Blog Surfing

From Taste of Home: This recipe for Waffled Monte Cristos gives a new twist to an old favorite. This one is not fried like the traditional style, and it includes pecans and orange peel for a burst of flavor.

Also from Taste of Home: A real holiday favorite, Gingersnaps tend to be hard and crispy to get that "snap", but these Tender Gingersnaps look like a great addition for the holidays. For the peanut butter lover, Peanut Butter Muffins. Hashbrown Breakfast Casserole with egg substitute, chicken breast and low-fat cheese. 

Did you know that feeling cranky is one of the first signs of dehydration? You can read How Food Influences Mood and Brain Power with insight into other food/mood connections. From Los Angeles Times.

From Diet, Dessert and Dogs, a whole food cooking blog, is a recipe for Coconut Raspberry Truffle Cups, which are gluten free.  

Several recipes from Tasty Kitchen that sound good: Squash Casserole - for the picky eaters at your table.  The Very Best Sweet Potato/Yams - they aren't the typical sickeningly sweet variety,  Green Bean Casserole - made from scratch, no canned soup. Lemon Curd Layer Cake with Sour Cream Icing - for the lemon lovers, plus it is gluten free. 

Check out Fred and Friends for some great gift ideas. I especially like Salty the Snowman, the Teacupcakes, and Birds on a Wire.

From Martha Stewart website, Peanut, Caramel and Chocolate Tart. Some great hostess gifts that include Scented Sugars, Spiced Pecans, Handmade Votives and Organza Sachets.

At Food.com, you will find every possible way to fix your Thanksgiving turkey; Roasting, Smoked and Barbecued , Deep Fried and Brines and Rubs. You can find this and much more here.

Here is a recipe for making Mulled Apple Cider, and you can also use this recipe to put together small pouches filled with the mulling spices to use through the holidays. From Serious Eats.

Baking Bites has a recipe for Salted Caramel Pumpkin Pie that might be a great change from regular pumpkin pie. This recipe uses the Salted Caramel as the sweetener which adds a whole depth of flavor without being overly sweet. One place you can buy Salted Caramel sauce is at Trader Joe's. I bought mine there a few weeks ago and it doesn't have a "salty" taste.

Joy of Baking has been one of my go-to sites for years. You will find a lot of great recipes and everyone has a great picture so you know what you are striving for. I have made several recipes and every one has turned out perfect. They feature their top recipes for every month and you can find recipes for November here. I have posted it before but it is worth repeating.

From Endless Simmer a tasty treat for chocolate-peanut butter lovers. These Salted Peanut No-Bake Cheesecakes look really good. You could us low fat or non-fat cream cheese for a healthier version.

From Bakers Royale, for the scone lovers, a scone that they call Killer! It is a Chocolate and Toffee Chip Scone with Pecans that sounds more like dessert!

In celebration of the CMA's this week, Relish posted a recipe for Southern Fried Chicken. The recipe includes an 8 hour brine marinade and a 8-12 hour soak in buttermilk. Many say these are the keys to flavorful and tender chicken.

These are taking the Thanksgiving theme to the extreme, but click here to see a Thanksgiving Turkey Cake, and click here to see Extreme Pumpkin Pie. They both come with instructions so you can make them too! Wow, somebody really loves pumpkin pie! From Cooking Channel.


Another scone from Cooking with Cristine. This one is for Pumpkin Scones with Cinnamon Chips and Crystalized Ginger.

Chicken and Buttermilk-Chive Dumplings

It has been years since I made chicken and dumplings. Over 17 years for sure, maybe even longer. When our kids were younger, our son liked them and our daughter said she got sick every time she smelled them, so that was that. I'm thinking she was probably getting sick one time when I fixed them and she just thought they made her sick. I understand that odor association thing. When I was growing up, I was convinced that the smell of frying liver made me sick. In addition, I was sure that the smell of baking custard made me sick too, so I understood how she felt. 

The other day I was talking with my son and said the words chicken and dumplings in error regarding something else, but he picked up on that and said how good chicken and dumplings sounded. Well, that settled it for me. Deciding what to make is usually the hardest part for me. With the slightest encouragement, I will make food that people want! It had been so long, I couldn't remember if I followed a certain recipe or how I made them years ago, so I started looking for a recipe.

I decided on a Tyler Florence recipe that I found at foodnetwork.com and adapted it to use what I had on hand. I used 4 large chicken breasts in place of the whole chicken, and I used 4 cups of pre-made chicken broth to simmer the chicken breasts in and added only 2 cups of water. There was plenty of chicken flavor so I would do that again in the future if I didn't have the time to stew a whole chicken and pick the chicken off of the bones. I saved at least 45 minutes or more doing it this way.

If the word dumpling scares you, just think of it as a biscuit, which is what it is. If the word biscuit scares you, I'm sorry! If there is any secret to making biscuits/dumplings, it is only that you want to stir it just till it comes together so that they will be light and fluffy when they cook. I am happy to say that my dumplings turned out lighter than air and they literally melted in the mouth! I was so happy that I was able to fix these for my son, he loved them and even had leftovers the next day.

Somehow I can't seem to remember to take a picture before we eat, so this picture was taken the next day after being re-warmed. The dumplings don't look as fluffy the second day as they did when I served them. I guess you will have to take my word on that one.

This is not a good picture! This doesn't even look like appetizing to me. Dear hubby says I'm judging this picture too harshly. What can I expect 24 hours later!

Enjoy!

Caramel Apple Muffins

This is a recipe I found at Taste of Home. I have never made one of their recipes that didn't turn out great, so I always feel confident when I use them. It's nice to know that several people tested out a recipe before you. The only thing that I need to do is read ... the ... recipe and follow... the ...instructions. When I don't do that, well, what can I say. It's never pretty and I usually make an extra mess somewhere that needs cleaning up. 

Like today, for instance. I decided to make these muffins. Instead of using dried applies like the recipe called for, I peeled and sliced and chopped up the fresh apples. I laid them out on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and put them in the oven to bake at 250 degrees for about 25 minutes.

Peeled and cut apple chunks

My goal was to semi-dry them out, just until they had sealed over and I couldn't see any moisture on them. I was very happy with the end product, so far. Now I will wait to see if it helps keep the muffins from turn really wet after a day or two. That is what often happens with baked goods that have pieces of fresh fruit in them.

Semi-baked apples

I continued on, and mixed up the recipe for the muffins, adding my semi-baked apples. The batter looked good and I filled my muffin tins and added the crumble topping. I put them in the oven to bake them for 20-25 minutes. 

Before baking

This is where the problem started. I thought I smelled something odd and it looked like the kitchen might be a bit hazy. When my eyes started feeling irritated and the dogs were sitting at the kitchen door wanting to get out quick, I knew there was a problem. I opened the oven and yes, there was smoke. Lots of it billowing out with the smell of really burnt sugar/butter/oatmeal/cinnamon. The topping was dripping down to the bottom of the oven. I turned on the fans, opened doors and tore off a large sheet of foil and placed it under the muffins to catch any more drips that might fall while they finished baking. 

After baking for 25 minutes, the toothpick came out clean so I took them out of the oven. As you can see, they don't look very pretty.

What a mess!

I was disappointed that a good portion of the topping was off the muffin and either on the pan or on the bottom of the oven! I re-read the recipe to see why it all went so wrong. And yes, I found it. Down at the bottom of the page it says, Quantity: 14 muffins. Hmmm..... have you ever seen a recipe for 14 muffins? Have you ever seen a muffin tin that makes 14 muffins? Really, I'm not surprised that I missed that little piece of information. I believe that this is the first muffin recipe that I have ever seen that makes 14 muffins!

They cleaned up fairly well

Well, after cleaning the oven and cleaning up my mess, I sat down to make sure that if you decide to make this recipe, you know that it makes 14 muffins, not a regular batch of 12 muffins, but 14 muffins! Now I feel like I have done all I can do to prevent you from repeating my mistake.

The good news is that they got rave reviews, which makes the extra work seem less like work! 

Caramel Apple Muffin

When the family said, "It looks like you have been really busy today", all I could do was nod my head and smile!

Here is the recipe for 14 muffins:

Enjoy!

Our Wooly Neighbors

Life isn't too bad when your closest neighbors are sheep. For the past six weeks, we have had 36 ewes and one ram sharing our "yard." They are very quiet. So quiet in fact, you wouldn't even know they are there. Their day consists of eating grass, laying down to ruminate, and then they repeat that routine all day long. I have seen them by starlight, in the middle of the night, eating away so I'm guessing they follow this routine day and night.

They are interesting to watch; kind of like watching paint dry. They are just there, day after day. They don't seem to care for humans at all. Another thing that I have seen first hand, is that sheep are followers. There is always one of them on the lookout, and when one sheep runs, they all turn and run and they don't even know why they are running. Playing follow the leader is what they do for excitement.

There only diversion from this routine is when Doug, their shepherd (that's what Wiley calls him) and his border collie, Tito, come around. I'm hoping to get a video some day that shows how talented Tito is with the sheep. He has a job to move they sheep from one area to another and he knows how to do it. Tito actually has a pretty easy job. Once Tito arrives, he gets the flock moving and they follow the sheep in front of them. Right to where Tito (and their shepherd) wants them to go.

This is as close as I can get to them, through the window in the breakfast room

I tried to sneak up on them to get a good picture, but she saw me

She is staring me down

In less than a minute, they have all run away, but she is letting me know that she knows I'm still there

This is their third delivery of pumpkins

Four days later, this is all that's left of the pumpkins

The lone ram is the fourth from the left and he is very aware that I am there

After our first couple days of rain, I noticed that most of the sheep's wool had become a lot whiter and less brown. I thought that the rain must have washed away the dirt, but a couple of weeks ago, Doug told me that their wool has become creamy colored from the lanolin in the pumpkins they have been eating. Autumn is the mating season and if they are impregnated by the ram, the pumpkins contain all kinds of vitamins and minerals that will help them bulk up for the winter, and help them through their gestational time, which is about five months. We can expect that lambing season will start in February. Until then we will enjoy the quiet. Once the baby lambs start arriving, the constant bleating and baaing will continue day and night. I can hardly wait!

A Birthday Cake for the Birthday Boy

I "kind of" promised an almost 6 year-old boy a Star Wars birthday cake... and all he got was this Candy Birthday Cake!

The Un-Star Wars Birthday Cake

Well, technically, I didn't promise a Star Wars cake, but a "special" cake. After making a princess birthday cake for 4 year-old Maya in October, I had told Owen (Maya's brother) that I would make him a special birthday cake for his 6th birthday in November. I asked him what some of his favorite things were and what kind of cake he would like, and all I heard was a blur of words about Star Wars... something, Star Wars.... Episode... #?, Star Wars... Chewbacca..? Chew.. what? Star Wars... Vader? I guess you probably get my point. I know nothing about Star Wars and if I have lived all my 56 years without feeling the need to know, I can live the rest of my years without knowing anything about Star Wars! I'm apologizing to all of you Star Wars fans now for my first and only time!

Because a Star Wars themed cake wasn't going to happen, I needed to come up with another idea that Owen would like. I didn't want him to be disappointed that his cake wasn't Star Wars and I wanted it to be as cool as Maya's cake. I googled boys birthday cakes and scanned through several pages of very boring cakes. What to do! I kept looking and happened to see a Flicker picture of a candy cake made of Kit Kat candy bars and M&Ms. I decided why not, kids like candy, kids get excited when they see candy, I'll give them candy!

I thought this will be easy, no special trips to the store, it will be a breeze, I can do it in my sleep. Maybe in your world but not in mine. I baked the cake the day before. It was called Funfetti, with lots of colored dots inside which looked like a great party cake. It baked nicely, I got it wrapped up and ready for the next day. So far so good. Next, I went into town to get the candy and a few other things that afternoon. After paying, I picked up my bags of "other things" and didn't pick up the bag with the candy in it. Of course, I didn't realize that I didn't have the candy until that evening. Dear Hubby said, Let's go into town and find it so you have it in the morning. We head into Newberg, we go to Freddies, they have the Kit Kat bars but not the M&M's, we go to Bi-Mart, they don't either. We go to Safeway, they have the M&M's. Things are looking up, good thing because it is going on 9pm. the very afternoon that I was putting the cake together. Now, I had an unexpected trip into town for chocolate frosting. Such is life sometimes. 

It's now the day of the party and I am putting the cake together, and as I am putting Funfetti frosting between the layers, I realize that I should have had brown/chocolate frosting on the sides so that the white frosting doesn't show through between the Kit Kat bars. Now, I have created another unexpected trip into town for chocolate frosting. Such is life sometimes. Or maybe it's just me! I get an idea in my head about how I want something to be and then I will tear down walls to find it! Just ask Dear Hubby, he has helped me through almost 38 years of this!

I went and bought the frosting and finished the cake before 3pm in the afternoon and the party wasn't until 7pm, so it all worked out. I didn't know for sure if I wanted to keep the bow around the cake, because I didn't want it to be too feminine, but I decided to keep it on for the party.

Ready for the party

The next challenge was transporting it to the party, which involved a mile long gravel road, cardboard and aluminum foil and floating M&M's. Don't even ask, the story would take too long to explain. Thanks to Dear Hubby for making it all work out, again!

Owen and Maya

Blowing out the candles

The candles are out

The birthday boy eating his Kit Kat bar

and more Kit Kat

I don't think he missed having a "Star Wars" cake at all. He hugged me and thanked me several times for making his special cake. That made it worth every minute of my time, just to see the kids happy faces.

This cake can be put together fairly quick if, big IF, you have everything you need on hand. 

What you need:

• 1 2-layer cake, filled and frosted

• Giant Kit Kat bars- it takes 39 single Kit Kat to go around an 8" cake. I broke them in sets of two, that makes 18 doubles and one single. Make sure you get the "giant" size so they are tall enough to reach the top edge of the cake.

• 1 bag M&Ms, use colors of your choice

• Ribbon- if desired 

• Candles

Have fun! Create your own design! Play with candy!

Enjoy!