Never Bashful with Butter

I made these with a standard vanilla cake recipe, so instead of sharing that-

Here is a similar recipe to the one I use to make my buttercream icing.
My recipe isnt written down, and I dont really feel like writing it down, so I’ll just post this one and give a little imput on it as to how it should be changed.

As it appears on Recipe Goldmine-
Butter Cream Decneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comorator Icing recipe

1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup margarine
1 teaspoon flavoring
4 cups confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons milk

Cream margarine and shortening. Add flavour. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well. Scrape sides of bowl often. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.

If you decide to refridgerate it, make sure the container is sealed and bring to room temperature and re-whip before using.

Yield 3 cups

Ok, First off, the reason this recipe calls for shortning and margarine is to keep the icing as colourless as possible. I say screw that and use butter. Butter tastes better. Butter gives it a better consistancy. I like butter. You like butter. Just use butter. Unless you’re vegan, then use what you gotta use, but if you’re not, then use butter.

Second, use whatever flavouring you like. You can find some pretty strange flavours at cake decorating supply stores or stores that sell candy making supplies. Also, if you dont want to use an extract, you can boil down fresh fruit and a little granulated sugar to make a simple syrup. Of course, at this point you should realize that the end product will have whatever colouring that the fruit syrup has, but that shouldnt matter. It probably looks better than fake colouring anyways. Also, if you use a simple syrup you will need to add more butter and powdered sugar, and you wont have to add any milk at the end.

However, if you DO use a flavouring extract, I recommend using heavy cream in place of milk. It makes the final product just a little more fluffy and full flavoured.

Sometimes I use different recipes for icing, but that is pretty much the standard recipe I use. but with butter and cream instead of vegetable shortning, margarine and milk.

Oh, and you can make the same icing using soy milk and soy butter if you’re lactose intolerant.

Whatever you do, Enjoy your cupcakes. I usually make mini cupcakes so I can eat a couple and not feel guilty about eating A handful of cupcakes. This way its more like HALF a handful of cupcakes.

Apply sprinkles generously and bask in the glory of your delicious looking desserts.
-A.

A little lettuce, a little cheddar, some sliced olives, some bacon bits, some ranch dressing and carrots..

Deliciouso!

-A.

The great thing about small towns is that “cheers” feeling.
You wanna go where everybody knows your name, and that place is everywhere.

This is also the downside of living in a small town. When you’re a kid, it’s always a positive thing. You know everyone; everyone knows your family, its all good. It’s like living in the land of a thousand grandmothers. The greatness of this theory loses momentum as you grow older though. The older you get, the less you want people meddling in your business. A thousand grandmothers means a thousand people that give you disapproving looks when you screw up. Until you’re like, 12 years old, its still cool though.

The town I grew up in is also the town my mom grew up in, and her mom, and her dad, and his dad before him. That’s like 5 generations. Not bad. That’s 5 generations of people that knew my mom’s family name. I associated with it though, because most people would say “You’re one of those Bryant’s aren’t you?” And I’d say yes, my grandmother was a Bryant. That about summed it uneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comp. At that point I was fair game for Christmas presents and random offerings of cookies and candy. It was great.

Since my family knew just about everyone, and just about everyone knew my family, it wasn’t hard for my parents to let me and my older sister go places by our selves. We lived too far away from any stores or anything, so it wasn’t like we could walk to the store. But we were free to go wandering about amongst the stores once my mom parked the car in the parking lot though.

Things were different back then I guess, different then now. I’d NEVER consider letting any of my future children run around by themselves like that no matter how many people I knew in the area.

Anyways.. Usually these shops were owned or ran by people that my mom went to high school with, or a by a family that knew someone else in my family. So these people became like family to us. One of these places was Don and Joes.
Don and Joes is a little dinky fast food joint in the town I grew up in. It’s owned by two people that graduated from high school with my mom, and before that, it was owned by one of their parents. Apparently, in the 70’s, it was the hoppin place to be for all the football players. By the time we got introduced to it it still had a loyal following of truckers, townies and various local teenagers. They had the BEST chicken strips and fries, BTW. OMG mm.. I love that place.

Another one of the places we were allowed to run around in was the Z mart.
I don’t know who owned it, but I know that one of the guys that worked there all the time was someone my mom knew from high school as well, and he and his wife went to the same church as us. Z mart was awesome. It’s just like any other convenience store/ gas station only they had GIANT Popsicles, and the guy who ran it who knew my mom would give us free ones. He’d say something silly like “Today’s special is one Popsicle for a smile” Which would inevitably make me giggle, and at that point it would be impossible not to smile.

This is also the place where I had my first experience with pop rocks.

It was in the early 80’s.
I don’t know how old I was, but I couldn’t have been much older than four. Apparently, pop rocks were just becoming available at Z mart. There were signs everywhere with bright colours and big pictures of the bag. And the best part was, having connections and all, we got some for free… Or rather, “For a smile”

Ok, so I was four, I had no idea what pop rocks were. “popping candy”? what does THAT mean?

My sister got a huge grin on her face and she told me that I had to put the entire bag in my mouth, that was how you ate pop rocks.

We sat on the curb out in front and she carefully peeled open the top and one side of the bag, right along the seams. She pried apart the bag as wide as she could.
All of the candy gathered at the bottom.
Tilting the bag to the side, she shook until all of the candy lined up in a little row… And she told me to open my mouth.
I listened.

I’m not sure why I listened to my sister anymore.
I’m convinced that between the day of my birth and my 12th birthday she was constantly trying to do something evil to me. Sure, I did evil things to her too, but she seemed particularly intent on injuring me between the ages 3 and 8.

This was no different.
I’m sure she thought my head would explode from the sheer force of the candy exploding in my mouth. Maybe she thought that the candy would rip holes in my mouth, or that I’d freak out and start crying or something. But alas, that would not happen. Something much worse would occur.

I opened my mouth, and she readied the bag to empty its contents into my gaping maw.
As soon as the sharp shards of crunchy candy hit my tongue, I began to panic. I didn’t know if it would hurt, but I thought if it did hurt, I didn’t want it in my mouth.
I tried to spit, too late!
The reaction was starting to spread!

I jumped up and flailed a bit, then forgetting what I had been sitting on, tripped over the curb and landed hind end up on the sidewalk, much to the amusement of my sister, who pointed and laughed the whole time.

It wasn’t until I got up, crying, little bits of gravel imbedded in the palms of my hands, and a hole in the knee of my pants that she realized “oh crap I could get in trouble for this.”

She tried to dust me off. She told me to calm down. She said not to tell mom anything. -I cried louder.
She panicked right along with me.

She put her coat on me, since it was much longer than mine.
She’d tell my mom I got cold so she gave me her jacket. Then my mom wouldn’t see my hands or my knees. She would have no idea!
-I threw the coat off. I was GOING to tell mom.
She started bargaining- She offered me her birthday money-
- I was FIVE, what would I do with that?
She offered me one of her chocolate bunnies from her collection-
-Those things were years old, EW!
She told me she’d give me some of her toys-
-I don’t like your toys my toys are better!

A smile crossed her face. “I wont tell dad you wrote the ABC’s on the kitchen table!”
Damnit.

She had me there.

She smiled contently, she played her cards well on this one.

Silence held our tongues while our eyes were locked, my face scowling in defeat.

I asked her if there were any more pop rocks left. Those were pretty good, if only they didn’t pop around in your mouth like that.
She handed me the bag and I sat down next to her.

She may not have succeeded in her evil plan to prove sibling supremacy, but she was still my big sister.
I leaned my head on her shoulder as we waited for my mom to come back to the car. She was in Don and Joes (which was across the parking lot) and she promised she’d bring us back milkshakes if we were good.

—

So, last night I decided I wanted to make cupcakes.

Every recipe I had called for too much milk or too much sugar. I REFUSE to buy any food before next week. I need to get rid of the stuff I have in the fridge and the pantry right now. We just have too much food. I couldn’t justify buying more sugar or more milk just to make cupcakes.
I hunted through the internet and found a perfect recipe.

It called for just as much sugar as I had and just as much milk as I had.
YES! SCORE!

So I made cupcakes today. Then I made icing. When it came to decorating them, I dug through the candy collection and came across three bags of pop rocks candy.
…So, I made pop rock cupcakes. Strange, but very tasty.

I flavoured and coloured just a little bit of the frosting base to go with the flavour of the poprocks.
I did not, however, remember what the poprock colours were inside the bag, and I ended up with some strange looking cupcakes.

I thought the colour of the writing on the outside of the bag had something to do with the colour of the poprocks.
So, pink blue and green, right?
Nope. Two different shades of pinky orange, and one greenish blue.
Anyways, here they are-

Tropical punch, strawberry and watermelon.

It ended up working quite nicely. I definately would use a sturdy cupcake batter and use a sturdy icing so all textures mesh well. Using an icing or an overly FLUFFY cupcake batter would make it feel strange with the large chunks of Pop Rocks on top.

Also, I noticed that although it was a little weird to have cake and Pop Rocks popping all over on the inside of your mouth, it tasted really good. The poprocks really accentuated the flavour of the icing (which I matched to the flavour of the poprocks) and they were sort of like little flavour bursts.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed my little experiment, and I’ll definately do it again. If you want to try pop rock cupcakes, I’d reccommend icing and sprinkling them at the last possible minute, as the poprocks will absorb the moisture and begin to melt a bit, eventually losing all of their pop. But within the first 45 minutes or so (in a cold room, I assume it would be a much shorter time in a warm or humid room) they stayed just fine!

Here is the recipe I used, as it appears on Cooks.com

2 1/2 c. sifted cake flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 c. vegetable shortening
1 tsp. vanilla
3 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 c. milk
2 eggs

Stir shortening to soften. Add dry ingredients, 3/4 cup of the milk and vanilla. Mix until flour is dampened. Beat 2 minutes with electric mixer. Add eggs and remaining milk (1/4 cup). Beat 1 minute longer. Pour into paper lined cupcake pans. Bake about 25 minutes in 350 degree oven. Makes 24 cupcakes.

Alright. So of course I changed the recipe a bit.
I never use shortening in my recipes unless I absolutely have to. I prefer the taste of butter, and the feel that butter gives whatever it is that I’m making. Cake included.

Also, I used a lot more flavouring then the recipe calls for. Probably a teaspoon of vanilla and a teaspoon and a half of almond extract. I love the smell and taste of these two flavourings mixed together. I also like cake that has a flavour, not an “essence” so I always add more flavouring than the recipe calls for.
I’d like to note the importance of using cake flour.
I bought a box of cake flour on a whim about 6 months ago, not knowing what I would do with it, since I really didnt make a lot of cake at home during that time period. It sat in the cupboard for about 3 months before I decided to try using it while making something. I didnt notice the difference right away, but when I made a cake using it I was amazed the difference it makes! It also affects the taste as well. The cake has more of a sweet taste, since you’re not tasteing the gluten in the flour, since cake flour has a much weaker gluten than all purpose flour or bread flour.
If you’d like to read more differences between types of flour, go here- *CLICKY*

-A.

P.S. I may have used up sugar and milk and a few other kitchen items I was looking to use up, but now I have cupcakes. DANG IT!

I guess I should put on some shoes and deliver some to my neighbours. hehe..

My life as a muffin-

Growing up, we picked berries all the time. It seemed like every weekend in the summer we were in someone’s orchard or field, picking berries and throwing them into a bucket. Usually we went to “U-pick” places, sometimes we picked them in our own yard.

I never knew what my parents did with all the berries we picked. I suppose most of them went into the freezer in bags. I remember my sister and I would eat frozen strawberries like Popsicles during the summer. I guess those strawberries had to come from somewhere. We always ate our blackberries fresh, since we had a giant blackberry bush in the yard, but didn’t everyone? Then there were the raspberries and the huckleberries. There was only one time we picked blueberries though. I was probably 11 years old, my mom hadn’t had my little sisters yet, so it was just me, my mom, my sister and my dad.

My mom and I fought a lot when I was growing up. I was a stubborn kid (did I just say ‘was’?) and I always thought I was right.
I cant take all the blame, but Ineverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.com cant really explain away my actions and words.

I was a dumb kid.

You never realize how much of a dumb kid you were until after you’ve grown up. I obviously hadn’t grown up, so I had no idea. I got along a lot better with my dad. I spent most of my time with my dad. My mom always wanted to go shopping.

I hated shopping.

If I didnt want to go shopping I only had one option, and that was to stay home. So, I stayed home with my dad. Sometimes we went fishing or we’d watch movies together, or he would teach me how to take things apart and put them back together again.
My goal since I learned to operate a screw driver was to build a time machine.
My dad thought this was funny, but he never tried to make me feel stupid for it. He offered up whatever spare parts and gadgets he had for the project. I had piles of television remotes, telephones, calculators and alarm clocks at my disposal. I never completed my time machine, but not for the lack of effort. I think because of all the time I spent with my dad, my mom felt like she wasnt doing her job as my mom. She would try and make me do things with her, even if my being along for the ride made no difference. She forced me to do stuff with her and my older sister.
I just wanted to stay home and make my time machine.

We argued about this all the time. It went something like this-

“Andrea, I want you to (something I dont want to do)”
- “I dont want to, I’ll just stay home”
“No, you’re going with us. It will be fun, me, you and Steph”
- “I dont want to go with you”
“You’re going if you like it or not”
-”Fine, I’ll just make you miserable too”
-”FINE! STAY HOME! I DONT CARE ANYWAYS! YOU ALWAYS DO THIS ANDREA! YOU NEVER DO ANYTHING WITH ME! YOU HATE ME!”

at which point I would roll my eyes and do one of three things-

Option 1- Slam the door, crank my stereo up and throw myself like dead weight on the bed and mope

Option 2- Throw something, roll my eyes and make several different tones of “UGH” and cave, saying “FINE! I’LL GO DO YOUR STUPID (something I dont want to do)”

Option 3- I’d agree with her, start crying, and revert to option 1, followed by my dad coming coming into my room and telling me that I really hurt my moms feelings, so I’d finish with a modified option 2, saying only “fine, I’ll go do your stupid (something I dont want to do)” and hold back my urge to agree with the hating part, but be miserable the entire time said activity was going on, and let everyone know it.

After one particularly long and drawn out argument with my mom, I was informed that we would be going to pick blueberries, Just the three girls, me my sister and my mom. I didn’t really feel like going, but I had just argued with my mom about something that obviously wasn’t important enough for me to remember what it was, so why not? I chose option 2, Fine, I’ll go.

I hated picking blueberries. I hated picking them before we even got out of the car.
One look at the field and how low the bushes were to the ground, I wanted to stay in the car and pout. My sister got out of the car, and my mom gave me a disapproving look, which I took that as my cue to ‘get the hell out of the car and go pick some damn berries’, if you will.

We picked blueberries for about 3 hours.

Crouching low to the ground, plucking the round ripe berries and flicking them into big margarine tubs. Once we filled the tubs we went and poured them into a 5 gallon bucket. I’d reach up and wipe my brow with the cuff of my sleeve, and squint into the hot August sun to see where everyone else was… It was hot. I was sweaty. I wanted to go home. Finally, my sister met up with me at the bucket and we looked around for my mom. The bucket was full.
My mom was no where to be found.

I waited by the bucket while my sister went around and looked for her. She returned about 10 or so minutes later motioning for me to carry the bucket up to where it could be weighed.

I grabbed the bucket and waddled my way up the slight hill. My mom was there and so was my sister. We weighed the berries and I carried the bucket to the back of the car, where my mom opened the hatchback and I hefted the deceivingly light weight looking bucket into the back of the car. I held onto it the entire ride home, I was afraid it would tip over, though looking back, I’m sure it would have taken an act of congress or the car flipping on its side before that thing would have tipped.

Finally, we arrived home. My dad came out to the car and took over with bucket duty. He lifted it with one arm, and put my thoughts of great strength to shame by tossing around the bucket like it was nothing. My mom told him to take the bucket into the kitchen, we needed to wash them so we could make muffins.

What?

Blueberry muffins were my mom’s favourite treat. Out of all the wonderful things she used to bake for us, she never made US muffins. The muffins were always for her. Now we were invited into the kitchen to make muffins with her? Surely she wouldn’t tell us to make muffins and then not let us enjoy the spoils of our labour. Don’t get me wrong, I had had blueberry muffins before. My mom loved them, so she always bought them for herself. I tried one once when I was fairly little, but I didn’t like the blueberries. Blueberry muffins just seemed wrong. I don’t know why. I hadn’t had baked berries before, they were always fresh, and we never had access to fresh blueberries.

So we made muffins, and low and behold, my mom even let us eat a few.
We sat at the table with a plate of piping hot muffins and a pitcher of lemonade and ate that entire plateful before we got up. My mom sat next to me the whole time. Telling me about how much her dad had liked blueberry muffins, and how the smell of fresh blueberry muffins being baked in a cast iron pan in the oven reminded her of his smile. My mom always got weepy when she talked about her dad. He died when she was in her early teens. When he died, she had to start growing up. I felt bad for her.
I never thought about my parents dying before.

I gave my mom a hug. She hugged me back.
I said I was sorry-
and all felt right in the world.

I made home made muffins and butter today. I had never made butter with a stand mixer before. To be honest, I didnt know that you COULD. I’ve always just used the jar shaking method. I’ll admit, this was way easier and a lot less taxing on a person’s arm.

I didnt have any fresh berries. I couldnt find fresh berries ANYWHERE. I looked too. I ended up using frozen ones. Good enough.

So there you have it. Blueberry muffins and fresh butter. This time chose to use the popover pan with the muffin cups. I thought the high sides on the muffin with the muffin cups looked nice.

They tasted good too. I only had one though. My stomach hurts, and I havent really been feeling well, so I didnt eat more than one.

I love muffins. I really do. Blueberry muffins have fast become my favourites. I used to love chocolate chip muffins when I was really little, but then I realized that those arent so much muffins as they are glorified cupcakes. I should find a recipe for orange streusel muffins though, those are really good too.

Anyways, here are the rest of the photos from today’s muffin photo shoot. As I said before, I havent been feeling well, so I think I’m just going to cave in and let Aaron have nachos for dinner tonight (he’s been asking) and I really dont think I’ll post pictures of that. MMM.. greasy nachos. Yeah, I dont think I’ll be eating any of that. I’ve got plenty of fruit to eat, and its probably better that I eat good for me foods anyways, maybe I’ll get better quicker.

Tangent, sorry. Here are the rest of the photos-

Lately, I’ve taken to baking my muffins in my popover pan. I think the tall smooth sides and lack of muffiny overhang lends a certain elegance to the muffin, removing it from rustic country breakfast tables and bringing it to fortune 500 boardroom meeting meals.

Or not. I just like it.

Anyways, this is the recipe that I got off of The All Recipes website-

INGREDIENTS

1 cup milk
1 egg
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup fresh blueberries

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
In a large bowl, stir together milk, egg, and oil. Add flour, baking powder, sugar, and blueberries; gently mix the batter with only a few strokes. Spoon batter into cups.

Bake for 20 minutes. Serve hot

I only changed a little about it.

Blueberries arent in season here, and despite looking at every market in the area, I could not locate them, so I had to use canned blueberries. I felt a little bad, I really dont like using canned fruits. I love fresh fruits. Anyways.. I used them and it turned out pretty good.

Also, it says to only “gently” stir the batter with a few strokes.
Screw that.

I beat the crap out of the mix myself. I add the blueberries at the VERY end, because I dont want them breaking open and bleeding juices everywhere. This happens enough in the oven.

I guess it helps that unless I’m making bread, I always use cake flour. Cake flour lacks the gluten that forms when you use a standard or bread flour, making whatever you’re mixing up turn chewy if you fuss with it too much.

I also made fresh butter ESPECIALLY for these muffins, using heavy cream and a light sprinkling of sea salt. I had never made butter in a stand mixer before, I’m used to making it the old fashioned way, or the way we learned in kindergarten using a jar, a marble and a cup of cream. It ended up pretty darn tasty and it didnt take nearly as long to finish. Its just a lot more mess to clean up, thats all.

So, tasty muffins all in all, I must say.

-A.

No real recipe here, I just made some ramen and put some heart shaped sliced carrots in it.

It was tasty tasty though!

-A.

I think I am addicted to these nonpareils. I’ve been using them on everything, and now I’m having to convince myself not to buy more of them when I go to the grocers later today.

So, I’ve decided that this week, with the exception of a few necessary ingredients, will be “fridge cleaning” food week.

I’m not a huge fan of leftovers, so I assemble our meals in individual portions, leaving the different components separate, and packaging up anything left at the end of a meal in the same way. Separate.

So, We’ve got a fridge full of individual components of several meals that I’ve made over the past week.

This morning, to start off with, I baked up the remaining chocolate chip cookie dough that I made… entirely too long ago. It was still good, I dont think cookie dough goes bad very quickly as long as its in the fridge or freezer.

So this is what I came up with.-

These are just standard chocolate chip cookies, with a little bit of sweetened cream cheese sandwiched between two of them.

This is the recipe I use for my chocolate chip cookies-

(Its the one off the bag of nestle tollhouse chocolate chips)

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks, 1/2 pound) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated [white] sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups (12-ounce package) Chocolate chips

COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla in large mixer bowl. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition; gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE in preheated 375-degree [Fahrenheit] oven for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Let stand for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

PAN COOKIE VARIATION: PREPARE dough as above. Spread into greased 15″x10″ jelly-roll pan. Bake in preheated 375-degree [Fahrenheit] oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in pan on wire rack.
The only thing I do differently is I roll my dough into one inch balls and place them on a greased cookie sheet, and I use the bottom of a drinking glass to flatten them a bit so they bake evenly.

I like my cookies the same size and perfectly round. I’m nit picky.

For the sweetened cream cheese, all you do is take a package of cream cheese and soften it up in the bowl of a stand mixer by whipping it around for a few minutes. Then add powdered sugar and a tiny bit of heavy cream.

Spoon the cream cheese between two COLD cookies and roll the sides in sprinkles, and there you go.

Little chocolate chip yo yo’s.

-A.

Every Sunday night, My grandma, my mom, dad, little sisters, older sister and myself (and occasionally my husband and my older sister’s best friend) Have dinner together at my mom’s place. In addition to messing up my whole “I make dinner every night” routine, it takes me off my photo taking schedule.

I try to make up for it by taking photos of my little sisters, but for some reason 13 year old girls dont like having their pictures taken. I wonder what’s up with that. When I was 13 I was cheesin’ it up for anyone who wanted to take a picture! I’d even smile if you asked nicely.

This week I wanted to spend a little time looking through the old photos that we started looking through earlier in the week. There are SO many of them, its amazing. Most of them are of my little sisters. Occasionally you’ll see a glimpse of me or my older sister in those photos. A stray foot, an arm. The back of our heads. Something totally random and out of place. My family isnt the best at tneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comaking candid shots, but they make up for it in sheer quantity.

So, because I spent entirely too much time looking through old photos, I ended up not eating with everyone else. That was fine. I ended up taking a couple of bags of food home for me and my husband, and the remainder of a chocolate cake that my aunt brought over so we could celebrate my grandma’s birthday… again. I think my Aunt missed the memo.

Anyways, I managed to convince my mom that I also needed a bag of the cherries she bought at the store last night, too, which makes me happy. I love cherries. I cant wait until the summer when the bright red ones are available.

I got home and my husband and I ate the food that was packed up for both of us. My husband has a gut of steel and could probably digest a jet engine. I, on the other hand, have a much more delicate digestive tract. I should not have eaten what I ate. I dont think I’ll eat another hamburger ever again. Really, I think I have what it takes to stick to that resolution. Despite photo’s I’ve posted on here of the burger I made last week, I could resist the urge to eat a big slab of ground beef. especially when you think of it that way. A big slab. UGH.

AAAAANYways.. after I recovered I was not in the mood to eat anything else. I wasnt in the mood to cook or prepare anything else. A drink sounded awful, and nothing sounded good. But I wanted to take photos still.

So, I turned to the giant candy collection that we have in a bowl in the dining room.

Why do we have all this candy? I dont know. We really dont eat candy all that often. I suppose we probably have it because I’m a sucker for bright coloured packaging, novelty items and cute asian faces on strange candies whose names are written in a language I couldnt dream of understanding.
But I’m also a sucker for the candies I grew up with.

I dont think I could ever completely eliminate candy from my diet. It’s just too pretty.

“But Charlie, don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he he always wanted.”
- ” What happened?”

“He lived happily ever after.”

-A.

The first food I ever learned to make was french toast.

I stood next to my dad in the kitchen, my nose barely above the top of the counter. I watched intently as he went to the refridgerator brought back a carton of eggs and a jug of milk. Then, he went to the cupboard behind us and over the stove, and got out the sugar and cinnamon. From the cupboard infront of us, get got a bowl, and from the drawer beside him-a fork.

I got confused really quick. This is too much stuff to mix together. I almost got distracted by something else, but I was hungry, and I knew the only way my dad was going to make this delicious food was if he was teaching me how to do it myself.

I dont know if he decided it was “high time I learned to cook for myself” or just decided on a whim that we would bond over breakfast, but whatever it was, he was pretty determined to have me in the kitchen that morning.

No one else was awake, either. I think we were making breakfast for my mom actually. It was a Saturday morning, and my dad and I were both early risers, known forneverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.com getting up before 5am. I know he was on this schedule because of his job, and I was a really light sleeper, most times I would wake up when my rooster, Billy, would crow.

My dad mixed all the ingredients together and stood me up on a stool infront of the stove. My armor was an apron and I was armed with a spatula. My dad stood beside me just to make sure I wouldnt decide to cook my hand instead of the bread. I was kind of flighty as a child.

“NEVER TURN THE HEAT ABOVE MEDIUM, unless you are boiling water” He barked. I could tell he really wasnt all the way awake, and still had that harsh gravelly I’ve-been-trying-to-talk-over-the-machinery-at-work voice.

“Put a small amount of margarine in the pan, just a light coat. You dont want to fry the bread, just keep it from sticking”

I had no idea what he was talking about. A light coat of margarine? What’s fried bread?

“Dip the bread in the bowl with the eggs, and then put it right on the hot pan”

I looked at him.
He looked back at me.
I kept looking at him, my eyes a little wider.

He sighed. “Here, I’ll show you.” And he did.

The egg sizzled in the pan a little. The sweet smell of cinnamon and sugar mixed with the savoury tang of eggs in the air. The margarine smelled as good as butter to my young nose.

“Now put that-” he pointed to the spatula, “under the bread, and then flip it over, so whats on top now will be touching the pan.”

I went for it. This first toast would be one for the dogs, as I butchered it completely. I stabbed the toast with the end of the spatula, skewering it, and scared of how my dad might react, my reflexes told me to drop the spatula, launching the toast that HAD managed to end up on top of it- across the stove and onto the countertop next to us.

My dad laughed. “Try again.”

I know we went through an entire loaf of white bread that morning. In the end, we had enough french toast for all four of us… barely.

I went to wake up my mom, my sister got up and sat at the table, waiting.
My dad plated up the toast with some fruit, and placed the plates infront of each of us. In the center of the table he put margarine, Syrup, juice, a plate with sausage on it and some scrambled eggs.

I loved it. I was hooked. I wanted to cook everything I ate from that point on.
My dad told me to practice my flipping, and we’d make pancakes the next weekend.

I think about my dad teaching me to make french toast everytime I eat it. Its a good memory. My family is very fond of breakfast foods. When I was really young, we had breakfast together every saturday morning, and when I got older, it was Sunday mornings that we ate breakfast together.

Now a days, we plan one breakfast a year with the whole family. Christmas morning we all meet at my parents house and have breakfast before opening presents. 6am. It makes me feel like I’m a kid again, until the sun comes up.

Add fruit and a slice of bacon and Voila! Breakfast is served.

Another thing you can do to fancy up your french toast is crush up some corn flakes and put them in a shallow wide bowl. Sizzle up a little extra butter in your pan. After you dip the bread in the egg mixture, roll it in the corn flakes, and then right before you put it on the skillet, dip it in the egg mixture again. It adds a little crunch to your breakfast, and it tastes really good!

I didnt have any corn flakes, so I had to do without.

-A.

P.S. those are sugared grapes in front there, they look real fancy on a plate as a garnish too. Just dip the grapes in water, shake ‘em out, and dip them in granulated sugar. mmm.. grapes.

Looks tasty, doesnt it?

Here is my recipe-

You will need-

a large skillet or griddle
a jelly roll pan or cookie sheet
pam or whatever you use to grease your cookie sheets
1 Loaf of day old crusty bread. (you could use thick sliced sandwich bread if you want, but I prefer artesianal breads)
6 or 8 large eggs
a dash of cinnamon
a dash of sugar
1/4 heavy cream
butter for greasing the skillet or griddle

Preheat the oven to 325.
Slice your bread into thick slices, about 1 to 1 1/2 inches thick.

In a large shallow bowl, mix all the ingredients until slightly frothy and well blended.

Place the butter on the skillet or griddle until the butter bubbles, but doesnt brown.

Dip the slices of bread, pressing down lightly so the bread absorbs a little of the mixture. Place the egg dipped bread on the butter greased skillet or griddle and cook until the egg starts to brown.

Flip over and cook the remaining side until just beginning to turn brown. (if you are using regular sliced enriched white bread, plate french toast with a selection of your favourite breakfast side dishes and serve hot!)

If you’re using thick sliced artesian bread-

Place “pretty side” up on cookie sheet, set aside.

fry as many slices of the egg dipped bread as needed, adding butter between slices to insure a nice coat of butter on each slice. Place them on the cookie sheet leaving a little bit of breathing room between slices. Put cookie sheet in the oven for about 5 minutes, keeping an eye out to make sure it doesnt burn. Check the toasts. If they’re not entirely cooked through, flip them over with a pair of tongs and put back in the oven at a reduced temperature of 275 for another 5 minutes.

Serve with whatever you like. I prefer bacon, eggs and some fresh fruit.

If you want savoury french toast, omit extra ingredients from the egg mixture. Complete the rest of the instructions the same as for the other, sprinkle with a little saltand pepper and serve with a selection of savoury sauces, or even just ketchup.

You could also make a monte cristo sandwich, where you take two slices of thin sliced bread with a slice of swiss cheese, a slice of turkey and a slice of ham between them, dip them in egg and fry them just as you would french toast.

My favourite idea is dipping the bread in crushed corn flakes AFTER dipping it in the sweet egg mixture and then frying it the same as the directions above. It adds a nice crunch and texture to it, and its DELICIOUS.

Try it sometime.

-A.

Burrata.

This cheese could definately stop anyone (including Gort) from destroying the earth. Also, I have no doubt that it could, infact, harness the power of the book of the dead.

About a month ago while at the grocery store perusing the cheese aisle searching for buffala mozzarella, I came upon a tub labeled “Burrata” It looked just like a big ball of fresh mozzarella in brine. It was also fairly expensive, so I passed over it.

I got to thinking about it later though. What was it called? maybe I should look it up online.. So I did.

Burrata is a mixture of ends and pieces of fresh mozzarella, formed into a ball and mixed with cream, stuffed into a ball of fresh mozzarella, and soaked in brine. It is also the tastiest cheese ever. I decided I must have it at once, and made a special trip back to the store I found it at.

Once I had it, I realized I had no idea what I should do with it. A ball of cheese. Its not like a spreadable cheese, so.. what do you do with it.

Answer-

You make pasta.

You take the pasta and toss it with a light sauce made from toasted parmesan cheese, a little olive oil, some some dried tomatoes and italian seasonings. If I had some black olives last night, I would have put those in there too.

Then you pour that into a bowl, and top with the pieces from the inside of the burrata.

OMG, so good.
This is what we had for dinner last night.

I made some breadsticks to go along with it. It worked out quite nicely, dipping the breadsticks into the leftover oils from the pasta. mmm..

I’ve never really been one for thick tomoto sauces or heavy cream sauces. I like alfredo, but its just too overpowering sometimes. The delicate flavour of this cheese would have been drowned by the sauce. Same if I had used a tomato sauce. The tomato would take over everything.

The best thing about this dish is the textures. The pasta, boiled to perfection, the crunchy parm, the tangy sundried tomatoes and the spice of the seasoning. Add to that the silky soft texture of the burrata. It just feels good in your mouth. It feels good to chew. Its just great.

The mozzerella doesnt melt, but it doesnt need to. Its more about the mouth feel than about the stringy cheese on this one.

I just had to share this wonderful dish with you guys. I definately recommend this cheese to anyone who wants to try a new spin on a “regular” cheese.

-A.

P.S. It tastes great plain too. I have to admit, I cut the burrata in half, one half for me, one for my husband, and I sprinkled the Burrata on my pasta, but I also tasted some plain just to see how good it was on its own. So creamy and soft. Its amazing. You should look for it, really.