Month: October 2012

Emily’s Apple Crisp

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This weekend is General Conference. I love Conference weekend, especially October Conferences. My whole family gathers together and spends the weekend in the North Georgia Mountains at my grandparent’s mountain home. (yes, Georgia has mountains).

It’s my little family’s tradition to go apple picking between Conference sessions. Lucky for us, my grandparent’s mountain home just so happens to be in the Apple Capitol of Georgia. I love seeing my son running around the orchards looking for that perfect apple. We usually come home with a peck (or more) of apples. We LOVE apples. What all do we do with them? Oh, I little bit of everything. One of my favorites, Apple Crisp!

Picking apples in Ellijay, Georgia last year

This recipe has been in the works for close to 7 years. It’s 100% my creation and am pretty proud of how I’ve been able to tweak it and make it perfect!

APPLE CRISP

Ingredients:
6-8 apples, peeled and sliced (Make sure they are good cooking apples. My favorite are Rome Beauties… but you can only find those in the South 🙂 )
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup oatmeal, old fashioned
1 cup flour
1 stick of butter or margarine, softened
2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

1. Grease 9×13 glass baking dish.
2. Toss apples in a small amount of sugar and cinnamon. Arrange apples in greased baking dish.
3. Mix all remaining ingredients together. You can either use a pastry cutter or a stand mixer. I prefer the mixer, it gets the butter distributed more evenly. The mixture should look crumbly. Spread evenly over top of apples.
4. Bake 45 minutes until apples are tender and top is crisp.

Makes 6 servings

Top with fresh whipped cream or vanilla ice cream… and ENJOY!!

Ghost Cupcakes

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We brought in October by serving these little babies at a lunch date. My four-year-old daughter was SO EXCITED to help me with the eyes. They turned out cute and were a tasty treat for all!

Ingredients:

1 (15.25 oz) box chocolate cake mix with pudding added (I used Betty Crocker’s Devil’s Food Cake)
1 Cup Buttermilk
1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil
3 Eggs
1 Cup Mini Chocolate Chips
4.5 Cups white candy melts or coating wafers
24 Large Marshmallows
48 Mini Chocolate Chips (about 1 Tbsp)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place paper baking cups in 24 regular-sized muffin cups.
2. In a medium bowl, mix cake mix, buttermilk, oil, and eggs on low speed about 30 secs, then increase the speed to Medium for 2 minutes.
3. Stir in 1 cup mini chips. Divide batter evenly between the muffin cups
4. Bake 18 – 20 mins, until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes. Remove muffins from the tins and cool completely on a wire rack.
5. In a large microwavable bowl, microwave the white candy according to package directions until nice and smooth.
6. Place one marshmallow on each cupcake and spoon the white chocolate over to cover letting the excess drip down on the cupcake. Cool slightly. This “cooling slightly” is essential to success. If you put the eyes in too quickly, you’ll end up with LAAA-AAAZZZZY EEEYYYEEES.
7. Press two mini chocolate chips into the side for eyes.
8. Let stand, until set–about 15 minutes.

HAPPY HAUNTING!!

Note: I frosted my cupcakes (as you can see) before I put the mallows on so they would stay in place. It worked well, but the original instructions did not say to do that.

Source: Pillsbury

Cheesy Vegetable Chowder

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WOW! This is some good stuff!  I found this on pinterest! (ofcourse) It’s easy to mix all together and the ingredients are items that I am sure you already have on hand.  REALLY- you have to try this! Its cheesy and yummy, and belly filling, and comforting, and scrumptious, and you can’t stop eating it! Bake up some crusty bread and, wow! What else can I say? I will tell you that I doubled just about all the listed ingredients (except the cheese) to feed my family .There are six people in my family and everyone got 2nds! Also, I changed a couple of the ingredients to fit our likes.

2 TBSP butter
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1 cup carrots, thinly sliced
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1 TBSP. garlic, minced
4 cups chicken broth
5-6 red potatoes, washed and diced into quarter sized pieces.
1 TBSP flour
1/2 cup water
2/3 cups milk
2 cups broccoli, sliced
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Melt the butter in a large pot and add the onion,carrots, and celery. Saute over medium heat until the vegetables are tender and stir often. Add the minced garlic and cook for an additional 2minutes, stirring often. Add the chicken broth and potatoes and bring the mixture to a boil. Stir often so the mixture doesn’t stick to the bottom. Cook until the potatoes are tender. In a separate small bowl, mix the flour and water then add this to the soup.  Stir well until the soup thicken a bit. Add the milk and broccoli. Sir well, to prevent sticking. Cook until the broccoli is tender. Stir in the cheese and let it melt well, constantly stirring.  SERVE!!!

recipe adapted from luluthebaker.com

Nanaimo Bars

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I recently presented the country of Canada to our homeschool geography co-op and wanted some recipes that really represented the country well.  A Canadian friend highly recommended Nanaimo Bars (pronounced nuh-NYE-mo) and kindly offered me some Canadian custard powder to use for them as well.  (I have read that instant pudding powder is a fair substitute for this custard powder if you can’t find it.)  These layered bars are very tasty!

Ingredients:
Layer 1:
1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick)
1/4 cup sugar
5 Tbsp. cocoa powder
1 egg, beaten
1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 cup flaked coconut
1/2 cup finely chopped almonds

Layer 2:
1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick)
3 Tbsp. heavy cream
2 Tbsp. custard powder*
2 cups powdered sugar

Layer 3:
4 (1 ounce) squares semisweet baking chocolate**
2 Tbsp. butter

1.  In a double boiler, combine the butter, sugar, and cocoa powder stirring together until melted and smooth.  Beat the egg into a small bowl;  add a little of the cocoa mixture to the egg bowl and stir together well to temper the egg.  Then pour the egg mixture into the double boiler with the cocoa mixture and stir well until thickened, 2-3 minutes.
2.  Remove from  heat and stir in the graham cracker crumbs, coconut, and almonds.  Press firmly into the bottom of an ungreased 8×8-inch pan.
3.  In a bowl, cream together the butter with the heavy cream and custard powder.   Add in the powdered sugar and mix well.   Spread this over the crust in the pan and chill to set.
4.  Melt the semisweet chocolate and butter together until smooth (I used the microwave to do this, in 30 second increments).  Pour over chilled bars.  You can chill to set this or let the bars sit out at room temperature until the chocolate is set.  Cut into bars.

Makes 16 bars

Source:  allrecipes.com

*–I have read that vanilla instant pudding powder is a fair substitute for this custard powder if you can’t find it.
**–I was out of baking chocolate so I just used 4 ounces of semisweet chips.