Root Beer Float Cake

The latest post from Mommy's Kitchen reminded me that today is National Root Beer Float Day. Last year we celebrated by making homemade root beer and faux ice cream and made our own floats. This year I decided to take it in a completely different direction, and invented a Root Beer Float Cake. Root beer flavored cake, spread with root beer flavored custard sauce, and topped with a fluffy egg white frosting. Yummy!


Root Beer Float Cake
Cake:
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp. white sugar
1 egg
1 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp. root beer extract

Custard:
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp. sugar
1 large egg yolk
1/2 tsp. root beer extract

Frosting:
1 egg white, chilled
1 c. sugar
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1/2 c. boiling water
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan, or two 9 inch round pans.

Cream together the shortening and sugar. Beat in the eggs. Add the flour, milk, and vanilla, and beat to a soft smooth batter.

Bake 20 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Poke holes in warm cake.

While the cake is baking, make the custard:

Bring milk and sugar to a simmer in a saucepan without stirring. Whisk yolk (set white aside in fridge after separating to make frosting) in a bowl until blended, then gradually whisk in hot milk mixture. Return to saucepan and cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly, until sauce thickens enough to coat back of a wooden spoon. Immediately remove from heat and stir in root beer extract. Pour over warm, poked cake and spread around (hmm, can you tell I used a fork to spread it?).


Cool briefly while custard soaks in a bit. Cover cake with plastic wrap and chill. After the cake is cooled, make the frosting:

Combine egg white, sugar, and cream of tartar in large bowl. Add boiling water. Begin at once to beat with electric mixer. Continue beating on high speed until thick and fluffy and mixture stands in stiff peaks. Add vanilla. Spread over chilled cake (there will be frosting left over).


P.S. It wasn't until I actually started the cake and wrote up the post that I read through the entire Mommy's Kitchen post and realized that she actually mentions root beer float cake! And here I thought I was being super creative and original by inventing one! Well, of course I had to Google it, and was relieved to learn that mine is definitely different from other root beer float cakes out there. After all, I did make it up all by myself!

Sourdough Bread with Creamy Cheese Dip

***I realized this after I posted the recipe, but today is National Sourdough Bread Day. What a great coincidence!***

I've been making sourdough bread off and on for a couple years. I recently started back up again and have a nice fresh batch of starter in my fridge. I love the tangy flavor of the sourdough. Plus it's super inexpensive - one of the cheapest breads you can make. After you have the starter (a simple mixture of yeast, flour, and water), all you need to make the bread is water, salt, and flour.

Sourdough does take a long time from start to finish. A little bit of planning ahead is necessary if you want the bread done on a certain day. But there isn't any more hands-on time for this bread than there is for any homemade bread. I'm trying to make bread once or twice a week so we always have some on hand.

Last night I went to a girls' night. We had a recipe exchange - everyone brought a favorite dish and copies of the recipe to share. I brought a fresh loaf of sourdough and a delicious creamy cheese dip. I don't have a printer and didn't want to hand write all those copies of this recipe, so this gave me a great excuse to go ahead and post it here. I've been meaning to for a while, so I'm glad I finally had a reason to get around to it!


The recipe I use comes from The Tightwad Gazette. I mostly quote the book directly.

Sourdough Starter
The first step is to make a starter. The simplest way is to mix 1 tablespoon of yeast with 2 cups of chlorine-free water (allow your tap water to "air out" in a jug for a couple of days) and two cups of white flour. Combine these in a glass, plastic, or earthware container - not a metal one. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and allow this mixture to sit at room temperature for at least 48 hours, until it foams and develops a pleasantly sour smell. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. You can also get starter from a friend who makes sourdough. (The sourdough books warn that if the starter turns orange, pink, or any other strange color, you should throw it out.)

Notes on using the starter:
~Each time you remove some starter, you must "feed" it. Just add back 1 1/2 cups water and 1 1/2 cups flour, stir, cover loosely, and return starter to the refrigerator.
~You can use your starter, fresh from the fridge, for weeks at a time. Eventually the loaves may start to rise a bit more slowly. Whenever this happens, just leave the jar of starter out at room temperature overnight to speed its fermentation.
~If you are an infrequent baker, you'll need to drain off some starter and feed it at least once every two weeks to keep it alive.
~The starter separates in the refrigerator. This is normal. Always stir it well before using, and stir it well again when feeding.

Sourdough Bread (To make two loaves of bread)
5 1/2 cups flour (you can substitute whole wheat flour for 1 or 2 cups)
2 cups starter
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup water

Dissolve the salt in the water in a mixing bowl. (Some sourdough books say you should not use a metal bowl.) Add the starter, and then the flour (I have found that in a dry climate, 5 1/2 cups is sometimes too much. I start with 4 cups and just add more as necessary until it's the right consistency). Stir, then knead into a ball. Cover with a damp towel and let rise overnight at room temperature.

The next morning, punch down risen dough and divide in half. Shape each half into a round loaf, make an X-shaped slash on each top, and place the two loaves on a greased baking sheet. Cover with a damp towel and allow to rise at room temperature for about four more hours. Place a pan of water on the bottom rack of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees. Bake for 35 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.


The dip I made to go with the bread was absolutely fantastic. I adapted a different recipe, but can't remember where I found it. This version is changed enough it's not really the same recipe anyway. It turned out so flavorful and delicious - I couldn't get enough!

Creamy Cheese Dip for sourdough
1 8-oz. package cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup Italian salad dressing
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
2 oz. black olives, sliced
Garlic powder and onion powder to taste (I added about a dash each)

Combine all ingredients with an electric mixer; beat until smooth. Refrigerate until serving.

To serve, cut top off a loaf of sourdough. Cut out the inside of the loaf and tear up inside and top to use for dipping. Spoon dip inside the emptied loaf of sourdough.

I didn't take a picture immediately after arranging all this on the plate, which I do regret. I forgot to take the picture until this morning, after the bread had been thoroughly mutilated. But it still looks delicious to me!

Pears Helene (the cheater tightwad version)

Today, Mar. 15, is National Pears Helene Day. I'd never heard of Pears Helene before I saw it come up on my little calendar of upcoming national food holidays (left sidebar). But it sounded intriguing so I looked it up online. I found lots of recipes, and the common thread among them is that Pears Helene is cooked pears with chocolate sauce, usually served over ice cream and topped with almonds. Well, we don't have ice cream or almonds, but since those are optional and we did have pears and chocolate, I decided to forge ahead and create a cheap and easy version of this delightful looking French dessert.


Pears Helene, the easy way
1 large can pear halves in light syrup
1/2 cup chocolate chips
3-4 tbsp. sweetened condensed milk
2 tbsp. shortening
1/4 cup milk

Empty pears and syrup into saucepan and heat over medium heat (I chose to quarter the pears instead of leaving them in halves). Don't boil, just get them good and hot. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate chips with the sweetened condensed milk. I did this in the microwave, and the texture didn't end up the way I wanted, so I reheated the chocolate with some shortening and milk until it reached a smooth and syrupy consistency.

To serve, place 3 or 4 pear quarters on each plate and drizzle (liberally, heehee) with chocolate sauce. Or spoon some pears over vanilla ice cream and top with chocolate sauce and sliced almonds. Eat and enjoy!!


Yum, doesn't it just look delicious! I think we'll be making this quick, easy, scrumptious dessert many times in the future. This is one of those things I want my kids to grow up asking for. "Mom, can we have Pears Helene for dessert tonight?" "Of course, honey! Go grab a can of pears and some chocolate chips!" Ah, it just rolls off the tongue! :-)

As a bonus, the chocolate sauce would also make a good fondue-like dip for things like bananas, strawberries, pound cake cubes, graham crackers, etc.

National Tortilla Chip Day

Did you know that Feb. 24 is National Tortilla Chip Day? It's also National Pancake Day but we had to pick and choose which to celebrate and tortilla chips won out.


What better way to celebrate National Tortilla Chip Day than to build up some super delicious nachos!!!! And we did it the only way we know how - cheap!

We started with the tortilla chips - purchase on sale for $0.89/16 oz. bag at Rancho Market (a local Hispanic market/store with incredible sales prices on stuff like chips and produce)


On top of the chips went the delicious cheesy sauce. We made this by heating up a jar of pasteurized process cheese sauce (we usually use a slab of generic Velveeta-like stuff, but they were out, so the jarred generic stuff it was). We added a can of tomatoes and green chilies (commonly called Ro-Tel, of course we used generic) and some bean flour (dried beans ground up in a wheat grinder), as well as chili powder and cumin for a hearty and flavorful cheese sauce.


Next up was some homemade guacamole, made from avocados that were purchased on sale at Rancho Market for $0.33 each. I mashed three avocados and added some lemon juice, parsley, minced onion, garlic, hot sauce, and salt.


After the guacamole came leaf lettuce, purchased at Ream's for $0.69 per bunch, and tomato - 4 lbs for $0.99 at Rancho.


Lastly came the cheese, $2.50 per pound on sale. Now, I know that somehow, somewhere I can get cheese for cheaper than that, but I'm having trouble finding it. Meanwhile, this was the cheapest we could get, and believe me, it's cheaper than we could get at Wal-Mart.


This fun, delicious meal cost us under $3, plus we have plenty of cheap ingredients left for other great foods later!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway for homemade chocolate truffles here. Giveaway ends Friday evening. :-)

National Pie Day!

This is one of my favorite National food holidays - National Pie Day! I love pies - everything from apple pie and peach pie, to lemon meringue and key lime, to banana cream pie and coconut cream pie and chocolate cream pie. I love pumpkin pie and pecan pie at Thanksgiving, simple pudding and cool whip pies, even shoofly pie. I haven't yet learned to appreciate the flavor and texture of mincemeat (did you know that it has real meat in it? Weird!) but besides that, I pretty much haven't met a type of pie that I didn't like. And the last time I tried mincemeat was years ago before my palate had expanded to enjoy things like beets, Brussels sprouts (yes, I like them), and Hawaiian pizza. So maybe I should give mincemeat another try sometime before I say I don't care for it...

I digress. Today being National Pie Day, I of course decided to make a pie. I tried to find one that didn't include a double pastry crust because of the high calorie content in that kind of crust (yes, this pie day is a special occasion and definitely calls for a splurge but I don't want to go too far). I found this recipe on allrecipes.com and decided to give it a try. It's an apple pie that forms its own crust while baking. The recipe had mixed reviews, most of the complaints being that the filling was kind of dry and bland. So I just increased the cinnamon and didn't go into it expecting a wet, syrupy pie. I don't like my pies to be dripping with juice anyway, so I was okay with that.


Fireman's Apple Pie
1/4 cup margarine, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon (increased to 1 tsp.)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 apples - peeled, cored and sliced

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, cream margarine and sugar. Beat in the egg. Mix in the cinnamon, salt and flour; stir until smooth (it will be firm/dry - similar to cookie dough). Fold in the apples, then pour mixture into a 9 inch pie dish (It didn't say whether the pan was to be greased, so I didn't).

Bake in the preheated oven for one hour.

Servings: 8
Calories per serving: 254


Easy peasy pie! There was no pastry to roll out, no crackers to crush, it was a very simple and straightforward recipe. And the smell coming out of my oven while it was baking was so fabulous!

How did the pie turn out? Kind of like a pie-shaped cake. The top and bottom crust were rather cake-like. But it did have the wonderful flavor of apple pie; it was delicious! It would have been even better with some ice cream or whipped topping, but even by itself it was fantastic. I still prefer a regular double-crust apple pie when there's time and motivation to do the crust, but in a jiffy, this is definitely a pie I'll make again.

Happy National Shortbread Day!

By late this morning, I still had no idea what recipe I would post next. This doesn't usually happen to me, we cook so often and food is a very big part of our life. I've just been in a slump. But then I remembered that I list upcoming National Food Holidays on my sidebar (here is where I find them), in case of just such a slump. Sometimes that is no help at all, like when I see that it is National Roast Suckling Pig Day (Dec. 18) or National Escargot Day (May 24), or something equally out of my comfort level. But today I had a winner - it's National Shortbread Day!


So here's the simplest, easiest recipe for shortbread that I could find on allrecipes.com. Only three ingredients, and it turned out fantastic!

Scottish Shortbread
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter (People will tell you not to substitute margarine, that you have to use real butter or it doesn't work. Don't believe a word of it! I used margarine and it worked just fine!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (many reviewers said 300, so I did that instead).

Blend all ingredients well. Dough will be stiff. It's funner if you use your hands and knead it really well.

Press into a buttered 9x9-inch pan (I used a shortening-ed 8x8-inch pan). Prick top with fork.

Bake until pale golden brown on the edges. 30 minutes at 300 seems to be a good baking time according to the reviews, though since I used a smaller pan I had to leave it in a little longer. Just keep a close eye on it, and take it out when it's lightly golden on the edges.

Cool completely before cutting into squares. Several reviewers said you can sprinkle it with sugar while cooling, so I did that; it makes it even prettier. It's very important to let it cool completely before you cut it into squares, or it will be too crumbly.


This is the first time I've made shortbread. I really love a good shortbread, with its light buttery flavor and unique texture, and this recipe didn't disappoint.

Sigh. It's nice to be out of the slump. Thank you, American National Food Holidays! :-)

National Welsh Rarebit Day

By a show of hands, how many people have ever even heard of Welsh Rarebit, let along know what it is? If you're raising your hand, you know more than I did before yesterday. Yesterday my sister and I noticed that today, September 3, is National Welsh Rarebit Day. And we had absolutely no idea what that meant! Upon seeing the name Welsh Rarebit I thought it would be something fancy. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it is a simple, humble, fairly inexpensive dish.

Here is what we found when we looked it up on Wikipedia: "Welsh rarebit, Welsh rabbit, or more infrequently, rarebit is traditionally a savory sauce made from a mixture of cheese and various other ingredients and served hot over toasted bread. ... The first recorded use of the term Welsh rabbit was in 1725, but the origin of the term is unknown. It may be an ironic name coined in the days when the Welsh were notoriously poor: only better-off people could afford butcher's meat, and while in England rabbit was the poor man's meat, in Wales the poor man's meat was cheese. It may be a slur against the Welsh, since the dish contains no meat and so was considered inferior. Then again, because the word Welsh was at the time used by the English to describe anything inferior or foreign, it may allude to the dish's Continental European origin."

So after all that extensive research, we looked up a recipe. We found one on allrecipes.com that made it clear that Welsh Rarebit is simply a white sauce with cheese and a few seasonings. I thought - cool! I can definitely make that! So here it is - Welsh Rarebit!


Welsh Rarebit
4 tbsp. butter
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. dry mustard
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 cups milk*
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese

In a 2 quart saucepan over low heat, melt the butter. Stir in and blend the flour, salt, mustard and pepper. Stir in the milk and Worcestershire sauce. Continue stirring the mixture for 10 minutes, or until thickened.

Stirring continuously, melt the cheese into the mixture and blend well. Serve immediately over warm toast.

*I found that, Idaho being excessively dry, I needed to add about 1/4 cup extra liquid, because my sauce was thickening far too much. So start with the amounts specified in the recipe, and then adjust if necessary.

Verdict: This was really yummy! There was something humble and "homespun" about it, and I always enjoy simple food. I'm glad I took the time to discover Welsh Rarebit, because we will be making this again.

S'more Cookie Fingers

***** This recipe is being entered into the SITS (Secret is in the Sauce) Recipe Contest! The winner will receive a $100 Williams Sonoma gift certificate and a new digital camera. If you want to enter the contest, click here. *****


Happy National S'Mores Day, everyone!

To celebrate this very important National Holiday (while using the ingredients on hand, which did not include full-sized marshmallows, phooey!) I decided to get creative and invent my own s'more-inspired dessert. I tossed around the idea of making a s'more pie (baked crust filled with a mixture of mini-mallows, chocolate chips, and graham cracker chunks, then heated in the oven until the marshmallows puff and the chocolate is soft and gooey) but decided I didn't want to do a pie crust. My reason is so lame - I didn't want to have to clean shortening off a measuring cup and pastry cutter!

My next idea was to make some sort of cookie. I eventually decided to make a cookie and top it with chocolate chips and mini-marshmallows. Sounded great, and all that was left was to find the right cookie recipe.

Looking online, I found a recipe for Cookie Clay Dough - it tastes like cinnamon grahams, and is made for the express purpose of being shaped. Little plug for this recipe - it is so awesome! It's healthier than some other cookie doughs, because it's made with whole wheat flour (ignore all the sugar and butter...). It's also really fun, because you can plop it on some wax paper in front of your kids and they play with it like Play-Doh (make sure they wash their hands first), then you bake their creations and they get to eat them! The other reason this recipe is so great is that the raw dough tastes incredible! If you have powdered egg product, use that instead of the raw egg because you're going to want to just snack on this dough without ever baking it! Or if you don't care about the salmonella risk, eat it with the egg (just so you know, I'll probably get salmonella after today, but it would be worth it for that dough).

S'more Cookie Fingers
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter (1 cube)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg (or 2 tbsp. dry egg powder and some water)
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Topping:
Chocolate chips
Miniature marshmallows

Cream together the sugars, butter, vanilla, and egg (if using dry egg, add the powder with the dry ingredients). Add flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Mix well. If using the dry egg powder, now add 2-4 tbsp. water until the dough has a Play-Doh consistency. I used a regular egg, and ended up adding about a tablespoon of water at the end because it's really dry here.

At this point you can give the dough to your kids and say, "Look kids, edible play dough! Have at it!" They'll love you forever. But if you want to make cookie fingers, here's what I did.

Shape the dough into sixteen "boats" on ungreased baking sheets.

Fill the boats with about 7-8 chocolate chips.

Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and press 6-7 mini-mallows onto the chocolate chips.

Return to oven and bake for 3 more minutes, until the marshmallows are puffy and a tiny bit golden. The marshmallows look kinda like big white caterpillars, don't they?

Let cool in the pan for about 3 minutes, then remove to wire racks. The best time to eat these is right after you remove them from the pan - they're still a bit warm, the chocolate is soft, the mallows are gooey and stretchy, and it tastes so good! Once they've cooled, you can pop them in the microwave for a few seconds to get that warm, gooey texture again.


This will also be my sweet entry for the second August edition of I Love Baking. Who can resist a big round-up of delicious baked goods twice a month from all over the blogosphere?

National Frozen Custard Day

So, we aren't actually making this today, but I wanted to post the link to this recipe anyway. I really want to try this sometime - it's cheaper than making ice cream because there's no cream in the entire recipe. None at all!

I wanted to make this tonight, but we've spent the afternoon and evening washing dishes (curse that eternal bad habit of mine to constantly leave dishes in the sink instead of washing them!) and haven't had time to make anything fancy or special. It's almost 6:00 and we haven't even decided what to do for dinner yet!

Anyway, for anyone who wants to make this delicious-looking frozen treat (though it will be too late to eat it to celebrate National Frozen Custard Day), here's the link:

Homemade Frozen Custard

At a later time, when I've made this, I'll get back on and post pics of it. I'm looking forward to it already!

Root Beer Float - from scratch!

Today is National Root Beer Float Day. Most people, upon realizing this, would go to the store, buy root beer and ice cream, then go home and make root beer floats. The traditional, boring way.

Jeff and I aren't most people.

We chose to make our root beer floats entirely from scratch. So we dug out our root beer recipe, invented in ice cream-like concoction, and really made Root Beer Floats!

Root Beer
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup hot water
1/2 tsp. plus 1/8 tsp. root beer extract
1 liter (just over 4 cups) cold seltzer water

Dissolve sugar in water. Add root beer extract and let cool. Stir mixture into cold seltzer water. Drink immediately or refrigerate in tightly-covered container.

Not Quite Ice Cream
1 cup powdered milk
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup boiling water
3 tbsp. melted butter or margarine
2/3 cup milk (not powdered)

This recipe is basically my recipe for sweetened condensed milk, but with additional milk to thin it down.

Combine powdered milk, sugar, water, and butter in blender. Process until smooth. It may take a while for the powdered milk to all get incorporated, so be patient and occasionally turn off the blender to scrape the sides.

When smooth, add the regular milk and blend until incorporated.

Pour mixture into a large, flat container with a tight-fitting lid. Place in freezer for several hours. (You like all my frozen chicken that we bought for 50 cents per pound? Yeah, me too)


We left it in the freezer for 6 hours. I intended to put it through the food processor when I took it out, to make it creamy and more like ice cream. But when I removed it from the freezer, it was already spoon-able, so I didn't worry about it. I don't know if it would require the food processor if left in the freezer longer.

Just a note: This ice cream stuff has a strong powdered milk flavor. If you really can't stand the taste of powdered milk (I kinda like it, but everyone's different), you can just open up a can of sweetened condensed milk, then add the 2/3 cup regular milk and freeze as directed.


Root Beer Floats
Spoon ice cream (or Not Quite Ice Cream) into glasses. Pour root beer over ice cream. Enjoy!


Now, I don't know if this really qualifies as being the most frugal alternative for this treat. Maybe it would cost less to just buy a bottle of root beer and a half-gallon of vanilla ice cream - I didn't add up the cost for this. But you know, sometimes it's okay to sacrifice a tiny bit of tightwaddery for a lot of creativity and fun!

Crispy Sugar Cookies with Lightly Lemon Frosting

Happy National Sugar Cookie Day!

The last time I made sugar cookies, they were moist and soft. And delicious. This time, I followed a different recipe that gave me cookies that were dry and crispy. And delicious.

I love sugar cookies topped with frosting. My favorite are the Lofthouse cookies you get at the grocery store in those little clear plastic containers. But as delicious as they are, they aren't exactly tight-budget-friendly. So I make my own cookies. I have yet to find a recipe for cookies and frosting exactly like those store-bought ones, but I have found several that I really like.

I particularly like recipes that don't require any refrigeration, or having to be rolled out. I'm a time-saver at heart, as long as it saves money as well. I figure, making cookies instead of buying them saves money, and not refrigerating or rolling and cutting the dough saves time. Sounds good to me!


Crispy Sugar Cookies
1 cup sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Beat sugar, butter, vanilla, nutmeg, and egg in large bowl until smooth. Gradually stir in flour.

Shape dough by teaspoonfuls into balls (they don't have to be evenly shaped). Place dough ball on ungreased baking sheet, 2 inches apart. Press dough gently with bottom of lightly floured, flat-bottomed glass. Cookie should be about 1/4-inch thick.

Bake 8-10 minutes, or until edges are just golden brown. Cool cookies on baking sheet 1 minute, then remove to wire rack. Cool.


Lightly Lemon Frosting
1/2 cup butter, softened
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons milk
Pinch salt (only needed if you use unsalted butter)
1 teaspoon lemon extract
3 drops yellow food coloring (optional)

In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, confectioners' sugar, milk, and salt if needed, until light and fluffy, about 3 to 4 minutes. When you first start beating, the frosting will be very dry and crumbly. You'll be tempted to add more milk. Don't! After the 3 or 4 minutes of beating, the frosting will be thick and rich and creamy, and absolutely perfect! Beat in the lemon extract and food coloring. Spread or pipe onto cookies.

To make this into a more intensely lemon-flavored frosting, use lemon juice instead of milk.

I piped several different designs on my cookies, just for fun. Here's a few:

Peaches N' Cream Dessert

June 21 - National Peaches n' Cream Day

I've been tossing around an idea for this since the beginning of the week. I didn't end up doing it exactly as I had planned, because we've had a somewhat busy day and I never got around to doing the time-consuming stuff I originally had up my sleeve. But I came up with something similar, and still quite tasty.

Since I came up with this as I was going, I will give more of a "concept recipe" than an actual recipe - telling what I did, but with no real amounts or official directions or anything. It's just a basic concept that can be changed around or played with in countless ways. This was just one of those recipes where that works better.

Step 1: Make a crust.

I had thought about doing a graham cracker crust, but we had a bag of drying-out peanut butter cookies on the counter, so I just crushed them up instead. I added a little butter to some of the crumbs, and pressed about 2 tablespoons each into two 4-ounce ramekins.

Possible variations: You could use graham cracker crumbs, or Nilla wafers, or whatever cookie crumbs appeal to you. You could even bake up a pastry crust. Instead of ramekins, you could use a paper-lined muffin tin, or a pie plate.

Step 2: Make a filling.

My original plan involved the custard filling from my Peaches n' Cream Pie a while back. It is creamy, holds up well, and is absolutely delicious with peaches. But it happens to be a little bit time-consuming, and involves heating up the stove. Today was busy and hot, and neither time-consuming nor heating the stove was going to happen. So instead I whipped up a box of vanilla pudding. I used a 6-serving box and 2 cups of milk, to make it nice and thick. After mixing, I spooned a bit into each ramekin (we now have lots of leftover thick pudding). Then I let it set in the refrigerator for one hour.

Possible variations: Use the custard filling for the pie I mentioned. Or make a cheesecake filling using a Jell-O cheesecake or your favorite no-bake recipe. Or use a different flavor of pudding. Just make sure you let it set up before moving on to the next step.

Step 3: Add the fruit.

I topped each ramekin with 3 slices of canned peaches. I didn't rinse off the syrup they came in, and it all pooled up on top of the pudding. That was unexpected, but turned out okay.

Possible variations: This is a simple one. Use fresh fruit instead of canned, or use a different type of fruit. Arrange it prettily.

Step 4: Top it with a sauce.

I was going to do some fabulously fancy and delicious sauce for this, but my imagination broke. I poured about a tablespoon of evaporated milk over the peaches in each ramekin.

Possible variations: Just about anything! I considered using sweetened condensed milk. I think that would have turned out better, but I only had one can of that, versus three or four of evaporated milk. So I used the latter. You could also try heating the syrup from the canned fruit with some corn starch to thicken it up, and pour that on. Or melt some jam or preserves and spoon it over the fruit. Or use sweetened cream, whipped or plain (this is, after all, supposed to be "peaches n' cream"). Get creative!

Step 5: Serve and enjoy!

Flavored Fudge

On a whim I checked the list of national food holidays, and found out that today is National Fudge Day. Well, I gotta celebrate that one! So I broke out a couple bags of baking morsels and a can of sweetened condensed milk. Yum!


Basic Fudge
16 oz. (3 cups) semisweet chocolate chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Melt together chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk in a saucepan over low heat, or on the top of a double boiler. When chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth, remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Spread in a greased 8-inch baking dish and chill for 2 hours. Cut into squares.

Flavored Fudge
8 oz. semisweet chocolate chips
8 oz. flavored baking morsels (peanut butter, mint, butterscotch, etc. Today I chose to use cherry-flavored)
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla.

Same directions as the basic.

I actually lined my pan with plastic wrap. Then all I had to do to get the fudge out was invert the pan and remove the wrap. It worked really well, and made for some fun designs on the bottom (which ended up being the top) of the fudge.

Kitchen Klutzes of America, Unite!

Today being National Kitchen Klutzes of America Day, I decided to do something simple. Yet special. So for each meal of the day, I prepared something that's simple enough for a klutz to prepare, but special enough for a holiday.

Breakfast:
Crepes

Crepes are one of those kinda fancy things that look fun, taste great, and are fairly simple to make. The only drawback is that you cook them one at a time, so they are a bit time-consuming. But totally worth it!

Crepes
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups milk
2 tbsp. melted butter or margarine
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Stir in milk, melted butter, eggs and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Lightly butter a 6- to 8-inch skillet and heat over medium heat. Pour about 1/4 cup batter into skillet and immediately rotate skillet until the batter is a thin, even film over the bottom. Cook until the batter is no longer shiny and the bottom is lightly browned. Do not flip. Remove the crepe with a spatula or by inverting the pan over a plate. Repeat with remaining batter. This recipe makes about 15-18 crepes, depending on the amount of batter you use for each crepe. Serve with pudding, fruit, powdered sugar, pie filling, and/or jam. I chose pistachio pudding and bananas. Crepes can also be used as a main dish with meat and/or vegetable fillings.

Prepare filling before making the crepes. That way you can serve and eat them as they come off the pan. They're better fresh.

Note: This recipe is not entirely klutz proof - you need to keep an eye on it. I forgot about the last crepe and left it on for too long:

Lunch:
Rotini Bolognese

I chose this for the fancy name. Now, this is definitely not a traditional bolognese sauce. I looked up bolognese sauce just before writing up this post, and it is an Italian meat-based, slightly tomato-y sauce usually served over spaghetti. This recipe, originally titled "Bolognese on a Budget" has no meat. It features lentils, canned tomatoes, and onions. That being said, I still liked this sauce. I've never had real bolognese sauce anyway, so I don't think it really matters either way.

Rotini Bolognese
1 cup lentils
1 3/4 cups water
2 (14.4 oz) cans diced tomatoes
1 onion, chopped
2 cubes bouillon (I used 1 chicken and 1 beef)
Salt and pepper to taste
Cooked rotini (or pasta of your choice)

Rinse lentils under cold running water and drain. Place the water and lentils in a saucepan over medium heat and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until lentils just begin to soften, about 20 minutes. Stir the tomatoes and onions into the lentils; bring to a gentle simmer. Crumble the bouillon cubes into the lentil mixture and stir until it's dissolved. Simmer for about 15 minutes more, stirring frequently. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve over pasta.

Dinner:
Cheese Fondue

This was my favorite meal today. I've never made fondue, but hey, there's a first time for everything. I had fun with this meal - it was really easy, and tasted fantastic!

Cheddar-Swiss Fondue
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup beef or chicken broth
1 1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. ground dry mustard
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
1 1/2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
Extra flour
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup shredded Swiss cheese

In a medium saucepan over low heat, mix together milk, broth, Worcestershire sauce, ground dry mustard, garlic and flour. Heat until almost boiling. Toss extra flour with cheese, just enough to coat the cheese (only about 1-2 tbsp, add it slowly. This wasn't in the original recipe, but helps to improve the texture of the fondue). Gradually stir cheese into milk/broth mixture. Continue heating until all the cheese has melted. Transfer to fondue dish (or crock pot) to keep fondue warm and cheese melted. Serve with stuff like vegetables, bread cubes, or meat.


I thought that this fondue would be fantastic with bread cubes. The only problem was that we had no bread in the house. We don't buy bread anymore, and I just didn't have any made. Well, I searched online for a quick bread recipe that was fast, simple, and not sweet or crumbly. After looking over several recipes, I found one for yeastless focaccia, and decided I had a winner. I skipped all the herbs on top because it was to be used for dipping. When I made it, I fell absolutely in love - this was the easiest, quickest bread recipe I've ever made! (though it wasn't exactly the prettiest...)


Yeastless Focaccia
1 cup water
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
Olive oil

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease a 9x13 pan.

Stir together water, flour, baking powder, and salt until it forms a ball of dough.

Plop dough into greased baking pan. Using oiled fingers, spread dough to 1/2-inch thickness. Dough will be sticky and elastic. It does not have to be perfectly even, but make sure there are no holes. Rub the top and sides of dough with olive oil.

Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes, or until just golden.

Let cool slightly, the cut into cubes to serve with the fondue.


To make this into a more traditional focaccia loaf, sprinkle with cayenne pepper, garlic salt and basil before baking. After it's baked for 20 minutes, remove from oven and sprinkle with Parmesan, then return to oven for final 5 minutes.

All in all, we've had a great day, eating great foods that were easy and fun to make. Happy Kitchen Klutzes of America Day!