Mama O's Warm Lemon Butter Pound Cake

My grandmother used to make the best pound cake every Sunday. She would send half of it home with me (despite my mother's dismay) lovingly wrapped in lots of foil paper. I miss my grandmother, and I miss her pound cake, among other things she would prepare in her kitchen just for me ;) This recipe is dedicated to my "Mama Ophelia", whom I'm sure has attributed to the 20+ pounds I've gained over the years. Disclaimer: I suggest that you bake this right before you have house guests over; Otherwize, it's likely that you'll eat the entire cake on your own...


Ingredients:


2 sticks of butter (room temperature)
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup of milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, whip butter while gradually adding sugar.

Mix until fluffy.

Add eggs one at a time to butter/sugar mixure.

In a separate bowl, mix all dry ingredients.

Gradually add dry ingredients and milk (about a 1/2 cup at a time of dry ingredients and 1/4 cup of milk alternating until all ingredients are mixed together) to butter/sugar mixture.

Add vanilla and lemon extracts.

Grease with butter and flour a 10" bundt pan (or tube pan if you prefer).

Bake one to one and a half hours or until toothpick or knife tests clean.

Let cool for ten minutes and remove from pan. Dust with powdered sugar (optional).

Serve warm :) Enjoy!

Cocoa Cake Squares

Last night after dinner, I had a sweet-tooth. I looked around in the pantry and cupboards to see what I had on hand, then surfed online to find recipes. I found this recipe online and modified it a little. It actually came out very moist, light. fluffy, and surprisingly not too sweet. It was a perfect cure to my sweet tooth, and Mr. Berry liked them too.


Ingredients:

1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup nonfat milk (I used 2%)
2 eggs
1/4 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup boiling water

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Spray a square Pyrex dish or baking pan with a thin coat of Pam.

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder and baking soda in large bowl. Add milk, eggs, oil and vanilla. ("always pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients"- I can hear my mom saying that in my head :)





3. Beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Add water; stirring with spoon until well blended. 4. Pour batter into prepared pan.
5. Bake 18-20 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.



6. With a spatula, loosen cake from edges of pan.

7. Place square baking dish upside down over a cake plate. Cool completely. Cut cake into squares.

Optional: Sprinke with powdered sugar and/or garnish with whipped topping infused with grated orange peel.

(I apologize for the photo below being sideways; You get the picture, I'm sure.) Thanks for viewing! Feel free to comment here.

Doc's Spinach Artichoke Dip

Happy 2010 folks! Hope you all had safe and happy holidays! This next recipe is also cause for a celebration. I've served it at parties (okay, well...two so far) and for intimate get-togethers.

I appropriated the recipe from a friend several years ago, and have used it ever since. Mr. Berry and I actually try spinach dips at restaurants in an attempt to compare them to this recipe, and some have some close, but most have failed. Try it, and you'll see what I mean. Comments welcome :)

Ingredients:

2 10 oz. packages of chopped spinach
8 oz sour cream
8 oz monterrey jack shredded cheese
1 jar marinated artichoke hearts
1/2 onion (chopped fine)
1 stick of butter
4 oz of philadelphia cream cheese (fat free or light will do)
2/3 c fresh parmesean cheese
garlic to taste (I used two cloves)
Tortilla chips

optional : ground cayenne pepper for garnishing

Directions: (see pictures below)

• Gather all ingredients from the list above.
• In a large pan, slowly melt the stick of butter as shown below.
• As butter is melting, chop onions.
• Chop garlic. Add onions and garlic to pan. Saute for a few minutes.
  
• Remove spinach from package(s) and place in small, microwaveable bowl.
• Place spinach in microwave for a minute on high power or until no longer frozen. It should still be bright green in color.Set aside.
• Remove artichoke hearts from jar. Chop artichoke hearts finely (or cheat like I did and use the food processor.)
• Onions and garlic should be well sauteed in butter.
• Add spinach, stir, and cook for ten minutes on medium heat.
• Add cream cheese and mix well.Add sour cream and mix well.Add artichoke.
• Remove from heat;
• Add parmesean cheese and salt and pepper to taste. Add to casserole dish; Add Monterrrey jack on top.Heat in oven on 350 degrees until cheese is melted on top.
• Once cheese is melted (I like mine to have a tinge of brown crust on top--but that's just me :)
• Let cool for five minutes and serve with tortilla chips. *I also like to add a sprinkle of ground cayenne pepper on top of my serving for an extra KICK.

Banana Nut Muffins

Ingredients:



3 Ripe Bananas (the riper, the moister the bread!)

2 Eggs

1.5 cups Flour

4 oz. Butter (room temperature)

1/2 cup Chopped Pecans or Walnuts

1.5 cups Sugar

1 tsp. Baking Soda (or Dry Yeast)

1 tsp. Vanilla Extract (optional)

Pinch of Salt

Additional Butter for baking dish







How to make muffins:


Preheat oven to 375°F

1. Sift flour and baking soda together and reserve.

2. In another bowl, stir sugar, eggs, vanilla, and butter until homogenous. Incorporate flour, and stir until smooth.

3. Mush bananas with a fork and stir into batter. Then add nuts and stir well.
4. Butter muffin pan and pour in batter.


Bake for about 55 minutes. The banana nut muffins are done when the tip of a knife comes out clean and dry.


5. Let cool off for about ten minutes and then remove from muffin pan.


You can serve this warm (with butter mmmm) or room temperature.Voilà! Bon Appétit!

Tropical Milkshakes (Mango, Papaya & Strawberry)

What you need:

1/2 bag of frozen fruit (you may use fresh fruit also) of your choice
3 scoops of vanilla ice cream
1/2 cup of milk


Directions:

Pour 1/2 bag of frozen fruit (or subsitute) in blender. Add milk. Add vanilla ice cream.

And blend for about 30 seconds (depending on the power/speed of your blender).
Stir and repeat. Note: you may need to use some sweetener of some sort to make your milkshake a little sweeter. You may add sugar (raw or processed), honey, stevia, agave nector, splenda, etc.

Voila! Enjoy your tropical milkshake!

Perfect Green Beans :) (Thanksgiving Day hit)

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving holiday! Mr. Berry and myself had a relaxing day with my mom, dad and brother. After dinner, while dad and MB were watching football, mom, my brother and I had fun putting up the Christmas tree and eyeing the insane Black Friday ads.

I didn't do much this year; I was delegated the 'green stuff' and the 'dessert'. I had it easy- (I think it's because my mom didn't want me doing much, since I'm now 7 months pregnant :)

Luckily a local grocery store had greenbeans on sale for .77 cents a pound...so I grabbed them and decided to make them my 'green veggie of choice'.

Try this, and you're sure to have perfect and tasty green beans, whether they be for a holiday dinner or a just your normal family dinner during the week. What's your favorite holiday green veggie? Comment here:



What you need:

1 tbsp olive oil (doesn't have to be extra virgin)

1 tbsp butter

2 tsp fresh cracked pepper

1 tsp salt

1/2 lb of fresh green beans (about 2 handfuls), rinsed with stems removed

1 medium sized pot of boiling water

1 medium sized bowl of ice water (for ice bath)

1/4 c of cooking Sherry wine

1 tsp of galic and shallot mixture (8 garlic gloves to two shallots, minced)

Directions:

Rinse green beans and remove stems if you have not done so already.




Place beans in hot boiling pot of water.







Let boil in pot covered with lid for no longer than five minutes. While beans are boiling, prepare you saute pan. Add olive oil. Heat on medium heat (if gas range, and on medium high heat for electric range).




After olive oil is heated, add butter.




Remove beans from boiling water and add immediately to ice bath.








Keep in ice bath until you are ready to saute them. The ice bath helps the beans keep a bright vibrant green color. Once saute pan is hot and butter is melted, add green beans and the tsp of garlic/shallot puree.







Saute beans for a couple of minutes, then add the Sherry.

















I used Osborne Sherry, but you can use one of your choice.

























Let wine reduce for a two minutes or so.


















Remove from pan, and add fresh pepper and salt to taste.

Serve and Enjoy!!!

KA's Crockpot Chicken Tacos

Thanks to one of my friends I got this recipe from, this was a big hit, and very easy to do! Just set it aaaaannnnd forget it! (homage to the Ronco rotisierre infomercial for those who didn't catch that.) Anywho, try it and you'll love it. Please comment here.


All you need:


3 chicken breasts (you may use frozen)
1 package of chicken taco seasoning
1 can of Rotel diced tomatoes and chiles (or pico de gallo)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup of olive oil
20 or so corn tortillas (I prefer yellow corn, not sure why...but you can use white.
3 tbsp. canola oil

Directions:


Set crockpot on low. (Don't laugh, I love my 'old skool' hand-me-down crockpot better than I do my brand new one. For some reason I think the old one cooks the food better.)




















Add Taco Seasoning. I used McCormick's but any brand will do.






























Put chicken breasts on top of the taco seasoning. Add the Rotel, water and oil.




















Leave in crockpot for 6-8 hours. Around the sixth hour, turn up heat to high.

This step is optional: Pour contents of crockpot in a a deep skillet (including liquid.)
Push chicken pieces to the sides of the pan, leaving a 'hole filled with sauce'.
Add two tablespoons of flour or cornstarch to the 'hole' for thickening the sauce.




















As the sauce thickens, use two forks to shred chicken.

Turn the heat to a low setting and begin to prepare tortillas. In a omlette pan (8" skillet), heat up three tablespoons of canola oil on a medium high setting. Place tortilla in pan. Once you see the tortilla bubbling up in the middle, flip. After about twenty seconds, remove tortilla from pan and place on a folded paper towel to drain excess oil. Repeat until you have the desired number of taco shells.

Add your toppings (I used colby-jack shredded cheese and shredded iceburg lettuce.)