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!

 

I promised you I’d share with you my favorite pizza crust recipe.

This comes from Cook’s Country magazine – the September 2010 issue – which is chock-full of some of my favorite recipes. I love that magazine (and not just the Sept 2010 issue!)

This grilled pizza crust is so good. Slightly sweet, a little crispy, and oh, so, yummy with a light dusting of your favorite toppings. I think the part that makes it so good is the parmesan that is baked into the crust. Oh.my.goodness.

I make a batch and it is more than enough to make four small (personal) sized pizzas for the family.  Which the girls love because they each get to fix their pizza the way they prefer.

For the sauce, I usually use leftovers from my homemade sauce, but I have been known to either open a jarred marinara or even just open some canned crushed tomatoes and season those to use.  Depends on how lazy I am and how stocked (or not) our pantry is!

And I’m sure you can use this not on the grill but I’ve just always grilled it. I bet it would work just fine in your oven on a pizza stone or baking sheet.

Here’s the basic recipe:

Grilled Pizza Dough

• 1 cup water (heated to 110 degrees ~ hot)
• 1 Tbsp olive oil (plus extra for brushing dough & grill)
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1 envelope (2 1/4 tsp) yeast
• 2 3/4 cups flour (plus more for dusting rolling surface)
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 tsp salt (I use kosher)

For the top:

• 2 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella
• ~ 3 cups marinara or homemade spaghetti sauce
• toppings of your choice

To prepare dough:

1. Whisk water, 1 tbsp oil, sugar & yeast in large measuring cup. Let sit 5 minutes.
2. In food processor, pulse flour, parmesan, & salt until combined.
3. While machine is running, slowly pour oil mixture down spout until dough pulls away from sides of bowl and forms a ball (this takes about a minute)
4. If dough seems too sticky, you may need to add 1-2 Tbsp flour.
5. Turn dough out on floured surface and knead 3-4 times.
6. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces.
7. Working with one piece at a time, press into a small circle and use a rolling pin to stretch dough to form a 9-inch circle. (mine always turn out oblong!)
8. Transfer each finished circle to baking sheet lined with parchment paper *and dusted with flour* (you can stack them with floured parchment paper between)
9. Meanwhile, heat your grill on high for about 15 minutes (while you are making the dough)
10. Leave your primary burner on high and turn all other burners to low/medium-low. Scrape cooking grate and grease with an oiled paper towel.
11. Brush tops of 2 of your dough circles with olive oil. Peel off of parchment and place OIL SIDE DOWN on the COOL SIDE of your grill.
12. Now, don’t touch them for 3-5 minutes (until the tops are bubbly and undersides are browning)
13. Brush the tops with olive oil, and using tongs, flip the circle.
14. On this freshly-browned top, add your sauce, cheeses and toppings.
15. Cook pizza for 3-5 minutes on cool side of grill and slide to hot side to crisp for 1-2 minutes if desired.
16. Repeat with remaining dough rounds & serve.
17. Finished pizzas can be kept warm in a preheated 200 degree oven if you want to serve them all at one time.

I promise, once you try this, you won’t want the pizza delivery man to bring you his overcharged, under-flavored pizza ever again!

I told you last Tuesday it was “experiment day” in my kitchen.

This is one of the recipes I was working on.

I woke up on Monday wanting to bake a cake for the family to nibble on during the week.  The only thing was I wanted something different.  I wanted something rich like a pound cake, but light and fluffy like the Brown Sugar cake I make.  Something with the caramelly flavor that cake has, but with more. I just wasn’t sure what the more was…

So, I kept thinking about it through the night and decided on Tuesday to go for broke and just make something up as I went along. The worst that could happen was that it turned out awful and I tossed it.

So this is what I made:

Big Girl had the first bite and declared it should be named “Yummy Cake” and bugged me all afternoon to have more slices, so I think it can be considered a success.

Amaretto Cake

1 yellow cake mix
2 eggs
1 cup water
1/4 cup amaretto
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/3 cup butter softened
1/2 cup All Natural Almond Accents
1/4 cup Splenda Brown Sugar Blend

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
   Grease Bundt pan or tube pan.
   Finely chop almonds.
   Mix all ingredients.
   Pour cake batter into pan.
   Bake one hour or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

• You can substitute 1/4 cup (4Tbs) of Amaretto flavored coffee syrup for the amaretto (that’s what I did)
• Use 1/2 cup brown sugar if you are not using the Splenda Blend

You could probably make a glaze with some amaretto and powdered sugar, if you like.

 

I made Chicken Tortilla soup for lunch on Monday. It was a cold, rainy, Winnie-the-Pooh kind of blustery day.  SuperMan was rained out for work and I was freezing cold all day. Seemed like a good time to make soup to me.

I made a modified version of a recipe I received from a friend.  It was super-yummy.

And one of the things I was proud of was the fact that I didn’t over-cook. For once, I don’t have a vat of soup to eat through.  It was just enough for us to have lunch, dinner, and one lunch leftover container. Perfect.

That is rare for me, but I managed it this time. 🙂

Anyway, thought I’d share the recipe with you.

I have another tortilla soup recipe already on the recipe list, but one can never have too many recipes to try, right?

This one is super-easy and mixes up quickly.

Cheesy Chicken Tortilla Soup

1 lb chicken breast
1 can kidney beans
1 can black beans
1 c frozen corn kernels
1/2 c frozen diced onion(or fresh)
1/2 c frozen diced bell pepper (or fresh)
~ 1 c Velveeta
1 box chicken broth (~32 oz)
1 packet taco seasoning
1 packet ranch dressing seasoning (dry mix)
olive oil

1. Sauté chicken in large stock pot in olive oil. Season with House Seasoning.
2. While chicken is cooking, put broth and Velveeta (cut into cubes) in a large bowl and microwave in 2 minute intervals, stirring in between, until cheese is melted and incorporated into broth.
3. Remove chicken from pot and cut in bite-sized pieces.
4. Sauté onion & bell pepper, adding a little more olive oil if needed.
5. Add chicken back to pot.
6. Pour in broth mixture.
7. Add corn, beans, seasoning packets.
8. Bring to a boil & then reduce heat & simmer for about 20 minutes.