Cherry Coffee Cake

I had some left over cherries that were fading fast so decided to make a coffee cake with them. It's the perfect size to accommodate my leftover cherries.

1 1/2-2 C cherries pitted and halved ( I used both Bing and Rainier)

Take the cherries and cook them in a sauce pan on the stove with a splash of water, enough sugar to make them sweet( I used very little sugar since my cherries were already sweet, maybe 1/4 C), and a couple of tablespoons of southern comfort. Cook them until they are thick and soft but not mush. Refrigerate.

1 C flour
1/2 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1/8 t salt
1/2 C Greek yogurt ( I used Fage)
3 T melted butter
1 t vanilla
Sliced almonds for sprinkling on top

Take the dry ingredients and mix together in a bowl. Mix the wet ingredients in another bowl then add the wet to the dry and mix until just incorporated.
Spread half the batter into an 8 inch buttered and floured round cake pan. This will be hard to do just keep gently spreading with an off set knife until even. Take the cherries and spoon them out of the container leaving the excess syrup behind (but don't drain, you want a little bit) onto the batter in the pan evenly distributing. You want to use about 1 C of cherries. Spread the rest of the batter on top of the cherries. Take your time spreading gently, it's okay if some of the cherries peek out a bit. Sprinkle the top with sliced almonds. Bake at 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes. It will be golden brown on top. Remove from oven and run a knife around the edges.

I am lucky I have my grandmother's cake pans that have a scraper built in that runs around the bottom and sides of the pan. Everything comes out so easily!

Icing
1/4 C powdered sugar
1-2 T cream
1/4-1/2 t vanilla
Mix together and drizzle over top of coffee cake.

Cauliflower Risotto

I love risotto and I love mashed potatoes AND I love Alfredo sauce. This recipe satisfies those loves all wrapped up in one AND I get my vegetable!

1 large cauliflower head
1 C chicken stock
1C white wine
1 t salt
4 oz. cream cheese
2 T butter
1 C heaping, parmigiano reggiano
1 T fresh thyme, chopped fine
1/2 C cream
1 clove of garlic (optional) chopped

Cut up the cauliflower in to large florets and discard the stem. In a pot put the stock, wine, and cauliflower florets then sprinkle with 1 t salt. Bring to a boil with the lid on then move the lid slightly off so that some of the steam can escape. Cook until the cauliflower is soft making sure that you still have liquid in the bottom of the pot so as not to scorch the cauliflower. Add more stock and wine as needed. You want a little liquid in the bottom when you are through.

Do not drain. Add the butter, cream cheese, thyme and parm. cheese. If you are using garlic add it in now. Let stand a few minutes with the lid on. Add in the cream. Use a submersible blender and blend until smooth. Taste then add salt and pepper as you like.

Chocolate Cream Pie

This is my favorite summertime dessert because it is cold and refreshing with a milk chocolatey taste. I make this pie at least once every summer and I love to make it for company. Invariably, someone will remark that it tastes exactly like what they used to have as a child when they were at the country club where they were spending their long days of summer.

One summer we decided that we needed to have a taste test and see if the pie was better with dutch processed cocoa or Hershey's cocoa. My friends that were born and raised in Ireland were over and were boasting that they would prefer the dutch processed one and would certainly be able to tell the difference. Everyone preferred the one made with the Hershey's cocoa and no one could tell which one was which, only that they tasted a bit different. I love having taste tests!

The pie crust I am using is my favorite for all my pies, not just cream pies but fruit pies too! I was on the hunt for a pie crust that doesn't use shortening and I ended up down the street at my friend Pam's house. I explained what I was searching for and her mother (Betty) suggested I use her recipe, I did and have loved it ever since. It makes enough for a bottom of a deep dish pie or a top and bottom for a regular pie.

Pie Crust

2 C flour
1/2 t salt
2/3 C unsalted butter
2 t sugar
1 egg yolk
3-4 T cold water
Cut the cold butter into cubes. Mix together the flour and salt. Add the butter and rub it in with your fingers until it looks like crumbs and feels like wet sand. Make a well in the center and add the sugar and egg yolk and start with 1 T water mixing with your hands to form a ball. Add more water as needed but use as little as possible to form the ball. Press into a disk and wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Roll out the dough on a floured surface forming a circle to fit your pie pan about 1/8 inch thick. Place in pie pan with a little over hang to flute the edges. Place in the refrigerator and chill again so that the dough can relax and not shrink so much when baking.

Prick the pie shell with a fork. Place parchment paper in the pie shell and then place another pan on top to keep the pie shell from shrinking. Bake at 425 degrees for about 10 minutes then take out the extra pan and continue baking for 5 more minutes until golden brown.

Let the crust cool.

Pie Filling- I found this recipe 30 yrs. ago in a southern living magazine.
1 C sugar
1/4 C cocoa
1/4 C corn starch
Pinch of salt
3 C milk
3 egg yolks
1 1/4 t vanilla
1 C whipping cream for whipped topping
1/4 C powdered sugar
1 t vanilla

Combine first 4 ingredients in a heavy sauce pan. Combine milk and egg yolks, beating together, then gradually whisk into dry ingredients. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until it thickens and boils. Boil for 1 minute while stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add vanilla ( you can also add chocolate liqueur, a couple of tablespoons). Immediately pour into pie shell. Cover with waxed paper to prevent a skin from forming. Cool 30 minutes then place int the refrigerator to chill completely.
Beat whipping cream with powdered sugar and 1 t vanilla until soft peaks form. Spoon whipped cream over pie.

My Grandmother's Carrot Cake

This recipe was my grandmother's recipe and she was known for her cake baking. My mom never felt like she could compete so she honed her abilities with pie baking. Now I have the best of both worlds with recipes and tips from both of them.
Tonight I had a request for a carrot cake and I warned them, if you are used to those fluffy, heavily frosted rectangle carrot cakes, this one is not for you. They assured me whatever kind I made is the kind they wanted so I said,"okay here we go."
This bundt cake is moist, intensely flavored with spices and will stay delicious for days. In fact, it was so moist and good that my grandmother never put any kind of icing on it and when I used to make it for my kids I didn't ever bother icing it either. They loved it just plain. But tonight I will be adding a cream cheese glaze because that is what most people expect. Not too surprisingly, Scarlet, my youngest daughter, upon eating the first piece of cake exclaimed,"I like it better without the glaze!" Everyone else liked the glaze.

1 1/2 C canola oil
2 1/2 C sugar
4 lg. eggs separated
5 T hot water
2 1/2 C all purpose flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 t nutmeg, freshly grated
1 t cinnamon
1 t ground cloves
1 3/4 C grated carrots
1 C chopped walnuts or pecans
Mix oil and sugar on med. speed with the paddle attachment of a mixer. Add egg yolks one at a time then add the hot water and continue mixing until incorporated. Mix together the dry ingredients and add to the egg mixture on med. speed. Stir in the carrots. Beat the egg whites with a whisk attachment on high into soft peaks then fold into the batter.
Grease and flour a large bundt pan then pour the batter in and bake at 350 degrees for an hour or and hour and 5 min. Check with a wooden tooth pick, it is done when there are just a few crumbles sticking to the toothpick. Let cool for about 10 min. then invert onto cake platter. Pour glaze over the cake while warm.

Glaze
4oz. Cream cheese, softened
1C powdered sugar
1t vanilla
Several tablespoons of milk. Mix together on high in order above adding only enough milk to make it a thick but pourable consistency.

Summer Cheesecake

The first time I ever had real cheesecake was many years ago, the first time I ever visited NYC and I thought it was amazing. Up until that time, I had only eaten the kind you made in a pie pan that my mother's friends were making and I wasn't particularly impressed. The next time I had good cheesecake was one that my sister in law made which was a praline cheesecake which reminded me of the one I had in NYC only better! (I plan to add her recipe to my blog later). She shared the recipe and I bought my first spring form pan so I was in business. The recipe my sister in law had given me was heavy and decadent which I love for winter but I wanted something lighter tasting for warmer days. I found a recipe for a plain cheesecake and changed things around a bit resulting in a cheesecake that tastes light and summery!

Crust
1 C graham cracker crumbs
21/2 T melted unsalted butter
2 t sugar
Mix above ingredients and press into a greased springform pan about half way up. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 min. Take out and set aside.

5 8oz. cream cheese packages
11/2 C sugar
Cream together on med speed of electric mixer.
Zest of 1 orange
Zest of 1 lemon
2 t vanilla
3 T flour
5 eggs and 2 egg yolks
Mix in eggs one at a time with the other ingredients on med speed.
1/2 C sour cream
2-3 t southern comfort (this makes a huge difference in the taste)
Mix again. When you remove the whisk from the mixer use your fingers to get the batter off because little pieces of zest will be clinging and you want to stir them back into the batter. Wrap the springform pan with foil. Make sure that no water can seep in. Put your foil covered spring form pan in a larger pan that you can pour water in about half way up the sides. Pour the batter over the crust, filling the pan.  Put the pans into the 350 degree oven and then pour water into the outer pan making sure water will not get inside the foil. In other words you are baking it in a water bath. Bake for 1 hour to an hour and 5 min. It should still be a little jiggly in the middle. Take out, remove from water bath and let cool completely. Run a knife around the edge when you take it out of the oven. After it has cooled take off the rim of the pan. Refrigerate until cold.
This is the picture of one baked in a water bath.

The one below was not baked in a water bath, it has browned on the edges and has risen over the edge of the pan but will fall back in as it cools and it will crack in the middle.

Peter Rabbit Cole Slaw

I love to make this cole slaw in the summer because it is so cool, creamy and a great side dish for fried food. I like to serve it with either fried chicken like I have pictured or with fried shrimp. I gave it this name because every time I make it I think you could find all these things in Mr. McGregor's garden and thats what Peter Rabbit was after.
The cabbage at the store was enormous so I just used half a head but if you find small ones you can use the whole head.
1/2 head green cabbage, sliced
1/2 head purple cabbage, sliced
1 small bunch cilantro chopped, about 1C
1 bunch green onion, about 6
4 carrots slice thinly, I used a mandolin
Enough mayonnaise to coat the slaw, about 11/2-2 C
1 t garlic powder
1/2 t celery salt
Salt and pepper
Mix all the ingredients in a big bowl and chill.

Sand Tarts

My mother moved to the Rio Grande Valley and specifically Rio Grande City shortly after World War II where my Dad had been offered a job. My parents, a newly married young couple, made new friends and began their life together. They spent quite a bit of time bonding with their friends by partying in Mexico enjoying the food and dancing into the wee hours of the night. Of course nothing ever stays the same and everyone moved on with my family ending up in McAllen but still located the valley. One of my mother's very best friends named Chichi moved back to McAllen from the Dominican Republic after living all over the world. I loved sitting at the kitchen table listening to all their stories. One particular afternoon Chichi served the most amazing sand tarts I had ever tasted, in fact, I had never really cared for them until I tasted these! I told her I absolutely had to have her recipe and she just laughed and said of course!
Years later, planning Alexandra's beach wedding (my middle daughter) we were tossing around ideas for the wedding cake. We all decided it was a bad idea to have a cake on the beach with the sand and wind blowing. Samantha came up with the idea of having sand tarts in a decorated see through cookie canister as part of the table decorations in loo of a wedding cake. These cookies taste very similar to the Mexican wedding cookie so we thought how perfect and they would be protected from any possible blowing sand. We considered buying them but we couldn't find any that tasted as good as the ones I make so Samantha sweetly offered to make them a couple of days ahead and take them to the beach for us.

She totally made a bijillion of them! They were so delicious our guests kept asking where we had gotten them and when we told them we made them they all wanted the recipe!

1 C  unsalted butter, softened
1/3  C granulated sugar
2 t vanilla (I use Mexican vanilla, La Vencedora)
2 C all purpose flour
1 C pecans finely chopped
Cream butter and sugar then add the rest of the ingredients until incorporated. Form dough into a disk then wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled. Take the dough out and shape into whatever shape you like and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes. Cool a bit then roll the cookies in powdered sugar and place on a wire rack to cool completely.
These cookies stay good for a long time in an airtight container.

Honey Butter Biscuits

When my girls were little they loved to get the biscuits from Churches Fried Chicken and so I set out on a hunt to find a recipe that would please them as much as those did. I wanted to make them at home anytime I wanted and I wanted to be sure of what went in them. I honestly don't know where I found this recipe and if I might have changed it over the years but these are great biscuits for breakfast or to along with a fried chicken dinner or even some BBQ.

2 C all purpose flour (I used Gold Medal)
2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1 t sugar
3/4 t salt
1 C cold buttermilk
8 T or 1 stick unsalted butter, melted
1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
3 T honey
Pour the melted butter into the cold buttermilk and swirl around with a fork letting clumps form. Next, whisk the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Pour the buttermilk mixture into the bowl with the flour mixture. Stir with a rubber spatula until dough pulls away from the sides and there isn't any dry flour left. Do this gently. Use a 1/4 C measure and scoop up a level amount and drop onto a baking sheet. If the dough sticks to the scoop you can grease it with butter. Bake at 475 degrees for 12-15 min. While the biscuits are cooking, soften the butter then add 3 T honey and whisk until smooth. Taste to see if you like the honey to butter ratio and you can add more honey if you like.
Take the biscuits out and brush the tops with the honey butter and let run down the sides.
You may want to make more honey butter to drizzle on the inside when serving.

As you can see my daughter snagged one of the biscuits before I could even take the picture!