A Self-Proclaimed Pinterest Recipe Critic…

September 29, 2013May 28, 2014youbetchcanmakethis Leave a comment

Tonight I’m getting together with a group of people, undercover foodies, to begin a conversation of how we can form a group based on cooking, learning and fun. The group already has a name – Sweet Serendipity, Supper, Sips and Such – and the name leads me to believe that the members will all be “foodie forces” unto themselves. The person who coordinated the group asked us to bring an appetizer or something sweet, preferably a recipe taken from the Pinterest site.

Now I know I’ve mentioned this before but I am a big fan of Pinterest. What I love about using Pinterest is that you are exposed to a broader segment of the internet often being introduced to interesting websites and blogs you might never have found through Google. And I love it for the wealth of cooking information and recipes that are pinned to various boards. So, needless to say, I am “on board” with the idea of this cooking group and with Pinterest.

For this evening’s cooking contribution I made a coffee cake recipe I found Pinterest. I made it on Friday but the coffee cake was such a hit that this morning I was faced with the dilemma of having only a meager amount to bring to the meeting. So, off I went back to Pinterest in search of something simple but also unique. I found what I was looking for on a website called “Pardon The Dog Hair” (a website I would never have found on my own), a recipe for Blueberry Banana Oatmeal Bread. The pictures of the bread looked delicious, the recipe was simple and I had most of the ingredients already so the decision to make it was easy.

The bread is made from a traditional process, combining all the dry ingredients, adding the wet ingredients and then finally folding in the blueberries and nuts.

Preparing the ingredients

What’s nice about this recipe is that it doesn’t use any white sugar. The sweetness comes from brown sugar, apple sauce and bananas. After you combine all the dry ingredients you whisk together the eggs, apple sauce and bananas and then combine the wet mixture with the dry mixture. Last, you carefully fold in the blueberries and the nuts and put the mixture in a prepared loaf pan.

The recipe calls for baking it at 350 for one hour – that seemed like a long time to me so I started with 40 minutes and pulled the bread out of the oven at that time. As you can see the bread was already quite dark and even though it was very firm at the very very middle top it wasn’t completely done. Despite that the end result, as you can see below, was still wonderful but there definitely were some lessons learned about making this recipe.

Blueberry Banana Oatmeal Bread

First lesson: The next time I make this I will use a glass loaf pan. I used a dark loaf pan and I think it contributed to making the bread darker more quickly even when it was not completely done. Second lesson: If you look at the pictures of the bread from the website where the recipe was taken, it looks like the top of the bread was also dusted with quick cooking oats. I think that would offset the very dark color on top, keeping in mind that whole wheat flour is the main flour in this bread so it will naturally look darker. Third lesson: The recipe did not call for this but I dusted the pecans with just a smidge of flour. I’ve found that the nuts will more evenly disperse themselves into a mixture and not just rise to the top during the baking process when you do that.

Rating for the recipe: Between very good and excellent – if the blogger did in actuality dust the top of the bread with quick cooking oats like the pictures on the site seem to suggest, I would note that in the recipe. Taste-wise the rating is excellent, and I love the fact that this recipe is delicious without having to use white sugar. This is definitely a recipe to try.

I have a feeling I will be trying a lot more recipes from the Pinterest site in the upcoming weeks and months. I plan to share the escapades of making and eating them on this blog. If you see a Pinterest recipe you’d like me to “test” with the group – just let me know. If you’re anything like me you’ve probably been wondering if all those recipes you see posted are really as good as they look. And if you have any experiences with Pinterest recipes, I would love to hear about them. The Pinterest test kitchen is now open for business.

Fall – When Ovens End Their Hibernation…

September 28, 2013January 31, 2014youbetchcanmakethis Leave a comment

What is it about Fall weather that makes you want to fire up the oven? The manner in which you cook totally changes from Summer’s outdoor grill mode to Fall’s indoor nesting and baking mode. And for me that usually means heavy duty oven time. Think about it. You move away from grilling chicken and steak to making pot roast and casseroles. And I think that is what I most appreciate about Fall – bringing all those marvelous smells back into the house. And if a Fall day also happens to be a rainy day, well then it is an absolute must to fire up the oven!

And so it was yesterday, that killer combination of Fall and rain and I knew I just had to make something. There were only two givens – one, it had to smell wonderful when it was cooking and two, it had to be a recipe I had not tried before. That doesn’t narrow the playing field very much but I happen to love endless possibilities. But how to proceed… hmm…

Then it struck me. My husband and I recently returned from a trip from Santa Fe, New Mexico. While we were there we stayed at a bed and breakfast and each morning my husband would have an English Muffin and a piece of coffee cake. My husband is not a sweets eater but he often talked about how much he enjoyed the coffee cake. The coffee cake had a cream cheese filling and so as I thought about what I would bake I began to think in that vein.

The finished product

So off I went to one of my favorite sites on the web, Pinterest, in search of a cream cheese coffee cake recipe. Lo and behold I found one on a website called Bake or Break and like that my decision was made. There was no turning back, I succumbed to the trappings of Fall weather and rain by making a cinnamon cream cheese coffee cake.

As you can see the finished product was great and it tasted divine. I encourage you to try it. Here are some things I learned when making it: 1.) Be aware that it does take some time to prepare because basically you are making three separate things from scratch, the crumb topping, the cream cheese swirl and the cake. 2.) The cake mixture is much thicker than you might think – I poured it into the prepared pan and literally had to spread it out by hand in order for it to fit the entire pan. I thought this might make the cake tough, but it was not. 3.) Be very mindful of the cooking time – it helps to know your oven on this and really on almost everything else you bake. The recipe says to cook it at 350 for 40-45 minutes. Mine was done at 40 and could maybe have been in for even a few minutes less.

But anyway it turned out great – so much so that even though it takes a little more time to prepare it is definitely worth making in my opinion. My husband loved it, my co-workers are getting a treat today, and a newly formed cooking group that I just joined (something for a future blog) will be getting samples of it tomorrow night. So enjoy the coffee cake, it is definitely worth the work. Happy Fall baking!

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Coffee Cake Recipe

Old Friends, The Ultimate Comfort Food…

September 25, 2013January 16, 2014youbetchcanmakethis 2 Comments

We are a very mobile society. People change careers like they change their clothes and move all over the world as if it were only next door. Years ago, if anyone told me that I would be living in Colorado during the latter stages of my career I would have laughed. But today’s world is far different from that of my parent’s who chose a company and a career and stuck with it all during their working lives. Today families and friends are spread out throughout the world and although in many ways it is exciting in some ways it can contribute to not being able to capture the comfort of feeling at home.

But really, what exactly does the word “home” mean? Some would say home is where you grew up, some would say home is where you live now and others might say home is where the heart is. I say it is a combination of all three. And never was that more apparent than this past week when a bunch of old friends got together for a vacation trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

It all started out innocently enough with a bunch of us talking about getting together. Some friends from Chicago visited the Boulder area last year and we discussed the possibility of getting a larger group together to go “somewhere”. And you know how those things often go, lots of conversation and often very little action. But this time it was different. This time the email conversations became more specific – when could we do this, where would we like to go and for how long. The suggestions started, then the schedule conflicts, the counter offers, the semi-decisions, changes of dates, where to stay, and on and on and on until all of a sudden – bingo – we had a plan! But a plan is only as good at the commitment to it and once the first airline reservation was made the chain reaction occurred and everyone was on board.

And although it took time and energy to get it off the ground, we finally did it last week. Nine old friends from Chicago got together, people who had known each other for decades, lived within walking distance of one another, worked together, partied together, stood up to each other’s weddings, helped each other remodel their homes, watched the Bears win the Super Bowl together, celebrated holidays together, went out to dinner together, had disagreements and fights – all those things that are normal human experiences at the time but wind up being so much more than you even realize. All these people got back together for a reunion.

Now reunions can be tricky. As one of our friends said, “I’m not a big fan of reunions. They are created to celebrate the past and I’ve always lived my life moving forward.” And I think for that reason reunions can be disappointing and often bittersweet. But our reunion was far from that. What I discovered during our four days together was even though we had all been apart for a very long time, it was not simply about “reliving” our past relationships but also very much celebrating who we are now and enjoying each other all over again for the gifts we currently bring. And that is true, long lasting friendship – knowing you can move far away, grow progress and change and still say – ” I really like you for who you are now and I still want to be your friend”!

And so we recalled the many things we did together, laughed until our stomachs hurt, drank too much wine, ate great food, reminisced about the old days but also enjoyed each other as the people we are today. We were aware that a lot of time had passed and yet it was as if no time had passed. What a great group of people, old friends and yet new friends. No stronger bond can you create with other human beings and I have no doubt that wherever life takes us in the upcoming years, these bonds will never be broken. I am so proud to have such a great group of friends.

The Chicago friends – photo courtesy of Dan Miller

: The Gang – photo courtesy of Dan Miller

Load the Animals Two by Two…

September 13, 2013January 16, 2014youbetchcanmakethis 1 Comment

I think at some point in all our lives we experience the angst of a flooded basement. When I still lived in Chicago I remember from early on the value of having a sump pump and praying that the electricity would not go out so the pump would work and keep our home dry. When a major sewer replacement project was completed near my home on the North Side, I didn’t give it much thought until torrential rains came and we would stay dry while other neighborhoods had to bale water. It was not pretty, it was not fun but all those memories now dim by comparison to what we’ve recently experienced here in Colorado.

Colorado is basically considered a semi-arid climate. It simply does not get the rain they get back East. I often hear from the “natives” stories of the glory days of weather in Colorado where the sun would shine an average of 320 days a year and summer days were always blessed with a cooling afternoon rain that came just in time to relieve the heat but not affect any evening activities. Not to mention the fact that there is no humidity here and much less snow than people perceive which, in more “normal” weather times makes the climate only slightly less than perfect. The one chink in the armor was the potential for flood but even most natives would admit that severe flooding was something they never experienced in their lifetimes. Until now…

The past several years the weather patterns here have changed not unlike weather patterns all over the world. True the mornings and the evenings can still be glorious, but the climate has become much more dry and the rains more infrequent. Wildfires tend to occur every year now and drought has ravaged forests making them a prime target for an opportune lightening strike or an errant cigarette butt. Very seldom does it rain all day here and rains are never the gentle soaking kind but more of the fierce deluge kind. But those deluges are pretty much short lived and so the earth is capable of tolerating them. Until now…

This week the rains came with a vengeance, and a city like Boulder which normally gets on average eight inches of rain in the month of September got eight inches of rain in an hour. Coupled with its location being directly at the base of the Foothills and the rain not only pounded the city but water also came pouring down from the mountains and enveloped it. Not good, devastating, a 100 year flood event.

I’ve never experienced devastation like this. The road that I travel to and from my job at Crate and Barrel collapsed and three cars went into the water (see the picture below). Granted it was a part of the road that is adjacent to my route, but I’ve traveled that same road many times before never once worrying for my well being. Now so many roads are closed and people all over are stranded. People are being zip-lined to safety over cresting rivers and creeks or rafted to drier land. Streets are loaded with debris and cars are traveling through water that crests at the top of their wheel wells. A rescue fire truck travelled through water that was at the level of its windshield. Roads were completely washed away, homes were torn off their foundations, people were and still are unaccounted for, and even though the sun is currently shining heavy rains are still being predicted for tonight.

The Road That I Travel To Work

But, there for the grace of God go I. As I was driving home from work Wednesday night around 9:30 p.m. my phone gave off a loud weird noise, one I had never heard before. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized that it was a flash flood warning, not a watch but a warning. I was driving in an area that at any moment could have flooded and flooded quickly and I did not even know it. I’m still trying to figure out if that was a blessing or a curse. But I got home safe and dry and still today my home is safe and dry. I am one of the lucky few. Most people cannot say that. It will take years to recover from this flood.

It’s times like these that I know that my mother is looking down on me and protecting me. It could have easily been us flooded, stranded, our home devastated. But it was not. And after seeing the breadth of the devastation in Boulder (with potentially more to come) I look back on those days of flooded basements in Chicago and say that we had no clue what flooding meant. It would have taken something as massive as Noah’s ark to survive this flood. I only hope and pray that those most affected find the courage and the strength to get through this. They can count on us to help along the way.