Peach Cobbler

There's debate as to whether this is really a cobbler or not.  I think someone described it as closer to a "buckle" (I would agree) but regardless it went well with our Southern Food-themed Super Bowl get-together.

I used a frozen fruit mix (thawed) and added canned peaches because that's all I had on hand.  I'd recommend at least 20 ounces of fruit.  The recipe looked really weird going into the oven but came out delicious and normal-looking.  I also used 1/4 cup of sugar for the fruit.

Thanks to Suellen Anderson for posting this on Food.com!

Peach Cobbler

Batter
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup room temperature milk
1 room temperature egg

Filling
1 (28 ounce) can sliced peaches, drained
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Directions:

1 Melt butter in a 9 x 13 inch pan.
2 Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder & salt.
3 Stir in milk & egg.
4 Pour evenly over melted butter.
5 Combine peaches, sugar & spices and spread over batter-DO NOT STIR!
6 Bake 35-45 minutes at 350°F until batter comes to the top and is golden brown.
7 Serve warm with ice cream.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

This dip is famous at work so I made it for Guy's Night at our house.   It was really addictive and went well with Tostitos Scoops or carrot and celery sticks.

Thanks, Claire Robinson and LT, the nurse who brings it in for the nurses.  Perfect Game Day food!

Buffalo Chicken Dip

Ingredients
8 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup finely chopped celery
1/2 cup hot sauce (recommended: Frank's)
1 rotisserie chicken, shredded
1 cup crumbled blue cheese
Crackers, bread or carrot sticks, for serving
Directions
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

In a medium saucepan over moderate heat, melt the cream cheese until smooth, about 3 minutes. Add the celery, hot sauce and chicken and mix well. Transfer the mixture to a 9-inch pie plate and sprinkle the crumbled blue cheese on top. Bake until hot and bubbly, about 25 minutes. Serve with crackers, bread or carrot sticks.

What Makes This Recipe Really Sing: This has all the great flavors of Buffalo chicken wings without all the fat of the chicken skin and oil. Want to make it lighter? Feel free to use light cream cheese.

Pancakes

V loves breakfast foods. When I'm home in the morning with her I'll try and make breakfast more interesting than cereal and milk.  Today she wanted pancakes, and this recipe is my go-to for easy pancakes that don't require ingredients not normally in my pantry.

Dakota Kelly, thanks for posting this on Allrecipes!

Good Old Fashioned Pancakes

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp white sugar

1 1/4 cups milk

1 egg

3 tbsp butter, melted

1. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk, egg and melted butter; mix until smooth.
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

I used coconut oil in my frying pan and it worked pretty well. 

Oven-Fried Pork Chops

I was going to make pork chops with bread crumbs and then found out that my bread crumbs were way past their prime.  Challenge accepted!  I found this recipe to replace it, which uses stuffing mix to bread the pork chops instead of bread crumbs.

This works better with thicker pork chops (probably 3/4 to 1 inch).  My daughter devoured this, which was a huge victory for me.

Thanks to Rachel Hacker for posting this on Allrecipes!

Oven Fried Pork Chops

Ingredients

• 4 pork chops, trimmed
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 egg, beaten
• • 2 tablespoons milk
  • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1 cup herb-seasoned dry bread stuffing mix
  • 
    

Yellow Cake and Dairy-Free Frosting

My daughter turned 2 in November.   She demands cake every other day so why should her birthday be any different?  I was happy to make her a cake but I didn't want to make the same mistake as last time: giving my dairy-allergic baby frosting with milk in it.  Let's just say we stopped taking pictures after cake time.

I was going to do myself a favor and make it from a boxed mix again. (Last year I did this with white cake mix but I made it more complicated by making a rainbow cake.  To my credit I baked it a week or two before and froze it.  I highly recommend this!) Unfortunately I ran out of cake mix!  Fortunately I had the internet to the rescue.

The Kitchn had a yellow cake recipe that tasted great AND was just as easy as a box mix.  Thank you, Faith Durand and the Kitchn!

The frosting was super-easy and also delicious.  Not great if you're not a coconut fan though.  My friend was surprised at how good the cake was cuz it looked so pedestrian.  I was not surprised that none of the cake was left after I went to put my daughter to sleep.  V ate two pieces by herself.

Basic Butter Yellow Cake
makes one 9x13 or two 9-inch cakes

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/4 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Take the butter out of the fridge to soften and preheat the oven to 350°F. Prepare one 9x13-inch pan or two 9-inch round pans by greasing them thoroughly with butter or baking spray. You can also flour them, if you want, although this isn't strictly necessary. Sprinkle a little flour over them, tilt and shake to distribute evenly, then tap out the excess over the sink.

Use a hand mixer or stand mixer to beat the softened butter and sugar together until fluffy and light, then add the eggs and beat until fully incorporated and light. Beat in the flour, salt, baking powder, and finally the milk and vanilla. Beat everything together on low for 30 seconds, then high for 3 minutes.

Immediately pour into the prepared pans and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the tops spring back slightly when pressed.

Let cool on wire racks for at least 15 minutes, then flip each pan over onto the rack and tap gently all over. Lift the pan slightly. If the cake doesn't feel like it's falling out smoothly, lay a slightly damp kitchen towel over the pan and tap again. If necessary, let the cakes cool more. If they have been baked thoroughly, however, they should fall right out of the pans once they've cooled a little and the sides of the cake have shrunk back from the pan.

Cool completely then frost and eat!

Coconut Oil Frosting

ingredients:
1/4 cup unrefined (virgin) coconut oil
16 oz powdered sugar
4-6 tablespoons coconut or soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
This is much easier with a hand blender, but you can definitely do it with a whisk - and build some muscles! It's also best if you can measure out the powdered sugar with a scale. If you don't have one, feel free to just use two cups of powdered sugar and a little less soy milk. :)

steps:
"cream" the coconut oil until it breaks up and gets nice and smooth
add in 1/4 of the powdered sugar, the vanilla and 2 tablespoons of soy milk
mix together until nice and smooth
keep adding powdered sugar along with tablespoons of soy milk as needed until everything is combined - you don't want any clumps of powdered sugar or coconut oil.
frost everything in the vicinity
This frosting melts pretty easily, so make sure whatever you put it on is nice and cool. It should be enough to cover one 9x13 sheet cake. :D

Breakfast Enchiladas

I'm a little competitive when it comes to, oh, I don't know, EVERYTHING, so when I heard a friend was bringing potato pancakes to a brunch  I decided to up my game and bring something more interesting than the quiche I was planning.  (Don't get me wrong-quiche is delicious!)  This plus a surplus of tortillas inspired me to see if breakfast enchiladas existed.  Lo and behold- they do!  And they're delicious and relatively easy.  I think I put this together in 30 minutes, including bake time.

Thank you to ValSoCal and Ashley Covelli of "Big Flavors from a Tiny Kitchen"!  I also made the homemade taco seasoning that Ashley found on Allrecipes.  The taco seasoning recipe is easy to put together and much cheaper than buying pre-made seasoning.  Thanks, Bill Echols!

Taco Seasoning

Original recipe yield: 1 ounce

1 tablespoon chili powder
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
¼ teaspoon onion powder
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
¼ teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon paprika
1 ½ teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

1. In a small bowl, mix together chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, red pepper flakes, oregano, paprika, cumin, salt and pepper. Store in an airtight container.

Breakfast Enchiladas

7 flour tortillas
9 large eggs
2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons of taco seasoning
2 teaspoons canned green chiles
3 green onions, sliced
salt and pepper ( to taste )
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 cup of monterey cheese
1 can enchilada sauce
1 cup cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 avocado, diced

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Meanwhile in a skillet heat 2 tablespoons of butter.

2) In a large bowl whisk eggs, milk, taco seasoning, green chilies, onions, pepper and salt.

3) Place egg mixture in the skillet with melted butter. When eggs are almost – cooked through add half a cup of cheese.

4) When eggs are cooked through place eggs into the tortillas and roll them and place in a baking dish. Pour sauce over the rolled tortillas, add cheese and bake for about 10 to 12 minutes. Place tomatoes and avocados on top.

*Note – you can add sour cream and cilantro as toppings.

Nian Gao (Stir-fried Rice Cakes)

We get this dish a lot when we go out to eat so I thought I'd try to make it.  The verdict?  Super easy.  It does take some advance prep work (you need to soak the rice cakes for at least two hours) but it was quick to put together.

I had ground pork so I used that instead.  I also used baby bok choy in addition to the napa and omitted the bamboo shoots because I don't really care for them.  The rice cakes were in the refrigerated section in our local "Korean" supermarket (quotation marks because it's more of a fresh produce/seafood place that happens to have a Korean section.  I'm not complaining.)  I also used hondashi broth because I didn't have any other broth.

Thank you, Jaden of Steamy Kitchen!

Nian Gao

ingredients:

One 24-ounce package rice cake nian goh noodles (see notes above)4 dried Chinese black mushrooms (or 8 fresh shiitake mushrooms)2 teaspoons soy saucefreshly ground black pepperpinch of sugar1 teaspoon Chinese rice wine (or dry sherry)1 teaspoon cornstarch8 ounces pork, cut into very thin strips2 tablespoons cooking oil6 ounces Chinese Napa Cabbage, shreddedOne 6-ounce can julienne cut bamboo shoots, drained2 tablespoons soy sauce1/4 cup chicken or vegetable broth

directions:

1. In a large bowl, soak the rice cakes according to the instructions in the headnotes. If you are using dried Chinese black mushrooms, in a small bowl, soak the dried Chinese mushrooms for 2 hours or up to overnight until softened. If you are using fresh shiitake mushrooms, skip this step.

2. In a medium bowl, combine the 2 tsp soy sauce, black pepper, sugar, rice wine, cornstarch together. Mix in the pork and marinate for 20 minutes or up to overnight in the refrigerator.

3. When you are ready to cook, have all of your ingredients ready. Drain the rice cakes. Drain the mushrooms and slice into very thin slices.

4. Heat a wok or large saute pan over high heat. When hot, swirl in the cooking oil. Add the pork and cook until browned and almost cooked through.

5. Add in the mushrooms and the bamboo shoots, stir fry for 1 minute. Add in the cabbage and stir fry for 2 minutes. Mix in the soy sauce.

6. Add in the rice cakes and toss very well. Pour in the broth, cover and lower the heat to medium-low. Cook for 2-3 minutes or until the rice cakes have browned a little and are softened. The sticky rice cakes will be just slightly chewy (but not hard to chew) similar to pasta cooked al-dente. Taste and add in additional soy sauce if needed. Serve immediately.