Cakes

Toffee Chocolate Cake

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Wow, this is just scrumptious!.  This is originally used for slice apple dip, but  I made a chocolate pound cake and baked it in a bundt pan. Cut it into two layers and spread between the 2 layers the following:

Softened 8 oz of cream cheese

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

1 teas vanilla

1/4 cup toffee chips

Blend the sugars and the cream cheese. When fluffy and blended, add vanilla and toffee chips. Spread between layers of a chocolate cake and then frost with your favorite chocolate frosting. (The chocolate one I have under desserts is rich and oh so chocolatee! Sprinkle more toffee chips on top of frosted cake, if desired.

Daily Thoughts

Busy Busy Week

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I don’t know about you, but where did the past week go? Apparently, the lazy hazy days of summer are past, because each day just got busier and busier. Maybe when school begins, things will seem back to normal. You can probably tell, from my lack of recipes being put on the ole blog, that I have not been cooking very much this  summer. I would love to blame it on the heat, but something tells me that I have gotten just a little lazy (well, it is the “lazy” days of summer, right?) Anyway, the magnet on the fridge reminds me daily that reservations really are my favorite thing to make. Randy should have never bought me that magnet. A story this week, just has to be told. I was holding a small ladies luncheon this past Tues for 6 ladies, one of which is one of my best friends. She told us that she had a great story for us, so as we began to fill our plates, she opened up with this. “Sweet friends, I think I am totally losing it. I went to bake some muffins for Ron on Friday and when I went to turn on the oven to 350 degrees, I stood there and after punching in 350, the oven didn’t turn on. I reentered the 350 and start and it still didn’t come on. I was ready to call the serviceman to come check out the oven, but thought to myself, “this oven is brand new, not even a year old, it shouldn’t be broken, so before I call anyone, let me get the manual out to see if there is a “troubleshooting” section that I could read to see what I should do if the oven won’t come on. Well, low and behold, I read the paragraph about how to begin the baking process and there it was, in black and white, you have to push “Bake” before you push start. It had been so long since I had cooked anything, I had forgotten how to operate my stove.” We all began to laugh at her, but the truth is, when I think about it, I haven’t been doing too much of that lately either.

When is the fall air going to come in and we can all go out and buy our pumpkins and light our pumpkin scented candles and peel those apples for apple cake and cobbler and start sitting down with a cup of hot tea before turning in for the night. I don’t know about you, but I am more than ready for the fall, crisp air to come in. That first “northern” to be forecast, when you open your windows and feel the coolness of the air, actually thinking about what night you might need to turn on the fireplace. I am a “cold weather” person. It energizes me, makes me feel like I could just cook and bake until my feet won’t hold me up any longer. Summertime is nice for swimming, but give me the cold air and fall leaves anytime. So much cozier to curl up reading a book,  with a hot peach cobbler than a cold lemonade.

By the way, I have seperated the recipes according to chicken or beef and am working on seperating the cakes/desserts. It will make it quicker to find the recipe you are looking for.

Casseroles · Chicken

Baked Chicken Salad

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I experimented today with an old favorite recipe. It turned out so good! Just a little more tasty than the old version, and wanted to pass it along.

2 cups cubed cooked chicken

2 cups chopped combination of celery, onion and carrot (I buy this in the frozen section in Kroger)

1 green bell pepper, chopped

Saute the celery, onion, carrot mixture along with the bell pepper in 2 tables butter and 2 tables olive oil until tender (about 15 min) over medium heat

In a large bowl, combine the chopped chicken with 1/2 cup mayo, 1 pt of sour cream, 1 can cream of celery soup. Add 2 teas garlic powder, 2 teas pepper, 1 teas Lawry’s seasoning salt, 1 tables dried parsley and 11/2 cup sliced toasted almonds.

Spread into a 1 1/2 to 2 quart casserole which has been sprayed with Pam. Sprinkle 3 cups potato chips which have been crushed, and 1/2 cup grated mild cheddar cheese on top. Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 to 30 mins. Yields: 6 to 8 servings *For our tea, I am brewing tea and stirring in a can of apricot nectar. Serve it cold over ice cubes which have been frozen with blueberries in the cubes. It makes a beautiful glass of tea.

I am serving this for a luncheon tomorrow, along with a fruit salad and the Asparagus Salad I posted a couple of days ago.  Sister Schubert rolls and butter and fresh strawberry pie to end our home Bible study. This is a simple, quick and wonderful lunch recipe.

Cakes · Desserts

Mini S’Mores Cheesecakes

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This makes 24 mini cheesecakes

2 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs

1/2 cup plus 2 tables sugar, divided

1/2 cup melted butter

1 egg white, slightly beaten

1 1/2 (8 oz) cream cheese, softened (that will be 12 oz total)

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 large eggs

1 teas vanilla

1 (1 oz) sq bittersweet baking chocolate, melted

24 jumbo marshmellows

Preheat oven to 350.

In a small bowl, combine the graham cracker crumbs and 1/4 cup sugar. Add melted butter and egg white and stir to combine. Press the crumb mixture into bottoms and halfway up sides of 2 (12 well) mini cheesecake pans. Bake for 3 min, set aside.

Increase oven temperature to 375. In a medium bowl and using electric mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Gradually beat in the remaining sugar and cocoa powder until mixture is smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla and melted chocolate and mix until combined. Divide the cream cheese mixture evenly among the prepared crumb crusts, filling 2/3 full. Bake for 6 to 8 min, or until puffed and set. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack for about 20 min. Freeze for 1 hour. Just before serving, preheat broiler.  Place 1 marshmallow on top of each cheesecake and broil for 1 to 2 mins, or until lightly browned. Carefully remove cheesecakes from pan, and serve immediately.

This recipe is taken from a little magazine I receive called, Tea Time. It has some of the best dessert recipes I use for luncheons. This is a great and different cheesecake that people seem to really love in the fall.

appetizers · Salads

Tomato Platter

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In case you are needing to take an appitizer or salad to a function in this heat, try this:

\Buy 6 to 8 tomatoes (different colors and varities (green, plum, yellow) Slice and mix the colors into layers overlapping. Cover and when you are ready to serve, pour any type of balsamic vinegar or italian dressing and sprinkle feta cheese over top and the tops of green onions.  Be sure to put this on a pretty serving platter. This makes a very impressive dish to serve and is so cool and tasty.

Daily Thoughts

Updated Blog

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Just to let everyone know, I am trying to update the blog and catagorize my recipes so you are able to find them easier and not have to go through pages and pages of past recipes. Will let you know when I am through updating!!

Cakes · Desserts

Raspberry-Limeade Cake

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If you are like me, you are just melting away in this heat. All I want is either cold desserts, salads or ice cream for each of my meals. Every day, I think, “hum…..today, I am going to eat a little more healthy” but as the heat rises outside, I grab the first thing I see when I get hungry, which is usually a pie in the fridge, or ice cream or head to Maggianos for their chopped salad and then stop by the Yogurt store for frozen yogurt (with of couse, all the cookies and candy added in). I was sitting down, with a 2007 Paula Deen magazine (you will be so glad I save these old magazines when you make this cake) and the front page recipe featured that time was this cake. Now…in this recipe she makes her own homemade cake, but to simplify the cake because it is too hot to stand in the kitchen too long, I am starting with a Duncan Hines cake mix. It is really a great cake even without the homemade cake part. So get in there and make this cake for the weekend. You will be glad you did. It is so pretty and also so refreshing to eat.

Follow the directions on a Duncan Hines French Vanilla Cake mix, but instead of the water, use limeade drink (not carbonated, but actual juice, made from concentrate)  for the liquid and 1 tables lime zest. Bake in 3 9″ layers until done and set aside to cool on waxed paper or wire racks.

Raspberry Filling

1 10 oz package frozen raspberries in syrup, thawed

1/2 cup sugar

2 tables cornstarch

3 egg yolks

1 tables fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup butter, cut into pieces

In the work bowl of a food processor or blender, pulse raspberries until smooth. Strain mixture, discarding solids. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar and cornstarch. Add raspberry puree, egg yolks and lemon juice, whisking constantly, for 7 to 8 min or until very thick. Remove from heat; gradually whisk in butter until melted. Cool mixture slightly. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Cream Cheese-Limeade Frosting

1 (8 0z)  package cream cheese, softened

1 stick butter

3 tables frozen limeade concentrate, thawed

1 tables lime zest

5 cups powdered sugar

In large bowl, beat cream cheese and butter at medium speed with mixer until creamy. Add limeade concentrate and lime zest, beating at low speed until combined. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating until smooth.

Place one cake layer on cake platter. Using 1/2 of the  raspberry filling, cover cake  layer. Repeat with another cake layer, using the remainder of the filling. Top with the 3rd cake layer. Frost sides and top with the cream cheese frosting. Decorate with fresh raspberries and slices of lime. Keep covered in refrigerator.

Cakes · Desserts

1st Low Fat Recipe

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I took this off the Jenny Craig web site to make for friends who are trying to loose weight. Try it, it really is very good and…….it is low fat!

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Ingredients

  • 1/3cup  reduced-calorie margarine
  • 3/4cup  brown sugar, firmly packed
  • 1/3cup  chopped pecans
  • 1(15.25oz) can sliced pineapple in juice
  • 1/2(18.25oz) package reduced-fat yellow cake mix
  • 1/4cup  plus 2 tablespoons egg substitute
  • 1/3cup  water
  • 7maraschino cherries with stems

Directions

  1. Melt margarine in a 10-inch cast-iron skillet over low heat. Set aside 1 tablespoon margarine.
  2. Add sugar and pecans to margarine in skillet, stirring well. Drain pineapple, reserving 1/3 cup juice. Discard remaining juice. Arrange pineapple over sugar mixture.
  3. Combine reserved 1 tablespoon margarine, 1/3 cup juice, cake mix, egg substitute, and water. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds. Beat at medium speed 2 minutes. Pour batter over pineapple in skillet.
  4. Bake at 350° F for 35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Immediately invert cake onto a serving platter.
  5. Place cherries in centers of pineapple rings
Daily Thoughts

Sadie

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We did it! We got our new car and her name is Sadie. She is white exterior and black interior and even hands you your seat belt. A very smooth ride, even with me driving.  When I called Randy and told him that I had found a car that I liked, and it was white, he couldn’t believe his ears. I had always said that I would never drive a white car. But…..this one just “touched my heart” and I didn’t even consider the black exterior, which I have always loved. OK, does this mean that I am getting old and preparing for my next car, you know the one: The Crown Victoria or Lincoln,  beige exterior with beige interior, the one that is always parked outside “Cracker Barrel” that has the handicap sticker on the license plate. Oh my goodness, I hope not. I like to think that I am just “broadening my likes” and not getting older. Just because I hit the big 60 last month, I do not want to find out that that beige car is going to begin to look good to me a few years down the road. So is the new love of “white” just an inch closer to beige? Absolutely not! It is just a complete opposite of what I have had the past few years, and it seems to be a little cooler than the black cars we have always driven, and I won’t have to wash it as often. See……there are logical reasons why the color white tugged at  my heart. So get out of my way, I’m hitting the tollway with my foot on the pedal, seeing just how fast I can go through the toll booth in my cute little white sports car…after all, I do have to make it back home in time for “Wheel of Fortune” at 6:30.

Breads

Buttermilk Breakfast Cake

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This is a wonderful moist breakfast-brunch cake which will serve beautifully on a pretty cake platter. YUH-UH-UM 🙂

1 Duncan Hines French Vanilla Cake Mix

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup melted butter

5 large eggs

3 tables light brown sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

Shortening

1 Tables granulated sugar

Buttermilk-Vanilla Glaze

Preheat oven to 350. Beat first 3 ingredients at medium speed with an electric mixer for about a minute and a half. Add eggs, one at a time beating well after each addition.

Stir together the brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.

Grease a 12 cup bundt pan with shortening and then sprinkle with the granulated sugar to cover pan. Pour 1/3  of batter into prepared pan; sprinkle brown sugar mixture evenly over batter. Top with remaining batter.

Bake at 350 for about 45 min or until a long wooden pick inserted in center oc cake comes out clean. Cool cake in pan on a wire rach 15 min. Remove from pan and put on serving platter. Cool another 20 min. Drizzle glaze over slightly warm cake.

Buttermilk-Vanilla Glaze: 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 table melted butter, 1 teas vanilla, 1 to 2 tables buttermilk. Stir together first 3 ingredients and 1 tables buttermilk until smooth, adding additional 1 tables buttermilk if needed for desired pouring consistency over warm cake.