Canning

So we got some fruit off of our new Apricot and peach trees, not a lot and they are not brand new trees, we planted them last year. We have gotten fruit off them since the end of My but this time they were all ripen so we had to pick them all. I did not want them to go to waste so I got out the canning jars.

I made some Apricot Jam and then mixed peach and Apricot and made a jam with the mixture. I also made some peach syrup. It is weird because it is red, I have never made jam that was red or red syrup.

It is either my taste buds acting weird or no one else can taste it. I taste garlic with the jams. They were cooked in different pans and I am the only one who can taste it.

I added a picture of something sweeter then jam on my blog. He just makes Grandpa and Grandma's day when he comes over Uncle Jacob's also. :o)

Cheesecake

I forgot to post the recipe sorry, here it is.
I made a brownie crust and cooked it in my cheesecake pan
Then I took it out to cool and made the cheesecake recipe in the same pan.

4 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
1 1/2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup milk
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup all-purpose flour

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9 inch springform pan.

In a large bowl, mix cream cheese with sugar until smooth. Blend in milk, and then mix in the eggs one at a time, mixing just enough to incorporate. Mix in sour cream, vanilla and flour until smooth. Pour filling into prepared crust.
Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour. Turn the oven off, and let cake cool in oven with the door closed for 5 to 6 hours; this prevents cracking. Chill in refrigerator until serving

I added strawberries and blueberries to this for the 4th and then I drizzled hot fudge sauce over it to dress it up a little more.

So I tried a new recipe for the 4th and wish I would had just stuck with mine. This one had such high ratings though o I thought I would try it. Cheesecake is the one thing I never mess up on, well until now. The cheesecake sunk in the middle and it was a mess. I tried to piece it all back together and it looked horrible, I did not have any whipping cream to cover it up with so what did I do...I flipped the brownie crust up and laid the mess on the bottom, well it looked too plain for me so I looked around the kitchen and knew I wanted to use strawberries and blueberries but I need something else, AH! the hot fudge sauce! I heated it and added some to the top. Needless to say when my men seen it they were so excited! Now we will have to wait and taste it. Am I upset I tried a new recipe, no, I like to try ones all the time and I always learn something from them.

So I will post more tonight or tomorrow about our 4th and show you more pictures and recipes.

My oldest daughter will not be with us she lives in Vernon Hills IL.

and my second to the oldest daughter and her boyfriend are headed to a baseball game, He likes the Dodgers and they are playing the A's he is having her wear a Dodgers hat and shirt while they are in the A's hometown playing. Not to wise if you ask me. LOL They are I believe she said four rows back row the dug out. I will find out how that went and let you all know also. But you know what this means right...well the guys will be playing basketball or swimming so I will get Noah all to myself. :o) am I greedy.....oh you know it when it comes to my grandson, I mean he is so cute how can you not want to hold and love on him all day.

Have a Happy 4th everyone!

Getting ready for the 4th still

So here it is Thursday and I was going to spend the day cleaning and cooking for tomorrow but I ended up going with my husband to drop off the boys, get tires we went to lunch at Green Valley Grill. (I love that place it is soooo good) Well I have a lot of cooking to do tonight and cleaning, but tomorrow is going to be a kick back day and we will just kick back, BBQ and play games, maybe swim, eat, watch TV but more important love on my grandson Noah.


My son wanted a Tart so I figure I would just play around and see what I would come up with. Then I decided to make a cheesecake for my husband but I wanted to do something different so I made a caramel brownie crust.



3/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 ground almonds


Filling
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar


Glaze

Heated peach jam
In a small mixing bowl, cream butter and confectioners' sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually add flour; mix well. Press into an ungreased 11-in. tart pan with removable bottom or 12-in. pizza pan with sides. Bake at 300 degrees F for 25-30 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on a wire rack.
For filling, in a small mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and heavy cream and beat until smooth. Spread over crust. Add fruit of choice and refrigerate.

Cheesecake crust

Getting ready for the 4th.

Well I am slowly getting ready for the 4th or in my house it is another reason to cook and decorate. Yesterday I got my meat in my homemade Teriyaki sauce and put it in the freezer or my Kabobs. Then my oldest son wants a fruit tart so I will make that tomorrow. I am going to BBQ chicken and maybe some burgers, I think I will make some baked beans and BBQ some watermelon.


I made some cookies today while the boys were at the Boys and Girls club, they had a blast and it gave them a chance to make some new friends.


So I tried to come up with a red, white and blue cookie and decided to color sugar cookie dough and add sprinkles, then I made my Watermelon cookies. I could not find my recipe so I looked one up and then decided to save time and use a package sugar cookie mix and add peppermint extract to it for the flavor I wanted. I have a lot to do and plan on dropping the boys off again tomorrow and getting the rest done.

Name Swap

I have joined a name swap on one of the blogs I belong to, it is going to be very exciting. I have So, What else, What else. what else? as the one I will swap with. If I have read her blog right she just moved to Chicago. I enjoy going to Chicago when we go to stay at our house in Indiana during the summer, we rented it out this year so we did not get back there. Then there was last year when I took out the side of my husbands brand new truck, when I say brand new I mean maybe he made one payment on it, but I don't think he even made his first payment yet. I was going to park it in one of those garages and the guy that worked there told me I was fine, well I was not. I did not take out the side I just put a good dent and took off the paint all the way to the metal. I had never had a ticket or an accident before so this was all new for me, and it had to be his new truck. It was not a good year for me. When we got back to California the next month we went into Starbucks in the mall to get ice green tea before we went for our birthday massage and I backed up into a lady in the parking lot. I was backing up very slowly so it did no harm, she wanted to get three quotes on her bug was the message she left on my phone and I was willing to pay whatever it was to get fixed. The auto shop must had told her it was nothing so she never called me back.
Well back to my name swap, I think this is going to be a lot of fun, I have a lot of ideas when I went to the farmers market and thought that would be nice to send out.
Well I did not bake today, something really sweet came into my arms and I did not want to put him down, so I will do it tomorrow.

Camp

Here are the Carmel Apples I made for my son Jacob to sell to earn money for camp. So far he has sold two carmel apples and a brownie and he has not even left the house yet.

Brownies

My son is trying to earn money to attend basketball camp again so we decided to sell a few things, first of all we will start with brownies, maybe watermelon cookies and caramel apples.

We made turtle and peanut butter cup brownies!!

I'm back

It has been a little while since I posted because life has been busy. We went on vacation, then the boys had basketball camp and youth conference. But the highlight of t all was our youngest daughter and her husband Eric had their first baby, our first grandson!! He is so cute.

Pear bread

I got this recipe off one of the blogs I belong to (bake and break). Since I love pears I had to give it a try and I am so glad I did. You have to try it you will not regret it.

Pear Bread
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 cup chopped pecans (original recipe uses walnuts)
3/4 cup butter, softened (may substitute 3/4 cup vegetable oil)
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups peeled and finely grated ripe, firm pears
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan or two 9″x 5″loaf pans.
Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Scoop out about 1/4 cup of this mixture and combine it with nuts to coat. Stir back into the flour mixture.
In a separate bowl, combine butter, eggs, sugar, pears, and vanilla. Add the pear mixture to the flour mixture, stirring just until flour disappears and batter is evenly moistened.
Pour batter into prepared pan(s). Bake for 60-70 minutes, or until bread is browned and firm on top. A pick inserted into the center should come out clean.
Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Then, remove from pan and place top side up on a plate or wire rack to cool completely.

Camping at Yosemite

We took off for our

yearly vacation, needless to say it got cut short and we only went for two days, just enough time to be a little more stressed and not enough time to relax. The boys were not very happy about coming home so they fought so much the next day that it just ruined my day and I was so stressed we ended up canceling our anniversary dinner for that night. This will be an anniversary I will hope to never repeat. My husband and boys went to his families BBQ at the lake today and I stayed home and cleaned and cooked so I will have a few things I made today I will post. Here are some pictures our trip. We picked a bad week to go because all the school's were next to use and loud, when they stopped we heard the gun shots and yelling at the bears. Yes Davif slept through it. LOL

Banana Nut Bread

I have been wanting to make these Banana nut breads for awhile, I was either out of bananas or something. These are made with sour cream. They are really good, I made them to send to the Soldiers that we have adopted.

Lemonade

This was really good lemonade, I sliced up six lemons and mixed 1 1/2 cups sugar and let it sit for awhile. Then I used a potato masher and mashed the sugars and lemon mixture, I added about 8 cups of water to it. It was perfect lemonade.

Pies

I was trying to come up with something ew to make for the Teen Cafe', I was going to make regular size pirs and but them in 8th then I figure I would just make mini ones. These are Chocolate Cream, Banana Cream and Coconut Cream.

Kim's birthday cake.

My daughter Kim likes Reeses Peanut butter cups so it got me think about making a cake with peanut butter in it. I then melted the peanut butter cups to decorate the cake. It was really good.

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup butter, softened
4 eggs
1 (18.25 ounce) package butter
cake mix
2/3 cup water

1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup butter, softened
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1/3 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease and flour two 9 inch round cake pans.

Combine 1/2 cup peanut butter and 1/2 cup butter or margarine. Cream until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at time, mixing well after each one. Add cake mix alternately with the water. Stir until just combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake at 325 degrees F (165 degrees C) for 25 minutes or until cake tests done. Allow cakes to cool in pan for 10 minutes and then turn out onto a cooling rack to cool completely. Assemble and frost with Peanut Butter Frosting once cool.

To Make Peanut Butter Frosting: Combine 1 cup peanut butter, and 1/2 cup butter or margarine cream together until light and fluffy. Add the confectioner's sugar. Mix in enough cream to make the frosting of a spreading consistency. Apply to cool cake.

Cook Books!

I am trying to help the teens in our church attend Youth Conference so I thought of this idea. I have put together a cookbook with almost 100 of my families favorite recipes. I am offering them for $8.00 each and $3.00 for shipping. All the money will go for the kids. I am paying for the ink and all the paper to do these. Once I get the first one done I will try to post a picture.
If you would lke to help he teens you can either leave a post here with your email adderss or email me at April@comcast.net and I will give you instructions on where to send a money order or you may pay by paypal. It is for a great cause and I know you will love these recipes.

I still need to get the rings on these to put them together, I just wanted you to have an idea what they were going to look like.

Thanks for helping our teens.