Blueberry Bliss Pudding

I found this recipe while searching through some old issues of CBS WATCH magazine. It's a family recipe handed down in Sara Canning's (The Vampire Diaries) family. In her interview, she mentions that it's a family tradition to make the blueberry pudding during the holidays in Newfoundland.

It reminds me a lot of my MIL's recipe for apple pudding. Don't get it confused with bread pudding, it's not. It's more of a cake with fruit baked in it. One major difference between the apple pudding and the blueberry pudding is that the apple pudding doesn't have a sauce that gets poured over it. In the original recipe, the sauce calls for brandy and lemon extract. I made some changes adding more vanilla for the lemon extract and fresh squeezed orange juice for the brandy. I liked the sauce on the blueberry pudding but it would also be really delicious omitting the syrup and serving it with warmed, sweetened cream or topped with ice cream.

Blueberry Bliss Pudding
adapted from CBS Watch! Magazine
 
1/2 c. butter. softened
1/2 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 c. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 c. fresh blueberries
1/2 c. water

Heat oven to 325*.

Cream butter and sugar.

Add eggs one at a time, beating until fluffy.

Add flour, baking powder, vanilla and salt.

Stir in enough water (up to 1/2 c.) to make the batter fluffy. (I only used 1/4 c. water).

Fold in blueberries. Pour the batter into a greased 9 x 9 baking dish. Bake for 45 minutes or until nicely browned and a toothpick stuck into the middle of the pudding comes out clean. While baking, prepare the sauce.

Sauce for Blueberry Bliss Pudding

3 tbsp. butter
2 c. hot water
1/8 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. brown sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. fresh squeezed orange juice
2 tbsp. cornstarch mixed with a little cold water
1/8 tsp. vinegar
1/2 fresh blueberries

Stir all ingredients together in a pot. Bring to a boil. Using a potato masher or a fork, smash the blueberries into the sauce and continue cooking until it starts to thicken.

Using a the handle of a wooden spoon, poke holes into the pudding.

Pour the sauce over the pudding. Serve warm.

No Bake Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Balls & Our Weekly Menu Plan

This summer seems to be flying by! We are in the middle of an incredible heat wave. I've been holed up in the house with the AC for a few days, finally dragging myself and the kids out to go grocery shopping.

My kids and husband have grown accustomed to eating some sort of dessert in the later evening, right before my husband leaves for work. While I love providing homemade desserts, I hate the thought of turning on the oven to heat it up in here. Thus, this batch of no bake peanut butter balls. Takes just 4 ingredients and a kid or two willing to get their hands messy and you're ready to go!

  
No Bake Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Balls

1-18 oz. jar of smooth or chunky peanut buter - I prefer smooth
1 - 16 oz. bag of confectioners sugar
1/4 c. butter, melted
chocolate almond bark
or
chocolate candy melts
or
12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips & 2 tsp. shortening

In a large bowl, stir together the peanut butter, confectioners sugar and melted butter until the mixture is crumbly. For the next step, the best way that I've found to make a smooth filling is to use your hands to mix everything together.

Line a baking sheet with foil. Roll the peanut butter filling into 1 inch balls and line the baking sheet with rows of the balls. Set the baking sheet in the freezer for 5-7 minutes to chill the peanut butter balls for easier dipping.

While the peanut butter balls are chilling, melt the chocolate in the microwave in a microwave safe bowl that is deep enough for dipping. I melted 6 blocks of chocolate almond bark at a time, stirring at 45 second intervals until smooth.

Remove the baking sheet from the freezer. Insert a toothpick or wooden skewer into a peanut butter ball and then dip it into the chocolate, turning quickly to cover the entire candy. Place onto a second baking tray that has also been lined with foil. Swirl the chocolate on the top of each candy for a pretty design. Refrigerate until the chocolate had completely dried.

Store the candies in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

**Warning** These little candies are very addictive!!


Weekly Menu Plan for July 10 - 16

Sunday - country chicken and vegetables in the crock pot

Monday - crock pot Jack Daniel's bbq pulled pork sandwiches - homemade Jack Daniel's bbq sauce!

Tuesday - bacon, lettuce and tomato jam sandwiches, cottage cheese and cucumber salad

Wednesday - breakfast for dinner: pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage and biscuits

Thursday - Brunswick stew using leftover pulled pork and corn bread

Friday - grilled chicken and pasta with lemon basil sauce

Saturday - burrito pie and rice

Stay cool!


I'm linking up to:

Menu Plan Mondays
A Bowl Full of Lemons 
The Goose Berry Patch Blog

Garlic Asiago Chicken and Noodle Casserole

I've been doing some sorting and organizing of my huge stack of magazines that is taking up a lot of space in our little apartment. I'm sorting into 3 boxes - one for recipes that I want to keep, one for magazines that are full of too many recipes, tips and crafts to get rip apart the whole thing, and one box that holds that magazines that are going to be donated to our local thrift store. (Hopefully I will remember them and not buy them back!)

I'm going to be trying out some of these recipes for the next few weeks so that I can weed through the pages even more, keeping the ones that we like and ditching the rest.

The first recipe to be tested was the Chocolate Coconut Bars that I baked a couple of days ago. I will be keeping this one. It's moist and delicious with a great pairing of chocolate and coconut.

Next up is tonight's dinner, Garlic Asiago Chicken and Noodle Casserole. It's my take on Garlic Parmesan Chicken and Noodles from an April 2010 Better Homes and Garden magazine. Of course I made more of the recipe that what it said. The original recipe makes 4 servings but that's not enough for my hollow-legged son and the rest of us plus enough for leftovers for my husband's lunch.

I made some substitutions and changes to the recipes, the most obvious being the cheeses that I used. My version of this recipe is below.

Garlic Asiago Chicken and Noodle Casserole
adapted from an April 2010 Better Homes & Garden
magazine recipe

18 oz cooked egg noodles - keep warm after cooking
2 lb chicken, cut up into pieces - I cooked extra chicken
thighs and legs on July 4 so that I would have extra for
this meal
4 tbsp minced garlic
1 small can of diced mushrooms, drained
5 1/4 c. whole milk
2 c. shredded Asiago cheese
2 1/2 c. shredded mozzarella cheese + 1 c. shredded mozzarella
1 tbsp sage
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp poultry seasoning

Preheat oven to 450*

To a large pot, add chicken, mushrooms and milk. Cook on medium heat until heated through.

Stir in Asiago cheese and 2 1/2 c. mozzarella cheese. Stir until smooth. Add noodles and stir to coat - the sauce will be thin, not a cheese sauce consistancy.

Pour the chicken and noodles into a large baking dish. Sprinkle the reserved cup of mozzarella cheese on top of the noodles.

Bake for 20 - 30 minutes or until the chicken and noodles start to lightly brown.

*****

My thoughts on this dish: Both of my kids liked this dish. They had no complaints about it. My husband and I thought that it was just ok. Just another noodle casserole and sort of bland at that. If you tend to like casseroles that contain a mild cheese flavor and don't contain a lot of spices, you would probably like this one. Would I make this again, probably not...at least not without add more flavor to it. At that point, it would be probably be another casserole completely. There's nothing wrong with this casserole. It just didn't excite my taste buds.

Chocolate Coconut Bars

If you love the combination of coconut and chocolate, you must try Family Circle's latest recipe for Chocolate Coconut Bars. You can find it in the July issue of Family Circle or you can access the recipes on the website by signing up for their free newsletter.

The bars are sort of a cake/brownie combination. Of course, when it comes to spices and extracts, I often add more than what's called for in a recipe because I like a denser flavor. I did this with the icing recipe for these bars. The recipe calls for 1/4 tsp. of coconut extract. This left the icing with barely a hint of coconut flavor. I added 2 more tsp. of coconut extract, plus 1/4 of powdered sugar to soak up the added liquid. This amount was perfect. It's a nice coconut flavor but not overwhelming and paired nicely with the chocolate bars.

I would imagine that you could freeze the bars with no problem - they won't last long enough in our house. I have to add an * here, though. Instead of using a 9 x 13 pan as called for in the recipe, I used a smaller 8 x 10 pan, making the bars a littler thicker. I cut the bars into 15 pieces.

Chocolate Coconut Bars
adapted from Family Circle Magazine - July 2011

Ingredients
1  cup  (2 sticks) butter
4    squares (1 ounce each) unsweetened chocolate, broken up
1 1/2  c. sugar
1 1/2  c. flour
4   eggs
1/2  tsp  baking soda
1/4  tsp  salt
1/2  tsp  coconut extract
1 c. sweetened flake coconut
1/2  c (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2  c. confectioners' sugar
2 1/4  tsp coconut extract

Heat oven to 350*.

Line a 8 x 10 baking pan with foil. (9 x 13 can be used). Spray the pan with nonstick cooking spray.

Make Bars:

Combine butter and chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 1 minute. Stir. Microwave another minute and stir. Microwave for 30 seconds more and stir until smooth.

Stir in sugar, flour, eggs, baking soda, salt and coconut extract. Pour into prepared pan; smooth top.

Bake for 30 minutes. Watch carefully and check often so that you do not over bake the bars.

Remove pan and sit on a cooking rack.

Prepare Topping:

Spread coconut on a baking sheet and bake at 350* for 10 minutes or until golden.

In a large bowl, combine butter and powdered sugar. Beat until smooth. Beat in coconut extract and 2 tbsp water. Stir in up to 1/4 c. extra powdered sugar to make a thick icing.

Spread over partially cooled bar and top with toasted coconut. Cover with plastic wrap or a tight fitting lid. Refrigerate until completely cooled.

Set the bars on the counter 15 - 30 minutes before serving . Cut into small squares.

Refrigerate any leftovers.

The pièce de résistance, however, was scooping up a bite of the coconut bars along with a bite of creamy, homemade chocolate ice cream. Heavenly! (chocolate ice cream recipe coming soon!)

June '11 Cookie Carnival Round Up

Time again for our monthly Cookie Carnival Round Up!

June brought us these two different cookie recipes to choose from:

Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies from Smucker's

and Lemon Tea Cookies from Betty Crocker

Both recipes went over big with our bakers this month!

Check out our bakers and what they had to say about the cookies....

Lisa@Gourmified made lemon tarts from the lemon cookie recipe. She said "I decided to use my mini tart pan and make some lemon tarts instead of cookies. They very very closely resemble a lemon bar, which I love, just with a slightly thicker crust."

Juliana@horneandoalgo made the lemon tea cookies of which she said "A delicious lemon cookie, very colorful and ideal for afternoon tea."

Christine@whimsicalbakery made key lime tea cookies. She said that her cookies really turned out tangy. Be sure to check out her new redesigned blog. It's pretty!

Vivian@Letstrythese made the lemon tea cookies. She said that although the cookies are somewhat fragile, they were still tasty. She gave a great tip of baking the cookie half way and then filling it, rather than doing it prebaking.

Julie@littlebitofeverything made the chewy peanut butter cookies. Like me, she has memories of crisscrossed peanut butter cookies. She loved this new recipe and said " You'll keep reaching in the cookie jar for more!"

Donna aka my friend "Trainlady" baked along with the Cookie Carnival this month. I've known Donna for several years through FamilyCorner.com. She baked both cookies and shared them with her neighbor Dorothy. Donna said "I made both cookie recipes this month. Dorothy, who loves anything sweet especially loved the lemon filled cookies. She is my dear neighbor who just turned 92 in May. I made the peanut butter cookies, too, and froze them to take on our camping trip. They held up real well after being frozen and were so yummy!  The peanut butter cookies were MY favorite!"

Here's Donna and her peanut butter cookies!

This is the lovely Dorothy holding the lemon tea cookies.

Here are my cookies....

I baked the chewy peanut butter cookies. Even though my cookies spread out and didn't look so pretty, they tasted really good! We'll be making them again!

and rounding up this month's recipes is

Katrina@BakingandBoys made the chewy peanut butter cookies. She said "Loved these chewy peanut buttery coconutty oaty cookies!"

Thanks ladies for a GREAT round up this month! Thank you for baking along with me!

We love comments!! Please take a couple of minutes to let us know what you think of our cookies!

Want to join in on the fun? Here's what you need to know.