Moist Delicious Homemade Blueberry Muffin Recipe

Awhile back, I posted a request for a really great super-moist blueberry muffin recipe to my friends, and I found one, so I thought I’d share with y’all!

Ann’s Awesome Blueberry Muffins
4 eggs
2 cups white sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
2 cups sour cream
2 cups blueberries

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 24 muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
2) In a large bowl, beat eggs. Gradually add sugar while beating. Continue beating while slowly pouring in oil. Stir in vanilla. In separate bowl, stir together flour, salt and baking soda.
3) Stir dry ingredients into egg mixture alternately with sour cream. Gently fold in blueberries. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups.
4) Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes.

Makes 24-30 muffins.

The only thing I did different was to take a couple Tablespoons of the flour and roll the fresh blueberries in it so that they didn’t spread out and make purple batter, and saved a few blueberries out to place 1-3 on top of each muffin right before they went into the oven. Other than that, followed the recipe exactly and here’s what I came up with:

And this is what I got for trying to garden and forgetting about my last batch of muffins, lol:

Even the overdone ones were still good, though!

How to Make Awesome Homemade French Fries…

just like your favorite fast food chain’s! Recently, there has been some discussion about the best way to make homemade french fries that are crispy and yummy just like they make at the restaurants, so I thought I’d share my method. First, the recipe:
Crispy Homemade French Fries
1/3 cup white sugar
2 cups cold water
2 large russet potatoes - peeled, and sliced into 1/4 inch strips
6 cups vegetable oil for frying
salt to taste (I usually use seasoning salt for a better flavor, but regular salt works, too!)

DIRECTIONS
In a medium bowl, dissolve the sugar in cold water. Soak potatoes in water mixture for 30 minutes. Remove from water, and dry thoroughly on paper towels.
Heat oil in deep-fryer to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Add potatoes, and cook for 2-3 minutes, yes, the potatoes will NOT be golden brown at this point, don’t worry. Drain on paper towels for at least 5 minutes. Once the fries are thoroughly drained, put them back in the deep fryer for another 3-4 minutes or until golden crispy and light brown. Dump them onto a paper-towel-lined container/counter and QUICKLY salt them to taste. The key is to salt them while the oil is still glistening on the fries, so that the salt adheres to the fries. Allow to drain one minute and then serve.
Tip:If you would like to make fries that can go from the freezer to the fryer just like storebought, simply fry them the first time, allow to drain and cool, place seperately (not touching) on a cookie sheet in the freezer overnight, then once solidly frozen, you can pour them into a gallon size freezer bag and put back in the freezer until you desire to serve them, days, weeks, or even months later. When you pull the fries back out of the freezer, do not thaw, simply fry them for 5-6 minutes in 375 degree oil, then salt and drain as you usually would!
Now the photo of my fries:

It’s Here…my beautiful Kitchen Aid is Here!

Have I mentioned how much I adore my family lately? Well, I do, and here’s just one more reason…

Since I was about 9 years old, I’ve wanted a Kitchen Aid Mixer. Since being married, I’ve wanted a professional style one because I do so much baking and cooking for my family. After one veeeeeery long wait, my husband and stepdaughter fulfilled my dream for Mother’s Day this year. I got a brand new 6 Qt. Professional Kitchen Aid Mixer in Cinnamon Red (the color I picked out myself)! So here are a couple shots of the new love of my life, lol. I’m still deciding on a name for her…any suggestions? Oh, and a bonus is that this KitchenAid came with a free Ice Cream Maker attachment, so you can bet I’ll be making some yummy ice cream this summer, too!

 

I’m sooooooo behind on blogging!

I apologize that I’ve gotten so far behind on my blogging. I have 2 weeks worth of pictures to upload and make into posts on my blog, so if my brain seems a little scattered over the next few posts, that’s why!

I did want to pop in and show y’all what has been keeping me from blogging lately…pure exhaustion! What started out as “Honey, let’s grow a garden this year!” has turned into, “Honey, let’s make a small farm out of our yard!” lol. We currently have 3 garden plots, a few containers here and there, and hubby is tilling up 2 more large patches of land to finish our planting in today.  Despite my exhaustion, I grabbed a couple pics of the garden yesterday, so here they are!

Strawberry plants that haven’t been moved to their permanent home just yet, but are growing beautifully!

My strawberry plants that have been transplanted already to their forever home:

And a close-up of one of the transplanted strawberry plants:

The largest plot we’ve made so far-but the two hubby is doing today will be much bigger than this one, we only have limited space up front. Notice my oh-so-cute garden frog which is holding some bachelor buttons that should be coming up in a few days! This garden has from right to left, 2 rows of sweet corn, 1 row of potatoes, and 1 row of green beans.

And my soooooo not straight row of lettuce…can you tell I was getting tired by this point? LOL

Finally, our pond. We’re trying to get it clean again so we can add some fish or a frog or two, but it still needs some work. Later, once it’s clean, I’ll show you a pic of the pond with the little water-spitting frog that sits above it and spits water down into it, but right now Mr. Froggy is out in the garage waiting for clean water to spit!

 

Carnival Family Photos

This last weekend there was a local carnival in town and we decided to stop in for a bit and enjoy the crazy atmosphere. I love when my hubby spontaneously decides to do something fun like this!
In the midst of the chaos, I managed to grab a couple of good photos, so here ya go:
Aren’t they cute?

K offering me some of her marshmallow treat:

I managed to get this shot while we were spinning around on the “teacup” ride:

Ever seen deep-fried oreos before?

Hubby sliding down the fun house slide-he and K went in together, and I tried to get pics, but most didn’t turn out:

As promised, How to Make Homemade Pizza!

It really amazes me that I haven’t yet made a blog entry about homemade pizza, as it’s an almost weekly thing around here! It’s a semi-tradition that we do hm pizza once a weekend, but of course, as with all traditions, this goes by the wayside when things happen that keep us from doing this. This weekend I was able to pull it off, though, and I thought I’d share a quick tutorial on the making of a homemade pizza.

First, I make the dough-which I don’t have pics of, but here’s the recipe I use:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Jays-Signature-Pizza-Crust/Detail.aspx
I always oil the pan, then brush the dough with oil before baking.
I pre-bake the crust for 5-7 minutes, pricking it with a fork before putting it in the oven. This guarantees that the dough isn’t soggy under the heavy load of toppings that I tend to put on my pizzas.

Next, comes the sauce, pour some sauce in the center of the dough and spread out in a circular motion using the back of a large spoon:

You can’t forget the cheese! I use about 8 oz. of mozzarella/monterrey jack cheese mixed together, and yes, I grate my own unless I’m in a serious time crunch, because it tastes so much better!

I pre-cook my italian sausage and drain it before putting the sausage on the pizza so it doesn’t make the pizza greasy.

Next is the ham, K prefers the chunks of ham to the thinly sliced kind, so that’s what I use. You don’t have to, but I usually toss the ham in a skillet for a couple of minutes so it’s no longer cold when it goes on the pizza.

You had to know I wasn’t done with the cheese, right? I like to put a second layer of cheese on top of the toppings so that it holds it all together better when cut.

Bake for 20 minutes or so and you’ll have nice hot pizza, ready to slice.

Finally, let the pizza cool for about 5 minutes so the cheese has time to solidify a bit before slicing it up to enjoy, you’ll be glad you did!

Banana Upside-Down Cake

Well, as you know, I’m an adventurous girl and I like to try new things when possible. I found this recipe a couple of months ago, but waited till the family was back to make it-it was an instant hit! A little unorthodox, perhaps, but delicious none-the-less! The recipe can be found here:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Banana-Upside-Down-Cake/Detail.aspx?prop31=4

A quick mini-tutorial:

The brown sugar, butter, and pecans in the bottom of pan:

The bananas go on top of that:

Then we mix the cake mix up as directed:

And pour into pans on top of bananas like this:

Put it in the oven and bake for 40 minutes as directed by the recipe, turn upside down onto a plate, and this is what you end up with:

Well, in reality, you end up with 2 of those out of one cake mix, so we ate one as a family and took the other cake over to some missionary friends of ours that are staying in the missionary’s quarters of our church off and on this summer. They almost immediately called us back with a big thank you for the cake, so I’m really glad we were able to bless them like that!

 

Awesome Hamburger Buns!

Just ’cause I like makin’ y’all drool, I had to post a picture of the best homemade hamburger buns I’ve ever made (or tasted!)…thanks so much to my friend, V, who gave up the recipe! So tonight we had Grilled Cheesy Bacon Butter Burgers on homemade buns with lettuce, pickles, mustard, and mayo, bbq chips, and fresh sweet corn on the cob for dinner. I have pics of the buns and my burger, but I got too hungry to show you the rest, lol, so here they are:
Buns, fresh out of the oven:

The building of a masterpiece:

And the finished burger:

 

Ahhh…a Bake Sale!

Some of you may be wondering why I’m up at midnight posting, and I actually have an answer to that for once! You see, tomorrow is the youth’s bake sale at our church. They do several fundraisers in the spring to raise money for camp, and we fully support their efforts wherever possible. I especially love the bake sale, b/c as y’all know, I love to bake!

This year I chose to make some white bread, apple turnovers, raspberry turnovers, lemon bars, and my famous Ooey-gooey Orange Rolls. I sure hope they help raise money for the kids! Today was a perfect day to get all this done, since tonight was “Daddy-Daughter Date Night”-a long overdue one, I might add! K sure has missed her daddy while he was training in Fort Jackson, but Bryan has done everything he possibly could to find ways to connect with her over the past couple of months. I love that about my husband…that he finds little ways to make us feel special with no regard to how sappy it may appear to his friends. Over the past few months he’s sent flowers, teddy bears, cards, notes, and dog tags to us just to remind us that he loves and misses us. Girls, if you’re looking for a man like this, I’m here to tell you hold out for a good one-they do exist…and if you’ve already got a good one, by all means don’t mess it up, hehe!

Anyway, I think I’m finally wound down enough to go to sleep but before I go, here are a few pictures of my bake sale creations, enjoy!

Lemon Bars-not cut yet

Apple Turnovers-I made 2 batches of these and 2 batches of Raspberry

Orange Rolls-I made 2 containers of these

White Bread-I made 2 loaves of this also

Super Easy Peach Cobbler Recipe

As usual a request for a recipe has been made, and as usual, I don’t have one. I made it up as I went along, but I’ll try my best to help explain how I did it.

2 quarts of peaches (I used the kind in a jar with light syrup, b/c I hate canned peaches)
2 pillsbury (or off-brand) pie crusts-the ready to roll-out kind, not the frozen kind
3/4 c. sugar (guessing)
1 1/2 tbl. cinnamon (guessing)
Juice from one medium sized lemon
Cornstarch and water mixture (I’m guessing I put in 1/4 c. of cornstarch mixed with just enough water to make it the consistancy of cream)

Drain peaches in a colander with a bowl resting below it to catch the peach juices. Allow peaches to “dry out” a little on paper towels, and pour the juices into a heavy saucepan on medium heat. Add sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon and bring to a simmer. Once simmering, mix the cornstarch and water (like you would for a gravy-see package directions) and pour mixture slowly into the pot over medium heat, stirring quickly with a whisk to incorporate. Bring mixture back to a simmer and it should’ve thickened nicely. Allow to cool while preparing the crusts. In a 9-12″ cast-iron skillet spray with cooking spray or butter it lightly, and add one pie crust, making sure to leave hangover on one side. Place other pie crust on opposite side of pan (leaving overhang as well) and smoosh together the bottoms of the crusts to make one large oblong shaped crust. Place semi-dried peaches in bottom of pie crusts, pour peach juice mixture over peaches, top with 4-6 pats of butter, fold overhanging pie crust to the top of the peach mixture to cover as well as possible, and sprinkle crust with sugar. Bake at 425 for 20-30 minutes or until crust is golden brown and peach juice is bubbling.

Serve warm with ice cream or real whipped cream.