Hello, Love

After over two years of diligently searching I've finally found the perfect...

...blueberry muffin.

I mean, check out the batter alone.

What's not to love. Now I realize that blueberry muffins are totally a matter of preference. Like that whole wheat recipe I tried. Blah! I think I only put the leftover batter in the freezer due to the price of blueberries.

But this recipe. It could totally be my life partner and I would gladly have it's babies and bring it coffee or beer or slippers or whatever blueberry muffin husbands desire. I mean, to quote King Arthur Flour "They're a good example of "cake-like" muffins, containing high amounts of both sugar and fat." How could you not fall in love after a sentence like that? If they were on match.com, that would totally be my ideal tagline. (Yes, at 13g of fat ONE muffin pretty much fills up my limit of fat grams in a meal under the Alli plan.) It feels so gratifying to find my blueberry muffin true love. I love the fluffy rich muffins our local grocery strore chain makes. I tolerated many eyerolls from the ex when I would bemoan how my muffins did not taste like theirs and get the inevitable "Than go BUY them from there!". He did not get me.

Well, there were a couple of modifications I'll do next time. I guess my love isn't totally blind. I would use a more stuesely top and I believe I will add an additional 1/4 c of sugar. I like my love sweet.

Will I share my path to true love? Of course.

The Perfect Blueberry Muffins (aka "Fancy Department Store Muffins")
Slightly adapted from King Arthur Flour 

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups fresh blueberries
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter or margarine
1 cup sugar (or add 1/4c if you want to be like me)
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk

STREUSEL:
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup cold butter

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, berries and nuts. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter or margarine with sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla, and beat well.

Blend dry ingredients into wet alternately with milk.

Because these muffins will rise up and over the edge of your muffin tin, you'll want to grease the top of the pan as well as the cups. Fill the cups almost full, and sprinkle with the streusel topping.

Bake muffins 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove muffins from oven and cool completely on a wire rack. (Although I can tell you that if you can wait long enough for the blueberries to cool enough to not scorch your mouth, they rock after about 10 minutes out.)

Nutrional information per serving (1 muffin, 106 g): 307 cal, 13 g fat,  21 g complex carbohydrates

King Arthur Flour suggests the following:

These muffins are wonderful made with tiny fresh blueberries, chopped, toasted almonds, and almond extract substituted for the vanilla extract.



I think that sounds like a fantastic idea, King Arthur Flour. Thank you.

I shared mine with the neighbors. Mainly due to that pesky high fat content. But feel free to lock your doors and hoard these lovelies. I won't judge you. Promise.

Fail

If you are looking for perfection, you are are most definitely at the wrong blog! I pretty much mean that in an all encompassing way, but today specificially.

So, my mom was visiting this weekend. I intended to wow her in that way I don't think we ever really grow out of wanting to impress our parents by making her a batch of homemade blueberry turnovers. I was even going to take on puff pastry from scratch.

And my AC went out. Oh, did I mention the heat advisories we had last week? Yeah. According to my landlord the AC I pay to have in my apartment is a luxury. AC is not a luxury when baking in a hot humid apartment. No, sir.

Things were actually seeming to go ok. The night before I chilled my dry ingredients for two hours like a good baker. Then I made sure to make the dough up to give it a chance to sit in it's saran wrap overnight. When I woke up Saturday morning it didn't seem like the temps were too bad in the apartment yet. So I got out my dough, followed the instructions and rolled it out, formed it and folded it, rewrapped and refigerated for 15 minutes. Three times. And things seemed positive for this hour long process. Then on the last roll within seconds things went bad. Very very bad. My dough with the nice horizontal layers and clear definition of butter that was present, but not one with the dry ingredients was looking good. Then within a matter of seconds I had a gooey mess on my hands. I panicked and put it back in the fridge. Got it out and rolled it between two layers of parchment paper to avoid contact with the dough. I was cursing as I filled them with the fresh blueberry filling. And then it happened.

As I opened the door to put the turnovers into the oven the pan literally flipped over, sending the turnovers flying onto the hot oven door with the pan landing on top. My mom's mouth dropped open. I sat on the floor, oven door open and turnovers melting, and cried. Not like little tears. Body shaking sobs. Total April meltdown.

Mom hurried over telling me it would be okay as she scraped the turnovers off the door, put them back on the pan, and set them in the oven to bake.

They weren't okay. Since the essential (in my understanding of it) of nice flaky pastry dough is the cold butter being suddenly exposed to the hot temperatures of the oven and essentially exploding, making nice flaky layers, the fact my butter first was a victim of high temperatures and ugly humidity levels and THEN landed upside down on a hot oven door pretty much made failure inevitable. It was gross. It was failure in the true sense of the word.

However, even with  a 95 degree (not exaggerating) kitchen and unknown levels of humidity, life may have given us tomatoes.

But we made salsa.

What's that salty taste you ask? Sweat and tears.

A Bounty to Contend With

I love this time of summer. While it’s hot (and it’s seemed hot here a lot these days), I love when my friends and families gardens start being harvested. Something about having food growing by people I love makes the things I make with them seems even homier.
And the things keep rolling in. I can’t say no, I mean come on. But getting back from my trip to Chicago I was crunched to get to these veggies before they went bad. So for today

Cucumber,

And zucchini,

And green beans,

Oh my!

I’m actually going to concentrate on the zucchini this post, as I feel this is the best product of the three. While I was playing with my phone out at the campground last week and looking around allrecipes.com I came across this recipe for Zucchini Blueberry Bread. Then a few hours later I was handed a few zucchinis. And then I remembered that blueberries were on a killer sale at the store. It was meant to be and who am I to argue with fate? I recommend you give this a try if you have some zucchini sitting around begging to be used. Or if you have to go buy some. Whatevs. And recommend putting a crumbly top on this bread. Because a little more sugar and butter never hurt anyone. Well, maybe that's not true, but it still tastes excellent.

Blueberry Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup vegetable oil
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups white sugar
2 cups shredded zucchini (apx 2 zucchini)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 pint fresh blueberries

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease 4 mini-loaf pans.

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar. Fold in the zucchini. Beat in the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Gently fold in the blueberries. Transfer to the prepared mini-loaf pans.

Bake 50 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted in the center of a loaf comes out clean. Cool 20 minutes in pans, then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely.

Servings: 4 slices per mini loaf (generous slices, yes)
     Calories per slice: 345
     Carbohydrates per slice: 50g (Sugars 30g)
     Nutrition Data based on nutritiondata.com calculations


Sticking with the allrecipes.com theme I made up some Garden Green Beans. I’m not sure I’m a fresh green bean kind of girl. They were okay, but maybe you’d like them better.

And lastly, I made some cucumber salad. I feel a bit of a bum even calling this a “recipe”. I used my trusty mandolin (the kitchen device, not the intriguing musical instrument) and sliced my cucumbers up nice and thin. Put some salt and pepper on top. Let them sit in the fridge a couple of hours. Added some dried onions (just because I didn’t have any fresh on hand, that would be even better) and poured some Ranch dressing over the top. This then sits another few hours and the result is always an amazingly simple and refreshing treat. I'm told it's not true cucumber salad. My husband threw out the "ghetto cucumber salad" comment. I do not care.

Any fruits and veggies you have sitting around the house?

Rollin' With My Homies

I hit the kitchen to ensure there would be no lack of freshly baked breads to nourish my family while camping last weekend. I literally came with about half a paper grocery bag full. (And four were left at the end of the weekend.) And I’m just now telling you about it, I know, you hate me. You were just dying to know this. It’s okay, these wounds will heal.

We were camping, so we of course needed some hamburger and hot dog buns. Now, I know it’s tempting to just pay the damn $.99 at the store for some buns instead of waiting through the rising and kneading for ten minutes and all that fun stuff. But I promise you, pinky swear on a double dog dare that these are worth it. Even my brother who turns his nose up to anything that defies Pillsbury kept sneaking these.

Hamburger Buns & Hot Dog Buns Worth the Work

Not Quite Right, but Still Yummy Potato Rolls

My parents were raving about potato buns and were so sad the Amana bakery doesn’t make them anymore. So I decided to surprise them and make up a batch. I was confident I nailed it. Turns out I didn’t.Even though I went to the work of using locally grown potatoes and all the process of boiling and mashing by hand, I still didn't. Apparently the bakery used potato flour to make an amazingly soft and fantastic potato roll. This led to one of these conversations with my grandpa I will cherish forever as he shared baking secrets with me such as the ratio of potato flour to put in bread to give it some extra softness and that malt will do amazing things to the flavor of white bread. We talked for at least an hour around the picnic table and I wish my memory had a record mode so I could relive it for years to come. He shared tales with me about experimenting with bread doughs for better recipes, long hours in hot bakeries, rebuilding bakeries from the group up, and the good times with family over the years of a part of the Amana heritage my family has had a key role in. I was enthralled and I don’t know that I’ve ever felt such a tie with my grandpa before.

Hamburger & Hot Dog Buns Worth the Extra Work
 
The original recipe was from allrecipes.com, but I did some changes to this and I think it made for a tastier bun. The original didn't allow for rising time, which I feel would have made for a much denser bun. I like some fluff.
 
Ingredients
 
1 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup butter
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 (.25 ounce) package instant yeast  (2 1/4 t.)
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 egg
 
Optional:
1 egg plus a little water to make an egg wash
Sesame seeds
 
Directions
 
1) In a small saucepan, heat milk, water and butter until very warm, 120 degrees F (50 degrees C).
 
2) In a large bowl, mix together 1 3/4 cup flour, yeast, sugar and salt. Mix milk mixture into flour mixture, and then mix in egg. Stir in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition. When the dough has pulled together, transfer to a large bowl coated with oil. Turn dough once to coat with oil. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about one hour. (Or half an hour in my oven like sewing room!)
 
3) After dough has doubled, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes.
 
4) Divide dough into 12 equal pieces. Shape into smooth balls, and place on a greased baking sheet. (At this point I coated the buns with an egg wash and sprinkled the sesame seeds on top.) Flatten slightly. Cover, and let rise for 30 to 35 minutes.
 
5) Bake at 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) for 10 to 12 minutes, or until golden brown.
 
For Hot Dog Buns: Shape each piece into a 6x4 inch rectangle. Starting with the longer side, roll up tightly, and pinch edges and ends to seal. Let rise about 20 to 25 minutes. Bake as above.
 
Calories per bun: Apx. 230

Some Tastes of Home

It's probably not everyday some gets a craving for corn cob jelly. Well, first you'd have to have heard of it, which may the rarity in itself. I spent some years as a teen working in a bakery that is the retail bakery of the line of Amana bakeries most of my family has worked for. Summers were filled with Dutch Crunch Bread slathered with Corn Cob Jelly. Amazingness. I was a little weirded out at first, I shall admit that. But I would venture to say you haven't lived until you've had this combo. Simple in it's deliciousness. Eclectic in it's existence. So I'm sure you can see why it's close to this heart (and stomach!).

So I was actually looking for a recipe for some potato rolls like the bakery used to make after my parents were raving about how good they were and lamenting that they are no longer made. But I'm sure we shall discuss these further later. I have today off work and after scouring the internet, putting in a call to my Auntie Renee who used to manage the retail bakery that sells the bread to get some advice on some discrepencies I saw between different recipes (I wanted it to be as close to THAT BREAD as possible) I headed off in search of some canning jars and white rice flour.

The results. They rocked. Well, okay. The bread is cooling right now so I haven't actually tasted it, but it looks just like I remember, so I'm pretty confident.

Let's start with the jelly...

Corn Cob Jelly

12 sweet corn cobs

8 cups water (the original recipe calls for only 4 cups, but this left me with only 1 cup of liquid in the end)
4 cups sugar
1 box fruit pectin

Bring water with cobs, to a boil, boil for l0 minutes. Measure 3 cups liquid and strain through a cheesecloth.

Put strained fluid into a large saucepan, add pectin. Bring to rolling boil. Add sugar, bring mixture back to a boil. Simmer for 3 minutes, then skim. Add food coloring, if desired. (My pics do not have food coloring added.)

Pour into scalded jars and seal. Jelly will be clear and taste like apple-honey.


Now, for the bread.

Dutch Crunch Bread


Bread


2 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast

1/4 cup warm water 

1 cup warm milk

1 Tbsp. sugar

2 tsp. vegetable oil

1 1/2 tsp. salt

2.5 - 3.5 cups all purpose flour

Topping
(from The Bread Bible)

1 Tbsp. active dry yeast

1/2 cup warm water

1 Tbsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. vegetable oil

1/4 tsp. salt

3/4 cup white rice flour  (I found this in the health market section)



1. Place sugar and yeast along with the warm water, warm milk and oil in your bowl. Mix for 30 seconds and let sit a few minutes until dissolved.

2. Mix salt with 2 1/4 cups flour and to the bowl, mixing on medium until the dough comes together.

3. Switch to dough hook and slowly add the last 1 1/4 cup until bowl pulls away from the side of the bowl. I ended up adding a total of 2 3/4 cups.

4. Knead by hand until tacky and smooth or on medium with mixer. 

5. Place dough in an oiled container and let rise until it has doubled, approximately an hour.

6. Turn out dough onto lightly floured surface. Shape into 8 balls and place on lined baking sheet, and cover. Let sit for 15 minutes.

7. In the meantime, mix up topping. Dissolve yeast and sugar in water. Add in vegetable oil. Then rice flour. Whisk all ingredients together until you get a thick cake batter-like consistency. It should be smooth. Let sit for the rest of the 15 minutes, plus another 10 minutes.

8. Rolls should have risen a little bit by this point. With a brush, spread topping all over each of the rolls. This should be done in a thick layer. Brush a generous layer on each roll, using up all of the batter. This step is why you need parchment or a silpat on your baking sheet.

9. Let rolls rise for another 20 minutes until puffy. In the meantime, preheat oven to 350F.

10. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until golden brown. Let cool.

The original recipe recommends you  let them cool before tearing into these little lumps of deliciousness because the topping tastes a bit weird until it's completely set and cooled. Now I'm just waiting for my moment of justification for the 3+ hours I spent in the kitchen this afternoon..

Servings: 8
Calories per little loaf: 312
Carbs per little loaf: 59g
(per nutrititiondata)

The Blueberry Muffin Quest

I am sitting here feeling a little spacey this Saturday afternoon. Maybe because I just woke up from a nap. I have every good intention of hauling my sewing machine down to the kitchen where it's cooler once I finish this blog entry and maybe get a few dishes done (I have looking at a dirty kitchen) and get some quilting done. Really. I've gotten a little sucked into touring project pages on Ravelry. Am I the only one who looks at other's finished pages and wishes I could be those people? I'm pretty sure my pages don't cause this wistfulness. I have to remind myself that even though their knits are beautiful and they finish things like sweaters and lace shawls they probably don't want to get off the couch somedays and fight with their husbands and have dirty bathrooms just like me.

So, on with my post. I've been meaning to share some pics of the blueberry muffins I made yesterday morning. I am very weird about having my Saturday mornings just so. I need to not wake up to an alarm and I need to have some coffee and I need to be able to sit in the chair and knit until lunch time. At least once a week. It calms my introvert spirit. But I haven't gotten to do it for a few weeks and it looks like I won't be able to for a few weeks. I had to work this morning. Staring at Excel spreadsheets trying to figure out where in the hell $49.76 went and why the damn spreadsheets won't equal each other and having just a few days left until the fiscal year is over and I need to figure it out while juggling hosting multiple trainings and end of year paperwork and the usual meetings and life stress does not calm this introvert spirit. Nor do the jets flying overhead for the Annual Quad Cities Air Show. So I took yesterday morning off and baked muffins. While it wasn't sitting in a chair knitting, the process did calm me a bit.

I have been on a search for the perfect blueberry muffin for some time now. Our local chain of grocery stores makes a perfect blueberry muffin in their bakery. If you are anything like my husband you are probably think "Why don't you just buy blueberry muffins from the store, April?". But since you are reading this blog maybe you feel my pain of wanting to replicate store bought perfection.

So I was venturing in the store actually going for coffee the other morning and saw the said perfect muffins. I was reminded of my quest to make them. Then there I was in the produce section and these little blue beauties were speaking to me that maybe they could play a role in my conquering of the blueberry muffin.

I had very high hopes for the blueberry muffin recipe in The Grand Central Baking Book. You may have caught on by now to the fact I have a bit of a "thing" for this book. But, I mean, it's brought me happiness in the form of Strawberry Rhubarb Pie with an amazing butter crust and Oatmeal Raisin Cookies made even more blissful with dried cranberries and golden raisins. So why not believe that this book may be the Holy Grail of baked goods and lead me to blissful fullfillment in the form of THE blueberry muffins??? As Piper Davis went on about the buttermilk and the need to mix this recipe by hand to maintain a delicate cakelike texture I felt a flutter of excitement that I may have just found my blueberry muffin destiny (yes, I realize I may have attachement issues to baked goods. Ripe for analysis, yes, yes.). But they weren't it. I know, it is like a tragic story of possible love and destiny only to be dashed. Don't get me wrong, they weren't bad. Just not THE MUFFINS.

I have action shots none the less.

If Strawberries Overtook the World...

So everyone walks through the grocery store and has absolutely no self control when they see 4 lbs of strawberries on sale for $5, right? I'm normal??? Well, normal or not, I had a massive amount of strawberries to reckon with this weekend. All in all, it was an okay problem. I was okay with having that being the issue of the weekend. Especially beings the issue of the work week includes is the state going to renew my grant contract and will I have a job in 10 days. Strawberries it is!

So, what did I do with a massive amount of strawberries. Woo-ee. Let me tell you.

First, there was Spinach & Strawberry Salad. My mouth is watering at the realization I still have enough spinach and strawberries left to have some of this with supper.

Then, I was pleasently surprised to learn my parents were going to be in the Quad Cities for Father's Day, so I got to see my Daddy-O! I made some Strawberry Rhubarb Pie using the pie crust and filling recipe from The Grand Central Baking Book. My heart sank as my Dad was eating his pie yesterday and mentioned he doesn't like rhubarb. But then he followed with until now. He even called back later that night to rave about the pie. My Daddy rocks.

Yesterday I sat contemplating what to do with the last couple of pounds. I went looking for a recipe for this Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream I made last year. I could not find and still can't find it doing an internet search. It's probably for the better. Ice cream with ribbons of cream cheese probably should not be a part of my diet. I DID find a recipe for Frozen Strawberry Yogurt. Perfect. And I mean that. It's pretty amazing. Check it.

And, just to taunt you. Speaking of strawberries, did I ever share about these amazing chocolate and cheesecake covered strawberries I made for my cousin's wedding shower about a month ago? Just in case not.

So, in the event of a strawberry apocolypse, no worries. I got it covered. I will save us all. Pinky swear.

Gooey Crispiness

So, this week's Bake-along is...no bake! (I know, something is wrong with that sentence.)

I wanted to live a little more on the wild side than regular 'ole Rice Krispie Treats, so I decided to give Smitten Kitchen's Salted Brown Butter Crispy Treats a try.

First off. Brown the butter. I sat there going "Is it brown yet?" "How about now?" "Is that brown?" "Does the butter smell nutty?" "What the hell does 'nutty' butter smell like anyway???"

I think based off the brownish hue of my marshmellows after I added them I got there. I think.

These are most definitely the gooiest treats I have ever made.

But holy rice crispy amazingness, Batman. The sea salt rocks these treats. And luckily, it's hard to eat more than one in a sitting with the gooey of it all. I usually have a severe disappearing issue on my hands when Rice Crispy treats are around.

Now, the end of the recipe says let cool and prepare to meet new friends. Hmm, you want to be my friend? I have crispy treats! (And yarn.) All in all. One out of one Aprils recommend this recipe!

Weekend in Review

All in all I had a pretty domestic weekend. How was yours?


Saturday I am proud to say that I finally finished an apron for ME!! Yes, ME!! This was the fourth I have made in the last couple of months. The one I was wearing was pretty sad. It was to that point where no matter how many times I washed it was still crusty from the flour and what not. It led a good life. It has retired to a nice resort in Florida with a view.

I’ve really been digging the yellow and gray combo for awhile. I bought this flowered fabric a couple of years ago, but it seemed a little old lady for everything. But not this apron. The pattern for this is from McCall’s M3979 American Hostess Vintage Aprons. I had to do some changes once it was all said and done. The top and was WAY too high and stuck out in a funky way. And to be honest I’m not crazy about the pocket bulging like that. It looks like it’s just begging to catch flour and other little bits for a disgusting result.

But it’s kind of growing on me. It got a test run yesterday with this Asiago-Laced Rosemary Bread. I did some double duty for the bake-along. Last week’s theme was bread. I have had this recipe that I tore out of some random magazine at work kicking around for awhile and I happened to have some asiago cheese I didn’t mind getting out of the freezer. In all honesty, I haven’t tried it yet. I was (finally) getting my butt in gear yesterday and putting away the laundry that still had laundry from LAST summer to sort through. (I am not kidding. Nothing like putting away 10 months of laundry to make me swear off shopping for some time!) My apartment was toasty while I was baking this bread and the smell of asiago kind of overpowered the place, so I wasn’t wanting any warm bread with those two factors at play. My husband did have a piece this morning, however, and gave it his stamp of approval. And he doesn’t use that stamp very liberally! I intend to bust into this bad boy tonight!

I also got a head start on this week’s bake-along. We are making homemade pizza dough, which I have not done before. I don’t think I’ll willingly go back to frozen pizza or even store-bought crust! My little Italian friend gave me her recipe. It was great. I also made some pizza sauce from scratch. Recipe below. It does have a bit of kick, though! And I actually got two pizzas worth out of the recipe!

Happy Monday!

Exquisite Pizza Sauce from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
• 6 fluid ounces warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 3/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon dried marjoram
• 1/4 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
• salt to taste

Directions

1. In a small bowl, combine tomato paste, water, Parmesan cheese, garlic, honey, anchovy paste, onion powder, oregano, marjoram, basil, ground black pepper, cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes and salt; mix together, breaking up any clumps of cheese.

2. Sauce should sit for 30 minutes to blend flavors; spread over pizza dough and prepare pizza as desired.

Oatmeal Cran-Raisin Cookies of Amazingness

I've been meaning to make my grandma some cookies for awhile. She has a sweet tooth, but cannot eat chocolate. And it is tragic. She does, however, like oatmeal raisin cookies and apparently can polish off a box pretty fast for a little lady. I decided awhile back Grandma needs some homemade love in her freezer than she can bake off lickity split. In all honesty, though, I am not a big oatmeal raisin cookie fan. I'll eat it, but nothing I'll run to make. This blog post is a conversion story.

Rewind us to a couple of weeks ago. It was knit night at Borders and my friend got an oatmeal cran-raisin cookie. I have been disappointed time and again over the baked goods here, so I was cynical. But it looked tasty (still cynical though, they always look tasty.) But IT WAS TASTY.

So this weekend I got out my Grand Central Baking Book and make a few adaptations to their Oatmeal Raisin Cookie recipe.

So, we took some of this. (But not only this of course.)

(That's homemade vanilla extract in the bottom right.)

Did some sifting and mixing.

Half I just scooped on a pan and put in the freezer as little dough balls. I will give these to Grandma when I go home this weekend and she can bake them a few at a time as the hankering comes. The rest I flattened to about half an inch and baked.

And they were amazing. They rocked my world and changed it forever. I KNOW. I've said this before. But I mean it. I will never look at oatmeal or raisins or golden raisins or dried cranberries the same way again. They will always have a special place in my heart from this day forward.

Baking Playlist: Lenka

What a Biscuit!

So I started this entry with a story from my family about how the word biscuit was used in a little different of a context and will forever be changed for me (nothing icky, no worries), but it sounded very white trashy and you kind of had to be there, so I pushed delete and decided we will just move straight to the biscuits discussion. But I'll leave the entry title as a tribute to my slightly, umm, quirky family.

For the last few months I've been participating in a bake-a-long in the Let's Cook group on Ravelry. This week's theme is biscuits. It has been pretty constantly cold and rainy here in the Quad Cities for the last few days, so it was a great soup time. I have had this recipe for knock off Red Lobster (yep, I'm trying to push my husband to his limit!)  Cheddar Bay Biscuits floating around my kitchen and it was unearted during the great recipe reorganizing that took place this weekend.  So this recipe was the winner for this week's bake-a-long go!

I have to admit, I totally felt a bit of shame and like I was cheating with this recipe. It is basically Bisquick with water and sharp cheddar cheese. The action kind of takes place in the buttery goodness you slap on the top. I really need to look and see if I can find a "from scratch" alternative for Bisquick one of these days. It also needed more cheese in my opinion, so here it is in quick Bisquicky glory with my alternations! (Okay, so this was bugging me, so I searched and came back to add this link to make homemade Bisquick. However, since I haven't tried this and can't attest for it, I'm leaving the recipe with Bisquick and linking until I can test this further!)

Cheddar Bay Biscuits, adapted from keyingredient.

Ingredients:

2 C. Bisquick
1/2 c. cold water

1 c. grated sharp cheddar cheese

1 t. parsley flakes

1/2 t. garlic powder

1/2 t. Italian seasoning

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Mix together Bisquick, cold water, and sharp cheddar cheese.

Roll out biscuits on a floured surface. Biscuits should be about 3/4 inch thick (original recipe calls for 1 in, but 3/4 in made some pretty heafty biscuits as it was!). Cut biscuits with a medium sized cutter and place onto an ungreased baking sheet.

Melt butter and seasonings together. Brush biscuits with the butter mix (do the side as well for good measure, you should have plenty of buttery goodness to go around. I didn't do this, but wish I would have!).  Bake for 8-10 minutes.

And they were pretty scrumptious with my minestrone!

Oh! And I learned something fun from some fellow Rav bakers this week! I was trying to figure out a way to be able to (somewhat easily) calculate nutritional information for my baked good and other homemade treats/meals. NutritionData was suggested. I am going to give it a try! (I'll try to post some of the nutrition data with the recipes I share when I get the hang of the website.) Nothing like using modern technology yet again to embrace an older way of doing things! Yeah for the interwebs!!

Another One Bites the Dust

Here it is, that time of the weekend that the imminent arrival of the work week looms and it is truly unavoidable. How am I spending it? At the moment taking a break from some handstitching on an apron for my cousin's wedding shower and listening to Prince's Pussy Control. It makes me smile. Love me for who I am. :) I promise it's on a compilation CD. (REALLY!) However, I recommend you be very careful doing a search on it. It ain't pretty. And of course I wasn't thinking and did it from my work computer. Hmm. But I diverge.

So how was your weekend? Mine was pretty laid back. I needed this weekend. At 4:55pm on Friday I was stuck in construction traffic somewhere in a random Chicago suburb and getting emails from a board member who wasn't happy with me. (My husband wasn't sure why I was checking my email while stuck in city traffic, but it's not like I was moving!) While I love my job most of the time, I was in TGIF mode at that point!

The husband and I spent some quality time at his place on Friday. After I found my way out of Chicagoland that is. Pizza+Movies+Beer=Friday Night. He somehow convinced me to stay up until four in the freaking morning. So that led to sleeping until one in the afternoon Saturday, squandering away my precious Saturday time. But guess what I did when I got home?

I

Made

THESE

homemade

POP TARTS!

They were pretty amazing. I made them with, wait for it, Nutella. I have been living under this rock where Nutella hasn't pushed through. I have internet access under this rock and I have heard the raves about Nutella, but NEVER HAD IT! I know. I hang my head in shame. However, do you people realize there are 200 calories per tablespoon of Nutella?? This brought my pop tarts to like 500 calories a pop. Seriously. But we're not going to talk about that.

I also made some with strawberry preserves. Which were also pretty freaking amazing. And the true shocker---despite his moral objections the husband tried a Nutella one and admitted (begrudgingly) to liking it. A little piece of hell froze over and my pop tarts caused it!

A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Opps, fugitive Nutella!

Ready to rock.

Mmm. Can't you feel yourself expanding just looking at these?

I did an egg wash on mine so that they would be nice and brown. I had multiple people tell me that a pop tart is not a pop tart if it doesn't have the crunchy glaze/frosting. I had every intention of putting some on. However, they were plenty sweet without it. And did I mention we were already at 500 calories? However, if I did put it on, I would melt some chocolate chips to put with the frosting for the Nutella ones.

What else did my uber-exciting weekend hold in store for me?

I attempted to organize the massive amount of printouts of recipes I want to try that threaten to overtake my kitchen. It wasn't pretty.

The phrase "looks like a tornado went through here" fit?

I got some work done on my cousin's wedding shower apron! I am a firm believer every new bride needs an apron. Call me old fashioned, but I call it simply style.

Progress. I gots it.

And I did some hand stitching. I know. Between that and the husband liking a homemade treat that you can buy chock full of preservatives in the store this may just be the end of it all. Live it up and be sure to tell your mom you love her!

Brr...anyone else feel that cold draft?

And...I made a mini pie. It actually just came out of the oven. But there will be a whole post on mini cheater deserts sometime soon! (This blog lives on the edge, we all know you're here for the thrills.)

Anyway, I'm off to bed. Even though my apartment is covered in fabric scraps and flour. Happy work week! (You can do it. I promise.)

Pop Tart Playlist:
    Sugarland, Love on the Inside
    A Fine Frenzy, Bomb in a Birdcage

Sewing Playlist:
   Susie Suh
   Fiona Apple, Tidal