Recipe: Key Lime Pie

Tonight I made my first key lime pie! Well, it isn't really key lime as I couldn't find a single key lime in the three stores I went to so I guess it is just a lime pie, but still, I can't wait to try it! Tomorrow is Easter. My dear, sweet aunt is battling a very hard journey with cancer and in an effort to help her gain some weight, I am making this light, refreshing pie in hopes it will settle well on her stomach and help fatten her up. This was quite honestly the easiest dessert I've ever made. I read no less than 20 different recipes on-line and in recipe books before deciding to just throw them all together and make my own version. I have yet to taste this pie, but so far it looks nice and it smells darn good. Tomorrow will be the true test!

Ingredients:
3 eggs, separated
1/2 cup of fresh squeezed lime juice
1 tsp lime zest
14oz sweetened condensed milk
graham cracker pie crust

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Separate eggs into two clean glass bowls.

2. Whisk egg whites until stiff peaks form. I whisked by hand and it took about 5-6 minutes to start to see the peaks. Once the peaks form, set it aside.

3. Beat the yolks well. Stir in the sweetened condensed milk, lime juice and lime zest. Mix all of this well.

4. Slowly mix the lime mixture into the egg whites and then pour the entire mixture into the pie crust.

5. Bake the pie on 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool on counter. Chill in fridge until served.

I'm going to garnish this with a dollop of whipped cream.

The little flecks in the pie is lime zest. If I had time I would have made a homemade pie crust, but we were also dying Easter eggs while I baked this! Maybe next time...

Recipe: Pumpkin Bread

It is mid-October and pumpkin food is everywhere you turn. A friend made the comment that she was making pumpkin bread and from the moment I heard her say that I have been craving pumpkin bread. I've never made it so I searched around on my cell one day on my lunch break (well I don't get breaks so I searched while eating and teaching, bad confession!) and decided I'd make time to bake today. I am a busy lady, so busy that I felt the need to multi-task while attempting to bake and totally screwed up the recipe. It is baking now, smells so amazingly yummy, but it certainly is not what I set off making. I hope it tastes good otherwise I wasted all the ingredients and time on nothing! Lesson learned: take time to relax! If you can't even follow a recipe for bread you are doing too much and need to carve time for the simple things in life!

*Update: Dear Lord that bread was simply amazing!! I will make it the wrong way every single time I bake it! It is so moist and has a very subtle pumpkin flavor. Alex begged for pumpkin bread each morning for breakfast. A slice of this tasty bread with a cup of greek yogurt and a banana has been his breakfast of choice all week! We cleared the entire loaf and I need to make more tonight if I can muster up the energy!

Ingredients

1 package (8 ounce) cream cheese, at room temperature

1 tablespoon finely grated orange peel (I omitted this)

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup pumpkin puree, canned or homemade

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

Since you are making this my "messed up way" just mix it all together!! Seriously, I mixed the cream cheese, one egg, 1/2 cup of sugar and 1 tablespoon of flour together until it was really creamy and set it aside. Then I sifted together the rest of the ingredients into a bowl. If you want to follow the “Melissa Way” just dump the pumpkin mixture into the cream cheese mixture and make sure you blend it together well. Then place it all inside a lightly greased loaf pan and bake on 350 degree for a very long time...this is where I wondered what the hell I did as the bread wasn't baked in the 45 minutes I had written down. I bet this bread cooked for a good 90 minutes! Keep checking on it to make sure it isn’t burning. This pumpkin bread is seriously addicting! Enjoy!

I'm always looking to make recipes healthier. I plan on making this bread this week, but I will sub local honey for the sugar, all natural applesauce for the vegetable oil and I'll do a "half and half" mixture of whole wheat flour and all-purpose flour. If I make the bread I'll update with results. 

Recipe: Cookies & Cream Popcorn

I am stuck at home, for the most part, so I have found myself having the munchies quite a lot. I'm trying not to eat as I cannot exercise much, but let's face it, I need some comfort food!! A friend of mine passed along this popcorn recipe a few weeks ago so on Friday night I decided to cave in and make this sweet treat. Holy  goodness is this stuff delicious and addicting!! I cannot stop eating it. I bet I gain 6lbs from this popcorn! You have to make this, share if need be, but make this! I promise you will love it. And if for some odd reason you hate it, I promise I'll be a good friend and come take it off your hands (and pile it upon my thighs!).

Ingredients
Oil of your choice (I used about 2 TB coconut oil)
Popcorn (I didn't measure, just enough to cover the bottom of the pot)
24 Oreos, crushed
16oz white chocolate, melted

Directions
1. In a large pot heat up about 2TB of oil. Once heated, pour in popcorn kernels. Shake the corn a few times to evenly coat. Soon the corn will start to pop!

2. When the popcorn is fully popped (be sure not to burn it!), remove it from the pot and place it in a large bowl. Be sure to discard as many unpopped kernels as possible.

3. In a Ziploc baggie or food processor, crumble Oreos into a fine crumble. Toss crumbled Oreos on top of the popcorn.

4. In a microwave safe bowl, begin to melt the white chocolate. Be careful to not scorch the chocolate! When fully melted, pour the chocolate onto the popcorn. Using a large spoon mix everything together well. The chocolate will stick to Oreo and then stick to the popcorn. You will have to mix for a few minutes to ensure it all mixes.

5. Let the popcorn sit until the chocolate firmly sets. You can also place the popcorn in the fridge.

Store in an air tight container. I stored half of the batch in the fridge because I like my chocolate cold. I stored the other half on the counter. Either way is amazing! Be sure to take out as many unpopped kernels as possible; believe me, your teeth will thank you for that extra step!! Enjoy!!

Cobbler

Last week we went blackberry picking at Centennial Farms. My family loves eating fruit the way nature intended, but I enjoy cooking and baking so I decided I would make a cobbler with some of our berries. I had an old family recipe for cobbler, but I decided to surf the old internet to see what I could come up with. Most of the recipes were the same, only small tweaks were made here and there. I must have read 25 recipes! Alex loves to help me in the kitchen so he asked if he could please help make the cobbler, of course I said yes! So here is the cobbler Alex and I created last Friday afternoon!

Ingredients
3-4 cups of fresh blackberries
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 cup milk
1 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 stick unsalted butter

1 tablespoon sugar

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the stick of unsalted butter in an oven safe dish (I used a 9x9 dish) and place it in the oven to melt as it heats up.

2. Place clean berries in a microwave safe dish. Add 3/4 cup of sugar and 2 tablespoons of butter to the top. Microwave for about 2-3 minutes or until the butter and sugar has started to melt. You'll need to stir this a bit to distribute the butter and sugar. It will probably look bubbly and thin, that is what you want!

3. In a bowl mix together 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder & 1/2 teaspoon salt until well blended. Pour in 1 cup of milk and mix well with spoon.

4. By now the butter should have melted in the dish. Carefully remove the dish from the oven. Pour the batter evenly over the butter, but do not mix. 

 5. Next, pour the blackberry mixture over the butter & batter, but do not mix! As it bakes the batter will rise to the top.  Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of sugar all over the top of the dessert.

6. Bake in the oven for about 50-55 minutes or until the batter appears golden. I think the cobbler is best served warm. Enjoy!!

Ice Cream

I don't know about you, but I love ice cream! I could seriously eat ice cream every single day, however my stomach will never allow that to happen (probably a good thing!). With Brennan's food allergies we have to be very careful. Many ice creams either contain some type of nuts or the ice cream is made in facility with nuts. Many of the brands we buy have an allergen warning label, but many do not list the warnings. We cannot take him to Dairy Queen or Culver's and Fritz's because the risk of contamination is just too high. There are three places that are safe, if he wants to stick with soft serve. Unfortunately these ice cream shops are a bit of a drive so we tend to stick with store bought ice cream.

A few weeks ago I was in Schnucks doing the weekly grocery shopping and decided to pick up a half  gallon of ice cream. I did the usual label read for allergens and as I read the list of ingredients I stopped and thought about what I was about to place in my cart to take home to feed to my family. How can plain chocolate ice cream contain over eight ingredients? To me ice cream is milk, sugar, eggs and natural flavors not artificial dyes, artificial flavors, corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup. I put the ice cream back on the shelf and decided we would make fruit smoothies instead. If I make the food at home at least I can control what goes inside the food, right?

Days pass and I am at Target. As I walk down the aisle I see an ice cream maker on clearance for only $8. Without thinking twice about it, I happily place my find in the cart! Once I got home I tore open the ice cream maker box and started reading the directions. Long story short, I can make homemade ice cream in the comfort of my home without a single artificial ingredient! Best of all I know it is 100% safe for Brennan to eat because our home is totally peanut/tree free! I bought organic whole milk, rBGH free whipping cream and half & half and pure vanilla extract (I would like to buy some vanilla beans for the next batch). Those ingredients plus a little sugar made the tastiest ice cream I've had in quite some time. We've also made chocolate using cocoa powder. The boys want to make chocolate chip, cookies & cream and strawberry. I love the fact that Brennan can safely eat his ice cream without any worry of contamination and I especially love the fact that I control what does and doesn't go into our ice cream! Happy summer!