Grilled Pineapple

Finally the snow is gone and we can grill!! We love to grill veggies and fruits. Grilled pineapple is so pretty and tasty. It's simple to make and yummy to eat.

Grilled Pineapple

Slice the top and sides off of a whole pineapple. Slice the pineapple into 1 1/2 inch slices. You dont' want to slice it too thin or it will be hard to turn on the grill. Remove the core from the slices. If you have a small biscuit cutter, it works great for this.

Mix together 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup honey. Combine to make a paste. Oil the grill. Grill pineapple, over medium heat, 2 minutes on both sides. Using a BBQ brush, spread the brown sugar mixture on the pineapple. Grill 2 additional minutes on each side.

Enjoy!

I am linking this to Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam! If you haven't been to Balancing Beauty and Bedlam, it's worth your time to check it out!

Caramel Apple Crisp - SMS

This week's Sweet Melissa Sunday's is hosted by my blogging pal, Susan at Baking With Susan. Susan and I joined Sweet Melissa Sunday's about the same time and became blogging friends. It is because of Susan I became involved in Operation Baking Gals. If you haven't been to Susan's blog, stop by and check it out. She's creative, funny and shares great recipes.

Things have been a bit hectic this weekend at our house. We spent all day yesterday looking for a new car. It's painful and exhausting. I compared it to trying on swimsuits. Ugh! After a long day of shopping and negotiating, we're the proud owners of an Escape Hybrid.

I am not good at making pie crusts. I've never made many and when I have they've always been a disaster. Of course, as is pretty normal for me, I am baking Sweet Melissa Sunday's on Sunday. I decided to try and make a double pie crust and get everything else done I needed to do today would be mistake. I would be frustrated and cussing like a sailor, not a good way to spend Sunday afternoon. Since it's Susan's week for hosting, I really wanted to participate, so I decided to make a Caramel Apple Crisp instead.

I made the filling pretty much as the recipe called for, with a couple of exceptions. I used Fuji apples and I couldn't resist, I added a little cinnamon. Since I didn't have any heavy cream. I decided to give the caramel sauce a try using evaporated milk. It worked pretty well, although I think I heated it too early and it developed a skin on the top. I made the standard crisp topping using oatmeal, brown sugar, flour and melted butter.

I baked the crisps at 350 for about 30 minutes. I took them out of the oven and they were beautiful, puffy and nicely browned. I guess I never realized crisps fall as they cool.




I love the addition of the caramel sauce to the apples. The cinnamon adds just the extra flavor needed to make this a great pie (crisp).

Check out the other Sweet Melissa Sunday's bakers here. I know you'll find some beautiful apple pies.

First Day of Spring?

Baking Gals

This is my second month baking with Operation Baking Gals. I baked along with Team Sweet Treats. We shipped cookies to Tim, who's in the Air Force in Afghanistan.

I did some searching for recipes that travel and keep well when shipping overseas. I found a couple of great sites with recipes. This month's recipe came from Laura's Best Recipes. In keeping with my "Use It Up" theme, I chose this recipe because I had several bags of dried cranberries in the pantry.

These cookies were delicious! The cranberries make a nice addition to oatmeal cookies.

Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies
Recipe courtesy of Chef Amanda Kerfoot-Guess
Makes approximately 6 dozen cookies

Sift

3 Cups All Purpose Flour
2 tsp. Baking Soda
2 tsp. Baking Powder
2 tsp. Salt
4 tsp. Cinnamon
1 tsp. Allspice

Set aside

In mixer with paddle attachment blend:
1 1/2 Cup Shortening
1 1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
1 1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar

At medium speed until light and creamy, about three
minutes.

Add, one at a time, mixing well after each

4 large eggs

Scrape down bowl after each addition

Beat in
2 tsp. Pure Vanilla

Dump in entire flour mixture at once, blend until just combined.
Add

3 Cups Old Fashioned Oats
3 Cups dried cranberries (or anything that amuses: dried cherries, raisins, nuts)
It's a good idea to let the dough sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes before baking. This lets the oats puff up a bit.

Scoop on to baking sheets in 1/4 cup heaps.
Shape with hands to rounds.

Bake at 325 for 14-17 minutes.
Cool on rack.
After they come out of the oven, they may need a bit of reshaping. Use your spatula to gently adjust the cookies into rounds

I am linking this to Foodie Friday's at Designs by Gollum.

Irish Soda Bread

Isn't everyone Irish today? Even if you're not Irish, most people celebrate in some way. Remember when you were a kid you had to wear green or you were pinched? I am originally from Kansas City where they celebrate with one of the largest St. Patricks Day parades in the country. What a party that is!! I've celebrated at more than one parade over the years but never could bring myself to drink green beer! My favorite St. Patrick's Day tradition is Corned Beef and Cabbage. Tim doesn't care for it, so it won't be served at our house tonight. Our St. Patrick's Day treat is Irish Soda Bread with Lime Honey Butter.

I've never made or eaten Irish Soda Bread before. There's tons of recipes out there, ones with raisins, currants, nuts and wheat germ just to name a few. I chose this recipe based on the ingredients we had on hand. While this bread isn't terribly sweet, it is sweeter than I expected. It has a nice taste and texture and would be great with an Irish Stew.

Irish Soda Bread
Recipe Courtesy of All Recipes

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/3 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup butter, melted

1.Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2.Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and baking soda. Blend egg and buttermilk together, and add all at once to the flour mixture. Mix just until moistened. Stir in butter. Pour into prepared pan.
3.Bake for 65 to 70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the bread comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Wrap in foil for several hours, or overnight, for best flavor.

I wanted to add a touch of St. Patty's Day green to this recipe, so I made a Lime Honey Butter to go with it. This butter would be great on chicken or fish.

Honey Lime Butter

1/2 cup soft butter
1 teaspoon lime zest
1 tablespoon honey

Mix butter, zest and honey together until combined.

Baked Pasta Casserole

I feel like I've gotten pretty good at my "Use It Up" game the past few weeks. Costco, my favorite place to buy veggies, has a large bag of brussels sprouts for the price you would pay for a smaller bag at a grocery store. We had these brussles spouts recently. I wanted to find something a little less traditional with the remaining sprouts. I found this recipe on 101 Cookbooks. If you haven't been to Heidi's blog, you should check it out. She takes amazing pictures and posts wonderful recipes.

I made some changes to Heidi's recipe, based on what I had on hand. Her recipe called for spinach, I substituted the brussels sprouts. I omitted the lemon zest called for in the recipe and used a shallot instead of an onion.

I served this as a side dish but it could easily be a meatless main dish. I loved this recipe. I wish the cheese was just a little more melty, something I will work on for next time. I didn't really expect my husband to like this pasta but he did.





Baked Pasta Casserole Recipe
Adapted from 101 Cookbooks

extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 pound pasta shells
sea salt
1 shallot
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 cups thinly sliced brussels sprouts
1 1/2 cups sliced almonds, lightly toasted
8 ounces mozzerella, shredded or torn into small pieces

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Butter/oil a large casserole dish or baking pan - something roughly equivalent to 13x9-inch pan.
Boil the pasta in salted water per package instructions. Drain pasta, toss with a glug of olive oil. Set aside.
In the meantime, heat a bit of olive oil in a skillet over medium-high. Saute the shallots with a couple pinches of salt for a few minutes (or if you want a bit more depth of flavor until caramelized). Stir in garlic. Stir in brussels sprouts. You may need to add a little more oil. Cook until sprouts are softened, about 5- 7 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in 1 cup of the almonds. Add to pasta and stir and stir - mixing extremely well, a minute or so. Add a layer of the pasta to the bottom of the baking pan, now sprinkle with some of the cheese, add more pasta, then more cheese. Finish with a layer of cheese. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes or until cheese on top is bubbly and melty. Top with remaining almonds.

I am linking this post to Tasty Tuesday's at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam.

Sad Sally's Cupcakes - MSC

Shortly after we were married my husband began calling me Sally. Where it came from, I am not sure but it stuck and it's become my nickname. Seemed only fitting to title this post, Sad Sally's Cupcakes.

Megan from My Baking Adventures chose this month's Martha Stewart Cupcake Club recipe, Lemon Meringue Cupcakes. The cupcakes were easy to put together and turned out beautifully. They have a beautiful lemony flavor and fragrance. It's the steps after this where Sally's cupcakes went south. I frosted 5 cupcakes with the Seven Minute Frosting. The two in the photo are the best of the bunch. You should see some of the others but I am not posting those.

The cupcakes are topped with Lemon Curd and Seven Minute Frosting. Lemon Curd is on my list of Top 50 recipes. I can cross that one off the list. I love the flavor of this lemon curd. Since I only used a little bit of it, I am looking forward to finding other recipes to use the remainder.

If you follow my blog, you know taking a cake decorating class is one of my 2010 blogging goals. Recently I purchased a cheap piping bag. It came with 5 tips. Of course they weren't marked as to which tip was which. There was a star tip but I think it was too small for this frosting. As I was struggling to get the frosting in the bag and then struggling even more to pipe it on the cupcakes, I was thinking how much I wish I knew how to pipe frosting. This is another one of those recipes where my mother would have said, "You get an A for effort".

I really liked the flavor of these cupcakes. I would make them again with a lemon frosting or possibly the Seven Minute Frosting AFTER I learn to pipe.

Check out the posts of the other Martha Stewart Cupcake bakers, I know you'll find lots of cupcakes that aren't sad!

One Year Ago - Nana's Quick Chocolate Cake