Happy New Year!

I just wanted to wish all my friends and family a very Happy and Healthy New Year 2010.

I am looking forward to creating more fun recipes and relating all the crazy stories that make up my cowgirl life!

Keep checking in for good things to come here at cowgirlcuisine.blogspot.com.

I am looking to make some great cookies for a musical evening with in January. I will be posting my weekly meals (if they are worthy) and blogging about the spring works soon.

Thank you for the support and Happy, happy, happy New Year!
Helen

Good Old Chocolate Chip Cookie!

Yesterday I spent a ridiculous amount of hours baking Christmas cookies. I made my doughs the night before and transported everything over to a friend's house where we baked and baked and baked batch after batch, then iced a million sugar cookies with toxically sweet frosting (but needless to say delicious), and then put together mixed cookie plates to give to our friends/family as gifts.

Together, we made hundreds of cookies, 7 different varieties, plus fillings and icing! I decided that I would make a double batch of my now 'famous' chocolate chip cookies because my friend's husband, Jack loves them and since he was going to have to tolerate our whole day of baking in his house and I figured he deserved a treat for that.

Throughout the day as we baked one recipe after the other, I watched the most interesting phenomenon. The cookies that were "sampled" the most during the day by Jack and my husband, Matt were the plain old every day chocolate chip cookies! We made snickerdoodles, Linzer cookies filled with jelly, Russian tea cakes, Red Velvet (which turned out purple, but that's another story) sandwiches filled with fresh cream cheese frosting, gingerbread, chocolate chip and frosted sugar cookies. We had to force the guys to try the fancier cookies, some attempts failing. Every time Matt would take a batch of chocolate chips out of the oven for me, he had to perform quality control and eat one warm out of the oven. Needless to say I was glad I made a double batch, and Matt ended up with a stomach ache for his valiant efforts to make sure the cookies were good enough to send out. I am not even sure how many Jack squirreled away from the cooling racks, but I am sure it rivaled Matt's count.

So...for all the fancy cookie recipes out there...beware....taste tests prove that men still prefer the "Maryann" over the dressed up "Ginger" of cookies!

Here is my own chocolate chip cookie recipe that I hope you will share with your men!

Helen's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies EVER

1 package of butter flavored crisco

3/4 cup of brown sugar

3/4 cup of white sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

2 1/4 cups of flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

Milk and Semi-Sweet chocolate chips to taste

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

In a medium bowl, cream together the crisco with the sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, until fully incorporated. Add vanilla and mix well.

In another bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking soda.

Mix dry ingredients into sugar mix, a little at a time, mixing well in between.

Fold in chocolate chips.

Make 2 inch balls of dough and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 10-15 minutes - depending on your oven or altitude. The cookies should be light golden on the edges (not brown!!) and still soft looking in the center when you remove from the oven. Let the centers set before removing from the cookie sheet and moving to the cooling rack.

ENJOY!!

Marriage, bliss and donuts....

Well, since my last blog I got married. We drove up to Las Vegas, met some friends there, had a limo driven "drive-up" wedding and then drove home. Short, sweet and VERY fun. Unlike most weddings, we didn't have stress, we didn't get ourselves into debt and the best part, we had a blast! There were only tears of laughter shed and we will remember sharing the funky, fun experience with our friends for the rest of our happily ever after life!

I must admit, I am totally head over heels crazy about this guy and feel completely blessed to be able to share the rest of my life with him.

I would do it all over again! Except maybe not eat at a Buffet every meal like we did! UGH! So, what exactly is the BUFFET PHENOMENON? We ate ourselves to the gills at every meal! We ate sushi, crab legs, elk, salad, steak, prime rib, salmon, shrimp, and whatever other delicacy they offered up...ALL IN ONE MEAL! We would never consider doing this at home! As a matter of fact, we could hardly clean our plates of one measly serving for the whole week following our gluttony in Vegas. I don't understand how the mind overrides the body's "I am full" sensor when a huge buffet of food faces you, but it did. For breakfast and dinner every day we were there. Most days we skipped lunch because we had snacked on goodies at all the trade shows (like mini donuts...OMG!! Those were fantastic! http://www.minidonuts.com/).

So...for those who didn't have the chance to taste the mini donuts at the Sands Casino Trade Show...this recipe is for you!

Mini Donuts...not for the faint of heart...

2 tablespoons vegetable shortening, plus more for deep frying
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup canned evaporated milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Pinch ground mace
1/2 teaspoon fine salt

Directions
For coating: 3/4 cup granulated sugar, or 3/4 cup granulated sugar mixed with 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, or sifted confectioners' sugar
For filling: raspberry jam

Melt the 2 tablespoons shortening in a small sauce pan. Set aside to cool slightly but remain liquid.

In a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the sugar and melted shortening together on medium speed. Add the egg and beat well. Add the evaporated milk and vanilla, continue beating until the mixture is light, about 2 minutes.

Sift the flour, baking powder, nutmeg, mace, and salt into a medium bowl. Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture on low speed until just combined. The texture of the dough will be soft and loose. Turn dough out of the bowl onto a large piece of plastic wrap and wrap it well. Refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.

Roll the chilled dough out on a very lightly dusted workspace until its about 1/2-inch thick. Dip the edges of a 2-inch round cutter in flour and cut the dough into discs. Place cut dough on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Heat about 2-inches of shortening in a large, heavy bottomed pot over medium heat until a deep-fry thermometer reads 375 degrees F. Line a large plate with paper towels.

Working in batches, fry the doughnuts, turning once, until they are golden brown, about 2 minutes. Transfer the doughnuts from the oil with a slotted spoon or skimmer to the prepared pan. Cool. Repeat with remaining dough, taking care the oil comes back to the correct temperature between each batch.

For jelly filled doughnuts: Fill a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip with raspberry jam. Let the donut cool slightly. Make a small opening with the pastry tip and gently fill each donut with some of the jam. Dust with sugar as desired. Serve warm or at room temperature.

For sugared doughnuts, roll the doughnuts in sugar or cinnamon sugar while they are still warm. For confectioners' sugared covered doughnuts allow the doughnuts to cool completely before rolling in the confectioners' sugar.

ENJOY!

Dutch Babies and kitchen distractions

Have you ever eaten a Dutch Baby? Well, it sounds a little absurd, but a dutch baby is a type of pancake. I copied the official definition/history of the Dutch baby down for you at the bottom in case you are interested, but all you really need to know is that they are DELICIOUS! I love them. Super simple to make and really yummy!

I decided to make one for Matt and me on Thanksgiving morning since I wanted the whole day to be special. They are easy, but seem like a treat!


Well, I started putting the ingredients together, and got my mixing bowl out, but Matt kept distracting me...holding me, kissing me, tickling me, etc. All lovely, but quite distracting when you are trying to make breakfast. Well, I mixed up the batter for the dutch baby and started the bacon cooking while I preheated the oven. I put the batter in the pan, put the pan in the oven and we waited for the pancake to cook. I was all excited to take a picture of it for this blog and so when I went to take it out of the oven I had Matt ready with oven mitts so that I could snap the photo before it "fell". Dutch babies rise like a souffle and fall quickly once removed from the oven, so I wanted to make sure to get the full glory of it in the photo. Matt opened the oven and I was ready, but....it was FLAT! Browner than it should be and FLAT!







Ugh! It was the first time I had tried the Dutch Baby since we moved and I wondered if I had done something wrong with the oven heat or if I had overcooked it and it had fallen in the oven. I was perplexed. I even took the recipe sheet and crumpled it up! I was sure it wasn't a good recipe.






We ate it anyway, but I dislike it when my food doesn't turn out, so I was very disappointed. Not a good way to start Thanksgiving at all.

When I started cleaning up the kitchen I realized that I only saw 2 egg shells in the trash...not the 4 called for in the recipe. I asked Matt if he had thrown out extra shells. "No", he said. Then I started to put it all together. While I had been mixing the batter, Matt had been hugging on me and playing around. I guess I had started with the eggs, got distracted by Matt and then forgot to put the remaining eggs in. It all made sense! I put the full blame of the flat Dutch Baby on Matt and he laughed and protested. He did admit to maybe being a little troublesome while I was in the kitchen, but wasn't taking full responsibility, so I fished out the crumpled up recipe from the trash and decided to try them again the next morning and see how they turned out. This time...NO distractions!

Well, long story short, the Dutch Baby turned out delicious and perfect. As it should be. So, I have written out below the recipe for you and I hope you enjoy! Moral of this story...don't let your man be a kitchen distraction!

DUTCH BABY PANCAKE

4 tbsp unsalted butter
4 large eggs
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup half and half

for the topping: melted butter, lemon juice and powdered sugar

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees

Melt the butter in a large cast iron or heavy oven safe skillet
Whisk together eggs, flour and half and half
Pour batter into the skillet over the melted butter and slide skillet into the oven.

Bake for 15-18 minutes until lightly brown

Removed puffed up pancake from oven, drizzle with melted butter, lemon juice and sprinkle powdered sugar on top. Serve immediately! Feeds 2!







Puffed up and yummy!

All's well that ends well. Matt was happy with the second version of the Dutch Baby, but he will eat most anything!

A Dutch baby pancake, sometimes called a German pancake, is a sweet breakfast dish similar to Yorkshire pudding and derived from the German Apfelpfannkuchen. It is made with eggs, flour and milk, and usually seasoned with vanilla and cinnamon, although occasionally sugar is also added. It is baked in a metal pan and falls soon after being removed from the oven. It is generally served with fresh squeezed lemon, butter, and powdered sugar or fruit toppings or syrup.
It is thought by some that the "Dutch" moniker refers to the group of German-American immigrants known as the Pennsylvania Dutch, where "Dutch" is a corruption of the German autonym "deutsch".
The Dutch baby is a specialty of some diners and chains that specialize in breakfast dishes, such as the Oregon-founded The Original Pancake House or the New England-based chain Bickford's, which makes both a plain Dutch baby and a similar pancake known as the Baby Apple, which contains apple slices embedded in the pancake.

Lil' Red and Sweet Potato Pie

I have this lovely coming 3 year old filly that I adore. Her barn name is Lil' Red. She is gorgeous red roan color and put together just right and will mature out to be a wonderful horse, if I don't kill her first! Unfortunately, she is a total "red-head". She is the horse equivalent of a Southern Lady. Lovely to look at, but all brass tacks underneath! She doesn't take any flack and she has shown herself to be quite a sugar coated pill to work with. She has a hard time taking direction from anyone. She rules the roost out in the pasture and will kick first and ask questions later. I don't mind a determined female in a horse at all! My other mare, Mini, is also quite determined, but has a much more amiable temperament to go with her huge courageous heart. Lil' red, well, not so much. She thinks she can just do what she wants. She is very gentle, sweet and compliant, when it suits her. Otherwise, watch out. She knows her assets and uses them without spare! So, I decided to use an old cowboy training method that if done right can make quite an impression on the mind of a horse. I laid her down. Getting a horse to lie down is quite a difficult task. Being a prey animal of flight, they know they are severly compromised in surviving once they lie down. Horses view humans as predators, which unfortunately, many are to horses. So, I use this "tool" very carefully and only after much thought; making sure I have exhausted all other effective training tools first.

I drove out to the ranch with the plan to work with her and if she hadn't made some changes in her responses to my questions, I would lay her down. Well, she was a little better to catch this morning, but still seemed tense. She doesn't like me touching certain areas of her body, so I tried those out...tail swishing still and if I pushed it, she would attempt a kick. Okay, enough is enough, so I led her into the soft, deep roundpen, put my lariat rope on her left front pastern (ankle) and brought it up under her belly, over her back and through the rope going upward from her foot to create a loop that I could pull on her with. I asked her to raise her foot and shortened the rope so that it kept her foot in the air and was tight around her cinch area. It took no more then two steady pulls to get her to lie down. With her foot hiked up she naturally just started to "bow" down. Once she is in that position I softly asked her to go all the way down on her own. There are horses that really resist this. They have a very strong survival instinct and this goes against that instinct completely. She resisted a little, but not really what I had expected.

Once she was down I loosened the rope on her belly and foot and sat down on her butt. I waited to see how she would react to this. Many horses will sigh, chew they mouths, groan, and make all kinds of noises. This is a sign of the tension releasing and leaving their bodies. When a horse is down, they are yielding themselves completely. They don't know we aren't here to hurt them. To lie down is to give up essentially, for a horse. It is powerful and that is why I use it with great respect. She didn't make much noise, so I started touching her all over. Touching the parts she doesn't like, especially in her flank and belly button area. I patted and petted her all over. I moved her tail around. I bent and unbent and jiggled her legs. I petted her face, opened her mouth, rubbed her lips, massaged her ears. I touched her ALL over all while sitting on her prone body. There was some mouth-chewing and some small sighs. Nothing earth-shattering or reflective of a big release, but she was accepting of most of my actions. Once I had touched her all over and she was accepting on her right side, I asked her to get up and started all over on the other side. Horses have two different "brains". One for each side of their body. What is okay on one side doesn't always translate to the other side, so I am thorough and make sure she is accepting of all touch on both sides. She once again lay down pretty easily. I repeated the process and when she seemed accepting of all I allowed her to get up again. She was very, very docile and quiet. I didn't do much more with her after that. I thought it might be a good place to leave her to soak on what had happened and process it through on her own.

I look forward to seeing how she acts tomorrow. If no big improvement, then I will probably lay her down again until I can see a change in her.

On my way home I was comtemplating what I should prepare for the Thanksgiving dinner party we are invited to at our friend's house. I am in charge of PIE. I already have the ingredients for a cherry pie, but wanted to make another. So, with my sweet Lil' Red on my mind, I decided to do a truly Southern recipe for Sweet Potato Pie. I was inspired by my filly for her Southern Lady attitude and I also hope she turns out as sweet and wonderful as this pie tastes! I will keep you posted on her progress, but in the meantime, I will post the recipe I chose to use for Thursday! Wish me luck!

Sweet "Lil Red" Potato Pie

1 egg white, lightly beaten

1.5 lbs sweet potatoes

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup maple syrup

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp grated nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup heavy cream

4 large eggs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to a 12-inch circle. Transfer dough to 9-inch pie plate and ease the pastry into the bottom and around sides. Place the shell into the oven and bake until lightly browned, 12-15 minutes. Remove from oven and brush with the egg whites.

Rub the sweet potatoes with the vegetable oil and roast in the oven for 45-60 minutes, until very tender. Remove and set aside to cool. Peel the potatoes and pass them through a fine mesh sieve using a rubber spatula. You should have about 1 1/2 cups of smooth sweet potato puree.

In a medium bowl, combine the sweet potato puree with the sugar, maple syrup, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt. Whisk to combine. In a separate bowl, combine the heavy cream with the eggs and whisk to combine. Add the cream/egg mixture to the sweet potato mixture and stir to blend. Pour this batter into the prepared pie shell and place the pie on a sheet pan. Bake until the center is set and the tart is golden brown. 35-45 minutes. Remove the pie from the oven and allow to cool at least 20 minutes before serving.

1 Recipe for Sweet Pie Crust

1 1/2 cups, plus 2 tbsps bleached all purpose flour

1 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

8 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch pieces and chilled

2 tbsp vegetable shortening

3 tbsp ice water, or as needed

Sift the flour, sugar and salt into a large bowl. Add the butter and shortening. Rub the fats between your fingertips and thumbs until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. 1 tbsp at a time, work in the enough ice water just until the dough comes together, being careful not to overmix.

Shape into a smooth ball of dough, flatten into a disk, and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, and up to 2 days.

ENJOY!!

Everyone Loves Pizza!!

Okay, so when Matt requested pizza for dinner tonight I decided to do it from scratch so that I can learn to make a crust and see how it turns out. I asked friends for suggestions on recipes and found one online as well. I will let you know how it turned out, but here is the recipe to start...

Pizza Dough

1 package of active dry yeast (.25 oz)
1 cup warm water (110 degrees)
2 cups bread flour
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
2 tsp white sugar

In a small bowl dissolve yeast in warm water and let stand until creamy (about 6-10 minutes

In a large bowl combine flour, olive oil, salt, sugar and yeast mixture. Stir well and beat into a stiff dough.

I like my crust thin, so I made formed 2 balls of dough and made 2 pizzas out of this recipe

Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Roll dough out into a pizza crust shape. Your thickness is your preference. Place on a pizza pan or stone.

Place your favorite sauce and toppings and bake in the preheated oven (350 degrees) for about 20 minutes or until melted and golden brown.

ENJOY!

Homemade Bread...once a week

Okay, I have been holding onto this subject for a while...haven't dove into it because it is such a tough subject for me!

I make all our bread we eat weekly. Sunday is usually my baking day and my recipe (which I will write down for you below) makes 2 good sized loaves that last us all week. I love oats and oat bread, so I searched and searched for an oat bread recipe that was easy, delicious and simple in ingredients. I tried several before I found the one I really liked. Now it is almost routine, although I still work on different aspects of it to see if I can improve the taste, size, and crust.

Our little tradition is now to tear off the corner of the bread as soon as it is out of the pan and taste it, to make sure I did it right! I had a few disappointments....hard as a rock bread, flat "I didn't rise hardly at all" bread, crumbly beyond normal bread, etc..

I have never been around much baking from scratch and certainly not bread baking, so all my lessons have been from the School of Hard Knocks! I try to follow a recipe as it describes and if it doesn't turn out right, then I try to analyze why not and try again.

My lovely sister saved me a lot of heartache by sending me a link to the following site that has "lessons" in bread making that has helped me immensely in understanding the science and mystery of making bread. (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/)

HELEN'S OAT BREAD

1 cup rolled oats

2 cups boiling water

1 cake yeast (2 1/4 tsp dry yeast)

1/2 cup lukewarm water

1/2 cup honey

1 1/2 tsp salt (I use kosher)

1 tbsp shortening, melted

4 1/2 cups sifted bread flour

In a large mixing bowl, combine rolled oats and boiling water. Cover and let stand for 1 hour.

Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water. Add to cooled oats along with honey, salt and the melted shortening. Add the flour in parts, mixing thoroughly in between. When all incorporated, knead dough for another 5-10 minutes, until soft and silky.

Return to the greased bowl, cover and allow to rise to double it's size.

When it is double it's size, remove from bowl, punch down and knead again for another 5-6 minutes.

Shape in a rectangle, cut in two and place in 2 separate greased bread pans. Cover and allow to rise again. It should rise to over the sides of the pan.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Once risen to desired size, place in oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. Should sound hollow when tapped if done.

ENJOY!!