Summer Fruit Galette

The last of my supply of chocolate. I am hoping to find some more on vacation!

Today was another TWD baking day for me. Michelle of Michelle in Colorado Springs chose the recipe Summer Fruit Galette. I was a little scared of making this recipe because I have never free formed a pie before. The picture in the book looked so nice. I was scared that all of my filling would ooze out the sides and onto the pan. That is exactly what happened. I am so glad that I used a big
sheet pan and have oven linings. The filling went everywhere. When it was time to add the custard part, it did the same thing. I chose raspberry's for my filling along with some tri-berry jam for the bottom. I liked the flavour of the recipe but had a hard time executing how to get the filling to stay inside. I think I prefer a regular pie pan. We are going to be out of town for the next few weeks so I am skipping next weeks Black and White banana bread. It sounds amazing and I will be trying it at another time. I have always stuck to our Aunts banana bread. I am interested to see how this compares to hers. I just need to figure out how to make it look nice for next time :- ) I had it all ready to take a photo and when I turned around, my husband was eating it. We really liked the flavour combination. We had it right out of the oven with vanilla ice-cream. I liked how many different combinations of fruit you can use in this recipe. I am interested to see how others did with it.

Chocolate Killer Brownies

The killer brownie Tin!

I could eat all of these with a

little help from Jonathan.

I have an obsession with chocolate. I loved living in Europe and tasting chocolate from all over the World. When I went to Belgium I ate about a million truffles. I tried dark chocolate with sea salt and am now addicted. I found this recipe on a blog called A good appetite. See recipe below. They look amazing. I can't wait to try them. My new neighbor brought me over Killer brownies from Dorothy Lane Market. http://www.dorothylane.com They are AWESOME. They must have a million calories in each one and when I finished I read that each brownie is 4 servings. Oops. Good thing I did my long run yesterday. I am up to 14 and feeling good. We are having a friend of Marks over for dinner tonight. I am making Chili pork tenderloin from Cuisine at Home, Roasted carrots, green salad, black beans, whole grain couscous and whole wheat french bread. For Dessert I made a peach and blueberry crisp from Barefoot Contessa at Home. I am excited to see how it all turns out!

Here is the recipe for the Chili Pork Tenderloin.
1/4 cup honey
2 T chili powder
juice of 1 lime

1 T chili sauce

2 lb pork tenderloin
Combine and marinate for up to 6 hours. Drain and bake in oven at 325 for 2 hours. This was so tender and good. I will be making this again. I forgot to take a picture before we ate and now it is gone.

Dark Chocolate Cupcake with Caramel Filling

1/4 c unsalted butter

1/8 c Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa Powder

3 T water

1/2 c granulated sugar

2 T well beaten egg

1/8 c plain sour cream

1/2 T vanilla

1/2 c all-purpose flour

1/4 t baking soda

1/4 t baking powder

pinch of salt

1/4 c caramel sauce

Preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare muffin tins. Melt butter in a large heavy saucepan over moderately low heat, then whisk in cocoa. Add water and whisk until smooth. Remove from heat. Whisk in separately sugar, egg, yogurt, and vanilla. Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the cocoa mixture and whisk until just combined (it will be a little bit lumpy).Fill muffin tins to about 2/3 full for rounded cupcakes or 1/2 full for flat cupcakes. Bake for 18 - 20 minutes until a skewer or toothpick comes out clean. It's a moist cake, so don't worry if a few crumbs stick to your tester.Allow cupcakes to cool.Makes 4 - 6 cupcakes.Let the cupcakes cool completely. Fill a pastry bag with the caramel sauce & fit it with a star tip. Stick the tip into the top of a cupcake, pushing it about 3/4 inch deep (I found the perfect depth was the length of the tip). Gently squeeze the pastry bag to fill the cupcake, withdrawing it slowly as you squeeze. Scrape any excess caramel from the top of the cupcake. Fill all the cupcakes. I found the caramel settles a little & had to go back to top it off. Put the cupcakes in the fridge while making the frosting to let the caramel set.

Dark Chocolate Frosting

1/4 c unsalted butter

1/3 c Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder

1 1/2 c powdered sugar

3 T milk

1/2 t vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla.About 1 cups frosting.Frost the cupcakes while the frosting is still slightly warm. Allow the frosting to cool completely in the fridge before adding the caramel swirl to the top. Sprinkle with fleur de sel right before serving if desired. These cupcakes should be stored in an airtight container in the fridge.

Swimming

My big boy!

I can go under water now!

Anna jumping off the diving board.

The kids have been taking swimming lessons for the last two weeks. They both just learned how to swim under water. They are so proud of themselves. We have spent a few hours at the pool everyday this week. It is only a couple miles from our house and a great pool.

There class at Idle Hours pool

I found this recipe for Southern Cornbread Salad by Paula Deen. This is what I made for dinner for tonight.
Southern Cornbread Salad
Southern Cornbread Salad from Paula Deen's newsletter
Serves 4 to 6
Reader Roberta Looney shares this family favorite and says that it’s perfect for a summer picnic or lunch on the patio.
Buttermilk Cornbread (recipe follows) 1 (14.5-ounce) can red kidney beans, drained 1 (15-ounce) can corn, drained 1 medium Vidalia onion, finely chopped 1 large green bell pepper, finely chopped 2 to 3 ripe tomatoes, chopped 1 (8-ounce) bottle ranch dressing 2 cups grated Cheddar cheese Cherry tomatoes and parsley, for garnish Additional ranch dressing (optional)
Cut cooled cornbread into 1-inch cubes, and place cubes in a large glass bowl. Layer kidney beans, corn, onion, bell pepper, and tomatoes. Top layers with ranch dressing and sprinkle with Cheddar cheese. Chill, covered, 2 to 3 hours, until ready to serve. Garnish with cherry tomatoes and parsley and serve with additional ranch dressing, if desired.
Buttermilk Cornbread 2 cups self-rising cornmeal mix 1/2 cup self-rising flour 2 eggs 1-3/4 cups buttermilk 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted
Preheat oven to 400ºF. Grease a 9x13-inch pan. In a medium bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, eggs, buttermilk, and butter. Stir until well blended. Pour into prepared pan.
Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool and cut into cubes for salad. Note: This is a basic cornbread recipe that can be used anytime. For this particular salad recipe, we are making it in a larger container to keep it thin. Bread can be made a day in advance. Store cooled, cubed cornbread in a covered container until ready to assemble the salad.
I will let you know how it turned out. I did add ground turkey with and a package of taco seasoning mix.

First TWD Post

This is the first post for a baking group I joined called Tuesdays with Dorie. We are cooking our was through "Baking" by Dorie Greenspan. Amanda from http://likesprinkes.wordpress.com/ chose the recipe this week. This week we are making Cherry Rhubarb Cobbler. I love crisps and cobblers. I have never tried this combination together so am excited to see how it turns out. I found fresh Rhubarb at the commissary and used frozen cherries. I did add 2 more TBS spoons of sugar to the fruit mixture. I had read other people didn't feel that it was sweet enough. I like my cobblers and crisps sweet! I also added 1 ts vanilla since I had forgotten to buy ginger. The dough was easy to work with. I found it interesting that we rolled the dough into balls before placing it on the cobbler. I have never done that before. I haven't got my food processor yet but used a my fingers like I do with biscuits. I didn't have the right size 8X 8 pan so used what I had. I sprinkled the top with some raw sugar and am looking forward to tasting next. It looked lovely before going into the oven. It came out perfectly browned and bubbly. I cooked it for 35 minutes. We will be enjoying this tonight with ice-cream. P.S I couldn't wait and tasted it now. It was so good right out of the oven. I do prefer a crisp topping more then the biscuit but this was a great summer-time dessert.

Kids helping~

The Ice-cream cake

Mommy and me time!

My daughter loves to do everything that I do. She helped make dinner tonight. We had breaded chicken with honey mustard dipping sauce. It is so much easier for me to do it on my own but I want to teach her like my Mom did for me. Both of my kids ate the dinner tonight (Jonathan even ate chicken). They also both tried sweet onions and loved them. They taste so much sweeter then the onions we are used too.

We also made a special ice-cream cake to celebrate his birthday. We had planned on making it on his birthday but never did. The kids helped make it and loved it.

Skor ice-cream cake

8 ice-cream sandwiches

1 bag skor candy pieces

1 8 oz tub whipped cream

layer 4 sandwiches on bottom of loaf pan and then add half of whipped cream, sprinkle with crushed skor candy and repeat layers. The kids enjoyed it very much and it was super easy.
We had quite an exciting day; church, gym and then we were supposed to go swimming but thunder showers came instead. Another fun weekend in the Friesen household : )

Cooking in our new house

We are now moved into our darling house. We should have our things in about 3 weeks. It is fun "camping" in our house, at least the kids think it is. I decided that we have gone out to dinner enough and went to the Commisary for groceries. I joined Barefoot Bloggers and the recipe due date for Smoked Salmon Spread was nearing. It was chosen by Ashley of The Spicey Skillet. I made it this morning. The recipe is on www.foodnetwork.com I loved how it turned out. The only changes I made were by adding more dill and lemon. It needed a little more zing for us. We will be enjoying it tonight at our BBQ along with some great Kashi crackers I picked up.
In other news.. I did my long run on Thursday and it went great. I ran 13 and had no problems. It must take me a little while to get used the humidity. Thanks for the encouragment. I am now officially registered for the AF marathon. No backing out now. We are heading back to the NW next weekend. My sister and I are doing this race together www.diamondlakemtbachelorrelay.org It is an relay race that lasts 36 hours. Everyone runs 3 times for a total of 18 miles. I am so excited about it!!!
It is over 90 today. We are off to the pool to cool down. Enjoy your weekend.

Running in cirlces

I try to do my long runs on either Saturday or Sundays. This Saturday I woke up early at 6:00 to go out for my long run. I hit a running wall at around 10 miles. I don't know what happened besides the humidity and not bringing water with me. This was the first time I have done a long run in Ohio. My goal was to run 14-15 miles but had to give myself grace about just doing 10. I am finding running conditions quite different then what I am used too. I think next weeks long run will be lots better. I have been reading up on hydration and humidity since then. I am also planning on visiting a local running store close to our house to get info on trails and such. I have always had friends to run with. The last full marathon I did was 2 years ago. I had my friend Jeni run the my longest run of 20 miles with me. It was pouring that day so we did it at the gym together. I am hoping to find a running club in our town. My friends tease me because of how much I like to talk while running. Next week will be better. I am motivated already : )

Summer recipes

I love summer. There is something to say about sunshine, long days, outdoor grilling and no school. It is also a great time to try recipes. My friend Alyssa makes the best lemonade cookies. She brought them over to our first get together and they have been a favorite of my kids ever since. She tweaked the recipe until they came out perfect. Here is her version of the summer cookies.

Lemonade Cookies 350 oven temp
1 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
3 1/2 Cups self rising flour
1 can frozen lemonade concentrate she uses regular or pink

Frosting
2 Cups powdered sugar
1/6 cup lemonade concentrate
1/4 cup butter

Grease cookie sheet
Cream butter and 1 cup sugar, add flour. Gradually beat mix. Add 3/4 cup lemonade concentrate. Drop rounded tsp of cookie mix onto greased pan.
Bake 10-15 mintues until lightly browned.

Beat powdered sugar, lemonade and butter together to make the frosting. Wait until cookies have cooled to frost. May add lemon zest if desired. These made about 2-3 dozen cookies. They are so good with Strawberry lemonade.

New at blogging

This is my first blog ever! I am so excited to share some of my favorite things: cooking and running. I can't decide which of the two I enjoy more. There is only one thing better then a runners high and that is trying out a new recipes for my family and friends. I discovered a Barefootbloggers website and really want to join. One of the requirements is to have your own blog so.... I am going to try this. We just moved to Ohio as of Monday. I went for my first run in our new State and found myself sweating before I even began. Any tips for surviving humidity? I will be posting recipes and more soon.