Week 10: Christmas Goodies

It's December and we are getting closer and closer to Christmas. Growing up my grandma and my mom would usually start baking the 2nd week of December. At grandma's house she would always have fudge, divinity and peanut brittle. She has children and grandchildren scattered throughout the United States and that was her gift to them. She would fill the shoe boxes with candies and wrap them in pretty paper and then in a brown paper bag. She also loved the cut out sugar cookies. My daughter came home on December 10th from college. We spent hours in the kitchen the whole week baking all sorts of things. Here is a list of them: chocolate fudge, peppermint fudge, peanut butter fudge, cream cheese cookies, peanut brittle, coconut snowball cookies, cranberry almond biscotti, and raspberry gumdrops. All were amazingly good. Just spending time with my daughter was such a blessing. My son contributed some, mostly taste testing. Hey, it is an important job. Hope you are enjoying time in the kitchen this holiday season, maybe with someone you love. Memories like that are to be cherished a lifetime.

Week 9: Cranberry Eggnog Cornbread Scones

I almost made it through this week without baking. So much baking for Thanksgiving, I didn't even know what sounded good and I have plans for lots of Christmas goodies the next few weeks. I wanted something that was right for the season yet not so sweet and great with coffee or tea. Scones were perfect. I searched many recipes until I found this one. Eggnog and craisons, and a hint of nutmeg to bring out the eggnog flavor. Great with tea or coffee. This is a great recipe and very easy. Smells great baking. You need to serve this one warm or at room temperature. You could put a glaze on after it cools a bit or sprinkle some crystallized sugar before it bakes. Substitute eggnog for the milk in the glaze recipe. It really compliments the eggnog in the scones. Hope you enjoy this one. I know my family did. I might even make some for gifts. Enjoy!

Week 8: White Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake

Happy Holidays my friends! I love this season. So many memories about food during this time of year. I think I already told you how wonderful my grandmothers were in the kitchen. I miss them so much. I decided after my one grandmother died, we would make everything she always made and also try out a new recipe or two. Well, Katlyn learned how to make my grandmother's famous chicken n dumplings. They were amazing. Everyone loved them and I know grandma was smiling down from heaven. I let her make the recipe this week since she was home. She chose White Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake. It was so good. The crust was made with crushed ginger snap cookies and the filling was made with pumpkin, spices, sugar, and some yummy white chocolate. This has to be one of my favorites so far. I'm so proud of my daughter for her love for cooking. She is a real joy in my life. I know this will be one a many great cooking experiences for the two of us. Wow, it's already week 9 and I am only now writing week 8. Guess I better get busy.

Week 7: Crispy and Creamy Doughnuts

This was a very good week. I decided to make doughnuts. I remember growing up, I had an Aunt Rosie that lived with my grandma. She loved to make doughnuts. She was such a great cook and she always let me help do everything. She had a polio as a child and used crutches all her life..I remember her sitting at the kitchen table with flour all over the place, including her dress and sometimes on her face. I'd help cut them and we'd put them on a plate and grandma would drop them in the hot oil. We made a glaze from powdered sugar, butter and hot water and as soon as the oil drained we'd have to hurry and dip the hot doughnuts in the glaze. Now that was the best tasting doughnut ever. They would melt in your mouth. I searched several different websites and cookbooks for a good recipe. I believe I found a good one. It's made with yeast but it actually still had somewhat of a cake taste to it. That isn't bad. Many people like that type of a doughnut. Great tasting. Definitely a keeper and something I would make for a coffee shop. Hope it's one all of you will enjoy. It was a lot of work but worth every bit of it to me. Oh I also made some homeade salami. First try and it was great. Made about 2 pounds. Seasoned just right. I will probably put it in my cookbook too. I think if I served it at a coffee shop I'd serve it on a platter with some cheese, assorted crackers and grapes. One of my favorite snacks, or even as a meal. Have a great week everyone.

Week 6: Quiche

Hi friends. Here we are again. Before I get started with week 6 I must tell you that I worked on my fried pies again. I finally have a wonderful crust recipe that is very flaky and just yummy. I made blueberry fried pies. They were really good, so I'm pretty sure you are going to enjoy them. The recipe is actually very easy. There are so many varieties of quiche's. The first one I am going to make is a little different in that you don't use a regular pie crust. You use shredded hash browns. This will be a new recipe for me and I am super excited about trying it. I will be doing that tomorrow. Well, made quiche tonight. This was a totally new recipe. Instead of the typical flour pie crust I used shredded hash browns for the crust. Some sausage, cheese, eggs and spices. Turned out great! I also added some chopped onion to the hash browns and fried it in a little melted butter before putting it into the pie plate. This will definitely be a recipe that I will use in a coffee shop. Hope everyone has a great week.

Week 5: Homeade Pumpkin Butter and Crumpets

The house smelled wonderful today as I made a big pot of pumpkin butter. Pumpkin, apple cider, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon and some sugar all cooking in a large pot and smelling fabulous! I canned this recipe. It made 12 1/2 pint jars. Easy recipe that will be shared with you at the end of these 52 weeks. Now it's time to make the crumpets. A crumpet is a savory sweet bread made with yeast and flour. It is mainly eaten in the United Kingdom and other nations of the Commonwealth. Crumpets are generally circular. They have a distinctive flat top with many small pores as a resilient, slightly spongy texture being very porous. I made crumpets this morning. It took about an hour to prepare before the actual cooking process. This was my first time to make crumpets and I must say they were very good. I did some looking and found the recipe on the Allrecipe site. It's the only one listed if you want to look it up. I will also be putting it in my cookbook at the end of my journey. When all was done, we had a crumpet with a big spoonful of pumpkin butter. It was so good. Definitely a keeper recipe. A great gift idea too. That's all for this week. Hmmmm....now to choose next weeks recipe.....Good day everyone.

Week 4: Halloween Week

Hi everyone....I am a week late in writing this one. It was a busy week and I struggled with what to make. So, I made two different things. It's fall and nothing smells better than pumpkin bread with all the spices. That was my first recipe. I actually made Pumpkin Ginger Bread. It had the usual spices but with an extra kick of ginger. I was really very good. Moist and I like making the small loaves. This recipe made a 5 loaves that were good sized. The second thing I made is a favorite for fall and especially Halloween. It's called Popcorn Cake and it is made similar to the famous rice krispie treat. Only difference is you use 2 bags of popped microwave light butter popcorn and you stir in 1 cup of M&M's and 1 cup of nuts. You can uses other combinations of hard shell candy or nuts or leave the nuts completely out. You dump it out from a 9x13 pan and after it sits a bit you cut it into squares. Absolutely delicious, especially if you like popcorn balls. I think these are even better. So that is my week number 4.

Week 3: Fried Pies

I've been real excited about this week although I see that it isn't as easy at it my seem. There use to be a little off the road eating place in Missouri that made fried pies. They were fabulous. I want to create that recipe again. The key factor is the crust, which I am not happy with yet. I made a recipe that was suppose to be very good and I wasn't impressed at all. I am definitely going to have to do some more research. I used butter to give it a better flavor and also used ice cold water. It was too hard. I want a flaky crust. Apple fried pies tonight. The filling was good. Friends. Cooking can be stressful as well as being therapeutic. On a mission to find the perfect pie crust recipe. If any of you have a suggestion I'd love to know. Might try blueberry tomorrow. I also am going to try pumpkin and coconut cream. But until I find a good crust I'm in trouble. Will share the results in a few days.

Week 2: Biscotti

Decided to work on Biscotti this week. Sooo many different varieties. Starting out with Gingerbread Biscotti. Smelled great even before it hit the oven. I've only made biscotti once and it was pretty good. Hope to perfect it this week and even create some new varieties. The gingerbread variety has lots of spice in it and after it's done I am going to dip it in some melted white chocolate. Doesn't that sound good? Hope it works. I was out of whole wheat flour and substituted wheat germ....hmmmm....we'll see. Be back in a few to let you know how it turned out....took them out of the oven and not that impressed. Don't know if it's the wheat germ or that my baking powder was old. Didn't rise as good as I'd like. Smell great....soooo....guess I'll finish these. If they taste good I'll dip in white chocolate and just have smaller ones. Taste good. Not too happy about the texture. Some of them crumbled. Gonna dip the rest in chocolate and see how they are. Will try a new recipe tomorrow. Catch you then.

Week 1: Granola and Parfaits

OK, so I have been researching ingredients for granola. Wow! You really can do a lot with granola. I'm thinking about doing a basic granola and letting people choose their mix ins. That idea just came to me right now....hmmmm....just might work. The granola I am making this evening has oats, wheat germ, bran, maple syrup, cinnamon and some raisins and craisins will be my mix ins. I gathered my recipe and listed the ingredients and then went to the grocery store. Guess what I found out. Granola ingredients can be a bit expensive, but well worth it I'm sure. I have all I need so kitchen here I come. I'll get back with you in a couple of hours when it's done. Hopefully I'll be smiling...Well, I'm back and yes I am smiling. It's the perfect sweetness, not too much. Light and nutty. I am keeping some plain and I'm adding the dried fruit to the rest. Parfaits tomorrow. Well, that's week one of 52. My plans are to allow one week to perfect a recipe. That means I might have to make it several times to get it just the way I want it. Got this one on the first try. Thanks for coming along with me on my adventure. Forgot to share my creamy filling for the parfaits. First I tried plain vanilla pudding. Not very good, much too sweet. So I created a filling with cream cheese, heavy cream, french vanilla pudding all blended together and then whisk in a cup of whipped topping. yummy!!!!!! That's all I can say......

It all started about 43 years ago......

I am embarking on an adventure that has been somewhat of a dream since childhood. I started loving to bake in both grandmother's kitchens standing on a chair. Each grandmother had their own style of cooking. One would measure everything, read recipes and use fairly healthy ingredients while the other one didn't own a cookbook, measuring spoons or measuring cups. She also used lard to cook with. Both were equally fascinating and I learned so much from them. My mother is a great teacher of cooking too. She loves to bake and to this day I still haven't been able to master her yummy Four In One cookie recipe. I've been inspired by so many good bakers. I also love a good coffee and the atmosphere that allows one or several to relax, drink coffee and have some baked comfort foods while sharing stories from their heart or having some alone time to read or pray or just think. What a stress reliever. I guess my biggest supporters of this adventure are my two children. It's something the three of us love to do. Bake and cook, trying lots of new and unusual recipes. They have pushed me for a long time to do something like this. So, my prayer, hopes and dreams are that at the end of these 52 weeks I will have a good start on some great and tasty baked goods to serve with that great coffee at my own coffee shop. I hope you all will join me in this exciting adventure in my life. I'm sure I'll have my frustrating moments along with the great ones, but that is how we learn, right? Ready? I think I am.....Let's go.