It's Quiet Now

But tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. it will be a different story.

Don't forget the Henderson Home Show Tomorrow
February 26, 2011
Heartland Community Schools
9 a.m. -2 p.m.

Chamber Pancake Feed
7-9 a.m. - School Cafeteria

Cheap Date

Last Saturday night Mike and I decided to go on a cheap date in Viborg SD.  We took the high school youth to Swan Lake Christian Camp for the weekend and thought it would be fun to go to a movie, since we had Saturday night free.  Despite the "small town atmosphere" it was a great experience with the movie costing $5 per person and an additional $5 for popcorn, skittles and pop, we had a fun $15 date.  

We saw True Grit. I did not expect that I would enjoy it, but I did.   However I did not enjoy the part that the horses always have to die (when did I become a horse lover?).  After the movie Mike informed me that the horses did not actually die when they filmed the movie which made me feel better.  

I will also mention that our trip to SLCC and back was much smoother then last years adventure even though we had to leave early due to icy roads and a potential rain/snow mix that was threatening.  

Mennonite Monday - Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

Mennonite Monday started because I wanted to make recipes from the Bethesda Mennonite Church Cookbooks (both the yellow and the white cookbook for those of you who own them). I also wanted to take pictures of each recipe that I made, so I would know for future reference what the recipe should look like. I am by no means a great cook, but I think it will be fun to try new and different recipes each week. Not all of these recipes are for ethnic Mennonite food, but the women from Henderson know how to cook, so I can safely say that these recipes will be good. Check back each Monday for a new recipe and feel free to leave a comment if you have a favorite recipe from these cookbooks, or if you have some tips on what I should make and how I should make it.

~

This week for Mennonite Monday  Tuesday, I decided to make Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies (pg 27 Y).  I was needing some snacks to take several places and they seemed to be a nice change-up from normal chocolate chip cookies.  

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

Preheat oven to 375*

Sift together:

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder 

1 1/4 teaspoon soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

Cream: 

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup peanut butter

Blend in: 

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

Stir in flour mixture alternately with 1/2 cup milk.  Fold in 1 cup (6 oz.) Hershey's Semi-Sweet Dainties.  Drop by spoonfuls on cookie sheet.  Bake for 12 minutes.  Yields about three dozen cookies.  

 All of ingredients creamed together.  I was not sure what Hershey's Semi-Sweet Dainties were, so I just used semi-sweet chocolate chips, which seemed to work just fine. 

 Usually I like to refrigerate my cookie dough so the cookies don't go flat, but I didn't have time for that, so I dropped them on the pan as soon as they were done mixing, which turned out fine. 

 I like soft cookies so I would recommend only baking the cookies for 10 minutes unless the dough is cold.  

The recipe was very close to 3 dozen cookies, which is a good size.  

Mennonite Monday - Salted Peanut Chews

Mennonite Monday started because I wanted to make recipes from the Bethesda Mennonite Church Cookbooks (both the yellow and the white cookbook for those of you who own them). I also wanted to take pictures of each recipe that I made, so I would know for future reference what the recipe should look like. I am by no means a great cook, but I think it will be fun to try new and different recipes each week. Not all of these recipes are for ethnic Mennonite food, but the women from Henderson know how to cook, so I can safely say that these recipes will be good. Check back each Monday for a new recipe and feel free to leave a comment if you have a favorite recipe from these cookbooks, or if you have some tips on what I should make and how I should make it.

~

This week decided to make the Salted Peanut Chews (pg 85W).  I need to give a little explanation about my experience before I encourage you to make this recipe.  For me, this recipe was a flop, however there where a few changes I made, which could have created the way they turned out.  With that said, I will also mention that I have had these bars before and they tasted very good, so I would still encourage you to make this recipe if you note the mistakes I made, which will be outlined in the narrative below. 

Salted Peanut Chews

1 1/2 cups flour

2/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp soda

1/2 cup margarine

1 tsp vanilla

2 egg yolks

3 sups mini marshmallows

Topping:

2/3 cup corn syrup

1/4 cup margarine

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups peanut butter chips

2 cups rice cereal

2 cups salted peanuts

Heat oven to 350*.  Combine all crust ingredients except marshmallows until crumb mixture forms.  Press in bottom of ungreased 9x13".  Bake 12-15 minutes.  Immediately sprinkle with marshmallows.  Bake 1-2 minutes until marshmallows puff.  Cool.  Prepare topping.  In large sauce pan heat corn syrup, margarine, vanilla and peanut butter chips until smooth and melted.  Remove from heat, stir in cereal and nuts.  Immediately spoon over marshmallow crust, chill, cut into bars, 36 bars.  

 All of the crust ingredients ready to mix. 

 The crumbly crust mixture. 

 The crust pressed in the bottom of the 9x13 pan. 

 Adding the marshmallows.  I would used a whole bag of marshmallows next time, not just 3 cups.  

 After the marshmallows have puffed up.  Here was my first mistake, I did not let the marshmallows cool before I put on the topping, which made the marshmallow layer almost nonexistent between the other two layers.  

 The ingredients that need to be melted for the topping.  I made two mistakes for this.  1) I didn't have any corn syrup, so I used a substitution of 2/3 cup sugar and 3 Tbl water.  Taste wise I think the substitution worked fine, but the texture lacked.  2) I heated the mixture too fast and the peanut butter chips didn't not want to melt correctly. 

 The heated topping mixture. 

 Pouring the mixture over the rice cereal and peanuts.  

 Everything mixed together. 

 Adding the mixed topping.  

The finished product.  As a said earlier, this did not turn out very well for me, but I have had these bars before and they are very good, so it may have been due to the changes and substitutions I made.  

Be sure to vote for next weeks recipe in the tool bar to the right.  

Mennonite Monday - Cake or Buttermilk Brownies

Mennonite Monday started because I wanted to make recipes from the Bethesda Mennonite Church Cookbooks (both the yellow and the white cookbook for those of you who own them). I also wanted to take pictures of each recipe that I made, so I would know for future reference what the recipe should look like. I am by no means a great cook, but I think it will be fun to try new and different recipes each week. Not all of these recipes are for ethnic Mennonite food, but the women from Henderson know how to cook, so I can safely say that these recipes will be good. Check back each Monday for a new recipe and feel free to leave a comment if you have a favorite recipe from these cookbooks, or if you have some tips on what I should make and how I should make it.

~

Since I made a recipe that used used buttermilk last week and had some leftover, I thought it would be good to make a recipe that would help me use up some buttermilk.  I turned to the Cake or Buttermilk Brownies (pg 20Y) and found a great recipe that takes less than an hour to make and makes a large pan of brownies.  


Cake or Buttermilk Brownies
Sift: 
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt


Bring to a boil and then mix into dry ingredients: 
1 1/2 sticks oleo (margarine) 
4 tablespoons cocoa
1 cup water


Add: 
1 teaspoon soda to 1 cup buttermilk and add to batter. 


Add: 
2 eggs 
1 teaspoon vanilla


Mix together with spoon.  Pour into jelly roll pan.  Bake 20 minutes at 350 degrees.  Frost while hot. 


Frosting: 
1/2 stick oleo
3 tablespoons milk 
1 or 2 tablespoons cocoa 
Bring to a boil and add 2 3/8 cups powdered sugar, and add 1 teaspoon vanilla.  1/2 cup nuts may be added after brownies are frosted.  (Another recipes called for 1/2 cup margarine, 1/2 cup shortening and 1/2 cup buttermilk.) 

 I was a little skeptical about mixing this recipe by hand because I love my Kitchen Aid mixer, but since the recipe said it should be mixed by hand, I decided to give it a try.  I'm glad I did because I can honestly say that it was easy to mix by had.  

 I threw all of the ingredient into the pot to start heating while I measured the other ingredients. 

The mixture did not boil like water does, but it was easy to tell it was bubbling under the light brown bubbles.   

 Pouring the boiling mixture into the dry ingredients. 

 At this point the batter was pretty thick, but still easy to mix. 

 Adding soda to the butter milk. 

 Adding the buttermilk to the batter.  

 It took a little bit of stirring to get the buttermilk mixed in, but it made the batter much thinner and a little lighter in color. 

 Adding the eggs and vanilla. 

 The batter completely mixed together. 

 Pour the batter into the pan.  I decided to spray the pan with Pam just to be safe, so the brownies didn't stick.  

 While the brownies were in the oven, I started the frosting. I used the same pot that I had for the batter to minimize dirty pans. 

 It did not take long to reach a boil.  

 Adding the powdered sugar.  

 And the vanilla. 

 The frosting thickened very nicely.  

 When the brownie was done, I did a toothpick check to make sure it was cooked through and the toothpick came out clean.  

 I spread on the frosting right away, which seemed to work well because the frosting was warm and was easy to spread.  

 The final product. 

I couldn't help but eat a piece while it was warm and it was wonderful.  The only thing that would have made it better would have been a scoop of ice cream.  

GO PACK GO

We are so excited the Green Bay Packers are going to the Super Bowl.  

Mennonite Monday - Steak and Potato Bake

Mennonite Monday started because I wanted to make recipes from the Bethesda Mennonite Church Cookbooks (both the yellow and the white cookbook for those of you who own them). I also wanted to take pictures of each recipe that I made, so I would know for future reference what the recipe should look like. I am by no means a great cook, but I think it will be fun to try new and different recipes each week. Not all of these recipes are for ethnic Mennonite food, but the women from Henderson know how to cook, so I can safely say that these recipes will be good. Check back each Monday for a new recipe and feel free to leave a comment if you have a favorite recipe from these cookbooks, or if you have some tips on what I should make and how I should make it.


If you have some cube steak in your freezer that you don't know what to do with, you need to try this Steak and Potato Bake (pg 133W).  Cube steak is not the most tender piece of beef and is not the type of steak you throw on the grill and expect to be ready to eat after it cooks a little while.  This is why this is such a great recipe for cube steak because it makes the meat more tender and it gives it good flavor.  

Steak and Potato Bake

1 cup sliced onions (I used two small onions)

6 Tbl butter

6 cubed steaks

1/4 cup flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp dry mustard

2 cups butter milk

1 Tbl shopped parsley

4 cups sliced raw potatoes

Saute onions in butter until tender; remove.  Brown meat in same skillet, remove.  To drippings add flour, salt, pepper, and dry mustard, stirring to blend.  Remove from heat and gradually stir in buttermilk.  Return to head, cook, stirring until thickened.  Stir in parsley.  In buttered 9 x 13pan layer potatoes, steak and onions.  Pour sauce over meat.  Cover tightly with foil.  Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes.  ­

 When I peel an onion I always cut of both ends of the onion

 and peel back the first layer of onions because it makes the dry skin come of so much easier.  

 Melting the butter

 Adding the onions

 I cooked them until they were a little brown and not crunchy

 After you remove the onions but the steak in the left over butter.  Your cube steak will be formed in patties like then when you get it. It only took a few minutes on each side to brown the meat.  Don't worry about cooking it through because it will cook long enough in the oven. 

 While the meat is browning, cut the potatoes skin and all. I used about 5 smaller potatoes.

 This is how brown my steaks were when I flipped them. 

 Layer the potatoes and put the browned steak on top. 

 To the skillet add flour, 

 salt,

 pepper (don't take the time to measure the salt and pepper, just pour it on and use more than you think.  This time I followed the recipe, but next time I will dump and pour a little more in this step to give it a little more flavor.  

 Add the dry mustard

 Stir in the buttermilk. 

 While the buttermilk was thickening put the onions on the cube steak. 

 I continued to stir while the buttermilk was thickening and decided it was thick when I pulled the spoon along the pan and the buttermilk didn't run together right away.  (See above) 

 Adding parsley. 

 Pour the buttermilk sauce over the rest of the pan. 

 Now it is ready for tinfoil on top and into the oven at 350 for 1 hour and 15 minutes.  Since I was making this for lunch on Sunday, I assembled it the night before and put it on time bake when we left for church, so it was done when we got done with church. 

Serve with a large spoon, so you can pour some of the juice in the pan over the meat and potatoes.  While it isn't the most lovely dish, it does takes good and for those who don't care for onions, they can be moved off the meat very easily.  


NEXT WEEK: Buttermilk Brownies (To use up the buttermilk we bought for the recipe this week)