Mixed Berry Shortcakes with Whipped Cream

One of the BEST things about Spring time, in my humble opinion, is the availability of fresh fruit and vegetables 🙂  More specifically, strawberries!  Strawberries come in season during the month of May…  but who’s counting, right?  Who cares that it’s April?  Besides, our local grocery store had strawberries AND blackberries on sale.  Soooo…. without further adieu, I bring you my families FAVORITE shortcake.  Trust me, you’ll love it as much as we do!

Mixed Berry Shortcakes

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/3 cup cold butter

1 egg, slightly beaten

1/2 cup sour cream

2 TBSP cream (you can use milk)

5 cups mixed berries (strawberries, blackberries, blueberries or whatever kind of berries)

3 TBSP sugar

whipped cream (recipe to follow)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400F.  Lightly grease a baking sheet (or use parchment paper).  Set aside.  In a medium bowl, combine flour, the 1/4 cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.  Using a  pastry blender, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  In a small bowl, combine egg, sour cream and milk or cream.  Add wet ingredients to flour mixture, stirring with a fork just until moistened.

Drop dough into 8 mounds onto prepared baking sheet.  Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden.  Transfer to a wire rack.  Let cool.

Berries

Mix 5 cups of berries of your choice with 3 TBSP sugar.  Do not mash fruit but let sit for 15 minutes so that juices can develop and “marry” together.

When ready to serve, split shortcakes in half and and scoop berries and juice on top of one of the halves and cover with the other half.  Serve with whipped cream.

Whipped Cream

In a chilled mixing bowl, add 1 cup heavy whipping cream, 2 TBSP sugar and 1 tsp vanilla.  Beat with electric mixer until soft peaks form.  If you like, you can also like 1/4 tsp cinnamon.

Oven Baked Parmesan Meatballs with ALL the Fixen’s! (plus a little brag thrown in for good measure)

Today marks the end of my lil teenaged Munchkin’s self imposed “fast”!  I can’t TELL you how excited she’s been to eat real people food!  lol  For those of you who don’t know, she made a commitment to sacrifice or “fast” for 2 weeks.  It was something she felt she needed to do to show Jesus how much she appreciates his dying on the cross so that we can go to heaven.  She’s also been praying for His grace and guidance.  Fasting for Julia means that she eats only healthy food and mostly just raw vegetables, boiled eggs and lot’s of fish.  The best thing she’s had in the past few weeks was on Sunday, when I made chicken and rice soup!  Poor baby.

So today, she wants meat!  Lots and lots of meat!  hahaha  I let her choose what she wanted me to make. She chose meatballs and french fries.  NOT the most gourmet of meals but something I can do quickly, before she and her friend Hannah go to church tonight.  I need to stop here and tell you how EXTREMELY proud that she still looks at church as a fun, social activity.  ESPECIALLY when I’m just learning that another one of her bff’s (also 14) might be PREGNANT!  Once again, reminding me that it can ALWAYS be worse!  Wow.

Oven Baked Parmesan and Herb Meatballs

(revised by me from Pinterest)

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup milk or half and half

1/2 cup grated Parmesan (fresh is ALWAYS better)

1 cup Panko breadcrumbs (or regular but Panko is better)

1 small onion, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried parsley

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 tsp salt

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, mix all ingredients together using your hands.  Form into golf ball sized meatballs .  Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or foil.  Bake in preheated oven, 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes.

*  I’m eating these right now and they’re SO freaking tasty!  I wish you could smell my house 🙂  Smells like home!  lol

Okay, next I made my easy oven baked asparagus.  This is pretty much the ONLY way we ever cook asparagus anymore.

Oven Baked Parmesan Asparagus

Ingredients:

1 bunch of medium to small stemmed asparagus (with woody ends cut on the diagonal)

About 1/4 cup grated Parmesan Cheese

About 1/4 to 1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil (eyeball it)

2 tsp salt

About 1 tsp garlic powder

Directions:

Toss asparagus with all other ingredients.  Make sure each piece of asparagus is covered with oil and seasoning.  Place asparagus onto a foil lined cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes or until bright green and cheese is melted.

Easy as THAT and I have 2 very happy munchkins and a husband that can’t wait to get home and eat it all up!  I’d tell you about the Ore Ida frozen french fries…. but I’m pretty sure you won’t be impressed with how I threw those babies in the oven for 30 minutes with season salt!  lmbo

Happy Eating to you 🙂

What’s for breakfast? Baked blueberry and banana oatmeal!

After seeing SEVERAL food bloggers talk about how wonderful baked oatmeal is AND after seeing the post from Why Not Give It  A Try, I decided to try this.  I’ve got to admit that I wasn’t in a hurry to try it because oatmeal is just not one of my FAVORITE foods to eat.  BUT from everything I’ve been reading, even if you don’t care for the texture of oatmeal, you’ll probably like this one.  OH!  I’m SO glad I made this.  It’s delicious and it’s one of those things you make ahead of time for the upcoming week.  It will be breakfast OR dessert for a few days this upcoming week.

Baked Blueberry Banana Oatmeal

ingredients:

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/4 cup chopped walnuts, divided
1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup maple syrup (I used sugar free)
1 cup milk (I used skim)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2-3 ripe bananas, peeled and sliced
1 cup blueberries or raspberries, fresh or frozen, divided

directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375F.

2. Lightly grease a 2-quart baking dish. In a medium bowl, mix the oats, half of the walnuts, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Stir to combine. In a liquid measuring cup, combine the syrup, milk, egg, butter, and vanilla.

3. Spread the sliced bananas in a single layer over the bottom of the baking dish. Top with half of the berries. Sprinkle the dry oat mixture over the fruit in an even layer. Pour the liquid ingredients evenly over the oats.

4. Sprinkle the remaining nuts and berries over the top. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the top is browned and the oats have set. Let cool 10 minutes before serving.

Adapted from Sohowsittaste

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lost in the details

Esme’ getting lost in the detail. Who care’s about the cookies when you can have cookie dough, right?

“To create something exceptional, your mind must be relentlessly focused on the smallest detail”
Giorgio Armani

What the girls are doing on this snow day? Making “cotton candy cookies”.

Teenage Munchkin and her BFF are snowed in with us today.  It’s been fun listening to them laugh.  You know teenagers don’t like to be bored and these two definitely aren’t bored.  They  came to me earlier, asking if they can make “cotton candy” cookies!  I’d never heard of this type of cookie but they found a recipe on the net and who was I to say no? EXCEPT that the recipe called for 4.5 cups of flour and all we had was 2 😦  We had  “self rising” flour, so the girls looked up how to substitute self rising for the regular all purpose.

This recipe calls for 4.5 all purpose and if all you have is self rising, you need 2.5 cups.  Hope that made sense.  I’m just going to give you the recipe they found on the net, the way it’s written (without our substitutions).  They were FANTASTIC!  They really just tasted like more of a really good sugar cookie 🙂

Teenage munchkin and her cotton candy cookies.

The mess of flour teenage muchkin left on my floor… but hey!  it’s a snow day, right?  lol

Cotton Candy Cookies

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup powdered sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

1 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp baking soda

4 1/2 all purpose flour

few drops of food color

enough baking sugar to roll unbaked cookies in (they look like crystals) OR you can use regular granulated sugar.

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 F

Cream together sugars, butter and cooking oil.  Beat in eggs and vanilla.  Add dry ingredients (the next 4 ingredients), mix to incorporate.  At this point add the food coloring until the desired color.  Roll dough into small balls about the size of a quarter.  Roll ball into baking sugar.  Using a heavy bottom crystal vase or a cookie press dipped into bakers sugar (or regular sugar), smash ball out flat, leaving an imprint from cookie press (stamp) or bottom of vase.  Bake for 10 minutes or until edges are slightly browned.  Cool slightly before transferring to baking rack.

*I realize this recipe isn’t written the way I’d like it to be, where it’s easy to follow.  However, my girls followed it just fine and the cookies turned out perfect!

**we used enough blue food coloring for these cookies to look like a light blue cotton candy.  Especially after rolled in bakers sugar.

New York Style Vanilla Bean Cheesecake… is what’s for dessert!

I’ve been wanting to revisit this recipe for a while now and I think today is the day!  I’m a little strange, I think, because I don’t really like cheesecake the way I should.  TYPICAL cheesecake, that is.  I want my cheesecake to have LOADS of flavor and to be fluffy and light. The New York Cheesecake is the ONLY way to go, in my humble opinion.  This is my single most FAVORITE recipe.  Tried and true.  PLEASE read the notes.  It’s really not a hard recipe but the desired result won’t be the same if you don’t follow the directions.

New York Style Vanilla Bean Cheesecake

Ingredients

5 large eggs, room temperature

2 cups (one pint) sour cream, room temperature

4 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature

8 tablespoons (one stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch

2 vanilla bean pods (*split them open with a sharp knife and scrape the inside where the beans are, set aside)

1  teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice (*Fresh is best)

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

Directions

Generously butter the inside of a 10-inch spring form pan.  Wrap a double layer of heavy-duty aluminum foil tightly around the outside bottom and sides, crimping and pleating the foil to make it conform to the pan.  This will help to prevent water seeping into the pan when you put it into the bain-marie (hot water bath).  Position the baking rack in the center of the oven; preheat the oven to 300* Fahrenheit.

In a large mixing bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the eggs with the sour cream until well blended.

In a medium-sized bowl, beat the cream cheese with the butter until smooth and creamy.  Add this to the egg-sour cream mixture and beat until smooth. 

Add the sugar, cornstarch, vanilla, the scraping of vanilla bean pods, lemon juice and lemon zest and beat thoroughly, about 2 minutes. 

Pour into the prepared spring form pan and place in a roasting pan (or other pan) large enough to prevent the sides from touching.  Place in the oven and carefully pour in enough very hot tap water to reach halfway up the sides of the spring form pan.

Bake for 2 hours, 15 minutes, or until the cake is very lightly colored and a knife inserted in the center emerges clean.  Remove from the water bath and carefully peel the aluminum foil from around the pan.  Let stand at room temperature until completely cool, about 4 hours.  Refrigerate, covered, until well chilled.  For best flavor and texture, this cheesecake is best chilled overnight.

**My Notes:  I can’t stress enough how important it is to let those first 4 ingredients in this recipe come to room temperature.  I’ve hurried the cream cheese and have had unsightly lumps of it in my batter.

**I’ve italicized the mixing instructions to emphasize blending the ingredients to achieve the desired texture.

** Don’t burn yourself when taking the cheesecake out of the hot water bath.  I’ve done this before and it’s not fun!  Be sure to have a platter ready to remove the cheese cake from the hot water.

** Enjoy the yumminess!

What’s for dessert? Orange Creamsicle Cake!

Sick of me yet?  You won’t be after you try this!  I had to bring you dessert, right? So for dinner, there’s Guinness Beef Stew and Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits.  We needed something sweet to top everything off!  Julia and I went to work baking a cake… Not just ANY cake though, more of a dessert, really.  I don’t mind saying that we are truly amazing!  This cake tastes JUST like an orange creamsicle!  It’s kind of a summery thing to do, really, but we need a little summer during this cold winter, don’t we? This is tested and delicious and I SO want to share a piece with you 😉

Orange Creamsicle Cake

Ingredients

1 box Duncan Hines  yellow butter recipe cake mix

3 large eggs

1/2 cup melted butter (not margarine)

1 cup water (for cake)

2 small pkgs Jello brand orange gelatin

1 pkg Jello brand instant vanilla pudding mix

1 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla

1 tub COOL WHIP non dairy whipped topping

INSTRUCTIONS

Combine Duncan Hines cake mix with 3 beaten eggs, 1 cup of water and cooled melted butter.  With electric mixer, mix on low speed for 1 minute and then high speed for 1 minute.  Pour batter into greased 9×13 baking pan.  Bake at 350 for around 21 minutes (or until inserted knife comes out clean).  Let cake cool completely and then poke holes all over cooled cake (I use the round side of a wooden spoon handle).  Mix 1 pkg orange jello with 1 cup boiling water and 1 cup cold water.  Pour over cooled cake.  Refrigerate for around four hours.  Mix pudding mix with cold milk, another package of orange jello, 2 tsp vanilla.  Whisk by hand until thickened.  Fold in Cool Whip.  Frost the cooled cake with pudding mixture.  Garnish with a sprig of mint and orange slices, if you want 🙂

Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits

I guess this is going to be a FOOD kind of day.  It seems to be the only thing I want to blog about.  In my defense…  it’s snowy and cold.  The only thing we really want to do is curl up under the blankets and EAT!  lol  along with this (Irish Guinness Beef Stew) I felt like I needed a bread to go with.  I’ve been meaning to try a recipe I found on Pinterest for a while now and today gave me the PERFECT excuse.  Let me tell you, it wasn’t a mistake!  OMG! These are TO DIE FOR and taste EXACTLY the way we know they SHOULD taste!  Now I bring you:

Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits

Ingredients:

2 cups Bisquick biscuit mix
2/3 cup milk (I used evaporated because that’s all I had)
1/2 cup cheddar cheese (shredded)
1/2 cup melted butter
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon dried parsley

Method:

Preheat oven to 450 degree. Mix biscuit mix, milk, and cheddar cheese until soft dough forms; beat vigorously for 30 seconds. Drop dough by spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.

Mix melted butter, garlic powder, and dried parsley; brush generously over warm biscuits before removing from cookie sheet. Serve warm. Make 10-12 biscuits.

Have a comfy, cozy night!

Salty Caramel and Pecan and Oatmeal Cookies (OR, When you come to my door, bring cookies!)

I had a nice little surprise visit from my mother a few minutes ago.  Truthfully, her visits can be a little stressful for me due to her constant judgement of whatever it is that I’m doing at the moment BUT NOT this time!  THIS time, she brought cookies!  VERY tasty cookies.  Mom got the recipe from http://www.midwestliving.com/recipe/salty-caramel-and-pecan-oatmeal-cookies/ but made a few of her own adjustments.  These are too good not to share so without further ado, I bring you my mother’s oatmeal cookies!  Probably the best oatmeal cookies I’ve ever tasted and I’ve tasted PLENTY.

Salty Caramel and Pecan Oatmeal Cookies 

 

ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1 11 – ounce package caramel baking bits
• 1 cup pecans, toasted and coarsley chopped (she used chopped almonds cause that’s what she had on hand)
• Coarse sea salt (She completely omitted the sea salt because she thought it would be too salty – I personally think it would be better with it but clearly, they were still delicious without!)

directions

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add granulated sugar, brown sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, the baking powder, cinnamon and baking soda. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the remaining flour. Stir in oats, caramel baking bits and pecans.
2. Using a small ice-cream scoop or a tablespoon, drop 1 1/2-inch mounds of dough 2 inches apart onto cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
3. Bake in a 350 oven for 11 to 12 minutes, until the edges are light brown. (Centers will look undercooked.) Cool on cookie sheets for 3 to 4 minutes or until cookies can be easily removed. Transfer to a wire rack; cool.

nutrition facts

(Salty Caramel and Pecan Oatmeal Cookies)

Mark as Free Exchange () 0, Potassium (mg) 49, sodium (mg) 421, carb. (g) 21, iron (mg) 1, pro. (g) 2, cal. (kcal) 145, vit. A (IU) 146, Thiamin (mg) 0, Niacin (mg) 0, sugar (g) 14, Riboflavin (mg) 0, Folate (µg) 12, fiber (g) 1, Polyunsaturated fat (g) 1, Pyridoxine (Vit. B6) (mg) 0, calcium (mg) 20, Monosaturated fat (g) 2, sat. fat (g) 3, chol. (mg) 18, Fat, total (g)

Now here’s a little tip from me…  ALL cookies stay soft and chewy when stored with a slice of bread in the container!  For real.  You should try it!  The bread soaks up the moisture that would otherwise make the cookies hard!

Enjoy!