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