Peach Cobbler (Caroline)

On Memorial Day, we had Joelle, Dave, Lyla and Pressley and the Rexfords over for dinner. We had chicken and/or steak, corn of the cob, baked potato, fresh green salad and Peach Cobbler a la mode for dessert. I used canned peaches because I thought it would taste better than fresh. Big mistake!! If possible, I would definitely use fresh peaches. The recipe I used was from "Cooks.com".
Canned peach cobbler
1 stick of butter
1 C. flour
1 C. sugar
1 3/4 tsp. baking powder
3/4 C. milk
1 large can sliced peaches, drained (I used one and a half cans and it was not enough peaches!)

Melt butter in glass loaf pan in the oven (I used 9 x 13 pan because I increased the peaches). Mix together in mixing bowl flour, sugar, baking powder, and milk. When smooth, add drained peaches. Pour on top of melted butter in pan. bake for 40 - 50 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven. Top should be golden brown when finished.

*Note: Recipe could not have been any easier. What I would change: Definitely use fresh peaches and more of them! Maybe 4 cups...I like more peaches and less bread!

Because it was not very peachy, I'd say everyone gave it a "B" or a "C+". The girls (Lyla and Pressley) liked the ice cream.

Chocolate Intensity (Caroline)

See Joelle's post below for photos. I loved this recipe. I would definitely do it again, especially if I am trying to impress my guests. The cake was delicious although Dad and I could not eat a piece bigger than 1/2 inch wide because it is sooooo rich. Great recipe, Katie!

Fried Chicken (Caroline)

By Mom Kruithof

Buttermilk Fried Chicken Recipe (from Simply Recipes)

Ingredients

1 (3 pound) fryer (see Wikipedia on the difference between broilers, fryers, and roasting birds), cut into pieces
2 cups buttermilk
1 large onion, sliced
1/4 cup chopped mixed fresh herbs (parsley, tarragon, thyme) or a teaspoon each of the dried herbs.
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon onion salt
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper
2 cups grapeseed oil, or other high smoke-point oil such as canola oil, or peanut oil

Method

1 Soak chicken overnight (at least 8 hours and up to two days) in buttermilk with onions, herbs, paprika, and cayenne pepper. (Regarding the use of buttermilk, my mother has had good results from soaking chicken in plain yogurt instead of buttermilk.)

2 Drain in colander, leaving some herbs on chicken. In a large paper or plastic (sturdy) bag, mix flour with seasonings. Meanwhile, heat 2 cups oil in a large, heavy-bottomed skillet (cast iron, stainless steel, or anodized aluminum - something that can take the heat) on medium high heat until a pinch of flour starts to sizzle when dropped in the hot oil (but not so hot that the pan is smoking). Remember when working with hot oil, always have a pan lid close by.

3 Place chicken pieces in bag with flour and shake until thoroughly coated. Add chicken to hot pan and fry on 1 side for 12-15 minutes, until golden brown, and then use tongs to turn the pieces over and fry for another 10-12 minutes, again until golden brown.

Be careful to keep the oil hot enough to fry the chicken, but not so high as it burns the chicken. To do this on our electric stove we have to alternate the settings between high to medium high several times while we are cooking.

4 Use tongs to remove chicken from pan. Place on a rack over a cookie sheet or broiling pan for the excess oil to drain. Add more salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 4.

I can't believe I am 55 years old and I have never made fried chicken before! If I had been more experienced I would have followed the directions better - at least I would not have used such huge breasts! I probably would use skinless chicken tenders so that the chicken meat would have the flavoring I peeled off when I took off the skin on our breasts! Without the skin (which I peeled off after cooking) there was no crust or spice and as a result the chicken, although very moist, was very blah. Dad gave it a "C" then changed it to a "C+" because it was so moist. Frankly, I would rather have dry with flavor than moist boring chicken!!

Week 4: Bourbon Glazed Salmon (Katie)

Happy Friday, girlies! I made this salmon last night for Joy (since Brent's been out of town, it was the one night this week I actually made dinner). Here's the recipe I used:

Bourbon Glazed Salmon
Adapted from Cooking Light, September 2001

1 cup packed brown sugar
6 tablespoons bourbon
1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 teaspoons grated peeled fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 garlic cloves, crushed
8 (6-ounce) salmon fillets (about 1 inch thick)
Cooking spray
4 teaspoons sesame seeds
1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions

Combine the first 8 ingredients in a large zip-top plastic bag; add salmon fillets. Seal bag, and marinate in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, turning bag once. Remove fillets from bag. Put remaining marinade in a small pan and simmer for at least 10 minutes, reducing the sauce until it thickens.

Preheat broiler.

Place fillets on broiler pan coated with cooking spray. Broil 11 minutes or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork. Drizzle some of the reduced sauce over each filet, and sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon sesame seeds and 1 tablespoon onions. Serve warm.

Yield: 8 servings

I really like salmon. It's so simple! When I make it, I usually just marinade it with some raspberry or strawberry balsamic dressing and it is yummy! This was a good change though, and still pretty easy. I would definitely make it again. The only changes I made were to cut the marinade ingredients in half and to use 1/8 tsp of ground ginger instead of fresh. Oh and I didn't put seasame seeds or green onions on top.

The bad thing...I did have an abnormally tall piece of salmon, and it got a little close to the broiler. So the top got pretty scorched! Nothing that couldn't be picked off...but it didn't make for the best pictures. Here's what it should have looked like:


Fancy, huh? Here's mine:


Oops, I guess I should have had it on a lower rack...

Anyway, looks don't matter, right? It's all about the taste. My first bite, I didn't think it tasted that different from my regular marinaded salmon. You could just barely taste the brown sugar and bourbon. The original Cooking Light recipe said to throw away the marinade, but the adapted one I used had you cook and reduce the marinade into a sauce. And boy am I glad I did! That sauce was delicious! I wouldn't eat another bite without it - and a lot of it.

Here's Joy pre-first bite (ugh, check out that black top!).


We both decided that as far as salmon goes, this was delicious. For a fish recipe, I would give this 5 stars and a solid A. But out of all the main dishes in the world, it was just above average (what can I say, we're chicken people). Ratings:

Joy: 3.5 stars, B or B+ (wishy washy, huh?)
Katie: 4 stars, A-

I actually did really like this, especially with that sauce! I'd even call it one of my favorite all time seafood recipes, because really, I only have few (the raspberry balsamic salmon and I just found a catfish marniade that was really good). I'd even put this in our Best of 2009 Tastebook, and that says something!

Hope you all have a great weekend! Can't wait to see you in PA in two weeks!

Chocolate Intensity Cake (Joelle and Mom)

Well, I thought I'd have a chance to get with mom so we could do this post together, but it just hasn't worked out and I don't want to waste any more time! We made our chocolate cakes for Mother's Day dinner.

Joelle's Cake:


Mom's Cake:


We both made slight changes to the recipe. I used almond extract instead of coffee because I don't care for the taste of coffee and chocolate together and since Katie said the coffee taste was a bit strong, i thought I would try this. Mom baked hers a little differently. She can edit this post to give her details but I'm pretty sure she cooked the chocolate with the butter and I know she did something different with the eggs, too.

Because of the changes Mom made our cakes had a very different texture. Mine was more fudgey and Mom's was closer to a cheesecake. They were both very good!

You can tell the different textures in the pictures below. The first cake is mine, the second is moms, which says "Happy Mom Day" on it. She tried to do as the instructions say and put some chocolate in a bag to pipe a design on top but her chocolate was too warm and kept running together. Note to self: don't put the chocolate in the microwave.



In this picture, the closest piece of cake is mine, Mom's is closer to the whipped cream and strawberry.


And here is a picture of each of us enjoying our cake.






I don't have a picture of Lyla actually tasting the cake because she was much to busy picking moms flowers with the root still attached and placing them in her rocking chair. But, she wears the evidence of her "bites" on her chin!


We talked about the "grades" we would give the cake and they pretty much both got an "A". David and I preferred mine better and Mom and Dad liked Moms -- appropriate, right? At first Dad gave mom's an A+ and then took the plus back because he said her texture wasn't what he was expecting. And mom took one bite of mine and said "Ew, I hate raspberry with chocolate" and I told her it was almond, not raspberry and she said it tasted like raspberry and wouldn't take another bite, so, I got an F from her, but I'm not counting that because obviously she doesn't have very good taste. :) But, interestingly... Dad thought mine tasted like it has raspberry in it too, whatever it was, I LOVED the taste, it was right up my alley, which is why I made it according to my taste. Either way, it was delicious.

Chocolate Intesity (Lorren)

This cake was fun to make. I like that it wasn't just a dump and bake kind of cake. I used a spring-form pan and didn't really have any problem with it. It was hard to get the metal disk off the top of the cake when I inverted it and I ended up taking a chunk out of the cake, but because of the fudge-like texture, I just scraped it off the disk, dumped in on the cake and smoothed it together with a knife. You couldn't even tell it happened! I did get a little lazy at the end though and just poured the ganache over the top instead of taking the time to make it look pretty.
I also found that this was a really hard cake to take photos of! They either came out looking too light or too dark. The actual cake was hard to capture.
The first bite of this cake tasted almost like peanut-butter and chocolate. Weird, because I followed the directions exactly and used coffee. Cole said the same thing after his first bite. The second bite was pure chocolate! This was such a rich cake! I did use semi-sweet chocolate instead of bitter-sweet. This might be the reason it was SO RICH!
Cole is a chocoholic and even he had a hard time finished the whole piece! It definitely needed a full glass of milk! His rating ranged from a 5 to an 8 depending on how much he had eaten. He did have a second piece today, but just a sliver. That was about all either of us could handle at one time. It really was good, just extremely rich! I'm not a huge chocolate eater, so I'd probably give it about a 6 too. It was a great recipe, I probably would just use bitter-sweet chocolate and maybe add milk to the coffee like Katie did to try and tone it down a little bit. The texture was really creamy. I liked that a lot. When I eat a piece now, I have to eat it with milk and strawberry slices (kinda tastes like chocolate covered strawberries- Yum!)
Another note: Cole and I were both wide awake around 2 am. Not sure if that was a coincidence or the big pieces of cake we ate at midnight :) Next time I'll eat it a little earlier in the day!

Bourbon/brown sugar Salmon (Caroline)

I know you will not believe it but I made my salmon tonight and it is to die for!!! Just as good as Flat Rock Grill. But I cheated...I went to Flat Rock Grill and ordered take away. Just kidding! But I did cheat. I bought the Jack Daniels Bourbon Brown Sugar barbecue sauce. I soaked my salmon in about 1/3 cup of bourbon then cooked it in the frying pan with a little of the barbecue sauce and it is soooooooooo good!!!!! I will definitely do this recipe again (Why wouldn't I...it only took minutes to make and fantastic to eat). Dad hasn't tasted his yet. I'll let you know what he thinks.
Okay, he tasted it and he gave it an A+! I did, too!

Week 3: Chocolate Intensity Cake (Katie)

I made this week's assignment for Mother's Day, and it was a hit! I picked chocolate intensity cake because Brent was out of town, and I didn't think he'd miss the chocolate overload!

Here's the recipe (from Trish Boyle’s The Cake Book):
Makes one 9-inch cake

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate (preferably 62% cocoa), finely chopped
12 ounces (3 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brewed coffee
6 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350º F. Butter the bottom and sides of a 9-inch round cake pan. Line the bottom with a parchment round and butter the parchment. (If you’re using a pan with a removable bottom like a springform, make sure to wrap the pan with 2 or 3 layers of foil.)

Place chopped chocolate in a large bowl. In a saucepan over medium-high heat, stir butter, sugar and coffee until the butter is melted and mixture is boiling. Pour the hot mixture over your chopped chocolate. Let stand for 1 minute then gently stir until chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth.

In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs vigorously until blended. Whisk in the vanilla and salt. Slowly add about 3/4 cup hot chocolate mixture to the eggs, whisking constantly. (Tempering the eggs with a little bit of the hot chocolate mixture will prevent “scrambled eggs” when combining the two mixtures.) Add the egg mixture to the hot chocolate mixture and whisk to combine well. Strain the batter through a sieve (to catch any cooked egg bits) and then pour batter into prepared pan.

Set cake pan in a large roasting pan and fill the pan with enough hot water to come halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake for 35-45 minutes, until the center is shiny and set but still a bit jiggly. Transfer cake pan to a cooling rack and cool for 20 minutes.

Run a thin knife around the edge of the pan to loosen the cake. Place a cardboard round on top of the pan and invert the cake onto it. Remove pan and carefully remove the parchment paper. Refrigerate the cake for at least 2 hours before glazing with chocolate glaze. *I chilled overnight before glazing and then chilled for 2 hours more before serving. It was PERFECT!

Bittersweet Ganache
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

Place chopped chocolate in a medium bowl. In a small saucepan, bring the cream to a boil. Remove pan from heat and add the chopped chocolate. Let stand for 1 minute then gently stir until chocolate is melted and the glaze is smooth. Gently stir in the vanilla. Transfer glaze to a small bowl and cover the surface of the glaze with plastic wrap and let cool for 5 minutes at room temperature before using.

To glaze the cake:
Place the chilled cake, still on the cake round, on a wire rack set over a baking sheet. Slowly pour the hot glaze onto the center of the cake. Smooth the glaze over the top and sides, letting the excess drip onto the baking sheet. Scrape the extra glaze from the baking sheet and put it in a small ziploc bag. Seal the bag and cut a tiny hole in one of the bottom corners. Gently squeeze the bag over the top of the cake to drizzle the glaze in a decorative pattern. Refrigerate the cake at least one hour before serving. *I chilled the cake overnight and LOVED the texture and flavor of it. I actually prefer to eat it straight from the fridge, nice and chilled! The texture is smooth, rich and creamy and holds up well while eating.

I made just a few little changes...I read somewhere that the cake has a strong coffee flavor. So instead of using 1/2 cup of brewed coffee, I mixed some International French Vanilla Cafe mix with 1/2 cup of milk. For the ganache, I used 4 oz of bittersweet chocolate, and 2 oz of semi-sweet. Then there were a few changes in prep (I didn't strain for "scrambled eggs"), but I mostly stuck to the directions.

Saturday afternoon I made the cake. No trouble with the batter. I set the oven timer for 35 minutes, and when I got it out, it had no "jiggle." I was so upset, thinking I baked it for too long and I should have checked it sooner...but once I took it out of the pan, it looked was just fine.


I put it in the fridge and took it out to glaze around 11:00 pm that night (so it chilled about 10 hours). I didn't have any cardboard laying around, so I used a double layered brown bag. It seemed like so much glaze, layered thick on the top. I thought it looked odd, and I was feeling pretty skeptical at this point. But I put it in a pan, covered it with foil, and back in the fridge it went.


When I got it out of the fridge, the glaze had hardened and looked a lot darker. Since my glaze didn't really "drip" down the baking rack, I used a thin knife to go around the edge of the cake. I probably could have cut this a lot nicer, but I had a crowd waiting!


We ate it chilled, right out of the fridge.


Yum yum! The end product was delicious! Very rich, but not too sweet (thanks to the bittersweet chocolate). And just the right hint of coffee. The texture was so interesting...I read some reviews that said this wasn't like a normal flourless cake, and they were right. It was dense, but it was also creamy and soft (kind of like cheesecake texture). Here's a close up:


Everyone seemed to love the cake (of course maybe they just didn't want to tell me otherwise to my face?). Garret gave it an A+, my dad asked me to send my mom the recipe...overall it seemed like a success!


My mom had another taste after the cake got to room temperature, and said it was like a completely different cake. She said it tasted sweeter, and preferred the chilled bittersweet effect. Interesting. I would definitely make this again - it was worth the effort!

Happy Mother's Day, ladies! I hope your day was glorious! Love you all!

Bread Pudding Follow Up

So Brent and I went to Molly Malone's this weekend...and they changed their bread pudding! It's probably not something they make in-house, so it must change every so often. Even though it wasn't like I remembered, it was still delicious! The sauce alone was enough to make me swoon! I think there was some kind of berry in it...interesting twist. Check out these pictures:

(Notice Brent couldn't wait till I finished my photo shoot to start eating)

Now isn't that what a bread pudding should look like!?

Week 4 Assignment

Hello Loves,
I hope you are not sorry you invited me into the "club". I did do the Fried Chicken, I just can't figure how to load my pictures. Since I get to choose the next recipe, my pick is "Salmon marinated with bourbon and brown sugar." It's my favorite when we go to Flat Rock Grill. Happy cooking. Love, Mom

Fried Chicken (Joelle)

First of all, I'm sorry this post is so late!! I made it on time (last Friday). But didn't post right away -- Sorry!

Second of all, WHAT A MESS!! This has got to be one of the messiest foods I've ever made. And it was all my fault.

I chose a recipe I felt was pretty "classic", it was Paula Dean's recipe, and I figured if its southern and fried, Paula knows how to do it right, right?

My recipe:
Ingredients
Salt and pepper, for seasoning chicken
1 (2 1/2 pound) chicken, cut into pieces
Peanut oil, for frying
3 eggs
1/3 cup water
2 cups self-rising flour
1 teaspoon black pepper
Directions
Season the chicken pieces well with salt and pepper and place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, up to overnight.

Heat peanut oil in a cast iron skillet to 350 degrees F.

Beat eggs and water in a small bowl. In a shallow bowl, season flour with pepper. Dip chicken pieces in egg mixture and then coat well in flour mixture. Carefully add to oil, in batches if necessary, place lid on top of skillet, and fry until brown and crisp. Remember that dark meat requires a longer cooking time (about 13 to 14 minutes, compared to 8 to 10 minutes for white meat.)

Here is a picture of my prep. Like I said before, M-E-S-S-Y!



After I had all the breading done, I heated my oil. I do not have a thermometer so I started my oil at medium heat. Once the oil was hot I added my chicken. It turned brown instantly. I pretty much only had time to snap this picture before I was worried the chicken was going to burn.



I cut the chicken open to see how well it was cooked. The chicken was only in the oil for about a minute before it turned brown so I was sure the meat would still be pretty raw, and sure enough, it was! See...



So I turned the oil down to medium low, tried the second piece and had about the same result!! At this point my plan was to cook the third piece and them put them in the oven to finish cooking. I turned the oil down to low for the third piece and it cooked PERFECTLY! So, I put the first two pieces back in and cooked them until they were cooked through. My directions said this should take about 8-10 minutes since I was cooking white meat, but I cooked them for at least 30 minutes before they were done. In the end, they turned out very well.



I served it with mashed potatoes with southern gravy (my second attempt, it was yummy, but a little thick), corn on the cob and rolls.



My happy taste testers:




Curtis (David's dad), gave it an A! He ate every bite and complimented me on the meal again the next time I saw him! I love that man!!! :)

David said the breading was really good, great flavor and gave it a B+.

I give it a B. It was good, but the next time I make it I will use boneless, skinless chicken tenders. They will probably cook faster and I'm not a big fan of skin-on, bone-in chicken -- but it is what is commonly used with your classic Fried Chicken and its what Paula uses.

The girls did not try it this time, they were already in bed. I'll give them a taste of the chicken tenders next time I try the recipe. Good pick, Lor! This is a food I plan to play with and find my perfect recipe.

Fried Chicken (Lorren)

It's taken me a while to post this, but I made fried chicken last Friday night. It was not as hard as I always thought making fried chicken would be and I'm glad to have had the experience. The recipe I used was from allrecipes.com (of course!) and it was quite simple! Here's the recipe I used:

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons garlic salt
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1 (4 pound) whole chicken, cut into pieces
3 cups vegetable oil
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup milk

DIRECTIONS
In a medium bowl, beat together 1/2 cup milk and egg. In a resealable plastic bag, mix together the flour, garlic salt, paprika, pepper and poultry seasoning. Place chicken in bag, seal, and shake to coat. Dip chicken in milk and egg mixture, then once more in flour mixture. Reserve any remaining flour mixture.
In a large skillet, heat oil to 365 degrees F (185 degrees C). Place coated chicken in the hot oil, and brown on all sides. Reduce heat to medium-low, and continue cooking chicken until tender, about 30 minutes. Remove chicken from skillet, and drain on paper towels.
Discard all but 2 tablespoons of the frying oil. Over low heat, stir in 2 tablespoons of the reserved flour mixture. Stirring constantly, cook about 2 minutes. Whisk in chicken stock, scraping browned bits off bottom of skillet. Stir in 1 cup milk, and bring all to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low, and simmer for about 5 minutes. Serve immediately with the chicken. The chicken fried in the pan for 30 minutes (obviously not a healthy meal!) so there wasn't much work. The piece on the left above was some random piece of chicken (looked like the tail?) and had practically no meat on it, so I ended up just throwing it out. I'm not sure if people eat this or not, but it came in the package of chicken so I gave it a try. I won't use it next time.I also had to do two batches of chicken because it didn't all fit in the pan. I made this kind of late at night after Cole had hand surgery and we were impatient, so I tried making the gravy in another pan. Because of this, I didn't have the pan drippings and the gravy was not great. Cole said it wasn't that bad, but I'm not sure I'd even try it again. It probably would be a lot better if I made it exactly like the recipe said to, though, so maybe I would try it. Who knows?

The end product was delicious! I'm not a fried chicken person, but I thought it was pretty good! And Cole, who is definitely a fried chicken person, LOVED it! He gave it a 10! This means a lot coming from him! Not that he's that hard on me, but he just like fried chicken that much!Sorry I don't have any reaction photos, but, like I said, I made it late at night, so Savannah wasn't up and just had left overs the next day. And Cole was recovering from surgery so I didn't think he'd want me taking pictures of him eating his chicken in his boxers :) I'll try to have better photos next time!