quatre-quarts {again} - French Fridays with Dorie

This week I went back & made an oldie, but goodie rather than doing the assigned recipe.  I needed a treat to take to a little social & I needed to use up from strawberries, so I decided to make Dorie's quatre-quarts again.  

This time around I doubled the recipe, baked it in a 13x9-inch pan, and then cut the cake up into 2-inch squares.  I made a little fresh whipped cream and stuck a strawberry slice on top of each little piece of cake and it was a hit.

feet - marchphotoaday

Photo by Ryan.

Cocoa Sables - French Fridays with Dorie

Yum! I just finished snarfing down my homemade ice cream sandwich!

I made my dough around 11pm last night.  Quick & easy. FYI: I used mini chocolate chips as an add-in cause I was too tired to start chopping chocolate last night.

This morning I got the dough out of the fridge & gathered up my collection of Easter and spring time cookie cutters hoping the kids could have fun cutting & decorating some chocolate cookies, but the dough for this recipe was way too dry and crumbly.  I did my best to roll the dough into logs like I should've done in the first place if I had followed directions.  We did roll the logs in Easter sprinkles to make up for the lack of cute shapes.

After the cookies baked and cooled, I sneaked a bite.  I love a dry, buttery cookie and I knew I had to try Dorie's idea of turning some of the cookies into ice cream sandwiches ... it was our after-lunch dessert and I'll make more tonight when Hubby gets home from work cause cookies & ice cream are two of his favorite treats.

For next time: I might like to try some sliced, toasted almonds as an additional add-in.

delicious - marchphotoaday

mexican rice ... homemade tonight.

Irish Soda Bread - Tuesdays with Dorie

In all the cooking and baking experimenting that I do, I hardly share my food with anyone outside of my immediate household.  I'm not sure why, but that's just how things have happened.  This week I had the perfect opportunity to share one of my Dorie recipes.  

It seems like every year we celebrate my father-in-law's birthday with a traditional St. Patrick's Day dinner ... corned beef, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, etc.  I asked if I could test this week's Dorie recipe on the family because our assigned Irish soda bread sounded like the perfect compliment to our dinner.  And since it was the first time I'd be making soda bread, I could easily blame bad results on Dorie, or Julia, or ???

About 90 minutes before we were supposed to sit down for dinner, I stirred up my flour, baking soda, and salt with a fork.  Then I added buttermilk and stirred a little more with my handy-dandy fork.  When the dough was somewhat mixed together, I poured it out onto my counter and combined everything a bit better with my hands.  I doubled the recipe since I'd have to have enough for a crowd, so I divided my dough in half, shaped the dough into large rounds, put the dough into pie dishes, cut an "X" across the top of both loaves, and threw it in the oven for about 50 minutes.

I was a bit worried about this recipe (probably cause I knew I'd be sharing it with family).  I wasn't really sure when to take it out of the oven so I just had to trust my gut and take it out when it looked done.  It also didn't look very pretty when it was done ... lumpy & bumpy with huge, open X's on top.  As soon as it came out of the oven, we jumped in the car and made it to dinner about 5 minutes late.  I had to quickly take photos in my mom-in-law's kitchen and then set it out to serve without sampling it ... hoping that I wasn't going to kill everyone with this not-so-pretty bread ... although the insides were much prettier ... I love dense bread.

Almost immediately, everyone started talking about how good it was.  I made my plate of food, sat down & took a bite of the bread.  I ate it plain and it tasted too floury to me, but everyone else was still saying they liked it.  Towards the end of dinner, one of my sis-in-law's suggested honey with the bread, so I grabbed some and I LOVED it on this bread.  I noticed as the night went on & the bread cooled more, I couldn't taste that strong flour taste anymore and I became a bigger fan.

This bread was SO quick & easy for me and I usually have buttermilk on hand, so I'll definitely be making this again to go with soups and other dinners.  This time around I followed the recipe exactly because of the family gathering & the type of dinner that was being served.  I don't think I'll be jumping in on the dried fruit variations any time soon, but someone suggested cheese and I think that would be fun.  Or just "plain" again served with a favorite jam or honey.

Happy 60th Birthday!!

If you'd like to get the recipe for this very traditional Irish Soda Bread, go HERE or HERE.

And finally here is the video of Julia making this bread on her PBS TV show ... the Irish Soda bread is the first 3 minutes of the video:

sunglasses - marchphotoaday

We're so sad our spring break is coming to an end.  I actually took this photo Monday while we were out on our adventure for the day ... we tried to go on at least one fun outing every day.  More photos later because we're off to play some more.

5:00 - marchphotoaday

the 5:00 sun on the St. Patrick's Day crafts that the kids made at the park today.

Rugelach - Tuesdays with Dorie

Tuesdays are a good day for me to do some baking & extra cooking, but that means I usually won't get around to posting my Tuesday with Dorie results until late Tuesday evenings.

This morning I made my dough and put it in the fridge to chill because I had a few things I needed to pick up for dinner.  The kids & I ended up having a bit of a detour because we ended up at park near the Gilbert, AZ LDS Temple and having a picnic lunch before we even started our errands.  We ate our lunch, walked around, and enjoyed the sunshine, ducks, and turtles.  It also just so happened that Penguin's school had planned a St. Patrick's Day craft at this same park today and they were just starting the craft around the time we were finishing our walk, so we stopped to make our St. Patty's rainbows.

When we got home, my kids were ready to help finish up our rugelach (roo-ga-la).  They helped me roll out the dough and then we decorated our first batch with raspberry preserves, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, toasted pecans, and mini chocolate chips.  Our 2nd batch of dough was decorated with Nutella, raspberry preserves, toasted pecans, cinnamon, sugar, brown sugar, and mini chocolate chips.

My helpers then rolled lots of pretty little crescent-shaped cookies.

We let our cookies chill again in the fridge for about an hour and before baking them, we brushed them with an egg wash & dusted them with more cinnamon, sugar, & brown sugar. 

Our finished rugelach with Nutella:

Consensus ... I definitely liked the rugelach with the Nutella better then the ones without.  Dorie recommended filling the rugelach with apricot preserves, nuts, and dried fruit like raisins.  Raisins & I are not always the greatest of friends in desserts.  I'm SO glad I went with berry flavors and chocolate.  I also baked the Nutella rugelach a little longer than my first batch and I liked the more flaky/crispy outcome of it being baked a little longer.

Note to self: DO NOT bake these on wax paper again!  Just chill and bake them on parchment paper if I'm looking to save a few pennies by not using both kinds of paper.  I'd also like to try a little vanilla in the dough next time.

If you'd like to try this recipe, go HERE to get it!

a smile - marchphotoaday

i'm going to continue on with my "photo a day" for the month of march ... not everyday for me cause that's too much, but as often as it strikes my fancy.  if you want to join the fun, go here for the daily topic.

today we had to go to costco.  my kids always see the new gilbert, az LDS temple being built behind costco and beg to go see the temple so pretty much every time we go to costco, we go see the temple (up close), too.  today the kids were able to bring home a sparkly piece of the temple which made all the kids happy & excited!

something i ate - febphotoaday

dinner = my version of Primanti Bros sandwiches.

green - febphotoaday

Trains & Sprinkles

WOW!  I'm not really sure how to describe my day yesterday.  After spending the morning making my oldest & myself beautiful (we were both participating in the recording of an EVMCO Christmas CD), grabbing lunch for the kids, tracking down a lunch & dinner for myself, dropping off my kids at my mom's house, carpooling to Phoenix (about 45 minute drive to our recording location), recording, getting home well after midnight, etc, I'm not really sure what to say about my day yesterday.  It's always a great experience to record and to participate in making beautiful music, but it's also very frustrating and literally painful!  We had one 30-minute break for a quick dinner and that's it.  And then after eating dinner you go sit in a chair for many more hours where you have to sit as still as possible, so your dinner turns into a cement block sitting in your stomach ... and don't forget your back & bottom that are screaming for a little stretching.  I think I laid in bed until well after 1am just trying to settle down & turn the music off that was running through my brain.

When I woke up today, I wanted nothing more than doughnuts & cupcakes.  Kinda weird, but I was definitely craving sugar ... not sure why. :)  Because it promised to be about 80* & sunny, I told my kids to hurry and get their school work & jobs done so we could enjoy the beautiful afternoon.

We decided to pack a picnic lunch and head to the Scottsdale Train Park.  Once we arrived, we found a quiet, secluded spot to enjoy our baked ziti and other picnic yummies.  I relaxed on the blanket in the warm sunshine, read a chapter of my book, and the kiddies set out to explore, gather pine cones, and get dirty. 

 

After lunch and playing in the dirt, we found a playground and took a ride on a little train.

Later in the afternoon, we made our way down Scottsdale Road to Sprinkles Cupcakes.  We each whispered the secret code of the day to the sales lady and scored ourselves four free orange cupcakes!  We each picked out one other cupcake that we wanted to try .... Penguin got the "black & white" (chocolate cake with a white frosting), Peacock picked the pretty pink chocolate-raspberry, Turkey chose the dark chocolate, and I wanted to try the chocolate marshmallow (chocolate cake with marshmallow squeezed into the middle and a dark chocolate ganache topping).  All were delicious and we were happy to bring home four orange cupcakes for Daddy to try and to enjoy the next day.

Excellent day!!!!

shoes - febphotoaday

I'm off to record a C.D.

where i work - febphotoaday

something new - febphotoaday

A rewind from last week:

Well ... I know this may not be new to you, but it's new to me.  I don't make much time for reading these days, but I picked up The Hunger Games on a whim about a week ago at Costco.  Good mistake? Bad mistake? I don't know. You decide.  I'm now addicted!  WHY DIDN'T I READ THESE BOOKS SOONER??!!??  Saturday evening I dragged my kids to Sam's Club to run some errands, but most importantly to find Catching Fire (book 2).  I was done with it by Monday morning.  If I didn't have obligations, I could've just sat on the couch and read it in one sitting.  Yesterday when I was at Wal-Mart, I grabbed book 3, Mockingjay.  I'm showing restraint by not sitting down to read it yet ... I'll take it to my eight-hour recording session tomorrow because I'm sitting alone, so I'll have no one to giggle and chat with during down time.

Good thing I only have one month to anticipate the new Hunger Games movie!

Chocolate Truffle Tartlets - Tuesdays with Dorie

As I'm sitting here starting this post, I just glanced at the clock and it's already 11:23pm.  Geepers.  Where does the day go?  School work with 3 kids, cleaning 3 bathrooms, grooming 4 people, lunch at Sonic, trip to a vacuum store, errands at Wal-Mart, baking tartlets, trip to Grandma & Grandpa's house, trying a new recipe for dinner which took longer than expected, trip to Walgreen's for medicine, vacuuming, some serious kitchen cleaning after all our cooking & baking, piano practicing, laundry, and the list goes on!  Let's hope I can put together a quick post for my Tuesday with Dorie baking project for this week and hit the hay soon!

I made my dough yesterday.  It felt a little dry so I added almost an extra Tablespoon of ice water.  Today when I got my dough out, it was still feeling pretty dry, so I dunked my fingertips into a cup of water to moisten things up while I was rolling out the dough.  It helped.  The dough was a bit fussy, but easy to mend & I ended up making eight 4-3/4" tart shells (I think I could've made a 9th).  I was happy with how they turned out.

The fillings was easier to put together.  I almost always use Trader Joe's chocolate, but I decided to try a different kind this time around:

I'm not gonna make a special trip to buy this chocolate again.  It almost smelled a little bit like vinegar after it was melted.  Weird.   Since I now I have two empty tart shells on my counter and I think my six filled tarts could've been more full, next time I think I'll double the filling recipe.  For add-in's, I used white chocolate chips, semi-sweet chocolate chips, Oreos (in 3 tarts), and Trader Joe's Dunkers (in the other 3 tarts).

I was happy with how the tarts tasted, but the filling was definitely better than the crust. :)  The filling reminded me a little of a very dense brownie or flour-less cake.  My family enjoyed our tarts with a little Breyers vanilla ice cream.

Happy Tuesday!

For videos & the recipe, go HERE or HERE.

a favorite photo of me - febphotoaday

april 2010

handwriting - febphotoaday

Penguin - Feb 2012

Happy Valentine's Day

I think we spent almost our entire Valentine's Day cooking & eating ... or doing something that involved food sugar!

I stayed up past midnight the night before our big love day baking a chocolate cheesecake...

For my little loves, we woke up and made an apple-cinnamon Dutch baby for breakfast.

After breakfast we hit a couple more grocery stores to get the rest of the items that we needed for our V-Day dinner.   We found some strawberries on sale, so we came home & made some of these:

Then the kiddies got busy making their valentines.  Since they don't attend a school where they get to exchange cards with their friends, valentines were made for grandparents & each other.

Hubby didn't head home from work until after 8pm and he was 45 minutes from home, so the kids ate their dinner and then I waited for Hubby to get home so that we could eat together.  We made steamed shrimp, crab legs, stir-fried asparagus, mashed potatoes & gravy, a salad (with red leaf lettuce, gala apples, & Craisins ... had to get more red on our table!), homemade sparkling-berry-lemonade, bread, and of course our chocolate covered strawberries & cheesecake for dessert.

Even though I ran my dishwasher THREE times on Tuesday and Hubby washed some dishes by hand Tuesday night, I still woke up Wednesday to an overflowing sink of dishes ....

But ... it was worth it!!  Happy Valentine's Day!!!!

heart - febphotoaday

I saw a "heart" photo online that I wanted to try & copy.  I had all my kids model.  These were my 2 favorites photos after a very quick photo shoot (we're talking 2 minutes or less ... most of that time is spent by me begging kids to cooperate) and candy bribes ... none of us had much patience for a photo shoot this morning. :)  

I think this one turned out the best ... best eyes, best lighting, etc....

But I had to include this one too cause I love his little hands up there in the picture.