Just what have you been up to?!?!?

Me? Just about everything! We'll I guess moving to a new state will do that to you. Don't get me wrong, it's been great, but there is so much to see and do that it's hard to convince myself to stay inside and play on the computer. 

Below are a few of the grand adventures we've enjoyed! 

Here, my son and I are headed up to Boulder for the day. We visited the Celestial Seasonings Tea plant and then walked around the 6th st mall. Very cool! 

I bought a new car. My freestyle had 129k miles on it and was tired. Besides, after $1400 in repairs with no solution, and the dealer wanting another $3200 to 'possibly' fix the problem, it seemed time. So here she is, my midnight blue, 2014 Chevy cruze. May she run forever. Or at least till I'm done paying for her!

I made applesauce. 10 pints of it actually. Because we won't eat the store bought kind. EVER. 

I'll let you in on a little secret - the best applesauce has a bit of Vanilla and brown sugar tossed in for sweetness. Go ahead, try it - you'll love it! 

I found a NY style pizza joint I can sink my teeth into. Yum and thank you Lord for the greasy cheese?

{THIS} is pizza. That's all folks... That is all.

I've been baking my butt off. I've mastered the fine art of cupcake baking and am working on bread. It's getting there but these were the bomb. One step closer to opening my bakery some day!

It was blessedly cold here this particular morning - and yes, that says minus 9 degrees. I can hear what you're thinking, and I concur. My thoughts exactly! (Actually now, they just finished a blizzard back home with sustained winds of 45mph and freezing cold temps - like neg 20 or colder!) I'll take Colorado anyday now that I'm ed U macated! LOL

And, since I didn't really get to enjoy Christmas last year in light of the big cross country move, I've celebrated this year by putting up (2) Christmas trees. As of this post (Jan 8th) They are STILL up. I guess it's time to start taking them down now... the neighbors might start talking! LOL

I don't know if I'll get used to decorating my tree with the windows open though! It was warm that day for SURE!

This was cool actually, though kind of in a bummed out way. I was in Hobby Lobby recently, and bumped into this plate. Do you know the artist? Her name is Jill Ankrom. LOVE her folksy snowmen! I have a whole slew of her stuff from back in Buffalo that was carried only by one store there. I've been looking for complimentary pieces ever since. I found this one little lonely only at Hobby Lobby - they had no others! I was bummed that I could only get one, but THRILLED that it has cupcakes on it. Bittersweet I guess...lol



Well other than work, and church, baking and crocheting, not much else has been going on in our world. What's been up with you?

~ Kisha

Fried dough and cheddar beer sauce :)

Hey all!

Here's a super quick post from my iPad.

My adventures in Colorado have kept me quite busy but I'm still enjoying my kitchen and crochet. I've mastered the art of fine Artisan Bread and have been experimenting with lots of different flavors, like a White Chocolate Cranberry Almond, and everyone's favorite, Garlic Cheddar. I found the recipe here  at Simply So Good, and couldn't believe how easy it is to follow. Seriously, the bread is {FOOL} Proof! If you follow the instructions, it would be impossible to mess this up. Heck, at one point I realized I was cutting the recipe in half, but continued adding the full amount of water (? uh.....no explanation there) and the bread was STILL amazing!

If you don't have 12-18 hrs to let something rise, just add a little more yeast. Doubling the yeast rises the bread in about half the time - and here in the High Altitude, everything rises much more quickly anyway.
If I am in a hurry - I can usually start the baking process after 4 hrs rise time.

I don't own an enamel covered cast iron dutch oven, however my regular ones do the job just fine. The two smaller loaves were the recipe cut in half, the larger loaf is one regular recipe. We are a small family though, so we don't need too much bread. I bake it twice a week, and often make extra to give away. The loaves cost me anywhere from 75 cents to $1.00 so they are totally worth the time and effort.

Got any flavor ideas to share with me?

You can follow my Bread Recipe Board here . I seriously have over 200 pins just for bread recipes alone. Tortillas, Indian Flaan, Artisan, white bread, whole wheat bread, rolls, croissants, garlic cheesy bread,  you name it, I've collected it. 

Last night my son reminded me of a yummy appetizer we had at Old Chicago a few months back. It was a fried dough with cheddar beer dipping sauce. We decided to try and recreate it at home - and so off to Pinterest I went. (and the liquor store, who knew there were so many kinds??)

I found a couple dough recipes but only one cheddar beer sauce so we chose a Pizza dough and gathered the ingredients for the sauce.

We LOVED the dough recipe. Seriously, I didn't have any honey so I used raw sugar as a replacement and it was amazing! Amazing... deep fried and YUMMM. The sauce we felt was lacking something. It was good, but maybe we chose the wrong beer, didn't add enough Worcestershire sauce, or maybe we did something wrong with the cheese. Either way we're sure it's NOT the original recipe's fault - but we are definitely going to use it as a guide and tweak it to our tastes  in the future. I'd say start with this one and go from there.

Anyway - you can find these recipes and many more by following me on Pinterest at sunflowergal74 :) 

Thanks to these websites for the yummy recipes, and for sharing your heart and food on the net for the rest of us to find!

www.simplysogood.com

www.thekitchn.com

http://www.theartofdoingstuff.com

Happy New Year!!! 

~Kisha 

Pea Porridge Hot...

Pea Porridge cold, Pea porridge in the pot, 9 days old...

Did you know, there are literally millions of Pea soup varieties? Trust me, I looked! But only for research. Check it out for yourself on that Pinterest Link, but trust me, the page goes on and on. 

Dutch Pea Soup (Erwtensoep), English Spring Pea Soup, The "Hairy" Man's Pea soup 

(?SERIOUSLY does not sound appetizing!), Yellow Split pea with Sweet potatos and Kale,   

Swedish Yellow Pea Soup (Slow Cooker Ärtsoppa), Lucky Black-eyed pea soup...
You get the picture.

    

  Honestly? I have my own go-to Pea soup recipe and I don't care to really try anyone elses, no matter how good it might be... Yes, I am a pea soup snob.

I almost said "snot",  but then realized that is probably
not appropriate for a post about pea soup...

 

Omgosh  - ever done this? Yeah... me too

{GRIN}

oh don't worry - there's no cute dogs in this soup recipe, I promise

{Yeah, me too, Ryan, me too.}

I do love this soup though. It's versatile, and you can use what you have on hand to make it amazing. It really doesn't take much of anything to bring out the smokey flavor of the ham bits, and honestly while it seems like a soup this good should take a lot of work, it really is a easy to pull together.

You can cook it as long as you want too, making it a perfect Crock pot option while you're at work. I'll share with you the way I normally make it, and then I'll discuss some of the 'substitutes' you can use instead if you need to. 

I'm no vegan, gluten free eater, so unfortunately I can't help you there, but if you look at the link at the top of this post, I'm sure you'll find something that will satisfy your palate.

Black Forest Cake

Sometimes I think I'm just a foodie at heart.

I don't {MEAN} for this blog to be all about food. 

I don't {INTEND} to cause mouth-watering sensations every time I post. 

It isn't on {PURPOSE} that cravings abound on a regular basis. 

I swear. 

It's really not. 

But it often turns out that way doesn't it?

Well I hope you can forgive me. Because Seriously, this is pretty good stuff. 

Saturday, my mom's friend Carol, from Long Island, is coming to visit. I haven't seen Carol in a couple years and when she comes, she usually stays with me. And Mom, is coming to come up too. We have a FULL weekend planned with lots of fun stuff - and I think we are all a little bit excited :)

Of course, this is a great reason to bake.

"Any" reason is a great reason to bake, but THIS is as good a reason as they come, don'tcha think? 

We're going to have a delish menu of Pulled Pork, Mashed taters, and salad. Chocolate cake for dessert. Black Forest cake to be exact. 

[I don't know what anyone else is going to eat]

Black Forest Cake 

Dry Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups good cocoa powder 

2 1/4 tspn baking soda 

1/2 tsp salt

Wet Ingredients  

2 sticks salted butter 

1 cup white sugar

1 cup packed brown sugar 

3 xl eggs, cracked and whipped in a small bowl 

3 tspn vanilla

3 sq bittersweet 100% cocoa 

1/2 cup buttermilk 

3/4 cup sour cream 

3 tblspn brewed coffee 

Frosting and Filling 

16oz heavy whipping cream

15oz can cherry pie filling 

Mix all dry ingredients together with a fork until well combined. Set aside. 

Pre-heat your oven to 350 and let it heat up while you get the cake batter ready. Prepare a double boiler. Or do like I do. Balance a large glass pyrex over a 3qt sauce pan  with about an inch of simmering hot water. 

In your mixer, beat your butter for about 5-8 minutes on high until very light and fluffy.

It will be almost white in color. 

While your butter is whipping, add your cocoa squares to your pyrex bowl and carefully stir while it melts. Add the brewed coffee and mix gently while the cocoa melts.

Mix together your buttermilk and sour cream until smooth. Carefully & slowly, add to the Cocoa/Coffee mixture. *note: If its too cool, the cocoa will start to harden again so add it slowly to bring the milk/sour cream up to temperature. 

Once your cocoa mixture is smooth and melted, remove from heat.

Now, scrape down the sides of the butter in your kitchen-aid, and add white sugar. Mix to combine. Then add brown sugar and mix again to combine. Whip on high for about 3 minutes, scraping down your sides at least once. 

Once the butter and sugar are well combined, add your eggs & vanilla. Whip again for about a minute, scrape down your sides.

Now it's time to incorporate the Cocoa & Flour mixtures - using your batter hook, add to the mixer in thirds, starting with the Cocoa mixture and ending with the flour mixture. As you add each portion, mix gently to combine only. Do not over mix!

Over mixing causes your cakes to become dry, and hard.
NOT FUN 

Once the batter is fully incorporated, pour (scoop) it into your prepared pans. Using Pan Grease is a great option - or you can use your favorite way to prepare your pans. I personally use PREP, a professional grease/flour spray that works great and is available at my local bakery supply store. 

Spread out your cake mix, because it's super thick and rich, and won't spread on it's own, even when heated. Spread it out nice and smooth, and then bake for 25-30 minutes. Cool completely before frosting.

Now, whip up your Heavy Cream until stiff peaks form.

Spread half of your Cherry pie filling over the center of one of your cakes, and then top with the 2nd layer of cake. Frost and decorate to your little hearts desire.

{Take a picture} 

This cake is so good, it will be gone before you can even remember you spend all that time and effort baking it :) 

you can thank me later :)

Enjoy!

Linking up here:

Peanut Butter Cookies

Nothing says  "American Childhood" quite like a really yummy

Peanut Butter Cookie.

And these are nothing short of amazing, when baked right.

I seriously think that most recipes go from 'ok' to AMAZING simply by the process you use in achieving those results.