Thanksgiving tips..because if you have a picky mother in law you need all the help you can get!

Thanksgiving is almost here, though after wondering down the isles of the grocery store you'd think it was Christmas next week. I'm super excited about Thanksgiving...and stressed. Even though I've done it almost every year for the past 5-6 years, I always get nervous. I'm notorious for not having my turkey done on time. I always plan for it to be done at a certain point but then I realize its not ready and have to sweat it out in the kitchen constantly checking it, because now all the sides I've so carefully planned to be done at the same time, are done and at risk of becoming cold. How to solve this problem? Put the turkey in an hour or two even, before I'm technically supposed to so that if it needs more time, I'll still be golden and no one will ever know.

Then I'm been trying to make the simplest yet most delicious meal possible. I make my stuffing from scratch, but its an easy recipe that everyone loves. Then I thought about doing slow cooker mashed potatoes, but the recipe I found that was simple I can no longer find, and all the other recipes call for cooking them in a big pot prior and I'm sorry but that defeats the purpose to me. The purpose of the slow cooker is to do it for me. I understand I still have to peel and everything, but not cook them in a huge pot, mash them, throw 8 other ingredients in there with it and then have it cook more..um no. I think I'll stick to the traditional way, although my tip for this is: You can peel your potatoes and put them in a pot of cold water (the pot you will cook them in saves dishes) and then drain out the water and put in fresh water when your ready to cook them. This will prevent them from turning brown and can be done UP TO 24 hours prior. So the night before when you have time to peel, or in the morning before anything else is ready to be prepared.

My next tip that I found was using the slow cooker as your bread warmer. Set slow cooker to lowest setting and place rolls inside. Rolls will stay warm without drying up for UP TO 1 hour. So if your rolls come out of the oven and you still have 30 minutes left before dinner, pop them in your slow cooker till dinner is ready and don't worry about cold rolls, or rubbery ones from the microwave (I think I'll use this tip!)

So there are my tips for now. I'm hoping to stumble across a few others before the big day, but either way I just have to remind myself that I've done it before, its not that hard, and always accept help when offered!!

Tasty Treat Friday!!!

I'm back on track!! Delicious pie just out of the oven! This morning I was wondering what I should make for the treat. You'd think that I would have already figured that out, but no...I have a stack about 20 high of recipes, but I hadn't commited myself to one. That is until I saw the bowl of apples that no one has seemed to want to eat...probably because the mini one has 2 front teeth loose and apples are NOT her friend right now, and for the man of the house..eating an apple would be a shocking event..and lucky he loves me and doesn't want to give me a heart attack!

So what to do with this bowl of apples no one is inclined to eat? My wonderful mom made a suggestion...apple pie anyone?? My dutch apple pie recipe is as simple as it gets. I can remember making this countless times in Nick and I's tiny apartment kitchen. It was so easy for a beginner cook, and it made the house warm and smell divine. There's nothing intimidating about this recipe, and if you bake, the ingredients are usually in your pantry. Plus we still have vanilla ice cream from the peanut fudge pudding cake. Score!

Dutch Apple Pie

2 cups flour

1 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup butter (melted)

1/2 cup oats

Filling:

 2/3 cup of sugar

3 Tablespoons of corn starch

1 1/4 cups of water

3 cups of peeled, diced apples

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 teaspoon of vanilla

Combine the first 4 ingredients in a bowl. Set aside 1 cup of mixture for topping your pie.

Press remaining crumb mixture into an ungreased 9 in pie plate to make your crust; set aside.

For the filling, combine sugar, cornstarch, and water in a medium saucepan on medium high, stirring frequently,

Bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 1 minute or until thickened.

Remove from heat and stir in apples, cinnamon, and vanilla. 

Pour into crust, then top with reserved crust mixture by crumbling the chunks all over the top of the pie. 

Bake at 350* F for 40-45 minutes.

I have redeemed myself!!!

After creating bricks of bread earlier today, I have redeemed myself and made the most delicious cake!!  Peanut Fudge Pudding Cake...amazing!! I was going through my mother in law's cookbooks (she has over 100!) and copied recipes from the slow cookers ones since fall and winter seem to be the time I use mine the most. That's when I stumbled across a cake recipe made in the slow cooker, what could be easier? But how would it taste? Would it be gross and overcooked, or delicious and moist like everything the slow cooker makes? Answer of course was AMAZING!! So here were go:

Peanut Fudge Pudding Cake

1 c . flour

1 c. sugar, divided

1 1/2 t. baking powder

2 T. vegetable oil

2/3 c. milk

1 t. vanilla

1/2 c. peanut butter

1/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder

1 c. boiling water

Coat the slow cooker with non-stick spray. 

Combine flour, 1/2 cup of sugar, and baking powder in medium bowl.

Add milk, oil, vanilla, and peanut butter. 

Mix until well-blended.

Pour batter into slow cooker. 

Combine remaining 1/2 cup of sugar and cocoa powder in small bowl.

Stir in boiling water. Pour into crockpot.

DO NOT STIR!!!

Cover. Cook on high for 1 hr and 20min-1 hour and 30min. until toothpick comes out clean.

Allow cake to rest 10 minutes then scoop into serving dishes or onto serving platter.

Serve warm with chopped peanuts and ice cream.

doesn't look to pretty, but its sooo good!!

This truly was so simple. I, however, got so excited by the sheer smell that I forgot to let it rest for 10 minutes! But it seemed to create this warm fudge sauce that was perfect with the ice cream.  I also used chunky peanut butter, it was all I had, and I actually think I'd prefer it that way. But its your choice. One other thing is I think you could add a little espresso powder to the cocoa powder and sugar mixture to add a grown up twist to it. Ice cream goes perfectly with it, but you could do whipped cream too. Its pretty versatile.

*Note: I saw slow cookers were on sale at Target for $15 this week! For those of you who don't have one! Get one!!

Lovely Smell...bad results....

So today I decided I'd face my nemesis- bread. I had a simple bread recipe and decided to give it a try.
Its Everything Braid Bread. I carefully followed the recipe, doing exactly what it said, measuring as carefully as possible. Taking my time, making sure everything was right. I got through the 1st rise thinking I'm golden! Look at the rise on that! Braided the bread, left it to rise, came back and hour later..nothing...2 hours later..nothing. It was already hard. Rock anyone? You don't really need that tooth right?

So I prayed silently over my rock bread, and thought maybe while it bakes it will magically rise and become beautiful and delicious. Otherwise I'm going to end up with two doorstops.  I slid the oven door shut, with another little prayer, and left the room. The whole time I'm smelling this amazing aroma from all the spices and seeds on the bed, thinking its going to be amazing. It beeps. I slowly walk into the kitchen, and slowly open the oven door as though it the gingerbread man going to pop out at me...and I see it. One flat, lifeless doorstop. It didn't fluff up at all, I think it shrunk. I've made shrinky dinks bread. Lovely.

However, if you are able to produce a lovely loaf of bread then this recipe would be wonderful. Even if you just make your regular white bread dough, then roll it out to 12x8, cut it into 6 long strips, take three and braid, put it on a greased baking sheet, and repeat with the next 3 strips.  Let it rise for about an hour more, brush it with one egg + 1 T. of water, and then sprinkle a mixture of 1 tsp. each of poppy seeds, sesame seeds, kosher salt, toasted onion flakes and dried rosemary. Bake at 400* for 25-30 minutes...tap bread, if it sounds hollow its done. Mine sounds like hitting piece of cherry hardwood. Bummer.

I hope that my horrible experience doesn't deter you from trying this bread. The smell is absolutely amazing.  I would even consider mixing some of the herbs into the dough for extra flavor. Plus if I think about it, this whole failure will actually save me money. No need to buy the dogs chewies this week. We're set now.

Soo maybe I'm a bit of a slacker....

After confessing my short comings a couple weeks ago, and renewing myself to posting more, and cooking new things, I've once again slacked off. I've been so busy with our PTO that I haven't had time to do a whole lot. We've been eating things that I've already posted (and now come to love) and I'm trying to drop the millionth pound that I've put on with all the candy and treats around. So today there is no treat...so sad, but I spent 6 hours popping and bagging popcorn with wonderful ladies in our PTO but I can't come home at this point and want to even look at food or think about cooking. Bleh. So I'm going to make it my goal to make something new this weekend and do some new posts! Just keep looking! :)

Friday's Tasty Treat (a day late since yesterday was the day from hell)

I decided after looking through hundreds of Martha Stewart's fall recipes that I needed to attempt atleast one of them. I finally settled on these Dulce de Leche Bat Cookies. I hunted down the dulce de leche (advice: its WAY cheaper at a Hispanic grocery store than say, Safeway). The only thing I ran into is that it asks you to have an aspic cutter set to make the wings, I personally don't know what that is and wasn't going to buy one just to make these cookies, so I used a regular pumpkin cookie cutter instead. These are chocolate sandwich cookies, which you fill with dulce de leche (which is like soft caramel spread). They sweet but delicious! Nick LOVES caramel so these were right up his alley.

It took a couple tries to get the dough to roll out. I actually doubled the recipes because I thought I would want more than 18 cookies, but with the difficulty I had with the dough I still ended up with 18 cookies. I found that rolling the dough out on floured parchment paper (because without the flour they will still stick to the paper), was the best way. I did cut some and then roll the rest of the dough back into a ball and rolled it out again to get a few more cookies, but those cookies, once baked, had a different finish on the top, almost crackly. I just made those the bottom of the sandwich cookie since you wouldn't see it anyways. The recipe I am giving you is the original, not doubled. Mine aren't even close to what Martha's looked like, but in the end they are yummy and they don't last long in this house! :)

Dulce de Leche Bat Cookies

3/4 c. all purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1/4 c. unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa

3/4 t. coarse salt

1/4 t. baking powder

2 T. unsalted butter, room temperature

1/4 c granulated sugar

1/4 c. packed light brown sugar

1 large egg, plus one yolk

4 oz. semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled

1/2 t. pure vanilla extract

1/4 c. plus 2 T. dulce de leche

Whisk together flour, cocoa, salt, and baking powder. 

Beat butter and sugars with a mixer on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg, yolk, chocolate, flour mixture, and beat until just combined. Shape into a disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate 1 hour.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/8 inch thick. Cut out the 36 rounds with a 2 inch cutter, and space 1 inch apart on parchment lined baking sheets. 

Using and aspic cutter set, cut out a triangle, point side up, and in the center of the half of the cookies, and then use the half moon cutter to make one wing on each side of the triangle. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375* F. Bake until set, 7-9 minutes. Let cool. Top each uncut cookie with 1 t. dulce de leche and top with a cut out cookie.

Crafting!

Hooray for rainy days! I have finally gotten time to organize my craft supplies and area. I've transformed the closet in our spare bedroom into my craft space. I've managed to fit my desk and supplies in there and on one little white bookshelf (not pictured). Now I am able to find everything AND have room to work! :)

Since I am showing you my craft space, I thought it'd be a perfect time to show you my holiday planners. I made two, just to try different patterned papers. But the awesome thing about these is that they are reuseable. Most planners are a one time deal. Not these! You just take out last years lists and calender pieces and print out new ones for this year. It helps me stay more organized. These are great for yourself or for gifts.  I think the perfect time to give these out would be Thanksgiving, so that people could start getting gift ideas while family is around, and they will have them early enough in the season that they'll be able to use them that year.

Supplies Needed:
glue dots
2- 11"x 7" cardstock (solid)
12- 6.75" x 3" decorated papers
6- 4"x 3" decorated papers (envelopes)

1) Score both pieces of 11x7 cardstock at 3.25", 3.5", 6.75". 7", and 10.25".

2) Valley all score marks. Attach the sheets together at the 10.25" score, where these two attach together will be your binding. You should now have one long piece that measures 7"x21".

3) Attach the 12- 6.75x3" decorated papers between the scored lines on both sides. Making sure to pay attention to where the cover paper will go.

4) Make pockets using the 6- 4"x3" pieces of paper. To make the pockets score the three side (not top) at 1/2" seem. Cut at an angle where the score lines intersect. Valley fold the scored lines and attach to the 6 panels inside. Attach using glue dots only on seems since these are your pockets that you'll put in the planning sheets.

5) Decorate as you see fit. Add the planning sheets that you can print off from http://christmas.organizedhome.com/printable/christmas-pocket-planner or go to:
 www.organizedchristmas.com, go to printables tab at top of the page, then click christmas planner, then scroll down to find "pocket planner forms". The first example that pops up (right now), is Lisa's Christmas Pocket Planners, and in the description is a highlighted phrase "Christmas pocket planner forms" You'll find the forms there. I use "stocking stuffers, gift list, gift ideas, menu, decorations, and shopping list" to fill up my planner, but there are others to choose from.

6) Fold up, bringing the panels in, keep folding until you can't fold anymore. If you feel that it need to be held closed, use ribbon, elastic gold cord or a rubber band.










(right) Finished Project.

Autumn Brunch Waffles with Cinnamon-Cider Syrup

I've been looking for some yummy fall breakfast recipes and I think I found a new favorite! Autumn brunch waffles are a cinnamon apple waffle, and then you make the cinnamon-cider syrup yourself-its amazing! Almost everyone has bisquick in their pantry, so I thought this would be an easy twist to regular waffles and syrup, and everyone can do it.

Cinnamon Cider Syrup

1 cup of sugar

3 T. bisquick 

1 t. ground cinnamon

2 cups of apple cider

2 T. lemon juice

1/4 c. margarine or butter

Mix sugar, bisquick, and cinnamon in 2 quart sauce pan. Stir in cider and lemon juice.

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir for 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in margarine until melted. Keep warm and start waffle batter.

Cinnamon Apple Waffles

2 1/4 c. bisquick

1 1/4 c. milk

2 T. sugar

2 T. vegetable oil

1 t. ground cinnamon

1 egg

1/2 c. finely chopped, peeled apple (I used granny smith, but gala's work too)

Stir all ingredients together except the apple in a large bowl until blended.

Stir in apple. Pour butter for waffle onto center of hot waffle iron. 

Bake till your light goes off, or about 5 minutes, or when steaming stops.Serve with syrup.

*These come courtesy of Betty Crocker Bisquick Cookbook

Looking back while moving forward...

Almost 3 months ago, I started this blog to bring homemade food recipes to people. I wanted to expand my culinary skills and try new foods. Tonight, I feel like I have failed in ways. But I realize that I held unreal expectations. On one hand, I have discovered a new love of Indian food - naan bread, chicken tikka masala, and I've successfully cooked for my family 90% of the time without having to repeat the same meals over and over (though some are repeats for a reason), and I've been able to control what my family is putting in their bodies.

I've learned to make my own tortillas, and no longer have to buy refried beans, rice-a roni, spice mixes, bread, peanut butter, pesto, roast chickens, alfredo sauce, spaghetti sauce, applesauce, canned fruit, or pickles, thanks to my new recipes and skills as a cook. I am able to embrace recipes with ingredients I'm not aware of, I'm able to use new techniques with little hesitation and I've found that sitting down with a cookbook can be as relaxing as reading my favorite book. My daughter now knows kitchen tips, and will say "we can make this at home huh" instead of needing to pick up any fast food. I've been able to replicate recipes from restaurants, which has helped financially. If we can make it at home, there's no reason to go out and get it.

Finally, even though I have disappointed myself in ways with this blog, I'm happy that my family is learning that not everything has to come from a restaurant in order to taste good, and that there is a certain amount of pride when everyone ooo's and ahhh's over your dishes. I'm going to make a strong effort to come up with meals that aren't only family friendly, or out of the box, but that are just yummy and will allow others to come to love their kitchen. This next week I'm hoping to post some delicious meals, sides and desserts. It test kitchen time!

Dad's Cake Bake!

 So last night was the PTO's Dad's Cake Bake. Each year they have a theme and parents, preferably the dad's, but everyone does it, make a cake to best fit that theme, or one of the other ribbon categories like most scrumptious, etc. Then they award ribbons, and then we auction off the cakes to raise money for PTO activities. So this year the theme was "Traveling Down Memory Lane" so we decided to go with something retro, from our childhood. So pacman it was! :) So we made a pacman cake, well actually Nick and Izzy made it. All I did was frost it and sort of guide them with the theme, but I thought it came out really cute, and I was proud of Izzy and Nick for working so hard on it and having fun with it.

Normally when we do a cake, like last year, we think we have a good idea and then we get there and are sorta like oh man there are way better cakes, but this year I was really proud of our cake, and PTO was selling hot dog meals near where our cake was so I got to hear the judges, and parents and kids who saw it, and everyone seemed to love it. So then they announce the winners of each category and we come away with nothing, BUT then they start the honorable mentions, and the say "and now for the cake that has taken us all down memory lane and reminded us of our days in the arcade, the pacman cake!" and I swear we got the best applause and cheers. So we did come away with honorable mention and a ribbon, and Izzy was thrilled with it. So that's my fun night and here is our cute cake, with Izzy, and then her ribbon.