Moving. Kind of.

I’m moving the bulk of my cooking posts to our new farm blog. Since cooking is such an integral part of the homesteading experience, I want to include my cooking posts with all our other homesteading information. This blog will remain open for any fancy projects that may not fit in with homesteading.

Family Dinner May 2009: Taste of Summertime Pound Cake

Taste of Summertime Pound Cake

Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1/4 teaspoon salt
Zest of 1 orange
5 large eggs
3 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup Jarritos pineapple soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon orange extract

Instructions
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 12-cup tube pan. Combine flour, salt and orange zest in a bowl. With a mixer, cream butter and sugar at high speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Reduce speed to low; add dry ingredients and soda, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Add the vanilla and orange extracts and mix until just combine. Spoon evenly into prepared pan and bake 1 1/2 hours or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 15 minutes. Invert onto wire rack, remove pan and cool completely.

I tried the five-minute chocolate mug cake for the first time today. It was really yummy and made a large mug full of cake. I followed the recipe verbatim except I was concerned with the lack of leavening. I added about 1/2 tsp. of baking powder with the dry ingredients.

Family Dinner April 2009: Quiche Lorraine

Since we are getting a lot of eggs from our chickens, now, we thought we’d make something to take to this month’s family pot luck dinner that would use a lot of eggs.

So, here is my take on…

 

 

Quiche Lorraine

makes 2 9-inch pies

Ingredients
2 9-inch deep dish pie crusts
8 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
4 green onions, chopped
12 eggs
3 cups milk
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 cups emmental cheese, shredded (you could also use gruyere or swiss)

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Divide the bacon crumbles and the green onion pieces between the two pie crusts. In a bowl, beat the eggs, milk, salt, pepper and nutmeg together. Spoon this mixture over the bacon and onions in your two pie crusts. Top with the shredded cheese. Bake 45-50 minutes or until the egg mixture is set in the middle.

5-Minute Chocolate Mug Cake

My sister-in-law shared this on Facebook. I’m saving it here for my own personal reasons…

4 tablespoons cake flour 
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
A small splash of vanilla
1 coffee mug
Add dry ingredients to mug and mix well. Add the egg and mix well. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well. Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla and mix again. 

Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts. The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don’t be alarmed!

Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.

Family Dinner February 2009: Sweet Potato Cobbler

Every month, my family has a pot luck dinner.  February’s dinner was held this past Friday and I tried a new recipe on my family: Sweet Potato Cobbler. No one in my family had heard of it before but we enjoyed it.

I used canned sweet potatoes for this because that is what I had on hand. I chopped them up and used the liquid from the can to replace the water and sugar in the recipe above (I still put sugar in the cobbler batter). My great aunt suggested that next time I mash the potatoes instead of leaving them sliced and I think I agree with her.

Valentine’s Day Menu 2009

Apéritif: Kir

Starter: Spicy Cheese Rounds with cream cheese

Soup: Shrimp Bisque

Citrus Sorbet

Entree: Chicken Gruyere with Sauteed Mushrooms and Steamed Green Beans

Salad: Cucumber Dill Salad

Cheese & Fruit: Watermelon, Red Grapes, Emmental and Provolone

Dessert: Chocolate Mousse garnished with sliced almonds

What the…?

I cut open a yellow pepper when making chow chow relish, and this is what I saw.

Barbie Doll Wedding Cake

A lady I work with got married over the weekend without telling anyone what she had planned. To those of us who had worked with her for a while, this came as a big shock.

We decided that we should do something special in honor of her big day and since she had been asking for a Barbie doll birthday cake for almost two years now, I decided this would be a good time to try it.

I bought the kit at a craft store that came with the skirt-shaped pan and the doll bust. I used a butter golden cake mix and vanilla icing (tinted with pink and white luster dust) and some edible glitter to decorate the cake itself. I bought a wedding dress set for the doll and cut it up to suit my needs.

I really wanted the whole motif to be ivory and gold but it turned out white and pink because the store I was shopping at for doll clothes only had one wedding dress.

With that being said, here is the finished result:

Cheese Biscuits

This is a treat that my mother’s family had for breakfast every Christmas morning. I now make these for Matthew from time to time.

2 cups self-rising flour

3 tablespoons lard (or shortening)

3/4 cup milk (or buttermilk)

8-12 cubes cheddar cheese (depending upon how large you make your biscuits)

Cut the lard into the flour until it resembles coarse crumbs. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk. Stir until combined. The mixture should be slightly sticky but not so sticky that you cannot roll it with your hands.

Tear off pieces of dough and roll into a disc shape. Put a piece of cheese in the center and roll the dough into a ball around the cheese. Try to work the dough as little as possible for the best results.

Bake at 425 degrees for about 20 minutes or until the biscuits are golden. Brush the tops with butter if desired.