Sour Cream Spice Cake

• 2 cups sifted cake flour, sift before measuring
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 tablespoons vinegar and sour cream to make 1 cup
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Optional: Substitute nutmeg, mace, and/or cardamon for the cloves and allspice

Optional: Add 1 cup of golden raisins

Sift dry ingredients. Mix and beat well the shortening, eggs, sugar, and vanilla. Mix the vinegar and sour cream together in a measuring cup; add alternately with the sifted ingredients and beat until smooth. Add nuts and/or raisins and beat all until smooth.

Bake at 375〫in layer pans for 25 to 30 minutes, or in an oblong pyrex dish for 35 to 40 minutes.

Frost with the butter cream frosting of your choice.

The original version of this recipe came from Diana's Kitchen.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

These cookies are soft and taste a lot like brownies.

1 cup butter

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

2 squares unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled

2 - 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

Powdered sugar

Mix together butter, sugars, eggs, vanilla, and cooled chocolate. Beat well.

Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to the butter mixture and stir until blended.

Chill the dough for easier handling. Form into small balls the size of a walnut. Roll each in powdered sugar and place on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake at 350〫for 8 to 10 minutes. Let cool on pan for another couple of minutes, then place on paper towels to finish cooling. Store in an airtight container. Makes about 3 dozen.

Italian Sodas

How did I ever miss this delicious beverage? Does everyone know how to make these? I had my first Italian soda the other day at Zeffiro's Pizzeria Napoletana, and we've been making sodas at home ever since.

The process is simple: Just place some flavored syrup, club soda, and a little half and half in large glass filled with ice, stir gently, and sip the drink through a straw. The proportions will vary, depending on your taste. There are more complicated instructions on the Internet that will instruct you as to the order of ingredients, when and how much to stir, etc.

The fun begins when you discover a grocery store with a good variety of syrups. We found ours at Toucan Market in Las Cruces. So far, we've tried Torani Orgeat (almond) and Le Sirop de Monin Vanilla; but there are a lot more we'd like to experiment with--I remember seeing raspberry, amaretto, apricot, grenadine, pomegranate, butterscotch, chocolate almond, mango, hazelnut and lemon. There are lots of other flavors, as you will see when you visit the Monin site. You can use the syrups in a variety of tea, coffee, and smoothie concoctions, too.

Mix up your soda and sip it while sitting out on the patio in the desert winter sunshine. That's what we do!

Auntie Bucksnort's Decadent Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

Bucksnort is famous for not following directions, so when she asked for my peanut butter cookie recipe, I just sat back and waited for the unexpected. The cookies she made were the best I've ever had, and I have to say, I know my cookies!

1 cup butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup peanut butter

2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

1/3 cup cocoa

2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 43 gram Hershey milk chocolate bar, coarsely chopped

1 100 gram Toblerone chocolate/honey/nougat candy bar, coarsely chopped

1 cup white chocolate chips

Cream together butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in peanut butter. Sift dry ingredients and stir them into the peanut butter mixture. Add the chopped chocolate and the chips and stir well.

Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Press each down slightly with the back of the spoon.

Bake at 375〫for about 10 minutes. Makes 3-5 dozen cookies, depending on how big you make them.

Red Burritos

These were so delicious when we had them last night that we plan to make them often. Perhaps it was the fact that we ate them sitting in front of a fragrant pecan wood fire that made the experience so wonderful.

There has been a little problem in getting our new gas range hooked up. The burners work, but we need a visit from an electrician to add an outlet so that the oven and timers all can function. Darned fancy stoves! Having no regular oven, we did the baking of this casserole in the microwave as follows: 10 minutes at 40% power; and 5 minutes at 30%. It worked out just fine.

1/3 to 1/2 lb. boneless pork, cut into 3/4 inch cubes

1/2 cup chopped sweet onion

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 tbl. olive oil

Beef bouillon cube

Salt, pepper to taste

1/2 tsp. cumin

2 generous tbl. red chile powder (this is the powder made from grinding dried red chiles, with no additives)

Water as needed

4 potatoes, peeled and chopped into 3/4 inch cubes

8 tortillas, corn or wheat (your choice)

Grated monterey jack cheese (or cheese of your choice)

Sour cream as garnish

***

Brown the pork cubes, onion, and garlic in the oil. Sprinkle them with salt, pepper, cumin, and chile powder. Add about 1 1/2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer.

After the first 15 minutes, stir and add more water, if necessary. Cover and continue to cook.

After another 15 minutes of simmering, add the cubed potatoes and more water, if needed. Simmer an additional 15 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. (Note: Your total cooking time should equal 45 minutes).

Assemble the burritos: Spoon the meat mixture into each tortilla, sprinkle with cheese, fold and place in a greased casserole dish. Pour over the top of all the burritos any sauce you may have left and sprinkle with more cheese.

Cover the casserole and bake at 350〫for 30 minutes, removing the lid of the casserole for the last few minutes. Serve with a little sour cream on the side.

Orange Yeast Bread

What we see while drinking our morning coffee

Well, it took more than a few moments to change kitchens during our recent move from New Mexico's High Plains to its spectacular city in the Chihuahuan Desert, Las Cruces. However, the kitchen is finally unpacked, and every once in a while we are able to tear ourselves away from the magificent views we see out of every window to do a little cooking.

This recipe has been under development for a while and I think that it is ready to share with you. It makes a deliciously fragrant toast to have with your morning coffee.

1 heaping tbl. yeast, dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water, to which you have added a tiny pinch of sugar

1 whole orange (seeds removed), ground up, juice, rind and all

1 cup warm water (may be part additional orange juice)

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp. salt

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

1/2 tsp. ground cardamom, optional

6 to 8 cups of flour, or however much it takes to make a nice bread dough

I do the whole process using the Kitchenaid mixer, grinding up the orange first, then mixing the cup of warm water, the yeast mixture, the orange, sugar, salt, oil, eggs, and optional cardamom together and beating well.

Add 3 cups of flour and beat at medium speed for several minutes. Change to the dough hook and add flour, a cup at a time, until you have a nice dough that leaves the sides of the bowl. Continue mixing it for a few minutes to get it really well kneaded.

Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and knead by hand until no longer sticky. Let rise, covered, in a greased bowl in a warm place until the dough is doubled. Until we get a better heater installed in this little adobe house, we've been setting the bowl of dough on the raised hearth of the kiva fireplace, which keeps it nice and warm.

Bread dough rising in front of the kiva fireplace

Turn out dough onto a floured surface again, punch down, knead a few times, and divide into thirds. Shape each third into a loaf, put each into a greased bread pan, cover, and let rise again until almost doubled.

Bake at 375〫for 45 minutes. Cool on racks, slice, and freeze (if you wish). Delicious as toast, or in sandwiches. We would have loved it with sliced turkey and leftover cranberry sauce. Well, that was the plan, anyway, but the Thanksgiving leftovers got eaten up too soon!

A Few Moments to Change Kitchens, Please...

It's time for our family to load up the moving van and move to our "new" adobe home, which you can see more of over on my other blog, The Zees Go West. I'll be back in a week or so, hopefully with some recipes perfect for serving in that lovely desert climate we'll be calling home.

Panettone

Special Italian dessert bread for holidays. This version comes from Auntie Bucksnort.

3 tbl. yeast

1/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup warm water

6 egg yolks

1/2 cup soft butter

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. lemon peel

1/2 tsp. salt

3 cups flour

1/3 cup candied citron

1/2 cup raisins (mix dark and light if you wish)

2 tbl. melted butter to brush on crust

Soften yeast in 1/4 cup warm water with a little sugar. Mix the remaining ingredients (except for 2 tbl. butter), adding more flour as necessary to make a soft dough. Knead until smooth, let rise in a greased bowl until doubled.

Form into a round loaf and let rise on a greased cookie sheet until doubled. Bake at 400〫for 10 minutes, then brush with melted butter. Continue baking at 350〫for 30 to 40 minutes until done.

Cool on rack.

Chicken Breasts Supreme

6 chicken breasts

For marinade, mix together:

2 cups sour cream

1/4 cup lemon juice

2 tsp. worcestershire sauce

1/2 tsp. celery salt

4 cloves chopped garlic

1/2 tsp. pepper

Salt to taste

1 tsp. paprika

Crushed cornflakes

1/4 cup butter

Cover breasts with marinade and chill overnight. Dip in crushed cornflakes.

Bake in a buttered shallow pan for 45 minutes at 350〫

Turn pieces over and bake for an additional 15 minutes.