4--See, two in one week

I made this soup Sunday night. I have wanted to collect some recipes that a tasty using lentils and this one is a keeper. This came from my Aunt Sharon. She shared a stack of her favorite recipes with us one Christmas, and so it is also fun to see her handwriting and remember her and all the amazing things she does.

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Made these for breakfast on Sunday morning. This recipe is from a friend who would share them when I went visiting teaching to her house. Yummy! Finally I made them myself. I like them because they are not too cakey. Do you know what I mean? They still taste like muffins and not a cupcake. However, I probably should have had the temperature at 375 because I used non stick pans and they got a little too done.

Chocolate Intesity Muffins

2 c. flour

3/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/4 c. sugar

1 T. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2 large eggs

1 c. buttermilk

1/2 c. butter, melted

1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and move oven rack to top 3rd position. Coat 12 cup muffin tins including top edges-these are sticky muffins.

Sift cocoa with flour. Add sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Combine well. Whisk eggs, buttermilk, butter and vanilla until blended. Pour liquid over dry ingredients and fold with spatula. Do not overmix. Spoon into tins. Bake for 20 minutes until tester is clean.

Adding 1 c. semi-sweet chips optional. (Not really if you ask me.)

Birthday Bees Game

On Spencer's Birthday we all went to the Bees Game. We have a lot of July birthdays in the family so we celebrated for Spencer, Zac, Carson, & Tom. It was totally fun to sit in one of the suites, but totally messy. Who knew popcorn could make such a mess?

The best part of the night -- Buzz came in to sing Happy Birthday with us.

Carson and Cam snuck over to the suite next to us and were having a great time!

Thanks mom for taking us!

Hoping to catch a fly

Woodland

We went for walk on a Sunday afternoon. I got a little crazy shooting into the sun but I still kinda like these.

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Ok, so I'm a little behind but I'm not going to let this stress me out. Tonight I made Zucchini Brownies because first of all I wanted something chocolaty and second, I have several LARGE Zucchinis waiting to be use around here.

This recipe is from a Philadelphia friend, so if any of you Philly friends out there ever read my blog, give me a holler. It is about time I heard from some of you. Seriously though, we loved our time in Philadelphia and I miss it exquisitely sometimes. While there we compiled a Philly cookbook and I still use many of the recipes. Having certain foods take me back and remind of the friend who made it. Like having Michelle's Herbed Bread or Jodie's Spinach Dip or Janet's Coconut Shrimp or Margel's Hearty Mexican Soup or Janna's beautiful pies. You can thank Michelle Bishop for this recipe. I've been meaning to try this recipe for years now and I'm glad to have a little garden to supply me with zucchinis. I'll have to use this more often, especially because brownies with that much zucchini in them MUST be healthy!

1 1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. vegetable oil

1 egg

2 tsp. vanilla

2 c. flour

3/4 c. cocoa

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

2 1/2 c. grated zucchini

Cream sugar, oil, egg and vanilla. Add remaining ingredients. Spray cookie sheet and spread batter out on it. Bake 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees.

(I doubled the recipe and made them in a jelly roll pan.)

p.s. Don't beat them too much, mine were a little more like cake than brownies, but still good.

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Andrea introduced me to this blog which I love to follow because we share a lot of the same interests and she has a house full of boys. I've tried several of her recipes and have liked them. If you go to her blog for this recipe you will see lots of pictures showing you the different stages. Hers turned out much prettier than mine, probably due to a few things. When I got to the part where you put in the curry, I opened my cupboard and I had no curry. I always have curry. So I checked the food storage hoping I had some and I couldn't find any so I had to run to the store because I couldn't make curry without curry and I couldn't give up and fix a different dinner because I was too far into it. Plus it was already 8:00. I know that it really late to eat but I have been painting my basement so everything has been off.

The other reason mine was different is because I added some carrots because I love carrots in curry. So I had to add a little extra chicken broth because the carrots had to cook longer and there wasn't enough broth.

I liked this recipe and would make it again. Maybe a little spicier and maybe just over rice. The apples and raisins are a nice sweet touch and the orange zest too.


Spicy Curried Chicken with Couscous

4 small chicken breast halves (boneless, skinless)
2 tsp. vegetable oil
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. vegetable oil
1 C. chopped, unpeeled apple
1/2 C. chipped onion
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 tsp. curry powder
2 tsp. orange zest
1 C. chicken broth
1/4 C. raisins
1 Tbsp. corn starch
1/4 C. cold water
2 C. hot, cooked couscous

Remove excess fat from chicken; cut chicken into 1-inch pieces. Heat 2 tsp. oil in 10 inch non-stick skillet until hot. Cook and stir chicken, salt and cayenne pepper in oil over medium heat until chicken is done, about 5 minutes; remove chicken.
Add 1 tsp. oil, the apple, onion, garlic, curry powder, and orange zest;

Cook and stir until apple is tender, about 7 minutes.

Stir in chicken broth, raisins and chicken. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly.

Mix cornstarch and water; stir into chicken mixture.

Boil and stir one minute till thickened.

Serve on couscous.


I'm so happy that people have neat blogs to borrow ideas from. Thanks!

Antelope Island

Love this place...

Tea Party

I was looking for Cameron one morning at my mom's because it had gotten too quiet. I found Sam and Cam in the middle of a lovely tea party. It was so cute to see them enjoying these dishes that I adored as a little girl.

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So here is my first new recipe. I looked for a peach cobbler recipe because we went to a farm yesterday and picked beautiful juicy peaches. Maybe this shouldn't count because I didn't exactly follow the recipe. I just wanted a fairly simple recipe not using Bisquick so I thought I could work with this one. So I didn't add the bourbon and instead I put in 1/4 cup of brown sugar, a squeeze of lemon juice and a little vanilla. I made the dough with only one stick of butter and instead of cooking the peaches in butter first I just put the peach mixture into a baking dish, topped them with the dumplings and then baked it. While it baked I worried that it wasn't going to turn out but it actually was good. I probably would make it a little less sweet next time, but I thought it was fine without all the butter. In the end, if any of you have the perfect peach cobbler recipe I would love to try. The peaches are so good right now.


Tyler Florence's Bourbon Peach Cobbler

Ingredients
8 peaches, peeled and sliced, about 6 to 8 cups
1/4 cup bourbon
3/4 cup sugar, plus more for dusting
2 tablespoons corn starch
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter
3/4 cup heavy cream, plus more for brushing

Directions:
Heat the oven to 375 degrees F.

In a large bowl add the peaches, bourbon, 1/4 cup sugar, cornstarch, and cinnamon and mix well to coat the peaches evenly; set aside.

Prepare the dumplings: Into a bowl sift together the flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) butter into small pieces. Add it to the flour mixture and cut it in with a pastry blender or your hands until the mixture looks like coarse bread crumbs. Pour in the cream and mix just until the dough comes together. Don't overwork; the dough should be slightly sticky but manageable.

In a 10-inch cast iron skillet over medium-low heat, melt the remaining 4 tablespoons butter. Add the peaches and cook gently until heated through, about 5 minutes. Drop the dough by tablespoonfuls over the warm peaches. There can be gaps, the dough will puff up and spread out as it bakes. Brush the top with some heavy cream and sprinkle with some sugar; put it into the oven on a baking sheet to catch any drips. Cook for 40 to 45 minutes until the top is browned and the fruit is bubbling.

SLC Pass: Part II

A few more from our SLC adventure...