Bonus Post: Aproned Weasels are Awesome

I'm not sure how many of you are aware of The Bloggess

But you should be.

She's one of the few reasons I am proud to say I'm from Houston.

Recently, a taxidermied weasel by the name of Juanita had the good fortune to be discovered and outfitted by The Bloggess. Hilarity ensued.

Here, I humbly add my captions to those already flooding the internet.

Butternut Squash Bread

Such a nice crumb, don't you think?

This past fall, I put up quite a bit of butternut squash. I cubed it and froze it, but I also roasted it and then pureed it. I froze a couple cups of the puree and had been wondering what to do with it. Soup just seems so... ordinary. 

So I made bread. This recipe is great because it's sweet, but also got a tang to it. From the orange juice. Much like my mother's pumpkin pie made with orange juice. Mmmmm. An unexpected citrusy punch. 

Start off with the pretty stuff - sugars, zest, and puree.

Mix that up, then add the oil, vanilla, juice and eggs.

Such a pretty fall color. A nice bit of October in February!

Then the drys go in, and we're ready to load the pan. Pay no attention to the melted marshmallow goo. It was an experiment. It failed miserably. Do NOT add marshmallow goo to this bread. If you're patient, you will see why. It was an epic fail. 

Here's the pretty plain bread. With all the nibbly fingers around, it didn't last long!

Butternut Squash Bread

Makes 1 loaf

Adapted from My Baking Addiction

1 c. butternut squash puree
2 eggs
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1/4 c. orange juice (the juice from one orange)

1 tsp vanilla

Zest of 1 orange
1/2 c. white sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cardamom

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine puree, sugars, and zest in a large bowl. Add oil, juice, vanilla and eggs, stir well until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cardamom and nutmeg. Dump dry ingredients in to the wet and whisk until just incorporated. Do not over mix. 

Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. 

Feel free to add nuts, chocolate chips, or coconut to this bread - do not add marshmallows. Bad things happen. 

But if you peel off the burnt stuff, the bread underneath tastes just like the plain kind.

Experiment = Fail

White Chili

It's almost spring, you guys! We're so close.

So let's savor that last little bit of winter with a big bowl of chili. And corn bread. Because you can't have one without the other. 

Also, I prefer white chili. Strange, I know, but tomatoes were banned from my household when I was little (Daddy got heartburn, and Pepsid AC hadn't been invented yet). So to me, comfort chili is white. With bacon. 

Lots of bacon. With onion.

And then some celery and carrots.

I know it sounds more stew-like at this point, but wait for it. It will head in the chili direction soon.

With beans! Great Northerns to be exact. I actually bought a bag and rehydrated them. These are loved beans. Not dumped-from-a-can beans. 

Then I added browned up ground beef and chicken stock. Along with a large amount of smoked paprika and cayenne pepper. 

Serve with cornbread to an adoring husband who had a rough day at work. Serious brownie points.

White Chili

Serves - a large potful

1 yellow onion, chopped

4-5 strips of bacon, chopped

4-5 carrots, chopped

3-4 celery ribs, chopped

1/2 bag of rehydrated dried Great Northern beans or 2 cans 

1 package of ground beef  (around 4 pounds, but you can go up or down if you want)

3-4 tbsp chopped roasted red peppers

5 cups chicken stock (or less, if you like a thicker chili)

1 tbsp smoked paprika

1/2 tbsp cayenne (or more or less, this is where the heat is)

Salt and Pepper, to taste

Sour cream and chives to top (optional)

Sautee onions and bacon in a large pot. When the onions are translucent and bacon is 1/2 cooked, add the celery and carrots. Let cook for 5 minutes and add rehydrated dried beans and chicken stock. 

Let simmer 4-5 hours, until the beans are tender. If using canned beans, cut back on the stock and proceed immediately to next step. Brown up the ground beef in a skillet and add to the pot. 

Add the red pepper and spices. Stir well. Taste, and re-spice as necessary. 

Serve and top with sour cream and chives. And corn bread. That recipe will come later.

Toasted Coconut Scones and Lemon Curd

It's citrus season here in the valley. Almost every house seems to have some sort of tree, overloaded with delicious ripening fruit. 

I, being an apartment dweller, realized I had few options: 1) steal fruit under the cover of night, 2) knock boldly on a stranger's door and ask for permission, or 3) find a friend that had a tree or two and didn't mind sharing. 

So I turned to my friends, and asked the obvious question: "Do you like lemon curd?" Boy, was I glad I did.

I brought scones, she had the curd. It was a match made in heaven!

There was toasted coconut, coconut cream, and butter involved. Of course, things turned out well. 

She made the lemon curd. And added a bit of orange, just in case.

We ate our scones with cucumber sandwiches and tea.

They went rather quickly. It seemed like there was only one unhappy party in all of this...

We didn't drop enough crumbs!

Toasted Coconut Scones

Adapted from How to Cook Everything

2 c. flour

4 tbsp cornstarch

4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp sugar

1 1/2 c. sweetened flaked coconut, toasted and cooled

3/4 c. coconut cream

2 eggs

5 tbsp butter, cold and cubed

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a large bowl, mix together flour, cornstarch, baking soda, salt, sugar and 1 c. toasted coconut. Work the butter in with your fingers, so that the mixture resembles pebbles or clumpy sand. In a medium bowl, whisk together the coconut cream and eggs. Add the wet mixture to the dry. Mix them together in 10 strokes or so. Be careful not to over mix! Knead the dough a few times to form a large sticky ball.

Line a baking sheet with a silpat mat or parchment paper. Pour the reserved 1/2 c. coconut in a large circle on the sheet. Dump out the dough on the circle of coconut. Pat out the dough, creating a 1 1/2 inch tall circle. Using a butter knife, score the circle into 12 sections. Bake for 9-12 minutes, or until golden brown.

Lemon Curd

Adapted from Crepes of Wrath

1 whole egg

3 egg yolks

1 c. sugar

2/3 c. lemon juice

scant 1/4 c. orange juice

Zest of 2 lemons

Zest of 1 orange

4 tbsp unsalted butter, softened and cubed

Leave eggs on the counter until they reach room temperature. In a medium saucepan, whisk egg and yolks. Add in sugar, lemon juice, orange juice, and zests. Whisk to incorporate. Set the stove to medium heat and cook the egg mixture for 8-10 minutes or until thickened, whisking constantly.

Pull the pot off the stove, and whisk in the butter. If you want a pure, smooth curd, you can strain the mixture through a mesh sieve. If you don't mind the zest and prefer a more rustic curd, don't strain it. 

Pour the curd in a bowl or jar and cool. You can chill it in the refrigerator for an hour or eat it warm. Totally up to you. It will keep, in a sealed container in the frig, for a week.

If it lasts that long.

Crafty Friday - Thread Holder

It seems like I've seen a lot of creative ways to store thread on Pinterest lately. Canvases, dowels, chopsticks, all sorts! My mom uses a tackle box. Not the most attractive, but definitely functional. 

I opted for a more open-concept storage model. And one that I can re-purpose should I ever get too many spools.

The basics:

Plywood scrap, which I picked up for cheap at a hardware store. Screws and wire, should I need to hang it.

Covered with corks, which Mr. S and I collected for a year or two.... or a few months. Whatever you want to believe.

I used an epoxy to stick them on. That's what my dad said would hold best! (Yes, I call my daddy with "construction" questions. And it usually results with over-engineering. But it will live forever!)

Once it dried, I stuck nails in at an angle - using the ones with small heads so all the spools will slide over them easily.

And then I grouped thread colors together. Because they need to be. 

The board lives in my craft room, next to my yarn. 

And yes, the yarn is living in the styrofoam container that wine comes in when shipped. I painted it. And upholstered it. 

We're not alcoholics. I swear. 

Bacon Candy Chipotle Deviled Eggs

Like any good Southern Lady, I love deviled eggs. I'm pretty sure that I could eat a whole plate, if left alone in a room with no one watching. Cause I'm a lady, and if anyone was watching, I couldn't possibly eat a whole plate. Oh no, not little old me!

I didn't own a deviled egg plate until a few days ago. Sacrilege, I know. If my mother's friend Miss Carol had known that I left the state without one, I bet I'd have been in trouble. Or would have received one in the mail shortly. Thankfully, the HomeGoods store had one left.

Now, about the bacon. It's candied. I'm not kidding. 

Thick cut, brown sugary goodness. With a bit of spice of course. Oven roasted to crispy perfection.

Then there are the eggs.

Boiled, cooled, halved, and scooped.

Add what's needed, and dump into a zip-top bag. Squeeze and mix away, getting out all the lumps. Rest it overnight.

Set up your station - whites on the plate, piping bag of yolk mixture, chopped bacon, chives

Using a piggy chopping board makes it taste better.

Pipe! Top! Add paprika!

And say nothing of the shameful, shameful thing you did with the leftovers.

No, that is not delicious deviled goodness piped onto a leftover piece of bacon. It's a - a mirage. Yeah. A mirage.

Bacon Candy Chipotle Deviled Eggs

Adapted from Pinch My Salt

Serves 6-8

For eggs:

12 eggs, hard boiled

1/2 cup mayonnaise

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon chipotle chile powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
salt, to taste (optional)

For bacon:
6 slices thick-cut bacon

1/2 c brown sugar

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp chipotle chili powder

smoked paprika and chives for garnish

The day before - hard boil eggs. Cool them. Halve them. Put the whites in a container and place in the fridge. Remove the yolks and place in a plastic zip-top freezer bag. Add to the bag: mayo, mustard, vinegar, chipotle chili powder, and garlic powder (and salt, if desired). Squish the bag to mix thoroughly. Try to get all the lumps out. Remove as much air as possible from the bag and store in the refrigerator over night.

The day of - Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place your 6 slices of bacon on a cooling rack. Place the rack on a foil-lined jellyroll pan or sheet tray (a pan with short sides). Mix the brown sugar and spices together. Sprinkle mixture on one side of bacon slices and pat down. Put bacon in the oven for 20 minutes. Flip over each piece. Put back in the oven of another 10-15 minutes. Take out of the oven. Flip bacon so that sugared side is up. Let cool. Chop.

Remove all components from the refrigerator. Place whites on a pretty plate, hole side up. Snip the tip of the freezer bag and pipe the yolks into the holes in the whites. Top with candied bacon pieces (I did 5 pieces per white). Sprinkle with chopped chives and paprika as you like. Serve! You can also cover the finished eggs with plastic wrap and let rest in the refrigerator for several hours.

Holy Guacamole!

Yesterday, two teams met in a ferocious battle. Yes, technically the Super Bowl was on, but the two teams I'm referring to are Team Spicy and Team Please-don't-burn-my-mouth-off. 

Mr. S is captain of Team Spicy. He adds chilies to everything, including chocolate cake. I am not on his team. 

This is man's guacamole. It will be spicy, manly, and delicious.

However, I was allowed to scoop out the avocados!

I wasn't allowed to cut the avocados - even after this (below) was needed. Not by me. By a very stubborn man, who wanted to make the guacamole by himself. With a large knife.

Then came the jalapenos. Two of them. Seeds and all!

You notice how far back I am. The peppers were vicious! They were trying to attack me already!

Mr. S has a secret when it comes to tomatoes - don't put the seeds & their goo in. Scoop them out with your finger and get rid of them!

Ewww, tomato innards. Gross.

The good stuff gets chopped and put in, along with red onion and cilantro. Yum!

Then there is mixing, and some spices.

These spices to be exact -

The last thing is lime juice. To taste. It's all very scientific, you know.

Then - the real secret - you cover it in plastic wrap and refrigerate over night. To let the flavors mingle. 

They must do an awful lot of mingling - cause dang, this stuff is good! (and not too spicy, might I add!)

Arturo's Guacamole

Serves - a party

8 ripe avocados

1/2 large red onion, chopped

2 roma tomatoes, de-seeded and chopped

1/4 - 1/2 c. cilantro (to your taste) chopped

1-2 jalapenos (to your taste) chopped

1/4 c lime juice or 4 mini limes, juiced (to your taste)

Cumin, Salt, Pepper (to your taste)

Guacamole is a very personal thing. Just make it a bunch of times till you get it the way you like it.

Mix together. Cover in plastic wrap, and by that I mean smoosh the plastic so it's touching the guac - avocados and air are not friends. Refrigerate over night. Serve with chips.