After sleeping the week away....

I got back into the kitchen last night with a purpose. I needed to make cookies for someone who was nice enough to come and fix my kitchen sink and not charge me an arm and a leg to do it. Thanks to Jeremy I now have a working sink, garbage disposal and dishwasher. It was a yucky stinky mess but he fixed the clog. Whooo hooo!!! This called for his favorite cookies White Chocolate macadamia nut cookies. And so it was.
And then this morning since I can't seem to sleep now that I slept the week away I was up at 5am. So....what to do at 5am with children and husband sleeping....make cinnamon rolls!! A new recipe with cinnamon toast crunch cereal. Not too bad!! :D

Cinnamon Crunch Cinnamon Rolls
Recipe from Sugar Plum

1 tablespoon active dry yeast
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 cup warm milk (not hot), plus 2 teaspoons
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, divided use
1 2/3 cups bread flour
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup crushed Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal
5 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together yeast, granulated sugar and 1/2 cup warm milk (reserve the 2 teaspoons) until well combined; allow to sit 5 minutes. Add egg, vanilla, salt and 2 tablespoons butter, and mix using a dough hook, until well combined - about 1-2 minutes. Add flour and mix on medium speed for 5 minutes.

Remove dough onto a lightly floured surface, and knead for an additional 5 minutes. Shape dough into a ball, place in a greased bowl, lightly cover, and allow to rise in a warm area for 1 1/2 hours.

Roll dough out using a rolling pin, into a 13x9-inch rectangle. Spread remaining 2 tablespoons butter over dough. Sprinkle brown sugar, cinnamon, and cereal over dough. Roll up, jellyroll style, and slice very ends off. Slice log into 6 equal pieces, and place in a greased 9-inch cake pan. Lightly cover and allow to rise in a warm area for 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brush a little extra melted butter over rolls, if desired. Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden brown and well risen. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes.

Stir together confectioners' sugar and additional 2 teaspoons milk until combined; drizzle over cinnamon rolls, and serve.

Makes 6 big cinnamon rolls

Thrilled to have an outlet

So.....today I am thankful once again to have somewhere to send all of the stuff that I bake. I have had a cheesecake sitting in my want to make pile for a few months and yesterday I finally decided to make it. Now, as you all know...I don't usually eat the things that I make. And yesterday's cheesecake was no exception. I sent it out the door this morning with Calvin for the FCR along with forks and paper plates.

The color is a little bit um....red. The recipe that I used called for 2 BOTTLES of red food coloring. I decided to use the gel food coloring that I had in the cupboard and used my own judgment as to how red it really needed to be. :)

I also got to use my new food processor for this recipe which I am sure my mother will be happy about, I don't know how many times she has asked me if I had used it. And this gave me a reason to....to grind up graham crackers for the crust of a cheesecake. What better reason?

So...FCR...did you enjoy your Red Velvet Cheesecake a couple days late for Valentines day??



Red Velvet Cheesecake
Recipe from: Peabody

For the Crust:
1 ½ cups chocolate graham cracker crumbs
¼ cup butter, melted
1 TBSP granulated sugar

For the Filling:
3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 TBSP unsweetened cocoa
1 cup sour cream
½ cup whole buttermilk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp distilled white vinegar
2 (1 oz) bottles red food coloring

For the Topping:
1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, at room temperature
¼ cup butter, at room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

For the Crust:
Stir together graham cracker crumbs, melted butter and 1 TBSP sugar; press mixture onto bottom of a 9-inch springform pan.

For the Filling:
Beat together cream cheese and sugar at medium low speed with an electric mixer 1 minute.
Add eggs, unsweetened cocoa, sour cream, buttermilk, vanilla extract, vinegar and food coloring. Mix on low speed just until fully combined.
Pour batter into prepared pan.
Bake at 325F for 10 minutes, reduce heat to 300F, and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until center is firm.
Run knife along outer edge of cheese. Turn oven off and let cheesecake stand in oven 30 minutes.
Remove cheesecake from oven; cool in pan on a wire rack for 30 m minutes.
Cover and chill for 8 hours.

For the topping:
Beat cream cheese and butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth; gradually add powdered sugar and vanilla, beating until smooth.
Remove cheesecake from refrigerator and spread topping evenly over top of cheesecake.
Remove sides of springform. Garnish if desired.

A day in the Kitchen

So...today now that I feel sort of better again, I spent the day in the kitchen. Lasagna, focaccia bread and a lemon meringue pie. Two out of the three are new recipes for me. I am so excited for dinner to be over so that I can try the pie! Anyway...her we go.


Lasagna Recipe:
Recipe from...Me

Sauce:
1 pound hamburger
1 large can tomato sauce
1 small can tomato paste
1 can tomato soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup
crushed red pepper to taste
Italian seasoning to taste
garlic powder to taste

Cheese filling:
1 tub of ricotta low fat cheese
2 eggs
3 1/2 cup shredded cheese

First make the sauce by browning the hamburger with salt, pepper and onion, draining the fat off when the meat is browned. Add to the meat the rest of the tomato sauce, tomato paste, cream of mushroom soup, tomato soup and spices. Allow to simmer on low on top of the stove for about 30 minutes.

Mix together cheese filling to begin assembling the lasagna.

In a greased pyrex dish, coat the bottom of the dish with sauce, then no cook lasagna, the cheese mixture. Repeat until you use all of the cheese mixture, top with sauce and then shredded mozzerella cheese.

Bake 375 degrees until the sauce bubbles and the cheese is golden brown. This cuts better if you allow it to sit for about 10 minutes after removing it from the oven.


Focaccia Bread:
Recipe From: All recipes

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 1/3 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (I used 1 cup all purpose and 1 cup whole wheat flour)
  
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. In a small bowl, dissolve sugar and yeast in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
2. In a large bowl, combine the yeast mixture with flour; stir well to combine. Stir in additional water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until all of the flour is absorbed. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead briefly for about 1 minute.
3. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 30 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 475 degrees F (245 degrees C).
5. Deflate the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface; knead briefly. Pat or roll the dough into a sheet and place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Brush the dough with oil and sprinkle with salt.
6. Bake focaccia in preheated oven for 10 to 20 minutes, depending on desired crispness. If you like it moist and fluffy, then you'll have to wait just about 10 minutes. If you like it crunchier and darker in the outside, you may have to wait 20 minutes.

Lemon Meringue Pie
Recipe: Brown Eyed Baker

Lemon Meringue Pie

Makes one 10-inch pie

For the Crust:
¾ cup cold butter; cut into ½-inch pieces
2 cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1/3 cup ice water

For the Filling:
2 cups water
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup cornstarch
5 egg yolks, beaten
¼ cup butter
¾ cup fresh lemon juice
1 Tablespoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Meringue:
5 egg whites, room temperature
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup granulated sugar


For the Crust:
Make sure all ingredients are as cold as possible. Using a food processor or pastry cutter and a large bowl, combine the butter, flour, sugar and salt. Process or cut in until the mixture resembles coarse meal and begins to clump together. Sprinkle with water, let rest 30 seconds and then either process very briefly or cut in with about 15 strokes of the pastry cutter, just until the dough begins to stick together and come away from the sides of the bowl. Turn onto a lightly floured work surface and press together to form a disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least 20 minutes.

Allow the dough to warm slightly to room temperature if it is too hard to roll. On a lightly floured board (or countertop) roll the disk to a thickness of ⅛ inch. Cut a circle about 2 inches larger than the pie plate and transfer the pastry into the plate by folding it in half or by rolling it onto the rolling pin. Turn the pastry under, leaving an edge that hangs over the plate about ½ inch. Flute decoratively. Chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line the crust with foil and fill with metal pie weights or dried beans. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Carefully remove the foil and continue baking for 10 to 15 minutes, until golden. Cool completely before filling.

For the Filling:
Bring the water to a boil in a large, heavy saucepan. Remove from the heat and let rest 5 minutes. Whisk the sugar and cornstarch together. Add the mixture gradually to the hot water, whisking until completely incorporated.

Return to the heat and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly until the mixture comes to a boil. The mixture will be very thick. Add about 1 cup of the hot mixture to the beaten egg yolks, whisking until smooth. Whisking vigorously, add the warmed yolks to the pot and continue cooking, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil. Remove from the heat and stir in butter until incorporated. Add the lemon juice, zest and vanilla, stirring until combined. Pour into the prepared crust. Cover with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming on the surface, and cool to room temperature.

For the Meringue:
Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Using an electric mixer beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar, salt and vanilla extract until soft peaks form. Add the sugar gradually, beating until it forms stiff, glossy peaks. Pile onto the cooled pie, bringing the meringue all the way over to the edge of the crust to seal it completely. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden. Cool on a rack. Serve within 6 hours to avoid a soggy crust.

Another chocolate chip cookie

That will end up in the recycle bin. I am in desperate search of the chocolate chip cookie recipe that will make me say WOW this is it! Today I tried another one. Still not what I was looking for. I am finding that I don't like chocolate chip cookies that are made with butter. I prefer margarine. Not sure if that is because that is what I grew up eating. Who knows, but this one too will end up in the not to be made again pile. They were not bad...just not the WOW factor! Bella seems to like them though.

The flavor of the day is CHOCOLATE

Okay...so today when I should be bagging popcorn samples, I was baking muffins. Okay, the recipe says muffins...I say cupcakes. You decide. Here is the picture and the recipe will follow the picture is just to let the FCR (full compass row) know what is coming their way tomorrow.

Okay...the recipe!

Not quite Yura's farm-cake Muffins
From: Trevor Family Favorites cookbook
servings=18

For Cream cheese filling:
8 ounces cream cheese at room temp
1 egg
1/3 cup sugar
pinch of salt
6 ounces chocolate chips

For the Muffins:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup DARK brown sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
2/3 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
8 ounces sour cream

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line cupcake tin with liners.

In a small bowl, blend cream cheese, egg, sugar and salt. Blend until smooth. Add chocolate chips.

IN a large bowl (I used a stand mixer for this) mix the flour, sugar, brown sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Mix in the water, oil, vinegar, and sour cream and blend well.

Spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, about 3/4 full. Add one heading tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture in the center of the batter. DO NOT MIX OR STIR!

Cake until done, about 30 minutes. I actually baked mine for about 24 minutes and they were done. Turn the muffin tin half way through if you think of it. :)

Disney Hangover

After 7 days at the happiest place on Earth I have returned to my real life and to my kitchen. Which at the moment is a complete disaster! Oh the joys of going away! First I am going to share a couple of yummy things and then what I made for the Full Compass employees who were kind enough to take care of things for Calvin while we were away. And in hopes that Beaker is not totally destroyed. ;)

So.....here is some yumminess from the Happiest place on Earth.

Day #1
Today we ate at the Akershaus which is a little place in Epcot, in the land of Norway. This was our storybook Princess dinner. The girls got to see Cinderella, Aurora, Snow White, and Ariel in her ball gown. Which was the highlight for them. :) The food....good. Calvin ate his fill of all things fish on the first night. I had chicken which was good and the children both ate pizza. Ick. If there is something Disney does NOT do well, it is pizza. Anyway, here is our dessert from the first night. From left to right....chococlate mousse cake with chocolate ganache, rice pudding with berry compote, and apple tart with caramel ice cream and caramel sauce!
Day #2...today we ate at Coral Reef. This is another place within the wall of Epcot. This is not in the world show case, but still fantastic! This is the second time that we have eaten here and I will return again. Calvin had apricot braised beef short rib which he LOVED and I had.....steak. If there is one theme with me, it is beef. :) For dessert I had cheesecake with a blackberry on the top and a berry drizzle, Calvin had butterscotch creme brulee, and the girls had....pizza. Ick again. But here they got to make their own sundaes when they were done which they LOVED. Here is my dinner...
Day #3
Today we went to the Animal Kingdom and the girls were a pain in the butt and wanted NOTHING to do with anything that had animals...HELLOOOOOOOOO this is the ANIMAL kingdom. ugh. So we had a short day. Our dinner was at Kouzzina. This was a new dining experience for us. One that we will not be returning to if I have anything to say about it. Nothing special. The girls had grilled chicken and I should have eaten their dinner, it was better than mine. I had flank steak and Calvin had fishermans stew. For dessert, Calvin are his before i could take a picture.... :( But he had a piece of chocolate with words on it inside bakalava. It was pretty tasty. I had Galaktoboureko, which you are probably wondering what that is....I did....here is what it says....Semolina Custard in Baked Phyllo Dough and Vanilla-Praline Gelato it was tasty as well. We split each dessert. But the meal itself, I was not blown away by and perhaps I was just expecting too much.

Day #4
Saturday...this is our halfway point....and BY FARRRRRR the best meal of the whole trip. Today we ate at Epcot again. And the name of the happiest place to eat...LeCellier. This is a steak house in "Canada" It is wonderful. And hands down the best steak that I have had...and that is saying a lot. I like steak. So, I had steak, New york strip to be exact and Calvin had the same, I could not even tell you what the children had. They also serve something yummy before the melt in your mouth steak....bread. And not just any bread, pretzel bread. Warm yummy pretzel bread. So....for dessert which was almost as good as the steak, I had an apple tart with maple syrup and almonds. And Calvin had the Chocolate celebration cake.....which is pictured below. It was a great meal and we have eaten here before and will return on EVERY visit to the world.

Day #5
So here we begin our endless buffets....the first being at Hollywood and Vine at the Disney's Hollywood Studios park. Now, the studios does not have a lot of options when it comes to food. It is my least favorite park and the food sucks, not much going for this place....BUT they have Fantasmic! which makes it all worth it. The buffet was average and can't even brag about the dessert buffet. I have no pictures from here. And to top it off....it was the COLDEST day of our whole trip down south. And I will leave it at that. At least the girls loved Fantasmic! or as they call it...Mickey saves the world.

Day #6
Day of buffets number 2. Tonight we ate at a new place called Boma. This was an experience. This is a buffet of African type food as well as a few "american" things for those who are less adventurous. I ate fruit. They had a great fruit bar. :D And dessert as you will see below. All in all it was good, but nothing to write home about. The atmosphere is good. Would we eat here again? Probably not. It is one of those places that is WAY out of the way and the food is not good enough to make me go that far out of the way. So...here is dessert from Boma.....
The first is a Zebra dome. Which contains alcohol of some kind. There is a chocolatey mousse inside of the white chocolate top....the second, does not have a real name of sorts, but it is in a chocolate shell and was pretty good for chocolate....

Okay...so now we are on Day #7
This is our final buffet and a new one for us. It was Chef Mickey's. Yes, we will do this again. WAY FUN and out our window was a view of the castle. And we got to watch the sun set. This is a character buffet and Olivia was THRILLED because the mac & cheese had mickey mouse noodles. And she ate 2 plates of them. Whoo hoo!! Anyway, the food was good. The dessert buffet was to die for. They had make your own sundaes and then a few other things. Pictures of many to follow. The first is something I hope to try and make on my own. The second picture had Mickey mousse, Minnie cheesecake and Key lime tart. The Key lime tart is the square dessert in the picture.

OKAY....now onto my life at home. While I felt pretty good on the trip the pain has returned to me over the weekend. :( So while waiting for the Drs office to call me back today....I decided to bake. Look out Full Compass....you are getting food tomorrow! Today I made Chocolate chip cookies, which my girls have consumed almost the whole batch. When I was done and the Dr's office still had not called, I decided to make a lemon cake. This is what will be traveling into Full compass tomorrow. :)
Lemon Pound Cake
- adapted from Cookie Baker Lynn (and her picture was MUCH prettier than mine!)


2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
2 1/4 cups sugar
6 large eggs
1 cup milk
1 1/2 Tbsp lemon zest
1 tsp. pure lemon extract
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

1- Preheat oven to 300 F with a rack in the center of the oven. Butter and flour a 12 cup Bundt pan.

2- Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together twice. Set aside.

3- Cream the butter and 1-3/4 cups sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Reduce the speed and add the flour mixture, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour. Stir in the lemon zest and lemon extract.

4-Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 1-1/2 hours, or until a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes on a rack.

5- While the cake cools, bring the lemon juice and remaining sugar to a boil over medium high heat in a small saucepan, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.

6- Invert the cake onto a rack, and remove the pan. Poke holes all over the cake with a wooden skewer. Position the rack over a baking sheet and slowly pour the syrup over the cake. It will seep through the holes and into the cake. Let cool to room temperature. Decorate with fresh or candied flowers (optional).