The Chuckwagon

Boredom or Craving?

2009-07-01T12:33:00.000-07:00

Every now and then I have a craving. Not for something sweet or salty, but for something homemade and yummy. I don't care what. It's not so much a hunger as much as a desire to create. All last night I dreamt of these little strawberry cakes. I wanted to get up in the middle of the night and make them. Then I thought of making bread, then what should I make for dinner, should I start baking my own bread. It really turns into a bit of OCD.

What really drives this behavior? It could be the fact that I've been home sick WITH two sick boys for 5 days. If they were healthy, we could play outside or go to the park. If I was healthy, I could clean this pig sty I call my home. I could really take advantage of all this time off work. Instead I sit holding one child or the other, sometimes both, thinking of what delicious treat I could make next.

I'm really leaning towards the strawberry cakes. They just look to yummy not to try.

Brownies

2009-06-22T20:22:00.000-07:00

These cute little "hamburger" cupcakes were so fun to make. And suprisingly yummy!

Here's the recipe I used for the brownie patty. Its really the first recipe I've used with only cocoa and not cubes of chocolate. It was exactly what I needed.

Melt 1/2 cup butter (one stick)

Mix with 1/2 cup of cocoa powder.

add 1/2 cup of sugar

And mix well

Add one egg and mix

Add another egg and mix

Turn up speed on the electric mixture and mix until light in color and fluffy like this.

Add 1 tsp vanilla

And 1 1/2 cups flour.

Mix with a spoon to prevent over mixing at this point.

Spray a small baking pan with this magical stuff.

Spread in the pan.

And bake at 350 for 20-30 min.

I then used a cup with the right size top to cut out all my brownie "patties".

Hamburger Cupcakes

2009-06-21T19:33:00.000-07:00

My niece came and helped me make these super cute cupcakes. Don't they look like mini hamburgers! We had so much fun. It is definitely a great thing to make with your kids. But because my boys are too young, I though of this little girl who would love it.

I got the idea from Bakerella. I made my own brownie recipe for the patty, The Pioneer Woman's Yellow Cupcake recipe for the bun, a trusty vanilla butter cream recipe for the lettuce and condiments, and a sugar cookie recipe for the fries. (I will post my recipes at later time.)

You can most likely use any recipe for any of these components, but mine were pretty yummy. I'll admit that I didn't make them because I thought they would be delicious, more because they were so dang cute!

Some tips I found:

1. Under fill the cupcakes so that they don't go over the liners by much.
2. Mix the frosting with food coloring in a bowl BEFORE transferring into Ziploc bag.
3. Do a test run on the fries with several different sizes before committing to a full cookie sheet.
4. Cowboys don't eat "cute" food. Cowboys don't eat "mini" versions of food. (But don't let that stop you. I didn't!)

Have fun cooking!

Pumpkin Bread

2009-06-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

I wanted to make a treat for my friend who has been having some very sad things happen lately. I wasn't really sure what to say, but I think that homemade food can really say it for you. Her and I happen to love pumpkin bread from Great Harvest. So I went searching for a recipe and found this recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Bread on a way cute site by a gal who lives here in Utah too! I love when I have things in common with people who are more creative or talented then I know how to be.

Anyway you must make this bread. It is the best!

It looks the best, right? Thats cuz it is.

Put 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour. Which by the way I just bought for the first time for another recipe. How lucky was that.

Then 3 whole cups of sugar. I made me re-think my choice of bowl size.

2 teaspoons baking soda. I prefer the Pure kind (is there any other?)

2 teaspoons cinnamon. I love recipes with cinnamon.

1 teaspoon nutmeg.

1 teaspoon salt.

16 0z, or 2 cups in my book, of pumpkin puree. There is plenty left over, so I will be making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.
Add that to a seperate bowl with 1 cup of oil, 4 eggs, and 2/3 cup water. Mix and then add flour mixture in 3 parts. Thats how I like to do it anyway.

Mix until combined.

Pour into two greased and floured bread pans.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50 - 60 min. Then ENJOY. I know you will.

Homemade Ice Cream Sandwhiches

2009-06-07T16:37:00.000-07:00

These are so easy its embarrasing, but they are very tasty. You have to try them.

It was another rainy day on Sunday, and Tyke was very eager to help. He didn't really know what he was getting into.

He was ready to dig in and eat the cake mix. I spent half my time fighting him off.

I did get him to stir in the 2 eggs. If I looked away for two seconds the spoon was right back up to his mouth.

Then all you need is 1/3 cup oil.

He needed a little help stirring at this point. I usually do it in the electric mixer. It makes it a lot easier.

Bake at 350 degrees for 5 min. See how easy that was! Its disgraceful really. Not even worth a post.

So I decided to make them ice cream sandwhiches. I only had vanilla icecream so I had to make mine strawberry. So I took 3 scoops ice cream and about 5 strawberries and ran them through the blender.

Its nice and spreadable. It was really better then any store bought strawberry I've had. It tasted so fresh.

Now be careful that your cookies are fully cooled. Or the icecream will start melting before you can put the other cookie on. I stuck mine in the freezer and it worked even better.

I am not perfect so neither were my cookies. I stacked them all together and grabbed all the ones that stuck out the farthest. Those were pairs. I continued that process until all the cookies were matched up.

Then just one large spoonful of ice cream in the center of the cookie and no need to spread if the ice cream is soft, just top it with another cookie.

They were so yummy. Either serve immediately or freeze and thaw slightly before serving.

Rollup Pancakes (my family's crepes)

2009-06-04T18:01:00.000-07:00

First you'll have to forgive the fuzzy darkness of these photos. It was early and I really couldn't tell how bad it was at the time.

When we were kids, my mom would make rollup pancakes, and we would eat them faster then she could cook 'em up. They were only for special occasions like our birthday or a holiday. So I wanted to share this special treat with my boys. Only I didn't let them have butter and granulated sugar like we had. They had to have raspberry jam and powdered sugar. (That's healthier, right?) They were so yummy!

Hopefully my food photography gets better so you guys believe me about how good they are.

Here's my secret. I make them in the blender. So easy, just throw it all in and blend until smooth. When its all mixed up it makes pouring on the griddle a breeze.

Dump in 1 1/2 cups flour and 1 tablespoon sugar.

1/2 teaspoon baking powder & 1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups milk (By the way, my cooking teacher said never to use this kind of measuring cup for liquids. So please don't follow in my bad behavior.)

2 tablespoons melted butter

2 eggs

And blend until its smooth.

Butter the griddle

Pour a small pancake size amount

Here's what makes them officially not crepes. I use the back of the spoon in a circular motion to spread the batter thin and even. Truely talented French chefs use a skillet and rotate to even coat the pan. I cannot do that, but I don't care because this totally works just as good.

The skillet needs to be medium. Too hot and they will cook to fast to spread, and may be crispy. Too low and they'll stick. Let them cook for 1 min or so on one side and loosen the sides and move towards the center to avoid tearing. But don't be discouraged I had a small pile of do-overs.

Flip and cook for 30 sec to one minute. You'll start to get the hang of it once you do a few.

Now you can put just about anything in these. Jam, powdered, sugar, lemon juice, pudding, chocolate, cream cheese...the possibilities are endless...and YUMMY!

Flautas (Beef Taquitos)

2009-05-28T18:32:00.000-07:00

Making these made me think of an old friend from New Mexico, Gracie. She was born in Sanora, Mexico, and had lived in Pheonix before moving to New Mexico where our husbands new jobs were. She had the three most adorable daughters, and she was the best cook ever. We would spend all day eating, drinking coffee, and talking. Occasionally we went for a walk, because of all the eating. Anything she made was delicious (except mole that stuff is not right). She was such a good friend to me when I really needed a one.

Anyway...she made these delicious "flautas", which to me, a white chick from Utah, looked an awful lot like crisp meat burritos from Taco Time. While these are REALLY good they aren't as amazing as anything she made.

In an oiled skillet on high cook one medium onion chopped and one clove of garlice minced until tender.

Brown one pound of ground beef in the same skillet. Now I strain out the oil, but that is optional. After you do or don't straing the grease off the meat, add 3 tablespoons of taco sauce, 1/2 salsa, and two shakes tabasco. Mix and heat through.

Shred 1 1/2 cups of whatever kind of cheese you have on hand. I had colby jack and it works great.

Now take 10 flour tortillas and warm for 20-30 seconds in the microwave. This helps them roll easier. Scoop 1/4 cup of the meat mixture and as much cheese as you would like and roll up tight.

Place them seam side down on a baking sheet and brush with oil. Be pretty generous this helps them crisp up. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 10 min or until the tops brown.

Serve with salsa, sour cream, or if you are from Northern Utah....ranch. Cuz ranch goes on everything here. Then enjoy.

Side Note: TJ doesn't like flour tortillas, so...needless to say I won't enjoy these cheesy, crispy, yummy...mmmm.... Wait what was I saying?

Lemon Blueberry Pound Cake

2009-05-25T14:02:00.001-07:00

This cake is very yummy! I didn't get any pictures of the final results, but it really is good.

Get together your list of ingredients.

I love this. It is such a time saver and it really works.

I evenly coat my "nonstick" loaf pan.

Sift together flour, baking powder & salt.

It would be ideal to use lemon yogurt. but I had vanilla so I added lemon zest and juice of one lemon.

Add 1 cup of sugar if your yogurt is sweetened and 1 1/4 if its not.

Add oil and mix completely. Add three eggs one at a time blending completely.

Add flour in three seperate parts and stir until just mixed.

Blueberries look so good, but I really don't like them plain. Add one cup and gently mix.

Pour into loaf pan and bake completely for 50-60 minutes.

Now this is where I messed up. I undercooked the cake and it fell apart when I flipped it over. So I can't show you how yummy it looked with a sugar glaze over the top. But believe me it was.

Lemon Blueberry Pound Cake

1 1/2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups yogurt

1 lemon

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup blueberries

1/2 cup oil

Grandpa Ken's Beans

2009-05-20T18:36:00.000-07:00

TJ's Grandpa Ken's beans are famouns. It has long been a goal of mine to make a really good recipe for ham and beans. TJ's Grandpa Ken passed away when TJ was very young, and I have never tasted a version of his beans. But I try to make them and ask TJ each time "Does that taste right?" So I have recently tried again only to later find out that he used white pinto beans, and I had been trying with navy beans. So it wasn't right but they were pretty good.

But it only tastes good if your stove is this dirty when you are done.

So here's the jist of the recipe that made these edible, but not Grandpa Ken's beans.

One Ham Hock
One pound navy beans soaked overnight
One large onion chopped
Three cloves of garlic chopped
1 tsp Onion and garlic salt
6 tablespoons chili powder
1/2 cup vinegar

Pour the olive oil in a large pan and heat onions for 5 five minutes and add garlic for another 2. Add ham hocks, 6-8 cups water and simmer for an hour and a half. Add beans and all remaining ingredients and simmer for 1-2 hours. (add water as needed)

TJ ate two bowls so it must not have been terrible.

Lemon Garlic Asparagas

2009-05-18T20:33:00.001-07:00

This is a very easy tasty way to cook asparagas. I love it because its so simple. You can buy it from the store if you must, but it is way better when your grandma picks it for you and ties it with a pretty ribbon. But like I said the store bought kind will work if your grandma didn't do that for you.

Lay the asparagas in one even layer on a cookie sheet and drizzle olive oil evenly. This will keep it from burning so be pretty generous.

Crush and roughly chop two cloves of garlic.

Zest one lemon and slice into thin layers.

Cover asparagas with garlice, lemons and salt and pepper.

I also started the lemon pasta, but I'll let you get that from The Pioneer Women's site. I just can't do it justice.

Roast the asparagas in a 350 degree oven for 10-15 min or until tender.

Then enjoy!