Monthly Archives: August 2012

Weekend RoundUP September 1, 2012

Posted on August 31, 2012 | Leave a comment

End of the week, beginning of the month! Happy September! Got apples? I’ve got gallons and gallons. A few apple recipes will be coming your way!! You can PRINT the recipe for Autumn’s Caramel Apple Crisp from my Tasty Kitchen Recipe Box. Yum!

I had such a good laugh this week that I just have to share. This little post was written on Facebook by my friend Dede, from Alliance, Nebraska. Dede and I go waaayyy back to the day we were both in nurse’s training. Oh my … I digress.

Dede writes:

Loving the cool breeze. Was outside reading a magazine around 8… getting dark. Front door is open. Spot starts to bark. So I think someone is at the door. To the front door I go. It is dark. I think I see someone staring at me. I scream. Turns out it is my reflection in the glass of the door. I shut the door. No more barking and no more screaming .

I know I said NO MORE green tomato recipes and then look what pops up across my radar? Fried Green Tomatoes with Mozzarella! Now really, who can resist these? I am on the hunt for some more green tomatoes …. hmmm, wonder where my chief culinary consultant and gardener is hiding them??? Thank you Des at Life’s Ambrosia for sharing yet another fabulous green tomato recipe!

I posted this picture of my freezer corn on Facebook. My freezer is beginning to fill up with little packets of goodies like this frozen corn and I love it!

I haven’t actually taken time to blog about freezing corn but you can find the recipe in my Tasty Kitchen Recipe Box. We take the corn off the cob, cook for a bit with some sugar, salt, water, and butter. We absolutely love this corn and as the winter wears on we will begin to hoard it so it will last us until next summer I think you will love it too!

A picture’s worth a thousand words … here are this week’s recipes!

It’s a long weekend as Labor Day approaches. How are you saying good-bye to summer this weekend? I do hope it will include some wonderful food - for the body and for the soul.

~Blessings, Catherine

Catherine Hampton McCullum liked this post

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Posted in Cake, Dessert, Main Dish, Pie, Side Dishes, Vegetables, Vegetarian

Tagged Apple cake, bake, Baking, caramel pecan pie, Casserole, frozen corn, green tomatoes, pecan pie, praline frosting, side dish

Apple Cream Cheese Bundt Cake with Praline Frosting

Posted on August 30, 2012 | 2 Comments

Last September when I received my copy of Southern Living magazine, the cover photo was their Apple Cream Cheese Bundt Cake. I loved the look of the cake and any fresh apple cake sounds wonderful to me. However, I was on my way to cruise the northern Atlantic for my 20th wedding anniversary and the magazine photo faded into the back of my mind.
Fast forward 12 months and my kitchen is filled to the brim with fresh apples just picked from the trees of my brother-in-law. It’s fall … well, almost and I adore everything fall! Except hurricanes… While Issacc whirls and swirls against the coast we are still dry in middle Tennessee. I digress …
The apples this year are beautiful and plentiful. We are so blessed! While my dear sous-chef dish-washing mom cleaned and peeled, I had visions of that fresh apple Bundt cake dancing across my mind! A quick search of Southern Living’s website and I found the recipe. You won’t be surprised to know I added my own touch, but the basic recipe is the same First things first, is to make the cream cheese filling. I love all things cream cheese. Plain, on a bagel, smeared with jelly, in a pastry, as a filling, spooned right out of the container (you don’t do that?) Love it all!

Then I started peeling and chopping apples for the cake. Truthfully I was getting quite excited because I have wanted to make this cake for so long!After making the batter, 2/3 went into the prepared Bundt pan. The cream cheese filling is spooned around the pan and the last 1/3 of the batter is poured on top of the cream cheese. Next time I think I will put 1/2 the batter in, then the filling, then the other half of the batter. Just personal preference.
As the cake baked the house was filled with the most incredible fragrance. Yes, just like fall. I took this picture because when I turned the cake pan upside down this absolutely gorgeous cake slid right out. There wasn’t a crumb left in the Bundt pan. I don’t always have that kind of luck with a made-from-scratch cake! This one is already on my “keeper” list!

When the cake was cooled I made the praline frosting. I fell in love with “pecan praline” long before I moved to the South. Now, it is just an added benefit of being Southern! I should have realized that Southerners didn’t invent pralines as a quick search told me French settlers brought the praline recipe to Louisiana, where both sugar cane and pecan trees were plentiful. During the 19th century, New Orleans chefs substituted pecans for almonds, added cream to thicken the confection, and thus created what became known throughout the American South as the praline. Pralines have a creamy consistency, similar to fudge. It is usually made by combining sugar (often brown), butter, and cream or buttermilk in a pot on medium-high heat, and stirring constantly, until most of the water has evaporated and it has reached a thick texture with a brown color. Then it is usually dropped by spoonful onto wax paper or a sheet of aluminum foil greased with butter, and left to cool. In the case of my fresh apple cake, the praline is used for the frosting and it is luscious!
The praline cools and hardens pretty quick as you can tell from this picture. I spooned several layers and each one left its own little drip. I garnished with a few whole pecans. The only regret I have is that you aren’t here to have cake and coffee with me.

Recipe can be found and PRINTED from my Tasty Kitchen Recipe Box!

~Blessings, Catherine

“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household,” Ephesians 2:19 NIV

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Posted in Cake, Dessert

Tagged Apple cake, Baking, Bundt cake, Dessert, fresh apple cake, praline frosting, pralines, Southern Living

Green Tomato Casserole

Posted on August 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

Just about the time I was discovering a great fondness for Fried Green Tomato Parmesan, Mary at Deep South Dish posted a fabulous looking recipe for Green Tomato Casserole. What interested me was the use of green tomatoes that aren’t fried. When I made the Fried Green Tomato Parmesan, I didn’t think about using the green tomatoes without being battered and fried first. I found Mary’s casserole very curious. Since I still had a little bit of marinara sauce to use up, this recipe varies slightly from Mary’s. After layering green tomatoes, onions, crushed Ritz crackers and some cheese thrown in for good measure, she puts a crowning touch of butter! Without a doubt I would love to eat at Mary’s house! When in doubt – add more butter!

I started with three really green tomatoes and one “not-yet-ripe” tomato that was slightly pink!

The tomatoes are seasoned well on each side. I used salt, pepper, and a teaspoon of sugar. I topped each slice with a tablespoon of marinara sauce.
The next step is critical to the over-all taste of the dish. Sweet onions are sliced and placed all around. You can dice the onions if you prefer, but we love sweet onions and prefer the larger slices. I used my favorite Vidalia onions, but any sweet variety will do. Hot pepper jack cheese is a perfect next layer.

After another layering of tomatoes, seasoning and marinara, the whole thing is covered with crushed Ritz crackers. The Ritz add to the sweetness of the onions and makes for a beautiful paring.

A final sprinkling of cheese and this casserole is ready for the oven. Even though there is a little bit of marinara the flavor is quite different from the Parmesan. This casserole fed us two full meals. The second warm-up was tasty and equally delicious!
I like this casserole so much I confess I have made it twice for my family, once for neighbors and once to deliver to our family down the road! You will probably be quite relieved to know I have no more green tomatoes. But there is always next year

Click to PRINT the recipe from my Tasty Kitchen Recipe Box.

~Blessings, Catherine

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Posted in Main Dish, Vegetables, Vegetarian

Tagged Casserole, green tomato, green tomato casserole, main dish, vegetarian

My Caramel Pecan Pie

Posted on August 26, 2012 | 1 Comment

What do you think about caramel? The taste, slightly sweet, very rich, gooey? Truth is, I can get obsessed about caramel with just the slightest encouragement. There are the Sweet and Salty Chocolate Caramel Bars, and Banoffee Pie just for starters!

As you already know I am a BIG fan of Turbinado sugar, also known as sugar in the raw. Since I bought this box I have tried it “here and there” with great success. When my friend Nancy was visiting from Colorado I thought it only fitting to serve a very southern pecan pie before she returned home.

As I was gathering ingredients to make the pie my eyes landed on my little box of Turbinado sugar. Oh my gosh … little did I realize what would happen when I substituted sugar in the raw for granulated sugar in my pie recipe.
One of my favorite pie crusts is called “all butter crust.” It goes together beautifully with unsalted butter, all-purpose flour, salt, a little sugar and ice water. It is a very tender crust when rolled out but worth the effort. The custard is made with the usual eggs, unsalted butter, salt, sugar, corn syrup, vanilla and pecans. The change comes when Turbinado sugar is substituted for the granulated sugar. Before I baked this pie I sprinkled a few teaspoons of the sugar in the raw across the top.
The result is a pecan pie with a custard that resembles a beautifully rich caramel! I thought it would be good, but I sure didn’t know it would be GREAT! For me — the best of all worlds! If you like pecan pie — give this a try! It’s wonderful. Oh, and Nancy did love it also

PRINT the recipe from my Tasty Kitchen Recipe Box.

Today starts week 31 of our walk through the Bible. We are in the middle of the book of Jeremiah. Each week I post a daily Bible reading that only takes 10 to 15 minutes. I hope you will join me!

Jeremiah 30:1-3

New International Version (NIV)
Restoration of Israel

30 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you. 3 The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will bring my people Israel and Judah back from captivity[a] and restore them to the land I gave their ancestors to possess,’ says the Lord.”

~Blessings, Catherine