Happy 4th of July!

Hi Ya'll ! Sorry I'm getting this posted so late.. I had to work today and made this after I got off work..
I hope everyone had an awesome holiday!  I spent the day working, then came home to make desert while the hubs grilled burgers and brats.

Red White and Blueberry Shortcake:

4 cups sliced strawberries

1/2 cup plus 5 tablespoons sugar, divided

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup unsalted butter, chilled, cut up

3/4 cup half-and-half or whole milk

2 eggs, lightly beaten

3/4 cup fresh blueberries

1 cup heavy whipping cream

Combine strawberries and 1/2 cup of the sugar in medium bowl. Let stand at room temperature 15 to 30 minutes or until sugar is dissolved, or refrigerate up to 4 hours.

 Meanwhile, heat oven to 400 degrees. Whisk flour, 3 1/2 tablespoons of the sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in medium bowl. With fingers or pastry blender, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. With fork, stir in half-and-half and eggs until dry ingredients are moistened. Gently fold in blueberries. (Dough will be very moist and sticky.)

 With well-floured hands, pat dough into rustic 9-inch round on parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with 1/2 tablespoon of the sugar.

 Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean and top is rich golden brown. Cool on wire rack 10 minutes to serve warm, or cool completely.

Meanwhile, beat cream and remaining 1 tablespoon sugar in medium bowl at medium-high speed until soft peaks form.

 Cut shortcake into 8 wedges. Serve with strawberries; top with whipped cream.

Eat and Enjoy!

How did you spend your 4th?

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Hi Ya'll!  So one of my favorite cookies to make are oatmeal raisin. When I found this recipe in the Flour cookbook, I just had to try them! This turned out really good. If you like oatmeal raisin cookies then you need to try these!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies:

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1 cup packed light brown sugar

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 3/4 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon sea salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 3/4 cup old –fashioned rolled oats (not instant or quick-cooking)

1 1/2 cups raisins

Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars until very light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile in a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon, making sure there are no lumps. Stir in the oats and raisins.

Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until thoroughly combined. On low speed, or by hand, gradually add the flour and oat mixture to the creamed butter, mixing until completely incorporated.

Chill the batter a few hours or overnight, covered. (This step is optional, although recommended by the author.)

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Drop the dough in 1/4 cup  balls evenly spaced on the baking sheet and flatten the tops slightly with your hand.

Bake the cookies for 20 to 22 minutes, until they just start to turn brown across the top, but do not over bake. Remove from oven and cool completely on a wire rack.

Eat and Enjoy!

Whats your favorite cookie?

Toasted Coconut Cream Pie with Lime Whipped Cream

Hi Ya'll!! Okay, so I know I'm a horrible blogger.. I promised this recipe forever ago..
I got this recipe from the Flour cookbook. The only thing I changed from the book recipe was the pie crust.. I suck at making pie crust.. or any crust for that matter.. So I used a store bought graham cracker crust. It was super yummy with the graham cracker crust!

I am not going to include the pie crust recipe, since I did not use it. If you would like the recipe, email me and I will send it to you!

This pie was super yummy with the lime whipped cream! I made one for us and then had to make another one, a few days later, for my in laws when they came to visit. It was a huge hit!

Also, this pie takes some time. So be prepared! You have to let the lime part sit over night and the filling needs to chill for a few hours before putting the whipped cream on.. But it is so worth it!

Toasted Coconut Cream Pie with Lime Whipped Cream:

  

1 ¼ cups heavy cream
zest of ½ lime
1 can unsweetened coconut milk

( I could not find canned coconut milk so I just used the coconut milk you find with the regular milk in the dairy section..)
½ cup milk
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup cake flour
1 egg
4 egg yolks
¼ teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup lightly toasted coconut, divided
1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 tablespoons confectioners sugar

In a small saucepan, heat the cream with the lime zest until it just comes to a boil.  Remove from heat, pour limey cream into a small airtight container, and refrigerate overnight.

In a medium saucepan combine coconut milk and milk, heat until it just comes to a boil.  Combine sugar and flour in a small bowl and whisk to combine (combining sugar and flour together keeps the flour from clumping up when you whisk it into the eggs.)  Whisk together egg and egg yolks in medium bowl and slowly whisk in sugar/flour.  Using a small ladle, ladle in a little of the hot milk mixture into the egg/sugar mixture and whisk it in; continue adding the hot milk to the egg/sugar mixture until it is all combined. 

Pour mixture back into the saucepan and place on stove over medium heat.  Whisk vigorously and continuously for 4-5 minutes until mixture thickens and comes to a boil. Make sure you get your whisk into the corners of the saucepan and make sure you are scraping the bottom at all times.  First the mixture will be thin and frothy; as it gets hotter and the eggs start to cook it will get thicker and start to steam.  Eventually it will start to boil – but because you will be whisking continuously and because the mixture will be so thick it will be hard for you to know when it’s boiling.  Stop whisking for a few seconds once the mixture becomes thick and watch the surface of the custard to see if it starts to blub up.  It will go blub blub and that’s when you know it’s come to a boil.  Once the custard has come to a boil, whisk even more vigorously for 30 seconds.  Immediately take the custard off of the stove and pour it through a fine strainer into a pitcher or bowl.  Whisk in vanilla, salt, and ¾ cup toasted coconut.  Pour filling into  pie shell and let cool until filling is set, at least four hours.

Strain limey cream to remove lime zest.  By hand or using a stand mixer with a whisk attachment, whip cream with cornstarch and confectioners sugar until it holds firm peaks.  Pile the whipped cream filling directly on top of the coconut filling, spreading the whipped cream out to the edge of the pie.  Decorate the pie with ¼ cup toasted coconut.

Eat and Enjoy!

Book Tuesday's

Hi Ya'll! Its been forever since I did a Book Tuesday..  This was a slow reading month for me with only 5 books read.. Hopefully I will finish my current read before the end of the month to make a total of 6! Here is what I got from the Library this week:

Library:

Dark Goddess by Sarwat Chadda

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

My Fair Godmother by Janette Rallison

Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr

Bought:

Passion by Lauren Kate

I posted earlier about going to the book signing for Passion! It was such fun!!

What I read this month:

Cryer's Cross by Lisa McMann

Loved it! Very creepy!

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Oh how I loved this book! I could not put it down! I'm so happy to find out that there will be a sequel!!!

The Iron Daughter by Julie Kagawa

Great Book! Can't wait to read the next one!

Gone by Lisa McMann

Loved this series. So sad that this was the last one.. but excellent book!

My Fathers Daughter by Gwyneth Paltrow (a cookbook!!)

This was a pretty cool cookbook.. I found a lot of things I wanted to make, but could not find all the ingredients at my local store..

What have you been reading?