As the Years Drift By

So my baby girl is not a baby any more she turned 7 at the beginning of the month and she is in 2nd grade. It is hard to believe that one of my first blog post was of her 3rd Birthday.

For her Birthday she wanted this beautiful cake that a friend of mine gave me a recipe for and we all enjoyed eating it very much but what was the best was making it with her.

Breaded Mushrooms

I saw this some where in cyberspace, can't remember where but it stuck in my head so I had to try it. Yep, breaded mushrooms. There were really great but one must be very careful not to end up with great balls of grease. I found fresh hot oil at about 1/4 inch worked well (next time I will try a spray of Pam). also the mushrooms should be about 1/8 to 1/4 inch too thick and it just does not cook right.

2 or 3 portobello mushrooms, sliced 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick

1 egg

1T milk

1 cup bread crumbs

oil for cooking

salt

beat eggs with milk in a shallow dish for dipping the mushrooms. in another shallow dish put bread crumbs to dip the mushrooms. heat a pan, add oil up to about 1/4 inch, wait for the oil to ripple and place in mushroom slices that have been first dipped in egg mixture and then bread crumbs. Fry mushroom slices on one side until golden and turn and fry other side until golden. remove from pan onto a paper towel and season with salt.

Squash Bread

This is just wonderful bread and it was my 6 year old's idea. One day we had some very ripe bananas and my 6 year old thought it would be a good idea to make banana bread with them. I got online and found a recipe that was simple and easy for a 6 year old to follow.

She did a good job, with a little coaching, and made a good batch of banana bread. As we were eating our fresh warm bread she looks up at me and said this would be so good made with pumpkin. What a great idea so we went to the kitchen the next day and steamed up some sweet potato (it was the closest thing I had to squash or pumpkin in the house that weekend). That sweet potato made some killer bread too.

Since that day, a few months back now, we have worked out our squash break recipe to be something that we find outstanding.

1 to 3 butternut squashes, enough to make 6 cups of puree.

cut the squash into chunks, with skin on, and steam until tender. let cool and the remove the skin from the meat and mush up the squash meat to use in bread.

• 6 cups squash or pumpkin puree (do not used canned stuff, I could tell you stories that would make you want to wash out your mouth with a toilet brush, yes that bad)


• 2/3rd cup butter, melted (I will try to replace half of this with apple butter next time)


• 2 cups brown sugar


• 2 teaspoons vanilla


• 2 eggs


• 2 teaspoons Cinnamon


• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg


• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger


• 1/8 teaspoon cardamom


• 1/4 teaspoon salt


• 2 teaspoons baking soda


• 3 cups flour.


• 1 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350F

mix flour, spices,baking soda and nuts in a bowl and set aside.

mix the squash, butter, eggs, sugar and vanilla until well blended. pour in the flour mixture and mix until all the white flour is just combined. pour into 2 oiled (I use cooking spray) loaf pans and bake for 1 hour.

Concord Grapes and Turkey Burgers

I very much love concord grapes and we so happy when I saw them at the store. Being the only one int he house that likes them I was lucky enough not to have to share so I had a little bunch with every meal until they were gone.

This meal was concord grapes with a turkey burger topped with cabbage and of course catchup mustard and relish on a toasted this bun.

Turkey Burgers

1/2 large onion chopped

2 sprays cooking spray

salt

1/4 cup worcheshire sauce

Salt the onions and caramelize in a pan sprayed with cooking spray over low heat. this can take a while but it is well worth it. if the onions get too dry a little water can be added to cook them down and then for the last few moments of browning spray with another spray of cooking spray to help the browning. Once the onions are browned add the worcheshire sauce and let it cook down for about 30 to 60 seconds. Turn off heat and set aside.

1/3 cup panko bread crumbs

1/2 cup milk

place the panko in a small bowl and add the milk, let it set so that the bread sucks up the milk.

1 package ground turkey - about 1.5 pounds

salt

pepper

the panko

the onions

In a large bowl add ground turkey. squeeze any extra milk out of the panko and crumble into the bowl with the turkey. mix in the rest of the ingredients.

with a kitchen scale measure out 4 oz patties of turkey mixture. Place the patties into a hot pan over medium heat that had been sprayed with cooking spray. Do not mess with the patties as they cook or they will start to fall apart, just let them cook until you see that the bottom edges are brown and with a good spatula flip the patties with good aim because once they hip the pan you can not move them until they are done.

Cut some cabbage very thin to top the burgers.

If you are wondering why I added milk soaked panko bread crumbs I can tell you. Panko crumbles up evenly into the turkey better then regular and the milk keeps the burger moist. If you were to try to soak regular bread crumbs in mild it would turn into a dough ball and never evenly distribute into the turkey.

A Simple Lunch

hard boiled egg, smokey pork loin and cucumbers. So simple yet filling and delicious.

Peach Cobbler

Back in the day, when I started this blog one of the things in my head was I could put my Great Grandmother's peach cobbler recipe on the blog and not have to hunt for it every fall. for the last 5 years or so that I have had this blog, the weather gets cold and I am hunting for that cobbler recipe. Well no more, I am posting it here today.

4 tablespoons Butter
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup sugar
2 cup peaches
1/2 cup sugar
Pinch of Cinnamon

slice peaches and mix with 1/2 C. sugar
Melt butter in the bottom of a baking dish
Combine flour, salt, baking powder, 3/4C sugar and milk. Beat until smooth. pour batter over melted butter in baking dish. top with sugared peaches
Bake at 375 for 40ish minutes