Episode 23: Cranberry Salad

This recipe is one of my favorite things to eat at the Thanksgiving table. I love fresh cranberries. Especially when they're mixed with marshmallows and pineapple and whipped cream! (I made this with my Gram!)

Episode 22: Pineapple

Episode 21: Acorn Squash

We've gotten a few of these acorn squashes from our farmer and decided it was time to cook them up. This recipe is really similar to the butternut squash recipe, but I think the two squashes taste different from each other. And that they deserved their own shows. My brother, who did not like the butternut squash, loved the acorn squash.
Ingredients:

1 Acorn squash
1 Tablespoon Butter
2 Tablespoon Brown Sugar
1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Cut the acorn squash in half, lengthwise, from stem to end. Use a spoon to scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff in the center of each half. Put butter, cinnamon and sugar in squash. Put it in a pan, cut side down. Add 1/2 cup of water. Bake for about 1 hour. Take squash from the oven. Turn back over and set in a bowl. Ladle out any "syrup" or drippings from the pan and stir them in with your squash. Enjoy as a snack or with dinner!

Episode 20: Basil-Walnut Pesto

All of our summer basil is starting to flower so it's time to use it up. We always let quite a bunch of it flower and go to seed, but we do like to use it too. This pesto is super delicious.Ingredients:

2 cups fresh basil leaves
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 cup walnuts
2 small cloves garlic
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons softened butter
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Directions:

Place all ingredients in food processor or blender. We did them one at a time, starting with the walnuts, adding the oil last. (Chopping is fun.) Blend until thoroughly combined.

Just before serving, add 2 Tbsp of hot pasta water from cooked pasta and serve over pasta or spread on little toasts.

Episode 19: Baked Spiced Butternut Squash

It's squash season and our farmer has been giving us lots of squash to eat. Here's a yummy way to enjoy your squash with dinner or as a dessert!

Ingredients:

1 small butternut squash
melted butter
cinnamon sugar

Preparation:

Brush a pan with butter and heat oven to 350°.

Carefully cut each squash in half lengthwise (or have your friend karate chop it) and scoop out seeds and soft fibers with a spoon. Brush the inside of each squash with butter. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Place squash halves, seasoned cut side down, in the prepared pan. Add 1/2 cup water to the pan. Bake for 1 hour or until the squash is tender. Serve halves immediately. Delicious!

Episode 18: Sushi

When I visited my Uncle Cy in Ocean Beach, California I found out that he doesn't like to eat sushi. But that's because he never tried my sushi. I don't eat raw fish, or any fish really. And I'm not supposed to eat avocado right now. But vegetables and cream cheese make pretty yummy sushi rolls. Sushi is really fun and easy to make. And even Cy liked it when we were done!

Ingredients:
One package of nori or dried seaweed (look for it by the Asian foods)
One cup of cooked sushi rice (look for it on the rice aisle)
1 avocado, sliced
1 carrot, thinly sliced
1 small cucumber, seeds removed, sliced in strips
cream cheese, cut into strips
soy sauce for dipping

What to do:
Prepare a bowl of water for dipping fingers

Lay seaweed on a flat surface.
Dip your fingers in water and grab little clumps of rice.
Flatten rice gently onto seaweed.
Dip your fingers in water each time you get more rice.
Cover seaweed with rice, leaving a strip on one end of seaweed open for sealing.
Layer on cream cheese and veggies in a strip down the center of the rice.
Roll up covered seaweed.
Slice.
Dip in soy sauce.
Eat!

Episode 17: Cornbread

The recipe
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup cornmeal
2 to 4 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup cooking oil

Heat oven to 425 degrees.

Stir dry ingredients in one bowl and wet ingredients in another. Add them together. Mix until smooth, but don't overmix. Bake 20 to 25 minutes.

Episode 16: Pancakes

For this episode of my show I had my friend Kayla over to help. Until today her mom was making pancakes out of a box, but now that she knows how easy it easy they'll all be from scratch!

The recipe:
1 cup of flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup milk
1/4 cup oil
1 egg

Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet ingredients in another bowel. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir them just until moist. The batter will be a little lumpy.

Pour a couple tablespoons into a hot skillet and cook until the bubbles start to pop. Flip when golden and cook a little bit more. Enjoy with maple syrup.

(We usually add frozen blueberries, mashed bananas, pecans, or chocolate chips to the batter, but they taste delicious plain, too.)

Episode 15: Blackberry Pie (camping style)

What you need:
1 Pie Crust
4 Cups Fresh Blackberries
1 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Flour

What to do:
Combine sugar and flour. Add blackberries and stir gently.

If you're at home, using an oven: Top with crust and cook for about an hour in a 350 degree oven. Cover with foil if crust starts to get too dark.

If you're camping, using a fire or charcoal: Pour mixture into a cast iron dutch oven. Cover with pie crust and cook over coals for about an hour. After an hour add extra coals to the top of your oven to get a golden crust.

Sorry, I don't have exact charcoal numbers. A good rule is to make sure the coals aren't actually touching the bottom of your oven. So if your oven doesn't have legs then hang it over the fire pit. Check your pie occasionally. If it's good an bubbly then you know it's cooking hot enough.

Cooking a pie at the campsite is such a treat. It doesn't really matter how perfect your crust looks or how juicy your pie is. When we made blackberry pie at our campsite the first night we were so full we even skipped s'mores! That means it was really, really, REALLY yummy!

My Chocolate Flower Cake

I'm entering my first cake decorating contest Friday with this flower pot cake. The rules are that an adult can help with the baking, but I have to do all the decorating myself. My mom has been digging up cake pictures for days now. She shows me pictures on the Internet and in cookbooks and EVERYTHING looks good. Then last week she came across a picture of this flower pot cake from and old newspaper article my Gram had sent her. Perfect! The recipe was for little flower pots with real flowers. We changed it up and used a big pot and fake flowers. I covered the cake with thick chocolate icing and then crumbled chocolate cookies all over the top. I "planted" the flowers and here's the finished product. It was really fun to make and really easy to decorate.

Episode 14: Baked apples

My mom bought two giant containers of apples this week at Costco and the very best thing about that is that we have had baked apples for dessert THREE nights in a row! The first night we halved them, filled them with brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins and butter and then baked them until the whole house smelled good enough to eat. The second night we did pretty much the same thing, except we used dried apricot pieces instead of raisins. Tonight we went nuts and filled the whole apple, loosely following a recipe from one of our Martha Stewart magazines. Delicious! That sauce that gets drizzled on in the end is sooo yummy ... I could eat that all day!

Here's my recipe for Baked apples with dried cherries and pecans:

Ingredients:
4 Gala apples
1/3 cup dried cherries
1/3 cup pecan pieces
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons sour cream
3 tablespoons crushed gingersnaps

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Core apples with a knife and use a melon baller to scoop out some of the flesh, making about a 3/4-inch-wide cavity. Peel top inch of apples; fill with cherries and pecans and sprinkle with cinnamon. Arrange in an 8-inch square baking dish.
Drizzle maple syrup over apples; top each with 1/2 tablespoon butter. Bake, brushing occasionally with accumulated juices, until apples are tender, 45 to 60 minutes.
Transfer apples to a plate. Pour liquid from dish into a bowl; whisk in sour cream. Drizzle over apples; sprinkle with gingersnaps.

EAT THEM UP!