Sweet ‘Taters February 10, 2009

Please excuse the Southern vernacular, but I couldn’t resist calling them ‘taters instead of potatoes. We had the best dinner last night, that consisted of : Big Sur Turkey Salad, Rosemary Roasted Sweet Potatoes, and Grape Salad. Very healthy, and very good!! Here are some pics of the sweet potatoes, this recipe is so good, and really easy:

 

“Rosemary Roasted Sweet Potatoes”

5 cups peeled sweet potato slices

1 teaspoon dried rosemary

1 1/2 teaspoons crushed garlic

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

 

1. Place the potatoes in a large bowl. Sprinkle with the rosemary, garlic, and salt drizzle with oil. Toss well to coat.

2. Coat a 9×13 pan with nonstick cooking spray and spread the potatoes evenly. Bake at 400* F. for 15 minutes, stir and bake for another 10 minutes.

Serve Hot!

Bon Appetite!

A Happy, Healthy, Holiday to You! December 19, 2008

Ahem, once again, I’ve promised something , and have not fulfilled my promise. I told you I would take pictures of the concert with Travis last night, but I didn’t take my camera. Why? Well, please imagine a girl sitting on the second row, in a cute red and black polka dotted top, pulling out her Canon XSI Rebel. To snap a few pictures for her blog. If that doesn’t scream “Merry Christmas” I don’t know what does. I love you, blog friends, but not that much.

So, although there were no pictures, I can say that last night was AWESOME! Travis sounded great, as usual, and the orchestra was phenomenal!

I wish all of you could have been there…

Now, onto business. I have been busy in the kitchen this morning, baking up a batch of healthy snack food for a Christmas party I’m attending tonight. And since it’s the holiday’s, I thought I would give the gift of my recipe (in pictures!) to you! I know, I’m so generous.

First things first though, one must eat a healthy lunch to keep up her strength:

There is enough calcium in this cheese ball to build up some very strong and healthy bones. And the crackers are whole grain, it’s like eating oatmeal in a cracker!

Now that you are sufficiently strengthened for the task at hand, it is time to assemble the ingredients. First a healthy stick of butter, and a healthy two cups of sugar

The butter is made from real cream, so it’s totally unaltered, making it very healthy to consume. And the sugar is made from real cane, making it somewhat unaltered. We all know that they just refine it to make it pretty, and white. It’s sort of like make-up, just giving a more aesthetic quality.

Next, it’s time to add the vanilla (from real vanilla beans!), cocoa powder (from real cocoa beans!), and peanut butter (made from real peanuts!), and the oatmeal (real oats!)

The peanut butter had added calcium to it, so that makes it extra healthy!! Boy, I should have arms like Popeye by now with all the calcium flowing through my veins.

Finally, after all the hard work, you scoop the mixture onto wax paper (made from real wax! Sorry, couldn’t help myself)

And there you have it! A healthy, holiday snack the whole family will enjoy! Merry Christmas, arteries!!!

Check This Out! December 9, 2008

Just recently, I have come across a great blog titled: My Sisters Kitchen. I love this blog, not only does it have some great recipes to try, but it also celebrates cooking as an art form. The two sisters who run this blog  are passionate about cooking good food for their families, and preserving traditions in their kitchens, and encourage you to do the same.

Last Saturday, Mrs. Barb posted a recipe for a Coconut Poundcake that looked wonderful! After I saw this recipe, I made a comment about how I had a recipe for my Mamaw Petrey’s Coconut Cake, Mrs. Barb then asked if I would like to share it, and I e-mailed it to her. And to my great surprise, she then asked if she could post it on her blog! I was thrilled!!  The recipe, and memories surrounding the recipe, is up on the blog today, go on over and take a look!

http://mysisterskitchen.wordpress.com

And while your over there take a look at all the great recipes and stories, I’m sure you’ll like it!

The Yellow Recipe Book December 6, 2008

Tonight, I was looking through my mom’s recipe book. This book has been with my mom for all of her marriage, 31 years and counting, and holds many old, family recipes that are more like old friends than good food to eat. This book holds so many memories, and stories I could never  tell them all. But I would like to share one memory that I have surrounding a certain recipe.

 

For as long as I can remember, Mamaw Petrey would always make a “Pineapple Upside Down Cake” for Grandad’s birthday. I honestly don’t remember one birthday that passed without this cake being made. That means for their 59 years of marriage, Grandad always got his favorite cake!  That’s the way it was with Mamaw. For her, cooking was a labor of love, it was a practical way (and she loved things that were practical) of showing her loved ones just how much she loved them. “Pineapple Upside Down Cake” for her husband, “Pineapple Raisin Drop Cookies” for her grandchildren, “Overnight Cookies” for her oldest son ”Blueberry Pie” for her middle son, and “Peanut Brittle” for her youngest son. Of course I must not forget the homemade doughnuts on Christmas morning for the whole family! Mmmm, those were good!

 

Mamaw was never one to show public displays of affection, but in all reality, she did every day. She did so through her cooking. She showed affection when she cooked three meals a day: breakfast, dinner, and supper for her husband and anyone else that might happen to join them. And it just so happens that I was normally the one who would join them! Hey, when you live right next door, it’s easy to just pop in!

 

Mamaw has left quite a legacy for me. Not only was she revered in our community for her service, she was also revered by her family as the glue that held us all together. Why, even  in her last days, when the cancer was waging its war against her body, there she was in her little kitchen every morning cooking breakfast for her beloved Earl, until she was so weak that we had to take over. Even then, she wasn’t too happy about that!

Her legacy inspires me, it inspires me to preserve these recipes that are so much more than good food. They are memories and stories that need to be passed down to her grandchildren and great grandchildren. So we won’t forget the love that she showed us everyday in that tiny little kitchen.

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Pineapple Upside Down Cake

3 cans sliced pineapple in heavy syrup (12 slices)

1/4 cup butter

2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/3 cup pecan halves

1 cup unsifted all purpose flour

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 cup shortening

1/2 cup milk

1 egg

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Drain pineapple slices reserving 2 Tbs. of syrup. In a very heavy, 10 inch skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add brown sugar, stirring until sugar is melted. Remove from heat.

2. Arrange 8 pineapple slices on sugar mixture, overlapping slices slightly around edge of pan. Put one slice in center. Fill centers with pecan halves. Halve the three remaining pineapple slices, and arrange around inside of skillet. Put pecans in centers.

3. Into medium bowl, sift flour with granulated sugar, baking powder and salt. Add shortening and milk. With electric mixer, beat two minutes or until smooth. Add eggs and reserved syrup, beat two minutes longer.

4. Gently pour cake batter over pineapple in skillet, spreading evenly being careful to not disarrange pineapple. On rack in center of the oven, bake 40-45 minutes, or until golden in color.

5. Let skillet stand on wire rack for five minutes to cool just slightly. With small spatula, loosen cake from edge of skillet. Place serving platter over the cake, and turn upside down, shake gently, lift off skillet.

Serves 8

*Note: If you would rather not use a skillet, substitute with a large rectangular baking pan. It should work just as well.

Enjoy!

My Little Bakers… November 18, 2008

I certainly hope all of you who live in the Boone area are still firmly planted to the ground! The wind at my house has been unbelievable!! But I’m so thankful for this cold weather; it means that I can hit the slopes soon!! Hooray! As I didn’t get to go much last season, I have a lot of skiing to do to make up and I just found out the Beech Mountain is re instituting their “Ladies Ski Free” Day on Thursdays! This probably means that you will not find me at home on Thursdays this winter, I’ll probably be with Melissa and Hannah carving down a slope

 

This past Saturday, my Aunt Kris brought gifts for the three oldest girls in the family:

 

Chef hats and aprons that say “Baker In Training”. Too cute!! I of course, was thrilled that the girls have these, and I can’t wait to actually start training them to bake. Of course, these aprons started me to thinking about what exactly it is that I want to train them in. I really don’t want to train them how to bake, but rather the stories behind the items they are baking. Yes, it is important that they learn the essential skill of baking a pie or cookies, but I want them to know about the women who taught me how to bake pies and cookies. I want them to know the legacy that makes up part of who they are. I want them to know about how when I was their age I would go to my mamaw’s house to bake and decorate sugar cookies. Or how I would go to the other mamaw’s house to bake cakes and pies. Those are memories that I will cherish forever. Why? Is it because we made some really great tasting food? No. It’s because I made memories while making really great tasting food.

 

My grandmothers imparted so much wisdom while we were baking. And they also expressed their love for me by simply taking the time to slow down and let me help them. Surely, they could have done it faster, easier, better than I, but they chose to let me help them. I will never ever forget that, never.

 

And that is the kind of aunt I want to be to all my neices and nephews. I want to be remembered by how I made time for them in my life. How I slowed down and let them help me, even if the result wasn’t as pretty as I would like for it to be. To communicate how much I love them by spending time with them, and teaching them about their family history.

 

So in order to start doing this, I am declaring a “Christmas Cookie Extravaganza” with Aunt Molly! I’m going to set aside a day in December for the girls to come and make Christmas cookies with me! Will it be messy? Yes. Will it be chaotic? Yes. Will their be tears? Yes. Will there be many interruptions? Yes. Will it be worth it? YES!!

 

So I say, bring on the messes, and bring on the memories! The more the merrier!