Recipes

Butterbeer!

October 15, 2015 by Brada Leave a Comment

Butterbeer is a household favorite. At least once per year (usually at the beginning of the school year, before Halloween) our weekly movie night turns into a Harry Potter marathon spanning 8 weeks and full of fun fanciful treats the most desired of which is this amazing stuff. I actually make it every week for 8 weeks and it really never gets old. Usually when the run is up there’s a lot of “can we watch them all again?” at least, from the kids. Dad on the other hand wants to move onto something with superheros and shoot-em-ups and the Butterbeer and Pumpkin Pasties and other assorted pies/goodies get put back into the book to be taken out for the next round. But today, today I am unveiling the secret to all of you, my friends!

Start out with a big cup of brown sugar. I don’t know about you but pretty much anywhere I can sneak in brown sugar instead of white, I do. It’s made from molasses, did you know that?? Something about it’s nutty, earthy flavor just calls to me. And it’s absolutely perfect for sweetening just about anything in my opinion. It adds the right amount of grounding to this drink that it absolutely needs. Without it, I think it would float away on a buttery, creamy cloud and we’d never get to enjoy it!

Add 2 Tbsp of water, it doesn’t seem like a lot but it’s just enough to turn it into a liquid and that’s what we want in our sauce, right?

See, with just a little bit of water it spreads out nice and evenly

Don’t forget to stir it occasionally, that brown sugar doesn’t need much attention but we don’t want it to get all stuck to the bottom of the pan

While it’s heating up, measure out the salt

And the apple cider vinegar

And the cream, separately

Make sure your candy thermometer is in there, propped up on the side. I love those pretty glass tube ones. If you don’t already have one you know Amazon has your back and for less than $6 of course! You can just watch the mixture if you don’t have one and once it starts boiling a bit wait about a minute then turn the burner off. If you do have one, when it hits 240 degrees stop the heat!

Add the apple cider vinegar and salt, mix it up

Heavy cream, more mixing

And the butter. This is why we leave it on the burner, otherwise there really isn’t enough heat to melt that butter. You can watch it and if you think it’s too hot, take it off of the burner. Otherwise I leave it on to melt the butter and stir it up while it’s going.

When it’s all melted you have a beautiful carmelly looking syrup! I pour it into a mason jar to cool, so it doesn’t solidify in the bottom of the pan. It gets pretty sticky when it cools off! You’ll most likely need a spatula to get every last drop of sauce

This is, LITERALLY the secret sauce. You can either take it and drizzle it all over ice cream, whip it up into whipped cream (we kinda do this for the next part too, it’s amazing), dip cookies in it, make cookies WITH it, whatever you like. OR you can grab some cream soda and 1/2 Cup heavy cream and make the actual Butterbeer. Or, you could do a little of both! This is enough to make 8 glasses of butterbeer so if you only want a couple and don’t want to save any (it keeps in the fridge for 2 weeks!) you can go absolutely crazy with it. I’d love to hear what you cook up if you do. For those of you in it for the long haul, wait until the sauce is room temperature (or if you make it ahead of time, let it warm back up to room temperature from the fridge) and let’s make us some beer!

So you’ve decided to go all in, AWESOME! Start out by taking 3-4 TBSP of the sauce and plop it into the bottom of whatever glasses you choose, we have two different sets of mugs (one round one square, Mr Mom couldn’t decide between the two) and we use those because they look pretty. Mason jars, mugs, or regular cups work just fine too! This is the second half of a batch I’m working with here, that’s why there’s so little left; we used the other half last week, then I came back to finish up this post. Mmmmm

Take the rest (or the rest of half if you’re working on the first half) and put it in a nice big bowl with 1/2 cup heavy cream. If you want to be nicer to yourself you can use an electric mixer with the whipping attachment, because what we’re basically doing is a very light whipped cream.

There it is! Whew my arms are TIRED.

Pour the Cream soda into each of the mugs/cups stirring as you go, it will foam up pretty well all on it’s own but stir it to get it REALLY foamy and mixed up, the flavor is better of course too. You only want to fill up the glass until it’s about 3/4 of the way full, as baristas would say, leave room for the cream. And foam!

Action shot! Stir stir stir I use my long iced tea spoons for leverage!

Pour on the cream mixture, I caught it just as it’s dripping out of the bowl, I thought it looked pretty neat like that

Stir some more, you can see the ones on the left are a lot lighter than the ones on the right, those are the ones with the cream added

And VU-AL-A! Done! drink them while they’re icy cold, it shouldn’t be a problem they usually disappear pretty fast around here. They have a creamy butterscotchy flavor that reminds me of… absolutely nothing else I’ve ever tasted. Maybe a cross between butterscotch and salted caramel, but carbonated and creamy. YUM!

Butterbeer

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Ingredients

1 Cup Brown Sugar
2 Tbsp Water
4 Tbsp Butter
1/2 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1/4 Cup Heavy Cream
1/2 Cup Heavy Cream topping
A 2 Liter of cream soda

Instructions

In a pan or saucier combine brown sugar with 2 Tbsp water.
Bring to a boil over medium heat with a candy thermometer until it reaches 240 degrees, stirring occasionally. (If you don't have a candy thermometer when it comes to a gentle boil wait about a minute then turn it off.)
Leave the pan on the burner and add Butter, salt, vinegar and 1/4 cup Heavy Cream. Stir until smooth and cool to room temperature before using
In each glass add 3-4 Tbsp sauce and pour in cream soda while stirring, it should foam up quite a bit
In a large bowl or mixer whip the 1/2 cup heavy cream and 2 Tbsp sauce to make creamy topping, add to glass and mix. Enjoy!

Let me know what you think! They’re perfect for Halloween, or just to sit down and watch a Harry Potter movie. I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

Pumpkin Pasties

October 15, 2015 by Brada Leave a Comment

You could use store bought dough, OR you could make my super easy pie crust dough that I PROMISE will taste much better and be flaky and buttery and you can boast that is home made, plus once you’ve made it you’ll say OMG I’m never buying that mass produced stuff ever again that was much easier than I thought and tastes so much better…. Besides it’s only 5 ingredients and they’re all things that you probably already have around the house if you do any baking at all. Butter, All Purpose Flour, Sugar, Salt and Water. Seriously GO, we’ll be here when you come back. If you already made the pumpkin goop it will keep in the fridge for up to a week and it will take you maybe 15-20 minutes to make the dough then let it chill for an hour and you’re ready to rock.

OK now that you’re back (it was easy right??) cut the dough in half, then cut each half in half one or two more times depending on how many pies you want to make/how big you want them to be. I made 8 and they BARELY fit on a baking sheet when I crammed them all in there edge to edge, they’re a good size hand pie. Trust me, nobody complained or left a crumb behind in protest they were G-O-N-E.

Roll each ball out on a floured surface, I have a specialty (oooh fancy) pastry roller but really any rolling pin is fine; this was a gift and I like to use it for pastry because the dough seems to stick to the silicone surface a bit less than the wood one when I’m using a dough that has a higher butter content than say, pizza dough. Also it’s really long and you roll it flat, it doesn’t have handles like a wooden roller. But really anything kind of round that you can apply pressure with to make the dough evenly flat will do the trick.

When you have a flat round circle about 6 inches around, glop (that’s a technical term) on some of the pumpkin goop (that too) about 2-4 TBSP depending on how full you want them to be. Usually one batch of goop lasts two batches of pies for me, to give you a baseline. But you could use more or less depending on your tastes.

Once your goop is on the dough, fold one side over and press the edge with a fork to make it stick together and also pretty. Sometimes the goop squeezes out a bit. I don’t mind and I’ve never gotten a complaint about it! I think imperfection adds a little character too.

This is one of my smaller baking sheets, I have some that are bigger they probably would have had more room to spread out on but I was committed and they fit on here just fine! Line it with a parchment paper first so they don’t stick to the sheet, or you could spray it with a cooking spray if you don’t have parchment paper lying around. I couldn’t live without the stuff honestly and with a recipe like this, you could actually save the sheet/pan and use it again when you make them next time!

Melt a few Tbsp of butter and wipe down the surfaces of the pies both because, delicious, and also for the cinnamon sugar to stick to.

Then ~~sprinkle~~ pour on the cinnamon sugar don’t worry if it gets on the parchment paper too it will just bake into crispy little patties you (or your kids) can gobble up later!

YUM. They are super flaky and cinnamony and buttery. I love pumpkin pie but these have so much more crust and cinnamon sugar and they’re almost better because they’re also something that pumpkin pie is definitely NOT: Portable. Gobble them up! They’re great hot, or refrigerate them for the next day they’re ALSO great cold! With coffee too. Or Tea. Or water. Or milk. Or air. They’re just good.

Pumpkin Pasties

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Ingredients

2 Cups Pumpkin Puree canned or fresh
1/2 cup Sugar
1 Egg
1 1/2 Tbsp Ground Cinnamon
1/2 Tbsp Ground Ginger
1/4 Cup Melted Butter
1 Cup Sugar mixed with 1 Tsp Cinnamon

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Mix the pumpkin, sugar, egg, cinnamon and ginger together completely
Cut the dough in half 4 times, making 8 equal sized pieces and roll into balls.
On a floured surface, roll out dough balls one at a time into a circle about 6 inches across
Put about 2-4 Tbsp filling on 1/2 of the circle and fold over, press edges with fork and place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet
Brush the top of each pie with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar
Bake in preheated oven for 10-15 minutes or until brown and crispy, Enjoy!

Personally, I like these pies the next day, cold. Everybody tells me I’m crazy and they’re definitely good warm too, just a personal preference! How do you like them? Leave me a message in the comments below!

Home made Pumpkin Pop Tarts

October 1, 2015 by Brada Leave a Comment

I have a serious Pumpkin Dysfunction. If you don’t believe me, you’ll see over the next few weeks just how deep in I get! It’s a bit heavy. Or in this case, a bit light and flaky and delicious! I’ve always wanted to make home made pop tarts and yesterday I reached the point of no return. I’d made a batch of pie crust (and posted a video on YouTube!) and was debating what to do with it. So. Many. Options. And having some freshly cooked pumpkin this just came to me.

This is the first time I’ve made these, and I wouldn’t change a thing. It was an experiment all of the way through with educated guesswork and taste testing and it came out better than I could have imagined. I started with some home cooked pumpkin goop and a dream…

And Pumpkin pie spice of course, because pie-ey. I was going for a pumpkin pie like flavor but a pop tart like consistency and I think I got it right on the mark! Sometimes I’ll mix up the individual ingredients for pumpkin pie spice but this time I figured there was enough experimenting going on already 😀

Sugar, white. I strongly advocate half white and half dark brown sugar whenever possible, the flavors seem to balance out perfectly; and it was no different here

Same amount of Sugar, brown! I used 2 Tbsp of each

And mix it all up! I started out using a spoon I’m not sure what I was thinking

I switched to a much more practical spatula half way through, scraping the bowl was a little awkward the other way

A leftover egg white from a recipe yesterday that was saved for exactly this, mixed with a Tbsp of water it makes a perfect egg wash!

So there was a batch of my pie dough in the fridge which you can find the recipe for here if you haven’t already made some, it’s a pretty quick dough but it does need to set for at least an hour in the fridge after you make it. Then split it in half and roll out one half as rectangularlike as possible

Patty cake patty cake bakers mom, roll me some dough cuz I want some!

And rollllllll it….

Nice and big and flat and semi rectangular

Handy pizza cutter, useful for so many things. Including cutting dough into a more useful shape!

That’s more rectangular like it!

Then in half length wise (can you see where this is going?)

Then into thirds, or if you want them smaller feel free to cut more, but I wanted them to be about the same size as regular pop tarts (maybe a bit bigger) The dough definitely could have been rolled out thinner but I like how they puffed up so nicely in the end!

Wipe some of that egg wash onto each piece and roll out the other half for the tops, I worked back in the edge pieces we cut off earlier too, there was some leftover dough after the roll out (from cutting off the edges) so I ended up making an ‘extra’ tart and a little foldover pie for the little guy too because there was just a tiny bit of extra extra dough!

Then add some filling to each tart, about 1/6th or 1/7th etc depending on how many you ended up making (2TBSP or so) , it turned out to be just the right amount for me to have 7 healthy tarts and that one tiny tart

Then smoosh down the edges with a fork to give it that signature look

There they all are lined up and ready to go…. almost

More egg wash on top, and this is where I messed up; you want to make sure to poke 4-5 holes in the top for the steam to get out while they’re cooking. I realized after they’d been in the oven about 5 minutes that I neglected to do it and pulled them out, got out a skewer and poked the holes, WHEW! But I almost didn’t and I don’t want you to end up in the same boat.

While they’re cooking; glaze! This is pretty basic, powdered sugar

Cinnamon of course, I figured a cinnamon glaze would compliment the pumpkin perfectly. Spoiler- IT DOES.

Vanilla, because I’ll seriously sneak vanilla into anything. Like literally anything.

Milk because that’s what makes it a glaze!

Stir it up, I wouldn’t add any more milk maybe add it a tsp at a time, it won’t seem like enough but by 4 you’ve got a pretty watery glaze going

The pies came out nice and toasty and brown, I really wanted to gobble one up on the spot but I’d taste tested the glaze (come on don’t tell me you wouldn’t) and it was so good I steeled my resolve and waited

There’s my extra tart and mini tart for the little guy it was pretty cute too

You definitely want to wait until they have cooled off or the glaze is going to run off of them even more than mine already did! Start out with a little at a time in the middle, it helps not to lose all of it off of the edges. I ended up doing two coats because it had to be pretty thin on the first coat not to dribble off. I don’t really mind that it did a bit though, they look so much better than the store bought mass produced ones!

This is after the first coat, a little thin looking I thought and I had extra glaze (I know, there’s no such thing as extra glaze) so I did a second coat

I think they looked better after the second coat, don’t you? They dried pretty quickly so it wasn’t a big deal waiting

And they taste so. good. How good you’re imaging them tasting, just double that and you should be really close to the mark. I was surprised, and I invented the little lovelies!

A little extra glaze dripping off the side just makes me want to eat it that much more. Is that weird?

Pumpkin Pop Tart Filling

Ingredients

1/2 Cup Pumpkin canned or fresh cooked
1 Tbsp Pumpkin Pie Spice
2 Tbsp Brown Sugar
2 Tbsp White Sugar
Pinch of Salt
1 Egg White mixed with 1 Tbsp water egg wash
3/4 Cups Powdered Sugar
1/2 Tbsp Ground Cinnamon
4-5 Tbsp milk
1/4 Tbsp Vanilla Extract

Instructions

Take Premade Pie Dough out to warm up
Mix together pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice, brown sugar, white sugar and pinch of salt in a bowl, set aside
Cut the dough in half and roll out one portion on a floured surface
Cut off edges to make a rectangle, then cut in half lengthwise and thirds
Move dough rectangles to parchment paper lined baking sheet
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Roll out the second portion of dough, and cut the same way as the first
Egg wash the dough pieces on the parchment paper
Add ~2Tbsp Pumpkin mix to each rectangle, covering with a second rectangle and crimping the edges with a fork
Wipe tops of tarts with egg wash
Poke 4-5 holes in the top of each tart
Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes or until golden, remove from oven
Mix together Powdered sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and milk
Once tarts have cooled, top each with 1-2 coats of glaze, allow to dry, Enjoy

So, will you make them? They’re a heck of a lot easier than you think and so so worth it. I am adding this one to the Pumpkin Hall Of Fame, these are getting made big and made often! Let me know if you do in the comments I’d love to hear how it went

5 Ingredient All Purpose Pie Crust

September 28, 2015 by Brada Leave a Comment

This recipe makes a perfect 5 Ingredient all purpose pie crust that you can use for everything, from hand pies to pot pies to pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving! I’ll be showing you lots of recipes from here on out to use this crust with, so you may have come to this recipe from another one down the road and if so, welcome! If not, look forward to all of the fantastic uses for this coming in the future. Let’s get started, this is a pretty simple crust to make, like my biscuit recipe the only thing you really have to be careful with is keeping things cold.

Mix up the dry ingredients and cut the butter in, you can use a fork if you don’t have a pastry cutter BUT I’d suggest getting one, they’re very inexpensive (this one is less than $6 on Amazon) and they’re so incredibly useful for pretty much any recipe where you’re baking and also using butter. It makes your dough much more consistent both faster and easier than using a fork and with many recipes (like this one) keeping the butter cold is important!

Then mix up the whole deal and start slowly adding ice water, the dough will start to come together. You can add it a TBSP at a time if you want to be really careful or add about 1/2 a cup then dribble a TBSP at a time in until it all comes together. I live in a pretty dry climate so usually I need the whole cup but you may or may not depending. I like to mix it in with my hands, they seem to work the dough better than anything else

Sometimes I take it out of the bowl when it’s together enough and work it on the cutting board, once you are working with dough you can really pull everything together. Don’t work it too much though, we want that butter to stay in little pockets and as cold as possible! That’s why we use ice water instead of room temperature. When it’s done wrap it up in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for at least an hour so it’s nice and cold before you use it.

I even made a YouTube video of this recipe, so you can follow along with me if you like 🙂

All Purpose Pie Crust

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour

Total Time 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients

2 1/2 Cups Flour
1 Tbsp Sugar
1 Tsp Salt
1 Cup 2 sticks Cold cubed butter
1 Cup Cold water as needed

Instructions

Using a pastry cutter, mix together flour, salt and sugar
Cut in butter
Slowly add cold water, about 1/2 cup at first then 1 Tbsp at a time until the dough comes together but is not wet.
Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour.

Do you already have some ideas of what to use this crust for? I do! There’s a great recipe coming up later this week that I make at least a few times a year AND is highly requested around this time of year in particular. It’s part of my upcoming Harry Potter series. Are you excited? Let me know what you think if you try this crust in the comments below, and if you want to make Thursdays recipe along with me, make a batch of crust on Wednesday so it will be nice and chilled and ready to go 😉

Easy Pilaf Recipe

September 24, 2015 by Brada Leave a Comment

I love this easy pilaf recipe, and what’s even BETTER is you can use my Basic Bone Broth recipe to make the stock to use IN the pilaf. I did! I skimmed the top 1/2 cup or so of oil off of the top, if you don’t have that much or use canned broth you can just use about the same amount of vegetable oil and coat the bottom of a pan, heat to medium low.

Start by dicing up 2-3 carrots and half of an onion and half of a cup of fresh parsley and sautee in the pan with the oil until soft.

Add the rice and sautee all together to get it just a little crispy

Nice and warm, and ready for the broth! I put in a little salt and pepper at this point just to add some flavor

Then pour in all of the broth, and a tbsp of Thyme (optional)

Let it simmer until the rice is cooked and all of the liquid is absorbed

And it looks something like this!

Serve it up and please, take a better picture than this. It was late, I was tired… I have no more excuses. But it sure was tasty and got gobbled up quickly!

I know, that picture isn’t the best but the dinner definitely was. I made some baked rosemary-oliveoil-sea salt green beans to go along with the pilaf and it was super good, my husband was even willing to eat it for lunch the next day and he hates eating the same thing two days in a row

Pilaf Recipe

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 45 minutes

Ingredients

3 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup oil
1 1/2 cup rice
1/2 onion chopped
2-3 carrots chopped
1/2 cup fresh parsley
1 tbsp Thyme optional
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Heat 1/2 cup of oil to medium low in a pan
Add carrots, onions and parsley and sautee until soft
Add rice and brown slightly
Pour in chicken broth and thyme, simmer until all liquid is absorbed
Serve it up and take a picture!

What will you eat with your pilaf? Did you try it with beef broth? Other vegetables? Let me know in the comments below!

How to Make Basic Bone Broth

September 21, 2015 by Brada Leave a Comment

I use to think I’d never know how to make basic bone broth, let alone write a post about it, but it’s surprisingly simple. I may put up another post on using a whole chicken but I never waste a good chicken bone so this is a tutorial using only a couple of leftover thigh bones which made enough broth for a nice pilaf! Waste not want not right? With a whole chicken it’s really just a whole lot more bones and a whole lot more of everything else too anyway, the principle is the same.

You don’t want to take the meat off while they’re hot (these were leftover from the night before) so if you just made some fresh hot chicken you want to wait until they cool off completely first! Then peel off all of the meat, if you are using bones with the meat still on them. Don’t toss out that good chicken! I used mine for tacos but you could use it for fried rice, chicken salad, even an omelette!

See how much chicken came off of that bone? Wow! Now combine the bones (I had two) with about 4 cups of water and some chopped garlic

I love fresh garlic but for things like this I totally cheat. I get these huge jugs of chopped garlic at Coscto and use it all. of. the. time. I put about 3 Tbsp in with the bones and the water, and 3-4 Tbsp of kosher salt

Then set my dutch oven (or a big pot works too) to simmer for 3-4 hours. That way you get as much of that chicken flavor out of the bones as possible!

I had to take a close up too, doesn’t that look good??

When it’s done (and your house smells AMAZING) let it cool then strain it; I have a nice meshy soup strainer (this is the one I use – Winco MS3A-8D Strainer with Double Fine Mesh, 8-Inch Diameter (affiliate link) for this, definitely worth dropping a few dollars for and it latches right over the edge of a bowl or another pot if you want to strain it that way. Then all you have left is that beautiful golden liquid

It ended up making about 3 1/2 cups, including the sheen of oil on the top. I took this picture when I was using the broth for a nice pilaf and had already skimmed off a good portion of the oil. There will be a post about that next week!

How to Make Basic Bone Broth

Ingredients

2-3 chicken thigh bones
4 cups of water
3 Tbsp chopped garlic
3-4 Tbsp kosher salt

Instructions

Remove chicken from the bones (if they aren't already bare)
Add bones to 4 cups of water in a pot or dutch oven
Add Fresh garlic and salt, bring to a simmer for 3-4 hours, strain
Use for anything! Soup, Pilaf, Veggies, etc

What do you use broth for? There are so many things you can do with it! Let me know in the comments below

Blueberry Sour Cream Scones

September 10, 2015 by Brada Leave a Comment

I have been picking up blueberries like they are going out of style! Well, they ARE going out of season so that’s enough justification, right? This is a recipe I make pretty often and I’ll tell you a secret; you don’t ‘need’ the blueberries. The scones are perfectly delicious made exactly the same way without blueberries or even with whatever other berry/fruit you’d like to replace them with. But since blueberries happen to be in season and happen to be delicious and a few cartons seem to sneak into my shopping basket every time I go to Sprouts lately… In they go.

If you don’t have blueberries or are more into say, raspberries or bananas or peaches or something, feel free to substitute a cup of those instead. You have my permission. Or, just leave them out completely and top with some raw sugar, they’re great that way too. Besides, I usually end up covering mine in creme fraiche and jam, berries or no berries!

First mix up the dry ingredients, that’s a pretty good rule of thumb for most baked goods I’ve found! I use the pastry cutter but you can use a fork if you’re going to use that to cut the butter in. I would encourage you to pick up a pastry cutter (affiliate link) though, they’re cheap and I use it for so many recipes it’s not even funny!

Measure out the cold butter and sour cream (or creme fraiche works too) and separate the egg white and yolk into two bowls

Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or fork, you want the butter to be as cold as possible so there are little buttery pockets of love in the dough

Pour in that pretty golden yolky goodness

Then the sour cream, or in reverse order if you want, it doesn’t really matter. Then mix them in, the dough will get pretty cakey

But so pretty and creamy too

And the cream which really pulls it together into actual goopy dough, try to add all of the dairy products while they’re cold, this whole process is actually really quick, even stopping in between steps to take pictures!

Then it will look like this, a nice soft dough

You can either mix in blueberries with a spatula (gently) or press them into the dough after it’s flattened out

This time I mixed them in, but I’ve tried it both ways and both ways work! If you press them in after the dough is already flat, you’re a lot less likely to smush any of them, it’s really up to you

Flatten the dough out on a floured surface into a circle, it doesn’t have to be perfect I actually kind of like it looking more rustic!

Then cut it up like a pizza, I use my lettuce knife because it’s plastic and easier to clean than metal plus it sort of helps me justify having it, right? (No longer a unitasker!)

I separate them as I go so they’re easier to pick up and put on the baking sheet

Then spread them out as much as you can on a parchment paper lined baking sheet (no sticking!)

Wipe them down with the egg white we separated out earlier, this part is optional but it helps the sugar stick and it also gives them a nice shiny finish after they’re baked

I like to sprinkle mine with either sugar in the raw or if I have some, vanilla sugar. I happen to have some now, it’s so incredibly tasty and gives just a hint of vanilla. Vanilla is by far my favorite flavor and the smell is to die for.

That’s my home made vanilla sugar, the stuff of legends!

I get the plate, grandmas homemade raspberry jam and my home made creme fraiche ready while they bake, can you tell I’m excited??

You can’t blame me now, can you? They’re so golden and crispy and juicy and berry-ey! And hot fresh out of the oven is the best way to have them!

We had a few ‘leftover’ blueberries so the little guy and I snacked on them while devouring our scone this morning! Never too many Blueberries when they’re fresh and ripe like these! YUM!

Blueberry Sour Cream Scones

Ingredients

2 Cups of All-Purpose Flour
2 Tbsp Baking Powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp Sugar
5 Tbsp cold cubed butter
1 Cup Sour Cream or creme fraiche
1 egg separated
1/2 Cup Heavy Cream
1 Cup fruit/berries optional
Sanding or Raw Sugar optional

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees
In a bowl, mix dry ingredients well
Cut in cold butter with pastry cutter/fork/knife
Mix in Egg Yolk and Sour cream with spatula
Stir in Heavy Cream until combined
If you're adding fruit mix it in now; I suggest doing so by hand with berries or they're likely to get smushed. You can also press them into the dough after flattening it if you like
Pull dough together and flatten on floured surface into a disk
Cut pizza-style into as many pieces as you like and place on parchment lined baking sheet
Wipe with egg whites and sprinkle with sugar (optional)
Bake in preheated oven for 12-15 minutes or until the tops start to brown
Remove from oven, Enjoy!

Do you like scones? I so rarely see them anywhere any more, but I love them myself. If you try any variations to this recipe or even just enjoyed it, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

Super Loaded Nachos

September 3, 2015 by Brada Leave a Comment

Super Loaded Nachos

Ingredients

1/2 a bag of chips your choice
2 cups shredded cheese
1/2 Can black olives sliced
1/2 Cup fresh cilantro
1 Diced Tomato
1/2 Can Corn
1/2 Cup diced Peppers optional
1/2 Can Black Beans optional

Instructions

Cut/Chop/Dice all of the veggies
Preheat oven to 350
Lay Chips out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper
Layer with Cheese
Top with Toppings as you like
Bake for 15-20 minutes, Enjoy!

These are not your fast food loaded nachos, oh no. These are some fully loaded all out real food nachos with PIZZAZ! I was inspired to make these by my Bountiful Baskets excursion when I was stuck with a bag of ‘mystery peppers’ and no idea what to make with them. Necessity is the mother of invention, right? I finally got up the nerve to try one and they were like little red pepperoncini’s so I thought about it and whammy! NACHOS. Besides, I needed something to go with my homemade Pico De Gallo from Monday 😉

Besides, who doesn’t love an opportunity to throw some cilantro around and melt some cheese? I had a bunch of fresh cilantro and tomatoes anyway, a can of black olives because lately the little guy is obsessed with them (like daddy) and I pretty much always have a can of corn or two in the cupboard you know for… things and stuff. And because, Corn.

So I cleaned and chopped up these little beauties, they are just a bit spicy but that’s ok. I’m normally not a fan of spice but they really weren’t too bad and I was VERY careful to take out the little seeds in there! Those pack a WHOLLOP.

And everything is ready to pile on! Doesn’t that look so inviting and tasty already? And we haven’t even added the cheese yet! We need cheese.

Ok if you insist, another shot. They do look tasty!

Now, the FUN PART! Layer on the chips and cheese, then start with the toppings

Peppers

And Cilantro

And cornandolivesandtomatoes and….. are those black beans? Yeah I may have snuck those in too

More cheese! Then pop it in the oven

Until it’s nice and melty, YUM!

And serve up on some really fancy plates with salsa, guac, pico, you know whatever the mood strikes you!

Simple Crab Salad

August 27, 2015 by Brada Leave a Comment

This simple crab salad is perfect for pregnant ladies like myself! I’ll explain. I’ve been reading this amazing book – Brain Rules for Baby (Updated and Expanded): How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five because even on baby number 4 I know I have a lot to learn and learning I AM! One of the most interesting things I learned recently is that Omega 3’s are as important for baby’s brain in the third trimester as Folic Acid is in the first trimester, and even more surprising is that the potential mercury problems all pregnant women hear about are actually far outweighed by the benefits. Not to mention (oh no, I’m mentioning!) that there are plenty of choices of fish, that are also high in Omega 3’s, without the high levels of mercury we’ve been warned against.

This is kind of poetic because, for both #2 and #3 I was craving fish like MAD in the final months and I’ve found myself gobbling up crab salad and dreaming of fish a lot lately. My family is not of the same mind on this unfortunately, none of them are fish fans. So one way I can get MY fix without pushing slabs of salmon on my unwilling progeny (and even more unwilling hubby!) is to have something around that I can nibble on when needed as a snack. There aren’t a lot of options for fish snacks (I’m not talking about Goldfish) but crab salad is kind of perfect. There are extra veggies (as many as you want!) and I make crab salad with imitation crab which is actually white fish and very high in Omega 3’s! Let’s go!

Start with a few stalks of green onion, I like to cut them up with my cooking shears. They tend to get kind of slippery on the cutting board and I’ve found that it is actually faster for things like this!

Then a few carrots, chop those up as small as you like them, I snuck a few celery stalks in there too but I didn’t take a picture. If you’d like you could throw in some diced cucumbers or radishes too!

See? It even says on the package that they have Omega 3’s, perfect. Regular imitation crab is perfect for this, I get these 8oz bags at the grocery store and I usually buy a few when they are on sale, they freeze very well then I can just grab one when the mood strikes.

It’s already chopped up, sure. But I like it a little more finely chopped. You can leave it in chunks if you like, or some people buy it in sticks too.

Just pile it on top of the veggies

I use approximately 1/2 cup of mayo. It’s really just to taste. Some people like it to be wetter and some like it drier, I’m like Goldilocks and it’s sort of in between; just right!

I add 1 tsp of sugar, you really don’t have to but I find it gives it that little extra sweetness I want. Then just mix it up and pop it in the fridge! I usually like to taste it around now too, both because my mouth is watering like crazy and to make sure it’s right, but I prefer it ice cold so I refrigerate it for an hour or so before serving myself up some.

Crab Salad

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 20 minutes

Ingredients

1 package crab meat 8 oz
3 green onions cut
2 carrots diced
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup mayo
2-3 celery stalks chopped (optional)

Instructions

Place green onions, carrots and celery (optional) into a mixing bowl
Chop up crab meat and mix into vegetables
Add mayo and sugar and combine
Refrigerate for at least an hour, serve

6 Ingredient Buttermilk Biscuits!

August 10, 2015 by Brada Leave a Comment

Let’s Make 6 Ingredient Buttermilk Biscuits! A staple in my home. Between these and Creme Fraiche (there will be a post on that in the future I’m sure) I always have Buttermilk in stock. I am a huge fan of baked goods. I’ve passed on this love to my children who all start circling the kitchen excitedly whenever they see the flour canister open on the counter. Even Dad can be seen poking his head in and sniffing around looking for goodies when he sees the commotion stirred up with a puff of flour! So when I say I treat these biscuits like a kind of edible art, I don’t say so lightly. And I am happy to benefit you fine friend with the result of many hours in the kitchen whittling this recipe down to a science.

BONUS- they only take 6 ingredients to make!

This is my all time favorite biscuit recipe and I make them just about every week for my family. They are flaky, cakey, and buttery; and always gobbled up excitedly, plus they make the house smell amazing, and they’re actually pretty simple to make as long as you do everything in order! So let’s get started.

BUTTER. This is essential! And the butter must be cold, I can’t stress that enough. The temperature of both the butter and the buttermilk has to be cold, you could even stick the butter in the freezer for a few minutes if you like, it won’t hurt anything but if the butter is room temperature or warm things get sticky. So what I always do is cut the butter up ahead of time and put it in the fridge. If you’re impatient you can put it in the freezer instead but make sure it’s cold before you use it.

The size of the cubes is not so terribly important, we just want them in smaller bits so they incorporate into the dry ingredients without getting at all warm which is much easier if they are already somewhat broken apart. After getting them chopped up, put the bowl in the fridge (or freezer) while we mix up the dry stuff.

Flour, sugar, baking powder and salt, whisk them up. This is the most ingredient heavy part of the recipe, otherwise we only need butter and buttermilk!

Nice and mixed up! Time to get the butter back out, make sure it’s cold then take a pastry cutter (if you don’t have one, a big fork works ok too) and break it up until it’s nice and crumbly, it will look something like this-

Perfect! And if you are going to make these often I’d suggest getting a pastry cutter, it makes this easier plus you can use it for all of your pastry recipes. I use mine for everything from cookies to mashed potatoes if I’m just looking to make a small batch. Don’t laugh, it works! If you want to pick one up they have them for $5-10 on Amazon here – Winco 5 Blade Pastry Blender, Stainless Steel (affiliate link) That’s the one I have and it’s one of the cheaper ones too, it does the job perfectly.

Now comes the tricky part, measure out the buttermilk (or set it aside ahead of time) and pour it nice and cold on top of the rest, goopy!

I always get to feel like a kid playing in the mud at this point, no that’s not why I make biscuits so often… but it doesn’t hurt! Get your hands in there and mix it up gently until a dough forms

Yes, taking that picture WAS tricky. Once it’s all pulled together (it won’t take long and the dough should still be pretty cold) place the dough on a floured surface like so

Then gently flatten it until it’s about 1/2 – 1 inch thick, depending on how thick you want your biscuits/how much you want to make the dough stretch to make more of them

It will look something like that, I like the finger ridges all over, it gives the biscuits texture and character! Plus the less you mess with the dough at this point the better. Now take a biscuit cutter (you can actually get a whole set of these for around $10, I love Amazon.com! Baker’s Secret 1067738 3-Piece Biscuit Cutter Set ) or a glass to punch out the biscuits.

Try to punch them close to the edge and close together if possible, but you won’t be able to use all of the dough this way. Not to worry, my kids actually fight over the ‘weird biscuits’ I make out of the end pieces!

No dough wasted here! I take all of the pieces that were around the circle cut biscuits and kind of pretzel them up into circle like shapes and put them around the outside of the others. Not because they’re any less delicious, but I set them on the baking sheet as I cut them out and they’re last. You want the biscuits JUST touching each other and all close together if possible on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.

My secret weapon; MORE BUTTER! I melt about 2 tbsp of butter in a small ramekin and brush it onto the biscuit tops just before putting them in the 450 degree preheated oven. By now I’m drooling

Couldn’t you almost just gobble them up right now? But they get even better once they’re hot and crumbly, which only takes 10-15 minutes and it’s well worth the wait!

You’ll probably be tempted to eat one of the edge biscuits right away, I always am. They don’t even need butter but as you probably guessed I’m not going to be the one to stop you if you want to put some on them! They’re also great with jam or creme fraiche or…. Dinner!

Mmmmmm Enjoy!

6 Ingredient Buttermilk Biscuits!

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Ingredients

1/2 Cup butter plus 2 tbs melted to brush on the tops if you want
1 cup buttermilk
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Instructions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees
Cut 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter and put it in the fridge (or freezer) and measure out 1 cup buttermilk and put that in the fridge, melt 2 tbsp additional butter in a small bowl or ramekin, set aside
In a large bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt, whisk
Cut in the cold butter until it looks like cornmeal
Pour in the buttermilk and knead dough with your fingers until it all comes together, then pat dough out onto a lightly floured surface until it's about 1/2 to 1 inch thick
Cut with biscuit cutter or glass cup
Place biscuits on a parchment paper lined baking sheet close together and brush with 2 tbsp melted butter
Put baking sheet with biscuits in the oven and bake until golden brown or 10-15 minutes, then remove from oven and cool on a baking rack or cutting board

Enjoy! With dinner or without, they’re really great all by themselves too. Also, if there are any left over the next morning I’ll usually make egg and cheese biscuit sandwiches with them which they are PERFECT for, especially if you make them a little thicker. Leave a comment below if you like them! Or if you don’t, I’d love to hear from you regardless.