Lemon Crinkle Cookies

This recipe came from heatherhomeade.com (as did the lovely picture).  I didn't get to take a snapshot of my own as I made them before running out the door on our way to Michigan for a week long camping adventure, where we were meeting up with a friend I was gifting them to, if we did not eat them all before getting there.  A few were missing from the bag, but most survived the trip! :D


1/2 cup softened butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp lemon zest
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cup flour
1 Tbsp lemon juice

1.Preheat oven to 350 and line a sheet with parchment

2. Cream butter and sugar by hand until fluffy

3.  Add egg, lemon juice, zest, and vanilla, and beat until combined

4.  Mix for 30 more seconds

5. Add dry ingredients to wet until just combined

6.  Drop by rounded Tbsp onto sheet (roll in powdered sugar first if desired)

7.  Bake 10 minutes until bottoms brown and tops lose the shine.  Let rest a few minute before moving to cooling rack.

Only minor modification I made was to add more lemon zest and a little more lemon juice to kick up the flavor.  They turned out really really delicious!!

Zucchini Pancakes

This recipe came from Madam Barefoot Contessa.  She's not my favorite "teacher" in the cooking show arena, but I do love a lot of her recipes! These turned out really tasty. 

(not my picture, credit to suppersmiths.com, but they did look like this!)

2 medium zucchini (about 3/4 pound)
2 tablespoons grated red onion
2 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten
6 to 8 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Unsalted butter and vegetable oil
Directions


Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

1. Grate the zucchini into a bowl using the large grating side of a box grater. Immediately stir in the onion and eggs. Stir in 6 tablespoons of the flour, the baking powder, salt, and pepper. (If the batter gets too thin from the liquid in the zucchini, add the remaining 2 tablespoons of flour.)

2. Heat a large (10 to 12-inch) saute pan over medium heat and melt 1/2 tablespoon butter and 1/2 tablespoon oil together in the pan. When the butter is hot but not smoking, lower the heat to medium-low and drop heaping soup spoons of batter into the pan.

3. Cook the pancakes about 2 minutes on each side, until browned. Place the pancakes on a sheet pan and keep warm in the oven. Wipe out the pan with a dry paper towel, add more butter and oil to the pan, and continue to fry the pancakes until all the batter is used. 

4. The pancakes can stay warm in the oven for up to 30 minutes. Serve hot. 

After about 30 min the pancakes will start to get a little soggy, but we found that we still loved the flavor.  We even had some left over, and to reheat, cooked them up in a skillet, breaking up the pancake to crisp up and brown all the parts.  Made the texture a little different, but as a leftover, I liked it better! Will definitely make these again. 

Low Cal Pancakes

 I found a few recipes for these, and kind of combined them together to get the best out of all of them.

1 cup cottage cheese (drain excess liquid a little)
1 cup rolled oats
6 egg whites
1 Tbsp splenda
Cinnamon, vanilla, and spices to taste

Drop 1/4 cup servings onto a hot griddle.  Roughly 180 calories per serving of 3 pancakes. Thinned out a bit would make delicious crepes!

The topping in the picture was made with strawberries sauteed in a pan with a little maple syrup , cinnamon, and other spices.

Strawberry Freezer Jam

I LOVE strawberry freezer jam.  It might even be my favorite food.  Right up there with homemade chocolate covered strawberries! This is a pretty straightforward recipe, direct from the Ball company, but it can't be beat for ease and deliciousness, with not too many calories! I make double batches, but this recipe can be cut in half.

Ball Freezer Jam: 
8 cups Mashed berries
3.5 cups Sugar (I use Splenda)
10 Tbsp pectin (No cook, Ball Freezer Jam pectin, specifically! Look at the label!)


Driscoll's brand strawberries are the best to use for freezer jam because they are ripened before they are sold, so you don't have to pick through, and they are consistently sweet.  I also like to add a little bit of lemon zest, as I think it helps the taste of the Splenda blend in, and adds a little zip.  I've also made it with 1/2 and 1/2 frozen rhubarb that was defrosted and drained.  Has good flavor, but I still like the classic the best!

With this recipe, the calorie count ends up being a little under 10 calories per tablespoon... none to shabby!

Sweet Almond Biscuits

Sweet Almond Biscuits
recipe from Debbie Uhrig @ Silver Dollar City, MO (culinary school)


4c all purpose flour
8 tsp baking powder
1/2 c almond flour or almond meal
1 tsp salt
1 c b utter
1/2 c milk
1 c buttermilk
2 eggs
2 tsp almond extract
2/3 c toasted chopped almonds

1. Sift dry ingredients and cut in butter until crumbly.  This works best with extremely cold butter.

2.  Mi eggs and milk; add extract

3.  Add chopped roasted almonds

4.  Roll dough and cut with biscuit cutter (I got a new one, first time using... fun!)

5. Bake at 450 for 10-14 minutes

I used fine chopped almonds for almond meal vs flour, almond milk, and unsweetened butter.  In the future, I would use regular milk and sweetened butter as these were not as sweet as the ones we had tasted.  I also forgot to toast the almond, oops!  Also might have chopped the butter too small, turns out the bigger the butter "chunks" the flakier they are.  In any case, they were delicious! You can also start with this basic recipe for a biscuit and add berries, etc, for scones.