Cherry Chocolate Wine Cake

I made the most amazing bundt cake for my mom's birthday!  It was my first bundt, and I had two go-arounds with it (the first one fell apart as I was taking it out of the bundt pan, and yes, I swore like a sailor). 

Ingredients:

Nonstick vegetable cooking spray

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate

1 cup red wine, such as cabernet sauvignon

1/3 cup whole milk

1 3/4 cups granulated sugar

2/3 cup (10 2/3 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature

3 large eggs, slightly beaten

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 box (.3 ounce) sugar-free black cherry gelatin

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

For the Wine Glaze

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup red wine, such as cabernet sauvignon

1 cup confectioners' sugar, plus more for serving

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350.  Mix all the dry ingredients together.  Mix the sugar, butter and eggs together with a mixer until fluffy.  Melt the chocolate and mix with wine and milk in another bowl.  Combine all mixes now in one large bowl, mixing well on low until smooth with no lumps.  Generously grease the bundt pan and pour in the mixture.  Bake for 40 to 45 minutes.  Let cool for 15 minutes.  Tip over and release bundt on a cake dish.  When ready to serve, make the wine glaze by mixing the butter, red wine, sugar and vanilla in a small sauce pan until a syrupy consistency.  Sprinkle powdered sugar over cake and drizzle the wine glaze over each serving with a garnish of fresh berries. 

This cake was delicious and moist.  Everybody loved it!

Another Saturday Night, and I Ain't Got Nobody!

Yeah!!! I love Cat Stevens! Great song. Anyway, another Saturday night, and I ain't got no children, but I do have an amazing hubby and two of the most adorable dogs in the world. And a pretty cute kitty, too. We just got back from Vespers and had a quiet dinner at home. Now we're drinking Margaritas and getting ready to watch Harry Potter.

The past few weeks have been pretty uneventful. We finally decided to take our house off the market after receiving no offers. What an unfortunate time to list a house for sale. Within a week of our listing on the MLS, Obama made his speech about the Federal Government defaulting on its debt, the stock market plunged 2000 points, and the jumbo loan limit dropped 100k. Not good for us. No, no, no!

So now we are trying our best to scrimp and save for our adoption and upcoming Master's program. We need to start fundraising for our adoption, since it will probably cost about $8,000 for us to fly to Ethiopia twice, and our referral fee will be due next year sometime. On top of that, what if we are lucky enough to be referred siblings?!? Then we need to come up with another $6,000.

What is our plan, you might be asking? Well, everybody loves coffee, so we are working on setting up our own online coffee store to help fundraise. I also happen to be pretty good on a sewing machine, so I plan on making handmade African-themed batik quilts and hope I get some takers. I'm starting to feel excited about our adoption! I think I just needed to pick myself out of the dumps of infertility blues and get an attitude adjustment. Also, being 27 on the siblings wait list is good, right??

In the meantime, I've been working on my mommy skills by knitting socks and making these cute little watermelon cookies:

And check out the veggies from our garden!

English scones at teatime

My best friend is getting married in a couple weeks, and I had the honor of throwing her a bridal shower last week! She wanted an English tea party, so of course, I practiced my scone recipe for weeks beforehand to make sure they turned out perfect for her shower. Here's the best recipe I've found so far for scones:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
6 tablespoons of cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces.

Mix these ingredients together until you have the consistency of cornmeal. Next stir in:

1/2 cup of dried currants, cranberries or blueberries (I used frozen blueberries)
1 large egg
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon grated orange zest (optional)

Mix with spatula until ingredients are moistened. Gather into a ball and knead against bowl until sides of bowl are clean. Transfer to floured surface and pat dough into an 8-inch round and 3/4 inch thick. Cut into 12 wedges and place on baking sheet. Brush tops with cream and sprinkle with sugar. Place into preheated 425 degree oven and bake until golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on rack and enjoy warm!

Sweets, sardines and kitties

My sweet tooth has taken over lately and forced me to make french toast from my homemade challah bread, my grandmother's old date&nut pinwheel cookies, etc. I also love sardines and could eat them like popcorn, and my kitty comes out to see where the fish smell is coming from when I pop the can. I'm just trying to find ways to detract my attention from the fact that we have STILL not received our final home study to submit with our dossier. How much longer must we wait to get on the wait list? Only more waiting will tell....

Rustic Bosc Pear Tart

I found this recipe on The Food Network's website. I bought Bosc pears at the Farmer's Market for Thanksgiving and wanted to make some type of tart with them. I brought it to my family's house for Thanksgiving dinner, and I was very pleased with the results. The only thing I changed is the type of flour. I didn't have wheat flour, so I just used regular white flour. It still looked rustic enough, though!

Crust:
1/2 cup whole-grain pastry flour or regular whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons lowfat buttermilk
3 tablespoons ice water

Filling:
3 medium pears
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch
3 tablespoons light brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Glaze:
1 teaspoon honey
1/4 teaspoon boiling water

Directions:
To prepare the crust, in a medium bowl whisk together the whole-wheat pastry flour, all- purpose flour, granulated sugar and salt. Add the butter and using two knives or a pastry cutter, cut the butter into the flour mixture until you get a pebbly, course texture. In a small bowl combine the buttermilk and ice water. Using a fork, gradually mix the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture. Pat the dough into a 4-inch round and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.


In the meantime, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F, and prepare the filling. Peel the pears, core them and cut into 1/4-inch slices. In a large bowl toss the pear slices with the lemon juice. Sprinkle in the cornstarch, brown sugar and cinnamon and toss until the pears are evenly coated. Set aside.


On a lightly floured surface, roll the chilled dough into a large circle about 9 inches in diameter. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and draping the dough over the rolling pin, transfer to the prepared baking sheet. If the dough breaks at all patch it up with your fingers.


Arrange the pears in a mound in the center of the dough, leaving a 2-inch border. Fold the border over the filling. It will only cover the pears partially and does not need to be even.


Bake the tart for 15 minutes, and then reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F, keeping the tart in the oven all the while, and bake for another 40 minutes, until the pears are tender and the crust is golden brown.


In a small bowl stir together the honey and boiling water to make a glaze. When the tart is done remove it from the oven and brush the honey glaze all over the top of the fruit and crust. Transfer to a plate to cool slightly. Cut into 6 wedges and serve warm or a room temperature.

Almond biscotti

I got this recipe off the Interweb, and it worked just fine. Thanks to myrecipes.com! I never knew that biscotti means twice cooked in Italian until my husband told me, and I felt very silly and embarrassed. But then I made the biscotti and they were delicious, so I didn't feel so silly anymore. These go well with a hot cup of coffee or tea and are also perfect for Christmas cookie exchanges since they don't really go stale!

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup almonds, chopped and toasted
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 teaspoon anise extract
2 eggs
1 egg white
Vegetable cooking spray

Preparation
Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl. Combine vanilla and next 3 ingredients; add to flour mixture, stirring until well-blended (dough will be dry).

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead lightly 7 or 8 times. Shape dough into a 16-inch-long roll. Place roll on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray, and flatten roll to 1-inch thickness.

Bake at 350° for 30 minutes. Remove roll from baking sheet to a wire rack, and let cool 10 minutes. Cut roll diagonally into 30 (1/2-inch) slices, and place, cut sides down, on baking sheet. Reduce oven temperature to 325°, and bake 10 minutes. Turn cookies over, and bake an additional 10 minutes (cookies will be slightly soft in center but will harden as they cool). Remove from baking sheet; let cool completely on wire rack.

Roasted Bosc pears with pomegranate glaze

This recipe I found in a Bon Appetit from 2004. It was a gourmet-looking dessert that was very simple and delicious.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup dry red wine, such as Syrah or Zinfandel
3/4 cup pomegranate juice
1/2 cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
6 Bosc pears with stems, peeled
Vanilla ice cream
Purchased biscotti

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Stir wine, pomegranate juice, sugar, cinnamon stick, and orange peel in medium saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes.

Using small melon baller, core pears from bottom of wide end. Trim bottoms flat and stand upright in 8x8x2-inch baking dish. Pour pomegranate-wine sauce over pears. Roast pears until tender when pierced with knife, basting pears with sauce every 20 minutes, about 1 hour. Using spatula, transfer roasted pears to serving platter. Transfer pan juices to small saucepan. Simmer until reduced to 2/3 cup, about 5 minutes. (Can be made 4 hours ahead. Let sauce and pears stand at room temperature. Rewarm sauce before continuing.)

Spoon glaze over pears. Serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream and biscotti.

Carrot cake and Cathy's Crack Bars!!!

I hope Cathy from work doesn't mind me sharing her Indoor S'more recipe with you all. She also calls them "crack bars" because they are really that addictive. I made these, along with carrot cake, for Daniel's birthday dessert. The carrot cake recipe came from Joy of Cooking. The kids were swarming!

CRACK BARS:

13 oz. box Golden Grahams (I could only find 12 oz. box, and that worked fine.)
1 ½ C. chocolate chips (semi or milk both good)
6 C. mini marshmallows, divided (reserve 1 C. to add later)
¼ C. light corn syrup
5 T. butter, cut in chunks
1 t. vanilla


Melt chocolate chips, 5 C. marshmallows, corn syrup, and butter in large bowl in microwave. (I do like 1.5 minutes, stir, and do 20 to 30 second intervals until all melted.)

Mix in 1 t. vanilla.

Pour in Golden Grahams and reserved marshmallows. (This part kinda messy, but just keep stirring until it’s all mixed together pretty good.)

Press into greased (butter or Pam) 9x13 baking dish. (Spray a little Pam or butter your fingers up a little so you can press in dish good without it sticking all over your fingers.)

Refrigerate at least one hour and cut into bars.


CARROT CAKE:

Grease two round pans and preheat oven to 350.

Whisk together in bowl:

1 1/3 cups of flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp salt

Add to bowl and stir together well:

2/3 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cup grated carrots
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup raisings
1/2 crushed pineapple, lightly drained.

Scrape batter into pans and bake 25 to 30 minutes. Detach from pan and let cool. Frost with cream cheese frosting. Recipe below:

8 oz cream cheese
5 tablespoons of unsalted soft butter
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups of powdered sugar

Combine in a food processor and pulse until smooth and creamy. Yum!

Strawberry & Blueberry Cobbler

I'm posting this recipe for my stepmom, Rita, because she requests my cobbler so often! I thought she might appreciate having the recipe for herself. This dessert is truly tremendous and fit for any fancy dinner party. Every time I have made it, the plates have been licked clean. This recipe came out of "The Joy of Cooking." Here goes:

for cobbler biscuit dough, whisk together in a bowl:

1 1/3 cups of all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons of sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Add 5 tablespoons of cold unsalted butter cut into small pieces

Toss this together with dry ingredients, using two knives, pastry blender, or do it how I do, with my hands, until resembling breadcrumbs.

Next add 2/3 cups heavy cream or 1/2 cup of milk and knead dough together

When dough feels ready to be rolled, place onto a floured surface and cut out any shape of biscuits you like. I just use a small jar and cut out circles. When you place these biscuits over the fruit filling, brush with a beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar.

Now for the filling:

Find a large casserole dish and throw in 2 pints of blueberries and 2 pints of strawberries. Sprinkle with:

1/2 cup of sugar
2 tablespoons of cornstarch
1 tsp grated lemon zest

Toss ingredients so the fruit is well coated with the powder.

Place biscuits over the topping and remember to brush with eggs and sprinkle the sugar.

Place into an oven that has been preheated to 375 and bake for 45 to 50 minutes.

Whip some cream together and scoop spoonfuls of the cobbler into bowls with cream on top. If you try ANY of my recipes, please, for the love of God, let it be this one!!!!!!!! Thank you, Joy of Cooking for blessing me with this recipe.