Real Women Eat

Sauteed Shrimp

2011-06-29T16:17:00.000-03:00

Last night we revisited some old recipes! I had a bag of shrimp in the freezer and all the spices were in the cupboard so it was a no-brainer. I love this dish. Saucy gave me this recipe over 20 years ago (hmmm I wonder if she remembers...) I hope you'll like it as well. It's really simple. Serve this over rice and add a vegetable and you're good to go.

Shrimp Saute
1 lb (I used 2!!) shrimp
1/4 cup butter
2 TBSP lemon juice
1 tsp parsley flakes
1 tsp chives
1/2 tsp tarragon leaves
1/2 tsp dry mustard
3/4 tsp season all (personally, I think it should be less, but you be the judge)
1/8 tsp Cayenne pepper
1 tsp garlic powder

Shell and devein the shrimp.
Melt butter in skillet, add lemon juice and seasonings.
Saute shrimp in hot herb butter over medium heat, about 8 minutes, or until pink.
Serve hot and over rice.

Additional notes:

I didn't use the Cayenne pepper in this dish last night, and I think I prefer it without now.

If you don't have fresh shrimp, it's perfectly ok to use the (thawed) frozen, pre-cooked kind. Just adjust your times to accommodate..you want to eat shrimp, not rubber.

Enjoy!
and if you do try this dish, come back and tell me how you liked it!

Confessions of a Sloppy Kitchen Cabinet

2011-05-03T00:56:00.000-03:00

Ok, it's true confessions time. I'm going to let you peak into my before/after pics. I was up to here with pans falling out of the cabinet! I had been neglecting this cabinet because due to a death in my husband's family, family commitments of my own, and just running around like a chicken-with-my-head-cut-off lately, this had been ignored. Oh, I still was baking and cooking, and of course cleaning the dishes, but as for putting them away in an organized fashion... well, look for your self

I must really like you to be showing you this!

What makes matters worse, that's about all the kitchen cabinet space I have! (well, I have cabinets higher up, but those are for dishes)

First, I had to pull everything out. Thank goodness I have a fairly long counter space (again, that's about all the space I have)

(and yes, I DO need that many cookie sheets) LOL

Now that it's all out on the counter, I start weeding through things I haven't used, but thought it necessary to buy at one point. Snapped pics of 'em with my iphone and texted some other ladies to ask if they had a use for these things. Got their quick responses and went straight to my car (and put them in batches) in my trunk to deliver. Out of sight, out of mind, ya know.

Cleaned out the cabinets, wiped 'em down really well and back in they go!

There you have it. I feel a bit better now. At least I'm not afraid to open the cabinet doors now. How about you? Do you dare share your kitchen cabinet insides? Leave a comment below. I showed you mine...

SMOTHERED SWISS STEAK

2011-04-27T22:36:00.000-03:00

We're Baaaaack !

Before I get to the recipe, let me issue an apology... Sorry to have ignored you for so long! I hope to be better ...starting now! I have been posting recipes, but on my other blog, Sweet Jeanette. And that's just wrong. This is the site for food, right? So, in an effort of good will (clearing throat), I intend to mend my ways with food. Forgiven? Good!

For dinner tonight I made Smothered Swiss Steak. This was nothing less than awesome. (don't be grossed out by the Brussels sprouts on the plate, and don't hate me. I like 'em!)

Smothered Swiss Steak

1/2 tsp salt

6 cube steaks (about 4 oz each)

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp pepper

1-2 TBSP garlic powder

5 TBSP olive oil

1 large onion diced

1 green pepper, diced

1 (14.5 oz) can petite diced tomatoes

1 (12 oz) cola (I used Coke Zero because that's what I had on hand)

1 TBSP beef bouilon granules

2 TBSP Heinz ketchup

1 envelope dry onion gravy mix, or dry onion soup mix.

Sprinkle salt evenly on both sides of cube steaks. Combine flour, pepper and garlic powder in a gallon size zipper type bag. Shake the steaks in the bag to coat with flour.

Brown steaks (two at a time) in hot oil - abt. 3-4 minutes on each side. When all steaks are browned, drain drippings reserving 1 TBSP oil in pan.

Saute' onion and bell pepper in drippings for about 7 minutes, or until tender.

Add diced tomatoes, cola, beef bouilon granules and ketchup. Bring to a boil and cook until slightly thickened (about 5-6 minutes)

Return steaks to the skillet and cook for 55-60 minutes, or until tender.

Enjoy!

I would love to hear back from you if you try this! The cola makes it really tender.

Blackened pork chops

2011-01-18T19:32:00.004-04:00

Hello out there,
Can ya guess who this is? Well I haven't posted since, gee forever. I have done some cooking since our last cook n critique. Some good stuff and well some not so good stuff. God bless him, Daddy bear (as Cupcake calls him) will say, did you like it, when I've fixed something new and he doesn't want to hurt my feelings.

Well tonight I decided to blacken some pork chops. Don't know how that got in my head but it did and I went for it. Sorry I didn't take pictures. I did take pictures of some bread I made. I'll see if I can get them on here. It turned out pretty good. Only thing we didn't eat the second loaf fast enough and I had to throw it out. Moldy bread is not very appetizing.

Ok back to the pork chops. I didn't make a fancy rub or anything, just sprinkled them liberally with Emeril's Bayou Blast. Then I heated my cast iron skillet with olive oil and butter till the butter was turning brown. Add the pork chops for 4 to 5 minutes on each side and there you have them. Not to shabby. They were moist and tasty. Now comes the fun part. I wear glasses so you can imagine the mess on them. Then there is the glass surface of my stove not to mention the surrounding countertop. Also, I don't have a fan or vent with my stove so the whole house has a kind of greasy haze. How will I get it off the ceiling? My suggestion here is if you don't have a vent or fan to use while cooking save the blackening for the restaurants. It was good but wow the clean up. Guess I'd better get at it.
Note to self. Why not use the splatter guards you bought for frying pans? They work when cooking bacon! It's good sharing with you again. Take good care of yourselves.

Oh, by the way Cupcake is getting married.

Red Velvet Bon-Bons

2010-12-27T15:04:00.000-04:00

About 5...(or was it 8??? ) years ago I bought a cook book from QVC all because of these. Red Velvet Bon-Bons. You won't believe how incredibly easy they are! The only "hard" part is dipping all these balls into chocolate, and that's because I hate the tediousness of it. I made them one year for the Christmas Eve get-together my family has. All the family, cousins, aunts, uncles, in-laws, and immediate family gather on Christmas Eve for food and games. Ever since, these are "expected" to be there. (Last year I made something different. Boy! You would've thought I had told them there was no Santa this year.

So, if you've never had, or heard, of Red Velvet BonBons, I'm going to share with you now.

All you need is
A box of red velvet cake mix (You could make it from scratch, but why?)
Container of cream cheese frosting
Chocolate for dipping I used almond bark and candy melts

Bake the cake according to package directions. Crumble it up in a large bowl and add the container of frosting. Mush and goosh it all together. (That's the fun part!)
put in the frige to chill (making it easier to handle) a couple of hours
Roll into balls. Don't get OC about this, just make the balls however big you want 'em.
Put the balls onto a wax paper lined cookie sheet and put in freezer for an hour...or two.

When the chocolate is melted, pop 'em out of the freezer. Dip in the chocolate onto another wax paper lined cookie sheet. (I used a toothpick to spear the balls and dip into the chocolate.

That's it! Now go and impress!

NOTE: You can probably notice in the pic that I used milk chocolate on half of 'em, and dark chocolate on the other half.

New Recipe!

2010-10-04T11:34:00.000-03:00

Hey y'all! I just posted a recipe on my other blog "Sweet Jeanette" for these little delights! Come over and get the recipe! You start out with a yellow cake mix!

Peanut Butter Fudge - the easiest!

2010-09-04T18:30:00.000-03:00

Hey y'all! Sweet Jeanette here. I made some fudge yesterday, tweeted about it it and got questions so I thought I'd share here on Real Women Eat instead of Sweet Jeanette!

This is so embarrassingly easy that I call it "stupid easy" ! Really, you're not gonna believe it!
Here's what you'll need....

uh huh. That's all.

Just make sure it's equal amounts.

Put in a bowl and microwave for a few seconds (enough to make soft but not liquify)

Stir together. If you find it's not stirring very well, you can nuke a few more seconds...but no more!

Pour into a pan (I used an 8 x 8 inch silicone pan)

Oh! Before you pour into the pan you can add nuts if you'd like...I didn't in this one.

I let it sit out on the counter to harden, and then when I couldn't wait any longer, stuck it in the frige. Up to you, how you let it harden. It won't get super-hard though.

And y'all, seriously, that's it!

2010-09-01T13:07:00.000-03:00

Hey there! I just posted a recipe on my other blog Sweet Jeanette. You've just gotta go over there and get that recipe! You're gonna thank me! It's a Milky Way Cake.

Enjoy!

Saturday "Field Trip"

2010-07-28T15:43:00.000-03:00

This month, instead of doing our Cook-n-Critique© we decided a field trip was in order!

Our field trip was to Hyde Park in Tampa, FL.

(Hyde Park Village)

While there, we slipped inside Williams-Sonoma. Whoopie! They were having a sale in the back. Where do you think we made a bee line towards?! Right, you don't even need three guesses do you?

And I've been wanting to go to Anthropology for e-ver! Since it was right across the street, we all went in and just had to drool over the cute aprons!

(of course I was drawn to the cupcake apron!)

The sales clerk even took our picture with them!

(I'm in the back in red)

D-licious had told us about the Greenwise Publix grocery store in Hyde Park and we were excited! You see, this Publix was a two story grocery store! I'm pretty sure it's the ONLY two story grocery store in Hillsborough County (Florida), and we just had to see this! Do you know of any around you?

I wish I had taken pictures of their prepared foods section! It was so pretty, and they made smoothies, latte's.... I was in heaven! But as you can see, I was enthralled with the "two story-ness" of it all!

When you park in the garage, you're on the second story anyway. Everything is to convenient. That escalator was so long (maybe it's I've gotten used to the department store elevators, but I'm just sayin'!)

(yes, they're leaving me)

Did you wonder how ya get your cart up the escalator after you're done shopping?

Now, isn't that the coolest thing?!?

Ok, maybe I just don't get out that much, but I was floored!

Then..... lunch time! One of my fave places.

Complimentary muffins are brought to the able (our favorite was the banana nut ones)

(between you and me, I could've made just as good of a blueberry muffin if I would've opened a box of Jiffy muffin mix - but we'll keep that between us, ok? )

We decided to each order something different so we could all try each other's choices. I'll give my impression, but let the others tell you their thoughts in another post. How's that?

I had the crabcake salad

I fell in love with the dressing! I wish I had that recipe!

oh! and we all had the fried green tomatoes

I'm not a fan of horseradish so the dipping sauce was the only thing left on this plate!

The tomatoes could've used some salt, but they were just the right amount of acid. The kind you'd expect from a green tomato!

Buttercream isn't as adventurous as the rest of us, so she just created her own combo plate of shrimp and crab cake. It was quite tasty!

Cupcake had this sandwich. I can't remember what it is called, but it was made of grilled scallops.

D-Licious had a crabcake sandwich

I really enjoyed it. (smile)

And, last but not least, Saucy had this grilled portabello and brie sandwich! YUM

If I had to name a "winner", while D-Licious' crabcake sandwich was really good, Saucy's grilled portabello and brie sandwich was, hands down, my favorite! I would definitely order this the next time I'm there!

oh, and provided I have a full salt shaker, the fried green tomatoes!

Well, there you have it. Our "field trip". It was oppressively hot and I thought I'd pass out from the heat while shopping in Hyde Park, it was a fun day with my friends who are also my family! Cupcake said that Hyde Park is really pretty dressed up for Christmas. I think I can see another field trip in December! LOL

Cupcakes back.....and she made Hamballs!

2010-06-19T16:00:00.006-03:00

Whew, I've been a bit absent these past few critiques but all is well and here I am back with hamballs! I picked this recipe because it won 1st place in the Taste of Home contest and I wanted to be the real judge!! First I will say this was an exceptionally easy recipe! They hardest part of it was finding plain ground pork and not already seasoned pork ready to be made into sausage. I used cooked ham and ground it up with my food processor (the new love of my life btw!) and mixed everything together.

It is a pretty mushy consistency, not like ground beef meatballs, so I was a bit thrown off. I was also worried because the meat mixture didn't call for any seasoning. I used my handy cookie scoop to make the balls.

The sauce had to be cooked but that only took a few minutes because all you had to do was dissolve the brown sugar. (After tasting the hamballs I figured out why no seasoning....soy sauce! I even used the low sodium type and it was plenty of salt for the hamballs)

The rest was a cinch....just pour the sauce over the hamballs and bake. That's pineapple chunks in the sauce if you were wondering. The recipe is for an entree so they suggest serving it with white rice. Personally and the rest of the Real Women agreed, I think this recipe would be awesome as an appetizer instead of an entree. The rice didn't add to the dish and after baking there wasn't enough sauce to really put any on the rice.
Overall, we all agreed this was a 5 spoon recipe! I am excited to replace the same old meatballs in sweet n sour sauce with these! I am going to work on a new name though.....hamballs?! Just doesn't sound right to me :)

YUM

2010-06-10T10:46:00.002-03:00

Hello out there,
Just a little update. This Saturday we will be getting together for our June, Cook-N-Critique© . Cupcake and I will be the hostesses. Is that spelled right? Anywho, we are so looking forward to seeing the rest of our group and sharing what recipes inspired them. Got any ideas what we might be cooking up this time? You'll have to wait and see.
By the way since I'm talking about cooking, last night I cooked up some good ole comfort food. If you're not southern you might not appreciate what I prepared. When you're needing some comfort you can't do much better than conk peas with fried corn bread for sopping up the pot liquor, fried green tomatoes and fresh corn cut off the cob and sauted in bacon grease and butter. Of course you crumble the bacon on top of the corn before serving. I will say we were all completely comforted. The recipes for the fried green tomatoes and the fried corn are from the Blue Willow Inn cookbook. You don't need a recipe for conk peas. Just boil them with enough water to cover them well, some salt and of course fatback or bacon grease. mmmmmm, mmmmmmm good. Are ya hungry yet? I might have to see if I have some leftovers.
Have a great day and happy cooking.
Saucy

MUY BIEN/Very good

2010-06-03T19:55:00.002-03:00

Ahhh where do I start. It has taken me quite some time to be able to write my critique. You see when Cupcake and I left our house on our way to D-Licious house I started feeling pretty icky. I thought I'll be fine. Just let me get with my ladies and laugh and share and eat and I will be fine. Well, so much for wishful thinking. I will say all the food I tried was bueno. With the exception of my dish. It was just so so. Cheddar Chile potatoes. They were very easy to make, well except I was supposed to half the potatoes scoop out the guts, mix it with the sour cream, green chiles, butter and cheddar cheese and put it back into the potato half. Guess what? They ended up looking like mashed potatoes topped with cheese because the potato skins were so soft they caved in and wouldn't hold any shape. Maybe I should have baked them without foil. hmmmm.Oh yeah they needed way more salt than called for. That's the way potatoes are. I didn't get to try Sweet Jeanette's dessert. I was laying down in the back room at that point, but from the conversation the ladies were having, it sounded yummy. I know the other dishes were way better than I give them credit. I want to try them again. Now if I can just get Sweet Jeanette, D-licious, Cupcake and Buttercream to make them again.
So hasta la proxima vez,(until next time)

One Of My Favorites

2010-06-03T10:12:00.006-03:00

Hello There! D-Licious here to report on our last cook n critique. So, did you guess what we would be making with "mayo" in it? I told you that you'd never guess....it's "Cinco de Mayo" or as we called it Festive de Mayo since we didn't actually get together on May 5th.

This month's theme was mexican food. I was super excited because I love it so much. I was looking forward to what each dish would be since I'm used to the usual enchiladas, salsas and the like. We had a variety of foods and I enjoyed each one.

Now on to my dish. I got to use my all time favorite cookbook: The All New Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook. If I haven't told you, I LOVE this cookbook. There are so many neat things in it besides recipes. If you don't have a copy, I highly recommend getting one.

So, I made Smothered Enchiladas. I must admit I have made these many times before but the other ladies were kind enough to let me make it again for them to try. These enchiladas are so tasty and so easy! They're perfect for a quick weeknight meal or even to serve for dinner guests as I have done many times.

Here is the recipe:

2 pounds ground beef

1 (1 1/4 oz) pkg mild taco seasoning

1 (4.5 oz) can chopped green chiles, divided

2 (10 1/4 oz) cans cream of chicken soup

1 (16 oz) container sour cream

8 (8 inch) tortillas

2 cups (8 oz) shredded cheddar cheese
Garnishes: salsa, sour cream, green onion curls, chopped fresh cilantro

Cook ground beef in a large skillet, stirring until it crumbles and is no longer pink; drain. Stir in taco seasoning mix and half of chopped green chiles; set aside. (I usually skip the chiles since my husband doesn't like them. It doesn't affect the flavor at all) Stir together remaining green chiles, soup, and sour cream. Pour half of sour cream mixture into a lightly greased 13-x 9-in baking dish.

Spoon beef mixture evenly down center of each tortilla; roll up.

Place tortillas, seam sides down, over sour cream mixture in baking dish; top with remaining sour cream mixture and cheese.

Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Garnish, if desired. Yield: 8 servings.

And there you have it. Now what are you waiting for...go try it! I promise you will not be disappointed! Oh, and on a side note, if you love salsa you have to try the salsa recipe on page 45 of this book. It's fantastic! But, you'll have to buy the cookbook!

I would love to hear from you if you try this recipe out and what you think of it. Just post a comment!

Until next time....happy cooking!

May's COOK-N-CRITIQUE

2010-05-23T21:15:00.001-03:00

Welcome to another episode in the series Cook-N-Critique© For May, the group picked Mexican foods.

The dish I drew was Dessert. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a authentic Mexican dessert when you haven't a clue what authentic Mexican is? LOL

But my friend came through for me. I went to the source. The only authentic source I knew. Imelda immediately said "Tres Leches Cake". Great! Now I have a name, I just need to find an actual recipe in an actual cookbook. I'm all about following rules, ya know...not! (giggle)

Have you ever had Tres Leches Cake? (Three Milks) I hadn't so I didn't know what to expect. I used to make a (non-alcoholic) Pina Colada cake and it was on the same order. You poke holes and soak the cake with milk but that one was a heavy consistency. The Tres Leches cake wasn't like that at all. It was very light. The three milks were evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk and heavy cream. Except for the sweetness of the milk, it wasn't "rich" and heavy. I'm not really sure how I feel about it. You know how you're about to taste something and have in your mind how you expect it to taste, then you taste it and it's not at all like you imagined it would be. You are either immediately "wow! This is better than I expected" or you're "oh, hmm... not what I was expecting. Not bad, just not what I was expecting". Well the latter was what was going on in my head.

I gave the rest to my niece's husband, who is of Hispanic descent. He called later to tell me it was great. I asked him it if tasted authentic (because I had nothing to gauge it by). He said absolutely! It brought back memories of having Cafe con Leche and Tres Leches when he was younger. I felt better about it...that it did taste authentic, and that he liked it. (he said I could make it for him anytime I felt like it! LOL)

The "frosting" is whipped cream. I'd never made whipped cream from scratch before, and kind of got caught up in the "stiff peaks" thing... I almost made BUTTER! ROFL!

Here's the recipe...If you try it yourself, do come back here and let us all know what you thought!

4 eggs - separated

2/3 cup sugar, divided

2/3 cup cake flour

Dash salt

3/4 cup heavy whipping cream

3/4 cup evaporated milk

3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp rum extract

TOPPING

1 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream

3 TBSP sugar

let eggs stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.

line a 9 inch spring-for pan with wax paper; grease and flour the paper. Set aside

in a large bowl, beat the egg yolks for 2 minutes. Add 1/3 cup sugar; beat for 3 minutes or until mixture is thick and lemon colored. Fold in flour, a third at a time.

In another bowl, and with clean beaters, beat egg whites and salt on medium speed until soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating on high and until stiff peaks form. Stir a third of the whites into the yholk mixture. Fold in remaining whites.

Spread the batter into prepared pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until top springs back when lightly touched. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack to cool completely.

In a small bowl, combine cream evaporated milk, condensed milk and extracts. Transfer cake to a serving plate. Poke holes in top of cake ith a skewer. Slowly spoon the milk mixture over top. Cover and refrigerate 2 hours.

For topping, in a small bowl, beat cream until it begins to thicken. Add sugar, beat until stiff peaks form. Spread over cake.

tah-dah!

GRITS....there is nothing better!

2010-05-06T16:45:00.000-03:00

Cupcake here.....Brunch at Buttercreams was awesome! And I got a zester as a take home gift! (only a true foodie appreciates such gifts!) My dish was Pancetta Grits from Jhonny Gabriel's book Cooking in the South. Now I will start off by saying I searched my local grocery stores for pancetta and proscutto (she said either would do) and found none - and quite frankly I did not have time to go to the "fancy pants" store to get any - so I used my bacon that I bought from the Dillard House (if you have never been their besides amazing bacon they have the best breakfast and awesome beds!!)

I also deviated from the recipe by not using sherry. I've tried it once and decided it was possibly one of the nasiest tasting things I had ever had!

I cheated

2010-05-06T14:42:00.004-03:00

Well Hello,

Glad you came back to see us. Here goes, as the title states I cheated. I confess I didn't try a new recipe for Brunch at Becky's (Buttercream). I couldn't resist making Ron's Tybee Island Sausage Pie. I've made it so many times before and the whole thing always gets eaten. The recipe is from Paula Deen's book,The Lady and Sons Too. The first time I ever heard of this recipe was when Paula made it on her program. It looked so yummy and we do like sausage. The pie is very easy to make and can be used at breakfast, lunch or dinner. Almost all the ingredients you need are pictured above. Just add some eggs, onion, worchestershire sauce (did I spell that right?) salt & pepper , pop it in the oven and voila! I give this recipe 5 spoons.

Now let's talk about the brunch. The ladies were the highlight of the brunch. I love being with them. God has truly blessed me with these ladies. Of course I ate toooooooooooooo much. Wow, ok Buttercream wins the award for best hostess gifts. I think Sweet Jeanette posted some pics (CLICK HERE APRIL'S COOK-N-CRITIQUE) of all our goodies. It was Christmas in April.

Time to go. I must find a recipe for our next critique. This time it will be a new to me recipe. Come back to see what our theme is and what we cook up. So take good care of yourself and hope to hear from you.

D-Licious And Her Knee Caps!

2010-04-27T23:18:00.006-03:00

Hello again! D-Licious here...

Well, you are probably wondering what on earth the title of my post could possibly have to do with cooking but, believe it or not, this was the name of my recipe....Knee Caps! I picked this recipe simply because I thought the name was funny. This recipe came out of one of my favorite cookbooks: The Blue Willow Inn Bible of Southern Cooking by Louis and Billie Van Dyke.

If you don't have this cookbook, I highly recommend purchasing it. Especially if you love traditional southern cooking. And let me throw this in while I'm at it. If you've never been to the Blue Willow Inn Restaurant in Social Circle, Georgia I feel very sorry for you. If you're within five hours of this restaurant, go! If not, plan a trip there. Trust me, it's worth the drive from anywhere you are.

So, if you're wondering what a knee cap is (as I was), it's simply a dense doughnut with an indentation in the center to which you fill with raspberry (or any flavor you desire) jelly and whipped topping. Sounds yummy, right? I mean, how bad can fried dough really be?! Any time I get the chance to get out my Presto Pro Fry deep fryer I'm a happy girl. All of you "health nuts" out there (and by "nuts" I don't mean crazies...I mean healthy eaters who, by the way, have my utmost admiration and respect!) keep breathing and stay with me.

This recipe took me several hours to make, including time to let the dough rise. I started around 6:15 am and finished around 9:30 am. I have to say that I was not totally confident this recipe would turn out good when I started.

I had creamed shortening, sugar and salt together and then added yeast (mixed with water, of course) and whole milk and it looked very unappetizing. Knowing I had no other option, I pressed on.

After making the dough I cut out my dough with a biscuit cutter and then pressed an indentation in the center of each one with a small glass as I was instructed to do.

The directions stated to fry these at 400 degrees! I was quite surprised at the extremely high temperature.
I was forced to fry mine at 375 degrees since my deep fryer wouldn't heat up any higher than that. Even that seemed too hot.

The dough seemed to brown too quickly while a tiny section in the center of some of the "knee caps" were still a tad doughy. One other slight disappointment was that despite doing exactly what I was told to do by making the indentation in the center, I found that it would only puff up during the frying time.

There were very few that ended up with indentations in them. I will say, that the ones that came out correctly did look very good when the finished product emerged.

Now on to the most important part...the taste. I had mixed feelings about my knee caps (how strange does that sound?!). I wasn't crazy about how dense they were, but that's my own personal preference. And I definitely did not like tasting the oil that it was cooked in. All in all it was not the worst recipe I've ever made, but not something that will probably make it into my "favorites" folder.

Great recipe or not, we had such a good time. Everyone's recipes (well, maybe except for one...sorry Cupcake!) were tasty and our hostess was so gracious and generous. The best part of our cook-n-critique's is that I'm blessed to spend time with the girls in my family whom I love dearly.

Next month's gathering will be at my house and wait until you hear what we're cooking up! I'll give you a hint...it has mayo in it. Hmmmmm.....I bet you'll never guess what it is! Until next time...

Cook-N-Critique for April

2010-04-27T16:14:00.000-03:00

This month our cook-n-critique was a switch. Instead of all of the "real women" going by ONE BOOK, we switched it up and did a theme. Breakfast and Brunch and we got to choose our own cookbook. We still drew the dish out the hat though... I picked savory, but really wanted to do a stuffed french toast so Cupcake switched with me. (She also can be nice when she wants to.)

Do you know I don't own the first cookbook that has such a recipe?!?!? I know, I couldn't believe it either!
I thought I did, but it must've been something I took out of a magazine or something...somewhere. But since the "rules" are that it must be from a cookbook that anyone can get their hands on, (i.e., not out of print, or handed down, or internet only...) I couldn't do it. Soooo... I turned to my Pioneer Woman Cooks, cookbook by Ree Drummond and chose her (famous) cinnamon rolls!

I blogged about it with the recipe on my other website SweetJeanette... Go read it sometime - but not now! (giggle)

Now, in order to make these lucious beauties I needed to face my fear. If you've been reading this blog long, you might guess what it is...

No, not Fleischmann's.... YEAST!

Maybe it's better stated that yeast doesn't like me. As a young(er) bride, about 30 year ago (I know, I can't believe it either since there's no way I look that old! LOL) I tried to make yeast rolls. These "things" turned out to be nothing more than little flying saucers and I haven't attempted anything with yeast since then...until now.

I'm happy to say, these turned out as they should!

Wanna know how I know???

The trademark of every good Southern cook! LOL

ok, on to our Cook-N-Critique.
Buttercream hosted the Breakfast and Brunch Cook-N-Critique. We were greated with a sign ...

ok, the secret is out....Buttercream is really Becky! LOL

Doesn't this look festive?

She won (if there was such an award) the award for the best gifts! She really outdid any previous hostess' favors! Just look ...

Underneath was a cutting board. The cutting boards were our placemats! We had lemons and tomatoes. Starting from the left to the right, we had in the cute flower pot, a scrub brush, candle, soap, a silicone do-hickey for pulling hot pans out of the oven, or handling hot pots, and to the far right... a head massager!!! Cupcake demonstrated it and said she tingled! and the neatest zester! (We all went ga-ga over this!)

Can you see the glasses? There were two, a juice glass and regular....Those were our favors too!!!

Oh, and she served a wonderful banana slush punch! Yum-O!!!

Buttercream is my sister, so get a load of MY placecard she prepared...

that's just wrong! Wrong, I say!

You know that RealWomen are my cousins and an aunt. Well, we had another cousin that day. My brother-in-law is a mechanic and was going to take a look at this cousin's car so we just invited said cousin in to eat with us and be our "honorary real woman" for the day....

Sorry Kenny!

We stuck poor Ken on a stool, but he did help us critique the dishes and was a big help.

I'll post more pictures in the actual "Critique" part of our Cook-n-Critique for April.

So until later, enjoy!

2010-04-23T19:12:00.000-03:00

Hey! SweetJeanette here - and I had been so good too!

I wanted to blab to you all but knew better. Cupcake can be scarey when she wants to be! LOL

I still have to post the pics I took at our spring tea at Cupcake and Saucy's house! It was so much fun!!! I will, I will.... but first we must "cook-n-critique"!

Really looking forward to tomorrow too.... and I have a surprise too! I'm facing my fears. Can you guess what that is? If you've been following at all, you'll have a good guess! I see you! You're clicking on prior posts now aren't you? teehee!!!

So, what do you think it is? C'mon, take a guess....

UHM

2010-04-23T18:07:00.002-03:00

Me again, can ya tell I don't know what I am doing when it comes to posting pictures? They are kinda backwards and confusing. I bet you can figure them out. Oh good grief I should get with Sweet Jeanette (she knows all) or wait for Cupcake to get home before I go getting brave with this blog stuff. Anywho, tomorrows critiques is Brunch at Buttercreams. Uh, oh did I tell something I wasn't supposed to? I think I better go fix dinner. Bye, until next time.

2010-04-23T17:46:00.007-03:00

Well hello there,

Guess what? It's time for another critique. Yeah, someone else is doing alot of cooking. I am looking forward to seeing Sweet Jeanette, Buttercream, and D-licious. I am looking forward to cooking with Cupcake. We have alot of fun in the kitchen.

Cupcake and I had loads of fun last week getting ready for our Spring Tea. We had some extra ladies with us this time. So much fun. So much food. Sweet Jeanette and D-licious provided so good eats that complimented what we had prepared. I have a few pics of Cupcake and I using our culinary skills. LOL! Take a look.

Spring Tea

2010-04-13T19:37:00.003-03:00

OOPS How did that picture get in there?

Hi ya'll, Well it isn't quite time for our next cook n critique, but I wanted to let you know we get together other times too! Cupcake and I (Saucy) are having a spring tea this Sat. April 17th. We gave these invite bags out at our last critique. Guess what is inside? Yes, there is an invitation. Cupcake got really busy and hot glued some flowers to combs and has asked the ladies to put them in their hair. They are mandatory. No, flowers in your hair, no entrance. Of course we will wear some too. Can't wait to get some pictures of that. Anywho, hope you will check us out to find out how our tea went and be prepared for our next critique Apr. 24. This time Buttercream will be our hostess.

2010-04-09T18:35:00.000-03:00

Hey! Ya know what? We really love comments.

I mean it! We really do!

So, if you're reading this, please tell us you're there!

Let us know we're not just talking to ourselves, ok? You know what it's like, you're walking alongside a friend at the mall and you're talking to her and turn around and she's not there, but there's this guy standing there looking at you like you've ran out of your medication.... You feel so... so.... well, just talk to us, ok? (giggle)

We really do love hearing from you! Got any suggestions? Let us hear it!

Thanks bunches and bunches!

Sweet Jeanette

Cuisinart Fun

2010-04-02T19:42:00.002-03:00

First of all I want to thank the lovely ladies (Cupcake, D-licious, Buttercream and Sweet Jeanette) that made our Cook-N-Critique so special. I love, love, love, these ladies. What a fun day. Guess what I still have all my fingers. Yep, I didn't lose a one using the cuisinart. I'm glad I didn't have yeast and have to use the cuisinart. That would have been too scary. Can you imagine chocolate being tooooooooooo chocolate. On top of that the crust was well, I don't know exactly what it was. The directions weren't very clear about how to handle a prebaked piecrust. I'm not sure I baked it long enough but it baked as long as the recipe called for. Maybe it was the parchment lined baking sheet that was under the pie plate. I didn't let it cool completely before I put the filling in it to bake. Ok, back to the chocolate. The recipe called for 1 cup of coarsely grated semi sweet chocolate. Now how coarse is coarse? I wish the recipe had said 2 ounces or 4 ounces. I used 6 ounces. Way to much. Anywho, I don't think I will use that recipe again. Oh by the way the crust recipe made 2 crusts. I used the second crust on top of the Chicken Pot Pie I made the other day and it turned out really good. Flaky and all. So maybe I need to practice making a prebaked crust. Hmmmmmmmmm that's a thought.
Enough about my CHOCOLATE PIE. We sure had some good eats. We started our feast with our blessing (isn't God good?) then moved to the food table. I was last in line and by the time I started putting food on my plate I started hearing yummms and lip smacking etc. The cake, muffins and bread were the sources of the tastebud euphoria. It is hard to stop eating and think about what you did or didn't like about your recipe. Food is so distracting. Good food that is.
We have another special critique planned for April.

Ahh how sweet it was!

2010-03-30T20:25:00.004-03:00

So I was under some pressure this week playing hostess okay so yes I had some help from Saucy(my mom) but here is a little info about Cupcake...I like things to be perfect and I like to control! But I do both with the grace and style of a good southern girl! Now the fact that I like perfection made this weeks critique more of a challenge. Baking is far from perfect. One degree off in that oven and everything sinks or burns or both!

While looking for muffin recipes in the cookbook I was stuck between two. Praline and cream pecan muffins and Zucchini, citrus and honey muffins (which I called Citrus and Honey muffins until everyone had taken thier first bite...I didn't want the Zucchini to scare anyone off!). So being the overachiever I am, I baked both! First thing I noticed about this section of the book.....nowhere does she explain muffin pan sizes. Don't think this is important....well when she says it makes 14 muffins (ive never seen a 14 cup muffin pan by the way) I figured it meant standard size, well no I was wrong. The Zucchini, Citrus and Honey muffins made 12 standard and 6 Jumbo size muffins and the Pralines and Cream muffins called for a "standard or large" pan, well which one? I ended up making 12 Jumbo muffins and had batter left over!

The taste however made me forget this oversight. I don't want to brag but my muffins were yummy! I will say that the Pralines and Cream muffins were about 500 steps too many but it was nice that all the steps could be done in the food processor. The flavor was good and very sweet but a bit heavy for the spring weather. I think this would be great with a cup of hot tea, bundled under a blanket during the winter. However the Zucchini muffins were so light and fresh they were a great accompinament to the beautiful spring day! D-licious even told a little fib to her veggie-phobic husband that the green in the muffin was just lime zest...he ate it and loved it! It is definately going into my must do again recipe list!

Now all the other women worked so hard I want to make sure I discuss their lovely dishes.

Sweet Jeanettes cookies weren't my favorite, I did think they lacked flavor. I had actually tried to make these cookies before but couldn't find dried strawberries so I tried to dry them myself in the oven (well google said I could dry them that way!) and they didn't turn out very good. There just isn't enough flavor.

D-licious' two breads (and yes I do believe I could live my life on nothing but good bread!) were great and ho-hum. The Double - Garlic Foccacia was divine. My mouth was so happy I didn't know what to do with myself. Please I beg you to get over your yeast fear and make this bread (lucky for me I can just call up D-licious and have her make it for me!). It was super flavorful and as one Woman remarked "it has garlic treasures inside". The Chunky Cheese Bread was a bust in my opinion. Too salty on top of the bread and no flavor inside. In fact you could almost taste the yeast.

Saucy's French Silk Pie wasn't that great either. Well actually I took two bites and said "more bread please". Thats right, I passed on chocolate! The pie had a weird texture and the crust was strange ( I will let Saucy fill you in on her complaints about measurements etc...). And if it were possible (which I didn't think it was) the pie had too strong a chocolate taste!

The group did finish up with a winner, Buttercream's Hummingbird Carrot Cake. Wow, this cake was excellent and so very moist. I am not a big fan of banana but the flavor in this cake kept me craving more! And with all the fruits and veggies in the cake who can pass it up, it's practically like eating a salad!

So overall this book had its good and bad moments. Seriously, a cookie sheet with parchment paper under everything? But the foccacia, muffins and that cake made my heart sing! So as a group we decided that this cookbook deserves.....3 spoons!

One Out Of Two

2010-03-30T17:35:00.004-03:00

D-Licious here again to update you on my recipes at the last Real Women Eat Cook-n-Critique. What a beautiful day we had for our get together. Cupcake and Saucy did such a beautiful table decor as you can see in the pictures. They even gave us each a set of recipe cards. These ladies, who happen to be my mother-in-law and sister-in-law, always know how to make you feel welcome and special.

Now on to my recipes. I had a hard time deciding between two recipes so I did them both. I wasn't sure if this was because I was very brave or very ignorant since my "theme" was yeast. I know so many women are afraid of it. I used to be one of them. I have learned that yeast is nothing to be scared of. It's just another ingredient. My first recipe was called Chunky Cheese Bread. I made this recipe because the writer puts in the heading below the recipe: "Bold to say but I believe true: This recipe alone is worth the price of the book". Well, that made me very interested in trying it out. After the dough was ready I was instructed to roll it up into a jellyroll. Okay, I think to myself, I can do this. I've made cinnamon rolls many times and this sounds familiar. Then I was to cut the jellyroll into thick slices. No problem. Then it said to cut them again in half, basically into odd-sized chunks. I'm sure some of you think this is no big deal. What I didn't tell you was that the dough had been covered with cheddar cheese before it was rolled up. Well, if you haven't figured out my problem by now I'll tell you. Cheese everywhere! I had pressed it into the dough before rolling like the recipe asked me to do, but it didn't help. I had to literally scoop up cheese from my (Clean!) countertop and put it back into the ball of dough and then pinch each chunk to ensure I didn't loose the cheese. What a pain! Another problem I had was that I had quite a bit of dough left over. It wasn't enough to make a whole third loaf, but I threw it into another loaf pan just to bake. For me, it was too "yeasty" tasting. No other flavors really other than a very salty crust (it called for seasoned or garlic salt; I used seasoned). My husband came home as I was about to leave for Cupcake and Saucy's house and was quite happy when I told him that he and my father-in-law could eat the third loaf. He took two large pieces which I found out later ended up being tossed. He was so relieved to find out that we weren't fans of this bread either since they had secretly tossed it over the fence so as not to hurt my feelings. The baking time on this bread was also a little off. It said to leave it in for 35 to 40 minutes. I took mine out at 28 minutes. Sadly, this recipe will not make it to my recipe folder.

My next recipe was Double Garlic Fougasse. I have always wanted to make a focaccia bread and I am totally in love with garlic so I had to try this out. It was fantastic! It was so yummy and garlicky! There were a lot of steps to follow in this recipe, but well worth the effort. The only negative thing I can say would be that the top was done well before the inside was completely baked so I had to add foil for the last 10 minutes. All in all, a great recipe. It will definitely find it's way to my dinner table again. In fact, I know that Saucy and Cupcake have already made a batch of this bread to go with their spaghetti dinner. This recipe is definitely a winner.

We had such a great time getting together again and trying out our recipes. If you've got 1 spare day a month, you really ought to get some girlfriends or family members together and each cook or bake and get together and eat. You will have the most fun and make many happy memories.

Cook-N-Critique

2010-03-29T22:52:00.001-03:00

Sweet Jeanette here ...

Remember these books from last month? Did you guess which we'd choose?

We chose A Passion for Baking

The hostesses for this Cook-N-Critique were Saucy and Cupcake (mother and daughter team who happen to be my aunt and cousin!)

We planned to have our "eat - n- critique" on the porch.

See... there's even a "clue" as to what it is.

But it was felt that it was way too windy (good old Florida! LOL) for our eating outside. So Saucy and Cupcake worked double time and made the inside beautiful for us.

(I just love wisteria!!!)

(isn't that pretty?)

and now for the "spread" (YUM)

I'll let everyone tell their own individual stories on what they made. As you know in a previous post Cupcake and D-Licious couldn't decide on one recipe so they made two. Oh my, I'm so glad they did they were great...especially those muffins, or were they cupcakes??? (Oops! I just told you what Cupcake made).

I made Strawberries and Cream Cookies

I'll post the recipe later this week for you. It's a shortbread cookie that uses dried strawberries, white chocolate and cream. I don't know why cream got top billing over white chocolate because the recipe only called for ONE TABLESPOON of whipping cream but I'm not the author so....

The book said you could order the dried strawberries on line from nutsonline.com but I just knew I had seen them at the health foods store in town so I went there. They had these dehydrated snack berries. I couldn't quite visualize how many bags would made 3/4 cup so I bought three - at 5.00 and change for one bag, that's an expensive batch of cookies with the strawberries alone! I should've went to nutsonline.com! LOL

Anyway, the recipe said to bake for 40-50 minutes. Holy Cow!!! Are you kidding me? I set the timer for 25 minutes and they were d-o-n-e, done! (Ya pre-heat at 325 degrees and when you put the cookies in the oven you immediately turn it down to 300 but still, 25 minutes was plenty of time, perhaps 20 minutes would've been better.

There was the general concensus of a "pattern" from this author. She loved double pans and parchment paper. I had to use a double cookie sheet and then parchment paper on top of that. Now, I can see using parchment paper with cookies, but Buttercream made a cake (oops! I just told you what another person made!) and she had to use a cookie sheet, parchment paper on top of that and then her parchment-lined cake pan on top of the parchment lined cookie sheet. Hmmmm.. Can someone tell me (honestly, I really am interested in an answer) why all that? We kind of felt like it was "overkill", but who knows.

During the making of these cookies, I kept having this nagging feeling maybe I should add some strawberry flavoring, but because we must be true to the letter of the recipe so we can give the best evaluation we can, I didn't do it. (I still wish I had!). These cookies were "ok", but if it has the name strawberry in it, I want it bursting with strawberry flavor. Again, maybe it was a simple case of ordering those dried berries from nuts on line!

I told the group, I was glad I drew cookies because every 9/11 I take cookies to the firestation and am always looking for a "wow" cookie. This wasn't it. First, it didn't make all that many (it said makes 2-3 dozen...uh-uh. MAYBE 2, but definitely not 3 with the size cookie cutter it called for. Second, dried strawberries aren't readily on hand I found out. Third, for the steps necessary in this cookie recipe, I would expect a better "wow" factor. Oh, and fourth, my finished cookie didn't look like the picture! LOL!

I give it one spoon.

3 MORE DAYS

2010-03-24T17:42:00.003-03:00

Hello Saucy here just reminding everyone about our next critique. I am so excited. Cupcake and D-licious couldn't make up their minds which recipe to prepare sooooooooooooo they are both making two dishes. D-licious said she had to fix the recipe the author said is so good it is worth the price of the book and the other recipe just sounded so yummy she couldn't pass it up. Now Cupcake's recipes are yummy sounding too. The first recipe Cupcake is preparing she chose because the author of the book says she gets the most requests to prepare this dish. The second recipe she chose because it is full of some of her favorite things. Hmmmmmmmmmm what could those be? Now me I am the old lady of the group so I am only preparing one dish. Can't wait to use the Cuisinart. Sweet Jeanette and Becky haven't hinted at what recipes the chose but I bet they will be great. You will have to check back to find out. I have a feeling we will be satisfied with this cookbook.
Bye for now.

Our next critique.....

2010-03-15T11:34:00.003-03:00

Cupcake here and I wanted to wet your appetites with an update..... Our next meeting of Real Women will be March 27th on the (Cupcake and Saucy's) porch! Not going to spill the beans on what book we chose but I will say my recipe has lots of steps so I'm kinda nervous! Its going to use all my skills to pull this one off....but the combination of ingredients just sounded so good I couldn't resist! Oh and here is another hint...at the meeting we all randomly pull out what category we will fix and Sweet Jeanette's first comment was "No please not yeast, I'm scared of yeast". You will have to tune in to see if Sweet Jeanette's nightmare of yeast did come true, whether my many stepped recipe turns out and how we all fare with this new cookbook. See you soon!

Slow but steady

2010-03-07T17:32:00.002-04:00

Hello everyone,
Sorry it has taken me sooooooooooooooooooo long to post anything about our last cook - n -critique. We had a great time. Everything was wonderful. Last time we laughed and sighed about how mostly bad the recipes had turned out. This time WOW! What a difference a cookbook makes. We laughed and congratulated each other. We sighed this time because our stomachs we so full and we were very, very, very satisfied. My dish was the Strawberry Salad with Cinnamon Vinaigrette. Excellent salad. Very easy to make, even with washing and drying the strawberries and romaine lettuce. Even though my precious husband picked the strawberries for me I stilled washed them. I hope know one is picturing me over a sudsy sink, with my pink rubber gloves on scrubbing away. That's way to much cleaning. I give them a good rinse and pat dry with a paper towel. The vinaigrette was very light and tasty. It needs two hours to chill before serving so keep that in mind. It is worth the wait.
Well, I have finally decided what dish I will be preparing for our next critique and all I can say is I get to use my brand new Cuisinart Food Processor. It's a bit scary! Every time I read the instructions, there before me are highlighted words reminding me the blades are sharp. I might talk myself out of using it. I do like my fingers.
Cupcake and I will be the hostesses this time around. Boy, do we have some big shoes to fill. Sweet Jeanette had lovely favors and a very warm welcome for all of us. D-licious had a beautiful table set and sent us home before clean up. What is a body to do. You will have to check back and see which cookbook we chose, which recipes we used and how Cupcake and I had the prettiest setup and the best ever favors!

The "Sink Hole" Pie Recipe

2010-03-03T14:36:00.003-04:00

Remember the sinkhole pie I blogged about for our "Cook-N-Critique" night? Ok, the real name is Mystery Pecan Pie, and I'm sure yours will be better, but I thought I'd share the recipe with you!

Mystery Pecan Pie

1 (15 ounce) package refrigerated piecrusts (I used Pillsbury)
1 (8 oz) pkg cream cheese, softened
4 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar divided
2 tsp vanilla extract, divided
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup choppeed pecans
1 cup light corn syrup
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Unroll 1 piecrust, and place on a lightly floured surface; lightly brush top of crust with water.

Unroll the remaining crust and gently roll or press crusts together. Fit into a 9 inch pieplate; fold edges under and crimp.

Beat cream cheese, 1 egg, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tsp vanilla and salt at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Pour into piecrust. Sprinkle with the chopped pecans.

Stir together corn syrup, melted butter, remaining 3 eggs, remaining 1/4 cup sugar, and remaining 1 tsp. vanilla. Pour filling over pecans.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50-55 minutes or until set. Cool completely.

Yields: 8 servings.

Enjoy!

Mmmm Mmmmm Good!

2010-02-24T17:38:00.002-04:00

D-Licious here reporting on our latest "Cook n Critique". First of all let me start out by saying that I love, love, love The All New Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook! I've had this cookbook for quite some time now and it happens to be my favorite one in my collection right now. I love all of the information that it gives in the front. Everything from organizing your kitchen to entertaining. I literally could read this book for hours. Every time I pick it up, I learn something new. I would highly recommend this cookbook for anyone from beginners to experts and everyone in between.

Anyway, on to our evening. This month's cook n critique was at my home. What a difference it is to have company coming and to know that all I'm responsible for is one dish! It was wonderful. I decided on Mini Beef Wellingtons. For those unfortunate ones who have never tasted beef wellington, I'm sorry. Those of you who have know how tasty they really are. I mean, what could be better than a fillet of beef tenderloin topped with sauteed mushrooms and then wrapped in yummy puff pastry. That's what I call good eats. This recipe was time consuming yet easy to prepare. In my opinion, definitely worth the prep time. I would have to say my only criticism of the recipe was the sauce. A rich brown gravy, if you will that I drowned my wellington in. (I later learned from Cupcake that this is not the proper way to taste a new dish. Always put the sauce on the side. I will definitely remember next time) The sauce, though it didn't call for any salt, was a little too salty for my liking and I am a salt lover. Some of the ladies at the table thought that on its own it was a bit salty, but paired with the beef, it balanced out. Other than that I have to say that I loved this recipe and will definitely use it again and again (when tenderloin goes on sale, of course!).

As for the other dishes, well they were all great! I think the real hit of the meal was the Strawberry Salad with Cinnamon Vinaigrette. Wow was it good! My other favorite dish of the evening had to be Sweet Jeanette's "sinkhole pie". Two of my favorite things: pecan pie and cheesecake rolled into one delicious pie. What's not to love! I have to say that by the end of the meal I had slipped into what I call a "food coma". This is a condition in which the food has been so good that I can't move, speak or even hardly breathe. Okay, so maybe it's called overeating, but I do it for you! Until next month.....

Real Women Eat's "Cook-N-Critique"

2010-02-23T13:22:00.007-04:00

Hey! Sweet Jeanette here...

As a refresher to the concept of our Real Women Eat "Cook -n - Critique" events, someone suggests a cookbook and we browse through it while meeting and all vote on which cook book we are going to try for the next month. I haven't seen Julie and Julia...yet, but I've heard that's kinda what she did. Only, there are too many AADD ladies in our group to actually see a cookbook all the way through, so we pick a cookbook for the month. We draw "names"...just like Christmas, only we're drawing side dish, appetizer, dessert, entree... you get the picture.

The person who draws entree, is the person who hosts that particular event. Last month, I hosted...remember the dreaded crockpot cookbook? I even had favors for my "guests"...antiseptic soaps! LOL No, really!

This month, the "hostess" was D-Licious! You can tell, she has a hostess' heart. She even lit candles for us. (I didn't do that when I was hostess) When asked where our favors were (not by me, of course. My mama raised me right.) She had the best favors of all.... she said we didn't have to help clean up! WooHoo. My kind of favor!

As Cupcake mentioned my Mystery Pecan Pie was delicious, but it developed a sinking appearance. To which, I renamed it "sink hole pie". Now, to get the full humor in that, I think you should probably live around us. See, in Florida, the winter has been unseasonably, um... cold! It's a farming community mostly and the farmers have had to do a lot of watering (strawberries are the crops in season in the winter down here. That, and our citrus groves). Now, all this watering has affected our water table. That has, in turn, caused what we not-so-affectionately call "sinkholes".

maybe this will give you a better view of the "sinkhole"

The really weird thing, or at least what "I" thought was weird, was that you use BOTH of the Pillsbury Pie Crusts on the bottom of the pie. Do you think that's weird? When we cut into the pie, though, the bottom wasn't that thick at all, but as you can see, the not-so-great-looking fluted edges were. I admit, I need practice on making pretty fluted edges! LOL

But we did have a great time. Just us girls! I am fortunate to have these "girls" - my bestest and closest dear friends who just happen to be a sister, aunt, and cousin and cousin-in-law with me on this blog. What could be better?

Oh, and these were books we had to decide from for next month...

Can ya guess which we picked? No? I guess you'll just have to check back here then!

Be Sweet!

Real Women Eat recipes from The Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook!

2010-02-23T10:59:00.004-04:00

Cupcake here with a some reminiscing and a critique for you! As a little girl I loved to sit in the kitchen and watch the women of my family cook (well actually my cousins told me I was too little to play with them so I found my refuge in my grandmothers kitchen!). From these women I learned that food and being fed was another expression of Love, the same as a hug or a kiss may do for others - homemade biscuits and fried pork chops did for our family. A recent loss of one of these great women had me reflecting on cooking and food and family and what is all means. I am blessed to be surrounded by Real Women - who eat and cook and love with unbridled passion. We laugh, talk, unbutton our pants and dive in for seconds; together, each knowing that love was put into every dish; a hug in every bite, a kiss with every spoonful. I miss my Aunt Ducky and will always remember the half sandwiches she would sneak me before dinner when I was a child and I will forever believe that REAL chicken and dumplings must be yellow! Thank you to my aunt and all the women who have helped teach me that Love and Food go hand in hand!
Now on to the critique!
I, Cupcake, think this is a beautiful cookbook. It has loads of great pictures, mini - dictionaries on fruit, sugars, onions and even chocolate (if there had just been on on bacon...). The index (one by ingredient and one by subject) were easy to navigate. There was also a cool list of menus in the back as well.
I found it very interesting during this critique the lack of talking. I have developed a theory, the better the food the more your mouths stay shut! So when there is more eating and less talking, the better the food! I was having to pry out any thoughts about the dishes from my Real Women, but there mouths were always full of another bite! We began our evening with mini Tomato Basil Sandwiches - they were very yummy but we all agreed that they could have used more basil than the recipe called for. Sweet Jeanette also pointed out how good these tasty little sanwiches would be at an Afternoon Tea. Then we had our salad course by SSaucy. Strawberry Salad with Cinnamon Vinegrette. WOW! It was awesome! Light and refreshing, excellent flavorful dressing and we ate it all. Cleaned the bowl ! Saucy also said it was easy. Easy plus flavorfull, yep that gets 5 Spoons from our crowd! Next were the Mini Beef Wellingtons with the side of Florentine Stuffed Onions. D-licious made the Wellingtons and she didn't disapoint. The meat was moist and very tender. The only drawback was the gravy. It was a litte too salty and I would reccomend putting it on the side and using it sparingly. D-licious did say that the prep was time consuming but not difficult and that there were a lot of left over ingredients (interestingly we did not find any of these "leftover" mushrooms she spoke of, perhaps they made them into her tummy before we arrived for dinner!). After I ate my Beef Wellington, I could do nothing but sigh and rub my belly! It was good! My dish was the stuffed onions. Tasty but needed more salt than the recipe called for. Also the prep time listed with the recipe was WAY off. 19 minutes...HA! It took me quite a while to get the onion's centers scooped out and the cooking of the spinach and melting of the cheeses all took longer than expected. However they turned out well. Even one of our pickier eaters said this dish is good for a person who doesn't like onions. It was a nice light accompaniment to the heavier dish of Beef we had. And finally DESSERT! Oh dessert, how I do love thee! Sweet Jeanette did a great job with her Mystery Pecan Pie. It was half pie, half cheesecake and a whole lotta good! We did notice a bit of a sinkhole in the center of the pie but looks did not deter from taste. It was actually very light and not as rich as other pecan pies. Sweet Jeanette also said it was easy and who doesn't love a recipe that lets you use store bought crust! Thank you Pillsbury!
And so we begrudgingly left the dinner table with full tummies and warm hearts. We were happy and satisfied....what more can you ask for from a dinner?! Poor D-licious was lost in a "food coma"! I personally think this cookbook deserves 4 Spoons. I wish the prep times had been a bit more accurate and the seasonings more plentiful. But we will see what my fellow Women think in there posts!

D-Licious and Her Not So Delicious Sweet Potatoes

2010-02-01T16:15:00.000-04:00

Well, as Cupcake and Saucy have already told you the evening's meal was, shall we say, less than delicious. I was very excited for this experiment as I am a frequent crock pot user. My dish was the Sweet-Spiced Sweet Potatoes. This was a very easy dish to prepare. The hardest part was getting the potatoes cut uniformly into 1/2" pieces. Am I the only one who has a problem with this? Anyway, the recipe called for dark brown sugar which I substituted with light brown sugar since that's what I had on hand. I also made a recipe and a half since it only made four servings and we were a table of six. I can't say that the dish was "bad" but it's not something that's going in my "I definitely want to make that again" file. I have to say that my favorite dish of the meal was the Country Time Pink Lemonade that SweetJeanette had so kindly mixed together for us. Although the meal left me somewhat unsatisfied, it was still a memorable time spent with some of my favorite ladies. I mean, at what other time in your life can you eat someone else's food and tell them how bad it is without hurting their feelings? Good times!

Saucy and her Fingerling Potatoes....

2010-02-01T10:43:00.000-04:00

Hello all,
What can I add to Cupcakes description of our Cookbook Critique dinner? Uhmmmmmm we really did have fun being together and SweetJeanette is The best hostess. We received party favors as well as a warm and inviting home to share our crock pot adventures. Now on to my recipe. I did have one of the winners. Go me. Was it a winner because it was so good or because everything else was so bad? It was not a really difficult recipe, but a bit time consuming. I could have done the whole thing start to finish in an hour and a half instead of 3 1/2 hours. Granted I would have employed the use of my oven but the bacon would have been crispy. I couldn't find Fingerling potatoes so I substituted Baby Dutch Yellow potatoes. Cute little guys but the bacon didn't wrap around them very well. I had to toothpick some of the bacon during the frying portion of the recipe. The recipe did not call for salt and the end result greatly needed it. It was a five Spoon evening but a one Spoon cookbook. Overall we had a great time but left wondering "where should we go eat".

Real Women Eat....Recipes from the Crock Pot Cookbook!

2010-02-01T10:09:00.000-04:00

Results from our "Cook -n- Critique" evening...

Cupcake here....reporting on the "Crock Pot Recipe Collection" cookbook. We all gathered at SweetJeanette's home to eat and critique! I think I should preface this with a little explanation....all of the members of the Real Women Eat club are FABULOUS cooks and we love us a good cookbook, so we decided to try out crock pot recipes to start.

Warm, comforting and easy was the idea behind crock pot cooking but as you will read, it was not what we got! Even before we began tasting, there were looks of dismay on all of our faces...uh-oh! The menu was: Appetizers - Artichoke and Nacho Cheese Dip (pg.9), Bacon Wrapped Fingerling Potatoes with Thyme (pg. 25);Side Dish-Sweet Spiced Sweet Potatoes (pg. 349); Main Entree - Stuffed Chicken Breasts; and Dessert - Peaches and Cream Melange (pg. 460).

We dove in, uninhibited and unafraid of the culinary masterpieces before us.....I will let the ladies give there personal critiques but overall here are some snippets of what was said. "Too much effort, not easy recipes like a crock pot should be", "not enough pictures", "this dessert looks like poo, lets call it The Mange instead of Melange". Are you starting to get the idea? Out of the 5 Spoons possible, it earned a 1! In fact SweetJeanettes mother was in attendance to help give critique (now this is a good southern woman who would never hurt any ones feelings and even calls ugly babies "precious"...you know the type) suggested we just do salads next meeting! Ha! The only winners of the night were the Nacho Cheese dip (good but really unoriginal, one member stated you could just melt Velveeta and mix in a can of Rotel tomatoes and get the same thing) and the Fingerling Potatoes with Bacon (needed lots of salt, and what isn't good with bacon). The BIG loser of the night was my personal dish...Dessert!

The Melange (or mange), was the strangest consistency and tasted like, well it didn't taste at all. Prep was easy, but the cook time was way off (6 - 8 hrs. on low) and the bottom of my dish was burnt!

The rest of the ladies will chime in with their individual ideas but as for Cupcake this cookbook was NOT worth the $20 spent on it or the less than average dishes that came out of it!

So, sorry to the publisher...We give this cookbook a 1 spoon and as one contributor put it..."the little pamphlet that came with our crockpot had better recipes".

Real Women Eat.....at Romano's!!

2010-01-14T20:36:00.000-04:00

Cupcake here...
Visions of spanikopita dance in my head at the mere mention of Romano's Greek Restaurant in Brandon, FL! The Women gathered there recently for lunch and some heavy duty, highly detailed and very professional food critique. Okay so maybe "yummy" isn't exactly the technically correct food critique verbiage but when things taste so good you just say the first thing to come to mind! Our luncheon started with Debbie giving us the daily specials. We (SweetJeanette, Cupcake, Sarah and Darlene) began with the Humus appetizer. You get a plate full of Humus covered in olive oil, onions and tomatoes on the side and warm pita chips to dip. It was awesome! Darlene just kept saying "wow"....and for good reason, it was smooth, creamy, garlicky goodness all on a tastey pita chip! We also chose the Greek Express Lunch; a Greek salad, spanikopita and a soda. The Greek salad is loaded up with goodies; ham, feta cheese, onions, olives....even potato salad on the bottom. I personally love the salad "all the way", but it was easy to customize the salad for pickier eaters. The dressing is a creamy Greek and full of flavor. The spanikopita had a flaky phyllo crust and is filled with warm spinach, cheese and garlic (three of my favorite things) and comes with a side of tzatziki for dipping. Our other partner in crime Becky got the Ham and Cheese Sub, not really Greek but huge and "yummy" all the same. I should also mention that we had a 4 year old addition to our Real Women outing on this day. Winter ordered the Pita Pizza Kids meal, which Debbie our awesome waitress brought out first (and she also brought a coloring book and crayons to entertain as well!!), Winter's response "pizza, yummy", a true foodie in the making! We topped our meal off with the Baklava cheesecake. Its a beautiful dessert that smells heavenly. It was moist, not too cheesy and had just enough light syrup drizzled on top (we also detected REAL whipped cream!). Overall, Romano's is a great restaurant and is unanimously approved by us at Real Women Eat. Make sure you get there early (it fills up fast) and enjoy a little taste of Greek food in the middle of Brandon!

Pssst! Over here!

2009-12-05T13:58:00.000-04:00

Hey there! So you've found our little home where "Real Women Eat". We're not ready yet but don't forget to check back. We've been visiting places and trying their food and we're busy composing our thoughts. (This may take a while, we have so many!)