Happy Day Cake with Coffee Icing

If I knew you were coming I'd a' baked a cake...baked a cake..

There's no special occasion or birthday today. 

We just like cake!

I'm glad to share my version of Grandma Hylton's Happy Day Cake.

Happy Day Cake with Coffee Icing

Preheat oven: 375 degrees

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 45-60 minutes (approximately)

Ingredients:

2 Cups Self-Rising flour(sifted)

3 Teaspoons Baking Powder

1 Teaspoon Salt

1 1/3 Cup Shortening(I use Crisco Butter Flavored)

1 Cup Milk

2 Teaspoon Vanilla flavoring

2 Eggs

Directions:

1. Sift all dry ingredients into mixer bowel.

2. Add shortening and 2/3 of milk, then add vanilla.

3. Beat 1 minute on low speed.(I use speed 2 with Kitchen Aid)

4. Add remaining milk and eggs, beat 30 seconds. Stop & scrape bowl.

5. Beat 1 minute  on high(I use speed 6 with Kitchen Aid)

6. Pour batter into prepared pan.

7. Bake 375 degrees for 50 minutes or until cake pulls away from pan.

Coffee Icing

Ingredients:

2 Cups Confectioner's Sugar

1/4 Cup Margarine(softened)

1 teaspoon Vanilla flavoring

3 Tablespoons of Strong Coffee

Directions:

1. Cream  sugar into margarine.

 2. Add vanilla and coffee creaming until smooth.

Turkey Dumpling Casserole

This Turkey Dumpling Casserole Recipe is a delicious remedy for leftover turkey.

Turkey can be so under appreciated but it's as delicious as you choose and many times it is the forgotten meat. After the holiday's, many grocers  will have deep markdowns on the excess turkey they have in stock, making it the frugal cook's  choice.

Turkey Dumpling Casserole

Prep Time:1 hour and 30 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
* Prep Time is to indicate approximately and hour to stew the turkey off the bone and 30 minutes to prepare your dumpling's.
*Cook Time indicates the time casserole is baked in the oven.

Preheat oven at 400 degrees

Ingredients:

Leftover Turkey on the Bone(you could substitute chicken or boneless turkey)

1 Can Chicken broth

16 ounce bag of frozen Peas & Carrots (2 cans of Peas & Carrots)

2 Cups Self-Rising Flour

1/3 Cup Shortening

1 Cup Milk

2 Teaspoons Pepper plus a dash for the top

1 Teaspoon Salt

4. Directions:

1. Remove meat from bone.

2. Cover bone and meat with water in a large pot. Bring to a rolling boil for approximately 1 hour or until all the meat has fell off the bone. 

                  

While turkey is boiling prepare your dumplings.

3. Place 2 cups of flour in a large mixing bowl.

4. Cut-in shortening.

5. Make a well in flour.

6. Slowly add milk until flour will follow fork around bowl. You might not need the entire cup of milk. If you have left over milk save it to add to your dumpling mixture later.

7. Roll out dumplings and cut into small rectangles.

8. Remove turkey pot from heat and let cool. Remove bone and any skin or unappealing gristle from pot.

9. Return pot to heat bring back to a rolling boil.

10. Add broth, salt, pepper, peas and carrots. Also add any remaining milk but let milk come to room temperature and pour in slowly while stirring.

11. Add dumplings to pot a little at a time. I add about a row that I've cut out then gently push them down into mixture so they cook a little. When they float back to the top, I add another row until all my dumplings are in the pot.

12. Simmer at low to medium-low for 2 -3 minutes.

13. Pour into 9 x 13" casserole dish. Move dumplings around evenly in dish. Pepper top of casserole.

14. Bake 45 minutes.

    

Delicious!

A Pawn of Southern Cornbread

Southern Cornbread

In the south, some foods just call for a golden pawn of cornbread

&

this is how I do it!

Nothing much beats bread out of a wood cookstove. If you are going to use your woodstove get your fire going good & hot before mixing up your cornbread. 

In my opinion, it takes a hot oven to bake a good pawn of bread.

If you will be cooking this in your regular electric stove go ahead;

  Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

After, I have gathered my ingredients

Ingredients:

2 Cup Corn Meal Mix

1/2 Cup Flour

1 Teaspoon Salt

1 Egg

1 Cup Milk

1/3 Cup Oil(for cornmeal mixture)

3 Tablespoons oil for skillet

 I heat a stove eye a little past medium while I mix my ingredients together and pour enough oil in my pan to well cover the bottom of your skillet letting it get hot on the eye before pouring your batter into your pan.

We like the bottom golden and crusty!

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 30 or until bread is a golden brown color

Direction:

1. Combine all dry ingredients.

2. Stir with wisk.

3. Stir in egg.

4. Add milk. If mixture is too thick add a little tap water until batter is thin enough to pour.

5. Pour batter into oiled skillet. Cut heat to skillet off and let batter set on eye 1-2 minutes.

6. Bake in oven for approximately 30 minutes or until golden brown.

If you begin smelling your bread check it may be done.

Smellin' Good!

Many times I leave my cornbread in the pan and serve it from there.

If you want to turn it out onto a serving plate take a serrated knife and trim the top even

 so as to set on the plate nicely.

Oh yum! Cornbread's Callin!

Are you on cereal burn-out?

How about trying an alternative to the usual bowl of cereal and splash of milk!

You might even gather a little more nutrition 

&

exchange it for excitement!

I have always tried to offer a little variety to my children's breakfast but even changing up between a boxed-cereal, oatmeal,  poptarts or pastry, and the an egg here and there, their weekday breakfast can quickly go boring and stale. 

As I was hoping to retrain myself on some healthier habit(I'm usually a breakfast skipper) I picked up a tub of yogurt and a box of granola and placed it in the grocery cart when I asked what they would be wanting for their morning breakfast for the week they eyed my yogurt and granola in jealousy. I then asked them if they would really eat it; they nodded wholeheartedly.
&
They have! They love it! 
I think they think there getting dessert for breakfast.

Let me give you my super simple recipe....

Boo Berry Cereal~Alternative

Prep Time: 2 minutes (maybe if that much)

Ingredients:

French Vanilla Yogurt 

Granola cereal 

Blueberry topping

Directions:

1. We've started ours with placing 3 heaping tablespoons of yogurt in the bowl.

2. Top with granola and a tablespoon of blueberry topping.

3. Fold over gently.

There's nothing left but the eatin'!

I'm no nutritionist but this meal can boast no preservatives.

Have checked out the ingredients to you children's favorite cereals?

Hambone Stew~Crockpot Style

This cold & rainy day is just a callin' for soup.

There's a ham bone in the fridge that's still got a good bit of meat left on it. He seem like the perfect beginning for my stew for today.

Soup and Stew are basically the same thing. I call mine stew when it's loaded with meat and has been simmered to a thick creamy consistency. I generally prefer a stew in the cooler weather. Thinner soups I consider better on those warmer days.

Hambone Stew

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 8 hours

Total Time: 8 hours 15 minues

Yields: 8 servings

Ingredients:

Ham or leftover ham bone~ I'll be cutting as much meat off the bone as possible. I like mine to be nice                                         bite size chunks. 

Potatoes~5-6

1 onion

1 Cup of Rice

1 can green beans~I use a short cut smaller bean. I don't want to see a soup full of green beans

2 cloves minced garlic

1 Tablespoon Black Pepper

1 Tablespoon Ground Cumin

1 Teaspoon Ground Allspice

Directions:

1. Cut ham into bite-size chunks. Place chunks and ham bone into crockpot. Covering with water.

2. Turn  temperature to high.

3. Place remaining ingredients in pot.

4. Simmer 8 hours. Remove bone before serving. Salt to taste.

Do enjoy a bowl of Hambone Stew!

Toasted Mozzarella French Toast

This isn't hardly a recipe at all 

but 

a nice bowl of chili just calls for a good piece of bread.

cook time: less than 10 minutes

Ingredients:

Loaf of fresh french bread

8 oz. shredded mozzarella cheese

a dash of parsley

Preheat oven on broil

Directions:

1. Cut bread long ways, down the middle.

2. Cover bread with shredded cheese & a dash of parsley

3. Toast until golden and bubbly.

White Chicken Chili

It is the season for chili!

Are you looking for a different twist on one of the seasons favorites?

Maybe, you should give White Chicken Chili a try.

&

It's oh so easy!

Prep time: approximately 10 minutes.

Cook time: at least 30 but the longer this simmers the better it gets

Ingredients:

2 Large cans  Great Northern Beans(40.5 oz)

1 can Chili Ready dices Tomatoes

2-3 lbs. fresh Chicken Breast(diced)

1/3 Cup chili powder

1 clove of garlic or Knorr's mini garlic cube

1 Tablespoon chopped onion or Knorr's mini onion cube

1 Teaspoon Salt

1 Teaspoon Pepper

1 Habenaro Pepper or Jalapeno Pepper(chopped, no seeds) 

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Directions:

1. Pour beans and tomatoes into large pot.

2. Bring to a rolling boil.

3. Add chili powder, onion, salt and pepper. Reduce heat to a simmer.

4. In a skillet brown cubed chicken and habenaro pepper in 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

5. Put browned chicken mixture into your pot of beans.

6. Simmer for about 30 minutes.

Around here chili requires Frito corn chips & a dollop of sour cream.

This White Chicken Chili is wonderful with Toasted Mozzarella French Bread.

Go ahead and toss a little mozzarella in the chili while you're at it.

Oh yum...eat up!