Heat Wave

I don't know why I feel like ranting about our weather, I really do enjoy sunshine and warm days, but this last week has drained me, and I think its the lack of air conditioning in our home.
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You'd figure that living in Alaska, the summers would be mild, but whoa not this year! Temps this last week have been soaring to near 90's (87 when I left work yesterday). And another gorgeously warm day today. Our poor Pugs have been hogging the fan and all of our windows are wide open to hopefully create some sort of draft. My parents live in Montana and there temps have been 20 degrees cooler than us in recent days.

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My meal plan for the week is completely shot, there is no way that I want to cook in this heat so its been salads and bbq until further notice. Alas, there will be no chocolate decadence recipe post this week, sorry! I have been unable to find my trusted recipe and resorted to another recipe instead that didn't turn out at all. What I did make this week has been my mothers recipe for Fruit Pizza, posted below for you to drool over the pics and try for yourself.

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On another note, Kyle has planned a trip for us at the end of August, yeah I know....what a sweet guy he is! I have been trying to get some sunshine so that I am not so ghastly when we hit the beach. I ended up with a nasty bite on my shoulder 4 days ago and its slowly starting to go away, its a strange bite/sting as the area raised up with bruising around the edges, next time i'll stay away from my plants that the spiders like to hang out in.

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Fruit Pizza

1 package pre-made sugar cookie dough

1/2 C Granular Sugar

1 Tbsp. Cornstarch

1/2 C Orange Juice

2 Tbsp. Lemon juice

1/4 C Water

8 oz. Cream cheese - softened

5 oz. Cool whip

Fresh fruit

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Press cookie dough to fit a pizza pan (approx. 12 in.). Bake 350 degrees, 9-12 minutes until golden, let cool.

In medium sauce pot combine sugar & cornstarch, add in orange juice, lemon juice, & water, heat to medium/high and boil for 1 minute stirring constantly. Remove from heat to cool.

In medium bowl combine cream cheese & cool whip, spread on top of cooled cookie dough crust. Slice a variety of fresh fruits and layer on top of cream cheese mix. Spread orange juice glaze on top of fruit. Cover & chill until ready to serve.

*Pizza is best when you let it sit for a while, if you cut & serve immediately the crust is very hard where if you wait 12 - 24 hrs. the crust has time to soften up from the toppings.*

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*Head on over to the Grocery Cart Challenge for more recipe ideas!*

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Sunshine in a jar

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It might sound strange, but berries make me happy, I mean really make me happy.

I haven't met a berry I didn't like, their eye popping color and fresh flavors remind me of summer time. One of my favorite berries is a raspberry. These are quite expensive at the regular stores but I find that I can get them really affordable at Costco.

So, what do you do with lots of tasty beautiful raspberries? Besides eating them fresh with a light sprinkling of sugar, you turn them into yummy jam!

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I went a bit crazy with the jam and ended up with a dozen jars of ruby red sunshine in a jar. Now we can enjoy summer time year round and have enough jars to share some too.

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Raspberry Jam

5 C Berries

7 C Sugar

1 Packet Pectin

Wash berries, crush one layer at a time in a large pot. Bring pot to a medium/high heat and slowly stir in pectin. Bring to a boil and add in sugar, stir continually to avoid scorching and allow the sugar to dissolve. Let boil 2 minutes, then remove from heat. Ladle into clean & sanitized jars leaving 1/4 in. gap (the width of the lid threads on the glass). Process 10 minutes in a water bath canner. Remove from canner & let cool 12 - 24 hrs. Test tops for doneness, if they pop up/down, remove lids & bands, replace with new ones, and re-can for same amount of time.

*This recipe will fill 8, 8oz jars.*

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July

I can't believe that its already July, where has the summer gone?

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Kyle and I will be spending the weekend in Homer. Our favorite fish & chips restaurant is located out on the spit which we'll follow up with a bowl of ice cream & a nice stroll on the beach, while I look for seashells of course.

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Have a safe & happy 4th of July everyone! See you back in a couple of days.

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Wildcat Blue & Chocolate Lillies

Wild Geranium & Canary bird vine
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Cabbage Bundles

My recipe posts lately have been all sweets and no savory recipes. This cabbage bundle recipe is originally my mothers and I have made some small modifications.

Cabbage Bundles
1 Head Green Cabbage (large works best)
1/2 Lb. Hamburger
1/2 Lb. Ground Pork
1 Tbsp. Salt
1 tsp. Pepper
1 Tbsp. Chili Sauce
1/2 C Cooked Rice (prefer Basmati or Jasmine)
8 C Beef broth (can sub with bullion cubes)
2 C Water (or more beef broth if needed)
1 Egg beaten

Pour 8 C beef broth in large pot, heat to a simmer. Place 8-10 large outer cabbage leaves in broth for 1 min. until soft. Remove leaves from pot, set on large plate til ready to use.
In large bowl combine hamburger, pork, salt, pepper, chili sauce, rice & egg. Spoon meat mixture into wilted cabbage leaves and roll up. Use toothpicks to hold closed, place back into simmering broth, if the liquid does not cover the bundles, add water until they are submerged. I like to boil the remaining cabbage, cut into quarters, on top of the bundles.
Simmer 1 hour.

*I purchase the 1 lb sausage rolls for this recipe, the other half of the sausage will be used in a soup recipe that I'll post shortly.*

Banana Caramel Stuffed French Toast

Here's another tasty breakfast idea for you! If you would prefer strawberries instead of bananas, click HERE for that recipe.

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Filling

1 C Cream Cheese - softened

1/2 C Powdered Sugar

1/2 C Cottage Cheese

Combine cream cheese and powdered sugar, once well mixed add in cottage cheese and mix until well blended. Spread approx. 1/4 C cream cheese mix onto 1 piece of bread, top with banana slices and 2 tsp. caramel sauce and top with another slice of bread. Place in freezer 5 min. to firm up. The egg wash I did contains 3 eggs, & 1/3 C milk. Heat up pan on medium heat, dip bread into egg wash and cook until golden on both sides. Plate immediately and top with whipped cream, banana slices, walnut pieces, and caramel sauce.

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The filling mixture is all ready to go. I prefer to make this in a leftover container as you won't use all of it for 2 stuffed french toasts. Here the filling is being added, the one on the left is ready to be topped with a slice of bread and the one on the right is waiting for some caramel sauce.

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Banana caramel french toast all plated up and ready to be gobbled down!

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*Have pets? If so, take the leftover egg wash, add in another egg and more milk, some leftover veggies and cook up for a breakfast treat for your furry friends. Our Pugs got breakfast this morning, but I also added in the remaining banana pieces, they are so spoiled!

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Chocolate Walnut Pie

This pie is a twist on the classic Pecan Pie. I was shopping for some pecans and holy cow they are expensive! At $11.99 a pound for pecans, the walnuts were much cheaper at $7.49 a pound, so I axed plans for a pecan pie for something more economical.

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Basic Pie Crust (homemade for best taste)

3 Eggs

1 C Corn syrup

1/2 C Granular Sugar

1 Tbsp. Vanilla extract

1/4 tsp. Salt

1/4 C Butter - melted

2 oz. Unsweetened chocolate - melted

1 3/4 C Walnut pieces

Preheat oven to 425 Degrees. Roll out pie dough in 9 in. pie pan. In large bowl beat eggs, add in corn syrup, sugar, vanilla, salt & butter, beat until evenly mixed. Add in melted chocolate and walnut pieces. Pour into unbaked pie shell, bake at 425 Degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees (at this point I covered the edges of the pie crust to prevent them from getting too dark). Continue to bake 20-25 min. longer until the filling has slightly puffed up with the edges set but the center slightly wobbles. Let cool completely. Serve warm or at room temp for best taste.

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Goodbye Seattle

On our last day of sightseeing in Seattle, we took a quick trip to the Westlake Mall where the Monorail runs between their and the Space Needle.

Riding the rail is really affordable, $4 roundtrip ticket and runs every 2 minutes between locations.

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Another gorgeous day in Seattle. I was a bit burnt so no tank top for me today. The water fountain was really cool, reminded me of the Bellagio fountain in Vegas, as it is set to music. We didn't actually go inside the needle but had a wonderful time anyways.

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Got a bit confused trying to locate the Kobe Bell but ended up walking around quite a bit of the area so not a bad detour. The bell was a gift from Japan, it is really beautiful, unfortunately vandals have peppered the inside of it with graffiti.

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We rounded out the day with a Sounder's soccer game against the San Jose Earthquakes. Sounder's won 2 to 1, yahoo! We were happy that our hotel was across the street as there was a ton of traffic.

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You can see the people still hanging out after the game, it looked like this for a while after the game. We enjoyed our quick tour of Seattle and hope to be back for another visit.

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Pike's Place & Waterfront

We made 2 trips to Pike's Place, the hotel had a free shuttle, so we were able to browse and go back for items we saw the first time around.

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Had to laugh at the signs advertising Copper River Salmon, this is Alaskan Salmon, and was a huge seller at the fish monger stands. The fresh produce was amazing!

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The original Starbucks store is located at Pike's Place. I stopped in for a Caramel Frappuccino, the special of the day, and picked up a couple of mugs that bear the original Starbucks logo.

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Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, lots of Yummy looking baked goods at the market. We took a small rest stop in the market and left our mark, shhh...don't tell!

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Incredible unbelievably gorgeous flower arrangements for super cheap. The most expensive bouquet I saw was only $5, these arrangements here would sell for $50 or more.

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Beecher's cheese, was just a fluke as I was looking around, I spotted this little cheese shop and we stopped in because I absolutely LOVE fresh curds and hoped they would have some, which they didaa :-)

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We only ate some of the fresh curds and saved the rest for a late night snack after the Sounder's game we attended that evening.

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Spotted these beautiful peppers at one of the produce shops across from the entrance into the market. There vibrant beautiful colors really caught my eye and I couldn't help snapping a couple of photos.
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A local artist at the market, he is in the process of painting a piece for us. Just me, at one of the entrances into the market, it was beautiful weather for the days that we were in Seattle.

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The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory has a shop near Pike's and they were giving away free samples of there chocolate dipped apples. I first had these awesome apples when I was a teen and I spent the summer with my sister & her husband when they lived in Alabama.

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We had heard about the Crab Pot Restaurant located down on the Pier and wanted to try it out. We got a crab & shrimp combo, they pour the mixture on your table, its covered with butcher paper, and then you have a go at it with little wood hammers. And yes, Kyle was enjoying himself, contrary to the above picture, he was a bit overwhelmed at the massive pile of food which we never did finish. LOL...his paper apron really cracked me up!
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