Cream Cheese Peach Pie

I have been on a pie kick lately.  As much as I love chocolate cream pie, vanilla wafer pudding pie, and mousse pie, I have been making pies that are a little "healthier."  Well, as healthy as a pie can be, I guess!  You know, less sugar and fresh fruit:)  We got fresh peaches from the store this morning and peach pie sounded so good, so I made some.

You will need:
1 ready made graham cracker pie crust
8 oz light cream cheese
1 egg
1/3 cup sugar + 1 1/2 tsp
1 tsp vanilla
3 medium sized peaches
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
*if you want soft peaches in your
pie, use canned peaches instead of fresh*


Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
For the base, mix the cream cheese, egg, 1/3 cup sugar, and vanilla.  Once mixed well, pour into the pie crust.

Slice the peaches off the pit, then cut the slices into bite sized pieces.  You can peel the skin off if you want to.  I don't, though.

Put the peaches on the cream cheese mixture in the pie crust and kind of press down so that most of the peaches kind of sink into the mixture...leaving some exposed on top.  Mix the 1 1/2 tsp sugar and the cinnamon together and then sprinkle over the peaches.

Place in the oven and bake for 25 minutes.  When ready, remove from the oven and place in the refrigerator to chill.  Once chilled (about 3 hours) cut and serve!  It's good with fresh strawberries!

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Bread...bread...B-R-E-A-D bread!  Salty, buttery, sweet.  All of them are yum yum yum:)  My husband is a bread FANATIC.  Really!  He will eat bread for breakfast, bread as a snack, and bread right before bed.  No exaggeration...he does eat that much bread.  Mostly it's sweet bread, but he prefers sweet bread that is not too sweet, so, for him, I made a cinnamon swirl bread.  Just a little sweet:)

You need:
3/4 cup water (hot, but not boiling) + 1 TBS room temperature
1/4 cup honey + 2 TBS
3/4 tsp active yeast
2 eggs (1 egg, yolk and white separated)
1/8 cup oil
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups flour + extra for kneading and dusting
1/4 cup cinnamon
1/2 cup granulated sugar

In an appropriate sized bowl mix the hot water, yeast, and 2 TBS of honey.  Mix well and let stand for about 10 minutes until foamy.

While the yeast/water mixture is foaming, get the 2 1/2 cups flour, salt, 1 egg and one egg white, and oil ready.  When the yeast/water mixture is ready, mix it with the readied flour and other previously listed ingredients to form a workable dough.  Once mixed, turn dough out onto lightly floured surface and knead until fully combined (add flour a little at a time if the dough is sticky).

When kneaded, put the dough ball back into the bowl, dust with a little flour, and cover with plastic wrap.  Let the dough sit for 2 to 3 hours...until it doubles in size.

When the dough had risen, remove the dough from the bowl and punch it down.  I mean really PUNCH it down.  Then fold it and put back in the bowl to rise again for about an hour.

Once risen, again, take the dough out of the bowl and knead a few times.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Use a rolling pin to flatten out the dough into a fairly wide rectangle.

Once rolled out, warm the honey until "watery," then pour the honey over the dough.  Smooth honey over the dough, then mix the cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle evenly over the honey.  Let it rest for about 5 minutes to let the honey thicken a little, then roll the dough to form a log, slightly pinching the ends together to avoid honey leakage.

Prepare a 10" X 5" loaf pan (can be slightly varied in size) by spraying with cooking spray and sprinkling a LIGHT layer of flour so the bread does not stick to the pan.

Place the rolled loaf into the pan, seam side down.  In a small bowl, mix the extra egg yolk and 1 TBS of water and brush a little over the top of the loaf (this part is optional and will add a golden color to the top of the bread).  Place in oven and bake for about 40 minutes.  When ready, remove from oven, then remove the loaf from the pan and allow the loaf to cool (on a wire rack if available...not necessary).  It is important that you allow the loaf to cool completely before slicing.  Remember, there's honey in there.  The honey needs to cool and set before you cut the loaf, or it will run out and make an oozy mess.  It can also burn your skin extremely bad if still hot when cut.  It will only take about an hour for the loaf to cool...it's worth the wait:)  -My seam broke (happens sometimes) so the loaf isn't as pretty as I would have liked for pics.  Sorry.-

Squash Blossom Quesadillas

Quesadillas!!!  Good for a meal or just a snack.  You can make quesadillas with so many different fillings.  Most people just know quesadillas as cheese filled tortillas with chicken or beef, but there are so many other things that taste so good with oozy melty cheese and tortillas.  One of my favorite additives is spinach, but...tis the season for SQUASH BLOSSOMS!!!

All you need (for 2 to 3 single tortilla quesadillas):
1 bunch squash blossoms -about 15 blossoms-
2 tsp butter
1 pinch salt
2 to 3 tortillas
shredded cheese (mozzarella is best for these)
cooking spray


First thing you need to do is clean the blossoms.  Take the stems off the plants...ONLY the stems, not the bulb at the end of the blossom.  Once stemmed, place the blossoms in a bowl of water and let them soak for about five minutes.

After the blossoms have soaked and you notice that the water is turning yellowish brown, stick your hands right in there and stir the plants around, "pump" the water, and gently squeeze the plants to try and get as much dirt and debris out of the blossoms.  Then take a handful of blossoms and squeeze the water out of them as tightly as you can to get as much water out of them as you can and place them on a clean dry kitchen towel.  Repeat until all the blossoms are squeezed.  Pat the blossoms dry with the towel.

Now chop the blossoms, bulb and all.  Melt the 2 tsp of butter in a nonstick pan and add the chopped blossoms.  Sprinkle on the pinch of salt and saute for about 2 to 3 minutes, until the blossoms are wilted and the bulbs are softened slightly.

Turn the heat off when the blossoms are ready and prepare the tortillas.  Put some shredded cheese on only half of each tortilla, then top with a couple spoonfuls of the sauteed squash blossoms.

 

Fold the tortillas in half and spray a flat top grill or nonstick pan with cooking spray and set over medium low heat.  Once heated, place the filled tortillas on the flat top, or in the skillet, and let it cook for a couple minutes, until the tortilla is golden and slightly crispy, then flip the tortillas to cook on the other side for a couple minutes.

Once ready, you can eat them whole or cut them in half.  Serve with whatever you normally like quesadillas with.  Guacamole, sour cream, pico de gallo, lettuce, salsa, etc.  I like mine with chopped lettuce, sour cream, and pickled jalapenos!  YUM YUM YUM:)  Enjoy!

Sour Cream and Pear Pie

If you have never heard of this kind of pear pie, PLEASE do not let the name scare you.  Even my husband, who hates sour cream, will eat this pie right out of the pan.  He is also a certified Chef, for those of you who don't know:)  The sour cream just makes it creamy...the sugar and spices make it scrumdiddlyumptious!  This is a pie, too, that is good cold or hot (although I prefer right out of the oven).

The yummies that go into it:

3 TBS flour
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 cup lite sour cream
3 to 4 pears (or 1 1/2 canned pear halves, but fresh is best)
1 graham cracker pie crust

For the extra yummy on top:

1 TBS sugar
1/4 tsp nutmeg

*PREHEAT OVEN TO 425 DEGREES*

     First thing you need to do is take the skin off the pears (unless you are using canned, because the skin will already be off).  Next, cut the pears into bite sized pieces, or slightly smaller.  Put the pears in the pie crust and make as even as possible.

     Next, mix the lite sour cream, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar together until well combined. 

     When well mixed, pour the sour cream mixture over the pears in the pie crust, being sure to cover all.

     Give the sour cream mixture a minute or two to kind of "settle" into the pears while mixing the last 1 TBS of sugar and 1/4 tsp of nutmeg.  Shake or pour that mixture over the top of the unbaked pie, then put in the oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

     After the pie is finished cooking, you can serve immediately, which I like, or you can let it cool for about 30 minutes, then place it in the refrigerator to cool completely for at least 2 hours.  Hot, it is good with a cinnamon or a nut ice cream.  Cold, it is good with whipped cream and/or a snifter of Grand Marnier!

Happy Clown!

     The title for this post comes with special meaning.  A lot of my guilty pleasure snacks have spicy chili powder on or in them and, because I usually use so much of the chili powder (usually the spiciest available), my lips get puffy and red!  So worth it, though.  I haven't posted in a couple days, partially because I haven't cooked in the past two days, and partially because I haven't had much spare time.  I have a few extra minutes before heading off to bed to read some for an online class I am taking, so I thought I would post a little ditty about some of my guilty pleasures:)

1) Garbanzo beans!  Roasted in the shell garbanzo beans (chickpeas) with freshly squeezed lime juice and chili powder.
2) Grilled corn on the cob, also with lime juice and chili powder.
3) Steamed corn on the cob smeared with mayo, chili powder, and sprinkled with fresh parmesan.
4) Fresh baked, thin cut potato chips with Valentina hot sauce and a little salt.
5) Baked tostadas with melted mozzarella on top and Valentina hot sauce.
6) Homemade pretzel bark.  Melted dark chocolate mixed with crushed salted pretzels, then poured onto a flat surface and cooled to form "bark."
7) Fresh popped buttered popcorn with chili powder sprinkled all over.
8) Sliced jicama and cucumbers with lime juice and chili powder and just a little salt.

     I try to eat well as much as possible, but every now and then, it feels so good to give into indulgence!

Carrot And Zucchini Vegetable Muffins The Kids (and parents) Will Love!

     Zucchini and carrot muffins.  WHAT?  Some people think that vegetables and sweets don't go together...personally, my favorite cake of all time is carrot cake.  I even had carrot cake as my wedding cake!  My son loves it, too, and even stole my last piece out of the refrigerator and ate it before I knew what he was doing:)  He is the reason I started making these vegetable muffins when he was only a year old (a little over 2 years ago).  It has never been a struggle to get him to eat his vegetable, but I wanted to try and get more creative in the way they were served to him.  Sometimes we have zucchini or chayote "pancakes."  Sometimes it's pea and corn stuffed spinach wraps.  My favorite, though, are these muffins.
     One of the things I love about these muffins is...THEY ARE ONLY 150 CALORIES EACH!!!  There is only 1/4 cup of sugar in the entire recipe, which means only 1 tsp per muffin.  They get extra sweetness from the vegetables...especially the carrots.  While they were in the oven today, baking to golden perfection, my son sat in front of the oven waiting for them to finish so he could have one.  They are THAT good.

You will need:
1/3 cup skim milk

1/4 cup vegetable oil (or apple sauce)
1 egg lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour (I always use wheat flour)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 TBS baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup shredded carrots
1 1/4 cup shredded zucchini

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees...

In a small bowl, combine egg, milk, oil, and vanilla.  Whisk together until well combined but not frothy.  In a medium bowl, combine all the dry ingredients (flour through salt in above list) and mix well.

Once the dry ingredients are combined, fold in the vegetables, making sure to coat well with the flour mixture.

Once all the vegetables are coated, pour the milk mixture in all at once and stir to combine.  The mixture will be very thick, but that is how it's supposed to be!  When everything is all combined, line muffin tins with muffin liners, or lightly spray with cooking spray then sprinkle with flour so the batter doesn't stick and/or burn.  Spoon the batter into the muffin tins until almost full.



Bake at 425 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes (until an inserted toothpick comes out clean).

     Once the muffins are finished baking and are a golden brown, remove the muffin tin from the oven and allow the muffins to cool for just a few minutes.  After a few minutes, remove the muffins from the tin and transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
     As I mentioned before, these muffins are not really sweet, but have an incredible flavor to them.  If you would like a little more sweetness to them you can sprinkle some sugar on the tops right before baking.  My favorite way to sweeten them up a bit, though, is to add a little bit of honey to one right before I eat it...on top or sliced and smeared in the middle:)