Wow.
Another long hiatus from the blog.
Boy, gotta love that Life happens
no matter what your plans are...
with that in mind...
check back tomorrow.
I'm working
on uploading some cards
I've done over the last few weeks.
Ok...months.
I'm that far behind here.
Are you keeping track?
Would love to say
I'll be back here
on a regular basis
but
my Life
is not so predictable.
Thank Goodness
Tomorrow's Friday!
See ya soon!
Angi
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Pudding = suet?!
The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.
If possible. Hmmm...can that be loosely translated? I'm not a vegan, but the thought of using the hard, flaky fat found around the kidneys of a cow...
Could.Not.Do.It.
I'm sure that it makes a lovely British pudding and I would even try it, if someone else had made it... So, I went with vegetable shortening and a sweet version (no surprise here!) called a Sussex Pond Pudding.
I had no idea what I was doing. Really. I have never steamed anything but veggies.
Normally, I research methods that I'm unfamiliar with, but lately, I haven't seemed to have the down time I used to, so this recipe attempt was a fly by my skirt kind of deal. Nothing like waiting till the last day...
To top it off, the recipe measurements were by weight, a much more accurate way to bake, I know, and fortunately, I had recently purchased a digital postal scale! Yay me! lol
The recipe wasn't difficult. Basically made pastry, dumped sugar and butter into the pastry, pricked a lemon and dropped it in, and covered the whole pile with more sugar and butter! Doesn't that sound grand?!
Here's the recipe and some (unprocessed) photos I took along the way (my notes are in red):
Pudding Crust for both Savoury Pudding or Sweet Pudding (using suet or a suet substitute):
Ingredients
- (250 grams/12 ounces) Self-raising flour (Note* If you cannot find self-raising flour, use a combination of all-purpose flour and baking powder.) Didn't have self-raising flour, so I used 3 cups for this recipe of 1 cup of all purpose flour + 1 tsp baking powder + 1/2 tsp salt + 1/4 baking soda for every cup of self-raising flour.
- (175 grams/6 ounces) Shredded suet or suet substitute (i.e., Vegetable Suet, Crisco, Lard)
- (a pinch) Salt and pepper (Note* If making a savory dish, can be replaced with spices for sweet if wished.)
- (210 millilitres/a little less than a cup) Water (Note* You can use milk or a water and milk mix for a richer pastry.)
1. Mix the flour and suet (Crisco) together.
2. Season the flour and suet mixture with salt and pepper if savory and just a bit of salt and/or spices if sweet.
3. Add the water (milk), a tablespoonful at a time, as you mix the ingredients together. Make up the pastry to firm an elastic dough that leaves the bowl clean. The liquid amounts are only an estimate and most recipes just say water to mix.
4. Don’t over handle the pastry or it will be tough.
5. Reserve a quarter for the lid and roll out the rest and line a well-greased bowl.
6. At this point add your filling.. a couple of options are give below but have fun and go wild!
7. Roll the final piece of pastry out into a circle big enough to cover the top of the basin, dampen the edges and put in position on the pudding, pinching the edges together to seal.
8. Seal well and cover with a double sheet of foil – pleated in the centre to allow room for expansion while cooking. Secure with string, and place it in a steamer over boiling water.
9. Steam for up to 5 hours, you may need to add more boiling water halfway through or possibly more often. There is a lot of leeway in this steaming time and different recipes give different steaming times. Delia Smith says 5 hours for Steak and kidney where as Mrs Beeton says 2.5 for a similar dish! One way to tell that it is cooked is when the pastry changes colour and goes from white to a sort of light golden brown. It is also hard to over steam a pudding so you can leave it bubbling away until you are ready.
Sweet Pudding Options: Sussex Pond Pudding
Thanks, Esther for broadening my steamy horizons!
What have you been cooking?
Angi
If possible. Hmmm...can that be loosely translated? I'm not a vegan, but the thought of using the hard, flaky fat found around the kidneys of a cow...
Could.Not.Do.It.
I'm sure that it makes a lovely British pudding and I would even try it, if someone else had made it... So, I went with vegetable shortening and a sweet version (no surprise here!) called a Sussex Pond Pudding.
I had no idea what I was doing. Really. I have never steamed anything but veggies.
Normally, I research methods that I'm unfamiliar with, but lately, I haven't seemed to have the down time I used to, so this recipe attempt was a fly by my skirt kind of deal. Nothing like waiting till the last day...
To top it off, the recipe measurements were by weight, a much more accurate way to bake, I know, and fortunately, I had recently purchased a digital postal scale! Yay me! lol
The recipe wasn't difficult. Basically made pastry, dumped sugar and butter into the pastry, pricked a lemon and dropped it in, and covered the whole pile with more sugar and butter! Doesn't that sound grand?!
Here's the recipe and some (unprocessed) photos I took along the way (my notes are in red):
Pudding Crust for both Savoury Pudding or Sweet Pudding (using suet or a suet substitute):
Ingredients
- (250 grams/12 ounces) Self-raising flour (Note* If you cannot find self-raising flour, use a combination of all-purpose flour and baking powder.) Didn't have self-raising flour, so I used 3 cups for this recipe of 1 cup of all purpose flour + 1 tsp baking powder + 1/2 tsp salt + 1/4 baking soda for every cup of self-raising flour.
- (175 grams/6 ounces) Shredded suet or suet substitute (i.e., Vegetable Suet, Crisco, Lard)
- (a pinch) Salt and pepper (Note* If making a savory dish, can be replaced with spices for sweet if wished.)
- (210 millilitres/a little less than a cup) Water (Note* You can use milk or a water and milk mix for a richer pastry.)
1. Mix the flour and suet (Crisco) together.
3. Add the water (milk), a tablespoonful at a time, as you mix the ingredients together. Make up the pastry to firm an elastic dough that leaves the bowl clean. The liquid amounts are only an estimate and most recipes just say water to mix.
4. Don’t over handle the pastry or it will be tough.
5. Reserve a quarter for the lid and roll out the rest and line a well-greased bowl.
6. At this point add your filling.. a couple of options are give below but have fun and go wild!
7. Roll the final piece of pastry out into a circle big enough to cover the top of the basin, dampen the edges and put in position on the pudding, pinching the edges together to seal.
8. Seal well and cover with a double sheet of foil – pleated in the centre to allow room for expansion while cooking. Secure with string, and place it in a steamer over boiling water.
9. Steam for up to 5 hours, you may need to add more boiling water halfway through or possibly more often. There is a lot of leeway in this steaming time and different recipes give different steaming times. Delia Smith says 5 hours for Steak and kidney where as Mrs Beeton says 2.5 for a similar dish! One way to tell that it is cooked is when the pastry changes colour and goes from white to a sort of light golden brown. It is also hard to over steam a pudding so you can leave it bubbling away until you are ready.
Sweet Pudding Options: Sussex Pond Pudding
- 1 amount of suet pastry (see recipe above)
- (120 grams/4.2 ounces) Demerara Sugar I couldn't find this, so I used Turbinado sugar. Demerara Sugar has a mild molasses flavor while Turbinado has been described as having a hint of honey.
- (120 grams/4.2 ounces) unsalted butter
- 1 large lemon
1. Cut the butter into small pieces and put half in the basin with half the sugar.2. Prick the whole lemon (preferably one with a thin skin) all over, using a thick skewer. I used a wooden chopstick.
3. Place on top of the butter and sugar in the basin.
4. Cover with the rest of the butter and sugar.
5. Finish building the pudding as per the pastry recipe.
6. Steam for 3 ½ hours, or longer (for a really tender lemon), adding more water if needed. I used my slow cooker. I placed a small plate upside down on the bottom and then placed the pudding bowl on top. Slowly added water until it was about 2/3 up the sides of the bowl and then covered the whole thing with another piece of foil. The steam does condense on the foil and drip off, so make sure to have a few towels. :) Mine cooked for about 4 hours.
7. To serve, turn the pudding into a dish with a deep rim, when you slice into it the rich lemon sauce will gush out.
This is what the pudding looked like after 4 hours. I was surprised to see that it had browned!
Yeah...not very appetizing, is it? That's the lemon in the middle and the sauce did "gush out."
8. Make sure each person is served some of the crust, lemon and tangy luscious sauce.
Or just scoop some of the crumbly part into a dish, top with vanilla and whipped cream!
Final thoughts...this was an easy recipe, but I won't be making this particular one again. Not even the kids cared for it much...not even with the toppings! I think they were hoping for more of a volcano cake...chocolate with gushing fudge... Of course, this was my first steamed pudding, so I'm sure I could have improved in many places along the way! If you have any advice for me, please share!
The process was interesting and in the future I may try a different recipe - there were lots of variations from the other Daring Bakers!
Thanks, Esther for broadening my steamy horizons!
What have you been cooking?
Angi
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Friday Recipe on Saturday. on Sunday. Is it Monday? Lemon Pound Cake
Happy Monday! It's a beautiful day, so I'm going to whip this recipe out in a hurry...
Wonderful, easy pound cake with a light lemon flavor. I've added some notes at the bottom.
(This recipe adapted from Recipezaar.com #31500)
Lemon Pound Cake
3/4 lbs. butter, softened (1 1/2 sticks)
2 cups sugar (original recipe calls for 3 cups)
5 eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
2 Tbsp. lemon juice (I used bottled, original recipe calls for lemon extract)
3/4 cup 7up
Glaze
powdered sugar
lemon juice - to taste & consistency, about 1 Tbsp.
1. Preheat oven to 325 F
2. Grease/spray pans. (I used 4 3x6x2 inch loaf pans.) Cut parchment paper/waxed paper to fit the bottom of the pan and spray. Do not skip this step, especially if you use the full amount of sugar!
3. Cream butter and sugar together.
4. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing well after each.
5. Add flour and lemon juice.
6. Add in 7up.
7. Spoon batter in prepared pans.
8. Bake for 50-60 minutes. Cool in pan(s) for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the edges to help loosen the cake.
8. Mix powdered sugar and lemon juice together and drizzle cake when cooled.
That's it! Enjoy!
Notes: The original recipe calls for 3 cups of sugar. This is how I made it the first time around. It was delicious! Sweet and lemony, tasted very much like lemon bars without the lemon layer. Edges were chewy. Did not even use the glaze.
Second time made with less sugar...yummy! Lighter, with a lovely crumb. Softer edges. Heavenly with the lemon glaze!
This recipe would be very adaptable for other flavors...use a different flavor of fruit soda...let me know if you try any!
Happy baking!
Angi
Wonderful, easy pound cake with a light lemon flavor. I've added some notes at the bottom.
(This recipe adapted from Recipezaar.com #31500)
3/4 lbs. butter, softened (1 1/2 sticks)
2 cups sugar (original recipe calls for 3 cups)
5 eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
2 Tbsp. lemon juice (I used bottled, original recipe calls for lemon extract)
3/4 cup 7up
Glaze
powdered sugar
lemon juice - to taste & consistency, about 1 Tbsp.
1. Preheat oven to 325 F
2. Grease/spray pans. (I used 4 3x6x2 inch loaf pans.) Cut parchment paper/waxed paper to fit the bottom of the pan and spray. Do not skip this step, especially if you use the full amount of sugar!
3. Cream butter and sugar together.
4. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing well after each.
5. Add flour and lemon juice.
6. Add in 7up.
7. Spoon batter in prepared pans.
8. Bake for 50-60 minutes. Cool in pan(s) for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the edges to help loosen the cake.
8. Mix powdered sugar and lemon juice together and drizzle cake when cooled.
That's it! Enjoy!
Notes: The original recipe calls for 3 cups of sugar. This is how I made it the first time around. It was delicious! Sweet and lemony, tasted very much like lemon bars without the lemon layer. Edges were chewy. Did not even use the glaze.
Second time made with less sugar...yummy! Lighter, with a lovely crumb. Softer edges. Heavenly with the lemon glaze!
This recipe would be very adaptable for other flavors...use a different flavor of fruit soda...let me know if you try any!
Happy baking!
Angi
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Wanted: Corvette Z06 3LZ in Crystal Red Metallic...can pick up today!
Happy Earth Day!
Budding tree in my yard (one of my Week in the Life pictures)
We recycle, reuse and reduce. Ask my kids.
They'll tell you 50 things you can do with an empty gallon jug, and how to crush it with your bare feet to make it fit into the recycle bin, if you absolutely cannot use one more!
I have cabinets full of boxes, cans, plastic containers, frames, old books...anything that I think I can alter and remake into something lovelier than it's original mundane facade.
I would love to post some pictures of stuff I've altered, but alas, I am working on the recycle and reduce portion, so here is a card (gotta have more than one picture to go with the post, right?!)
I had given a sneak peek of it in February (in this post: http://makingmayhem.blogspot.com/2010/02/about-timetake-2.html ) This was made for my sweet cousin and her family.
(At the time I didn't have any matching ribbon - can you imagine?! If I had it would have gone at the bottom of the flower panel...I have since remedied the situation!)
Recently, I joined up with the local Freecycle group. I have mixed feelings.
It's a pretty simple concept:
1. You have something you want to get rid of...for free.
2. You post an OFFER: please come get it!
3. Someone responds and picks it up.
Done. You are a bit lighter in the stuff department.
Except that a majority of the posts that I've received lately are WANTED: i.e. I want a car for free.
About a week ago, I saw a Wanted for a used vehicle. Really? Do people just have that extra car just sitting around and then give it away to the first person that asks? Apparently it's gotten so that the moderators felt a need to post saying that Freecycle is not a wish list.
Hmm...since it didn't say OFFER: Free Corvette, I'm not sure that anyone read it.
What did you do today in honor of Earth Day?
Hugs,
Angi
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Warning! A few Peeps were melted and eaten during the writing of this post!
*Hosted by Peggy Hostetler*
FOR TODAY April 20, 2010
This past week has just flown by! I can't believe it's Tuesday already. Well, let's keep moving...
How to eat Peeps...this is the BEFORE picture.
The AFTER is, naturally, at the end!
I am wearing...jeans (surprised?), a green fitted t-shirt with shiny pink stuff. (Hmmm...maybe some inspiration to use my silhouette to design my own shirts...with bling, of course!)Outside my window...maybe my lamenting tweet was heard yesterday. We have blue skies and warm, gorgeous sun!
I am thinking…that maybe I shouldn't have eaten the tuna salad for breakfast...better grab some mints!
I am thankful for...cinnamon toothpaste, blueberry pomegranate grape juice, (yep, another food item! I just figure if we have to do this eating thing, it should be good for you and delicious! And I am very thankful for the delish part!)...
and that every day I get to wake up and start over, try again, and make this day a good one!
I am remembering…going out to the garden with my mother. Seeing her in the dirt pulling weeds, calling us over to show us, to teach us about the goodness of the earth.
From the kitchen...made a lemon glazed 7up pound cake. Didn't actually glaze it - it was so good without it! Will post the recipe on Friday!
Still wanting to get back into the habit of planning weekly menus. Driving me crazy when I want to make somehthing, but I don't have everything I need. Still working to build up the pantry. Bought 25lbs. of bread flour...looking forward to making pizza tomorrow night! (We make a lot of pizza!)
I am creating...cards. Planning to play with my Silhouette and get to know it better. Weeding out the retiring SU! Colors and planning an open house to meet my neighbors and craft!
One of my favorite things…family time. I LOVE playing outdoors with the kids. I'm the mom that's climbing over the playground equipment, sliding down the slides, and playing follow the leader around the park. Mommy Monster is pretty fun, too! Can't wait to take them white water rafting this summer! Woohoo! Anyone in the Colorado area? Any place you'd recommend?
I am going...forward. Taking the time to consider my needs and those closest to me. Looking forward to a more purposeful living.
I am reading...nothing, yet. Looking for some time to make it over to the library...to make my monthly contribution and find something new!
I am hoping...to help those around me feel loved, appreciated and uplifted. Feeling so positive!
Around the house...well, it wasn't crocuses, but more day lilies! Ugh. Not sure what I want to do with my small patch of dirt and the mini roses and day lilies. I really prefer fragrant flowers and would love a butterfly garden, but haven't had a chance to stop by a local nursery to ask some questions...on the to do list!
The AFTER picture.
Poor peep.
Yum.
Some Good Things from this past week...
* organized the desk (didn't take long for it to look lived in though!)
* salads...I love spring/summer food!
* pictures of my cousin's new baby boy!
A few plans for the rest of the week:
• Grill shopping...gotta get ready for BBQs!
• Daring Bakers' Challenge will be posted next week!
• Putting together plans to make a headboard for my bed...yep DIY!
What have you been up to lately?
hugs,
Angi
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