Whoppie pies. Oh my, they’re delicious little cakes of love. When my friend (a transplant to Kansas from Vermont) introduced me to her pumpkin whoppies last Thanksgiving, I fell in love with them.  And as an avid baker myself, I couldn’t resist learning about them.  I picked up a couple of recipe books, but the only one I’ve baked from is whoppie pies from Sarah Billingsly and Amy Treadwell.  The thing that grabbed me first was the shear number of whoppie variations.  They cover both sweet and savory.  But since this isn’t a book review, I’m going to just forge forward with the recipes of yumminess.

Should I admit that I don’t remember ever having had goat cheese before?  I really didn’t know what to expect.  Separate, both the cake and filling were “eh” to my tastebuds.  The cake was a little bland, even though it was both sweet and spicy.  The filling had a tangy/salty punch that I wasn’t expecting.

The combination though…wow.  It was like a party in my mouth.  The flavors really melded together in a beautiful way.

1/3 of these went into the freezer for testing.  I’ll take them out for New Year’s Eve and update with the results of that.  This may be one where the cake part is fine to freeze, but the filling would do better having been made fresh the day of serving.  I’ll let you know!

Once upon a time (sometime around 1989/1990), I attended a 4-H camp at Kansas State University.  {Discover Days} was/is a time for the high school kids, who were too old to attend camp at Rock Creek, to get some summer learning done.  We stayed in the dorms and ran amok around the campus.  Well, most of the kids ran amok.  I was there with my big sister and Mom.  Plus, I was a total goody-goody at that age.

The class I loved the most was called Kookie Kutter Kraze.  See, I’ve been a baking nut since I made my own birthday cake at the of 10. Mom got me the Wilton’s Strawberry Shortcake pan, and I did it all by myself.  She was beautiful!

But today’s recipe isn’t about cakes.  It’s about the wonderful gingersnap recipe I came home with from my introduction to cookie cutters.  Before that day, I hadn’t really made shaped cookies.  My mother’s experience with sugar cookies had been so terrible to that point that we never made them.

Enter my new friend the gingersnap.

This particular recipe was published in the December 1969 issue of Woman’s Day magazine.  The cookies have become a family staple, and are still the only rolled out/cut out cookies that my mother makes.  I’ve since found an excellent sugar cookie recipe, but we’ll save that for another day.

This year, the girls wanted tiny little (1 1/2″) gingerbread girls.  So that’s what we made.  I can fit 63 of the little buggers on one of my pans.  I think we got 5 pans out of about half the dough.  That’s a lot of little gingersnaps!

What comes to mind when you think of Red Lobster? Hmm?

It’s something other than a red lobster, isn’t it?

For me, it’s crab legs and Cheddar Bay Biscuits.  Those piping hot, melt-in-your-mouth nuggets of goodness have been greeted with squeals of delight from my girls. I was squealing on the inside. Promise!

So when I decided to serve shrimp and baked potatoes for dinner, what recipe did I search for?  Right, you are!

Let’s start the week right with a recipe for cheesy garlicy biscuits, a pretty good rendition of Red Lobster’s own.

One note.  My recipe adds salt, but it can be omitted if you’re watching that sort of thing or don’t favor salty bread.

Enjoy!

With my self-imposed tight budget, I’m trying to cut down on expenses that have been out of hand.  The grocery bill has been one of those things.  It’s disastrously high due to my lack of planning.

So plan I did.  Last night, I started soaking a pot of beans and they cooked all day in my handy dandy crockpot.

Wait.  I promised pictures, didn’t I?  Okay, let’s start at the beginning…

Gather up what you need: 1 pound of pinto beans, an onion, cumin, garlic, salt, and a pepper as hot as you think you want it.  I used a jalapeno that one of my lovely coworkers grew in his garden.  I tossed a whole bunch of them into the freezer…whole.

Pick through the beans.  I found 2 little rocks, so it was totally worth the 5 minutes or so this process took.  Rinse them well to remove any dirt or other small debris that might still be in among the beans.

Put the beans in the crock of your crockpot and add about 8 cups of water.  Now, you have 2 choices.  Soak the beans overnight (that’s what I did) or cook them right away.  There are arguments about the benefits of soaking beans, but I don’t know enough about either side of the argument to take one.  Next time, I might not soak them just to see what happens.

I’m going to assume you’re soaking your beans like I did.  Makes it easier on everyone.  Trust me.

Go ahead and chop up the onion now.  You probably don’t want to be wielding a sharp object while trying to get the kids ready to go in the morning.

Now, go to bed and pick up with the next step tomorrow morning.  No more pictures because I didn’t grab the camera.  Next time, maybe I’ll have coffee first!

Drain the soak water, rinse out the crock, and return the beans for cooking.  Add another 8 cups of clean water, the chopped onion, 2 Tbsp garlic, 1 tsp cumin, 3 tsp salt, and the whole jalapeno pepper.  Feel free to chop up the pepper for heat, but I left it whole since my girls don’t like hot things.

Turn the crockpot on low with the lid on, and go to work or go do whatever it is you do all day.  Let the beans cook for a good 8-10 hours.

When you’re ready to serve dinner, drain the cooking water from the beans, but don’t throw it down the drain!  I’ve frozen it for use in soups this winter.

Now you need to mash the beans.  I started with a potato masher, but it wasn’t doing the job, so I moved to the blender.  A food processor would work, too.  Blend, mash, or process until the beans are the consistency your family likes.  My girls are used to the canned stuff, so I pretty much pureed them to mush this time.  I will probably back off and leave it a little chunkier as they get used to the homemade version.

Add more salt, cumin, and a bit of black pepper to suit your taste.

And that’s that!  Enjoy.

Let me be honest for a minute.  When we got home, the entire house smelled like an old man’s armpit.  Do not let that fool you into thinking these are going to be nasty-tasting.  It’s just the cumin.  Trust me.

I served these with cheese and homemade tortillas (recipe to follow soon).  Both girls gave me 2-thumbs up and permission to make them again.  In this house, that’s a winning recipe!

There are many recipes for monkey bread floating around the internet.  A vast majority of them call for multiple cans of biscuits.  In my opinion, that’s a mockery of what monkey bread was really meant to be.  So I use a slightly sticky yeast dough recipe that I’ve been working with for many years.

This weekend, I had a craving for this sweet, sticky, incredibly bad for you loaf of goodness.  Lucky for you, I thought to take photos along the way.  Forgive the horrible quality as I took them with my cell phone camera.  Why I didn’t think to break out the “real” camera, I don’t know.  There will be more of that to come though…pinky swear.

Start by dissolving 2 1/2 tsp (1 package) yeast and 2 Tbsp sugar in 1/2 cup warm water (in the mixing bowl).  Let that sit for 10 minutes or so, until it’s nice and foamy.

Meanwhile, scald 1 cup of milk and cool back to lukewarm.  Drop a stick of butter into the hot milk to melt it.

Add the cooled milk and an egg to the yeast and beat them all together.

Add 4-5 cups of bread flour and 1 1/2 tsp. salt to the bowl. Mix until incorporated and then knead by hand or with the dough hook for 5-7 minutes.  The dough should be smooth and elastic when it’s ready.  It will be sticky!  Don’t add too much flour or the final product will be heavy and, well, gross.

That’s what smooth and elastic looks like.

Add about 1 Tbsp of oil to the bottom of a clean bowl.  Put the kneaded dough in the bowl and rub it around in the oil.  Turn the oiled side up.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a tea towel.  And wait.

And wait some more.

While you’re waiting, mix together 1cup of sugar and 1 Tbsp cinnamon in a Ziploc bag or a bowl.

When the dough has doubled (about an hour), punch it down and break off in pieces about 1″ in diameter.  I probably should have counted my balls, but didn’t think about it at the time.

Toss the balls of dough in the cinnamon-sugar.

And then layer them in a Bundt pan.  A 9×13 baking dish or a couple of bread pans would also work.

If your pan gets to be more than half full, it’s time for another.  I made the mistake of putting all my balls in one pan.  The result was ginormous.

After you clean up the cinnamon mess, it’s time to make some syrup.  Some people sprinkle a box of butterscotch pudding (cook and serve, and not sugar free, please!) between the layers, but we don’t like it that way.  Instead…

Melt 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter and 1/2 to 3/4 cup brown sugar over medium-low heat.  Cook it just until the butter is melted and everything is nicely swirled together.

Pour the syrup over the dough balls.  Cover the pan with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator overnight.  OR let it rise for 45 minutes to an hour.  If refrigerated, take the pan out and set it on the counter for about 30 minutes before you want to pop it in the oven.

Bake for 30-35 minutes at 350º.

Let the loaf cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then turn out onto a serving platter.

I recommend taking a picture BEFORE calling the kids to the kitchen.  Then let them have at it.