Category: Baking

Baking

Mushroom Soup, Yum!

Iris Rose

I missed you last week! I have been under the weather with a nasty bug and had some other busy stuff come up, but I am back.

I am still sniffling and coughing; my comfort food when I feel like this is homemade soup. I had a bunch of lovely mushrooms in the fridge and a container of cream. I bet that you know where this is going, don’t you?

Here is my own recipe for Cream of Mushroom Soup. I use dried herbs as, you know, Canada and winter. This is definitely not low calorie or heart friendly so if that concerns you, turn away and go back to your knitting or crocheting with  my understanding and blessing.

Ingredients:
12 to 14 Crimini mushrooms, sliced
½ c butter, divided into two pieces
1/3 c flour
2 c water
2 c 10% cream
1 tsp chicken stock base
¼ tsp cilantro
1 tsp dried chives
¼ tsp granulated garlic
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large pan (I use a deep sauté pan) over medium heat, melt ¼ cup of butter and heat until it starts to bubble. Stir in the mushrooms and sauté until they start to give up their juices. Stir in the herbs and seasonings. Remove the pan from the heat and stir the other ¼ cup of butter in to melt. When it is melted and the mushrooms look glossy, stir in the flour. Stir in the water and stock base and return to the heat, stirring constantly so that it thickens smoothly. When the soup is thick, stir in the cream. Cover and let it simmer on low heat for about half an hour. If it is too thick for you, stir in another ½ half cup of cream and/or water or more until it is to your taste.

I apologize for the photo but steam and camera lenses are not optimum for a great picture.

Have a great week and happy cooking and crafting.

Baking
Iris Rose

I am taking a break from crafting this week, at least as much of a break as my brain will let me take. I really pushed through this fall for craft sale stock and now I am stepping back and finally working on some of the projects that have been crying for attention. Can you say yoke cardigan, do you remember this one from ages ago?

In celebration of the extra time that I have this week I made muffins! I thought that I would share my recipe with you today; I hope that you enjoy it. I always make big muffins because I don’t snack between meals and find that a small muffin just doesn’t get me from breakfast to lunch. My recipe makes twelve large ones but should make twenty four regular size muffins.

Coconut Cranberry Muffins
Heat oven to 375F. Butter muffin pans or spritz with cooking spray.
4 c flour
¼ tsp baking soda
4 tsp baking powder
1 c coconut (save a couple of tablespoons for topping if you want to)
1 ½ c craisins (or raisins if cranberry flavour doesn’t float your boat.)

Mix all these together in a large mixing bowl.

1 ripe banana, mashed
½ c honey
½ c canola oil
3 eggs
1 c milk or cream
2 c buttermilk

Mix all of these together (beat the eggs, banana, oil, and honey together first) in another large mixing bowl.
Stir the wet ingredient into the dry until just mixed. Fill muffin pan cups to almost full. Sprinkle a little coconut on the top of each muffin. Bake for 20 minutes for large muffins or 15 minutes for small ones.
Get busy and you can enjoy these for breakfast tomorrow!

Have a lovely week full of happy crafting and kindness and thank you for reading.

Baking

Fresh Fall Apples in Pie!

Iris Rose

I know, I know, late again with the post but this time it is not my fault, I swear. Telus had issues yesterday afternoon and, gasp, I had no internet! It was almost like the old days when we talked to each other and interacted without constant beeps and I just need to take this’. Down off of your soap box Barb!

New apples, is there anything better? The Okanagan region Of BC is a really fabulous growing region and the produce is even better if you can buy it at the farm gate or market. DSIL2 was out to that area last weekend and brought me some lovely Honey Crisp apples which I promptly made into pie. Is there anything better than new apples? Yes, new apples baked in pastry of course!

I made a pie for the freezer, one for the bringer of the apples, and six open top apple tarts. I started with my favourite pastry recipe which is lard based but any one of the excellent pie recipes out there will do. I like to make the filling first so that the pastry is fresh to roll out. None of this chilling before rolling for me, such a rebel!

I peeled and cored the apples (I used eight because they were giant, probably equal to about a dozen apples) and cut them into quarters. I sliced the quarters crosswise for the pies and for the tarts, I cut the quarters in half and sliced those crosswise. The apples, as I said, were huge so the slices were too big for the tarts.

After the apples are all sliced up into a large bowl, in a separate small bowl, I mixed half a cup of sugar and a third cup of flour along with a teaspoon of cinnamon. I like to use a fork to mix these together so that there are no lumps. The flour thickens the juice that the apples give off when cooked and the sugar holds the flour particles apart so that there are no lumps in the thickened juice. The cinnamon speaks for itself. I sprinkled this mixture over the apple slices and tossed them gently to coat them.

I made pastry using that favourite recipe and rolled out the bottom crust. I filled the pan with the crust with the apple slices, heaped them up, rolled out an upper crust and covered the apples. I crimped the edges and trimmed off the excess pastry. I baked the pies on a foil lined baking sheet to catch any spilled over juice at 400F for 15 minutes, then 375F for another 45 minutes to an hour. The pies are done when the crust is browned and the juice that bubbles out looks thickened.

I made my tarts with a single crust in some extra-large muffin tins and just filled the crust with apples to the top. The apples cooked down a little but still looked and tasted great.

Enjoy the fall fruits while you can and have a wonderful week. Back to crafting next time but in the meantime, don’t forget the vanilla ice cream to top your pie!

Baking

Irresistable Biscotti

Iris Rose

Okay, here we go. Break out your apron and get your cookie mojo on. I am sharing my favourite cookie recipe, Awesome Biscotti. Even if you do not like the dry and not really flavourful ordinary biscotti, you are going to love these. Just remember to have the coffee or tea ready as soon as they are cool enough to eat.

What you will put together to make this delightfulness:
2 Tbsp butter (soft)
¾ C sugar
2 eggs
3 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 C flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 C of addins: nuts (chopped or broken but not too small), dried fruit (cut up if large), chocolate chips of any sort

     

Dried cherries and chocolate chips       Broken pecans and dried blueberries


Got them all together? Here is how to make these ingredients into heaven on a plate.

Start by greasing a cookie sheet or lining it with parchment paper and getting your oven heating to 350F before your hands get mucky. If your cookie sheet has high sides you might want to bake the dough on the back for easy removal as you will need to slide the whole piece of dough off to cool later.

Beat the butter and cream in the sugar. Beat in the eggs and add the vanilla and milk, stirring to mix well. Mix the flour and baking powder and add them to the wet ingredients with a few strokes. Toss in the addins and mix gently to combine it all. You may need to use your hands after stirring to complete the mixing. Do not over handle the dough so that it stays nice and tender.

Press the dough into a rough ball and place it on the cookie sheet. Use your hands (and a little flour if the dough is sticky) to form a flat long loaf in the centre of the cookie sheet. If you decide to make two different kinds as I did, you can use two sheets or crowd them onto one (I hate dishes).


Pop the cookie sheet with the dough loaf into the oven and bake it for about 20 minutes until it is slightly puffed and cracked, lightly browned and firm. Remove it from the oven and set the sheet on a rack to cool. Wait 10 minutes and slide it off the sheet and onto the rack. Do this gently so that the loaf does not break. If you are using a sheet with high sides, as I said before, you may want to bake the loaf on the back of the sheet for easy removal.


Wait 10 minutes and slide the cooked loaf of dough onto the rack to cool a little more. Keep the cookie sheet handy as these have to go back into the oven to cook again. After another 10 minutes use a sharp serrated knife and cut the loaf crosswise into ¾ to 1 inch slices. Turn the oven back on to 325F.


Place each slice cut side up on the cookie sheet. If an occasional one breaks, push it back together the rebake. Bake the cookie slices for 15 minutes, remove them from the oven, turn each one over to expose the bottom cut edge and bake again for 15 minutes. The cookies should be dry on the surface and firm. Remove them from the oven and off the sheet after 10 minutes to cool them completely on a rack.


Is the coffee or tea ready? Have a great week and don’t blame me for the weight gain.