Tattered Saints

It's Easy Drinking Green...

I started off the new year right by trying to eat right...or at least eat better.  Smoothies are great because they're quick and easy, they taste good (usually) and you can add surprising things to them to REALLY boost their benefits.  This is what I've been drinking lately...I call it my "Puree of Kermit".  As in Kermit the Frog...green...frog...puree...get it?  Ahem...well, anyway...it's good and I'm supposing it's good for me also.

Frozen peaches, a banana, a bit of orange juice, pack spinach leaves into the top of the blender, add some water and blend, blend, blend.  Yumzy. 

 

Oh How Yummy...

It's no secret that I love bread...well, dough of any kind really...breads, donuts etc.  I also love cheese, but that's a tale for another day.  This morning I made popovers.  Nothing is easier than these delectable little yummies with butter and jam...or honey, perhaps. 

Popovers

2 eggs

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon salt

Break eggs into a bowl.  Beat well with a fork or a whisk.  Add milk, flour and salt.  Beat well, but don't worry about a few lumps.  Fill large greased muffin tins or custard cups 3/4 full.  Put on rack in middle of oven.  Set the oven at 450 degrees.  Bake 30 minutes and DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR DURING THE 30 MINUTES!  And yes, start with a COLD oven...turn it on after you have placed the popovers inside the oven.  Makes 6.

I happen to have popover tins for these but muffin tins should work fine.  If  you have popover tins, by all means use them. 

I seem to be in a baking mood today.  I'm thinking about some lemon bread or banana bread next...pardon me while I wipe the drool from my chin.

 

WTF???

I was just browsing the i-net for a recipe for apple dumplings.  Thought it sounded good and wouldn't hurt me to try making my own.  I keep running across a recipe that everyone says is so great...it has Mountain Dew in it.  I am so not going to use crappy Mountain Dew in any recipe, now or ever.  Yuck.  That stuff is gross.  I even found the recipe on Paula Deen's website...how ridiculous.  Every person I have ever known who drinks Mountain Dew has had health problems up the wazoo...kidney stones, migraine headaches, blood sugar issues and on and on.  You might just as well make your apple dumplings with radioactive waste.  That's what MD looks like, to me.  I don't give a fat rat's hind end if the recipe DID come from The Pioneer Woman...and who is she when she's at home, anyway???  I doubt very sincerely if the pioneers or anyone faintly related to them ever used Mountain Dew.   Bleah.   I'll look elsewhere for a recipe thank you very  much or create my own.  Should've probably done that in the first place to begin with...

Oh, and Happy New Year.

Once Again, With Zest...

Lemon zest, that is.  Made Buttermilk Cookies with Lemon Zest yesterday and fiddled with the recipe just a tad, as I usually do with instructions for ANYTHING...pull here, push there, it's all just guidelines to me...anyway...these cookies rock:

 

For the cookies:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp. grated lemon zest

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

6 tbsp. (3 oz) unsalted butter at room temperature

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/3 cup well-shaken buttermilk

For the glaze:

3/4 cup confectioners sugar, sifted

1 1/2 tbsp. well-shaken buttermilk

1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicone liners.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, zest, baking soda and salt.  In the bowl of a stand mixer or a large mixing bowl if you use a hand held mixer, beat the butter briefly until creamy.  Add the sugar and beat until pale and fluffy.  Add the egg and beat well to mix.  Add the vanilla and beat briefly again.  Mix in the flour mixture and the buttermilk in batches at low speed, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed.  The dough should end up smooth and pale yellow.  Drop the dough by level tablespoons onto the prepared baking sheets leaving about 1 1/2 inches between each cookie.  Bake one sheet at a time until the cookies are puffed and the edges are golden, about 11 to 15 minutes per batch.  Cool the cookies on the baking sheet for about a minute, then transer them to a wire rack.  To prepare the glaze, whisk together the sifted confectioners sugar, buttermilk and vanilla.  The mixture needs to be very smooth with no lumps.  Brush or spoon the glaze onto the warm cookies.

My version...I made the cookies as the recipe says, although I made mine bigger than what the recipe says.  For the glaze I used confectioners sugar and lemon juice.  Since I had to skin a poor lemon anyway for the zest for the cookies, I just went ahead and squeezed the juice for the glaze.  I love lemons and lemon flavored cookies are the cat's ass on a hot summer day.  If you can't eat them all in a day or so, the cookies can be stored in the freezer in an airtight container.  Yum.

Sweet Indulgence...

After a long week of entertaining guests and working on my clutter, this morning has been all about indulgence.  The visitors have gone back from whence they came and Spring is playing coy...showing up for a few brief moments, then slipping away again.  Teasing...taunting...just out of reach.  I ventured out this morning to run some errands and made a stop at Joann Fabrics...yeah, I know...like I really NEED anything else!  But I HAD to get this magazine.  I mean...FRENCH STYLE!!!  Come on!!  I could NOT pass that up! 

Since it was close to eleven o'clock when I got home, I decided a little treat would be nice for my elevenses.  So I scrounged up the necessary items and made Tiny Fairy Cakes!  Such delectible little morsels of goodness!  The recipe makes just a little over a dozen, each one a mere mouthful of sweet goodness! 

Please excuse the terrible color of the glaze...it was supposed to be a nice pink color, but I got heavy-handed with the red food coloring.  Oops.  They were fabulous anyway.  Despite the color, the glaze was lemon flavored and so good that I must confess to peeling the cakes out of the paper cups they were baked in and dipping them in the bowl of leftover glaze...how decadent is that??  I didn't quite eat all of them...but I came close.

Yes, I can be a real...

at times!!!  Oink oink.  Here's the recipe:

TINY FAIRY CAKES

1 medium egg

7 tablespoons self-rising flour

3 tablespoons butter, softened

3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon granulated sugar

small paper candy cups

For the icing:

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Approximately 1 tablespoon warm water

Red food coloring

Candies and sugar sprinkles as desired for decorating.

Sift the flour into a large bowl.  Add the egg, butter and sugar.  Stir everything together until creamy.  Put the paper cups into miniature muffin tins or just set them on a cookie sheet and fill them to about half full.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes or until golden brown.  Put on a wire rack to cool.  Ice them however you desire and ENJOY!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Morning Has Broken...

It's morning and I'm up.  That's about all the news today.  The last couple of days have been gloomy and cloudy and rainy.  Ugh.  It's not warm, but it's not cold either...it just...is.  I'm in a bit of a funk, for no particular reason.  Today we're going to venture out to buy some bird seed, and dog bones.  Woo-hooo!  Don't know if I can stand the excitement.  Tomorrow is Easter, which around here is really just another day.  I think we're going to eat at McCormick and Schmick's.  Same place we went for Christmas dinner.  Anyway, I won't punish readers further with my dull wit and bored attitude.  I leave you with some English Public School slang:

Bunny-grub:  Green vegetables

Dreeb: A curiously dressed person

Clipe:  To tell tales

Coaching:  A flogging

Cargo:  A hamper from home

Oiler:  A cad

Palmer:  A sly fellow

Pleb:  A tradesman's son

The Best Beef Stew Recipe...

I made beef stew for dinner last night and I decided to share the recipe because:

1.  It is sooooo good!

2.  It is sooooo easy to make.

3.  It doesn't take all damn day.

It really is about the best tasting stew I've ever had.  There's no browning of the meat required, so it's really easy...just throw it all together!  It's NOT a slow-cooker recipe so you don't have to get up at the crack of dawn and wait all day while it slow-ass cooks its way to being finished...two hours in the oven and it's perfect!  It's great with a nice crusty bread or some rolls.

Baked Beef Stew

14 ounce can diced tomatoes

1 cup of water

3 Tablespoons quick-cooking Tapioca

2 teaspoons sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons of salt

Pepper to taste 

2 lbs beef stew meat                                                                

4 carrots, chopped

3 potatoes, peeled and chopped                                

1 onion chopped                                 

2 stalks of celery, chopped

1 slice of bread, cubed

Combine tomatoes, water, tapioca, sugar, salt (and pepper to taste).  Add remaining ingredients.  Mix well.  Pour into greased 13" x 9" baking pan.  Cover and bake at 375 degrees for 2 hours.  Serves six to eight.

I use less meat and do not put in the celery; I don't care for it.  I also use small potatoes and I don't peel them...but everything else I do the same and it always turns out great.  The meat is super tender and it makes a very tasty gravy. 

Try it, you'll like it!!! 

Wanna Cook A Squirrel?

If you do, I have the recipe:

Squirrel is one of the finest and tenderest of all wild meats.  Its flavor is mild, rarely gamey.  There is no need for soaking, and seldom any need for parboiling.  They should be cleaned as soon as possible after shooting, but skinning may wait until they are to be cooked.

Broiled Squirrel

Clean squirrels and rub with salt and pepper.  Brush with fat and place on hot broiling rack.  Broil 40 minutes, turning frequently and basting with drippings every 10 minutes.  Serve with gravy from drippings and season with 1 or 2 tablespoons of lemon juice.

Oh yeah.  My mouth is watering.  NOT!!  If there's any interest, I also have recipes for roast possum and hasenpfeffer, potted doves, smothered marsh hens and...get ready for it...quail in milk and celery.  Mmmmmm. 

In more palatable news, I had to stop working on the doll quilt I started because I ran out of thread.  I picked some up yesterday and I plan to work on the quilt later today. It won't take me long to finish the top...so far, Kim hasn't posted the rest of the tutorial about how to actually finish the quilt...I hope she does post the rest of the instructions, cos I'm not a quilter normally and I would have no idea how to complete this project on my own.  So far, I really like it and have enjoyed working on it, but not being able to finish it would be a bummer.  *sigh*  More later.

French Madeleines...

I've been wanting to make Madeleines forever and I could not find the special pan required to make these little yummy things.  FINALLY, over the weekend I found one! 

They are so good and really easy to make, but you DO need the pan!  Here's the recipe: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease molds very well. I used cooking spray.

1 cup sugar, 5 eggs, 1/2 cup butter melted, 1 1/2 cups sifted cake flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon vanilla, zest of one orange or lemon, confectioners sugar for dusting.

1.  Beat the eggs until light yellow in color then add sugar, butter, vanilla and zest; continue mixing.

2.  Sift flour and baking powder together and add to wet ingredients and mix well.

3.  Place a tablespoon of batter into each mold.

4.  Bake for 8-12 minutes or until light golden in color.

5.  Turn out madeleines and cool.

6.  Dust with powdered sugar and serve.

7.  Enjoy!

Some of mine ended up a little over baked because I was going by the 8 to 12 minute thing and it barely took 8 minutes for mine, so watch the little buggers carefully.  Mine probably should have come out at about 7 minutes.  These are wonderful with a cup of coffee, or tea or a latte...yum!  Hope everyone had a nice weekend...ours was pretty nice.  We went to see "The Bourne Ultimatum" yesterday and ate at Brio which is one of my favorite places to chow down.  I had the lobster bisque (heavenly!) and the wood-grilled salmon salad which is fantastic.  Now it's Monday morning again and the start of another fun filled week...I hope!  I plan to make another paper clay figure...this one will have a moon face but I'm not sure yet what the body will be like.  I also want to work on my ghoul figure and hopefully get it finished up this week.  I'm not sure what else I'll be working on.  I have a couple of ideas but nothing set in stone yet, so stay tuned!  The hilarity never ends around here!

Limoncello Cheesecake Squares...

Nonstick cooking spray, 8 ounces purchased biscotti, 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter melted, 3 tablespoons grated lemon zest, 1 12 ounce container of whole milk ricotta, 2 8 ounce packages cream cheese, 1 1/4 cups sugar, 1/2 cup limoncello liqueur, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, 4 large eggs.

All ingredients need to be at room temperature before starting.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Spray the bottom of a 9 by 9 by 2 inch baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.  Finely grind the biscotti in a food processor.  Add the melted butter and 1 tablespoon of the lemon zest. Process until the crumbs are moistened.  Press the crumb mixture over the bottom (not the sides) of the prepared pan.  Bake until the crust is golden, about 15 minutes.  Cool the crust completely before making the filling.  Blend the ricotta cheese in a clean food processor until smooth.  Add the cream cheese and sugar and blend well, stopping the machine and scraping down the sides of the work bowl.  Blend in the limoncello, vanilla and the remaining 2 tablespoons of lemon zest.  Add the eggs one at a time, and pulse just until blended.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.  Pour the cheese mixture over the cooled crust.  Place the pan in another large pan or roasting pan.  Pour enough hot water into the roasting pan to come halfway up the sides of the baking pan and bake until the cheesecake is golden and the center of the cake moves slightly when the pan is gently shaken, about 1 hour.  The cake will become firm when it is cold.  Transfer the cake pan to a rack and cool 1 hour.  Refregerate until the cheesecake is cold.  Cut the cake into squares and serve.  This recipe is supposed to make 12 to 16 servings, but I didn't come up with that many servings.  I got maybe 9 servings but you could cut smaller pieces I guess.  It is quite a rich dessert.  Limoncello liqueur can be found at most liquor stores and in the liquor department of some specialty markets.  It can also be made at home...there are a variety of recipes available on the Internet.