Banana Split Dessert

2 cups graham crackers crumbs
2 or 3 bananas, sliced
1/2 gallon to 3/4 gallon ice cream. (The amount will depend on the size of pan you use.)
1 tub cool whip
Chopped nuts (optional)
1 pkg. chocolate chips
1/2 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 can canned milk, (evaporated not condensed)

Line bottom of 9x13 pan with graham cracker crumbs. Slice bananas and carefully place on top of crumbs. Freeze for 15 minutes.

Melt ice cream enough to spread it around and cover bottom.
Put chopped nuts over top and freeze for four hours.
Make a sauce of chocolate chips, butter, powdered sugar and milk and bring to a boil and stir until thickened.
Cool sauce and spread over nuts. Freeze for 1 hour.
Spread whipped topping over all then cover with the other cup of graham cracker crumbs and freeze.
Serves 15

Note: It is important to freeze each layer before adding another layer.

Just made this again. I didn't like the sauce inside the dessert. I think it would taste better and look better if it were drizzled over the top.

My kids won't eat nuts, so the first picture shows how I made it, with only half of the pan in nuts and banans.

The second picture shows the softened ice cream, just ready to be smoothed over. Next would come the chocolate layer and then the whipped topping layer.

I found those frozen bananas hard to eat, as I have sensitive teeth.
Make this dish at the height of summer, if you want to cool down.

Blog suspended

I'm sorry to say that Doug was put in the bishopric. Wait, I mean that is not bad, but he was helping me with the pictures for the blog and is now unavailable. So, until he teaches me how to do it, the blog is on hold. Which I am sad about, because I came up with a mean Tuscan stew yesterday, and now it may have no future. This may be permanent or temporary, we'll have to see.

Very Berry Trifle

1 white cake mix: baked, cooled and cut into 1 inch squares. Can also use pound cake.
(Can be made and frozen in advance. Just pull out the day of the party.)

Cream topping:
1 8 oz. cream cheese (room temperature)
1 cup sour cream
2 -1/2 cups powdered sugar
Mix in a medium bowl.

Blackberries, raspberries, blueberries
I use Costco's frozen berry blend.

Heavy whipped cream.

Layer cake, berries, cream topping in a trifle dish.

Top with fresh whipped cream.

Make sure that you put on that first layer of cream with a heavy hand. If you top it with cream, you only get one shot, so it needs to cover most everything.

I would top this with cream, but I wanted to show the layers, so it is missing a top layer.
I really like using the small, individual trifle cups. I got mine at Bed Bath and Beyond and it keeps your dessert looking amazing until serving.  A regular dish, and you have to pull it out and ruin how pretty it looks.
This dessert is so easy yet very flavorful.

Cheeseburger French Loaf

1 loaf of French bread
5 Tb. melted butter
3 Tb. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup ripe olives, chopped

1 tsp. Worchestershire sauce

1 egg

2 c cheddar cheese, grated

4 oz. Velveeta

1 1/2 cups milk

Break open a loaf of French bread along seam; remove soft center and crumble into a bowl.

Melt 3 Tb. of butter. Sift flour with salt and blend into hot butter.

Add milk slowly, stirring and cooking until smooth and thick. Add cheddar and velveeta, making a cheesy sauce. Remove from heat. Add Worcestershire sauce, egg, cheese, beef, olives and crumbled bread crumbs. Mix well. Refill loaf with meat and cheese mixture and press edges together. Rub outside of loaf with remaining 2 Tb of butter and sprinkle with a little garlic powder.  Wrap entire loaf in tinfoil and bake in 350 degree oven for 45 minutes.

Slice before serving.

Serves 6.

This is from the Idaho cookbook: Edwin Elkington. I found it burned if not wrapped and have changed just a few directions. If you grew up on hamburger gravy like I did, you will enjoy this.
The picture doesn't show olives, because I didn't think my kids would touch it.
I like to nuke cheese in microwave before adding to cheese sauce, just to speed things along.

Mint Chocolate Bark

2 lbs. melting chocolate

1/2 bag Andes mint pieces

12 drops of peppermint oil

Melt chocolate and Andes mint pieces. Add peppermint oil and stir until all is mixed and creamy.
Pour into a cookie sheet, lined with wax paper.
Cool and break into pieces.

Crème Brûlèe

6 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar, plus some for sprinkling
3 cups heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 vanilla bean

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Position rack in center of oven.

In a standing mixer at speed 3 (Bosch) wisk together the egg yolks and 1/2 cup sugar, 5 minutes, until thick and pale.
In a saucepan, bring the cream just to a boil....watch carefully.
Scrape beans from vanilla bean. (I use a grapefruit spoon, it works perfectly.)
Strain the custard to remove any lumps. (I have not found this to be necessary in my Bosch)
Add vanilla and vanilla bean to egg mixture and stir again.
With mixer turned on to speed 1, add hot cream mixture to egg mixture.

Using 8 oval crème brûlèe dishes, pour custard in, 3/4 full.

Pour enough very hot water into pans to come halfway up the sides of the dishes.
Bake for 40 minutes, or until just set, centers will wiggle slightly.
Let custards cool in water bath for 10 minutes.
Transfer to a wire rack to cook completely.
Refrigerate at least 3 hours or better still, overnight.

When ready to serve sprinkle with sugar in the raw and use a torch to caramelize the sugar.

* Mine cooked too much at 300 so I turned it down to 280-290 and it worked well.
Also cooked for 37 minutes but turned out too soft so will go for 40 next time.

A classic, timeless dessert. This is Roxanne's aunt's recipe, and I just added a standing mixer and the vanilla bean.

Cinnamon Roll

After years of not being able to make cinnamon rolls as good as my Mom's, I took matters into my own hands. I used the Lion House Roll Recipe and stopped after step 4.

2 cups warm water
2/3 cup nonfat dy milk (instant or non-instant)
2 Tablespoons dry yeast
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup butter
1 egg
5 to 51/2 cups flour

Method:
In an electric mixer, combine water and milk powder; stir until milk dissolves. (I used the Bosch wisps)
Add yeast, then sugar, salt, butter egg, and 2 cups flour. (Change to dough hooks.)  Mix on low speed until ingredients are wet, then for 2 minutes at medium speed. Add 2 cups flour; mix on low speed until ingredients are wet, then for 2 minutes at medium speed. Add additional flour if you feel it is necessary to produce a soft, sticky dough. (You have a cup and half left, I don't think I used all the flour.)

Scrape dough off sides of bowl and add 1 Tablespoon of vegetable oil all around sides of bowl. Turn dough over in bowl so it is covered with oil. (This helps prevent dough from drying out.) Cover with plastic or a dish cloth and allow to rise in warm place until double in size, about 45 minutes.

This is where I stopped following the recipe.
I divided the dough in two halves.
Rolled one half into a nice even rectangle. Mixed cinnamon and brown sugar and spread soft butter on dough rectangle; sprinkled with cinnamon and brown sugar and the big Guittard chocolate chips.
Roll dough into a cylinder and seal edges.
Using dental floss, slide floss under roll and cut into 2 inch slices.
Place in a greased pan and allow to rise again.

Brush rolls lightly with half and half or light cream.
Bake at 365 degrees (this is a very fragile dough) 6-7 minutes until lightly browned. Then cover with foil and bake an additional 7-8 minutes. (This really depends on how big and thick you are making them. A bigger roll could take 20 minutes to cook.)

A double batch made 3 dozen cinnamon rolls.

Let rolls cool slightly then frost.

Frosting:
In a bowl stir together 1 1/4 cups sifted powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon corn syrup, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and enough half and half or light cream to make of drizzling consistency.
( I did not feel this was enough frosting for one batch.)

Valentine White Chocolate Bark

1 lb. good quality white melting chocolate

Melt in microwave.

I usually do one minute, then one minute again, then 30 second intervals after that, unitl smooth and creamy.

Spread in 9x13 pan lined with wax paper. Do not make it too thick.

Sprinkle with red hots, red sprinkling sugar and Andes peppermint pieces.

Cool in refrigerator 5-10 minutes.

Break in uneven pieces.

Pumpkin Bread

In a standing mixer cream:

2 cups brown sugar

4 large egg whites

1 over-ripe banana

Add:

2 cups pumpkin

1/4 cup oil
1 cup plain yogurt
2 tsp. vanilla

1 Tablespoon baking powder
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
a dash of cloves
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
3/4 cup wheat flour
3 cups white flour
1/2 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray two pans and one mini loaf pan with Pam and then flour.

In a standing mixer with whisps,  wisk,  brown sugar and egg whites. Add banana, pumpkin, oil, yogurt, and vanilla Stir to combine.
In a medium bowl, combine all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt.
Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture; stir until just combined. Do not overmix.
Add chocolate chips and stir just until mixed.


Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Invert pumpkin bread onto wire rack; cool completely.

This is a recipe from Good Housekeeping November 2009 (Pumpkin Bread). It is a fabulous bread that is low-fat but moist, and tastes great. It bugged me that it only made one loaf--who makes just one loaf of bread? My challenge was, could I keep the fat low, but turn this into a three loaf recipe? I've tried to keep the oil low and add more yogurt and  so it stays low-fat. I've also added chocolate chips, a must, in my opinion.

If you need just one loaf, use the Good Housekeeping recipe but add chocolate chips. If you need more than one, try this one.  I gurantee moisteness,  and flavor.  This is an excellent recipe. Probably one of the best low fat recipes I've ever tried.

Original recipe had 1/4 cup applesauce and 3/4 cup yogurt. But I've tried eliminating the applesauce and adding the 1 cup of yogurt and it worked very well.

This recipe makes 2 decent sized loaves and  one mini loaf.

It can make three, but that third loaf is pretty small, or two nicely full bread pans. I tried to convince myself it would make three, but the loaves were too tiny.

Okay, I figured out how to make three full loaves: One full can of pumpkin, (29oz.) 4to 4 and 1/2 cups flour. An entire bag of chocolate chips. Whew!

Big Berry Pie

Crust:
4 cups flour
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 and 3/4 cup cold shortening
1/2 cup cold water
1 egg
1 Tablespoon vinegar

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar and salt.
Cut in shortening until mixture resembles course crumbs.
In a bowl, combine water, egg and vinegar: Stir into four mixture just until moistened. Form into a roll.
Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour. On a floured surface, roll two-thirds of the dough into a 9x13 glass dish.

Filling:
4 cups frozen berries (Kirkland Nature's Three Berries) (do not thaw)
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup all purpose flour
Half and half cream

Combine berries, sugar and flour; pour into crust. Use the remaining dough to make lattice strips; place over the filling. Brush pastry with cream. (A light coating.)

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes; reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 1 hour longer or unil bubbly.
If you see crust is browning too much, don't hesitate to cover with foil the last 15-30 minutes.

Cool completely.

This pie reminds me of a dutch oven cobbler. This is a Taste of Home Recipe, (Berry Big Pie) that I have been modifying over the years. I found I only needed half the berries suggested.