Strawberry Lemonade!

This takes homemade lemonade and kicks it up a notch with fresh picked strawberries or at least strawberries you picked up fresh from your grocery or farmer's market.    As much as I love good lemonade, I might like this even better.   It's perfect for a beverage choice at your summer cookouts or other various events...bridal and baby showers, graduation parties, church events, family reunions, pool parties, even a country themed wedding.   It's so pretty and fresh tasting. It won't last long.  This recipe makes 1/2 gallon, but you can easily double it for a larger crowd.    Here is what you will need:

6-8 lemons or enough to produce 1 cup lemon juice (depending on their size and juiciness)

1  1/2 cups water

1  1/2 cups sugar  (If you like your lemonade a little less sweet reduce the sugar to 1 cup)

2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and divided

1 lemon, cut in thin slices

Place the water and sugar in a heavy saucepan and bring to a boil to make a simple syrup.  Boil for about 1 minute.  Mash or puree 1 cup of the strawberries and add them to the simple syrup.   Remove from heat and allow to cool a little while you juice the lemons.

Juice the lemons, removing seeds and pulp.  Add lemon juice and simple syrup to a 2 quart pitcher and blend.  Add water and ice to fill and stir.

Lightly score one whole lemon you have reserved for garnish.  Don't cut deep, just light cuts in the skin.  Then slice in nice thin slices.    Add the slices to the pitcher of lemonade and stir.   Cutting the outer skin a little releases more of the oils and flavor of the lemon.   

Slice the other cup of strawberries and add them to the pitcher.

  

Allow the lemonade to sit for about 30 minutes before serving for the best flavor and to chill.

If you have leftover strawberry lemonade you want to save (you probably won't), remove the lemon slices, cover and refrigerate.   The lemon slices, if left in for very long, will make the leftover lemonade slightly bitter.





Slow Cooker Hot Chocolate!

This is a great idea for serving at a party or casual gathering.  It would be so much fun for the kid's sleepover or for a sledding party.    It's nice because you can make a large amount of hot chocolate and it stays good and warm in the slow cooker. 

 Also, if serving adults or teens, they can serve themselves.  You could set up a little beverage station with hot chocolate and various toppings and let everyone do their own thing with it!  This is a really rich hot chocolate.  You will never want the stuff in the envelope again!   I think this would be perfect on Christmas Eve!  

Here is what you will need:

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (could use milk chocolate chips, but it makes it sweeter)

1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk (like Eagle Brand)

7 cups whole milk

2 tsp. vanilla

mini marshmallows

whipped cream

In a 4 -5 quart slow cooker, combine the chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk, whole milk and vanilla.   Stir well.  Set the slow cooker on low, cover and cook on low for 2 hours.  Check and stir this 2 or 3 times, making sure the chocolate isn't sticking.   

At the end of 2 hours, use a wire whisk and whisk it all in the slow cooker.  If it doesn't look real great, don't worry, it will at the end.  The chocolate takes time to break down and all get incorporated.   Set the slow cooker to high, cover and cook for about another hour.  All slow cookers vary, so check it at 30 minutes, because in a really hot cooking slow cooker that might be enough.   At the end of the time, whisk really well again.  Now it should be smooth and nice.  

Turn the slow cooker to low and ladle into mugs.   Top with mini marshmallows or go all out and...



Go all out and add a big dollop of whipped cream!!!  This is the most decadent cup of hot chocolate ever!   You can also provide other toppings for your guests to experiment with...mini chocolate chips, crushed peppermint, toffee bits.  If it's an adult crowd, peppermint Schnapps!  Just let everyone have fun with it!  



Miss Annabelle's Baked Apples!

In the church I pretty much grew up in, there was a sweet elderly lady named Annabelle, who made the best cooked apples you ever put in your mouth.   This was a Southern Baptist Church, so for anyone not familiar with the Southern Baptists, they love to eat and the church potluck happens quite frequently.   These potlucks are held for virtually any reason you can think of so everybody can get together and eat!  There are jokes about the Southern Baptists and their "eatin' meetins" as my daddy calls them...lol.  

However, I do think those frequent potluck dinners are one of the things that bond those members of Southern Baptist churches so tightly together and also create some of the best cooks in the world. It's a great way to try new recipes and see what other people are cooking and such.  Whole cookbooks are created off of these potluck recipes.

Now, back to Miss Annabelle and her apples, without fail, at any church supper, Annabelle brought these apples for one of her dishes.  They were always in the same dish...I can see it right now, and there was always the same number of apples, cooked exactly the same way.  If  you were lucky, you were in the front of the line and got one of them.  Everybody loved them, but no one could figure out exactly what made them so good.  So I asked someone one day, why don't you ask her for the recipe.  They looked at me like I was crazy and said she won't give out the recipe.  Nobody has ever been able to get her to tell them. 

So, I asked her, of course...lol.  She just said it was a little of this and a little of that and nothing special...not really a recipe at all.   I could tell she didn't want to tell me, so I never asked again.  About a month went by and one day Annabelle called me over to her before church and pressed a neatly folded piece of paper into my hand.  She whispered it was the recipe for her apples.  I was shocked and honored. 

 She said that is wasn't that she didn't want to tell people how she made them, but that they just weren't anything special and not really a recipe at all...just so simple.  She said it was just what they had to cook with way back and that is how she started making them that way.   The key to the taste is two things really...real butter and light corn syrup.   I would have never thought of the corn syrup at all, but I could see how when sugar was limited, you would use corn syrup.  It made perfect sense. 

So even though, this is not some complicated recipe, it's very special to me, because someone trusted me with it many years ago and I have made it ever since!  These are always on my Christmas dinner menu!  Here is what you will need for these apples:

4-5 nice size apples, peeled, cored and cut in half ( A good cooking apple is best, but any type works. I used Jonagold)

3 Tbs. butter

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup light corn syrup

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2  tsp. cinnamon

1/4 cup water

Peel, core and cut the apples in half.   If you have one of those nifty apple coring devices, it makes it much easier.  I think I got mine from Pampered Chef.   Place the apples in a baking dish with the cavity side up.  Cut the butter in pats and place in the center of each apple half.  Sprinkle evenly with the white sugar.  Mix the vanilla in with the corn syrup and then drizzle that over the apple halves. Sprinkle with the cinnamon.   Pour 1/4 cup water evenly around the bottom of the dish.

Place in a 350 degree oven and bake uncovered for 15 minutes.  With a spoon, gently flip the apples over after the first 15 minutes and spoon the pan juices over the top.  Place back in the oven and bake for 15 more minutes.   Some variety of apples may not take this long, so check them at about 25 minutes.  Some apples are done with that much time. 

Spoon the juices back over the apple halves and serve!

Cooked apples are a popular side dish in the South and they compliment pork and poultry especially well!

 

Lemon Bread!

This time of year, when the temperatures start to come down enough to turn the oven back on, I get in the mood for baking again!  As I have said before, I love lemony desserts...pies, cookies, cakes and now this "Lemon Bread"!   Breads are nice for those who don't want a ton of sugar, but just want something with a little sweet taste.  This "Lemon Bread" has just a hint of lemon flavor and is not overly sweet!   It's perfect for breakfast or with a good cup of coffee or a tall glass of cold milk as an after school snack for the children!  

 Here is what you will need for this delicious bread:

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter or shortening

2 large eggs

1/2 cup milk

1  1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. lemon zest

1 tsp. lemon flavoring (if you don't have lemon flavoring, add another tsp. lemon zest)

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup pecans, chopped

1 cup confectioner's sugar

3 Tbs. lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a mixing bowl cream together the sugar and the butter or shortening.   Mix in the eggs and milk.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder and salt together.   Add this to the wet ingredients along with the lemon zest, lemon flavoring and vanilla flavoring.  Beat just until well combined.  Fold in the pecans.

Spray a 9"x5"x3" loaf pan with nonstick baking spray.   Pour the batter in the pan and place in the preheated oven.   Bake for 55 minutes to an hour. 

Mix the confectioners sugar with the 3 Tbs. lemon juice and  pour over the bread  as soon as it's out of the oven and while it's still in the pan.   Allow the bread to cool in the pan for about 30 minutes. 

Remove the bread from the pan and slice. You might need to run a sharp knife around the edges of the loaf pan to loosen it.   This is good served slightly warm!

This is good served plain, with a little butter or even better, some whipped cream cheese! 





Sunflower Peeps Cake...Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting!

This is a different little Peeps cake for Easter made to resemble a sunflower.  I love sunflowers.  I just think they look so cheerful.  The great thing about this cake, is not just that it is cute as a button for your Easter celebration, but the cake itself is one of the most moist and delicious chocolate cakes you will ever make.  It is made with mayonnaise in place of the eggs and oil.  

Before you go all, 'ooooh that's gross' on me, think about it...mayonnaise is baically eggs and oil and a little vinegar which when combined with soda makes a chemical reaction that causes things to rise.  Are we starting to get the picture now as to why mayonnaise works and it works beautifully.

 If that is not enough to entice you to make this, it is frosted with a chocolate cream cheese frosting.  Yep, that's right, I said....chocolate cream cheese frosting!   It's every bit as good as you might imagine and it spreads like a dream!  

 It also doesn't taste as much like cream cheese as plain cream cheese frosting does.  Not that I ever thought that was a bad thing, but believe it or not, some of you don't care for it!   Here is what you will need for this cake.

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup cocoa

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup mayonnaise

1 cup carbonated beverage (Coke, Sprite, 7 UP)

1 teaspoon vanilla

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup butter, softened

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup cocoa

pinch of salt

4 cups powdered sugar

Garnish

Yellow Peeps Chicks (enough to go around the top edge of your cake

6 oz. chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt together.  Cream sugar, mayonnaise, carbonated beverage,  and vanilla.   Add the dry ingredients to the wet.  Stir until well blended.   Prepare two round 8" or 9" pans by spraying them with nonstick baking spray with flour in it or greasing and flouring them. 

You can also ensure the cake will turn out by cutting two rounds of parchment or wax paper and placing in the bottom of your pans.  Spray paper and all with nonstick spray.   I used 8" pans to make the cake a little higher and smaller for the sunflower.  If you don't have 8" pans, you can use the 9", you will just need more Peeps to go around the top.

Bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until pick inserted in center comes out clean.  Remove and let cool for about 15 to 20 minutes before turning them out of the pan.  

Prepare the cream cheese frosting while the cakes cool completely.  Beat cream cheese and butter together until light and fluffy.  Add the salt, cocoa, and vanilla and blend together.  Gradually add in the confectioner's sugar.  If it's too stiff add about a tablespoon of half and half.  I don't usually have to do this, but if you get too much sugar in it, you might.

                             

When your cakes have cooled, place them on your cake plate and frost. 

Press the Peeps around the edge of the cake while the frosting is fresh and still soft.  Then sprinkle the chocolate chip in the middle for the sunflower seeds.   There you have it, the Peeps Sunflower Cake!