Almost Fall Apple Cream Torte

One of the best things about fall is the abundance of delicious apple recipes that I love finding and making. Of course, I love baking and cooking with pumpkins this time of year too, but there is just something about apple desserts that I find cozy and comforting.

I've never gone apple picking, but judging by all the pics on Instagram I've been seeing, there are a lot of people that do. It's definitely something I want to do one of these days, and preferably in a beautiful orchard with a plaid blanket and gorgeous picnic, and wine, and... ok, so not everything on Instagram is the way it appears, but dang, they make it look so good!

Anyway, back to this delicious Apple Cream Torte that I found in the September issue of Sunset Magazine. A cream torte is like a cross between a cake, a custard, and a Dutch baby, according to the magazine, and I completely agree with them. It's absolutely more custardy than a regular cake, and that's one of my favorite things about it.

The recipe calls for 3-4 thinly sliced apples, and I went with four and think that's the perfect amount for this torte. I love, love, love how the slices of apples bake on top of each other for this gorgeous effect you see when you slice into it. You can use a variety of different apples like Cameo, Fuji, or Gala, and I used Gala just because they are so easy to find. But next time I make this torte I'll try a different kind to see if it makes a difference in taste.

I made this for dessert for my family one night and they all loved it. The recipe is a keeper for sure, and one that I'll be sure to make again and again. If you wanted you could add a little crème fraiche or whipped cream on top, but I thought it was perfect without it.

Recipe for Apple Cream Torte

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs. (3 or 4) tender sweet apples, such as Cameo, Fuji, or Gala 

3 large eggs, at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup heavy whipping cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon table salt

powdered sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter and generously flour a 9-inch spring form pan. Shake out excess flour and set aside.

Using a paring knife or sharp corer, core apples from stem down through seeds and base to remove in one cylinder. Peel apples and slice crosswise into 1/4-inch rings. Set apples aside.

In a large bowl, using a mixer with whisk attachment, beat eggs and granulated sugar on high speed until pale and slightly thickened , 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Reduce speed to medium and add cream and vanilla. Beat about 30 seconds more to blend. Add flour, baking powder, and salt and blend on low speed until evenly combined.

Add apples (including any uneven end pieces) to batter and stir gently with a spatula to coat, separating slices. Pour mixture into prepared pan and arrange apples flat.

Bake cake until golden brown on top and a toothpick inserted into center of cake (rather than an apple piece) comes out clean, 1 to 1 1/4 hours. Let cake cool on a rack 20 minutes, then run a slender knife between edge of cake and pan. Remove pan rim and cool cake at least 10 minutes more.

Serve warm or at room temperature, dusting with powdered sugar.

-Post by Patricia

I made this last year and it was so delicious that I thought I would share it again.



Rainbow Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Here in Nevada, the kids have already finished their second week of the new school year. My granddaughter Ashley started kindergarten and has surprised us all by how much she loves it. She is such a mama's girl that we thought she would have a hard time adjusting to being gone all day but thank goodness she loves it!

So I thought I would bake her and her two brothers some cookies last week for a yummy afterschool snack. I love being the kind of grandmother who bakes treats, and hopefully they will remember this from their childhoods. I never had a grandmother, so I'm trying to give them what I wished I'd had. Maybe it's a stereotype, a sweet baking granny, but I don't care. It makes me happy, and it makes them happy too.

Since we love chocolate chip cookies, I thought I would take it up a notch and made them with added M&Ms. Yum, right??

I've made these before and discovered the trick to making them look so good is to press a few M&Ms into each cookie right as they come out of the oven. They stick to the cookies but don't melt.

This recipe comes from one of my all-time favorite cookbooks, Sally's Baking Addiction. Oh how I love Sally, she is just such an amazing baker and blogger. The great thing about her recipes are that they are all fairly easy to make and taste delicious.

And I'm super excited to get her new book, Sally's Cookie Addiction, when it comes out next month. I love making cookies for friends and family during the holidays, so I can't wait for this book to arrive on my doorstep.

So let's get on to this recipe for these yummy cookies. Just remember that you do have to let the dough chill for at least 2 hours before you can bake the cookies. I simply made the dough in the morning and them pulled it out of the refrigerator in the afternoon, about an hour before the kids got home from school.

And yes, they were very happy to come home from school to warm cookies and a cold glass of milk. I made lots of good grandma points that day!


Recipe for Rainbow Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, plus 1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup plain M&Ms (but I actually ended up using a little more than a cup)

Directions:

Whisk the flour, baking soda, cornstarch, and salt together in a large bowl. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk the melted butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together until no sugar lumps remain. Whisk in the egg, then the egg yolk, followed by the vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together with a large spoon or rubber spatula. Fold in the chocolate chips and M&Ms. Cover the dough and chill for at least 2 hours (or up to 3 days).

Take the dough out of the refrigerator and allow to soften slightly at room temperature for 10 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line 2 large cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.

Roll the dough into balls, about 3 tablespoons of dough per cookie. If the dough is crumbly, the warmth of your hands will help it come together in a ball. Roll the cookie dough balls to be taller rather than wide. Place 8 balls of dough 3 inches apart onto each cookie sheet.

Bake each batch for 11-12 minutes. The cookies will look very soft and under baked. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely. The cookies will stay fresh in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 10 days.  

Makes 16 large cookies. 

What Makes You a Wonder Woman? #sixflags #ad

*I was provided tickets to the park for my family to visit

On Saturday, August 12, you can meet Wonder Woman as part of the DC Super Hero Summer at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, CA.

From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Wonder Woman will be available on the Kingdom Stage to meet guests and fans alike. As a special treat, you can meet legendary comic book artist and writer Trina Robbins, take a photo and get an autograph.

Ms. Robbins is known as the first female comic book artist ever to illustrate Wonder Woman for DC Comics and is world renowned for her art, activism and writing. Ranked as one of the top 25 best female comics creators of all time, Ms. Robbins is also a published author and historian and is listed as one of 12 women cartoonists deserving a lifetime achievement recognition by Comics Alliance.

Guests can also ride the newest and most thrilling ride attraction, Wonder Woman Lasso of Truth, a mammoth pendulum swing ride that has been hailed as the best ride ever by some.

This year for my birthday I wanted to have a theme to celebrate. Having a family of superhero lovers and a Wonder Woman fan myself I decided I would make it a Wonder Woman celebration. We planned a trip to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom to ride the new Wonder Woman Lasso of Truth and a trip to the theaters to see the new Wonder Woman movie.

My family always has a wonderful time when we visit Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. We have a few places we must visit on each trip, the Shark Experience and Butterfly Habitat are two of them. I feel like we have a new experience each time we visit them. This time when we went it was also Shark Week. We learned new facts about sharks, held a "Mermaids Purse" aka a nurse shark egg and also saw comic books that had shark characters in them.

As we walked around Six Flags I noticed that almost everyone there was wearing cool Superhero capes! Being the fun Mom I am I had to find out where the capes were being sold at. When we went to a store and I realized they were buy one get one free, the frugal side of me was elated! Of course my son and I both got a cape to wear around the park.

Most times we visit my son insists that my husband rides the family rides with him, it being my birthday my son wanted me to ride with him. Oh the fun I had watching him laugh and smile as we zoomed and whirled around on the rides. Even when he wanted to go on the same ride over and over I loved every moment of it!



I will admit I did not get on the Wonder Woman ride! I thought for sure I could do it but alas my fear of rides that are not on a track over came me. My son said I was still a "wonder woman" because of how hard I work and how sweet I am! That did make me feel a bit better. How we define ourselves as a "wonder woman" is entirely up to us. I work hard, love my family, take each opportunity I can to spread love and truth, just as the real Wonder Woman does.

What makes you a Wonder Woman?

Fall Road Trip Visiting Oceanside California #beachlife #Oceanside #California

For the last few years my family and I have made it a tradition to take a road-trip to Southern California in the Fall. I grew up in Southern CA and love to see how its changed over the years. Each time we take the trip we make sure to experience a day at the beach. I enjoy searching for a different beach each year. The beach experience in the Fall is different than a Summer trip but just as fun. Last Fall the beach we selected was Oceanside CA.

Oceanside is located halfway between San Diego and Los Angeles. The beaches are beautiful and the people were so friendly! I like Oceanside since it was not as crowded as some of the bigger beaches. We played in the sand, the waves and even the cool play ground right on the beach.

The Oceanside Pier was our main focal point to visit. Growing up in Southern CA I have a love for piers and the activities all around them. Many families were fishing from the pier, beautiful sea birds were walking around and even a 50's style restaurant at the end of the pier. The pier is 1,954 feet long, extending about a quarter of a mile into the water making it one of the longest piers on the west coast.

The main street along the beach is called "The Strand". I honestly love the beach style of all the surfers with their boards, the tourists walking around and the beach cruiser bikes going by the local shops and restaurants. The Strand is 4 miles long and lined with palm trees. There are clean bathrooms and changing areas for swimmers or in the case of my kid wave jumping in his clothes. 

We spent hours playing in the waves and sand. I could sit in the sand all day and watch my son with his big smile on his face jumping, splashing and getting covered in sand. I now know the joy my own Mom felt each summer when we went to the ocean. 

For lunch we ate at The Tin Fish Restaurant on the Strand. I always have to get clam chowder in a bread bowl anytime I visit the beach. I loved every bite of it, when my son asked if he could feed the birds with part of my bread bowl I had to say no since I could not let the deliciousness be shared plus we should not feed wild animals. 

After resting our bellies we decided to rent a surrey bike from Wheel Fun Rentals. I remember doing this as a kid with my family in Santa Barbara and wanted my own son to experience the fun of riding one by the ocean. I had more fun than I imagined I would. My husband did most of the pedaling on the bike and I was enjoying the view and giggles of my son. It was a perfect Fall day to be at the beach on a surrey bike. We rented ours a little later in the day saving us a bit of money of the rate.

The nice thing about Oceanside is the ability to use the beach even after dark. In the Fall it gets darker much earlier and we did not want our day of fun to stop. I went back to our car parked nearby to get a blanket to sit on and some snacks to watch the sunset over the ocean. We saw many families taking firewood to the cement fire pits on the beach and decided we were going to also have a bonfire. We had firewood in our trunk from a recent camping trip that was perfect for this. I was telling my husband how it was not good for gas mileage to have the wood in the trunk before we left on our trip and he replied with "You never know if we might need it on a road trip". He was so right and I was so glad to have it with us. Oh how I wished someone had been selling the stuff for s'mores on the beach!

Stuffed Bell Peppers With Bleu Cheese Crumbles

One of the things I have tried to be more conscious of in my cooking is trying to cook with the seasons. You know, eating what's plentiful, and in season  at the grocery store or farmer's market, and incorporating that into your meal plans.

Lately, the bell peppers have been so gorgeous that they inspired me to make one of my favorite meals, stuffed peppers.

I like the flexibility of ingredients for stuffed peppers, and you can use turkey, or beef, or make them without meat if you like, too. And you can put veggies in them, from zucchini to tomatoes, to carrots.

For this version of stuffed peppers, I made them with healthy and yummy ground turkey. I put in lots of onions and chopped some mushroom to add to the meat mixture.

This really is an easy meal, and I like knowing that the red peppers are so healthy for you.

The tomato sauce on top of the peppers adds to their great taste, and makes them look good.

I have been a little obsessed with these bleu cheese crumbles lately from Trader Joe's, and have been finding all kinds of ways to use them.

Ground turkey can be a little bland for me sometimes, and so I added the crumbles to top the peppers, and I was pretty much in heaven. They added a delicious kick to the peppers, and I'll make this recipe again, using the bleu cheese crumbles.

Just add some delicious garlic bread and your favorite glass of wine, and you have an easy and delicious summer dinner to enjoy!


Recipe for Stuffed Bell Peppers with Bleu Cheese Crumbles

Ingredients:

3 large red bell peppers
1 pound of lean ground turkey
3/4 cup Panko bread crumbs
1 large egg
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped button mushrooms
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons Italian seasoning
1 small can tomato sauce
3/4 cup bleu cheese crumbles, or top with the amount of your choice

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a large baking dish with vegetable oil.

Wash and cut peppers in half. Cut off stems and remove seeds.

In a large bowl, combine turkey, bread crumbs, egg, onion, mushrooms, salt, and pepper. Pat meat mixture into each half of pepper. Put peppers into greased baking dish.

Spread each pepper with tomato sauce. Generously sprinkle Italian seasoning over peppers.

Bake in the oven for 45-50 minutes. Top with bleu cheese crumbles.


post by Patricia