Food for Thought (and Discussion)

[SnowAngel]

Thanls alot for the Mud Pie Cookies receipe SnowAngel . I made it on the weekends and everyone here loved it! I will definatly try the Yum Yum cookies. Only I don't think they sell cake mixes where I live (in fact, I'm not really sure what it is ). Do you know if I can use something else???

I'm glad you liked them, De_De.

A cake mix is basically the dry ingredients for a cake in box. Here is a recipe for a cake mix. It's kind of a big recipe, but I'm sure it can be halved.

Cake Mix Recipe
10 cups flour
6 ¼ cups sugar
1 cup cornstarch
5 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon salt
2 ½ cups shortening

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt. Stir until well mixed. Use a pastry blender or a heavy-duty mixer to blend in shortening until mixture resembles cornmeal in texture. Store in a airtight container for up to 12 weeks.

Makes about 17 cups of cake mix. 3 cups of mix is equal to 1 cake mix.

SnowAngel

[starkat]

I had Chicken A la Fresca at a local restaurant last night. Tonight (my mom fixed the chicken 'cause I was working) I tried my hand at a homemade version.

Flaws... rice was too spicy.

Otherwise it came off fairly well. Basically, it was chicken over rice with a tad bit of salsa on top of the chicken with a small side salad.

[SnowAngel]

Your chicken sounds yummy, starkat!

Yesterday, I made dark chocolate brownies for dessert. We ate them warm with vanillla ice cream and pecans. Delicious!

Right now, one of my sisters is making pizza for supper. It's smells really good.

SnowAngel

[SnowAngel]

This past weekend, we had homemade vanilla ice cream twice. Delicious! We have a family recipe and it's the best ever. We also had fresh strawberries to go with the ice cream.

SnowAngel

[outlier]

Mmmmm sounds good SnowAngel (but then again, homemade ice cream is good just about anytime .... except when you get too much salt in it)... Speaking of ice cream, I made my first milkshake of the year tonight

[Pattertwigs Pal]

Here's the picture of the cookie I promised a while ago.

Edit Here's a picture of what we did this year at Christmas. I'm not sure why it is up and down. I thought the picture I uploaded was right side up.

[SnowAngel]

We had biscuits, gravy, bacon, and fried potatoes for lunch today. It was so good. I made the biscuits and gravy, it's one of my specialties, and my brother made the bacon and fried potatoes. I love cooking, but I especially love cooking with my siblings. Of course the number of dishes we used wasn't fun to wash, but still I'm glad we did it.

We're going to homemade ice cream this weekend. My grandparents are going to come see us again and they will have their 51st wedding anniversary while they are here, so we're going to make ice cream to celebrate.
SnowAngel

[Narnia Fanatic]

I haven't seen this thread before!

I love to bake and decorate cookies and cakes! I made my own three tier birthday cake for my 18 birthday. I made a Victorian themed red velvet cake for my best friends 17 birthday.

My mom and I are trying to start our own cookie business called Any Occasion Cookies.

SnowAngel - home made ice cream is so good! And it is fun to make!

[SnowAngel]

SnowAngel - homemade ice cream is so good! And it is fun to make!

I got to make ice cream for the first time on Tuesday. It's didn't turn out quite as good as when my sister makes it, but it was still delicious. We use vanilla from Mexico, it's our secret to the best vanilla ice cream.

SnowAngel

[Eowyn of Lantern_Waste]

Your ice cream sounds great SnowAngel!!!!!!!!!! I agree that it's very important to use really good vanilla. I always use vanilla extract as opposed to vanilla essence. The extract is from the plant and is much stronger and nicer flavoured than the imitation stuff. We have a recipe where you put biscuits on the bottom of a tray and then put the ice cream on top of them and then put more biscuits on the top. We call it an ice cream slice

ps we have had some Americans staying with us the past few days and it has been really interesting seeing the differences in our food cultures. Has anyone on Narniaweb (apart from Australians ) tasted Vegemite!?

[Shadowlander]

I don't know if anyone likes yellow squash or not, but I have a sorta recipe I stole from my sister (well, not "stole" exactly...more like got the original concept from and have tried to duplicate ). Slice the squash into thin discs and put a frying pan (or wok) on med/low heat (or 3 or 4 on the stovetop setting if you use the number thingies). Now put in a single pat of butter, some olive oil, a little bit of lemon juice, and some Nature's Seasoning to taste. I don't use exact measurements and sort of eyeball it, but if you do it right and don't go too heavy on the Nature's Seasoning it is delicious!

[SnowAngel]

Your ice cream sounds great SnowAngel!!!!!!!!!!

It is, our recipe is a family recipe that has been made by at least 4 generations.

I made cinnamon rolls on Monday. They were almost perfect. I think I should have rolled them out soon than I did, but I was using a new "premium" yeast. This time I remember all of the ingredients. I forgot the salt one time , but it didn't taste bad, just not as good as it should have. I was going to take some pictures for you all to be envious of, but I forgot to. Next time, I will make a note to.

My "official" cooking day is Tuesday and this coming Tuesday I'm planning to make fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, and biscuits. I was going to make it yesterday, but we had our favorite pizza to celebrate some very exciting family news.

SnowAngel

[Pattertwigs Pal]

My sister, our friend, and I baked Halloween cookies. They aren't quiet as good as normal because we tried using egg beaters instead of eggs. We need the egg beaters for another cookie recipe and we had leftover.

I'm starting a Wilton Cake Decorating class on November 8th. My sister gave it to me for my birthday.

[johobbit]

Twigs, I took a Wilton cake decorating course with a friend a few years back. What FUN! We made some awesome creations, but the instructor resembled a boot camp sergeant so we had a lot of behind-the-hand giggles too. Enjoy! It's really interesting and quite a good challenge, as well. The best part was bringing home the cake we decorated every week. Mmmmm ... (sugar high ) How many weeks is your course? Unfortunately, I got too busy with other things to move to Level 2. Maybe someday.

[Pattertwigs Pal]

It is four weeks. Each class is two hours long. I know at least one week we will be decorating cookies because we have to bring six cookies.

My sister and I make oatmeal cookies with Hershey's Kisses (The pumpkin spice ones) on them. We ran out of kisses so we have some plan cookies too.

[SnowAngel]

I tried this recipe on Monday, it was too easy and super good. We didn't have any rice chex, so I just used more popcorn. It's definitely a keeper. Next time I'm going to use pecans instead of peanuts.

Sweet & Salty Party Mix
6 cups of popped popcorn (or 1/3 cup unpopped)
3 cups pretzels
2 cups peanuts*
2 cups rice chex
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup honey
1 tsp. baking soda

1. Preheat oven to 300F. Prepare popcorn. In mixing bowl, combine popcorn, pretzels, peanuts, and rice chex; set aside. Combine butter, brown sugar, and honey in 2 qt. saucepan. Cook and stir over medium heat until mixture comes to a boil. Continue to cook without stirring for 3 minutes. Remove from heat; carefully stir in baking soda.

2. Pour caramel sauce over popcorn mixture; stir until evenly coated. Spoon onto large pan; bake for 30 minutes; stirring occasionally. Remove from oven.

3. Transfer popcorn mixture to a large piece of wax paper. Cool completely; breaking mixture into clusters as it cools. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

*Pecans, walnuts, or macadamia nuts can be substituted for the peanuts, if desired.

SnowAngel