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Sunday, May 1, 2011

Spring is for the Birds

Chirp Chirp....
                      Chirp Chirp....


                                    Chirp Chirp....


                                       Chirp Chirp....

                                               Chirp Chirp....

The sound drew me toward the slightly open window. At this point I realized why I'd awakened so cold earlier that morning.  Just outside the window is my shade garden, its perennial plants just beginning to emerge from the newly thawed garden soil.

Just days ago I filled my feeder with thistle seed and because

"If you fill it, they will come..."

the finches arrived.

Now, of course they scattered the moment I opened the door to set up to photograph them, but once I sat down, leaned back against a porch column, and covered myself completely with a blanket, they slowly began to come back. I managed to take well over 100 pictures. Don't worry, I won't put them all in this blog.

This was the closest picture I could get of these little beauties
in my crabapple tree.
Just when is this tree planning to bloom?

 One little guy tentatively came back, hanging out on the
wire hanger to make certain the coast was clear.
I sat, invisible under my blanket, snapping away.


A few moments later a female joined him.

They started coming from all over. Look
to the right of this photo and check out the latest arrival.

Five.

Seven....
Look closely - they're there.

A little squabble broke out.
MY SEEDS! I SAW THEM FIRST!

I'll just hang out up here for a while.

Let's try that again.
Oh well.

Take THAT!

Can't we just get along?

Love this action shot.
Nine finches in this shot.

Ten...
No, ELEVEN!
(Look closely, there's another tushie in the middle on the left.)

As I was taking the last photo, I caught
a movement out of the corner of my eye.

A hen turkey wandered across my driveway...

...taking her sweet time...

...strutting her stuff...


 ...munching a bug or two...

...fluffing her feathers...

...and finally making her way toward the road.

At some point while I was snapping turkey photos,
the finches headed back to the crabapple tree.

All but one.

They'll be back.



TTFN!

Monday, April 25, 2011

Bunny Bread

Bunny Bread

After seeing several different "bread bunnies" prior to Easter, I decided to make my own.

I had planned to take pictures at each stage of "bunny creation," but the events of the day didn't permit it.

I ended up in the emergency room with my 13 year-old son after a freak kitchen accident. He had second degree burns to his cheek, and first degree burns on his eyelid and nose.

Here he is sporting his bandage and showing off his new eagle.

So, as a result of the ER visit, my dough sat in the fridge for several hours and it was very late into the evening. Enough excuses for lack of photos.

The recipe I use is one that I've modified over the years to get it just where I want it. The original came from a Betty Crocker cookbook I got as a wedding gift in 1989. (We're still married.)

I throw the dough into the bread machine on the "dough" cycle to simplify the process, but I've made the dough in my Kitchenaid mixer as well.

~Dinner Roll Recipe~
one egg (room temperature)
1/2 cup milk (skim or 2%)
1/2 cup water
3 1/2 cups bread flour
2 tsp vital wheat gluten
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup butter flavor shortening (I use Crisco)
2 1/4 tsp. (1 packet) yeast (I buy this in 1 lb packages at Sam's Club)

I start by cracking the egg into the bread pan.
Next I fill a glass measuring cup with 1/2 cup cold water and microwave it for a minute.
To the very hot water, I add cold milk to make 1 full cup of warm liquid which I add to the egg.
Next I add the flour, salt, vital wheat gluten and sugar. I generally sandwich the salt and gluten in between cups of flour. Sugar goes on top.
Last I add the butter flavor shortening. The original recipe called for either butter, margarine, or shortening. I get the best result from shortening, so I use the butter flavor for a richer tasting bread.
I put the shortening into the four corners of the bread pan and place the yeast in the middle. About 90 minutes later I have dough.
Occasionally I need to add either a little extra warm water or flour. The humidity plays a part here. Be sure and check on the dough after about 15 minutes to determine if you need to add anything. More often than not, I have a nice smooth dough and don't need to do anything more.

I used about half of this batch to create one dough bunny and made rolls from the rest.  With more time I'd have made two rabbits. I usually make 24 dinner rolls from this recipe.

This was a bit of experimentation on my part. I started with a large chunk of the dough and formed it into a ball.
One smaller ball of dough I attached to the body to form the head. I formed two ropes which I folded in half to form the ears and attached these to the head.
Smaller pieces were formed into front feet and tucked under the body. Slightly larger pieces were attached to the sides toward the back as back legs. A smaller ball was attached to the backside as a tail.
I formed much smaller balls which I attached to the face as you can see in the photo.


I wadded up some plastic wrap and used it to support the head and tail during the rise.


After the rise (I really should have given it a little more time, but I was really getting tired), I decided to add some highlights. I mixed an egg yolk, a little water, and some brown Wilton icing color. I painted this onto the rabbit as in the next photo.

At this point, I replaced the plastic wrap with aluminum foil for baking.

I usually bake my rolls for 10 minutes at 400 degrees F.


Mr. Bunny was a bit larger than a traditional dinner roll. I lowered the temperature to 375 and baked the bread for about 15 minutes. Then I removed the bread and brushed the whole thing with an egg wash (1 beaten egg and 1 TBSP water).
I raised the temperature to 400 and baked the rabbit for about 3 more minutes to deepen the color and give it a nice shine.


The rabbit's head was tilted slightly. I didn't realize this when I put him together, but after baking, this really became apparentand gave it more character.

Another view.

Our pet bunny, Scampy. He also goes by Marvin.
My kids' idea. Don't ask. 
Move over, E.T.






































Thursday, March 31, 2011

Spaghetti and Meatballs Cupcakes

Spaghetti and Meatballs Cupcakes

I was asked to donate cupcakes for a spaghetti dinner for my son's high school baseball team.
I tossed around a number of ideas, then turned to the Recipe Exchange, er BUZZ (sorry, old habits die hard) for assistance.  Some really great recipes were suggested, but then, in another post,
Koriekiss suggested making "Spaghetti and Meatballs" cupcakes. I checked out the link she posted, then found several others. That's when I realized the idea was from Hello, Cupcake, one of my favorite idea books. Unfortunately I have either misplaced it or lent it out - I can't seem to locate it. That didn't matter, though, since there was enough information floating around the internet to get me by.
The original recipe calls for boxed cake mix and canned frosting. Don't get me wrong - I have nothing against either. My oldest son, however, is very spoiled and won't eat canned frosting.
I was going homemade.
In the book this idea calls for strawberry jam. I had a brand new jar of seedless raspberry on hand, so I decided to use that instead. Lemon goes well with raspberry, so I ran with that.

I had a difficult time trying to decide what to do about the "meatballs".  Ferraro Rocher candies are big, bumpy, and round. That's what was called for and what I ended up using. My main concern was the nuts, but I printed a sign detailing exactly what each cupcake consisted of and taped it to the delivery box.




Lemon juice and lemon zest...

make the lemon cupcake batter  oh so tasty!

This goes into the pans. I used red cupcake liners.

Here they are with the finished cupcakes inside.
If only you could have smelled my house while these were baking.
So naturally I HAD to sample one while they were still warm.
(The recipe makes 30, I only needed 24.)

A thin layer of frosting went onto each cupcake. The recipe I used is linked below. I tinted it with yellow food coloring and a tiny bit of cocoa powder. I could have used just a tiny bit more yellow, but this worked. The frosting looks white in the photos, but it was really more pasta-colored.
Danged indoor lighting.

Then spaghetti is piped onto the top of each cupcake.
I made sure to let some droop over the sides for effect. 
 I used a Wilton tip #5. It worked well, but I'd probably go with a #4 next time.


Spaghetti...





Spaghetti...





And MORE Spaghetti!
 

Lots and LOTS of Spaghetti!

I chose to leave the cupcakes separate, but the original idea calls for placing them close
together to look like one large platter of spaghetti. (Originally from the "April Fool's" section
of the book. I peeked at this in Michael's.) 

Ferraro Rocher hazelnut "meatballs" in raspberry "sauce".
The sauce is raspberry jam (seedless) warmed slightly in the microwave, whisked smooth,
allowed to cool, and thinned with a bit of light corn syrup. The corn syrup wasn't in the orignal plan, but I felt the jam was just too thick. The corn syrup worked really well here. I added a few drops of red food coloring. Not sure if I needed it, but it didn't hurt.


Grated white chocolate for the cheese on top.

These were VERY well received and disappeared quickly!

You might say they went like Hotcakes!



Links:

Lemon Cupcakes (I used just the cupcakes from this recipe)
Rick's Special Buttercream Frosting ( I made 8 servings. I omitted the
vanilla extract and used lemon extract and lemon juice)
Butterfly Cupcakes and New Beginnings - another Hello, Cupcake blog I did last year