Cherry Cream Dessert

Standing in line at the grocery today flipping through magazines, I noticed a dessert in the Family Circle magazine that seemed simple enough to recall later to make.  Well, I didn't exactly remember everything that was in it so I googled and came upon a recipe that seemed close enough.  I followed that recipe and quickly realized that it would need some tweaking.  Here is my version of this simple recipe:

Ingredients
2 cans Crescent Dinner Rolls
2  (8 oz. pkgs.) Cream Cheese, softened
1 cup Sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla
1 Egg Yolk
1 can Cherry Pie Filling (can try other pie-filling flavors)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar just until mixed; add egg yolk & vanilla and beat until fluffy. Lay one package of crescent rolls in bottom of a greased 9 x 13 baking pan.  Bake for 15 minutes or so so that bottom layer is cooked through.  Spread cream cheese mixture over pastry and top with pie filling.  Place the second can of crescent rolls on top of pie filling layer.  Bake until golden brown for about 30 minutes.   You may want to lift a corner of the top crust to see if still doughy underneath...bake longer if necessary.  Cool and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving.

Optional:  May dust with powdered sugar or a toasted nut topping (I browned sliced Almonds and granulated sugar for the topping).

This was really simple and pretty good.  Have a sweet week

Ta ta,

The Kitchen Witch

I'm heating things up in the kitchen...

Today is the kind of peaceful afternoon that demands a cake baking in the oven.  And not just any cake,  a sinfully sweet southern cake.  Is there any other kind?  Lately, I've had three cakes on my mind- yellow cake with choc. frosting, pineapple upside down, and caramel.

I've never made a caramel cake before, but was inspired to after reading The Help.  I'll share a recipe that the book's author used and I'll post pics on how it turned out in a little while.  I'm off to the store to get buttermilk in the mean time.

Makes one 9" 2-layer cake

1 cup finely chopped pecans, plus extra for garnish
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups unsifted cake flour
1/8 tsp salt
3 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

For the cake:
Pre-heat oven to 350°F. Cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer at medium speed for about 20 minutes or until mixture is light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low and add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition. Add vanilla and mix until blended. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in another bowl. Slowly alternate adding buttermilk and flour mixture to butter mixture, Begin and end with flour mixture and make sure to scrape down sides of bowl frequently until all is combined. Mix batter until well blended and smooth.
Prepare 2 9-inch pans by lining the bottoms with parchment paper, buttering the side then dusting with flour. Divide the batter evenly among the 2 pans. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until cake is lightly browned and springs back and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove cakes from pans after cooling for 10 minutes and then cool completely on wire racks.

I'm sharing at Designs by Gollum for Foodie Friday, by the way :)

Ta ta for now,

The Kitchen Witch

jennifer aniston goes viral -Ha Ha, love it

This one is for you, Stephanie : )

Happy Mother's Day (Romanian Style)



Somewhere in the world, mothers are being celebrated.  La Multi Ani!



Bebe's got a new snack

It seems, like most babies, our little girl loves Cheerios.  Doctors recommend that infants avoid honey and nuts among other things so we stick to the plain variety.  Today, I was thinking of ways to jazz up her snack sans honey and/or nuts.  I got to thinking about Chex Mix and came up with this:

Cajun Crunchy-O's

2 cups or so of Toasted Oats cereal (Cheerios or similar type O cereal)

1 tsp. Sweet Paprika

1 tsp. Garlic Powder

1/4 tsp. Kosher Salt

A dusting of Chili powder

2 Tbsp. Unsalted butter, melted

2 tsp. Worcestershire Sauce

Preheat oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. 

In a large bowl, mix cereal with spices and salt.  Melt butter and combine with Worcestershire sauce.  Pour butter mixture over cereal and toss to combine butter, cereal, and flavoring

Pour onto a jelly roll pan and spread out in an even layer.  Bake for 25-30 minutes, stirring once in between baking time to toast cereal evenly on both sides.

A Gardening We Will Go

This past weekend, the whole family got in gear to do a little yard clean up and gardening.  The weather has been so pleasant we couldn't waste another day indoors so we mulched and mowed and pruned and planted.  Mrs BC had recently blogged about her gardening successes and I told her how we were just starting ours so y'all will have to stay tuned to see if I'll have bragging rights as the season progresses. 

Gardening has not been my forte.  Let's just say I'm better at sauting than growing, for sure.  Last season, I had this to share about my gardening endeavors.  Oh, and let's not forget this post. 

Well, I'll let bygones be bygones. Mmmkay?

This year, I'm hopeful that I'll have better luck.  We've planted five tomato plants of various varieties.  We've got Big Boy Tomatoes, Yellow Pear, Patio, and Beef Steak (I think).  Too, we planted Strawberry plants, Dill Weed, Italian Parsley, Cilantro, and Basil.  I'm hoping to buy another Bell Pepper plant despite the mini peppers that I got last year and possibly cabbage.  I'd like to add a bag of manure, also, as my mom says this does well for her.  Of course, she lives on a ranch and so gets hers right from the source and since her cows are of the organic grass-fed variety, I'm thinking no harm some fowl (odor, that is).  She'd laugh thinking that I'm paying for crap, literally, but I'd do just about anything to get this garden to produce.  I've already Miracle-Gro'd every living thing in the yard.  Fingers crossed and here we go...

Rows of Tomatoes

Getting up close and personal with the herbs.

So Here I Am

... at 10:15 p.m. picking at cookie dough whilst waiting for batches upon batches of chocolate chip cookies to bake off.  Today has been a horrible day.  Not horrible in that any particular horrible thing happened, in fact nothing really bad did happen, but today definitely was the kind of day that called for a chocolate chip ending.  Have you ever had one of those kind of days? 

As the Bayer commercials used to say, I've got a headache AND IT'S THIS BIG!"  But hope is not lost, for today happens to be Woman's Day in a certain part of the world.  The hubs even brought flowers home : )Yes, I'm feeling better just knowing that such a day exists.  I think the U.S. should adopt Woman's Day and make it as big a marketable holiday as Mother's Day and Valentine's Day.  Sure, why not?!  Women deserve it.  On a similar note, after reading thru some blogs, I discovered one that said March was Woman's History Month.  Whaaa?  Woman's History Month?  How have I never heard of this? ~Don't answer, I know that I live under a rock~

Sooo in honor of women today and for all the memorable women throughout the years, thanks for all that you do: dinners, diapers, homework, groceries, cleaning, making sure the bills get paid on time and that the accounts don't bounce, for voting rights, for teaching children, for volunteering, for car-pooling, for helping make lemonade stands, for laundry, for creating businesses, for creating books, for saving lives, for creating lives, for knitting, for sewing, and for making chocolate chip cookies.

HAPPY WOMAN'S DAY!