Sooner Caviar or Black-Eyed Pea Dip

Other versions of this recipe are named Cowboy Caviar and Texas Caviar; instead of following a recipe, I used what I had in the pantry to incorporate the traditional New Year's Eve "good-luck" ingredient - black-eyed peas. Perfect for watching the OU Sooners/Stanford Sun Bowl game this afternoon!

Here are the ingredients with rough guesses as to the measurements:

1 can black-eyed peas, drained
1 can black beans, drained
1/2 jar Clint's medium salsa
1 cup cooked corn
1 red bell pepper, diced
6 green onions, diced
1 teaspoon hot sauce
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar

Mix everything together, add garlic powder or salt to taste. Serve with Tostitos Scoops or Fritos.

I served the dip in a Pfaltzgraff Winterberry dip ramekin that I selfishly bought myself for Christmas.

Pumpkin Pecan Fudge

Pumpkin is such a versatile ingredient, adaptable to both savory and sweet dishes, and is not only one of my favorite foods but also plentiful during my favorite season of the year--Fall.

Pumpkin fudge is a creamy, ambrosial concoction made with canned pumpkin. My version uses cinnamon chips and toasted pecans.

Pumpkin Pecan Fudge

2 cups white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup salted butter
2/3 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1 cups white chocolate chips
1 cup cinnamon chips
1 (7 ounce) jar marshmallow creme
1 cup toasted pecans, coarsely chopped
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Spray 13 x 9-inch baking pan with baking spray.

Combine sugars, evaporated milk, pumpkin, and butter in medium, heavy-duty sauce pan. Bring to a full boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil, stirring constantly, until candy thermometer reaches 234 degrees F to 240 F (soft-ball stage).

Stir in chips, marshmallow creme, pecans, and vanilla extract. Stir vigorously, making sure chips are melted, until mixture thickens slightly. Pour into prepared pan. Place on wire rack until cool. Cover and refrigerate. Cut into pieces. Makes about 3 pounds.

Happy 34th Birthday, Little Girl!

At 6:00 a.m. on the morning of October 24, 1975, I was awakened by a clap of thunder and the unmistakable feel of my water breaking.

Since October 23 is our anniversary, my husband and I had celebrated the day before with pan-fried steaks, baked potatoes, salads, and hot fudge sundaes for dessert. Was that a smart thing to do? Probably not.

After realizing I was in labor, I promptly got up, took a shower, got dressed, and straightened up the house (I was manic!), only sitting down when contractions forced me to stop. At 9:00 a.m. we went to the hospital, and three hours later we had a beautiful 6 pound, 14 ounce baby girl who promptly became the apple of our eyes.

Our beautiful little hazel-eyed, button-nosed brunette is still the apple of our eyes, and we are so proud of her. She is strong, kind, incredibly smart, and funny. She is a wonderful daughter, her brother’s favorite little sister, her grandmother’s “Dollbaby”, her nephew and nieces’ loving Aunt Jenni, a delight to her friends, and the best kitty-mommy in the world. She has a big heart, a gentle soul, and is a joy to know and love. She is fashionable, has impeccable taste, is a decorating guru, a gifted artist, and a very creative cook.

My birthday wish for you is that you enjoy life to the fullest and find the joy that you so richly deserve.

EatSmart Kitchen Scales - Update!

After several uses, some things I love about my new FREE EatSmart Kitchen Scales are the tare feature, the accuracy, and the ease of cleaning.

When I make muffins for the coffeeshop, in order for them to be a consistent size, I need to weigh the batter. I can press "tare", and it subtracts out the minute weight of the muffin cup.


Even one cranberry can make a difference as I try to make each muffin 6.55 oz; the scales are very accurate.


I can spill blobs of batter on the scales and not worry, because clean up is easy. I just wipe it off and dry it to a nice shine!

EatSmart Kitchen Scales

Sometimes it really pays to visit other people's blogs. This was the case a few days ago when I commented on a post made by Julia at Dozen Flours. It was the last day of her giveaway, but I wanted to comment anyway on her Upside Down Sweet Cherry Cake, because I am insanely attracted to cherry desserts. She was also giving away the cookbook that contains the recipe, Rustic Fruit Desserts, and kitchen scales from EatSmart Products. So I commented and promptly forgot about it. The next day she notified me that I had won the kitchen scales!

Later I was contacted by EatSmart's Vice President, William Geronimo, who congratulated me and asked me which color I wanted! So not only did I win, but I also got to choose the color--and naturally I chose red to go with my other kitchen appliances.


I bookmarked EatSmart's website, which features high quality digital kitchen and bathroom scales and a digital food and nutrient calculator with a database of the nutrional values of over 1000 foods! EatSmart is very high on customer service, and that always gets my attention.

In my business it is important to bake products that are consistent in size and weight. To accomplish this I weigh cupcakes and muffins prior to baking them. I had been weighing my jumbo muffins on our postal scale, and this involved lugging it out of the drawer, plugging it in, and having it take up space on my counter.


My new red kitchen scales arrived yesterday by priority mail, and batteries were included! YAY! I used them right away, since I was baking muffins. It was so convenient and so precise that adding or subtracting a blueberry made a difference! The scales were easy to clean of the dabs of batter I dropped, and even though I forgot to turn them off, the scales went off after 3 minutes.


These scales are the perfect size to leave on my countertop, are easy to use, featuring measurement modes of grams, kilograms, ounces, and pounds, and will weigh up to 11 pounds. And besides all that, they are pretty!

Thank you Julia and EatSmart!

More Birthday Cupcakes!

When a friend asked me to make cupcakes for her beautiful step-daughter, Laurel, I was inspired by a forum friend, Emily, and by Annie of Annie's Eats to try butterfly cupcakes as part of the order. Annie has an excellent step-by-step, and although my efforts did not match either Emily's or Annie's, I was pleasantly surprised by the results.


The flavors requested were filled strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla. For the chocolate I made Chocolate Bliss cupcakes with Sour Cream Fudge Buttercream and vanilla mascarpone filling.


Some of the chocolate cupcakes were topped with a molded pink candy rose.



The Vanilla Bean Cream cupcakes were made using my favorite Magnolia Bakery recipe, filled with vanilla mascarpone filling, and topped with Vanilla Bean Buttercream.

Strawberry Bliss cupcakes (Candace Nelson's recipe) were filled with Strawberry Cream filling and topped with Fresh Strawberry Buttercream.


A few of the strawberry cupcakes were adorned with butterflies.



Happy Birthday, Laurel!

Blueberry Streusel Jumbo Muffins

So far this year it has been my pleasure to bake 65 dozen (yes that is nearly 800!) jumbo muffins. The coffeeshop for which I provide baked goods most often requests blueberry, cranberry orange, and banana pecan. Finding the perfect recipe was a trial and error process, with the kind coffeeshop owner patiently providing feedback after each batch. The first time I tried this recipe, I knew I had a winner. With some minor adjustments to the ingredients, this is the base recipe I use for nearly all muffin requests.

Jumbo Muffins
2-1/2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup sour cream
5-1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place muffin liners in a 12-cup large muffin pan.

In a large bowl, blend sugar with oil and vanilla. Lightly whisk eggs, then add sour cream and buttermilk and mix together. Add to sugar/oil mixture.

In another large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add frozen blueberries and toss until berries are coated. Add all at once to liquid mixture. Fold and blend very lightly, until most of liquid is incorporated but flour is still showing.

With a large ice cream scoop, fill muffin liners with batter, distributing evenly and mounding up. Sprinkle generously with your favorite streusel recipe.


Bake for 10 minutes at 425; lower oven to 400 degrees for 5 minutes; then lower oven to 350 degrees and bake until golden brown or cake tester comes out clean, approximately 15 more minutes, depending on oven. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then carefully remove to wire rack.

Peach Mango Cupcakes

Although I still hope to find fresh Oklahoma peaches for an Oklahoma Fresh Peach Pie for the Fourth, I did manage to locate out-of-state peaches that were fragrant and not hard as rocks to use in Fresh Peach Streusel Muffins for a customer. I had a couple of peaches left over, so I decided to try peach puree in place of the strawberry puree in these strawberry cupcakes. I added a ripe mango and ended up with about a cup of puree. The resulting cupcakes were not overly peach-flavored, but they were moist and luscious even without frosting.

But the frosting was wonderful!


I used one stick of softened salted butter, about 3/4 cup of yogurt cheese from Oklahoma's Wagon Creek Creamery, one-fourth to one-third cup of the peach-mango puree, and 5 to 6 cups of powdered sugar. The result was creamy, tangy, and tasted delicately of peach and mango. The consistency was a bit soft to pipe, so I just spread it with a knife.


I found some Fourth of July-themed cupcake liners at Hobby Lobby.


Mom and I shared one; she ate her half with a fork because it was so falling-apart good.

Scouting Out the Competition - Sprinkles

It is always fun to visit a cupcake bakery and especially one of such celebrity as the Beverly Hills-based Sprinkles Cupcakes. When we were in Dallas recently, we made the trek to the The Plaza at Preston Center, an upscale shopping center where the gourmet cupcake bakery, with its sparse, modern decor, has been in place since 2007.

Candace Nelson, owner of Sprinkles, shared her recipe for strawberry cupcakes with the world on Martha Stewart's show and website. Once I tried the recipe, I was hooked on the moist texture and natural taste--no strawberry jello or cake mix--and with a minor tweak or two this has become my Strawberry Bliss Cupcake, second in popularity to my Vanilla Bean Cream Cupcake. One of my purposes in visiting the bakery was to compare the actual store cupcake to my cupcake.

For Goodness Sake Strawberry Bliss Cupcake
We arrived at mid-afternoon, and there were at least 20 fashionably attired ladies crowded inside the tiny store. My husband stood at a safe distance while I carefully chose my cupcakes. As I started taking pictures of the famed cupcake display, the cool young woman behind the counter said, "I'm sorry, no pictures allowed in here." Huh? But, I replied brilliantly in my best whining tone, I've seen pictures of Sprinkles' displays on blogs. "Sorry, company policy." Not quite the welcoming atmosphere I would strive for in my future bakery!


After choosing four flavors and paying $13.00, I waited impatiently until we reached our hotel before taste-testing. In my haste to sample, I forgot to take pictures of my cupcakes.

My review, in order of preference:
Strawberry - every bit as moist and tasty as mine, naturally colored and fragrant with real strawberries; the frosting was equally luscious.
Red Velvet - tender and moist with a hint of cocoa; especially delicious paired with the Cream Cheese frosting.
Lemon Blueberry - a bit dense with a dominant taste of lemon extract; the blueberries were juicy and flavorful; the Lemon Cream Cheese frosting had the same lemon extract flavor.
Chocolate Marshmallow - least favorite--the chocolate cake was unexceptionally flavored; the chocolate ganache was quite bitter, and it is indeed advertised as bittersweet; the marshmallow was a tiny dollop for which I had to search.
The creamy frosting, with no gritty feel of powdered sugar, is worthy of eating alone.

Sprinkles Cupcakes = very good; Sprinkles Bakery = a bit pretentious

Whole Grains Bread

I recently purchased Pompanoosuc Porridge Mix, a wonderful concoction of organic steel cut oats, white whole wheat bulgur, and flax seed, from King Arthur Flour. The hot cereal is delicious (and I feel so healthy eating it), but the bonus is the bread recipe on the back of the package. The cooked grains in the dough yield a tender, moist, chewy, crisp-crusted bread.

Although this bread could be titled Pompanoosuc Porridge Bread, I decided to simply call it Whole Grains Bread.





Whole Grains Bread
adapted from King Arthur Flour's Pompanoosuc Porridge Bread recipe
2 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1-1/4 cups lukewarm water
1 cup cooked Pompanoosuc Porridge (could substitute cooked steel cut oats or other cooked cereal)
1 cups whole wheat flour
2-1/2 cups unbleached bread flour
2-1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons butter, softened

Mix all ingredients until a smooth, soft dough is formed. Knead a few minutes on a lightly floured surface. Let rise in a lightly oiled bowl until doubled, approximately 1-1/2 to 2 hours. Punch down, place on a lightly floured surface, and knead lightly. Form into desired shapes (I made a small dinner loaf and a few sandwich rolls) and let rise for one hour, or until slightly less than doubled. Slash top of loaf and bake in preheated 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes for one large loaf. (I elected to raise the temperature to 400 degrees for 30 minutes for my smaller loaf and sandwich rolls). Remove and cool on wire rack.

Good-Bye to My Big Bud

My beloved brother, Dan - 1939 - 2009

POM Wonderful Yogurt Rolls

Do those rolls look just a tiny bit purple? There is a reason for that.

Recently I was offered a case of 100% pomegranate juice from Janny at POM Wonderful. Finding a case of those cute little bottles on my doorstep was a little like Christmas for me!



POM juice can stand alone as a nutritious and attractive drink, nothing added or needed, with an amazing number of health benefits.

Of all the creative uses for POM juice--savory marinades, rich glazes, refreshing drinks--my preoccupation with carbs led me to try the juice in one of my favorite roll recipes.
I adapted the recipe for Soft Yogurt Rolls from Baking Bites. My changes were to substitute 1/4 cup POM juice for part of the warm water, add an egg white instead of the oil, use 3 cups of flour, use 1/2 cup of yogurt instead of a full cup, and add about a teaspoon of minced rosemary. After baking, I lightly brushed the tops with garlic butter.


Besides the funky purple hue, the POM juice added a nice earthy element to the flavor and paired perfectly with the rosemary.