After having a little fiasco at Costco this past weekend; I was looking for this recipe.  My grandma used to make them, they are great!  Kevin went to Costco and bought a

4 1/2# box of Premium Post Raisin Bran, made especially for Costco.  He usually eats Raisin Bran Crunch, me… Multi grain Cheerios.  He went to Costco for gas, pickles and broccoli; but like usual came home with other items!

This morning he was so excited to try out his “new” cereal.  I was sitting across the table from him and all I heard was loud crunching…sounded like he was chomping on gravel.  His reaction to the Premium cereal was “I’ll have to let it set in milk for a half of day before I can even attempt to eat it”.  So I found this recipe and he has promised that he will eat the muffins!  The beauty of these muffins is that if you want to, you can have fresh muffins every morning!

6 WEEK MUFFINS:

1 – 15 oz. box Raisin Bran

3 cups sugar

5 cups flour

5 tsp. soda

2 tsp. salt

4 eggs

1 cup melted margarine

1 qt. buttermilk

Mix raisin bran, sugar, flour, soda and salt in a very large bowl.  Add eggs, beaten, margarine and buttermilk and mix well.  Store in a covered container in the refrigerator and bake as desired.  Keeps for 6 weeks!  When ready to bake, line muffin tins with muffin papers and fill 2/3 full.  Bake at 400 D. for 15-20 minutes.  You can also sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar before baking for variation!

Enjoy and note to self…don’t buy a big box of cereal until you know you will like it first

Chef

Kathy

Saturday morning for me is a morning to splurge; a morning where I don’t have to eat my bran flakes, fat free milk and a 1/2 of a banana!

I remember eating this as a kid…it was pretty good!  I think this will be our Saturday morning treat!

The recipe is easy and it doesn’t have a name.

Take a roll of the Pepperidge Farm frozen puff pastry and let thaw.  Brush with some cream; top with some good chopped dark or semi sweet chocolate.  Roll up into a log, slice in 1/4 inch slices, place on a parchment paper lined sheet pan and bake at 375 D. for 20 minutes.  Serve warm with a cup of coffee!

Cheers!
Chef Kathy

I love cherries!  Fresh cherries are great just washed and eaten raw.  Then there is cherry pie filling…I love it!  I just think they could put a few more cherries in the can though!  When we were kids, we used to put cherry pie filling on ice cream! 

My Grandma used to can Bing cherries, they are really good; however when I found out how much sugar was in the syrup, I stopped eating them!

The cherry is one of the worlds oldest cultivated fruits, along with its cousin, the apricot.  Cultivation dates back to 300 B.C.

The common cherry tree is native to eastern Europe and western Asia and is part of the rose family.

The name “cherry” originally was formed in the Greek language and in Latin means “of or for the birds” due to the birds love of the fruit.

The Egyptians, Greeks and Romans loved the cherry tree for its beautiful flowers and tasty fruit.

90 percent of the cherry crop is grown in the United States.  Mostly in Michigan, California, Oregon and Washington.

The most popular variety is the Bing cherry, which was developed in Oregon in 1875.

There are now thousands of varieties and most of the cherry crop is picked by hand!

Here is a CHERRY LEGEND that I found interesting…click on the highlighted link to read!

Japan has gifted the United States with thousands of cherry trees over the years as a gesture of friendship.  These trees are planted at the Capital in Washington D.C.

My favorite recipe using cherries is this CHERRY ALMOND COFFEE CAKE!  My friend Paula, first introduced it to me on my 21st birthday.  I have making it on a regular basis ever since!  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!  Thanks Paula

PAULA’S CHERRY ALMOND COFFEE CAKE:

Topping
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup  All-Purpose Flour
1/4 cup Butter Flavor Crisco

1/2 cup sliced almonds

Cake
3/4 cup Butter Flavor Crisco

1 -1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3  eggs
3 cups Flour
1 -1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 -1/2 cups  sour cream
1 can (21 ounces) cherry pie filling

Glaze
Milk
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray 13×9-inch pan with no-stick cooking spray.

Topping:
In a small bowl combine sugar and flour ; mix in shortening until crumbly.

Cake:
In the bowl of an electric mixer beat together shortening, sugar and vanilla extract; add eggs, beating well.

In a medium bowl combine flour, baking soda and salt; add to mixture alternately with sour cream. Spread half the batter in prepared pan. Cover with half the cherry pie filling, spreading as evenly as possible. Repeat layers.

Sprinkle with almonds and topping mixture.

Bake 50 minutes or until top is brown and wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool until slightly warm or to room temperature.

Glaze:
In a small bowl add enough milk (about 1 tablespoon) to confectioners’ sugar to make desired consistency. Stir in almond extract. Drizzle over cake.

Enjoy and Happy National Cherry month

Chef Kathy

Hello friends!

Sorry I have not been blogging daily; but I just got back from a wonderful vacation to the Riviera Maya – in Playa Del Carmen!  I absolutely love this place!  It is the 3rd time I have been there.  The Mayan/Spanish people are so friendly and accommodating.  On this travel, I was able to work with a chef in the kitchen of the resort!  It was so much fun to see how other parts of the world do things in the kitchen!

The first thing I want to share is omelet making.  Every year for the past 3 years, there is this little Mayan woman who is in her 70′s.  She makes omelets by the 100′s each morning at the resort.  I was able to pull her aside and ask her how she does it.  Even though her English is broken and my Spanish is broken, I think we were able to pull it off!  She makes the most beautiful omelet ever!  This is what she told me:

They blend their eggs in the blender with a shot of cream.  She cracked about 2 dozen eggs at one time and just put a “shot” of heavy cream in and blended away until the mixture was frothy.  At this point, she put the eggs in a pitcher and placed them on ice.  She said that the eggs need to be really cold.  I asked her why she said by blending the eggs, it makes them “fluffy”!  Makes sense!  When I tried it at home, I used 4 eggs…I know it sounds like a lot; but it worked great!

At the resort, you grabbed a bowl and went through a line and picked your fillings.  Each day they had fresh pico, summer squash, onion, spinach ribbons, tomato, avacado, sausage, ham, choizo, bacon, mushrooms – trust me, each day my bowl was over flowing!

Next, she got her griddle very hot and dumped out your fillings and sauteed them in a little bit of oil.  She then splashed some water on the other part of the griddle, she said when the water dances, she is ready to go.  Next she brushed her working area with melted butter.  Now this was the tricky part, she poured the eggs on the griddle, they went everywhere; but with a spatula, form a nice rectangle.  You need to have the eggs thin so they cook fast and you can stuff the omelet with more filling! 

The eggs really cook fast; about 1 minute into the cooking process, she sprinkled about a 1/4 cup or more of that really good shredded queso cheese them put the warm filling on the left side and folded the omelet in 1/3rds.  This equals the perfect omelet! 

She then placed it on your plate and you can then spread refried beans and guacomole on top!  Good bye Heinz Ketchup!

Give it a whirl at home!  You will be wanting to make omelets everyday!

Happy Cooking!

Chef Kathy

I was reminising with my neighbor yesterday afternoon at the pool.  We were talking about different childhood memories that each of us had.  She said she remembers eating Egg in the hole for breakfast as a child.  I said that I remember my Dad making that for us too; but we called it Toad in the hole.  At that time, a couple more ladies came and joined our conversation.  One called it Birdies in a nest and the other called it Pirate Eye Eggs.  When I got back home, I did some research because I thought it was so funny how the 4 of us were talking about the exact same recipe and all of our families called it something different!

Just for fun, here are some other names I found that refers to the same recipe:  One Eyed Jacks, Bunny in a Basket, One Eye Eggs, Frog in a Pond, Eggs in a Basket, Egg Nests, Egg in a Toast, Chicken in a basket, Eggs in a Frame, Eggs in the Window, Powder Puff Eggs, Frogs on a Log.  I am sure that there are more names out there.  Feel free to comment on what your family called these!

I did in research, find out that Toad in the Hole is incorrect.  Toad in the Hole is actually a traditional English dish made by adding sausage to Yorkshire Pudding. 

Anyway, whatever you may call these – this is how I remember my Dad making them.

Butter both sides of a piece of bread (like you would a grilled cheese).  Take a small juice glass and cut out a circle in the middle of the bread.  Set aside the “hole” (we used to fight over these, just brown them in the pan on each side until crispy).

Place your bread in a skillet or if you are making a lot of these, use a griddle!  Carefully crack an egg in the “hole” season with salt and pepper.  When the bottom of the bread is toasted, flip and toast the other side!

YUM!

I’ve been going through recipes, cook books, archiving the recipes I really like, keeping the cook books that I really like and getting rid of all the rest!  Right now, I have drawers full of recipes that I have forgotten about!  Like this one!  It was one of the first things I baked as a child.  My Dad owned the grocery store which had a bakery in it.  We had cases of white bread dough on hand!  Once in a while for a treat, he would let us cut up the thawed white bread in chunks and then he would deep fat fry the pieces in the fresh oil in the chicken fryer.  We then would roll the fried dough in a cinnamon- sugar and chow down!

I think I will head to the grocery store and buy some white bread dough and make this for Sunday morning; it will be great with a cup of coffee!

BUBBLE LOAF:

Thaw 2 loaves of frozen white bread dough overnight in the refrigerator. 

The next morning, melt the following together:

1 stick butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 small box of cook and serve butterscotch pudding mix (make sure that it IS NOT instant)

Snip 1 loaf of the bread into 1 inch chunks with a kitchen shears and place in a well buttered 9×13 inch pan.  Pour the butter/brown sugar mixture over the bread.  At this point I add some chopped pecans. 

Snip the other loaf  and place on top. 

Cover with a clean kitchen towel and place in a warm place out of drafts.  Let rise for about 2 hours or until the bread is slightly over the edge of the pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  Let cool in the pan for about 5 minutes.  Invert the pan onto a piece of aluminum foil.  Serve warm.

Enjoy!

Happy New Year Everyone!

For me, New Years Day is a day to reflect back on the prior year, being thankful for what I have, learning from mistakes made and setting new goals! Also making those resolutions to exercise more, eat healthier & lose a few pounds.

My goal for this blog in the upcoming year is to provide daily a healthy recipe or two of things we love to eat; but in a healthier version! Trust me, once in a while I will throw a treat out there (could be daily)!

Feel free to send me a comment or email of anything that you are wanting to see on this blog!

I’m not sure about you; but my diet will start on the 2nd…so here are a few family favorites for a fabulous New Years Day brunch!

Enjoy and I hope you will be back reading for 2012!

OVEN FRENCH TOAST ~ This is simple; yet delicious way to serve up a family favorite! I don’t make french toast any other way!
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
6 eggs
2 cups half and half
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 T. vanilla extract
16 slices of white bread (Texas toast or thick sliced french bread works best)
Melt butter with 1/2 tsp. of cinnamon – pour into an ungreased jelly roll pan.
Combine eggs, half and half, sugar, salt, vanilla and the rest of the cinnamon and mix until eggs are light yellow.
Lay bread slices on top of butter mixture in pan, not overlapping. Pour egg mixture over bread and refrigerate at least 2 hours (overnight is best) Bake at 400 degrees about 20 minutes or until bottom is browned.
Serve with maple syrup or strawberries and whipped cream.

OVEN BAKED TORTILLA ~ I started making this dish for brunch a couple years ago. I adapted the recipe from the cookbook called TAPAS – which is Spanish for “small bites”. It is great cut into bite size pieces with toothpicks and served with a spinach and fruit salad!

Olive oil
1 large clove of garlic, crushed
4 green onions, white and green parts, finely chopped
1 green pepper, seeded and finely diced
1 red pepper, seeded and finely diced
1 large russet potato, boiled, peeled and diced
5 large eggs
scant 1/2 cup sour cream
6 oz. grated cheddar or fresh parmesan cheese
3 T. fresh chives
Salt and Pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a 7×10 inch baking sheet with foil and brush with olive oil.
Place a little olive oil, the garlic, onions and peppers in skillet over medium heat, stirring for 10 minutes or until the onions are softened but not browned. Let cool, then stir in the potato.
Beat the eggs, sour cream cheese and chives together in a large bowl. Stir in the cooled vegetables and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Pour the mixture into the baking sheet and smooth over the top. Bake in the preheated oven for 30-40 minutes, or until golden brown, puffed and set in the center. Remove from the oven and let cool and set. Run a spatula around the edge, then invert onto a cutting board, browned side up and peel off the foil. IF the surface looks a little runny, place it under a medium broiler to dry out.
Let cool completely. Trim the edges if necessary, then cut into 48 squares. Serve on a platter with toothpicks!

SPINACH SALAD - I love this spinach salad! It is great for brunch, add a little grilled chicken or shrimp for a lunch or serve it along side a steak for dinner!
8 ounce bag of baby spinach
8 ounce box of sliced mushrooms
6 slices of cooked, crumbled bacon
1/2 cup fresh bean sprouts
1/2 cup Gruyere cheese, shredded
1/2 cup red onion
For the dressing:
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
4 T. chutney (found at the grocery store by the condiments)
2 cloves of crushed garlic
2 T. Dijon mustard
1/2 cup olive oil
Blend all together in a food processor or blender.
Pour over salad right before serving!

Happy New Year everyone!

I got a new cook book for Christmas…just what I need, another cook book! I am going to be adding this cook book to my “can’t live without” page. I just had to share this recipe with you from Giada’s Kitchen, New Italian Favorites.

I love coffee cake! It is great in the morning for breakfast, great as a brunch dish, heck I even like it at night with some ice cream! The coffee cake recipe that I usually use is with cherry pie filling, which is really good; but I think this recipe tops the list!

Giada says in her book that cakes like this, featuring nuts and dried fruits, are very popular in Venice. There they would eat it as an afternoon snack served with coffee; but I ate mine for breakfast! It beat the hum drum cereal!

ALMOND, PINE NUT AND APRICOT COFFEE CAKE:

1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup pine nuts (these tend to be expensive so I substituted walnuts)
1 1/4 tsp. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
4 – large eggs
1 1/4 cups sugar
3/4 cup melted butter
1/3 cup milk
1/4 tsp. almond extract
1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour (be sure to flour or your cake will stick) a 9 inch round cake pan.

Combine 1/4 cup of the almonds and 1/4 cup of the pine nuts(walnuts) in a dry skillet and place over med. high heat, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned and toasted, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a food processor and cool for a few minutes, then pulse until the nuts are finely ground. (If you don’t have a food processor, just place the nuts in a sealed ziploc bag and roll over with a rolling pin). Transfer the nuts to a medium bowl, add the flour, baking powder, and salt and stir to combine. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the eggs and the sugar until the mixture is thick and pale yellow. Add the butter and milk and combine, then stir in the almond extract and apricots by hand. Gently stir in the dry ingredients.

Pour batter into the prepared cake pan. Sprinkle the top of the cake with the remaining 1/4 cup of sliced almonds and 1/4 cup pine nuts (walnuts). Bake until the cake is cooked and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean – about 50 minutes. Let the cake cool on a wire rack. Use a knife to loosen the edges. Carefully turn the cake out, cut into wedges.

I also made a simple glaze of powdered sugar, milk and almond extract and drizzled over the top before cutting into wedges. This wasn’t apart of the original recipe; but I think it topped off the cake!

Enjoy!
Happy New Year!

I love cinnamon rolls; but they are so time consuming to make.  I found this recipe in the Barefoot Contessa’s Back to Basics cookbook and thought I would share!

If you’ve never tried working with Puff Pastry, it is really great – here is a link to a page that I frequent.  It is loaded with lots of great recipes using frozen puff pastry.

I wondered a long time ago what exactly is puff pastry? This is what I found out in a nut shell…However, you don’t have to go through all of this work to make your own puff pastry – they sell it in the freezer section at the grocery store.

Puff pastry is like a pie crust that rises high with no leavening.  There are only 4 ingredients that make up puff pastry…butter, flour, salt and water.  It is how the ingredients work together when heated makes the pastry puff.

The dough begins like pie crust with cold butter mixed into the flour to a cornmeal consistency. Once it comes together is when the true labor begins. The dough is rolled around a thick slab of butter. Through a process of folding, turning, and rolling, the butter is dispersed throughout the dough creating hundreds of very thin layers of dough separated by a film of butter.

The butter layer is what causes the rise. When the pastry is heated, the butter melts and boils, creating steam which lifts the successive layers higher and higher. At the same time, the heat is cooking the flour, hardening it around those minute air pockets, creating the puff.

This would be a perfect addition to any Christmas morning menu!

EASY STICKY BUNS

12 T. unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/3 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 package (17.3 oz./2 sheets) frozen puff pastry, defrosted

FOR THE FILLING:

2 T. unsalted butter, melted and cooled

2/3 cup light brown sugar

3 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 cup raisins

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Place a 12 cup standard muffin tin on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.

Combine the 12 T. of butter and 1/3 cup brown sugar.  Place 1 rounded T. of the mixture in each of the 12 muffin cups.  Distribute the pecans evenly among the 12 muffin cups on top of the butter and sugar mixture.

Lightly flour your working surface.  Unfold one sheet of puff pastry with the folds going left to right. Brush the whole sheet with half of the melted butter.  Leaving a 1 inch border on the puff pastry, sprinkle each sheet with the 1/3 cup of the brown sugar, 1 1/2 tsp. of  the cinnamon and the 1/2 cup of the raisins.  Starting with the end nearest you, roll the pastry up snugly like a jelly roll around the filling, finishing the roll with the sean side down.  Trim the ends of the roll about 1/2 inch and discard.  Slice the roll in 6 equal pieces, each about 1 1/2 inches wide.  Place each piece, spiral side up in 6 of the muffin cups.  Repeat with the second sheet to make a total of 12 buns.

Bake for 30 minutes or until the sticky bus are golden to dark brown on top and firm to the touch.  Allow to cool for 5 minutes.  Invert the buns onto the parchment paper and ease the filling and pecans out onto the buns with a spoon and serve warm.

At our house, we always try to make a “good” breakfast on Sunday mornings.  It seems that during the week; we are so busy and just have time for cereal or toast.  I always try to think of something “new” to make for the menu, rather than just plain old eggs and toast.

This morning I looked in the fruit basket and seen that I had a few ripe bananas so I thought let’s jazz up those plain pancakes with a banana or two.  Once I added those, I thought a little cinnamon, vanilla and chopped, toasted pecans would be good too!

I always wondered how the restaurants got the light and fluffy pancakes?!  My mom’s recipe for pancakes were “okay” but were always really flat and never had that nice outside “crunch” to them.

I did some research a few years back and after reading several articles ( I really need to get a life) In order to make the “perfect” pancake, you must use buttermilk, baking powder and baking soda.  By combining these 3 ingredients together you will have a fluffy picturesque pancake!  In a nutshell, the buttermilk, soda and powder balances out the acidity in the batter – so when dropped on the griddle, the bubbles will rise and the pancakes will be fluffy!

A couple other tips that I may share…

Use a griddle rather than a skillet:  You can make 8 cakes at a time and they will all get done around the same time and won’t all meld together in the skillet.  You can usually pick up a griddle for around $20.00.

Measure out 1/4 cup of batter per pancake:  This will help the cakes cook more evenly.

Don’t flip the pancake until all of the bubbles “pop”:  If you wait until all of the bubble pop, then flip, your result will not be a doughy center.

After mixing your batter (don’t over mix)  let it set for about 5 minutes before starting the pancakes:  This will let the soda, powder and buttermilk do its’ thing.

Here is my recipe for Banana Buttermilk Pecan Pancakes:

2 cups flour

2 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

2 T. sugar

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cups buttermilk (use the real thing – I never have luck with my pancakes fluffing up when I add vinegar to milk.  You can also freeze buttermilk in an ice cube tray and take out what you need out of the freezer the night before)

2 eggs

6T. melted butter

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 ripe bananas – diced

2/3 cup chopped, toasted pecans - by toasting your pecans, this will bring out the “nuttiness” flavor

Combine the dry ingredients.  In a separate bowl, mix the eggs, melted butter, vanilla.  Stir into the dry ingredients.  Fold in the chopped bananas and pecans.

Heat the griddle to 375 degrees & brush with vegetable oil.  When hot, measure out the 1/4 cup pancakes and place on griddle.  Don’t flip until all of the bubble are popped.

To keep the pancakes warm, just place in a 250 degree oven on a sheet pan until ready to serve.

Makes 16 pancakes.

You really can’t have pancakes without sausage.  Here is a great recipe to make with plain old ground pork & it doesn’t have the MSG that the prepackaged seasoned sausage has.  It is a little on the spicy side; but just give it a dip in some syrup to mellow it out

SPICY SEASONED SAUSAGE

1# lean ground pork

1 tsp. salt

3/4 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. ground sage

1 teaspoon thyme

1 T. brown sugar

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

1 clove garlic, minced

Combine all together and form into 2 inch patties.  Place in non stick skillet and cook on medium heat for 10 minutes on one side, then flip and cook for another 5 minutes or until juices run clear!  Place on paper towels to get rid of any grease that you may have.

This sausage recipe is also great for making patties and grilling or using in lasagne or on top of pizza!

Happy Cooking!