Jelly Pancakes

I made these for breakfast one morning last month.  They were kinda like an appetizer to regular pancakes that I did not get a picture of.  But I took both recipes from page 95 of the All About Home Baking cookbook.   I've blogged about this cookbook before.  It was published in 1933 and I just love finding interesting recipes in this cookbook.  

This was a pancake recipe that was different from the other recipe in that it called for flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, milk, egg yolks, egg whites, & butter or shortening.  

The other pancake recipe I tried that same morning called for cake flour, baking soda, salt, egg, buttermilk, and butter or shortening.

After you cook the pancakes, you spread jelly on them and roll them up.  

Everybody begged for more, but it was actually quite a bit more work, because of sifting, beating the egg yolks, then beating the egg whites till they were stiff.  

A very good recipe though, and great for making something special occasionally.

My First Quiche and First Coconut Cake!

     Family get-togethers, especially at the holidays, always remind me of my Granny Rader, and family get-togethers with Granny Rader always remind me of Granny's coconut cake.

     Since we missed Thanksgiving due to the flu I've been craving coconut cake.  I would have thought Granny's recipe would have been in the FCE's "Sweet Treats"cookbook that they sold in the last year or two, but it wasn't.  

     I don't know why I didn't just call her to get it.  I guess I wanted to try one in one of my books.  So, I settled on one in a cookbook that showcases blue ribbon winning recipes at state fairs.  I would get up and look to see what the name of it is, but this guy just showed up and started cuddling against my booty.  I can't bare to make him move just yet.

     The Quiche was a spinach quiche recipe from the red and white Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.  The only difference is I used canned spinach instead of fresh.  This was one of those nights where I had no meat in the house, or fresh veggies, so I had to pull something together from what was in the pantry.  

     I loved it, but I know I'm the only one. Delsin made it very clear.  Kai scarfed it down fast, so she could get to the cake.  Carolina and Enoch asked to be spoon fed, but gagged on every second bite, and Daniel just told everyone that sometimes we have to eat things we don't like. It was funny, but everyone was respectful.  I'll try a different recipe in another year. :)

     The recipe I used for the cake was The All-New Blue Ribbon Cookbook, by Catherine Hanley, page 176 "Coconut Supream Cake". The only thing I didn't have was coconut flavoring, so I added a little shredded coconut to the cake batter (about a tablespoon).  Daniel loved it!

Feeding The Freezer

I just spent every spare second of my day making and freezing biscuits.

I lost count at 70.

If I didn't run out of flour I'd probably still be going.

I'm gonna be real happy I did that when time is short and I can just reach into the freezer to grab some of my blue ribbon biscuits.

That's right.  When I was spending last summer not blogging one of the things I did was win a blue ribbon at the county fair for my biscuit recipe.  

Took me decades to perfect it.

I'm almost sorry I'm too stingy to share the recipe on here.

I've only shared it with one family member outside of my daughters.

Being a Southern mama I've always had a deep belief that a Southern mama should have a good family biscuit recipe to pass down through the generations.

At least that's one of the many eccentricities  I have.

I should take a picture sometime, but they seriously all get eaten before I can remember to get one.

That's a good day!

Cherry or Berry Muffin Recipe

I wish I could show you a picture of these awesome muffins we fixed for breakfast this morning.

But I can't, because we ate them all very quickly.

But I am happy to share the recipe and put a link with this week's meal plan.

Cherry or Berry Muffin Recipe

2 Cups all purpose flour

2 Cups of oats

1 cup dark brown sugar

2 tablespoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

In a large bowl, mix all those dry ingredients up, then add:

2 cups skim milk

2 eggs, lightly beaten

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

Finally, fold in:

4 cups of berries (blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, or cherries)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Spray muffin cups with buttery cooking spray.

Fill muffin cups 3/4 full.  Bake 20 - 25 minutes, or until light golden brown.  This made 24 large muffins.

Roasted Beets

I gotta take pictures!  I'm sorry I didn't but this is a really great recipe.

I also got it from the Celebrating a Healthy Harvest cookbook.

Basically you're gonna wash your beets (6 - 8) and then coat them with olive oil.

Put them in a baking dish, cover it, and bake them for 45 - 60 minutes.   A knife should slide through them easily when they are done.

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet ove rmedium -low heat.  Add garlic and onion and saute for a couple of minutes.  Pour that over the beets and enjoy.

Autumn Stir Fry

O.K. So I didn't get a photo of Delsin wearing his new Transformers PJ's.

I was planning on taking a picture when he got ready for bed last night, assuming he would wear his new pajamas to bed.   Well, he talked me into letting him wear the shirt to the lake yesterday, and it was just his cover up.  It didn't get dirty, so I thought we could get a sleep wear out of it still, and we did.  But see, he fell asleep on the way home, so basically I just carried him to bed.  Luckily I packed a clean pair of shorts for him to wear home from the lake, so that he wouldn't have to ride in wet swimming trunks.  

Also, last night one of his cousins spent the night and Delsin wore the shirt while his cousin wore the shorts.  Now both parts of the pajamas are dirty, and I can only hope those boys put them in the dirty cothes and didn't do something silly, like leave them outside, or something along those lines.

Now I just want to mention a good recipe I tried recently.

My parents let me have 4 heads of cabbage out of their garden recently, so I've been trying new recipes with it.  

One cookbook I have is "Celebrating a Healthy Harvest - Recipes and tips for fresh fruits and vegetables."

I don't know how I came into possession of  this cookbook, but it says that it came from the Georgia Department of Human Resources.  Daniel has brought me cookbooks from old houses he's done work on, where someone had given him one or more to take home to me.  Maybe that's how I got this one.

No matter, it's got some really neat recipes in it, and when I have a surplus of vegetables from the garden this is the first cookbook I go to for new ideas.

If you have one, or can get your hands on one, I suggest having the Autumn Stir fry one evening.  It's good even in Spring/Summer.

I wish I had taken a picture.  But we just dug in and gobbled it right up.
I am just about to  try the Braised Cabbage recipe listed on the same page.  I like my braised cabbage recipe that I got from the Martha Stewart's Living magazine a few years ago, but I like to try new recipes too.  And this one has apple in it.

Did I tell Y'all about the Pressure Cooker Orange Chicken?

It's awesome!



I this is the first all-in-one-meal I've made with my pressure cooker and I'm craving it still.
Tonight I'm making Italian beef sandwiches in the pressure cooker.  I usually do it in the slow cooker, and had planned to, but I forgot to start it.  That's often the case with my plans to cook in the slow cooker.  I always forget to get it started early enough.

Anyway,  I'm still looking for a recipe.  I'll let you know how it turns out.

My New Spice Rack!

Not really a "Mama" project, unless you count organizing my spices on my new spice rack.  

 My husband and daddy made this spice rack for me.

I was so excited when I was talking to my daddy one day and he told me he was making a spice rack for one of my sisters.  Then he asked me if I would like one.  Of course I said yes.  He had made one of these for my step-mom a few years ago and I love it.  Plus I have been wishing I had a spice rack since we moved to this new house.  In our old house I kept all my spices in two drawers.  One on either side of the stove.  This new house doesn't have nearly as many cabinets or drawers as my old house did, so space has been tight.

We went over to my daddy's house and Daniel and my daddy cut, glued, & sanded all the pieces of cedar.  My daddy added a clear coat on each one after the glue dried.  He ended up making 5.  One for each of my sisters that live here in the United States.

Deceptively Delicious - Blueberry Lemon Muffins

     I tried out the last Breakfast recipe from the Deceptively Delicious cookbook.  Well, the last one that I hadn't tried yet.  It was good.  The muffins turned out this greenish color.  I guess because yellow and blue make green?  It looks nothing like the pictures in the cookbook.  (Hardly anything ever does.) I followed the recipe to the letter.  Next time I'm going to add the blueberries last so they get folded in, rather than adding them according to the directions.  But they tasted great.  And my kids have no issues with eating green food, so that's good.  I had to set aside a couple for them to take for snack time at school or they would have been gobbled down just as quickly as the rest of them were.

Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

      This is the first year that I've actually had my own canned vegetables from the garden.  When I was canning I quickly realized that there wasn't enough room in my kitchen for canned vegetables.  So Daniel cleared off a shelving unit in the basement.  Which is great.  However, we forgot all about them.  We only go in the basement to put a load of laundry in the washer and take a load out of the dryer and so we don't look around down there much, unless we run out of jam.  We've been making our own jam for a few years now, so when we need another jar it occurs to us that we need to check out the shelves in the basement.  And that's how I got inspired to make my own spaghetti sauce with meat and mushrooms.  We went down there and remembered we have a whole lot of canned tomatoes.  Ones that I won ribbons for at the county fair last year, and we need to eat them.   So I got creative in the kitchen, which almost never happens actually.  I'm one of those cooks that likes to follow a recipe to the letter, most of the time.  But I also had a package of mushrooms that needed to get used pretty much immediately and couldn't find a recipe that I had all the ingredients for.  So I made this sauce and we all loved it.  We even used left overs for English Muffin Pizzas for snacks over the next couple of days.  I hope you enjoy it.


1 lb of beef
1 cup of sliced fresh mushrooms
1 medium onion chopped
2 cloves of garlic minced
20 oz of chicken stock
1 quart of crushed tomatoes
1 teaspoon of oregano
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1.  In a large saucepan cook the beef, mushrooms, onion, and garlic.  Once the meat is brown you need to drain it.

2.  Stir in the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil.  Boil gently, uncovered for 20 minutes.

Deceptively Delicious - Coffee Cake

When I was a kid I tried coffee cake one time and decided I didn't like it, so when I saw the recipe in this cookbook (Deceptively Delicious) I knew that it was going to be one of the last breakfast recipes I would try.  Yesterday I was feeling a little adventurous and decided to go for it.  Kai, Carolina, and myself made it in about 2 hours.  Now it wouldn't have taken me that long if I had just done it myself, but there's something irresistible about cooking with my kids.

This recipe calls for Butternut squash puree.  I didn't have that so I used yellow squash.

One thing I noticed is that with the squash and the marshmallows I cooked this well longer than the recipe called for and my toothpick still came out with stuff on it.  I think it would have been better had I mixed the puree up with the rest of the ingredients.  Anyway, the kids ate it up.

We took it with us to my parents house to share with them, but they didn't try a bite of it.

Daniel and the kids and I ate every last bite of it.  It was good.  After Delsin's 3rd piece he declared that he didn't like it, but that didn't stop him from getting more.

Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer Pancakes

I got the idea from one of the newsletters I subscribe to on Facebook.  I'd love to give them credit, but I can't locate the post again, so I'm not sure which one it is.  But I was hoping to make these yesterday.  However, we never actually have a feast on Christmas day.  We are way too busy playing with all of our new toys to feast.  Daniel decided to take over the cooking yesterday and so we had a series of frozen appetizers to snack on all day.  It was nice.  We also drank a gallon and a half of egg nog.  Very yummy.

Carolina's Christmas Nightgown and Christmas Cookies!

I used the same pattern that I did for Kai's gown. 
Simplicity 9968

Very straight forward.  

The kids and I also baked sugar cookies yesterday. 

We had a lot of fun decorating them.

I was scolded this morning for eating any last night.  I was told that the entire plate is to be saved for Santa.

Hee Hee!

I have a new baby!!!! And lots of new projects to blog about.

Enoch Alexander is his name, and I have made a few things for him that I will post in this blog entry.  I've done a lot of sewing since August, in fact. So I'm going to take the time to post them now.

Pictured here is my neice wearing a pillow case dress I made for her 2nd birthday.  Kai wanted a picture with her cousin too.

For Carolina's first birthday I made her a pillow case dress too, and a matching bib.  I'm not very great with the bibs.  I always make the neckline too big and so it gapes open.  I need to just use a store bought one for a pattern when I make the next one.

Daniel made Carolina's birthday cakes.  Didn't he do an awesome job?

In September I made Delsin this cute outfit.  The shirt is made from a fabric that has Batman and The Joker on it.  He had a pair of pants that still fit, but had holes in the knees, so I sewed a patch in each knee, from the inside of the pants.  That way there would be a Batman looking out of one hole and a Joker looking out of another hole.  He loves it!  He went through a phase of wanting to fix his hair like Justin Beiber.  Thankfully that is over now.  lol.

It was so hard to get the lighting right on a photo of these patches.  This was the best I could do, sorry.

These are some neck pillows that I made for my sister and brother in law.

A pillow case dress I made for Kai.  You can't see them, but it has matching pantaloons underneath.  Usually the ruffle that matches the bottom strip of fabric on the dress, is all that is visible on the pantaloons.  It is a cute outfit, and she always gets lots of compliments when she wears it.

This outfit is probably already on the blog a few years back because I made it for Kai when she was about Carolina's age.  It's a terrible photo since it's all twisted around.  Carolina is trying to do a dance video game with grandma, in this picture.

Here is Enoch's birthday suit that I made him.  A kimono with matching flannel pants.  Very snugly soft fabric.

I also made him a matching reversible blanket.

 And a sleep sack that matches the reversible side of the blanket.

 I made these next three outfits for my sister in law's grandchildren.

This is the same outfit I made for Enoch, just a different looking fabric.

Here is a maternity dress that I made for myself.  I cut my head off because of the squinting look on my face as I was facing the sun.  I wanted a picture of the sunflowers before it was too late.  I may have waited too long though.

 

I'm really proud of my latest creation.  I made this jacket for Delsin this week.  We both love it.

I've also made several diapers for Carolina and Enoch, but I forgot to take pictures of them.  Maybe I'll get around to it the next time I make a couple in a day or two.  Right now I have to go put another layer of paper mache' on a planet earth costume for Delsin.  He wants to be planet earth with his head being the moon and his fingers being the stars.  Not sure what we're gonna do for the moon part yet.  Then I want to make him a shirt out of some dinosaur flannel I have, to wear to school on Wednesday when he presents a dinosaur project to his class.  Kai wants to be a pink princess for Halloween, so I have that dress to make too.  Whew!  I need to get started.

Here's a little pattern info:

Zucchini Casserole

I tried a new recipe tonight.  I got it from a fundraiser cookbook that was written in 1984.  I should have taken a picture when it first came out, but it's too late now.  It was a hit.

 Zucchini Casserole

6 to 8 medium zucchini                      1 pkg. seasoned croutons

5 medium carrots                               1 can cream of chicken soup

1 small onion                                     1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 stick butter                                     1 8oz sour cream

     Boil zucchini until done;  drain.  Melt margarine in large pan.  Saute carrots and onion in butter.  mix soups and sour cream into carrot and onion mixture.  Add zucchini, then croutons.  Put in baking dish.  Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Christmas 4 Kids Cake - Walk!

It's been a while, but I'm back!

Once I finished making the girl's Easter dresses we have been rushed beyond belief.

We moved.  Back to my hometown.  It's a nice quiet little town.

I often compare it to Mayberry when people ask me about it.  We decided at the last moment and we moved just a few days later.  But not before taking the kids to Tybee Island to see the ocean first.  We decided that since we were that close we should do it before we moved farther away and took longer to get around to it.

We've got a house in Stone Mountain for sale if anybody's interested in buying it.  

It's charming and just a mile from the mountain.  It's a historic home because it's built on Stone Mountain Granite.  Something that can no longer be done.  Just a few miles from the Atlanta city limits, where there is so much to do too.  There's a Strawberry patch by the front door, and Asparagus patch by the back door, some raised garden spots still full of lettuce and cabbage, and a wonderful chicken coop/run/compost area.  I do miss it.  Most of all I miss our wonderful neighbors.  I hope a wonderful family or person buys it. 

This town has so much to offer too.  Besides being in a country town, an hour from the country music capitol of the world, the biggest plus is we are within minutes of many of our extended family members.  And right now we are on our way out the door to donate this Lemon Chiffon cake to the Cake-Walk to benefit Christmas 4 Kids. 

We're all very excited.  We sampled some extra where I had to shape up the bottom of the cake.  (I had poured too much batter into the cake pan, so it overflowed ;^D)  It's scrumptious! Daniel says he's playing to win our own cake.    I used my Betty Crocker Cookbook Bridal Edition.  The kids are getting very antsy with me for being on the computer, so I guess we need to go.  

Thank you for following my blog.  I plan to post a follow up on the bishop dress with some tips I learned that I used when I made Kai's dress.

I posted it on the last Bishop Dress Sew Along post.

Peanut Butter and Banana Muffins (from the Deceptively Delicious cookbook, but not exactly the same recipe)

1.  12 muffin cups
2. 1 cup firmly packed light or dark brown sugar
3. 1/2 cup peanut butter
4. 1/2 cup carrot puree
5. 1/2 cup banana puree
6. 1 large egg white
7. 1 cup all purpose flour
8. 1 teaspoon baking powder
9. 1 teaspoon baking soda
10. 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
    

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Place 12 muffin cups in a 12 cup muffin tin, or spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a large mixing bowl, mix 1/2 cup of the brown sugar with the peanut butter, the vegetable and banana purees, and the egg white using a wooden spoon.  (To make the banana puree, mash two bananas and then put them in the blender for 2 minutes.  To make carrot puree steam the carrots till they are soft and then put them in the blender for approximately 2 minutes.)
3. Put the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl and stir.  Add to the bowl with the peanut butter mixture and stir just to combine.  Add the remaining 1/2 cup of brown sugar and stir once or twice.
4. Divide the batter among the muffin cups and bake until the muffins are lightly browned and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center, 15 to 20 minutes.  Turn the muffins out onto a rack to cool.
5. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days, or  wrap individually and freeze for up to 1 month.

We had these for breakfast this morning and they were a complete hit.  My son said they were the best muffins in the whole world.  My husband said they were absolutely delicious and my daughter gave an affirming "Um hum" while stuffing her face.  I preferred mine with margarine added to the center as they were still warm, so it would melt good.  My kids and husband ate theirs without butter.