BIrthday Day #12 - Buttermilk Pie

Here it is - the big finish! Although, If you know me or my husband, this one doesn't come as a surprise.

Buttermilk pie is my husband's favorite treat, so I make an effort every year to make it for him.

Here is what you need: (Note: this makes enough custard for two 8-inch pies)

1 - KitchenAid Stand Mixer (Highly recommend)

5 large farm eggs
1 T. lemon juice
3 c. sugar
1 T. Vanilla
4 T. unbleached flour
2 c. buttermilk
1 stick butter, melted
Dash of almond extract (optional)

Start by putting eggs in the KitchenAid Stand Mixer with the whisk attachment. Turn on and walk away - seriously. The secrect to a light buttermilk pie is light, fluffy eggs - which you won't get if you stand and watch them becaue you'll be tempted to stop them too early.

So, while you're eggs are beating, make the crust. Here's what you need for that:

1 1/2 c. pastry flour
1/2 c. oil
1/4 c. milk
dash of salt

Mix all together and form into a ball. Press out onto lightly greased pie pan and smooth out with hands to a uniform thickness. Use tip of a spoon to make pretty scalloped edges.

This recipe will do one 8-inch pie pan. I have tried to double this recipe before, but it's very hard to evenly divide the dough between the two pans and I just generally have not had good luck with trying to double this recipe. So, if you need two pies, just repeat. It should look like this:

This is a very good all-purpose crust. You can dress it up a bit by adding in a touch of cinnamon or sugar, depending on the pie your making. No need to pre-bake. I've never had trouble with it cooking perfectly and it always comes out light and buttery.

Now that you've got your crust ready, check your eggs. They should look like this:

 

 

Aren't they pretty?

Now, sift together the sugar and flour. Carefully add the remaining wet ingredients to the eggs, mixing just slightly. Add the flour mix in a third at a time, mixing in between.

Just a quick note about the almond extract: I stumbled upon this one day when I was just a hair short of Vanilla extract. I had almond extract and I was desperate - so I added just a little bit. It adds a nice nutty flavor the pie. But - if you want a more traditional buttermilk flavor, you can leave it out.

Then, divide the custard evenly between the two pie crusts and bake at 350 degrees for about an hour. My oven cooks a little slow, so I leave it in for an hour and ten minutes.

And now you should have:

Oh, so pretty!

Now, if for some reason you only want to make 1 pie and I bet you're thinking, "How do I divide 5 eggs in half?" Well, the number of eggs is really based on weight. My suggestion would be to cut it back to 3 eggs. I'd rather have it a little creamier than fall flat.

Normally, I point you to where I got the original recipe or idea, but this particular recipe is from an older version of Pinterest - my grandmother's recipe box.

It was the only thing of hers I really wanted after she passed because she was just an amazing cook. One of my fondest memories is visiting her house and smelling freshly baked pecan and lemon chess pies. Flipping through those carefully copied recipes brings back so many memories. Reading the notes she wrote to herself reveals her sense of humor as well as her practicality.

I also had a pair of German aunts that would send everyone in the family a huge box of Christmas cookies every year. And I'm talking huge - and inside was dozens of tea boxes filled with different kinds of cookies. I never knew how those two tiny German women drank that much tea each year!

Unfortunately, I don't know what happend to those recipes, but if I'm ever able to recreate them, that'd a crown jewel in my cooking crown. But - that's another blog for another time. :-)

Birthday Day #10 and #11

Day #10 and #11 happened to fall on very BUSY days. So these days didn't require any baking or much preparation. I'll make up for that tomorrow on THE DAY.

But, here is Day #10

The card reads: "You're such a great catch! I'm hooked on you." I have two bags of candy: one with Swedish fish and the other with gummy worms.

Here's the original idea.

What I wanted to do was have a bag of fish that had been caught with a little pail full of the wormy bait. But pails must be out of season right now because I could not find one ANYWHERE. Not even in the "summer toy clearance aisle" at the local mega mart.

Day #11 went back to "simple."

A Cloud candy bar with a card that reads, "You've got me on Cloud 9."

Sometimes, simple is best. :-)

Birthday Day #9 - applelicious

Oh my, it's starting to feel like fall in the morning! And I just can't resist turning my thoughts to fall foods. So for my husband's Birthday Day #9, I created this:

Baked apples topped with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. Yum! The card reads, "You're the apple of my eye."

Here is what I did:

Some how I ended up with about a dozen red delicious apples. So I needed to do something with them before they turned bad. I sliced 6 of them with my apple wedger and put them in a gallon zip bag.

Next, I added a tablespoon of cinnamon and 3 tablespoons of sugar. Then I sealed the bag very tightly and shook vigerously (kinda fun, I might add). Once I was happy with how they were coated, I spread them out in a single layer on my baking stone.

Then I put them in a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. Note: my apples were still a little crunchy with a very soft skin - which is how my kids like them. If you want your apples softer, you may need to bake them longer.

If I had stopped there, it would have been worth it. The cinnamon was so fragrant it filled the whole house with the scent of fall! So nice!

Once they were done, I put a scoop of the hot apples in a bowl; added a scoop of vanilla ice cream and the hot chocolate sauce.

My husband is not a big fan of anything cinnamon. And he was very leary to try this with the cinnamon smell so strong. But, the vanilla and chocolate sauce go a long way to keeping the cinnamon flavors in check. It was just the right about without being overwhelming.  

Fruit Roll up Failure

I'm sad to say I have to report a fruit roll-up failure.

I had some organic strawberries and apples set aside to make the next batch. Got everything puree'd and in the oven; set the timer - and went to bed.

My oven has a handy-dandy feature where I can tell it to turn itself off at a certain time - which is what I did since the fruit roll ups would be done baking at about 4 am. I heard the timer go off, got up to check on the roll ups, they looked good - and I left them in the oven and went back to bed!

They didn't burn since the heat was off. They just - overly dried. When I looked at them this morning they looked like a dried up river bed with cracks all the way through. I went ahead and cut them into strips thinking I might still be able to make them into roll ups, but they were just too brittle.

I tried one of the fruit crumbs - trying to see if they were worth keeping or just trash and start over. But the flavor was good and since I hate to throw that much organic fruit away, I thought I'd try to save it.

There's just no way to make them roll up, but I was able to get some of the strips off in sheets. I stacked them up and laid them in a plastic container until I can figure out what to do with them. I might still be able to pack them in lunches - more of a fruit bite than roll up. Or, I might use them in yogurt, kind of a fruit granola effect.

So while this wasn't a complete failure, it wasn't the results I was hoping for. Moral of the story: if you're silly enough to time these to go off in the wee morning hours, get up and take them out of the oven - don't just turn off the heat.

Birthday Day #6, 7 and 8

 

Birthday Day #6 was a lot of fun. This is where the whole "12 Days of Birthday" idea came from.

 

We had a family vacation to Houston over the summer. While there, we got to spend an entire day at the Johnson Space Center and NASA. It was the highlight of the  trip for me. As we browsed through the gift shop (the only gift store during the entire trip where we bought any type of keepsake) I saw the shuttle-shaped gummie candies and I just had to have them.

 

I'll give a little bit of the credit to NASA, they had little gift baskets already made up with astronaut ice cream and different little candies. And that's when I thought - hey, I outta do something like that for my husband on his birthday. But the pre-made baskets were a little more than I wanted to spend (are we really surprised?). But the gummie candies were more in line with my budget. :-)

 

And so an idea was born.

 

 

Day #7 got a little more creative:

My husband's favorite beer is Blue Moon Blonde. We don't splurge on things like beer very much so buying him a 6-pack seemed fitting for his birthday.

The card reads, "Real Men Prefer Blondes."

If you know me, you know I'm not blonde - hence the wig. Just a bit of fun. :-)

Now for Day#8 - we're getting into the serious gifts here.

 What do you get when you combine Dollar Store ice cream bowls, personal size Ben & Jerry's, Whipped Cream, chocolate syrup and cherries? A perfect birthday sundae!

The tag reads: "You're the "cream" of the crop, with cherries on top!"

Served on a platter on a Saturday afternoon. :-)



Pumpkin Bread Muffins

I'm all for trying to make the kids happy by fixing their favorite foods. I love to cook/bake, and I love it when what I've created makes them happy, too.  So, it's typically a win-win situation.

But, let's be honest, sometimes I just feel plain lazy. And even though I want to make the kids happy I just can't bring myself to pull out a dozen different ingredients and dirt 3 different bowls to make a pan of  __________ .

My oldest son LOVES pumpkin bread, and not just in the fall. He'd eat it year 'round if I made it. Finally, after he asked for pumpkin bread during the 2 hottest weeks of summer, I found a recipe that might possibly make us both happy - pumpkin cupcakes.

Here is what you need:

A box of yellow cake mix (I used a sugar -free version); a can of pumpkin (I used an organic pumpkin - NOT PUMPKIN PIE FILLING); and a tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice. If you're not big on spice you could cut that back some, but it did add a nice warmth to the cupcakes.

And here's the super-duper complicated directions:
1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl.
2. Lightly grease a 12-muffin pan (or use liners).
3. Bake as directed on the box for cupcakes.

And then you end up with...

I have to admit - I was VERY skeptical about this recipe when I first saw it. I just wasn't sure how it could work - but it did and they were quite delicious. My son approved :-)

Oh, and the house smelled YUMMY all day!

And, of course, I didn't come up with the original idea, I just added the pumpkin pie spice. I'd love to share the original link with you, but it doen't seem to be working anymore. :/

Chocolate Muffins and Birthday Day #5

For my husband's Birthday Day #5 gift, I left him this at breakfast:

 

 

It says "I'm coo coo for Coco Puffs - and you." Those chocolate muffins were supposed to be mini muffins, but I did an entire pan of mini's and still had batter. So I decided to use the rest of the batter to make 4 regular size muffins for my husband and giving the mini muffins to the kids.

 

Here's why I LOVE these muffins - they have a cup and a half of veggies!!!

 

Here is the original link for the recipe.

 

Here is what I did:

 

Whisk together: 2 Eggs; 1/2 cup oil; and 3/4 cup brown sugar.

Add 1 cup finely grated zucchini and 1/2 cup finely grated organic broccoli. Mix in 1 cup self-rising flour (I didn't have any wholemeal); 3 tablespoons of Cocoa powder and 1 teasponn of baking powder. I was out of raw milk - so I used 1 tablespoon of low fat milk instead.

Then I spooned into greased mini muffin pan and baked at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. 

 

 

 

I didn't tell anyone that the muffins had veggies in it but everyone gobbled them up with no complaints (except my husband said they were a little "flaky" and that made them a little messy. But that's due to my flour substitution).

Oh - and those other 4 muffins you see in that box? Those are skinny "Funfetti" cupcakes that I made with a friend of mine who LOVES funfetti.

Here is the recipe, which we followed exactly.

This was super easy and would be a good recipe to make with kids. I mean, who doesn't like funfetti? And the batter fizzes up when you mix in the soda.

And super-duper bonus points for Mommy - I packed cupcakes TWICE in one week for school lunches and didn't feel a bit bad. :-D

Oh, and something else I learned while making the funfetti cupcakes - my friend works in the gas and oil industry. She advised me to avoid cake mixes (or any other kinds of food) that includes Propolene Glycol.

It's used as a sweetener in food but as an additive in oil/gas. Um - gross. Just thought I'd pass that along.

Birthday Day #3 and Day#4

Ok, I've fallen behind - I know. But things can get a little busy around here.

Anyway, on my husband's third day of Birthday, I gave my husband this:

It says "Thank you for being a 'Tea' - rrific husband!"

I also work for a non-profit organization that depends very heavily on volunteers. This is a great volunteer appreciation gift as well (or teacher).

Day #4 -

 

It's a can of mixed nuts with a tag that says "I'm 'nutty' over you!" Yep, I should have included some cheese with that because it is very cheesy. My husband is a big snacker so these types of things go over big with him. :-)

Birthday Day #2 AND Kabobs!

12 Days of Birthday: Day #2 -

 

Day#2 was pretty simple. The card says: "You might be a little 'kooky,' but you're my kind of crazy." Taped to the back of the card is a Kooky candy bar I found at HEB while standing in the check out line. I had never seen that kind before (then again, I don't normally browse the candy bar section), but I think you could also make this work with other brands or even a big cookie.

 

 

 

And, since I had a lot of comments on this particular school lunch, here is a pic of the fruit and cheese Kabobs that I made for the kiddos one day.

 

 

The Kabobs have fresh mozzarella cheese cut into cubes, followed by a slice of kiwi and a whole organic strawberry. My kabob skewers were big enough I could put 3 sets on the stick.

 

Also packed that day were organic broccoli and carrot sticks with homemade ranch dip. A few days later I used the same dip with organic celery sticks and that DID NOT go over well. So, pick your veggies carefully. :-)

12 Days of Birthday: Day 1

My husband's birthday is this month. I try to do something a little different each year. And with 4 kids with very active schedules, it's difficult to really plan anything big.

This year, I decided to do the 12 Days of Birthday (since my husband's birthday is on the 12th). Just a little something each day to show him that I love him.

Here is Day 1:

If you can't quite tell what it is, it's just a water bottle with a tag that reads: "You 'Sustain' me, through the good time and the bad. I love you!" Taped to the tag is a packet of Sustain Sport drink mix. I order it through the Melaleuca Wellness Company and it just so happens that on this day, dear husband had to go work at his side job of installing radiant foil in an attic.

Yes, I'm a dork. :-)