Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Yes- I know, I'm on a bit of a roll with the bundt cakes. I borrowed my mom's pampered chef stoneware bundt cake pan. I love it and I'm never giving it back. You can borrow it if you need it-okay mom?

On to the recipe (again from April) for her amazing coffee cake.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Mix Dry Ingredients and set aside:

2 ½ c flour
2 t baking powder
½ t baking soda
¼ t salt

¾ cup (1 and 1/2 sticks) butter, softened
1 ¼ c sugar

4 eggs
1 t vanilla
1 ½ c sour cream

In large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar on medium-low speed until creamy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients in 3 batches alternately with the sour cream and mix on low speed just until the batter is blended and almost smooth.

Option Streusel Topping and Filling:
2 T butter, at room temperature
¾ c chopped pecans or walnuts, toasted
1/3 c brown sugar
1 ½ t cinnamon

If you use the streusel topping, pour half the batter in the pan (spray pan well- I use the spray with flour for baking) then half the streusel topping. Then the other half of the batter and the rest of the topping.

Bake at 350 for about 60 min. sometimes it takes an extra 10 min or so. (Use a really large bundt pan). If you don't have a bundt or a mom who has one you can steal- I think you could use a 9x13 but it would bake much faster so keep your eye on it.

Options- I folded in Hershey's Cinnamon Chips (I'll post about these later). You could also fold in fresh blueberries and a little lemon zest, or Cranberries and a little orange zest. April also does a version with mini chocolate chips and cinnamon sugar layered in the middle (also called a Brooklyn Bundt).

Kahlua Cake

1 chocolate cake mix
7 oz chocolate pudding (instant)
3 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup kahlua
16 oz sour cream

Blend all ingredients until smooth, batter will be fairly thick

2 cups chocolate chips

Add chocolate chips and mix into batter

Pour into bundt pan and back in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour

Sissy - Here is my recipe, just a couple things are different. Sherri also makes this and puts a glaze over it after you take it out of the bundt. I think it's just water, sugar and kahlua that you simmer and then brush on. It makes a moist cake even more moist! Enjoy!!

Chocolate Kahlua Bundt Cake

This wasn't as good as April's version (see her recipe above).

1 chocolate cake mix
1 pkg. 3 - 3/4 ounce instant chocolate pudding
1 pint sour cream
4 eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup Kahlua
6 ounces chocolate chips

Combine all ingredients except chocolate chops in mixing bowl until well blended. Fold in chips by hand. Pour into well-greased and floured bundt pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 1 hour. Let cool 20 minutes in pan then invert on cake plate. Serve warm.

Thanksgiving!! We Survived!!

This year for Thanksgiving we had Cliff's entire family (all 22 of us) up to Hume to celebrate, this is a tradition Cliff started about 10+ years ago. But, this is our first time having everyone up since we've been married. The last time they were all up was 5 years ago when we were just dating, we tried to have everyone here 3 years ago, but it didn't work out with the families schedules. So this year we decided to bring back the tradition. Now of course this year is the first year that I've been a part of the family, so there are some different expectations with a single guy hosting and the fairly new sister-in-law & daughter-in-law trying to figure out the family traditions. I think overall we did a pretty good job!

Here is a picture of the whole family out by the lake. Everything was good and most importantly I think the family was impressed, my husband said that I "rocked Thanksgiving Dinner" but what else is he going to say right? I had some great cooking advice from my wise brother-in-law who is king of great Turkey and Stuffing, the two main things you want to be great right? I brined the Turkey and we roasted one and BBQ'd the other. They both came out very good and very moist! And Cliff did a great job carving it (after he told his brother that he could take his judgemental looks into the other room while he carved)!!! Way to go babe!

So here was the menu for the day:

Thanksgiving Breakfast

Egg & Sausage Casserole

Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake

Cranberry Coffee Cake

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

Fresh Fruit

Thanksgiving Dinner

Turkey

Sausage & Apple Stuffing

Mashed Potatoes w/Gravy

Sweet Potato Casserole

Green Bean Casserole

Salad w/apples, cranberries & feta

Variety of Rolls

Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

Apple Pie

Pecan Pie

The kids table: I made them a Turkey Centerpiece with feathers made out of construction paper so they could write what they were thankful for, I read a few after dinner. One child had written "Barack is my Hero", good to know they are thankful for so many things! I'm not sure that went over very big, but that's okay I'll keep trying.

This is the Adult Table, our camera had been outside so the pictures I took came out blurry, this was the only one of all the cameras. But at least you can see the table.

We have had a good weekend, full of activities and of course plenty of food. I am a little tired and ready to jump into Christmas decorating, shopping and planning. But, I still need another day or two to recover. I had everything listed out to do for the last week or so and tried to make it where I only had a couple of things to do each day, until Wednesday and Thursday of course. For the most part my plan worked well. I said we were going to eat at 4:00pm and I think we sat down about 4:45pm. Not too bad, what can I say it's in my gene's!! I'm not sure we've every had a family meal on time for any Briner family gatherings!

Mac-n-Cheese

I was in the mood for some macaroni and cheese yesterday and I had just bought a cauliflower the other day (not sure why I bought one in the middle of summer) so I wanted something to use with the cauliflower. I have also been trying to find ways to get vegetables into Peter's food, since he's been on more table food I've realized that his vegetable intake has gone down in the last month.

So I made a fairly typical cheese sauce and at the same time steamed the head of cauliflower and then pureed it in the food processor. I added it to the sauce and mixed in the macaroni and you really could not even taste the cauliflower. It was really good! Peter enjoyed it, Cliff enjoyed it and so did I. Here is a link to Jessica Seinfeld's recipe, I didn't really follow this one except for the cauliflower.

Happy 30th Sissy!

Ina's Coconut Cake!

The layers are baked, the frosting is made and a dozen cupcakes are ready to go to make sure we have enough! I can't wait- hope you love it!

Edamame!

They like it! They really liked it! I've been meaning to try Edamame for awhile now- finally last night I needed a quick veggie to go with our dinner and this took 2 minutes to boil so it was fast and easy. I sprinkled on some kosher salt and really thought I would be the only one eating it. In fact, I didn't even put it on the boys' plates...but soon they were reaching for it and the four of us ate a bowlful! I'm so happy to find a veggie that the boys really love (besides carrots, corn and cucumbers)! Here's what you'll find in a half-cup serving of shelled edamame (or 1 1/8 cup edamame in the pods):
120 calories
9 grams fiber
2.5 grams fat
1.5 grams polyunsaturated fat (0.3 grams plant omega-3 fatty acids)
0.5 gram monounsaturated fat
11 grams protein
13 grams carbohydrate
15 mg sodium
10% of the Daily Value for vitamin C
10% Daily Value for iron
8% Daily Value for vitamin A
4% Daily Value for calcium

As you can see, that little serving of edamame gives you a bunch of fiber: 9 grams, about the same amount you'll find in 4 slices of whole-wheat bread or 4 cups of steamed zucchini. It has almost as much protein as it does carbohydrate. It contains around 10% of the Daily Value for two key antioxidants; vitamins C and A. And for a plant food, it's quite high in iron; it has about as much as a 4-ounce roasted chicken breast. (Info from MedicineNet.com )