Blog Surfing

This Toastess Cordless Warming Tray looks like such a great product, especially for those that do a lot of entertaining during the holidays. You plug it in for 8 minutes, remove the cord and it stays warm for an hour. It holds 4 plates, casseroles or platters. It sounds like the perfect addition to any holiday table or buffet table. From Cookware.com.

From Tasty Kitchen, Homemade Coffee Extract that you can add to baked goods, ice cream or anything else you can think of.

From Our Krazy Kitchen, a great looking recipe for Southwest Butternut Squash.

HOLIDASH  has a short article about What Not to Serve this Thanksgiving. It is safe to say we won't be serving any of them at our table. You might want to check it out for a laugh!

This Pumpkin Cream Pie has a gingersnap crust and candied pecans is on my Thanksgiving menu. From shutterbean.

How about Mashed Sweet Potato Brulee on the Thanksgiving table? The brown sugar and walnuts make the crackly crust. From Brown Eyed Baker.

These Thanksgiving Mashed Potatoes can be made several days early and they will stay hot for hours once they are heated. I am putting these on my menu, too. From Tasty Kitchen.

Homemade Pumpkin Ice Cream sounds like a great finish to a Thanksgiving meal. You can find the recipe here along with detailed instructions and pictures from Home Cooking.

Are you tired of Pumpkin yet? These Pumpkin Pie Pancakes are beautiful, if pancakes can be beautiful! From Crepes of Wrath.

From Bunny's Warm Kitchen, these Pumpkin Doodle Cookies need only 1/2 cup of pumpkin and are rolled in cinnamon sugar like a snickerdoodle.

Easy Pasta e Figoli

Fall is such a great time to indulge in tasty soups. It took a good old dark and rainy day this week to inspire me to make some soup. Pasta Fagioli is always one of our favorite soups to make and enjoy. It smells so good while it is simmering on the stove, no one can resist lifting the lid and taking a peek.

I basically followed the recipe except for a couple of changes. I like to add V-8 along with a little broth as the base. This really enhances the flavors in the soup. I also like to add a jar of spaghetti sauce, but not just any spaghetti sauce. It has to be Trader Joe's Roasted Garlic Spaghetti Sauce. I used great northern beans and small red beans. As for the seasoning,  I still haven't forgiven Trader Joe's for discontinuing their fantastic Pasta Seasoning Blend, so I have to improvise. I added oregano, basil, parsley and fennel seed, slightly smashed to release the flavor. Add your own favorite seasonings. I didn't measure these spices, but I wasn't stingy!

The soup ended up simmering for about two hours, so I added more V-8 to the pot so there was plenty of liquid. I served it with a spot of grated Parmesan cheese and garlic toast and we all enjoyed it. This is one of those meals that really does taste better the next day! 


The next day, I shared some with good friends Bob and Gigi. That night, Bob ate it cold and loved it. The next day they had it warmed up for dinner and they loved it even more. I stopped by their home that day and Bob told me I won the prize for the "best soup maker." That was really nice, considering Bob is getting close to 89 years old and has eaten a lot of soup in his life! 


The recipe:

Enjoy!

Savory Bread with Sweet Butter for a Harvest Lunch

Recently, we were invited to a harvest lunch at my niece's house. When I asked if I could bring something, her suggestion was a bread to go with the soups that were being served. At first I thought that's easy, we will pick up a loaf of bread on the way there. My next thought was, I will make some bread. In fact, I will make a savory quick bread. I had read an article a few days before about quick breads (no yeast) and how they are usually made with fruits and sweets, but that they were great with savory fillings also. I had never thought of making a savory quick bread, but it sounded intriguing, so I decided to give it a try.

At first I thought I would make a buttermilk cheese bread. Then I decided to add onion...Then I decided to add bacon...Then I decided to caramelize the onions...Then I decided to spice it up with fresh black pepper, cayenne pepper and hot pepper sauce. (This is how my mind works when I am creating a new recipe!) I ended up making Buttermilk Onion Cheddar Bacon Bread with Sweetened Whipped Butter.

Fresh from the oven

The flavors took everyone by surprise, but it was a good surprise. I encouraged them to add the Sweet Butter to balance out the savory and everyone loved it and wanted the recipe, especially for the Sweet Butter.



It looked beautiful on the platter with the butter in the middle, Thanks Matt! I was on my way out the door as soon as it was finished and didn't get a picture before the lunch crowd hit.

This is what it looked like during the middle of lunch

There was much more than homemade soups and bread! Baked potatoes with all the toppings, fresh roasted veggies, homemade applesauce to name just a few!

Our beautiful hostess

Wiley giving papa candle blowing tips

My amazingly tall son with my beautiful sister

It is possible to get most of his tallness in a picture

Cute cousins

Such a fun afternoon! Great food! Great people! I'm not partial, but I was related to almost everyone!

Spiced Pumpkin Waffles with Caramel Syrup

My dear hubby celebrated a birthday recently. The actual day was filled with several destinations, so I decided to make him a special breakfast. I had been thinking about William Sonoma's Spiced Pecan Pumpkin Waffles, which are fantastic, but I wanted to try making my own version. I started with a basic pumpkin waffle recipe, then added the spices that I thought were needed to make it like WS's. I thought they turned out so good that I'm passing the recipe on to you.

Spicy Pumpkin Waffles

 

I found a super easy, and I do mean super easy recipe for caramel syrup that we made and it went perfectly with the spicy waffle. It was so good, we were tossing out ideas of other ways to use this syrup! Everyone was especially surprised that buttermilk is one of the main ingredients. 

Caramel Syrup

Both recipes got rave reviews from everyone!

Enjoy!

Hot Fudge Pudding Cake Remix - Updating an Old Favorite

I love it when I get specific requests for a certain dish or dessert. Our dear family friend Matt, asked specifically for the "hot fudge cake" for his birthday party. I was very happy to oblige!

But first, I digress. The first time I made Hot Fudge Pudding Cake was back in 1973. Dear hubby and I were newlyweds and I was 18 years old, just a mere child! We had invited my dear hubby's parents over for dinner for the first time, and I wanted to make a good impression. I poured over my few cookbooks and recipe cards, trying to find the perfect recipes. I wanted them to know that I knew how to cook and would be take good care of their youngest child! Well, you know there is a reason that meal stands out in my mind after almost 38 years. It is a memory that I will never forget!

It was a fiasco, from beginning to the end, and I'm not kidding!!! First, I served a little appetizer drink my parents had fixed for company many times, homemade grape juice with 7-Up. None of us drank any alcohol at all, and because of the fizz, my dear hubby's dad thought we were serving some alcoholic beverage. That was how we started the meal and it only grew worse with time as the night progressed.

I had decided to make Pineapple Meatballs over Rice, a meal I had successfully fixed many times for my family, before I got married. It should have turned out. Only problem, I added waaayyyyyy to much salt and the rice was inedible, so we sat around the table while I cooked a new batch in a pan on the  stove (I don't know if rice cookers were invented back then, but I didn't have one.) Because I was so horrified that I had added to salt, on the new batch, I didn't add any! And, I was wanting it to be done quickly, very quickly, so I kept taking the lid off to stir it, checking to see if it was ready. If you have ever made rice, you know that is not a good idea. Some of the rice was under cooked and some over cooked, but, we crunched and mushed our way through it anyway, adding salt as needed. All the while, everyone is assuring me that everything was fine and the food was wonderful. That was my second humiliation of the night.

My third mistake; trying out a new, never been made recipes on my brand new in-laws. Make sure you choose a recipe that you could make in your sleep! I didn't do that. I found the recipe for the pudding cake and mixed the cake part up and had it sitting on the counter, ready for the hot water and the oven. I was feeling very confident that this would be the best dessert ever and everyone would love it! After dinner, I baked it and was so happy that I would be serving a "fresh from the oven" dessert! I served everyone and I'm sure that I was the last one to taste it. I took a bite and I spit the bite out on my spoon! It was bitter and horrible tasting. How embarrassing is that. Twice in one night, new in-laws, bad impression!

I don't remember what happened after that. That is where my memories of that evening ended! I'm guessing that we didn't have any dessert. Later, I realized that I hadn't mixed any sugar with the cocoa for the hot fudge part. That was a night I will never forget, but my mom-in-law says that she doesn't remember anything about a bad meal at our house, and it's not because she is forgetful, because she isn't. She's just a very lovely woman!

I have made may successful Hot Fudge Pudding Cakes since that time and this one turned out as "the best" one to date. If you aren't sure what a pudding cake is, it bakes with cake on the top and a hot fudge sauce on the bottom. I have also made Lemon Pudding Cake with lemon cake on top and creamy lemon sauce on the bottom many times and it turns out fabulous too!

After googling Hot Fudge Pudding Cake, all I saw were the exact same recipes, without any variations at all! I couldn't believe that no one had made any new changes to that old time dessert. I decided it was time that I did a re-mix on this old standard recipe. The first change I made was doubling the cocoa in the cake, and using my deepest, darkest cocoa powder. The next change, I used brown sugar in place of white sugar, The next change, I doubled the vanilla and used Watkins Vanilla Nut Extract. The next change, I doubled the quantity on the "hot fudge" so that there would be plenty for everyone. The last change, I added a layer of Caramel Bits. I shot a few pictures.

The cake batter is on the very bottom, the brown sugar next, the caramel bits on top

Boiling water poured over the top, ready for oven

Hot Fudge Pudding Cake with Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

Thank goodness there weren't any leftovers!

In looking at the pictures, I can see that I didn't add any cocoa to the brown sugar on the top, which I had intended to do. Believe me, it wasn't necessary. This had lots of chocolaty hot fudge flavor. I will probably add it next time. I am giving you the original recipe and my remix recipe.

Enjoy!