Pani Keke Samoa or Samoan pancakes

Growing up my mum would make these once in a blue moon for dessert. I don't know how or when she got the recipe but when I was old enough to be able to make them myself I would from time to time. They really are very simple. They are wonderful if served warm, sprinkled with a little powdered or white sugar and a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream. Then again when do I not suggest serving my treats warm with vanilla ice cream? C’mon people you have to get your dairy!

Makes about 30 pancakes

Ingredients:

2 very ripe bananas
3 ½ Cups Flour
1 ¼ Cups Sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ Cups Water

Abt. 3 ½ Cups Vegetable oil for frying.

Mash the two bananas. I just use a fork to do this.

Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Combine dry ingredients with the banana mush and fold the mixture (don’t mix or use a mixer). Add the water to make the folding easier until there are no more ingredients that are dry.

Heat oil on the stove in a small sauce pan (2 qt. pot) that can fit six to eight egg-sized pancakes and is deep enough to cover the pancakes in oil. (Use medium heating **do not burn the oil**)

Add the mixture with a greased spoon when the oil is hot. Cook six to eight egg-sized pancakes at a time. Remove from oil when dark brown. Place on a paper towel and eat when you can stand the heat. (Careful Very Hot!!)


Hint: When the oil is ready, grease the spoon (dip your spoon in the hot grease so the mixture doesn’t stick as you are dropping it in the oil) and drop a small test pancake, in the mixture. If the pancake pops up to the top of the oil immediately the oil is hot enough and ready. However, if the pancake turns brown to fast, your oil is probably too hot.

Enjoy!

Touched!

I am having a hard time putting my feelings into words this morning. In fact, if I could manage to stop crying long enough to process my feelings I may just be able to get this post done. This week a friend of mine (Kellie) had a baby boy (Luke Nicholas). I am so happy for her and her husband Nick and I have thoroughly enjoyed looking at pictures on both her blog and the blog of her sister Jill.

Yesterday while I was looking at the pictures of Kellie in the hospital waiting to have the baby, I noticed a photo that really touched me. In fact it touched me so much that thoughts of this picture have occupied my mind since I saw it. The picture is of Kellie's sister Jill rubbing Kellie's feet while she was lying on the hospital bed waiting to deliver her son. Before you think I'm crazy for being so touched by this, let me explain.

This photo of Jill touched me on a few different levels. First of all I thought about what a kind and unselfish act of service that was for her to perform for her sister. I can only try to imagine how excited and anxious Kellie must have been feeling those hours prior to giving birth to her little boy. To be able to share that with a sister and to have that sister perform such s simple but significant act of service during such a special and sacred time really touched me. It reminded me so much of Christ and how he washed the feet of his disciples. Sometimes it is the smallest acts of service we perform for family members and friends that can make the biggest difference in their lives.

Women deliver babies everyday. Family members get excited for the babies to arrive, they get excited to visit the babies in the hospital and look forward to watching the baby grow. But I wonder -how often does the mother who is delivering the child have someone like Jill to rub her feet? It is so much more than just a physical act. It is a sign of love and humility. I am the only girl in my family of 5. I have four younger brothers who I love dearly. Though I will probably never get to experience this act for myself, I hope that the opportunity presents itself for me to do this for someone I love someday.

I hope that I am always sensitive to the needs of my family members and friends and can be of service to them just as Jill was to her sister Kellie.


Jill let me steal this picture from her blog. Thanks Jill!

Homemade Oreos

I love love love homemade Oreos. Wait... I love any and all Oreos. What can I say?

Here is a recipe for homemade Oreos that I love. They are so easy to make and are always a crowd pleaser. They are definitely my quick go-to cookie recipe when I need to whip something up pronto.

I love how you can play with the frosting colors when making these. In the past for the 4th of July I have made Oreos with red, white and blue frosting, for Valentines Day I have used pink frosting, for Christmas I have used red and green frosting. Anyway you get the idea. Let your imagination run wild!

Homemade Oreos

1 Box of Betty Crocker devils food cake mix (I have used other chocolate varieties and this is just the best)
2 large eggs
1/2 cup of vegetable oil

1- Simply mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. (Yep its that easy)

2- Take spoonfuls of the mixture and roll into small balls. The size of the ball depends on the size of the cookie. I just eyeball it. If I had to guess I'd say just smaller than a golf ball size. You want to make sure that all of your cookie balls are about the same size so that they match up when you frost them and put them together.

3- Place cookie balls on an ungreased cookie sheet and cook at 350 degrees for exactly 8 minutes. The cookies will be very soft and easily breakable until they have cooled completely.

4- Once the cookies have cooled completely, simply take two of the cookies, place the desired about of frosting (see below) on one of the cookies and then put the two together.

Cream Cheese Frosting

4 oz cream cheese
1 Tbsp butter melted
1 tsp vanilla
2 Cups powdered sugar

Soften the cream cheese (I usually just do this in the microwave). Add the melted butter, vanilla and the powdered sugar and using a hand beater mix until the desired consistency is reached.

Personally I love these even more the next day. I like to make them and then store them in an air tight container. These will stay good for up to 4 days if kept in an air tight container. That's if you can resist eating them all the first day you make them!

The Mom/Mum Song

I sure hope this works. I haven't ever posted a video before but I thought all Moms/Mums would appreciate this clip. My sister in law Elizabeth sent it to me today.

Enjoy!

p.s Melinda- I can so see you performing this!

Oatmeal Carmelitas

On Saturday night we had our friends Jake and Amber over for dinner and a game of 'Battle of the Sexes'. We ate pizza for dinner and then for dessert I made Oatmeal Carmelitas. I had had these once before and had forgotten about them until I stumbled across the recipe the other day. They are so yummy. I don't like to cool mine as the recipe suggests but prefer to serve them warm with vanilla ice cream and this time I even made some homemade caramel sauce and drizzled it over the top. Heavenly!

All that being said while I was making these I let my gluttony get the best of me. The recipe makes enough for a 9X13 pan and since there was only going to be the four of us eating it I halved the recipe and made mine in an 8X8 pan. I didn't however halve the amount of caramel in step 3 thinking that having double the caramel would be sooo good. While they were still good, the caramel in the middle sort of erupted and so the bars ended up being more of a gooey caramel/chocolate mess. Tasted great but wasn't pretty. So the pics below are not mine! Next time I'll be good and stick to the recipe!


Oatmeal Carmelitas
from Pillsbury


2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups quick-cooking rolled oats
1 1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups margarine or butter, softened (I used butter)

1 (12.5-oz.) jar (1 cup) caramel ice cream topping
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used Milk chocolate chips)
1/2 cup chopped nuts (I omitted nuts this time)

Heat oven to 350°F.
Grease 13x9-inch pan.

1-Lightly spoon flour into measuring cup; level off. In large bowl, combine all crust ingredients; mix at low speed until crumbly. Reserve half of crumb mixture (about 3 cups) for topping. Press remaining crumb mixture in bottom of greased pan.
Bake for 10 minutes or until light brown.

2-Meanwhile, in small bowl, combine caramel topping and 3 tablespoons flour; blend well.

3-Remove partially baked crust from oven; sprinkle with chocolate chips and nuts.
Drizzle evenly with caramel mixture; sprinkle with reserved crumb mixture.

4-Return to oven; bake an additional 18 to 22 minutes or until golden brown. The original recipe calls to cool these for 1 hour or until completely cooled but I love mine warm served with vanilla ice cream.

Foil Packet Italian Chicken - Yummy!

I already had my fortnightly menu planned out for the next two weeks, but while I was perusing food blogs yesterday I came across this recipe for Foil Packet Italian Chicken on http://amberskitchen.blogspot.com/ and thought I'd give it a go. As I would have said when I was a kid this was easy peasy Japaneasy! It took me no time to put together and the result was a delicious moist chicken breast with lots of flavor and the tender potatoes were divine too.

Typically I find that cooking potatoes during the week unless we have them mashed (not my favorite at all!) just takes too long. That being said, we rarely and I mean RARELY have potatoes during the week. I was excited to be able to have a way to serve potatoes with a weeknight meal. I will definitely be adding this to my rotation of easy and tasty dinner recipes. I served this with a side of green beans and rice pilaf.

Foil Packet Italian Chicken
(Source: Amber's Delectable Delights)


Ingredients
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp garlic powder
Salt and pepper to taste
3 red potatoes
1/4 cup marinara sauce
1/4 cup Italian cheese blend (or just mozzarella)- I used mozzarella and then a sprinkling of fresh grated parmesan.

Directions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Lay 2 pieces of aluminum foil on a flat surface and spray the middle of each with non-stick cooking stray. Wash and scrub potatoes and slice into very thin slices. Arrange the potatoes onto the middle of the foil about the size of your piece of chicken and sprinkle them with salt and black pepper to taste.
- Mix all of the seasonings into small bowl and sprinkle on both sides of the chicken pieces and place a chicken breast on top of each pile of potatoes. Top each chicken breast with 1/8 cup of marinara sauce and 1/8 cup of cheese. See note.
- Raise up the long sides of foil and fold down twice, do the same thing to the sides of the foil creating an air tight seal. Transfer packets to a baking sheet.
- Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until chicken is 170 degrees. I cooked mine for 40 minutes just to be safe because I'm a little paranoid about uncooked chicken. I also don't have a food thermometer. Remove chicken from oven and let set a few minutes before poking a hole in the foil to release the steam before opening.

***Note***One thing I would do differently next time is on side of the chicken sprinkled with the cheese, I would place a few of the thinly sliced potatoes on top of the cheese. The reason for this being that I found that even though I sprayed the foil, the cheese stuck to it and I felt like I lost some of the cheese. I think putting the potato on top of the cheese would combat this as the potatoes wont stick to the foil. Just a thought.

Parmesan Chicken and Rice

I found this recipe last week on http://amberskitchen.blogspot.com>

After a long day at work I am all about fast and tasty dishes that don't use all of my pots and pans. This one was a one skillet wonder! It was especially yummy and both my husband and my 18 month old loved it (a huge plus). I would definitely make this again. One thing I may add next time is some sweet white corn just to change it up a little.

Parmesan Chicken and Rice
(Source: CookingLight.com)

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 teaspoon bottled minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 (8-ounce) package presliced mushrooms- I omitted these since we don't like mushrooms
3/4 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/2 cup dry white wine- ***See note***
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup uncooked instant rice- ***see note***
1 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup (2 ounces) grated fresh Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley- I omitted this as I didn't have any

Preparation
Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion, garlic, thyme, and mushrooms; sauté 5 minutes or until onion is tender. Add chicken; sauté 4 minutes or until the chicken is lightly browned. Add wine, salt, and pepper; cook 3 minutes or until liquid almost evaporates. Stir in rice and broth. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. Stir in cheese and parsley.

Yield 4 servings (serving size: about 1 cup)

Nutritional Information
CALORIES 395(18% from fat); FAT 8g (sat 2.8g,mono 3.7g,poly 0.8g); PROTEIN 29.9g; CHOLESTEROL 57mg; CALCIUM 171mg; SODIUM 656mg; FIBER 2g; IRON 4.1mg; CARBOHYDRATE 44.4g

***Note*** When I made this last night I omitted the white wine because we didn't have any. I had read in a cookbook somewhere that you can substitute chicken broth for white wine so that is what I did.

***Note*** I also didn't have any instant rice so I just cooked my rice in my rice cooker and then added it to the dish when the recipe said to

Valentines for Nana Bentley

Nana Bentley loves my homemade Oreo cookies so on Sunday Gabe "helped" me make her some Valentine Oreos. These were fun and easy to make. We gave them to her along with a hand made card that I made a couple of weeks ago with my friend Amber. This is the first card I have ever made and I was quite proud of it.

Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

When I was browsing cook books and food blogs to make up my two week menu on Saturday morning I came across this recipe for homemade Chicken Pot Pie. I'd never tasted chicken pot pie but it looked yummy and I thought Brad would enjoy it. I also thought it looked like a fun challenge. I always try and make something semi-fancy or at least something that requires a little more work on Saturday's, Sundays and Mondays when I am off work and have the time and energy to dirty up my kitchen. This was surprisingly easy to make. Anytime a recipe involves dough I get a little worried but this was pretty easy. I think I'll definitely make this again. I waan't too sure what to serve this with so I just made a basic chicken gravy to drizzle over the top.

Chicken Pot Pie
Found on http://www.goodeatsblog.com
adapted from The Pastry Queen, by Rebecca Rather

Filling
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large russet potato, peeled and diced
1 medium-size yellow onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, diced
8 ounces button mushrooms, sliced
8 ounces fresh green beans, cut into 1-inch pieces
8 ounce package frozen peas
8 oz frozen carrots
1 cup chopped celery
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 purchased cooked rotisserie chicken or 1 whole stewed chicken, cooled
***Note*** For the veggies in this recipe I just adapted it to what my family likes. I used potatoes, carrots, corn and beans.

Cream Sauce
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
3/4 cup all purpose flour
2 1/2-3 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup heavy cream
Dash of hot pepper sauce, such as Tabasco
Salt and freshly ground white pepper (I used black pepper)

Pie Crust
1 cup (2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 16 pieces
3 cups all purpose flour
10 ounces chilled cream cheese, cut into large pieces
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper (I used black pepper)
1 large egg

To make the filling:

Melt the butter in a large sauté pan set over medium heat. Add the onions, carrots, celery, and potatoes and sauté for 5 minutes. Add the garlic, bell pepper, and mushrooms and sauté about 15 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Stir in the crushed red pepper and add salt and pepper to taste.

While the vegetables are sautéing, skin the chicken, pull the meat off the bones and shred the meat or cut into bite-size pieces. Stir the peas and chicken into the vegetable mixture. Set the filling aside.

To make the cream sauce:
Melt the butter over medium heat in a large saucepan. Add the flour and whisk until smooth. Whisk in the chicken stock and cook the sauce over medium heat until it thickens to the consistency of a cream soup. Add the cream, hot pepper sauce, and salt and white pepper to taste. Pour the cream sauce over the chicken filling and stir to combine. Fill individual 1/4-cup capacity oven-safe bowls three-quarters of the way to the top with the creamed chicken filling.

To make the crust:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade, pulse the butter and flour until crumbly. Add the cream cheese, salt, and white pepper. Continue pulsing just until the dough forms a ball. I had to pulse quite a bit before the dough started to form. Don't panic if it takes a little bit.

Set the dough on a flat surface dusted with flour. Use a floured rolling pin to roll the dough out to 1/4-inch thickness. Measure the diameter of the pot pie bowls and cut out dough rounds that are 1 1/2 inches larger in diameter. Whisk the egg in a small bowl. Lay the dough rounds on top of the pot pies, making sure the dough hangs evenly over each bowl. Brush the dough lightly with the beaten egg. Bake the pies for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown. Serve immediately.

Alternatively, you can bake this in two 9" dishes or a 13x9" inch dish, rolling out the dough to just slightly larger than the dish and topping it with the pastry, and tucking in the sides of the pastry. I don't have a pie dish so I used my 8X8 glassware dish. I found that I still had some left over mixture and dough so I used a 9 inch cake pan and made a second half-pie as I called it and I gave it to my sister in law. I only had enough dough for a top crust so just greased the pan and put the filling in and then covered it with a top crust. If I were to make this again, I'd just use a 13x9" dish I think.






Tip: You can double wrap the pot pies in plastic wrap and freeze them. When you're ready to eat them, bake them (frozen) at 350F for about 30 minutes. They will keep in the freezer for 2-3 weeks.

Apple Crisp Cake with Caramel Sauce

This past Sunday we had a baptism to attend and I was asked to bring a dessert. I love apple crisp, cake and caramel sauce so when I found this recipe for Apple Crisp Cake with Caramel Sauce it was a no brainer.

Apple Crisp Cake w/ Caramel Sauce
Topping
1/2 C All-Purpose Flour
1/2 C Rolled Oats
1/4 C Packed Brown Sugar
1/2 C Butter
Cake
1 package yellow Cake Mix- I used white
1 C Water
1/2 C Butter -- Softened
1 Tsp Cinnamon
3 Eggs
2 C Thinly Sliced Peeled Apples
Sauce
I used my favorite caramel sauce recipe- see previous post
Heat oven to 350.
Generously grease and flour 13 x 9 inch pan. Lightly spoon flour into
a measuring cup; level off. In small bowl, combine flour oats and
brown sugar; mix well. With fork, cut in 1/2 cup butter until mix
resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside.
In large bowl, combine all cake ingredients except apples; beat at
low speed until moistened. Beat 2 mins at high. Pour batter into pan.
Arrange apple slices over top of batter. Sprinkle with topping.

Bake at 350 for 38-43 mins. Or until deep golden brown (See note). Cool 5
minutes before serving.


***NOTE*** I had never seen or made this cake before so didn't know really what to expect. When the cake had about 15 minutes left to bake I checked it and noticed that it appeared to be erupting in spots. I've never had a cake do that to me before so wasn't sure what to think. Once the timer went off and a toothpick came out clean I examined it a little closer and came to the conclusion that it was probably supposed to look like that. Just a side note incase you try to make it and panic when it does the same thing.

I really did like this cake. It was a tad drier than I hoped it would be but other than that the flavor was spot on. You have to keep in mind that for me to love a cake it has to be ultra moist otherwise I am always a little disappointed. I think I'll make this again. Given that I had to make it to take somewhere it was a little difficult to serve it warm, but I think if I were to make it again I'd serve it warm with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. Mmmm I could go for some right now.

Caramel Sauce

I don't know that I would necessarily describe myself as a chocolate or a caramel person. It seems that for me there is a time for both. But every now and then I just get a hankering for some good ol caramel flavor. This weekend was one of those hankering moments. Brad had told me that for our Valentines Day dessert he wanted me to make Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Squares. To try and make it a little more special I thought I'd try a recipe for caramel sauce I found at http://www.goodeatsblog.com/search/label/caramel to drizzle on top of the cake and then serve it warm with vanilla ice cream. I liked this recipe but again did not love it. So that being said, I have posted my favorite caramel sauce recipe below this one and don't know that I will ever venture from it again. If it ain’t broke, don't fix it right?

Caramel Sauce
from Culinary Concoctions by Peabody (original recipe from Baking: From My Home To Yours, by Dorie Greenspan, Houghton Mifflin 2006)


2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1-1/2 tbsp light corn syrup
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
Put the sugar, water and corn syrup in a medium heavy bottomed saucepan, stir just to combine the ingredients and then put the pan over medium-high heat. Heat, without stirring , until the caramel turns deep amber., 5-10 minutes. Lower the heat a bit and, standing back from the saucepan add the cream and butter. When the spatters are less vehement, stir to calm down the caramel and dissolve any lumps.

The reason why I didn't LOVE this one as much as I do the one below was because it just wasn't as creamy as I like my caramel. I think in part it is because of the method used to cook it. I found that this sauce had a slightly burnt caramel flavor. Granted I could have slightly scolded it too. My friend however didn't think it tasted burnt when I had her try it. I think if I did decide to try this one again what I would do differently is not let the caramel turn quite so amber before adding the cream and butter to see if that does the trick.

Nats FAVORITE- no fail- Caramel Sauce
Pillsbury.com

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 cup whipping cream

In medium saucepan, combine all sauce ingredients; mix well. Bring to a boil. Boil over medium heat 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat; cool to room temperature.