Barbeque Green Beans and a Winner!

Happy, happy belated Thanksgiving.  I took a much-needed hiatus from life and blogging so I apologize for being incredibly slow on posting the winner of the cookbook.  But we had such a great, relaxing, family-filled holiday.  And now I sit here listening to Christmas music while we put up the holiday decorations and I am feeling perfectly festive and ready for the season. 

And thank you, thank you for all of you who submitted side dishes that I could use for our Thanksgiving feast.  They ALL sounded so amazing and I am excited to try many of them out.  I had such a hard time narrowing down which recipe to try for our Thanksgiving.  So I brought in the help of my husband and he decided that something with corn or green beans sounded good.  It was such a tough choice, but I picked Ann's Green Bean recipe and they were phenomenal!!! Seriously.  You have to add this to your upcoming holiday dinners. 

That being said, Ann is my sister and so I felt that it would show too much nepotism to give her the cookbook and she agreed.  So I used random.org to pick a winner for the cookbook.  The winner is Melanie Ann.  Leave me your email, if you would, Melanie and I'll get the cookbook to you.  Thanks again everyone for you submissions!!

And now here is that amazing recipe!  Don't let the title confuse you--there is no BBQ sauce in these beans but would go perfectly at a barbeque or as a side dish to accompany your ham or turkey this holiday season.  The flavors are better than any I've ever had in a green bean dish.  You MUST try these!

Barbeque Green Beans from Ann E.

2 pkg frozen french cut beans

1 onion
1 4oz. can of mushrooms
2 medium tomatoes

Partially cook beans. Put all of the above ingredients in a 9x13 baking dish. Make
sauce with 1/3 C melted butter, 2 t horseradish mustard, 2 T brown sugar, 1 1/4 t salt, pepper to taste. Pour over green beans and cover with foil. Bake 20 minutes at 400F.

*Make sure you use horseradish mustard...it makes all the difference

Berry Salad & a Giveaway

Before I sing praises to this salad (although I couldn't quite get the picture right on this one)--I first need some help.  And to sweeten up the deal, I've thrown in a giveaway for the winner. Do any of you have a good side dish (preferably a vegetable...but no biggie if it's not) that you make for Thanksgiving?  If so, would you please leave me a link to the recipe or (if you don't have a food blog) leave me the recipe.  I'll be sure to give you a shout out and feature your recipe on my blog, too. And the winning recipe will also win this cookbook that I've been eyeing, just in time for Christmas cooking:

The deadline to enter the giveaway is Tuesday, November 24th (12pm MST).  If you have multiple dishes, you can leave multiple comments for a better chance to win :-).

Anyways--back to the salad.  While we were living away from family in Ohio, my mom called and told me about this amazing salad that my cousin, Robyn, had brought to a family party.  I still remember her describing it to me and thinking, "Wow, that sounds good...but maybe a little strange".  Oh, how wrong I was (about the strange part)!  My mom made this at our family reunion this summer and I loved it!

So I have now stolen the recipe from her and made it for our family.  The cheesecake pudding mixed with yogurt and cool whip makes such a refreshing, not too sweet base.  I love the berries and bananas (surprise, surprise...). If you are looking for a fun, new salad recipe for your Thanksgiving feast, give this one a try!  This recipe makes a lot of salad--so for our small family I'll probably half it next time.  But it would be great to serve a large family this holiday.

Berry Salad from Robyn B.

2 instant cheesecake jello pudding mix
1 8oz cool whip
1 large carton of strawberry yogurt

Mix these ingredients together and refrigerate.

Just before serving, Add:
1 sm. bag of raspberries
1 sm. bag of mixed berries (thaw the berries before adding)
bananas

Maple Salmon

Despite the overabundance of sweets found on this site that might speak to the contrary, I really do try to cook healthy for my family.  It's just so much more fun to blog about and read about yummy sweets though, right? 

So please bear with me while I break away to a less exciting post. I love fish of any kind.  However, my husband does not.  But a few years ago I had read some research about how good salmon is for an autoimmune disease that he has.  So I convinced him that we needed to add more fish in our diet.  I made a few recipes that did nothing in terms of pushing him towards wanting to eat fish.  But then I broadened my search and found this amazing salmon recipe!

It is really, really good!  And my husband (after many failed fish attempts on my part) even loves it.  The maple glaze on it is phenomenal! The soy sauce adds just the right amount of saltiness that fish needs and combines really well with that little bit of sweetness from the maple syrup.  I know it might sound a little bit strange.  But I was desperate for a recipe that would convince my husband that fish is okay.  This one did the trick in every way.  In fact, my daughter has stuck to this as being her favorite meal that I make.  She calls is "pink chicken" and requests it often. And any recipe that gets my five year old to eat salmon is a keeper in my book!

Maple Salmon from Allrecipes


1/4 cup maple syrup
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 pound salmon

Directions
In a small bowl, mix the maple syrup, soy sauce, garlic, garlic salt, and pepper.

Place salmon in a shallow glass baking dish, and coat with the maple syrup mixture. Cover the dish, and marinate salmon in the refrigerator 30 minutes, turning once.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

Place the baking dish in the preheated oven, and bake salmon uncovered 20 minutes, or until easily flaked with a fork

Hawaiian Dip with Fruit Kebabs

What a week it's been.  It feels like I'm barely keeping my head above water right now.  Let me just state yet again--I hate having to sell a house right now. So as a good distraction, I wanted to post this fun recipe.  I made it for my little guy's birthday party.  I had spent way too much time making his birthday cake and so I decided to go more low key on the food.  We went the semi-homemade route and ordered in pizza and then I made some yummy breadsticks and tried this dip with kebabs.  I was not disappointed.  They were the perfect compliment to the pizza and breadsticks.  The dip was really light and refreshing.  I loved the combo of the vanilla flavor with the pineapple and coconut.  This would be a great, fun, different thing to serve up at some upcoming holiday parties. I know it's not the "traditional" kind of holiday dip, but I think it would be just a great way to shake it up and add something really delicious and new to your ensemble.

Hawaiian Dip with Fruit Kebabs from "The Pampered Chef; All the Best"

Dip:
3/4 C milk
1/2 C sour cream
1 pkg (3.4 oz) vanilla instant pudding
1 can (8 oz) crushed pineapple in juice, undrained
1/2 C sweetened flaked coconut, toasted, divided
1 lime

Kebabs:
6-8 cups assorted fruits such as apples, bananas, and pineapple, cut into 1-inch chunks, cantaloupe and honeydew melon bals and whole strawberries and grapes

1. For dip, combine milk, sour cream and pudding mix; whisk until smooth.

2. Stir in pineapple with juice and 1/3 C of the coconut.  Zest lime to measure 1 tsp zest.  Juice lime to measure 1 tsp juice.  Stir lim zest and juice into dip.  Cover and refrigerate at least 30 minutes before serving.

3. For kebabs, alternately threat fruit onto twenty-four 6-inch wooden skewers.  Spoon dip into serving bowl; sprinkle with remaining coconut.  Serve with kebabs

Tips: To toast coconut, preheat oven to 350F. Spread coconut onto pan.  Bake 10-12 minutes or until light golden brown; cool completely.

Train Birthday Cake

My little guy celebrated his 3rd birthday last week! He is totally obsessed with GeoTrax and really, really wanted a train cake. I tried to persuade him towards an easier cake to make...but he wouldn't be swayed.  So I went on the hunt for a fun and challenging cake.  I wanted to try something new just to see if I could do it.  We're huge fans of Food Network Challenge, where they make all sorts of amazing cakes.  That being said, don't look too closely at my cake as I am no Ace of Cakes by any stretch of the imagination!  But all the time spent making it (at least five hours to put it together....what was I thinking?) was totally worth it because he LOVED it and has been talking about it for days. 

I found a recipe for vanilla cake on allrecipes and used that to make the engine--but it was not a great recipe at all for making this kind of cake.  It didn't come out of the pan well and upon cooling, the edges curled and so when I put the engine together the smoke stacks were pulling away from each other.  So I had to use a lot of frosting to fix that.  I realized this pretty early on and so I looked for a different recipe to use for the cars.  This second recipe was perfect!  It was moist and delicious to eat but also dense enough to cut and make cars out of. 

Vanilla Buttermilk Cake from phe/MOM/enon (see blog for original source)

4 whole large eggs
2 egg yolks
2 tsp of vanilla extract
1 1/4 C buttermilk
3 C cake flour
2 C sugar
4 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
8 oz butter, room temperature

Preheat the oven to 350F degrees.  Butter the bottom and sides of three 8-inch cake pans.  Line with parchment paper and grease the paper.

Place the eggs and the yolks in a medium bowl.  Add the vanilla and 1/4 C of buttermilk and whisk all the ingredient together.  Set aside.

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in the bowl of a mixer; whisk to blend.  Add the remaining buttermilk and butter to the dry ingredients and with the mixer on low speed, blend together.  Raise the mixer to medium speed and beat until light and fluffy; 2 minutes.

Add the egg mixture in three additions, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition.  Divide the batter among the pans.

Bake the cake layers for 28-32 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let the cake layers cool in the pan for 10 minutes.  Turn out the cakes onto a wire rack and remove the paper from the bottoms. Cool completely.

I wish I could say that I thought up this whole cake idea on my own.  No...I'm just good at copying.  I found my inspiration from coolest-birthday-cakes.com. So I put together some different ideas that were shared on that site to come up with this cake.  The train tracks were made from the Keebler chocolated covered wafer cookies, chocolate licorice, and smashed graham crackers put in between the tracks to look like dirt. 

I used the Wilton 3D train engine pan to make the engine.  I then baked two loaf-sized cakes to make the cars.  Here is the buttercream frosting recipe I used:

Buttercream Frosting

1 C unsalted butter
2 T vanilla extract
2 T milk
4 C powdered sugar

This frosting was the perfect consistency for piping.  I then just colored the frostings as I went along (the biggest time sucker). 

I used pretzels to make the bear cage.  I frosted a piece of cardboard cut out to be the same size as the car for the roof of the cage.  I just put the pretzels in the cake and then piped frosting on top of each pretzel and then applied the cardboard roof.  I let the roof sit for a bit and so the frosting on it was already hardening. 


The wheels are made out of oreos.  After the cake was all complete, I frosted the board where I wanted my "dirt" to be and then poured it on and pressed it into the frosting a bit. 

And finally, the light on the front of the engine is an orea with one side of the cookie removed.

Pumpkin Blondies

We were able to get away and go to a cabin as a family this last weekend.  My little brother is moving to North Carolina tomorrow with his wife and brand new baby :(.  So it was our last hoorah before they move.  My uncle has this fabulous cabin where we just relaxed, played games, talked, read books, and ATE lots of good food.

I brought along this recipe to share while we were all together.  I guess it attests to how good they are when we made a trip into the teensy little town nearby to buy more white chocolate chips to make these AGAIN.  We seriously polished off the pan before they had even cooled!  The second pan of blondies had a small sliver that survived to the following morning and we all decided that they were even MORE delicious the second day.  In fact, I'd recommend following the directions (we were just too enticed by their scent while baking) and letting them cool completely before slicing into them.  They were so, so, so delicious!  The white chocolate pairs perfectly with the pumpkin and I'm sure you'll be wanting to make a second batch after you make them, too.

Pumpkin Blondies from Dinner & Dessert (see blog for original source)

2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1 tablespoon pumpkin-pie spice
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 package (12 ounces) white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line bottom and sides of a 9-by-13-inch baking pan with foil, leaving an overhang on all sides. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, pie spice, baking soda, and salt; set aside. With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar on medium-high speed until smooth; beat in egg and vanilla until combined. Beat in pumpkin puree (mixture may appear curdled).  Reduce speed to low, and mix in dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips.

Spread batter evenly in prepared pan. Bake until edges begin to pull away from sides of pan and a toothpick inserted in center comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached, 30 to 40 minutes. Cool completely in pan.

Lift cake from pan (using foil as an aid). Peel off foil, and use a serrated knife to cut into squares.

Tips: I used unsalted butter for the first batch because I had brought it.  However, I only had salted butter for the second batch. I reduced the salt to about 1/4 tsp and we all agreed that there was no difference between the two.

Fresh Fruit Salad

Let me first add the disclaimer that I know this picture is not the greatest.   That being said, it looked much better in real life and tasted great! It is really easy and tastes very light and refreshing. It's one of those salads that you can whip up really quickly and then make the rest of your meal--my kind of salad. I am always looking for quick, flavorful side dishes and this one did not disappoint in any way.  I loved the combination of fruit and the vanilla pudding added just the right amount of sweetness.  I'll for sure be making this one again!

Fresh Fruit Salad from "Worldwide Ward Cookbook"

1-2 C strawberries, sliced
1-2 C seedless grapes
3 bananas, sliced
1 8-oz can mandarin oranges, drained
1 small pkg. instant vanilla pudding mix
1 3/4 C milk

Place fruit in a large bowl (any assorted fruit may be used--grapes, bananas, and strawberries are my favorite).  Add drained oranges.  In a separate bowl, combine pudding with milk.  Whisk well.  Pour the pudding over the fruit and stir.  Refrigerate for about an hour.  Stir before serving.