Chocolate Filled Cake

Today I felt like having cake, didn't help when I saw this while looking for coupons to get flour from the store. The cake immediately spoke to my sweet tooth and I knew it will be a hit with the kids.  I didn't use the three cups of chocolate chip as recommended, way too much for my kiddos. I only have a few pictures since it impossible to take pictures with a toddler sous chef.

 

Enjoyed by all.

 

 

Chocolate Banana Bread

One of the breads I absolutely love is banana bread. A warm banana bread and a cup of tea always make my day. I should make it more often, but sometimes I get lazy. I almost always will have over-ripped bananas that do not get eaten in time. I usually freeze them until I muster up enough energy to make Ackara (a W. African finger food that I will blog about soon). My kids will eat it all up in one sitting if I let them.

Today I wanted to jazz up the banana bread, so I added chocolate. BTW, most of my recipes I get from the Joy of Baking website. I just love the videos and that the recipes have been tested. Their instructions are precise and easy to follow. However, being the person I am, I almost always change something in it because I sometimes don't like to follow directions. ha ha..

I lessen the sugar from 1cup to 3/4cup and instead of using chocolate chips, I used 3 blocks bakers chocolate that I chopped up. I didn't have chocolate chips and figured this would work. Didn't have any nuts on hand, so I forgo that as well.


Ingredients



I like my bananas a bit lumpy

 

As I was prepping, my DH was watching Master Chef and of-course in true form he starting timing me while using his best British accent. If you know us, you will know that I had to play along. I started using my Afri-Itali accent and he shot this video.

One thing I always worry about is the banana settling in the bottom and it breaking when taking out of the pan. This time I must say it is perfection. I love it.

The finished bread. Looks, smells and tastes delicious. Even DH who doesn't like banana said it is goooood and chocolaty. Exactly what I wanted to hear.

PopOvers

Last year we took a trip to Arcadia and had a blast. Several times we tried going to Jordan's Pond for popovers, but nap times kept getting in the way. To solve our popover disappointment, we bought two package of their popover mix. Well it's being almost a year and I had yet to bake them. Why you may ask? Well I discovered that the pans are not so cheap. Finally remembered to ask one of my neighbors to borrow theirs.

The instructions are not too clear for someone who has never made popovers before, but I went with my best guess.

They suggest you refrigerate overnight, which is exactly what I did. I thought it would rise like bread, but it didn't.

Off to the oven they went. I was worried because it says to bake at 450 for 14mins, then for 15mins at 350.

 

 These babies look good, not bad for my first go around.

 Add some butter and enjoy. The kids had it with jelly

 Of course I had it with some tea. Yummy

Bok Choy Coucous and Tarragon Chicken

This was a quick meal that took less than an hour to put together.  I seasoned the chicken with tarragon and Adobo (found in the international food section).  As the chicken cooked, I basked it with the drippings.  I had a head of Bok Choy and decided to sauté it and add couscous for the starch.  Came out awesome. I didn't use any recipe guide, just had those items on hand and went for it.

 

Caramel Macchiato Cheesecake

This is by far my most successful experiment.  We had a graduation cookout and I wanted to try my hand at something no one would think I would try.  I went full force ahead and tried a cheesecake.  Everything I read online made it sound really scary, but I was not to be put off.  Not only did I make the cheesecake, but I also made the caramel! Crazy I know, but that took me less than 10 minutes. Who knew!!!!




The crust

Before going into oven

Final product

 

With caramel

 

I need to learn how to take better pictures because that doesn't look so good.  I've gotten many compliments on the cheesecake and even some request to make more. Yah me!!!!

Here are pictures of the caramel in progress, thanks to DH for his great camera work.


Melting sugar

 

Adding butter

Adding cream

All done, easier than I thought

    

Strawberry Scones

Tonight I decided to use some of the many strawberries we purchased on sale.  I wanted scones for breakfast, so adding strawberries was only natural.

I love the simplicity of this recipe and how quick it was for me to make, however, I hated the wetness of it.  I'm not sure if I over mixed it or not but it looks really good.  It only called for three tablespoon of sugar, I thought that was good because it will offset the sugar from the strawberries.  What I forgot was, the strawberries are not that sweet. SO the scones have a bit of a tart taste to them.

Hubby and his ever funny comments, walked into the kitchen and said "my those are some big scones, I'm sure the green giant will be happy if he was here. Oh Oh Oh, she hooked me up!" LOL! Got to love him.

They do look big huh?

What I didn't tell him was that I had already cut them, but was still baking in a circle.

SOOOO good!

I'm back and eating pizzas!!!!!

I feel like it’s being an eternity since I’ve been on here.  Life has gotten busy, and I have slacked off a bit on the baking, but I hope to pick it up again soon.  I started baking not only because of some dream of making the perfect bread, but also for health and economical reasons.  My family has a better selection for breakfast and it saves us money.

In the process, we’ve designated Fridays as “pizza night”.  This past Friday was really busy and with two very tired kids, I opted out of making pizzas.  We decided to do it on Sunday instead. 

What a great dinner that was, it gave me time to search the web for easy yeast recipe and I didn’t feel rushed to make it and have the kids in bed at a reasonable time.

I decided to use the recipe that comes on the back of the Fleishmann’s pizza dough yeast packet.

 

Ann Kroeger’s recipe was great! I did one cup wheat/white, the mixture was easy to make by hand and the dough was nice and fluffy.  I set the oven at 375 and cooked for 10-15 mins.  I think next time; I’ll set the oven at a higher temp and cook for the same amount of time.  It wasn’t brown enough to hubby’s liking, and I ha v e to agree that it could have gone a little longer/higher.

 

 

The last time I used the packet instruction, it had a bland taste. I was wondering why until I realized that I forgot to add salt to the mixture.  I’m not sure if that’s a rookie mistake or if I was just rushing.  This time around, I decided to make a basil crust, I added maybe two tablespoon of dried basil to the mix AND I did not forget to add the salt.

The result was great, the crust was nice and soft the basil g  e it extra flavor. I wonder how it will work if I used fresh basil?  Again, I should have left this to cook a while longer, but the cheese was bubbling so much, I thought it would burn.

 Yummmmm

Oh and both make great leftovers. Since both didn’t cook till super brown, warming them up in the oven provides another day’s dinner. Add salad and viola!!