Peppermint Cool

I love going to Williams-Sonoma! Every year I buy Peppermint Bark. It's the best!

I'm so excited for Thanksgiving tomorrow! I love to not only eat the food but love the cooking part, too!

Even though it's technically not the Christmas season yet, I love the song "Cool Yule" sung by Louis Armstrong. The lyrics mention peppermint, a perfect tie-in for today's blog!

Pumpkin Cookies and Autumn

I enjoy pumpkin in just about everything, yet I've never tasted a pumpkin cookie I really liked--until now!  My mom came up with this flat, mildly spiced pumpkin cookie with a subtly tart glaze today!

Pumpkins are quintessentially a signal that autumn is here!  So check "Autumn in New York" sung as a duet by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.

PUMPKIN COOKIES

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, ginger, all-spice

1/8 teaspoon cloves

14 tablespoons butter

1/2 granulated sugar

1 1/3 cups brown sugar, packed

1 cup pumpkin puree

1 egg

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, all-spice, and cloves in a large bowl.
2. In a separate bowl, combine butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar.  Mix well with electric mixer.  
3. Add egg, vanilla, and pumpkin.  MIx until consistent.
4. Add flour mixture and mix on low speed just until blended thoroughly.  
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Drop cookie dough by teaspoons on parchment lined baking sheet.  Bake for 12-14 minutes.
6. Remove from oven and cool for five minutes.  Drizzle glaze over cookies.

GLAZE

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

2 tablespoons apple juice

dash ground cinnamon

dash ground nutmeg

1. Put all glaze ingredients in a small bowl and stir until smooth.  
2. If you want a thicker glaze, reduce the amount of apple juice.

Potato Casserole

I love potato casserole.  At the Chaston home, it's an Easter tradition; I like it anytime of the year!

Potato casserole makes me happy; "Potato Head Blues" performed by Louis Armstrong makes me twice as happy!

POTATO CASSEROLE

6 medium potatoes     

8 tablespoons butter, softened                                  

1 cup sour cream

1 can cream of chicken soup 

2 tablespoons dried onion flakes

1 cup cheddar cheese, grated

1. Boil potatoes with skins on until par cooked.  Remove from saucepan and set potatoes aside to cool.
2. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch glass baking dish.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. Grate cooled potatoes with skins into the glass baking dish.
4. In a large, microwaveable bowl, combine butter, sour cream, soup, onion flakes, and cheese by stirring together.
5. Microwave for 1 minute on high.  Stir.  Microwave again for 1 minute then stir until the mixture is smooth.  The cheese does not need to be completely incorporated but the other ingredients should be mixed together.
6. Pour butter mixture over the potatoes and fold into the potatoes until all potatoes are coated.
7. Bake uncovered for 20-25 minutes until the top is slightly crispy.
8. Serve hot.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes: Cake Walking Babies from Home

What's great to eat during an early autumn day?  Cupcakes!  So try Marlene's Carrot Cake in cupcake form!  That is what I did today!  I also had some hot apple juice!

So here's "Cake Walking Babies from Home" performed by Louis Armstrong to get you ready for the brisk air of autumn time!

Deluxe Spicy Burgers with Cheese Sauce: Frim Fram Sauce

I love spicy food.  I just do.  I'm the person who puts dried hot pepper flakes on food instead of salt and pepper.  These burgers are definitely spicy!

The cheese sauce is a great addition to the burger and helps temper the spice in the burger.  I've never been a "mayo-on-my-sandwich" fan.  Anytime I can put a different kind of sauce on my burger or sandwich is a good time!  To honor this yummy cheese sauce, here's "The Frim Fram Sauce" performed by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, a great duo!

DELUXE SPICY BURGERS WITH CHEESE SAUCE

BURGERS

1 pound lean ground beef
1 teaspoon brown sugar

1 teaspoon molasses

½ teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon black pepper

¼ teaspoon cumin

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Dash garlic powder

Dash onion powder

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

¼ teaspoon allspice

¾ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
3 strips of bacon, cooked and cut in half to make 6 pieces
3 hamburger buns

GARNISH
1 recipe of cheese sauce (below)

1 cup fresh baby spinach

1 roma tomato, sliced

1. Combine all ingredients except Worcestershire sauce, bacon, and buns.  Mix thoroughly into ground beef.  Divide ground beef into thirds and make three patties.  Place on hot pan over medium high heat.
2. Make a little well in the middle of each patty and put ¼ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce in each well.  Cover with a lid.  Turn a couple of times until cooked.
3. Spread cheese sauce on both sides of each bun.  Layer sliced tomatoes and fresh spinach over cheese sauce on each top bun.  Put burgers over cheese sauce on each bottom bun.  Put 2 pieces of bacon on top of each burger.  Top each burger with the top bun and serve.

CHEESE SAUCE

1 teaspoon flour

1 teaspoon corn starch

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

½ cup grated cheddar cheese

2 tablespoons butter

½ cup milk, warmed for a minute in microwave

1. Toss grated cheese with flour, corn starch, and cayenne pepper. 
2. Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat.  Add flour coated cheese and stir until blended.  With pan still over medium heat, slowly add warm milk, whisking ingredients together and continue to whisk until thickened.  It will start to separate then combine to a smooth consistency.

Gelatin Dessert: Sugar Foot Stomp

So gelatin desserts get a bad rap sometimes.  In Utah, the infamous green gelatin dessert with carrots lives on at potlucks.  But gelatin desserts aren't all bad and they can be quite refreshing.

Instead of getting fancy, this is just a simple dessert.  No time-consuming waiting periods between layers of gelatin for this dessert.  Just prep, pour, refrigerate, and serve it up!

Even though this is a sugar-free recipe, I couldn't help myself from selecting "Sugar Foot Stomp" played by Louis Armstrong as today's song!  This gelatin dessert tastes as though it is very sweet like sugar!

SUGAR-FREE GELATIN DESSERT

2 packages of flavored sugar-free gelatin dessert

2 cups boiling water

1 cup icy cold water

1. Place flavored gelatin powder in a medium bowl. 
2. Boil 2 cups of water.
3. Pour boiling water over flavored gelatin and stir until dissolved.
4. Stir in 1 cup of icy cold water.  Pour into a rectangular quart container.  Cover.
5. Refrigerate until set.
6. Cut into cubes to serve.

Shrimp Pasta with Hot Garlic Sauce: The Frim Fram Sauce

This recipe is the best pasta with shrimp dish I've ever tasted!  The shrimp comes out perfectly cooked and tender and the hot garlic sauce adds that little punch I love in all my food.  If you don't like spicy hot seasoning, you can tone down the amount of red pepper flakes.

I wanted to highlight the sauce on the pasta so here's "The Frim Fram Sauce" sung by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.



SHRIMP PASTA WITH HOT GARLIC SAUCE

1 pound large uncooked shrimp, peeled and deveined

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons garlic, chopped

½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

½ cup white grape juice

1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained

½ teaspoon Splenda

1 tablespoon garlic, chopped (optional)

1 pound angel hair pasta

1 tablespoon parsley

1. If shrimp is frozen, thaw under running water for a few minutes.  Let drain.
2. In a medium sized bowl, put olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes.  Add thawed shrimp and coat with olive oil mixture.  Put onto a large, hot skillet over medium heat, using a scraper to get all the oil in the bowl into the pan with the shrimp.  Cook shrimp just until pink.  Remove from heat and set aside.
3. Cook pasta according to directions for al dente, reserving ½ cup of pasta cooking water, drain pasta then put into a large bowl.  Set aside.
4. In a saucepan, put white grape juice, drained tomatoes, and Splenda.  Add optional garlic if so desired.  Simmer for 5 minutes.
5. Pour tomato mixture over pasta and toss lightly.  Add shrimp mixture and toss lightly.  If pasta is too sticky incorporate the tomato mixture and shrimp mixture, pour reserved pasta water over it.  
6. Put into a serving bowl and toss lightly.  Sprinkle parsley over the top and serve immediately.

Halfway to Christmas Tomorrow!

Tomorrow on the Y105 morning show we are having a "Halfway to Christmas" show and are playing Christmas music!  To help celebrate, I made Chocolate Peppermint Cookies from Mel's Kitchen Cafe!

My sister and her friend first made these cookies last year right before Christmas and they were a hit!  They are now part of my yearly Christmas cookie list.

The only thing I do differently from the original recipe is I only coat the cookie part way.  I like to taste a balance between the peppermint flavored chocolate cookie and the white chocolate coating...plus it's easier to just partially dunk the cookies!  They set up faster and look quite artistic!

You really do have to follow all of the steps in the recipe including refrigerating/freezing the dough twice.  These cookies may take a little more TLC than the average cookie, but they are so delicious that the work fades in your memory as you savor them with each bite!

So from me to you preparing for tomorrow's "Halfway to Christmas" day, June 25, I share Louis Armstrong's "Cool Yule" with the applicable lyric: "You'll flip when old Saint Nick / Places a lick on the peppermint stick!"  Tune in to the morning show 7:00 to 10:00 AM CST!

Orange Julius and Summertime: The Perfect Pair!

Today is really the first day I have felt has "summery," at least weather-wise.  It was sunny and bright all day--no clouds and no rain!

During the summer (and sometimes in the winter, too) we make our own "Orange Julius" recipe that is different from the real thing.  We like ours better because we tried to make it healthier!  We make plain orange, orange banana, and orange raspberry varieties!  That last one is new this year and my favorite!  You know how much I love raspberries!

Here's the Chaston method.  First make sure you have large disposable plastic cups like Solo cups on hand so you can freeze the extra amount for future enjoyment!  Don't use glass cups as they have a tendency to break after being in the freezer and dug into with a spoon!

So to celebrate the first real feeling day of summer here in Iowa, here's just about the greatest jazz tune of all time sung by just about the greatest jazz singer of all time with just about the greatest jazz trumpeter of all time, "Summertime" sung by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.

ORANGE JULIUS (THE CHASTON WAY)

1 can (6 oz.) no pulp orange concentrate, partially thawed
1 cup milk
12 to 20 ice cubes, depending on how much your blender can handle

Put orange juice concentrate and milk in blender.  Add half the ice cubes.  Cover.  Blend until smooth.  Add more ice cubes and blend until the mixture is thick!  


VARIATIONS:

Orange Banana
Add one banana.  Blend in.

Orange Raspberry
After pouring into a glass, add frozen raspberries and stir.

Back in the Kitchen: Lovely Buttermilk Waffles

After almost a week of not being in the kitchen, it's so good to be back!

Today I made Buttermilk Waffles, but these are unique--they use buttermilk powder!  Ironically, we ordered food stuffs from Bulk Foods and the order came yesterday, including buttermilk powder.  I was so excited when I read the recipe this morning and saw it used buttermilk powder!

The waffles came out wonderfully!  I've included the recipe.  Don't skip putting the waffles in the oven to crispen before you eat them.  They are a classic, timeless waffle made from scratch!

For some classic jazz, here's Louis Armstrong and May Alix on "Big Butter and Egg Man" from 1926!

BUTTERMILK WAFFLES

Adapted from a recipe from America's Test Kitchen

Dry:

2 cups flour

1/2 buttermilk powder

1 tablespoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Wet:

1/2 cup sour cream

2 large eggs

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/4 cups lemon & lime soda or club soda

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.  Put a cookie rack on a lipped baking sheet in the oven.

Whisk all dry ingredients together in a small bowl.

In a medium bowl, whisk together sour cream, eggs, oil, and vanilla until combined.  Mix in the club soda.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and gently stir the wet ingredients.  Don't over mix; batter should be lumpy and still have streaks of flour.

Heat waffle iron and  make the waffles according to the waffle iron directions.

When waffles are done, put in the oven for up to 10 minutes for a crispy crust.  Serve with syrup and fruit.