Spicy Cheesey Grilled Peppers

This summer has been HOT here.  If it isn’t hot and humid (which is a little abnormal), it is a thunderstorm.  Due to this I have been trying to use the kitchen as little as possible to try and keep my house under 26C.  I pulled out this forgotten recipe from 3 or 4 years ago and for the life of me I can’t figure out why I haven’t made this more often.  It has become almost a weekly dish now.

Ingredients.
2 -3 peppers, assorted colours
~ ½ cup grated cheese (I like a sharp cheddar)
Jarred/canned Jalapeno rings

Directions:
1. Remove the seeds and membrane from the peppers.  Then slice into strips about 1.5 to 2 inches wide (you want them wide enough to be able to hold the cheese).
2. Put the pepper slices skin side down and add cheese to the top on each pepper slice.
3. Place a slice of the jalapeno on top of the cheese of each pepper slice.
4. Place on the grill at medium high heat and grill until the peppers start to soften and cheese melts (~8 minutes).  The peppers should still retain their shape and have enough structure that you can pick them up.
5. Remove from grill and let cool for minute before enjoying!

Reviews:
I really enjoy these and we never seem to have leftovers.  They are a great way to use up any peppers we have had leftover from earlier in the week.  Depending on how much spice you like you might want ½ the jalapeno slices on the top of your peppers ( I find I do this for mine a lot, while I put whole slices on O’s peppers).

Grilled Squash - Zucchini and Pattipan

I love summer and being able to break out the grill to go with all the fresh produce from the garden and the farmer’s markets.  I love grilled vegetables and we eat a fair amount of different grilled veggies during the summer depending on what is in season and fresh.  My current obsession is green beans and squash, yum!  They are simple to make and don’t heat up the stove or require me to be in the warm kitchen when I can be sitting on the deck with a glass of iced tea as I cook supper!

Ingredients:
2-3 patty pan squash (quartered)
2-3 small zucchini squash (sliced, 1.5 inch thick)
1-2 tbsp olive oil (just enough for a light coating on the veggies)
Salt and pepper

Directions,
1. In a bowl combine the squash, oil, salt and pepper.  Toss to coat the squash in oil and seasonings.
2. On a grill heated to medium high, place squash in a veggie basket on medium heat.
3. Gill for 5-10 minutes (depending on the size of your squash).  Stir occasionally.
The squash should be soft and warm when done but still have some firmness left ( I am not a fan of mushy squash, so I like mine a little more on the firm side).
4. Enjoy

Reviews:
I love how simply this is for those busy summer evenings.  That and it is a nice fresh light vegetable side perfect for eating outside.  These have even got my husband, who normally does not like squash, eating zucchini and liking it!  He even ate the extra I made (hoping to have some for my lunch the next day) along with his regular portion for supper!

Gumpaste Lilies

Recently a girl I had worked with during Grad School joined the lab I was working in (well she was actually taking over my job as I was leaving), and she was getting married in a few weeks.  Her wedding was taking place out of province and she was trying to plan long distance.  She wanted to put Casa Blanca Lilies on her cake, but couldn’t find fake flowers that she liked and didn’t want to use real ones for various reasons.  She asked if I could make her some gumpaste flowers for her cake.  I agreed and a few weeks later I was giving her a box of 8 lilies for her cake!

I hope they made it through the air travel okay and that she had a great wedding!  I will post a picture of the cake when I get one!

Burger Cake

A coworker had a birthday and it was my turn to bring the cake.  I didn't want to do a cake with flowers for a couple of reasons.  The first being that this cake was for a male coworker, and although he would not have complained, flowers just aren't really him.  The second reason - I had only recently finished my cake decorating class (alright, well it had been a few weeks) and I was not ready to start making more flowers again.

I came across pictures of a cake that looked like a burger on pinterest and decided to give it a go.  It is a white cake with chocolate frosting (darker for the burger, less coco for the bun), and regular buttercream frosting for the ketchup and cheese.  The lettuce was made using rolled fondant.  The sesame seeds on the bun are large sprinkles.

Everyone at work loved the cake which was great.  I had lot of fun making it and it was nice to make something less girly than I had been making for the last few months.

Root Beer Cookies!

I came across this recipe for rootbeer cookies a couple of years ago and was curious.  Root beer is a always a favourite here so I thought the cookies would go over well.  I printed the recipe and put it into my recipe binder.  The only problem was finding the rootbeer extract or concentrate, as you can’t find this at the local grocery store.  After a while I forgot until I went to a candy and cake decorating supply store to pick up some supplies for a cake I was making for one of my Wilton classes.  They had an entire shelf of extracts, and among them was root beer extract!  I picked some up, but with the cakes for classes and spring coming it still took a little while to get to these cookies.  They were worth the time I kept the recipe around!

Root Beer Cookies
Ingredients:
½ cup unsalted butter (room temperature)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp root beer extract (concentrate)
1 ¾ cup flour
½ tsp baking soda
(the recipe calls for 2 tbsp of water if the dough is dry - I didn’t need it)

Directions:
1. In a bowl cream together the butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy.  Add in the egg and extract, mixing well.  
2. Add in the flour and baking soda, mix until combined.  
3. Drop cookies onto a cookie sheet and press down so they are flat, not dome shaped.  
4. Bake for 6-8 minutes, cool on a wire rack.

Root Beer Frosting
This is the frosting that went with the cookies, and it is amazing!  I was eating it with a spoon and almost licked out the mixing bowl (I probably would have if O hadn’t already been giving me weird looks).  This would also be delicious on top of cupcakes or vanilla cookies.

Ingredients:
½ cup butter
1 ½ cup icing sugar (powdered sugar)
1 tsp root beer extract

Directions:
Cream the ingredients together.  Add some water to achieve a spreadable consistency.  Ice the cookies when cool.

Reviews:
Everyone loved these cookies, including me.  I couldn’t stop eating them - with or without the icing.  The icing however was my favorite part - it tastes like a root beer float, delicious!  I will be making more of this for sure.

Cinnamon Roll Cookies

I love cinnamon buns, well almost anything with cinnamon really.  I had a large craving for cinnamon on day, but didn’t want to have an entire batch of cinnamon buns sitting round the house.  I love the cookie form of anything - they get the flavor but they are a lot smaller than something like a cinnamon bun.  I came across this recipe from Picky Palate and decided to give it a try.

As a note, this recipe makes about 6 dozen cookies (I cut mine a little smaller or else rolled my dough out larger and got a few more per log).  That is way to many cookies to have sitting around or even to try to get rid of at work.  I left a few logs in the freezer after they were made and now if I have surprise guests or I need cookies for the next day but don’t have time to bake, I can pull one out, slice off some cookies and bake them.  It works great!

Picky Palate’s Cinnamon Roll Cookies
Ingredients:
2 Cups sugar
1 Cup butter, softened
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 Cup sour cream
6 Cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder


12 tablespoons softened butter, (separated into 6 portions of 2 tbsp)
1 1/2 Cups packed light brown sugar, divided into 1/4 Cups
1 1/2 Tablespoons ground cinnamon, divided

Directions:
1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs one at a time.
2. Mix in the vanilla and sour cream until well combined.
3. Slowly add in the flour, baking soda and baking powder, mix until combined.
4. Split the dough in half and form each half into disc.  Wrap the discs in plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours.
5. Cut each disc into thirds and roll each ⅓  about ⅛ inch thick and 12 by 5 inches in size.
6. Spread the rolled out dough with 2tbsp of soft butter, ¼ cup of packed brown sugar and ½ tsp of cinnamon.
7. Roll the dough into a 12 inch long log. (at this point I put some of the logs into the freezer wrapped in plastic wrap.  When you want to bake them, take them out and continue with step 8).
8. Using a sharp knife cut off slices about a ½ inch thick.  Lay the slices out on a cookie sheet.
9. Bake the cookies 9 to 11 minutes at 350F.  Let cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Reviews:
These cookies are great - a nice sugar cookie filled with a delicious cinnamon filling.  Picky Palate has a cream cheese icing for these, but it is not needed (it is a great addition as cream cheese icing always is, but isn’t needed). I had some of my own cream cheese frosting in the fridge leftover from some cupcakes, and it did go on a few cookies - very yummy. These are also nice 2 bite cookies, so you can eat a couple of them without feeling too bad!

I have loved having these in the freezer as well, it is great when I want a couple cookies, and they still taste just as fantastic!

A while back when a friend was having a baby I came across the pattern called For Baby With Love from the Pattern Basket. I loved the look of this and knew I had to make it - they weren’t telling people the sex of the baby so this was a gamble as the quilt was more for a boy. Well they had a girl so I ended up making her a pinwheel quilt and had the top for this at home. I was sure I would find something to do with it sooner or later. Well it seems like it was meant to be, as recently a friend asked if I could do a baby quilt for her. A good friend of hers had recently adopted a baby and she wanted to give her something special. The little one was a boy and she loved the quilt top, so I got to work on finishing it.

 I was waiting for the backing fabric to come in (I had ordered it in as I wanted something specific and the local quilt shops were out), so I embroidered the little guy’s name on the “ribbon” of the quilt. I just freehand wrote his name on with some disapearing ink and then did the embroidery.

I had recently come across a tutorial for Orange peel quilting on Oh Fransson, and decided to give that a try on this quilt. I didn't want to quilt it to close to keep it really soft, so this was great. I love this quilt and am hoping that it is well loved in it's new home.