I’m out by 7:40 PM and have been sleeping till 7:00 AM and doing it all over again. No joke. This “cooking a baby” business has totally messed me up. I heard once that  baby’s eat brains. I believe it.

But I might be over the first hump. This week I’ve felt great and last night, I even stayed out till 11 PM. No joke sans baby that’s an accomplishment.

I’m paying more attention what I’m eating and trying to have at least one “meaningful” healthy meal a day. One new discovery that has been tasting really good to me is breakfast shakes. I load them up with berries and bananas. They fill me up and give me the right amount of energy during the day.

Breakfast Fruit Punch (adapted from a recipe I heard from Alton Brown on Good Eats)

1/2 cup frozen strawberries

1/2 cup frozen blueberries

1/2 cup frozen peaches

1 medium ripe banana

1/2 cup Acai juice

1/2 cup Soy milk

Put it all in the blender.

My tip is to start on MIX mode for the first minute and switch to PUREE mode for the last 2-3 minutes.

When I have one of these, I’m able to justify the Little Debbie Zebra cakes, Dunkin Donuts and Peanut Butter right out of the jar.

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I had an amazing little routine going in Dallas. I’d talk to my girlfriends so much that it was common that we’d be on the phone and realize a few minutes in that we were at the same place. So we’d hang up and grab a cup of coffee or wine (which ever best fit the moment and time of day)

My, my how things have changed. I still miss them dearly, but with distance and time, things get easier to manage. Friendships adjust and you keep moving forward.

I’ve had quite a bit of time off around this new year which has given me a lot of time to reflect, recharge and cook.

I’m not much for New Year’s resolutions, rather I do like to recalibrate. It’s a word I use often at work because I do think it’s important to set your compass in the right direction.

This recipe is an adaptation from a Weight Watcher’s cookbook. It called for cranberries, of which I didn’t have, so I made one batch with frozen blackberries and another with blueberries.

I think the orange and berry flavors were very complimentary, but the cake was very crumbly and tasted a bit dry. Next time I may try to adapt a banana bread or pumpkin bread recipe with vegetable oil instead of a butter based recipe. They seem moister.

Any Berry Orange Loaf Cake

Makes 2 standard loaves. Preheat oven to 250. Cook 22-25 minutes.

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups berry (cranberry, blackberry, blueberry)

1 tablespoon orange zest

1/2 orange juice

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/2 chopped pecans

Combine all the dry ingredients in one bowl (minus the nuts) and all the wet in another. Combine the two adding the pecans at the end. Pour into pans and cook.

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I’m trying to control it, but it is prickly pear season, and I feel like I need to get while the gettins good.

There are several methods you can use to juice prickly pears and I don’t suggest hand picking them as I attempted last year. Gloves, tongs and protective body wrap are necessary (maybe the last suggestion is a little extreme, but seriously, wear gloves and use tongs).

I learned how to juice the fruit with a pillow case. You can learn more about it in an article on AZCentral.com.

Simply, you take a batch of 12-15 prickly pears, rinse, put them in a pillow case, place the pillow case in your pot and put enough water to cover the fruit, about 1″ and simmer until the fruit is soft. With a masher, mash the fruit. You’ll see the water quickly turn a brilliant pink. With your tongs, squeeze out the excess moisture. That’s all it takes to get the juice from a prickly pear.

I put my gloves back on to dump the excess skin and seeds out of the pillow case into my composter. One interesting note is that the prickly pear will not stain your pillow case! Seriously, it’ll turn hot pink, but it won’t stain. Wash it and you’d never know the difference.

I keep a stash of extra salsa and pickle jars. I filled several jars with the prickly pear juice to use later in the year to mix in jams, syrups and sauces.

Here’s a jam recipe shared by African Kelli:

To every 2 1/2 cups of juice
Add 1 (1 3/4 oz.) package powdered pectin
Boil for a couple minutes
Add 3 tablespoons lemon juice and 3 1/2 cups sugar.
Stir often and boil hard for 5 minutes.
Pour in jelly glass and seal with paraffin.

I followed the preserving method from Ball for high acid fruits when I was ready to seal the jars.

Here are some other Prickly Pear recipes:

Prickly Pear Lemon Green Tea
Prickly Pear Margarita
Prickly Pear Lemon Cupcakes
Prickly Pear Arnold Palmer

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You can hopefully imagine my shock when someone said to me that you can make all sorts of fruit butters using a crock pot! At first I was shocked and challenged them that perhaps I wasn’t explaining Apple Butter correctly. Because if they had ever had it they would understand that you couldn’t make something that delicious in a (I’m sorry) low rent crock pot!

But they insisted, that yes, you can apple, peach, pear butter all in a crock.

A short Google search later, I had proof and a recipe.

I used yellow peaches I picked at Schneph Farms in Queen Creek, Arizona.

The peach taste held its own, even with the cinnamon, all spice and cloves. Next, I’m going to can!

How to make Peach Butter from Pick Your Own:

It takes about 5 good sized peaches or nectarines (or about 10 plums) to make one quart of prepared peaches.  And each quart of prepared peaches cooks down to about 1 pint of peach butter.

You’ll need about 5 large peaches per pint of peach butter that you want to make!

For one batch in a 5 to 6 quart crock pot you’ll need about 30 medium to large peaches!  The rest of the measurements assume you’re making one full batch!

Peel the peaches.

Set the crock pot on low or medium heat.

To the crock pot gently stir in:

2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon of allspice
4 cups sugar

Peaches

Cover it loosely or use a large pot splatter-guard. It will spatter as it boils slowly, so I also cover nearby surfaces with towels.  You don’t want to seal it tightly because you want the steam to escape so it can reduce in volume and thicken.

Leave it to cook for 6 – 12 hours.  How long depends on the size and power of your crock pot, and how thick you like it, If you want to stir it occasionally, that’s fine but not necessary.

It will reduce in volume by about half overnight.

I used an imersion blender to smooth out the peach bits in the crock pot.

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What I do on a weekend morning is typically spontaneous. Sometimes I organize something that got out of whack , always start a load of laundry and if things are just right, I’ll start prepping dinner or lunch.

This morning, I woke up with the same routine, but I was hungry and I wanted biscuits. Well really I wanted Peach Butter and biscuits seemed like the best vehicle to get the Peach Butter into my belly!

This is my first attempt at making basic buttermilk biscuits. I had to improvise a few things like making a biscuit cutter and turning regular milk into (butter) sour milk. The process of making homemade biscuits turned out to be super easy. I had all the ingredients in the house and I’m sure the whole batch put me back .75 cents.

Sometimes I’m really proud of myself when I realize that something that seemed so difficult could be so easy to make. Even this dirty dish factor is minimal…one bowl, a baking sheet and a floured countertop are all that needed to be cleaned. Not bad by my book.

Buttermilk Biscuits by Martha Stewart

Ingredients

Makes 25

* 4 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for rolling and cutting
* 2 tablespoons baking powder
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 2 tablespoons sugar
* 2 teaspoons salt
* 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold, cut into bits, plus 4 tablespoons melted
* 1 1/2 cups low-fat buttermilk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a food processor, pulse flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt to combine. Add cold butter; pulse until mixture is the texture of coarse meal, with a few pea-size pieces of butter remaining. Add buttermilk; pulse just until dough is moistened, 2 to 3 times.
2. Turn dough onto a lightly floured work surface; knead just to combine (do not overwork). Roll with a floured rolling pin (or pat with hands) to a 3/4-inch thickness. Cut out rounds with a floured 2 1/2-inch round biscuit cutter.
3. Transfer to a baking sheet, 1 1/2 inches apart. (Reroll and cut scraps only once.) Brush top and sides of rounds with melted butter. Bake until biscuits are puffed and golden, 12 to 15 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

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I love peanut butter!

The other thing I love is sugary cereal. I don’t know the last time I had Frosted Flakes or Fruit Loops, I usually buy Cheerios. But this week I kept thinking about Cap’n Crunch cereal. I ran to the grocery store this week to pick up materials for another cupcake idea and I decided to cut through the cereal isle and there was a sale for Cap’n Crunch cereal for $2.50! I had to give in!

These cupakes really satisfy my distaste for frosting! But they must be eaten straight out of the oven. The shelf life on the cereal is minimal at best. They got soggy as soon as they reached room temperature. If you wanted to make some, here’s what I did:

Make one batch of Martha’s One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes (my book says they make 2 dozen, but everytime I’ve made them, I’ve yeilded well over 30!).

Put generous amounts of cereal on top. Really cover them because as the cake rises, the cereal will  have room to spread out.

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It’s been 18 months since I decided to start drinking coffee; Daily. I’ve got to say there are more days that I’m happy for my morning ritual than days that I’m frustrated at the grinding, prepping and brewing of my coffee.

But I’ve also crossed that line where I get really thrown off if my morning coffee ritual is interrupted. I relish and need my coffee quiet time in the morning.

The other thing about drinking coffee is that I usually need breakfast. I still can’t handle coffee hitting my tummy without a little buffer. And the bad thing about that is:

I DON’T LIKE BREAKFAST.

I don’t like a lot of breakfast foods in general. In my opinion a carne asada taco or pizza hot pocket are the best things you can have for breakfast. Eggs? Ugh? Only if there’s a full bottle of Frank’s on the table, don’t even bother.

So, it’s always a cunnumdrum for me when I want breakfast, because I don’t like breakfast.

I LIKE PANCAKES.

I do, but they’re hardly the type of food you want to hang the rest of your day on. What’s the saying?

Eat like a king for breakfast, a queen for lunch and a pauper for dinner.

I don’t quite have that dialed in yet, but I get the concept.

Adding a tablespoon of peanut butter to a basic pancake recipe gives the regular peanut butter a little more legitimacy. Yes? Adding bananas gives it full nutritional credibility. To flip a pancake perfectly you have to wait for the holes.

When you see the holes appearing on the top side of your pancake that’s when it’s safe to flip. IMO, not a bad way to start a morning.

Other breakfast posts

Sausage Potato Bundt Cake

Pumpkin Pancakes

Mango Crepes

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What’s been keeping me busy? Family, friends and a new venture I’ll reveal more about later.

In my house, I’m the oldest grandchild at 30 and as a group we’re all getting older and there are some traditions that have been in my family since my mom and aunts were little girls. The most important: Reading the Night Before Christmas as a family.

This tradition was fun and created anticipation as a child. As an adult, mixing in a little egg nog can make it fun, but in a more grown up kinda way.

Here’s a recipe my Aunt Betsy used this year to feed an army on Christmas morning, but it’s so easy and prepares so easily, that I plan on using it the next time I have guest staying over for the weekend.

Sausage Potato Bundt

2 T. dry breadcrumbs

2 lb. breakfast sausage

½ c. chopped onion

½ c. chopped roasted bell peppers, drained

4 c. shredded hash browns, thawed

2 c. shredded cheddar cheese

14 eggs

½ c. milk

1 t. salt

¼ t. pepper
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Generously butter a 10 or 12-cup bundt pan and sprinkle with breadcrumbs. 
In a large skillet over medium-high heat, cook sausage and onion until sausage is no longer pink.  Drain very well.  Add peppers, cheese and hash browns.  Mix well. 

In a large bowl, stir together eggs, milk, salt, and pepper.  Mix well.  Spoon sausage mixture into egg mixture.  Pour into prepared pan; press firmly.  Bake at 400 degrees for 55 to 65 minutes.  Cover loosely with foil for the last 10 minutes or so, if needed to prevent over-browning the top.  Casserole is done when knife inserted in center comes out clean.  Let stand 5 minutes.  Loosen edges, then invert onto plate.  10-12 servings.  May cut recipe in half and use a 6-cup bundt pan or an 8” x 8” pan.  

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And this is the time of year when my spice rack gets a lot of use. Nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, cloves go in almost everything I cook. I never really thought about spices going bad. It wasn’t until I saw an episode of Good Eats, that I had ever considered that the tin of cinnamon I’ve had since 1996 couldn’t possibly still be good.The thought of replacing all my spices (and the expense) doesn’t sound like a good time to me either. But there was some good advice that I think I can incorporate from this point forward.

• Buy smaller quantities. There’s really no purpose in buying Sam’s Club bulk spices. Not unless you’re feeding a small army on a regular basis.
• Check the ingredients. A lot of the ‘pre-made’ season blends have a higher sodium content. If you can’t live without your Creole seasoning like me, just note that you shouldn’t add more salt to the dish. There’s enough already in there.
• Keep these in your pantry. Cinnamon, Cumin, Pepper Corns, Sea Salt, Ginger, Nutmeg, Chili Powder.

Spices in mind I whipped up a breakfast this morning with something else that is ALWAYS in my pantry: Lots of canned pumpkin. Today, I made a batch of Pumpkin Pancakes. These have more baking powder than other pancake recipes I’ve tried. That made the fluffier and lighter.

No pictures of these guys either. I was towards my last batch when I finally got a few cakes that weren’t butchered. I’ve been dating the idea of getting a griddle, but I haven’t made any commitments yet. Until then, I’ll have to deal with tasty, but not pretty pancakes.

Pumpkin Pancakes
Serves 6/ 10 min Prep/ 20 min Cook

2 cups all purpose flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground allspice
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups solid pack pumpkin
3 eggs
1 cup milk
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
4 oz. chopped pecans (optional)

PREPARATION:
Sift dry ingredients and set aside. Using a large bowl, combine pumpkin, eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and stir until blended; stir in pecans just before ready to cook.

A medium heat greased griddle is best for cooking pancakes.

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Or my favorite skipping a meal excuse, “Oh, I had some almonds and some trail mix.” Really, and you counted that as a meal?

How does that happen? Doesn’t your tummy start to growl? At some point, do you get little hunger pangs and STOP what you’re doing to EAT?

These Chorizo Black Bean Pepper Jack Cheese Empanadas were good enough to have for breakfast and I packed two for lunch.

 Chorizo Black Bean Pepper Jack Cheese Empanadas

12 oz chorizo, cooked and drained

8 oz Pepper Jack Cheese, shredded

15 oz can spicy black beans, with juice

1 small yellow onion, diced, grilled

2 boxes ready made pie crust

1 egg, mixed

1 5′ bowl

Saute the chorizo and place on a plate with a paper towel to drain. Reserve 1 T of the chorizo oil and grill yellow onion in the same pan. About 8 minutes. Add the black beans, cook another 8 minutes or until the juice in the beans starts to thicken.

Allow the meat and the bean mixture to cool and shred in the cheese. Mix well.

Use a 5′ diameter bowl for a guide and cut out circles in the pie crust. Place about 1/4 cup mixture in each crust, use a fork to pinch the edges and brush with an egg. You should get about 12 empanadas.

Place on a prepared baking sheet and bake in 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.

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