Lemon Cream Daisies

by penji1

Book Group last night at my house.  We read a book called “Garden Spells” which was a fun summer read about some quirky people, one of them was a caterer named Claire who made food with the special plants from her garden.  I do not have a garden like Claire’s but I tried to do my best.  I made two different treats but these seemed to win the taste contest.  The lemon curd filling is so good, tangy and tasty!  This recipe is from Gale Gand’s “Just a Bite” cookbook which my mom got me for my birthday!  Thanks Mom!

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup freshly pressed lemon juice (from 3 – 4 lemons)

freshly grated zest of 1/2 lemon (I used zest from 1 whole lemon)

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, slightly softened at room temperature

1/2 cup chilled heavy cream

1 package puff pastry (2 sheets), thawed

2 tablespoons  chopped pistachios

you’ll also need:

a fluted cookie cutter, 2 – 2 1/2″ across (I didn’t have a flower shaped one in the right size so I used a round)

a round cookie cutter, 1″ across

Bring 2″ of water to a simmer in a large saucepan.  In a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, whip the eggs and sugar together until very light yellow and fluffy.  Mix in the lemon juice and zest.  Rest the mixing  bowl in the saucepan, with the bowl’s base resting above, not in, the simmering water.  Cook, whisking occasionally, until mixture is thickened and custardy, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with ice and cover with cold water.  Remove the bowl with the lemon curd in it from the hot water and whisk in the butter until melted.  Rest the bottom of the bowl in the ice bath and let lemon curd cool, folding the mixture occasionally to cool and thicken it.

In a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, whip the cream until stiff.  Fold it into the cooled lemon curd.  Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.  (You can make this up to 3 days ahead of time and store in fridge.)

Heat oven to 350.  Flour a work surface and lay of puff pastry.  Roll the sheets lightly with a rolling pin until smooth and flattened.  Use the large cookie cutter to cut out rounds from the puff pastry.  Then use the small cookie cutter to push halfway down in the center of each round.  Do not pull out the centers; you’ll hollow them out after they are baked.  Arrange the rounds on a cookie sheet and bake until golden brown, 15 – 20 minutes.  When the rounds are baked, immediately remove them to a wire rack and let them cool to room temperature.

Cut around the centers with a small knife to loosen, but don’t cut all the way through to the bottom.  You want to leave a thin layer of pastry to hold the filling.  Hollow out the centers to make a depression in the center of each pastry round or just push the pastry down in the center with your thumb.  (I used my Pampered Chef Tart Shaper to push each center down.)

Not more then 4 hours before serving, spoon or pipe a generous dollop of lemon cream into each pastry round.  Sprinkle with chopped  pistachios.  (I topped mine with just a tiny bit of PC Lemon Sprinkles instead.)

Lemony Zucchini Bread

by penji1

Somebody help me!  I’m cooking and I can’t stop!  So far today I have made chocolate chip muffins (from a mix, yes, sometimes I cheat!), a batch of spaghetti sauce to put in the freezer (on the blog under main dish), Chuck Wagon Cheeseburger Skillet (see post just prior to this one) and now this bread.  I’m going to have to start giving food away to the neighbors!  We haven’t cut into this bread yet but it smells divine!  My first love is chocolate but lemon runs a close second.  This is a Taste of Home recipe from the June/July 2007 magazine.

4 cups flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 (3.4 oz) package instant lemon pudding mix

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

4 eggs

1 1/4 cups milk

1 cup oil

3 tablespoons lemon juice (you can use the stuff in a bottle but it’s just as easy to squeeze some from a lemon which is much tastier!)

1 teaspoon lemon extract

2 cups shredded zucchini (like I’ve mentioned, I run mine through the food processor until it is almost liquid)

1/4 cup poppy seeds (this looked like a lot so next time I might try just 1/8 cup)

2 teaspoons grated lemon peel

Combine flour, sugar, pudding mix, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl.  In another bowl, whisk eggs, milk, oil, lemon juice and extract.  Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.  Fold in zucchini, poppy seeds and lemon peel.

Pour into 2 greased 9 x 5 x 3″ loaf pans.  Bake at 350 for 50 -55 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.  Cool 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire rack to cool completely.

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Chuck Wagon Cheeseburger Skillet

by penji1

This is a Pillsbury bakeoff recipe from 2002.  The picture doesn’t do it justice, it is really tasty!

4 slices bacon (I bought a precooked package of bacon and used the whole package)

1 pound hamburger

3 tablespoons chopped onion

3 tablespoons oil

2 1/2 cups frozen hash brown potatoes, thawed

1 (11 oz) can mexicorn corn, red and green peppers, drained

1 (4.5 oz) can chopped green chiles, drained

1/2 cup barbeque sauce

8 oz (2 cups) shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 (16.3 oz) can Pillsbury Grands refrigerated buttermilk or southern style biscuits

1  Heat oven to 400.  Cook bacon until crisp, drain on paper towel, crumble and set aside.

2  In 12″ cast iron or ovenproof skillet, cook hamburger and onion on medium until hamburger is done, stirring frequently.  Drain.  Place beef mixture in bowl and cover to keep warm.

3  Add oil to same skillet and heat on medium high until hot.  Add potatoes, cook 3 – 5 minutes or until browned, stirring constantly.  Add hamburger, corn, chiles, barbeque sauce, cheese, salt and pepper and mix well.  Cook until thoroughly heated, stirring occasionally.  Sprinkle with bacon.

4  Separate dough into 8 biscuits.  Arrange biscuits over hot mixture.

5  Bake at 400 for 16 – 24 minutes or until biscuits are deep golden brown and bottoms are no longer doughy.

(I did it a little differently.  I cooked it in an electric skillet which you can probably tell from the picture.  I baked the biscuits according to the package directions and then placed them on top of the skillet after step 3 and then did not put the whole thing in the oven.  I can never get the biscuits to cook all the way when I try to cook them on top of a skillet or casserole and my family doesn’t like them when they are all doughy so  this worked out better for us.  Obviously you can do it either way!)

Ham ‘N Cheese Calzones

by penji1

These should be called Easiest Calzones ever!  This is a super quick and super tasty dinner!  I think the recipe came from the Kraft food magazine.

1 (13.8 oz) can refrigerated pizza crust

16 slices shaved ham

1 cup shredded Colby and Monterey Jack cheese

1/4 cup Ranch dressing

1 tomato, cut into thin slices

Heat oven to 400.  Unroll pizza dough on lightly floured surface.  Pat or roll dough out to form 16 x 12″ rectangle and then cut into quarters.  Top dough with ham to within 1/2″ of sides.  Mix cheese and dressing; spread on ham.  Top with tomatoes.  Fold each rectangle in half; seal edges with fork.  Put on baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray.  Bake 16 – 18 minutes or until golden brown.

Three Cheese Garden Pizza

by penji1

Another zucchini recipe (tomatoes too!), this one from the Pampered Chef.  Bob went and picked the zucchini right from our garden.  This is one of our favorites.

1 (10 oz) package refrigerated pizza crust

1 small onion, sliced into rings

1 medium zucchini, sliced

2 plum tomatoes, sliced

1 cup mushrooms, sliced (I think you all know my feelings about mushrooms by now)

2 garlic cloves, pressed

1 cup (4 oz) shredded mozzarella cheese

1 cup (4 oz) shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 cup (1 oz) grated fresh Parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Heat oven to 400.  Roll pizza dough out to desired shape.  Bake crust for 7 minutes.  Remove from oven.  Slice onion, zucchini, tomatoes and mushrooms.  Press garlic over crust and spread evenly.  Sprinkle mozzarella and cheddar cheeses over crust then top with onion, zucchini, tomatoes and mushrooms.  Sprinkle with Parmesan and then seasoning.  Bake 15 – 18 minutes or until crust is golden.

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Zucchini Nut Muffins

by penji1

It’s zucchini time of year so I’ll probably be posting some zucchini recipes here in the next few days.  These are the Sunday morning treats for the Sunday School classes!  Brianne, are you peeking?  This came from a magazine somewhere along the way, maybe an advertisement for the raw cane sugar called for in the recipe?  Not sure.

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 cups washed raw cane sugar (you can find it in the sugar aisle right along side all the other sugars)

4 eggs, room temperature

1 cup oil (recipe says soybean preferred but I used vegetable)

2 cups grated unpeeled zucchini (I process mine in the food processor until it is almost liquid)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup golden raisins (I left these out)

Heat oven to 350.  Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon then set aside.  Combine sugar and eggs and beat at medium for 2 minutes.  Gradually add oil, beating constantly 2 – 3 minutes.  Add zucchini and vanilla and blend well.  Stir in walnuts and raisins.  Fold in sifted dry ingredients just until batter is evenly moistened – be careful not to over mix.  (Just a note from me, this batter is really runny but the muffins came out fine so don’t worry about it!)  Spoon (or scoop!) batter into non-stick muffin pans or use muffin liners.  Bake 25 minutes or until lightly browned.  Let stand 10 minutes then turn muffins out onto rack to cool.  The recipe says it makes 24 muffins but I ended up with 36.

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Greek Pasta Salad

by penji1

This is a Taste of Home recipe.  Looks like it came in the February/March 2008 magazine.  This didn’t look like it made a lot (the recipe said 4 servings) so I increased the amount of all ingredients to accommodate my pasta salad loving family.

1 1/2 cups uncooked penne pasta (I used a 17.2 oz bag of elicoidali pasta, it was the closest I had to penne)

1/2 cup cubed cooked turkey or chicken (I used a can of Costco chicken)

1 (3.8 oz) can sliced ripe olives, drained (no one except Bob is a big fan here so I left these out)

1/4 cup chopped green pepper (I used 1 whole green bell pepper)

1/4 cup chopped sweet red pepper (I used 1 whole red bell pepper)

1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese (I used a 6 oz container of feta)

1/3 cup Caesar salad dressing (I just poured it on until it looked good)

Cook pasta according to package directions then drain and rinse with cold water.  In a large bowl, combine pasta, chicken, olives, peppers and feta.  Drizzle with dressing and toss to coat.  Cover and refrigerate until serving.

Sweet Cinnamon Biscuits

by penji1

I keep all the new recipes that I want to try out in a big blue accordion file folder in my kitchen.  There are a lot of recipes in there!  I probably will not in my lifetime be able to make them all and I keep adding to the folder every week.  The recipes come from magazines, the internet, friends, the mail, family, cookbooks, everywhere!  When I’m in the mood to try something new, I just pull out the folder and find one that sounds good and that I have all the ingredients for!  This morning it was this one, not sure where is came from; it is an actual recipe card and all it says on it is “Grandma’s Kitchen”, I think it might have come in the mail.  These were easy to make and taste really good!

2 cups flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup oil

3/4 cup buttermilk (I just made my own by adding about 3/4 tablespoon of vinegar to the 3/4 cup milk and letting it sit for a bit)

1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup milk, optional

1  Combine flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a medium bowl and mix well.  Stir in oil.  Add buttermilk and stir just until well blended.

2  Knead dough on lightly floured surface until smooth.  Roll dough into  15 x 8″ rectangle.

3  Preheat oven to 400.  Grease 9″ round baking pan lightly.

4  Spread butter over dough.  (I just melted it all the way and then used a brush to spread it over the dough.)  Combine sugar and cinnamon in small bowl and mix well.  Sprinkle over butter.  Roll up rectangle, jelly roll fashion, starting from one long side.  Pinch seam to seal.

5  Cut roll into 1 1/2″ slices.  Arrange slices, cut side up, in prepared pan.  Bake until lightly browned, about 15 – 20 minutes.  Pour milk over top, if desired.  (What?  Pour milk over top?  Really?  Sounds disgusting so I just made a simple powdered sugar and milk glaze, thick, and poured it over the top.)

Winner of $50 Pampered Chef Giveaway Announced!

by penji1

Well, we made it to 55 subscribers this morning (sorry to my friend Jenn who I just noticed became our 56th subscriber tonight but we’ll catch you on the next giveaway Jenn) so I went ahead and did the drawing (Bob pulled the name so don’t get mad at me, it was all him) and my new friend Teresa Johnson (no relation to me or my husband) from Washington won the drawing.  Teresa found my blog one day while searching for a Pampered Chef recipe and decided she liked it and so subscribed.  It is the first blog she has ever subscribed to and it seems to have paid off for her!  Sorry to the rest of you but like I mentioned before, stay tuned because I have lots more Pampered Chef goodies to give away!

Last Day to Enter the $50 Pampered Chef Giveaway!

by penji1

We’re almost there!  Here’s today’s update:  we’re at 52 subscribers and today is the last day to enter so we only need 8 more subscribers to meet the goal of 60!  Spread the word and let’s get 8 more people signed up today and then tomorrow one of you lucky subscribers will win $50 worth of Pampered Chef products of your choice!  (If you don’t win the $50 worth of products, don’t despair!  I just organized my office yesterday and realized that I have a ton of Pampered Chef stuff so that means more giveaways!  I already have some products picked out to start giving away so stay tuned!)

   

What will you choose if you win?