Raspberry Coffee Cake

I came up with this recipe years ago because my mom always had several raspberry bushes in the garden. Some years they produced just a few berries then there were those years that they went somewhat overboard. When all the weather conditions were right those few bushes produced so many berries that we had to find was to use them all up. After all you can only use so much jam and eat so many pies in addition to eating them fresh. So I came up with this coffee cake and we have been making (and enjoying) it ever since.

If you need to buy berries it will take about 2 of those little 6 oz containers of berries they sell in the store.

Raspberries are extremely delicate and there is really no way to not smash some (or all) of them as you mix them into the batter this results in a very pretty pink batter.

Raspberry Coffee Cake

Cake:

¾ cup sugar

¼ soft shortening

1 egg

½ cup milk

2 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

2 cups fresh raspberries, washed and well drained.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit

Grease a flour an 8”x8” baking dish

In a mixing bowl combine the sugar, shortening and egg and mix together thoroughly (until well mixed and a little fluffy)

Add the milk and again mix well.

Combine the flour, baking powder and salt and mix into the batter. At the very end when everything else is combined add the berries and mix very gently.

Spread batter in prepared pan.

Topping:

½ cup sugar

1/3 cup all purpose flour

½ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ softened butter

Combine all topping ingredients to make a crumbly topping.

Spread topping over coffee cake batter in pan

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until the coffee cake tests done in center.

Serve warm or at room temperature

Mildred's Swedish Cucumbers

This recipe for cucumbers was my mom's and I would be hard pressed to come up with a time that she didn't serve them to guests at her table. So I guess in a way it was her signature dish. It really didn't matter what time of year or the occasion, if she had company for dinner these were almost always part of the meal. They were also to be found in her fridge most of the time for a side with her meals or for the occasional snack. They are really super easy to make and do go with just about everything.

We thought we had lost dish with mom's passing but my daughter was going through some old cook books and she found a recipe card (with many splatters on it) that my mom had typed this on. So her cucumbers will live on for future generations to enjoy.

I know that all my kids love these and I will bet your family will also love this easy side dish. It is really at its best in the warm weather when the produce is at it freshest so give this a try with your dinner. I know we will be having it again soon too. 

Mildred's Swedish Cucumbers

½ cup white vinegar

¼ sugar

2 Tablespoons water

½ teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

2 Tablespoons fresh dill

2 large cucumbers

Combine the vinegar, sugar, water, salt and pepper in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.

Meanwhile remove strips of peel (lengthwise) from the cucumber (leaving strips between) and thinly slice the cucumbers into a container with a lid.

Pour the hot vinegar over the sliced cucumbers add the dill and mix together until well combined.

Cover and chill until serving time.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake for a Crowd

A while back a good friend asked me if I had a recipe for a larger version of my pineapple upside down cake. You see usually when she takes the time to bake it is when the entire family is going to be over and one normal size cake just won't be enough. I told her I knew I had one here some place so I dug it out, made it this week and I am going to share it with all of you too.

This is just as easy as a smaller version but it will feed a crowd. So grab that 9”x 13” baking pan and make this treat for your next gathering. You will notice that I use a can of pineapple tidbits and a can of crushed pineapple for the topping of the this size cake. I do this because it frees me up to cut slightly smaller slices, if I put sliced pineapple on the top my kids expect their piece to have the whole slice of pineapple. If I use the tidbits and crushed it gives a nice even coating of pineapple and I am freed up to cut it wherever I want to cut it. The same goes for the cherries, I usually serve this with a bit of whipped cream and top that with the cherry, feel free to sprinkle the cherries on top of the butter/ brown sugar mixture before you add the pineapple if you want them on the top of the cake.

If you look closely you will notice my topping in the picture is not as wonderfully brown as it should be, that is because I got started making this only to discover I was low on brown sugar. I ended up using part white sugar and part brown sugar in the topping. It tastes fine it just isn't as pretty as using all brown sugar like you should.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake for a Crowd

½ cup butter ( 1 stick)

1 cup brown sugar

1 (20 ounce) can pineapple tidbits (drain but reserve the juice)

1 (20 ounce) can crushed pineapple (drain but reserve the juice)

3 cups all purpose flour

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

5 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

2/3 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 1/3 cups reserved pineapple juice

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat the oven 350 degrees Fahrenheit

Melt the butter in your 13”x9” baking dish and then add the brown sugar. Mix this together and spread evenly in the bottom of the pan.

Add the drained pineapple tidbits to the pan trying to make an even covering. Then follow with the drained crushed pineapple again in an even layer.

In a large mixing bowl combine the flour, sugar baking powder and salt and combine.

Combine the oil, eggs, pineapple juice and vanilla extract mixing well.

Add the oil mixture to the flour mixture and using an electric mixer mix on low speed for about 30 seconds to combine (stir often)

Continue mixing with the mixer on medium for 3 more minutes.

Carefully pour your cake batter over your pineapple in the baking pan.

Bake for 45 to 55 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted halfway to the center of the cake comes out clean.

Cool in pan 5 minutes then invert onto a large serving platter. Allow the pan to sit over the cake so all the topping can drip down onto the cake.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

16 to 20 servings 

Turkey (or Chicken) Creole

I am always on the lookout for ways to use leftovers, and when I found this little recipe for using up some leftover cooked turkey I had a feeling it would be a great little find. I did some tweaking to it so it was more to our liking and that is what I am sharing here today. This is quick to put together and uses ingredients that I always have on hand. If you are like me and keep some cooked meats in the freezer this dish is easy and quick to pull together.

I left the amount of Tabasco up to you, I used about ½ teaspoon but use as much or as little as you would like. Be sure to taste as you go so you know if you have the seasonings just right or if your palate wants a bit of a change. That is half the fun of cooking, tasting and adjusting to make it just right.

Turkey (or Chicken) Creole

1 small onion (thinly sliced)

1 green bell pepper (thinly sliced)

¼ cup sliced celery

1 Tablespoon vegetable oil

1 ½ cups cut up cooked turkey or chicken

1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce

1 (14.5 oz) can stewed tomatoes

1 ½ to 2 teaspoons chili powder

1 teaspoon red wine vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

Tabasco to taste

Brown rice

Begin by sweating the onion, green pepper and celery in the oil in a skillet until tender, about 5 to 10 minutes. Add turkey and mix into vegetables, add remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Turn down to low and allow to simmer for about 15 minutes.

Serve over brown rice

Dark Chocolate Mocha Baked Custard

I was in the mood for some chocolate for dessert this week and I decided to play around with my favorite baked custard recipe. The result was fantastic and I think you will agree.

First let me say I was lucky enough to find a canister of Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa powder at my local grocery store. I can't always locate this but when I do I make sure to buy some. It is a super dark rich unsweetened baking cocoa powder and is fantastic to bake with. This recipe will work out well with whatever cocoa powder you have but if you love dark chocolate and haven't tried the Special Dark Cocoa give it a try. I think you will like it. 

Dark Chocolate Mocha Baked Custard

2 large eggs

6 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

¼ teaspoon salt

2 cups milk

1 Tablespoon instant coffee powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

In a medium bowl combine the eggs, cocoa powder, sugar, vanilla and salt and whisk to mix well.

Meanwhile heat the milk and instant coffee powder just to the point of scalding.

Pour the hot milk mixture into the egg mixture whisking well as it combines.

Strain the custard mixture and pour into 6 custard cups (or ramekins)

Place custard cups into a larger baking dish and add 1” of water to the larger dish. Be very careful not to get any water into your custard cups. This forms a water bath to allow the custard to cook gently.

Bake at 350 for 30 to 35 minutes or until just set (test with a knife if it comes out clean you are done) Don't over bake these.

Remove from water bath to a cooling rack then to the refrigerator

Serve cold. 

Serves 6

Lemon Chicken

Things have been pretty rough around my house for the last few months due to a family member being very ill. Thankfully I tend to keep my freezer fully stocked with meals that are easy to fix so we had easy to prepare meals even when I really didn't feel like cooking. Now I do need to restock however. So with an eye toward that I am going through my freezer recipes and I found my recipe for Lemon Chicken which happens to be one of my all time favorite chicken recipes. I was lucky to find an excellent price on chicken parts the other day so I made and froze several bags of this as well as served it to my son for dinner that same day.

The coolest thing about this recipe (other than the the fantastic flavor) is that it is even better after it has frozen and thawed again. The flavor of the lemon gets carried all the way through the meat by the action of freezing and thawing and it is incredible.

This recipe is really easy to scale to the number of servings you need simply by the number of pieces of chicken you put in each bag. I will explain the amounts as we go. The following amounts are what you will need per bag for about 2 to 3 servings. If you want to make bags with more servings (4-6) double the amounts, if you are bagging up single servings use half the given amount per bag.

Lemon Chicken

Chicken parts of your choice (to serve 2 -3 people)

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

Grated or crushed garlic about a large clove (to taste)

1/3 cup lemon juice

Figure out how many bags of chicken you will be making and line the freezer bags up on the counter. Add the chicken parts to the individual bags. Now add the rest of the ingredients given to each bag. I work mine like an assembly line, adding the chicken to all the bags then the thyme goes in all the bags, then the salt on down the list.

When all the ingredients are added seal each bag getting out as much of the air as you possibly can. Then kind of massage the bags to thoroughly mix the ingredients and make sure the chicken is coated well. Label and freeze the bags.

When you want to serve the chicken thaw in the fridge overnight. Place the contents of the bag into a glass baking dish (2-3 serving fit nicely in an 8x8) arranging the chicken pieces skin side down. Bake at 450 degrees (Fahrenheit) for 20 minutes, turn chicken over and cook an additional 15 to 20 minutes until done.

This goes really well with a nice serving of brown rice (which will cook in your rice cooker in just about the same amount of time as the chicken cooks)

Banana Split Sauce

I know we've all done it at least once, and this week it happened to me. I saw the pretty box of strawberries in the grocery store, and just grabbed one. Well, I didn't really take the time to look at them, or I would have noticed that most of the berries were way under-ripe. I was distracted with other things, and mindlessly picked them up with out thinking.

When I got home I opened them and found to my dismay that all but a few of the strawberries were just blah. My son and I ate the few ripe ones we found, and I took some of the moderately ripe ones and mixed them with sugar to top some ice cream, creating a serviceable dessert. Now what to do with the rest of the 3 pound box? (Oh, did I mention it was the huge box?) My thought had originally been to make a batch of jam since we are out, but these berries just weren't up to the task.

I scanned the items in my cabinets and started to formulate a plan. Maybe if I cooked them with some sugar and added some other ingredients that play well with strawberries I could create a sauce. And I was so right. You are going to love this sauce but be warned; it is not low calorie in any way. It is so rich! It went really well on both ice cream for dessert and on waffles for breakfast (although I felt the need to take a nap after breakfast, so maybe this should be saved for a weekend) I'm sure you will enjoy this as much as we do, and it will become a regular on your table.

Banana Split Sauce

4 cups of cut up strawberries

2 cups sugar (or amount your berries need)

8 oz can pineapple tidbits

juice of 1 lemon

¼ teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon cornstarch

2 Tablespoons water

¼ chopped nuts (I had walnuts)

1 cup chocolate chips

banana (at serving time)

Combine the berries, sugar, juice from the pineapple (reserve pineapple to add in a little while), lemon juice and salt. Allow this to simmer until the berries are soft and sugar is dissolved. Mash the berries (a potato masher works well for this) and taste. Add more sugar if needed.

Combine the cornstarch and water and stir into strawberry mixture, bring to a simmer and stir constantly until thickened. Add the reserved pineapple and the nuts/

Allow to cool for a bit then add the chocolate chips.

To serve spoon the warm sauce over sliced bananas on your favorite base. This goes incredibly well over both ice cream and waffles. I am sure that both pancakes and pound cake would be awesome as well.