Texas pecan pie bars (or my-comedy-of-errors-bars)

Texas Pecan Pie Bars

Our church was hosting a group of Habitat for Humanity volunteers for dinner, and I signed up to drop off a dessert.  Easy, right?  It could have been.  It would have been if I’d gone with my first instinct and made sugar cookie bars or snickerdoodle bars.  But then I saw this Texas Pecan Pie Bar recipe in The Pastry Queen cookbook and figured I’d give it a try.  After all, I thought, it feeds a crowd and I bet it’ll be good.

Well, it got rave reviews and it was really good.  Delicious, in fact.  And it does feed a bunch of people.  But, holy cow.  7 cups of brown sugar??  I had to stop in the middle of baking these bad boys and drag the kids to the store with me just to buy more brown sugar!  Yeah, yeah, I should have made sure I had everything first, but one thing you might not know about me is that I’m not one of those organized kitchen people.  I’m kind of like my mom and have gotten used to sending Jim to the store willy-nilly whenever I run out of something.  (Take no offense, Mom, but Charlie really does go to the store more often than any other person on the planet.)

Anyway.  Crazy idea, that’s what this was.

After I finally got everything ready, I decided to use my rimmed cookie sheet instead of a deeper jelly roll pan, because my jelly roll pan is an air bake and I hate those and refuse to use it for anything more than a tray.  (Look!  I’ve resorted to using run-on sentences!!)  So there I was, trying very unsuccessfully to squeeze gobs of pecan filling onto this baking sheet and having no luck whatsoever.  You won’t know what a shame that was until you make these, but I had to throw some of this yummy stuff away.

The last glitch in my plan was the cutting.  I was reading a side-note of this recipe about how nice it is to cut your bars into diamonds instead of plain old squares.  Hmph.  Yeah, right.  I tell the folks in my book club all the time that I’m “cutting challenged” because none of my treats ever come out in equal pieces.  (If you possess that gift, I would love to know your secret.)  But there I was, planning to feed hard-working volunteers I don’t even know and I picked that moment to try cutting diamond shapes.  What was I thinking?!  They were the most pitiful looking diamond shapes you’ll ever see.

In spite of my comedy of errors, I’m giving you this recipe because it really is delicious and because I’m sure you’ll learn from my mistakes.  1.) Check your pantry for brown sugar and lots of it.  2.)  Use a deep jelly roll pan.  3.)  Cut these darn bars into good old-fashioned squares.  You’ll be glad you did.

Recipe:  Texas Pecan Pie Bars

(from The Pastry Queen cookbook)

Crust:

1 1/2 c. unsalted butter (3 sticks)

1 c. firmly packed light brown sugar

4 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. salt

Filling:

8 large eggs

6 c. firmly packed light brown sugar

1/4 bourbon, optional

6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

2 Tbsp. vanilla extract

1 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. salt

2 c. sweetened, flaked coconut

2 c. pecan halves

To make the crust:  Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 12×17″ baking pan with butter or cooking spray.  Beat butter in a large bowl on medium speed for about 1 minute.  Add sugar and beat one minute, until fluffy.  Add flour and salt; beat on low speed until combined but still crumbly.  Press the mixture evenly over bottom of prepared pan.  Bake the crust for about 15 minutes, until it has turned a deep golden brown.  Leave oven temperature at 350, but remove baking pan from oven.

To make the filling:  Whisk the eggs and sugar in a large bowl until blended.  Stir in bourbon, butter, vanilla, flour, and salt.  Add coconut and pecans.  Pour the filling over the crust, spreading evenly.  Bake until set, about 25 minutes.  Cool thoroughly on wire rack.

Italian cookies

Italian Cookies

I don’t know a lot about these cookies or why they’re called Italian cookies.  I know I didn’t have anise extract (and I don’t like the flavor of anise anyway) so I used vanilla instead.  I found the cookies to be a little on the drab side, so with that in mind, after two big trays of vanilla flavored cookies, I folded in some mini chocolate chips and made two big trays of those.  I prefer the ones with the chocolate chips in them, but I like the fun of the sprinkles on the vanilla cookies.  And the kids seemed to love them both because they sure disappeared in record time.

I really don’t think I’ll be baking these again.  Sorry, creator of the Italian cookie.  Nothing personal, but it was too tedious rolling all those tiny little balls of dough, then having to dip each cookie individually into the glaze.  I just don’t feel like I got a big enough payoff in flavor.  Granted, the fault was probably mine by not using anise extract in the first place, so if you like the flavor of anise, I’d say give it a try and let me know how you like them.  I bet they just needed that stronger flavor to turn them into a keeper, because they got great reviews over at Tasty Kitchen.

Recipe:  Italian Cookies

1/2 c. butter

1/4 c. vegetable shortening

3/4 c. granulated sugar

4 eggs

3 c. all-purpose flour

5 tsp. baking powder  (Yes, you really want 5 tsp.)

1/2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. anise extract ~ vanilla or lemon extract are other options

Glaze:

2 c. confectioner’s sugar, sifted

2-4 Tbsp. milk

Cookies:

Melt butter and shortening together.  Add the sugar; mix well.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Mix in the anise extract.

Sift or whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.  Add to creamed mixture gradually.  If the dough is too sticky to roll in the palm of your hand, add flour until firmer, but the dough should still be very soft.

Roll the dough in small ball and place on ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes.  The bottom should be lightly browned and the top.  (I found this time/temp. overcooked my first batch, so I baked the rest at 350 degrees for 6 minutes and they were perfectly baked.) Remove cookies to wire rack to cool completely before glazing.

Glaze:

Mix milk gradually into confectioner’s sugar and whisk to make a thick glaze.  Dip the top of each cookie into glaze and sprinkle with jimmies or nonpareils while still wet.

Makes about 100 cookies if you roll 1/2″ balls.

Put a lid on it

It’s Eco-Friendly Friday!

The next time you’re boiling a pot of water, put a lid on it.  Not only will your water boil faster, but you’ll save energy too.  Using a lid when cooking reduces the amount of heat escaping from your pot.  Of course we all know that.  If you keep that heat contained, you shorten the cooking time, thereby reducing the amount of energy needed to cook your food.  It’s good for you and the environment!

Blackberry pudding

Blackberry Pudding with Whipped Cream

While the name might sound a little weird, this dessert can turn you into a big fan in a hurry.  First of all, it’s so easy to make!  Mix up a little batter, drop some berries all over it, then top it with sugar and boiling water.  Granted, it looks like it’s never gonna turn into anything you’d want to eat, but give it a little baking time and it’s gonna knock your socks off.

I suspect this would be delicious using any kind of berries, and I’d like to try it with blueberries next.  When I make it again, I’m going to really pile in the berries… I’d probably double them, actually.  This was incredibly juicy, but after cooling off and some time in the fridge, the juice turned into this thick pudding mixture.  It was mighty yummy.

Recipe:  Blackberry Pudding

1 1/2 – 2 c. granulated sugar, divided ~ depending on the sweetness of your berries, you can use more or less sugar

1/3 c. unsalted butter, softened slightly

2 c. all-purpose flour, sifted

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 c. milk

2 c. blackberries, fresh or frozen

2 c. boiling water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream 1 cup of sugar with the butter until fluffy.  Add the flour, baking powder, salt, and milk; mix well.  Pour into a glass baking dish.  (I used a deep 1 1/2 quart casserole dish.)  Pour blackberries on top of batter.  Boil 2 cups of water.  Add 1 cup of sugar to boiling water and pour over berries.  Bake approximately 50 minutes or until top is golden brown.  Allow to cool.

Chocolate pretzel bars

My kids are back in school and I think I’m handling my baby starting kindergarten pretty well.  No tears from either of us, and Sam was pretty sweet to her at the bus stop this morning.  I think I’ll get used to the quiet and I might start having long conversations with the cats, but otherwise I reckon I’ll be okay after a couple days.  I did treat myself to a Starbucks this morning and spent several hours organizing and rearranging my cupboards, but hey.  I really will get used to this, right?

I figured today would be a good day to post a “kids in the kitchen” sort of recipe.  The kids and I made a batch of these chocolate pretzel bars the other day.  It’s a good kid-friendly recipe with a lot of things for them to help with.

It turned out okay, but I’m thinking maybe I ought to have learned from the potato chip brownies to just add a sprinkling of sea salt to the recipe, instead of trying to get my salt/chocolate fix by putting snack foods in my baked goods.  The texture that they takes on is just not appealing to me.  The chips and the pretzels both ended up tasting pretty much the same, though the base of this one is much tastier than the potato chip brownies.

Recipe:  Chocolate Pretzel Bars

(from Food and Wine)

2 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

1 c. light brown sugar, packed

1/2 c. granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

12 – ounce bag of bittersweet chocolate chips  (We used dark chocolate candy bars that the kids chopped up.)

1 1/2 c. pretzels, broken into small pieces

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a 9×13″ baking pan with foil, allowing overhang on the ends.  In a bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, and salt.  In another bowl, using a mixer, beat the butter with both sugars at medium speed until light.  Beat in eggs and vanilla.  At low speed, beat in dry ingredients.  Stir in chips and pretzels.

Spread batter in pan.  Bake for 30 minutes or until golden; the center should still be a little gooey.  Transfer to a rack and let cool completely.  Lift bars out of pan with foil.  Cut into 24 squares.

Blackberry ice cream and blackberry lime sorbet

Would you just look at this beautiful bounty?  We found a pick-your-own berry farm this week and we picked and picked and picked.  This is what we came home with…. about 10 pounds of gorgeous berries, a lot of pink fingers, and my mind reeling about what I could do with it all.  The farm we went to has row after row of red raspberries and thornless blackberries.  The blackberries are huge.  Check out that photo of Claudia holding them in her hand!

We’ve been freezing a lot of the berries, we gave some away, and I still had bowls and bowls to eat and bake with.  The first thing I decided to do was get the ice cream maker out.  We did a little taste comparison between blackberry ice cream and blackberry lime sorbet.  Hands-down, the ice cream is the winner.  It is incredibly good.  So delicious and smooth, with just a little kick of sour cream.  I liked it so much I’ve actually made it twice already.

The blackberry lime sorbet definitely has some potential, but we found the lime a little too strong.  In fact, Sam said it was really good but made him pucker.  : )  He’s a good little foodie.  I was really looking for more of the berries to come through in the sorbet, so I was disappointed at just how overpowering the citrus was.  I really liked how the photo turned out though ~ I love the color.

Here are both recipes.  You can use fresh or frozen berries for these, so crank up the ice cream maker and have your own taste test.

Recipe:  Blackberry Ice Cream

(from Southern Food)

2 heaping cups of blackberries

1 c. granulated sugar

1 1/2 Tbsp. lemon juice

1 1/2 c. heavy cream

1/2 c. sour cream  (I’ve made this with full-fat and light sour cream, and they both worked great.)

In a saucepan over medium heat, cook blackberries, sugar, and lemon juice until sugar is dissolved and berries are soft.  Cool berries to room temperature or place pot in a big bowl of ice water to cool them down faster. Put berry mixture in a blender and puree.  Pour puree through a fine mesh sieve to remove seeds.  Return mixture to the blender, along with heavy cream and sour cream.  Pulse until combined.  Chill thoroughly before adding to ice cream machine.  When chilled, freeze in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions.

Recipe:  Blackberry Lime Sorbet

(seen at Annie’s Eats, adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz)

3/4 c. sugar

3/4 c. water

4 c. blackberries

3/4 c. freshly squeezed lime juice

splash of tequila (optional)

In a small saucepan, bring the sugar and water to a boil, stirring, until the sugar is dissolved.  Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Puree blackberries in a blender or food processor with the sugar syrup.  Press mixture through a mesh sieve to remove seeds, then stir the lime juice into the sweetened puree.  Add a splash of tequila, if desired.

Chill mixture thoroughly, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions.

Back to school kid craft

Everywhere you go this month, you see loads of back-to-school gear.  Pencil boxes, backpacks, lunchboxes, notebooks.  Why not let your kiddos create some one-of-a-kind school supplies?  It’s easy and they’ll love tucking these notebooks into their backpacks on the first day of school.

Here’s what you need:

• composition notebook   (I found these at Target for .25.)
• paper cutter  (You can also trace the notebook and cut the paper out with scissors.)
• 3 pieces of scrapbook paper in the patterns of your child’s choice   (12×12″ or 8.5×11″)
• glue stick
• ruler
• stickers
• corner rounder paper punch  (You could round the corners with scissors if you don’t have a corner rounder.)

Directions:

1. Choose which paper will be on the front cover.  Measure your composition book and cut the paper to fit.  (I cut ours 7″ x 9 11/16″.)  Don’t worry about it not going all the way to the binding, because you will be making a “binding” of your own.
2. When paper is cut, round the two outer corners.  Adhere to front of notebook using glue stick.
3. Follow the same instructions to do the back cover.
4. Cut a 4″ x 9 11/16″  strip of paper for the binding.  Glue around the binding of the composition book.
5. Decorate with stickers.

Eco-friendly Fridays

I’ve been noticing that my blog has kind of been taken over by my kitchen.  That wasn’t what I intended when Bea and I first started blogging, so I’m trying to get back to my roots, so to speak.  Welcome to Eco-Friendly Fridays.

I really do a lot more in “one ordinary day” than bake.  I know, I know… you’re shocked, aren’t you?  But let me hang up that Super Mom cape you thought I was wearing and come back down to earth.  I really don’t bake every day.  I also don’t do laundry every day or crafts with my kids or any of those things I’d do if I really was Super Mom.  But I do make an effort to be “green” every day.  Maybe it’s just recycling or taking my own shopping bags to the grocery store.  Maybe it’s combining my errands so I’m not driving all over town three different times.  Or buying Fair Trade coffee instead of the name brand.  Any and all of those little things help me and my family become a little “greener.”  That’s a really good thing.

So I decided to dub Friday as Eco-Friendly Friday.  I’m going to try to share some little tip or cool site with you every week.  Maybe you can hitch your green wagon to mine and we can do this together.  One little step at a time.

Let’s start with water.  The bottled version vs. tap water.  Which camp are you from?  Take a look at this:

Corn, tomato, and cucumber salad

Corn and Tomato Salad

I’ve been the lucky recipient of a beautiful abundance of roma tomatoes this week and some of them found their way into this corn and tomato salad.  It took only a few minutes to toss it together, and was a refreshing side dish.  The freshness of the lime doesn’t shine through until the ingredients have been together a while, so give it at least an hour in the fridge before you’re going to serve it.

Recipe:  Corn and Tomato Salad

3 Tbsp. olive oil

2 tsp. fresh lime juice

1 tsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

few grinds from the pepper mill, to taste (about 1/4 tsp.)

1/4 c. minced fresh basil

2 c. fresh or frozen corn kernels  (If using frozen corn, thaw first.)

2 c. chopped tomatoes

1 c. chopped cucumber  (I did peel mine because it was a garden cucumber.  If I’d had an English cucumber, I wouldn’t have peeled it.)

In the bottom of your serving bowl, whisk together the first 6 ingredients.  Add corn, tomatoes, and cucumber and stir gently to combine.  Refrigerate until serving.

Hot dog octopus

Hot Dog Octopus

Dani’s little girl is having a birthday soon and since she’s getting interested in being in the kitchen, what better gift to come from Aunt Shell than a fun cookbook and a pretty little apron?  When Sam and I were looking through the book, the first thing that interested him was the hot dog octopus.  Naturally, he wanted one for dinner.  Goofy, eh?  And I don’t mind saying, a little gross ~ boiled hot dogs are just not for me.  That’s okay though cause both my kids thought it was awesome.

I’m sure you’ve seen this around.  You lay the hot dog on a cutting board and slice one half of it into eight “legs.”  When boiled in water, the legs get all curly.  Add some mustard eyes and voila…. a hot dog octopus.