Time To Bake in the New Year

Swedish Cardamom Rolls (Swedish Bullar)

So what do you do on a cold 8 degrees below zero day?  Stay indoors, drink lots of hot tea and immerse yourself in BAKING! One of my favorite things to bake is a buttery cardamom & cinnamon roll. 

One year ago, my friend Caryn, treated me to one of her freshly baked cardamom rolls.  I was hooked on these buttery beauties!  Caryn, who's ancestors were Swedish, has always love to bake and cook favorite foods from Sweden.  After sharing the recipe with me, I believe I made these rolls like three or four times last winter.  I also decided to make a batch last year only using cinnamon since some of my family members are a little shy to the taste of cardamom.  Yes, I do think you have to acquire a taste for cardamom!

Just be aware if you make this recipe, that it's very buttery and rich dough.  This is not your typical cinnamon roll dough.  So, after making a batch yesterday, I edited the recipe.  I redo or edit recipes often, something I just learned from my mother and grandmother.  So now, I've decided it's better to cut your dough strips in 1/2-inch to get a smaller roll.  Of course, you can still cut your strips by 1 inch, but you will just get a much larger buttery roll!!!

If you want to learn the proper technique to shaping/twisting the dough, go to: http://www.fixfeastflair.com/home/2015/2/9/swedish-cardamom-rolls-kardemummabullar-recipe

To find this recipe, click on Turtle Recipes in the top menu.  Give this recipe a try if you love to bake and can devote 3-4 hrs at home.  Stay warm friends and Happy New Year.

Do You Remember Maida Heatter?

Maybe I'm dating myself here, but do my readers remember Maida Heatter?  Cookbook author?  I've had this recipe for 30 years and it's my husband's favorite.  I use to use raisins years ago, but now my hubby requests craisins!!!  To find the recipe, please look in my Turtle Recipe menu.

I've been on a baking binge lately, baking for friends, family and non-profit agency meetings.  I like to keep myself busy, so baking is my refuge.....it keeps me feeling happy and satisfied.  Somehow, my life is mimicking my mother's.  My mom used to bake for the love of giving to others.  I'll be traveling to my parents home soon and taking lots of home-baked goods to them, just like they used to bring to me in my younger years.  The life cycle continues.......

Trigger Foods

Brickle Chip Blondies

Have you ever cooked or baked something that suddenly triggers family memories?  I had one of those moments tonight when I reached for a family favorite cookie/bar recipe book.  I haven't used this cookie book for like fifteen years!  I was contemplating tonight what favorite bar recipe could I make for my neighbors to try and cheer them up.  Laurie and Therese experienced the worse nightmare last night when a skunk sprayed underneath the crawl space of their house.  The stench is so horrible that the gals had to quickly grab some belongings (and their cat) and move to the local hotel.  All day I've been trying to think about how I could help the gals, but there really isn't anything my husband and I could do for them......except, make a sweet treat for them. 

So getting back to my question, do you have a trigger food or recipe?  As soon as I made these bars tonight, memories started flooding back to me of when Becca and Chris were young children.  I sure miss those days.  So, this particular recipe was one of their favorites and I bought the cookie book back in the mid 90's.  I made these bars all the time because they were fast and easy to make.  The pan of bars NEVER lasted long in our house.  And now?  Bike man and I rarely bake cookies, cakes or pies.  Nowadays, all you hear or read about is that sugar is bad for you.  Kind of makes a person depressed ya know!  I enjoyed making the pan of bars and will make them again when I have my next sugar craving.

If you are interested in the recipe, please look in my Turtle Recipes menu.

 

Overripe Bananas?

So, I've had these overripe bananas sitting in a bowl for five days now and they were pretty much on their last day of survival!  I told myself I had three options:  unpeel them and place in a ziplock bag and freeze, throw in the compost pile (the deer and rabbits would be happy) or find a recipe to use the ripe bananas.  As you can see in my photo, I chose to use the bananas in a new recipe.  You will find my recipe in my Turtle Recipes in the top menu.   

I looked through lots of recipes online this morning and I finally settled on banana bars with a light coating of brown butter frosting with toasted pecans...the pecans were my idea!  I really don't like frosting anymore since going off sugar for more than a year, so I adapted the recipe and only made half the frosting it called for.

The recipe I used and adapted, is from Chef in Training.  Instead of using all white flour for the recipe, I used one cup whole pastry flour and one cup all-purpose.  I also decided to use granulated white sugar and some granulated coconut sugar, which I purchased from my local food co-op.  The original recipe also called for sour cream, but I used our homemade yogurt.  The banana bars turned out wonderfully moist and flavorful. 

I cheated today and ate a piece of the banana bar.  I do that every once in a while, but I'm still trying to avoid all refine sugar.....just a personal choice I decided to make in my life. 

So what will I do with the banana bars?  Freeze them of course.  I love sharing my baked goods with friends and family, but it's also nice to pull something quick out of the freezer if we have surprise quests! 

Mountain of Cookies

Came home to a mountain of cookies tonight.....homemade oatmeal cookies that is!  Very nice Bike man.  Of course I had to sample a cookie when I got home.  Great crunchy texture and buttery taste.  What a treat to have freshly baked cookies.  Love that lingering smell throughout the house.

Sweet

Ahhhh, cupcakes. Everyone loves them, don't they? Got a message a couple weeks ago that my church was having a bake sale at the local grocery store and they were looking for church members to donate baked goods. Came home after work and baked some Snicker Bar cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Grabbed this idea from a cookbook at my libray.

After baking tonight, I walked down to the dock to enjoy this colorful sunset. Finally had a nice day today.

Bike man spent the last two days doing bicycle maintenance on a friends bike. It was a challenge working on the bike yesterday with the wet conditions outdoors, so the bike came indoors. Bike man did his best to keep the cats away from his equipment.....cat hair in the bicycle chain is not a good thing!

Looking forward to tomorrow.....bicycle ride, sunshine and a birthday party, whoo hoo!

Dating Myself

I had time to think today....think about what I want to do for the future and what I haven't done in the past. This photo is a good example of what I wanted to do for 30 years. Can you zero in on the publishing date on the Cook's Magazine? Yup, 1981. Cook's magazine is now published by Cook's Illustrated. I saved this particular 1981 issue so I could teach myself how to make a basic Genoise cake.

What is Genoise?

Genoise is a European sponge cake made from cake flour, sugar, eggs, salt, vanilla and unsalted butter. No chemical leaveners, just whipping the eggs, flour and sugar mixture to develop a light spongy texture.

Genoise is usually referred to as a specialty cake, but how about cupcakes? That's my thought here. I think I will concentrate on making Genoise cupcakes with butter cream frosting.

After a day of reflecting on my future dreams and endeavours, I realized I need to make some changes in my life. It's too early to reveal my soul , but look for upcoming hints!!!!

Merry Christmas To All

Today was all about baking, and cooking for my family. My first mission today was to give Becca, Chris and Trisha, a lesson on making one of my cheesecakes. I usually make the toffee cheesecake, but today I decided to make a Snicker's cheesecake. I really had a lot of fun showing the kids how to make a cheesecake from scratch. There was only one little problem. After the cheesecake came out of the oven, my twentysomething kids (Becca & Chris) couldn't resist picking at the outer crust....geez!

Spent all afternoon cooking and preparing our Christmas meal. I did have help from the kids during the cooking process, plus my dishwasher, Bike man! So what did I serve today? Baked ham, mashed potatoes with butter, seasoned corn, sweet potatoes with cinnamon pecan streusel, and herb buttermilk biscuits. The time spent in the kitchen this afternoon and tonight was fun, but before the night was over, Becca and I went to visit a dear friend and her daughter. Catching up with old friends is so good for the heart and soul......especially when there's laughter involved!!!

Merry Christmas to all my readers.

Christmas Cookies

Traditions just can't be broken. Gingerbread people were waiting to be decorated and that happened today when the kids came home for Christmas.

Can't forget the sugar cookies......never!

Enjoyed a wonderful lasagna dinner tonight thanks to Bike man. We actually tried a new lasagna recipe.....Italian sausage, ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, lots of basil and garlic, plus homemade tomato sauce. I'd say it was up to restaurant standards.


Of course later tonight we were entertained by a crazy cat who decided to climb inside the Christmas tree. What next? We ended our night watching "Bushwacked" which is a family favorite. I sure hope your Christmas Eve was enjoyable and peaceful.

My Baker's Helper Came Home

It's good to have our daughter home for the Christmas holiday. Poor kid, she would have come home sooner, but unfortunately suffered the flu bug for the last two days. I went into my mom mode tonight and made her mashed potatoes, and served leftover meatballs......comfort food for sure!



Tomorrow, Becca and I will decorate the sugar cookies and gingerbread people I made earlier. Some traditions you just can't break.

In the Kitchen Today

Fragrant Bouquet (hosta)

Did someone turn back the date? I had to remind myself it was the first weekend of June, especially with temperatures in the low fifties today. Breezy, cool and dark grey...that was our kind of day today. Went to church today in a skirt and frozen my little toes!

Had another wave of nostalgia this afternoon. Someone I know has a birthday tomorrow, so I decided I would bake that person my favorite birthday cake recipe, dating back to 1980. Not sure what it is, but I'm stuck on 1980's this weekend!

Life was much simpler back in 1980. Check out the economy back in 1980. Wow, gas was only $1.25 per gallon! Being only 20 years old, I had already completed a year of college, but took a bump in the road and quit college and moved to Madison, WI. I only lived in Madison for about four months and then temporarily moved back home until moving to Northern WI in January of 1981 to attend a new college. Through the bumpy time in my life, I still didn't abandon my cookbook ledger. I always loved to cook and bake. It was kind of like therapy for me.

Tomorrow I will post a picture of the cake that I baked this afternoon. It's called "Mother Ann's Birthday Cake." I was pleased at how the cake turned out.

Becca was home briefly...slept at our house last night, but then had to leave this afternoon to drive back to Minnesota. She's on doggy duty next week. It was nice to see her. Briefly saw Chris today. We shared a quick grocery store trip together before I headed back home this afternoon.

What Do You Do On a Rainy Day?

Rhubarb Three-Layer Dessert

So what do you do on a rain day? Do something you've wanted to do in a long time, or catch up on projects. As you can see I baked. I didn't bake just anything, I baked one of my oldest recipes (1980) from my personal cookbook ledger.

You see, back in 1978 (I was 18 yrs old), I started a cookbook ledger that was filled with family recipes, and new recipes that I started collecting. I was excited back then about starting my own recipe collection, just like my mother and my grandma Fannie. I worked really hard on that cookbook ledger. Even when I was busy at college, I still managed to take some time and add new recipes.

This cookbook ledger tells the time of history in my life. When I look back through the pages and see the recipes with the date, I remember what I was doing in my life at that time. I have recipes that reflect when I graduated from high school, to when I went through my college years to when I got married and then had children.

I always laugh when I come to the 4-years span in my college days, because I took a lot of nutrition and cooking classes, and one of my professors had me believing that one day in the future the United States would convert to metric. So what did I do? I recorded all my favorite recipes in metric!!! Thanks a lot Dr. Earl....did we convert to metric? No! I still kind of remember the conversions from milliliters & grams back to cups and pounds. One of these days I'll have to go through those recipes and convert back to US measurements.

I even have recipes that reflect my former Australian boyfriend, who taught me how to make Lamingtons and Pavlova. Lamingtons were these cake squares that you dip in a bittersweet chocolate sauce, and then roll them completely in finely grated coconut. I have never seen these cakes made or sold in the US, but I have the recipe, hee, hee!

The Pavlova is a large meringue in the shape of a pie shell. After you bake the meringue to a golden brown and cool it, you then fill the center with lots of real whipped cream and top with fresh fruits like, bananas, strawberries, kiwi, pineapple etc. I guess that was an Australian favorite.

I have so many stories I could share with you about my cookbook ledger. The pages are worn, dirty from baking supplies, and the binding is now breaking. I cherish my 29 year old book and I now treat it with respect so it will last another 29 years.

Are all the pages filled? Yup, that happened sometime in 1990 when my children were still little.

PS. If anyone is wondering, this rhubarb dessert has a butter crust with a custard filling and a meringue topping. If you want my rhubarb dessert recipe just let me know and I'll email it your way.

UMD Graduation

Our daughter, Becca, graduated this weekend from the University of Minnesota Duluth. Becca graduated from the College of Education with a degree in secondary education in Social Studies. She still has the fall semester to complete her student teaching, which she will be doing at a middle school in Duluth. I can't believe how fast the last four years has gone, but at the same time I am glad our daughter is done with all her education classes.

After the graduation (which took 3 hours), we all went out for Mexican food and then came back to Becca's house to help assist with packing tasks. Before we left this morning to drive home, we meet Becca at Dunn Brother's (coffee cafe) and had a nice relaxing morning breakfast. I was sad to leave Duluth this morning....I love Duluth, even if they do have lots of pot holes in their roads.

Had to take a picture of our beautiful fruit pizza! Becca made the crust and filling, and I assembled the fruit pizza yesterday after arriving at her house. The fruit pizza didn't last long, as we snacked on it before the graduation ceremony and aftwards when we got back!

Congratulations Becca!!!

Peace & Rest

How could you not love this face! It kind of reminds me of......well, no one! It's one of those faces that just belongs on a tree. The tree face was a gift from Becca to her dad years ago. The right eye is kind of like a lazy eye, so every once in a while you have to go and adjust the eye (darn red squirrels)!

I didn't get home until later this afternoon from church, and by that time it was already really windy. Ted was out riding the lake loop on his bike, first real bike ride of the season and it was a good workout riding into the east wind. Bravo to Ted for riding the 21 mile route at about a 14 mph pace. You know, spinning indoors just doesn't really prepare you for "real" road riding. There's no comparisons to riding the real thing verses riding indoors. Being on a stationary bike just isn't the same as being on your real road bike. I opted not to ride today.

After hearing today's sermon at church, I was inspired to make this my REST day. We all need rest days to where we aren't thinking about work, household chores, projects etc., etc. But also I mean REST in the understanding of, are you at peace with yourself? Do you not worry about what other people expect you to do, what you look like, how successful you are? True rest means you are happy with who you are and your relationship with God.

Today, I just wanted to be a "nobody."!!! I didn't want to think about my job, my spinning class or biking, my unfinished jewelry projects.....I just wanted to be me....Lisa!


So what makes me happy and at peace? You guessed it...making a batch of oatmeal raisin & chocolate chip cookies. I'm a baker at heart, it's in my blood. I just told one of my co-workers last week that I really do love to bake, but I don't think she believed me because lately I haven't made any baked goods for months. My life as a Library Director has consumed me with projects, meetings, program planning and workshops...leaving me tired and washed out most days.

So, here's the proof in the picture. I really did bake cookies today and it felt good. This is who I am. Just a middle-age woman that finds peace at baking a batch of cookies....plain & simple.

Hebrews 4 1:13