I want to eat everything

Wow, I thought I had a hearty appetite when I was pregnant!  Now 3 plus months into breastfeeding I want to eat all the time!!!  And facebook doesn't help matters any.  There are a ton of tasty videos floating around the interwebs with some awesome recipes...mostly desserts...like this one:

Recipes are guidelines, right?

I've said it before.  I hardly ever follow a recipe exactly.  Even when baking I add more spices than required because I love flavors!  Tonight my pregnant self decided to try a new recipe I found on Pinterest.  The name of the blog that featured this yummy photo is Bacon, Butter, Cheese & Garlic.  The recipe?  Baked Italian Chicken And let me tell you, the picture is SUPER enticing! See?

baconbuttercheesegarlic.blogspot.com

You want to make it now too don't you?  And remember I'm pregnant, duh, so any blog that features some of my favorite ingredients must be a hit!  The only issue I had with this when I started gathering my ingredients was that I noticed that the recipe doesn't include bacon....an oversight I'm sure!  I also switched out minced garlic for the garlic powder.

The artichokes are being drained...hence the reason they are not pictured

So I decided to add bacon!  It is a common pairing with chicken (at least in my house), so why not?

While the bacon was starting to cook I got to chopping....onions and tomatoes

The onions go into the pan with the bacon and the mushrooms (I got the pre-sliced)

While those are cooking I put the chicken in a pan...

And melted the cream cheese and mixed in everything else, and ran out of room in my bowl to add the spinach, so I just covered the chicken with it...

Then topped it with the cheesy-bacony-yummy sauce!

And popped it in the oven at 350, for 30 minutes...I think it is going to take a lot longer than 30 minutes, I checked it halfway through and the chicken is still VERY raw looking.....we shall see...in the meantime I am having a VERY hard time not eating the other half of the Italian bread I purchased to go on the side....VERY hard....

Once I determined we would actually be able to eat this meal sometime tonight...I started the Linguine I am serving the chicken on. And put the garlic bread in the oven.   And sprinkled the shredded cheese all over the top of the dish!

Next time I am going to brown the chicken in whatever is leftover from the bacon onion and mushroom pan....give it a head-start to cooking!  But this time, I'm just going to chow down, because I'm hungry and this smells soooooo good!!!!

Enjoy!

Rhubarb Pie

Way back in the day, when we lived in Bolivar, Mo, my Grandpa's neighbor used to grow rhubarb, and would give it by the bag to my mom.  She would make Jam, and pie all summer long, and share it with him, my Grandpa and others.  It has been years since I had my mom's rhubarb pie.  Suddenly I have been CRAVING my mom's rhubarb pie...only I didn't have anywhere to get the rhubarb!  I eventually found someone who had it, in abundance and they gave me enough to make a rhubarb pie!!! And almost enough to make a batch of jam too!!!  But for now we made the pie.

Start by making the crust (thank you Mama, cause I'm still not the best at making these)

Then clean the rhubarb

and chop it up!  You are going to need 4 cups (or just a bit more)

Add the few ingredients (1/4 c flour, 1 cup sugar and 1/2 tsp orange zest)

Stir it up!

Dump it into the pie shell...

Dot with butter (use 2 Tbls)...

Put the top shell on and slit...

Then bake that pie for 10 minutes at 450 degrees, then lower the temperature to 350 and continue baking another 30 minutes!  After the pie is cool, refrigerate it until you are ready to slice and eat it!

Enjoy!

I know that next year I will be starting my rhubarb growing experience.  Because now that I have indulged, I will want more and more of this yummy plant!

Mini me

In two short days I will be part of an annual Women's Tea.  I am hostessing my own table, and in charge of making cake.  I first thought, oooh cupcakes!!!  Then after getting on Pinterest and seeing the smorgasbord of ideas for having a tea party, ooooh petit fours!!!! So I attempted to make them...

After that long day and the unsatisfying results I decided it was the best and smartest idea to go BACK to mini-cupcakes. So I bought two box mixes. Tee hee!  For both mixes I substituted butter for the oil, and for the white cake I used half heavy cream and half 2% milk for the water.  for the lemon I used the juice of one lemon, and Sprite for the water.  I also zested the whole lemon and threw that into the batter too!

I think they turned out quite nice!

I am lucky enough to have two star tips for frosting.

The frosting part went faster than the baking part, thanks in large part to my mom!

Can't wait to dig into these tomorrow!

The first time (making Peggy Rolls) is always the hardest.

Hello readers!  I have been busy over the last few months, packing, moving, moving again, and unpacking.  We lost our 13 year old dog, and adopted a rescue dog, I will introduce her later.

I have been enjoying my new abode with this awesome kitchen for about a month now and it's time to start blogging again. Besides, the island in the middle of the kitchen provides a perfect space for my computer so I can blog while cooking!

Taking a recipe, that has been perfected and then nicknamed after the person that perfected it, and duplicating it is a daunting task.  Every family get together, on my dad's side, for as long as I can remember my mom made crescent rolls.  Now called Peggy Rolls. These rolls are my FAVORITE bread substance EVER.  So the one other time I made these, I had mom help me so I could take these rolls to take to my in-law's house.  And naturally they love them just as much as I do...which is why I am attempting to make them today. Emphasis on attempting.  Yes I'm terrified.  I mean it's just ingredients, I have made many recipes some with disastrous results, but mostly with tummy pleasing turnouts.  So why does this recipe throw me for a loop?

It's not all that difficult, and now that I'm in my new house and only 5 minutes away from Mom it should be easier to get her help...but I'm going to put my big girl apron on and do this myself...if not then Mom is only 5 minutes away and can come rescue me.

As I said, this recipe is simple.  As always, getting everything out that you need to make the recipe, keeps you from forgetting something!

Start by mixing the yeast, sugar and water, and warming your milk.




Then mix the sugar and butter together, I always cook with butter, it's better for you and I think it tastes better.

Then add eggs.

Then finally add three cups of flour, and mix three minutes. This is also the point where you are supposed to add the salt, which I forgot because I was using it to prop the lid for the flour container.  I added it a bit later, but before the final cup of flour...

Oops....

Once the mixer starts to sound like it's too much, switch to the dough hook and add the remaining flour, I ended up using 6 full cups of flour, and then called my mom to make sure the dough looked like it was supposed to.  A soft dough should be silky in texture, yet not stick to your hands when you work with it.

So I sprinkled that bad boy with some flour (to keep it from sticking to the bowl), using a spatula around the edges and bottom to get good coverage all the way around and called it happy!

I used a plate to cover the bowl and set it aside (in a warm sunny place) to rise for 30-40 minutes note the reflection of two dogs in the bowl...they know I spill stuff and it's usually tasty stuff that I spill, or maybe they like to get underfoot so I will spill stuff....

So to introduce the new four legged food taster in our family.  Meet Cinnamon

I found her online over a month ago, I was looking for a full-grown-trained-good-with-kids-dog that was in a local rescue group, and I found her.  Our other dog Stormy got sick back in September and we saw her across the rainbow bridge.  Now Cinnamon has become (like two days ago) a part of this family.

Time to eat some lunch!

Ok it's been 30 minutes, and it's time to check the dough, see how it's rising.

Not quite done, so I'll wait 10 more minutes, and call Mom again, maybe she will come join me for the fun part of making these rolls!

There are two ways to use this dough, sweet rolls or crescent rolls.  I'm gonna do both.  Most of the dough will go towards crescent rolls, and I am going to use just enough dough to make a small pan of sweet rolls (twisted a bit) for my husband.  Instead of the raisins we got some chopped pecans and I'm going to put those in the rolls.

Once the dough is doubled, plop it out on the pastry mat and divide into two balls, put one back in the bowl and set aside.

For the crescent rolls, using a pastry mat, roll dough into a circle

and spread with softened butter

I used a pizza cutter cause it's easy that way, to cut the circle into 12-16 wedges

then roll them up!

They need to rise 30 minutes or so, depending on the environment.

For the cinnamon pecan rolls, roll dough into a rectangle, one side slightly thinner than the other

spread with butter, cinnamon sugar, and pecans and roll up starting with the thick side.

Cut into the desired number of rolls and put into a lightly greased pan

And at this point the crescent rolls had risen to perfection and are ready to bake. Put them on the bottom rack in the oven and keep an eye on them.

When the rolls come out of the oven smother them with butter.

Then you can eat them, refrigerate them for later or even freeze them.

When the cinnamon pecan rolls come out of the oven the drizzle with frosting if you wish. My DH doesn't like a lot of frosting, hence the light drizzle!

And a huge thanks to My JoMama, who did come over and took some pictures of the making of these scrumptious treats! If you are interested, and you should be, head over to her blog, Peg's Pantry! And because she is such a great teacher with easy directions it really wasn't that hard to make these Crescent or Sweet Rolls.  You can too!

Apples

A while back I went on an apple binge...stocked up on one particular type of apple, the Ambrosia apple...happiness in a bite!  Unfortunately I have not eaten them all yet...and they are starting to wilt.  Time to make applesauce!!!

Apples, of all kinds, basically if it was in my crisper drawer it's goin in

Spices

Applejack Brandy!!!!

Melt butter and add apples

stir and then add the spices, and brandy

Cook until mash-able or use a food processor to break it down...and don't forget the sugar!!!

ENJOY!