Here, have a cookie.

There's been a lot going on around food stuff lately. First, at random, I made and took to work some of the oh-so-popular Fresh Island Cookies. Basically, cookies that are made with milk chocolate chips (instead of semi-sweet), coconut flakes and pecans. They're always well-received.

 

Then, at work, we had our second annual chili cook-off contest. And, wowser, were there some amazing chili dishes served up! There was a very delicious Habenaro Chili, a Chorizo Chili, and a chili that had a fun name that I can't remember and was made with several different meats (steak, bacon, etc) and pork stock. There were others as well, and they were all fabulous!

I did not participate by making chili, but I did make cornbread muffins. Lots and lots of miniature ones. It was very basic cornbread, but I added in a handful of corn so there was the occasional kernel surprise.

Also, a while back, I tried a new twist on an old favorite. I took the Sopapilla Cheesecake recipe and added a layer of deliciousness to it. The twisted recipe goes like this.

You need:

2 8 oz cans of crescent rolls

2 8 oz pkgs of cream cheese, softened

2 cups of sugar, divided

2 tsp vanilla, divided

1 can apple or cherry pie filling

1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

1/2 cup margarine or butter

ground cinnamon

Heat oven to 360. Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray. Spread one can of crescent rolls to line the bottom of the pan and pinch the hold closed to form a crust.

 

Blend together cream cheese, one cup of sugar, one teaspoon of vanilla. Spread mixture over the dough, but not too close to edges. Spread pie filling over top of the cream cheese mixture. (I suggest maybe not using all of the "sauce" that is with the pie filling and focus on getting mostly the fruit with some of the sauce to avoid it turning out too wet.) Sprinkle chopped nuts over the pie filling.

Top with the 2nd can of crescent rolls to form a top crust.

 

Melt butter and blend in one cup of sugar and one tsp of vanilla. Poor evenly over crust. Sprinkle generously with cinnamon and back at 360 for about 30 minutes until bubbly and crust is slightly browned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Let cool completely and refrigerate (for at least 4 hours but overnight is best) before cutting into squares. 

 

And, even though I've been short on time, I've decided on a new undertaking that I am excited about. I was recently introduced to National Novel Writing Month, in which participants are challenged to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, during the month of November. I just came up with my idea of what I want to write about this morning and I'm going to draft an outline of my thoughts to make sure it'll work. Oh, excitement!

I hope everyone has a nice weekend! More to come soon!

Traci

"With the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible."- Julia Child

 

Toasted Butter Pecan Cake and Oatmeal Scotchies!

It's finally, finally, finally September!  Fall weather on the horizon, football in full blown action, and foodie fun (always!). 

This past week, I made a few new recipes that turned out just lovely!  First, I made a Toasted Butter Pecan Cake.  The recipe came from the Taste of Home Church Supper Desserts.  It turned out pretty, dense and tasty.  I *love* butter pecan ice cream, and this was essentially the cake version of that.  Here is what you missed:

It is loaded with pecans and lots of butter flavory goodness.  Hmm....  guaranteed to knock yer lips right off.   You can find the recipe if you click here. 

I also made a batch of cookies, Oatmeal Scotchies.  Basically they're oatmeal cookies with butterscotch chips.  If you or someone you love enjoys butterscotch, these are a must-try.  I think the most important trick to making successful cookies is not to over bake them, and with these, it is easy to do - so let's be careful out there!  (Cue theme music from Hill Street Blues.)

I think it is fair to say that this time of year is perfect for baking and taking walks with Bender.  The weather is just so accommodating to both of those things.  I took Bender to one of our favorite places again, the waterfront of the Columbia River, the other day.  There had recently been a fire on the Oregon side of the river at an old hotel, and it was still smoldering and smoking a little bit.  You can see the smoke if you look across the river under the bridge. 

The river itself was beautiful, though.  This is truly one of our favorite walking places. 

Also, last weekend, I went to Bella Organic Farms out on Sauvie Island (same general place I took The Mob when by brother was here) and attended the Blackberry Bluegrass and Country Festival that they had going on.  I think it'll be an annual event, and I would definitely go again!  Bender was allowed to attend and I had the wonderful company of a great friend.  It was beautiful there and the bands that were playing were fun and impressive! 

 

 

Seems like there's been lots going on, but I am feeling inclined to go watch a couple of recorded episodes of NCIS right this moment.  I think it's fair to say that I have a case of the lazies all of a sudden!! 

 

I hope everyone had a fabulous kick-off to football season!!  GO POKES!!!  Whoot whoot!!

 





I-Heart-Zucchini. Seriously, I do.

This entry will be quick - short and sweet - just to share my zucchini experiences since my garden is producing and since I can't stop buying them at the farmers markets that I go to.  I have issues. 

The other night, I made some zucchini cakes (or patties or whatever) using a recipe that I got from Life's Ambrosia website.  It was very simple and I found I enjoyed them with a teeny tiny bit of sour cream on the side.  Some might would like them with ranch. 

Basically, shred a good sized zuke and drain as much of the liquid out as possible.  Put it in a bowl and mix it with about 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, 1 cup bread crumbs, 1 egg, 1/4 tsp paprika, a clove of garlic and, if you have it, a tiny sprinkle of freshly grated nutmeg.  I didn't have the nutmeg, so I made mine without it and they still turned out tasty.  Next time, I might would add some diced green onions. 

Here's the mix, the patties and the finished product:

Yum!!!



And then, tonight I decided to make a saute.  I diced up zukes, a portabella mushroom, carrots, sweet bell pepper, and some water chestnuts that I sauteed in a bit of olive oil with a coupla dashes of Worcestershire Sauce.  I consumed this delectable over some rice with a little bit of Golden Curry sauce on top.  Mmmm...mmmm... good!  I'm a sucker for the curry, but I love this dish.  It is one of my favorite ways to eat veggies, and it always tastes so good. 

I'm going to try some new zuke/squash recipes this weekend, and will be just delighted to share them with you, assuming they taste fabulous and all that. 

Ok.  I promised short and sweet, so we're done here for now!

The End. 
:)

Sweetness (and I'm not talking about Walter Payton!)

Another great weekend comes to a close as I get ready to go to bed and brace myself for the fast-approaching Monday morning. 

Bender and I visited another farmer's market yesterday, the one in Portland in the Hollywood District.  They had an event going on across the street from the market place called "The Dog Days of Summer" where Bender showed off his trickery and received some nice treats and cookies in exchange. 

I really must admit that I was hoping to find some more of those huge juicy blackberries that I had seen last weekend - and I wasn't disappointed!!  Which brings me to the introduction of my first recipe, Blackberry Coffee Cake. 

The recipe comes from Gold Medal's Best Baking Recipes magazine, and the recipe can be seen in full by clicking here. 

Ok... so check out these blackberries.  Aren't they mouth-watering?

I also made some really tasty Oatmeal Carmelitas.  These have been tasted and received the seal-of-approval!  The recipe is very easy and uses only a few key ingredients.  The original recipe, posted here, came from Pillsbury's Bake-Off Contest Prize-Winning Desserts magazine.  Here is a picture of my final product:

Ok... before I go, here is a step in making the caramelitas that, to me, looks so good!  It's where you cover the crust with chocolate chips, nuts and then caramel topping, which makes that gooey looking layer you see in the picture above.  Check this out:

I also made some other baked items, but will have to save the posting of those for a later date. My eyes are heavy and I must call it a night!  I have everything cut, wrapped and ready to haul in and share with Bender's teachers and with the families that are staying at the Portland Ronald McDonald House. 

I just feel like I can't wrap up this post without sharing a picture of my rotten pup enjoying one of his cookies from the market.  Here he is, being cute.

I think sometimes he wonders what the big deal is that makes me have to take pictures of every little thing he does.  Oh, if he could only talk...

Have a great week, everyone!

Fresh Goodies from the Market

Bender and I decided together this morning that we wanted to go to the Vancouver Farmer's Market this morning, walk around, and maybe even buy a few things.  And that's exactly what we did. 

The weather was very cooperative, sunny and warm but not hot.  There was a nice crowd there, but it was laid back and pleasant.  Bender got several pettings and scored a couple of free cookies from the vendor booths. 

There were many booths that had a lot of the same types of things in them:  Fresh fruits, vegetables, and beautiful fresh cut flowers.  It would have been easy to go crazy buying things that I didn't really need.  There were some very big, juicy looking blackberries that I struggled to pass by, and now wish I had bought some for baking.  Dang it.  Hindsight's 20/20, right? 

I did end up with quite a nice bag of goodies, though!  I've decided to try to turn over a new healthier leaf, so this is the first of what I anticipate being many steps towards that goal.

A couple of zukes (I have a couple from my garden, but wanted more!), a couple of pattypan squash, some sweet bell peppers (aren't they just beautiful colors?), some french green beans, a couple of portabella mushrooms, and one cucumber. 

I have some fresh dried pasta that I bought when I was in Seattle that's a sweet tomato flavor, and I'm planning to use the sweet peppers and some Italian sausage I bought from Top Choice Meat Market to make a new dish.  I'll share it on here when I do that in the next few days. 

And since I'm a sucker for squash, I couldn't pass up the pattypans, although I've never cooked with them before.  I'm sure I'll figure out something and I'm sure I'll like it. 

I have big plans for the mushrooms and green beans as well.  Oh, I am so excited!

I am going to try something new with the cucumber - maybe a facial mask of sorts.  Stay tuned...  there are definitely several delicious postings coming up in the near future!

Also going on this weekend at Esther Shore Park is the Vancouver Brew Fest.  As tempting as it was, especially since it was dog-friendly, I passed and came on home.  If the mobile entertainment that was going on outside of the gate was any indication, it's likely going to be a good time!  :)

And, lastly, here is Mr. Dog with one of his free cookies.  He wouldn't eat it at the park, but once we got home, he took it in his mouth and just trotted around with it for several minutes.  It's always funny when he does that.

That's all I've got for now!  I think I hear a glass of iced tea calling my name! 

Holy Heck It's Hot.

Well, I guess I asked for it.  I've been taunting my poor ol' brother with reports of our nice, cool weather up here in the Pacific Northwest, and then, BAM!, next thing you know, it's 102 degrees outside my house.  Cripes.  Even at that, Oklahoma's 113 degree weather still makes my 102 seem kinda wimpy and unworthy of complaint.

I do hope that they get beyond this dry spell and that the fires ease up.  I worry about my family, friends and the people that are out there fighting the fires in what is already extremely hot weather. 

So, this evening, I finally baked an easy and delicious new recipe.  It's from Pillsbury's Prize Winning Bake Off magazine and it's called Streusel Spice Cake.  Here's a pretty picture of the finished cake.

It's super easy, using a cake mix (which I usually avoid because I often don't have cake mixes handy).  Here's the recipe:

Cake:
1 pkg yellow cake mix
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup softened butter
5 eggs
1/4 cup flaked coconut
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1 oz unsweetened baking chocolate, melted

Filling:
1/2 cup flaked coconut
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2-3 Tablespoons milk
    (NOTE:  you can just use 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract if you don't have vanilla bean paste)

Heat oven to 350.  Grease and lightly flour bundt pan (I use the baking version of Pam). 

Beat together the cake mix, milk, butter and eggs.  Stir in coconut and nuts.  Stir in the melted chocolate, using a spoon or spatula to marble the batter.  Here's what mine looked like.   And I must apologize because I'm having a particularly difficult time editing my pictures tonight - so there's all sorts of glare and extra stuff in them that I don't necessarily want to include.  Blah!

In small bowl, mix the ingredients for the filling.  Reserve 1/2 cup of the filling. 

Poor 1/2 of the batter (about 2 cups) into the prepared bundt pan.  Sprinkle the filling on top of the batter. 

Poor remainder of the batter over the filling.  Top batter with the reserved 1/2 cup filling (hence the "streusel"!).

Bake in 350 degree oven for 55 minutes or until wooden pick inserted comes out clean.

Let cool in pan for about 5-10 minutes and then flip onto cake round or serving dish to allow cake to cool completely. 

Once cooled, prepare glaze.  Mix all ingredients, adding just enough of the milk to get desired consistency.  Spoon/drizzle over the cake. 

This particular pan made a beautiful cake and the glaze just slid into the tracks and made it even more pretty!!  The crunch of the nuts and the coconut give this cake nice texture and flavor. 

Easy peasy.

Now that the house has cooled off (yes, I did make a brilliant decision as to when to bake a cake in terms of the weather...), I believe it may be time for me to hit the hay.  I can't believe it's already another Monday tomorrow.  To that, I say, "Blah."

Stay cool, peeps!!

Sleeping Soundly in Seattle

First off...

Happy Birthday, Dad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hopefully you spent the day doing what you enjoy without causing any injury to yourself. 

So, for my recent adventures, I spent a couple of days up in Seattle.  Maybe I was celebrating my Dad's birthday for him a little early.  :) 

I took the train from Portland to Seattle and stayed at the Moore Hotel, which is nicely located so that I was able to get around very easily without needing a car.  It was just a few blocks away from Seattle's famous Pike Place Market. 

I love this market place.  There are so many shops and such a variety of wares.  It's easy to spend a lot of time in there! 

Also, just near the market is the brand new Seattle Great Wheel.  It was huge and I immediately headed there for a spin. 

Up close and... up:

And a view of the city:

That evening, I met some friends for some artisan pizza at Serious Pie.  I enjoyed the roasted king trumpet mushroom pizza with truffle cheese.  It was delicious.  Seriously delicious.  Others had the fennel sausage pizza, which was also very tasty!  Much to my happiness, Serious Pie was less than two blocks away from the Moore Hotel, so it couldn't have been much more perfect.  The only down side is that the wait was a bit long, about 1 1/2 hours for a table.  And it didn't seem to be an unusual situation.  So if you go, anticipate waiting - but know it's worth it!

The following day, I spent a fair amount of time at the market and then headed out via taxi that afternoon to the Pacific Science Center which is where the King Tut Exhibit is located.  The King Tut Exhibit was amazing.  I still can't believe how detailed and beautiful the artifacts were.  It was a great experience.  Here are a few pictures. It's hard to tell the size of the items, because there's not much to scale them to. 

The sarcophagus for Prince Thutmose's Cat. Aw, kitty.  It is about the size of a laundry basket, if a laundry basket was a heavy box made of stone with a lid.  I REALLY wanted to touch this one, but I refrained, surprisingly: 

Kneeling statue of Hatshepsut.  Hatshepsut was a queen who broke tradition and took over the throne ruling as pharaoh.  You can get an idea of the size of it from the people standing behind it.

Statues of King Khafre and Menkaure.  Khafre (the statue on the left) is the pharaoh whose face is on the Sphinx.  Menkaure is Khafre's son. 

Gold Canopic Coffinette.  This was encased in glass (many exhibits weren't) so you can see the reflection of a couple of people in the picture.  This piece was fairly small, but so amazingly detailed.  It held King Tut's stomach.  Oh yay!  You can kind of see if you look along the right side edge that it is a two-piece item that goes together and closes. 

 Statue of King Tut.  This was huge.  I don't know how tall, but it was really big and amazing. 

King Tut's bed that it's thought he used while living. 

So, after doing my exhibit tour, I hoofed it about 3 minutes down the street to Key Arena to watch Neil Diamond in concert.  I LOVED it!  I would go see him again in a heartbeat.  As one person said as we were all making our way out the door afterwards, "He's a class act."  And I agree!  I had a good seat, but not a great one.  It was down on the floor directly in front of the stage and I couldn't take my eyes off of him and his band.  I only took two pictures, and neither turned out very well, so I don't have any to share.  I'm still savoring the performance.  Awesomeness. 

Well tomorrow is the company picnic, so I'm really hoping to share a new recipe sometime soon.  I feel so neglectful of my oven lately!!  :)

Again, a big ol' happy birthday to my dear Dad.  I'm still hoping that you get a much deserved foot massage.  :)