Homemade Fig Preserves

Figs are truly a rare treat whether you enjoy them fresh or preserved. There are so many varieties of figs and I am not sure what kind of figs my in laws have but I was lucky enough to receive tons and tons of figs this year from their tree. They are greenish on the outside with pink flesh inside. We had fun picking them before the birds get to them. I made several jars of preserves to keep and to give away.

Fig Preserves Recipe

Makes 3-4, 8 oz jars

Prep time 35-40 minutes

Cook time about 1 1/2 hour

• 8 Cups whole fresh figs
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2 Cups granulated sugar
• 1tsp minced ginger or powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 
• Zest and juice from 1 Lemon
• Hot tap water

Directions:

• Dissolve the baking soda in hot tap water, and gently stir to wash the figs in it.
• Then rinse the figs thoroughly with fresh cool water. 
• Slice figs in half. (leave whole for whole fig preserves)
• In a large stock or canning pot, combine figs, sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest, ginger and 1 cup hot tap water bring to a boil stirring frequently. ( I used a Dutch oven)
• Note: if using whole fruit gently stir in order no to break fruit.
•  Reduce heat and continue cooking until mixture is thick and gooey. (about an hour)
• I also cut the figs more while they are still in the pot with shears towards the end to get smaller pieces.
• Add cinnamon and vanilla in the last 20 min of cooking.
• Watch closely in the last few minutes to keep bottom from burning
•  Fill sterilized jars with hot preserves leaving 1/4 inch head space and cover with clean tops and rims cook in a hot water bath for 15 minutes. Follow manufacturer's canning instructions for more details in canning. 
• Open jars can be kept up to a month in the refrigerator.
  
  

The fun part now that I have all the preserves in the jars is to decorate and give them as gifts. These make great gifts and many people love fig jam. I used brown paper, some pretty scrap booking paper and bakers twine to decorate the jars. My daughter helped me with the decorating part and we had a great time.

I enjoy my preserves on a piece of toasted crusty rustic bread with some mascarpone or cream cheese. It should be yummy on a bagel or on an english muffin as well. How about on pizza with some goat cheese? I will have to try that soon.

Southern Peach Cobbler

Its summer time and peach season. My wonderful neighbor and friend went to a local orchard and brought back some super sweet peaches for me. I turned to the world of Internet and stumbled upon this yummy peach cobbler recipe from Allrecipes. I like this recipe better than the Paula Dean's I used before. The peaches I had were small peaches so I used 10 instead of eight. Next time I do want to add a few more peaches to get more fruit filling since it cooked down as it baked. I do think that the peaches you use make a big difference. I have now been spoiled with the delicious TX peaches from Ham Orchard in Terrell, TX and don't want to ever eat store bought or can peaches again! Also vanilla ice cream is a must to go with your warm peach cobbler. I will save the homemade vanilla ice cream recipe for another post. Here is the recipe: Ingredients: 8 big fresh peaches - peeled, pitted and sliced into thin wedges 1/4 cup white sugar 1/4 cup brown sugar 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice 2 teaspoons cornstarch Topping 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and

cut into small pieces

1/4 cup boiling water

Mix together: 3 tablespoons white sugar 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1.	Directions: Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
2.	In a large bowl, combine peaches, 1/4 cup white sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon juice, and cornstarch. Toss to coat evenly, and pour into a 2 quart baking dish. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes.
3.	Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine flour, 1/4 cup white sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar, baking powder, and salt. Blend in butter with your fingertips, or a pastry blender, until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in water until just combined.
4.	Remove peaches from oven, and drop spoonfuls of topping over them. Sprinkle entire cobbler with the sugar and cinnamon mixture. Bake until topping is golden, about 30 minutes.

Thai Coconut Sticky Rice and Mango ข้าวเหนียวมะม่วง

For most Asian families, it is common to have fruits at the end of a meal as desert. I grew up eating fruits as desert often and this is one my favorite Asian sweet treats with fruit! Being Asian and a rice lover, I can't get enough of this simple Thai desert consists of yummy sticky rice soaked with sweet aromatic coconut milk, and topped with a very tropical fruit, mango. What a Genius idea to put all the very common ingredients of the tropical South East Asia together in a sweet way.

The recipe I use is below and it is easy to follow. It is also from one of my favorite Thai food blogs so check it out!

Recipe:

Author: Leela  from shesimmers.com

Prep time:  15 mins

Cook time:  1 hour

Total time:  1 hour 15 mins

Serves: 2

Ingredients

• ½ cup raw Thai sticky rice (no substitute), soaked for 10 minutes, drained, and rinsed to get rid of excess starch ( I soak my rice for at least 2 hours)
• ½ cup good coconut milk
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt
• One perfectly ripe good mango (preferably Ataulfo), peeled and cut into thick slices

Directions

1. Put the rice in a heatproof bowl and steam in a steamer, over medium heat, for about 20 minutes (based on one half cup of rice). The rice should be cooked through with no hard, raw bits in the middle of the grains. You can also cook the sticky rice without a steamer, using the splatter guard method.
2. Turn off the heat and let the rice stay in the steamer, with the lid on, while you prepare the coconut milk.
3. In a heatproof bowl, heat the coconut milk, sugar, and salt in the microwave on high for 2 minutes. The sugar should completely dissolve and the mixture should be very hot.
4. Take the sticky rice out of the steamer. Pour the hot coconut mixture on top of the rice and gently stir. (It may look like your rice is drowned in coconut water, but the liquid will all be absorbed.) Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let the mixture stand at room temperature, undisturbed, for half an hour.
5. The coconut sticky rice is to be served at room temperature along with fresh mango. The sesame seeds are optional.
6. The rice can be refrigerated and reheated in the microwave, but the texture of reheated sticky rice isn’t as good as it is when freshly made. Freezing sticky rice is not recommended.

It is really best served warm after making it rather than re heated.

Valentine Cupcakes ( Lemon cupcakes)

Cupcakes:

1 box Duncan Hine's lemon supreme cake mix
1 (3.4 oz) box lemon pudding
4 large eggs
1 1/3 C water
1/3 C vegetable oil

Mix all the ingredients together till well combined ( I used a hand mixer). Divide the cake batter among cupcake liners ( I made 18 large ones by filling 3/4 of the liners). Bake at 350• C for 18 minutes.
Remove from oven and cool.

Lemon Buttercream  Frosting

Adapted from C.Taylor at food.com under the title Lemon Buttercream Frosting (From the Famous Sprinkles Cupcakes)

1 lemon zest and juice
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
3 C powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt

Combine butter, salt and sugar well. Then add lemon juice, zest and vanilla. Beat till fluffy for about 3 minutes.

Bacardi Rum Cake

Rum cake is one my family's favorite cakes and I always use this recipe from about.com. This recipe is very easy to follow and uses 1 cup of RUM!! We don't just drink rum... we put it in our cake too! Delicious and it's always a crowd pleaser at potlucks. This cake is made from a cake mix and most people can't believe it's not from scratch. Be sure to use gold rum and not the silver rum. You can really taste the rum but it's not too strong either to get you tipsy! 
Here is the recipe:

Golden Rum Cake

Prep Time: 25 minutes

Cook Time: 45-60 min

Total Time: 1 hour, 25 min

Ingredients:

Cake

• 1 cup chopped, toasted pecans or walnuts

• 1 18-1/2 ounce yellow cake mix

• 1 (3.4 oz) package instant vanilla pudding mix

• 4 eggs

• 1/2 cup cold milk

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

• 1/2 cup Bacardi dark rum

Preparation:

Cake: Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Sprinkle nuts on bottom of pan. Combine all cake ingredients. Beat for 2 minutes on high with electric mixer. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool in pan.

Glaze

• 1/2 cup butter

• 1/4 cup water

• 1 cup sugar

• 1/2 cup Bacardi dark rum (use the gold rum)

Glaze: Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in water and sugar. Boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in rum. Note: The rum will cause steam. Be careful not to burn yourself.

Poke holes all over the cake and drizzle the glaze over top of Bacardi Rum Cake while it is still the Bundt pan.


 The last step above is what I do different than the original recipe because this way I don’t lose the glaze to the bottom of the cake and keeps the cake whole moister. I let the cake soak up all the glaze for about 30 minutes before inverting it on a platter. I also save a couple table spoons of the glaze and drizzle more after inverting it on the serving platter.

ENJOY!!

Easy Butter Pecan cake

Ingredients:
1 box Butter Pecan Cake Mix
1 can condensed milk
1 tub cool whip
 Heath toffee bits to sprinkle on top

Directions:
Make the cake in a 9 x13 pan according to the box instructions.
Let cool for 15 min and then poke holes (I used chop sticks)
Pour the condensed milk over.
Top with cool whip and sprinkle toffee bits on top (or chopped pecans)

Mini Rum Cakes

Awhile ago, I received a really nice gift of a mini Bundt cake pan which makes six small cakes. I put that into use this weekend and made the cutest mini rum cakes. I used the Bacardi Golden Rum Cake recipe from about.com but omitted the pecans since I didn’t have them that day and shortened the baking time since they were so small. This recipe is from 1 box of cake mix and makes one regular size (12 cup) Bundt cake (see my Bacardi rum cake post )or 10-12 mini bundt cakes as seen in my pictures.

Prep Time: 25 minutes
Cook Time: 30-35 min
Total Time: 1 hour, 25 min

Ingredients:

Cake
• 1 18-1/2 ounce yellow cake mix
• 1 (3.4 oz) package instant vanilla pudding mix
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup cold milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup Bacardi dark rum

Glaze
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup Bacardi dark rum

Preparation:

Cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Combine all cake ingredients. Beat for 2 minutes on high with electric mixer. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool in pan. Poke holes all over the cake and drizzle the glaze over top of Bacardi Rum Cake while it is still the Bundt pan. (This is what I do different than the original recipe because this way I don’t lose the glaze to the bottom of the cake and keeps the whole cake moister. I let the cake soak up all the glaze for about 30 minutes before inverting it on a platter.)

Glaze: Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in water and sugar. Boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in rum. Note: The rum will cause steam. Be careful not to burn yourself.

Mini Lemon Pound Cakes

My hubby said he likes the lemon pound cake from Starbucks so I searched the great world of internet for a recipe and sure enough there was one with the name Starbucks Iced Lemon Pound cake Copycat Recipe from Picky-Palate's website. My icing was not as thick as it should have been. I must have made it too runny. I will try again for thicker icing but it was still yummy! Very lemony and everyone loved the mini loafs. It was from a box cake mix and was very easy to make. I made 6 mini loafs and wrapped them up and gave away as gifts.

Ingredients for the Cake

1 box Yellow Cake mix

1 (4.3 oz) Lemon pudding mix

1/2 C vegetable oil

1/2 C Milk

4 large eggs

8 oz sour cream

6 TBS fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 3 lemons)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and spray 2 loaf pans generously with cooking spray
2. Place all cake ingredients in no particular order into stand or electric mixer, beating until well combined, about 1 1/2 minutes. Divide cake batter between two prepared loaf pans spreading evenly. Bake for 45-55 minutes, until golden brown and cooked through. Remove and let cool for 15 minutes before removing loaves from pans.
   

Icing

4 TBS fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 1/2 C powdered sugar

To make icing, mix powdered sugar and lemon juice well till it reaches a thick consistency that is easy to drizzle. Drizzle generously on cakes.
Takes about 20 min for the icing to dry.

Mint Chocolate Cookies

Mint Chocolate Cookies

My hubby loves Andes mints and I was so excited when I saw Crafty c0rn3r's Mint Chocolate Cookies  on Pinterest. I rarely make cookies and I am not very good at making them but I gave it a try and they were a hit! There is room for me to improve of course…One thing I did wrong was that I mixed in the mint chips too soon instead of folding them in at last. So please be careful. Also, the cookies fell flat and turned out thinner than I would have liked so I will skip flattening the dough balls before baking next time. She used regular Andes mints and had her kids unwrap them and then chopped them. I was lucky and I got a bag of baking Andes mint chips at walmart.  Other than that, I followed crafty c0rn3r’s easy recipe! DELICIOUSLY MINTY!

Ingredients:

2 3/4 cup flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup unsalted butter (at room temperature)

1 1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp mint extract

20 drops green food coloring

1 bag (10 oz) Andes baking mint chips

Directions

Preheat oven 375 degrees.

Sift the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt) together and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in egg and mint extract.

Gradually blend in the dry ingredients. Add green food coloring and mix until even colored.

Lastly, fold in the Andes mint chips.

Use a cookie scoop or roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls using a spoon or your hands, and place onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake for 8-10 minutes. Let stand on cookie sheet for 2 minutes before moving them to wire racks to cool.

Lemon Curd

My in laws have a Myer lemon tree and they gave me some beautiful lemons. I was trying to figure out what to do with them and eventually decided to make lemon curd using Ina Garten's delicious lemon curd recipe I found on food network's site. This recipe uses all the zest and the lemon juice so I felt like I am fully using the pretty lemons. Also, I can enjoy the lemon curd in the fridge for a while.

There are many ways to enjoy this delicious spread and many recipes are available on the internet world.

Here are a few of my favorite ways to enjoy lemon curd..
               Over fluffy ricotta pancakes
               Filling inside raspberry or coconut cupcakes
               Spread on a cheesecake
                Make mini lemon tarts
and many more.....

The recipe is as follows:

Prep Time: 20 min   Cook Time:10 min   Level: Easy
Serves: 3 cups

Ingredients

3 lemons
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 pound unsalted butter, room temperature
4 extra-large eggs
1/2 cup lemon juice (3 to 4 lemons)
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions

Using a carrot peeler, remove the zest of 3 lemons, being careful to avoid the white pith. Put the zest in a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Add the sugar and pulse until the zest is very finely minced into the sugar.
Cream the butter and beat in the sugar and lemon mixture. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and then add the lemon juice and salt. Mix until combined.
Pour the mixture into a 2 quart saucepan and cook over low heat until thickened (about 10 minutes), stirring constantly. The lemon curd will thicken at about 170 degrees F, or just below simmer. Remove from the heat and cool or refrigerate.


I canned mine in mason jars and stored them in the fridge.

Irish Cream Brownies with Toffee Bits

Brownies are so easy to make and so yummy! Also, there are many little twists and varations you can create which makes them so FUN to make. I found an awesome recipe from allrecipe for these Irish Cream Brownies. I have been making these for almost every potluck or gatherings since. Hope you try these yummy little treats and enjoy them. I think they are very tasty!

Here is the recipe:

Yield 24 brownies


Ingredients
* 1 (20 ounce) package brownie mix
* 1/2 cup Irish cream liqueur
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
* 2 eggs

* 2 teaspoons milk
* 2 tablespoons Irish cream liqueur
* 1 teaspoon brewed coffee
* 1/2 cup butter, softened
* 2 cups confectioners' sugar
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1/2 cup toffee baking bits (such as Heath Bits 'O Brickle®) (optional)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.
2. Stir together the brownie mix, the 1/2 cup Irish cream liqueur, vegetable oil, and eggs. Spread in the prepared pan.
3. Bake in the preheated oven until the top is dry and the edges have started to pull away from the sides of the pan, about 30 minutes. Remove from oven to cool completely on a wire rack.
4. Place the milk, 2 tablespoons Irish cream liqueur, and coffee in a small, microwave safe bowl. Microwave on High until the mixture boils. Set aside to cool completely.
5. Beat the butter and confectioners' sugar with an electric mixer in a bowl until smooth. Add the vanilla extract and the cooled Irish cream mixture, and beat well. Spread evenly over the cooled brownies. Sprinkle evenly with the toffee bits.

Nutritional Information

Amount Per Serving Calories: 276 | Total Fat: 14.2g | Cholesterol: 32mg