Strawberry season – and picking them fresh!  Just a perfect excuse to whip up some yummy berries and cream muffins!

My boys were so excited to go strawberry  picking eating.

They are the best when fresh picked and warmed by the sun!

The problem wasn’t where to stop – but when – we just kept picking and picking!

Here is a yummy recipe to enjoy with your spring berries!

Berries & Cream Muffins

{printer friendly version}

½ cup strawberries, slightly under-ripe, diced

½ cup blueberries

1 tsp sugar

½cup sugar

¼  cup butter

1/3  cup sour cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 tbs powdered sugar for dusting

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray or line a 24 cup mini-muffin pan, or 9 cups in a 12 cup regular muffin pan.

2. Put both berries in a bowl, sprinkle with 1 tsp sugar on and stir gently to combine.

3. In a stand mixer place in sugar and butter and cream together with the paddle attachment.  Then add in the sour cream, vanilla and egg and mix well.  Then add in the dry ingredients (except the powdered sugar) and mix on low until just combined.

4. Gently fold in strawberries.

5. Divide batter evenly among the muffin cups. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
6. Place pan on a wire rack and leave for 5 minutes. Take out muffins and continue cooling on the wire rack. When muffins are completely cool, sprinkle powdered sugar over the top.

Enjoy!

First you start with a box of frozen puff pastry.  Let it defrost and then roll it out to a 10″ x 10″ square.   Then cut it into 4 squares.

Then put a dollop of cheese mixture in the middle of each square.

After you put the egg wash around the edges – fold one edge to the middle.  Then the other edge to the middle.

Then I carefully scoop them off the board with a metal spatula and place on silpat or parchment paper on my cookie sheet.

See?!  You can so do that too!!

Cheese Danish Recipe

{printer friendly version}

• 8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2  egg yolks, at room temperature
• 4 tablespoons ricotta cheese
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• zest of 1 lemon
• 2 sheets frozen puff pastry, defrosted
• 1 egg beaten with few drops of water, for egg wash

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper or silpat.

Place the cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and cream them together on low speed until smooth. With the mixer still on low, add the egg yolks, ricotta, vanilla, salt, and lemon zest and mix until just combined.

Roll out 1 sheet of puff pastry onto a lightly floured board to a 10 by 10-inch square. Cut the sheet into quarters with a pairing knife. Place a heaping tablespoon of cheese filling into the middle of each of the 4 squares. Brush the border of each pastry with egg wash and fold 2 corners to the center, one at a time. Brush the top of the pastries with egg wash. Place the pastries on the prepared sheet pan. Repeat with the second sheet of puff pastry and refrigerate the filled Danish for 15 minutes.

Bake the pastries for about 20 minutes, rotating the pan once during baking, until puffed and brown. Serve warm or room temp.  Based on recipe from Ina Garten.

Enjoy!

I love a good Biscotti – but only if it is “break your teeth” cruchy.  Not that I eat it that way – no, no I love to dunk it in my coffee – and the only good way to dunk the Biscotti in the  coffee is if it is super crunchy.  This is a twist on the traditional Almond Biscotti.  I call this a Southern Lovers Biscotti – with Pecans and grapefruit!

I always thought Biscotti was only something a fancy pastry chef could do.  No!  It is so easy.  Whip up the batter – roll it into a log – brush an egg wash on it.

Bake it….

Cut it into slices on the diagnal.

Lay on thier sides to bake again – getting them super crunchy and you’re done!

Delish – yummy – and so easy.  They will stay fresh in a tin or zip lock bag for a week or two.  This recipe makes enough for you and to share with your friends.

Southern Lovers Biscotti

3 cups whole pecans
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking powder
3 cups all-purpose flour
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
zest of 1 large grapefruit

plus one egg, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two large sheets with parchment paper.

Mix together pecans, sugars, cinnamon, baking powder, and flour.

In a small bowl, whisk eggs. Add the vanilla and grapefruite zest and whisk until well blended. Add to the flour mixture. Work the batter together with lightly floured hands.  Once the dough is firm, form a ball. Divide the ball into four equal pieces.

On a lightly floured surface place one piece of dough, and using your hands, roll into a log shape that is approximately 8 inches long, 2 inches wide, and 3/4 of an inch high. Repeat with remaining three pieces of dough. Place two logs per baking sheet.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until the tops of the loaves are shiny and deep golden. Cool on a rack for about 20 minutes before slicing. Place a loaf on a cutting board, and using a large serrated knife, slice cookies 3/4 of an inch thick on the diagonal.  Place slices on their sides back on to the baking sheets; place in the still warm oven with the temperature off and the door closed for 30-60 minutes. The longer they stay in the oven, the harder they will become. Remove from oven and cool completely before storing in an air-tight container.

Enjoy!!

When I think of baking for Christmas I think of my grandmother’s cranberry bread.  The berries are tart, the muffin is sweet – they just melt in your mouth.  My grandmother passed when I was young, but it would have been such a pleasure to bake these with her!

I stock up on cranberries in November and stash them in my freezer.  I will then be able to make homemade cranberry sauce though out the year when I make my Sunday dinner of roast chicken!

And of course I save enough cranberries to make some of this yummy cranberry bread!  I do sometimes double the batch and make some of them into muffins – the kids go crazy for them!

Cranberry Nut Bread

Makes 1 loaf

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) cold butter, plus some for greasing the pan

2 cups (about 9 ounces) all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup orange juice

1 tablespoon minced or grated orange zest

1 egg

1 cup cranberries, whole – frozen or fresh

1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9 X 5 bread pan.

2.  Stir together the dry ingredients. Cut the butter into bits, and then use a fork or two knives to cut it into the dry ingredients, until there are no pieces bigger than a small pea. (You can use a food processor this step, which makes it quite easy, but don’t use a food processor for the remaining steps bread will be tough.)

3.  Beat together the orange juice, zest, and egg.  Pour into the dry ingredients, mixing just enough to moisten; do not beat, and do not mix until the batter is smooth.

4. Fold in the cranberries and the nuts, then pour and spoon the batter into the loaf pan.  Bake about an hour or until the bread is golden brown and a toothpick comes clean.   Cool on rack for 15 min. before removing.

5. If making into muffins cook for 18 – 20 min.

Enjoy!

When we moved to North Carolina I couldn’t believe they didn’t have fresh pizza dough in the grocery store – nor did they have Italian bakeries selling dough.  I was able to get it from a few pizzerias that would sell it to me – but that wasn’t convenient.  Now we just make our own.   Fast though – 12 minutes – in my mixer.  No needing required.  My kids love to help make it too – and can’t wait to see how big it will get after it rises!

So if you want to make your own just to try it – or can’t get it fresh at your store – give it a try.  It certainly beats getting a $20 take out pizza – and way more fun!!

NY Pizza Dough

• 1 1/2 cups warm water (105F)
• 4 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 1/2 teaspoon of granulated sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of yeast
• 1/2 cup cornmeal

1. In your mixer bowl, dissolve sugar and salt in water.
2. Add oil and flour and stir with heavy spoon for 1 minute.
3. Turn out to a lightly floured surface and press into a circle.
4. Sprinkle yeast evenly over dough and knead for 12 minutes.   Forget that – Turn mixer on low for a few minutes.

Then put mixer on medium high speed for 12 minutes.   It will start to look like this:

Just let it run the full twelve minutes.

5. Divide dough into portions: 6 oz. for Calzones, 18 oz. for 12 inch, 25 oz. for 15 inch

6. Roll each portion into a ball. You want a dough ball without visible seams except the bottom.

7. Place dough balls in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow to proof for 1−2 hours at room temperature to use the same day, or store in refrigerator to use the next day.

8. Place dough ball on lightly floured surface, and lightly flour the top. Use fingertips to evenly flatten out the dough ball. Work from the edges to the center press dough into a 12″ circle. Place both hands within the shell edge and stretch with fingertips and palms maintaining an even pressure. Or, use a lightly floured rolling pin to stretch to desired shape.

9. Sprinkle cornmeal or semolina on pizza peel (a wooden paddle with a handle to slide the pizza in the oven) or a cutting board. The cornmeal allows the pizza to slide onto the stone easily.

10. After topping the pizza, when you are ready to cook it. Shake the peel or cutting board to make sure none of the dough is sticking.

11. Carefully slide the pizza into the oven and bake in a 500 degree oven for 20-25 minutes, until crust is golden.

Additional Information

• Cooking pizzas with this dough should be done on a baking stone. Using a pan will produce a very soft “doughy” crust. The stone in the oven should be preheated to 500F for an hour prior to baking, and should be placed in the middle of the oven.
• (This recipe makes about 34 oz. Adjust ingredient amounts for your purposes)

When I think of fall, I think of apples – and all the things I can bake with apples!  I wanted to try something different this year, I will still make apple crisp and apple pie….but I wanted to get out of my apple box.  Now I am wondering why I haven’t been making apple turnovers all of these years?  They are so easy – and scrumptious!!

The best part – I used the cheater method – using frozen puff pastry!  No need to make that from scratch when you can find a good product at the grocery store for something so hard to make.

The apples – make sure you get good baking apples.  I live in NC and I got Stayman Winesap apples - which are great for baking – they melt like butter when they are baked!

The cinnamon and butter added to the apples – well now were talking!

Then with a simple pinch of a fork around the edges, and some egg wash on top they are almost ready to go!

Use a silpat or parchment paper to line your baking sheet.  As the filling may ooze out and you don’t want these babies to get stuck to the pan!

Be sure to let them cook up to a golden brown.  Let them cool off a bit and enjoy!

{APPLE TURNOVERS}

Ingredients

Directions

Recipe adapted from Nick Malgieri’s How to Bake.

-Helping you achieve your Domestic Success!

Somewhat – yes, better than fried doughnuts I am thinking!  I love old fashioned homemade plain doughnuts with cinnamon sugar coating.  I do not like frying anything though.  So I haven’t really ever made them much – I’ll get them at a fair perhaps – but not in my house – to dangerous!  Then I started hearing all about Doughnut Muffins!  Muffins made with a doughnut batter and then rolled in melted butter and cinnamon sugar – yummy!  And somewhat healthy!

I heard about them on several shows on the Food Network then I found this awesome recipe from the Downtown Bakery and Creamery!  They are easy to make – and so yummy to eat!

Doughnut Muffins – from the Downtown Bakery and Creamery

For dipping:
8 oz. (16 Tbs.) unsalted butter; more as needed
2 cups sugar
2 Tbs. ground cinnamon

To make the muffins Put a rack in the middle of the oven and heat the oven to 350°F. In a stand mixer or a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until just mixed in. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg. Combine the milk and buttermilk. With a wooden spoon, mix a quarter of the dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Then mix in a third of the milk mixture. Continue mixing in the remaining dry and wet ingredients alternately, ending with the dry. Mix until well combined and smooth, but don’t overmix. Grease and flour a standard-size muffin tin. Scoop enough batter into each tin so that the top of the batter is even with the rim of the cup, about 1/2 cup. Bake the muffins until firm to the touch, 30 to 35 min (20 min for mini muffins).

To finish

Melt the butter for the dipping mixture. Combine the sugar and cinnamon. When the muffins are just cool enough to handle, remove them from the tin, dip them into or brush them all over with the melted butter, and then roll them in the cinnamon sugar.

Make Ahead Tips

You don’t have to bake all the muffins right away; the batter will keep, covered and chilled, for up to three days in the refrigerator.

To finishMelt the butter for the dipping mixture. Combine the sugar and cinnamon. When the muffins are just cool enough to handle, remove them from the tin, dip them into or brush them all over with the melted butter, and then roll them in the cinnamon sugar.

Make Ahead Tips

I made mine into mini muffins – they were the perfect size for this treat!

You don’t have to bake all the muffins right away; the batter will keep, covered and chilled, for up to three days in the refrigerator.

- Helping you achieve your Domestic Success!

I recently ventured into a new region of food. My husband’s aunt is from the Philippines and whenever we would gather for family functions, she would always make her famous Pancit and Lumpias. I love her cooking and wished that I knew how to make this awesome food. For years and years I tried to get the recipe but never seemed successful. It is not because she didn’t want to fork over the recipe; it was because there is no written recipe. Everything is from memory or recollection of how mama made it. I realized that not having a written recipe was a common practice and that no two recipes are alike. These recipes like most ethnic food are learned from watching someone, not from following directions.

I can appreciate this because the same goes for me. It is very difficult for me to write recipes because they are a pinch of this and a pinch of that. One time I use x ingredients and the next time I use Y. I have very few recipes that I have written measurements for. However, not knowing how to make his aunt’s wonderful dishes, I needed some sort of recipe that I could learn the steps from.

The Perfect Opportunity to Get the Recipe

When my husband asked me what I wanted for Mother’s Day I said, “All I want is your aunt’s Pancit recipe”. Well he was successful in getting me a full list of ingredients. LOL.. few measurements and lots of vague language like noodles. I have not made a lot of Asian cuisine in my many years of cooking and I realized I was just going to have to wing it.

Where Do I Get the Ingredients?

 So here I was looking for an Asian market to get my ingredients. I called my girlfriend who shops for Asian specialty items often and asked her where the best place to go was. She recommended Super 88. She said they will have everything you will need. I could hardly wait to go. So, the next day I ran into the city with two kids. In a matter of 18 miles and 40 minutes later I was standing in another land.

A Trip to Another Land

Here we are the Super 88. I really didn’t know what I was looking for-noodles  and Chinese sausage  (key ingredients). Oh boy.. I walked in and it was like venturing into the candy store. I was surrounded by all of these new ingredients and foods. The scary part is that most of it was not in English so I had little knowledge about what I was actually buying. I walked around aisle after aisle trying to make out the bottles and sauces and products by looking at the pictures on the label. The spices were relatively cheap so I kept throwing things into my cart. Luckily I looked up on the internet what the Chinese sausage looked like so I knew one thing I was looking for. I wandered into an aisle looking for patis –all I knew was that it was a kind of fish sauce that could not be substituted..hmmm So many bottles of fish sauce and they all looked different. But where was patis??? I stopped to ask a woman who worked there and she did not speak English. Good thing there was a young man next to her that said oh Patis, use this and he pointed to a bottle. He said you don’t want the stuff you have-it will kill you and tastes horrible. Few…I was saved by the nice gentleman. One ingredient down. I was now off to the noodles. Hmmm. How hard could this be? Well it would be like walking down the salad dressing aisle for choices. There were so many noodles. I was trying to look at the label and guess what it would look like cooked or look for some clues like a picture to know what it was used for. I finally asked two separate people (one shopper and one worker) again, no one spoke English. I was on my own. I placed several noodles into my basket and then realized that they had a fresh noodle section. I then walked over and placed several more packages of noodles in my basket with the hopes that I had the right one somewhere in my basket of noodles. The remaining of the shopping trip was very overwhelming for me, no one to help and so many choices. Soy sauce, soy sauce, soy sauce, soy glaze, thick sauce, thin sauce, and sweet sauce. What was the difference? I wanted a personal shopper someone who knew what they were buying or knew what to use it for. I knew I was in the midst of some good stuff here, I just didn’t know what was what. So it was time to get home for the bus, 12 bags later, 4 types of Chinese sausage, 6 bags of noodles, some sauces and who knows what else. I left the store hoping I would have what I needed to be able to pull off this one dish.

Ready..Set…Cook

And so it came, the BIG night. I whipped out the wok or should I say dusted off the wok and began cooking. I became a bit confused over the recipe and the time of cooking. I was worried that the sausage wasn’t cooked enough or that I didn’t have enough sauce.

Did it Pass the Taste Test

Finally I was done. I was very pleased with how it came out. I know next time what I need to tweak, add, or use less of. I knew the real test would be my husband. He was the one who would be able to tell me how authentic it really was. When he came home I was excited for him to critique it. When he tasted it, I got a thumbs up. He said that it was pretty darn close and it was very good. That was good enough for me. The hardest part now is finding the ingredients closer–good thing I bought enough to probably make it several more times before needing to go back.

Moral of the Story

Never fear making new recipes or venturing into a region that you are not used to cooking. I think the next month I have so many Asian ingredients we are going to be doing a lot of experimenting. Thanks Aunt Eva for letting me in on your family secret.

- Guest Post by Love of www.cookingwithluv.com - “Where Cooking is Made Easier and Passions are Found”!

Thanks so much Love – for being a good friend and for all your great meal planning tips!

- – Helping you achieve your Domestic Success!