Vanila Crème Anglaise

This is such an good topping that can be used on just about anything where you may not want to use a heavier frosting, or where it is inappropriate to use something heavy and you just need a little something.

Ingredients:

3/4 Cup Heavy Cream

3/4 Cup Whole Milk

1/3 Cup Granulated Sugar

3 Egg Yolks

1 teaspoon Vanilla

In a saucepan heat cream and milk over medium heat. Cream needs to simmer but not boil. While that is heating, in a medium sized mixing bowl, combine sugar and egg yolks mix with hand blender until well blended. Gradually pour heated cream into egg mixture makin sure to wisk continually while adding, no cooked eggs in the creme please! continue adding, and mixing, until everything is well incorperated.
Return entire mixture to saucepan and then reture the saucepan to the stove, continue to cook and stir on medium-low heat until mixture coats the back of a spook, about another 5 minutes.
Strain using a fine mesh sieve. Add vanilla stir till combined.

Anglaise can be served warm, room temp, or chilled.

Chocolate Souffle

One of my loves in life is Chocolate and I like fluffy things. This souffle fulfills both of those things and it's not as hard as you would think. I found this recipe quite by accident. It is a recipe that I widdled down from a restaurant recipe, and it tastes great. This recipe will make 6-8 souffles

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup whole milk

1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon Cornstarch

10 oz chopped Dark Chocolate - I like to use Peters dark chocolate, but you can use any dark chocolate

3 Egg yokes, lightly mix with a fork to break up the yokes

7 Egg whites

1/3 Cup Granulated Sugar

Raw sugar and butter for preparing ramekins


Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

prepare ramekins by taking a stick of butter and smearing it along the inside, then lightly sprinkle them with the raw sugar.

Place Chopped chocolate in a large bowl.

In a sauce pan combine milk and cornstarch, be careful to eliminate any clumps of cornstarch, and bring to a boil. Once milk has come to a boil pour over chocolate and mix. Slowly add egg yolks in with chocolate mix, mixing chocolate continually. Trust me you don't want cooked egg in you souffle be fore your ready to cook the whole thing. Continue mixing until all the egg yokes are incorporated and well mixed.

In your Bosch, if you have one or you could do it with a hand mixer, whip sugar and egg whites to medium peaks. Fold in a small amount of the egg mixture into the chocolate mixture and mix until they are the same consistancy, meaning you can no longer see a difference of where the egg whites start and the chocolate starts, no lumps. Carefully fold in small amounts into the chocolate mixture until all of the egg whites have been folded in.

Pour batter into prepared ramekins, fill to almost the very top.

Place filled ramekins on a baking sheet and place in the oven, before you close that door you are going to add just a little water to the baking sheet to create steem at the souffle cooks. Now close the oven door.

Cook for about 10 minutes. Souffle is done if it does not jiggle when moved.

Serve warm with either: dusted powered sugar, vanilla creme anglaise, or a plain scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Jicama Salad

While my friends and I were attending the Quick Quotes Private Reserve Weekend they served us this jicama salad that was to die for. I have modified the recipe here for you. Once you try it I promise you will not be able to put your fork down.

For the Salad:

Ingredients:

Julien slice all ingresients and place in a large bowl

2 Large jicama peeled

1 White Onion sliced very thinly

1 Large Red Bell Pepper

1 Large Yellow Bell Pepper

1 Jar Sun Dried Tomatos thinly sliced


For Remoulade Dressing:

Ingredience:

Place all ingredience in a blender

1/4 Cup Lemon juice

1/2 Cup thinly sliced White Onion

1/2 Cup chopped Green Onion

1/4 Cup Celery (take off string)

2 Tbls Garlic

3 Tbls prepared Horseradich

3 Tbls Whole Grain Mustard

3 Tbls prepared Yellow Mustard

3 Tbls Ketchup

1 tsp Salt

with all ingredients in blender mix until blended, then add 1 Cup Canola Oil until emulsified. You may choose to make the dressing more creamy by adding 1/2 Cup Mayonaise to the mix (I chose to forgo the extra calories and didn't miss it in the taste or creamyness).

Add dressing to the salad and serve.

Quick Quotes Private Reserve Weekend

Last month a few of my friends and I attended Quick Quotes (QQ) Private Reserve Weekend. For those of you that have no idea what I am talking about, it's all about scrapbooking.
I have to tell you that the QQ ladies did a fabulous job at one of thier first go round weekend reserves. I know that they have done a few others at other cities and I am sure that they had as great of time as we did here.

I know that we completed so many great, fun, new projects that I can't wait to attend another Quick Quotes Private Reserve Weekend. My friends and I have attended Creative Escapes a few years in a row (2007 & 2008) and dollar for dollar we all agree that QQ is where it's at. I also felt that I got more completed and more usable projects out of the QQ weekend at a much lower price. I also felt I would give up a Creating Keepsakes convention to attend another Quick Quotes Private Reserve.

My advice if you are into scrapbooking and have an opportunity to attend a Quick Quotes Private Reserve, don't pass it up I promise you wont regret it.

Pumpkin Drop Cookies

This time of year when I see pumpkins around I always get excited for fresh pumpkin goodies. Pumpkin bread, pumpkin cake, and pumpkin drop cookies. This is one of my favorite recipes for this time of year. You can use the canned pumpkin but trust me just once try baking up and preparing some fresh pumpkin. Once you try the fresh pumpkin you'll never go back.

Ingredients:

3/4 C Butter softened to room temp

2/3 C packed Brown Sugar

2 large Eggs

1 1/2 tsp Pure Vanilla

1C fresh (or canned) Pumpkin

2 C Flour

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

Pinch of Salt

2 1/2 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice

1 C Chocolate Chips (you can use raisins or chopped dates instead)

Optional: 1 C chopped Walnuts

Directions:

In a large bowl beat together: butter, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Mix in pumpkin.
Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin pie spice.
Mix everything until well blended.
Stir in chocolate chips (or other add-In's that you have) and nuts, if using them.

Drop by spoonfuls, 2 inches apart, on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper (trust me once you start using it you will want to use it in all your baking).

Bake in a 375 degree oven for 10-12 minutes or until edges are golden. Remove cookie sheets and carefully pull parchment paper (with cookies still on top) onto a cooling rack

makes about 36 (1 1/2 inch) cookies.

Enjoy!

Italian Meatloaf

So another flavor that will instantly take me back to my childhood is meatloaf. I loved it as a kid, but as an adult it doesn't hold the same flavors that I remember being so fond of. However, I have come up with a new grown-up version that I am just crazy about. I use Hot Italian sausage to add a little spice, but you can easily use mild Italian sausage and it gives it a little different slightly more savory flavor.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb Ground Turkey

1/2 lb Ground Beef or Pork (if you use beef it will have more flavor, if you use pork it will be more tender. Either way they are both delish!)

5 Italian Sausage links-removed from the casings (if you like a little spice try the hot Italian sausage)

1 large Egg (or 2 medium eggs) beaten

1/2 finely chopped Yellow Onion

1 chopped Yellow Bell Pepper

1/2 C chopped fresh Parsley

1/2 C grated Parmesan Cheese

1/2 C Rolled Oats

Sea Salt & Pepper

1 can of Muir Glen Tomato Sauce ( you could use a different kind if you want this is just for the top)

Directions:

in a large bowl mix meat, try not to over work your meat, over working meat can make it a little tough.

add: egg, onion, pepper, parsley, Parmesan, oats, and some salt and pepper (be careful not to over salt, you can always add more later, but you can't remove it). Work into meat.

Shape meat into a loaf. If your going to cook it in the oven then you will shape it like a traditional meatloaf. If you have pressure cookers and are going to cook it in a pressure cooker shape it more into a disk shape.

For the OVEN: preheat your oven to 375 Degrees. Place meatloaf in the center of a jellyroll pan. Pat your meatloaf to ensure that you don't have any air bubbles.
Bake for 1 hour. Pour tomato sauce over the top and bake for another 20 minutes. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

For the PRESSURE COOKER: when cooking with a pressure cooker always follow manufactures instructions for operation. Put 1 cup of water in the bottom of your pressure cooker.
Place your meatloaf on a trivet with a turkey chain around the entire trivet and meatloaf (you want to do this so that when your meatloaf is done you can lift the whole thing out as one and not break up your meatloaf). Once you have your "package together place it down in your pressure cooker, set the handles of the turkey chain to the side, but so that they will still be accessible to you when the cooking is complete. Pour the tomato sauce over your meatloaf and place pressure cooker on heat.
Place lid on pressure cooker. When pressure come up to 15lbs of pressure, cook meatloaf for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and drop pressure. Let meatloaf stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

Apple Brown Bettys

Apple Brown Betty's in years past were a way for people to use up old stale bread and not have to waist it. Today I think for many, at least for me it elicits fond memories of my child hood and some of my favorite desert flavors.

So I am going to give you an up dated recipe for an old favorite.

Ingredients:

1 loaf Brioche- take off crust slice and break into somewhat equal pieces

1 cube unsalted Butter

1 TSP Cinnamon

1/8 tsp Nutmeg

1 TSP Pure Vanilla

6-7 Granny Smith Apples -peeled, cored, and sliced

1 C packed Brown Sugar

Raw Sugar

Directions:

Prepare pan, I use a brownie size pan, coat it with butter and sugar. Do this like you would do if you were going to put oil and flour into a pan to stop something from sticking. Set aside

Melt butter, pour over brioche, and set aside.

Toss apples with juice of 1 lemon, to help them keep a nice color.

mix: sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Add vanilla mix (I like to use a fork)

Add Apples mix so that all the apples get nice and coated with the sugar mixture

In prepared pan layer brioche then apples, then repeat end with brioche.

Top the layers with a Raw Sugar, you will want to use raw sugar because it has less of a potential to burn than granulated sugar. Trust me don't leave this off, it crystallizes on the top and give you this beautiful crunch that is just yummy!

Bake at 350 for about 50-55 minutes or until golden brown and apples are soft, but not mushy when pocked with a knife.

Enjoy!