Over the Kitchen Counter: Angie's Place for Cooking and Crafts

Orange Breakfast Loaf

  Here's a new one for the bread machine: Orange Breakfast Loaf -  I couldn't resist because of the name alone!  Like any bread machine recipe it was pretty much a no-brainer...throw the ingredients in the pan in the order recommended by your particular model's manual and turn it on.  The machine does all the work and you get to inhale the intoxicating aroma of yeast bread baking.  (And then you get to eat it too!)  This loaf came out perfectly and since this was the first time I baked it I was pleasantly surprised how tall and light-textured the loaf was considering it contained not only whole wheat flour but also old-fashioned oats.  I suppose you could select the "sweet" setting and add the cranberries in after the dough has mixed but I actually just used the regular white bread setting for fast-rise yeast and added the cranberries right into the flour.  It mixed up fine.  The cranberries, orange juice, and orange zest added such a refreshing flavour - like the name says: perfect for breakfast.

Orange Breakfast Loaf

1 cup water

1/3 cup orange juice

2 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup old-fashioned oats

1 tsp salt

2 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp grated orange peel

1/2 cup dried cranberries

2 tsp active dry yeast

 

Apple Streusel Muffins

I adore muffins for so many reasons: simple to make, quick to bake, portable snack, easily health-ified...and endless varieties.  These Apple Streusel Muffins fill the bill in all those areas and are just so flavourful and aromatic.  I told my DH they were just like apple fritter donuts without the deep-fried fat.

Did you watch the Super Bowl?  I really don't usually pay much attention to that event but this year I was rooting for the Saints (sorry any Colts fans :(   Having traveled to New Orleans soon after Katrina and
witnessing the damage there first-hand, I was really excited for the team from the Big Easy to be in the big game.  As soon as they won the toss I said to DH "That's a good sign.  They're going to win this thing!" and they did!  Of course, I had to have a theme with regards to the food so I did the traditional chili, cornbread, beer, and nachos...BUT...I had to do it in a healthier way.  I made chili with ground turkey and lots of veggies, plus black beans instead of kidney beans because they are lower in calories.  I used baked tortilla scoop chips topped with chopped peppers, onions, and tomatoes with just a smattering of cheese, with an avocado salsa on the side.  I shared the beer!  It was really tasty and no one noticed any different.  Anyway, it was a fun evening.  The only downside is that in Canada, with cable, we don't get the fun Super Bowl commercials everyone talks about.  (Thank goodness for youtube! ha!ha!)

Apple Streusel Muffins

1-1/3 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup oat bran

1/3 cup sugar

1 Tbsp baking powder

1 Tbsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1-1/4 cups chopped peeled apples

1 egg

1 cup milk

1/4 vegetable oil

Topping:

2 Tbsp brown sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

Valentine Lifesavers

I wanted to share this Valentine treat with you now so you would still have time to make them up before Valentine's Day, one week away today!  I got the idea from Dawn's Stamping Thoughts.  She always has the cutest stamping ideas and this one was a perfect project since my teenage daughter has a lot of friends at school but doesn't want to make a big deal out of Valentine's Day.  These are small & sweet - perfect to hand out to a bunch of people throughout the day.

I didn't have the exact supplies as Dawn, but what's great is that you can adapt any stamping idea to the stamps and inks you already own.  I used Riding Hood Red ink from SU with the word Valentine from the Everyday Flexible Phrases set.  The little heart is from the Short & Sweet Set (one of my all-time favourites) and the big heart is from the Love You Much set and punched out with the co-ordinating Heart to Heart punch.  The topper itself was punched out with the Curly Label punch and I glued it on using my ATG gun.

Making multiples of this project goes pretty quickly if (just as in cooking) you do all the same actions on each item before moving onto the next step: cut all the toppers, stamp all the images, stamp and cut all the hearts, sponge all the edges, and glue them all together...assembly line fashion.  I could only get my youngest daughter to accept these little Lifesavers to hand out but I think I would have made them anyway even if she had refused as well - they were just too cute to pass up!

After School Snack: Fruit Dip

My kids requested this after school snack: a fruit tray with fruit dip.  It was the end of the week so I only had some apples, a pear, a bit of fresh pineapple (from the Caribbean chicken), and some frozen strawberries but they went crazy for it anyway.  The dip is so easy to whip up - so long as you have the ingredients available.  You might have to plan in advance because not everyone has a jar of marshmallow "creme" waiting in the pantry.  I used an electric beater to combine the marshmallow stuff with a small tub of cream cheese and an individual container of strawberry yogurt.  I didn't follow a particular recipe in terms of quantities - they were just what I had on hand and it worked out great.  Mmmm, it's a really nice way to get them to eat up all the fruit!  DH got the dregs after dinner and said, "Mmm, that stuff is good."

It's funny because the other night, quite late after I'd gone to bed to read, the kids (all teenagers) came home from their various activities and all ended up on the end of my bed, chatting about their evenings, days, thoughts, etc. and even though it ended up being an hour later and way past my bedtime by the time we got them to go to bed, it was a precious moment that we knew not to cut short.  The kids were very relaxed and laughing, sharing, it was just so cute.  It's little times like that which bond a family together and make you realize what a difference that makes.

Caribbean Night

Well, here's the rest of the menu for Caribbean night.  First, the Spicy Meat Pies...
they were really tasty.  I used my regular pie pastry and just added the beef filling as per the recipe (a mixture of ground beef, onions, spinach, and spices).   It called for 2-double crust pie shells.  I only made 1/2 the recipe and I still had filling left over.  I made some little hand-held sizes and a few bigger ones for the DH.  They were so good my mom even asked me for the recipe!

Next, I made the Caribbean Chicken.  Poor DH got 3 extra phone calls to pick up ingredients on the way home from work but it was worth it.  The boneless, skinless, chicken thighs are sauteed in a sauce of onions, fresh pineapple, spices, chicken stock, rum, and bananas!  It was so tender and flavourful - with a dominant curry flavour.  The sauce was quite sweet and the bananas were almost like a dessert.  There should have been a topping of cashews but because we have the nut allergy I had to leave those out.  They would have cut the sweetness I think and offered more of a balance to the flavours.  The rice around the edge of the platter is just a Caribbean Combo mix.  I had enough to make and this seemed like a great accompaniment (it was - spicy!)

I did mix up a jug of Rum Punch (hey, it was in the cookbook!), which was pretty good.  Strong, but not over-powering.  I did add more pineapple juice than called for and couldn't handle too big a drink of it.  I'm actually going to serve the rest of it to mother tonight! ;0)  

Coconut Queen Buns

  I had to try this recipe for Coconut Queen Buns from the Caribbean cookbook - they looked so delicious!  They were very simple to make and turned out like a combination of hot cross buns, fruitcake, and cinnamon buns.  The coconut flavour was really subtle and the icing added a nice bit of sweetness to them.  They were great out of the oven, warm and soft, but once they were cooled the texture was much heavier.  15 seconds in the microwave brought them back to that wonderful, butter-melting soft dough.  Maybe the rising of the dough was affected by the weight of the added coconut or maybe I just need some fresher yeast but overall they were very tasty and I would definitely make them again. 
(DH loved them and agreed they looked just like the picture!)

International Recipes

  I came across these old recipe books I had from the really early 80s, international recipes from nine different cuisines (Caribbean, Italian, Asian, English, American, Canadian, Ukrainian, German, and French).  It was really fun to re-visit these old menus and they inspired me to add a couple new "theme nights" to the rotation.  First up will be Caribbean since the idea of Caribbean Chicken (with curry and fresh pineapple) and Jamaican Beef Pies whet my appetite.  Oh, and the Coconut Queen Buns sealed the deal - can't wait to try those for dessert!  A little Bob Marley in the cd player and maybe even a rum punch cocktail could make for a very fun evening.

I will definitely work my way through some of these oldies, some I have made already back in the day (pork tourtiere, cornish pasties, croque monsieur) and some are going to be completely new for us (guy lon ngow, Georgia pecan pie bars) but I will definitely share the good ones with you!  Find inspiration in your older cookbooks and you may discover a whole new menu for your family.
 

Happy Heart Day

I'm showing you Valentine's Day cards even though it's Groundhog Day today!  I made these little 3x3 cards to slip inside my kids' Valentine's goody bags - the little flowers in the heart are colour-coded for each child.  Do you have certain colours for your kids?  Maybe it started because we had twins and it was just easier to remember who got what/ate what/drank what if we kept a certain colour attached to each one...and it just stuck after that (to this day!).  One is blue, one is red, one is green...and now those are their favourite colours!  Anyway, I stamped the images right onto the white card stock in Memento ink and coloured them in with my Copics.  I stamped the smaller hearts (from the Love You Much stamp set - SU) on Designer Series paper and punched them out using the Heart to Heart punch.  I rounded the corners of the cards with the Corner Chomper (which I LOVE, by the way!) 

Chocolate Mint Brownies

  I must admit that these are not my favourite brownies...they are nice and fudgey but I prefer a regular, chocolate brownie.  However, if you like the taste of mint and chocolate, you will probably love this recipe!  Very simple to mix together and quick to bake (only 30 minutes), so you can have a nice minty dessert or snack ready in no time!

Chocolate Mint Brownies

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/4 tsp peppermint extract

2 (one ounce) squares sweetened chocolate, melted

1/2 cup flour

350F, 8" square pan, 30 minutes

 

Hello Kitty Valentine

Hello Kitty is pretty darn cute, especially holding a big, pink heart!  I made this card using the Cricut and the Hello Kitty Greetings cartridge.  I used the Card Feature Key and cut the card on page 49 of the handbook at 4-1/2" in black card stock.  Then I cut the <HK9> kitty in white and added the various layers (silhouette, bow, nose, heart).  I embossed the heart with the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder and glittered up her bow with some Zig Two-Way glue and Dazzling Diamonds.  I cut a white kitty using the Blackout feature to line the inside of the card where I stamped a sentiment and will write a message.  So sweet!