dry flat in the sizes that you'd like.  Or you can make strips out of it and it is linguine, or roll it a bit around something and then you'd get a manicotti shell.  Well, you get the idea. If using a roller of any form (I use the one attached to my mixer) smaller pieces are better than larger ones and may make it manageable for a single person to do the whole thing. The difficult thing for use is having a place for the pasta to dry.  It needs to be exposed to air until it dries.

When dry, put in a bag and refrigerate. Cook for about 5 min in boiling water like you would any other pasta.

In other news, yesterday (Sunday) we went exploring in the area.  There is a place nearby called the Fabyan Villa. It is a Wright designed house that is on a huge plot of land which was converted into a park.  There is also a japanese garden on the property, as well as an old windmill.  We went exploring there yesterday and it was quite a bit of fun.  The weather was perfect -- only needed a long sleeve shirt and pants to really be comfortable. We didn't get to tour the villa like we wanted, so we will go back for that sometime. Here are a few pictures from the day.  We were having some trouble setting the pictures which is why the one of me and A is washed out, but it is "artsy," not really a mistake, right?

In general A is really getting on the crawling bit.  She also really wants to eat food, but won't get that until she can sit up by herself and has a few teeth. She watches intently as anyone eats.  This morning she got mad at me when I took my breakfast plate into the kitchen to put away.  She also has a four point stance down pretty good, but prefers her elbows to her hands. She is definitely interested in moving and will roll over to get places if she wants.

Chris and I are continuing to put out applications so please pray for that. Nothing really new on any front, so we're holding steady and hoping to hear back from applications.

It looks like we've got a stellar week of weather ahead of us which almost makes up for all the rain we had last week.  Almost. We will be sure to get out and about because winter is coming and then we'll be stuck inside.