My Memaw
I couldn’t find my biscuit cutter for my life, so I decided to use a heart cookie cutter since Valentine’s day is rapidly approaching!
Some of my best memories are of the times I spent at my grandma’s house cooking and baking. My grandma, “Memaw”, is an amazing woman and she is my mentor, in life and in the kitchen. Everything we made left an imprint in my mind, but the thing I always seem to want is her buttermilk biscuits. They are soft and tender and nothing can beat them.I remember making them with her when I was just a tot, she taught me how to bake love into them and make them better than any other biscuits. Once you make these biscuits you will never use another recipe again!
Memaw’s buttermilk Biscuits
Ingredients:
5 to 6 cups self-rising flour
1 1/2 cups crisco
2 cups buttermilk
Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 400F. Sift the flour into a bowl. Make a hole in flour; put in crisco. Cut the crisco into the flour. Gradually add the buttermilk until you can make a ball. Roll out with hands into disks, and use a biscuit cutter to cut out biscuits*, place in pan which was greased ( any size. i use a 8-9 inch cake pans). Brush biscuits with melted butter. Bake 15 mins or until golden brown.
*Remember not to handle the dough to much or to rough which would result in tough biscuits.
THIS SALAD IS CRAZY. It tastes so delectable and amazing,you would never guess it is that it has virtually no mayo. I first encountered this salad when taking a lesson from one of my food mentors, Hannlore Holland. This salad combines all of the best textures:creamy,crunchy,and chewy. It has elements of sweet and salty. All in all you will be addicted to this salad and crave it from the day you taste it, I know I do!
Walnut Cranberry Chicken Salad
Ingredients:
1 cup walnuts or pecans
3/4 cup Plain low fat greek yogurt
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup fresh chives, snipped
1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon
1 teaspoon lemon dill
salt and pepper to taste
2 to 4 cups chicken diced (I used rotisserie, but you could use any type,even left over turkey)
3/4 cup dried cranberries
These next ingredients are for the salad under the chicken salad, you dont need it, but it makes the salad very appealing and could be served as a separate dish.
2 hand fulls of lettuce spring mix
2 T extra virgin olive oil
1 T balsamic vinegar
Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F, spread walnuts or pecans on a baking sheet and toast for about 10 mins or until fragrant. Let cool, chop coarsely. Whisk together the yogurt and mayonnaise,add parsley, tarragon, lemon dill, and chives. Season with salt and pepper. Fold in the chicken or turkey, dried cranberries, and nuts.
Spring salad (optional):
Toss the spring mix with the oil and vinegar, season with salt and pepper. Mound the spring mix on a platter and top with the chicken salad (if wanted)
Hi there! Today, I spent all day in the kitchen, and it was AMAZING! I had so much fun playing with recipes and mixing up concoctions. After mixing up some random things i decided to make some cakes. So this is what I came up with: two peanut butter and jelly cakes! the first one is classier and fancier and the second one is more funky looking and cool.
Cake #1:
Ingredients
1 recipe for vanilla cake
1 recipe of vanilla frosting
peanut butter
jelly of choice
graham cracker crumbs
strawberry
Directions:
Bake vanilla cake according to recipe. slice do you have four layers( if you started with 2 cakes). Fill the first layer with the jam, the second with peanut butter, melted in microwave, and fill the third with the jam. Finish with the last layer and frost the cake with the vanilla frosting. Sprinkle the sides with the crushed graham cracker crumbs. Pipe some of the frosting on the top of the cake and top it with a sliced strawberry. Ta-Da!
Cake #2
Ingredients:
1 single layer 8-inch vanilla cake
jam frosting (recipe below)
peanut butter
Directions:
Jam frosting:
1 egg white
1/2 cup jam (any kind)
beat the egg white and jam over simmering water in a double boiler until stiff.
To assemble cake:
Split the cake into 2 layers and fill with melted peanut butter. Top with second layer and frost with the jam frosting. Melt some more peanut butter(about 1 T) and mix with a splash of whole milk or half and half. Dot the milk and PB along the edge of the cake. Top it off with a drizzle of melted PB and a sliced strawberry.
I love foods from all different cultures. Trying new foods sparks a lightbulb in me and creating those foods fuels my mind and warms my heart.
Hummus- a paste of pureed chickpeas usually mixed with sesame oil or sesame paste and eaten as a dip or sandwich spread.
This recipe for hummus is SPECTACULAR! It is garlicky and creamy. It takes less than 5mins or less to make. Isn’t that crazy? Here it is……Yummy Mummy Hummus!
Yummy Mummy Hummus
Ingredients
1 15-oz can of chickpeas, rinsed
1 clove of garlic
1/4 cup of olive oil (plus more for drizzling before serving)
2 T lemon juice
1 tea ground cumin
3/4 tea salt
paprika (for garnish)
Directions
In a food processor, puree first 6 ingredients until smooth and creamy. If necessary add 1-2 T of water to get the right consistency. Transfer to a serving bowl. Drizzle olive oil and sprinkle on paprika.
Peanut butter.
Oh, Peanut butter. where art thou peanut butter?
Where art thou? In my brownies!
I must admit I have a love affair with peanut butter. Who wouldn’t? It is delectable with almost anything, especially chocolate.
Mmmmm. Nothing is better than chocolate and peanut butter, except more chocolate and peanut butter!
These brownies aren’t your regular brownies, they are actually healthy! With peanut butter(which makes them 10x better!) theses brownies are honestly the best brownies i have ever ever eaten/made. Can you guess the best part? They come from a box! I am usually totally appalled about using boxed mixes, but I was feeling really lazy one day and had an untamable craving for chocolate and peanut butter(which is pretty much everyday, but it was worse than usual!). And of course the one time I desperately, desperately needed to bake something which called for eggs, we were all out. So i started brain storming and trying to think what could I replace the eggs with and maybe try and cut out some of the fat? Then all of a sudden *ding* while looking through the pantry I spotted a can of pumpkin. I had heard of people replacing the ingredients for boxed cake mixes with pumpkin, so I decided to try it. I have to say, I was skeptical, because I hate the taste of pumpkin. HOLY COW! They were AMAZING! The brownies were fudgy and oh-so chocolatly. And of course i had to put peanut butter in to satisfy my craving. This is my go to brownie from now on!
Craving Busting Brownies
(Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies)
Ingredients:
1 boxed brownie mix with included chocolate syrup (Ghirardelli is the best)
1 15 oz canned pumpkin
3 T creamy Peanut butter (or more)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a 8″ by 13″ pan. Mix brownie mix (which includes chocolate syrup) and pumpkin until smooth and creamy (the batter will be thick). Pour into pan. Melt peanut butter in a microwave safe bowl until thinned out and melted. Pour melted peanut butter on top of brownie mixture. Use a knife to swirl the peanut utter into the brownie/pumpkin mixture. Bake for 30-40 mins or until a knife comes out clean from the center. You can bake them longer if you want a less fudgy and more cake like brownie.
My helper Javen!
My helper said, “They were yummy and fudgy!” i asked him if they tasted healthy and he replied, “Not at all!”
Teenage Baking Beauty 