Butterscotch Shortbread

This is a recipe from my Grandma Barbara's recipe ledger. Now, I'm not going to pretend this one is healthy, but it is dang good. It's made with only 3 ingredients- flour, sugar, and butter.

Butterscotch Shortbread

1/2 cup Sugar

1 cup Butter

2 cups Flour

Mix it well & roll it out. Bake in a walled baking sheet (also called a jellyroll pan). I like to make prints in the cookies with the fork before baking. Bake at 300 for 7-10 minutes or until a bit golden. Cut into squares & serve.

I probably don't have to tell you, but this is really tasty. It's flaky and sweet, but not too sweet, it melts in your mouth. It has a nice warm flavor.

Bread Bunnies

It's spring! What better way to celebrate then with bread bunnies?

Bread Bunnies (makes 24-32 bunny rolls)

2 1/2 cups flour + 3-4 cups

1 package or 2 1/4 tsp yeast

2 1/4 cup milk

1-2 Tbsp butter

3 Tbsp Sugar

1 Tbsp each- parsley, sage, rosemary, & thyme.

1 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt

1 egg white

1 Tbsp water

Whisk 2 1/2 cups flour with yeast. In a saucepan, heat the milk, butter, sugar, salt, and herbs to 130 degrees (butter almost melts). Add it to the flour, combine, then turn the mixer up to high speed for 3 minutes. (This helps the gluten form it's characteristic stickiness which is essential for the rising process because it traps the yeasty bubbles).

Add enough flour to make it fluffy and not super sticky, a little bit sticky on the inside is good.

Grease a bowl and plop your dough into the bowl, turn the dough to coat it in the oil. Put a towel over the bowl and let it rise in a warm place for 1 hour (or until it doubles).

Separate dough into 6 -8 equal portions (depending on how many bunnies you want, 6 makes 24, 7 makes 28, & 8 makes 32.) Cover the portions you are not using (this theoretically traps heat next to the dough to help it rise).

Roll the portion into an 6-8" circle, then cut the circle into six equal pie wedges.

Take two of the six wedges and cut them in half longways (these will be 4 bunny heads). Take your kitchen shears and cut from the point towards the fat end of the bunny heads to make the ears, stop about an inch before the end.

Take the remaining 4 wedges and cut off the tips (these will be tails) and roll them into balls. Shape the body piece how you want and attach a head and tail to each bunny, you may wet your finger to help them attach.

Mix the egg white with 1 Tbsp water. Brush the egg mixture over the bunnies.

Choose a topping:

1. Sugar sage (my favorite) -1/4 cup Sugar, 1 Tbsp Sage

2. Rosemary Parmesan- 1/4 cup fresh Parmesan, 1 Tbsp crushed Rosemary

Mix up your topping and sprinkle it over your bunnies. Bake the bunnies at 350 for 15 minutes (if you have two sheets of bunnies in at the same time, set a timer for half so you can switch their oven locations for even browning).

The rosemary parmesan topped bunnies are especially good with marinara or pizza sauce for dipping. My college roomies joked that they were bloody bunnies. We tried stuffing the bunnies with pizza toppings and sauce, it wasn't my best work, but it makes one think of what sort of yummy surprises a bunny might contain... thanks to the Better Homes and Gardens Annual Recipes 2003 cookbook.

Krista's Taco Soup

Taco Soup is super simple & quite tasty. My older sister Krista gave me this recipe.

Taco Soup

1/2 lb cooked taco meat

1 can vegetable soup concentrate

1 can chili con carne

1/2 cup Salsa

1/2 cup water

1 Tbsp Taco Seasoning or Chili Powder

Tortilla Chips

*Toppings: Tomatoes, Olives, Sour Cream, Avocados, Shredded cheese...

The directions are quite simple, you unload the meat, vegetable soup, Chili, salsa, water, & taco seasoning into a sauce pan and heat. I like to stir in some sour cream, then top it with tomatoes, olives, avocados, and shredded cheese, then eat it with the tortilla chips. The toppings (marked with a *) are optional.

It makes great use of leftover Taco meat!

Also- all thanks for this recipe will be to my sister Krista.

Orange Julius

This is a family recipe. I remember summer evenings when my mom would make orange julius and popcorn and we would watch a chick flick while I massaged her feet. We called it a girls night- though it was low key, these are treasured memories for me. Orange Julius is the first thing I learned to make as a child. It isn't like the stuff you buy at the mall. This recipe is less frothy and it has a stronger flavor. It is really good. I think if you like what you've had at the mall, you might fall in love again when you try this one.

Orange Julius a'la Bunny

1 can Orange Juice concentrate

1/2 can milk (extra milk or water to thin later)

1-2 capfuls Vanilla

1/4 cup sugar (or less, you can omit)

ice

Blend smooth, add water or milk to get it to the desired consistency.

Poser Mocha Frappucinos!

Mormons don't drink coffee. So, once upon a time when I lived in Provo, there was a super trendy Mormon coffee shop called Vermilion Skies. They had bands play there on weekends, there was a bunch of little squares of paper taped to the wall with the patrons' doodles. Local artists would display their art there. Vermilion Skies was brilliant. There was a huge chalkboard displaying the menu options and prices. My favorite was the "Poser Mocha Frappucino with banana". They were "poser" beverages because they had no coffee in them at all, just Pero, a Mexican drink made from barley. About year after it opened, Vermilion Skies closed because the tenants above flooded, ruining much of the work (the floors, the walls, etc...) which the owner (Christine?) had put into it. I was a weekly customer. I loved the frappucino, sometimes I paired it with what I called the "Chocolate sex cake". When it closed down, the owner gave me her recipe. I finally found banana syrup at Restaurant Depo, there is word that it might also be found at Cash & Carry. I am only sharing this recipe because Vermilion Skies is no longer open and it's a fabulous recipe. Coffee drinkers have verified that this has an insanely authentic flavor.

Poser Mocha Frappucino

1 3/4 cups Milk (preferably whole or 2%)

1/3 cup Chocolate Syrup

2 Tbsp Pero

2 Tbsp Flavored Syrup (my favorite is banana)

ice!

Put all ingredients into the blender, blend smooth, and enjoy.

Poppyseed Milk

Poppyseed milk is a Lithuanian Christmas Drink. It is much like almond milk in texture and theory. It is my favorite Lithuanian recipe.

1 cup Poppy seeds

Honey

1-2 quarts Water

We start by scorching the poppy seeds. Scorching makes the seeds soften and swell so the milky insides can come out. I put the poppy seeds in my mini crock pot and cover them with water and let them sit in the hot crock pot overnight. If you would rather have poppyseed milk today, you can boil them for about 10 minutes.

Drain the poppy seeds through a tight wire strainer or kitchen hosiery. Pour the poppy seeds into a food processor and grind out their milky insides. The poppy seeds will become lighter in color and more paste like in texture.

You may skip this next part, but it makes a slight difference in taste. Most recipes for poppyseed milk say you must use water that has been boiled and cooled. My culinary resources say this decreases the oxygen content in the water. So, if you want to be all traditional and have the slightly better tasting version, boil and cool your 1-2 quarts of water.

Put your processed poppy seed paste in a kitchen hosiery lined sieve which has been placed securely over your pitcher. Pour the 1-2 quarts of water through the poppy mixture. The milky white insides will pass through into the pitcher while the black hulls will be left. Carefully lift the kitchen hose off the strainer and squeeze it to get the remaining milk out.

Add honey to sweeten it to your liking. You may use sugar, but I severely discourage it. The honey is an integral part of the awesome flavor.

Pictures to come!

Super Poppyseed cookies

If you were not aware that there is an online Lithuanian Cookbook, then let me advise you- there is. From this cookbook I've tried a few adventures- mushroom onion raviolis, croquettes with mushroom sauce, poppyseed pancakes, carrot pancakes, honey mushroom cookies (still haven't turned out), poppyseed milk, kugelis, sausage, ham buns, cold beet soup, and poppyseed cookies. Often times the cookbook is my culinary jumping board, the book might lack key ingredients for a recipe or it might lack directions I feel make a lot of sense. Today's adventure was Poppyseed cookies. Every picture I found of "Poppyseed Cookies" made the poppy seeds look secondary, as if they were but sugar cookies with poppy seeds sprinkled in. This recipe however is 2 parts poppyseed to one part flour and it starts off looking like the stuff you scrape from the bottom of your oven. The flavor is distinctly poppy. I am a huge fan, I will definitely make this again. It is a sweet and spongy cookie, very reminiscent of poppy milk.

Super Poppyseed Cookies:

2 cups Poppy seeds

1 cup Flour

3 Eggs

2Tbsp Sour Cream

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/4 cup Sugar

First, we scorch the poppy seeds. This makes the poppy seeds swell and soften to give up their milky insides. Place 2 cups of poppy seeds in a sauce pan and cover with water. Stir the water in to get rid of any air pockets and make sure the poppy seeds are all wet. Cover by 1/2 inch water, bring to a boil then turn down the heat to med-low for 5 minutes. At the end of 5 minutes, drain the water out. For a strainer, I use what I like to call "Kitchen hose" which is hosiery employed as a strainer; however, if you don't have kitchen hose, you may use a tight wire strainer. Empty the drained poppy seeds into a food processor & grind the white guts out of them. The poppies will be more paste like in consistency than they were before their guts came out.

Put the poppyseed paste into a mixing bowl & beat in 3 eggs.

In a little bity bowl, mix the sour cream with the baking soda then mix this in with the poppy seeds.

Add the vanilla & sugar & flour to the poppyseed mix.

Drop the dough by tablespoon onto a non-stick surface & bake in a 350 oven for 20 minutes or until it is a bit golden.

-Enjoy!

My Food Photography is a work in progress,

these pictures will someday be replaced by more skillful work.

The Adventures Begin!

People in my circle have suggested I do a blog to document my food adventures. I love food. I love its flavor, history, chemistry, its effect on human physiology, & its transformation into masterpieces for our taste. Preparing food is a passion. It is a way I connect with my food. I get a giddy thrill when I am in the midst of a cooking project. Food also brings people together. It can comfort, uplift, calm, and refresh. I have many avenues of interest in where I choose to adventure. I will categorize them into the following: Healthy kicks, Wings of World Tour, Ingredient Fascination, and Family Tradition.

The only category I feel requires an explanation is family tradition. My mother is the daughter of Mormon Pioneers & My Father is Lithuanian (his grandparents immigrated to the states). My Father's Mother is my Grandma Barbara. She was known for her cooking. She made the food for the tavern she owned with her husband. Once she held the Betty Crocker title. She left a recipe ledger, and through that and stories my father tells, I find my food heritage and connect with my grandmother through cooking her dishes. There are also recipes I will share in this category from my family & my husband's heritage & cooking with my kids.

I hope you enjoy this blog and maybe receive some inspiration. Feel free to comment if you have questions on any dish I make.

-Bon Appetite!