Angel's Bento Blog

Eggplant Parmesan-picture heavy post

2011-08-27T15:03:00.007-06:00

After getting my new fryer I decided to make some Eggplant Parmesan.

This is the way I do it. It might not be the "correct" way but it turns out very tasty.

This is the Ingredients we'll be using.

One medium sized eggplant, a jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce, Parmesan cheese, Italian panko crumbs an onion, mushroom, some peppers and celery. You can do this without the extra veggie's I just really like the texture they add.

First chopped up all the veggie's into small pieces and set them aside. While I'm doing this I have the fryer heating up.Then slice the eggplant into little medallions chopping it up.
I made an egg mix of three eggs and some milk whipped it and then you cover the eggplant with the egg mixture.

Then in a separate container i mixed panko crumbs a bunch of Parmesan cheese and about a quarter cup of flour. You put the eggplant from the egg mixture into the crumbs turning it so it is well covered.
Then set it flat on a pan lined with paper towel.

I let them sit a moment so the egg mixture kind of dries on them with the crumbs. Then you fry them in the fryer or a pan of oil till dark golden brown. At this point i set the oven preheating to 350.

hmmm fryed eggplant is yummy. I could eat these just with some fry sauce lol

Take the paper towel out of the pan and lay the eggplant medallions flat. Cover them with the chopped vegetables.

Once you have the chopped veggie's liberally covering, cover that mix with some more Parmesan cheese and some salt and pepper to taste. Once seasoned pour the spaghetti sauce over the top of that.

I added more Parmesan on top of the sauce cause my husband is a cheese fiend.

I then added liberal covering of cheddar cheese to the top and baked it for 30 minutes in the oven.
Once finished you have a savory, gooey, crispy, cheesy dish.

Very tasty and filling.

Brand New Toy! Eeeeeeeeh!

2011-08-25T16:05:00.003-06:00

Yes my very own Oster Fryer!
I love making special home made fried foods but always made do with just doing it in a pot on the stove. My problem is my stove has uneven heat. So the first time i made jalapeno poppers half were burned. Then i tried making onion blossoms and it wouldn't get hot enough and they ended up mushy.
Oh but those days are behind now cause I got a fryer woot!

Here you can see it nice and shiny just out of the box.
It was very easy to assemble and hook up. The direction were clear and concise with a few good recipes included.

I decided to break it in making one of the dishes my hubby loves but I rarely make. Which is Eggplant Parmisan. I'll post the how to on it later.

As to the fryer it worked beautifully. It's a 3 Liter capacity. The basket in it is big enough I could put several slices in at once without them touching. I'm looking forward to making some more stuffed Jalapeno poppers and scones.
So far this baby has worked beautifully and I would definitely recommend it.

I got mine at Target, but also saw them available at walmart.

Onigiri Bento in pink

2011-08-25T15:29:00.004-06:00

If you are not Japanese but love Anime or Manga you probably were introduced to bento's and onigiri's in this way. This is how i was introduced to them and always had wanted to make my own. They are really easy and now I make them all the time.

I've showed many traditional square, rectangle and even circle shaped bento's before. This time i want to show my cute onigiri bento. These are shaped much different from my other ones. I got this cute pink one at a store in Seattle, Washington called Daiso. You can buy their stuff online at
Daiso Online
They have all sorts of cute Japanese things for decent price and ship to all over the us. Granted much cheaper if you find an actual store. I think I got this bento for a buck, where online they are about $18.

The little sauce bottle next to it is full of soy sauce. Its convenient non messy way to bring it. I squirt a little soy sauce on my rice balls as I'm eating them for more flavor. The top of the bento is a big domed shape.
This way your rice balls wont get smushed.

You can see i've got two medium sized triangle onigiris sitting on the platform the lid goes over. I also have them resting on some extra seaweed. I got this flavored sea weed squares at Uwajimaya

You could find these at most asian supermarkets. I'm not sure what flavor these ones are but they are crisp with a nice salty seasoning. I like to put extra on my rice ball for a crunchy texture on the outside.
It's also popular to season the outside of the rice balls with Furikake flakes like These.

Then the little part the Onigiri's rest on comes off and there is a little compartment for some more snacks or food to go with them. I put some small strawberries in for a sweet addition to my salty lunch.

Onigiri are a great lunch or snack. They are healthy, tasty and best of all very easy to transport. They hold shape well and can be eaten quickly with no mess, no need to be heated. You can also put fillings inside. Popular fillings are tuna and red bean paste. I have mine made plane with no filling.
It's best to use shortgrain rice because it's softer and holds together better then long or medium grain ones. If you're desperate you can use long grain it will taste good your rice balls just might fall apart since its not as sticky.
The best recipe for sushi rice for making rice balls i got here. I do it exactly like she directs except i use rice vinegar instead of white vinegar cause i adore the flavor of it. I make a whole bunch at a time and then keep them in a glass flat container with lid in my fridge. Then just grab them as i get hungry or am making lunches.

Muir Fresh Harvest Bundle

2011-02-24T03:09:00.005-07:00

So I'm excited to share about the new thing I'm trying out. I found out about it from another Utah food blogger and it really seemed to fit just what i needed. Probably many of you out there who like me have been interested in trying farmer co-op but find the up front fees way to expensive. Plus I find it a downer that co-op only works for harvest season which means winter you get nothing.
This is different!
You get a bundle of mixed fresh produce every two weeks all year round. You order each individually so there is no up front fee, and it is very affordable at only 35 dollars plus tax. If you're interested check out there site Muir Fresh

Here is what i got in my first bundle.

Minneloa Tangerines (2 lb,)

Mangos (2)

Red Grapes

Pineapple

Fuji Apples (8)

Vegetable Express, SLC, UT- Root Vegetable Medley (2#)

Banana Fingerling Potatoes (2#)

Baby Spinach (10 oz)

Green Onions

Italian Fresh Parsley

Shallots (5)

Pumpkin Seeds
Purple Sticky Rice

A little close up of the pumpkin seeds and the exotic purple rice. The seeds we broke into the moment we got home and started snacking on them. I liked them even better then sunflower seeds. I don't think i'll get to cook with them cause hubby and my sister already eaten most of them just as they are.

I also made a fabulous gumbo/stew using the purple rice.
I put in my crock pot some cream of mushroom soup, chicken, and herbs. Then when i got home with the bundle i added about a cup and a half of the purple rice, some of the potatoes, onions, and shallots. The rice turned everything including the chicken super dark purple and thickened it a bunch. It made it look almost like a chili then a soup. The flavor was amazing. Everyone had seconds and thirds.

Tonight we had pasta where i added some of the the root medley. It also was a hit. I liked the texture of the parsnips and squash in the root medley. It was my first time trying parsnips before and I was surprised that i liked them so much.
Definitely a fantastic bundle. Now to figure out what to do with all the fruit.
I'm sure the apples will get sliced up with cheese.
It's a favorite snack that my mom got us hooked on.

Quick and Easy Meat Pie

2010-06-15T09:13:00.004-06:00

My hubby is a mailman. Which means very long days out in the elements.
Last week when it was cold and raining I decided he needed to come home to some comfort food. Nothing better then coming home to the smell of baking in the air.
So I made this meat pie as a little bit of warm comfort for him. It's really very simple and fast to make. You can make it combining ingredients you can keep in stock in your pantry or freezer all the time.

Quick and Easy Meat Pie Recipe
Ingredients:
pie dough enough for two crust pie
jar of Alfredo sauce
half a package of goat cheese
1/4 cup of milk
package of country sausage (or whatever meat you'd like)
bag of frozen veggies (pea and carrot type mixes give the best texture)
cheddar cheese cubed
some rosemary salt and pepper to lightly season the sauce

Directions
1. You can make your own pie crust but for simplicity sake I bought pre-made Pillsbury dough that comes in a pack with two already rolled out circles of dough. Put one on the bottom of your pie dish making sure it goes up to the edge of the dish on all sides. These are very convenient and only cost a few dollars. You can keep them in your freezer as well until you need them.

2. I mix the Alfredo sauce, milk and goat cheese in a glass container and put in the microwave for a minute or two to melt the cheese. Then stir all together and poor into the prepped pie dish and crust. Sprinkle rosemary salt and pepper over the sauce. Then liberally mix in the meat and vegetables. Then for an additional touch I scattered across the top some cubed tillamook sharp cheddar.

3. Then pull out the second circle of dough. I laid mine out and using a cute little cookie cutter cut two pieces out. These will be air vents for the pie. You can just as easily poke or do a few slashes across the top. I personally like the decorative element. You just take the two pieces you cut out and lay them on the top of the crust. (can you tell it was a carrot shape cutter I turned upside down.)
Then carefully drape this crust over your pie and firmly seal the edges using a fork or your fingers to form a little scallop edge.
4. Lightly brush the top of the prepped pie with some milk (or you can do an egg wash) and put in a 350 degree oven for 40 to 50 minutes. (Might be less if you have a hotter running oven)
If your edges start to burn before the pie is done simply put some foil around the edge of the pie.

TADA Meat Pie!!!
Hubby and his brother both had thirds they liked it so much. The goat cheese adds a wonderfully creamy flavor, the meat makes every man happy and the flaky crust ties it all together. This is the perfect winter or rainy day comfort dinner.

And yes even more bread!!! Christmas present loaves!

2010-01-20T16:54:00.003-07:00

My previous post was of the savory herb pupmkin loaf that I made. Well for christmas I thought it would make a delicious and fun gift. I changed the recipe so that it would rise better and get along in a loaf pan for better sandwich making.

Here are the changes I made to the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree plain
1/4 cup of milk
2 1/4 tsp of yeast
1 tsp salt
4 cups flour
1/3 cup slightly roasted pumpkin seeds
1 generous tablespoon of rosemary
1 tablespoon of butter melted

1. mix flour yeast salt, pumpkin seeds and herbs in a bowl
2. heat milk and butter in a separate dish (i use my pyrex measuring cup in the microwave)
3. mix the liquid ingredients into the dry until fully incorporated. Then dump out on a well floured surface and knead as with normal bread. It will be a bit stickier then normal but i just add a little more flour as i go to help with it.
4. put in a lightly oiled bowl flip so both sides have oil on them cover and let rise for 3-4 hours until double in size.
5. punch down knead again and cut in half. Form each half into a loaf shape either by forming with your hands or rolling out and rollling into a log. Place in well oiled loaf pans and leave to rise another hour.
6. when loaves have risen to the size you want 425 degrees bake for 45 minutes. I like to put a pan of water in the bottom wrack of the oven.

These are what you get. They had a nice color and definitely were more slice-able for sandwiches.

I like to rub a little bit of butter over the tops when they first come out of the oven and are on the cooling wracks. This just adds a nice golden color to them, and makes them more savory.

3 of these were gifts to family and the fourth we kept for ourselves.
I sewed up some cute little drawstring bags for the loaves to be delivered in.

What kind of baked goods do you like to give as gifts?

More Bread- savory pumpkin herb loaves

2010-01-20T16:04:00.005-07:00

This isn't the sweet dessert bread that you are used to. No this savory moist crusty loaf is pumpkin bread to a new tune, and it will make you want to get up and dance!

So this beauty was made from a recipe I found on (never home)maker
You can also find the link for the recipe HERE
The recipe itself was a little hard to follow. It doesn't tell you when to put the herbs and roasted pumpkin seeds in. It's best to mix them in with the flour yeast and salt mixture so that its evenly spread throughout the bread. Other then that the recipe is fabulous!
I also used fresh pumpkin puree from a pumpkin I got from a local farmer and saved the seeds and toasted them myself.
The bread turned out beautiful, fragrant and even more delicious. It has a great texture to it with the seeds. It was gone in one night and made some fantastic sandwhiches!

We put ours with a little mayo mustard, sharp cheddar and some hand shredded turkey.

T0pped that off with a icy cold glass of cocoa cola, and Magnafique!

Later i changed the recipe to make it more traditional timing and better for loaf pans....so keep posted.

Bread

2010-01-20T15:56:00.002-07:00

Traditional home baked white bread loaves

Sometimes when you are short on money it's the little things you can do yourself that make a difference. To help with our grocery bills i started baking my own bread again. As you can see they turn out a beautiful golden color and I like to use large loaf pans so that the slices are good size for my hubbies sandwiches.
The recipe I use the most is rather basic. You can get it online at Better homes and gardens Here
I have one of there cookbooks and it has some great basic recipes in it.
I'm sure it can be adapted for a bread machine. I still hand knead my bread the way my grandma and mother showed me. Something very stress relieving about punching and roughing up some dough.

Although you may want to quadruple the recipe. I did a double batch and the loaves were gone within two days.

Soft and fluffy slices, doesn't' that just make you hungry?

Chicken Mulligatawny Steam Buns

2010-01-20T14:37:00.005-07:00

Have you seen Anna the Reds Bento blog? She is absolutely amazing. I could stare at her creations all day long. One of the recipes of hers that I swear by is her steamed pork buns.
I've tried them before with beef and pork and both times were a slam dunk. This time I decided to take photo's to show you how they are made. You can get the recipe HERE.
I prefer the yeast version dough its more moist and fluffy and has a great texture.

For this set I decided to get creative and make a chicken filling based loosely on the flavors of chicken mulligatawny soup.
Filling ingredients are :
shredded chicken
garlic
mushrooms
cabbage
2 small organic apples very finelly chopped
I put all these into my processor and zapped them so it has a very fine texture

I also did 1 portion of sauce to doubled dough and filling on the recipe.
The last time I made these I felt the sauce was a little to strong and overpowered the flavors of the filling. This portion was perfect for us and had the best flavor.

I made my filling while the dough was rising and then left both with covered talls until the dough was ready.

You cut your dough into portions I roll up a piece in my hand into a ball then lay it on the cutting board or counter and poud it with the lower palm of my hand until you have a flat circle.

Put about a table spoon of filling, or as much as you want in the center of your flattened circle.
You can be somewhat liberal with it because you do stretch the dough over it.

Then gently tug up the outer edge of the circle up and around the filling making a little pocket.

Once all the outer edge is up grab it and pinch the sides together. I do it from two direction so that you is extra secure. This will hold your filling inside.

You then using your hands round it into nice little bun ball shapes. I like to place mine with the pinched edge down. Don't they look fabulous! (don't mind the ugly seventies style plate)

Set up your double boiler for steaming and put a circle of wax or parchment paper on the bottom to help keep the buns from sticking to the pan. Place the buns in the pan close together, cover and steam.

Once they are done steaming take them out and they are ready to be served and devoured. They should have raised in size and become fluffy with a almost chewy like texture to them.

TASTY! Try your own and have fun with the filling. You could pretty much do this with any meat vegi filling you like. I've even done them with just chunks of cheese in the middle (my husband loved) and it tastes great with cheddar!

Stuffed Jalapeno Poppers

2010-01-20T12:57:00.006-07:00

Okay so we are blessed to live a block from a little nursery owned by a cute old man and his wife that live across the street. He is a farmer and often will sell their fresh produce at the nursery for very cheap. Everything is garden grown and organic and absolutely amazing to taste. A while back they had these jalapeno's there and I had to buy some. I myself am not a huge fan of jalapenos except in one way (jalapeno poppers!) but my husband loves them. So I made them into stuffed jalapeno poppers, and now you can too! It's rather easy just a bit of prep involved.

you will need
Jalapenoes- I did 10 to try it out
tomato
cream cheese
garlic
rose mary
good dipping glass of milk
bowl with flour
bowl with crumbs of your choice

Aren't these just lovely. The red one turned out to be super spicy and I don't think it was actually an jalapeno, ooops.
Step 1: rinse the jalapenos thoroughly slice up the side and trying not to split it in half scoop out all the innards. I also rinsed the inside to make sure to get out all the seeds.

Step 2: put cream chease in a bowl and microwave for 1 minute to soften it. Mix your chopped up tomato (mine was an orange tomato from the nursery that i put in my kitchen aid and blitzed, I lOVE YOU KITCHEN AID) with some chopped up garlic and herbs. Mix well.
Step 3: Assemble your station, jalapenos, bowl of filling, cup with milk for dipping, bowl with flour, and a seperate bowl with the crumbs.

all nice and lined up

Here is everything laid out and ready for assembly.

Step 4: Take a pepper and scoop the filling into the cavity inside. I was pretty liberal with it because i really liked the filling.

Step 5: Dip the pepper holding it by the step into the glass of milk and then roll it in bowl of flour until it is completely coated.
Step 6: Then again holding it by the stem dip in the milk again and roll in the crumbs until it is liberally coated. Then lay them out in the pan and let them dry. If you like a thicker crust you can do step 5 and 6 2 or 3 times to build up a thicker layer of the coating.
Step 7: Heat up some oil in a pot for frying these babies. Do not set the oil too high. Above you can see my first burnt version. The oil was way too hot. Take them out of the oil put on a plate and serve with your fav meal or eat as a snack. They can also be frozen and heated in the oven or microwave later.

We served ours up with some quesadilla's and man were they tasty!

Put a nice grin on the mans face! As he enjoys home made Jalapeno Poppers!

Biscuit follow up

2009-09-22T18:47:00.000-06:00

The left over biscuits went fast as the next day we made these beauties for lunch.
They were absolutely to die for with turkey, fresh romaine, and organic tomatoes from a local farm. All with a spread of brie cheese !
Bon Appettite!

Happy Birthday to me! ....um belated lol

2009-09-22T16:09:00.004-06:00

As you can see I've had many posts saved up over the summer and never got the time to post them. Now that Autumn is on its way things have slowed down a bit and I can catch up.

So my birthday was actually August 30th. For my birthday my awesome sister got me this Gothic birthday cake. Both me and my husband love Gothic things that are reminiscent of Victorian or "Interview with the Vampire"
So it was hilarious and gorgeous to see this come out of the box.

Done in a wonderful whipped frosting since I tend to find butter cream a little to thick and heavy for my taste.

One last lovely picture of the beauty. I loved the art on it so much I almost wanted to cringe cutting into it. Glad we did though cause the cake was delicious!

Learning to make Biscuits

2009-09-22T14:56:00.013-06:00

So during this summers fun me and my cousin bubbles decided to surprise my husband with a home made squash soup and biscuits. If you noticed a recurring theme on this blog it's squash. My husband absolutely adores squash and pumpkins in just about any form of food.

When I was a child I loved cooking and baking with my mother and also my grandmothers. It is what sowed the seeds of my love of being in the kitchen.
It was so cool to instead of be standing beside my mother learning from her to find myself teaching my sister and cousin this summer. In some ways surreal to see myself saying or doing the same things that were said to me when I was little.

It really was enjoyable. I highly suggest if you've been nervous about teaching baking or cooking to your children to try it. To see the joy they have at seeing what they can make with their own hands and the joy of seeing others enjoying the treats they made is priceless!

Plus doesn't she look just darling wearing my Apron!!!

The funnest part for her was getting to handle the dough and roll it out. We used just a basic biscuit recipe that is in my great grandmother's recipe book.

Tenn. Home Biscuits Recipe
by, Deborah Lund

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. baking powder
4 tbsp. butter or margarine or oil or shortening (lol basically whatever you have on hand. we used oil)
2/3 cups of milk or water (we used milk)

Mix dry ingredients first. Then add butter or which one you use, and use a fork to mash it and mix it in. Then add milk or water all at once and stir quickly by hand. Form into ball and knead only a couple of times. Then form into biscuits. Bake at 425 degrees for 12 minutes.

It's a pretty simple recipe and yet dipped in the soup, or covered with honey butter or my personal favorite Nutella they are phenomenal.

Bubbles loved needing the dough and cut out all the biscuits herself.
Which turned out to be a good thing because hers turned out the perfect shape and size and mine always turn out lopsided.

See how nice and even hers looked.
While the biscuits were baking we worked on the soup.

Cream of Chicken and Squash Soup
by Angel Reid aka me

1/2 chicken or whatever meat you have on hand
1 squash (we used a butternut squash that was from an elderly gentleman's home garden)
2 potatoes
cornstarch or flour for thickening if you want i t
rosemary, parsley, and Bay leaves
1 cup of milk or cream
chicken or meat broth
half stick of butter

The day before on low I cooked the chicken in some water to make home made chicken stock. You could do this easily in a crock pot. Every so often I'd check to see how far down it boiled and add a little more water to it. After the chicken is well cooked i took it out and put it in the fridge to cool and use the next day.

The next day I halved the squash and scooped out the guts and seeds. Place it in a pan with a little water in the bottom and bake for about an hour at 350 degrees.

For the potatoes i just cooked them in the microwave for 4 or 5 minutes until soft because i was to lazy to bake or boil them.

When the squash is done you scoop the soft parts out of the rind, and put in the pot of stock, add the milk butter herbs, potatoes, and mash with a potato masher.

While that is simmering on medium on the stove, shred up the chicken you boiled earlier and chuck into the soup. I love how boiled chicken practically falls apart it shreds so easily. I also used fresh rosemary from a plant we have in our back yard. Let it simmer till everything is nice and hot stirring occasionally. If you like your soup thicker just add some cornstarch once its hot or flour to thicken it.

Oh look and the biscuits are done just as you finish with the soup! I love when things work out so perfectly! Don't they look delicious. We sprayed the tops with a little spray butter to get them nice and soft.

Tada shredded chicken squash soup with amazing biscuits.
Bubbles really did a fantastic job, and husband was super happy and surprised to come home to this hot and cozy meal.

DInner rolls and Roast Beast!

2009-08-01T19:31:00.005-06:00

I have this cute cousin staying with me for the summer.

She was very excited to learn some things in the kitchen. She loved getting to wear my spare apron and even did much of the measuring, and mixing herself. She requested to learn to bake some kind of bread and make a nice dinner for my husband for when he gets home from work as.

So this materialized into our wonderful plan to make home made dinner rolls from scratch. She learned how to double a recipe, and knead dough properly.
Her favorite part was kneading the dough because she loved the feel of the flour on her hands.
(definitely related to me in that aspect!)

The rolls turned out fantastic and the family gobbled them all up within minutes.
There was definitely no leftovers.
Served with tasty rolls was roast beast (called that ever since we saw the grinch)
Steamed asparagus lightly oiled and salted, and some mashed potatoes with home made gravy. Don't forget the glass bottled mexican coke with cane sugar numnumnum.
A feast fit for our king aka The Hubby!

Muffins!

2009-08-01T19:23:00.003-06:00

Home made muffins for a tasty fancy breakfast!

So okay maybe muffins aren't the fanciest, but for us cereal eating folks it counted.
I used a basic muffin recipe and then added some fresh raspberries that I had to the mix. We then served them with some frozen grapes which were refreshing!
I also used a large muffin pan so they'd be like the ones from Mimi's cafe. If you plan to do that you'll definitely want to double the recipe or even quadruple it so you have enough to make big fluffy muffins.

What don't you drink milk in wine glasses for fancy breakfast *lol*
We had lots of fun even if we are silly!

1rst Year Anniversary

2009-07-12T23:51:00.002-06:00

Today is our 1 year Anniversary! Hopefully we'll have many more to look forward to in the future.

A little sneak peak at some of the romance. Needless to say it was a phenomenal day and even more wonderful evening.

I surprised him with a very romantic treasure hunt. He amongst the cards and trails of chocolate kisses leading around the house he found a home made cheesecake (his fav dessert) surrounded by hand dipped chocolate covered strawberries. (took everything for me not to eat them while i was dipping them they looked so good) a bouquet of flowers, a hand painted picture frame with pictures of us from our wedding, and a candlelit room strewn with rose petals and ...... oh that's where the tour stops (private show people lol). We also toasted our year together with some sparkling cider using the glasses from our wedding. Needless he was very surprised and loved all of that. It was awesome seeing the look on his face when he saw everything.

He took me to one of my favorite Italian restaurants called Carabba's.
The pasta there is fantastic and fresh warm baked bread baked in a wood stove.
They also gave us a phenomenal dessert complimentary as a Anniversary gift. I also recieved a Massage which was sooooo nice!

I'm so thankful to have found such a wonderful man!

Stuffed Peppers

2009-05-16T13:12:00.005-06:00

Last week I decided to surprise my husband with these stuffed bell peppers.
I found a pack of six for five bucks at costco that came with two of each color but green. Now normally I can't stand bell peppers myself, but I knew my husband loved them. He had a pretty bad day at work and needed some cheering up.

The recipe like many of mine I just developed myself as I went along. The results were fantastic, although I have to say we all agreed that the orange peppers tasted best with the filling.

Stuffed Bell Peppers Ing.
6 whole bell peppers (any color you desire)
1/2 lb of ground beef.
1/2 onion
1 jalapeno pepper
1 cup of rice
two small cans of tomato sauce (or one can of marinara sauce)
lots of shredded cheddar cheese
1 clove of garlic (or you can use some garlic powder)
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 tablespoons oregano
1 tsp of basil
salt and pepper

Instructions
1. chop up the onion, and garlic finely. Also take the inside seeds out of the jalapeno and chop up finely. Put all these into a pan with ground beef on medium heat to brown. I also added some salt and pepper.

2. Cut off the top of the bell peppers. Use a spoon to scoop out all the insides. Place them in a glass pan. Sprinkle a good portion of cheddar cheese into the bottoms of each pepper.

3. When beef and vegi's are browned add the 1 cup of rice and 1/2 cup of water to the pan and cover with lid.

4. Pour the contents of the tomato sauce cans into a bowl. add 1 1/2 tablespoons oregano and 1 tsp of basil to the tomato sauce. Mix well and then add to the rice ground beef mixture. Make sure to stir often mixing the ingredients so they don't stick to the bottom of the pan.

5. Once the rice mixture is cooked and the rice is the right texture take off the heat and sprinkle lots of cheddar cheese onto the filling and then mix it in.

6. Set the oven to preheat to 350 degrees. Fill each pepper to the top with the filling. Once all the peppers are full put more cheese on top and if you like put the little tops back on. Add another cup of water into the pan with the peppers. Place in the oven and bake for 45- 50 minutes.

These are a major hit, and especially tasted good with orange bell peppers.

Angel's Pumpkin Soup vid

2009-05-08T17:12:00.005-06:00

Since my husbands favorite vegetable is pumpkin. I made the attempt to come up with a creamy pumpkin soup recipe for him.
My mother caught it on video, so don't mind how awful i look or my voice, just stare at the pumpkin soup. It really was tasty, and there was no leftovers by the end of the night!

and here is the video of the final product. I always add toasted pumpkin seeds because they add a nice salty mild crunch to the soup.

Fun with crafts again!

2009-05-08T16:47:00.003-06:00

Lately I haven't been posting as much. This is do largely to me being in a more crafting and sewing mood then baking. So you might see a mix of posts.

My first experiment was in making fleece hats. I found that fleece has this wonderful affect of hypnotizing whoever is near it to touch it. It's so soft and fluffy and warm people just can't resist. Yes not even I made my will save vs the fleece.

The first experiment was this cute flop eared bunny hat which is for a young cousin of mine.

I used white buttons for eyes and sewed on a scrap of black for the nose using a zig zag stitch around it. The mouth is dotted on with permanent black marker and then gone over with zig zab stitches in black to darken it a little. Also this hat has little ear flaps to keep her ears toasty warm on cold days. I hope she gives the bunny hat a cute name!

While working on the bunny hat my younger sis made herself an awesome Dino hat with spikes. I designed it but she did all the cutting and sewing herself! It looked so cute on her she didn't take it off almost the entire time she visited. She even wore it to the zoo where many young boys were very jealous.

Then we combined our powers of "awesome" to create this hat four our mom. I designed it and sewed the basic hat, the side roughs and the eye. She cut out the pieces and sewed the ears and the white rim. The eye is colored with permanent markers in various colors on white fleece. I zig zagged black around the white eye to put it on the hat and darkened the ring with black marker.

With these plethora of cute hats coming about the hubby wanted one of his own in his Goth style.
So I made this warm and much larger black goth hat for him. The patch is a leather patch with embroidered skull design on it that I found at walmart in their craft section. He wears it to work now when it's cold since he has an outside job, and it keeps his head and ears very warm he tells me.

Belated post from Christmas

2009-05-08T16:15:00.004-06:00

So these happened at Christmas, but they were on my little sisters camera, and she finely sent them to me. My husbands favorite things in the world besides cheese is Cheesecake, and pumpkin anything.
So for Christmas my sister and I made him a homemade pumpkin cheesecake.

We even whipped fresh whipped cream to top it. This was her first time piping and she did a fantastic job!

Also to celebrate the holidays we decided cookies were in order.
Something chocolaty and fun. These are called fudgie wudgeys but my husband says they are chocolate orgasm cookies.

They are baked as little balls of chocolate fun and then rolled in powdered sugar when they come out of the oven. The recipe was from a set of cookbooks my stepmom got me called "With Heart & Soul" and "Heart & Soul: among friends"by Roxie Kelley and friends. These books are fantastic! They have the most darling illustrations in them and the recipes are phenomenal. So far we have tried four recipes from each book and every single one has gotten tasty results.

Here is me and my sister forming the cookies together.

Me and my sis cooking together.

Egg Rolls

2009-04-14T13:02:00.003-06:00

So a few weeks ago I decided to do some experimenting and made an "Asian" feast for me and my honey.

It started with some egg rolls filled with carrots, cabbage, chicken, mushrooms, and artichoke.
I found that even though they are daunting egg rolls are super easy to make and you can put any range of fillings in them. You can find the wrappers right around the fresh mushrooms or bags of salad at the grocery store.
I then used some sausage filling and leftover banana squash I had mashed up with lemon pepper and made croquettes. I was really nervous about these ones but the hubby loved them, and had wished I'd made more of them.

Then for the finale was some home made honey mustard sauce to dip into and onigiri's.
Now I've tried to make onigiri several times in the past and they always turned out tasteless and nothing compared to the one's I'd tried from the japanese market.
This time I finally found a great sushi rice recipe. Even though the hubby didn't care for them my sister and I loved them and ended up finishing off all the onigiri and rice the very next day.
I found my problem was I kept trying to use the onigiri sprinkle seasoning from the stores, and they just don't taste good to me. So instead went with a classic sushi rice flavor. It was just right.
You can find the sushi rice recipe Here
Definitely worth making again.

Fun with crafts

2009-04-13T11:42:00.003-06:00

So around Christmas time I got into a craft mood, and haven't come out of it yet.
My mom showed me how to make cute bento bags using placemats bought at walmart and target. The first one I made for my husband as a gift. I hand embroidered his name into it and made a tassel for decoration.

I like the size of these bags they are a little bit bigger then normal bento bags so I can fit a drink and a cup of yogurt or pudding in beside or on top of the bento.

Then I made this for my best friend Kitten.
She is the mistress of all lol, so I made her an appropriate bento bag.

The designs on this one I put on using fabric puff paint in black. These are often very cheap and you can get them at walmart for around 65 cents.
I've been working on more recent craft projects but without my camera I'm going to have to take pictures using hubby's phone. Hopefully should have another update soon.

Old Bento

2009-04-13T11:34:00.005-06:00

So this is a bento i did last month for my honey to take to work. He apparently had taken some picts with his phone so sorry for the poor quality.

The lower part of the bento is a potato casserole mix with some jalapeno poppers (they are from Costco and quite yummy) With a little babybel cheese.

Then to help balance out what i thought was a little too starchy i made him this cute salad.
The carrots i sliced and hand cut into little flowers. I also cut the cheese into cute shapes, and added some grape tomatos.

Because he has a bigger appetite then i do I put a bag of vegi chips in his bento bag alongside the rest of the food, and a bottle of some juice.
This was all packed into one of my brand new bento's that my sister got me for Christmas.
Isn't it cute! She also got me a red one.

After Hollidays Bento

2009-01-10T02:24:00.005-07:00

Happy holidays everyone!

Hope you had a fantastic time. Me and my family had a fun, hectic, and busy time. I did several fun dishes that i'm still trying to get some of the video from to post here. Until I figure it out here is my most recent bento.

This was made for my hubbies lunch with a brand spanking new bento box I got for christmas from my little sis. I also got a matching black bento with yellow bag.

A two tiered lunch bento. The bottom has a cuppy full of Shephards pie which I've frozen in little silicone cups for perfect bento proportions. If you are taking it from the freezer just put the cup alone in the microwave for a few minutes before you leave the house and then put it in the bento.
I've seen people do the same thing for little spaghetti nests and bento size pizza's. The cups are microwave, dishwasher and oven save up to 500 degrees. So are super great for making bento size proportions or for using as a divider for colder foods.

There is also some bagel bites with slices of a polish salami that David got for Christmas.
The top part was some fresh slices of apples and a few blackberries all sprinkled with some cinnamon sugar.

I packed it up with a side ziploc of vanilla wafer cookies since he has a bigger appetite then me and a little bottle of cold water.

Sausage Spaghetti Squash Casserole

2008-10-11T16:11:00.005-06:00

This week I made a sausage spaghetti squash casserole.

In spite of the crappy photo's it was one of the best dishes I've ever made. It was so popular that within a few minutes the whole pan was just about empty and we had no leftovers. What surprised me was I used a slightly bigger pan then usual and it still had nothing left over.
Sorry about the photo's my camera died right before it was ready and I had to use my cell phone.

A lot of people I know are daunted by squash. They look funny, they seem almost like alien eggs, you don't see them in restaurants a lot so don't know the taste. Although they look difficult they are actually quite easy to prepare and have a nicely mild flavor that goes well with just about any savory spice, meat or vegetable.
For preparation you cut your squash in half and scoop out the middle seeds and stringy bits throwing the innards away. (some people like to grill the seeds with salt and pepper like pumpkin seeds) Place each half of the squash on a pan and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour. These ones I placed face up on the pan with some butter and sprinkles of rosemary on top so as it baked it would become more savory.
When it is soft enough for a fork to smoothly go through it, take it out of the oven.

You then take the fork and drag it along the sides of the squash pulling down towards yourself. It will pull long stringy bits that look like thin noodles. This is why it is called spaghetti squash and you can make a spaghetti type dish using it.
While the squash is baking I prep the other vegetables. I chopped up very small some zucchini which i peeled, so my picky sister could not tell that there was any in the dish, four mushrooms sliced, carrots cut small so they cook faster, and a quarter of an onion also cut very small. I took a half package of country sausage and using my hands mashed it into very small pieces spread throughout the dish with all the other vegetables, and then added a liberal sprinkling of rosemary, parsley, and black pepper.

As the squash is ready peal the clumps of squash noodles and pile on top of the other vegetables,
spreading so it covers the whole baking dish. I baked this for 30 minutes or until it started to smell ready. You basically want the other vegetables to get tender. Took it out and sprinkled with fresh hand grated Sharp white cheddar cheese and put back in for just long enough to melt the cheese on top.

This was it dished up on the plate. I like this dish without a sauce because you are able to taste the different vegetables and how they blend with the sausage and herbs. A sauce overpowers all the other flavors.

Huge success as even the picky sister had two plates full, and the hubby proclaimed it one of his new favorite dishes. Definitely try it for a hearty and filling meal.

2008-10-11T16:11:00.001-06:00

Lunch Picnic Bentos

2008-09-22T13:18:00.005-06:00

Here are the lunch picnic bentos I made for meeting my hubby during his lunch break.
My hubby works as a delivery man and so sometimes I'll go meet him on his routes and we'll have a little bento picnic at a nearby park together.

He loves getting to see me in the middle of the day and having fresh food.
I made the blue set for him and the green one for me.

We had some left over Tortellini from the night before. It actually tasted even better the second day after a night of letting its flavors develop.

Also we had a salad with a little snowman with ranch dressing (originally a Christmas thing with gum that I took the gum out and found makes a great mayo or dressing holder plus it's cute), Some raspberry jello salad, and a boiled egg. You'll probably see a lot more boiled eggs in the bento's because he told me that they are one of his favorite things to have.

I got both of the rectangle hello kitty bento's at the dollar store.
I found the matching bowls a few months later on sale for 90 cents at big lots.
I find that keeping my eyes open at the dollar store every time I go there I can find some really good containers that are cheap and sturdy for making bento's. I recently found they had some more of the insulated round snack jars and grabbed a bunch since last time I did not and then kicked myself when they stopped carrying them.

I wrapped the round bento's using some ribbon. There are some silverware and napkins in there as well. Grabbed us some slurpees on the way as a treat and then had ourselves a fantastic picnic. I keep a nice picnic blanket in the trunk of my car for whenever we might feel like having one that way we can sit comfortably on the grass.

It all looked so cute packaged in this pink hatbox that my sister gave me for a wedding present.
I have two other ones of different sizes to fit varying types of bento's.

Foodie Bloggers Unite

2008-09-12T14:12:00.002-06:00

So as you know I'm a member of the Daring Bakers. We are a pretty close knit group of food bloggers who like to share the fun, passion, and love for baking and cooking. One of our fellow foodies and friends Melissa at Alosha's Kitchen had an interesting experience dealing with a marketing rep with Cook's Country, aka America's Test Kitchen and Cooks Illustrated. After reading her experience and the incredibly stupid and rude stance that they took with her I will definitely never being subscribing or buying anything from CC, ATK or CI. I think the stance they have shown her is against what I and many others stand for in the baking community. Food is something to be enjoyed by many people in many ways. If you aren't modifying your recipes to match the tastes of yourself or your family then you aren't being true to the heart of cooking. Anyone who would try to force others not to make a recipe their own is not really one of us.
Anyways she is much more elequent in her feistyness then I so I'll let you read it from her own words. You can read her post "Illegal or Not?"

I do have to say one of the things I've loved the most is the response to this from our food blog circles. There has been an overwhelming response of support. Much like a clan when one of us gets threatened or stepped on the others band together to support them. Even though we haven't met eachother and we live in all sorts of places all over the world we still are close friends. I love that we all can come together with our love of providing beautiful, tasty meals for our loved ones. This is truly the heart of cooking and being a foodie.

Breakfast Bento quick and easy

2008-08-20T16:08:00.003-06:00

So to try and get back into my bento making I made a cute and easy breakfast bento for my hubby to take with him to work.
I made it the night before and then put it in the fridge over night. He just grabs it in the morning on his way out to work.

There are two boiled eggs. He loves boiled eggs, and they are a great bento item since they are good cold or room temperature, and are a great source of protein.
There are some Parmeson Basil crackers for him to eat with the eggs, some rice pudding with extra cinnamon and white chocolate chips melted into it. Then some strawberry fruit snack yogurt bites. They are tasty and have vitamin C, A, D and calcium in them.

Here it is all closed up and ready to go. This box I got at the local dollar store. It latches on all four sides making it spill proof and very durable. They had round ones as well at the dollar store in green or blue. I got the green ones since that is my favorite color. I also put a little thing of welshes juice in the bento bag so he had something to drink.

Reaction: David absolutely loved it. He said that the rice pudding was exceptionally tasty, and that he saved the fruit snacks for later and had them as a mid morning snack.

Joyous Days

2008-08-15T14:03:00.006-06:00

You have all probably been wondering what's has been up.

It has been a month since I updated.
Gladly I am proud to Say I am now a Mrs.
July 12, 2008 we were married amongst friends and family.
David and I chose to have a medieval themed wedding that was more informal and fun.

I present Angel & David bride and groom relaxing after the ceremony.

The dress was my dream dress (I especially adore the puff sleeves!) which my very talented step mother made for me. Davids green tunic was also made by her and all of my bridesmaid dresses. She is a very talented seamstress who you can check out her website at
The Flower Girl Shoppe

If you are interested in wedding dress, bridesmaid or mens tunics, Halloween costumes she is great at them all. You just email her from the website and ask about it. The website only shows her cute dresses for little girls at the moment.

Also his mother found my perfect bouquet which was British garlands of flowers in a beautiful silver posy holder.

Below is me standing with my bridesmaids. My two younger sisters and adopted older sister.
There dresses were so gorgeous I think my step mom really outdid herself!
The site we had it at had a big stone castle theater.
The wedding looked and felt just like a little rennfaire. The musicians was this amazing group called Idlewild who came in costume and performed lovely renaissance music.
They even were so kind to give us two of their albums as wedding presents to remember the day by. Our caterers were also in costume and provided giant turkey legs and home made drinks.
Felt like a barbarian king eating their feast. We had so much left over that my mother took it to a homeless shelter after the wedding so we could share our bounty with those in need.

As you can see David looks like Oberon and is quite handsome. My sister Seanna made his leaf garland, and did my hair for the wedding. My good friend Charlotte and her mother made my veil by hand. It was the most magical day of my life in the perfect setting with the most wonderful man I have ever known.

David is prepared to fight off any bandits that might try to steal his bride away teehee.

Then of course we had the bouquet toss, which my nephews mother caught.
She definitely deserves to be the next one happily married!

This is me standing with my Mother and Father.
My dad's tunic and my moms outfit were made by my step mom.
Who while this picture was being taken was off playing with the plethora of grandsons.

My sister Jennifer who not only drove all the way from California to Utah for the wedding while very pregnant, and came in a beautiful velvet costume also went above and beyond by making my wedding cake. It is not only a beautiful castle but it was the most delicious white cake with raspberry filling that I had ever tasted. Thank you soooo much Jenny!

My father and David having a friendly sword fight out front of the castle.
Dad was nice to bring one of his extra swords for us to use, and then as a surprise gave it to David as a gift after the wedding.

We then had our honeymoon in sunny southern california at Disney Land.
This last month has been so busy but wonderful. I feel so blessed right now.
Thanks to everyone who helped make the day so beautiful and those that traveled such a long ways to be with us for our special wedding festival!

Daring Bakers June Challenge- Danish Braid!!!

2008-06-29T23:28:00.008-06:00

Delicious flaky savory meal

This months challenge ...drum roll please...

da da da da da da dum psh!
is hosted by our lovely friends
Kelly of Sass & Veracity, and Ben of What’s Cookin’?
I was sad to miss last months challenge with the opera cake, and thought that this month I wouldn't be able to participate either. I'm getting married in two weeks and still have tons to plan, and on top of that dealing with some major health problems. So needless to say I though there was no energy or time for this months challenge no matter how enticing or exciting.
Then a few weeks ago I was resting at home and realized that it was probably the only weekend in the whole month I had nothing planned. Perfect time to try the challenge. So I pushed up my sleeves, brought out my daring and decided to try what I have never tried before. Yes my friend the Danish braid. I've never made danish dough and was a bit nervous reading the recipe. It talks about folding the dough with butter. I mean folding dough that's so foreign. I'm used to giving it a vigorous kneading, not a gentle fold and roll. Definitely was shivering in my apron strings.

The rules for this month were as follows:
• Use the recipe as written to make Danish dough and create at least one Danish Braid. The recipe will allow you to make two full braids unless you choose to make only half the dough.
• Fill the Danish Braid with the apple filling provided and/or any other filling as long as it is something you make yourself from scratch.
After reading some of the others attempts I decided to use the recipe as written and make three smaller braids since there is only me and my sweetheart to feed.
I made two dessert and one savory braids. I was most nervous that I would somehow braid it wrong and that it would unwind and look like the rib cage of a zombie. (some people had this problem and though it looked kind of monster movie cool, I wanted to impress my honey.) Unfortunately due to my hands being covered in flour and butter I didn't get any pictures of just the danish dough process. I did watch the YouTube video posted with the recipe and it helped me immensely. Here is my pictures for assembling and baking the braids.

1. Savory Braid with pizza sauce, fresh sliced mushrooms, and country sausage, all sprinkled with some parsley and basil.

I cut the dough rectangle into equal thirds. Then rolled one out and sliced in upward diagonals. Those became my braid. Then down the center put my filling and sprinkled the herbs all over the inside.
I think the mushrooms looks so tasty laid out like that. I stole a few to munch on raw while assembling the braid.

I tucked in the top and then criss crossing braiding the sides. I made sure they reached all the way across and tucked them in a bit into the opposite side. I think this made it more secure, and helped it not unravel during baking.

Isn't it a cute little braid?

Here is the first one (savory) out of the oven. I was so excited because it was a nice golden color, and the entire house smelled so amazingly delicious. My honey came home and the first thing he said was "wow hun it smells so tasty in here, I can't wait to try it"
That always makes me want to bake more and more!

Another because I just can't get enough of seeing this braid.

Next came the two dessert braids. I put these together while the savory one was raising and then baking. The recipe called for an apple filling which I thought sounded nice and traditional. David requested a strawberry cream cheese one too. I decided to do both and please us both.

2. Sweet Strawberry with sweetened cream cheese.

The cream cheese I mixed with a tablespoon of lemon juice and a cup of powdered sugar. I also added some vanilla extract and orange extract for flavoring.

David helped out by slicing the strawberries super thin. I sprinkled them with some cinnamon and sugar and layered them on top of the spread of sweetened cream cheese.

Here you can see I brought the bottom up so the filling won't fall out. Then started braiding down from the top, alternating bringing each strip across.

Fresh out of the oven you could see a bit of the sweet strawberry oozing at the top. It looked so tempting.

Also before baking it I sprinkled a little of the powdered sugar on top so it would bake into the dough. It added a nice sweetness to the outside of each bite as well.

3. Sweet Apple and Oats filling, over sweetened Ricotta cheese.

The apple mixture I simmered together. I decided I wanted to add something different. So I added a cup of raw oats to the mix. The apples are called "pink" apples which have a really nice tart flavor without the after taste that many of the tart green apples have. I highly recommend them.

It thickened up nice like a toffee. I think I might make the mixture just with the oats sometime and lay it out in a pan to harden. Me and David snacked on the oat taffy chunks while waiting for the pizza braid to finish baking.

after letting the mixture completely cool in the fridge I took pieces of the very sticky mix and put them down the center for filling.

The apple mixture is on top of some ricotta cheese that i added lemon juice and powdered sugar to. I also added a bit of the vanilla extract, and some corn starch to thicken it.
Tucked in the top and bottom of the braid.

And began to braid down from the top. You'll also notice I've sprinkled cinnamon sugar all over the inside of the braid.

I had a little extra dough I cut off from one of the lopsided pieces. I made a cute little croissant with it. The apple braid smelled like fresh apple pie.
It was very tempting.

I love the golden color that the dough turns after it is baked.
All the braids had such a moist flakiness to them, and the fillings were super tasty.

Here was our dinner that night. The tasty pizza sausage braid, some fresh grapes, and a salad topped with cottage and mozzarella cheese with a tad of ranch.
When all is said and done I would say that this recipe is absolutely worth trying. I very much plan to do it again and experiment with different fillings and perhaps shapes too. Try making some traditional danishes. One of the great things about the danish dough is that you can make extra and freeze it for up to a month. It does take quite a bit of time to make the danish dough, but is not hard at all.
I thought mine tasted even better then what you get at the grocery bakery. David loved it and said it's probably his new second favorite dinner right below the stuffed acorn squash.

TADA!
and here is the recipe for your enjoyment

Danish Braid:

For Your Consideration:
• This recipe calls for a standing mixer with fitted attachments, but it can easily be made without one. Ben says, "Do not fear if you don't own a standing mixer. I have been making puff pastry by hand for many years and the technique for Danish pastry is very similar and not too difficult." Look for the alternate directions in the recipe as appropriate.
Yard recommends the following:
• Use well-chilled ingredients. This includes flour if your kitchen temperature is above 70 degrees F (~ 21 degrees C).
• It is recommended that long, continuous strokes be used to roll the dough rather than short, jerky strokes to make sure the butter block is evenly distributed.
• The 30-minute rest/cooling period for the dough between turns is crucial to re-chill the butter and allow the gluten in the dough to relax.
• Excess flour accumulated on the surface of the dough after turns should be brushed off as pockets of flour can interfere with the rise.
• Yard calls for a "controlled 90 degree F environment" for proofing the constructed braid. Please refer to this chart to assist you in this stage of the challenge:

Proofing Temperature For Fresh Dough
(room temp) For Refrigerated Dough
Degrees F Degrees C
70 ~ 21 1-1/2 to 2 hrs. 2-1/2 to 3 hrs.
75 ~ 24 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 hrs. 2 to 2-1/2 hrs.
80 ~ 27 1 to 1-1/4 hrs. 1-1/2 to 2 hrs.
85 ~ 29 45 min. to 1 hr. 1 to 1-1/2 hrs.
90 ~ 32 45 min. 1 hr.

• When making cuts in the dough for the braid, make sure they are not too long and provide a solid base for the filling.
• Ben on Cardamom: It can be very expensive as some stores, but if you have an Indian store nearby, it can be considerably less expensive than at your local grocery store. If you can't find it or it is still cost prohibitive, then you can use a substitute. Many people would say that there is no substitute for the unique flavor of cardamom and it is better to leave it out. But I've found out that combining cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg in equal portions words pretty well. Of course, it doesn't come close to the cardamom taste, but it worked just fine for one of my test batches.
• Kelly's Two Cents: I had some green cardamom pods on hand and used 16, cracking and emptying the contents into a grinder to get the quantity called for in the recipe for the dough. The quantity barely put a dent in my 1 oz. bottle. If you don't have an Indian store near by, you may consider on-line spice retailers like http://www.thespicehouse.com/spices/car … -and-black or http://spicebarn.com/cardamom_seed.
Yes, there's postage involved, but you'll have cardamom for many other
recipes for a fraction of the cost, even with postage.

Additional Resources:

Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan. There are a variety of filling recipes that work quite well for Danish Braid.

Danish Pastry technique on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg-zXn_Y … re=related Interesting general information on laminated dough (not specific to our recipe or Danish Braids).

PBS.org – Julia Child: Lessons with Master Chefs
http://www.pbs.org/juliachild/meet/ojakangas.html#
Video cut for a Danish Pastry Braid by Beatrice Ojakangas who is the featured baker of the Danish Braid recipe in Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan. Great information.

Flickr.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/basmatiheather/935273632/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/haniela/2381828293/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sanverus/2112201250/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14537151@N06/2141409184/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/64143414@N00/2414102571/
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DANISH DOUGH

Makes 2-1/2 pounds dough

Ingredients
For the dough (Detrempe)
1 ounce fresh yeast or 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1/2 cup whole milk
1/3 cup sugar
Zest of 1 orange, finely grated
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped
2 large eggs, chilled
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
3-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt

For the butter block (Beurrage)
1/2 pound (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour

DOUGH
Combine yeast and milk in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on low speed. Slowly add sugar, orange zest, cardamom, vanilla extract, vanilla seeds, eggs, and orange juice. Mix well. Change to the dough hook and add the salt with the flour, 1 cup at a time, increasing speed to medium as the flour is incorporated. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes, or until smooth. You may need to add a little more flour if it is sticky. Transfer dough to a lightly floured baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Without a standing mixer: Combine yeast and milk in a bowl with a hand mixer on low speed or a whisk. Add sugar, orange zest, cardamom, vanilla extract, vanilla seeds, eggs, and orange juice and mix well. Sift flour and salt on your working surface and make a fountain. Make sure that the "walls" of your fountain are thick and even. Pour the liquid in the middle of the fountain. With your fingertips, mix the liquid and the flour starting from the middle of the fountain, slowly working towards the edges. When the ingredients have been incorporated start kneading the dough with the heel of your hands until it becomes smooth and easy to work with, around 5 to 7 minutes. You might need to add more flour if the dough is sticky.

BUTTER BLOCK
1. Combine butter and flour in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat on medium speed for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and the paddle and then beat for 1 minute more, or until smooth and lump free. Set aside at room temperature.
2. After the detrempe has chilled 30 minutes, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough into a rectangle approximately 18 x 13 inches and ¼ inch thick. The dough may be sticky, so keep dusting it lightly with flour. Spread the butter evenly over the center and right thirds of the dough. Fold the left edge of the detrempe to the right, covering half of the butter. Fold the right third of the rectangle over the center third. The first turn has now been completed. Mark the dough by poking it with your finger to keep track of your turns, or use a sticky and keep a tally. Place the dough on a baking sheet, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Place the dough lengthwise on a floured work surface. The open ends should be to your right and left. Roll the dough into another approximately 13 x 18 inch, ¼-inch-thick rectangle. Again, fold the left third of the rectangle over the center third and the right third over the center third. No additional butter will be added as it is already in the dough. The second turn has now been completed. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.
4. Roll out, turn, and refrigerate the dough two more times, for a total of four single turns. Make sure you are keeping track of your turns. Refrigerate the dough after the final turn for at least 5 hours or overnight. The Danish dough is now ready to be used. If you will not be using the dough within 24 hours, freeze it. To do this, roll the dough out to about 1 inch in thickness, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and freeze. Defrost the dough slowly in the refrigerator for easiest handling. Danish dough will keep in the freezer for up to 1 month.

APPLE FILLING
Makes enough for two braids

Ingredients
4 Fuji or other apples, peeled, cored, and cut into ¼-inch pieces
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
4 tablespoons unsalted butter

Toss all ingredients except butter in a large bowl. Melt the butter in a sauté pan over medium heat until slightly nutty in color, about 6 - 8 minutes. Then add the apple mixture and sauté until apples are softened and caramelized, 10 to 15 minutes. If you've chosen Fujis, the apples will be caramelized, but have still retained their shape. Pour the cooked apples onto a baking sheet to cool completely before forming the braid. (If making ahead, cool to room temperature, seal, and refrigerate.) They will cool faster when spread in a thin layer over the surface of the sheet. After they have cooled, the filling can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Left over filling can be used as an ice cream topping, for muffins, cheesecake, or other pastries.

DANISH BRAID
Makes enough for 2 large braids

Ingredients
1 recipe Danish Dough (see below)
2 cups apple filling, jam, or preserves (see below)

For the egg wash: 1 large egg, plus 1 large egg yolk

1. Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper. On a lightly floured surface, roll the Danish Dough into a 15 x 20-inch rectangle, ¼ inch thick. If the dough seems elastic and shrinks back when rolled, let it rest for a few minutes, then roll again. Place the dough on the baking sheet.
2. Along one long side of the pastry make parallel, 5-inch-long cuts with a knife or rolling pastry wheel, each about 1 inch apart. Repeat on the opposite side, making sure to line up the cuts with those you've already made.
3. Spoon the filling you've chosen to fill your braid down the center of the rectangle. Starting with the top and bottom "flaps", fold the top flap down over the filling to cover. Next, fold the bottom "flap" up to cover filling. This helps keep the braid neat and helps to hold in the filling. Now begin folding the cut side strips of dough over the filling, alternating first left, then right, left, right, until finished. Trim any excess dough and tuck in the ends.

Egg Wash
Whisk together the whole egg and yolk in a bowl and with a pastry brush, lightly coat the braid.

Proofing and Baking
1. Spray cooking oil (Pam…) onto a piece of plastic wrap, and place over the braid. Proof at room temperature or, if possible, in a controlled 90 degree F environment for about 2 hours, or until doubled in volume and light to the touch.
2. Near the end of proofing, preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Position a rack in the center of the oven.
3. Bake for 10 minutes, then rotate the pan so that the side of the braid previously in the back of the oven is now in the front. Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees F, and bake about 15-20 minutes more, or until golden brown. Cool and serve the braid either still warm from the oven or at room temperature. The cooled braid can be wrapped airtight and stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, or freeze for 1 month.

Bonnie's Lemon Jello Cake

2008-05-23T16:11:00.003-06:00

Bonnie's Lemon Jello Cake

So this week we had some birthdays in the office. My bosses wife being a kind and fantastic baker made a quick cake to celebrate for one of the co-workers. This woman is known for bringing in the best (I'm serious i mean THE BEST) home made gingersnap cookies any of us have ever had. She's created epics like her chocolate chip zucchini bread. Well this lemon cake is pretty tasty too, and the best part is it's super easy using basically a box cake (or you can substitute your own cake mix recipe. I have a yellow one i like to use) and some jello and lemons.
It was super moist and the glaze on top was delicious. Each bite had quite a bit of that lemony flavor. It was almost like eating a lemon meringue pie in cake form.

Ingredients:

1 yellow cake mix

3 oz package (small) lemon J-ello

1 1/3 cup water

½ cup oil

4 eggs

Mix, bake in greased pan 350 degrees 35-40 minutes

Poke cake w/ fork

Pour glaze over. Refrigerate.

Glaze

Zest 1 lemon

Juice 1-2 lemons

Powdered sugar

A Worldly Epicurean's Delight - Mexican Dipping Feast

2008-05-15T22:32:00.005-06:00

Yes my friends a fabulous event to explore culinary tastes and adventures from around the world. This time the beautiful and talented DK at Culinary Bizaar

brought us a tasty piece of Mexico. The only thing I regret is it required making everything Vegetarian. Though I love vegetables I'm very much not a Vegetarian and prefer most of my food with a little meat in it. Still nonetheless I managed to create something fun and tasty.
You can check out the event here.

So you are probably wondering what tasty fun. Can you guess just with this picture of some ingredients? No?

How about now?
okay enough playing around you've probably figured it out already.
I decided to make some layered bean dip, homemade guacamole, and fresh salsa.
All topped off with some home made chips; frying provided by my sweet heart.

the bottom layer for the dip is a mix of pinto refried beans and black refried beans. Oh yes two kinds my friends mwhahahahahahah!
Then a layer of chopped mushrooms, and olives.
There is a quarter of it with no mushrooms or olives because my friend Elwin can't stand them and is picky and I tried to please him even if it totally goes against the grain to leave them out.
Then it is guacamole layer time.
I took some perfectly ripe avacodo's and mashed them up in a bowl.

OOh i could eat them just like that. I love avocado!!!

Then I mixed in some salt, pepper, fresh squeezed lime, and sour cream.

Super creamy yummy!

The salsa was my moms recipe minus the jalapeno peppers.
Yes I made an abomination. Salsa with no peppers. I don't like peppers and I really don't like spicy. So whats in it you ask?
4 fresh vine ripened organic tomatos (to die for)
handful of cilantro
Four cloves of garlic chopped finely
half an onion
salt and pepper
some paprika (i added this)
quarter of a lime with the peel removed

I then put all these ingredients into this cool salsa grinder thingy that my mom gave me.
Turn the crank vigorously and it chops all the ingredients together.

The bean dip was topped off with two kinds of mexican cheeses.
Cotija which I liked the most. It had a stronger flavor and reminded me of mozzarella
and Ranchero which was more flaky and reminded me of parmesan.
Put the thing in the oven to get it warm and gooey. Scoop on plate, add home made chips and Walla you've got mexican dipping feast.

~Isn't it perdiful~

We brought everything over on Friday for our anime night. Much feasting joking was had by all.
Ole!

Daring Bakers Challenge- Cheese Cake Pops Ahoy!

2008-04-27T12:19:00.007-06:00

Pirates rum pops!

Okay maybe not, but what else would you think of when you have so much delicious rum flavor in such a small treat.

Even Jack sparrow would be satisfied with these treats.

Okay well lets start over then shall we.

Daring Bakers Present the Daring CheeseCake Pop!!!

“and the crowd goes wild” wooooooo!

Okay gorgeous people out there this month once again it's daring baker time, and the lovely

Elle from Feeding my Enthusiasms
&
Deborah from Taste and Tell

brought us the fantastic challenge of cute little cheesecake pops.

Aren't they darling. This month was a nice fun break from the many time consuming rough challenges, and definitely one worth showing off.

The most challenging part for me was dealing with the chocolate coating. Never having made candy before and it seemed a bit temperamental. I did buy the kind from Michaels for candy though instead of doing the recipe one so it would have just the perfect texture with the cheesecake.

First I made the cheesecake. It was a straight forward recipe although mine cooked for about 50 minutes to an hour (much longer then the recipe asked for). I also added to it a very generous amount of rum flavoring. Hmmmm rum cheesecake sooo tasty!

Here is the lovely cheesecake half scooped already.

Then I got tablespoon scoops of cheesecake and rolled them into balls putting them on my nice nonstick mat, and adding the lollypop sticks.

Little Balls

And with lollypop sticks.

Then these I put in the freezer for three hours to get nice and hard.

After getting nice and firm I brought them out for a little swim in some milk chocolate. I added a bit of rum flavoring to the chocolate too. I mean seriously you can't have too much rum flavoring!

I did end up making the first batch with lollypop sticks and took them to work. I found them to be more of a pain then a help. So the second batch I made without the sticks as little bon bons. Those were much easier to eat and to wrap.

Here are my pirate lollypops, full of yummy rum ye mateys!

Here are my cute pirate rum bon bons. Shiver me timbers!

So when making the cheesecake there was some extra batter so I decided to make a few cute heart shaped cheesecakes with the remaining batter. I then doused them in melted milk chocolate, and chopped almond roca finely to put on top. My fiancee almost had a mouthgasm eating them. The almond roca with the cheesecake was amazing.

Very Pretty too. He loved the romantic surprise.

Tasty!!!

Here is the recipe for those of you who wants it.

Cheesecake Pops

Makes 30 – 40 Pops

5 8-oz. packages cream cheese at room temperature

2 cups sugar

¼ cup all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

5 large eggs

2 egg yolks

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

¼ cup heavy cream

Boiling water as needed

Thirty to forty 8-inch lollipop sticks

1 pound chocolate, finely chopped – you can use all one kind or half and half of dark, milk, or white (Alternately, you can use 1 pound of flavored coatings, also known as summer coating, confectionery coating or wafer chocolate – candy supply stores carry colors, as well as the three kinds of chocolate.)

2 tablespoons vegetable shortening

(Note: White chocolate is harder to use this way, but not impossible)

Assorted decorations such as chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees) - Optional

Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Set some water to boil.

In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream.

Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a spring form pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes.

Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.

When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.

When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it's shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety.

Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.

Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionery chocolate pieces) as needed.

Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.

Yar, Here's a bite for ye too.

Little Wonders- Blogging for Babes Challenge

2008-04-21T08:59:00.005-06:00

So this month is the March for Babies which is all about the littlest among us, the event is for little creations. Holly at Phe.mom.enon is not only holding this fantastic blog event to spread the word but is also going to be in the march. Check out and donate if you can, learn more here, and most of all spread the word! Also visit our roundup where you can see everyones Awesome creations and vote on your favorite Here (please vote for me)!!

So here is the only requirement. Make something (or many somethings) in miniature or small sizes, and man did I have fun with that.
As any bento loving woman or girl out there we have a fondness for cutesy things and small things so this event was a no brainer.

I present cute miniature single serving strawberry layered star and heart cakes!!!
These babies are adorable enough to win the grinch over, tasty enough to grab the most stalwart stick in the mud, and easy enough that your kid sister could probably do them.

For these cakes I used Dories perfect party cake recipe from the last daring bakers challenge. This time though I used almond extract instead of the lemon, and chopped up a half cup of white chocolate chips really finely which I added to the batter.
Found box full of cute individual sized star shaped foil pans (actually on the box says they are for jello jigglers) that worked perfect for the star cakes. The best part was they were easy to pull off and are only a freaking BUCK!!! I mean seriously super cheap.
The hearts were from a heart pan that I bought around valentines day.
For the heart ones I layered the bottom of the pans with some raw oats, and then poured in the batter. Then topped them with a sprinkling of oats. We've been eating those with no frosting as a breakfast treat for the last few days. They are just the right amount of sweetness.

The stars I sliced each in half putting whipped cream and fresh sliced strawberries as a filling. Re-assembled them and frosted with more whipped topping! YUM ! topped with some strawberries. These babies I brought to our weekly anime night where friends happily engorged on them.

Heart and stars XOXOXOXO hug, kisses, and lots of love!

March Daring Bakers Challenge- Dories Perfect Cake

2008-04-01T19:20:00.005-06:00

This months awesome challenge was hosted by Morven at Food Art and Random Thoughts.
She gave us the awesome recipe for cake. I was very excited because both me and my sweet heart love vanilla, and her cake was the base for what looked like a phenomenal white fluffy layered cake.

Here I have my dry ingredients, eggs, and buttermilk. I loved whisking this and did it all by hand. I'm a bit of an old fashioned girl.
It became this nice thick consistency almost more like pancake batter then normal cake batter.
It tasted good (yes i did taste the batter & no i'm not going to die from it)

I put them in their respective pans to bake.
This is where Sudden Doom occured.
I wanted to do something different and try out my rose pan that I've never used before.
I'd never made a layered cake before but thought it looked like well..... a piece of cake.
I also tried to adjust for our elevation but it didn't work.

The round cake turned out fluffy golden and perfect.

I turned it over on the rack to completely cool. Getting ready to see what my beautiful rose tin and created for me.

Behold the burnt umber rose, also known as Peice of CRAP!
The inside was a beautiful white fluffy cake, and the outside a brown hard burned flower.
poor little ugly duckling.

Things got worse, and I mean waaaaaaaaaaaay worse.
I tried making a whipped cream frosting with a bit of the filling flavoring added.
I was packing up to go out of town the very next day and I knew I wouldn't have time to make the buttercream.
I stirred it too long or maybe it was too warm or maybe it was possessed who knows?
but It turned out seperated and weird colored and wouldn't spread.
I ended up in my messy kitchen in tears worried that the beautiful vanilla cake was done for.

At least I got a chance to use my very cute new cake plate. It's a heart from Kitten my special friend.
Luckily my beloved he tried to make it look ok while i was in being quite morose.
He sliced it and even ate a huge peice.
I tried a bit thinking it would taste as bad as it looks.
Well my friends Dorie knew what she was doing even if I surely didn't because it was possibly the tastiest, fluffiest, moistest white cake I'd ever eaten.

So here is to my ugly duckling which tasted better then a swan.
(lol doesn't that sound a bit creepy)

Here is the recipe for those who wants it
Note: I made mine with no lemon. Everything was vanilla, and the filling was champagne peach and berry jam. With some raspberry jam on top of that too.

Dorie's Perfect Cake Recipe

PERFECT PARTY CAKE
Courtesy of Dorie Greenspan’s Baking from My Home to Yours (page 250).
Posting date Sunday 30 March.

IMPORTANT NOTICE - RECIPE EDITED MARCH 10TH
(sorry I'm still a bit of a blogger "dummy" so don't know how to highlight in red). For those of you who don't read all the comments or don't have Dorie's book, there were a couple of omissions which some diligent Daring Bakers picked up. If these contributed to a "floppity flops" - my sincere apologies. Please note the changes in bold below - one is the reference to a 1/4 cup of lemon juice and the second is in relation to whisking together the egg whites and milk in the 2nd line of making the cake. I've also expanded on the Update on Playing Around.

Introduction from Morven
I wanted to pick something that had potential for putting your personal stamp on. Although this is essentially a white cake I know there are some lemon haters among us so feel free to use your imagination. If you inner chef tells you that you need to make a chocolate layer cake then by all means do so. See Dorie’s words on playing around below for some flavour combination ideas.

Update on playing around. Yes you can do what ever you want with this cake as long as you promise to use the basic cake recipe and the basic butter cream recipe (if you are doing the butter cream that is) . The filling/frosting flavors are completely up to you. If you don't feel like using Dorie's butter cream recipe (flavored as you wish) she says whipped cream will do for the filling and finishing and I say... go for it. If you want to use fondant or something else - it's your cake. Bake a square one, a heart shaped one or any other shape you like but please make it a layer cake.

I can't wait to see what combinations people come up with. You can leave out the lemon, put different flavors of preserves in the middle, leave off the coconut - have some fun with it.

Words from Dorie
Stick a bright-colored Post-it to this page, so you’ll always know where to turn for a just-right cake for any celebration. The original recipe was given to me by my great dear friend Nick Malgieri, of baking fame, and since getting it, I’ve found endless opportunities to make it – you will too. The cake is snow white, with an elegant tight crumb and an easygoing nature: it always bakes up perfectly; it is delicate on the tongue but sturdy in the kitchen – no fussing when it comes to slicing the layers in half or cutting tall, beautiful wedges for serving; and, it tastes just as you’d want a party cake to taste – special. The base recipe is for a cake flavoured with lemon, layered with a little raspberry jam and filled and frosted with a classic (and so simple) pure white lemony hot-meringue buttercream but, because the elements are so fundamental, they lend themselves to variation (see Playing Around), making the cake not just perfect, but also versatile.

For the Cake

2 1/4 cups cake flour (updated 25 March)
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups whole milk or buttermilk (I prefer buttermilk with the lemon)
4 large egg whites
1 ½ cups sugar
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 stick (8 tablespoons or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ teaspoon pure lemon extract

For the Butter cream
1 cup sugar
4 large egg whites
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 large lemons)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For Finishing
2/3 cup seedless raspberry preserves stirred vigorously or warmed gently until spreadable
About 1 ½ cups sweetened shredded coconut

Getting Ready
Centre a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9 x 2 inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each pan with a round of buttered parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.

To Make the Cake
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.
Put the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant.
Add the butter and working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light.
Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed.
Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated.
Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients.
Finally, give the batter a good 2- minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated.
Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch – a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out clean
Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unfold them and peel off the paper liners.
Invert and cool to room temperature, right side up (the cooled cake layers can be wrapped airtight and stored at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to two months).

To Make the Butter cream
Put the sugar and egg whites in a mixer bowl or another large heatproof bowl, fit the bowl over a plan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes.
The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like shiny marshmallow cream.
Remove the bowl from the heat.
Working with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the meringue on medium speed until it is cool, about 5 minutes.
Switch to the paddle attachment if you have one, and add the butter a stick at a time, beating until smooth.
Once all the butter is in, beat in the butter cream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6-10 minutes.
During this time the butter cream may curdle or separate – just keep beating and it will come together again.
On medium speed, gradually beat in the lemon juice, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more, and then the vanilla.
You should have a shiny smooth, velvety, pristine white butter cream. Press a piece of plastic against the surface of the butter cream and set aside briefly.

To Assemble the Cake
Using a sharp serrated knife and a gentle sawing motion, slice each layer horizontally in half.
Put one layer cut side up on a cardboard cake round or a cake plate protected by strips of wax or parchment paper.
Spread it with one third of the preserves.
Cover the jam evenly with about one quarter of the butter cream.
Top with another layer, spread with preserves and butter cream and then do the same with a third layer (you’ll have used all the jam and have butter cream leftover).
Place the last layer cut side down on top of the cake and use the remaining butter cream to frost the sides and top.
Press the coconut into the frosting, patting it gently all over the sides and top.

Serving
The cake is ready to serve as soon as it is assembled, but I think it’s best to let it sit and set for a couple of hours in a cool room – not the refrigerator. Whether you wait or slice and enjoy it immediately, the cake should be served at room temperature; it loses all its subtlety when it’s cold. Depending on your audience you can serve the cake with just about anything from milk to sweet or bubbly wine.

Storing
The cake is best the day it is made, but you can refrigerate it, well covered, for up to two days. Bring it to room temperature before serving. If you want to freeze the cake, slide it into the freezer to set, then wrap it really well – it will keep for up to 2 months in the freezer; defrost it, still wrapped overnight in the refrigerator.

Playing Around
Since lemon is such a friendly flavor, feel free to make changes in the preserves: other red preserves – cherry or strawberry – look especially nice, but you can even use plum or blueberry jam.

Fresh Berry Cake
If you will be serving the cake the day it is made, cover each layer of butter cream with fresh berries – use whole raspberries, sliced or halved strawberries or whole blackberries, and match the preserves to the fruit. You can replace the coconut on top of the cake with a crown of berries, or use both coconut and berries. You can also replace the butter cream between the layers with fairly firmly whipped sweetened cream and then either frost the cake with butter cream (the contrast between the lighter whipped cream and the firmer butter cream is nice) or finish it with more whipped cream. If you use whipped cream, you’ll have to store the cake the in the refrigerator – let it sit for about 20 minutes at room temperature before serving.

~HEAR YE, HEAR YE~

2008-03-26T00:06:00.006-06:00

Hear Ye, Hear Ye


Let it be known that on the 15th day of September
in the year of our Lord two thousand and eight
the house of Ladd has pledged its firstborn daughter
Angel
to the house of Reid in marriage to their secondborn son
David


Yes my friends I'm recently engaged to be married. I'm very
 excited and very happy.
Look at him, isn't he gorgeous. Yep even his eyes shine with
love... well that or it's just the spark of his psychopathy.
Either way he'll fit in with my family just perfect.

Here is a peak at the engagement ring for all you out there
that wish to twitter over it.
It's actually a turkish puzzle ring beautiful and entertaining at the
same time woot!!!

Prison Plum and Strawberry Pie

2008-03-25T23:03:00.008-06:00

Jack Horner
Little Jack Horner sat in the corner
Eating his Christmas pie:
He stuck in his thumb, and pulled out a plum
And said, “What a good boy am I!”

This was the poem that inspired me to make this pie. I had never had a plum pie before. I read about them in old nursery rhymes and stories, so they must have once been popular.
Well now I must know what a plum pie is like. Even if I don't stick in my thumb to pull out a plum. Also I found this interesting link that tells more about the history of this poem Here.
I took the two recipes from Epicurious.com and modified them a bit for a personal touch.

So I was going to do this pie for the Pi week event, but then got so busy with my mom visiting and my car breaking down that I missed the deadline. So instead I made it for a dinner party we had. It is a spiced plum and strawberry pie. I call it prison pie because instead of doing a lattice top i just put the strips across it and it made me think of prison cell bars.

I also had fun decorating it with two leaf cutouts and a slice of strawberry. Also the top crust is covered with a light cinnamon sugar mixture that was baked onto it.

The crust recipe was very tasty especially with the added vanilla extract i put in it, but wasn't very cohesive (part of why the lattice top idea didn't work) I think it looks pretty cute anyways in its tin waiting for some filling.

Here is the plums and Strawberries chopped up and mixed with the filling ingredients all stirred together. Doesn't it look yummy?

Here are the prison bars keeping that naughty filling from escaping. Oh we'll show it who's boss later.

then sprinkled the cinnamon sugar across the top of it. Right before putting it in the oven to bake.

Final result a very delicious and amazing pie. Everyone loved it and raved about it. It was sweet with a perfect consistency. I definitely plan to make this pie again. It was fantastic!!!

Recipe's:
Below is my version you can see the original recipe Here.

Spiced Plum & Strawberry Pie

2 pie dough disks

3 tablespoons plus 1 cup sugar
1 3/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon, divided
4 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 pounds plums, halved, pitted, each half cut into 4 wedges
1 pound of sliced or chopped strawberries.

2 tablespoons milk

Preparation

Roll out 1 pie crust disk on floured surface to 13 1/2-inch round. Transfer to 9-inch glass pie dish. Trim overhang to 1 inch. Refrigerate crust while preparing filling.

Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 375°F. Place foil-lined baking sheet in bottom of oven to catch any spills. Mix 3 tablespoons sugar and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon in small bowl; set aside. Whisk 1 cup sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon, and next 5 ingredients in large bowl. Add plums & Strawberries, and toss to coat. Spoon filling into crust, mounding slightly in center.

Roll out second pie crust disk on floured surface to 13 1/2-inch round. Drape crust over filling; trim overhang to 1 inch. Press top and bottom crust edges together. Fold edges under; crimp. Using sharp knife, cut four 2-inch-long slits in center of top crust to allow steam to escape. Brush crust (but not edges) with cream. Sprinkle reserved cinnamon sugar over crust.

Bake pie 30 minutes. Tent pie loosely with foil to prevent over browning. Continue to bake until filling bubbles thickly through slits, about 1 hour longer. Cool completely on rack.

BBM Woot

2008-03-21T16:01:00.000-06:00

Alright so there was this awesome event to participate in, and participate i did!!!
You can view our lovely hostess Stephanie's blog Here
Well me and my good friend kitten decided to join in the fun ooh but then she had a very clever idea. Lets up the play a bit and make identical twin boxes. One we would mail to our assigned bbm person and the other to each other.
I recieved Kittens box first. She must have been pretty excited to send it so quickly.
Look at this loot, its like freaking Christmas. You should have heard me squeal when I opened it.

Look at this beautiful site that awaited me. Doesn't this seem like soooo much fun!!!
That's because it was!

Clever girl that she is she put her treats in this super cute and perfectly sized, easy to clean pretty in pink mixing bowl. Included is green spatula (my favorite color) some little tart tins, vanilla bean sugar, some province french herbs (i cook everything with herbs woot) Green cake decorating spray (me and her have the same favorite color go figure.) some green M & M's, a firey chocolate bar (very exotic with chili flavor added)

Oh my friends but that is not all. Included cute little designed recipes that she made for me.
These are some of her favorite recipes to make and now they are mine mwhahahaha.
Be prepared.

She put these super fancy teas which smelled so good. I've tasted the ginger peach one already and it was so nice and comforting. There was also a blackberry one. Then this flavoring stuff in four different flavors to go in hot cocoa.

This is the weird chocolate bar. I wanted you to see I wasn't kidding when it said fire on it.
Weird isn't it. My boyfriend really loved the flavor of this since he adores dark chocolate.
I'm more of a milk chocolate person myself though.

This was my favorite of the dish towels she sent me. I think the gator with the heart in its mouth is just so darling.

Once again you can tell our favorite colors are green. Isn't this adorable. and one next to it is swirly hearts.

Okay I got some bonus prizes in here that her person didn't get. SSSSSHHHH don't tell.
One is this amazing porcelain plate to display my treats on. Also a ring pop since I'm her princess, and needed decent ring rofl. Already ate that since it was cute and tasty.
Thank you so much Kitten you totally made this month. Please check her out at her awesome blog Wyckedsweetdesigns.

That isn't the end my lovely viewers.. oh no we have more.
Then just when I thought things couldn't possibly be more awesome possum I recieved this awesome package from Britain. Looking at the box I grew excited trying to think of how things might be different in Britain when I recieved a humorous surprise.

The Masterful, Majestic, Magnificent, Michelle from GreedyGourmet decided to pull one over my head and actually made a delightful box of treats from the place she grew up South Africa.
How freaking cool is that!!!

She made sure it was extra secure with this foam, and warned me if something was missing that customs stole it. Luckily for me everything was there.

Her letter was fun, informative and funny. I laughed quite a few times and think she's probably a sister soul.

She put all these interesting treats in the box. All from South Africa. I've never seen any of these in the states before so found it to be quite an educational and tasty experience.
My favorite was the "p.s. your looney bar"

There was also a cute zebra bookmark (great since I'm a super bookworm) a cute hand carved wooden lucky keychain. And the most magnificent hand dyed and painted african cloth. Also just happens to be in my two favorite colors of Green and Black. How cool is that.
So this event was a blast and I totally made out like a bandit or a pirate... you know what i mean.
Thank you ladies for a fantastic wonderful plethora of gifts.

Cute Finds

2008-03-18T23:54:00.005-06:00

So exploring the dollar store and local Asian market I found some cute finds for my growing bento obsession/ collection.
I was so excited too, although after a bit of a row with the owner of the Asian market who didn't speak English very well and was trying to force me to buy an item that another woman had knocked off the shelf and broke, because I took the time to point it out to him, I don't think I'll be returning to this particular place.

I got this very cute afternoon tea bento set. It includes bag, single tier bento with divider, and a fork in matching fork case. Its super duper cute!! Some onigiri seaweed wraps pre-cut in the right size, some cute wooden picks, yun yuns (sooo tasty), some Tupperware containers soon to be used as bentos, chopsticks, Panda bear treats, and instant miso soup packets.

Here is a close up of the bento, and the cute wooden picks.

All in all quite a successful set of finds. Also from this place I got my mom a cute green bento that has little removable cubbys in it to separate the food, and a matching bento bag. I will try to get pictures of that one this week too.

Daring Bakers February Challenge

2008-03-02T22:06:00.012-07:00

Daring Bakers:
Bakers who dare to do recipes that are outside of our comfort zones.

Bakers that live on the wild side whether it is melting mixing bowls by accident, or setting off smoke alarms.

Bakers that share each others successes and defeats, holding each other up giving advice and encouragement.

Most of all Daring Bakers HAVE FUN!!!

Well I certainly strive to be a daring Baker!

Well this month I was going to cop out, but the Daring baker in me just wouldn't have it.
It was so hard to find time, for this marathon recipe and I wanted to do it justice.
So here with out much ado, is my attempts at our February challenge provided by the beautiful and talented Mary and Sara
They chose an epic piece by Julia Child's. Her amazing French Bread. Here is the Recipe.

I started with kneading the dough by hand. I don't have a kitchen aid so it was the good old fashioned way like my Grandmother and Mother both do.
This cute little dough ball I named "Doughy" and I spent much of the kneading time singing and humming to doughy and begging him to grow up into a nice set of bread.

Doughy was kind of tired after so much kneading so I laid him to rest in a nicely greased bowl for a nap. He even has a little blanket to keep him warm.
What a spoiled dough!

Doughy slept for a very long time, but it was time to get him up again.
He was kind of gaseous and needed to be burped.
So I flattened out all the gases in him and kneaded him a bit more for good measure.

Then I placed him back in his bowl to finish his nap.

Doughty liked his nap soooo much he grew three sizes bigger.
What a big boy!!

Don't you think he's cute? I thought so.
but then something went horribly wrong ....dun ... dun ... dun

Then came the time to cut and shape him. He tried really hard, I really can't think that it's his fault. So it must have been me. I think I either didn't shape them right, or perhaps I didn't cut the pieces evenly. Either way poor Doughy was kind of small and skinny and looked a bit weird.
I think he was probably the geeky kid in dough school.

Well after all that time spent I wasn't going to just give up, although a fit of hysterics did feel pretty close to the surface. I sprayed them with some cold water and put them in the oven.
I even added the tray of water in the bottom of the oven hoping to help.
They looked a bit burned to me when they came out of the oven.

Yet they had a nice golden color to them.
I once again brushed cold water on the crusts and left them on my cooling racks for the two hours.
This was hard because I wanted to see if the insides were all hard or not.

Two hours later we checked them ... and.......

Much to my delight even though not the best shapes the crust was the perfect crusty texture somewhat hard, and the inside was nice and soft and fluffy.
The taste of it was phenomenal.

Good Job Little Doughy You've grown into some beautiful breads in spite of my mistakes!

We celebrated this wonderful turn out by slicing up one of the thinner ones into little crackers and having them with some polish sausage and sharp cheddar cheese.

This was a truly delightful and European meal to finish off the baking marathon.
I think next time though I will cut it into two portions instead of three, and make two nicely sized baguettes instead.

Late

2008-02-29T09:18:00.002-07:00

If you've come here looking for the awesome DB challenge, I'm sorry but I'm going to be a bit late.
This month is a fantastic challenge, but due to having absolutely no 9 hours to spare this month I was going tot have to pass on it.
Yet seeing everyone's breads has made me yearn to do my own. So do not fear my loving readers, I will be making mine this weekend on Sunday and promise to post then too.
Better late then never.
&
Two loaves are better then one.
Please check back again on Sunday March 2nd

Sunshine Bentos!!!

2008-02-28T23:24:00.013-07:00

Two beautiful sunshine Bento's.

So this winter has been one of the worst I've ever seen. There has been layers of snow week after week. It's enough to drive a native California girl crazy. This week the sunshine finally came out and melted some of the snow. I was so happy today I walked out to the mail box three times just to enjoy it. These bento's are to celebrate and hopefully welcome more sunshine here.
They also are an issue of pride since it is my very first time trying to make my own Tamagoyaki.

The pink one is my new afternoon tea bento set, and the green one is for David in a very masculine hello kitty bento.
Each bento is made up of a sun and a flower, or I guess it could be interpreted as two suns. Whichever makes you personally smile more.

There is a flower center made of sweet peaches, and the leaves are sliced buttered toast. (I like having toast with my eggs.) The sun is made from sliced Tamagoyaki roll that was seasoned with garlic, salt, onion powder, and parsley.
I actually used something between the cheater's method found from my idol Biggie on her Shortcut Tamagoyaki tutorial
and the traditional folding method.

I did try to do it the traditional way of making a folded omelet but as you can see it was a bit lopsided and not very pretty.
That is when I stepped in with biggie's method to make it more attractive and hold together well.

I put it on some saran wrap on my bamboo mat, and then used the bamboo mat to roll it into a nice long cylindar shape.

Behold the beauty of the omelet now!!

Then i sliced it into cute pieces. I like how mine looked since it still showed the folds, but i like the cheater method to help it along. Since I'm not good at making normal omelets much less making a rolled one look right.

Tada!! Two lovely breakfast sunshine bento's packed up and ready to go.
We had Peach Mango juice with each of ours.

Breakfast Bento in 3 minutes

2008-02-28T23:21:00.002-07:00

I woke up late and had to rush out the door. So this bento was made in 3 minutes flat.

It is left over greek potatos that i put some cheese on, and the top part is canned peaches with sprinkled cinnamon on them. All washed down with black current raspberry juice.
It was taste simple and quick.
when I got to work i put it in the microwave for a few seconds to melt the cheese.

A Beary Cute Bento

2008-02-23T00:28:00.004-07:00

So my second day of breakfast bentos. Since David works tomorrow, but I don't I've made him a little breakfast to take with him on the road.
Here we have bear shaped waffles with rainbow sprinkles and a little container of 100% maple syrup to dip them in.
The second tier is sliced up banana and a little chocolate treat.
He loves his sweets so this should definitely wet his appetite.

I partially added the sprinkles just to add some fun colors. The bento seemed too yellow to me.
Also he is always telling me that when he was in the netherlands they ate sprinkles all the time on any breakfast. Especially toast apparently. *shrug* who knew dutch people liked sprinkles so much? Perhaps I was also meant to be dutch in my past life. I too have a love of sprinkles, I just prefer mine on ice cream... YUM!

Then we've got banana again. Yes you might have guessed it, but we have quite a few banana's that he bought because they are one of his favorites.
You might even say we have a "plethora" of banana's rofl.

And last but not least don't forget the little chocolate treat in the corner.
That my friends is not just any chocolate treat, but a genuine sees candy.
Breakfast Bento Two Complete!

A New Chapter- Bentos

2008-02-21T23:40:00.006-07:00

So you are probably wondering where the heck all my bento's have gone.
Yes I mean Angel the site is even called "Angel's Bento Blog" accent on the bento blog part.
All we see anymore is baking stuff and romantic dinners, i mean come on already where are the bentos?
I know I know...
Well the truth is since I've gotten me a handsome honey pie I've been going out for most of my lunches so that we can see eachother during the day.
I love getting to see him especially since he often gets off work later.
So there hasn't been much opportunity for bento making my friends.
Today though as I surfed through all my bento buddies pages I found my self feeling a strong sense of homesickness to make a bento. Looking at all the cute ideas, and recipes, and bento boxes... oh how I yearned to make bentos again. At the same time I am not willing to give up my fun lunch times with my sweetheart.
What oh what is a poor girl to do?
That is when I received inspiration from our friend at Lunch Bucket Bento
Who on a regular bases makes breakfast bentos. I'm often hungry in the mornings, and can't wait until lunch. I often don't have time for breakfast and just run out the door.
*light bulb comes on*
duh I can start making breakfast bentos for myself. So fokes that is the plan.
Something as I was reading that she brought up really resonated with me.
She talked about how bento making isn't as hard or as expensive as many people think it is at first sight. I can attest to this since majority of my bentos are from the dollar store, or were actually containers I washed out from side salads or to go boxes from restaurants. (Wendy's side salad container is awesome, and Applebees has great to go containers.)
Anyways read her thoughts on it here
and dispel some of the myths you might have about bento fun.

This is the cute and simple breakfast bento I made for David to take with him to work tomorrow.
He often stops at a gas station and gets sugary donuts and crap food that will probably kill him someday. =P
So here is a healthy bento breakfast made with lots and lots of love for my honey bunny!
It is a cherry bagel with peanut butter and honey spread in it. Also a banana (his favorite fruit) where I put honey with plastic wrap on the end to keep it from browning.
(i saw this on the site too, and thought I would try it)
Mine is the same, except I'm having cream cheese on my bagel.

Here it is all packed up with a bottle of white cranberry juice to wash it down and a folded up napkin to wipe away any sticky honey he might get on his fingers or face.
LOL aren't I a thoughtful girlfriend.
Hopefully the nightmare before Christmas bag will be manly and goth enough to make up for the fact that the breakfast is in a Hello Kitty box.
He's secure in his masculinity right?... no really. ... guys... hey guys........

Beautiful Wonderful Valentines Day

2008-02-16T11:35:00.011-07:00

So for this Valentines Day I got off work and rushed home to make a romantic meal for me and my sweetheart to enjoy. As I walked in I found that he'd beaten me home. I told him I'm going into the kitchen to start making the food and am quite surprised when I see this.

This is the sweet love note he left me in a pot of gold.
Oh not just any pot of gold though....

My dream crock pot that I've been coveting for ages now, full of chocolates!
I squealed and screamed and tackled him with kisses. I was sooo surprised I couldn't believe it.
Already ideas of all the wonderful meals I can cook in it for us.
I then got to business making the stuffed acorn squash that he loves and steaming some vegi's to go with it.
Then he tells me that I need to go to the computer room. I'm thinking "oh no thats where I hid my gifts for him." I run up there hoping not to find my packages out of their hiding nook and instead find my computer chair inhabited by such a nice gift I almost didn't believe it was real.
He had gotten me a shiny new digital camera so that I can take better and more pictures for my blog.

12.1 megapixels can you freaking believe it. I'm so excited now my blog picts are going to be sooo much better, and now I want to go somewhere fun so I can take tons of pictures of us and family together!!
Oh no but it's not finished as crazy as it sounds there is even more.

Yes my friends to go with the shiny new camera is a shiny new photo printer, scanner, copier.
Are you kidding me. I feel like a princess!!!
Well after touching everything and trying out the camera we went down and had a romantic dinner, watched some anime, and had much snuggling and smooching.

I loved that as he was eating the squash he kept grunting and moaning "this is sooo good" "oh man this tastes soo good". Definitely stroked the cooking ego lol.

Dinner consisted of country sausage stuffed acorn squash, garlic toast, and steamed vegetables.
With beautiful green tinted wine goblets of strawberry sparkling cider.

It was so romantic, and cozy and wonderful. We both had such a fantastic Valentines Day.
I love any excuse for a celebration!!!
Below is David, my sweetheart. He spoils me rotten and is so kind and thoughtful. He has restored my faith in humanity as well as love. He really is my Paladin & Hero.

He came into my life when all I knew was despair. I was ready to give up on this world, and he showed me that there are still honest people, there is still chivalry, and most of all that not everyone is out just for themselves.
Thank you baby for bringing so much joy into this world.

I want to dedicate this poem to him which I read and it completely touched my soul. It was like feeling deja vu because it so described how I feel.

This poem is by Richard Watson Gilder, 1892

"I count my times by times that I meet thee;
These are my yesterdays, my morrows, noons
and nights; these my old moons and my new moons.
Slow fly the hours, or fast the hours do flee,
If thou art far from or art near to me:
If though art far, the birds' tunes are no tunes;
If thou art near, the wintry days are Junes,
Darkness is light, and sorrow cannot be.
Thou art my dream come true, and thou my dream;
The air I breathe, the world wherein I dwell;
My journey's end thou art and thou the way;
Thou art what I would be, yet only seem;
Thou art my Heaven...
My ever-living judgment day."

I wish love and joy to everyone else this year as well, and hope you all had a fantastic Valentines day.

Kitchen of Love

2008-02-09T21:11:00.000-07:00

So down at our good friend Mele Cotte we got a fantastic event. Kitchen of Love is an event where we were to all make a dinner or appetizer for our loved one that has at least one (but i chose all) ingredients to be an aphrodisiac. The only other rule was that it couldn't be a dessert.
If you want to see all the great roundup entries on Feb 12 go Here.

For my Aphrodisiac Dinner
we have tender steamed salmon, succulent asparagus, and delectable carrots.
all topped with a minced garlic and basil butter sauce.
All with a side of baked garlic toast
and goblets of the most amazing knudsen blueberry sparkling cider.

Fish
Aphrodite, the goddess of love was born from sea foam, so in general any type of seafood is considered to be an aphrodisiac. The high phosphorus and iodine content of seafood may actually have a beneficial effect on sexual potency.

Asparagus
Perhaps the most erotic member of the vegetable kingdom. In nineteenth century France bridegrooms were required to eat several courses consisting of asparagus, asparagus and more asparagus because of its reputed powers to arouse.
Carrots
This popular root vegetable, with its phallic shape and sweet flavor, was used to seduce lovers by Middle Eastern royalty. Our question is: "Why does royalty needed to depend on carrots?"

Garlic
This pungent member of the lily family has been used to treat a wide variety of illnesses from the common cold to heart disease. Garlic has been used as an aphrodisiac by the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Chinese, and Japanese. Garlic mixed with lard used externally to bring on an erection has been suggested by a professor at USC medical school. (Do not try this around a hungry German Sheppard.) Garlic stimulates the appetite, awakens the senses and makes food taste great.
Basil
This flavorful herb is used in Voodoo love ceremonies in Haiti. (teehee i had to try it when i saw vodoo ceremonies)
If you want to see other interesting aphrodisiacs check out "the cooking couple"

So you are probably wondering how did my beau take it.
Huge success!!! The salmon was tender and the light buttery sauce complimented the flavor without covering it up. It was some of the best salmon I've ever had. The carrots & asparagus were steamed just to perfection where they were tender but still had tons of flavor. I drizzled some of the garlic basil sauce on them and the fish. The toast was a nice solid side to compliment the amazingly fresh and tasty ingredients of the rest of the meal.
Then we topped it off with this amazing sparkling cider. If you can get your hands on any knudsen ciders definitely try them. They are made from 100% juice and have a much better flavor then any sparkling cider or soda pop I've ever had. We've so far tried their Mango, and black cherry. This blueberry one is even better then those. Next time we are going to try the pear sparkling cider.

Such a wonderfully romantic meal for two.
Whether these aphrodisiac's are true or myth they certainly did
increase our romance for the evening.

Happy Chinese New Years!

2008-02-07T14:02:00.000-07:00

THE YEAR OF THE RAT, 2008

February 7, 2008 - January 25, 2009 (Earth)

According to the Chinese Zodiac, the Year of 2008 is a Year of the Rat (Earth), which begins on February 7, 2008 and ends on January 25, 2009. First in the cycle of 12 Animal signs, Rat Year begins the sequence and recurs every twelfth year. It is a time of renewal in so many ways. From New Year to Valentine's Day, to the arrival of spring, may all the blessings and delights of the New Year be yours.

A Rat Year is a time of hard work, activity, and renewal. This is a good year to begin a new job, get married, launch a product or make a fresh start. Ventures begun now may not yield fast returns, but opportunities will come for people who are well prepared and resourceful. The best way for you to succeed is to be patient, let things develop slowly, and make the most of every opening you can find. People born in an Earth Rat are said to be logical realists, shrewd, charming, ambitious, and inventive. Of course, the entire horoscope must be considered when making any personality assessment.

In Chinese, the Rat is respected and considered a courageous, enterprising person. People born in the Year of Rat are clever and bright, sociable and family-minded. They have broad interests and strong ability in adapting to the environment and able to react adequately to any changes.

They are gifted in many ways and have an easy going manner. They are active and pleasant, tactful and fantastic, and are able to grasp opportunities. They seem to have interests in everything and hope to participate in doing it and usually do it very well.

You can see more about this and some lovely brush paintings here

A Heart for my Valentine

2008-02-03T09:46:00.000-07:00

A Heart for my Valentine
Heart shaped Raspberry Lemon Tarts

This month we have a fantastic affair being hosted by 1x umrühren bitte
Where we can make anything for it, anything but it needs to be a heart. It is to help give us inspiration for our valentines, and also to celebrate this month set aside to pay ode to Love. You can see the rest of the awesome entries at the roundup Here.
I decided that I adored the lemon meringue recipe that we used four our January challenge that I wanted to make it again but this time with my own twists.

First I made the tart shells using the dough recipe. I bought this really adorable heart shaped pan that does six at a time. I managed to get the dough recipe to make 12 tarts. If I do it again I'm definitely going to double the recipe and make 24, and I'm going to make the shells a day ahead that way it won't be such a long marathon in the kitchen.

Once I had all the shells baked and cooling I made the custard. The secret to getting the custard to set up right was stirring forever and ever.... and ever... and ever ....and ever.
It takes a lot of arm muscles and you have to cook it long enough, if you don't you end up with soup like many other beloved daring bakers had on their pies. To make the custard I put a quarter of my raspberries mushed and mixed in with the egg mixture and a quarter in with my lemon juice. I put the berries in the cup and then poured the lemon juice on top to the right amount. I also added the vanilla and lemon zest in with the lemon juice and 2 teaspoons of marionberry jam. I mushed the berries in both mixes and whisked the egg berry mix pretty good.

The custard was a wonderfully thick delicious berry flavor with the lemon not being to intense (i used a bottle of lemon juice so it wouldn't be so tart vs fresh lemons) The filling was soooooo delicious that I licked the whisks, and the spoons, and the scraper all clean.
Then I made the meringue after adding the sugar I added just two drops of red food coloring so it would turn a pretty shade of pink. The meringue was soo cute on top.
I got out my pastry bag and piped the meringue onto the tarts making little heart swirlys.
Baked it at at 350 for a little longer then the recipe asks for since i wanted them to be a little more evenly baked. Then put them in the fridge to cool.

Then added the raspberries as a finishing touch!! Tada!!!
They look so cute. I have never made such a cute dessert before. I was so excited to take them to my friends house for our Dungeons and Dragons session and see what they think.

Oh little tart you are so Adorable I could just eat you up!!!

Teehee oh and we did.
They were a huge hit with the D&D crew. Everyone thought they were cute, and loved the flavor. They kept asking for seconds; so definitely a big hit.

I love how it looks with the dark pink custard and the light pink meringue. Definitely both turned out in pretty colors.

If you want this recipe for your own definitely check out my previous Daring Baker post for Lemon Meringue Pie. I would definitely recommend the recipe, and my friend wycked and I both found it an easy recipe to modify to make your own flavors of pie.

Daring Bakers January Challenge

2008-01-28T17:47:00.001-07:00

Daring Bakers, who are we?

we're an online community of bakers who, once a month, receive a recipe chosen by that month's host, make the recipe without modifications (unless allowed by the host), and then blog about the experience on the same day. By following the same recipe, we have a good basis for comparing our results and we get to flex our baking muscles.
We have a separate blog with the links to the participants' blogs!

Lemon Meringue Pie Challenge

So this month we rolled back our sleeves and dived in to some Lemon Meringue Pie. Pie happens to be my favorite kind of dessert; so as you could guess I was very excited. On top of that Jen at The Canadian Baker

Chose a fantastic Lemon Meringue Pie recipe for us. Thankyou Jen it was FANTASTIC!

So I've never made Meringue before or lemon meringue pie it was something new, something daring, something absolutely delicious. The great part was even though this took a lot of arm power and coordination the recipe steps themselves are very simple. The lemon curd though is stirred forever in a pot gradually adding ingredients. I stirred mine a lot and felt like my arms were going to fall off. Wicked though gave me some advice to make sure i cook the curd and bring it to bubbling where it says in the recipe. Many people had mentioned that theres were turning out watery and she thought they might not have cooked it long enough.
I don't know if she was right, but her advice seems to have worked because my pie turned out perfect. The curd stood up to perfect consistency the meringue was delicious and the only problem was its soo good there just isn't enough to satisfy everyone.
Also this recipe would be easy to modify and use for other styles of pie. Definitely a keeper in my book.

Here is the Recipe for those of you who DARE!
Lemon Meringue Pie

Makes one 10-inch (25 cm) pie

For the Crust:

¾ cup (180 mL) cold butter; cut into ½-inch (1.2 cm) pieces

2 cups (475 mL) all-purpose flour

¼ cup (60 mL) granulated sugar

¼ tsp (1.2 mL) salt

⅓ cup (80 mL) ice water

For the Filling:

2 cups (475 mL) water

1 cup (240 mL) granulated sugar

½ cup (120 mL) cornstarch

5 egg yolks, beaten

¼ cup (60 mL) butter

¾ cup (180 mL) fresh lemon juice

1 tbsp (15 mL) lemon zest

1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla extract

For the Meringue:

5 egg whites, room temperature

½ tsp (2.5 mL) cream of tartar

¼ tsp (1.2 mL) salt

½ tsp (2.5 mL) vanilla extract

¾ cup (180 mL) granulated sugar

For the Crust: Make sure all ingredients are as cold as possible. Using a food processor or pastry cutter and a large bowl, combine the butter, flour, sugar and salt. Process or cut in until the mixture resembles coarse meal and begins to clump together. Sprinkle with water, let rest 30 seconds and then either process very briefly or cut in with about 15 strokes of the pastry cutter, just until the dough begins to stick together and come away from the sides of the bowl. Turn onto a lightly floured work surface and press together to form a disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least 20 minutes.

Allow the dough to warm slightly to room temperature if it is too hard to roll. On a lightly floured board (or countertop) roll the disk to a thickness of ⅛ inch (.3 cm). Cut a circle about 2 inches (5 cm) larger than the pie plate and transfer the pastry into the plate by folding it in half or by rolling it onto the rolling pin. Turn the pastry under, leaving an edge that hangs over the plate about ½ inch (1.2 cm). Flute decoratively. Chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350ºF (180ºC). Line the crust with foil and fill with metal pie weights or dried beans. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Carefully remove the foil and continue baking for 10 to 15 minutes, until golden. Cool completely before filling.

For the Filling: Bring the water to a boil in a large, heavy saucepan. Remove from the heat and let rest 5 minutes. Whisk the sugar and cornstarch together. Add the mixture gradually to the hot water, whisking until completely incorporated.

Return to the heat and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly until the mixture comes to a boil. The mixture will be very thick. Add about 1 cup (240 mL) of the hot mixture to the beaten egg yolks, whisking until smooth. Whisking vigorously, add the warmed yolks to the pot and continue cooking, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil. Remove from the heat and stir in butter until incorporated. Add the lemon juice, zest and vanilla, stirring until combined. Pour into the prepared crust. Cover with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming on the surface, and cool to room temperature.

For the Meringue: Preheat the oven to 375ºF (190ºC). Using an electric mixer beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar, salt and vanilla extract until soft peaks form. Add the sugar gradually, beating until it forms stiff, glossy peaks. Pile onto the cooled pie, bringing the meringue all the way over to the edge of the crust to seal it completely. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden. Cool on a rack. Serve within 6 hours to avoid a soggy crust.

Daring Bakers Extra Challenge
Free-Style Lemon Tartlets

Prepare the recipe as above but complete the following steps:

To roll out tartlet dough, slice the dough into 6 pieces. On lightly floured surface, roll each circle of dough into a 5 inch disk. Stack the disks, separated by pieces of plastic wrap, on a plate, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

To bake the dough, position rack in oven to the centre of oven and preheat to 350ºF (180ºC). Place the disks of dough, evenly spaced, on a baking sheet and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown. Cool completely.

To finish tartlets, first place oven rack in the upper third of the oven and increase heat to 425ºF.

Divide the lemon filling equally among the disks, mounding it in the centre and leaving a 1-inch border all the way around.

Spoon the meringue decoratively over each tartlet, right to the edges, in dramatic swirling peaks. Return tartlets to oven and bake for about 5 minutes, until the meringue is golden brown.

Additions:

You can make one pie or tartlets (in a tin or free-form)

You can compliment your pie with a sauce. For example, you can serve it with raspberry or white chocolate sauce.

You can use a piping bag to apply the meringue if you like.

Decoration is up to you - lemon zest or fruit are totally acceptable.

Pie recipe courtesy of Wanda’s Pie in the Sky by Wanda Beaver, 2002
Tartlet recipe courtesy of Ripe for Dessert by David Lebovitz, 2003

Think Spice- Think Garlic!

2008-01-25T17:54:00.001-07:00

So decided to try the monthly think spice challenge hosted by Sunita's World.
It was when i saw the clove of garlic I couldn't resist. Garlic is one of my favorite things to cook with whether dried and ground, fresh chopped, baked, broiled, sauteed it is a savory spice that goes with almost everything. Often my mother would drill into me how healthy garlic is. She even eats it raw when she is sick, and every time she ends up over her sickness faster then anyone else. You can see the challenge guidelines here.

So I present Angel's Garlic Baked Chicken.

OK so the recipe is something I made up as I went along. I tend to love cooking as a more ad lib affair. I Put the chkin in a baking dish and covered it in soy sauce. I added some extra soy sauce on the bottom of the dish (but didn't have them soaking in it). I cut up two large cloves of garlic fresh and sprinkled liberally on top of the chkn. Then I added some savory, and some fresh ground Coriander. The coriander is the secret to the flavors here since it has a interesting flavor that complimented the garlic perfectly. I then added about a 1/4 a cup or less of water to the bottom of the pan, covered it in foil and baked at 375 degrees for an hour. Baking it like that made the chkn turn out very tender, and it was super savory. Didn't need any salt at all.

We then served it on a plate of sauteed mixed chinese vegi's.

This Dish is super simple, but also amazing flavors in the chkn. Garlic being the main performer.
Thankyou Sunita for a Fantastic highlight of Garlic.

Comfort Food

2008-01-24T18:42:00.001-07:00

Nothing like warm irish stew on cold winter days like this to bring you comfort.

I was going to submit this for the comfort food challenge but unfortunately my stupid computer refused to upload the picture for it until it was too late. sigh.
It's been snowing here more then any year I've seen, and it was so nice to have my sweet heart come home out of the cold to some warm stew with hot garlic bread to dip in the broth.
The greatest part about stew is it's warm comforting, simple to make, and feeds a lot of people.
This has large chunks of Yukon gold potatoes, Carrots, stewing beef, and lots of herbs.

Stuffed Acorn Squash

2008-01-14T21:32:00.000-07:00

A Fantastic Dinner for two. Made by yours truly.

So I wanted to make one of the guys I'm dating a fantastic meal to come home to. So on the menu tonight was Stuffed Acorn Squash... My own recipe tada!
Served with garlic sourdough bread toasted with thyme. A fresh green salad with avocado sliced on top, Blueberry Cranberry juice to drink.
We had his favorite for dessert which is cheese cake.

the Acorn squash is slightly sweet and tastes really good with the salty sausage and herb filling.

Ooh doesn't it just make you want to take a bite.

Two easily made bentos from the leftovers. There is salad dressing in the blue snowmen.

Angel's Stuffed Acorn Squash Recipe

three acorn squash
1lb Italian Sausage
1 package of cream cheese
two cloves of garlic
1/4 of a red onion chopped finely
1/4 tsp sage
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp rosemary and thyme
Mozzarella cheese shredded

Directions: Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Take the acorn squash cut them in half and scoop out the inards.
place them on a baking pan (I put mine in a cake pan so i can steam them a bit towards the end)
Chop up garlic and onions very finely and add to cream cheese mix in a mixing bowl. Then add all the herbs and mix some more. Then add the Sausage (raw) into the cream cheese mix and continue mixing until the sausage is completely covered with the cream cheese mixture.
Scoop meat mixture into the little bowl area of the acorn squash. Put in oven and bake uncovered at 400 for 30 minutes.
Then turn down temperature to 300 degrees (or 250 depending on your oven) add some water in the bottom of the pan, cover with foil and put back into oven for another 25 minutes. This will moisten and steam the squash up a bit.
Then take out uncover, and add the mozzarella cheese to the top of each squash. Put back in the oven for 5 minutes just to melt the cheese. (this is also when i put the garlic toast in the oven to melt the butter and toast up a bit.)

Back from the Holidays

2008-01-08T09:18:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

Wanted to leave a quick note to let you know that I haven't abandoned the blog.
I've been away for the holidays visiting family. Christmas was pretty fantastic, and one of the best ones I've had in many years. I have adorable nephews and a very fun family.
I also did make out like a bandit. I received much in the way of baking pans, a kitchen scale, a candy thermometer, very fancy and sharp knives in their own cutting block and with a matching cutting board, and to top it all off the Stainless steel cooking set I've been dreaming about for years. I will hopefully get around to taking some pictures to show it off.
I do have some old pictures I was supposed to post before I left and didn't get around to it.
So Hopefully this week I'll get those out even if its just a montage of pictures.
Hope everyone had a fantastic wonderful holiday!!

Angel

The Great Glop Bentos

2007-12-10T19:24:00.001-07:00

Made myself some tasty Glop for dinner

Had enough left over that I made two lunch bentos with it. The glop is hamburger, cut up carrot, purple onion, and frozen peas stir fried with rosemary, lots of basil, a pinch of parsley, lots of pepper, and some paprika. Then I added a can of sloppy joe sauce, and let it cook on medium covered until boiling. I stirred pretty often so it would stick to the bottom of the pan. I served it over a bed of twisty noodles, topped with some cheese and pinch of parsley.

The bentos are made of the Glop dinner, with a glop of cottage cheese, and another glop of cherry stuff. Also included is a tasty almond rocca. (totally addictive)
The glop inspite of its gloppiness is very tasty. I like the texture the cut up carrots added.

Work Treats

2007-12-06T18:40:00.001-07:00

So for my work apparently there is a tradition that in December they have someone bring in a different treat every day leading up to when we have Christmas break. Today was my day to bring something in so I baked up some cupcakes. They are easy to eat, easy to clean up after and don't require any utensils.

The ones on the left were done in my new mini cupcake pan for bentos. They are so adorable and cute. My little sister would have adored them since she loves anything little or miniature.

The cupcakes are a spice cake recipe that has lots of cinnamon and nutmeg. The frostings were both prebought in cans. One vanilla white frosting with sprinkles, and the other is Butter Pecan Carmel Coconut frosting. I also put chocolate chips in the batter. So randomly you'd get a yummy bite of chocolate while eating them. They were a success I think. Out of the eighteen I made there were only two left when i left work today. Woot.

2007-12-06T18:34:00.001-07:00

Ok left is my dinner bento for Anime Night tonight, and right is my lunch bento for today.

I made mini cupcakes in my tiny cupcake pan and they are the perfect size for the bentos, and a cute little bite sized morsel.

On the left is some stir fried vegis, and on the right angel shaped potatos and some carrots both baked.

Also have some dried apricots for fruit, and some cottage cheese with shredded cheese on top. I was in the mood for a more salty taste.
The angel's and bears looked really cute.

Lunch Savory Bento

2007-12-06T18:25:00.001-07:00

A beautiful lunch bento that I had yesterday.

For our top layer we have pasta mixed with vegetables and butter, sweet pickles and the last handful of my purple grapes.

For our bottom tier we have left over baked chicken and potato wedges from Smith's and some cinnamon sugar graham crackers, and one carmel filled choclate for dessert.

Pasta with Vegitables Bento

2007-12-04T16:36:00.000-07:00

Decided to use the single tier bento for my lunch today.
Hello Kitty is waving to you in the back lol.

Bento lunch consists of twisty noodle pasta with vegetables. The sauce was a buttery type sauce.
Also has the second to last handful of my yummy plump purple grapes, and some cottage cheese with raisins.

It all looked so tasty and I was so starving by lunch I inhaled it.
See the destruction left behind.....fear me oh bentos.

Lunch & Dinner roundup

2007-12-02T19:31:00.001-07:00

Dinner bento and lunch bento

On the left we the delicious work lunch time bento. Left over corn on the cob, purple juicy grapes, sauteed porkchop, and cottage cheese with cherry pie filling on top of it.

On our right we have the delicious twin "anime night" dinner bento. With left over corn cut off the cob, edamame, porkchop, grapes, and cottage cheese with cherry pie filling in my new hippo container. (ooh its so adorable i love it) also have my cute knew silver ware with the reindeers on them. Kawai!!

Close up pictures because i get carried away with the camera and just adore snapping pictures of my food.

I really like the cottage cheese with cherry pie flavoring. The cherry pie stuff adds a sweet and tart flavor that compliments the cottage cheese really well.

It all fits so perfectly in my little bento bag. Even has room for the bottle of mixed milk and eggnog. I find it too strong for me without some milk added.

Leftover Lunch Bento's to the second power

2007-11-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

So this is yesterday's lunch bento. Its leftover carrots and potato's, corn on the cob, and roast sirloin. With grapes and a candy. The corn didn't quite fit but i was able to force the lid on inspite of that. For tomorrows lunch I made something very similar. Except decided to cut the corn off the cob and save myself some trouble.

Has corn formerly known on the cob, carrots, grapes, roast beef, and some tasty Monet crackers to eat with the beef. Yes I know I lack variety, but remember for every four days I'm eating this that's four days I'm not living off of ramen noodles like I'm used to. Makes me feel almost rich to be eating real vegi's and meat and not stuff from a can.

Bento Holiday

2007-11-27T18:36:00.000-07:00

So this last week I was very blessed to have my family come and visit me. This consists of my mom, my brother, and my two younger sisters. We are a crazy wacky family that have tons of fun together and no matter how many miles separates us are very close to one another in spirit.
This incredible gift was given by my Ex-Step Father who wanted us to be able to be together for the holidays. They all came in on last Wednesday evening. There flights so spread out i spent almost the entire night at the airport. Knowing they wouldn't be getting in till 11pm I figured they would be very hungry. So I made all of of them and my friend who we were giving a ride dinner bentos. To my large surprise the bentos were a humongous hit with all of them. They were all hungry, and thought they were cute. I even brought some juice boxes to quench their thirst. They ate them in the car on the drive home (i live a ways from the airport). My mom and sisters liked theirs so much they decided they wanted to start making bentos too. Which since I let them keep each bento I gave them they now have a head start. We spent part of the weekend looking for different cute things to use as accessories for our bentos. Which my loving Uncle Car (he's like my personal daddy long legs) donated some funds to help us get some cute bento accessories.

The bentos have home made mini potato bread pizzas (yes from the daring bakers challenge and they were a hit.) A babel cheese, some gapes, edamame, a fortune cookie and some poky sticks. All topped with little individual juice boxes.
So here are the accessories. I got cute little Christmas fork and spoon that match my hello kitty bento. One has snowmen on them and the other has reindeer. A little baby washcloth to wipe up after myself, a cute hippopotamus container for apples sauce, cottage cheese, or whatever I want to put in it. Three oven safe, dishwasher safe, and microwave safe silicone cups. Perfect for putting things in or baking individual bento sized servings. Also some mini metal cookie cutters for cutting small shaped vegi's or cookies. I chose the angel (because I am angel) and the teddy bear( I love teddies). Some Christmas sauce containers. Ok they are actually gum containers that were the perfect size and lids to be sauce containers. I really like the Christmas tree ones, and my sister Kayla picked out the snowmen ones. Under it all is a brown and gold cloth place mat that me and my mom are going to sew into a home made bento bag over the holidays. We got all of these for each of us, but I only have pictures of mine. There was monkey containers for Kayla, and Tigers with Hippo's for my Mom and Sister Seanna.

Daring Bakers November Challenge

2007-11-26T17:28:00.001-07:00

Can we say Noobs ARE US

So this is my first challenge as a daring baker, and yes challenge it was.
We were given the recipe for a wonderful homemade potato bread.

We all had to follow the same recipe, and the only changes you could make was how you shaped your bread, and seasoned it.
All seasonings had to be savory, no dessert.
I decided to make one loaf, a foccaccia loaf, and some mini pizzas.
I used Yukon Gold potato's and boiled them the night before to save on time.

The dough was incredibly sticky. Much more then I expected and I had lots of problems kneading it. The real disaster came though when I put it in my large mixing bowl to rise. Me thinking oh the heat from the oven will help the yeast rise better sat the bowl on top of the stove above the oven.
Yes this is the part where you all yell at the screen "no don't do that" or "what in the world were you thinking"
Apparently I wasn't thinking very well, because my plastic bowl melted. It cooked the bottom of the dough rising in the bowl, and I almost set my kitchen on fire.
So i cut off the bottom of the dough that had cooked, and put the rest back into the steel bowl it originally was mixed in.

It looked like disaster though had been averted and I continued on in spite of the melted plastic smoke in my kitchen. Above is the mini pizza's. I managed to burn the cheese on them, and peeled it off. Luckily the bread part was fine, so i just seasoned it and used them in bento's i made for my family that was coming to visit for Thanksgiving.

This is the wonderfully incredibly sticky potato dough i like the potato mushed chunks in it.

My Foccaccia bread was drizzled with an egg wash and Hazelnut oil. (I wanted to try something different) I put dried rosemary, ground salt, and Fresh chopped garlic on it. It turned out beautiful smelled good, and no one in my family would eat it. Most of it got thrown away.

My potato loaf was a bit overcooked on the top. It also didn't rise as much as I had hoped but over all was pretty good.

Oh my poor sweet potato bread.
I was very excited about this challenge and felt like it was definitely a growing experience. I'm pretty sure though I will never ever make this recipe for potato bread again.
Which is kind of sad since I'm a very strong lover of potatoes.

Berry Delicious Pie

2007-11-11T14:56:00.000-07:00

Berries are my favorite fruits!!!!

So this is one delicious and a bit tart pie. Its a berry cream pie with a little bit of a cream cheese mixture on the bottom. The original recipe was created by a co-worker of mine, and his had strawberries. I have a friend who is allergic to strawberries so instead I used blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. One crust was a graham cracker and then another (that my friends already ate at our D&D game) had oreo crust.

I put it together when I had my pumpkin pie in the oven baking. Its a very quick and easy pie to put together. I did it under thirty minutes.

Here is the Recipe for what my co-worker named:
Evil Evil Evil Pie!!!

1 large ready-to-use graham cracker pie crust (the small ones won't hold it all...Keebler makes a larger one)

1 cube (is that a cup?) cream cheese (I know...you can already tell this is going to be good...)

3-4 Tbsp lemon juice

4 Tbsp granulated sugar

2 baskets of fresh strawberries, cleaned and chunked (sliced at random angles so it's chunkier rather than evenly/thinly sliced...keeps them from getting soft and soggy)

1 pint heavy whipping cream

6 Tbsp granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

This is so easy... In a bowl, use an electric mixer to mix cream cheese with lemon juice and 4Tbsp granulated sugar until smooth and creamy. Spread mixture evenly on pie crust (it's cool because this also keeps the crust from falling apart so much when you serve the pie). Set aside. In a separate bowl, beat the heavy cream with the 6 Tbsp sugar and 1 tsp vanilla until it forms peaks. Mix the strawberries into the cream. Spoon this mixture into the pie crust.

EAT IT NOW!!! Okay, it's probably better to resist for a couple of hours and chill it and it will stay together better, but you could eat it now if you just can't wait! I saved a piece of this for a couple of days and it was still amazing. It didn't get all soggy and gooey.

Here is the Recipe for the Pumpkin Pie I posted for Apples & Thyme:

Ingredients

¾ cup (180g) granulated sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
2 large eggs
1 can (15 ounces - 425g) pumpkin
1 can (12 fluid ounces - 350ml) evaporated milk
1 unbaked nine inch pie shell
whipped cream
NOTE: 1¾ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice may be substituted for the cinnamon, ginger, and cloves; however, the taste will be slightly different.

Procedure

Preheat oven to 425°F (210c)
Mix sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves in small bowl. Beat eggs in large bowl; stir in pumpkin and sugar spice mixture. Gradually stir in evaporated milk.
Pour into the unbaked pie shell.
Bake at 425°F (210c) for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350°F (180c) 40-50 minutes or until knife inserted near center come out clean. Cool on wire rack 2 hours.
Let cool and serve.
Top with whipped cream before serving.

Notes and tips

Before you bake. Make the batter ahead, if you wish, but pour it into the pie shell just before baking to keep the crust crisp.

During baking. The baking instructions start with a high oven temperature, then direct you to reduce the heat partway through baking. This is an important step which allows the crust time to crisp.

Is it done? Insert a knife near the center of the pie to test for doneness, as the center will still cook after you take the pie out of the oven.

Apples & Thyme

2007-11-10T10:08:00.000-07:00

Love one pie at a time.

My mother has always been the woman in my family that I am the closest to. She was taught to cook by my great grandmother Martha Rose a stout swedish farm wife. She then taught me, and someday I hope to spend as much fun times in the kitchen with my daughters and sons as I did with my mom teaching them. We were always poor and never had much for fresh ingredients but no matter what we had my mom used her creative flair to come up with something delicious. The reason I chose pumpkin pie for my apples and thyme entry is because when I think of my mom and cooking the story of the first time she made pumpkin pie for us always comes to mind.

It was when I was quite young. We lived in the ghetto on the slightly better side of the street in a cramped little apartment that it wasn't too rare to see a roach or too. Sometimes there were break ins or we could hear gun shots down the streets. She worked two full time jobs as a single mother raising two girls and a brand new baby boy. Some of my fondest and happiest memories come from that pit hole. One weekend she decided she was going to make us a real pumpkin pie from a fresh pumpkin. None of that canned pumpkin mix. Me and my sister were really excited waiting all day and the house smelled so good with the spices and pumpkin scent.

When My mom brought it out of the oven the thing that smelled like heaven looked like the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen. The pie for some reason came out a weird gray color. It had no orange in it at all. It looks a bit gelatinous. My mom both laughing and a bit disappointed was teasing us that we should try it. Although looked ready to throw it out. Me and my younger sister discussed and decided because I'm the oldest I would be the one to brave the pie so that moms work didn't go for nothing. There I was ready to try and grin and tell my mom her disgusting pie was really great. Pinched my nose (as a kid didn't realize that would probably be rude) and bottoms up took a huge bite. Much to my complete surprise it was the tastiest pie I'd ever had at the time. Once my sister saw how much I liked it we all dug in. There was no left overs for that pie. It was one of those lessons of don't judge a book by its cover. Since then My mom has grown and learned to make awesome pumpkin pies (that aren't gray) as well as many other things that we adore. So this my very first pumpkin pie made by myself I dedicate to you. It's not gray nor as tasty as yours that time, but it was great fun making it. I love you.

Check out Apples & Thyme

Dinner Pasta Bento

2007-11-07T18:00:00.001-07:00

This week has been an emotional one. I found out my great aunt Mary passed away. Then I found out another friend of mine has been sentenced to 2nd degree murder, and today I found out that my family companies plane crashed killing the pilot and two of our co-owners. The tragedy of it hits me so hard. I will post more later after I've calmed down and organized my thoughts. On top of all that had a friend call me crying because she is in a bad situation, and my older sister let me know she is pregnant again. The last one at least was some good news to go with all the bad.

Here is my dinner bento for tonight.

bottom layer is garlic sourdough bread, some marshmallows and a strawberry candy.

the bottom layer is some alfredo sea shell pasta. I added cut up sausage, and some frozen vegis to it. I also added generous amounts of oregano and parsley while cooking and a pinch of black pepper. I really like black pepper and eat it on anything that is not a dessert.

Potstickers & Edamame Bentos

2007-11-06T16:41:00.000-07:00

So I find that I like making my weeks lunch bentos all at the same time. I'm kind of lazy and I know that if I don't do them at once I will not do them later, and end up spending money to go out to eat. So last night I made bento lunches for today, tomorrow, and Thursday.

The bottom layer for todays lunch was a mini croissant with delicious Marionberry jam on it. I have never seen a Marionberry, but man it was very tasty jam. The flavor isn't as strong as a blackberry jam, and didn't have as many little seeds either. In a home made foil cup I have some mandarin oranges with cinnamon sugar and nutmeg sprinkled on top. For dessert a little strawberry hard candy.

In my top layer I had some chicken potstickers, and edamame. The potstickers i get in a huge bag at costco for like ten bucks. They are great when you don't want to make something from scratch. The edamame I got in a frozen package at walmart for four bucks. I love edamame and its nice to be able to choose how much salt goes on them. In the restaurants it seems like they either don't salt them at all or drown them in salt.

Wednesdays Lunch is more potstickers, edamame and oranges. I actually wrapped some more of the croissants with jam in plastic wrap and will bring them for a breakfast.

Thursday's lunch is the same as Wednesday. I will probably make a dinner bento for tomorrow nights weekly "anime night" this evening. I'm thinking I'm probably going to make some pasta.

Happy Halloween!!

2007-10-31T09:41:00.000-06:00

I hope you all get many more treats then tricks.

Eggs, hash and bento's Oh My!

2007-10-29T18:36:00.001-06:00

So here is my Bento lunch for tomorrow and I made one for Wednesday as well. Tomorrow's is in my nightmare box. Wednesday in the green hello kitty one.

The bottom tier on the nightmare box has cinnamon graham crackers (I adore these dipped in milk). With a little cup of pineapple to give me some fruity vitamins wohoo.

On the top tier to the left I have a rolled omelet made from egg whites, and has rosemary and parsley cooked into it. I sliced it into nice little strips to make easier to get with chopsticks.
On the right is corn beef hash that was cooked with some frozen peas. I put it on a tortilla and also puts some strips of tortilla on top. I would have done toast (more of a breakfast theme) but didn't have any bread.

For Wednesdays lunch I have some more of the corn beef hash and peas, as well as some tasty large curd cottage cheese and pineapple with a sprinkling of raisins. That looks so tasty to me I almost ate it right then.

Lunch bentos

2007-10-26T17:46:00.001-06:00

These are the two lunch bento's I made with the extra rice from my dinner one. It's the rice garnished wtih some parsley. I just adore the color parsley adds to everything. A fortune cookie and a cup filled with some pineapple. The pineapple was refreshing and I think I'm going to add it to more of my lunches.
Oh and the fortune cookie said I'd be having some luck financially. Here's who's hoping it comes true.

Nightmare bento dinner

2007-10-26T17:40:00.001-06:00

Here is the Nightmare before Christmas bento dinner.

I decided to make a dinner bento to take with me to anime night. The Top tier is rice cooked in tomato sauce with chopped onion and garlic as well as tons of herbs and spices. Its decorated with a green bean and carrot flower.

The bottom tier is sliced porkchop with mixed vegi's baked

I think this bento is so cute, and it was a nice meal too. I had enough left over rice I made two lunch bentos in my hello kitty bento boxes for work.