Sunday, October 25, 2020

We Got An Air Fryer

 I have to be careful what I say in front of my husband. I said I would like an air fryer. I heard co-workers talk about it and my daughter loves hers. My husband promptly orders on on line and a few days later I have an air fryer.


The first thing I actually baked are the Sunflower Seed Peanut Bars. I made them in the baking tray that cam with the unit. I might of over cooked them slightly, but still tasty overall.


Potato chips was the very first thing I tried. It was o.k. I blame our mandolin. It does not slice properly resulting in uneven cooking. The recipe I followed can be found here.


I then tried to make grilled cheese. To be honest, this one best in the frying pan. Yes, the bread did get brown and the cheese did melt. The bread was dry, like toast. So I guess if you like toasty bread with melted cheese without the mess of trying to make grilled cheese in the toaster (never done that and I don't know how well that would work). Then go for it.

We have had other success in the air fryer. Successfully made pigs in a blanket in the air fryer and my husband had done rotisserie chicken (our unit has that function). Had some failures, we roasted some veggies in it and it did not fully cook. Probably needed to be in longer.

We still have a lot to learn about our new unit and have already collected recipes on Pinterest to try.


Sunday, October 18, 2020

Basic Whole Wheat Muffins with Nutty Crumb Topping

I was in the mood to make muffins for breakfast, actually I have been in the mood to a lot of baking. I find joy in baking, but unfortunately it is healthy to my waistline.  With what has been going on for the past 6+ months plus I am working more hours, I find cooking as a way to cope with what is going on. (see previous post)

This recipe again comes my grandmother's vintage cook book.


  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

Sift these ingredients together

  • 1/4 cup shortening

Blend this in with a fork or pastry blender

  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup of milk
Blend in until just combined. Fill greased muffin tins 2/3 full.

  • 1/3 cup brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup chopped nuts
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Mix these ingredients together and sprinkle on top, bake in 400 degree over for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Best served warm.


Use cupcake liners with caution. The ones I used left a purple stain in my pan and the muffins. Hope the dye is food safe.


Muffins turned out tasty, I usually butter mine. Sometimes I add peanut butter.

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Sunday, October 11, 2020

Tasty Eats - Parmesan Crusted Pancakes, Dalgona Coffee, Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Tiramisu Mousse

This first tasty eat is parmesan crusted pancakes. All I did was add parmesan cheese to pancakes. I added it to the batter. It was very tasty and will do it again. I like the nutty flavor it added and the crunch.


The Internet has gone crazy for this Dolgona Coffee. The first time I have seen this on the web I knew that one day I was going to have to try this.  This coffee treat will only work with instant coffee. We usually don't have instant coffee around. We finally had some instant coffee around and it was time to try out this coffee. I used 2 tablespoon of instant coffee, 2 tablespoons of sugar, and 2 tablespoons of water.
I was very excited that it whipped up like it was suppose to. A quick taste of this whipped cream is that that it was very intense, which is why I guess you put the cream on top of milk and mix it in with the milk. I my case I made chocolate milk. It tasted very good and worth the hype. Problem for me. I physically can't handle the caffeine in coffee very well. I can't do more that one cup. I later looked on the serving size for one cup coffee and it is one teaspoon.  I figured that the caffeine in this drink was anywhere between 3 to 6 cups of coffee. I had this in the morning and I was miserable and jittery all day. If I make this again, I will have to cut down on the portions of coffee, sugar and water.

Here are chocolate chip cookies, what makes this cookie different it that I used pancake mix in the recipe. 2 cups of pancake mix with 1/2 cup butter, 1 cup of brown sugar, 1 egg,1 cup of chocolate chips, 1 cup of nuts, and 1 t vanilla. I had come across this recipe in my vintage Betty Crocker Cookie Book. It had called for Bisquick, had it on the grocery list and they had brought home Aunt Jermima pancake mix. It still worked and it was tasty. I did it out of curiosity and will likely stick to the Toll House recipe.


The tiramisu mousse is the reason we had instant coffee in the house. I suggested that my husband make lasagna for dinner on his day off. He knows I like tiramisu and was planning on making it. I did a Pinterest search and found this recipe. My husband like it and it was easy to make, but he missed the lady fingers that is traditionally found in tiramisu.



I hope I had inspired you to make something tasty this week.

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Sunday, October 04, 2020

Tasty Eats

 I thought I would do another tasty eats post. Time to cover some of the tasty food I have had over the past couple of weeks.

So first let tell you about the broken eggs. Simply I had bought 18 count eggs at Walmart along with some other items. The short version is that I dropped the carton of eggs while caring in my Walmart haul. Overall I only 6 eggs had cracked. I had decided to immediately use 4 of the eggs. (I just through out the other two because it was a lost cause).


This is an impromptu cookie bake to use up 2 of the broken eggs. I used a brown sugar cookie recipe found in Betty Crocker Cookie book. This cookie is a walnut brown sugar cookie with the addition of 1 cup walnuts. I decided to try to make this almost sugar free. I had used 2 cups of a monk fruit sugar substitute I had on hand. I added 6 tablespoons of molasses to make it brown sugar. So it is not totally sugar free. I also substituted half of all purpose flour with whole wheat flour. I added some flax seed to the cookie. I tried to make this cookie a little healthy.  Unfortunately for my, this cookie is just o.k. I did not use any butter in this recipe, which I thought what was missing from this cookie. The original recipe called for all shortening. I should of used half butter and half shortening like I usually do for cookies. I have a lot of these cookies and most of the cookies are now in the freezer. I will used these cookies as my breakfast option. They are after all, mostly sugar free and likely healthier than donuts.


The other two broken eggs went into these carrot apricot muffins.  I had already plan to make these muffins. If you are in the Midwest region, you might of heard of the Hy-Vee grocery chain. The recipe comes out of their Seasons magazine. Specifically out of their August issue found here. My photo is not a good photo, here is a photo from the Hy-Vee web site.

I have made these before and these muffins are a HUGE hit. I will continue to keep making these again and I highly recommend making them. The recipe can be found here.


Here is my final tasty item to share. My son made chicken tenders, roasted cherry tomatoes and garlic mashed tomatoes. It is now a tradition that our son is responsible for dinner on Sundays. He use to cook at a retirement community and has ideas on what to make. I unfortunately can not tell you how it is made. I did not ask him this time the recipe for these items. I have post two soup recipes made by him. It is Kale Rice Soup and Beef and Wild Rice Soup.



These cookies are Sour Cream Chocolate Chip Cookies. I had sour cream to use and Pinterest had a recipe for me. I also substituted the white sugar with the monk fruit sugar free substitute. I don't think anyone noticed. These were definitely tasty. The recipe can be found here.


This is a humus wrap from a local restaurant. I was talking to mom about have this wrap for dinner, she has never had humus and did not think it was going to be appetizing. I enjoyed it. 


Finally we have sweet sticky rice brought by a Vietnamese co-worker. I have no idea what is in it other than rice. I was tasty. 

That is it for now for this edition of Tasty Eats.