Carrots in Cookies??

Well, I was looking for something really different and ....I found it with the carrot cookie recipe. The only change I made from the one on allrecipes.com was to lower the oven temperature. They sound very strange but are very tasty, trust me as I've eaten enough of them in the past few hours to know. They aren't dry like some oatmeal cookies but chewy.

Peanut Butter Carrot Cookies

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup grated carrots
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Cream together the margarine, brown sugar, white sugar, and peanut butter.
Add in the egg and the milk. Sift together the flour, salt and baking soda and stir in. Stir in oats. Add in the carrots and chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoon onto cookie sheets and bake for 15 minutes. Makes about 4 dozen.

We were discussing / rating the cookies at supper tonight and Crystal and Beth decided that it's sort of like when you use zucchini in cake and you don't taste it but as I mentioned "you can taste carrots when you cook and eat them separately though, zucchini are still tasteless". They both gave them a 7/10, although Crystal found them quite sweet and would've added some sort of spice. Tim obviously enjoyed them (even though he's not a fan of peanut butter cookies) gave them an 8/10 and ate 4 or 5 this afternoon. So, a definitely make these again attempt. I'm thinking they'll likely keep well with the carrot to keep them moist.

Today, I ate a hummingbird.

Yes, that is a kitchenaid mixer Maja; jealous?? I know you are that is exactly why I took the picture :) I had to bake with pineapple this week as it was discouraged from combining meat and fruit by my roomie. I also searched out a pineapple recipe that Mom might actually bake/eat. The best sounding one (and one I had all the ingredients for - bonus!) was Hummingbird Cake. Why is it named that? Why it has real bits of Hummingbird in it of course!

Ok, so there's not a small bird in this cake (or even bits of one). I mean, I went looking but thanks to the 4 inches of snow there weren't any to be found. The cake has pineapple, bananas and vanilla and when baking smells like a hawaiin blizzard from Dairy Queen. Yum!!

It ended up being just alright. I mean its good but not wow or anything. It's like a light banana bread. I think it will be even better after it sits overnight.


Los Ingredientes

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple with juice
2 cups diced bananas
1 cup chopped pecans
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 12 cup Bundt pan.
2. Measure flour, sugar, soda, salt, cinnamon, oil, eggs, vanilla into mixing bowl. Beat until smooth. Stir in pineapple with juice, bananas, and pecans. Pour into prepared pan.
3. Bake in oven for about 70 minutes. Turn cake out onto rack or plate after cooling for 20 minutes. Cool, and ice with cream cheese icing.

So, I made some modifications. I didn't use oil instead I used apple sauce... and you could definitly use splenda and at least half whole wheat flour.... so all in all pretty healthy. There were no pecans but I think it woulda made it a little better (doesn't make or break it I wouldn't say). I used a little extra cinnamon and vanilla... but it was still lacking a little something. I think I will make a cream cheese icing to spread on it tomorrow. The vote from Noreen and Snowball (who apparently, has to test all baking) was that it was very good. I thought a little bland but the longer it sat the better it got and she said she liked it cause it was a lot lighter than banana bread.

I'd recommend making it. Maybe make a few additions to spice it up. I'd give it a 8.5 outta 10.





Picture 1) Thought it would make up for me using a kitchenaid mixer for Mom to see me making a mess in someone else's kitchen.
Picture 2) After it got out of the oven. Looking great.
Picture 3) The offical taste tester.
Picture 4) All ready to be eaten.

Pineapple = Polynesian Chicken

Well after the false start of a banana pineapple cake - the testers only gave it a 5/10 as it was 'ok but didn't taste like much' on Saturday I started over again with a main dish recipe today and this one was such a hit that I only have the under construction photo to share because the meal disappeared so quickly there wasn't time to snap a pic. It was given a 8 or 9 out of 10 by Tim who had seconds so that's as good a record as you're going to get. I combined a couple of recipes to come up with this one which was economical as I used drumsticks:

Polynesian Chicken

Chicken pieces
1 can pineapple chunks (drain and reserve juice)
1 can mushrooms
1 onion finely diced
3 cloves garlic finely diced

1 tbsp oil

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp mustard (I used whole grain dijon)

2 tbsp soya sauce

1/2 cup wine or wine vinegar

1 tsp ginger

Place chicken pieces in 9 x 13 baking dish
Sprinkle pineapple, mushrooms, onion and garlic over the top
Mix last six ingredients with reserved pineapple juice and pour over top
Cover dish with foil and bake in preheated oven x 450F x 1 hr, reduce heat to 400F and bake x 1 hr, then remove foil and brown x 10 min.

Three Bean Salad

I'd like to start with saying I resent the reference to Bean Salad in a slightly derogatory way in the earlier post by my co-blog-writer a.k.a Maja. But she went looking for a challenge this week and I stuck with something I knew I'd like but hadn't made before.
This Bean Salad was nothing like the one our Port Saxonite friend makes but, its super simple and it will suffice until I get home and plan a pot luck (I'm thinking October 4th - mark it on your calendars).

This is all you'll need:
1 (15 ounce) can green beans
1 pound wax beans
1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 onion, sliced into thin rings
3/4 cup white sugar
2/3 cup distilled white vinegar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon celery seed

I didn't use the celery seed... although I am POSITIVE there is some in this house as there is every other baking/cooking ingredient, implement and book in this new place I now call home. It has been chilling in the refrigerator since yesterday and although I am too stuffed right now (and leaving to go out to supper in 40 mins) I have tested it at least 5 times and it seems to be getting better with time. I think balsamic vinegar would make a good change to this recipe of course since I am my fathers daughter I added some garlic. Oh, and of course I used olive oil instead of vegetable oil and not as much sugar as called for, less that a 1/2 c. I'd say and some people commented that they had used splenda and that it turned out good too.
Noreen approves as well and that says a lot as she tried to take over a few times while I was in the kitchen. I am sure she would have done it much differently but she too agreed it was "pretty tasty". It'll be going with me everyday to work this week as it made a fair bit.

Until next week!

Saturday night beans

Well we're slipping up in the posting and voting department....ahem Daja are you listening? as someone (that would NOT be the Maja) has had a social life lately. So I chose the ingredient of the week as kidney beans because I had some and I like them. So it turned out we had beans on Saturday night and that's kind of funny in this house because there are two reasons why Tim and I are still together after 35 years and that would be because we both don't like horses or care to eat baked beans. Well maybe there are other reasons too, but those are the main ones. But I digress.

I looked for a recipe that would not be chili or bean salad and a bit different and I think I've found it after I modified it somewhat:

Bean and Broccoli Casserole

1 1/2 cups cooked rice

2 heads broccoli (steamed or microwaved 2 minutes)
19 oz. can kidney beans (drained)

8 oz. can tomato sauce

1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
2 cups grated cheddar cheese (reserve 1/2 cup)

Mix tomato sauce, seasonings and beans together in a bowl

Layer 1/2 of rice, then sauce mixture, broccoli, then cheese and repeat

Bake at 350 F for 30 - 40 minutes, then sprinkle remaining cheese and let set until melted

It's a good vegetarian dish (don't tell the carnivores in my house) and nutritious (don't tell them that either) with added fiber, dairy, veggies and I used brown rice.

Ready for the oven

Out of the oven

The taste testers gave it good marks. Tim judged it "6 or 7 out of 10" and Kaleb as you can see with his score card said "7.1, oh that's 71 lbs on my lobster slip today" They both voted for having it again.