Boozy Boozy Blast

Wow, what a week and weekend.  This past week and weekend has been canning mayhem.  Check back for all the details later.  I'm gathering pictures to add details soon.

In the mean time I share with you my boozy wonders.  I have been a bit obsessed with the boozy concoctions after reading a recipe in Sunset magazine a couple years ago.  The idea has been percolating to try my hand at it.  After stumbling on a post over at Mostly Food Stuffs detailing boozy recipes, I knew I had to give in to the urge.

I started with these gorgeous raspberries from local fruit stand.  Gorgeous!

Added to a quart mason jar and then topped with vodka.

 Put a lid on it, shake it, then set it on a cool, dark shelf for a week or so.  Give it a good shake once a day to mix all the flavors together.  Once the berries turn a ghostly white, the liquor has been fully infused.  Strain the berries out, and discard, or eat if you're feeling adventurous.  At this point you can add a simple syrup mixture for a liqueur, or serve it as a raspberry vodka.  Either way, it's best kept in the freezer.

I also have blueberry, cherry and lemon concoctions brewing.  I will share those another day.  But right now, I have some jars to go shake. :)

Well Aren't You Just the Bees Knees

Today wasn't just a Monday, it was a Monday, if you know what I mean.  

The sun also decided to finally make an appearance in the dreary wet Northwest today, which was a welcome surprise.  I decided to celebrate the unexpected ray of sunshine and the end of the work day with trying my hand at making a Bees Knees.  Lately my obsession with honey has been increasing, and I have really wanted to try my hand at crafting one of these fun-to-say drinks.

I started out with my beautiful Acacia Honey.  It literally glows in the bottle.

Mixed with equal parts water, I simmered into a nice simple honey syrup.

While the syrup cooled, I measured out my fresh lemon juice and gin.

 And since the only thing in my garden surviving the monsoon season seems to be mint, I added a sprig of that as well.  Everything is better with fresh mint.

I'm typically not a fan of gin, but I found this combo light and refreshing.  Bees Knees: 2oz gin, 1oz honey syrup, 3/4oz lemon juice.  Delish! :)

Monkey Bite Goodness

Baking, cooking, canning...these are stress relievers for me.  When I've had a rough day at work, nothing calms me down and soothes my soul more than a cuddle from  my pups and a few hours in the kitchen.  It is not uncommon for me to go into a baking trance, only to emerge a few hours later with a vast selection of goodies littered across my countertops.

It was after one such day I found myself scouring my kitchen for something to bake.  After a quick scan I gathered the remnants of my organic CB's PB, a couple wilting bananas, and some mini chocolate chips.

I whipped together a quick banana bread-type batter with the peanut butter and mini chips.  It smelled like a PB & banana sandwich.

Instead of bread I scooped the dough into mini-muffin tins.

Brief side note: Awhile back a friend was hosting one of those Pampered Chef parties.  I managed to escape attending, but did order a couple things to support the cause.  I bought the three scoopers (small, medium, large) thinking they might come in handy.  Boy do they!  If you need to fill muffin tins, cupcakes, etc, these things are super handy and keep things clean, tidy and uniform.  The mechanics seem to hold up really well, too.

Toasty from the oven, in a mere 10 minutes.

This was a surprisingly tasty combo.  The hint of peanut butter and the chocolate and bananas really came together.  Simply pull together your favorite banana bread recipe, add about 1/4 to 1/2 cup PB and some mini-chocolate chips (whatever your chocolate preference might be).  I baked the mini-muffins for about 10 minutes at 350.  Bite size and oh so good! :)

Puff Pastry and Honey...A Match Made in Heaven

The other day I was faced with a mid-morning visitor, a nearly empty fridge, and 3 near-expiring peaches.  What is a girl to do?  Grab the puff pastry from the freezer of course!

I always keep a box of puff pastry on hand in the freezer.  The options are endless and the results are always tasty.  You can pull together a fancy-looking dessert, fabulous breakfast, or a scrumptious chicken pot pie in a flash.  Puff pastry is amazing!

The morning in question I grabbed mine and rolled it out to fit a tart pan.  I wasn't working from a recipe, just an idea of what I wanted the end product to look like, and what ingredients I had on hand.

I sliced up my 3 peaches and threw in some fresh blueberries I had been snacking on (note the sad basset in the background).

Then I added my secret ingredient - Savannah Bee's Tupelo Honey.  Tupelo Honey is liquid buttery sunshine.  Seriously.  It's unlike any other honey.  One day I will write a post just about honey...

I mixed it all together with a dash of cinnamon and a little flour for thickening, then twisted the extra pastry up around the edges.  Brushed with a little melted butter and sparkling sugar, and voila.  How pretty.

Into the oven for about 25 minutes and then out came my tasty Honey Blue-Peach Tart.  Yum.

The Tupelo honey added a light sweetness with a buttery undertone.  It really highlighted the fruit flavors.  I will definitely make this again.  I love it when my "just wing it" dishes turn out!

I'm not great at measurements (I tend to just pour, sprinkle, etc) but here is my best educated guess:

1 sheet puff pastry, rolled out to fit medium tart pan
3 medium peaches, sliced
1 cup blueberries
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup honey

Mix fruit and stuff together gently, add to puff pastry.  Crimp or twist excess dough around edges.  Brush with melted butter and sugar.  Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes or until pastry is browned.

Super easy, fast and oh so tasty! :)

Let's Talk About Prunes

Yes, that's right, I said prunes.  If you're reading a blog about cooking, then you probably know about Pioneer Woman.  If you don't, head over to her site and check her out.  Her recipes are down-home goodness, combined with gorgeous photos.  Plus she has a basset named Charlie, and as the owner of 2 bassets myself, clearly we're simpatico.

In her fabulous cookbook she details one of her grandmother's cake recipes, and it's made with prunes.  That's right.  Prunes.  In her fun recipe introduction she explains how much her husband loves the cake, yet he remains clueless to the "secret ingredient".  Well.  Obviously I needed to try it out.  Besides, I aint got nothing against those prunes.

You start with stewing them in water.

Then you drain and smoosh them all up. I admit.  It's kinda' gross, but I'm powering on.

Next you mix your batter with the yummy cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg, and mix in the prune mush.

You bake this fragrant gooeyness at a very low temp (300).  About 5 minutes before it comes out, you make a buttermilk icing.  Then just as soon as you pull your cake out of the oven, you pour the warm icing on the hot cake.  Check out the gooey goodness.

Pioneer Woman recommends eating this cake warm, or cold.  I have to tell you, it is divine.  Warm and gooey out of the oven it melts in your mouth with gooey spicy goodness.  And after it cools down, it's just rich and tasty and oh so good.  I have made this cake twice now, and it is seriously one of my favorites.  I tend to lean towards lemon anything, but this spicy deliciousness is definitely in my top 3 desserts.  I cannot rave about it enough, and as Pioneer Woman says, Make This Cake Today!  Yes, even with the prunes.  In fact, I think I might just call it a Plum Cake.  I mean, seriously, prunes start as plums, so what people don't know won't hurt them. :)

Cake Extravaganza, The Final Chapter

I admit, I awoke at 2:30 am this morning to be sure the cake was still alive.  I'm not sure what I would have done if it hadn't survived, but I knew I just had to check it out to be sure.  Crazy cake lady.

Happily, the cake was just fine and even made it the hour's drive to the party without incident.   Check out the cute cake table, with Becky's lovely decorations. (By the way, if you haven't seen Becky's blog covering all her craftiness, you should check it out.  And don't miss her Etsy store either!  She made all the birthday crowns and decorations and little Ella's birthday dress.  So much talent!!)

And the beautiful birthday girl and her grammy.

And a cake all her own!  Happy birthday Miss Ella.  We all love you bunches :)

Cake Extravaganza, Part 2

And...I'm finished.  It's been 10 hours of baking, mixing and assembly, but I. Am. DONE!!

So for the final count, today I managed to use 4 pounds of butter. 5 pounds of sugar.  3 pounds of flour. And 2 dozen eggs.  Yes.  All in one cake.  Ok, one giant tiered cake.  Oh, and also about 10 pounds of fondant.  No joke.

Lemon curd filling.  So yummy.

At some point during the process a baby bird flew into the kitchen, derailing my photo taking while we got the birdy out the door.  But here is the second tier, strawberry cake with strawberry buttercream filling.

All covered with fondant, ready for the "flair".

The theme for the party is polka dots and lot's of color.  Hopefully I got it right.

And of course it needed a little "e" for our Ella Cabela:

And there you have it.  I'm really praying it all holds together and doesn't fall in on itself before the party tomorrow.  The sucker weighs a good 20-30 pounds.  I put the dowels in to support the tiers, so fingers crossed!  Now this baking lady is gonna make a strong cup o' tea and have me a sit down.  My tootsies are barkin'! :)

Cake Extravaganza, Part 1

As I am pulling together Ella's 1st birthday cake, I'm realizing I have so much going on there is just no way I can fit it all in to 1 post.  So here I go, showing the first steps.

I am preparing a 3-tier cake, with chocolate cake and chocolate truffle filling for Ella's tier:

The second tier I'm going with a strawberry cake and strawberry buttercream filling.  Yum.  This buttercream is unlike anything you've ever tasted, I assure you.  Adapted from the Cake Bible, it is pure perfection.  Not a drop of powdered sugar in this stuff, it is pure decadence!

And last but certainly not least, the bottom tier is an italian vanilla cake with lemon curd filling.  If you have never tried lemon curd, what are you waiting for?  And if you have tried and like it and have never made it, do not delay!  It's easy-peasy and oh so yummy!!!

Check back for the finished product. :)

Cake Heaven

So last year around this time I had the honor and pleasure of making the cake for my friend Becky's baby shower.  For some reason I'm incapable of keeping things simple and quickly found myself up to my ears in making gumdrop flowers.

Next thing I knew I was making flower pot cakes, complete with "dirt" and individual pots for each guest.  Needless to say I went a tad bit overboard, but it was so much fun and I really couldn't help myself.  And I think they turned out fairly nice, if I do say so myself.

And now here we are, 1 year later and it's little Ella Cabela's first birthday.  Naturally a day such as this requires something spectacular for her to dig her cute little fingers in to!  So check back later to see what I can come up with for this momentous occasion.  :)

Adventures in Tomatoes

My local supermarket had a terrific deal on fresh tomatoes.  I figured it would be a terrific opportunity to try out a couple canning recipes to see how it all turned out.  Last year I was given a large bushel of green tomatoes which I turned into a fabulous chutney, but this year I want to try some whole tomatoes and salsas.

My friend and I have plans to head East to the farms for large quantities of produce, but this is a decent size to start experimenting with.  Half of them I washed, cored and quartered the tomatoes, and then opted to drizzle with olive oil, salt & pepper and roast in the oven for about an hour.  Then into the jars they went.  Check out these beauties:

While all the recipes for tomatoes I found say to remove the seeds, I opted to leave them in, as that's how my mom and great-grandmother always canned them.  I'm happy that I did.  Look how gorgeous!

The remaining tomatoes I made into a quick and easy salsa.  I wasn't feeling the recipes so I opted to wing it.  Chunky tomatoes, onions, jalapeno, cilantro, garlic powder, a little extra tomato sauce for liquid.  I cooked the mixture for just ten minutes, as the 30 minute processing time combined with the 40 minute recommended cooking time left me fearing I would end up with a slimy tomato salsa paste.  Frankly I was completely unsure on how this was going to turn out.

Look at that chunky goodness!  And the flavor results are simply amazing!  Just a hint of warmth from the peppers, not overly cilantro-ey, nice and chunky and perfectly cooked.  This thrown together recipe is definitely a keeper.  And when I get a "damn good" from my picky brother, I know I've got a winner. :)