Revisited

One of the drawbacks of having posted over 100 recipes is that I've shared with you most of the stuff I make on a regular basis. Last week I made nothing new. Not one thing. So I thought I would share what I made and maybe you will find a recipe you never read about before or one that you forgot about. I remembered to take new pictures of some of them.

Every two weeks I make my granola bars. They are healthy, delicious, and great treats in my kids' (and hubby's) lunch sacks. Sometimes the girls will even have a second one as an after school snack. I love that I know every ingredient that does into these bars.




One of my all-time favorite dinners is Lemon Chicken. I love it so much that we ate it all before I could take a picture. If you haven't tried it yet, give it a shot!

For dinner one night we had Meatloaf and Roasted Green Beans. Both sooooo good. Sometimes I like to change it up and use orange, yellow, or red peppers instead of green in the meatloaf. I didn't put any of it into muffin cups this time, though.



Friday night I made Whole Wheat Pizza. Except this time I used all white whole wheat and I think it's even better than my original recipe! We decorated the pizzas with pepperoni, red peppers, and lots of mozzarella. Bubba added banana peppers to his. The posted recipe makes four individual pizza crusts. Try it this weekend!

I also made my Healthier Banana Bread and Zucchini Muffins. Again I used all white whole wheat. I almost never use even the smallest amount of white flour anymore. The girls have state-wide standardized testing this week. Banana bread and zucchini muffins made with whole wheat, low fat, healthy ingredients are the perfect breakfast food to keep them full until lunch. Have you ever tried to take a test while your stomach is rumbling? It's so hard to concentrate! I load them up with bread and a glass of sugar-free Carnation Instant Breakfast for the protein.



March is strawberry season in Florida and last Saturday we made our annual trek to the Plant City Strawberry Festival.





From 11am to 5pm on Sunday Tink and I washed, hulled, sliced, and mashed three full flats of strawberries!



Yep, three of those. We made enough low-sugar jam to last until next year.




We also put away in the freezer a few containers of strawberries ready for shortcake. And we ate A LOT of strawberries. Tink was such a huge help!! But the best thing about making jam with her was the talking. She talked about school, politics, religion, boys *shudder*, her friends, you name it we talked about it. It was, in every sense of the word, awesome.

Of course for dessert that night we had to have Strawberry Shortcake with real whipped cream. No chemical whip will ever sully my shortcake! It was also awesome. :) (Oh, and I used all white whole wheat in the shortcakes.)



But first, for dinner Sunday we had Sunday Roast.

Give one of these recipes a try!

Enjoy!!

Strawberry Shortcake

March is strawberry season here in Florida, more specifically in Plant City "Winter Strawberry Capital of the World". Winter it is not, we wear shorts and flip flops to the Plant City Strawberry Festival every year. This year I decided to try my hand at making jam, so I bought A TON of strawberries. I made two batches (16 pints) of low sugar jam and still had enough leftover for a freezer full of strawberries already cut up and sweetened for shortcake. We also had strawberry pie, strawberry cupcakes, strawberries on our french toast and I think Tinker Bell ate more than she cleaned. We love March! So this recipe is for the shortcake biscuits and it makes enough for 8 people or 4 people with leftovers. The biscuits are fantastic in the morning with a little strawberry jam!



You will need:

3 cups all-purpose flour
3 T white sugar
1 1/2 T baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups butter
1 1/2 cups half and half
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

strawberries, sliced with sugar to taste (allow to sit for at least a half hour)
more whipping cream and sugar for topping




Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl and cut in the butter. I use a pastry cutter, but knives or even a couple of quick pulses in the food processor works great. (I just hate cleaning my food processor and actually enjoy working the butter into the flour with my pastry cutter--memories of my grandmother working shortening into flour for biscuits.) Work it until you have pea-sized crumbs.



Combine the cream and vanilla.



Make a well in the flour mixture and add your cream. Mix gently until just combined.



This dough isn't pretty and it may even feel a bit dry. Totally okay! Gently knead it by hand a few times, creating a loose ball. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured, parchment lined cookie sheet and pat into an 8-inch square about 3/4 of an inch thick. Any thicker than that and you may end up with raw middles in your biscuits.



Cover with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 20 minutes. This step is important--why? You want the butter to be cold because that is what gives you the flaky texture you love in biscuits. Trust me on this one.

Preheat your oven to 425. Take out the dough, slide the parchment onto the counter, and cut it into 9 even squares. Place them about 2 inches apart on a greased cookie sheet.



Bake until medium brown, 15 minutes exactly if your oven is spot-on with its temperatures.



My biscuits look a little ratty, I know. And I don't care, but if you like perfect biscuits that you can cut in half then just make your 9 squares even with clean edges. We don't cut our biscuits in half...we crumble. It tastes better. Really!





You may never see it crumbled in a magazine, but the little bits soak up all the delicious juice from the berries and you don't get a mouthful of biscuits with no strawberry flavor. I fill up a plastic freezer jam container with sliced strawberries and sugar and that is enough for four servings of strawberry shortcake. I just take the container out of the freezer the night before we want to eat it. I use about a cup of whipping cream with 2T powdered sugar added for the topping. Don't spoil your strawberry shortcake with Chemical Whip! :)



You may find yourself snacking on the biscuits late a night, sans strawberries. To avoid this dilemma you can wrap the biscuits in foil, place them in a freezer bag, and freeze them until the next time you want shortcake (or a snack). They'll be beautiful from the freezer for about 3 months.

Enjoy!