A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Glenna's Buttermilk Pound Cake

 What most people I know think of when you use the generic term "cake" is technically a butter cake, typically eggs and butter or oil beaten together and the dry ingredients then added, as opposed to a  chiffon cake, a lighter textured cake where the egg whites are whipped separately and folded into the batter.  Pound cake is butter or chiffon cake's sweet, voluptuous cousin, with rich, velvety crumb, created from not just eggs and butter but LOTS of eggs and butter!

Originally named "pound cake" for the simplicity of its ingredients: pound of butter, pound of sugar, pound of flour... it has long since been cut down to what we think of us "regular" cake size and customized in endless variations. This buttermilk and vanilla recipe is rich and. satisfying with straight-forward, simple ingredients that showcases what, to me, is almost a religiously divine combination: butter, flour, and sugar...and an oven. .

To fancy it up, add fresh strawberries or a drizzle of chocolate or caramel sauce. For me, I just cut a slice, pick it up, and don't bother dirtying a fork and plate.

Jiffy Mix Cornbread Breakfast Egg Casserole

 

  Mmmmm....weeeknd breakfast casseroles.  They can range from the greasy to the sublime and I have to say this is one of my favorites.  Quick and easy to put together, I have have a few tricks to make it go even faster.

This little gem is an easy mix of breakfast sausage patties, hashbrowns, sweet bell pepper, onion, eggs...and cornbread! Yes, cornbread.  The best part about it is that you can pull the sausage and hashbrowns from the freezer and the cornbread doesn't have to be pre-baked so the whole thing can be prepped and in the oven in about 10 minutes.

It's a great combo of savory, sweet, eggy goodness perfect for a lazy Saturday or Sunday morning at home.  Makes 10-12 servings but our house, we love it so much, it's more like 4-6 servings!

Other great baked egg breakfasts:

Paula Deen's Artichoke Frittata: Sunday morning with the Nieces

Classic Quiche Lorraine for Breakfast

Scotch Eggs

Halloween: Spider's Eggs and Halloween Roundup

These Spider Eggs were a huge Halloween hit. They're easy to make but they do take a little time so if you're making a couple dozen, be sure  to allow yourself and hour to place the spiders. A tiny bit tedious but very cute and a great appetizer table showstopper! Worth it!

To make:  Make Devilled Eggs, adding any food paste coloring you want.

Using a small can of small whole olives, cut olive in half to make spider bodies.  Then for the legs, cut olives in half and the cut the halfs into thin slivers.  Place by hand or using tweezers.  Chill 1-2 hours before serving.

Other fun stuff from the evening:

Mini jack-o-lanters "puking"  Spinach Dip. Gross, but fun for Halloween!

Hagatha our Halloween Table wich looking over the spread, including the Candy/Pretzel Witch's Fingers the kids (and adults too) loved.

Monster Cookies from Aunti Miranda. So cute. So...sugary! Niece Sydney and I split one towards the end of the night and, boy howdy, were our tongues bright red and green for an hour!

Fruit Rice Krispy Squares--follow the regular recipe using Fruity rice krispy.  So yummy!

The spread...well...part of it. The part you don't see is the huge crockpot of chili with all the fixin's on the stove and the jack-o-lanter pepperoni pizzas from Papa Murphy's coming out of the oven every 20 minutes.  I don't think anyone left hungry or without a smile. 

Baked Ham & Provolone Roll-up

 Ham & Provolone roll up is one of my favorite weekend night meals.  Even though it takes a couple of hours to make, there's relatively little hands-on time so I can lay the dough out to defrost in the early afternoon, run errands, make the roll-up, and then do laundry or other household chores for the next hour while it raises again.  After that, it's only a matter of baking. By the time we eat, usually serving only a simple salad on the side, I barely feel like I've spent any time at all in the kitchen.  Magic!

It, and its pepperoni cousin, also make great party appetizers, almost always found on my family holiday menu list.

 

Lazy Sunday Morning: Classic Quiche Lorraine for Breakfast

After all the rain and thunderstorms last night followed by a late night of movie-watching and gloriously sleeping in to a chilly fall morning, eggs seemed to fill the bill of fare this morning.  Not just any eggs, not plain scrambled or even the richness of dipping toast into the rich yolks of fried eggs over easy, but the cheesy, bacony goodness of the classic Quiche Lorraine.  With pre-cooked bacon and previously rolled pie crust in the freezer, shredded parmesan in the fridge, and a couple of green onions in the crisper, it took less than five minutes to beat the eggs along with the other ingredients and pour them into the pie shell--so worth it this morning! 

Good & Good For You: Colleen's Salmon Patties

 
Thanks to my cousin, Colleen for this recipe and great food pic.  I love cod/haddock/tuna/salmon patties. Don't know why I don't make them more. I think it's easy, at least in mind, to get stuck in the beef/pork/chicken-centered dinner mode.  But fish patties are a great alternative meal.  These can be baked or fried. To me, Colleen's method of baking them is easier, less calories, and they all come out done at the same time, no frying and trying to keep warm while waiting for the rest to finish. 

Such a lovely meal--thanks, Collleen!

Biscuits and Gravy? Biscuits and CHOCOLATE Gravy!

The ultimate in southern comfort food--biscuits and chocolate gravy!  Yes, you read that right: Chocolate gravy.

Thanks to my friend Sara McNew for making, baking, and posting this pic of the delicious breakfast she made for her daughter, Sara, and her grandkids, Lauren and Samuel last week. 

Pepperoni & Provolone Crescent Rolls

Another kid-friendly recipe that my sister, Suzanne, served for lunch to the kids (toddler through seven) she babysits this summer.  They were easy to make, the kids helped, and they loved them.  I think one of the great things about simple recipes like this is that it gets kids in the kitchen, on their level, doing something they can gain confidence with and then when they love the taste, it gets them even more excited about cooking and trying more complicated things.  It's about building a foundation of skill and confidence.

For parents, it's quick, easy, and tasty, so that's ALWAYS a winning combination!

Holiday Deliciousness: Panettone Bread Pudding with Orange Rum Sauce

 

 

 It's only five months until Christmas! Yes, I know we still have tons of triple digit days left to go--that's why I'm thinking about Christmas!  Without being a begger, it sure would be nice ot have a crisp, cool fall this year, or any fall. But enough of my whining.  I'm showcasing this recipe today to remind myself to "Giddyup", start knitting those Christmas presents and as hope that this heat will end. Some day.  Probably somewhere over the rainbow or something. In the meantime, mark this one for your holiday season this year because it's one of my favorite bread puddings.

I used pannettone, an Italian Christmas egg bread made with raisins and citrus, but any sweet egg bread or Christmas bread such as stollen will work beautifully.

By the way, there are no nutrition counts for this one....because I'd like to continue enjoying it.

Sydney & Kaylee Birthday Party 2012: Pink Rice Krispy Cake with Buttercream Borders

In my family, as much as we love decorated cakes, we're not very big cake eaters.  At least, not me and my siblings. We grew up the children of a cake decorator so while all of our friends were jealous of the presence of cake and buttercream in our house all the time, we got sick of it!  We often laugh about what rotten kids we were to our Mom who would volunteer to make us any kind of outlandish birthday cakes we wanted but because we had so much cake around us every day we all requested things like my banana bread favorite, our brother Kenneth's angel food cake with no frosting, our dad and brother Carl's pie requests, and my sister Suzanne's Rice Krispy treat wish.  What whiners we were! "Pleeeeeease, Mom. Do not make us eat cake!" What kind of sick children were we?

While we were planning Sydney and Kaylee's birthday party last week Suzanne and I were talking about cake, or the lack of it being okay, and told stories to the nieces and nephew about our childhood brattiness and the fact that Suzanne's wedding cake just out of high school (1988) was made of Rice Krispy treats because she emphatically did not want cake at her wedding.  I see Rice Krispy cakes on Pinterest now all the time and people kind of verbally smack themselves in the head and comment "That's so cool! Why didn't I think of that?"  I'm proud that our Mom was 25 years ahead of her time, making my sister's whole wedding cake from Rice Krispy treats and everyone at the wedding loved it.  After that wedding Mom got tons of orders for rice krispy treat wedding cakes, birthday cakes, and anniversary cakes--she was a wedding cake pioneer in our little town in the Ozarks.

Smiling about all the stories we told, and already having planned to make Rice Krispy treats for the party, I decided to revive Mom's idea and go all the way with the girls' birthday and make it an unforgettable cake.

I'm pretty confidant the girls were pleased! 

Kaylee was really nuts about it!