Small Potting Bench

This is a belated house warming gift to a friend for her patio.  Used an old window for the back, some old picket fencing for the sides and a base.  The top back piece is some decorative iron work from a porch.  I have sold many of these and they are not only great as a potting bench but also as a small buffet.  Great for sitting food on when you are having a meal outside. 

My husband does a great job of putting it all together for me.

Strawberry Cake

Our daughter's birthday was last week and we had her birthday dinner on Sunday.  She almost always request strawberry cake for her birthday.  I have this precious memory of her when she turned 4 years old.  For her fourth birthday she wanted Strawberry Shortcake and for those of you who don't remember there was an adorable set of little dolls strawberry shortcake, blueberry muffin etc.  They were really cute and they were even scented.  We had all the little dolls plus the big strawberry house and her books also.  She loved playing with all this and reading about the adventures of strawberry shortcake and her friends.  So for this particular birthday, I had found strawberry shortcake material and made her a little sundress that she wore for her birthday. I'm still looking for the picture.  I wanted to post it with this entry. 

I said all that to say, it still makes me smile when she requests strawberry cake because my mind goes back to that strawberry shortcake birthday party so many years ago.

I wanted to share this cake recipe with you.  It is a wonderful cake and I took my mom's recipe and incorporated it into another recipe and it is wonderful.

2 3/4 cups cake flour (I have used unbleached when I didn't have cake and it turned out ok)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups sugar
1 small box strawberry jello
1 cup butter softened,
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 of a 16 ounce container of frozen sliced strawberries (sweetend), thaw and puree in blender
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1/4 teaspoon of strawberry extract

Grease and flour 3-9inch cake pans.  Sift flour and baking powder together.  In a separate bowl, cream butter and slowly add sugar mixed with Jello and cream until fluffy.  Beat in eggs one at a time, then beat until fluffy.  At low speed, alternate flour mixture and milk beginning and ending with flour.  Add vanilla, strawberry extract and 1/2 of the pureed strawberries.  Mix well and pour into prepared cake pans.
Bake for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Icing

1/2 (8 ounces) cream cheese
2 sticks butter
3-4 cups of powdered sugar
1/2 (l6 ounces of frozen sliced strawberries) pureed
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Cream together cream cheese and butter.  When mixed well add in strawberry puree and vanilla. Mix well and start adding powdered sugar.  Add small batches at a time until all the powdered sugar is mixed in.

When the cakes have cooled you can begin to put the icing on the cake.  For a garnish on this cake I didn't have fresh berries which would have been best.  I used some frozen strawberries and fresh mint. With frozen berries, I unthawed them and let them sit on a paper towel for about 30 minutes to make sure all the water was out of them. Ideally, fresh berries are the best and I thought blackberries and blueberries with the strawberries and mint would have looked beautiful on this cake.

I let the cake set in the frig. over night took it out the next morning and garnished it a couple of hours before serving.

Forgiving

"The holiest of all spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love."

I'm not sure I totally understand all that happens when you forgive but it is a major player in all our lives. I am certain about one thing, you won't move forward spiritually until you do forgive. Whenever we are hurt or wronged it is our flesh nature to seek revenge. Instead lay down the offense and look past it and try to see the hurting person.  God really will open your eyes to this.

There is a lot of talk about people growing up in dysfunctional homes.  I think the world is dysfunctional.  Everything we have gone through or suffered can be used to make our lives more valuable. The flesh nature or the ego respects and glorifies the pain and hurt. Forgiveness is the enemy to the flesh.

Let go of the hurt and whatever wrong you have suffered and choose to love!

Two Great Spreads

These are two great spreads.  Wonderful on sandwiches, grilled chicken or sliced turkey.

Herbed Feta Spread

1 (8 ounce) package feta cheese, softened
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
3 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted

Stir together first 6 ingredients until smooth.  Cover and chill up to 7 days.  Stir in pine nuts just before serving.  Garnish with fresh basil sprigs.  This is perfect on pita bread filled with grilled vegetables or on BLT's.  This makes 2 1/2 cups.


Cucumber-Yogurt Spread

1 (16 ounce) container plain nonfat yogurt
2 small cucumbers, peeled, seeded and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
6 small mint leaves, minces
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon peper

Line a mesh strainer with a paper coffee filter.  Spoon yogurt into filter and place strainer over a bowl.  Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 24 hours.  Spoon yogurt into a bowl, discarding liquid (yogurt will have a very thick consistency).  Stir in chpped cucumber and next 4 ingredients.  Cover and chill up to 3 days.  Garnish with cucumber slices and fresh mint sprigs.  This is wonderful on soft rolls with grill chicken, sliced turkey and great on fresh sliced garden tomatoes.  Makes 2 cups.

Fresh Spinach Salads

I love spinach salads and these are three that I make a lot.  The first recipe is one from my mother that is quick and easy and I use poppy seed dressing from the store. Although, she made dressing from the bacon drippings.  She would add a little vinegar and sugar to the bacon drippings and let it simmer a little and then would  pour that over her spinach salad.

Fresh baby spinach
1/4 purple onion, sliced and ringed
2 hard boiled eggs, sliced
2-3 pieces of bacon, crispy and then broken over salad
4 pickled beets, sliced
These are the ingredients for one large spinach salad.  I use  Brianna's Poppy Seed Dressing.

These next two are wonderful spinach salads. I got the recipes for these probably 10 years ago.

Spinach Salad with Zesty Blue Cheese Dressing
 Makes 4-6 servings

1/2 cup white vinegar
2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2/3 cup olive oil
1 (4 ounce) package crumbled blue cheese
1/2 (8 ounces) sliced fresh mushrooms
1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes
1/2 small red onion, sliced thinly
Whisk together first 4 ingredients, gradually whisk in oil.  Add cheese and stir gently.  Combine the next 3 ingredients, drizzle with dressing and toss.


Spinach Salad with Apricot Vinaigrette
Makes 6 servings

1 (10 ounce) package fresh baby spinach
1 pint of grape tomatoes, halved
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
1 (4 ounce) package crumbled goat cheese
1 ripe avocado, peeled and diced
1/2 to 1 cup of chopped pecans, toasted

Apricot Vinaigrette
 Makes 1/2 cup

1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons orange juice
2 tablespoons apricot jam
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground pepper

Whisk together in small bowl.

Canning some of my favorites!

Starting to fill the pantry shelves with some of my favorites: Spicy Tomato Jam, Peppered Peach and Rosemary Jam, and last but not least Caramelized Onion Relish.  Is you mouth watering?  Well, it should be. These are wonderful! Not only are these wonderful jams to have on hand for those special brunches, these make wonderful appetizers, great toppings for burgers, pizza, grilled chicken and something special to perk up that piece of wheat toast with your favorite cup of tea. And I almost forgot these make wonderful gifts.

Let me get started with the recipes:

Caramelized Onion Relish

4 large red onions, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups dry red wine
6 tablespoons of Balsamic vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper or to taste (I ended up adding a little more)

If canning DO NOT use oil.  The oinons will provide plenty of moisture.  Place onions in a pot over medium heat.  Stir in the sugar.  Cook uncovered for 30 minutes or so, until onions are soft and start to brown or caramelize.  Stir frequently.  If the onions produce a lot of moisture, cook down until moisture has almost completely evaporated.
Stir in the wine and balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer 15-20 minutes until the liquid has reduced and begins to thicken.  Taste and correct seasoning.
Note: The cooking time will vary widely depending on the water content of your onions.  The time given is for supermarket onion, if your using garden fresh you will have more liquid and it will take longer for moisture to evaporate.
Ladle relish into hot sterile jars.  Leave a 1/2 inch head space.  Process in hot water bath for 10 minutes for half pint jars.
This relish also freezes well if you don't want to can. 
You can use this as an appetizer with goat cheese, a top a burger or along side grilled meats.  Outstanding of pizza with Manchego or other sharpe cheese.


Spicy Tomato Jam

3 1/2 pounds of ripe tomatoes
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups of brown sugar
3/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
2 tablespoons fresh grated ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
2 teaspoons salt
1 serrano or other chili, stemmed, seeded and minced. (You can toast the seeds and add to the mixture for even more heat.)

Wash, core and dice tomatoes.
After you have about half the tomatoes chopped, put them in a non-reactive 5 quart stock pot and crush them a little with a potato masher or wooden spoon.  Just get the juices flowing.  Turn the heat to medium and add the two sugars and start to cook jam.  Add the remaining tomatoes and the rest of the the ingredients and bring it to a good rolling boil, stirring often.
Reduce heat and simmer until the texture is thick and silky, about 2 hours.
Place in small 1/4 pint jars and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

This is great with your favorite omelet or wonderful as an appetizer on baguette bread then goat cheese and top with this wonderful jam.


Peppered Peach and Rosemary Jam

3 pounds of white or yellow peaches
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
3 cups sugar
4 large sprigs of rosemary
1/2 teaspoon of coarsley ground pepper

Peel and pit the peaches.
Slice peaches into 1/2 inch slices.  Place peaches in a large bowl, add lemon juice, sugar, rosemary and pepper.  Cover and let stand for 4 hours.  Stir every hour to incorporate sugar.
After 4 hours, transfer mixture to a large stock pot.  Bring to a boil over medium high heat.  Cook for 15 minutes until mixture is syrupy.  Lightly mash the mixture to break down peach slices.  Leave 1/3 of the wedges intact.  Discard remaining rosemary sprigs.
Laddle jam into hot sterile jars leaving 1/2 in head space.  Top with new lid and band.  Process in hot water bath for 10 minutes for half pint jars.
This is wonderful with brie or Chevie.  Also good on toast topped with ricotta cheese then jam.

Before canning be sure and refresh yourself on canning instructions.  I didn't go through all the process of cleaning jars and lids and boiling.  So make sure you go to a canning site and get that information.

Fresh Berry Trifle with Raspberry Sauce

Last weekend I catered a birthday dinner party and the birthday boy didn't want cake but he loves berries so this is what I came up with.  Actually, I made this for another occasion and it is very beautiful and delicious.  You can use pound cake or angel food cake.

This is how I make my trifle.  I bought 2 containers of blueberries, 1 large container of strawberries, 2 containers of blackberries and 1 container of raspberries for the sauce.  One angel food cake mix. The first thing I did was wash all the berries and put them on a paper towel to dry.  I then made my angel food cake. If the berries are not dry pat them with a paper towel. Slice the strawberries into halves or fourths depending on the size of the berry, then add blueberries and put 1/2 cup of sugar of berries and stir well to cover all berries.  Then add blackberries and stir very carefully so you won't break them.  Let the berries rest in the sugar while the cake is baking.  Then make the pudding.
This is the recipe for the vanilla pudding.
         1 large Jello vanilla instant pudding
         1 can sweetened condensed milk
         1 8 oz. sour cream
         1 teaspoon of vanilla
         1 small carton prepared whipped topping
Mix vanilla pudding according to package directions. When pudding is thick add next three ingredients and mix well.  Then add whipped topping.  The cake should be done by now so take it out of the oven to cool.  Now make the raspberry sauce.
Raspberry Sauce:
    1 half pint of raspberries
    1/2 cup sugar
    1/4 cup water
    1 cup or (12 oz jar) seedless raspberry jam
    1 T framboise liquer or raspberry extract
Combine the raspberries, sugar and 1/4 cup water in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer 4 minutes.  Pour the cooked raspberries, jam and framboise into the bowl of a food processor or blender and process until smooth. Chill makes 2 cups.

Now pull pieces of the angel food cake into bite size pieces and put in the bottom of a bowl.  Make the layer about 1 1/2 to 2 inches thick.  Then add a good layer of berries including the juice that has developed, then a layer of the pudding, then the raspberry sauce. Repeat once more and top with the raspberry sauce.  I garnished the top with mint leaves and extra berries.

This dessert taste wonderful and makes a beautiful presentation.

Busy Summer

It has been a busy summer for me but good.  I have thoroughly enjoyed it, hot weather and all.

Let me start with gardening.  The guttering didn't work out all that well.  Something ate my spinach and lettuce and I learned that I needed to water more often because of the shallowness of the guttering.  I was so busy trying to get the soil amended and other things done to the garden area that time got any from me and I didn't get everything planted that I wanted to.  I did get squash planted, peppers , sugar snap peas and lots of tomatoes.  I love tomatoes and we have eaten a boat load of them plus I have made something that I just love, Tomato Jam, more about that later.

I planted four or five types of heirloom tomatoes and three types of cherry tomatoes.  I had decided not to use tomato cages this year and I was going to stake the tomatoes and tie them up......well, the tomatoes were so huge they pulled the stakes over and I had tomato vines everywhere.  I felt like I had just gotten out of a yoga class after picking tomatoes from all of the twisting, bending, reaching, stretching all of these weird configurations just to get to those delicious little red jewels. The tomato patch was lovingly referred to as the tomato jungle this year. The vines grew to the top of the stockade fence and took off in every direction.  Now, I'm not complaining.  :)

One major disappointment was that all of my blueberries died.  They contracted a fungus and I couldn't keep ahead of it. I snipped and pruned and tried to keep the fungus beat back but they all succumed.  I am regrouping in my thinking about blueberries and I have not yet come to a conclusion on what I will do about them next year.

My peach trees were loaded this year with peaches.  I told you earlier how hard it was for me to pull off the peaches.  I did do it but learned to late the peaches that are to be pulled off, should be near the end of the limb.  You leave the peaches close to the trunk of the tree.  Of course, I did just the opposite and several large limbs of several trees broke from the weight.  :(     Also another great recipe I want to share with you is Peach Rosemary Jam with Cracked Pepper.  I have had a recipe for Peach Rosemary Jam for years but found this recipe on a blog.  I have to tell you that I have never followed blogs. I knew that it would consume a lot of my time if I ever got started, so I just never allowed myself to do that.....until I ran across Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Kitchen.  I found her quite by accident but I love her blog and her and she is the only one I try to keep up with.  I got my Tomato Jam recipe from her.  She is a wonderful creative cook!

So, I have been canning a lot and I have been putting up lots of squash soup for the winter with all the yellow squash I have been getting. Lots of peaches in the freezer for smoothies and lots of jams for appetizers and different things.  I've also been cleaning out cabinets in the bathroom getting rid of old stuff that has just set there forever.  Getting organized once again.  Made a sweep through our clothes and dresser and chest of drawers to get rid of clothes that we never wear.  So things are pretty well cleaned out in our bedroom and bath.  Makes me feel better.  Now, the house is in need of a major cleaning.  I have just hit the high spots this summer and it is pretty bad around here.

All in all it's been a wonderful summer. Lots of gardening, lots of wateringgggg, lots of wonderful meals.  Can't forget the beautiful sunrises I've enjoyed behind the barn in our new little outdoor space.  It's been satisfying, productive and restful.  I have also read some really good books this summer.

 Now, I'm getting excited about pulling out the pumpkins and getting the house all fallish looking. 

Have a wonderful weekend...until next time~

Spicy Thyme and Lime Iced Tea

This is a wonderful tea I made over the weekend.  Got the recipe from Giada  and this tea is wonderful. My husband drank almost the whole pitcher of tea on Sunday.  Hope you will try it, it is a little unusual and has great flavor.

On our honeymoon, years ago, we had our first taste of lime in iced tea and we both loved it. So we really like the lime and the thyme really compliments the lime.  Anyway, try it!

6-8 cups of water
6-7 sprigs of fresh thyme
zest of 2 limes
juice of 2 limes
2 cinnamon sticks
1/3 cup of sugar (if you use 8 cups of water add a little more sugar)
3 tea bags

Add water to a sauce pan and bring to a boil, add everything except the tea bags.  Let mixture boil until sugar is dissolved. Turn off heat and add tea bags. Let is steep for 15 minutes.  Pour into a tea pitcher and serve.

** I used the 2 cinnamon sticks according to the recipe. Next time I will try only one it was just a little too cinnamonie for me.