Pumpkin Swirls Cheesecake

 

Okay, so I know that isn't the best picture but I wanted to get a quick one taken so that I could type the recipe while I had a few minutes.  I have been making this recipe for years.  Its came from a friend about 10 years ago-thanks Jennifer.

 

Pumpkin Cheesecake

 

Crust-

1 1/4 cups crushed graham cracker crumbs

1/4 cup of melted butter (1/2 stick)

2 Tbs. of sugar

 

Mix and press in springform pan

 

Cheesecake batter-

 

Cream these 3-

 

3 packages of softened cream cheese

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

 

add-

 

1- 15 oz. can pumpkin (2 cups fresh)

4 large eggs

1/2 cup evap. milk (1 use 1/2 and 1/2)

2 Tbls. cornstarch

1 tsp. cinnamon

 

beat till combined well

 

melt 1/2 cup chocolate chips and add 3/4 cups of the pumpkin batter and stir well

 

pour pumpkin batter over crust in pan then swirl chocolate mixture over the top and swirl down in a little with a knife

 

bake at 350 for roughly an hour.

 

 

Inspired by the Avengers

Shawarma (sorry I had already taken a bite)

 

 

Recipe from About.com edited to how I made it.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut in thin slices
• 1 cup plain yogurt
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• juice from 1 lemon
• ___________________________
• FOR THE SAUCE:
• 1 cup sour cream or yogurt
• couple dashes of garlic salt
• couple dashes of dill
• 2 tablespoons of finely grated cucumber
• ___________________________
• PITA FILLINGS:
• Naan bread from TJ's
• thinly slice cucumbers
• thinly sliced onions (red)
• thinly sliced tomatoes

Preparation:

Combine all ingredients except for chicken, fillings, and sauce ingredients to make marinade. If it seems a little dry, add a little olive oil (a tablespoon at a time).

Add chicken, cover and refrigerate at least 8 hours, preferably overnight.

 Make sauce and refrigerate too.

 

                                          
In a  large saucepan, cook chicken over medium heat for 25  minutes or until done. Be sure not to overcook! If chicken becomes a little dry, add a few tablespoons of water throughout cooking duration.

 Assemble and enjoy!  This is a new family favorite (except for Marlee and Mason)

 

Near the very end of the movie, Ironman is just beat down and confused and asks them if any of them have ever eaten Shawarma and suggests they go get some.

 

If you watch Avengers through the credits you see them all in the restaurant eating Shawarma. 

 

Homemade Butter

 

HERE is a link to the Healthy Home Economist for making butter.  It turned out wonderful.  It took roughly 10 mins. of beating before I got to the butter stage.

 

 

 

The yummy cream from I skimmed off my raw milk the other day.

It roughly doubles when you whip it.  This is the whipped cream stage.

Its starting to separate.

That is the buttermilk drained on the left now I add some salt and wash it.

All done.

The top one I mixed with coconut oil and the other 2 are just straight yummy butter.

 

Roasted Bacon Grease Potaoes

This morning I made some Applegate Farms Sunday Bacon in the oven on
my big baking stone so I saved some of the grease for cooking later but for what was left I thinly sliced on some red potatoes and sprinkled them with sea salt then stirred them around and roasted them at 400 for about 20 mins. They were so good. What a good use for the remaining grease and little bits of bacon!

Croque Monsieur Recipe-Make it, you won't be sorry!

Morgan found THIS recipe on Pinterest and it is awesome!   Next time we decided to make it a little differently though.  We got our croissants at Trader Joe's and they were so delicious but very hard to cut so we decided to break them up next time and make it a layered casserole instead.  We also halved the recipe. 
Madison and Morgan also had me add a fried egg to theirs and omited the mustard.  I kept the mustard and liked it.

Ingredients-

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 cups hot milk
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• Pinch nutmeg DIDNT USE THIS
• 12 ounces Gruyere, grated (5 cups) SUBBED TRADER JOES GRADED SWISS/GRUYERE MIX
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan
• 8 croissants
• Dijon
• 8 ounces honey ham, sliced but not paper thin SUBBED REGULAR HAM FOR HONEY

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Melt the butter over low heat in a small saucepan and add the flour all at once, stirring with a wooden spoon for 2 minutes. Slowly pour the hot milk into the butter–flour mixture and cook, whisking constantly, until the sauce is thickened. Off the heat add the salt, pepper, nutmeg, 1/2 cup grated Gruyere, and the Parmesan and set aside.
Halve and toast the croissants, place the slices on 2 baking sheets and bake for 4 minutes. Turn each slice and bake for another 2 minutes, until toasted.
Lightly brush half the croissant with mustard, add a slice of ham to each, and sprinkle with half the remaining Gruyere. Top with another piece of toasted bread. Slather the tops with the cheese sauce, sprinkle with the remaining Gruyere, and bake the sandwiches for 5 minutes. Turn on the broiler and broil for 3 to 5 minutes, or until the topping is bubbly and lightly browned. Serve hot.

Adapted from savuryandsweet adapted from Barefoot Contessa

Personal Death by Chocolate

Personalized Death by Chocolate because I don't want double dipping in the trifle bowl. 

Recipe-

1 prepared German Chocolate cake mix broken up
1 jar of caramel sauce
1 tub of Kozzy Shack chocolate pudding
1 tub of  Cool Whip
4 broken up toffee bars

layer these items as follows

scant 1/3 cup of cake
1 tsp of caramel sauce
1 spoonful each of pudding and cool whip
spoonful of crumbled candy bar
repeat once

These 1/2 pints are a nice size, not too much.

Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars

Wonderful!

HERE is a link to the recipe.  I subbed as many organic ingredients as I could and I used Gala apples rather than Granny Smith.  This pict does not have the caramel on it yet and it is still super good.  The hardest part was chopping the apples up small enough.  I wanted them cooked well, I dont like biting into hard apple pieces.  Morgan found this recipe on Pinterest.  I just love Pinterest.

Apricot Sourdough Rolls

Apricot versoin

I have been making THIS recipe since my sourdough starter came in from King Arthur and I have been playing around with it.  I have made them plain, with cinnimon sugar inside and coffee iceing and today I tried them with apricot jam from Trader Joe's inside and a basic icing/glaze and they are wonderful.  So light and airy, not what you would expect with sourdough.  I also made them with butter, garlic salt and parm. cheese inside but I haven't tried them yet.  Too full from the yummy apricot.

Battered Zucchini Flowers

These are so yummy. Make sure you only pick your male flowers- the ones without the little zucchini forming at the end.
For the batter- these are all guesstiments . I don't measure.

Unbleached flour- 2 cups?
Parm. Cheese 1/2 cup
Garlic salt 1/2 tsp.
Egg one
Milk - enough to make it like a pancake batter.

Dredge flowers in and fry till golden brown. Enjoy plain, with ranch or tomato sauce.

Homemade Peach Milk Keifr

Oh, so yummy!

Well, I finally got to try out my new milk kefir today after having the grains for a week.  A kind friend sent me some of her grains in the mail and I was in the hospital with Morgan when they arrived so I didn't get to do anything with them right away and I have been working with them for the past week.  They seem a bit pickier than my water grains with the temp in the house and it has been really hot here and we dont have whole house air which is causing a problem for me.  I have been moving them around from room to room when the air is on. They were culturing too fast without the air.  Finally today I got to flavor some and try it out and it is really good.  I froze a whole peach yesterday and then just ran it under water for a second and the skin peeled right off.  Next I cut it in to pieces and put it in a bowl with about 2 cups of kefir and some organic brown sugar and blended it with my new stick blender.  I'm very happy with how it came out. Yeah!

Recipe Keeper/Binder Idea

I keep my favorite recipes in a three ring binder in clear plastic sheets to keep them protected. I started using this method a few years back and I love it. I got the idea when I was putting the girls homeschooling portfolios together. I have since seen that others do it  too. Over the last few years mine has grown from 1 book to three presently. One for baking, one for meals and I recently added one for culturing and soaking grains.

still having problems flipping pictures, sorry

Above is a picture of my binder and here are some reasons why I love it-
-I can just print a recipe I like, slip it into the protective cover and NOT loose it.
-I can sit at my kitchen table, on my couch, in my bed and leaf through it and pull out recipes I am going to use which is so much more convenient than marking pages and writing things down.  I'm thinking of starting a weekly, maybe biweekly, menu binder with recipes that I have pulled to be really organized.
-the protective sheets keep them clean-I'm a very good, but messy baker
-I can take the recipe and by using a magnet, stick it up on my stove hood so that it is easy to follow and this also helps keep me from dropping butter and flour on it.  Just make sure your flame cant reach it.  I usually only cook on one side of my stove for some reason so I keep it on the other side.  I also use a magnet to stick them to the fridge if I am using both sides of my stove.
-Your binder/binders can grow with your collection and interest
-I love pictures with my recipes so when I print them I print the picture or now that I am getting a little more computer friendly I make documents with my own recipes or modify recipes and add the pictures myself
-when a friend likes a recipe of yours its easy to take out of your binder and photocopy for them- I don't believe in hoarding a great recipe- you must share!

Peanutbutter Cake with Chocolate Icing

Ingredients

• 2 cups Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 2 cups Flour
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 2 sticks Butter
• 1 cup Water
• 1 cup Peanut Butter
• ½ cups Milk
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 2 whole Eggs

In a large bowl, mix together sugar, baking soda, flour and salt. Set aside.
Combine butter, water and peanut butter in saucepan and bring to boil. Pour over flour mixture.
Add milk, vanilla and eggs. Mix.
Pour in large cookie sheet or jelly roll pan. Bake at 400F degrees for 20 minutes.

This cake was very good.  The original recipe is HERE at the http://tastykitchen.com/  I halved the recipe above just to try it out and I baked it in a parchment lined 9x9 square Pamper Chef stoneware pan.  I also didn't make the peanutbutter icing it calls for but a homemade chocolate buttercream icing instead. 

Little Apple Handpies

I made these today to try pie crust with sprouted flour. The one on the right is sprouted and the left is unbleached white. The sprouted was a bit harder to work with but came out pretty yummy. The dough is just stiffer and not as soft but I plan on trying the white wheat sprouted flour soon and I think I will like the results a bit better.

Sprouted Flour Tortillas

Yesterday I made Sprouted Wheat Tortillas from THIS recipe from Fresh Idea Mama.  I have never met her sister is a fellow homeschooling mama by me and she is so kindly going to give me some Kefir grains AND a Kombucha Scooby- how awesome is she!!!  
I made the recipe pretty much per her instructions except I used sprouted flour and they turned out very nice.  Not quite as soft as unbleached white wheat but maybe would have been if I would have sifted out the flour? 

Here's my little doughball flattened- sorry the picture quality is really bad on this one.

Here it is rolled out on my awesome Cherry Breakfast Board from Palumba.
It worked out great for this cause I could stand at the oven and cook one while I was rolling out the other.  I just rolled it on this little board and kept watch on the cooking one.

Here's one all finished. 

From http://www.freshideamama.com/
I only changed to sprouted but have made her way before and they are great!
Makes 8 Small Flour Tortillas
Ingredients:
* 1 3/4 cup unbleached white flour (I used sprouted)
* 3/4 tsp sea salt
* 1/4 tsp baking powder
* 1/4 cup coconut oil, softened
* 1/2 cup very hot water
* coconut oil for cooking

Directions:
1. Gently mix the flour, salt, and baking powder in a mixing bowl. Add the coconut oil, and work into the flour with a fork, or until crumbly.
2. Mix in the hot water and gently mix with a fork. Pour mixture on a lightly floured surface and knead for 3 minutes. Make the dough into a ball and place back in the bowl, cover with a towel and let rest 15 minutes.
3. Divide the dough into 8 separate balls and roll with your hands to make as smooth as possible. Then flatten each ball in to a paper thin circle using your palm, *make sure they are really thin or they will turn out more like a pancake. (you can also use a rolling pin, but I find using my palm is much easier and makes a much more evenly round tortilla).
4. Preheat an oiled skillet on medium heat. Cook the tortillas one at a time by placing them in the hot greased pan and cook for about 40 seconds or until small air bubbles appear. Flip over and cook for another 40 seconds, and then finish by flipping over one last time for another 20 seconds. You know it is done when it will slightly puff up, and small browned spots will form on the surface. *Do not let the pan get too hot or you will get burned spots, and continue to grease skillet as necessary.
5. Let cool and freeze unused tortillas

Salisbury Steak Update

Here's a picture. Made it again tonight and it was awesome! Didn't have any beef stock so I just used the wine and it was still great without it. When I deglazed the pan I used wine but then added a little water along with the flour and some cream. Yummy gravy. When you cook it slow like that it is just so fork tender. Next time I have to make 2 lbs though cause Manny ate 1/2 mine and only Tommy got 2 pieces.

Cream Cheese Cookies

Wonderful!

These cookies are just the best darn sugar cookie ever.  HERE is my post with the recipe.  This time I made them with the rectangular medium sized cookie cutter that Ree recommends for THESE yummy cookies.  I like this cutter for several reasons.  One being this dough is very soft and you do not want to keep rolling it and adding a ton of flour and with these cutters there is hardly any waste at all.  And secondly because they then fit very nicely in

Here

I am makng two batches of dough.  One with regular unbleached flour and the other with organic sprouted flour.  The batch pictured is the regular flour.  Today I will bake the sprouted.  I had a very uncooperative 2 1/2 year old yeasterday so making both just wasn't happening.
Some of the cookies pictured just have the unbleached sugar sprinkled on them before baking with the egg wash and the others also have ground walnuts for those of us who love nuts. (me)
I will post picts and let you know how the sprouted flour ones turn out.
 Gotta run and get ready for Divine Liturgy :)

Ok, here are the Sprouted Flour ones and they are super good!  I did the recipe the same but just swapped out the unbleached flour for sprouted.  I also rolled them out in the sprouted so that they have no regular flour at all.

Chicken and Veggie Pasta

Noodles- preferably gluten free
Grilled Chicken - pan grilled mine
Sundried Tomatoes
Steamed Broccoli
Grilled mushrooms -pan grilled mine
Parmesan Cheese Flakes
Garlic Mama Seasoning from Frontier
Toss with a little butter and olive oil

Manny Likey

Bacon and Blue Stilton Salad

Madison and I made these for lunch today. Very good

From Trader Joes-
Blue Stilton Cheese
Cucumber
Romaine lettuce
Green onion
Tomato
Broccoli

Homemade croutons with Panera Three Cheese Miche bread

Giant Eagle-
Bolthouse Farms Chunky Blue Cheese Yogurt Dressing
Applegate Farms Sunday Bacon

Coffee Cream Cake Defrosted

It freezes so good. I'm so happy I made a double batch.

HERE is the original post.

Iced Coffee

The older girls and I picked up this coffee on sale and with a coupon yesterday at the Market District Giant Eagle and it is really good. Not overly flavorful, which we like. I'm using a slightly altered version of the Pioneer Womans Iced Coffee. I use a bit less coffee and cut the recipe in 1/2.