Sesame Crackers

Ryan made sausage leek soup for dinner tonight- I thought we needed something to go with it. Sesame crackers sounded good. I found a recipe on http://www.sandraseasycooking.com - It needed some changes though - and this is what we came up with.


2 cups wheat flour
2 Tbs. Baking powder
2 Tbs. Sesame Seeds + extra for sprinkling
1 Tbs. Sugar
1/2 Tbs. Salt
2 Tbs. Butter and extra melted for brushing
1 cup of warm milk
kosher salt for sprinkling


Preheat the open to 375 *. Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and sesame seeds. Add the butter and cut in with a fork. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add milk. I heated it for 1 min in the microwave first. Mix is to make a dough. I had to add more flour because it was too sticky. Divide the dough in half. Put each half on a cookie sheet lined with a Silpat mat. Press or roll it out as thin as possible (like a pizza crust or thinner). Brush with melted butter, and sprinkle with sesame seeds and kosher salt. Bake for approx. 15 minutes or until golden brown. Put baking sheet on a wire rack to cool. Allow to cool completely (or until you can't wait anymore). Break into pieces and serve. We put fresh mozzarella, cherry tomatoes and fresh basil leaves on ours. It was yummy! We ate most of it before I even thought of getting a picture. So use your imagination!


Note- I thought it was a bit too salty- the rest of the family thought it was good though. I think next time I will leave out some of the salt.

German Pancakes with Bacon

Most of you know I like to read- and I like reading books with recipes in them. Over the years, I have found some really good recipes. We have always liked German pancakes at our house- but they were always plain eggs, flour and milk. I never thought of putting anything in them. But then I found a German pancake recipe in a Cinnamon Roll Murder by Joanne Fluke.  Here's the version we came up with:

 

1 (12 to 16oz) package of bacon
8 eggs
2 cups milk
2 cups flour
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
8 oz package of cream cheese





Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish. Cook the bacon and crumble it into the bottom of  the cooking dish.

Beat the eggs and half of the milk until light and fluffy. (Ryan said I didn't do this long enough the last time we made them, so the pancakes weren't as fluffy.) Add the vanilla and salt and continue beating. Then add the flour and the rest of the milk and beat some more.

Pour half the egg mixture over the bacon. Cut the cream cheese into 1 inch square pieces and place evenly over the eggs mixture. Then top with the rest of the egg mixture - I really don't know why we bother to layer the stuff in there - it all seems pretty liquid and just seems to mix around anyway.

Bake at 375 for 35 minutes. The originally recipe says 45-55 minutes, but Ryan says that is too long and makes it too crispy. - Do whatever works for you. We usually can't wait an hour because we are hungry now!

-Genevieve

A New Chicken Puff

I'm sitting here with Charlotte asleep waiting for Ben to get home. Dinner is made and ready to go into the oven and even though I've never tried this new recipe I made up, I'm just so confident that it will turn out and be fabulous that I'm posting before I've even tasted!

CHICKEN POT PIE PUFFS

4 Chicken tenders cooked and chopped(with some sort of spice to flavor your chicken)
Onions
Celery
Carrots
Broccoli
Frozen peas
1 Can cream of chicken
2 Cans crescent rolls
Spices- I used a Johnny's Garlic Spread & Seasoning (which is a garlic and parmesan spread basically)
Handful of grated cheese

Cook chicken. Saute onions and celery. Steam carrots and broccoli until soft. Combine everything with cream of chicken, handful of cheese, and spice to taste.  Roll a spoonful of mixture onto crescent roll dough and make into a ball.  Cook at 350 degrees for about 15-20 min, watch and take out when golden.

Hope they are good!
*I don't measure anything so just do quantities to your desired taste, or just what looks good.

*UPDATE: We ate the entire pan almost, I think they are pretty darn tasty!

Cranberry Pomegranate Salad

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

This year it was my turn to make the cranberry dish. Mom has always done a "cranberry relish ring" recipe with an entire orange in it and a can of lemon lime soda. I think the white part of the orange makes it a little bitter. So I knew I wanted to leave that out. I also didn't want to used the soda- maybe it would be less tart. I looked around on allrecipes.com and found a recipe for a layered salad that was very similar to Mom's but it had nuts and apples in it - I didn't want to use nuts and I have pomegranates I wanted to use instead of apples. So I combined and modified a couple of recipes and this is what I came up with:

1 Orange
1 package of fresh cranberries (about 2 cups)
1/2 c sugar
6 oz red gelatin (I used strawberry this time)
1 cup water
10 oz crushed pineapple with the juice (I had a fresh one and thought about using it, but didn't - bet it would be good though! I used half of a 20 oz can and just eye-balled it)
2 pomegranates (about 1 cup pomegranate seeds)

Zest the orange, be careful not to get the white part, and set aside. Cut off the peel and cut in half. Wash and sort the cranberries. Put orange and cranberries in a blender or food-processor to chop finely.  Boil the water and dissolve the gelatin in the water. Mix the cranberries with sugar until dissolved. Put the cranberries and pomegranate seeds into a large dish. pour gelatin over and mix well. Add the crushed pineapple with juice and stir until combined. Then allow to set up overnight.

(I tasted it before it was set up - so far it's pretty yummy!)

It's supposed to have a whipped cream/cream cheese topping on it - I haven't made it yet. But when I do, I'll post it.

The topping is 1 cup whipping cream and 1 -8oz package of cream cheese. Whip the cream and beat in the cream cheese. I added 1/4 to 1/2 cup powdered sugar to make it sweeter. This made enough topping to cover 2 9x13 pans of jello (double the first part of the recipe).

Variation:
We made this recipe again, but didn't have oranges.-So I used 4 or 5 key limes- and left out the pineapple. I added a little extra water- not much. It was good!  We didn't do the topping on it, but I think it would have been better with the topping because it's tart.

Chocolate Zucchini Brownies

Chocolate Zucchini Brownies

½ cup margarine                                                    1 ½ cups sugar

2 eggs                                                                  2 cups flour

2 tbsp. cocoa                                                         ½ tsp. soda

¼ tsp. salt                                                             ½ tsp. cinnamon

2 ½ cups grated zucchini

TOPPING:

2 tbsp. brown sugar                                               1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup nuts

Cream margarine and sugar, add eggs and beat.  Gradually add dry ingredients and spice; mix well.  Add grated zucchini and pour into well-greased and floured 9X13 pan.  Sprinkle with brown sugar, chocolate chips and nuts.  Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until done

Glazed Lemon Zucchini Bread

This is more like a cake than a healthy bread!

INGREDIENTS

• 4 cups flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 package (3.4 oz) instant lemon pudding mix
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon lemon extract
• zest of 1 lemon
• 2 cups shredded zucchini
• 1/4 cup poppy seeds
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• Juice from 2 lemons

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease two 9x5-inch loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, pudding mix, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, mix together the eggs, milk, vegetable oil, lemon juice, lemon extract and lemon zest. Gently stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Fold in the zucchini and the poppy seeds.
3. Pour the batter evenly into the greased loaf pans. Bake for 50-55 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the pans to cool completely.
4. When cool, make the glaze: In a bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar and lemon juice until smooth. Pour evenly over the two loaves. Let the glaze set up, about 10 minutes.

Caramelized peach pull apart bread

You can also make this using Granny Smith apples instead of peaches!

Ingredients

For the Dough:
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 2-1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 4 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 3/4 cup all-purpose flour (plus 1/4 cup or more, if needed)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
For the Filling:
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• pinch of salt
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted
• 3-4 small ripe peaches, finely chopped 
For the Glaze:
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons milk

Instructions

1. To the bowl of a stand-mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, combine warm water and yeast.
2. In a microwave-safe dish, melt the butter until just melted, but not too hot. Stir in milk and vanilla. Set aside.
3. Add flour, sugar, and salt on top of water/yeast mixture in mixing bowl. Turn mixer on low, add eggs, then stream in milk/butter/vanilla mixture gradually until a soft dough forms. Add flour by the tablespoon until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and forms a ball. Turn mixer up to medium speed and knead 3 minutes. Cover and let rise in a warm place 90 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, in a small bowl mix together the brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt for the filling. Set aside. Prepare the peaches and melt butter just before the dough is done rising. Grease a standard 9x5 loaf pan.
5. Turn risen dough out onto a floured work surface and roll out into a large rectangle (roughly 12x24 inches, but it doesn't need to be perfect). Dough will be rather thin.
6. Brush dough with melted butter. Sprinkle the entire surface with the cinnamon sugar mixture.
7. Using a pizza wheel, cut dough into equal-sized, long strips, about 3-4 inches wide. Sprinkle the first strip with 1/6th of the chopped peaches. Lay the next strip on top of the first strip. Sprinkle withpeaches and cover with another strip. Repeat until all the strips are stacked on top of each other.
8. Cut the stacked strips into 4-6 equal stacks of squares (about 4-5 inches in size). Stack the squares vertically into prepared loaf pan. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise 30-45 minutes.
9. Preheat oven to 350. Bake the bread on the middle rack of oven 40-45 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through (check center for doughiness). If the bread gets too brown on top before it is done cooking in the center, cover loosely with foil for the remainder of cooking time.
10. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the glaze by adding the butter, brown sugar and milk to a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and cook for 1 minute.
11. Turn loaf out onto a rack with parchment paper underneath it. Drizzle the loaf with the warm caramel glaze. Pull apart and enjoy warm, dipping the bread in the remaining glaze on the parchment paper.
12. Best enjoyed the same day it is baked.

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