As far as adventures in the kitchen... I would have to say that things have been fairly successful so far! I tried two recipes from the "Alpharetta Elementary" cookbook. From the "Awesome Appetizers" section, I tried making Apple Nut Dip. This recipe was incredibly easy (good for me!) My husband liked it, and we enjoyed it on fruit and on toast until he accidentally brought it to work when he mistook the container for leftover tortellini and it sat unrefrigerated for too long :( Eric did say that I'd have to make it again sometime though... so I think it was a winner. Here is the recipe:
Apple Nut Dip
1 C. sour cream
1 8-oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 apple, shredded
1/2 C. chopped nuts
2 T. brown sugar
Beat sour cream, cream cheese and cinnamon in medium bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients; chill. Serve with fruit dippers, pound cake or angel food cake cubes. Makes 3 1/4 cups.
My big challenge here was to master the shredding mechanism on our new food processor! It was a cinch! It only took about 20 seconds to perfectly shred the entire apple. I was quite pleased :) As far as fruit for dipping, I got strawberries, which were perfect. Bananas might be good too. Or apples. I, however, tried buying two tangerines for dipping also. Not good. The citrus and the cinnamon are not a winning combination. Plus, I had no idea, but tangerines have seeds! Or at least the ones I bought did :( Each tiny little tangerine slice had three or four seeds that needed to be extracted! I tried to accomplish the de-seeding with a knife. Eric found that it worked better to just use his teeth. At any rate, tangerines are rather more work than they are worth! My only other comment about the dip, it is very similar in taste to many of the flavored cream cheese containers you can buy. So if you want to go easier on yourself... just pick up the pre-mixed variety to begin with.
From the "Baaad Breads" section of the cookbook, I tried my hand at making biscuits. They called for yeast, which made me a mite bit nervous, because the last time I tried to make dinner rolls with yeast, I couldn't make it activate, and the rolls were small, hard lumps of dough when they came out of the oven :( But if at first you don't succeed, I suppose you can always try again. In the end, these biscuits were quite good as well :) Here is the recipe:
Our Favorite Angel Biscuits
5 C. self-rising flour
1/3 C. sugar
1 tsp. soda
1 C. Crisco
2 pkg. yeast, dissolved in 1/4 C. warm water
2 C. buttermilk
Combine first 3 ingredients. Cut in Crisco. Add milk and yeast mixture. Bake at 450 for 10 minutes.
I must say, the instructions for this recipe are some of the briefest I've ever seen! First of all, I did not know what self-rising flour was. You probably do, but I'll tell you anyway :) It's flour that has had baking soda and some other things added to it already so that you have to do less mixing yourself. It's a little pricier than normal flour, but I was afraid the recipe wouldn't work if I didn't use it, so I went out and bought myself a bag of it. Now, when it came to the yeast, I was in a conundrum. The backs of the yeast packages had instructions on them. They specified 1/4 C. of warm water + sugar for each yeast package. You were supposed to mix this, and then wait five minutes for foam and bubbles to ensure that the yeast was live and activated. The recipe, however, says nothing about sugar and calls for only 1/4 C water for two packages. I figured I'd better follow the recipe. There were no bubbles in my yeast :( Eric called just then from work, and I told him my sad tale of how the yeast was, once again, not activating and how our biscuits would be a failure. He said that, from a chemistry standpoint, I needed to add the sugar for the yeast to work. The moment I did, up it bubbled! (He later pointed out to me that, since there is sugar in the recipe, I could have just mixed the yeast and water and put it into the dough and everything would have been fine... oh well!) The dough was holding together pretty well, so I assumed it probably needed to be rolled out and then cut with a biscuit cutter (I used the top of a wine glass :) The recipe yielded TONS of biscuits. I only baked mine for about 8 minutes though, otherwise they started to get pretty crispy.
So... now I know how to use a food processor, and how to activate yeast for breads! What a week :) My next attempt will be at making Broccoli Chicken Casserole. If any of you have cooking tips, or a recipe you'd like me to try, feel free to comment with it on my page!
Happy cooking :)
Apple Nut Dip
1 C. sour cream
1 8-oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 apple, shredded
1/2 C. chopped nuts
2 T. brown sugar
Beat sour cream, cream cheese and cinnamon in medium bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients; chill. Serve with fruit dippers, pound cake or angel food cake cubes. Makes 3 1/4 cups.
My big challenge here was to master the shredding mechanism on our new food processor! It was a cinch! It only took about 20 seconds to perfectly shred the entire apple. I was quite pleased :) As far as fruit for dipping, I got strawberries, which were perfect. Bananas might be good too. Or apples. I, however, tried buying two tangerines for dipping also. Not good. The citrus and the cinnamon are not a winning combination. Plus, I had no idea, but tangerines have seeds! Or at least the ones I bought did :( Each tiny little tangerine slice had three or four seeds that needed to be extracted! I tried to accomplish the de-seeding with a knife. Eric found that it worked better to just use his teeth. At any rate, tangerines are rather more work than they are worth! My only other comment about the dip, it is very similar in taste to many of the flavored cream cheese containers you can buy. So if you want to go easier on yourself... just pick up the pre-mixed variety to begin with.
From the "Baaad Breads" section of the cookbook, I tried my hand at making biscuits. They called for yeast, which made me a mite bit nervous, because the last time I tried to make dinner rolls with yeast, I couldn't make it activate, and the rolls were small, hard lumps of dough when they came out of the oven :( But if at first you don't succeed, I suppose you can always try again. In the end, these biscuits were quite good as well :) Here is the recipe:
Our Favorite Angel Biscuits
5 C. self-rising flour
1/3 C. sugar
1 tsp. soda
1 C. Crisco
2 pkg. yeast, dissolved in 1/4 C. warm water
2 C. buttermilk
Combine first 3 ingredients. Cut in Crisco. Add milk and yeast mixture. Bake at 450 for 10 minutes.
I must say, the instructions for this recipe are some of the briefest I've ever seen! First of all, I did not know what self-rising flour was. You probably do, but I'll tell you anyway :) It's flour that has had baking soda and some other things added to it already so that you have to do less mixing yourself. It's a little pricier than normal flour, but I was afraid the recipe wouldn't work if I didn't use it, so I went out and bought myself a bag of it. Now, when it came to the yeast, I was in a conundrum. The backs of the yeast packages had instructions on them. They specified 1/4 C. of warm water + sugar for each yeast package. You were supposed to mix this, and then wait five minutes for foam and bubbles to ensure that the yeast was live and activated. The recipe, however, says nothing about sugar and calls for only 1/4 C water for two packages. I figured I'd better follow the recipe. There were no bubbles in my yeast :( Eric called just then from work, and I told him my sad tale of how the yeast was, once again, not activating and how our biscuits would be a failure. He said that, from a chemistry standpoint, I needed to add the sugar for the yeast to work. The moment I did, up it bubbled! (He later pointed out to me that, since there is sugar in the recipe, I could have just mixed the yeast and water and put it into the dough and everything would have been fine... oh well!) The dough was holding together pretty well, so I assumed it probably needed to be rolled out and then cut with a biscuit cutter (I used the top of a wine glass :) The recipe yielded TONS of biscuits. I only baked mine for about 8 minutes though, otherwise they started to get pretty crispy.
So... now I know how to use a food processor, and how to activate yeast for breads! What a week :) My next attempt will be at making Broccoli Chicken Casserole. If any of you have cooking tips, or a recipe you'd like me to try, feel free to comment with it on my page!
Happy cooking :)
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