Baking Frenzy

Busy Busy Busy with holiday baking!  Here is the cookie lineup for this year:

Rolled Sugar Cookies

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

Lime Coconut Cookies

Snickerdoodles

Peppermint Sugar Cookies

All of them are new recipes that I found through Pinterest or by Googling.  I'm beginning to wonder if there is any utility in keeping a cookbook these days since you can find everything for your cooking/baking needs online.  What is your baking looking like this year?  Old standbys or something new?

The BEST Sugar Cookies

I am not really a sugar cookie fan.  I think they are dull.  After baking these today, I may change my mind because they are oh so good dunked in some tea.  The only reason I baked them is that I have a four year old in the house.  Nothing screams holiday baking more than festive cookie cutters.  I had about five of my own that proved to be worthless so my daughter got out her play dough cookie cutters and viola! Success! I hooked on this recipe at All Recipes.  They truly are TASTY!  I had to bake slightly longer than the recipe indicated (10min), but the rest went off without a hitch.  And now, I may have eaten too many.  Sigh.

Poached Eggs Anyone?

While in Nebraska for the holiday we were able to stop in Fremont for a wonderful little breakfast with my Aunt.  She served a fabulous breakfast of poached eggs, sausage, fruit and friendship bread.  Very TASTY! I never poach eggs for guests because my poacher only holds 4 cups.  What is a person to do if you have more than 2 people eating?  Well my dear Aunt had the answer.  She put several little custard dishes into her largest  skillet and filled the bottom with about a quarter to half inch of water.  Once the little bowls were tinkling together on a low boil, she added the eggs and put the lid on.  Voila!  Breakfast for four!  How could something so simple have passed me by?  I found that putting a little dab of butter in the bottom of the bowls makes the eggs slid out easily. Breakfast anyone?

Jam It

Do you see these beauties? I had to stand at the corner of the strawberry bed defending it with a hose from would be marauders(my husband and daughter) in order to get enough for some strawberry jam! As I am sure you have noticed my lack of posts, I am seriously short on time these days! Watering, weeding, summer fun and such has kept me very busy. As a result I decided to give freezer jam a try. It takes much less processing time and is really simple to do. Basically you mix pectin, fruit and sugar together and then mash the fruit. Allow to set for a bit and then you can put it in the same jars you use for regular canning and throw them in the freezer. Google a few different recipes, I picked mine from a recent issue of Organic Gardening. The flavor is just as good if not better. The texture may be a bit runnier but that just makes it more suitable to ice cream topping if you desire!

Pumpkin Puree

I was recently looking for an easy way to do pumpkin puree and found this insanely easy technique. All you need to do is use a sharp knife to poke four holes in a whole pumpkin. Put it in an oven proof baking dish with a quarter inch of water, slide into the oven at 350 for about an hour depending on the size of the pumpkin.


Once you can easily stick a fork in it and turn, take it out and let it cool for a bit. Cut the top off, scrap out the seeds and then scrape the flesh from the skin. It should be really easy and almost creamy.

You can puree it before you bag it or puree it later. I went straight to the freezer bag. After cooling and labeling, I put it in the freezer. Can you say pumpkin pie?

Rutabega

The mystery vegetable is a rutabaga. It is a root crop in the same family as turnips and radishes. I personally have never partaken of it until this one came my way. Whilst my sis was out of town I was the recipient of her crop share. After a little research I decided to julienne it with some fresh carrots dug from the garden. After steaming the concoction was glazed with butter, brown sugar, lemon juice and dill. Well the results are in and I found it to be very pleasant and mild. This one seemed to have gotten a bit big and was a bit fibrous in spots but generally good giving credence to my theory that either butter or bacon will make anything better, good or great!