Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

This is the chocolate frosting that I used to decorate a volcano cake this week. It was so good! I really had a hard time keeping my fingers out of  it for a taste.

Chocolate Butter Cream Frosting

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 2/3 cups powdered sugar, softened

1/3 cup half and half or milk

1 1/2 t. vanilla

choose one of the following:

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder,  (for light)

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder,  (for medium)

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder,  (for dark and rich)

Cream the butter in a small bow. Blend in the cocoa powder, vanilla, powdered sugar, alternating with the cream. Beat with mixer until the desired texture is achieved. *The more cocoa powder that is added, might mean an addition of more cream for the right consistency.

Makes 2 cups.

Green Chile Cheese Puff

A crustless quiche that is light and airy, but rich in flavor. This comes together quick, as long as you have roasted the poblano peppers ahead of time. Add your favorite salsa, serve with a warm tortilla and fresh fruit. I loved this, it is what hard to stay true to just having one serving.

Green Chile Cheese Puff

1/4 cup flour

3/4 t. salt

1/2 t. baking powder

6 large eggs

2 T. unsalted butter, melted

1 cup cottage cheese

8 oz. Monterey Jack Cheese, shredded

4 green poblano chilies, roasted and peeled, cut into 1/4 in. dice*

Preheat oven to 350 and set rack in the middle of the oven. Spray a 9 inch glass pie plate. In a small bowl, sift together the flour, salt and baking powder. In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, beat the eggs until doubled in volume, about 3 minutes. Add the butter, flour mixture and cheese and beat well. Stir in the chilies and pour the mixture into the pie plate. Bake until the top is puffed and golden brown and a tester comes out clean 35 to 45 minutes. Serve with salsa.

*to roast and peel the pablanos, arrange them on an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet and broil until blistered and blackened, turning frequently. Wrap in the foil and set aside to steam for 10 minutes. Open the foil. When the pablanos are cool enough to handle, peel them; the skin should come off easily. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

My New Toy

This is it! I am so excited! I have always wanted an electric wheat grinder, however I didn't want to purchase one unless I really knew that I would use it. I have several hundred pounds of wheat in my food storage and a hand crank grinder for an emergency but that has been it. I have usually purchased whole wheat flour at the store in 25 lb bags when I needed it and felt like making bread. Now I can actually use the wheat. I can also grind popcorn and make my own cornmeal and all kinds of dried beans etc.. But really I would use it mostly for wheat. 

What I am really excited about is that I can make my own whole wheat pastry flour now. It's just a matter of having the right kind of wheat. Flour made from Hard White Wheat is ideal for breads, but for cookies, biscuits, cakes, muffin etc., one needs to mill Soft White Wheat and that still gives you the healthy whole wheat yet gives the tenderness and lightness that these kind of recipes need. 

I am ready to play!

Freezer Biscuits

This is my favorite recipe for biscuits! First of all it is so easy to make second, the recipe makes two dozen biscuits and third you can make them ahead of time and freeze the uncooked biscuits and pull out what you need. You can also freeze them after you bake them as well. But the best part is that they taste great- so light and tender. It is the only biscuit recipe that I make now. I need to find one that is more food storage friendly but for now this is it!

To even take this recipe to higher levels substitute half the flour with pastry flour, but no more than half.  The biscuits will just melt in your mouth.

Freezer Biscuits

6 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for counter

2 T. sugar

2 T. baking powder

1 1/2 t. salt

4 1/2 cups heavy cream (I use 1% milk for the last half cup)

Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. Stir in the cream with a wooden spoon until a dough forms, about 30 seconds. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and gather into a ball. Knead the dough briefly until smooth, about 60 seconds, adding extra flour as needed if the dough is too sticky. Pat the dough into a ¾ inch thick circle. Cut out the biscuits using a 2 ½ inch round biscuit cutter. Lay the biscuits on prepared baking sheet, placing each biscuit about ½ inch apart. Gather up the scraps of dough and reknead them briefly to combine, then pat the dough again into a ¾ inch thick round and cut more biscuits; repeat this process for a third time. You can either discard any remaining bits of dough or gently pat them into rustic hand-formed biscuits.

 

To store: Wrap the baking sheet tightly with greased plastic wrap and freeze the biscuits until frozen solid, about 6 hours. Transfer the frozen biscuits to a large zipper-top bag and freeze for up to one month. To serve: Adjust an oven rack to the upper middle position and heat the oven to 450 degrees. Lay the biscuits in parchment lined baking sheet, about 2 inches apart, and bake until puffed and golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. If you have to use two baking sheets for a large amount of biscuits only cooking one baking sheet at a time.

 

To serve right away: After cutting out the biscuits, spread them out over 2 parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake the biscuits one sheet at a time, at 450, reducing the baking time to 15 to 20 minutes (12 minutes if cooking before freezing).

Stir Fry Chicken with Coconut and Lime

I made this recipe the other night for the first time and my kids loved it! In fact they requested that I make it again tomorrow night. I loved it too! It's all about the sauce! In fact there was not enough sauce for our liking and I will try doubling it next time. We pretty much love anything thing with coconut milk. Coconut milk does not taste anything like coconut flakes- I can't stand coconut-but we love anything made with coconut milk. The other ingredient that might be a turn off is Fish Sauce (Cindy!). Yes, it smells bad, but when you cook with it you can't smell anything and it adds great taste- a little goes long way. I personally have added coconut milk and fish sauce to my food storage, we use it that much.

Stir-Fried Chicken with Lime and Coconut

3-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts halves

juice of 2 limes

4 t. olive oil

2 red Serrano chilies, seeded and finely chopped

1 (14 oz.) can coconut milk (find lite if possible)

4 t. fish sauce

8 scallions, chopped

2/3 cup chopped cilantro

cooked jasmine or short grain rice

Cut the chicken into bite size pieces. In a medium bowl, combine the chicken and lime juice. Stir well and let marinate for 1 hour( I did about 15 minutes and it was fine).

In wok or large skillet, heat the oil over high heat. Add the chicken and stir fry the chicken 3 to 4 minutes or until golden brown. Add the chilies and stir fry 1 minute more. Add the coconut milk, fish sauce, half the green onions and half the cilantro. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes more. Serve with rice, sprinkling the remaining green onions and cilantro over top.  Serves 4

Spicy Macaroni and Cheese Soup

This is a soup we make when Michael goes out of town. The other non-cheese person just has to make do with something else. We love it! It's easy and spicy depending on the kind of Rotel tomatoes you buy. "Original" flavor works just fine for us and delivers the right kind of heat. Don't scoff at the Velveeta cheese, it's perfect for this soup.

Spicy Macaroni & Cheese Soup

2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni or other short pasta

4 cups chicken broth

2 (14 oz. cans) Rotel tomatoes

1 lb. Velveeta cheese, cubed

salt and pepper

Bring water to a boil and cook pasta. Drain. Meanwhile heat the broth and the tomatoes to a simmer in a large saucepan over medium heat. Gradually add Velveeta cheese and stir until melted. Stir in the cooked past and heat through. Season with salt and pepper. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Banana Bread

A couple of weeks ago we had a Banana Bread Bake-off at work. Adrian, the head Horticulturist had got a bunch of bananas for real cheap and on a whim passed them out challenging everyone to a Banana Bread Bake-off. I was game, I had a good recipe to share. I thought this was just a fun diversion. When I showed up three days later within my banana bread I was stunned. It wasn't what I thought, they were serious. The Conference room was set up with about 3 long tables, with tablecloths and charger plates. We had to fill out papers and our loaves of bread were assigned numbers.  Gulp...I should of known that competing with Food Consumer Science Agents, Master Gardner's and 4-H staffers would of taken on a more serious tone. They even brought in outside judges, three county employees for judges. Anyway needless to say I did not win..but that is okay for now I have walked away with some good banana bread recipes- can't have enough of those.  Here is the winning recipe:

First Place Banana Bread

3 eggs. beaten

2/3 cup plain yogurt

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup applesauce or pear sauce

4 ripe bananas mashed

1 t. vanilla

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 1/2 cups sugar

2 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

1/2 - 1 t. cinnamon

1/2 - 1 t. nutmeg

Preheat oven to 325. Spray two 8 x 4 loaf pans with vegetable spray. With mixer, combine eggs,  yogurt, oil, applesauce, bananas and vanilla. Sift together in a different large bowl- flours, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir into banana mixture. Combine well, but do not over mix. Pour into prepared loaf pans.

Make a topping of 3 T. sugar, 3 T. finely chopped nuts, 1 t. cinnamon and generous dash of nutmeg. Press into the top of the unbaked loaves.

Bake 1 hour and 20 minutesor until cake tester comes out clean(when I cooked it is was done in just over an hour-so check) .