New Recipes

Monday, October 30, 2017

Today I am grateful for new recipes.  Too bad I can’t follow them!  Or read, apparently.

 

At Weight Watchers a few weeks ago someone wrote a recipe for Cranberry/Pumpkin bread on a board for us to copy.  We are always trying to “lighten” normal recipes and this one looked good.  Someone made it and reported the next week that it was flat and solid, like a brick.  Hmmmm.  I was challenged.  I’m more challenged than even I admit sometimes.  Wait for it. . .

 

I decided that instead of using a can of whole cranberry sauce (sugary), I would use a bag of cranberries chopped in the food processor.  Then, when looking at the recipe, it only called for 1 tsp of baking powder, which didn’t seem like enough.  I’ll adjust that, too, I figured.  And there was no salt in it at all, which I think you need to make the baking powder activate, but I’m not sure so I added that, too.  See what I mean?  Following recipes for me are like my elementary report cards.  “Mary can’t follow simple directions.”

 

I got out two bowls, ground those cranberries in the food processor and started putting together the dry ingredients.  Two teaspoons of baking powder?  Great.  Except I didn’t know I had a one and a half teaspoon in my set so I added two of those. . .but when I looked again, it wasn’t baking powder I put in, but corn starch.  Oh well, I might need that because there is no thickening in the fresh cranberries, so I’m okay.  Right?

 

I added the correct amount of baking soda, got rid of that stupid one and a half teaspoon, and grabbed the cinnamon and cloves out of my spice rack where I always keep them.  Except the last time I made squash soup, I was probably whacky from my little pneumonia/steroid/antibiotic episode, so I must have put the spices away wrong.  I always like a little extra cinnamon so I put two heaping teaspoons in.  But it wasn’t cinnamon, it was cayenne!  Hot pepper.  Oh boy!  And while it was not stirred in, it was difficult to get it out and plenty was left.

 

I was like a dog with a bone.  “I’m gonna finish these breads if it kills me,” I’m screaming from the kitchen to Himself. “You’re not gonna believe what I did now!” I said, each time I make another mistake.  He is cracking up, but knows he’s not eating it anyway so he pretty much ignores my ranting.

 

The original recipe called for unsweetened applesauce and the only way we could find it was in little cups, but I didn’t need a whole cup.  It seemed a shame to waste the left overs so I put a few more spoons in than it called for.  It also called for one tablespoon of orange zest.  I zested the entire orange and had well over two tablespoons.  I’m not throwing that out.  Dumped that in, too.  You still with me, or are you off wretching?

 

One cup of egg beaters was next.  One cup?  No wonder it’s dense.  Just like me.  But I don’t use egg beaters so I cracked enough eggs to get the whites out, which is basically the same thing and it wound up being eight large eggs!

 

I mixed both bowls together and read the recipe again.  “Pour” into two loaf pans.  Pour?  Hahahaha.  I dumped and spread and shoved those bricks in the oven.  Fifty-five minutes later, exactly and they were done!  And smelled great.  When they cooled I sliced into one easily with a knife and never had to get the hacksaw, to be sure I wouldn’t kill my book group who would be there later.  Himself watched me like I was operating on a helium balloon, expecting an explosion of epic proportions.

 

It was good!  None of the “lite” recipes, without oil or butter are as good as with, but this was good.  And it had a metabolism boosting cayenne-kick!  I wrote down every single mistake so that I could duplicate it if it didn’t kill anyone.  So far so good.  I will share it with my group on Saturday, but if you want it, too, let me know.  Just remember all of my new recipes include “caveat emptor”. . .Buyer. . .or should I say. . . baker beware!

(Check out my blog at http://heartprintsdotcom.wordpress.com – but beware!)