MADCookie

Lemon Frosted Lemon Cake

madcookieBlogSite.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (MADCookie) — Sun, 03 May 2009 23:34:00 -0600

I followed this simple recipe for a delicious pound cake. Here are my pictures.

Slice the potatoes thin

madcookieBlogSite.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (MADCookie) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:28:00 -0600

I had pork steak and chicken breats soaking in a homemade brine. The attack plan for dinner was simple: grill the meat. The converstion with myself went something like this. "What else to make?"; "We have a huge bag of potatoes and I love fries."; "We heard about baking the potatoes to make oven-chips"; "Can I make scalloped potatoes without cream?"

End result: baked potato chips and scalloped potatoes. I'm sure you all agree with me that this was a very sound idea. As you'll see in the pictures, I had to slice the potatoes for both dishes, so why not make them both?!

Scalloped Potatoes

The sliced potatoes soaking in cold water. I use my salad spinner so that I pull the basket out and leave the water with the starch. All I have to do next is spin them.

My mother-in-law inspired me to make scalloped potatoes without cream. She uses regular milk, so I figured I would too. I wanted the whole thing to be thick and saucy and not runny, so I made a flour slurry with a few extra seasonings: black pepper & seasoned salt.

Layering time. I buttered the dish to ease extraction and add some taste, but thought that wasn't enough butter goodness. I added a layer of butter with the potatoes.

Unfortunately, we were out of cheddar cheese, so chipotle to the rescue.

Milk flour mixture goes in next

Hey, I'm experimenting here. This is discovery time, so I'm okay with it if it turns out to be a big flop.

Chips

Here are my sliced potatoes

Here is my fancy bottle of olive oil

I hope this part is obvious

In the oven they go. I didn't want to crowd the chips, so I was very conservative in loading the sheet. Notice the scallop potatoes dish under the chips?

Dinner Time

My dinner. The scalloped potatoes where not finished, but the chips were happy to help me. I zapped the green beans in the microwave for 15 seconds to soften them a tiny bit, but leave the hard crunch.

I am very comfortable making my own iced coffee, but Starbucks was easy enough to pour. (I got out the ranch dressing for the beans, but never used it.)

Done!

Scalloped Potatoes Continue

Out of the oven. Nice crusty top. Great smell.

My slurry idea seemed to have worked, because there were thick slow popping bubbles around the inside of the dish.

Nope. It didn't really work. The spuds were swimming in water. The taste was very good, but it lacked the creamy sauce mouth-feel typical of scalloped potatoes. I drained the liqud away.

Summary

Overall, I'm pretty proud of myself for making an entire meal without using a recipe card. It is fun to play with my food and I hope everyone out there will take the adventure of playing with ~~there~~ (opps, sorry, Chica for the typo) their food.

That's Ice Cream

madcookieBlogSite.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (MADCookie) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:23:00 -0600

Brownie Points

madcookieBlogSite.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (MADCookie) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:04:00 -0600

I am part of a Toastmasters club that meets at my company. In the club, I am the VP of Membership and one of my responsibilities is to help & encourage the other members to pay their membership fees. Below is my attempt to motivate everyone to earn their Brownie Points by paying their dues before 4/1/2009.

I wanted to make the brownies as single individaual servings, so they cook in the muffin pan.

Biggest problem was getting the brownies out of the pan. These cups are sprayed & lined with cut up parchment paper. The paper is cut so that it conforms to the curve of the cup.

They came out great. This is the second batch, so I've learned about in the process of making brownines.

Treat for mike

madcookieBlogSite.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (MADCookie) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 23:50:00 -0600

Treat for me from a candy shop in the Lake Arrowhead shopping center.

The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever,

madcookieBlogSite.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (MADCookie) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:33:00 -0600

Pioneer Women says this is the very best chocolate sheet cake, well, we'll find out tonight. I made this for our church home fellowship group. I haven't had a whole piece yet, but the icing was amazing as I licked the bowl, spoon, whisk, another spoon and the spoon rest.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/the_best_chocol/

Cheese Crackers

madcookieBlogSite.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (MADCookie) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 18:22:00 -0600

We love Goldfish crackers & Cheeze Its, so I thought I could make my own.

I followed this recipe:
http://dlynz.blogspot.com/2008/09/cheese-crackers.html

Cinnamon Rolls

madcookieBlogSite.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (MADCookie) — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 08:04:29 -0600

Breakfast Dessert

Blueberry Blintzes in a Pie

madcookieBlogSite.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (MADCookie) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 07:44:21 -0600

If you look up blintzes, you'll see they really wouldn't be added to a pie crust because they don't set up. I did it because I have fresh blueberries that NEEDED to be eaten and this is super simple. To kick it up a little, I sauteed some apples.

Fresh Homemade Pumpkin Pie

madcookieBlogSite.nospam@nospam.gmail.com (MADCookie) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:29:42 -0600

Recipes from http://www.pumpkinpatchesandmore.org/pumpkinpie.php

Before

Puree Processing

Scrap the "meat" away from the skin after it has been steamed and softened.

Hand stick blender to smooth the puree.

Puree is divided into cloth napkins and hung to dry. I'm trying to remove the water. The puree is very wet.

The pumpkin in all its parts: skin (going to trash), puree (going to be pie), and seeds (going to be roasted)

Pie Processing

If this is going to be a homemade project, then I made a crust

Rebekah isn't really a fan of pie, but here she is showing off the pie mixture.

One full 9" pie

There was some remaining filling, so we made crust for the ramekins.

The pie is done, the ramekins need a little more time.

After

Back to the idea of homemade, I made up some whipped topping too. The kids loved the topping way more then the pie itself.

In the end, Elijah, Les and I liked the pie. Oh well. It is really amazing and the flavor is so much more intense.