Holiday Baking; Mexican wedding cookies

This is an adaptation of my mothers recipe.  I also call them sand dollars.

Mexican wedding cookies
1/2 C Butter* - softened  (no substitutes)
1/4 C Powdered Sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
3/4 C + 2 Tbsp. All Purpose Flour
1/2 C Walnuts - chop fine

Combine softened butter, sugar, & vanilla. Add in salt & 3/4 C flour.  If dough is too wet, add in remaining flour.  Add in walnuts, the smaller the pieces the better.  Let chill 1 hour. 

Roll dough into small balls & place on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 350 degrees, 12-14 min., or until the tops are firm and the bottoms are golden. 

Take warm cookies & roll in more powdered sugar.  This works well in a ziploc bag, or in a large bowl. 

*If you use salted butter, just omit the pinch of salt.*

Peanut Butter Balls

These are one of my favorite holiday time desserts.  I know, I know, it isn't the holidays yet but were close enough, right?!?

Peanut Butter Balls

1 2/3 C Graham Cracker crumbs

2 C Powdered Sugar

1 C Peanut Butter

1 C Butter - melted

12 oz. Chocolate chips (I prefer a 50/50 mix of bitter & semisweet)
2 tsp. Parafin Wax (helps the chocolate set up but I have omitted it before without any problems)

Combine graham crumbs, sugar, butter, and peanut butter.  Roll into small balls and let freeze several hours until solid. 
In a medium bowl combine chocolate chips and wax, microwave, stopping every 10-15 seconds to stir, until they are a smooth consistency.  Make sure you don't overheat as the chocolate will scorch! 
Dip frozen balls into chocolate and let sit out to dry.  If you keep these stored in the fridge the chocolate will not be so soft, especially if you live in a warmer climate. 

Awesome Thrift Store find

I was browsing one of the local thrift stores, "cause you never know what you may find", and I couldn't believe what I did find!

Yep, it is a copper saute pan with utensils and a wall rack to hang it from, I am still ecstatic. Its marked Paul Revere on the bottom, dated 1976, and thanks to my handy IPhone I was able to look up info on it before I made my purchase.  Now I just need to find a spot to hang it in my kitchen, hmm.......

Almond Thumbprint Cookies

Found this tasty little recipe online and figured it would be another great way to use my homemade jams & jellies. I also like this recipe as it doesn't require a lot of ingredients. And next time I make these, I will try using vanilla or rum flavoring instead of the almond for another variation. This recipe makes 24-28 cookies.

a

Almond thumbprint cookies

1 C Butter - softened but cool temp.

2/3 C Granular Sugar

1/2 tsp. Almond extract

2 1/4 C All Purpose Flour

1/2 C Jam or Jelly

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl cream together butter and sugar. Add in almond extract and combine well. Mix in flour until dough comes together, you may not need all of the flour. Roll dough into balls, approx. 1 1/2 in. diameter. Place on ungreased cookie sheet, use the back of a 1/2 tsp. to indent the center of the cookie. Fill each cookie with a very small amount of jam/jelly.

Bake 16-19 minutes or until golden. Let cool 1 minute before removing from sheet pan, then drizzle tops with icing.

a

Icing
1/2 C Powdered Sugar

3/4 tsp. Almond extract

1 tsp. Milk

Mix together all ingredients. Drizzle over tops of still warm cookies.

a

Ode to the Blueberry

I've turned into a crazy canning lady, I can't be stopped!!!!
I'm not sure whats got into me this year, but I've really taken a liking to canning stuff. So far I've canned Raspberry Jam, Chili Sauce, Marinara, & now I can add Blueberry Jelly to the list. I really wanted to make homemade Grape Jelly, one of my favorite jam/jellies, but I found it very difficult & expensive to locate unsweetened grape juice. After much debate it seemed only logical to make something more Alaska themed and I opted for Blueberry Jelly instead, plus blueberries are in season and easy to get, so a no brainer!
Did you realize that blueberries aren't blue inside?!? Well I didn't know that until I made this recipe. It is based on a berry jelly recipe in a canning book that I have, but I changed it up a bit based on other recipes I read involving the use of blueberries. This recipe makes 5, half-pint jars.
a
Blueberry Jelly
3 1/2 C Blueberry Juice (2 C blueberries = 1 C blueberry juice)
*you will need to boil fresh berries in order to get the berry juice you need, this recipe is for 3 1/2 C juice so you will need 7 C fresh berries* You may be short/over the needed juice, if you are short the juice needed you can add in water to make up the difference.
1 Pkg Pectin
2 Tbsp. Lemon Juice
3 2/3 C Granular Sugar
1/2 tsp. Butter (sub margarine)
1 Jelly bag or Pkg of Cheesecloth
a
Carefully wash berries, remove stems, and place in a large sauce pot. Add 1/2 C water for every 4 C berries to avoid scorching them. Turn heat to medium/high and stir constantly until brought to a soft boil. Drop temperature to medium and cover, let simmer 10 min., occasionally stir breaking up berries. Once softened and broken up, remove from heat. Pour into jelly bag or a strainer lined with several layers of cheesecloth and let drip into a large pot 2 hrs or overnight until all of the juices have left the berries. If you force the juice out of the berries, the end result could be cloudy jelly!
Once the juice has been measured out to 3 1/2 cups, combine berry juice and lemon juice in large sauce pot, whisk in pectin until combined. Bring up to a rolling boil and continually stir mixture. Once at a rolling boil, add in all of the sugar, mix until combined. Add in butter (not necessary but will keep foaming down). Mix well and bring back up to a boil, continue to stir and let boil vigorously 1 minute.
After boiling vigorously for 1 minute, you can remove from heat, skim off any foam. Ladle into hot sanitized jars and water bath can them for 10 minutes.

A little strange on the inside, blueberries are only blue on the outside, you should've seen my hands when I was done with the recipe as they were stained a lovely shade of blue for a good day and a half!

Simmering berries getting all saucy in the sauce pot! Here they are straining in some cheesecloth, it took way over 2 hrs for all the juice to be extracted, overnight would probably be best, just lightly cover the top of the pot to keep the bugs out.

Measuring the freshly made blueberry jelly into canning jars. You can see that I made a double batch, I ran out of jars and had to pour the excess into a leftover container, oops!

Yummy Yummy Yummy, fresh blueberry jelly for breakfast, makes me happy!

Treasures

So my treasure hunting for a step stool have failed, ugh! I checked multiple antique dealers in town and no one has a step stool like the ones I am after. HOWEVER...I did score two great finds.

My collection of antique glass floats has slowly grown over the years. In the center of the above pic, you can see my newest glass float that I picked up this week at one of the antique shops. It is purple, one of the rarest colors, used only by the Japanese Royal Fleet. I've been on the lookout for a purple float, for 5 years, and this is the only one I've found that was for sale. You can read HERE for more information on Japanese Glass Floats.

a
And I found a lovely Fire King Jadeite Lotus plate. Originally, there would have been a cup to go with the plate, but I was unable to locate it in the shop. My Fire King collection is mainly the Azurite dishes but I do have some Jadeite and Milk Glass. Im still working on locating a nice display cabinet for my ever-growing Fire King collection.

a

Give me a boost

Being height challenged, I'm 5'5", I find that there are a lot of things that are out of my reach. Thankfully Kyle is 6'2" & he is able to help me when I need to get something. It's cute when he scolds me for climbing on the kitchen counters, I know he is doing it out of concern but sometimes I try to get it myself anyways, i know bad bad bad! That being said, I have been on the look out for a nice step stool for the last couple of years. Here's the step stool that I am after, what do you think?

a

a

a

Haha...I know that my parents will recognize these! My grandmother had one, yellow I believe, and I remember it was always in her kitchen. Funny how the things that are old are becoming new again.

I have been checking online and have been discouraged while trying to locate a vintage step stool. You can purchase new *vintage style* step stools but they have plastic parts and are not as sturdy as the original, seems everything now a days is not only cheaper to buy but is made out of cheaper materials.

Here are some pics of the new *vintage style* step stools.

a
a
a

I visited an antiques shop today and they recommend a fellow antique dealer in town. With any luck I'll be able to track down a true vintage step stool this weekend.

a

Sunshine in a jar

a

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!

a

a

a

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.

a

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.*

aaa

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.

a

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.

a

Stuffed French Toast and Strawberry bliss

I am way late in getting this recipe posted but better late then never.

Stuffed French Toast filling

3 C Cream Cheese, softened

1 C Powdered sugar

2 tsp. Vanilla Extract

a

Mix well, spoon some of the mixture onto a piece of bread, top with another slice of bread. Make sure filling doesn't come to the edges of the bread or it will ooze out when cooking. Place in freezer for 5 minutes to firm up and use this time to make your egg wash. When I was making this, my egg wash was 2 eggs with 1/4 c milk, 2 Tbsp. sugar, and a pinch of salt. This was enough wash for 2 stuffed french toasts.

a

Fresh strawberries and cream cheese, oh yeah, time for some seriously good eats! The filling is made, time to chill in the freezer.

a
Aren't they gorgeous?!? Here are some strawberries sliced up, I let them macerate in some orange juice and a sprinkle of sugar.

a
The remainder of the cream cheese filling is put in a pastry bag and piped into cleaned & hulled strawberries. Then I let them chill in the fridge while I melt/temper dark chocolate.

Cream cheese filled French Toast topped with macerated strawberries and a cream cheese, chocolate dipped, strawberry.

Hungry?

a

The Simple Woman's Daybook - May 10th

a

FOR TODAY SUNDAY, MAY 10,2009

*posted on Monday, as I needed to take more pictures*a
Outside my window... A feathered visitor to my bird feeder, Chickadees are one of my favorite birds.

a
I am thinking... That I am addicted to Fire King dishes, I won another auction at Ebay for two dinner size swirl plates and am currently bidding on Jadeite in the Alice pattern, is there a group for antique addicts?!?

a
I am thankful for... My job, even though it really sucks getting up at 4am, ugh!

a
From the kitchen... Breakfast was some kick butt stuffed French Toast with macerated Strawberries. Check back for my recipes and a full spread of pics *also* a recipe for some really sweet strawberries.

a
I am wearing... Peek-a-boo! I am wearing one of my new pairs of earrings, they are sterling silver with mother of pearl.

a
a
I am creating... Hoping to start work on some silhouettes to display over my fireplace. Below picture is just an example, to see my inspiration for this project, click on NieNie Dialogues.

a
I am going... To finish planting all of my greenhouse and home grown plants this week, I have been procrastinating. This is some of my back deck last year, I am hoping to add more pots this year as I am growing mostly produce and only a little bit of flowers.

a

I am reading... Really good book if you are interested in what is in the food you eat, better yet what your food eats before you eat it (think lots of corn).

a
I am hoping... To locate a duvet cover for our new goose down comforter, I haven't been happy with what I have found locally and really don't want to order off of the internet.

a
I am hearing... Haha, they are so cute when they snore!

a

Around the house... Not a lot going on, finishing up my weekly washing/changing bed sheets and trying to keep up with the flying fur (the Pugs are shedding).

a

One of my favorite things... My formal dining room, especially when I have a bouquet of beautiful flowers to display. This is one of the least used rooms in the house but I really love the dark on light wood look and my stained glass votives on the wall shelves.

a

Here is picture thought I am sharing... Almost fishing time! Yeah, obviously not a real Red Salmon, this is a stained glass salmon that I made for my father-in-law. Which, now with the warmer weather, I can break out my stained glass stuff, wahoo!

a
You can visit Peggy over at The Simple Woman's Daybook for more daybook posts.
a