Parchment paper, who knew?

Parchment paper, who knew that there were so many uses for it.  This month some of the AllRecipes Allstars were asked to try out Reynolds Parchment paper and make 2 different cookie recipes.  This I did.   These delicious cookies are shown below:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chocolate-Mint-Crinkle-Cookies/Detail.aspx

These cookies were delicious and made a great addition to my Christmas cookie trays.  Very easy to make and looked wonderful too

The next cookie recipe that I made was this:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chocolate-Peanut-Butter-Blossom-Cookies/Detail.aspx

Another great addition to my cookie tray for Christmas.

When making these cookies with Reynolds Parchment Paper I noticed that I was able to re-use the parchment paper quite a few times.  In fact I used 2 cookie sheets and only 2 pieces of parchment paper for the whole baking session.  As Reynolds suggests in the recipes you can take the baked cookies right on the parchment paper and transfer to a cooling rack.  After cooling the cookies just slid right off of the parchment meaning hardly any clean up at all. Great value.

In deciding which cookies to make and give as gifts to friends and family my hubby suggested that I make a cake.  Now I am not a great cake baker so this seemed like a great challenge to me.  I went in search of an easy cake recipe.  Of course on AllRecipes.  I found this flourless chocolate cake recipe that looked very easy to make and the reviews showed that it was a delicious cake that was gluten free too.  Now I do not have celiac's disease, but I thought that some of my friends might be so I decided to add this to my gifts.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/flourless-chocolate-cake-ii/detail.aspx

After reading almost all of the reviews, 437 of them, I decided to make this cake with all chocolate instead of using the cocoa powder as some had suggested.  The other thing that I noticed in the reviews was that a ton of people who complained that the cake stuck.   A couple of reviewers had mentioned using parchment paper after well greasing a springform pan, so this is what I did.  Now as I have said I am not a cake baker so I kind of winged this but tried it anyway.  The cake took quite a while longer to bake than shown in the recipe, however, the biggest drawback was that the grease used to make the parchment paper stick, ran out of the pan and burned.  Had to clean the oven yet again.  Big drawback.  The cake was very good though.  Hubby liked the cake so much that when it was gone I decided to make it again for our Christmas Day dessert.  This time, I decided to use Reynolds parchment paper but not to grease the pan.  It made it slightly more difficult to get the parchment to stand on its own, but negligible really.  I just used 2 paperclips to hold the side pieces together.

The top photo as you can see shows just the paper, the second shows the filled cake pan before cooking  with paperclips removed.  Perfectly lined pan.

The finished cake just ready for eating.  (Don't be disappointed if this cake sinks in the middle, remember there is no leavening in this cake, so it is normal for it to sink.  Just fill the dip with fresh fruit or whipped cream)  Yummmm.

Needless to say the only family and friends that got to eat any of the above cake(s) that I made were my hubby and I.  We loved it.

I am an Allrecipes Allstar Brand Ambassador(a voluntary position) and I’m not compensated for my work with Allrecipes.com. Products received from advertiser are only used for experienced-based reviews on AllRecipes.com - Thoughts from my Kitchen. The reviews, content and opinions expressed in this blog are purely the sole opinions of me, pelicangal aka Jan Elton

Life's Moments

Life's Moments.  This is the task that we were given as part of the AllRecipes Brand Ambassador program for this month.  Specifically, mine was "Taste a New Food".  This was a real challenge for me as I have eaten all kinds of, what most people would think of as, weird foods.  I spent several days trying to think of something that I had never tried before.  It also must contain cheese, as our Sponsor for this month is Sargento.  I finally realized that I had never eaten a Souffle, never made one either for that matter. The dish also had to be something that we had created ourselves.   So, I started on my journey with a special Life Moment.  I first watched a video on AR of Chef John preparing an asparagus souffle.  Great information, however, he said that it would deflate before it got to the table and it did.  So, my second challenge was to photograph it while it was still in all it's Glory.  As I am not the best photographer in the world I was scared that I wouldn't get a picture that was good enough to publish.  Hah!  A Great Life Moment was about to happen. I won't keep you in suspense any longer.  Here is my Cheese and Prosciutto Souffle

• 3 tablespoons butter plus additional for preparing dish
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 cup cold milk
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• dash cayenne
• 4 eggs separated
• 1 cup parmesan cheese
• 3 oz prosciutto, chopped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter 6 6 ounce ramekins generously. Set aside. Melt butter in a saucepan and add flour. Cook for a couple of minutes. Don't let the flour brown. Add cold milk. Whisk to ensure there are no lumps. Add egg yolks and mix thoroughly. Add cheese and prosciutto and combine. In another bowl whisk egg whites until fairly stiff. Fold the egg whites gently into the sauce mixture. Divide the mixture between 6 ramekins filling them to about three quarters. Place in oven and cook for 20 to 25 minutes. Do not open the oven door while these are cooking as they will deflate

I am so happy to have been given this challenge.  It was fun and interesting and of course, yummy.  I have some other thoughts in my head now for other personal recipes to create.  Well back to the kitchen for me.

I am an Allrecipes Allstar Brand Ambassador(a voluntary position) and I’m not compensated for my work with Allrecipes.com. Products received from advertiser are only used for experienced-based reviews on AllRecipes.com - Thoughts from my Kitchen. The reviews, content and opinions expressed in this blog are purely the sole opinions of me, pelicangal aka Jan Elton

Southern Roundup Part 4

 This is to show you all that we can in fact, cook.  Staci, Amanda and Gary barbecued and all the others pitched in with the side dishes

• 

 Robin has her dancing shoes on again

 My namesake

 Waiting for the boat to go swimming with the dolphins

 Swimming with the dolphins

 Cindy, Robin, Julie and Gary swimming with the dolphins.

 Dolphins

 Robin all ready to go

 Cindy and Julie all duded up

 Love this picture of Cindy

 Our captain

 Robin's hickey face

 Robin piloting the boat

 Robin found one chef at least

 We went to Margueritaville for lunch, great cocktails

 Food from Margueritaville

That's all folks until next year.  You should plan on joining us.

Southern Roundup Part 3

Well finally I am getting around to showing you more pictures of the Southern Roundup.  Here we go.

 This is about as good as it gets.  Greeat food, Good Friends and dancing.  That is Tim and Robin cutting a rug

 The weather was not always as good as last year but I for one welcomed the rain to cool me down

 Here we are again at Hunts Oyster Bar.  There is always a line here but you can take your beer outside while you wait for your table.  It doesn't take too long.

 Here is Gary looking at Staci and thinking "I don't care, I'm having oysters" lol

 Here is some of the food that we enjoyed.  Boy was it good.

 Staci, Robin, Cindy and I went for lunch at Dusty's after shopping all morning for Robin's Alligator Chef.  (We didn't find one)

 Every part of Dusty's is covered in dollar bills.

 These were the jalapeno oysters that I had for lunch.  They were delish

 One of the bar regulars explaining the wildlife to me.

 Turtles and koi in the lake behind Dusty's.

 Our beautiful Amanda (Arich)

A beautiful sunset.  On to part 4

Sorry, I cheated

Yes I admit it, I cheated.  As a member of the AllRecipes Allstar/Brand Ambassador program, we were asked to hold a party for Halloween.  My hubby and I are 60/70 somethings, and the kids and grandkids are hundreds of miles away.  We live in a very rural area and, in the twelve years that we have lived here, have never had one child come to our door on Halloween and say "trick or treat".  So in order to fulfill this part of the program, I had to cheat.  Luckily, it was a way to also complete another part of my life which is volunteering.  Today, at our local Elks Lodge, we had our annual kids Halloween Party.  I went to it camera in hand to record this day which was so much fun for all the kids involved. It is also a very, very, safe way for the kids to enjoy this day.  A great time was had by all.  Here are some of the pictures that I took.

Thesee are some of the treats that volunteers brought for the kids to enjoy.  Fabulous cakes and cookies.  The Elks also provided candy which was donated by members and other treats donated by various businesses in town. 

My favorite part though was looking at all the little kids dressed up to enjoy the party.  The volunteers set up different games, ring toss, miniature golf and others to provide entertainment for them and there were prizes given out for the best costumes.  I bet you can figure out which one was my favorite.

A wonderful time was had by all, and we are now safely back in our homes until next year when we will do it all over again.  I wish you all a very Happy and Safe Halloween.


I am an Allrecipes Allstar Brand Ambassador(a voluntary position) and I’m not compensated for my work with Allrecipes.com. Products received from advertiser are only used for experienced-based reviews on AllRecipes.com - Thoughts from my Kitchen. The reviews, content and opinions expressed in this blog are purely the sole opinions of me, pelicangal aka Jan Elton