Christmas Kringle

 Christmas Kringle

Ingredients for the Dough:

4 cups all purpose flour

16 tablespoons butter - cut into slices and chilled

4 tablespoons vegetable shortening

2 tablespoons confectioner's sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons yeast

2 cups sour cream

1 large egg - lightly beaten

Ingredients for the Filling:

1 cup pecans

3/4 cup light brown sugar*

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons butter - cut into slices and chilled

Ingredients for the Glaze:

1 cup confectioner's sugar

2 tablespoons milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions for the Filling:

1.  Process pecans, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt in food processor until coarsely grounded.  

2.  Add butter and pulse until it resembles coarse meal.

3.  Place filling in bowl and set aside.

Instructions for the Dough:

1.  Add flour, butter, shortening, confectioner's sugar, yeast, and salt to food processor bowl.  Blend until it resembles coarse meal.

1a.  If your food processor is less than 11 cups, you made need to do step 1 in two batches.

2.  Transfer to medium bowl.

3.  Add sour cream and mix until dough forms.

4.  Divide dough in half.

5.  Pat each half into 7x3 rectangle and wrap in plastic.

6.  Place two dough rectangles in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

7.  Then after the 30 minutes is over, place in freezer for 15 minutes.

8.  Roll 1 dough into 28x5 inch rectangle.

9.  Cover bottom half with half of the filling.

10.  Brush edges with water.

11.  Fold dough over filling and pinch seams.

12.  Shape dough into an oval.

13.  Place on a parchment lined cookie sheet.  Cover with plastic wrap.

14.  Refrigerate for 4 - 12 hours.

15.  Repeat steps 8-14 for the second piece of dough.

16.  Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

17.  Remove plastic wrap.

18.  Brush kringle with egg.

19.  Bake for 40-50 minutes.

Instructions for the Glaze:

1.  Whisk confectioner's sugar, milk, and vanilla in bowl until smooth.

2.  Drizzle the glaze over  the kringle when it comes out of oven.

3.  Let sit for 10 minutes.

Enjoy your Christmas Kringle:

Mark's Story:

Abby and I were looking through our collection of cooking magazines to figure out what to make.  I made the Christmas Kringle (Abby made a White Fruitcake).  Anyway, this was a little more difficult for myself than other baked items I've made.  I have problems rolling out dough and making it thin without it falling apart on the rolling pin.  Yes, I lightly flour the counter and lightly flour the rolling pin.  I got mine into a 22x5 rectanglish shape.

Mark's Notes:

For the brown sugar, people in my family are allergic to brown sugar.  I usually substitute Coconut Sugar for brown sugar.  I didn't have that in the kitchen and so I mixed some white sugar with pure maple syrup.  That did work.

My Christmas Kringle didn't look as nice as the pictures in the cookbook; however, it was wonderful and everyone appreciated it.

The picture I attached of my Kringle is before I added the drizzle.

Luke 2:11

"For today in the city of David there has been born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord."

This is what Christmas is all about.

Enjoy!!

Apple Cinnamon Bundt Cake

Apple Cinnamon Bundt Cake

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar (we used 1/2 cup coconut sugar)

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 cups diced apples (we used Fuji apples - we needed about 8 Fuji apples)

Instructions:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2.  Grease and lightly flour a bundt pan

3.  In a large bowl, beat oil and eggs on medium until foamy

4.  Add in the applesauce, sugars, nutmeg, flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, and vanilla.

5.  Mix well.

6.  Stir in the diced apples

7.  Pour into prepared Bundt pan

8.  Bake 30-40 minutes or until golden brown and toothpick comes out clean.

9.  Let cool for 10-15 minutes

10.  Flip over onto a platter

Mark's Story:

Abby's birthday occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic stay-home-stay-safe rules.  For her birthday, she wanted me to make her this cake.  I had never made a bundt cake before.  Abby has made a bundt cake over and the bundt cake pan is actually hers.  So, for her birthday, I made this.  It was good.

Mark's Notes:

We used Fuji apples as we like Fuji apples.  You can use whatever types of apples you want.

Then when I flipped over, the flip side was very floured.  When I greased the Bundt cake pan, the instructions are too lightly flour.  I actually don't know how much "light flour" is but I probably used too much given that the outside was covered in baked flour.  It was still good.  Next time I try this recipe or a Bundt cake pan recipe, I will use a lot less flour.

Stuffed Peppers

Stuffed Peppers

This recipe below will make 4 Stuffed Peppers.  I doubled everything to make 8 Stuffed Peppers.  See my notes below.

Ingredients:

4 large bell peppers (any color)
1 pound lean ground beef (or turkey meat)
2 tablespoons chopped onion
1 cup cooked rice
1 teaspoon salt
1 clove garlic - finely chopped
1 15 ounce can tomato sauce
3/4 cup shredded mozarella cheese (optional)

Instructions:
1.  Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2.  Wash peppers, cut off tops, clean out insides of all seeds and membranes.
3.  In a Dutch oven or large saucepan, fill with enough water to cover peppers, bring to a boil, add peppers, and cook for 2 minutes.
4.  In a large skillet, cook meat - drain any grease.
5.  Add onions to the meat.
6.  Stir in rice, salt, and garlic to the meat.
7.  Add 1 cup of tomato sauce, cook on medium heat until boiling.  Remove from heat.
8.  Stand peppers up in a large casserole dish.
9.  Stuff peppers with the meat/sauce mixture.
10.  Pour remaining sauce over peppers.
11.  Cover tightly with foil and bake 10 minutes at 350 degrees.
12.  Remove foil and bake another 15 minutes.
13.  Sprinkle mozzarella cheese over the peppers (optional).
14.  Enjoy.

Psalm 107:1 (NASB)
"O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His loving-kindness is everlasting."

Mark's Story - 
There are lots of recipes for Stuffed Peppers.  I was looking through Betty Crocker's Lost Recipe cookbook, and came across this particular recipe.  It looked really good, and so I decided to make it.  Everyone loved it.

What I did different - I doubled everything to make 8 Stuffed Peppers.  Just in case anyone wanted a second one.  They were quite filling so 1 was sufficient.  We had leftovers for lunch the next day.

In doubling the recipe, I only had one15 ounce can though and not two cans.  I poured the entire can into the meat mixture in step 7 and skipped step 10.  I also used meatloaf sauce as we didn't have tomato sauce.  It turned out extremely well.  We did not add the cheese.  The original recipe did not include the "optional" option.  I think it is quite optional.

In making this recipe and doubling it, I was boiling the peppers, cooking the meat, and cooking the rice, all at the same time - and I didn't burn anything or set off the smoke alarm.  

The large saucepan was barely large enough to accomodate the doubling of the recipe, but it worked out.  Didn't make too much of a mess.  

Triple Chocolate Cookies

Triple-Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients:
7 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
5 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar (we used 3/4 cup coconut sugar)
4 eggs
1 recipe chocolate drizzle

Instructions:

1.  In a saucepan combine the 7 ounces bittersweet chocolate, the 5 ounces unsweetened chocolate, and 1/2 cup butter.
2.  On low heat, stir until melted.
3.  Remove from heat and let cool for 10 minutes.
4.  In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt.  set aside.
5.  In a large mixing bowl, combine the 1 cup sugar and 3/4 cup brown sugar (or coconut sugar in our case) and the 4 eggs.
6.  Beat the sugar and eggs for 1 minute with electric mixer for 2-3 minutes on medium.
7.  Beat in the chocolate mixture.
8.  Cover surface of cookie dough with plastic wrap for 20 minutes.
9.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  
10.  Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
11.  Drop dough by teaspoons onto parchment paper - 2 inches apart.
12.  Bake about 9 minutes or until tops are set.
13.  Cool on cookie sheet for 1 minute, then transfer to wire racks to let cool.
14.  Spoon chocolate drizzle over the cookies.
15.  Enjoy.

Instructions for chocolate drizzle:
1.  In a small sacue pan heat 1 cup semisweet chocolate pieces with 4 teaspoons butter over low heat until melted and smooth.
2.  Remove from heat.

Mark's Story - 
It is March 2020.  All home from school due to coronovirus.  I was watching Star Trek.  Then a cookbook is placed right in front of my face opened to this recipe.  Miriam told me she wanted to help me make these cookies.  So, the next day, after I completed working from home, Miriam and I made these cookies.

Mistakes we made - I made quite a few mistakes with this first attempt at these cookies but it still turned out well.

We had purchased packages of the baking chocolates required.  We start making it, and I realize that one package was only 4 ounces.  I went to Meijer and bought more packages so that Miriam and I could make these.

We skipped right over step number 8.  In the cookbook, everything is mushed together in paragraphs and we missed this step.  We just started placing the dough on the cookie sheets after mixing.  We only had 2 cookie sheets at a time, so the next several batches did have a chance to set longer.

Then I read in the origianal recipe that this was supposed to make like 60 cookies.  We made maybe 25-30.  We did not use teaspoons.  We used more like a tablespoon.

The chocolate drizzle - I was trying to multi-task and clean while the chocolate drizzle was melting.  I ended up slightly burning some of it.  I added more butter to smooth it out.  It wasn't badly and was salvageable.  We used it and was a fine.  A professional baker would have been able to tell the drizzle was "overdone".

Psalm 107:1 (NASB)
"O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His loving-kindness is everlasting."

Cheesy Garlic Bread

Cheesy Garlic Bread

Ingredients for the dough:
1 1/8 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
3/4 cup warm water
1 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white vinegar
2 cups bread flour

Ingredients for the cheesy garlic topping:
1 1/2 tablespoons salted butter - melted
1 clove garlic - minced
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
marinara pasta sauce, for dipping - optional

Instructions:
1.  In a large stand mixer bowl, combine 1/2 cup warm water with the sugar and yeast.
2.  Stir to combine and let rest for 5 minutes.
3.  Add the remaining 1/4 cup warm water, the olive oil, salt, and vinegar.
4.  Begin mixing on medium-low speed and gradually add the flour, knead for about 6 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic.
5.  Cover the bowl with a dry cloth/towel and let sit for 1 hour.
6.  Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
7.  Mix melted butter and garlic in a small bowl and set aside.
8.  Gently punch the dough down.  
9.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
10.  Spread the dough on the cookie sheet into a rectangle (about 1/3 inch thick).
11.  Spread the butter-garlic mixture over the dough.
12.  Top with parmesan and mozzarella cheese.
13.  Place in oven and bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden and bubbly.
14.  Enjoy!!

Mark's Story:
This was actually Miriam's 4H project.  She did everything herself.  I was in the kitchen and supervised everything and answered questions.  Miriam did all the work though.  She got all the ingredients, measured and mixed them.  When it was all done, the cheesy breadsticks were really good.  Set aside some for 4H.

A week later, I made a batch myself for all of us to enjoy.

Psalm 107:1
"O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His loving-kindness is everlasting."  (NASB)

Slow Cooker Steel-Cut Oats

Slow Cooker Steel-Cut Oats

Ingredients:

1 cup Steel-cut oats

1 cup dried fruit

4 cups water (or milk)

1/2 cup half and half

Garnish:

Butter, sugar, cream, and/or milk

Instructions:

1.  Combine all ingredients except garnish in a slow cooker.  

2.  Cover and cook on low setting for 8-9 hours.

3.  Enjoy!!

Mark's story:

We were camping in the Keewenaw Peninsula in Michigan - absolutely beautiful UP there!!  This is one of the meals I started the night before so it'd be ready in the morning.  This is probably one of the easiest recipes I have ever done.  And I still managed to screw it up.  Making it the night before, I only added 1 cup of milk and not 4 cups.  Next morning, it was all dried up and we had to toss it.  I made scrambled eggs instead.  I tried it again the next day.  Next try and it was wonderful.  You can use whatever dried fruit you want with this.  Very easy to make and everyone enjoyed it.

Jesus loves you!!  Enjoy your day!!

Key Lime Pie

Key Lime Pie

For the Graham Cracker Crust:
Ingredients:

1/3 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup finely crushed graham crackers

Instructions:
1.  Coat a 9 inch pie plate with cooking spray (I use olive oil)
2.  Melt butter
3.  Add sugar to butter  - stir

4.  Stir in the finely crushed graham crackers
5.  Pour into pie dish and spread across bottom and sides
6.  Heat oven to 375 degrees
7.  Bake crust for 5 minutes or until edges are light brown
8.  Cool completely

For the Key Lime filling:
Ingredients:
14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon finely shredded Key lime peel
1/2 cup Key lime juice or lime juice
2 cups whipping cream - 1 cup for the filling, 1 cup for the topping

Instructions:
1.  In a bowl, combine together the condensed milk, the teaspoon of Key lime peel, and the 1/2 cup lime juice.
2.  In a separate bowl, beat 1 cup of the whipping cream with an electric mixer at medium to high speed until soft peaks form.
3.  Fold the whipped cream into the lime mixture.
4.  Pour/spoon filling into the prepared Graham Cracker crust.
5.  Cover and freeze for at least 2-4 hours.  Can be left overnight in freezer.
6.  When ready to serve, beat the remaining 1 cup of whipped cream until soft peaks form.
7.  Spread this over the Key lime filling.
8.  Enjoy

Mark's Story:
Key Lime Pie is supposed to be one of the easiest pie recipes to make out there.  I tried to make this one year for Christmas and I didn't have enough lime juice and no one could taste the lime.  So that was a fail.  I decided to make this again for our Pi(e) day celebration (3.14).  I made it the night before and I bought actually Key Lime juice or I thought I had.  I actually bought Key West lemon juice.  Fortunately, I had enough fresh limes to make this.  I take it into work for our Pi(e) day celebration and everyone loved it.

Then I got home and made another batch.  I actually stopped at the store first and bought another pie plate first along with Key West lime juice.  We had two pie plates but one broke at some point so I got another one.  This pie was for my family.  We tried it with and without the extra whipped cream topping.  Trish liked both.  Miriam didn't like it at all.  I liked it with the extra topping.  Took some of the tartness away.  Miriam didn't like the tartness at all.  

Remember Jesus loves you.  John 3:16-17.