More Strawberries

We found some strawberries on sale yesterday. $1.00 a pound. Not a bad price. So I had to get some. I only bought 5 pounds. I guess I'm hoping to find better deals before the strawberry season is over. Today I'm freezing most of the berries. But who could resist to just eat them when they're at their best.
Two in the freezer, one in my mouth. Or something like that.
I remembered a fruit dip I haven't had in a long time. That would go so good with these strawberries right now.
You need 8 oz. of cream cheese and a 7oz jar of marshmallow cream.
Let the cream cheese come to room temperature. Just put it in the microwave for a few seconds.
Then add the marshmallow cream. Beat until smooth.
You can also add a little vanilla for flavor.
There are many variations of this recipe around, just look around on the Internet.

I found this picture of me in my grandmas garden.

That's my younger sister Petra I'm holding. I had a terrible time copying this picture. It was in an album. The picture has been in this album for so long that I couldn't get it out. I was afraid I was going to rip it. So I just scanned the whole album page through the plastic cover. I guess it didn't come out too bad.

Strawberries

                                                              I love strawberries.

My grandma had a big garden with a large strawberry patch. Every summer us kids would look for the reddest and biggest berries. We'd pick them, rinse them off and eat them.  They were so delicious. When I was pregnant with my oldest daughter I was graving strawberries like you wouldn't belief it. Fresh, frozen, canned. It didn't make any difference.
I wish I had a garden to grow some. But since I don't I patiently wait for strawberry season every year. Yes, I know, you can buy strawberries year round. But they just don't taste as good as fresh strawberries that are in season.
My favorite way to eat them is with a little bit of whipped cream.

A few years ago I found a recipe for strawberry-banana jam in a magazine. I have made it every year ever since.

Here is the recipe:

4-3/4 cups prepared fruit (about 2 quarts fully ripe strawberries and 3 fully ripe medium bananas)

3 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 box SURE-JELL Fruit Pectin
1/2 tsp. butter or margarine
6-3/4 cups sugar

Stem and crush strawberries thoroughly. Measure 3-1/4 cups prepared strawberries into 6- or 8-quart sauce pot. Mash bananas thoroughly. Measure  1-1/2 cups  bananas. Add to pot. Stir in lemon juice. Stir pectin into fruit in sauce pot. Add butter. Bring mixture to full rolling boil  on high heat, stirring constantly. Quickly stir in all the sugar. Return to full rolling boil and boil exactly 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skin off foam.Ladle into hot, sterilized jars. Close and set upside down for 5 minutes, then turn upright. After jars are cooled, check seals.

Or, after cooling off a little, pour into freezer containers and freeze.That's what I did last time I made this, and the jam came out great.  

Recently I also  found this recipe here: strawberry-banana jam.

You may want to look at it if you prefer the water bath canning method.

I always buy extra strawberries during the summer and freeze them. I just wash, slice and freeze in containers or bags. And then  I can use them in winter for smoothies. Or I put some sugar on them, microwave for a few minutes and pour them over pancakes. Better than pancake syrup.

I don't think I could ever get tired of strawberries. And thank goodness the season is just starting.

April

It's already April. I haven't done too much lately. I had several ideas of things to crochet, but for now I have to put the crochet hook down. Last fall I started to get this rash on my arms, just around the time I started to knit and crochet again. But at first I didn't think much of it, because I get odd rashes at times from the sun. After a couple of months the rash was still there and it was itchy. My doctor gave me a cream and that seemed to help some. I also took a brake from crocheting and knitting. My arms were almost back to normal. And then I decided to make me another swiffersock. The rash came back.
So for now the yarn has been put away. And I'm waiting for the rash to disappear. It is getting better, but very slowly.
After some time I will probably pick up the yarn again and see what happens. If the rash comes back, then I will know for sure that the yarn caused it. Right now I'm just guessing.
So I will spend my time looking for yummy recipes at my kitchentable.

Yummy Milk Shake

I ran across this recipe for a milk shake a long time ago. But over time I forgot about it. Well last night I found it again and decided to make it. And I'm glad I did. It was really good.
Here are the ingredients:

1-1/2 to 2 cups ice water
1-1/2 cups nonfat dry milk powder
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 to 1-1/2 trays of ice cubes, as much as you can spare
2 tablespoons corn oil plus a 5-second squirt of non-stick spray for emulsification purposes
Place all ingredients in a blender. Blend for 2 minutes. Pour in glass and enjoy.

While I still prefer a shake from Baskin-Robbins or DQ, this shake will definitely satisfy a craving a pinch.
Here is where I found this recipe:http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/magicmilkshakes.htm

Sunday's Breakfast

Hefezopf

Growing up we had Hefezopf quite often for breakfast or afternoon coffee. Most of the time it was homemade, but sometimes it was store bought. Hefezopf is a soft, lightly sweet , braided yeast bread. Here I don't have the choice to buy it in the store. Sure, you can buy similar items, but then they have tons of sugar and are usually quite expensive. At least that's my opinion. So if I want Hefezopf I have to make it myself. But that's really not a problem, because they are easy to make. And I use my old bread maker to knead the dough, that makes it even easier. But even made completely by hand it is not a lot of work. So, here is my basic recipe for Hefezopf.


5 cups flour                                                          
1/2 cup sugar
10 tbsp butter or margarine, softened
1 egg
1 cup warm milk
2 1/2 tsp yeast

For bread maker: Just add all the ingredients into bread maker according to your models directions and use the dough setting.   
By hand: Put flour, sugar and yeast into a bowl. Add butter, egg and milk. Stir together until it is too hard to stir. Pour ingredients out onto the kitchen counter. Knead dough until it is soft and elastic. It should be somewhat tacky but not sticky. Now let dough rise about one hour. For this you can put your dough back into your bowl and cover it. Or you can just leave the dough on the counter and put your bowl over it. That's what I usually do.
Now divide dough into three equal pieces. Roll each piece into a rope. Make a braid out of the ropes. Place your braid onto a baking sheet. Cover and let it rise for about half an hour, or until doubled in bulk.
Take 1 egg yolk and 1 tbsp milk and mix together. Brush on the braid.
Bake in preheated 350 °F oven for 30-35 minutes

Tips:
 Don't use all the flour at first. Use about 1/2 to 1 cup less than what it says. Then add more as needed. It is a lot easier to add flour to a dough that is too soft, than add water to a dough that is too dry.
You can add some flavorings like grated lemon peel, a hand full of raisins or whatever else sounds good to you.

I love to eat it with butter and jam, or plain, dipped in coffee.

Cook Books

Today I added another cook book to my collection. Even though I don't use cook books all that much anymore, thanks to the internet, I still love to have them. I have quite a few. Some of them I brought with me from Germany, others I bought at garage sales and some of them I actually bought new. I also started to make my own cook book several years ago. I have stacks of recipes torn out of magazines and newspapers. Whenever I make one of them and I like it I'll copy it neatly and put it in my cook book. If I don't like it, it goes in the trash. This way I'll know which ever recipe I make, it will be good. So many times you'll find a recipe that sounds so good, but then it doesn't taste good.
The book I got today is an e-book. I got it for free from amazon. It is called "Super Duper Totally Authorized Top Secret Recipes eBook "
It's a kindle edition. I don't have a kindle, but you can get a kindle reading app for your computer for free at amazon.
I have no idea how long this offer is good for. But I'm certainly glad I got in on it. It has 450 clone recipes from Mc Donalds,Starbucks, KFC and many more restaurants.
So, I think in the coming weeks I'll be cooking a lot, trying out these recipes. And hopefully I can give some of them a spot in my own cook book.

The Chicken Dumpling Adventure

Have you ever had the Chicken and Dumplings at Cracker Barrel? I love them. When we go there to eat, that is what I will have. But we don't go out very often. So I wanted to try and make chicken and dumplings that tasted just like theirs. There are lots of copycat recipes out there. The hard part is to find one that actually tastes like the original. I looked at a few and decided on one that seemed simple enough. I had to make a few substitutions, but nothing that would affect the taste very much. For example, I didn't have a whole chicken, so I used chicken breasts. Instead of fresh parsley I used dried.
The first part of the recipe went pretty well. Then I started the dumplings. I should have known just by looking at the ingredients that they wouldn't come out right. The dough is supposed to be rolled out.
But if I would have put that dough on my kitchen counter, it would have run off it and on the floor.
So then I started looking around the different recipes some more. I found that same recipe two more times. From different people on different websites. The directions almost the same, maybe a couple words changed. And each taking credit for it. So it seems people just take other peoples recipes and without even trying them out, claim them to be their own.
To save the dumplings I decided to add more flour to it and make drop dumplings out of it. In the end it was a nice dish. But nothing like Cracker Barrel's. Since I have made so many changes to this recipe I give you my version of a nice chicken dumpling dish.

In a large pot combine 3 quarts water
                                     2-3 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
                                     1 tsp salt
                                     1 small onion, cut in pieces               
                                     2 stalks celery, chopped
                                     1 tsp garlic( from a jar)
                                     1 bay leaf
                                     1 tbsp dried parsley
Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer about 2 hours.
Remove chicken and cover so it won't dry out. Strain the broth and discard the vegetables.
Pour the broth back into the pot.
Add:                              1/4 tsp. ground pepper (or to taste)
                                      1 tbsp. lemon juice
                                      1/2 tsp salt
Bring to a boil.

For the dumplings stir together
                                     2 1/2 cups flour
                                     1 tbsp baking powder
                                     1 1/4 tsp salt
                                     1 cup milk

Drop by tsp fulls onto boiling broth, reduce heat and simmer 20-30 minutes, depending on the size of the dumplings. If at this point the broth is not thick enough, thicken it with cornstarch. Just stir about 1 tbsp of  cornstarch into about 1/4 cup of cold water. Pour a little of this into the broth and let boil for a couple minutes. Add more if needed.
Add the cut up chicken back into pot and heat through.
                                

I guess what I have learned is, that just because a recipe comes from a great website, doesn't mean it is a great recipe.