Apple Strudel

Our family created a Summer Bucket List for things to do in the summer and we are still trying to finish up a few of them. One of the things we wanted to do was to learn about a different country. We did this last Sunday night with some friends where we learned about Germany. For dessert I made this delicious apple strudel. I found the recipe here.

Apple Strudel:

• 1/4 cup bourbon or apple juice
• 1/2 cup golden raisins
• 2 to 3 Granny Smith Apples (about 1 pound), peeled, cored, halved, and thinly sliced
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans
• 2 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
• 5 sheets phyllo dough from 1 pound package of frozen dough
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted, for brushing phyllo sheets, plus more if needed
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• Confectioners' sugar
• Caramel sauce, purchased

Glaze:

• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 3 1/2 tablespoons milk

For the Strudel:

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a small bowl, pour the apple juice over the raisins and microwave on high for 45 seconds. Let sit for 15 minutes.

Combine the raisins, apples, lemon juice, lemon zest, cinnamon, brown sugar, cookie crumbs, pecans, and butter in a large bowl.

Remove the phyllo dough from the box, unfold, and cover with a damp towel. Place 1 sheet of phyllo on the work surface and brush lightly with melted butter. Repeat with the remaining sheets, brushing each with melted butter, stacking when done, being sure to keep the unbuttered phyllo covered.

Place the apple mixture on the nearest third of the phyllo stack, being sure to leave a 2-inch border. Gently lift the bottom edge of the phyllo stack to cover the filling and fold the side edges over. Continue to roll the stack away from you until the filling is completely sealed in and the seam is on the bottom. Transfer to the prepared baking sheet. Brush the top with melted butter and sprinkle with granulated sugar.

Bake for 30 minutes, until golden brown. Pour over the glaze and sprinkle with cinnamon and confectioners' sugar. Pass warm caramel sauce, to drizzle over the strudel.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake

Image and Recipe

We made this Fall treat today and LOVED it. I got the idea from a recipe on Pinterest and modified it a bit If you are a pumpkin fan, you have to try this!

1 cup pumpkin

2 whole eggs

4 egg whites

2 tbsp vegetable or canola oil

2 cup flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground allspice

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/3 cup brown sugar, packed

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350˚F. Grease a 9 X 13 pan.

In a large bowl, combine pumpkin puree, eggs and oil until smooth. Set aside.

In a separate medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, spices, salt and brown sugar. Add to the wet ingredients and mix until thoroughly incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Pour into prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes or until passes toothpick test. Cool completely before cutting.

Cheesy Potato Soup

6 cups potatoes, peeled and diced

5 cups water

2 cups chopped onions

4 chicken bouillon

6 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled

1(12 ounce) can evaporated milk

2 cups grated cheddar cheese

Directions: Combine the potatoes, water, onions, and bouillon in a greased 5- to 7- quart slower cooker (I love slow cookers). Cover and cook on high heat for 3-4 hours on until the potatoes are tender. Stir in the bacon, milk, and cheese. Cover and cook 20 minutes more, or until cheese is melted.

DELISH!

Banana Bread

My boys and I made butter a few weeks ago using heavy cream and mason jars. It was a fun to see the cream turn to butter. I made some yummy banana bread to go with the homemade butter and have had a request for the recipe. This bread is from this cookboook.

3 ripe bananas
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
2 eggs, well beaten
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup walnuts

Mash bananas and set aside. In a large bowl cream sugar and butter together. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas. In separate bowl sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to first mixture and stir together. Stir in nuts. Place in two greased, 9x5 inch loaf pans and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Reduce heat to 275 degrees and bake for an additional 20-25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Makes two loaves.

Blueberry Mini Pies

For my sister's Pioneer Day BBQ with my family, she asked us all to bring a pie to share. I am a nut for anything that is a novelty, so I immediately knew what I wanted to do with the pies. I have seen individual mini pies all over the internet lately, and decided that I wanted to attempt my own. I LOVE pie in any shape or form, so I was pretty excited about this little venture and thought I would pass it on to all of you.
The pie is made by lining muffin tins with foil (a must if you want the to come out in one piece). I made the foil a little wider than my muffin circle so I could wrap it over the crust at the end to prevent the edges from getting too brown, which often happen with pies. So I first lined all of my muffin tins with foil. I made 2 dozen of these little pies, so I will give you my measurements for that project, but you can totally tweak it to suit your own needs.

Second you make your pie crust (my recipe to follow, but you could just as easily buy some from the store. I used almost 8 pie crusts for 2 dozen, but they were a little on the thick side...I rolled my dough out (make sure you don't roll it too thick as there isn't much filling in these little dittys. You don't want them to taste too crusty. I then cut my circles out of the dough with a ring from a wide mouth canning jar (so scientific right?) Then place one dough circle in each muffin tin circle, pressing it down to the foil.

I then made my filling and placed a dollop of filling in each pie crust. I then took a ring from a canning jam jar (again...it is what I had. Use what you have) and cut out the tops of the pies. I placed one over each pie and pressed the sides down trying to seal the edges. I like the look of lattice work pies and going to try that next time I make these.

Then put some sort of vent in the top of each. I just poked holes with a fork (I was running SO late). I then sprinkled sugar over the tops of them all and folded the foil down to cover the edges of each pie. I baked mine for about 25-30 minutes at 425 degrees.
Betty Crocker Pie crust recipe for 2 crust pie (I quadrupled this):

2 cups all-purpose or unbleached flour
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup plus 2 Tbs shortening
4 to 5 Tbs cold water

1. Mix flour and salt in medium bowl. Cut in shortening, using pastry blender or crisscrossing 2 knives, until particles are size of small peas. Sprinkle with cold water, 1 Tbs at a time, tossing with fork until all flour is moistened and pastry almost leaves side of bow) (1 to 2 teaspoons more water can be added if necessary).

2. Gather pastry into a ball. Shape into flattened round on lightly floured surface. If desired, wrap flattened round of pastry in plastic wrap and refrigerate about 30 minutes to firm up the shortening slightly, which helps make the baked pastry more flaky and lets the water absorb evenly throughout the dough.

3. Roll pastry on lightly floured surface, using floured rolling pin.


Blueberry Filling from Betty Crocker (I used exactly this much for my pies):
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
6 cups of blueberries
1 tbs lemon juice
1 tbs butter or stick margarine

1. Mix sugar, flour and cinnamon in large bowl. Stir in blueberries. Put inside pie shells sprinkle with lemon juice. Cut butter into small pieces; sprinkle over blueberries. Cover with the tops of the pies and cut slits in top and seal edges. Sprinkle sugar over the tops of the pies. Cook for 25-30 minutes.



When the pies are nice and cooked to your liking (I like mine less brown, if you like it more brown, pull out the pies a little before done and pull back the foil that is around the edges and put it back in the oven to finish cooking), let cool and then carefully remove the pies from the foil. They come out pretty easily.
The funnest thing about these pies were how much the kids like them. They were easy to grab and eat while they were playing or running around. I think the kids were the ones that ate most of them.
You can make these as easy as you want them to be. With store bought filling and crust they would be a snap (maybe I should try that). It was fun to see them stacked up on the plate. Doing it all from scratch was a little time consuming, but totally paid off in the end :)

Hearty Chili

Our family loves this recipe for Chili, especially when accompanied by this recipe for corn bread. Sorry once again about the mediocre picture. I am usually trying to quickly snap a picture before my family gobbles down whatever I make. At least there is one right? Found in this cookbook.

1 pound ground beef
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped red or green pepper (optional)
1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 (30-ounce) can dark red kidney beans, undrained
1 (15 ounce) can chili
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cloves garlic, minced or 1 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup ketchup

Brown ground beef in a large, heavy pan. Add onions and peppers and cook until tender. Add remaining ingredients and simmer uncovered over low heat for at least 1 hour. Chili can be made the day before and reheated. Makes about 8 cups.

Corn Bread

Our family celebrated Pioneer Day last Sunday with some good ole Pioneer cuisine. Corn bread was a must on the menu and the kids actually really loved it, which I was skeptical about. This corn bread is so good and perfect with a bowl of chili to accompany it. Found in this cookbook.

1/2 cup butter or margarine, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups milk

Cream butter, sugar and eggs. In a separate bowl blend cornmeal, flour, baking powder, and salt. Combine creamed mixture, dry mixture and milk. Blend. Bake in a greased 8x8 inch pan at 375 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes.