Homemade Toaster Pastries

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup blueberry or strawberry jam
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 1 tablespoon cold water
• 2 sheets puff pastry, thawed
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 to 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• Colored sugar, optional

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

In a small saucepan, bring the jam and cornstarch mixture to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook stirring for 3 to 4 minutes. Set aside and let cool to room temperature.

Lay 1 sheet of pastry on a board and cut it into 4 equal strips. Put a heaping teaspoon of cooled jam in the middle of the upper part of the dough and fold over the bottom part. Seal the edges with a bit of water and crimp with a fork. Arrange the pastries on a parchment lined baking sheet. Repeat with the other pastry sheet. Bake until golden about 8 to 10 minutes. Remove the pastries from oven and allow them to cool completely.

In a small bowl, add the powdered sugar and whisk in, 1/2 tablespoon of lemon juice at a time, to make a thick icing consistency. Drizzle the icing over the pastries and sprinkle with colored sugar, if desired. Allow the icing to set for about 30 minutes. Enjoy at room temperature.

Candy Melts

When using candy melts microwave for 30 seconds at a time and no longer! I did a minute and it burned. Melt only until there are some pieces still solid and then mix until they melt entirely.

Just some a note for me because I can't seem to remember anything lately.

Peach Cobbler

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 4 cups fresh peaches - peeled, pitted and sliced
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Pour butter in to the bottom of a large casserole or 9 x 13 inch pan.
2. In the prepared dish, toss together the peaches and 2 tablespoons sugar.
3. In a mixing bowl, combine the 1 cup sugar, salt, baking powder, flour, cinnamon, and milk. Spoon batter over the peaches.
4. Bake for 45 minutes in the preheated oven, or until top is golden brown.

*Mix the cinnamon in with the peaches instead of the batter. Use a couple TB less of butter. That's what was recommended on allrecipes.com. Mine is baking in the oven right now, we'll see how it turns out. :)

Hamburger casserole

Hamburger meat (depends on how large your casserole dish is 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 lbs)
mashed potatoes (for a fewer carb approach, I think you could use mashed cauliflower)
green beans
shredded cheddar cheese
salt
pepper
garlic powder

Squish hamburger into the bottom and sides of a casserole dish, season with garlic, salt, and pepper. Put a layer of mashed potatoes on top of the meat, put a layer of green beans, then add another layer of mashed potatoes. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes. Add shredded cheddar cheese on top and bake until melted and crispy.

*I haven't actually made this yet, but it sounded good, and I will be trying it sometime this week. I'll let you know what I think.

Mexican Goulash

1 lb ground turkey, chicken, or beef
1 can black beans w/ liquid
1 can corn w/liquid
Minute rice
Salsa
*green chilies (I think I will add a can of small green chilies the next time I make this)
*black olives sliced (I think I will add these next time)

Brown, drain, and salt your meat. Dump in your beans and corn with all of their liquids. Using either the bean or corn can, fill it up with minute rice and dump into the pot, then fill the can with salsa and add that to the pot. I added a little bit of water to the can (maybe 1/4 of the can), but you might not need this if you don't live in a higher altitude place like Utah. Stir all ingredients together & cover for 10 minutes, then serve.

I thought this was such a great recipe for days when you just don't know what to cook or don't have much time. It's really tasty and so simply to make. I served mine with corn bread.

Banana Beignets

I really like the Disney movie, "The Princess and the Frog" and since I've never been to New Orleans, I had no idea what a Beignet was and they ate alot of them in the cartoon. This recipe was a winner of the Food Network magazine reader challenge. Each month they pick an ingredient and reader's send in their recipes to win a prize and last issue was for bananas. I wonder how many millions of banana bread recipes they got...
I read through the ingredients and saw that it was a fairly simple recipe and decided (with Charlie's encouraging) to give it a go this weekend.
I consider doughnuts to be a dessert, not a breakfast. I was sweetly surprised, however, that these were heavier than a traditional doughnut, yet not too light.
They reminded me of hot Malasadas we used to get from Leonard's Malasada truck in Laie, HI. while going to school. Everyone loved them; couldn't get enough of them. These were delicious and I'm happy to share the recipe.

Banana Beignets

Mix dry ingredients:

1 1/2 cups cake flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/3 cup granulated sugar (for the dough mix)

Wet Ingredients:

2 T Vegetable oil
1 large egg
1/2 cup whole milk (I only had 2% and it worked fine)
1/2 cup mashed over-ripe banana ( I ended up doubling the recipe and used 3 medium bananas)
1/4 tsp. banana extract ( I didn't have any, might have made it taste a little better, but still great without it)

You'll also need enough oil for frying and a frying thermometer as well as extra sugar (1/2 cup)and cinnamon (1 tsp) for rolling the fried beignets in. I went through the cinnamon/sugar mix a couple times, I may have rolled them a little thick in the sugar, but it tasted so good!

So here's the deal with frying. First of all you need to have the oil at 375F, which was tricky trying to work with a glass top stove. I heard the trick is to get it approx. ten degrees higher than what you need because it fluctuates so much. I really couldn't keep it at 375 for very long or very often.

Also, I burned myself several times before I finally figured out how to get the dough in the oil without plopping and spraying oil or making funnel cake. I used a regular cereal spoon and got about a heaping teaspoon and set the tip of the spoon right above the oil and it slid off without plopping and formed a decent ball. It worked really well.

Fry the beignets about 15 seconds on each side. Since the oil temp fluctuated so much, it was easier to watch for a dark coloring and then check with a toothpick after you've taken them out and placed on the paper towel lined plate.

Back to how to make the dough. It's super simple. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, and the wet into your mixer. Be sure to mash the banana before you actually put it into the mix because you don't want to over mix the dough and this will ensure that the banana is smashed completely.

Mix all together until just combined, be sure to scrape the sides and beneath. My KitchenAid just doesn't get the bottom of the bowl very well.

I also heated the oven to 200F so that I could keep the beignets warm while frying the rest. I did a double batch so it took forever.

Enjoy!

German Rhubarb Cake

Doesn't this just look so good??? It was AWESOME!

I don't know if I'll post the recipe. Mostly because the ingredients aren't easy to find in the U.S. and the recipe was written in German using the metric system. I had to weigh almost all of the ingredients.

I just wanted to post the pics and show how Uber delicious it was. The rhubarb came from my yard, just about the only thing I can get to grow since it's pretty much a weed and I don't have to do anything to care for it except water it.

It was just as I remember it in Germany. The crust was a yeast dough that was like a pastry, the rhubarb was mixed with sugar and drained off, so it wasn't too tart. I used Quark, a German style of cheese very similar to ricotta, but different enough to not be sure whether that could be substituted. Also it had vanilla sugar and german pudding.

The West kids around the corner came over and did all the dirty work. It was great!
It took a long time to make it, but it was so worth it!!

Tori, if you really want the recipe, I'll send it to you. I just think it would take me a million years to post it.