Thursday, November 11, 2010

Delicious Endeavors Recipe Carnival Fifth Edition!!!

Hi everyone!  The return of the Delicious Endeavors Blog Carnival looks like a great success!  There are recipes of all different sorts, which is always fun to see.  We here at Granny's house submitted our Pumpkin Spice Latte recipe which is incredibly awesome, if I do say so myself.

 Romanesco cauliflower – easy-peasy recipe was submitted and posted at Miss Thrifty.  This is so fascinating to me because I've never even seen Romanesco cauliflower and I worked in a pretty extensive produce department for a while.  Miss Thrifty has me curious, and I'm thinking of special ordering it so that I can try it.

Mr Salsa submitted a Red Hot Salsa Recipe posted at Salsa Recipes For You.  Homemade salsa is always a good idea for sure.

Wenchypoo posted In Advance of Thansgiving: What To Do With Those Leftovers at Wisdom From Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket.  There are a couple great ideas for how to use leftovers, one of which is a fabulous idea for a sort of Shepard's Pie.  Who would have thought to use stuffing as a crust??

Lisa posted Harvest Stuffing at akawest.  Another great submission that sounds like a guaranteed win for the holidays!

Celeste submitted Cooking Creation: Homemade Ricotta-Parmesan Ravioli in Marinara posted at Cooking Creation.  Wow.  I have an Italian husband so homemade pasta definitely makes my list of favorite meals!

Patti submitted ONION SOUP ON THE CHEAP by P.B.Lecron posted at A French Education.  Everyone should have a few "go-to" soups in their repertoire.. and what better than to have a French Onion Soup as one of them?

Last but not least Michele submitted Parisian Apple Tartlet posted at Fit Foodista.  This recipe looks fabulous, pretty simple yet delicious and would be a great dessert for any meal.

Thanks for playing everyone!  Be sure to submit again for next week's carnival, the link should be up soon... and speaking of links, be sure to check out all the recipes and to link back here to this carnival post so that everyone can benefit from these great submissions!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Pumpkin Spice Latte (who needs Starbucks??)

This recipe is great because not only does it taste like one of the expensive seasonal lattes from a coffee shop, but it's also available year round so if you find yourself missing autumn flavors in the middle of spring you can feel free to whip one up.  Plus you never have to go out in the cold on a coffee run if you don't want to!

Pumpkin Latte

1 1/2 c. Half & Half Cream
2 Tbsp Canned Pumpkin
2 tspn Vanilla
1 tspn Pumpkin Pie Spice
2 Tbsp Sugar
Very Strong Coffee or Espresso (one big mug's worth.. this recipe makes 2 mugs of latte)
whipped cream (optional)

In a small sauce pan stir together Half & Half, pumpkin, vanilla, pumpkin pie spice and sugar over medium heat until blended and hot. (but not boiling) Remove from heat and whisk quickly until it gets foamy.  Split between two large mugs, and then fill them the rest of the way with the extremely strong coffee.  Top with whipped cream and sprinkle with cinnamon.






Friday, November 5, 2010

Delicious Endeavors Recipe Carnival

It has come to my attention that our blog carnival hasn't been active in quite some time... which is mostly because of the lack of participation, but also because of the busy lives we lead.  I think we're going to get the carnival back up and running and see if we can get some good participation this fall. 

With the holiday season approaching us, it should be easy to come up with seasonal favorites to share!  Please come out and join the fun!  For those who don't understand what a blog carnival is, bloggers of all types submit blog posts (in our case the post should include a recipe) and then since we are the hostesses of this carnival, we will post the carnival post here on the scheduled date.  We can all check out each other's recipes, which is so fun.  Not only do we learn some awesome new recipes, but we also increase blog traffic to our sites.

Want to play along?  Click on the submit link, and submit a recipe, along with the permalink to your post.
Then on the day of the carnival post a link on your own blog that leads to the carnival post.  Easy Peasy! 
The deadline for next week's carnival is Tuesday Nov 9th, at 8AM.  The carnival itself will be posted by Wednesdays.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Peanut Butter Cup Cake

This recipe is a favorite, and while I've made it "by scratch" before, when I do it's never the same because I end up just altering any homemade chocolate cake recipe.  Because of this, I decided that in order to post it, I'll stick with the original recipe, which is essentially a doctored cake mix recipe but it's delicious just the same.

Peanut Butter Cup Cake

1 Box(18 25oz) cake mix --
(devil's food)

1 pk Instant pudding mix --
Chocolate, 4-serv

1 c Sour cream -- (1/2 pint)

1 c Vegetable oil

4 Eggs

1/2 c Water

30 Mini chocolate peanut butter, crushed
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, with an electric beater, combine all the ingredients except the crushed candies; mix well. Stir in the crushed candies and mix well. Pour into a well-greased 10-inch Bundt pan and bake for 60-65 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cake slightly, about 15 minutes. Remove the cake from the pan and continue to cool thoroughly on a wire cooling rack. Yield: 10-12 servings

I usually drizzle on a glaze of some sort, in the picture above I opted for a Peanut Butter Glaze.

Peanut Butter Glaze:
 3-4 tsp water (add until thin enough to drizzle)
2/3 c. powdered sugar
1 Tbsp Creamy Peanut Butter

Stir ingredients together until smooth and drizzle over cake. 

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I normally don't decorate it quite as intricately as I did this one.  This particular cake was baked in honor of my daughter's dedication which happened on a beautiful fall day, hence the fall theme.  The "harvest fruits" were made of marzipan that I had dyed and shaped appropriately, and the autumn leaves were actually made from spreading melted chocolate discs on top of wax paper using a maple leaf stencil and then letting it harden.