Week 9 Part II

Grandma's Amish Cookies ☆☆☆☆ [pg 123 HFC]
What makes a cookie an Amish cookie? Maybe that they are plain and simple. That would certainly be true of these cookies. Plain and simple ingredients blend together to create a plain and simple cookie—a sugar cookie, and a tasty one at that.

Plain and simple means most people would have all these ingredients in a simply stocked kitchen. But plain and simple means there is no flair, no complex blends of textures and tastes, and no "oooo yummy". While I will grant that these are a very good sugar cookie, in no need of frosting, they are plain and if you have read this blog at all you know that the missing ingredient for me would be *drum roll* Chocolate! So I would likely make these a black and white cookie if I make them again. You know, dunk 1/2 in some sort of chocolate glaze. They rate a solid four stars for a great buttery taste and flaky texture, but they are not on the list of must make again soon.

Week 9 Part I

Jeff's Almond Cream Puff Strips ☆☆☆☆☆ [pg 121 HFC]
This recipe was in the last edition of the cookbook and I gave my brother a lot of credit for making something so fancy. I had never attempted them because it sounded complicated. These little bites of heaven are quite easy. That said, I must admit my first attempt was less than stellar. Although my first attempts don't look very pretty, they tasted just fine and the second attempts were even better.

The second time I made the puffs, I made them a bit smaller than noted in the recipe. The thinking was that a serving size would be smaller, therefore fewer calories. That never works. If it is good, you just eat more of them. Maybe the walk to the kitchen for the second or third puff somehow uses a few calories. One can hope.

In addition to the smaller size, I changed the filling the second time. On the first try I made the pudding as directed on the box, missing the instruction about 1 1/4 cup milk until after the filling was completed. The second time I used cheesecake flavor pudding and got the milk quantity correct. I also used vanilla flavoring rather than almond extract. Tom didn't have a preference about the filling, although I prefer the cheesecake flavor. I also opted to use parchment paper the second time instead of greasing and flouring the cookie sheet. Much easier clean up and who doesn't love that?

I had a bit of trouble with the glaze the first time. I thought using the microwave was my error, so I did it the old fashioned way, on the stove top, the second time. I still had a stiff glaze, so I added a bit of hot water to thin the glaze and it worked great. If you choose to do this, make sure to add the hot water just one tsp at a time. My trouble might have stemmed from the fact I used dark chocolate chips but it was what I had and the thinning with hot water worked fine.

You can see in the picture I didn't have quite enough dough for the last cream puff strip and it became a cream puff ball. This is inspiring, as I can see making a bunch of cream puff balls for a pinochle party or other event, this dessert is that easy. They are surprising light in taste, unlike store bought cream puffs which taste very rich and heavy.

My biggest challenge was getting the filling into my Easy Accent Decorator. Once that was accomplished, filling the puffs was a breeze. My mind races with summer options. I am certainly going to try a filling with bits of fresh strawberry. According to my calculations, the calories in one of these (4-6 inch length) is 266 calories, which means the smaller 3 inch ones I made were about 133 calories each. (That is using low fat cool whip and sugar free pudding.) One could estimate that the cream puff balls will have about 50 calories each.

I highly recommend this recipe to all my newly wedded nieces (or soon to be wedded) because you can really impress your friends and the recipe is sooo easy. Watch my additional comments as I try variations of filling for this dessert.

Week 8 Part III

Artisan Bread as Pizza Dough

Since I purchased my domed bread baker, I have been messing around with No Knead Bread for a month or so. I wondered if this variation of a sourdough would work well as pizza crust.

This is a fairly wet dough, so it is a bit tricky to roll out. I started by retrieving a grapefruit size ball of dough from my dough stash. (see recipe note) The dough was carefully shaped into a ball, using much flour on my hands and some on the dough ball. I gave the dough ball 5-10 minutes to rest, meanwhile I grated cheese and prepared my other pizza toppings.

I covered my baking stone with cornmeal, lightly floured the top of the dough ball, and dusted my rolling pin as well. Other than needing to re-dust the rolling pin a few times, this seemed to work well. We generally like thinner crust and this did the trick. The crust was baked in a 450° oven for 10-12 minutes. You want to remove it before it begins to brown.

Prepare the pizza was you desire and return it to the oven for another 8-10 minutes. We like the edges to be  a bit brown, so it was closer to 10 minutes. This recipe created a good homemade crust, although it is not perfect and I will continue to experiment.

Week 8 Part II

Double Chocolate Crumble Bars ☆☆☆☆ [pg 105 HFC]

As I spread the topping on these bars, I remembered making them long ago. (Cheater) I suppose the fact that I made these before, although long ago, means they must have some good qualities. The bars go together very easily and can be made with ingredients most people would have on hand. I made 1/2 the recipe and baked them in a 7 x 11 pan.

Certainly these bars do need to be chilled as the topping can become quite messy when warm. These bars may have rated higher during the summer months, but I had to take into account that I made them once before, but long ago. They have good taste but not good enough to rate five stars. There is nothing about them that would need to be changed to make them better so they do not rate three stars. They sort of earn four stars by default. Not good enough to make frequently, not in need of change, just okay. Four stars it is although it is unlikely they will be made again soon at our house.

Week 8 Part I

Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies  ☆☆☆☆

These cookies are not in our family cookbook, but I saw them in two different magazines this winter and decided I needed to try them. I have previously noted that most of the members of our family are not huge cake fans, so a cookie that is more cake like already has one strike against it. I couldn't resist the first warm cookie and my first reaction was not good. I couldn't taste the white chocolate. Sooo disappointing. I thought maybe that cookie didn't have enough chips, so I tried another one. Still disappointing.

After the cookies had had time to cool to room temperature, I tried them again. (Yeah it took three cookies to make a recommendation.) These are much better at room temperature. Strike too. I love warm cookies. Especially cookies with chocolate, all warm and gooey. These are the first cookies I have made in 2011 that are better cooled than warm. They are tasty, particularly if there is a  balanced mix of cranberry and white chocolate, however they are not cookies to which we can give five stars, so they earn four stars. They have disappeared fast (yeah, yeah, three cookies in 1/2 hour, I remember!) and they were tasty but not good enough to earn top honors which is when my husband says, "You have to make these again!"

March Disposals

Disposal fever took hold this Saturday and I purged things from several areas in the house. March disposals is done a week early. At this pace I may hit 365 items removed by summer, and that would be just fine. We are truly trying to downsize.

1. Chicken stuffed animal
2. Two dog stuffed animals
3. Bear beanie baby
4. Two wedding beanie babies —all those stuffed animal things went to school as giveaways and that feels just as good as downsizing.
5. 11 necklaces
6. 2 bracelets
7. 1 watch
8. 4 pins
9. 26 pair of earrings —I had way too many pairs of earrings and only a few that I wear frequently.
10. 2 rings—after all that jewelry disposal, I got rid of . . . 
11. 2 jewelry boxes
12. 3 printers—you read the right, three printers
13. Olympus 1.3 megapixel digital camera
14. Camera bag
15. SD picture card for Olympus
16. Logitech wireless mouse and regular mouse
17. Candle votive holder
18. 4 books
19. 3 rubber duckies
20. 2 games for PC
21. Mastercook software program
22. 22 scrapbook idea books
23. Clothes—41 pieces of clothes, although 11 of the 41 were pairs of socks.

Wow, a total of 141 things for the month of March. That brings the grand total so far to 221. We might reach 365 by next month if spring cleaning and disposal fever hit the garage!

Week 7 Part I

Doreen's Lemon Poppy Seed Cake  ☆☆☆☆ [pg 106 HFC]
Lemon and poppy seed, who can resist, right? This recipe can qualify as a 5 ingredients or less recipe and that is always a good thing, however one would need to keep lemon cake mix and lemon pudding mix on hand. I love how simple this recipe is and the dump and mix instructions are great. I literally dumped all the ingredients into my bowl and mixed with the blender until well blended.

My sister makes this in two small loaf pans, but I opted for the bundt cake pan this time. When the cake was done, I used the toothpick method to check for doneness. It was set on a cooling rack and allowed to cool for 20 minutes. After the cooling time, I slid a knife down the outer and inner edges to make sure the cake would release from the pan. I put the cake onto my fancy cake plate and allowed it to fully cool.

I felt that the lovely cake looked naked without some sort of frosting or topping, so I whipped together white frosting and put a tablespoon or so of lemon juice into the frosting. I made it quite thin so it would slide down the sides of the cake. It was at this time that I wished I had drizzled the frosting when the cake was warm, but my thin frosting did a pretty good job of running down the side without ending up all in a puddle at the bottom of the cake.

Taste test proved my original findings—lemon and poppy seed are a great combination. The cake is moist enough to serve without frosting, but I liked the look of the cake with a topping. So far I am the only one to taste this treat so I will post the rating in a day or two.

Week 6 Part I

Caramel Apple Oat Squares ☆☆☆☆ [pg 92 HFC]
Not having chocolate always causes a recipe to start at a bit of a disadvantage, at least for my taste buds. This dessert goes together quite easily and makes plenty to share at a potluck dinner, assuming you have a small family such as ours. There was so much, I took the Oat Squares to work to get some help cleaning up the dessert and to gather a few more ratings.

My boss (Deb) was the only one to actually write me a note giving her rating and I would agree with her whole-heartedly. We decided there was a bit too much caramel goo, and although our bookkeeper (Amy) agreed, she stated she would still have a go at eating the whole pan, goo and all. We all loved the crust. It is great texture combination with the apples and caramel. This recipe was given a four star rating losing one star because of the gooyness. I plan to try this recipe again and use the caramel mixture from Mom's caramel bars, or I may possibly just try making half the caramel mixture to see how that tastes. Watch for future posting on a revamp of this recipe.

Week 5 Part III

Fruit Magic ☆☆☆☆ [pg 94 HFC]
This dessert was consumed before I remembered to take a picture. I also have to admit to cheating a bit as I have made this before but not in a long, long time. I whipped this dessert together so we could give it the correct number of stars.

Jiffy cake mixes are getting harder and harder to find in our part of the country, so an 18 oz. white cake mix was purchased and split for the recipe. With only four ingredients, this is a very simple recipe and would be easy to throw together at the last minute for guests or an unexpected potluck event. (That assumes you keep cake mix and fruit filling on hand.)

This dessert gets mixed reviews at our house. Tom gives it five stars and claims, "I could have eaten that whole thing myself," while I miss the oatmeal, brown sugar type topping found on a fruit crisp dessert. I was going to give it three stars because I would make crisp over this any day. So the final star count will be a four.

February disposals

February has arrived and it is time to purge more things. Although it appears I only got rid of 22 things, there are actually about 55 items because of the multiple things I am removing from the house. Stuff is piling up in the garage. Wonder if I can get hubby to make a run to a donation site today?

1. Tiara cake pan—can't remember the last time I used it
2. Two HUGE drinking glasses
3. Red wicker basket
4. One box old Christmas ornaments
5. A can of thumbtacks
6. Magic markers—we don't use these at home so they are headed to school
7. Five hard cover cookbooks—one of my weaknesses. I read them like a novel.
8. Five soft cover cookbooks—ditto above
9. Two Bible study books that were never used.
10. Two 2011 calendars I picked up because they were free. Another bad habit I need to break.
11. Old photo album—removed the photos and threw the album away
12. Six rubber stamps
13. Seven coffee cups
14. Plastic salad carrier—haven't used it in quite some time
15. Bamboo steamer
16. Glass storage container—probably an antique but I haven't used it since it was given to me last fall.
17. Steam rack for the wok, never used
18. Water bottle—I hope to get rid of more of these soon, but must do this with spouse.
19. Old rolling pin
20. Three cookie tins—got rid of three and still have three because I do use them
21. Oil sweep thing—this was from Pampered Chef and I never really figured out how to use it and it is very hard to clean.
22. Tongs—Got rid of one of three pair.

Week 5 Part II

Mexican Lasagna ☆☆☆☆☆ [pg 46 HFC]
While I had not intended to include main dish recipes in my Reflections, I had to include this one because we all thought it was so good. I tend to purchase hamburger in 5-10 pound quantities, fry it up, and freeze it in 1# packages. Doing that one small step ahead of time made this dish go together very quickly and easily. After sauteing a bit of onion, all the ingredients got dumped together in the fry pan, mixed and then the lasagna layering began. I also saved time by purchasing a package of grated cheese.

As I layered the ingredients, it seemed there should be more of the meat mixture and maybe even a bit more cheese. (Wisconsinites always think there should be more cheese!) I wanted to give this recipe a fair chance as written before doctoring it up, so I proceeded following the directions, or so I thought.

When the dish went into the oven, I read over the recipe again and wondered if the sour cream was to have been mixed in with the other filling ingredients. Because of the order in which the ingredients were listed, I missed putting it in but decided to just try it as the garnish.

The Mexican lasagna smelled wonderful as it baked and we were not disappointed. My original feelings of not enough hamburger mixture were quickly dispelled, and everyone seemed just fine with the sour cream as a garnish for this flavorful dish. The dish earned five stars and will definitely be made again in the exact same way.