Weekend Breakfast Treat

Our kids LOVE doughnuts - particularly the ones at Krispy Kremes.  I think one of their favorite part of watching them make them.  So I thought - hey why not make some at home!  So I stumbled upon this little recipe here for copycat Krispy Kremes.

I made the dough the night before and used the morning as the final rising state for the dough - after shaping it with cookie cuts.  Then into the shortening fryer - be very careful about the temperature - shortening heats up very quickly and will burn your doughnuts instantly.

We made used both the doughnut part and the hole :).  Frying was super fast.

After frying, let it cool for a minute or so and keep it in your favorite topping.  We had plain sugar, glazed and glazed with sprinkles.

The verdict YUMMMM.

Simple Asian Inspired Dinners

The weather is California is been very warm.  Spring temperature days and slightly cooler nights has made me want to eat lighter meals as oppose to the typical winters stews.

Like a light lettuce wrap - with a little bit of chicken, sprouts, garlic and typical Asian spices make for a quick little dinner.  This turned out yummy and quickly :).

I had some oil left over from frying up some fries the previous day, so I also whipped a batch of crab & cream cheese stuffed wontons.  The crab was a lump crab meat I froze from the holidays.  Great way to use up little bits of food.  Only took a few tablespoons of lump crab and cream cheese and we had a HUGE batch - enough for the family.

Hopefully we see a real winter here soon.  The hills are looking very dry and water is getting scarce.  Bring out the rain sticks!

Marshmallows and Breakfast - But Not Together

We love our "new" kitchen (aka new to us).  The extra counter space as lend itself to a lot of new recipes and foods to try.  Experimentation with marshmallows ... recipe found here.

As easy as boil...

Mix...

Spread and let set...

It is absolutely delicious.  If you're marshmallow fan or kind of like it - give it a try!  You won't regret it :).  And also makes the BEST rice crispy treats.  You'll never buy them at the stores again!  Well maybe if you're in a pinch ;).

Since we brought a huge package of raw tortillas a little while back, I am finding ways to use it the last dozen of them.  Breakfast burrito time!

A little bit more time consuming than some of our other breakfasts to make but well worth the time.  It was delicious.  Kids loved it as well.  Win Win :).

Stuffed with bacon, eggs, potatoes and a little bit of bell pepper.  Yum!

Fried Foods At Home

We're a fan of fried foods in our household.  We don't do it that often, but when we do we go crazy - mostly because we have a big pot of oil and it's not good to waste right? ;)

A family favorite are fries.  We usually bake it but, face it there's nothing like real fried fries.  And this time we even topped it with garlic, parsley and cheese - on the 'adult' side.  The kids had their side without the garlic.  Yum!!!

I don't think fried stuff is all that bad - just make sure your oil is a proper temperature so your food isn't just sitting there soaking up the oils.  Our foods usually comes up quite nice and not greezy at all.  If you can - invest in a thermometer.

What's that cooking in the oil?  Onion!  Not quite onion rings, but yummy none the less.  General recipe - season with dried garlic, salt and black pepper to taste.  Coat with flour, coat with egg white, and then with flour again (flour-egg-flour, let rest for a few minutes in between coatings).  I find that it works better if you like the first coating of flour sit for a while before applying the egg white.

Here's a new one for our household.  After numerous trips to Krispy Cremes doughnuts, we thought it might be fun to make some at home.  I didn't go for the 'from scratch' approach (shocking I know).  Instead, I saw this super quick and easy recipe HERE and thought it's worth a shot. Just break open a can of ready made biscuit dough, cut out of center and fry up.  Almost like cheating, it's so easy ;).

The hardest part of making the frosting, which I had the kids stir up while the doughnuts were frying

 
Okay these weren't as nearly as good as 'real' doughnuts but it wasn't bad for such a quick meal.  Will make again when the boys want a little treat as their breakfast.

Sometimes I Make Yucky Food...

One of my love-hate vegetables are zucchinis. Each year in the garden I feel obliged to plant 1 or 2 plants of them. They're easy to grow around here, I cook with them in pastas and they seem like one of those 'summer' things to do in the garden. This year my 2 plants got hit with the mega-growth-bug or something crazy, but whatever the case I had A LOT of zucchinis.  Long story short[er] I decided to make zucchini 'pasta'.

Got myself one of these tools off of Amazon.  BTW - the tool was awesome.  Worked like a charm.  Easy to use and felt very sturdy - definitely a keeper in the kitchen.  The 'pasta' however was another story.

After a whole (pretty good sized) zucchini, I had plenty of pasta for a family of 4.  I added in some seasoning - salt, pepper and a little bit of vinegar.  Tasted very bland still.

Then I did a very very bad thing.  The thing that probably killed the whole dish.  I added cheese.  After the cheese went in, it was...yucky.

I don't think I will be making this again.  Besides from sneaking it into some pasta dishes, I haven't really found a real love for this prevalent vegetables.

 The scraps and the 'pasta' went straight into the compost bin.

 

 

Pickling...A Lot

We were blessed with a LOT of cucumbers from our vegetable garden this year.  I've made cucumber salads, gave them to family & friends and eaten most of them sliced along side our meals.  So after my last harvest I was left with over 20 cucumbers.  So I decided to do some pickling...and it was FUN :)!

I used a variation of this recipe (added less sugar and a ton of bell peppers and onions).

First do a lot of slicing.  Remember I had 20 cucumbers to go through...

A lot of other yummy stuff like bell peppers, onions and garlic.

 

Then I salted the pickles, drained it (after 3 hours)...

 

Then poured in the prepared pickles mixture (with the lowered sugar content).

 

Voila! Seven bottles of pickles ready to refrigerate and enough to last for months...and months :)

Watermelon Aqua Fresca

I remember last summer - I was pregnant and LOVE LOVE LOVE fresh watermelon.  Don't get me wrong, I still love it but haven't been in the mood for cut up watermelon.  So I had a little idea - Watermelon Aqua Fresca.  I used to make this years ago and totally forgot about it until recently.

Super easy recipe:

- Half a small watermelon (the big ones don't fit in our fridge)

- 1 cups of simple syrup (1/2 cup of sugar, 1 cup of water ... put into a pot and boil until sugar dissolves.  Then cool :))

- Optional - Lime or Lemon

(1) Cut watermelon into cubes and blend well

(2) Pour blended watermelon through a shifter.

(If you have a baby around, save the pulp - makes for a yummy treat for your little one!)

(3) Pour in the cooled simple syrup.  

(4) If you like, squeeze in some fresh lime or lemon juice to taste.

(5) Chill in fridge for a couple of hours, pour over ice and enjoy!

Pesto Sauce Pasta - Our Family Favorite - Kid Friendly Version

Summer time means a lot of basil around here...and that means a lot of PESTO.  It's truly a family favorite.  We make ours with a little bit of chicken breast.

I've made this so many times I don't really measure the ingredients anymore, but here's (about) what I do each time - this usually serves 2 small kids, 2 adults and have leftovers for a small lunch for the next day:

Ingredients:

• 1 package of dry pasta - cooked.  I use whatever pasta I have around.
• 1 chicken breast, cut into strips
• about 1 cup of basil after stems are removed 
• about 1/4 cup roasted pine nuts - I just throw them on a foil paper in a toaster oven
• about 1/2 cup of reggiano parmesan cheese - finely grated
• olive oil
• salt 
• garlic powder

Optional ingredients: 

• garlic - about 2 cloves.  I usually omit this because the kids complain that the garlic makes the taste 'too strong'.  So for a more kid-friendly recipe, omit the garlic :)
• cracked black pepper.  Not really necessary but sometimes I add in a few sprinkles for extra flavor

(1) In a frying pan, heat up a little olive oil, put in your chicken strips and season in the pan with some salt, pepper and garlic powder.  Pan fry until all sides are browned and inside is cooked all the way through.  Put onto plate to cool down, then cut into small pieces.

(2) In a food processor add the basil, pine nuts (save a little bit for garnish) and cheese (and garlic if you want to).  Pulse a couple of times then add about 4 tablespoons of good olive.

(3) Blend all ingredients together - add more olive oil or water if mixture is too thick.  I like it to be the consistency of chunky peanut butter.  This is your pesto sauce :)

(4) In a large serving bowl, pour in your cooked pasta and pesto sauce, toss together well.  Add in cut chicken, your extra nuts and a little extra cheese and sprinkle on top.  Toss in slightly - not too much or else all your whole pine nuts and chicken will sink to the bottom.

That's it.  It gets pretty simple (ie: easier) the more you make it.  I think I have mine down to only 20 minutes now.

A Happy Cookie Mistake

A couple of days ago I was making my new favorite chocolate chip cookie.  This is the 3rd time making and and everything we had great success with this SUPER yummy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe (Thank you Grace for sharing the recipe!).  However, something very strange happen this time.

Dough as made as usual - looks good - refrigerated and ready to go. 

 

Consistency was good. Formed into little golf balls and ready to bake. Smelled delicious as usual in the oven.

 

BUT obviously I've done something terribly wrong. The result: very flat cookies that browned super quickly in the oven. 

So why is this the HAPPY cookie mistake?  Because the cookies were DELICIOUS!  They were a chewy but crispy around edges.  And they were very buttery.

Glad I found another way to bake chocolate chip cookies but I was mystified why the cookies turned out like they did since my previous attempt turned out superb cookies of a different texture.  So I reread the recipe again...lame me I forgot to put in PLAIN FLOUR (ie: All Purpose).  As good as the mistake cookies were, I prefer the original recipe :).  Will be making a new batch after the move.
 

Survived Another Christmas :)

Love the holidays.  Love Christmas, but boy am I glad it is OVER!

To finish up the year, I decided to bake cookies.  A LOT of cookies.  My estimate is about 400 - give or take a few dozen :P.

Here's the line up:

Mini Gingerbread Men and Women Cookies:



These turned out fabulously. It was my first time making gingerbread cookies. I am definitely making these again next season...or maybe even before then ;).  I didn't realize that fresh baked gingerbread could be this yummy.  Decorating them was A LOT of work but it was super fun and the results makes me smile each time I look at the pictures.



How could you resist these little faces :).



White Chocolate Chip, Cranberry, Macadamia Nut Cookies

Yep - I think the name of these cookies give away half the ingredient list :P. These are a favorite in our household and red cranberries look awesome this time of year.



Mexican Wedding Cakes

These little snowball looking treats are super easy to make but makes a big impact. My husbands NEW favorite!




Toffee!

An extra special treat - Toffee :). Love the extra crunch and cookie break from these toffees.



Not pictured are Sugar Cookies decorated with Christmas Sprinkles - guess I was about ready to pass out by the time I got around to making Sugar Cookies :P.

I started baking around 8:30am and didn't stop until 3pm. It was a constant cycle of mixing, scooping, cookie cutting, oven, cooking rack and finding a container big enough to hold the cookies until they were ready to be packaged.

When it did come time to package up the tins I got a little nervous - did I have enough cookies? Will they taste good? Did I have enough tins? Well 25 tins and hundreds of cookies later I was finally DONE. Everything turned out beautifully and my kitchen was not COMPLETELY destroyed :P.



Happy Be-Lated Christmas everyone!

Week 7 of the 12 Weeks of Christmas - Cupcakes

I love cupcakes. Big, small, chocolate, vanilla and everything in between - YUMMM. My favorite cupcake at the moment? Coconut. If you love coconut then this is your cupcake to try...and if you don't like coconut, it make turn you!

The recipe I usually make is the Martha Stewart's Coconut Cupcake with a basic Vanilla/Butter/Confection Sugar/Milk frosting (not the one listed in the recipe).

I decorated this season's coconut cupcake with some Christmas sprinkles and the ol' stand by of toasted coconut.


The recipe is pretty straight forward, though it does take quite a lot of time to put all the elements together. Here's some pictures along the way :)

Lining the cupcake pans - regular size and mini size - kids LOVE the minis. Remember to bake the minis on a lower temp (~320F) for a shorter amount of time (~15 mins).


Gather up your ingredients and have the recipe printed out and readily available. I love printouts so I don't feel bad about getting it dirty - 'cause you could always reprint :).


MUST have a stand mixer for this recipe or your hands are going to be SORE!


Straight out of the oven. Even without frosting, these cupcakes are DELICIOUS! But you must have frosting, do wait until these cool completely.


Frost, decorate and ENJOY :)!

Not Much Crafting...Just Baking Away

It's getting cold, the kids are inside ALL the time and it's another excuse for me to stay out of the sewing room. The 12 Weeks of Christmas posting will continue very soon...but first let me show you what I've been LOVING.



Yep - nothing to do with sewing, but brings me a great deal of joy nonetheless :).  White Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Cranberry Cookies - say that 3 times real fast :P.

I've been making a variation of this recipe from Allrecipes for a few years now but this is the first year I made it for my boys (3.5 and 1.5 and ready for home made cookies).  There's a lot of recipes out there for something like this and it's a very good alternative to the usual chocolate chip or oatmeal-raisin.

Recruit your little helpers and gather up your incredients:

Don't mind the mix-match containers and bags - I like to buy in bulk.  A lot of people think buying in bulk means buying A LOT of the same item, but a lot of time I buy bulk to get the EXACT measurement of an ingredient I need.  This avoids any extras of an ingredient that I don't usually cook with - in this case macadamia nuts - 1 Cup Exactly.  Places like Whole Foods even have measuring cups for you to use.

Key components: chopped macadamia cuts, white chocolate chip and cranberries.  Haha - about 10% of the white chocolate chip, and 20% of the cranberries went in the tummy of my 3 year old before it even got a chance to get mixed into the cookie dough :).

I really like the colors of the ingredients - especially the deep red color of the cranberries.

Mix in ingredients per instructions - don't mind those little hands going for the batter! Don't worry this batch stayed within the family ;).


Spoon it into a parchment lined cookie sheet - super easy cleanup - and put it in the oven:


Results - beautiful, delicious and healthy-er cookies for the little ones: haha yes if you count the cranberries and nuts it is a healthier alternative :P.


Enjoy! Promise to go into my sewing room in the near future. 12 Weeks of Christmas will resume soon.