Crepes

Recipe found at  http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2012/04/crepes-crepes-crepes.html  I also borrowed her picture because I forgot to take one of my own!

I remember my grandma making Crepes when I was a kid but my mom never did.  I had forgotten all about them until they served these at my little sister's wedding reception. When I made them at home we did the Nutella, Strawberries, banana slices, and Whip Cream version and they were very delicious and simple!


*Makes about 10 crepes -- one person can easily eat 4 though so I tripled the batch for my family of 6.

INGREDIENTS:
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons vegetable oil or melted butter
1/4 teaspoon salt


DIRECTIONS:
In a blender or large bowl using an electric mixer, combine the eggs, milk, flour, oil (or butter) and salt. Blend or mix on high until the ingredients are well combined. Cover the batter and chill in the refrigerator at least 1 hour or up to 24 hours. This helps the gluten to relax, making the crepes even more tender.

When ready to start cooking the crepes, heat a 10-inch nonstick skillet over medium heat for 2-3 minutes. Spray the bottom and sides of the skillet with nonstick cooking spray. The skillet should sizzle like crazy. You want it piping hot before you pour in the crepe batter. Quickly whisk the crepe batter to recombine, then measure out 1/4 cup of the batter. Tilt the skillet off the heat and pour the batter to one side of the skillet, immediately twirling the skillet to coat the bottom with the batter.
Set the skillet back on the heat and cook the crepe until the edges begin to brown, about 1 minute. Loosen the crepe around the edge with a heat-proof spatula and gently (but quickly!) pick up the edges of the hot crepe with your fingers and give it a fast flip. Cook the other side for 30 seconds or so until lightly golden brown and cooked through. Transfer the crepe to a wire rack. The key is to keep the skillet sizzling hot without burning the crepes – I moderated the heat of my stovetop between medium and slightly above that to keep the crepes cooking quickly without burning. You should hear an audible sizzle when you pour the crepe batter into the skillet but if you hear a sizzle with accompanying smoke – the skillet is probably too hot.

Repeat with remaining batter (spraying the skillet with cooking spray every 2-3 crepes), stacking the crepes as they finish cooking. The crepes can be placed on a baking sheet and lightly covered with foil and placed in a 200 degree oven to stay warm for 20-30 minutes while you finish cooking the remaining crepes. Serve the crepes with your favorite toppings. Some of ours include nutella and strawberries, butter and cinnamon and sugar, maple or other fruit syrup.

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

Pancakes

 

Mix Together:

4 C. all-purpose flour

8 teaspoons baking powder

2 tsp. salt

4 C. milk

4 T. vegetable oil

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

Cinnamon Filling

1 C. butter, melted

1 1/2 C. brown sugar, packed

 2 T. ground cinnamon

Mix the three ingredients together.  Place

in a disposable piping bag and snip the end

off or put in a Ziploc bag and snip the corner off.

(This will keep in the fridge so you can make them again

and again and again!)

Heat your griddle to 325 degrees.  You don't want

these too cook too quickly.  Make desired size

pancake on greased griddle and then using the

piping bag and starting at the center of the

pancake, create a cinnamon swirl.  Wait until

the pancake has lots of bubbles before you try 

to turn it.  Yo will find that when you turn it

the cinnamon swirl will melt.  If you have your

griddle too hot, it will burn the cinnamon.

I then used Betty Crocker Cream Cheese Frosting on top of the hot pancakes and it melted all down the sides!  Yummy! 

Chicken & Broccoli

 

Creamy Crockpot Chicken and Broccoli Over Rice

3-4 boneless chicken breasts
1 10oz can cream of chicken soup
1 10 oz can cheddar soup
1 14 oz can chicken broth (I think next time I'll half this amount, it was a little too runny)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt seasoning

1 cup sour cream
6 cups broccoli florets, just fork tender (I cooked it in boiling water for 3-4 minutes)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1. Place soups, chicken broth, salt, and garlic seasoning into a crock-pot over low heat. Whisk until smooth. Place chicken in, pressing to the bottom. Cover lid and cook on low for 6-7 hours or on high for 4 hours.

 2. When chicken is cooked, use 2 forks to shred into bite size pieces. Stir in sour cream and broccoli.

 3. Serve over steamed rice and sprinkle with cheese.  

This original recipe said this made 4-6 servings so I doubled it for my family of 6.  It made a humongous batch!  I ended up freezing over half of it which was fine because it will make for an easy meal some other night.

Doughnuts

  

My friend Amanda has a real cooking blog (as opposed to this very halfhearted one!) and I found this doughnut recipe on her blog at http://www.girlplusfood.net/2011/10/doughnuts.html 
These doughnuts were so delicious and not very hard, though frying them all was a bit time consuming.  This recipe made 3 dozen 3 1/2 inch doughnuts.  I ended up taking some to the neighbors because there was no way we could eat them all!  Next time I'll either half the recipe or decide which neighbor needs bribing so they'll drive slower down our street!


Doughnuts
Ingredients:
2 pks. active dry yeast (1 package is 2 1/4 tsp)
1/4 cup warm water
2 cups warm milk
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup hot mashed potatoes (just cook potatoes, drain and mash up)
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
9 1/4- 9 3/4 cups flour
oil for frying

For the Glaze:

1/4 cup butter, melted
2 T + 2 tsp milk
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Cinnamon/sugar mixture:
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon


Directions:

In your mixer, add all wet ingredients to bowl, add yeast and cover with sugar, let sit until foamy, about 5 minutes.  Add 2 1/2 cups flour and mix with paddle for 30 seconds on low and 2 minutes on medium, switch to dough hook and add remaining flour until flour starts to pull away and the sides of the bowl are clean.  It will still be sticking on the bottom a bit.  I usually end up adding all the flour, the full 9 3/4 cups.  Dump into a greased bowl, cover and let raise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

After dough has risen for an hour, dump onto lightly floured surface and let sit about 15 minutes.  Roll dough to 1/2 inch thick and cut into doughnuts.  I used a 3 1/2 inch doughnut cutter that I bought on Amazon.

Place on greased baking sheet about 2 inches apart.  Cover with greased plastic wrap and let raise 45 minutes. 

If you want glazed doughnuts, mix all glaze ingredients until combined and set aside.  If you want cinnamon/sugar doughnuts, mix cinnamon and sugar in a bowl an set aside.  I did both but I really liked the glaze the most.

Heat oil to 375-400, fry doughnuts a few at a time, flip and fry on both sides until golden. It's a little tricky to keep the doughnuts the right shape. I didn't worry about it too much (I was more worried about taste and haste) but my friend who's recipe blog I stole this from says to dip a spatula in oil and use that to pick the doughnut up with and put in the fryer. 

Remove from oil and drain on paper towels for about a minute, either drop doughnuts into glaze and coat completely or drop into cinnamon sugar and coat completely. 

NOTE:  You can put this dough in the freezer to cook later. Just put the cookie sheet in the freezer and when the dough is frozen, transfer it to an airtight container.  When you want to cook the dough put it on a greased cookie sheet, cover and let them raise about 3-4 hours and then proceed with the cooking and glazing. 

Anna's White Bread

My sister Anna is great at making bread.  I have a really good wheat bread recipe but the white bread recipe I tried from Pinterest was exceptionally awful!  Really, really awful....like hide-it-in-the-cupboard-because-my-inlaws-are-coming-over-and-might-want-to-try-it awful! (yeah, it would have been easier to just throw it away, which is what eventually happened to it!)  So anyway, I knew Anna made good bread so I called her rather late one evening to ask for her recipe.  She was in labor while giving me the recipe so I was a little skeptical about how well it would work....but apparently she was still fairly functional at that point in her labor!  So without further adeaux I will share her recipe (hopefully it's not supposed to be a big secreat....I didn't bother to ask.)

Mix together:
10 Cups of white flour
3/4 C. of granulated sugar
1 T. Salt
2 T. Yeast
3 T. Dough Enhancer *

Add:
1/3 C. oil  or 4 T. Soy Lecithin **
4 C. Hot Water

Mix together for 9 minutes (in my Bosch I did 9 minutes on power level 3)

Shape loaves and let the dough raise in the pans until a bit higher than the tops of the pans.  Turn oven on 350 and immediately put loaves in the oven (no preheating necessary) and bake for 27 minutes.  Anna was very specific about it needing 27 minutes....and she was right, the loaves turned out perfectly!

Makes 3 loaves. 

* Dough Enhancer can be purchased in the grocery store near the yeast.   I didn't have this so I added about 1/2 C. Vital Wheat Gluten.  I figured they both serve the same purpose of helping the bread to hold together better.  And the wheat gluten worked great.

** Soy Lecithin can be purchased near the vegetable oil.  It is a preservative that helps the bread stay fresh longer.  I used vegetable oil instead, but only because I couldn't find any Soy Lecithin at my local grocery store. 

Note:  The loaves in the pictures are not quite as big as I would normally do but only because I used a lot of my dough to makes scones and what was leftover became these loaves. 

Sugar Cookies: Copycat Lofthouse recipe

This is another gem I recently found on Pinterest. These are the softest Sugar Cookies I have ever made! I almost hurt myself the first time I bit into one.  I was expecting some resistance and these are so soft your teeth just sink right through!  I've tried many different sugar cookie recipes and this one is the best.  Definitely a keeper!

I wasn't crazy about the frosting recipe but I've included it anyway. I think next time I will do a different frosting, maybe a cream cheese one. This frosting just seemed like sweetened butter to me. If you like that kind of thing then give it a try!

Cookies:
 6 cups all purpose flour
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
1 c. butter, at room temperature
2 c. granulated sugar
3 eggs
2 t. vanilla extract
1 1/2 c. sour cream

 Frosting: 
1 c. butter, room temperature
1 t. vanilla extract
4 c. powdered sugar
6 T. heavy cream
Several drops food coloring
Multi-colored Sprinkles

Directions: In the bowl of a stand mixer with the flat beater attached, cream the butter and granulated sugar at medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Add the eggs, one at a time beating until each is incorporated. Add the vanilla and sour cream and beat at low speed until combined. Add the dry ingredients and beat at low speed until just combined, scraping down the bowl as needed. Dough will be a bit “sticky”. Divide dough into two sections. Flatten into rectangles about 1 1/2 inches thick, then wrap with plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator overnight or at least two hours until firm.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper or spray them with nonstick cooking spray, set aside.

With a rolling pin, roll the dough out to 1/4-inch thickness on a lightly floured surface. Using a 2 1/2-inch round cookie cutter, cut out circles and transfer to a baking sheet. Bake for 7 minutes, until pale golden. Immediately transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool. Best to work in small batches while keeping the remainder of the dough chilled.

 To make the frosting, in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and vanilla. Slowly beat in the powdered sugar. Once smooth and creamy, add in heavy cream, 1 tablespoon at a time until the desired spreading consistency is achieved. If desired, add food coloring and beat until combined. Once cookies have cooled completely, frost and add sprinkles. Allow frosting to set, then store in an air-tight container. Let cookies sit for several hours before serving to allow the flavors to develop.

Makes approximately: 5 to 6 dozen cookies (will vary on the thickness of the dough) Recipe was found here. http://stamps4fun.blogspot.com/2011/10/traditions.html

Sticky Bun Breakfast Ring

Last Saturday my son and I made this Sticky Bun for breakfast. It turned out beautifully. I think next time I will drizzle a little of the syrup mixture down in between the bisquits so the middle section isn't to dry.

 

 

Ingredients:

 

2 small tubes refrigerator buttermilk biscuits OR 1 tube Pillsbury Grands buttermilk biscuits 

3 Tbsp. butter, melted

1/2 C. pancake syrup

1/3 C. packed light brown sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 C. chopped pecans, optional

1/4 C. chopped almonds, optional

Instructions:

Spray a fluted pan with non-stick spray. Combine the melted butter and syrup in a small bowl and set aside. In another bowl, combine the brown sugar, cinnamon, and nuts (if desired). Place about half of the syrup mixture in the bottom of the pan. Then sprinkle half of the brown sugar mixture on top. Lay the biscuits on the bottom of the pan, overlapping edges (closely together) to form a ring. Top with remaining syrup and sugar mixtures. Bake at 375 degrees for approximately 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for 1 minute in the pan, then invert onto a serving platter and enjoy!

** I ended up using 1 1/2 tubes of the Pillsbury Grands buttermilk biscuits (1 tube didn't seem like enough) and baked it for about 30 minutes. It needed a bit longer to bake since I used more.