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Beef Stroganoff

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You know Hamburger Helper right? Many of us (in my generation anyway) grew up on that stuff. Boy did we not know what we were missing! And I’m making this version the easy way, don’t worry no cream sauce by hand here! But none of that powdered junk, either. Once you’ve made it this way you’ll wonder why you ever settled for powder in the first place! Ready? Let’s go!

Sautee up some beef, just like you would for the ‘Helper’ but with a whole chopped onion in the mix. I know I’ve said it before but onions, seriously. How can they do anything but make a recipe better? It’s like they were put here on earth as consolation for any bad savory meal to lean on in it’s time of need.

While that’s browning, I start up a pot of water to boil. You really don’t need a pot this big. I just use this pot a lot, for stocks and things usually so it’s always handy and eh. Why not?

OK back to our meat, which has browned up nicely! This is the part where we cheat a little and make it easier on ourselves. Hey, it’s this or making a cream sauce from scratch, which I’m far from opposed to but some days you just don’t have time. Enter, Campbells! You can use cream of ANYTHING. I prefer cream of mushroom but Mr Mom can’t stand mushrooms (this is a constant source of dissension in our household) and cream of celery really just tastes like basic cream of soup, you don’t even notice the celery. So I use that.

Refill the can (just like you would with condensed soup and water) with milk and pour that in too, then mix it up really well and let it simmer

While it’s simmering, add the noodles to that boiling water and get them al-dente. It’s ok if they cool off a bit while this is cooking, the whole lot is going in the oven in a bit anyway

Add pepper, because it’s absolutely necessary for something like Stroganoff to have pepper in it. Trust me.

Salt, because everything needs salt. Even sweet isn’t sweet without salt. And stir it up

Now we have our drained noodles in a baking dish and our meaty cream saucey concoction in the pan. Time to have a wedding!

Just dump it on in, simple enough right? Then mix up the lot, cover it with aluminum foil and bake in the oven for 30 minutes or longer, if you need to keep it warm until everybody shows up from practice, clubs or work.

Pair it with some salad for balance and bread because bread! You can even take that bread and pile some beef stroganoff up on it and eat it together, so so good.

 

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Beef Stroganoff

Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 14 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 29 minutes
Servings 4 people

Ingredients

  • 2 Lbs Ground Beef
  • 1 Onion Chopped
  • 1 Can Cream of anything soup
  • 1 Can of Milk
  • 1 Tsp Pepper
  • 2 Tsp Salt
  • 1/2 Lb 8oz egg noodles

Instructions

  1. Chop one whole onion
  2. Brown Beef in pan with chopped onions
  3. Add in can of cream of soup
  4. Fill Can with milk and add to pan, mix
  5. Add Pepper and Salt, combine
  6. Cover and let simmer for 30-45 minutes
  7. Set pot of water to boil
  8. Add Egg noodles and boil until al-dente
  9. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  10. Drain noodles and add to oven safe dish
  11. Pour in cream sauce/meat over noodles, stir
  12. Cover dish with aluminum foil
  13. Place in preheated oven for 30 minutes, serve

Have you ever had home made Beef Stroganoff before? Or just the boxed stuff? What do you think? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below

Chocolate Turtles

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This recipe is a little bit nostalgia and a whole lot chocolate and caramel and pecan. I pretty much love anything with caramel and chocolate. Add in something crunchy and I’m in heaven; Twix is my favorite candy bar but these little babies are one of my absolute favorite confections. I could eat them anytime but they’re traditionally found around the holidays especially in home made form like Peanut Brittle; but CHOCOLATE. I prefer milk chocolate but this could easily be made with the equivalent semi sweet or dark chocolate and they’d be just as good if not a little less sweet. Are you ready to make chocolate turtles ?? I know you’re ready to eat them just LOOK at those!

Start with a parchment paper lined baking sheet and either butter spray or you could use actual butter and butter the pan; the point really is to keep the caramel and chocolate from sticking and it isn’t strictly necessary, they might not; but why take the chance?

Pecan halves go on the buttered pan, I buy these little bags in the baking section at the grocery store so the ‘halves’ aren’t all intact to make the perfect little feet on the turtles but I don’t mind. I’ll show you how we deal with the little pieces in a bit

Everybody into the preheated oven! Try to spread them out relatively evenly so they all have a chance to get equally toasty

Wrapped caramels! While the nuts are toasting you could start unwrapping caramels, it makes me feel like the squirrels in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory who are all sitting at their little stations shelling nuts; maybe that’s just me. Or maybe it’s the nuts.

You can see they’re all beautiful and toasty now! If you skip the toasting step it really changes the texture of the whole thing (don’t ask me how I know that…) so I’d advise against it, but it’s up to you. It only takes 5-10 minutes and they’re ready!

Pick out the super pretty (or acceptable) pieces and arrange them in little stars, these are the turtle feet. You should have about half of the nuts, mostly in small pieces, left. Some people use 5 nuts it’s up to you, I like 4. Give them a little room because we’re going to have caramel and chocolate spreading all over and you don’t want to accidentally combine two turtles, then you’ll have one big turtle and you’ll have to eat the whole thing…. maybe the spacing isn’t that important come to think of it…

One caramel per each, please!

Put them back in the oven and let that caramel melt then set them out to cool and harden while we get the chocolate ready

Double boiler time! You could also take a bag of chocolate chips and put them in a (non metal) bowl in the microwave for 15 second increments, stirring them between rounds until they melt. It works too, but I have the double boiler so why not use it? If you don’t the microwave totally works just watch it closely and make sure to stir every 15 seconds! With the double boiler, fill the bottom to the fill line and put it on the stove over medium low heat.

Add chocolate chips to the top portion

And stir them about every 15-30 seconds until they get nice and melted!

By now the turtles should be pretty much cooled off, dollop as much melted chocolatey goodness over them as you’d like! I’d only use about half; we’re going to need the other half in a bit

MMMMMMMM Melty gooey! Depending on where you live, you may want to pop these into the fridge or freezer now to set. I live in super hot Arizona right now so if I leave them on the counter they will pretty much stay like this and never get solid. I slide the parchment paper onto a cutting board and pop that into the fridge for 10-15 minutes and they come out perfect though

All nice and ready to gobble up!

So those remaining pieces; we need to use them right? Well actually while we started the chocolate I arranged them evenly in little clusters…..

Popped on a caramel each and stuck them in the still warm oven, then once they got melty, kind of piled up the nuts on top of the caramel so they stuck together. The caramel is more tacky than melty so it’s not scalding hot and molten lava or anything. So by the time the other turtles go to the fridge to cool

We can use the other half of the chocolate to cover these little lumps and while they’re not as adorable as the turtles, they’re exactly as delicious!

Turtle Power!! These make a great addition for a Harry Potter night too, sure they’re no chocolate frogs but I didn’t hear any complaining!

And just look how cute they are <3

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Chocolate Turtles

Ingredients

  • Baking Spray optional
  • 6 oz Pecan Halves
  • 10-20 Wrapped Caramels
  • 11.5 oz chocolate chips

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  2. Spray or butter baking sheet lined with parchment paper
  3. Spread out pecans on sheet and bake in oven for 5-10 minutes, until browned
  4. Remove from oven and turn down to 250 degrees
  5. Arrange Pecans in clusters of 4-5 and top with caramels
  6. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes, until the caramel melts, remove and set out to cool
  7. Once the clusters and pan are cool (15-20 minutes) add water to double boiler and put on stove, add chocolates to the top portion
  8. Heat burner to medium low and stir regularly until melted
  9. Pour equal amounts of chocolate on each cluster and allow to set, enjoy!

What will you use them for? Some people package up sweets like this for Christmas presents, we eat them for Harry Potter nights or just because they’re delicious! I do particularly like them around the holidays though, anything sweet is welcome when it’s chilly and you’re snuggled up with family! I’d love to hear what you did with them in the comments below.

Treacle Tart

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If you’re as big of a Harry Potter fan as my kids everyone in my house is then you know that Harry Potters favorite treat is Treacle Tart. It’s featured at many feasts at Hogwarts and is actually a real thing. It’s a traditional English dessert that is made with, you guessed it, Treacle. While it SOUNDS like a funny, made up, possible aquatic ingredient it’s actually a sort of molasses (with an undertone of black licorice) that has a pretty distinctive flavor and can only be procured in England or, it turns out, on Amazon.com which is where I got it. You could also substitute molasses, the flavor isn’t quite the same but it’s as close as you can get without the real thing and works in a pinch.

You also use Golden Syrup, which is a traditional ingredient too (don’t worry this is the last weird one) that you can also get On Amazon.com HOWEVER I actually found it later locally as well, at the grocery store, comparably priced. So you may want to check there first if you’re in a hurry. Then again if you’re already waiting on the Black Treacle you might as well wait for both. It only took a few days for them to arrive and we still have some time before Halloween if you want to whip up some festive Treacle Tart for a Harry Potter style holiday.

You’re going to need most of a bottle (1 cup) so if you want to make it again (you probably will) I’d get 2. Two bottles should make you 3 tarts, plus there are a bunch of recommendations on the bottle for other ways to use it. Golden syrup is something like honey/simple syrup in flavor so you could probably use either/or (if you use simple syrup I’d make it about as thick as honey) as a substitute but this does, like the Treacle, have a distinct flavor all it’s own and it won’t be quite the same.

Ok so, the Treacle and golden syrup are both pretty thick, and we want them to stay warm and fluid. Especially if you live in a cooler climate, they’re likely to congeal and not mix up properly if you don’t add some kind of heating element. Enter, two bowls. One big enough to hold the other with some room around it for hot water. It doesn’t have to be boiling, hot tap water is just fine as long as it’s not freezing in your house it shouldn’t cool down too fast to use. We just want the syrups to stay warm so they mix together

There’s the Treacle, isn’t it fun? All thick and goopey and syrupy. Be careful not to get it on anything, it will dry there and probably stain, except of course in the food where you want it. Taste it alone, I dare you! It’s something like a mix of Molasses and black licorice, when Mr Mom tasted it he made such a face and I thought he was going to refuse to try the finished product. Luckily he braved it because he ended up liking the tart even more than the kids did. We’re only using a TBSP in a pie sized dish, so the flavor is much more diffuse by the time anyone is eating it. Don’t get scared away if you taste it and it’s a bit a lot strong.

Pour it on in with the Golden Syrup! Fascinating fact about the Black Treacle, it’s a traditional ingredient in Gingerbread, too. We in the states often use Molasses but this is what we “should” be using so, if you end up taking the plunge with me and ordering some you can use it in the next month or two to make Gingerbread men, or a Gingerbread house, or just Gingerbread cookies! Basically it’s not going to sit there and be wasted after making one tart. Besides, you’ll probably make another anyway right? Still, we don’t like ingredients that are just for one recipe around here if we can help it (especially not fancy foreign ones) so fear not! Plus the expiration on the canister that I got is dated for about a year from when I got it, and that’s plenty of time

Now that it’s all nice and married, add in lemon juice and a pinch of Ground Ginger and stir it around so the sauce is, complete!

To firm it up all we need is breadcrumbs. I had some in a canister but not quite enough; luckily I had some stale bread (look french toast, another use for stale bread!) and crumbled that up to finish off the 2 Cups we need to make it

It’s a nice solid mass now, I’d add some fresh hot water (it’s probably cold by now), and get the crust ready!

Of course I used my own homemade crust recipe (you’re going to be seeing a lot of it this season!) this was one whole batch, just smoosh it into a pie plate until it’s about evenly covered, you could roll it out if you’re feeling fancy but I like it this way too and its better nice and thick for the tart

That’s good enough! We’ve got our pie crust and our treacle filling, time to marry the two

It’s going to be pretty dry feeling, but spreadable. Kind of like that homemade playdoh stuff we mom’s make sometimes for our kids with peanut butter that is edible too.

After putting it all in there I like to spread it out by hand and smush it down so it’s nice and even

There, that’s pretty even right? Good enough! Then pop it in the oven

And when the crust is nice and golden brown like that you know it’s done. The filling doesn’t really look different but you can tell when you cut into it that it is cooked, you’ll only be able to tell it’s done by looking at the crust.

And there you have it, Harry Potters favorite treat and a well liked treat in my house too! You can’t really go wrong with pie though, can you??

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Treacle Tart

Ingredients

  • 2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
  • 1 Tbsp Black Treacle
  • 1 Cup Golden Syrup
  • 2 Cups Breadcrumbs
  • Pinch Ground Ginger

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 375
  2. Get out a Large bowl and a smaller bowl that will fit comfortably inside the large bowl. Add 1-2 Cups of hot tap water to the large bowl and then the smaller bowl
  3. Pour the Golden Syrup and Black Treacle (or molasses) into the small bowl and stir until combined
  4. Pour in lemon juice and ground ginger, mix
  5. Add the breadcrumbs while mixing until fully incorporated
  6. Spread pie crust out in pie pan
  7. Add Black Treacle mix and spread evenly
  8. Put in preheated oven for 25 minutes or until the edge of the crust has browned
  9. Remove from the oven to cool, enjoy

What Harry Potter treats have you made? Which ones would you still like to see? I have a few more up already but I’d love to hear your suggestions, maybe I can squeeze another in, if not this year there’s always next! I’d love to hear from you in the comments below

Butterbeer!

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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!

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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

  1. In a pan or saucier combine brown sugar with 2 Tbsp water.
  2. 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.)
  3. 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
  4. In each glass add 3-4 Tbsp sauce and pour in cream soda while stirring, it should foam up quite a bit
  5. 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

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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.

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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

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  2. Mix the pumpkin, sugar, egg, cinnamon and ginger together completely
  3. Cut the dough in half 4 times, making 8 equal sized pieces and roll into balls.
  4. On a floured surface, roll out dough balls one at a time into a circle about 6 inches across
  5. 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
  6. Brush the top of each pie with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar
  7. 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

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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?

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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

  1. Take Premade Pie Dough out to warm up
  2. Mix together pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice, brown sugar, white sugar and pinch of salt in a bowl, set aside
  3. Cut the dough in half and roll out one portion on a floured surface
  4. Cut off edges to make a rectangle, then cut in half lengthwise and thirds
  5. Move dough rectangles to parchment paper lined baking sheet
  6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  7. Roll out the second portion of dough, and cut the same way as the first
  8. Egg wash the dough pieces on the parchment paper
  9. Add ~2Tbsp Pumpkin mix to each rectangle, covering with a second rectangle and crimping the edges with a fork
  10. Wipe tops of tarts with egg wash
  11. Poke 4-5 holes in the top of each tart
  12. Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes or until golden, remove from oven
  13. Mix together Powdered sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and milk
  14. 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

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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 🙂

 

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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

  1. Using a pastry cutter, mix together flour, salt and sugar
  2. Cut in butter
  3. 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.
  4. 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

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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

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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

  1. Heat 1/2 cup of oil to medium low in a pan
  2. Add carrots, onions and parsley and sautee until soft
  3. Add rice and brown slightly
  4. Pour in chicken broth and thyme, simmer until all liquid is absorbed
  5. 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

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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!

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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

  1. Remove chicken from the bones (if they aren't already bare)
  2. Add bones to 4 cups of water in a pot or dutch oven
  3. Add Fresh garlic and salt, bring to a simmer for 3-4 hours, strain
  4. 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

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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!

 

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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

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
  2. In a bowl, mix dry ingredients well
  3. Cut in cold butter with pastry cutter/fork/knife
  4. Mix in Egg Yolk and Sour cream with spatula
  5. Stir in Heavy Cream until combined
  6. 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
  7. Pull dough together and flatten on floured surface into a disk
  8. Cut pizza-style into as many pieces as you like and place on parchment lined baking sheet
  9. Wipe with egg whites and sprinkle with sugar (optional)
  10. Bake in preheated oven for 12-15 minutes or until the tops start to brown
  11. 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!