This is a picture of the cake before I frosted it. For frosting I melted a couple of tablespoons of butter in the microwave, stirred in a spoonful of cocoa powder, a little milk, and a couple of cups of powdered sugar. Even without the frosting, though, the cake wasn't bad. A very strong banana flavor, but the texture is nice. Nuts would have helped. Dad ate two pieces of it, in his typical fashion of in a bowl with milk over it. Ice cream would have been even better. I'll most likely put the rest of it in the freezer for a future dessert when we need something easy to feed a crowd. So you'd better watch out! Next time you come to visit you might get fed chocolate banana cake for dessert!
I made these muffins this morning, following the recipe found here, except that I used half whole wheat flour, and I used 1 1/2 cups of frozen raspberries instead of 2 cups of blueberries. Oh, and no vanilla (see previous post). I used the store-bought Mountain High vanilla-flavored yogurt, rather than my homemade, in an effort to use it up. Still have over 2 quarts of yogurt in the fridge. Stay tuned for more recipes.
BTW, Dad called me on his way to work this morning to tell me that these muffins are "delightful." I appreciated that. I'm glad he enjoyed them. They are cake-like, have a nice texture, and the top is a bit crisp.
p.s. I think one reason they're so good is because of the cup of sugar that the recipe calls for. I mean, that's a lot of sugar! I may have to experiment with variations to make them a bit more healthy, er, I mean, nutritious.
Did you know that yogurt can be used in place of eggs, as well as shortening and oil? In my online search for what to do with all my yogurt, I came across this recipe for Yogurt Cookies. I did not follow it exactly (surprise!). I used 100% whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose flour, and I used 1 cup chocolate chips instead of 2. Here is what I did:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 to 1/2 cup butter, softened (I just used what was on the dish in my cupboard, as one of the commenters said that they had used only the butter (1/4 cup) and left out the shortening (also 1/4 cup), for a total of only 1/4 cup fat, and they turned out fine.)
1/2 cup (homemade) yogurt
(I skipped the vanilla flavoring--I've been getting tired of vanilla lately)
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips
Cream sugars and butter, then mix in the yogurt. Add the flour, baking powder and salt and stir well, followed by the chocolate chips. Put blobs on cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes. Makes 24.
These cookies spread out a bit and are quite soft when they're still warm. Stay tuned for how they taste when they are cool.
Okay, I've tasted them cool. They're very soft and a bit tangy. Not the texture that I think of with chocolate chip cookies. Not bad, but not great either.
Tomorrow I plan to try a muffin recipe, like maybe this one here.
Okay, so last night around 7:30 or 8 p.m. I checked the yogurt, and it was done. Not curdled and sour, not runny, but real honest-to-goodness yogurt. It smells like vanilla. Curse that vanilla-flavored Mountain High! If I ever do this again, I will buy plain yogurt. The salad dressing that I made was not good. I did eat it on my salad last night, but couldn't handle the vanilla flavor with the spices, so I ended up dumping the rest of the bottle down the sink. I should have done what Josie says she does, and just made half a recipe. So now I have about three quarts of vanilla yogurt, including the one that I bought. What to do with it? Well, I'm going to make one quart of it into yogurt cheese, and see about making a cheesecake. I'll try to eat some of it with some strawberries and/or raspberries and/or bananas stirred--maybe even blended--into it. And, finally, if all else fails, I'll put the rest of it into the ice cream freezer and see about making some frozen yogurt. Some people do like frozen yogurt, and that would be a way of preserving it for those people to enjoy sometime in the future.
Next week: cottage cheese.
Today is the day! About 7:30 this morning I got my powdered milk and water blended up in the blender and put into the crock-pot, turned it to low, set the timer for 2 1/2 hours, and let it heat up. I noticed that there was a brown ring around the inside of the crockpot, just above the milk line. I don't know if that's normal or not. Maybe my crockpot cooks hot. Or maybe I didn't have it perfectly clean. At any rate, when the timer went off, I unplugged the crock pot, re-set the timer for 3 more hours, and let it sit again. At that point, I measured two cooks of the very-warm milk into a bowl, and used a fork to stir in 1/2 cup of Mountain High brand yogurt. Then I stirred that back into the crockpot, put the lid on, and wrapped it in three towels. The timer is now set for 6 hours. I hope that the next time I open it I am met with a sweet smell and a gelled hunk of yogurt. I'll let you know.
One of the things I learned from the video is what to do with that liquid that sits on top of the yogurt. I've always tried to stir it back into the yogurt, but she explains that the liquid is the whey, and it should be poured off the top, not stirred back in. She says that stirring your yogurt is kind of like stirring a bowl of jello. It just liquifies it and does nothing to help. The whey, she says, is full of proteins, and is good to use as the liquid in your next batch of bread. Or maybe a pot of soup. Or it could just be dumped down the sink. I never knew.
Keeper!
The biscuits weren't the best, but they were good, and the sauce and filling was really good.
There are many variations that could be done with this recipe. Just so you know, the original idea came from that Cooking for Two Bride and Groom (I think it's called The I Do Cookbook) cookbook that my cousin wrote. She has a recipe in there for biscuits that are made with sour cream, and they are very light and fluffy. Whatever works!
This chicken pot pie is also made with canned chicken and frozen mixed vegetables, but instead of pie crust it uses Bisquick. Only I didn't have enough Bisquick, so I supplemented with a little whole wheat flour. And the picture, above, shows just the filling stuff, minus the biscuits. I added them after I took the picture.
Drain a can of chicken from the cannery, reserving the broth and putting it into a pot. To the pot of broth, add 2 cups of frozen mixed vegetables. Put a lid on it and bring it to a boil. Remove from heat. Strain the broth off the vegetables into a measuring cup by pouring the vegetables and broth through a sieve. Put the vegetables, in the sieve, aside.
In your pot, melt a tablespoon of butter, and saute 1/2 cup onion and 1/2 cup celery, chopped, until soft.
Add enough water to the reserved broth to make 2 3/4 cups of liquid. Add a teaspoon of chicken bouillon granules. Use a wire whisk to stir in 1/2 cup of white sauce mix. Dump the liquid in with the celery and onion and heat over medium heat, stirring constantly with wire whisk, until mixture thickens and gets bubbly.
Stir the reserved frozen mixed vegetables into the sauce, along with the can of chicken, and any other leftover cooked vegetables you may have in the fridge.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Prepare a recipe of biscuits according to the Bisquick package directions. If you are about a half a cup of Bisquick short, try adding 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour to the dry ingredients before stirring in the milk.
Pour the chicken-vegetable-sauce mixture into a casserole dish. Pat chunks of dough into biscuit shaped blobs and place on top of mixture. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, or until biscuits are golden brown.
I'll take a picture when it's done and post it and tell you how we like it.
