I made sugar cookies yesterday, and felt such a sense of accomplishment. It just felt so frivolous! It wasn't laundry, or baby-related, or necessary for nourishing me and my husband (i.e. dinner). I'm also working on repairing a bag for a friend - the magnetic snap on the exterior pocket started to rip out! I have to say this is definitely the most well-used bag I've made, a true test to my construction integrity! And I just got word my Red Barn quilt is ready at the quilter's, so I can't wait to pick that up and get the binding on. Big plans, with a small start...

Labels: cooking

I made vanilla extract tonight! It was crazy easy. I got the vanilla beans on Amazon (these), the bottles from Specialty Bottle (these), and just some normal vodka. Two beans per bottle, sliced lengthwise and then in half to fit in the bottle, top off with vodka, and voila! Labels and cute tags will be added this weekend.

Labels: cooking

Working on the table runner. Making cranberry relish. Prepping sweet potatoes. Thawing beans. I can't wait for dinner tomorrow!

Labels: cooking, wip

Our church dinner group met on Sunday night for a mini Thanksgiving dinner - turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and so on. I volunteered to bring an apple pie.



I used my mom's pie crust recipe, and a ton of apples. My mom actually came over to help make it, which was fun. I was lucky enough to have a few leftover pieces - they won't hold up long to my current appetite. Don't you wish they'd invented scratch-and-sniff computer monitors?

Pie Crust
- Mix in a bowl 4 cups flour and 1/2 tsp salt.
- Cut in 3/4c shortening - I used half butter and half coconut oil shortening.
- Lightly mix in 5-6 tbsp cold water depending on the humidity (more humid = less water).
- Knead the dough just until it holds together.
This is enough for top and bottom pie crusts - break in half and roll out with a rolling pin. If you use a flexible mat to roll on you can kind of fold up the pie crust to transfer it to the pie plate more easily.

Just add a ton of peeled and sliced apples mixed with sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg, cut a bunch of vent holes and sprinkle with more cinnamon-sugar. Bake at 425F for 30 minutes, then lower to 350F for 15-20 minutes until juices are bubbling out of your vents. Let sit for 3-4 hours.

We cut the fruit up before making the crust so that some of the juice came out of the apples, this way your apples don't all sink leaving you a big air gap between your fruit and your top pie crust. We also sprinkled a little flour in the bottom of the pie before adding the apples to help thicken up the juices during baking. Delicious!

Labels: cooking

For the Relay for Life auction in the spring I donated a triple layer cake to be made at the recipient's request. The winner is retiring and today is her last day, so here is her celebration cake! It's a Triple Chocolate Fudge cake from Sky High. Chocolate cake, chocolate frosting, and white chocolate filling between the layers. Yum! I hope it tastes good, since I didn't get to try it!

Labels: cooking

A hint to the dominating flavor... chocolate!

I have a big cake project in progress so tonight I baked and cooled the layers and will keep them in the freezer until they're ready to assemble. Thanks to all the cooking blogs I read for this helpful hint!

Labels: cooking

We had some friends visiting the past couple days and last night, after getting some BBQ takeout, I popped this pear/apple crisp in the oven. I used this recipe from Ree and it was heavenly. I substituted pears and apples for the peaches since they're not in season. The sauce tastes like candy and the crisp topping is perfect. Delicious!

Labels: cooking

I made the Grand Marnier Chiffon cake from the Sky High book yesterday.



No particular reason - just dinner at my mom's with some friends and their new baby.





Delicious.

Labels: cooking

Fill a pastry bag with 1/2 cup powdered milk, 1/2 cup cocoa powder, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips, and 1/4 cup crushed peppermints. Fold over the top a few times and staple on the instructions: Mix contents in a large bowl. Combine 1/3 cup cocoa mix with 1 cup very hot water. Stir.

Now if only I'd figured out how to make homemade marshmallows!

Labels: cooking

We had our church dinner group over the other night and I was going to be away all day, so I made a big batch of lasagna in the morning. We've been increasingly busy this fall, so I made a few extra pans of lasagna to have in the freezer. This is so easy! Here's my recipe:

Ingredients:
1 lb lean ground beef
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 pkg no-cook lasagna noodles
4 c mozarella
1 tub small curd cottage cheese
1/4 c parmesan
2 eggs
1 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp garlic powder

Directions:
1. Brown and drain the ground beef. Stir in the spaghetti sauce and set aside.
2. In a large bowl mix 2 c mozarella and remaining ingredients.
3. Take three aluminum loaf pans and spray with cooking spray. Put a little of the meat/sauce mixture in the bottom. Put a noodle in each pan and press down. Spoon in a scoop of the cheese mixture and then a scoop of the meat mixture. Spread really well so that the noodle is completely covered.
4. Repeat noodle-cheese-meat two more times. Top each pan with remaining mozarella.
5. Cover each pan with alumnium foil and write the cooking directions on it with a sharpie - 350F, 75 min covered, 10 min uncovered, let sit 10 min.
6. Freeze!

There is no need to thaw before baking, just put it in the oven as you heat it up and cook for the times given.

This is another great recipe to help stock up the freezer!

Note: If you want, you can do 1 loaf pan and 1 8x8, or 1 9x13, or double the recipe and do three 8x8's, etc, depending on how many people you need to feed!
Note 2: If the noodle doesn't fit in the loaf pan for the first layer, I break it into pieces to get full coverage.

Labels: cooking

Wouldn't it be nice to have a Martha pantry, all pretty containers and well organized? Well, when we were taking inventory of our supplies before the hurricane I realized how much random stuff we have in our pantry and I decided to try to use some of it up.



First up, this easy stew recipe because I've had a can of pinto beans in there for ages. Next, this Asian chicken soup but made with the bag of rice noodles that are at least a year old.



Noodles don't go bad, right?

Labels: cooking, homework

Yesterday after my crazy prep for the baby shower, and the baby shower itself, I got to spend a little time with my sister and my nephew who came to town for the baby shower. Then we were going to meet up with Pete for dinner - much to my surprise, when we got to the restaurant we were greeted by about 20 friends there to surprise me for my birthday! It was so fun.

AND. Pete made cupcakes. From scratch.



And took pictures because he knew I'd want to post about it.



So awesome.

Labels: cooking, family

My first experience with meringue frosting on a cupcake. I love the way it looks!

Quilt is quilted, label is on, cupcakes are baked, favors are ready. I'll just hand sew the binding until the last minute and cross my fingers I finish! Honestly I'm surprised I made it this far...

Labels: cooking, simple pleasures

What is there to do when you have free time, and eggs were one of the only fresh foods available at the store, besides make cookies?





My mother-in-law and my mom both use very good but very different chocolate chip cookie recipes, and I alternate between the two to keep my husband and me both happy. These are from my mom's recipe.



Nothing like a little comfort food on a quiet night! Especially when you also have a new kitty to snuggle...

Labels: cooking, family

I love having both my mom and my mother-in-law in town, but it made for a busy Sunday! This morning we had brunch with Pete's mom, and I made a new make-ahead French toast that was so delicious.





The recipe is here except I used real eggs instead of egg substitute. Very yummy. And Mint Bellinis, too. We also went out to dinner with my mom and my sister's family, so it has been a day of eating!

Among all the cooking I did get time to work on a new project.



I do have all the pieces cut for the master quilt and I'll try to piece the top this week. Then I'll have three weekends to get it quilted to meet my May goal. It's nice to be able to still work on other projects, though!

Labels: cooking, family, quilting

As the weekend winds up I hope you all had a good one! I got in my first swim of the season yesterday - not that it hasn't been warm enough before now! No April snows for us like for our friends up north.



Pete's birthday was last week and we went to my mom's tonight to celebrate, so I spent a little time this afternoon making honey peanut cupcakes. I must be on a peanut kick right now.



The honey taste came through wonderfully, and the cake was a little spongy and very tender. Love these recipes.



And of course I had to take my camera since I knew my nephew was going to be there...

Hope your weekend was good, too!

Labels: cooking, family

I hope everyone had a nice weekend! For those of us in the States, it was Super Bowl weekend. I'm not a huge football fan, but it was actually a really good game! If you found the game fast approaching without any snacks, next time try this - I call this my White Trash Queso...

Brown 3/4 pound ground beef with half a chopped onion and half a chopped bell pepper (you can skip the veggies if you don't have time to chop).



Combine in a crock pot with 1 block of Velveeta (cubed) and 1 small jar of your favorite salsa.



Cook on high until melted, ~30 min but stir often to make sure it doesn't burn. Then turn off and enjoy with your favorite tortilla chips! Just turn back on low occasionally if it's gets cool.

Be careful, this gets eaten quickly! If you have a big crowd I'd recommend a double batch...

Labels: cooking

One of my Christmas presents from my sister was a cookbook she knew would be right up my alley... It's called Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey - Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth.



I've made two recipes from it now and they've both been delicious! Tonight I made the Gooey Caramel Butter bars - anything that uses a whole bowl of caramel has to be good!



And I just love the styling of this book. It's sweet, just like the recipes! Lots of cute fonts and scalloped edges, and at the top of each recipe is a little story about where it came from and why Jill likes it.





And the most important part - the finished product is delicious!

Labels: cooking

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. The long weekend was very nice, and though I've had to be back at work this week, it is very quiet in the office.

As you can tell, I've been very busy, doing things like teaching my nephew to bake.



I think he has a little ways to go with hand-eye coordination before he can completely take over...

Labels: cooking, family

Yesterday was one of those days that was just amazing. Believe it or not, I was only up for about 12 hours, but I made the most of them. I started the day by sleeping in until 10:30. I honestly can't remember the last time I slept past 8am, and even on the weekends I'm usually up by 7am. I obviously needed the sleep! Thanks to Peter for distracting the dog so I could sleep in so late.

I moved from the bedroom to my craft room to finish up a little project that's been almost done for months, and then got to work in the kitchen. First I made cranberry-almond granola to snack on at work.



Then I whipped up some dinner for a few nights from my birthday present to myself: Don't Panic: Dinner's in the Freezer. I made Pecan-Chicken Roll Ups (not the official name) and we had them for dinner last night, plus I have four more servings in the freezer. They were quite good! This is the second recipe I've made from this book and so far it hasn't let me down.

Finally, I had to try the apple cake mentioned by Amy because I had promised to bring something in to work today. As Amy said, it was amazing! A big hit with my coworkers.

I also got some reading in for my book club meeting Sunday, did quite a bit of cleaning and laundry, enjoyed Peter vacuuming without being asked (love that!) and went to bed at 10:30 ready to get some more sleep. Just about a perfect day!

Labels: cooking

My favorite dessert to make for get-togethers these days is this delicious raspberry coconut layer thing my sister sent me the recipe to. You first bake up a crust of graham crackers, butter, coconut, and condensed milk.



After that cools you spread on a layer of raspberry preserves and put it in the fridge to chill for a few hours.



Finally, you sprinkle it with crushed nuts (I use pecans but the recipe says to use walnuts) and drizzle it with semi-sweet and white chocolate.



Cutting it up is the hardest part because it gets a little messy, but it tastes so good it's worth it!

In crafty news, I hand-stitched this little felt pouch for the jewelry Peter's coworker ordered. I am pleased with how it came out, and might assembly line a few of these to spruce up holiday gifts...



In progress: new tote, Ruffles scarf from Scarf Style, Wedding Quilt #2 (still!), Feather and Fan scarf from Wendy Knits (still!)... Peter is off to golf with the boys today so maybe I'll actually make progress on something!

Labels: cooking

In addition to being quite talented in the crafty arena, Nikki is also a professional pastry chef! Every now and then she shares a recipe with her readers, but this is the first one I've tried. It is the cookie recipe she posted a few weeks ago. Here they are ready to go in the oven.



I've never made cookies by slicing a log up before. I think I like the way they come out. I also go to use my relatively new kitchen scale, since Nikki uses metric measurements for her recipes. That was fun! Fresh out of the oven:



I put peanut butter M&M's on top since that sounded so good with the chocolate cookies. They cracked in the heat, but are still very tasty.



Peter doesn't think he likes chocolate cookies (though he hasn't tasted these!) so I'm planning to take them to work tomorrow... though I'm tempted to eat them all myself! Cookie stack:



I think I'll try the carrot cake next!

Labels: cooking

For dessert last night I tried a new cookie recipe, from my Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts cookbook.



The dough was a pretty different consistency than I was used to, because I've never made crispy cookies like this before.



They didn't come out as flat and crispy as I expected, but they still tasted really good, and the four of us last night ate all three dozen!



Any pastry chefs out there with advice about why they didn't come out flat and crispy? I'll have to try these again sometime, though, since they were definitely yummy!

Labels: cooking