Found a recipe for French Vanilla Blueberry Steusel Coffee Cake on the website divascancook.com. Looked interesting but as usual I changed up the recipe and here it is!
Vanilla & Berries Coffee Cake for Sunday Morning
Food & Wine
First attempt to refinish table
French toast with Pecan cinnamon bread
Early peas
Turkey, brocolli & Lowfat Alfredo sauce
After the Crucifixion in Lenawee County
Fall motif made with glass plate, silk flowers and tissue paper
Honorable Mention in Spring art show 2012
Whole wheat pasta and some kind of homemade sauce
Early spring rose branches
Spring rain
Misty winter morning
First violets
Baptism of my great nephew
Spring walk
One of many Instructables in 2012 posted on Instructables.com
Photo transfer on white Organza
Black-eyed Susans
Fresh produce
Bread n’ wine
Monarch on my Butterfly Bush
Lace backed collage of my German ancestors
Broken toilet handle spring 2012
printing on used dryer sheets
Lovely Daylilies
Finally spring
Neighborhood pool
First peony
Apron and wine sack
Bottle & stamp necklace
Accent transfer and thread painted, unfinished
Patching up jeans
Short cape soon to be on etsy
Various types of fabric jewelry
Asian theme apron
Tea stained apron
First try at matching pot holders
Crazy skull heads from air clay
Second attempt with fall decor
Apple from the cider mill
Carrot and squash soup with turkey on whole wheat & avocado
Crappachino
Cozy teatime
Team Robin for Robin Roberts of Good Morning America
Winter sunshine
Fall picture transfered to muslin, lined with lace pieces and puff painted
Fall 2012
Fall leaves
Christmas valance from scrap fabrics
Found my dollar store elf sneaking wine again
Hollowed out fruit with allspice for natural holiday air freshener
Neighbor gave me the cutest miniature gingerbread house
Everyone has a cousin Eddie
Weekly Photo Challenge: My 2012 in Pictures
Miscellaneous Cooking Tips
| Please replace all or part of the flour in any recipe with whole wheat instead of bleached or unbleached regular flour.You do not have to use all the ingredients in specific recipes. Sometimes it effects the flavor, other times it may actually improve the dish to leave something out or add additional seasoning or ingredients. Just experiment with common sense. You cannot make Chicken and Dumplings without the Chicken.
Learn to cook without the need for measuring ingredients, except for baking. Don’t ever cook without any seasoning or salt, much too blah! Use Vinegar to rinse fresh fruits and vegetables. I have seen washes specific for cleaning produce that are expensive and I have even heard of some who use detergent to wash off the various pesticides. Watered down vinegar solutions are great for washing fruits and vegetables, much better than just water, safer than soap and much cheaper than store bought products. Be careful using pre-washed and bagged leaf vegetables and baby carrots. You don’t really know how clean they are and they may put various additives to preserve and prevent browning. Fresh is best. Use a large clean bin or kitchen sink to clean all the leaves in water with slight amount of vinegar. Then drain and rinse with plain water. You do not have to bother with vinager if you know the products were grown organically, such as the produce you take from your yard, depending on how polluted the area you live in is. |
Miscellaneous tips from pogirlshines.com.
First of the Spud Harvest 2012
I am eating it while I type. That and some chicken drenched in “Sweet Baby Ray’s Award Winning barbecue Sauce!”
My potatoes are about the only things I have gotten out of my garden this year, says someone who normally has a very green thumb. It was more varmints than the drought. I had so many rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks this year, it was not funny. It is my own fault because I have a deck, they can hide or live there. I have lots of shrubs, trees and plants because I want to make my yard as much like nature as the city will let me get away with. I also have a small fountain, bird bath and keep a small amount of water in a tub for the thirsty squirrels to keep them from climbing into the bird bath.
My yard is now semi-private and when I do glance over to some of the other yards near me, I am reminded of a depressed neighborhood. Some have a couple of plants or place one lone shrub at the far end of the yard. Most have no landscaping what-so-ever and instead barren, dying grass. Some of our neighbors have put out perennials in front of their yards with “free flower signs” after dividing, which is so nice. I will be doing the same next year with hostas if I am still here. I understand some don’t have the time or the money, but it is not very expensive to buy a few on sale and divide the next year or start them from seed. I guess you are either a plant person or you are not. I just love plants of all kinds and they help the environment in many ways.
I started my first garden years ago in the burbs with un-amended hard clay soil. My plants were great. I have no idea how some of the seeds ever took root, but they sure did. The difference was I had no varmints there. You never even saw one squirrel. There were woods nearby and obviously the bigger varmints got the little ones before they became a problem. Once in a while you saw, and smelled a skunk.
This year they got the green beans, both bush and pole, all squash, Spinach didn’t stand a chance, and most of the lettuce. With some things, such as beets and carrots, either the germination was terrible, or the birds were eating the seeds as well, they got all the black and red raspberries this year. I just happened to have a couple of left over Russet potatoes that were sprouting at the end of May so I threw them in the garden with the hopes of getting a few potatoes. They are still there and I hilled them this year. I will let you know how many I get from both plants in a later post. The first one was sweet with tender skin and very good.
Hope the rest of you are able to enjoy your harvest this year. God Bless!
I Think That I Shall Never See A Bad Tasting Blueberry!
It’s that wonderful time of the year. Even with the drought, the blueberries are coming into season in Michigan. I usually just eat them plain after washing them in a vinegar rinse to get the pesticides off. As delicious as blueberry dishes are, I try to eat them plain because I don’t like the additional calories and added fats. However…
I did have some getting a little soft and always cook them up with some sugar or in a dish to preserve them longer. Waste not, want not! The following is a blueberry Scone bread that I made and I also cooked some berries in a couple of Tablespoons of sugar and 1 teaspoon of cornstarch in the microwave for a few minutes to thicken into a sauce. Then I broke down and went to a local bakery and saw they were selling pieces of their chocolate fudge cake. I tried using the cake as a base for the blueberry sauce and it was really good! I replace the butter and or sour cream in the scone recipe with low-fat yogurt and some mayonnaise and it tastes great with less fat. Experiment. Then just eat your failures or give them away. I did not make all the dishes the same day! You can always freeze some for a treat during the winter months. I always cook up some fresh fruit sauces to eat during the winter months on pancakes or waffles. Hearty meals are not a problem as long as you don’t eat like that all the time.
Creating Creative Breakfast
I used to think that breakfast meant cereal, yogurt or eggs and whole wheat toast. Even bagels and cream cheese from Panera or an Egg McMuffin. I have decided to shed about 10 pounds in the next month or two and I am now trying to streamline my eating for this loss. Then I figure I can add fairly normal carbs to each meal, even a small dessert, and maintain as long as I stay physically active.
The most important part of breakfast to me now is protein. A little fiber and even less sugar is OK too. I know my muscles need the protein and as long as I have sufficient carbs higher in fiber, it will be good for me even while losing the weight. I sometimes make up 6 of these little breakfast h’orderves. I do know that if I keep my portion small with enough protein, I do not feel hungry soon after like I was doing eating larger meals. It is a deadly cycle.
Eat alot, crave alot! I hate it!
These are some breakfasts that taste good, and are high in protein but equally high in fat so not so good for you. Just make sure to eat smaller amounts.
Love Those Lattes!
Enjoying the latte art I am seeing posted online. Thought I would try it myself sans the Cappucinni maker. I got one of my son’s a machine years ago, but since I was never a coffee drinker, did not partake.
I made espresso and frothed my 2% milk with a wand. I attempted to pour it in at the one side as suggested. Not thick enough. I then attempted this again with foamier milk and got some type of shape, your guess is as good as mine what it might be.
I tried to outline a heart shape with chocolate syrup in the first failed cup. Ended up looking more like South America.
They tasted great and that’s the most important thing coffee needs to do. That and the caffeine kick!
Strawberry Shortcake Delight!
Poached Eggs With Po’ Girl
Nuking Saves Times
For more hints & tips check out the recipe page at pogirlshines.com.
The Usual Makeshifting of Recipes
The Cake of Many Flavors
Big mistake. I love to take creative license with almost every recipe I use, when I use one. This time it was a bad idea, but cook & learn.
I started making a banana bread, did not have nuts. I thought, “What would Elvis do?” I added a half cup of peanut butter. Then thought, “Chocolate & bananas, good, chocolate and peanut butter, good” so I added a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder. I had about 1/2 cup of freshly homemade strawberry syrup in the fridge without any long-term plans, added that as well. Need to add that I use less sugar then the recipes call for when I bake to lessen SUGAR SHOCK! Needless to say, it was disappointing. Not horrible, but confusing. After I tried a couple of sad bites. I tried to figure out what the problem was, but decided it was because one bite you could slightly taste peanut butter, the next bite you could just taste some strawberry, maybe if you tried real hard. So decided I had too many flavors combined to have anyone taste really stand out and with the semi-sweetness, eatable but very mediocre. Whoops, forgot about the yogurt to replace half of the oil and the cup of whole wheat flour.
Put most in the freezer, will not share this one with anybody. If I get a desperate sweet attack, I can take a piece out of the freezer to prevent me from making an ice cream run. Needless to say I am not posting the recipe.
Had Better Luck with Chicken and Pasta The original recipe was Penne with Chicken and Mushrooms, which consisted of: 1 oz butter, 1 Tb of olive oil, 1 clove garlic, 2.5 oz prosciutto, 9 oz chicken, any meat, 4.5 oz sliced mushrooms, 1 peeled & sliced tomato, 1 Tb tomato paste, 1/2 C white wine, 1 C cream, served on 1 lb penne pasta.My recipe consisted of: 1 med sliced onion, 1 can of cream of chicken soup (or cream of mushroom), 1/2 C white wine, 1/2 C milk, 1/2 C water, 2 Tb tomato paste, 1 lb of chicken, 1/4 C parmesan & romano cheese, 1/2 tsp of garlic powder on 1 lb of bowtie or farfalle pasta. Technically it is probably a completely different chicken pasta recipe, but the original gave me the idea for mine. Thankfully, no pictures. Made another chicken & pasta dish with mushrooms a few weeks ago with similar ingredients, no tomato paste or onions and substituted the bowtie pasta with whole wheat capellini. Again used the cream of chicken soup instead of cream of mushroom which could have been used.
Po' Girl Shines 
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