Well, we are headed to the fair this afternoon. What a great day to go, the weather is cool, which means that the “fried butter” will taste so good. We start off right when we walk in having a corny dog. We walk around, see the exhibits, I think a promise to myself that next year, I am going to enter some of the food contests (which I promise myself that every year) and then head over to get a taste of what ever is new to taste. We sit in every car at the auto show, go to the petting zoo and act like we are 6 yrs old, feeding the baby pigs and lambs. Then after thoroughly washing our hands, we get either a dessert of either ice cream, caramel apple or fried pie. We walk around some more, sometimes going to the bird show, or go through the tent where all the “junk” is for sell and then all of a sudden, we realize it has been almost an hour since we have eaten, so off we go to the food tent. We walk around and see what smell entices us. After that, it is usually getting dark and I make Randy ride the ferris wheel with me. I love riding that when it is getting dark and the lights of the fair are on and it just reminds me of how wonderful the day is when you can grab hold of your sweetie’s hand and climb up in the cage, letting the wind blow through and watching all the sights down below. It makes you fall in love all over again. We end our trip eatting the Texas shaped nachos and of course the infamous cinnamon roll with cream cheese frosting. Then we head back to the car, open up the container of Tums and eat them on the way home, so by the time we get home, we can go to bed without heartburn…….what a day!
Author: Chocolate Castles
Welcome to Chocolate Castles, a blog about food, family and stories that hopefully will bring a smile to your heart.
Thanks for reading chocolate castles and may the recipes and stories help bring your family and friends a little closer around the table!
Remember that Princess On The Porch is still available on Amazon! Makes a great gift for anyone who enjoys being in the kitchen and needs a little laughter in their lives.
Chicken Spaghetti
1/2 stick butter
1 cup chopped onion and 1 cup chopped bell pepper
1 can Rotel tomatoes
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 small jar diced pimento
1 pint chicken broth
1 cup chopped cooked chicken breast
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
Saute onions and bell pepper in butter. Add rotel, mushroom soup, pimento, broth and chicken. Cook until veggies are tender. Cook and drain a 12 oz package of spaghetti. Add veggie mix to the spaghetti and mix throughly with about 1/4 of the cheese. Put into a greased casserole dish and top with the rest of the cheese. Bake in a 325 oven until the cheese is melted. May be frozen for later use. Serves 6. With french bread and a salad, the dinner is complete. Bake 2 of these at a time and put one in the freezer and just pull it out of freezer in the morning and let it sit in fridge until you get home from work. Bake it while chopping salad.
Monday Morning
What a great weekend, it was cloudy and rainy and perfect baking weather. We had glorious worship services, both at church and here last night with our Bible Study group. We are studying the book of Hebrews with some precious friends who have come to mean so much to our lives. We have dinner some of the nights together and then sometimes, like last night, we had dessert, yummy apple and cherry cobbler with Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream.
Sunday nights are just made to have friends and family over. Because of the times, laughter and going through some illnesses, prodigal children, tough times due to unemployment, etc…..these friends have become like family to us. It is such a blessing to open up our home to people who love the Lord and come together to pray, to study God’s truth, to cry, to laugh, to share “glory stories” and simply just to enjoy being together. We are truly blessed beyond anything we thought possible. I think of the times when shopping in a mall, purchasing something we have “thought” we wanted, or traveling to far away places. Yes, those things seem nice at the time, but the newness wears off. Nights like last night never “wear off”. They bless our hearts and are reminders of God’s goodness to us and how His plan of “meeting together in His Name” will never grow old. It just continues to grow us not only spiritually, but in our genuineness and in our “likeness of Jesus Christ”. Go out today and bless someone with a smile, a hug or tell some one that Jesus really does love them and share what God has done in your life. You will come away so blessed, you will be looking for the next opportunity to share His goodness!
Pumpkin Baking Time
OK, I admit it, I go a little crazy this time of year wanting to bake everything I can find with pumpkin or cranberries or apples. The days like today and yesterday with the dark, rainey skies just call out to me to bake. A few years ago, I made a pumpkin cheesecake that was awesome and since driving down the streets, seeing pumpkins in yards, I immediately thought, hum…….it’s time to get the ole cheesecake pan out and bake a pumpkin cheesecake. Am sharing the recipe with you. I got it out of Southern Living a couple of years ago. It is delicious. Instead of the usualy graham cracker crust, it sports a gingersnap crust. As in the words of Emaril….”pow”! delicious.
For Crust:
1 1/2 cups crushed gingersnaps
1 cup maple sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
3 8 oz softened cream cheese
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1 1/2 teas vanilla
3 eggs, slightly beaten
1/2 cup caramel ice cream topping
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. For crust: In a medium bowl, combine the crumbs 1/3 cup of the mapke sugar and the butter. Press crumb mixture onto the bottom and about 2 ” up the sides of the 9-in springform pan. Bake for 8 min. Cool on wire rack.
For filling:
In a large bowl, combine the remaining 2/3 cup maple sugar, the cream cheese, pumpkin, 1/4 cup maple syrup, and the vanilla. Beat on medium speed until all is blended. Add eggs, beat on low just until combined.
Gently pour filling onto crust. Place spring-form pan in a shallow baking pan. Bake for 1 to 1/4 hrs, or until center appears nearly set when gently shaken. (always remember that it continues to bake a few minutes after removing from oven).
Cook in sprig-form pan for 15 min. Using a small thin knife, loosen crust from sides. Cool for 30 more min.Remove side of spring pan and cool for another hour. Cover and chill then for at least 4 hrs or up to 24 hrs.
To serve, I spoon whipping cream on top and drizzle with the caramel sauce. Makes 10 servings.
Use as a table decoration when placed on a fall doily on a plate stand and place minature pumpkins around the plate. Guests can be drueling over the dessert during the dinner, knowing to save enough room for that marvelous cheesecake!
FYI
Just thought I would let you know….went to Costco yesterday and they have a new item. It is about a 3 lb bag of cooked, cut up chicken breasts. I bought a bag to use for casseroles which I have to make 60 this week for Mistletoe Market. It will sure help cut down on time and energy.
Super Simple Tortilla Soup
While going through many Southern Living Magazines tonight (love this rain and being at home to look through cooking books), I ran across this really easy tortilla soup which is very good. Thought I would share it. Am going to make it tomorrow night since they are calling for rain again tomorrow. Soup just tastes so good when it is raining and cool out. Bake a little corn/cheese/black olive cornbread and what a dinner!
2 cans (14.5 oz) chicken broth
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes in Juice
1 cup frozen corn
1 1/2 cups shredded chicken
1 teas hot pepper sauce flavored with chipolte peppers
Salt and Pepper and Garlic Powder to taste
tortilla chips
shredded cheddar cheese
Combine the broth, tomatoes and bring to a boil. Add onion, chicken and spices and cook until onion is tender.
Top with the chips and cheese.
Stormy Saturday
Today was awesome. It is about 9 p.m. and I have been on the couch for about 45 min, looking over old Southern Living magazines, enjoying the last page in each one, titled, “Southern Journal”. These are just little short stories about how we “southerners” don’t understand when restaurants up north or out west do not offer “sweet tea”, or why “chicken fried steak” would not be on their menu. It was great looking through some tried and true recipes and cutting my favorite ones out, thus allowing Randy to throw the books out. He just doesn’t understand why I would love a closet dedicated to boxes of old Southern Living, Southern Lady and Taste of Home magazines. So I am being forced to go through the ones dating back to 2000 and just cutting out what I want to keep and throwing them out.
We came home tonight driving through the rain, after going to one of our old places we use to eat, Sicilian’s out in McKinney. It is just the best italian food and so very cheap. They bring huge garlic rolls and put them on the table and then you order speghetti with meat sauce for $5.25. I splurged and ordered chicken piccata with artichokes and mushrooms for a$8.00. We had been to see a dear friend who is in the hospital who suffers from ALS. Michael is such an inspiration to us all. He is only 55 and he radiates a smile to everyone who enters his room, even though he cannot even hold a pen or glass of water. We pray every day for a miracle for Michael, but maybe the miracle is going to be on the other side of Heaven when he is walking with Jesus around the streets of gold. He wasn’t wanting to talk about himself, he was asking us to tell him about our vacation. It was a wonderful visit and we came away feeling blessed to be called Micahel’s friend.
Visiting Michael, eatting speghetti and looking through Southern Living magazines, it was a most glorious “stormy Saturday”.
Chocolate Pudding Kicked up a Notch
I forgot last night to tell you about how I did the dessert. Since I was really trying to impress Randy’s Company people, I thought I would take one of Randy’s favs, chocolate cream pie” which I think is already in my dessert file and put a new spin on it. So I brought out beautifully painted martini glasses which I still like to use for different desserts, poured the chocolate pudding into them and topped them off with cut out shapes of pie crust. Then topped it off with a swirl of whipped cream (no cool whip ladies and gentlemen). This is also a way to customize desserts to the holiday you are celebrating. So last night I made a pie crust which is very simple, will give that recipe in a minute, rolled it out and cut 2″ fall leaves out and baked them at 425 until golden brown. This went on top of the pudding and then the whipped cream beside it. Or you can add the whipped cream and stick the pie dough shapes sticking out like a straw would coming out from the pudding…..makes a great presentation. I was able to give the golf painted martini glass to the company since I knew he played golf, Randy’s had cigars and a brief case and phone painted on it and mine, well, do I really have to say what mine had? Flowers and diamonds………went over beautifully.
Pie Crust Recipe
1 cup flour
1/3 cup shortening (I like to use butter flavored)
1/2 teas salt
1/4 cup cold, iced wated
Crumble the shortening into the flour/salt mixture until it resemebles little crumbs. Add cold water until it becomes a ball. I do this with a fork. Take the ball of dough and roll it out onto a floured waxed paper until very thin. Cut into shapes and use as needed. It is also good to sprinkle cinnamon and sugar over the dough before baking. You can use the leaves on pumpkin pie, apple pie or pecan pie.
Thursday Night Company
It’s been a nice day. Had lunch with a dear friend, then grocery shopping and cooked in the afternoon for company which was in from California, that Randy had invited from work. Thought, “hum, if I was in the south and I was invted to dinner, what would I think they would cook?” So I made roast, with mashed potatoes, carrots, green beans cooked with bacon and hot rolls, chocolate pie with REAL (no Cool Whip in this house,ha for dessert.
They loved it!. Thought they were really in the south when I asked them if sweet tea was ok with them to drink. I love this time of year, I decorated my fall trees in the entry way with pumpkins, fall leave garland, white lights and fall flowers. It makes me feel so good just to walk in and see all the lights. I always pray that before any company walks in the door that they feel welcome and feel that a love and sweet spirit while here. The lights from the trees just make a warm feel as they walk into the house.
It felt like a southern living evening. We had conversation for 2 hours, no television and enjoyed meeting new friends. My kind of night!
Cupcakes
I made cupcakes for Bible study today and thought I would pass on a little infor re: the cupcakes that everyone seem to enjoy.
Use Duncan Hines Cake Mixes. I use the pound cake recipe for them, as they stay so moist and seem to have a more intense flavor. For instance, for the yellow cupcakes:
Duncan Hines Yellow cake mix
1 small package of either the cheesecake or french vanilla instant pudding
1 cup water
1/3 cup oil
4 eggs
Pudding
Add ingredients and bake as directed.
For the chocolate cupcakes
Duncan Hines Chocolate Fudge Mix or Red Velvet
4 eggs
1 1/4 cup water
1/2 cup oil
small package of cheesecake, white chocolate or chocolate fudge instant pudding. Mix and bake as directed on box.
The frosting is
1 cup of cocoa
1 stick of butter
1 box of powdered sugar
1/2 cup whipping cream or half and half. (sometimes it doesn’t take all of the 1/2 cup, mix in gradually)
2 teas vanilla
1/3 cup white karo syrup
Mix until all is blended and smooth and frost cupcakes when cooled.
Try to just bake the cupcakes until they still have a little “wet” spot right in the middle of the cupcake. It will continue to cook for a few mintues after taking out of the oven. This also assures that they are not overcooked and are very moist.
Sometimes I make a ganache to put in the middle of the cupcake before frosting. Will put that recipe on the web site tomrrow, I am exhausted and going to call it a night…….
Chocolate Castles 