Wordless Wednesday…

Drop In & Decorate

Back in 2002 one of my good food blogger friends, Lydia started a wonderful program called Drop in & Decorate. It’s a simple concept: bake some cookies, invite friends or family (or co-workers or neighbors) to drop by and help decorate, and donate your cookies to a local food pantry, emergency shelter, senior center, lunch program, or other nonprofit agencies meeting the basic human needs of people in your own communities.

This year if you’d like to host your own Drop In & Decorate® event, Pillsbury and Wilton would like to help.

Pillsbury has donated 50 VIP coupons, worth $3.00 each, off any Pillsbury product -- including sugar cookie mix and icing -- to be distributed, first come, first served, while supply lasts, to anyone who plans to host a Drop In & Decorate event (max. 5 coupons per person). And she iwll also include a Comfort Grip cookie cutter, donated by Wilton, to people who plan to host cookies-for-donation events.

There’s also a free downloadable guide with everything you need to know to host your own party, available on the Drop In & Decorate web site.

It’s a simple idea in a complicated world, and something anyone can do!  If you’d like more information, you can visit the web site or contact Lydia directly at lydiaATdropinanddecorateDOTorg.

Check out Lydia’s site for more details .

Photos courtesy of Drop In & Decorate and Lydia Walshin

Apple Pancakes for dinner…

We are still in our crazy, running all the time, trying to find some sense of balance in our lives mode.  So I am making dinners in the crockpot or else finding things that I can make ahead of time and just reheat for a quick meal between activities (BMX racing, ice skating, and karate).  I made a really good white chicken chili but ate it all without a single photo.  So will post when I make it again and you can bet I will be making it again, it was just that good.

Anyway, these pancakes came about because I had some fruit that badly needed to be used up or tossed out tomorrow.  There were 6 apples, 4 bananas and 2 pears.  3 of the bananas went into banana chocolate chip muffins (1 had to be tossed), and 3 apples went into the pancakes.  I am going to make apple/pear sauce with the remaining fruit to use as topping for the pancakes!  These pancakes are delicious and a perfect way to use up some of that fruit.  They can be made ahead and just warmed up (for dinner) but of course they are way better hot off the griddle!

Apple Pancakes (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

Ingredients:

2 eggs, well beaten
1 1/2 cups of milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
14 tsp nutmeg
3 medium apples, peeled and coarsely grated (I used macintosh and a honey crisp apple.  You could use any)

Directions:

1. Mix the eggs with the milk and vanilla extract in a large bowl.
2. In a smaller bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg together.
3. Combine the wet and the dry ingredients and stir in the apples.
4. Heat a thin layer of oil in an electric skillet on medium heat. Drop large spoonful of batter into the pan and flatten it out a little (otherwise, you might have trouble getting them to cook in the center) and cook until golden brown underneath. Flip the pancakes and cook them for an additional two or three minutes.

I sprinkled these with cinnamon sugar and topped them with maple syrup but apple sauce will be great on them too!

Royal Foodie Joust Winners: Orange, Black and Sugar

Jenn, The Leftover Queen, is busy taking care of Royal duties in San Francisco this weekend and has asked me to step up and help her out with the Royal Foodie Joust winner post.  As always I am so happy to help out a friend!

I love the fall, it is one of  my favorite season. Unfortunately living here we really don’t have too much of a fall to speak of.  But I still love the fall ingredients and these ones were awesome.So when Kat, from A Good Appetite, winner of last month’s Joust, sent me her choice of ingredients for this month I was thrilled!

Orange - Pumpkin (or anything other orange flesh squash, i.e. butternut, acorn, kabocha)
Black - Stout, Porter or other dark colored Beer (if you don't want to use alcohol, you can substitute in cola)
Sugar

The Jousters loved the colors, er ingredients this month. We had 20 entries this month! Ranging in everything from appetizers to dessert! Be sure to check out all the recipes and tantalizing photos here on the Foodie Blogroll forum!

We welcomed several new Jousters this month, who will hopefully become regulars, and welcomed many of our seasoned Jousters back, after a much deserved summer break! I hope this will encourage some of you to join us this month too! Things are always exciting, and changing in the Jousting fields! We have a fantastic group of ingredients this month too. I will announce them at the end of the post!

About the Joust:

The Royal Foodie Joust is an awesome and fun monthly peer voted competition that is hosted on The LeftoverQueen/FoodieBlogroll Forum! It gets better each and every month as the competition gets stiffer and more creative, as Jousters try to outdo each other! It is also one of the friendliest competitions I have ever seen. So please don’t be intimidated to come and join us this month in another round!

We don’t bite, unless of course there is real food in our faces

The only rules for the competition is that each Jouster create only one dish and each entry must feature three ingredients in common.

This competition has been referred to many times as the “Iron Chef” of the Food Blogosphere. Each month’s ingredients are chosen by the previous month’s Best Overall Entry winner. The Best Overall winner of each Joust not only wins the Queen’s favor, bragging rights and a cool icon to put on their blog, but is also awarded with a super awesome Royal Foodie Joust Apron! There are also prizes for the winners of the other two categories: Best Photo and Most Unique Interpretation

So what are you waiting for? Come over and join us this month!

If you would like to participate in this month’s Joust, be sure to submit your entry by 12 NOON, Eastern Standard USA time on the First of the following Month (Dec. 1, 2009)!

If you have an idea you would like to share about how to make the Joust a better community event, please join us in discussing it here.

Although there were so many awesome entries this time around, there can only be one winner in each category, and each month making that call gets harder! Onto those winning entries now!

This month’s Best Overall winner is Inspired Taste (Joanne and Adam) with their Guiness Burger with Butternut Squash Fries

As food bloggers (and food appreciators) we all know that pictures speak a thousand words and this month’s Best photo winner goes to Nuria from Spanish Recipes with her beautiful Pumpkin Puree with Sugar and Beer Spider Web Reduction

And last but not least is the entry that won the Most Unique Interpretation which this month goes to 5starfoodie with Stout Pumpkin Sous Vide with Goat Cheese and Maple Syrup

Thank you so much to our winners, all the participants and everyone who voted! Remember, even if you don’t enter the Joust you can still vote for your favorite entry on The Foodie Blogroll Forum!

*********************************************************************************

So without further ado, Joanne and Adam of Inspired Taste have decided to use seasonal ingredients to inspire you for this month’s Joust!

Here are your ingredients:

Pear
Ginger
Fennel

Please post your entries here!

Let the games begin!!!

Quick and Easy Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Have you noticed that pretty much the only things I do right now are things that are quick and easy?  Sad but true.  I am busy…

I went searching yesterday for a quick and easy recipe to make some pumpkin muffins.  I wanted something that used no appliances and I could whip out in a matter of minutes with minimal mess.  These were perfect and fit my criteria flawlessly!

See the crunchy cinnamon/sugar coating on top?  It absolutely made these muffins!!!

Pumpkin Muffins (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)
Adapted from the American club, in Kohler, Wisconsin via Gourmet Magazine

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups White Whole Wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin (from a 15 ounce can)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pumpkin-pie spice
3/4 cups plus 1 tablespoon white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

Makes 12 muffins

Put oven in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Put liners in muffin cups.

Whisk together pumpkin, oil, eggs, and brown sugar in a large bowl until smooth.  In another bowl whish together the flour, white sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and pumpkin pie spice.  Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and whisk until until just combined.  Be careful to not over mix .

Stir together cinnamon and remaining 1 tablespoon sugar in another bowl.

Divide batter among muffin cups (each should be about three-fourths full), then sprinkle tops with cinnamon-sugar mixture. Bake until puffed and golden brown and wooden pick or skewer inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes.

Cool in pan on a rack five minutes, then transfer muffins from pan to rack and cool to warm or room temperature.

Pecan Pie Bars

 

These are soooooo good!  I would never lie to you about something so wonderfully ooey, gooey and somewhat in some places chewy!

My friend Marye Audet very generously sent me a copy of her new cookbook “The Everything Cookies and Brownies Cookbook”.  This book is part of the “The Everything” series of books.  And what a great addition to the series it is!

I love baking cookies and brownies so this one is right up my alley…it has frosted cookies, filled cookies (with ideas for fillings), brownies, bar cookies, drop cookies and get this…even some that are good for shipping.

If you are looking for a comprehensive, all in one spot cookie and brownie book this one is it.  This book even has a section for special needs, as in gluten free and egg/dairy free.

Love the book Marye and congrats on a job well done!  I can’t wait to try out the rest of the delicious recipes!!!

 

Pecan Pie Bars (from The Everything Cookies & Brownies Cookbook – recipe reprinted with Marye Audet’s permission)

Ingredients:

Crust:

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter

Topping:

1-1/2 cups light corn syrup
4 eggs
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups chopped pecans
1 cup chocolate chips, optional (I used 1/2 cup scattered on the crust of half of the jelly roll pan)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350F.  Line 10” x 15” jelly roll pan with parchment, allowing it to overhang sides and ends slightly.
• Stir together flour, 1/2 cup sugar and salt.  Cut in 1 cup butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Press firmly into the pan.
• Bake 20 minutes.
• Mix together corn syrup, eggs, remaining sugars, 3 tablespoons of butter, and vanilla; whisk until smooth. Stir in pecans, pour over hot crust. If using the chocolate chips add them before you pour the topping on the crust.
• Bake 25 minutes or until set.  Cool completely before cutting into bars.

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Wordless Wednesday

What do you think that the man who will always love her the most whispered to make her smile like that?