Month: August 2018

Honeyed Baklava

Honeyed Baklava

In case you’ve never heard of baklava, it’s a yummy Greek dessert that’s made by layering dough, butter, and nuts into a wondrous flaky thing, before drenching it all in honey. If you’ve never tasted baklava before, you’re in for a treat. Baklava is a 

Fresh Bok Choy Salad

Fresh Bok Choy Salad

Before you balk at this bok choy salad, you should know that I am not a salad person, and I don’t really trust the people who say they are. Most salads are kind of sad; a handful of wilted lettuce covering a few limp slices 

Peachy Delight Cake

Peachy Delight Cake

I looooove peaches. And it’s peach season here in Utah. People are literally just giving them away, so I’m happy as can be. The one problem is what to do with them. Hence this recipe for peach cake.

I started looking for peach cake recipes on Pinterest, and I was really surprised to not find many recipes where the peaches are pureed and mixed into the batter. But there were plenty for pureed strawberry cakes, so I chose to adapt a recipe found here. This recipe makes a lovely sweet, fresh cake, drizzled with fresh peach glaze. It’s honestly one of the most popular things I’ve ever made; it was gone in about twenty minutes!

A couple notes about this recipe: the glaze does not harden, so be prepared to eat this with a fork. The amount of powdered sugar in the glaze is also adjustable to personal taste.

Ingredients

  • 3 1/4 cups flour, sifted
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 2 1/2 cups sugar
  • 6 eggs
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 2-3 large peaches
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  • 1-2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

Instructions

First, mix together the flour, salt, and baking soda. In a larger bowl, mix the butter and sugar together until whipped and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time to the butter and sugar mixture. Add the vanilla and sour cream, mixing until they are fully incorporated. Mix together the wet and dry mixtures until just combined.

Next, preheat the oven to 325 F, and grease two loaf pans. While the oven is heating, puree the peaches in a food processor. Add the brown sugar. Set 1/2 cup of the mixture aside. 

Fill each loaf pan halfway with cake batter. Pour half of the remaining peach mixture on top of each pan, and then add slightly more cake batter. (Do NOT overfill; you may have some batter left over.) Use a butter knife to swirl the peach and cake batter together.

Bake for 65-70 minutes, until set and golden. After your cakes have cooled mix the remaining peach puree with the powdered sugar and glaze the loaves. Enjoy!

peach cake
Look at that gorgeous peachy color! Yum.
Homemade Chicken Stock

Homemade Chicken Stock

Chicken stock is kind of the unsung hero of cooking, especially homemade chicken stock. It is the base for risotto, many sauces, and most soups. Chicken stock is also used to give extra body and flavor to rice, vegetables, gravy, and chicken pot pie. Chicken 

Sticky Lemon Rolls

Sticky Lemon Rolls

Sticky lemon rolls are stupid good. I’d only ever had cinnamon rolls, and they just weren’t doing it for me. But then I found Faith Durand’s recipe for sticky lemon rolls, and I made them for brunch, and I fell in love. I adapted the 

Easy Baked Peaches

Easy Baked Peaches

Summer means peach season! I like smelling peaches so much that I always end up buying too many, and need to find new ways to eat them. Baked peaches are especially tasty, and a dessert where you can still feel virtuous for being so healthy.

These baked peaches are as simple as can be. Find a juicy peach, slather it in good spices and butter, and then caramelize to sweet perfection. (Trust me, the slathering is important.) I served my peaches with honey on top, but these would be delicious with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, or even a tart cherry jam. Enjoy!

 

Ingredients

2 peaches

4 tablespoons butter

4 teaspoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Honey to taste

 

Instructions

First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Next, pit the peaches and cut the peaches in half. Arrange the peach halves in a baking dish. Fill the dip in the middle of each peach with butter, and top with brown sugar.

Sprinkle the peaches with cinnamon, and bake until golden and soft (about 7-10 minutes, depending on how ripe the peaches are). Drizzle with honey, and serve warm.

Strawberry Chicken Salad

Strawberry Chicken Salad

I really do love making this strawberry chicken salad. I remember my mom picking the first (ugly, but delicious) strawberries from our garden, and assembling this salad. Assembling, because it doesn’t even really count as cooking; this salad takes some tasty things, and makes something 

“The Happy Cook” Review

“The Happy Cook” Review

Announcement! I’m going to start doing cookbook reviews! I love books and food, so I wanted to combine my two favorite things. I was also inspired by just how many cookbooks are available. How can you know, out of so many, which are the good