Lemon Poppy Seed Pancakes

I'm  I'm really hoping making these will make the warm weather come back...these are for calling out spring. Lemon is surely a warm/ spring like fruit right?

I really enjoy lemon anything. My mother sucked on lemon with salt..not sugar, but salt when she was pregnant with me and my sister...my 4 year old daughter likes lemons. Lemon is in my blood. Lemon poppy seed just takes it farther...remember those lemon poppy seed muffins. Whether it's with a glaze or not it was biting into spring. That's where I kinda wanted to go with this one. 

I didn't fully create this one either..I'll get there but I did take it from another site. This lady was a genius with Strawberry Lemon Poppy Seed. I didn't have any strawberries on hand so I opted out for it, but the syrup she made I wish I made it. 

So I'm not sure if this is another desserts for breakfast...but I decided to do a lemon poppy seed pancake. Maybe if lemon curd was with it...oh yea that would put it over the top. 

Lemon Poppy Seed Pancakes

(Le Creme)

1 1/4 Cup Flour

1 1/2 Tbl Poppy Seeds

1 Tsp Baking Powder

1/4 Tsp Baking Soda

1/4 Tsp Salt
Zest of 1 Lemon

1/4 Cup Sugar

1 Egg

2 Tbl Lemon Juice 

1 Cup Buttermilk (see note)

1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract

Preheat large skillet over medium high heat and spray with cooking spray. Prepare the pancakes. In a large bowl combine flour, poppyseeds, baking powder, baking soda, salt and zest. Then whisk ingredients until well mixed. In a separate bowl whisk together lemon juice and sugar add buttermilk vanilla and egg then whisk until smooth. If you don't have buttermilk see note below. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients  and pour wet ingredients into the well. Mix the ingredients until just incorporated. Pour about 1/4 cup of batter onto preheated skillet. When edges look dry and bubbly use a spatula to flip the pancake. Cook about a minute and a half on the other side. Repeat with remaining batter. Serve with some type of topping. I would recommend doing a strawberry syrup from the original recipe. I did it with regular pancake syrup and it did not do justice I'm sad to say. Maybe I will work on a lemon curd syrup we will see. Let me know how you enjoyed this recipe. 

**note**

If you do not have buttermilk this is what you can do. Take one cup of milk and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Easy right? Who wants to buy a big old thing of buttermilk when you can just make it with your own milk you have at home

Tiramisu Stuffed French Toast

So the other night I was thinking, "I have to use this loaf of bread..it's pretty stale...french toast would be perfect..." Hm...search Google...viola! Found a cream cheese stuffed french toast. I really wanted to do a berry one until I started this recipe.

I have this bag of cappuccino mix on my counter and ended up adding it to my cream cheese mixture. That's pretty much how it started...in the end it remind me of a tiramisu...

Tiramisu Stuffed French Toast

(Adapted from Baking Bites)

6 1 inch slice of some sort of bread (I used French bread, you can use Challah or even sourdough..just not sandwich bread)
4-oz cream cheese, softened
3 tbsp confectioners’ sugar

3-4 tbsp cappuccino powder or Instant Coffee (Optional)

1/2 cup chocolate milk

1/2 cup left over coffee plus 1 tsp

 2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Cut one pocket about one inch, in one end of each slice of bread using a sharp knife. 

In a small bowl mix together cream cheese, confectioners sugar, cappuccino powder and some coffee until smooth. Spread about 1.5 oz of filling into each pocket using a small knife. Filling must be inside the pocket not near the edge.

In medium bowl mix together 1/2 cup chocolate milk, 1/2 cup coffee, 2 eggs, and some vanilla extract. Transfer to pie plate. 

Preheat your skillet over medium high heat.

Dip bread, two pieces at a time, into the milk and egg mixture. Let it soak both sides pretty well. Transfer to hot pan using a spatula (don't want a mess...) Cook until golden on both sides, 3-4 minutes on one side...1-2 on the other. Serve immediately and repeat. 

I didn't serve this with syrup...it would enhance the sweetness...I did top it with some leftover filling. Almost like a butter in a way.

Salted caramel sauce

So have you ever made salted caramel or any caramel sauce with Cool Whip? Bet you haven't. So I wanted to make my hubby a salted caramel frappé. You know the ones from Starbucks. We were going there like twice a day it's ridiculous really, spending $15 a day maybe even $30. So I went to Pinterest and type in salted caramel sauce easy. I came across a recipe that called for Cool Whip or heavy cream. I made a list and went to the grocery store picked up that expensive carton of heavy cream and a few weeks maybe a week down the road my refrigerator started acting up. Pretty much it died sort of but that's not part of the story I opened up the heavy cream and it curdled. Yuck! I started freaking out because I already started the recipe I had everything in the sauce pan all I needed was that cream and now it's gone what do I do? I kept asking myself and then I remembered, I remembered that the recipe also said you may use Cool Whip instead of the cream. Oh my that save the day luckily I had some Cool Whip in the freezer and just enough. After that happily ever after awesome easy caramel sauce salted to be exact. 

Salted Caramel Recipe:
(Something Swanky)

• 1 Cup Brown Sugar
• 1/2 Cup Salted Butter (1 stick)
• 1 Cup Cool Whip / 1/2 Cup Heavy Cream
• 1 Tsp Vanilla
• Heavy pinch of coarse sea salt

Mix everything together in the sauce pan over medium heat until the butter melts and the brown sugar has dissolved completely. Continue to store until mixture reaches a rolling boil, continually stirring. Allow to bowl for 1 minute without stirring, then remove from heat immediately. Allow to cool - just enough that it doesn't burn you when you lick the spoon...Store in the refrigerator. Reheat before serving in microwave for about 60 seconds. Check on it though. 

Picture below is my salted caramel frappe with my son's toy playing peek a boo...psst...does anyone see the face in the coffee??

First Taste : Suja Essentials Part 1

So like stated in the lovely title, this is part 1...part 2 will be on Wednesday with the other drink we tried. The "we" I mentioned is the fact my husband tried one, where I tried the other.
The other day we went to a local target...(local would not be the correct word, we did drive about 45 minutes to get to it. Though I have to say it was worth it, the one we went to is so much nicer) This Target had some interesting drinks and I wanted to try them. I love green juices...that said I don't like the bitter tart ones, sweeter ones is what I like. I'm sure down the line I will enjoy the bitter ones. Looking in the refrigerated drink section they have a few new drinks. We looked at some kombucha tea, kombucha soda, chia drinks and some different juices. Those drinks are pretty pricey so we just grabbed two, but we will definitely getting more sometime.
 So too much rambling...Suja Essentials. Upon reading up on this brand I see that you can do a 3 day cleanse. The term "cleanse" really scares me. I just think you'll be sitting on a potty for pretty much the next few days. I sure didn't do the cleanse for a number of reasons. I chose Green Delight. It was a "delight", it's my favorite green juice in the bottle flavor. It's made up of apple, banana, mango, spinach, lemon, kale, spirulina, chlorella, barely grass and last but certainly not least alfalfa grass. Even though some of those ingredients makes you take a step back and ponder...it's really refreshing. Green delight had a good balance of fruit and veggies. Sounds pretty generic right? For all you organic lovers - it's organic and 100% Juice to boot. I looked up what some of these ingredients are for. Spirulina is a natural algae and high in protein. Also spirulina reduces inflammation and eases PMS? Women get them now. Or should I say, men get them for your honeys? Chlorella - make sure you spell that right but this is another natural algae that is a great detoxification of toxins in you body.  Since both are algae...spirulina is a blue-green form and chlorella is a solid green colored form of algae. Does that help? Didn't think so...spirulina is easier to digest and so much more "superior" than chlorella.
So over all this one is very good. If you are worried it won't taste good it does. Though if you don't want to take my word for it my mother loves it. She's not a fan of the green juice thing but she enjoyed the taste and drank half of mine.

Hope you enjoyed this first taste - comment below if you have any questions

Crepes anyone?

So in my new kitchen I've been wanting to make anything and everything...so this time I chose crepes. I made these back in Culinary Arts (high school) and it as so complicated I gave up. So I have been searching for a quick and easy recipe, gotta love that Internet.

There are many ways you can eat crepes. There is sweet and then there are savory. So for this recipe I went the sweet route. We recently bought some strawberries for my daughter who by the way loves them, so glad they were on sale. So I slice them up late I'm in the crêpe then put a scoop of Cool Whip drizzled it with a little bit homemade salted caramel (I will post recipe later) Close them up then voila, sweet strawberry crepes.

Recipe 

(Adapted from The Baker Upstairs)

• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons Veggie Oil
• 3.5 tablespoons Sugar
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup and 1 Tablespoon of milk
• 1/3 cup orange juice
• 1/4 teaspoon any extract (my case maple/orange)

First combine all ingredients in a blender. I put everything in my nutribullet so anything works. Blend until everything is well combined, make sure there are no lumps. Create better should be thin so you can easily pour it into your pan. 

Next you want to heat your skillet to medium high heat. (I have and electric stove so I have numbers on the dials, the number were 3 to 4)are used a small omelette pan but you can also use the medium or the large. Grease the pan lightly with butter for cooking spray. Pour a small amount of batter into your pan then move in a circular motion (the pan - not yourself). Let the crepe cook for about sixty seconds...the edges of the crepe should be pretty dry and bubbly too. If you are too afraid to touch the pan use a spatula, I used some wood chopsticks unbroken. Scraped the edges some, peeling them off the pan with easy not force and picked the edges with my fingers then flipped. The other side should have some brown spots but a lot. If you have the whole crepe brown you may have the heat on too high. I usually pull it off the heat for a bit then set it back on. Cook the other side for fifteen seconds or so and slide it on a plate, repeat.

News Alert *Updated*

Breaking News

So this will be pretty short. I'm going to try and have entries posted on Sundays and Wednesday*. Also in news is I'm thinking of going to a different server..who knows at the point. If I choose to do this, I will have a new name, but don't you worry...I will post the new website on here so I don't loose you all. Meaning all you have to do is click the link. It will take sometime to build up a new site - so I will probably post entries on here still just not every Sunday. I will alert you all in advance.

Thank you all for reading - Happy 2015

Sneaking veggies in ordinary kids dinners...

You were probably asking yourself how, how do I get veggies in my kids foods without them knowing. I have a solution for you, butternut squash and mac & cheese.

It's pretty simple all you have to do is boil the water for the noodles just like the package tells you. Then I took a smaller sauce pan mix the 4 tablespoons of margarine and 1/4 cup of milk with the cheese powder that they provide you. Then this is the fun part mix those together (if you have a child helping you cook I would have them put away dishes or put away the toys maybe set the table so they don't see you put the squash in)Put about a fourth of a cup of puréed sweet potato or puréed butternut squash is. (The reason why I chose those two is because they are both yellow and they will match the cheese sauce for the mac & cheese.) So just mix in your chosen vegetables. I also tweaked the seasoning a bit I added a little bit of onion powder, garlic powder, turmeric, salt and pepper. Of course you can add your own touches, lucky for me my daughter loves garlic and turmeric you can't really taste. Then you are done...in the picture below I added some topping for my husband.

Butternut squash topping 

• Four 1/4 inch slices of butternut squash
• tablespoon of butter
• salt
• pepper
• 2 tsp brown sugar (depends on your tastes, more or less - up to you)
• 2-3 Basil Leaves (optional)

Put butter in a pan on medium low heat, once the butter has melted place the slices down and sauté them 2-3 minutes on each side. Next sprinkle with some brown sugar, salt and the pepper on the squash. Turn them over a few times to coat in the glaze and you should be done. I chopped up some basil and topped it to make it look pretty. Got 2 thumbs up from my hubby for this dish.

*Update*
A variation of the cheese sauce is that you can do it with velveta.

• 1/4 Cup Milk
• 1/4 inch slice of velveta cheese cubed up
• 2 TBL Butternut squash 
• salt, pepper and any other seasonings you prefer.

Put everything in a pot and stir at low heat. Pour over whatever you like.

Butternut Squash Baby Food

So I bought this beautiful squash at one of the last farmers market of the holiday market...that was back in the beginning of December, just recently used it. It kept pretty well in the fridge, but you could tell it was getting old...
I read a few different sites about making your own baby food...with butternut squash. Some mention roasting it, while the other mentions boiling/steaming it. I chose the route of boiling/steaming. I usually go for the roasting because if you don't know it does give off a better flavor usually.
My squash wasn't huge but I still had to slice it three times, four if you count the top. So I took the first bigger chunk off and peeled it. Then I sliced that sucker into 3 medallions, sliced each medallion into "fingers", finally cubing them. Whoo. So I continued with the second chunk and cubed that as well, only leaving the nub I had cut in half. Placed the cubed in a medium sauce pan then covered the cubes with water. Place it on medium heat and let them go...i really didn't time it, you want it pretty soft since it's for your baby and all. I tested them with a fork after it came to a boil. Finally they are done and finally it's time to blend them. I took out my trusty nutribullet and it's extractor blade and put all the cubes into the tallest cup with most of the water that was left behind. Whirl that sucker then stop. When you unscrew the lid, careful you did just whirl everything hot so it may hiss and steam a bit. Once it's open you have yourself some butternut squash baby food. Pretty simple right?
Let me know what you all tried for your babies...