All posts by Cak

Retired teacher. Eager food-blogger-to-be. Presently overwhelmed food blogger but continuing to feel optimistic and hopeful!
Recipes - Breads & Biscuits

The BEST Raspberry Bread

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I wanted “something raspberry” with the small pack of berries I bought Thursday, and a quick late night Google search brought this recipe up immediately. I used it exactly as I found it on Averiecooks.com blog page except using less raspberries than called for and adding chopped pecans to the batter. Moist and dense, this sweet bread is just Plain ‘Ole Raspberry Perfection! Right here! Make it early in the day and let it mellow before slicing if you can wait. It’s only going to taste even better!

I used fresh berries as recommended; they are available now in my local market and frozen berries do produce extra juice, not needed here. It’s always so exciting spotting those first shelves of fresh berries in the produce aisle, and if I had 12-oz of berries I would definitely use them. Omit the nuts if you wish; I like them for the texture they bring and they make up for using less fruit. The batter is rich with buttermilk, oil, and melted butter; don’t over stir it; it is lumpy and shouldn’t be smooth. The fats added lightness to the batter and it slid right from the bowl under its own steam into the loaf pan. Those fats also guarantee a dense moist bread, bursting with flavorful tang of buttermilk and melted butter. The brown sugar casts a lovely golden color and adds sweetness.

I did bake the bread for 55 minutes today as it was still wet at 45 minutes. I turned the oven off then and let the bread sit in the oven 5 more minutes. It browned nicely and dropped easily from the pan after it cooling 20 minutes. A small knife run around the sides of the pan will loosen the bread perfectly and it drops right from the pan. Cool completely on wire rack with bread wrapped in lightly in foil. A dollop of Cool Whip on each slice will be extra good tonight!

I followed the directions as given but rewrote them using my words and my results today. I couldn’t agree more with Averie that this is the BEST raspberry bread around! At my house, today, at least! It won’t last until tomorrow because it was made for sharing, but if there are leftovers, wrap slices in foil and store in an airtight bag. This will be even better the next day, guaranteed! I have no idea what’s for supper but, with a glass of cold milk, following half a day of water sloshing all-out cleaning on the front porch, i found that two slices of this raspberry bread made a wonderful late lunch. Hey, now, it’s Spring! Get Raspberries! Be Delighted!

The BEST Raspberry Bread

Ingredients:

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch salt, optional and to taste
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
10 to 12 ounces raspberries, about 2 cups (today, 6 oz.)
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Directions: Preheat oven to 350F. grease and flour a 9×5″ loaf pan; set aside.

In a large bowl, add the flour, the brown and white sugars, baking soda, and salt. Whisk to combine; set aside.

Melt the butter. Allow butter to cool slightly then add the egg, buttermilk, oil, vanilla. Whisk well.

Pour wet ingredients over the dry and stir until just combined; don’t over mix. Batter will be somewhat lumpy; don’t try to stir the lumps smooth or bread will be tough; set aside.

In a medium bowl, add raspberries and 2 tablespoons flour; toss lightly to combine. Add the floured raspberries to the batter nad fold in, along with the pecans, if using, very lightly to combine. Turn batter out into prepared pan, smoothing the top lightly with a spatula and distributing batter well in pan.

NOTE: Recipe recommends if using frozen berries, bake for 1 hr 17 minutes. Tent foil over the pan after 30 minutes. Today, using fresh berries, I baked it for 55 minutes, with foil tented over it at 30 minutes) then turned the oven off and let it sit for five more minutes. Test the batter after 45 minutes and adjust. Bread is done when the top springs back and a tooth pick inserted has no batter on it. Allow bread to cool in pan for 20 minutes before turning out on a wire rack to cool completely before slicing and serving.

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Recipes - Entrees

Beef & Broccoli


I needed to make a trip to the Pacific Rim Market for long rice, kamaboko, somen noodles, short-grain rice, good shoyu, ajinomoto, and a tin of savory curry powder and accomplished that yesterday then didn’t use any of that when making Beef & Broccoli today! No matter, this ono (good tasting!) dish was a popular and quick-selling daily special at my Kete-Yama’s Café on Maui. Thin strips of marinated flank steak with crisp-tender broccoli spears bound in a chicken broth and cornstarch based gravy, served over white rice, this dish is sure to please any palate.

Believe me when I say it’s a quick prep; I wouldn’t have the energy to make it tonight if it wasn’t quick to come together because I spent four hours planting in my flower beds just before coming into the house to have a shower and get my cooking hat on.  You can clean, trim, and slice the broccoli (I always include some of the broccoli stems, sliced thinly, for crunch) while the steak marinates.   Parboil the broccoli and drain and you are just 10 minutes from supper! Have your rice steaming while the meat marinates also, using short-grain rice if you have it for easier soaking up of the thin gravy, and grab pass out the hashi (chopsticks) and you’re ready to enjoy!  Use good (and pricey! sorry!) flank steak for the best results.  You’ll be so glad you did!

Beef & Broccoli

Ingredients

2 T. shoyu (soy sauce)
4 T. oyster sauce
1 lb. flank steak, sliced thinly
1 lb. fresh broccoli
2 slices fresh ginger, crushed and sliced
1 clove garlic, chopped fine
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 T. cornstarch

 

Directions In large bowl, mix shoyu and oyster sauce; add sliced meat and marinate for 15-20 minutes. Clean and chop broccoli and add to a pot of boiling water. Parboil for 2 minutes and rinse quickly under cold water; drain and set aside. Heat skillet and add 2 T. cooking oil. Add ginger and garlic to hot oil and cook about 30 seconds. Add and sautéed beef and stir until slightly cooked. Add broccoli and the chicken broth; toss and stir well. Dissolve cornstarch in 2-3 T. water; make a well in the center of skillet and add the cornstarch mixture. Stir until thickened. Serve with hot white rice.

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Recipes - Side Dishes

Chicken & Dressing Again

Unwilling to waste 3/4 pan of good cornbread, and having a stewed chicken, bones shredded of meat, and a gallon of homemade chicken broth in my fridge meant mixing together a casserole dish of Chicken & Dressing for supper tonight.  I was also cleaning my house for three hours, Chicken & Dressing stewing on my back burner, and on each pass through the kitchen on my way to the back porch, I added another ingredient to my counter top and that is how this dish came together this evening. I adjusted the recipe to my ingredients on hand, and their amounts, from the recipe of the same name found in my “Missouri to Maui” cookbook so it is a different recipe altogether. I also used a 2-qt. baking dish, not the larger dish in my cookbook’s recipe.  This is the second time I’ve posted a chicken-n-dressing recipe on my blog, and I made the dish the same  I always do, but since it is also what I cooked today, a smaller version, using ingredients I had leftover or just on hand, this ample dish is worthy of another blog post.  Chicken & Dressing is a dish that easily adjusts to your ingredients and your taste so nothing hard about it.

Day-old cornbread is an essential ingredient here as is the chicken, the chicken broth, and the boiled eggs. I love the addition of the soft celery and chopped onion which add strong flavor. Make sure you really smoosh everything together before scraping into your baking dish. The batter will be wet; that’s fine. Because my chicken had been in the fridge for several days, I simmered it again in its leftover chicken broth before beginning. There’s nothing special called for in this recipe; just make sure you have what you need and get going. Bake the dressing just long enough for a light brown crust to form at the edges, leaving the center moist and creamy.

I like this dish cut in squares and some times served with chicken gravy over the top. Add a salad or steamed-crisp broccoli on the side and you can dig right in within an hour and a half from Step 1. I wish I had my hands on a side dish of the large pot of ham-n-beans I cooked a few days ago but that went to KY and it’s now history, but because beans really are a perfect accompaniment to this dish, tonight i added a side of jazzed-up canned beans on the side and was happy with the substitution.  It’s a supper worthy to be used as a reward for all the hard-at-it housecleaning I did today.  I like, I like!

Ingredients

1 whole chicken, pieces cooked, cooled, deboned, shredded
1-2 stalks celery, sliced in large pieces
3/4 pan prepared cornbread, cooled and crumbled
3 eggs, boiled, chopped
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
2 cups homemade chicken broth (or 1-2 cans chicken broth)
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup, undiluted
Poultry seasoning to taste, optional

Directions Preheat oven to 350. Cook chicken breasts in water and the canned chicken broth (add 1-2 cubes of chicken bouillon if desired), with celery, until tender. Do not over cook or the chicken will get hard. When tender, drain. When cool, shred the chicken and coarsely chop the celery. Combine with other ingredients in a large mixing bowl; stir to blend all ingredients; mixture will be a little wet. Scrape into a lightly greased 2-qt. baking dish. Bake 45 minutes or until set. Cool slightly then cut into squares to serve.

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Recipes - Desserts

Raisin Nut Pie


Raisin Nut Pie 3

I found this recipe in mama’s recipe box, written in pencil, on a yellowed index card, and memories flooded back as I remembered eating this delightful pie at the Barker house next door while a kid in Marble Hill.  Bernie Barker’s recipe for Raisin Nut Pie will delight you too if you are a raisin and nut lover especially.  The recipe is also found in my “Missouri to Maui” cookbook.

My prep time today was less than an hour and that included rolling out my homemade crust.  Separate the eggs, the egg whites beaten slightly then added to the pie filling right before baking.  Be sure you fold in the egg whites, not stirring, but folding, taking care to leave them as light and fluffy as possible.  I used pecans today but walnuts are also great in this pie.  I also used golden raisins rather than dark raisins; either works fine.

This old recipe is often referred to as a “funeral” pie and I do turn to it often when I need something for bereavement dinners at church. You will have the ingredients on hand most likely and perhaps that is why it is such a popular pie here in southern Missouri when you need to prepare something quickly to carry in somewhere.

No matter your reason for preparing this old stand-by, you will be glad you did.  Serve it up slightly warm with a dollop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream and enjoy the smiles around the table.

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, separated
1 T. vinegar
1 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped
1 cup raisins
1 9” unbaked pastry shell

Directions Preheat oven to 350. Cream butter, sugar, egg yolks, and vinegar in a medium bowl. Add nuts and raisins. In separate bowl, beat egg whites slightly, and fold into first mixture. Stir well to blend all ingredients. Pour in unbaked pastry shell and bake for 45 minutes and allow to cool before cutting.  This is good served with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream on top.

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Recipes - Desserts

Strawberry Pie

 

Ohhhh!  Fresh strawberries again!  There was NO doubting what I wanted to prepare and blog about today when I spotted fresh juicy strawberries at my local market yesterday!

This is my sister, Mamie’s, recipe for fresh strawberry pie and it is a great one!  Of course, I’d never prepare this pie without making a homemade crust so don’t skip that step!  This recipe can also be found in my “Missouri to Maui’ cookbook.  Note: I used a 9″ pie plate but I believe a 10” plate would also be fine as I had about 1/2 cup of filling left; I poured that over some cereal and added milk and ended up with a good lunch to boot!  Winner!

Simple prepare your crust and bake it then slice the berries and make the gelatin filling mixture on the stove.  Chill the filling for a short time in the fridge then pour over the berries in the baked crust. Pop it in the fridge for several hours (or overnight) and get ready to enjoy every delicious bite.  The filling itself is delectable and nothing in the world beats fresh strawberries.  This pie produces  a delightful blend of flaky crust and sweet berries and you will be very pleased that you chose to make this one.  Don’t forget to add a healthy dollop of whipped cream or Cool Whip and serve up cold to those waiting impatiently around your table.  Happy Spring indeed!

Ingredients

1-9” pastry shell, baked
1-(3 oz.) box of strawberry gelatin
3 T. cornstarch
1 cup sugar
1-1/2 cups boiling water
Few drops of red food coloring, optional
1 T. lemon juice
1 quart strawberries, washed, stemmed, and quartered

Directions Prepare a homemade pastry shell because this pie deserves one. If not, proceed. Bake shell for 10-12 minutes at 400. Remove from oven and cool. Mix gelatin, cornstarch, and sugar in medium bowl. Add to the saucepan of boiling water and boil gently until mixture coats a spoon. Remove from heat. Add red food coloring if desired. Cool mixture slightly in fridge then add the lemon juice and stir to blend. Prepare the berries, filling the bottom of the baked pie shell with them arranged cut side down then pour gelatin mixture over the berries all the way to the top of the crust. Let sit in fridge until firm. Chill overnight if desired. Serve with whipped cream or Cool Whip.

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