Strawberry Shortcake

Just because I am so in love with the new camera, you're being treated to all kinds of goodies that occur often in my kitchen, but I rarely get the chance to photograph, let alone post about.  One of those things is Strawberry Shortcake.  We eat this year round and it is one of hubby's favorite desserts and I love making it.  It's easy to make and I usually have the ingredients on hand.  I actually recruited hubby to photograph the entire cooking session for you so here it goes...

First of all mix all of the dry ingredients together and cut in the butter and shortening until it looks like this:

 

Then, mix in the milk: 

Drop onto an ungreased cookie sheet, or I use parchment paper.  You can make them as large or as small as you like, we like ours larger.  

After baking, I usually pile them high with sliced strawberries and fresh whipped cream while they're still hot from the oven.  Sometimes, I'll forgo the fruit and cream and just eat the shortcake soaked in vanilla almond milk.  Very yummy no matter how you eat it.

Shortcake Recipe

Adapted from Alton Brown - Food Network

2 cups flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons shortening
1 1/4 cup milk

Heat oven 375 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Cut in butter and shortening. Mix in milk. Drop by large spoonfuls onto a baking sheet. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until lightly browned.  Serve warm or let cool.

Lovely Shrimp Salad Sandwiches

I love this time of year because shrimp is on sale everywhere.  I don't know who decided that New Year's was a time for shrimp but I thank them.  A lot.  I have several bags in the freezer, and finally had a chance to make some last night.  I don't steam our shrimp, I prefer to do a shrimp boil with apple cider vinegar and Old Bay ( I am a Eastern Shore Maryland girl at heart, after all) and boil the shrimp until they're just pink.  Then, I let them rest overnight before peeling them.  It is easier to peel them warm but it's just they way I've always done it and I think they don't get as tough that way.  Sometimes we just eat them smothered in cocktail sauce, but one of our favorites in this house is shrimp salad.  I have changed my recipe quite a bit over the years to be healthier.  I started out with an old bay seasoned sort of mayo, but now it's more cocktail sauce and less mayo but all delicious!  I don't follow a set recipe, just mix it all together until the color looks right.  The shrimp are already fairly seasoned from being boiled in old bay, so if you're using unseasoned shrimp, please remember to salt and season to taste, either with Old Bay or a pepper blend.  I bought club rolls because I am a bit under the weather and not up to making bread but the beautiful lettuce blend and the creamy shrimp salad more than made up for it.  And having a few shrimp left over to eat dunked in cocktail sauce completed the meal!  Just a light supper after a bigger lunch out, so it was perfect. 

Let me also say that the new camera has been fantastic!  I am having fun playing with my photos and hope that everyone reading this is also enjoying the new detail.  I am just so excited to take pictures to share with all of you!

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cookies

These are for Santa....yep, that's the story I'm going with.  Actually, the real story is better 'cause we got a new camera for Christmas!!  And, to celebrate, I made cookies.  But I couldn't take any "as cooking" photos because the camera was charging so first thing this morning hubby and I were trying it out.  And as you can see in the picture above, the results are pretty amazing.  I couldn't believe the difference in my photos and I can't wait to take more pictures to share with you.  But, first, do you want a cookie recipe?

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Chip Chocolate Cookies
adapted from Nestle

Ingredients:  

2 cups all-purpose flour 
1/4 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda 
1 teaspoon salt 
2 sticks butter or margarine, softened 
3/4 cup granulated sugar 
3/4 cup packed brown sugar 
1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
2 large eggs 
1 2/3 cups (11-ounce package) peanut butter and chocolate chips, or just peanut butter would work too.

Preheat oven to 375.  Then mix flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in small bowl and set aside. Cream butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl.Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each egg is added. Gradually mix  in flour mixture. Stir in chips by hand.  Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets or parchment paper.

Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes and then transfer to cooling racks.  

Vanilla Scones

Okay, so looking over my lack of activity on here reminds me that it is a busy time of the year!  But I decided that yesterday I was going to bake.  No questions.  No excuses.  Baking.  And, I did.  I've had it on my to-do list for awhile that I wanted to do one more gift for the daycare moms, and of course, I thought of scones.  I love the mini baby vanilla scones at Sbux and have been wanting to make them....then I saw this recipe on King Arthur for Vanilla Scones.  They call it a basic scone with ideas for add-ins, but I left them as is on the recipe and added a vanilla flavored glaze to replicate the baby scones, which are drenched in an awesome vanilla bean glaze.  Mine was not nearly as decadent. 

 

They turned out so tasty...even if I did leave them in the oven a twinge too long..I was thinking of full size scones and I made mini ones.  Oops.  The texture was perfect...flaky and dense all at the same time with almost a melt in your mouth texture.  The perfect baby scone!  I hope the daycare moms enjoyed their little gift before the holiday as much as I enjoyed making them for them!

Merry Christmas everyone.  I am planning a waffle bar brunch for Christmas morning with my family, my sister's family and my daughter's boyfriend.  I'm looking forward to creating a new tradition!

Blueberry Muffins with Chia :-)

We're trying to add chia to our diet and picked up some milled chia flour at the store yesterday.  Which begs the question, what do I add it to?  It says you can add it to anything.  I opted for muffins. After my success with the brownies, who knows, they might even taste good.  I decided to use Brown Eyed Baker's recipe which you can find here. I really didn't make any major changes.  I did cut back on the sugar to about 3/4 cup, added in a scoop of chia flour and instead of sour cream I used plain greek yogurt. And her blog was right, these were perfect.  I loved the texture, the chia seeds were there, but no more noticeable than poppy seeds and they added a nice texture I thought.  And these were very pretty muffins!  I don't go to great pains to hide my blueberry swirls because I like the depth it adds, but that's just me.  Feel free to dredge your frozen berries in flour first.

I'm off to have a muffin...or two.  Like Brown Eyed Baker I have a muffin weakness!

Brownie Craving Satisfied

I'm only about two days late in posting this...but I hope you'll forgive me.  It's been busy!  Friday night I decided I wanted to make something decadent for dessert, but not so all out decadent that I gained 5 lbs just looking at it.  So, I settled on brownies.  Hubby usually prefers molten lava cakes - in fact we have them at least once per week.  But, sometimes, you just want something different.

Now, brownies usually fall into the category of muffins for me.  I cheer when they're successful, but more often than not, I'm disappointed in the result.  I just can't seem to find that balance of fluffy and dense that makes it just perfect.  My brownies this time were a bit on the fluffier side but still one of my best efforts to date.  I'd much rather make a cake...or cupcakes...or bread.  Those are like old reliable for me.  Always consistent.  Always as expected.

But, the brownies really did hit the spot...even if the denseness of the brownie was missing.  Hubby liked eating the batter which had a good flavor, and that's his favorite part anyway.  I think I could make batches of batter, freeze it and take it out and thaw it for him when a craving hits and he'd be good with that!

So, I actually have a recipe...

Peanut Butter Cocoa Brownies
(based on Betty Crocker's Cocoa Brownies)

3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup margarine or butter, softened
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
2/3 cup all-purpose or unbleached flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 cup chocolate chips (Microwaved for about 30 seconds - so some are melted, some are not)
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream sugar and margarine, then add vanilla and eggs. Stir in remaining ingredients. Spread in greased 8-inch square pan. Bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool and cut in squares.

Next time, I will cut the eggs to 1 and up the butter to 3/4 cup and I think I will get the fudgier texture I'm looking for.

Hot Cocoa Party

Yesterday was a special day at our child care...pjs and hot cocoa with a Christmas movie.  Great memories to be made!  We skipped all "school" activities for the day - put blankets and pillows all over the floor and just vegged out a bit.  It's fun to turn off the routine for a day, and just snuggle and enjoy these fleeting moments of being a kid.  Of course, life is not perfect so some hot cocoa was spilled, pillows were fought over but in the end, we had a good day. 

Just setting up for movie time was fun - I made plates with lukewarm cocoa (Can't be too hot for kids, they will NOT drink it.  I learned that a long time ago!), a Christmas colored napkin, some snowman cookies and some marshmallows to add to their cocoa.  It was so cute seeing them all use real mugs to drink!  They were so happy with themselves.   

If you have a chance to take a day and spend it in your pjs, drinking hot chocolate and watching Elf....grab it.  Days like that don't come along often. 

Easy Monday Breakfast

I like to have hot, healthy meals for the daycare kiddos but Mondays are a chaotic mess of getting this and that sorted out and trying to prevent any issues from cropping up in the five minutes it takes to even pour cereal.  It's a rough start to the week for us adults, and the kids feel it too.  It takes an hour for them to chill, get used to the routine again and settle into to playing and loving each other again.  But when I noticed the loaf of french bread that never made it out to the party spread Saturday night, I knew I could whip up some overnight baked french toast and give them a happy start to the week.  Of course, I had to steal a few slices to eat with some brie I had to have from Wegman's but that is another tale for another time....

I happened to also have some leftover cream, so it was even richer than my normal use of skim milk.  I had about 3/4 of a large loaf that I cubed, and in a separate bowl I mixed 3 eggs, 3 T of brown sugar, 2 t of cinnamon, and 1 t of vanilla and added in about 1/2 cup of milk and 1/2 cup of cream.  I wish I was a more exact baker for all of you.  I am more a "pinch of this, pat of that" sort of cook.  I feel badly sometimes that I even have a blog for cooking because I am so NOT a professional type chef!  But I do love to cook, and I do love to share.  So, here I am.  Anyway, back to the "recipe" I whisk all the ingredients except the bread with a wire whisk until fluffy and then toss the bread cubes in the mixture.  I put the whole thing in a greased 8" by 11" pan and then I cover it with foil and put in the fridge overnight.  This morning, I popped it into a preheated 350 oven for about 45 minutes, removing the foil for the last 10 minutes and it was perfect!  Just a bit browned on top and nice and gooey in the center.  We all had a good breakfast today!

Apple Turnovers...with a Yummy Twist!

 

Oh, man, am I going to have to run tonight...but it was so worth it!!  Look at those apple turnovers and tell me that you would be able to resist.  I was pretty impressed I held myself off at one.  

I've been baking on and off for the past few days trying to prep Christmas party goods as well as gifts, so the last thing I needed was another baking project but these ingredients just spoke to me this morning.  As I was moving from thing to thing this morning, I happened to think about how I've had a large amount of caramel sauce that hubby brought home from work in the cupboard, there's some peanut butter caramel spread I found at Harry & David's that I HAD to have and could be used up and some extra pie crust that never got used at Thanksgiving that I either need to freeze or use.  Add those three ingredients to some wonderful organic apples I found on sale 2 nights ago and you've got the above picture.  Total yumminess.  (I still love that word!)

And, really, compared to anything else that's been coming out of my kitchen lately, it was pretty simple and straightforward.  I just diced some apples, added in about two tablespoons of the peanut butter and one tablespoon of the caramel and microwaved all of it for about a minute.  Then I cut the pie crust into pie wedged shapes, I was hoping for an inside out sort of pie effect, and put the filling inside the two wedges, crimping the edges.  See, simple.  I baked it at 350 since I already had some cupcakes in the oven at that temp and just watched them closely.  I would have preferred 325 but the 350 didn't seem to cook them too quickly.  Once they were golden brown, I took them out, let them cool slightly and then drizzled some warmed caramel sauce on top.  They would be pretty heavenly with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.  

 A nice treat on another dreary day around here!!

I can't believe I've never mentioned our obsession with waffles...

As I went to write this morning, I didn't want to be redundant and post a waffle recipe that I'd already posted so I looked.  I was amazed when I realized that I never have before.  Shocked is a better word.  We are waffle people here.  The daycare kids are waffle people, too.  We are such waffle people that we have burned through several waffle makers in our home over the past 2 years.  Our sole Black Friday purchase was a Cuisinart Griddler from Lowe's (69.95!) and we bought waffle plates for it from Amazon because our newest waffle maker was about to die too.  So, this morning hubby and I got to give it it's first run through...

See our batter waiting patiently for the Griddler to heat up?

We weren't disappointed.  We expected that a do-it-all machine wouldn't have the outside crisp of a true wafflemaker, and it didn't as much as we liked but it makes 4 good sized waffles per turn - as opposed to the one round of each of our past waffle makers.  When you have six kids hungrily waiting for breakfast - that's a HUGE plus!!! 

Good surface coverage!

 

 

 

 

While hubby was making the waffles (almost always his job...pancakes too.) I got our toppings together.  Fresh whipped cream...

Waffles aren't waffles without whipped cream!  :)

And then I got strawberries for him, blueberries for me.  Just to be different I guess.  We usually have just strawberries.  So, are you anxious to see the finished product?

I'll wait as you finish drooling...







All better yet?





They were some pretty good waffles for versatile machine.  We made paninis on it too but nothing spectacular.  I'm hoping to try some cuban paninis on it today and see how it goes.

Now, I'm off to clean up the mess. But I'll leave you with a final pic and a recipe.  Good morning!!

I took this recipe from my tried and true Betty Crocker red cookbook.  I love that cookbook for the basics.  We've tried lots of recipes but this one is always consistent, I've always got the ingredients on hand and it is my go-to waffle recipe!

Betty Crocker Waffles

• 2 eggs
• 2 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup of melted margarine or butter, or 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1-3/4 cup milk
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

Beat eggs until flully. Add in the rest of the ingredients and combine until smooth, but don't over mix. Pour batter into waffle iron, I usually do it at 350. Bake according to manufacturer directions or until steam stops, about 5 minutes.

I think it says it makes 15 4 inch waffles but we got 12 out of our maker this morning.  It does make a lot though, and it is easily scaled back if needed.  

So completely off schedule and trying to be okay about it.

I glanced at my weekly menu this morning and just shook my head.  There was no order to my carefully planned week, just complete chaos.  Nothing went as planned and my menu was no exception.  Why can't life just be...I don't know even know what I want to write there.  So I'll just ask why?  And the answer?  I don't know.  Because it is.  Judging from my rambling start to this post, is it any wonder my menu and planning are completely in the dumpster? 

So many questions...

Tonight is supposed to be Ham & Split Pea Soup with rolls.  Except I never got to the store to get split peas.  But, that's okay because hubby asked for fish.  Time to regroup and make a new plan.  After a few glances in the freezer and cupboard, I think I've decided to go with Breaded Flounder over Rice Pilaf with Roasted Veggies.  And maybe a salad to start it off.  But the way things are going for me lately, who knows what I'll actually end up serving. 

And don't get me started on tomorrow's menu.  Banana Nut pancakes with no bananas in the house should be an interesting trick.  Hope everyone out there is having a good week and eating some yummy food!