Hello blog, we meet again. It’s been ages since I’ve done a post. No I haven’t forgotten or completely abandoned my blog. Somehow January went by and I just didn’t have the desire to post. Well thankfully that is going to change soon. I have a special and probably long post planned for sometime in the next month or so, that will explain my blogging absence at least partly.
Anyways I’m back. This morning I made one of my favorite breakfast treats: pumpkin cinnamon rolls. These cinnamon rolls are perfect for breakfast or snacking. They are vary low in sugar (compared to most), and the ground almonds give them a bit more protein and substance to keep you going through out the morning. The whole wheat flour (though a small amount) also adds a little bit of wholesomeness to them. The pumpkin flavor is quite subtle. It combines well with the cinnamon, and adds, a few more vitamins to these rolls.
The recipe I used is my own. I made these rolls many times tweaking the recipe a little each time to make it perfect.
Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
(makes 12 medium sized rolls)
2 cups all purpose flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
4 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp white sugar
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp ground almonds
1/3 cup salted butter (melted)
1- 1 ½ cups pumpkin cubes (I used frozen, canned should be okay)
½ cup skim milk
½ cup brown sugar (not packed)
3 tsp cinnamon
½ cup golden raisins
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease muffin tins. In a large bowl add the: flours, baking powder, salt, white sugar, and 1 tbsp of ground almonds (save the other tbsp for later). Mix well. In a blender add the pumpkin chunks, melted butter, and milk. Blend to form a thick pureed mixture. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture and mix and knead the dough into a ball (it will be a little bit sticky). Roll the dough out on parchment paper into a rectangle. Sprinkle on the cinnamon, raisons, brown sugar and 1 tbsp of ground almonds. Roll up the rectangle into a log. Cut into 12 equal sized pieces. Place in muffin tin. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
Serve warm.
Merry Christmas to all! It’s hard to believe it’s Christmas Eve already! Yesterday my mom and I made our favorite holiday family traditional dessert: mini strawberry cheesecakes. These cheesecakes are amazing and so simple to make. The prep time is only about 5-10 minutes tops, and the baking time is roughly 10 minutes. The result is everything a strawberry shortcake should be in a mini version. These delightful treats are totally guilt free since they are so small. Give them a try!
Here is the recipe which comes from a coworker of my mom’s about 25 years ago.
Carol T’s Little Cheese Cakes
(makes 24 little cheese cakes)
cheesecake
2-8 oz packages light cream cheese
¾ cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 box vanilla wafers (or 24 home made vanilla wafers)
24 medium cupcake liners
Line 24 medium muffin tins with cupcake liners. Place one vanilla wafer in the bottom of each liner. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl combine all the ingredients. Beat with an electric mixer until smooth and well blended. Spoon over the vanilla wafers.
Bake for about 10 minutes. Remove from oven. Cool.
Strawberry Sauce
½ package or 300g whole frozen strawberries
¼ cup white sugar
2 tsp corn starch
Puree the whole frozen strawberries. In a saucepan combine ¼ cup of white sugar and 2 tsp corn starch, stir in strawberry puree. Cook on medium heat. Bring to boil. Boil for about 1 minute until thickened. Remove from heat and cool. Spoon about 1 tsp onto each cheese cake. Serve chilled.
I love Christmas. Everything about it, from the food, to the decorations, gift giving, and the festivities. I always look forward to decorating the tree. This year our tree is an artificial slim tree. Since moving into a much smaller house just over a year ago, it was only appropriate to get a smaller tree.
Here is a lovely tree, and some of my favorite decorations.
A little gingerbread man. I made him when I was a little girl in school. I'm not sure how he lost his leg.
My dog Sasha when she was a puppy. Her first Christmas meeting Santa.
I have been in total cookie baking mode since making my gingerbread cookies. My second holiday baking adventure began when I started searching for the perfect shortbread recipe. I have always been a huge fan of shortbread. In the past I have had some success with the recipe that I always use to use. My old recipe was good but not spectacular.
I found a new recipe at allrecipes.com, for shortbread logs that sounded delightful. It was super basic, and I had all the ingredients on hand, so I set out to give it a whirl. This was my first time ever baking short bread cookies with real butter! The cookies turned out to be AMAZING! They are dangerously addicting, and I attribute a large part of the amazing factor to the butter (instead of margarine).
If you have never made shortbread cookies using real butter, I recommend you give it a try. Seriously, you won’t be sorry.
It’s time to start the holiday baking! Since setting up my Christmas tree at the Festival of Tree’s last weekend, I have been in a Christmasy mood. I had a major desire to kick off my holiday baking with making some gingerbread. I spent a lot of time online looking for a recipe that appealed to me. In previous years I always used cookbook recipes, but I was never very satisfied with them.
I found a fabulous recipe for gingerbread at allrecipes.com that is by far the best gingerbread I have ever made, and maybe ever eaten. The cookies are super soft (even a couple days after baking), and have that traditional ginger molasses flavor.
Before choosing to use this recipe, I read all of the comments about it. One particular comment taught me a new baking technique that I am so grateful to have learned. I have always had trouble making cut-out cookies. They often stuck to what ever surface I rolled dough out on (even with refrigerating the dough). One of the commenter’s recommended using parchment paper on the surface where the dough is rolled out on, as well as on top of the dough (use cookie cutters through the parchment paper). I followed the commenter’s suggestions and was blown away with how easy it was to make cut out cookies. I have a new appreciation for cut-out cookies!
This year I decided once again to decorate a tree for the local Festival of Tree’s. The Festival of Tree’s supports student awards in the form of scholarships, and bursaries at the university I attended (Vancouver Island University). The theme this year was “A West Coast Christmas”. I decided to make a nautical tree which I called “A Sailor’s Christmas”, for the festival.
Here is my tree.
(The distant view of my bright blue and white themed tree)
My tree with it’s neighbor “A Teddy Bear’s Christmas”.
Here are some of the other beautiful and unique trees from the festival.
This was my favorite tree. It was a tree about succeeding with disabilities. It is unique and beautiful on so many levels. Here are a few of it’s many decorations.
Another one of my favorites a pretty nautical tree!
I have been a long time reader of Annie’s Eats, a food blog I admire greatly. Annie recently posted a recipe for Spinoccoli Pizza. I had never heard of any kind of pizza like that before. Spinach and broccoli seemed like a very odd combo for a pizza, but everything about the recipe (including the mouth watering photo) sounded like it would be pretty good. Since I am a HUGE lover of pizza I had to give it a try.
I made the pizza with my own favorite crust recipe, and added some deli Cajun chicken to the toppings for extra protein.
The result was the best pizza I had ever had in my whole life!! Seriously, I have been to many pizza restaurants in my life (fancy ones, and cheap ones), and nothing has ever compared to this pizza. The pizza sauce is absolutely divine. It is so simple and quick to make. The garlic sauce complements the broccoli, spinach, chicken and cheese combo perfectly. I changed the sauce a little by using garlic powder, instead of a garlic clove.
If you are a pizza lover I highly recommend you check out the recipe for this amazing pizza on Annie’s Eat’s. Thanks for posting this pizza recipe Annie!
This morning I was really cold! Our heat is still turned off. I decided the best way to warm up was to make some warm bread and hot soup. Since we celebrated Thanksgiving on Saturday this year, we had an abundance of cooked turkey in the fridge. I decided I would make some turkey noodle soup and Challah bread to warm up on this cool morning.
My bread turned out amazing! Using butter in this bread makes it to die for. It’s soft and warm on the inside and golden brown on the outside.
Challah Bread
(makes one large loaf)
5 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp salt
1 tbsp quick rise yeast
1 cup skim milk (luke warm-warm)
2 tsp white sugar
6 tbsp salted butter (melted)
2 large eggs (beaten)
Olive oil spray
1 egg yolk
Poppy seeds
Preheat oven on your lowest setting. Once your oven reaches this temp, turn it off. In a large stainless steel bowl add the flour, salt and sugar and mix well. Add the yeast and mix well. Stir in the luke-warm milk. Add the eggs, and continue to stir. Add the melted butter (making sure it is not hot before adding). Stir well. Knead the dough for 10 minutes straight to form a soft ball. If using a stainless steel bowl place spray some olive oil on plastic wrap and cover the bowl with it. Place in the warm turned off oven. Let rise for 30 minutes. Remove from oven. Shape into braid (form 4 rolls and braid them). Place on a cookie sheet. Place in the turned off oven covered in the plastic wrap again for 30 minutes to rise. Remove from oven take off plastic wrap. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Brush with egg yolk. Sprinkle with poppy seeds. Bake for 35-45 minutes or until lightly golden. Enjoy.
It’s fall and our garden is overflowing with tomatoes. We have picked hundreds, and there are still so many more out on the vines. I have never been a huge fan of tomatoes myself. I tend to only like them when they are cooked in a sauce or pasta dish.
I decided to try to use up some of the many tomatoes and make a Bruschetta with them. I was inspired by my Aunt S’s Bruschetta that she made a few years ago when she came to visit. I couldn’t remember her recipe other then that it used tomatoes and balsamic vinegar. I searched online for a recipe, and couldn’t really find anything that I liked, so I combined three or more recipes and came up with my own version of Bruschetta.
I loved it! The recipe is pretty simple, and very easy to make. The red onion and mozzarella cheese make this Bruschetta incredibly delicious. I will be making this again soon!
Here is my recipe
Tomato and Mozzarella Bruschetta
One loaf of your favorite crusty bread
2 large tomatoes (or 4+ smaller ones) diced
1 or 2 red onions diced
A few shakes ground black pepper
Garlic powder (to taste)
Olive oil (enough to bush all bread slices with)
2 tbsp Balsamic vinegar
Several shakes dried basil
Grated Mozzarella cheese (enough to cover tomato mixture on each slice of bread)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cut thin slices of crusty bread (I made 9). Place the slices on a cookie sheet. Brush each piece of bread with olive oil. Sprinkle a generous amount of garlic powder over each slice of bread. In a medium sized bowl add the: diced tomatoes, onions, balsamic vinegar, basil, black pepper, and a few shakes garlic powder. Mix well. Spoon evenly over bread slices. Top with grated mozzarella cheese. Bake for about 5 minutes at 350 degrees F in the preheated oven. Then broil for 3-5 minutes to get a slightly golden crunchy Bruschetta. Serve warm.
It may not be fall according to the calendar yet, but in Nanaimo fall is already here. The apples on our huge apple tree have been coming down in buckets since Mid August.
Since we have so many apples I thought it was about time to begin the fall apple baking.
To get things started I made an apple pie. I hadn’t made an apple pie in years, so wanted to find a recipe that appealed to me. I searched online, but found nothing that I liked, so I came up with my own recipe.
My pie turned out to be amazing! The crust was perfectly flakey, and the pie was everything an apple pie should be and more. It had the perfect level of sweetness to it. The brandy extract that I used was my secret ingredient that took my pie to a whole new level of yummyness. The pie was eaten up quickly, so I will defiantly be making another one soon!
Apple Pie
Crust (makes 2 crusts)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tbsp sugar
¼-½ tsp salt
6 tbsp margarine
½ cup skim milk
2 tsp white vinagar
Pie Filling
About 3 cups of apple peeled and diced
2 tbsp flour
2/3 cup white sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp brandy extract or brandy
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease pie plate
To make the crust: In a large bowl add the: flour, salt, and sugar, and mix well. Cut in the margarine. Add the vinegar and milk, and knead the dough into a ball. Divide the dough in half and using a rolling pin roll each ball into a round pie shaped circle. Place one rolled out crust onto prepared pie plate. Set the top crust aside. In a large bowl add the: apples, 2 tbsp flour, white sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg. Stir to coat. Now add the butter (softened), the brandy, and vanilla extract. Stir to coat. Pour the apple mixture into the pie crust in the pie plate evenly. Cover with remaining pie crust dough. Seal the top. Cut a pattern into the top of the pie with a knife (I just used random knife cuts). Bake for about 45 minutes in the preheated oven, or until lightly golden on top. Serve warm with vanilla frozen yogurt. Enjoy.
