Yea, I need a decent camera. Moving on…..

I was given this recipe by a friend, and I usually do it in the recommended sheet cake size, but for today, we went with squares.

This is the most lemony cake I’ve ever had, and I LOVES it. Hope you will too!

Triple Lemon Cake

Cake:
1 Lemon Cake Mix
1 sm. box Lemon Jello Gelatin mix
4 Eggs
2/3 c. Vegetable Oil
3/4 c. Water

Lemon Glaze
2 c. Powdered Sugar
Zest of 2 Lemons
Juice from 2 Lemons

Spray inside of 9×13 cake pan with nonstick spray.

Combine cake ingredients util well blended; pour into pan. Bake 45-50 minutes or until toothpick come out of center clean. If doing smaller cakes, the time will be closer to 35-4 minutes. Allow to cool slightly, but not completely.

While the cake is cooling, combine glaze ingredients and stir util sugar is dissolved. Use a log tined fork and poke holes across the top of the entire cake. Pour ALL of the glaze over the cake, covering the entire surface. Allow glaze to soak in before eating.

Keeps in the fridge.

Recipe via Christine Cunningham, with credit to her mom, Rosie Cunningham.

Have a good holiday!

First, my apologies: this picture is just awful. lol

I basically wanted a quick and easy dessert to go with dinner last night. Something not too expensive, something we had most the ingredients for. I blame Dinner Impossible. Skipping through channels and I saw a cherry pie and went. “Oh, yum, want some!”

Once I want something, most of the time we’re doomed. lol This doom gave us this dessert:

I found this on Cooking.com and did some very minor adjustments. With my little ramekins, it serves 10-12 rather than 8. I’m adjusting again in the recipe below just a little because the original amount of butter overflowed. heh

Mini Cherry Cobblers

Butter
1 c. All-Purpose Flour
1 c. Sugar
1 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 c. Milk
2 – 20 ounce cans Cherry Pie Filling

Set ramekins out on a cooking sheet, place about 1 1/2-2 tsp of butter in each. Place in oven while preheating it to 350 degrees to melt the butter. In medium bowl, combine dry ingredients and milk. Spoon equal amounts of batter into each ramekin (I used a small ladle). Open cans of filling and using a tablespoon to put 2 or 3 spoonfuls of filling into each ramekin. Bake 45 minutes to an hour.

Now, here’s the surprising thing: the Chef? He’s not into cherries much. But this dessert? He liked enough to have me pick up more cans of filling to make it again. lol

Now THAT’s something.

The first bread I ever tried to make was a Rosemary-Olive Oil Bread because these loaves cost $4 or more when we can find them. We really like the bread, but not the cost. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get it to work, even after playing around with it in ways suggested by a friend who bakes bread on a regular bases. I finally put the recipe aside and started working with less fussy breads to learn the process. Once I got those down, I finally came back to this one, determined to get it down.

The first attempt came out okay, but I had forgotten that I had made some of the failed changes a part of the recipe, so the dough came out soft and flat and had a few other issues. The bread was better than previous attempts, but still not quite right.

So I made a second loaf, though I still made some other changes: I went to 1 1/2 for the dough to get a larger loaf (turned out to be not quite necessary to do that, because we ended up with a huge loaf as a result, but, we do love the bread…lol), reduced the salt (BP concerns), and had to watch the water. And that last turns out to be the key to this bread. You have to start with the smaller amount of water, and add a little at a time while doing the first knead to avoid an overly dry, stiff dough.

The result was this….

Here’s the full recipe, with the lower measurements in parenthesis, in case you’d like a smaller loaf than the monster we got.

Rosemary-Olive Oil Bread

4 ½ c. Bread or All Purpose Flour (3 c.)
2 tsp. Salt (1 1/2 tsp.)
1 ¼ – 1 ½ c. Warm Water (110-115 degrees) (3/4 – 1 1/4 c.)
1 ½ pkgs Instant Active Dry Yeast (1 pkg)
1 ½ TBL Sugar (1 TBL)
1/3 c. Olive Oil (1/4 c.)
2 ½ TBL Coarsely Chopped Fresh Rosemary (1 1/2 TBL)

Oil or butter a large bowl; set aside. Combine flours and salt in medium bowl; set aside. In another large bowl, combine 1 ¼ c. (3/4 c.) water and yeast, stirring until creamy (about 5-10 minutes); add remaining ingredients and mix until well combined. Add flours. Add more water as needed. Knead on lightly floured board until smooth and elastic, about 10-15 minutes. Place in oiled bowl and turn to coat; cover with towel and let rise about 1 hour or until doubled in size. Punch down; knead gently. Either shape into loaf and place in greased loaf pan OR shape into a ball and place on a parchment-covered baking sheet, cover with towel, and let rise another 30 minutes or until doubled in size. Remove towel, dust with flour. Bake at 400 degrees for 35-45 minutes or until bottom sounds hollow when tapped. Let cool a few minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely.

You may need to add more water than what’s listed; just keep an eye on the dough. If it’s too dry and stiff, add more, but small amounts at a time. I started with 1 1/4 c, but the dough was VERY dry, and I ended up adding at least 1/4 c. more to get a decent dough. It rose beautifully both times, which was a huge problem in my first attempts (the second rise in particular just wouldn’t happen the way it should).

Also be aware, it doesn’t rise “tall” as much as “out”, so you may want to use a loaf pan if you want a taller bread.

And here’s the loaf right out of the oven:

I attempted a more oblong than round loaf. More than likely next time I’ll use a loaf or similar tall pan to get a taller loaf. Regardless, I’m quite pleased with it. And the aroma while it was baking was wonderful. I find working with fresh rosemary a bit of a pain, but love the smell of it. And the flavor was beautiful.

When I first started making bread, I really had some problems with it. I initially started with a Rosemary-Olive Oil loaf, but it just wouldn’t rise/bake correctly.

So I went to something a little less exotic. Wheat Bread. Not whole wheat, but that was fine. The recipe was an easy one, and that’s what I needed. But I ended up with the same problems. So I hunted down information on baking bread, created a tips card, and using that card, I finally had success. The only thing I didn’t like is that the loaves seemed small, and I wanted store height bread.

So then I played with the recipe. First I tried a citrus version recommended by a friend. Didn’t go over so well with the family.

My last playing, though, was to take half the wheat and make it rye, and I increased the amount of dough by going to one and half times the recipe.

And the family loves it and the loaf is…well, here, take a look!

That loaf is fresh from the oven and, even though you can’t see it, was steaming at the time of the picture.

Easy Wheat-Rye Bread

1 1/4 c. Whole Wheat Flour
1 c. Rye Flour
2 1/4 c. All-Purpose Flour
1 1/2 tsp Salt
1 1/2c. Warm Water (between 110-115 degrees)
1 1/2 pkgs Active Dry Yeast
3 TBL Honey
3 TBL Brown Sugar
3 TBL Butter, Melted
1 1/2 TBL Milk

Oil or butter a large bowl, set aside. Combine flours and salt in a bowl; set aside. In another large bowl, combine water and yeast, stirring until creamy (about 5-10 minutes), add remaining ingredients and mix until well combined. Add flours. Knead until smooth and elastic—dough will feel slightly grainy and a bit sticky, though it won’t stick to your hands—about 10-15 minutes. Make a ball and place in oiled bowl, turning to coat. Cover with towel, set in warm place, and let rise 40 minutes OR until doubled in size. Punch down and knead gently and lightly until smooth; shape into a loaf and place into a greased loaf pan**. Let rise 30 minutes OR until about doubled in size. Bake 30-35 minutes at 350. If it browns too quickly, cover with tinfoil. Let cool a few minutes, remove from pan, finish cooling on wire rack.

** A regular loaf pan works; it makes the bread taller and wide. A taller loaf pan would keep the top from going to wide.

The results: beautiful bread:

I actually like the flavor of the rye-wheat combo better than the wheat only. The Chef says it’s okay, like he says the wheat bread is okay; he most definitely did not think the citrus bread was okay. lol

And the smell while it was baking was wonderful.

So I think this might end up being our regular bread from now on. And here’s my tips for anyone interested.

Tips For Baking Bread

1. Watch water temp by using a thermometer. Keep it between 85 and 115 for the best results with your yeast.

2. Allow yeast and water to sit sit at least 5 minutes to activate the yeast; it should be creamy and bubbly and have a yeasty smell.

3. Salt kills yeast. Do not add salt directly to the yeast mixture. I combine it with the flours and add the flours after all other ingredients.

4. If finding a warm place to allow the dough to rise is a problem, try using the oven. Turn it on to 200 degrees and let warm up, then turn it down at least halfway to off (one place recommends turning it off completely, but I’ve found that to result in an oven that’s too cool). Place covered dough in warm oven to rise.

5. Go by how far the bread has risen, not how long it should take. If it’s not doubled, it’s not ready.

6. For the second rise, do not over-knead the bread or add too much flour. Be gentle.

7. Softer doughs rise faster. If a dough seems too stiff, add a TBL of water before the first rise. Don’t add too much water, though.

With these tips, and the fact that my other breads seem to be working out fairly consistently now, I feel just about ready to tackle the Rosemary-Olive Oil Bread. I’ll post a picture if I manage to get it right.

We haven’t decided if we’re going to use this in the restaurant yet, but here’s Chef’s cold appetizer for his final reception.

A cold, creamy, spicy Avocado Soup with fried tortilla strings and a small bit of Pico de Gallo. We need to work on the heat level a little (it kicks in late and builds up, and this is before the soup has been chilled the full time it’s supposed to be, so I’m imagining the heat will be a little too high when it has been chilled the full 4 hours), but it’s otherwise a good soup.

And quite pretty too!

Yes, it has been a long time. I’ve actually considered deleting this journal because I’ve been so busy and it’s become such a huge spam trap, but since next to no one reads it, I guess it’s all good.

Chef has finally come up with the first official appetizer for the restaurant: Caribbean Egg Rolls with a Spicy Sweet & Sour Sauce.

These were developed for his Garde Manger class. For the final, each student must come up with one cold and one warm appetizer for 24 people. This is his warm appetizer.

He took a Caribbean salad recipe and made the following changes:

» replaced the lettuce with cabbage and cut down the amount a little
» added shredded carrots
» added some chicken

Now the salad had a dressing which he used as a marinade, but couldn’t be used as is in the actual egg roll. So he made the salad as usual with the above changes, marinated it all in the dressing, and then wrapped it in egg roll wrappers and fried it like usual egg rolls.

He also modified a hot sweet and sour sauce. He didn’t want it too spicy, but with just a little bit of a kick. The two items marry well, and the sauce has a nice sweetness of flavor that works well with the sweetness of the egg rolls, but that spicy kick is enough to keep that sweetness from being too overwhelming. You can’t see it, but the sauce has a nice texture and speckling, and it’s a much lighter color than this picture shows, almost a golden red-brown. Very pretty.

And in a few, he’ll be working on his cold appetizer: an Avocado Soup in Tortilla Bowls.

Yes, it’s been a long time. Too long. Just been very busy of late.

And one of the things I’ve been busy with of late is bread making. The bread we like to buy from the store (Nature’s Own) is $2/loaf on sale at our local Kroger. As much as I love the bread and the varieties it has, making my own bread is cheaper. I just need to make a minimum of 3 loaves a week to cover our family.

But I’m struggling a bit. My wheat bread is okay, but I suspect it’s not the texture it’s supposed to be when baked, and my Rosemary Olive Oil bread has the taste but definitely not the texture. I’ve just tried two new breads today and am having the same issue: they just aren’t rising all that much on the second rise.

This is a step forward, really, because my Rosemary bread wouldn’t rise correctly on the first rise.

So I’ve done some research into the specific things I think I may be having trouble with and I now have a tips card to use. Hopefully my next round of bread making will be far more successful and I can post some pictures. Maybe I can even get the Rosemary bread to finally work.

Or maybe one day I just need to get a bread maker.

I’m actually really impressed with myself this evening. This is the first dinner I’ve put together (other than my holiday meals) that I thought was really rockin’! And the kids, other than the grand baby, really liked it too.

Honey-Roasted Chicken
Tomato-Basil Goat Cheese Polenta
Caramelized Onions
Roasted Mushrooms

Most of these items came from here. Changes noted below.

The chicken quarters were slathered in honey and sprinkled with season salt, paprika, and garlic powder to taste. Baked covered at 425 until the last 10-15 minutes, then uncovered so they would brown. This is how I always do chicken: the meat remains nice and moist because all the moisture is kept in under the cover (we use foil), then it browns nicely in the last 10-15 minutes without losing that moistness.

The polenta followed the recipe as noted in the above link except we added 1 extra garlic clove and the cheese was a tomato-basil goat cheese. We only had 4 ounces of the goat cheese but the flavor still came through in a nice way.

For the caramelized onions, I used 2 brown and a little under half of a red.

Finally, for the mushrooms, we also minced 2 cloves of garlic and mixed that in with the mushrooms, salt, and pepper. We also roasted them a about 5-10 minutes longer. And they came out wonderful.

I plated the polenta first, topped that with onions, then the mushrooms, and with the chicken a little off to the side.

This really was a very satisfying dinner, and everything worked really well together taste-wise. Especially when making sure to get onion, mushroom, and polenta on the fork. The juices from the chicken and the chicken skin itself also really added to the flavor. I’m going to have to try this again, maybe with a little more of the goat cheese mixed in. I think the only thing I’d change is adding a green veggie to the plate, maybe some asparagus or something. The plate definitely needs a little more color. If the chicken hadn’t taken on the reddish color of the paprika, the plate would be nothing but yellow and brown.

I just might be able to make meals for the family that aren’t so boring. I remember before I met Chef, and my meals were pretty plain Jane. Heck, more often than not, I relied on boxed things—Hamburger Helper and the like. This dinner proves I don’t need to do that any more, and that I can play around with recipes successfully.

And that is just way cool.

I was rummaging in my cupboards today and found a can of pumpkin filling and sweetened condensed milk. We’re not big pumpkin pie eaters, but I thought a pumpkin something might be a good thing to use for playing with our new ramekins, which we have yet to use for anything and don’t have ingredients for much of anything. So I looked at the recipe on the can, then I looked online, and then I combined 2 recipes to come up with this one.

1 15 oz can Pumpkin filling
1 14 oz can Sweetened Condensed Milk
1/2 c. Bisquik
2 TBL. oil
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. allspice
dash ground cloves

Preheat oven to 350. Spray ramekins with non-stick spray. I believe my ramekins are 4 oz.

Combine all ingredients and beat until smooth. You can adjust spices to your preference. Ladle filling into prepared ramekins and set them on a cookie sheet. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.

Makes 7.

We added a little home made whipped cream, and they were pretty good. The texture is somewhere between pie and cake, but not quite either. So I’m calling them pumpkin cups for now. I’m not too sure I have the spices 100% right, but some may want more spice and some less, and since they only really affect flavor, I figure anyone else making it will play around with them anyway.

We’re not big on pumpkin in my house (never even get it for Thanksgiving), so I don’t know if we’ll make these again, but they really were pretty good.

Mystery box #3: Lamb, apricots, and Swiss chard.

Yea, just a little bit behind here. Was waiting on Chef’s pictures then got distracted with other business. That means a couple of short entries before we get back to the longer version of these entries.

I absolutely LOVE lamb. Unfortunately, the only lamb available at the farmer’s market is frozen, and the lamb at the regular grocery store is pricey. So frozen it was. Unlike frozen vegetables, which weather freezing better than being canned (canned vegetables are just nasty), meat doesn’t retain its flavor or texture very well when frozen. Even the lamb I love becomes so much less than it is in terms of flavor. But it’s still lamb and one of the best meats on the planet.

So, he had to use frozen lamb because of finances. We found a lovely red Swiss chard and chose dried apricots as the farmer’s market didn’t have fresh. Chef didn’t do much with the lamb—broiled it, I believe. He did a wilted Swiss Chard with olive oil, nutmeg, and paprika and made a glaze for the lamb with the apricots.

It was absolutely a wonderful, delicious combination. Just loved it.

One of the things we learned from this plating is that the glaze might have done better on the bottom of the plate. The chard definitely should have gone on top because you can’t see it here at all.

Still, another wonderful success from the Chef.

No recipe play for me this week: we’re short on cash and the Chef will be very busy tomorrow, which is when we actually get some cash and would be able to purchase some food to play with. I’m thinking about trying to do something interesting with the chicken we have, but not sure I have much to work with, so it might end up being a very simple, not so interesting dinner tomorrow night.

Mystery Boxes are also less likely to be regular every week. Chef finally has a job! But it’s at a sport bar and restaurant, which means working nights, and especially means working Fridays. The hope is that he will have one weeknight a week off and we’ll be able to still do the MB’s every week, but we’re not sure that will be the case.