One of my girls’ favorite breakfast treats are the chocolate, chocolate-chip muffins that are sold in a Duncan Hines mix.  Now, while the box says that it is a whole-grain recipe, I have been pretty sure I could make them more healthy if I made them on my own. Heck, just using my freshly-ground flour and eliminating the preservatives the box mix has will make a huge difference, I think.

So, I started hunting for a recipe to play around with.  This morning, I experimented and I think I’ve come up with a pretty close replacement to the box mix.  I made it as a bread loaf today, but I think the next time I make it I will make the muffins the girls love so much.

Doesn’t that just scream yumminess to you?

I can tell you that, fresh out of the oven, it was gooey, decadent and delicious. The girls scarfed it down and I didn’t mind indulging them in the sweets, because I knew it had wholesome ingredients.

Now, if I can just figure out how to sneak some more protein and/or a veggie or two into the mix, I’d be really happy.

Just in case you want to try this out with your family, here’s the recipe. I think it would make a great first-day-of-school treat for breakfast.

Oh, and warmed up later in the day with some ice cream? Oh, yum!

Chocolate, Chocolate-Chip Breakfast Bread (or muffins)

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup sugar (I used 1/2 cup Honey Granules & 1/2 cup Sucanat)
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup baking cocoa
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup buttermilk (if you don’t have buttermilk on hand, here are a few tips to make this anyway)
1 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Grease a 9×5 loaf pan or muffin tin.
3. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter & sugar together.
4. Add the eggs & mix well.
5. In another bowl, combine the dry ingredients.
6. Add those to the sugar mixture, alternating with the buttermilk (half of the dry ingredients, 1/2 cup buttermilk, the other half of the dry ingredients, the rest of the buttermilk) until incorporated well.
7. Mix in the chocolate chips.
8. Pour mixture into loaf pan or muffin tin.
9. Bake for 1 hour (loaf pan) or 20-30 min (muffins) until toothpick comes out clean.
10. Cool in pan for 5-10 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.

One of the things I love about summertime is the abundance of fresh fruit. I eat tons and tons of fruit and try to relish every bite, saving the sensations for those cold winter days when fruit is less plentiful and is shipped in from South America or other exotic locales – and is therefore picked early to maintain freshness in shipping. It just doesn’t have the same juicy flavors then… the flavors of summer.

When I was a girl, my mom would make this fruit cobbler. I remember it being a special treat we’d enjoy with ice cream and the combination of the sweetness of the fruit along with the crispy topping was just heaven.

I’ve made other fruit cobblers in the past – I have a recipe that has been my “go-to” cobbler recipe and I just love it – not for the recipe but because it is written by my grandmother’s hand. I don’t have too many things like that anymore and I really cherish it. It is one of the few recipes I’ve not transferred to a typewritten format.

Love her shorthand… and her handwriting.

sigh.

Anyway.

While I was at Mom’s last week, she had an abundance of peaches that were ripening on the counter. We decided to make peach cobbler one night.  I wanted to do one that was different from this one and Mom thought she had some other recipes.  Lo and behold she uncovered the one that she used to make when I was a girl.

yay!

Angelina helped us to make it. She was the official “mixer” of the ingredients…well, of everything except the part with the boiling water. I did that one for safety reasons. 🙂

It was just like I remembered. Crispy on the top, fluffy cobbler breading and sweet fruit filling.  Total bliss.

Last night I made the cobbler with some blueberries that had been languishing in the refrigerator.  SuperMan hates it when I leave blueberries in the fridge for too long because they invariably fall out and spill all over the floor at some point. So, I decided in the interest of household peace, we’d eat the little suckers.

It was just as yummy as the peach version.

Here’s the recipe in case you want to try it…

It’s totally flexible – use strawberries, blueberries, any kind of berries or stone fruits.  You can’t go wrong. You could even go crazy and use apples and add some cinnamon for a fall treat. (hmmm….)

Mom’s Fruit Cobbler

Fresh or canned fruit (I used a combination of both for the blueberry one, we used about six fresh peaches for the peach one)
1 3/4 cup sugar (or 1/2 cup plus 3/8 cup Splenda Blend)
3 Tbsp butter, softened
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
1 cup flour
1 Tbsp cornstarch
2/3 cup boiling water

1. Cover bottom of 8×8 inch square pan with fruit.
2. Mix 3/4 cup sugar, butter, baking powder, salt, milk & flour together. (use the 3/8 cup Splenda blend here)
3. Spoon over fruit.
4. Mix remaining sugar & cornstarch. Sprinkle over dish.
5. Pour boiling water over top.
6. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.

I tried a new cookie recipe this week. Well, it wasn’t a new recipe. Just new to me.

I had tasted these cookies at the bread class I went to back in April.  They had them as dessert for the luncheon we had after we learned to make the breads.  They were oh, so yummy.

My friend Deborah and I decided we just had to make them for our families. Fortunately, they gave us the recipe in our goodie bags, so the plan was made.

And then I forgot about them.

Until this week when Deborah stopped by for a quick visit this week and she mentioned them.

And then I couldn’t stop thinking about them!

So, I decided to whip up a batch, hoping I had the ingredients on hand. I had most of them, which resulted in a few substitutions and a very yummy finished product.

Here’s the result. A chewy, slightly sweet, but not overly sweet cookie. It was a huge hit with the kids and the neighbors.

One little thing, though. These are made without sugar. Or, rather, without “traditional” sugar.  They are made using sucanat.

Sucanat is a sweetener made from the juice of sugar cane.  First the juice is extracted and then the moisture is evaporated, leaving crystals which are sucralose. It has a rich, sweet, molasses taste and is not as sweet as refined white sugar (which is what most of us use). I also used Sucanat with honey. This is the same, except that a small amount of honey is added before the evaporation process which yields a milder, sweeter crystal.

Both of these work well in substituting for brown sugar (Sucanat) and white sugar (Sucanat with honey) And, if you don’t have Sucanat at home, you can substitute white or brown sugar 1:1 without issue.

So, give it a try if you have a hankerin’ for a cookie one day and want something a little bit different.

I think you’ll be glad you did.

Summertime Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup sucanat with honey (or white sugar)
1 cup sucanat (or light brown sugar)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup Heath toffee bits

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cream butter and sugars until creamy.
3. Add eggs & vanilla; mix well.
4. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder & salt.  Add to butter mixture and mix well.
5. Stir in the oats, chips and bits.
6. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes until golden brown.
7. These will be chewy-gooey when they first come out of the oven, so let them sit on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before you transfer them to a cooling rack to finish cooling – if you don’t they will fall apart on your spatula.
8. Store in a tightly covered container (if they last that long)

Note: the original recipe called for 1/2 cup of shredded coconut and 1/2 cup of chopped nuts. No one in my house likes coconut (except me) and the kids don’t care for nuts, so I substituted the white chocolate & toffee bits for those ingredients.

I will start this post off with a confession to you. I don’t eat cole slaw. Never have. I’ve tried it a few times, but never got past the raw cabbage taste.

SuperMan, on the other hand, loves cole slaw.

So, because I love my man, I make cole slaw. Regularly. Or at least I try to make it regularly.

I’ve been making a concoction that was mostly invented through trial and error and a little coaching from my momma. (That’s what mommas are for, right?)

SuperMan eats it and says he likes it, but I always felt like I could do better. So, I’ve been on the hunt for another recipe he might like. But it’s challenging because I don’t eat cole slaw and therefore it’s hard to tell what might or might not work in a recipe.

I knew that SuperMan liked Cole Slaw from KFC. And so I set out to try to replicate that recipe. Why not start there, I thought? I searched on the internet for some of those restaurant-secrets websites where they have tried to duplicate restaurant recipes for the home kitchen.  After finding a few with the KFC cole slaw recipe, I decided to give it a try. We were having friends over for dinner and I was serving a cold supper of chicken salad and pasta salad and I thought the cole slaw would be a perfect accompaniment.

I am sorry I don’t have a picture for you – the photo-taking part of this food prep task got forgotten in the huge mess I made in my kitchen.  I had stuff everywhere. I was more interested in getting finished and cleaning up than in documenting the finished products!

ANYWAY.

The verdict of those who consumed it was that it was a pretty-darn-close replica of the Colonel’s cole slaw recipe.  One of my friends, who said she’d never had KFC cole slaw said she loved it. And what made me even happier was that SuperMan loved it. That’s what really counts. 🙂

This is not a real mayonnaise-y type of cole slaw. It’s got a tiny bit, but it’s really more about complimenting the natural flavors of the vegetables in the salad. It’s not goopy or real wet. Actually, if I did eat cole slaw, this would be the type I’d want. Fresh, crisp and clean tasting.

Here you go:

Colonel Lois’ Cole Slaw

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 1/2 Tbsp white vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper (I used a little more because SuperMan likes pepper)
8 cups finely chopped cabbage (1 head – think chop the size of grains of rice. Use your food processor)
1/4 cup finely shredded carrot (about 1 carrot)
2 Tbsp minced onion

1. Chop carrots & cabbage into very fine pieces (like rice grains)
2. Combine mayo, sugar, milk, buttermilk, lemon juice, vinegar, salt & pepper in a large bowl and beat until smooth.
3. Add the cabbage, carrots & onion.
4. Mix well.
5. Cover & refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving.

A couple of notes:

I made mine the night before I was planning to serve it. The next morning, there was quite a bit of liquid in the bottom of the bowl. SuperMan didn’t like this, so I placed about 2-3 paper towels in a colander and dumped the bowl of cole slaw in the colander. I let this sit, over another bowl, for about 30 minutes. Most of that excess water drained out. Now, truthfully, I think most of that was from the milk and vinegar, etc. that I’d put in it and I think it was supposed to be there. But the man didn’t like it, so I got rid of it! He said it didn’t affect the taste at all.

I mentioned on my Five on Friday post last week that I wanted to try this pound cake recipe – and I actually baked it on Saturday for a get together I was having at the house.  True to form, I didn’t follow the recipe exactly (how boring would that be?!?) and after the rave reviews I received on Saturday night, I decided to share my version of the recipe with you here.

I am sorry I don’t have a picture – it didn’t last long enough for me to snap one – but here is a copy of the picture of the original cake recipe (from their blog)

For my version, I added a glaze (recipe below) and left off the sprinkling of coconut on the top.  I am also renaming it because I added a little more “tropicalness” to the cake in my ingredient choices… it’s not the pure lemon-coconut cake that the original recipe was.

The yogurt (instead of sour cream) in this recipe yields an interesting flavor and texture to the cake. I think it made it a softer cake – sweeter, a little bit, than with the sour cream.

This is the perfect summertime dessert. Light, refreshing and simply delicious. I served it with fresh sliced strawberries, but it was really good with tea the next morning for a simple breakfast snack as well.

This is not a large cake recipe. It bakes up a perfect loaf-sized pound cake (unlike my Great-grandma’s lemon pound cake which is a monster in a tube pan)

So, if you are looking for something to bake for a special occasion and don’t want any leftovers, this is a good choice.

Lois’ Tropical Pound Cake

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick), softened
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup coconut
1 container Chobani Pineapple Greek Yogurt (6 oz)
1 lemon zested (just the zest)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon extract

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter and flour a 9 x 5 loaf pan.
2. Stir together flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.
3. In a stand mixer, beat butter and sugar together at medium speed until creamy, about 2-3 minutes.
4. Crack eggs into a separate bowl and add extracts to eggs.  Beat slightly to break yolks and mix in extracts.
5. Add eggs to sugar/butter mixture, beating just until blended.
6. Alternate adding flour mixture and yogurt to butter mixture, beginning and ending with flour. Beat at low speed just until blended after each addition.
7. Stir in lemon zest, lemon juice and 1/2 cup coconut.
8. Pour batter into a greased and floured 9- x 5-inch loaf pan.
9. Bake for 1 hour and 5 minutes to 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. (Mine took close to an hour and ten minutes.)
10. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 to 15 minutes and then remove from pan to wire rack, and cool completely (about 1 hour).

Glaze:

4 cups powdered sugar
lemon juice
1 Tablespoon melted butter

1. In a large, microwave safe measuring bowl, mix powdered sugar, butter and enough lemon juice to make a thick (just a little looser than a paste) mixture. A whisk works great here.
2. Place in microwave for about 30 seconds, until glaze gets a little liquidy (yes, this is a technical cooking term)
3. Whisk mixture to thoroughly combine.
4. Pour onto cake.
5. As the butter cools, you will get a nice, set glaze with a glossy sheen.

I mentioned on Facebook that I’d cooked Hobo Pockets on the grill last night and several of you asked for the recipe.  This is something that is popular when camping, but I decided yesterday “why not try it on the grill?” and so I did!

Basically, a Hobo Pocket is anything you cook in a foil pouch.  If you’re doing it the traditional way, you’d embed the pouch in the coals of your fire – or cook in direct proximity to the fire.  Since I was cooking on a gas grill, I opted for placing my hobo pockets on the grate alongside the other things I was cooking.

It was sooo easy and sooo good. 

And with the temperatures hovering in the 90’s yesterday, I loved that I didn’t heat up my kitchen at all and yet we had a very tasty and healthy dinner.

Here’s what I cooked:

• Grilled chicken breasts – marinated in Italian Dressing & House Seasoning for about 2 hours (while we were at the pool!)
• Grilled baby Yukon gold potatoes in a hobo pocket that I drizzled with olive oil & House Seasoning.
• Grilled mixed vegetables (baby Portobello mushrooms, carrots, patty-pan squash) drizzled with olive oil and house seasoning and cooked in a separate hobo pocket
• Grilled corn – and if you’ve never tried grilling corn, you really should. This is the best way to cook corn. It brings out the sweetness of the corn and gives it such a good roasted flavor. I grill my corn by soaking in some cold water for about 15 minutes and then I place the corn (in the husk) directly on the grill over low heat for about 30 minutes. We usually put this on first and when we’re ready to cook the remainder of our dinner, we move the corn to the higher rack until we’re ready to serve it. Then we shuck it and drown it in butter.  I know folks who put the butter on before grilling, but I’m afraid of flare-ups on the grill so I wait.

To make your hobo pockets:

Start with a bowl and some foil. I use the bowl to help shape the cavity in which I’ll place the food.

Then add your food

Season

Close it up, being sure you seal it well to keep the heat and steam inside.

Place it on your grill and cook.  For the potatoes, I think I cooked them about 30 minutes. The veggies were on there about 15 but SuperMan said that next time we’d do the carrots separately and longer (or cut them into smaller pieces) because they were still a little hard and everything else was done.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this, but be careful when you take this off of the grill. It’s HOT!!  And, it will stay hot for a little while, so be careful when you open it, too, that you don’t get a steam burn.

I hope you enjoy. I know I will be doing a LOT more of these this summer.  The food is so good in them and it’s just so simple.

This is next on my list to try:

I’ll let you know how it turns out!