Strawberry Shortcakes

I have been known to make anyone their favorite cake on their birthday. Nana's is a Chocolate Cherry cake, Stu's favorite is Red Velvet, and Jackson's is Carrot with a smooth cream cheese icing. Only kidding! We went to see some of our friends yesterday and it was her birthday so I tried out Strawberry Shortcakes, which are her favorite.

Strawberry Shortcakes
Serves 6

Buttermilk Biscuits
2 lbs fresh strawberry, sliced mixed with 1 1/2 tbsp sugar and set aside
whipped cream



Buttermilk Biscuits
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tbsp sugar(I used Central Market Evaporated Cane Juice Sugar)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
Rounded 1/4 tsp salt
1/2 stick of cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
3/4 cup of cold buttermilk, shaken well
1 tbsp milk or cream to brush on the biscuits
I used some Turbinado pure Cane sugar to sprinkle on top of the biscuits because it makes them look so pretty!

Oven at 425 and put the rack in the middle.

Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda on a piece of wax paper then sift again together into a medium size bowl. Blend the butter in with your fingers until it looks like cornmeal. I was thinking about using the food processor for this like I've done in the past but it went a lot faster than I thought so I got my hands dirty. Add the buttermilk and blend with a fork until the dough just forms and it will be moist!

I used a piece of wax paper and taped it to the counter and put flour all over it. Turn the dough out and prepare for more flour...it is sticky! Pat it out into a 8x5 1/2 inch rectangle. Cut it in half lengthwise and then in thirds crosswise to create six biscuits. If you were really conservative with the dough, you could easily make 8 biscuits. Transfer the biscuits to an ungreased baking sheet with a spatula. Brush the tops with milk or cream then sprinkle with the sugar.

Bake for 12-15 minutes. 11 minutes was the magic number for our oven.

Once the biscuits are cool, slice each one open with a knife. On the bottom half, spoon some of the strawberries on it and top with whipped cream then place the other half on top to create a sandwich. Enjoy!

Amanda

20 Clove Chicken

Nope, that is not a typo. We only had two pounds of chicken so I halved the recipe:) It's still in the crockpot, but after smelling it I know it is going to be amazing! Here is the recipe:

20 Clove Crockpot Chicken

Half of a large sweet onion sliced
2 lbs spilt chicken breasts
1 tbsp EVOO (yes, I am Rachel Ray)
salt
pepper
garlic powder
paprika
20 cloves of garlic, peeled but still intact

It is so easy too! That's why I love this so much! I started it at about 9:30 this morning because I'm lazy and didn't feel like defrosting the chicken. Put the sliced onions on the bottom of your crock. The original recipe says to toss everything else, but again, I'm lazy. I seriously just took the block of chicken breasts out of the Styrofoam and laid it on top of the onions. Then I drizzled it with EVOO, sprinkled salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika on top. Toss the garlic in on top and turn it to low. The recipe says the longer you can wait, the better. We're watching a friend's baby so won't eat until about 7:30 so it will be on for about 10 hours.

Baby food

Well, since Stu didn't take pictures of his amazing creations this week, I decided to go ahead and post about making baby food. There are tons of different ways to make it, but I think using what you already have is the easiest. We were given a food processor for our wedding over three years ago. At the time, I had no idea what to do with it other than make pesto. I am so glad we have it now! Stu went on a fruit buying spree this week so I figured that as Jackson munched on Happybaby puffs, that I would go ahead and make some of it baby friendly. See, we got the green light to begin yogurt with Jax. But upon tasting the YoBaby brand, we both thought it was unnecessarily sweet. So we decided to just get some Nancy's whole milk yogurt and mix some pureed fruits in. I made plums and apples and these are my steps!

I think we had only about five plums. I started by trying to peel them with my awesome peeler....nope. So then I tried cutting them in half....still hard to get the pit out. So I found that cutting them in quarters makes it super easy to peel with a paring knife and also easy to get the pit out. As you can see, the last plum was obviously a red one. Beautiful!

I cut them into chunks, steamed for a few minutes, then pureed. These containers are from Williams-Sonoma. My awesome Aunt Sharon gave them to us out of the blue and we love them! They are truly the perfect portion size and I totally recommend them if you have some extra cash. The lids kind of snap on and go straight in the freezer.

I did the apples pretty much the same way, using the same water to be all earth friendly, and whatnot. I peeled them(with the vegetable peeler this time), cored them, and then steamed for about 7 minutes. I like to use a short steam time to keep in as much good stuff as possible.

I guess we'll start signing out entries so you can know who the writer is. It will probably be pretty obvious as I like making baby food and baking. And Stu likes....everything else!

Amanda