My Hubby's Birthday

Today is Jamey's birthday.  So that means his favorite French Beef Salad and  Chocolate Chip Squares for dessert.  The Chocolate Chip Squares that he enjoys so much I found well over 13 years ago from a Southern Living Annual, but I can't find the original copy of the recipe, so I can't give proper credit for the recipe and the wonderful lady who submitted it at this moment, but when I find it I will! I promise!

Lunch today, I made French Onion Soup using the broth that was made from the beef roast that I  cooked in the Crock-Pot  last night while we slept.  I love my Crock-Pot! Now, the said meat is chilling in the fridge awaiting on me to dress it with it's vinaigrette, Swiss, Red Onions and Green Peppers.  Since Joey don't care for FBS, I picked up some thin steaks I will grill for him before we eat.  The kids have also requested Yorkshire Pudding, which I will be ever so grateful to fulfill for them.  Jamey will be happy with just the FBS and a glass of Sweet Tea.

Top Secret Recipes….Revealed!

Earlier this morning I posted a picture of a birthday cake I made for a friend stationed here with her husband & family at Fort Riley, who are also from North Carolina. I figured I’d show some NC love and make a Cheerwine cake with a twist. My friend is allergic to walnuts and I couldn’t top her cake with the normal Cheerwine icing, so I made a new special icing to frost two 9 inch cakes.

This recipe is no secret for Cheerwine loving fans. The recipe has been posted before on their website along with their Holiday Punch, BBQ sauce and ice cream recipes, but they’ve disappeared. Have no fear, this Cheerwine addict has them all.

For the basic Cheerwine cake recipe, you'll need....

CheerDevil Cake

1 cup Cheerwine*

1 box Devil’s Food Cake Mix

1 teaspoon almond extract

Prepare cake mix as directed on the package, substituting 1 cup of Cheerwine for the water and add almond extract. Pour into a 9x13 greased and floured pan. Bake as directed. Pour frosting over hot cake with recipe below.

Cheerwine Icing

1/3 cup Cheerwine*

2 ½ cups powdered sugar

½ cup margarine

¼ teaspoon almond extract

¼ cup cocoa powder

1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Heat Cheerwine, margarine and cocoa together over medium heat until the mixture comes to a boil. Remove from heat and add powdered sugar and blend until smooth. Stir in almond extract and mix in chopped nuts. Cool slightly and spread over cake. *Diet Cheerwine can be substituted for the cake and icing in either recipe.

Here’s my little Ayden on his second birthday enjoying a classic Cheerwine cake my husband made for him.

Now for the enhanced version of Cheerwine Cake and new creamy icing, I made a few substitutions. Starting with the cake mix, I replaced the vegetable oil with the same amount of all natural applesauce and proceeded with the basic Cheerwine cake recipe. This makes you feel a bit less guilty while enjoying all this chocolaty goodness infused with Cheerwine. Then grease and flour two 9 inch cake pans and bake as directed. Let the cakes cool completely and then frost with the icing.

I went in a completely different direction with the new icing. The regular icing is very runny and sets up after an hour or so. I opted for a semi-homemade Grandma Strick inspired chocolate icing that would be creamy and ice two 9 inch cakes.

Creamy Chocolate Cheerwine Icing

1 container creamy home-style milk chocolate icing

½ teaspoon almond extract*

¼ cup of Cheerwine*

4 tablespoons of powdered sugar*

Starting with a container of creamy home-style milk chocolate icing from the store, place in bowl of stand mixer or use a hand mixer. Add the almond extract and Cheerwine. Mix well and add powdered sugar to thicken it back up. Frost cake and place it in fridge for an hour to set up completely before serving.

*These amounts are estimation, add to taste and desired consistency of icing.

If you can’t find Cheerwine near you, try the Cheerwine locator online. The basic recipe uses almost an entire 8 oz can for the cake mix and icing. Enjoy!

Anniversary Dinner

Last Wednesday, my husband & I celebrated our 9^th wedding anniversary.

For the first time in 2 years (thanks to the U.S. Army) our traditions continued together. Monday night we watched How I Met Your Mother & WWE Monday Night Raw, we watched Billy Madison on Tuesday evening, which was our first date movie & enjoyed dinner together on Wednesday. We can almost turn it into a week long celebration. The only thing that was missing was the Blue Bell Wedding Cake Ice Cream. We had decided early on that we would be going out for dinner due to it being a school night and saving all we can for our trip home at Christmas. But, we had a nice candlelight dinner with two of the world’s cutest boys.

For dinner, I prepared Beef Wellington with mushroom duxelles for MtAoFC Vol. 1 by Julia Child (see I told you that you needed to buy that cookbook) and modified it slightly by using store-bought puff pastry sheets.

Alongside the Beef Wellington, I served braised Brussels sprouts with lemon-pepper and parmesan cheese. Super simple recipe, just steam frozen sprouts for 5 minutes in the microwave, cut in half, and toss with EVOO and lemon-pepper seasoning. Then place in a baking dish cut side up, sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese and bake along side the Beef Wellington and then broil for 5 minutes to brown the cheese. After dinner we snuggled up on the couch and watched Survivor, cheered on Cochran and enjoyed a sweet Pumpkin Whoopie Pie!

The whoopie pies were a first attempt for me and they turned out great! Thanks to the lovely ladies once again at Our Best Bites for the recipe. I hope you all enjoy these tasty recipes!

Further Proof I need a Le Creuset Dutch Oven!

Today, since I couldn't be in North Carolina to celebrate my oldest sister Mande's birthday, I decided to honor her in a different way. I'm not talking about sending her a card or posting a "Happy Birthday!" on her Facebook wall (which I did), but I did make a dinner in her honor.Earlier last week, while grocery shopping I bought all the ingredients for a recipe that I had never made before:

Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon

Yep, JC's timeless Beef Burgundy. One of Mande's favorite dishes that she likes to make is her own version of Rachael Ray's Beef Burgundy. She has since then been inspired to one day make Julia's version, but I beat her to it. (Sorry Sis!)
Let me say that the aroma that has filled the house all day while this has been cooking is amazing. It's a deep, earthy smell of root veggies, wine, thyme and bay leaves.
Almost as enticing as Christmas Scent, which is a slow simmered pot of cinnamon sticks, cloves, bay leaves and citrus. Mmmm...heaven. Cloves have that homey smell and reminds me of my Grandma Strick's kitchen. Ah, memories.
I didn't have the bacon rind as called for and used Merlot. I was limited in my choice of wines this time, but next time I will be swinging by the Oz Winery in Wamego, Kansas for a bottle of "Ding Dong the Wine is Red" next time I prepare this wonderful dish.
This dish is simple enough, ingredient-wise, but is labor intensive. I used too many pots and pans. I had a hard time making the Beef Burgundy in my small 2 1/2 quart stoneware casserole dish that I got a Pier One long ago, which is further proof I want a Le Creuset Dutch Oven! A cast iron casserole dish or dutch oven would have saved me from washing several pots & pans, since I couldn't put my stoneware directly on the stovetop. Then again, a $200 price tag on a 3 1/2 qt. cast iron dutch oven makes me a bit sick and doing a few extra dishes isn't so bad. But, I would love to have an Ikea Senior 3 quart Casserole for $39.99 (as pictured above) in the same color blue as the fancy overpriced one.
I browned the bacon and beef in my small cast iron frying pan, transferred it to my smallish stoneware casserole dish for part of the cooking process, transferred into my large pasta pot to simmer the wine and broth in, then bravely poured the contents back into my stoneware casserole dish & prayed it didn't overflow on the counter. It didn't, but I'll be the first to tell you this fills up an entire 2 1/2 quart dish. I set it back in the lower 3rd of my oven as instructed by Child and put a baking sheet underneath the dish to eliminate my worries of a bubbling mess on the bottom of my oven. Fears aside I went ahead and sautéed my Baby Bella mushrooms in butter and did the same with my frozen pearl onions in lieu of brown-braising them in stock. The Boeuf Bourguignon cooked for 2 hours and 45 minutes and finished up around 12:30. I took it out of the oven and let it cool....

......had a bowl for lunch......

and then put it into the refrigerator. When we were ready for dinner I set it back in the oven to warm up while I got the egg noodles ready. It took a good 20 minutes to heat through after a quick 5 minutes in the microwave. I served it over buttered egg noodles and alongside a salad with French dressing and a crusty loaf of French bread.

Delicious ~ is all I can say.

There's a bit of disappointment I have to share and it's that I'm not posting the full recipe on our blog. This is one cookbook that I believe that everyone should have or borrow and read through. Here's a real treat, Barnes & Noble just released the Nook e-book version of Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol. 1 for $19.99, so there's no excuse why you don't have a copy. If you're real desperate here's a link to the recipe on food.com. I have learned so much from reading through the different recipes in Volumes 1 & 2, My Life in France and reading one of my favorite books, Julie & Julia which I read back in 2009. I even did a review of Powell's book on my personal blog. I hope that this post has given some of you a bit of inspiration to attempt this timeless dish.

Bon appétit!

Recipe Failed

I am an addict of pinterest.com. I'll admit it.  I have no shame. Anywho, one of the recipes that I pinned to my board was Blooming Cheesy Onion Bread. The only thing I changed was the cheese and I used Colby Jack that I got from Whole Foods yesterday.  I lucked up on the bread and found it this morning marked down to $2.70 at Wally World when I picked up stuff to make spaghetti for Em's volleyball team later this week.  It turned out ok but it wasn't a knock out of the park. It lacked layers of flavor.  You would get a little of the onion, cheese and bread in one bite then the next wasn't as good as the first. Even the kids were like "Eh, I'll eat it but it would be better with meat." I agreed thinking I would have rather spent the money to make Bacon Swiss Bread.

I did make some potato cakes made from the leftover mashed potatoes from lunch today, and those turned out awesome. :)

Southern Lunch

I decided when at the grocery store yesterday to make an ol' fashioned southern lunch for today. Fried Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy and Buttermilk Biscuits.  I picked up a pack of 12 chicken legs at the grocery store for $3.72.  Not a spectacular deal, but the way my 3 teens eat, I needed that  much for one meal.  They always fight over the legs if I bring Bojangles home.  So, that was the other deciding factor in getting the legs.
I read many a recipe on frying chicken.  Everybody has their own way.  So, I took info from here and there and made my own Fried Chicken recipe! I soaked the legs in buttermilk for about 4 hours this morning after I washed and dried them. 

Then they hung out in the fridge while I made the Pumpkin Bread I have been hungering for. I had to wait for my local Wally World to start carrying it since apparently it is a "seasonal" item.  Well, since my Pumpkin Bread Season begins before they start selling it (Food Lion STILL does not have it!) I will make sure I have stock to carry me through until next year just in case I have to make random pumpkin items. This recipe for the pumpkin bread is some of the best I have ever had.  Just a note on the recipe, I use the 28oz can of pumpkin and 2 1/2 tbsp of pumpkin pie spice instead of the cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg. I make 2 full loaves and 8 mini loaves instead of the 3 regular loaves.

I had Emma peel some potatoes and then Michael sliced them for our mashed potatoes while I began frying the chicken up.  Emma then began work on some Buttermilk Biscuits. We have tried several recipes in the past and like them, but I wanted to do something new.  She did a great  job and they were light and airy.

Once the chicken was done I made up some basic gravy using the oil the chicken was fried in and the flour left over from dredging.  We got the potatoes mashed up and were ready to eat.