Spicy Cheese Biscuits

These biscuits were next in the book. They were quite yummy. Of course I made a few substitutions... do I ever follow a recipe exactly???? Yes, sometimes if I happen to have all the right ingredients on hand:)

Here is the recipe:

Spicy cheese biscuits (for 10 biscuits)

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon sweet smoked paprika
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut in pieces
6 ounces manchego cheese, finely grated
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Whisk the flour, baking powder and soda, salt, sugar, and paprika in a large bowl. Cut in the butter until it resembles coarse meal with a few clumps remaining. Stir in the cheese.

Add the cream, and stir with a rubber spatula until it just comes together. Use a 1/2-cup measure to scoop mounds about 1 1/2 inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Dust with more paprika. Bake 15 to 20 minutes, rotating halfway through.

So my substitutions are: I used regular paprika, I haven't been able to find smoked in my little town... And I used parmesean cheese instead of manchego, don't think my grocery budget could handle fancy cheese like that:) Oh, and I made the biscuits about half the size that the recipe asks for, I don't have a scoop that big.
 
Even with the substitutions, they were really yummy.
 

I ended up with 16 biscuits instead of 10 and only 12 would fit on my tray so instead of baking all of them and throwing half away because we couldn't eat them fast enough, I froze the 4 biscuit dough balls that were left. I simply froze them on the tray and when they were hardened I put them in a freezer bag, when I was ready to bake them I just put them on the tray, still frozen, and baked as directed, they turned out perfectly! I did the same thing with the Cream Cheese and Chive Biscuits that I blogged about earlier and they turned out awesome too.

 
I'm really enjoying trying all these new baking recipes, hope you all are enjoying the posts too:)

More baking!!! (Part 2)

Part 2 will be about my Valentine's Day cookies. I'm not much of a Valentine's Day fan, especially not decorating my house and such for the occasion. This may change as my kids grow up:) But for now I'm happy not going to any bother for it. I'm happy if I receive a card from my honey, if there's flowers, not even neccesarily roses, I'm really happy:)

But if there's an excuse to make my favorite cut-out cookies then I'm all for it. And Valentine's Day calls for pretty pink heart shaped cookies:)

Now it just so happened that the cookies from this post are now all gone in our tummys and it was time to bake again, otherwise Valentine's Day cookies may have been skipped this year. *gasp* But instead of going with the next cookie recipe in line from this book I chose an old faithful from it. It is my absolute favorite cut-out recipe I have ever found. The dough is such a dream to work with and they have a wonderful buttery taste!! And they always turn out looking so nice. Here is a link to the recipe.

See how nice and smooth this dough is?? So not like my biscuits from earlier in the day, I'm glad I did those first and had this to look forward to:)

And the finished product...

They really are as good as they look:)

More baking!!! (Part 1)

So baking day fell on Wednesday this week...

Ah... must start off with a cup of tea...

So I started off with the next recipe in line in the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook. So let's just say that this started out with me thinking that this recipe was going to be a complete and utter disaster!! I made the Cream Cheese and Chive biscuits.

Here is the recipe:

Cream Cheese and Chive Biscuits (Martha Stewart)

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh chives *I used about a TBL dried*
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces
4 ounces cream cheese, cold, cut into small pieces
1 1/4 cup buttermilk

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, and chives. Using a pastry blender, cut in the butter and cream cheese until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with a few larger clumps remaining.

Pour in the buttermilk; using a fork, mix in buttermilk until incorporated and the dough just comes together. The dough will be slightly sticky; do not overmix.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. With floured fingers, gently knead about four times, until all the crumbs are incorporated and the dough is smooth. With a lightly floured rolling pin, gently roll the dough to a 8-b-11-inch rectangle, about 1 inch thick. Using a bench scraper or long offset spatula to lift the ends of the dough, fold the rectangle into thirds (like a business letter). Give the dough a quarter turn. Roll out the dough again (to the same dimensions), and repeat the folding process. Wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Return the dough to the work surface. Roll out as before, and repeat the folding process. Give the dough another quarter turn; roll out dough one more time, again into a rectangle about 1 inch thick. Using a sharp knife, divide the rectangle into 12 equal squares or rectangles. Place on prepared sheet about 1 1/2 inches apart. Refrigerate for 1 hour. (at this point you could also freeze the biscuits…to cook, simply put the frozen biscuits on a parchment lined sheet and proceed with baking)

Preheat the oven to 424° F. Bake, rotating the sheet halfway through, until the biscuits are golden and flecked with brown spots, 15 to 18 minutes. Transfer the bicuits to a wire rack to cool.
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Ok so I followed the recipe exactly (except for the dried chives) and as soon as I added the buttermilk I knew I was in trouble. The dough was a wet (slightly sticky is a joke!!), goopy mushy mess!!! There was no way on earth this dough was going to be ROLLED out. But I was determined this was going to work somehow! Let me just insert here to say when I started this I was not even in the mood to make these because of all the steps involved... So I "turned out the dough" onto a VERY floured surface and kneaded in probably about a cup (A CUP!!) more flour just to make it slightly manageable.

Notice all the flour mounded up and the rolling pin and spatula covered in goo... I looked for a link to this recipe and couldn't find one anywhere, even on the Martha Stewart website, just so you could see in there pictures how this dough is "supposed" to look like. So not how this turned out!!

So I continued on with the recipe as directed hoping that somewhere along the way it would get better. Ha. No such luck. Even after refrigerating it was still very unmanageable. But I managed to get them rolled out and folded as best I could and into squares and in the fridge.

In the meantime I worked on my valentine's cookies, which thankfully turned out marvelously!!:)

So after refrigerating the dough for the second time I just couldn't wait till James got home for supper to try these biscuits, I just knew they would be rubbery and unedible and I was going to be sooo disappointed. Well... MUCH to my surprise, as they baked they started looking a little bit better!!!

By the time they were done baking they smelled really good!! So I cracked open a hot biscuit fresh from the oven and imagine my surprise when I took the first bite. They were edible!! And not only that they were actually quite tasty!!!  Yum!

So I will definitely be trying these again. But, with a few modifications... The notes written in my cookbook say, "Increase flour, decrease liquid" I'll let ya know if I ever come up with the perfect combo...

All this biscuit madness, add a baby on the crowded counter top and you have a mess!! This pic cracks me up because it looks like he is totally mocking my sad hunk of biscuit dough:) And no he was not exactly a happy camper up there watching me make such a mess...

The finished, and surprisingly yummy product!

Mmmm...

I only baked 5 of these and froze the rest on a tray and then put them in a freezer bag to be baked fresh later. Maybe more for supper tonight!:)

Come back for part 2 where I will show you my much more successful Valentine's Day cookies:)

Monday is baking day.

Or at least it was this week. To be comfy is a must when baking:) The lovely slippers I got for Christmas from my bro. And, well, if the only apron you own is a Christmas apron, then it's just Christmas all year round... I do have a lovely green apron with pink cupcakes and red cherries on the way from my mom, a belated Christmas present. Can't wait for that:)


S0 I have this fabulous cookbook, full of nothing but COOKIES! It was given to me many years ago as a gift and I do really love it but I'm kind of in that rut (where I only make 1 or 2 recipes out of it), so I decided to shake things up a bit:) I'm starting at the beginning and my goal is to make every one of the cookie recipes at least once. That's my goal. Ok, so I didn't set a time frame for this so it may take years. Literally.:) But I'm keeping track of each recipe that I make and jotting down notes as I go. So here's recipe #1 that I tried for the first time: Oatmeal_Crispies Yummy! Ok so I'm the kind of baker who tweaks things to suit my mood at the time:) The recipe asked for shortening, I used butter. I don't know why but I just like to use butter better than shortening. I'm weird. I know. Shortening tastes good in cookies too, but I just imagine all of that FAT sticking to my gut. Ok. So butter's certainly not any better. Oh well, like I said I'm weird. Well all that to say. Um, I think shortening would have worked better:) The cookies taste wonderful (oh btw, I also added 1/4 tsp more cinnamon than it asked for cause I like cinnamony cookies:)), but they really ran while baking therefore causing some square cookies because they ran into each other. I'll be trying shortening next time. Really. I bought some when I went grocery shopping today:)


The second recipe is: Cranberry_Chip_Cookies. Oh my. These are good! These I like, but since the cookies I bake are mostly for James' lunches during the week (I try not too eat them, you know, they stick to the hips, ahem, right, wish I could say I DON'T eat any...) and his opinion is very highly considered when it comes to making these again... They're just not his favorite he says. Well, ok, they were fun this time:) Oh, and these asked for both butter and shortening and since the above cookies ran so much I did use the shortening that it asked for and they turned out better:) But, I did reduce the heat in my oven after the first batch came out REALLY dark, not burned, but darker than what I like.
So after all the cookie making, I turned to my Martha_Stewart_Baking_Handbook which I got as a Christmas present from my mom 2 years ago. My goal for that book is the same as the cookie book (and has been for the last 2 years!), so this is why I say this may take me years to get through, it already has:) So yes, I'm on recipe #5 or so for this book, sigh... Anywho, I made the buttermilk biscuits from that yet to go with supper. Those were yummy too!

Oh so much baking in one day, it was a good day:) Oh, and I had JUST enough flour in the house to make all this. Whew! Next time I'll make sure I'm better prepared:) Stocked up on that flour at the grocery store today! So sometime in a few more weeks, once all these yummy cookies are gobbled up, I will be making some more. Fun:)

Just Peachy

Saturday morning waffles... Topped with fresh peaches, so perfect & sweet no sugar is needed. Yum, what a great way to start a great Saturday:) It was a bit of a rainy blustery day & it felt so good to start in a slow relaxed way, enjoying a good breakfast & then heading out to run some errands.

After coming home, James worked on trim in the hallway & I was so impressed at all that he got accomplished! Now I have to paint...:) Hmm, I'm looking forward to that in my current awkward stage about as much as he was to working on the trim. But he did a super job, I'm so proud:)

As he was slaving away ripping boards & making it all fit just so, I washed all the baby clothes that I've been collecting from garage sales & thrifting, and put them away! Now that was fun!:) It's so fun so see it all come together & makes me feel like we're just a little bit more ready for this little one to arrive.

Peach pie that I made the other day. Turned out amazing if I do say so myself:) We only have a couple of slices left...


Pie crust is such a frustrating thing for me! I always use the same recipe and it usually turns out, but sometimes just sooo much better than other times. Usually when I want to make it for company is when it turns out just a little "off". Well this pie was made just for us, and of course this time it turned out absolutely perfect. Not to brag, but I do think it was the best pie crust I have ever made! And that was using the same pie crust recipe as always...

This was the Peaches-N-Cream pie from Taste of Home, I used the Martha Stewart recipe for the crust of course but for the filling I used the above recipe. I did use about a cup more peaches than it asked for, I would recommend that, otherwise a 9 inch pie pan would not be full enough (in my opinion anyway:), and the peaches were so sweet naturally that I only used about a 1/4 cup of sugar & I used generous TBLs of flour because I don't like runny fruit pies! It was a first time for this recipe and I do think I would make it again:)

I hope you all had a wonderful relaxing weekend!

A Sense of Accomplishment... & CHOCOLATE!!

2 things I dislike:

1. Doing Laundry

2. Cleaning

2 things I like:

1. Clean Laundry

2. A Clean House

Hmm, what do we do about this??? Well, I've decided that the good part of them is the Sense of Accomplishment it gives me. Well... that is, after I finally decide I've procrastinated enough! So the other day I was tackling some disliked dirty laundry, and my laundry area is in the basement (which is another dislike because of the MANY spiders down there!!) and is not nicely set up for laundry, just a washer & a dryer beside each other and a laundry tub.

Someday I want to have a counter & some storage in my laundry area. Like this for example. Ah, I can dream can't I?

(photo from bhg.com)

So I had an ever growing pile of white linens and shirts and anything pure white (this pile has been growing for a while, I am ashamed to say) that needed to have a good Iron Out treatment. So feeling unusally laundry-like ambitious I decided today is the day, so I looked around for a tub large enough to soak them in. Well, I couldn't find anything, so I started looking at my sad, neglected laundry tub/sink... Which for the past many months has been used only as a cleaning hub for paintbrushes and rollers, so it was not looking pretty!!

Well, thank-you, Burst of Energy/Ambition, I decided I've had enough of a dirty laundry sink that didn't function beyond cleaning paint brushes, so I grabbed some rags, Greased Lightening & soap and boy did I scrub, all that combined with a good dose of elbow grease & 2 raw fingers I now have a sparkling clean laundry tub, and it was put to good use soaking those whites! And now I have a pile of fresh smelling linens & shirts & a pair of capris that badly needed a whitening treatment. Ah, a Sense of Accomplishment!!:) And the best thing was I tackled both disliked things, 2 birds with 1 stone! Yay!!

2 more things I LIKE:

1. Cooking
2. Baking


This particular item would be the baking...


Continuing on with the Zucchini & Squash Recipes I'm trying.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

1/2 C butter, softened

1 C sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 C flour

3 T baking cocoa

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 C grated, unpeeled zucchini

1/2 C choc. chips (I used 1 C mini choc. chips, because, well, hello, it's CHOCOLATE!!)

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter & sugar. Beat in eggs & vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, salt, baking soda & cinnamon; gradually add to creamed mixture. Stir in the zucchini & choc. chips. Spoon into a greased 8x4x2 loaf pan. Bake at 350 for 60-70 min. or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 min. before removing from pan to a wire rack.

P.S. I used a 9x5 bread pan, didn't have an 8x4.

Very good, chocolatey, moist, dense. MMMM... It's actually more like a brownie, how about a piece warmed up with a scoop of vanilla icecream & some rich homemade chocolate fudge sauce. Oh, now that would be great!:) Who knew something with a vegetable in it could taste so desserty?:)

Have a great weekend everyone! We're headed on a very last minute camping trip so I've got to get moving!!

An Afternoon Snack

At my last mid-wife visit she was asking what I tend to eat for a snack, I told her graham crackers & peanut butter is a fairly common snack for me and she told me, good, that's a healthy one! Yay, for me so I decided today to make it even healthier and slice some bananas on top. Yummy!! What's in the picture is gone already and I'm thinking of making another...;)

My mom always has an abundance of squash, so she shared some of her bounty with me. Nothing better than free produce!! So I went on a hunt for squash & zucchini recipes and came up with a nice collection that I can't wait to try! Mom, I might just take more off your hands soon:)

First on the list was Zucchini Pancakes. Last year I made some and this year when I went looking for the recipe it was nowhere to be found!:( So I went from memory and came up with this... pretty yummy I thought:) Since we eat it as a main dish for dinner I made it a bit more savory & added sausage to the pancakes because James likes to have SOME meat in most meals, me on the other hand could probably survive as a vegetarian:) So here's the recipe I came up with.

Zucchini Pancakes

1 1/2 C shredded zucchini
2 T finely minced onion
Dash of garlic salt
1/4 C grated parmesan
1 T minced fresh parsley
salt & pepper to taste
1/2 C sausage crumbles
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 - 3/4 C flour (depends on how wet your zucchini is)

Mix all ingredients together in order given. Pour by 1/3 cupfuls onto greased skillet on med. heat. Fry 4-5 min. on each side or until pancakes are golden brown & set. Makes 6 pancakes.

I served them with a dollop of applesauce on top of each one. Potato pancakes (which is where this idea came from) is not something I grew up eating. I actually don't think I ever had one until I met James, and after we were married it was something he requested. The applesauce part though... I grew up eating applesauce on EVERYTHING, at practically every meal! (Pretty sure that's a Holmes county or mennonite thing:) James thought that was a bit strange at first, but for some reason every time his mom served the family potato pancakes, they would always eat them with applesauce. So this one I guess combines both our childhoods, with a new twist of zucchini however:)

So what's next on the list to use up my squash & zucchini? Stay tuned, there are some yummy things I can't wait to try!!! Here's a hint, the next thing I'm going to make is chocolatey & decadent, mmmm... my pregnant belly is already anticipating it:)



My anniversary flowers from my hubby:)