Cranberry Almond Scones

The Recipe: From a friend who I met when I studied abroad. She handwrote her recipe for me, and it's still the one I use. It's for plain scones, but she has some suggestions listed for variations. This variation is actually not one she suggested, but I was inspired by some cranberry almond scones I saw on Pinterest, so I made the adaptation myself. I made a few other changes to her recipe: I halved everything, and I baked it in wedges. Her original is double of this, but instructs you to bake them in individual balls. That works too, but I loved doing it this way!

What You Need:
2 C flour
6 T sugar
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 C butter
3/4 C milk or buttermilk
1 tsp almond extract
about 1/2 C dried cranberries
about 1/2 C sliced almonds

Your Turn:
Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda in a medium bowl.

Heat the butter and milk in a saucepan until the butter melts.

Mix wet and dry ingredients together.

Mix in almond extract, almonds, and cranberries. I eyeballed the amounts for the nuts and berries. Exact amounts are not crucial.

Using your hands, form the dough into a round, about 9 - 10 inches across. Place on baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Using a sharp knife, cut into eight wedges.

Bake at 375 for 20 minutes.

Remove from oven. Using metal spatula, or something similar, separate the wedges from one another and put a little space between them.

Bake another 4 - 5 minutes until edges are golden.

Enjoy with coffee! 

Yellow Chocolate Chip Cake

The Occasion: Fourth of July gathering at Aunt Pam's house.

The Recipe: From this blog, except I used yellow cake mix instead of chocolate. Icing recipe is from here.

How it Went: This cake was unbelievably easy and delicious, the kind of dessert that gets you compliments you feel guilty receiving because you hardly did anything.

What You Need:
1 box yellow cake mix
1/2 C vegetable oil
1/2 C water
8 oz sour cream
3 eggs
6 oz chocolate chips
1 C powdered sugar
1 T milk
1/2 tsp vanilla

Your Turn:
In a large mixing bowl, combine

• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 1/2 C vegetable oil
• 1/2 C water
• 8 oz sour cream
• 3 eggs

Add 6 oz chocolate chips. I used a combination of milk chocolate and semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Pour batter into a greased and floured bundt pan.

Bake at 350 for 1 hour. Check for done-ness with toothpick inserted into center of cake.

Let cool completely, if possible, before turning out of pan onto serving platter.

Whisk together

• 1 C powdered sugar
• 1 T milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Drizzle onto cake with a spoon.

Slice and eat!

Peach-Berry Cobbler

About the Recipe: The potential issue with this cobbler, if you're not careful, is a mushy center. You really have to bake it a good long time. I've made it often with frozen fruit, but it's more risky. Fresh fruit is less likely to create excess liquid to cause mush.

What You Need:

1 stick of butter

1 & 1/2 C flour

1 & 1/2 C sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 & 1/2 C milk

about 2 1/2 C blueberries (fresh or frozen)
2-3 whole peaches, pitted, peeled and sliced (or 2 C frozen peach slices)

Your Turn:
Place the stick of butter in a 9x13 casserole dish and melt in the oven at 350. Yes, a whole stick of butter. Don’t think about it too much. 

While it’s melting, whisk together

· 1 & 1/2 C flour

· 1 & 1/2 C sugar

· 2 tsp baking powder

· 1/2 tsp salt

Add 1 & 1/2 C milk and whisk to form batter.

Pour batter into dish over melted butter. I try to pour it in near the edges for a more even batter/butter distribution. Otherwise the butter pools in the corners as you pour the batter into the center.

Scatter fruit over top.

Sprinkle sugar over the top. Bake 60-70 minutes at 350 until batter is brown and fruit is bubbly. You don’t want it to jiggle. If you shake the dish and the middle looks jiggly, put it back in. Cover with foil if the top is getting too dark. Let sit uncovered for about 30 minutes before serving.

A few recipes that aren't mine

I've made a few things recently that turned out excellent, but are so insanely easy, it's not worth a play-by-play of how to make it. I'll just give you the links and let you give it a whirl on your own.

A Whole Chicken in the Crock Pot
I made this today (recipe here) and it was seriously excellent. The blog I found it on says it's "fall-off-the-bone delicious," and I tell you... it absolutely was. I got this chicken from my employer at work for Christmas, so it was free, but I also read that buying a whole chicken is really cheap per pound, and you can make broth (which makes for divine soup) with the juices and bones! I also saved 4 cups of chicken, aside from what we ate for dinner, which I'll put in soup or casserole. It seems like a win-win-win situation. The broth is currently in my crock pot, where it will cook all night. I'll skim out all the bones and stuff in the morning, and save the excellent broth for an upcoming soup. Mmmm. I was a bit scared to attempt this whole-chicken-bones-and-all thing, but I'm impressed with myself and thrilled with the result. Please: Try this.

Nantucket Cranberry Pie
I took this recipe from Pioneer Woman to bake for Christmas Eve at my in-laws. Everyone loved it (I liked it more than the Cranberry Chess Pie, myself) and I'll definitely keep it in my favorite pies list. I might do a post on this, since it was so good and I love blogging pies, but Pioneer Woman's post (and photos, of course) are far superior to mine. So just check her recipe out.

Taco Soup
I made this a couple months ago for a friend who had a baby and needed meals delivered. It was a crock pot soup and embarrassingly easy, but she and her husband loved it. For an easy crock pot dinner, this is an excellent choice. It's also flexible. Leave out a certain kind of beans or the green chiles, or add more of anything you like. It's really great with shredded cheese and sour cream on top and a sprinkling of tortilla chips.

Skillet Chili
I've always made chili in a big skillet on the stove, but I've always used ground meat, a packet of McCormick chili seasoning, and whatever ingredients it suggests on the back of the packet. When I came across this recipe for chili, it sounded really similar but with a homemade flair. We loved it, and Husband even said it was better than my normal chili (which is funny because he normally likes packaged things more than the homemade versions). It was extremely good. I served it with rice, which I don't think she suggests. Also, I didn't use the whole jar of tomato sauce. I used tomato paste and some water instead, because I didn't have tomato sauce on hand. I also didn't have celery salt, so I used a bit of regular salt instead. It was really, really good.

Thanks to other cooks and food bloggers of the world for making such excellent recipes available!

Stir-n-Drop Sugar Cookies

The Date: 16 December 2011

The Occasion: Christmas is coming up!

The Recipe: From this little gem of a cookbook I got at Ollie's years ago.

How it Went:
These are extremely easy, delightful little sugar cookies. Definitely will be my go-to cookie when I'm in a rush, or when I'm cooking with little daughters someday. Requires only things you most certainly have on hand already. They're not super-sweet, but they puff up nicely and would look pretty for any occasion dressed up with appropriately colored sprinkles or sugar. I made them Wednesday night for Pete's prayer group which met at our house, but only a half-batch. They turned out well so I made a double batch on Friday night. The recipe given below is the regular, single batch. I recommend doubling it, though, no matter the occasion. You can never have too many sugar cookies, and these are so easy, it's worth doing a lot at once.

What You Need:
sugar
vegetable oil
baking powder
vanilla
salt
eggs
flour

Your Turn:
Mix together with a spoon

• 3/4 C sugar
• 2/3 C vegetable oil
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs

Add 2 C flour, a little at a time, and stir until a soft dough forms.

Drop rounded teaspoons-ful on an ungreased cookie sheet about two inches apart. Press down to about 1/4 inch thickness, and decorate as desired. Giant was all out of red and green sprinkles, so I had to use these multicolored ones. I found an excellent way to distribute sprinkles on a cookie with my olive spoon! The little spoon is designed with slots in the bottom to collect olives out of the jar and drain the liquid on the way out. But I found if you scoop up a small bit of sprinkles in the edge of the spoon, then slowly tilt it and gently shake it over the cookie, they will sprinkle out nicely. Then just tilt it back and move to the next cookie.

Challenge: Hold an olive spoon full of sprinkles in one hand and shake it slowly over a cookie without making a mess. In the other hand, hold a camera and take a decent picture without trembling the camera and causing blurriness.

Put in a 400 degree oven for 8 minutes. I baked two trays at once, and switched their position in the oven after 4 minutes. That way each tray got 4 minutes closer to the heat, and nothing got burnt. Take them out when the edges just start to look golden.

Merry Christmas!