Banana Bread

My oh my, this was very good! To make it even better- it used whole wheat flour!

A must for those bananas that have overstayed their welcome....

Find the recipe here: http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/banana

_bread.html

Blueberry-Coconut-Macadamia Muffins

I'm behind already on my blogging! I've baked a bunch the last few days. These muffins were wonderful--and they come in at about 200 hundred calories a pop, which makes them perfect breakfast items :)

Blueberry-Coconut-Macadamia Muffins from Eating Well. Very good!

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/blueberry_coconut_macadamia_muffins.html

Of Biscuit Dough and Calories

In our household, we (for the most part) are trying to watch our calories as we prepare meals and consume snacks. It's not as easy as it would seem, as most foods that are tempting are high in calories. We have found that an awareness of what you are eating is the best way to keep track of calories that you are taking in.

Having said that, I decided today that I would make biscuit turnovers for lunch. My idea was to make biscuit dough, roll it out, cut it into turnover sized pieces, add lots of filling and fold them up. I didn't get too far though....once I calculated calories and realized how many were in 1/8 of the dough (almost 260) I realized that my lunchtime effort was in vain. 1/8 of the dough was not enough to create a reasonable turnover for lunch, let alone a snack.

So...

When life hands you biscuit dough balls, make cinnamon biscuits instead. I rolled each ball of dough in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar and baked them in the oven until they were light and puffy. Now, they are still not calorie free....but they do make a nice snack with coffee. And, I know how many calories are in each little dough ball :)

Peanut-Butter Brownies

Well good gravy, gosh golly and all of those other type sentiments. It has been FOREVER and a day since I have posted anything. Mostly, this has been due to lots and lots of interesting life events that have kept my attention otherwise engaged. However, we are now in the summer months, and some of the craziness has slowed down, so hello baking!

I don't know how many of you are actually reading this, or how many of you love vintage cookbooks, but this recipe hales from The Family Circle Cake & Cooky Cookbook, published in 1953. There is something awesome about finding and baking recipes from a cookbook published over 50 years ago. In a weird way, it's like forging a connection with a whole other generation of people. And I am sure that the results taste just as sweet now as they did then.

It's good to be back in the blogging mode, and I hope to continue to post, and to connect with a range of people through recipes :)

Hot Dog Mummies

There are a variety of recipes online available for this seasonal food, and I chose the crescent roll variety. I used one pack of hot dogs (8), and a tube of crescent roll dough. These are lacking eyes, which I hope to add in a bit with mustard. After wrapping the hot dogs with dough, I baked them in the oven (375 degrees) on a greased cookie sheet for 18 minutes.

Enjoy! :)

Hello All :)

It's fall, and that can only mean one thing....

Baking! :)

The Dorie Experience #5

Dorie Recipe Number Five: Perfection Pound Cake
The taste reminds me of: Simplicity embodied by cake.
My favorite part of making this: Watching the butter and sugar cream in my kitchen aid mixer.
Spontaneous rhyme: "Pound" rhymes with "round" as in "you better share this cake with lots of people so you don't become too round."
Would I make this again: Yes, although next time I will watch the baking time a little more closely. This cake was actually a little dry (I've had trouble getting cakes done lately).
Best consumed with: Tons of fresh berries and whipped cream!

The Dorie Experience #4

Dorie Recipe Number Four: Coffee Break Muffins
The taste reminds me of: A cup of coffee contained very happily in a muffin!
My favorite part of making this: Adding the brewed coffee.
Spontaneous rhyme: "Break" rhymes with "Make", as in "These are very quick and easy to make!"
Would I make this again: Yes, I hope many times in the future....they are quick to throw together!
Best consumed while: Drinking coffee!!!!

The Dorie Experience #3

Dorie Recipe Number Three: Cardamom Crumb Cake
This was the most stubborn cake of them all. I baked it for the suggested time, but the middle just refused to get done. After quite a bit of extra time, it finally finished. The cake was probably miffed that I used almonds instead of walnuts, and neglected the orange zest. Perhaps next time....

The taste reminds me of: A fancy schmancy bakery in my own kitchen!
My favorite part of making this: Smelling the cardamom spice.
Spontaneous rhyme: Crumb rhymes with dumb as in, it would be dumb to miss out on this wonderful cake by skipping the recipe in the book.
Would I make this again: YES
Best consumed while: Drinking a stout cup of coffee!

The Dorie Experience #2

Dorie Recipe Number 2: Peanut Butter Crisscrosses

The taste reminds me of: After school cookie time.

My favorite part of making these: I enjoy squishing cookie dough. This time I got to use a fork :)Spontaneous rhyme: Butter rhymes with Shutter, as in you better close your shutters or the whole neighborhood will be at your house craving cookies due to the aroma.

Would I make these again: YES

Best consumed while: Dancing barefoot in the kitchen to the musical stylings of "OK Computer".

Wedding Cakes

Here are photos of the cakes at our wedding:

The bride and groom have snowboards :)

The groom's cake :)

The Dorie Experience #1

Well, I'm not entirely sure, but it appears that I have been dropped from "Tuesdays with Dorie". I took a couple of months off due to wedding plans (a two month engagement dictated that I focus on things other then baking), and when I checked the TWD site, I found that my name was no longer listed as a member.

I love baking from the book, so I have decided to continue baking, and post what I discover.

Dorie Recipe Number 1: Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies
The taste reminds me of: Christmas, only without the cute shapes.
My favorite part of making these: Rolling the dough balls in sugar and squishing with a glass.
Spontaneous rhyme: Spice rhymes with Nice....which these cookies are most definitely.
Would I make these again: YES
Best consumed while: Working on class assignments in front of the computer.

A Brief Note....

Hello all :)

Craziness continues. In the last 4 weeks:

1. I've become engaged.
2. I've had a horrible stomach flu.
3. I've worked on college classes.
4. I've worked.
5. I've moved.

Yikes.

A Small Break

Hello All :)

I'm taking a short break from regular blogging due to recent events.
1) I've recently become engaged.
2) I'm taking a college class.
3) I'm working full time.

Once things settle down soon I will be back full swing.

Tuesdays with Dorie Number 27: Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins

Greetings all :) What a last few weeks it has been! I'm finally back to Tuesdays with Dorie after a longer then expected absence. Between snowboarding in Colorado, the Holidays with family and more snowboarding in Colorado.....I haven't had a chance to get to my regular baking. That, and the amount of food I've eaten over the holidays....I didn't think I could look at any more baked goods.
This week's recipe is the Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins chosen by Rebecca of Ezra Pound Cake, and they are an easy, delicious muffin. I ate mine plain, but I think they would be wonderful with soup or chili.

Tuesdays with Dorie Number 26: Buttery Jam Cookies

This week's recipe was chosen by Heather of Randomosity and the Girl and is the Buttery Jam Cookie. Once again, another wonderful cookie recipe perfect for the holidays!
I used blueberry preserves in mine, and topped each cookie with a whole almond. The dough came together very nicely, and the cookies maintained there shape (there was no interesting "falling" with these little guys). All in all, a wonderful recipe.

Tuesdays with Dorie Number 24: Linzer Sables and Post Number 100!!

Greetings all! Technically this is the recipe to be posted December 2, but with all the Thanksgiving stuff going on, I didn't get to it when I should have. So, here are the Linzer Sables, a recipe chosen by Dennis of Living the Life.

I ground almonds in my food processor, and I was a little worried that perhaps they were not fine enough. The end result held together fine, and tasted wonderful!In order to make them more festive, I used Christmas cookie cutters on some of the cookies. I'm hoping to fill them soon, but I think for now I'm going to store the cookies in the freezer for Holiday Happiness later in the month :)

On a side note, this is my 100th post for Butterbur's Bistro. Hooray!

Tuesdays with Dorie Number 25: Grandma's All-Occasion Sugar Cookies

This week's recipe was chosen by Ulrike of Küchenlatein, and is Grandma's All-Occasion Sugar cookies. I was very excited to see the recipe pick, as it goes along perfectly with holiday baking!
I made mine into slice and bake cookies, but to make them more festive I rolled some in sprinkles, and on others used pecan halves. Of course, I had Christmas music going full tilt while I was working on these delicious morsels! Happy baking!

Tuesdays with Dorie Number 23: Thanksgiving Twofer Pie

Well, this post is late, but due to the Thanksgiving holiday, TWD posters had an extension on the posting date. Thank goodness! The Thanksgiving Twofer pie is this week's recipe, and it was chosen by Vibi of La casserole carrée. I traveled to my parents this Thanksgiving, so my mom and I made the pie for Thanksgiving dinner (which is why this post is just a bit on the late side).

I managed to locate my missing battery charger, so the pie photos are not the blurry variety from my cell phone. Hoorray!
This pie came together nicely and we had little difficulty preparing it. However, I did learn a lesson. When the recipe tells you to weight the crust when prebaking, do not "shortcut" it and hope that pricking the pie crust all over will be an acceptable substitute. Thankfully, my mom and I were concerned about the 25 minute baking time and pulled the crust out after 10 minutes to check it. The pie crust edges had slid down to the bottom of the pie plate, and the center part of the crust had tripled in volume. It was late Wednesday night and we were not about to remake the pastry, so I pulled another heavy pie plate out and squished the crust as much as I could. The sides did come up a bit and we finished prebaking. The finished product came out much better then expected because the pecan topping covered all the sad spots of crust.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful and restful Thanksgiving!

Tuesdays with Dorie Number 22: Arborio Rice Pudding, White, Black (Or Both)

Well, this week's recipe was very interesting on many levels. I apologize for the picture, but I can't find my battery charger for my camera....so I am stuck with the cell phone pics. **sigh**

This week's recipe was Arborio Rice Pudding, White, Black (Or Both) chosen by Isabelle of Les gourmandises d’Isa. I followed the recipe, and was a little worried when by the end of the cooking time I had milky "rice soup". I put it in the fridge and hoped that it would thicken up over night, but when I checked it the next morning...there was no improvement.

I ended up cheating....I reheated the pudding and stirred in 1 Tablespoon cornstarch and 1 beaten egg. This had the effect of thickening the pudding, but after I let it chill for awhile....the texture was less then desirable. After reading the comments on the TWD page, it seems that there was a typo in the book. The pudding should have cooked for 55 minutes and not the 30 that I gave it (I actually let it cook a little past 30 minutes). I will try this pudding again sometime in the future as the flavor was good, but as noted before....the texture with cornstarch and egg...not so much. This is the first recipe out of all the recipes I have tried with TWD that did not come out. Hopefully next week's pie will go smoothly.