Italian Buttercream

Okay, this buttercream is the BEST! It has a lot of butter in it, but believe me it tastes wonderful!!  My pastry instructor at the green ladle taught me how to make this. Make sure you  fallow the recipe exactly or else it wont turn out.

1 lb sugar
1/2 C water
8oz egg whites
2lbs butter (cut into med. chunks)
1T Vanilla extract

Combine 12 oz of the sugar with the water in a heavy bottom sauce pan and bring to a boil over medium- high heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Continue cooking. without stirring, to the soft ball stage. 240 deg F.

Meanwhile, place the egg whites in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the wire whip attachment.

when the sugar syrup has reached about 230 deg. whip the egg whites on medium speed until frothy. Gradually add the remaining 4 oz of sugar and beat the meringue to medium peaks.

When the sugar syrup reaches 240 deg add it to the meringue in a slow, steady stream while whipping on medium speed. Whip on high speed until the meringue has cooled to room temp.

Add the soft butter one peace at a time, mixing until fully incorporated after each addition, scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Blend in the vanilla.  Now the buttercream is ready to use!

Makes enough to frost two 6' OR two 8' Or  one 10'-12'

Homemade Ranch Revised

Lately I have been making ranch a lot! but I have found a much better way to make it. It is just so much better than my other recipe, with the fresh garlic, and not the sour cream. I love it

2 C Real mayo
1/2 - 2/3 C milk (depending of how thick you like it)
1 T minced garlic
1 t Sweet Basil
1 t Oregano
1 t Parsley
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix well and enjoy!!

Super Busy!

Well, I don't even know where to start!

Two days ago I got back from NYC. I went with my best friend, for her 18th birthday celebration. We saw Cinderella on Broadway. We went to the metropolitan museum of art, and the museum of natural history, and we got soaked to the bone with rain.
About three weeks ago my brother, my brothers best friend, My two best friends, and I graduated high school. We had such a great time! It was not your typical graduation. first of all there were only five of us, and all of us are home schooled.
In case you are wondering, no I haven't aged three years, I am still 15. But I finished all of my high school credits, so my parents thought sense I am starting college in the fall, I might as well do an official graduation now.

In January I started a cooking program with our local high school, called The Green Ladle. They only accept thirty kids out of the hundreds that want to be apart of the program. The Chef, and Pastry Chef teach us how to make different kinds of food. For a few months out of the year, they have a lunch time restaurant that the students help to run by cooking, and doing wait staff jobs.  The last day of  the culinary school for this school year is June 13th. In September it will start back up again. I have really enjoyed this program, and can not wait to start back up in September!

Now it is almost summer! I can't wait, I am so excited!! In the mean time while we are waiting, here is a nice recipe to get you in the mood for summer.


This is a recipe for a fantastic smoothie. I usually don't like fruit smoothies, but this one is so good!
It almost tastes like a milkshake!!!

The recipe is:

3 bananas broken up (I like unfrozen)
1 big scoop of peanut butter
1 big scoop of Nutella
about 1.5 C milk (more or less depending if you like thick or thin smoothies)

Blend together in a blender then enjoy!!
Makes about 3 servings
If you use frozen bananas you will have a thicker smoothie, and it might taste a bit different.
I prefer the way that fresh bananas taste in my smoothie.

salt and thanksgiving

For a thanksgiving beverage i was going to make lemon aid. a nice, quick, yummy and easy drink right?? so i went to make the lemon aid in a fancy clear glass pitcher. I added the 1 C lemon juice, what i thought was 1 c sugar, and the rest of the space with water. the "sugar" was SALT.

 before we sat down for supper i tried some turkey it was great;  but i wanted something to drink after i finished with that bite so i tried some lemon aid just about as soon as that drink went into my mouth  I decided to get it back out of there!! that was groce! my little brother and little sister didn't believe me that it was salt so they had to try it to, and they also thought it was salt! My older brother was not inside at the time that all of that happened so when we sat down to supper he pored him self up some lemon aid Lucky mom said not to "guzzle" (as he always dose) and in about 2 minutes he tried some he had to immediately had to get it out of there too! to get that taste he poured up some milk (earlier that day i had switched it form cows milk to goats milk which a friend have to us. Now my older brother dose not like goats milk so he says) I casually asked him if his other drink tastes okay, he said yes, but it tastes like whole milk and we buy skim milk that's when he found out that he was drinking goats milk and he liked it!!!

so here is the recipe for sugarie lemonade  (for a one gallon container)

put:
2c lemon juice
just less than 2c sugar
and the the rest of the way full of water stir and enjoy!!!!!!!!

Why??

 What makes french fries taste so good???? Tell me what the best part of french fries are to you. Or why you don't like them. Or you can tell me why you like something different, such as: onions, chocolate, peanut butter, or even pizza. So tell me why?

Here is a recipe for french fries:
 Makes enough for 4


4 large potatoes cut into small log type peaces
12 cups of oil (if using a fry daddy or enough to fill your frying pot)


If using the fry daddy:
Preheat your fry daddy to 300 deg F.
After your oil is preheated put enough potatoes to fill your basket about 2/3 of the way full. Repeat this until all of your potatoes are cooked once, then bump up the temp to 375 and re cook your fries until golden brown. This method is called the restaurant stile.

Are you a chicken?

CAUTION IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH DO NOT WATCH THESE VIDEOS!!

Well today is the day to butcher our 12 chickens! That is good and bad, the good part about it is: we have 12 whole chickens in our freezer, but the bad part is that my mom and I have to pluck them. :(

Luckily my brothers are doing the gross part and I don't have to do that!

anyway, here is a step by step process on how to K*** a chicken:

1.  First thing you need to do is tie its feet up so you can have something to hold on to when it tries to run/fly away (and believe me it does) our chickens just lay there like they are waiting for a message or something. then you need to make sure your knife(s) are very sharp.  

2.  After the head is off you will need to let it bleed for a few minutes, 

3.  Next you will need to dunk the whole chicken in your boiling water for just a few minutes, then test to see if the feathers are ready to come out with ease, if they don't you will need to dunk the chicken again

4.  plucking: just take all of the feathers out,

5. Moving on to butchering!!!

Well I will just post pictures instead of describing this :)

6.  On to the plucking (well getting all of the little feathers out that they missed! This is what I do)

After all of the little tiny feathers are out it is time for packaging and freezing!

For packaging  we just use freezer paper and freezer tape, and label it!! and just put them in the freezer

PICTURES

Butchering a chicken Part 2

Butchering a chicken part 1

This was only the first out of 12! The excitement only went down from there.

  A close up of the chicken. 

foodie jokes!

If a Tomato is a fruit isn't ketchup a smoothie?
- unknown

This is my new invention: Crossing a Hoosier and a Fry daddy and calling it a Hoosier-daddy.  Ha ha ha ha
- Biscuit

What did the mayonnaise say to the refrigerator?

Close the door, I'm dressing!

The customer asked: "Do you serve crabs here?"
"Yessir," replied the waiter. "We'll serve just about anybody."

What starts with "t" ends with "t" and is filled with "t"?

A teapot.

What does the richest person in the world make for dinner every night?

Reservations.

What has ears but can't hear a thing?

A cornfield.

What did one knife say to the other?

You look sharp!

 

Why did the man stare at the can of orange juice?

Because it said 'concentrate.'

I trained my dog not to beg at the table.
How did you do that?

I let him taste my cooking.

I got most of these jokes from this site:

http://www.cookingwithkids.com/fun/jokes/index.html

We're Havin' a heat wave:(

Well it has been soooo hot here for the last few days, it even got up to 106deg.    So what to do when it gets THAT hot??    Well, EAT POPSICLES! and fruit salad, and dunk your head/body in a icy cold tub of water ohhhhhhhh that sounds sooooo good!!!!

A good recipe for fruit salad:
Water Melon
4 fresh peaches washed,  or 1 16oz can of peaches
2 apples cut into small bite sized pieces
1/2 bag of grapes (use more or less as wanted)
2 oranges cut small
3 bananas cut small
1/2 to 1c of walnuts (optional)

Mix well, cool and..... ENJOY!!

Cheese-y bread

This bread is amazing!! I would recommend it for any occasion!

 What is in this delicious bread you may ask, well I will tell you! It is just artisan bread in 5 mins a day, we stuffed it with cheese (I used shredded American cheese) and herbs! We served this dish with sauteed peppers and onions. OH my word it was AMAZING!!
I think I am going to make this about EVERYDAY!!!

What we did to form it was.....
 roll it out like a rectangle pizza, spread it with cheese (if you want you could put meat in it, I would put hamburger, or ground turkey) then proceed to wrap your dough from the narrow side. Bake at 400 deg  for 35mn.
Now I am NOT the expert at making this bread, my mom makes this bread at my house, so if you get stuck in making this bread just follow this link and they should be able to help you!

Tis the Season!!!!

Well My family and I went strawberry picking today!!! I can't wait to make... strawberry rhubarb pie, strawberry shortcake, strawberry preserves, strawberry EVERYTHING!!!!!!

So, my mom's friend, Miss J came with us today and when the lady who worked there said they had the variety called Earli-Glos Miss J stopped everything and said, "OH!!! You have Earli-Glos, I'm in heaven!!! "  Later, after about 15 mins into picking I tried one and well, I agree!

We picked 4 or 5 gallons today!!! And we were only there for about 1 hour, you know what they say many hands make light work!

Farmers market!

YEAAAA! The local farmers market opened yesterday!! The only sad thing about the early farmers market is they ONLY have lettuce and radishes, well one farmer did have cukes and (very small) squashes.

The GRAND OPENING for the farmers market had many different vendors!! such as: The duct tape artist(She made duct tape wallets, and hula hoops with duct tape! I love duct tape). There was another vendor that had Goat milk soap. One of the vendors had baked goods!! We bought a blonde brownie, and 2 oatmeal rasberry deliciousnesses, that vendor even threw in 3 whoopie pies!  I found this one interesting, a vendor was selling seafood.  One of the vendors was selling: soap, lip balms, scrubs, and even shaving bars.  There were about 6 vendors with veggies, there will be more as the year goes on!

Chinese noodles

I absolutely LOVE Chinese noodles. My grandmother makes them every year for Christmas for us<3 I have never made them until today, I think I will make Chinese noodles more often!!! My whole family loves them too, but I don't think as much as me! I could make a meal off of Chinese noodles, but I think I might get sick!

With out further adieu, here is the recipe!!!!!!!

1 (12 oz) pkg. chocolate chips

3/4c. peanuts

1/2t vanilla

I enjoyed these very much!

1/2 pkg. chow mein noodles



Melt chips in saucepan until melted. Remove from heat

 and add nuts and vanilla; mix well then add noodles.

Stir until all is covered. Drop by spoon-full onto wax paper.



 Cool and EAT!!!













This is just a close up!

My brownie disaster :(

I have made brownies successfully many times before, but today was a different case. We had no brownie mix (so I thought), but we had a lot of cake mixes.  Today I completely failed at making brownies. I converted a cake mix into brownies. After I changed my measurements I made the brownies like I make a cake. I did NOT read the recipe, because I thought I knew how to make a cake, I would be wrong :(   After setting the timer for 30 mins, then for 10, Then again for 8 min, and again for 5 mins I decided to take the brownies out, because we got very tired of smelling the burned brownies that were soggy. At our own risk we tried my disastrous brownies and... they were "ONE OF THE WORST THINGS I HAVE EVER MADE IN MY LIFE!!!"  So after my attempt at making brownies it was back to the pantry for more supplies where I discovered that we did in fact have a brownie mix!!

What was the consistency of my brownies? you may ask......
Well they were like a light and fluffy cake.
how did they taste?? you may ask......
They tasted like an almost done chocolate angel food cake, that was burned:(((

Homemade Mayonayse

You all have herd me talk about homemade mayo, Right? Well if you haven't just go and look at my recipes for chocolate mayo cake, and/or Homemade Ranch!    Now that you have seen my link It is time to talk about mayonnaise!!!

• 2 egg yolks
• 2T of apple cider vinegar
• 1 1/2 c of oil (sometimes we need 2c of oil)

Beat egg yolks, add vinegar, slowly add oil adding more if the mayo is not thick enough.


My Experience with this...

 In this recipe I am going to use a little of Julia child's method! Julia child's method is warming the bowl  you use to make the mayo (that is of course if you don't use a blender or a food processor!).
I have tried all three of the ways to make mayo useing: the blender, the food processor, and in the bowl.
I prefer making mayo in the bowl, because it is not loud, and it works my arms!

Pie crust

Never Fail Pie crust!

1 c. shortening (I like to use Butter Flavored Crisco)

2 c. flour

1 t salt

1 T vinegar (I like Apple Cider vinegar)

 1/3 c. milk

Combine flour and salt, then cut in shortening. Add vinegar to milk then combine at once with flour mixture. Knead gently adding flour if necessary. Divide into two balls and roll out into desired size for pie.  You can also use real butter, but make sure to keep it chilled until ready to use, then put your dough in the fridge to re-chill if it becomes too soft.

My Experience with this...
I have tried many different recipes of pie crust and so far this one is the Bestest!
It is so Delicious, and flakey.  My brother even likes it!! You know it is good when your brother likes it!  My mom did NOT like pie until I started making strawberry rhubarb pie!!

I started making pies because my grandpa LOVES rhubarb.  Three years ago when we bought our farm, my family and I were looking at our beautiful flowers and not so beautiful weeds when my grandpa pointed and said, "It's rhubarb! Look, you've got rhubarb! Where is my pie, Biscuit?!?!?!"  Uh-Oh!  I don't know HOW to make pie, YET.....  Sooooo..., I looked up recipes on  cooks.com  to make Strawberry Rhubarb pie, and how to make a pie crust. 

I entered my pie into a fair last year (September of 2010) it won 3rd place!
I harvest as much as possible without hurting the plant by cutting stalks carefully all around the plant so that more stalks will shoot up during the spring and summer!
It's so easy... even my brother could do it!

My Grandmother's Cook Book!

I have been inspired to do a "Julia/Julie Project" of sorts. I am using my grandmother's cook book she sent me last December and I am going to share my experience with you!! Every Saturday I am going to cook a recipe from her cook book!

Today I made fudgy chocolate frosting, it was sugary and soooo good!!!!!! I made a chocolate cake to go with it for my mom and dads 22 anniversary!
What to do with leftover frosting??? you may ask. We melted the frosting and put some on ice cream for my little sisters tea party!
Would I make this recipe again??....
Yes I would!! it was so easy (Even though I whisked it by hand. and got my shirt so frostingy)

Baking Biscuit

It's a funny thing about this blog, it is called "baking biscuit" , but I am not going to put a recipe for biscuits on here, because the only one I use is a family secret (shhhhh don't tell)! My recipe for biscuits was passed down from my greatgrandfather, and down to my grandmother, then down to my mom, and now to MEEEEEEEEE!!!

Hummus

Homemade hummus

1 can of chick peas

1/2c vegetable oil

2T lemon juice

2 garlic cloves

1/4 t salt

1t Oregano

1T water

1/4c tahini

I use Hummus on Crackers, and bagels!

Blend all ingredients except chick peas in food processor, mix well. Add Chick peas, mix until a little chunky.

My Experience with Hummus.......

I learned how to make this recipe at a kids cooking class at my local library. Hummus is one of my favorite snacks ever!!!! When I learned how to make Hummus I was so happy!
I have recently taught several groups of people how to make hummus. I also have added some twists to this recipe. For an example I added the oregano, and tahini, the tahini makes it more smooth and the oregano makes it taste yummier (says my little 7yo sister)!

Chocolate Mayonnaise cake

Mayonnaise is a very interesting condiment. It is made with eggs, oil, and a little bit of vinegar. It can be used to make salad dressings, as a sandwich spread, in a variety of dips, and as baking ingredients! To home-make mayonnaise, I blend egg yolks with some apple cider vinegar in a blender. Then VERY slowly, I add olive oil, drop by drop at first, then slowly increase to a small stream after emulsification begins. It keeps in the refrigerator for about two weeks.
This month I included a recipe that uses mayonnaise in an unusual way!

You may think, “Eww, gross! I don’t want to eat that!” but the mayonnaise in this cake is for moisture and to make it rich.

Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake

2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

4 T cocoa powder

1 t baking powder

1 t baking soda

1 cup mayonnaise

1 cup cold water

1 t vanilla

Sift together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and baking powder. Add mayonnaise, cold water, and vanilla. Beat 2 minutes. Pour into greased and floured pan 11x7 or two 9-inch layer pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until done. Frost with chocolate frosting, if desired. Enjoy!!! (Bay Leaves Cook-book, page 244)

Chocolate Chip Cookies

The Best cookies Ever!! When I make chocolate chip cookies this is the only recipe I use. I use it because it is so sweet, and so Chocolateeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!!!

This is a family recipe.

2 1/4 c bread flour

1t baking soda

1/2 t salt

1 c crisco sticks
2/3 c white sugar
2/3 c packed light brown sugar
1 t vanilla extract
2 farm fresh eggs
1 c chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Sift flour, soda, and salt together in seperate bowl. Beat crisco, sugars, and vanilla on #2 until creamy. Add eggs, beat well. gradually add flour mixture until well mixed. turn to "stir". Then add chips/nuts. Drop by teaspoonful onto ungreaced cookie sheet. bake 8-10 mins.

Makes about 3 dz.

My Experince with this.....

I make these cookies about every week, My family loves them, my mom will just start eating the dough by the spoonfull!!!!! I have also entered these cookies in our county fair!