Recipes and Cooking Ideas for Homemakers and Amateur Cooks
 

Apricot Baked Ham

Our suppers last night… or maybe you call it ‘dinner’ (I am, after all, from the boonies in northern WI!)

That was so fun to get some supper ideas! Thanks!!!! You can leave that in a comment anytime… I’ll make it my header for awhile.

Just some comments on some of them…

There were a couple breakfast ones. I want to start doing that once every week or so, since we never eat breakfast together in the morning. Rufusannie gave me a breakfast haystack recipe that I’m dying to try. At home, we used to have a breakfast supper every Wed eve. We didn’t eat b-fast together either, so this way we still got to eat b-fast foods now and then. I wonder if Mom still does that.

I’ve never heard of fried zucchini patties. I like other squash and I like zucchini bread (I know, it’s nothing like bread  ), so I might like them. Care to share your recipe, Twila?

Those potatoes with sw cond milk & velveeta sounds good! Actually everything sounded good and some good quick summer ideas too… like leftovers.   I also love the idea of just cutting up watermelon and making blt wraps and taking it out to the family!

We had an easy meal last night too… very little prep time, but oh, so good!
ham supper
Apricot Baked Ham (recipe below)
Baked potatoes (just threw them in the roaster with the ham)
Peas (cooked in the microwave, then added S&P and butter spray)
Fresh bread (don’t let this fool you, it IS fresh-baked, but it was frozen dough bought from the store, NOT from scratch)

Apricot Baked Ham     …recipe comes from Taste of Home 2nd Edition cookbook, one of my oldest cookbooks, I got it as a wedding gift almost 11 years ago)

1/2 fully cooked ham with bone (5 to 7 pounds)
20 whole cloves
1/2 c. apricot preserves
3 T. dry mustard
1/2 c. packed light brown sugar

Score the surface of the ham with shallow diamond-shaped cuts. Insert cloves in cuts.
ham1
Combine preserves and mustard; spread over ham (I didn’t put all of it on) .
ham2
Pat brown sugar over apricot mixture.
ham3Place ham on a rack in a roasting pan. I also put about 1/4 cup water in the bottom of the pan. Seemed like it might keep it more moist. Bake at 325 for 20 min per pound or until ham is heated thro’ and thermometer reads 140. After about 1 1/2 hours, I got some of the liquid off the bottom of the pan and basted the ham with it. Yield: 10-14 servings.
ham4I forgot to take a picture till I had sliced some off already and got the potatoes out, but here it is anyway.    I was a little worried about the apricot tasting ok on there because I don’t think I really like apricots, but the ham was delicious! I couldn’t have picked out the apricot flavor if I didn’t know it was in there. Nice and moist too!

Something Old, Something New

pumpkin6 

chocchip5

———————————— First the old —————————————————–

I have made this recipe so many times and it turns out great every time. I don’t know where it came from, it’s handwritten (by me) in my blank cookbook that isn’t so blank anymore!

Pumpkin Roll

3 eggs
1 c. sugar
2/3 c. pumpkin
1 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ginger

Beat eggs for 5 min. Gradually beat in sugar. Stir in pumpkin and lemon juice. Stir together dry ingredients. Fold into pumpkin mixture.
pumpkin1
Spread in greased (I greased and floured it) 15″x10″ pan.
pumpkin2
Bake @ 375 for 15 min. Turn out on towel sprinkled with powdered sugar. I usually run a pie server around under it to make sure it’s loose before turning it onto the towel.
pumpkin3
Roll towel and cake together. Cool.
pumpkinrolled
Unroll and spread with filling.
Filling:
1 c. powdered sugar
8 oz cream cheese
4 T. butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Beat until smooth and creamy. Spread over cake.
pumpkin4
Roll and chill before slicing. I put it in the freezer to chill… the firmer it is to slice, the better. Well, I guess I’ve never had it frozen solid. It might not cut very easy then. You could roll it either way, it depends on how big you want the pieces to be.
pumpkin5
pumpkin6

—————————————- And now the new ———————————————–

This recipe comes from an Easy to Bake Easy to Make recipe card. I did a bit of variation to it. Look at the pictures…I don’t ned to tell you if it was good or not!

Easy Chocolate Lover’s Cheesepie … I actually made it into a cheesecake instead of a cheesepie, so in this case, it’s Easy Chocolate Lover’s Cheesecake

3 pkgs (8 oz each) cream cheese softened
3/4 c. sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 c. (12 oz pkg) Hershey’s mini semi sweet chocolate chips (I use regular-sized chips and used milk chocolate)
2 T. whipping cream
1 extra-serving-size packaged graham cracker crust (9 oz) (I mixed 1 1/4 c. graham cracker crumbs, 3 T. sugar, and 1/3 c. melted butter together and pressed it in the bottom of a springform pan. Then I chilled it in the fridge until I was ready to pour the batter in.)
chocchip1

Heat oven to 450. Beat cream cheese and sugar until well blended. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Stir in 1 2/3 cups choc chips; pour into crust.
chocchip2Note: I’m always asked to share some of my crust and batter when I use a springform pan because of my little helper in the kitchen with some of her own mini bakeware.
Bake 10 minutes. Without opening oven door, reduce temp to 250 (I don’t have a window in my oven. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was for me to simply turn the oven down and walk away!); continue baking 30 minutes or just until set. Remove from oven to wire rack.
chocchip3
Cool completely. Cover; refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. Place remaining 1/3 cup choc chips and whipping cream in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high 20 to 30 seconds or just until chips are melted and mixture is smooth when stirred. Cool slightly; spread over top of cheesepie.  I put some caramel ice cream topping on, then piped the chocolate mixture on. I don’t know that it was really any better, just felt like doing it that way.
chocchip4
Refrigerate 15 min or until topping is set. Cover; refrigerate leftover cheesepie.
chocchip5

——————————————- This and that ——————————————————

I just paged down and it’s looking pretty desserty lately! Time to get some main dishes and side dishes on here again! We have not been just eating desserts! :) Actually, all those desserts happened to be food to take away somewhere. Can tell what I like to make the best when I have to take food somewhere!

What are you having for supper tonight? Sometimes I’m stumped and I’m sure some of you are too. Let’s have some suggestions for us all!

I have a ham in the fridge and am planning to make that for supper tonight. Not sure what’s gonna go with it yet.

It flopped!

This evening, I tried to get fancy with something simple . Didn’t work. I was making finger foods for after the Bible School Program. I made layered finger jello (featured about 3 posts ago), then I thought I should take something else too. I had brownie mix in the cupboard, so I mixed it up, then to make it tastier and more attractive , I swirled melted caramel on top. I was picturing getting these bars out of the oven that were to die for… gooey, chocolate and caramel obviously swirled. I had decided that I’d better taste them before taking them because they’d definitely get all licked up at church!

Well, they came out of the oven and you couldn’t even see varigated color. Just brown. Totally dark brown. They looked very blah , like I would’ve just broke open a brownie mix box, threw in eggs and oil and baked it. So I sprinkled some p.sugar on them. Then I let them cool. When I went to get them out of the pan to put them on the plate, they majorly STUCK to the fork and I wrecked the first 5 pieces.

To make a long story short, caramel must be heavier than brownie batter because it all sank to the bottom. There was a layer of gooey caramel underneath. They are delicious though!!!! We’re inhaling the whole pan… ok, I’m not, but I am day-dreaming about doing it, and well, I had a couple small pieces.

And just to put a picture on, here they are. I know the picture is kind of a flop too, but at least it’s a picture.
brownies

Next time, I want to try baking it partially, then drizzling caramel on top, then finish baking it. I still think it sounds like a great idea to bake caramel on top of brownies!

Bake sale!

My contribution to it…
baked1
baked2

I want to open a bakery! I’m only half kidding. I would do the night shift of baking, then sleep during the day while someone else sells the stuff. Anyone want to fill out a job application? …Either for baking with me during the night or selling stuff during the day.  Ah, would be so fun! Everyone was in bed by 11:00 last night and I started in the kitchen. The house was quiet (well, quiet except when I’d accidently BOING!BONG! a pan and cringe for the sleeping people!) and I had no interruptions and I dumped the ingredients in the mixing bowl by myself and there was nobody standing beside me hollering, “Up! Up!”. I could just bake to my heart’s content! It was very therapeudic!  At 4:30, the birds started singing. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen the crack of dawn! At 5:30, I went to bed for a couple hours. Then, took the stuff to the garage sale/bake sale, then came home and took a 2-hr nap. I might do that more often because I’d like to put out some baked stuff at the end of the driveway this summer. Some of it, I’ll bake ahead and put in the freezer, but being able to tag stuff with “Fresh-baked this morning” has its advantages!

The 4 different things pictured above are:

Monster cookies… featured here


Apple pie… featured here


Rice crispie roll… featured here
And last, but not least, FUDGE     …recipe invented by yours truly
fudge k

Melt 4 T. butter, 2 12 oz bags milk chocolate chips, and 1/2 c. peanut butter.
fudge1You could use the microwave, too.
fudge2Stir in half a 16 oz bag of marshmallows until melted, then stir in some walnuts (I used a little over a cup). If you want a swirled effect, stir in the mmallows and nuts at the same time, but stop stirring when the mmallows are melting and streaked through, but not totally mixed in. Lightly grease a 9×13 pan and pour in.
fudge3
Refrigerate until firm. Cut into squares.
fudge5It’s easy, creamy, and delicious!!!

Now, back to the bake sale… Everything sold very well!!!!! Didn’t have anything to bring home. :)  …on second thought… :(

Comments

One Response to “Bake sale!”

  1. Melissa K on June 7th, 2008 6:12 am

    Oh, Kay, I just had to tell you that I go through these same feelings of wanting to open a bakery!!! My daughter has been begging me to do it too. For now, I’m content to just be the official baker for all of the family functions. I just don’t like the idea of HAVING to bake every day a whole lot, even if I don’t feel like it. I’m thinking that eventually I would lose my love of baking and it would become a chore!!
    I don’t know about in Wisconsin, but could you make desserts to sell to diners/shops or something? I think that would be ideal, but I can’t do it in NY because of health department regulations (would have to have a whole separate kitchen that passes inspection.) I’m always looking for ways to share my baking. It always makes me feel good!