Raspberry Cream Pie

This pie is the perfect summer dessert! It is cool, refreshing, fruity and creamy. Let's not forget about chocolate! It's got everything good in it (unless your dieting hard core) and is a great treat on a very hot summer day.

This is what you are going to need:
-25 Oreo's (I used Double Stuffed because I'm dangerous like that)
-4 tbsp Butter-melted
-1 cup Fresh Raspberries
-3 tbsp Sugar
-1 small package of Vanilla Instant Pudding
-2 Yoplait Raspberry Yogurts
-1 cup Heavy Whipping Cream

First off, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. I know using the oven in the summer heat is a drag and miserable, but trust me, it won't be used for very long and it's worth it!

In a food processor, chop up 25 Oreos until they become crumbs.

I'd like to take this moment to give a shout out to my mom and thank her for giving me her old food processor! It's amazing and makes cooking/baking a lot easier! Thanks Mom!

Place the Oreo crumbs in a bowl and add in the melted butter. Stir together using a fork until the butter and the oreos have combined.

Next, dump the Oreo crumb mixture into a pie plate and push down firmly into the pie plate so the crumbs are as tight together as possible.

Place the pie plate with Oreo crust into the oven for 4 minutes to allow the crust to set into its chocolate goodness. Set aside and make the filling.

For the filling, place 1 cup of raspberries in a bowl and mush them all up with a fork. Add 3 tbsp of sugar to the raspberries and stir them together. Set aside for 10-15 minutes.

In a large bowl add the 2 yogurt containers and 1 package of Vanilla Instant Pudding together and blend until combined.

Add 1 cup of cream and blend for 30 seconds on Low Speed. Scrape the sides of the bowl.

Then, blend the filling for 2 minutes on Medium-High Speed until it becomes thickened.

Gently fold in the mushed raspberries to the filling until just combined.

Pour the gorgeous creamy filling into your yummy oreo pie crust and smooth it out all pretty-like with the spatula.

Now for the hard part....let it set and firm up in the freezer for 2-3 hours. You know the pie is ready when the filling has become firm.

3 hours later.....

Top this summer treat with a dollop of whip cream and some fresh raspberries!

Enjoy!

Supremes de Volaille aux Champignons

Happy Birthday Julia Child!

For those of you who do not know, today would have been Julia Child's 98th birthday. Julia Child changed the world of cooking and introduced the world to the amazing tastes of french cuisine. In honor of her birthday, I decided to make "Supremes de Volaille aux Champignons" for dinner from her famous book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Since I don't speak French and I doubt many people do, that recipe title translates into "Chicken Breasts with Mushrooms and Cream" and boy was it absolutely delicious! It also was surprisingly easy to cook as well!

Just for fun, here are 15 interesting facts about Julia Child:
1. Julia was born August 15th, 1912 in Pasadena, California.

2. Julia was 6 feet 2 inches tall.

3. During WWII, Julia joined the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) because she was too tall for the Women's Army Corp and the U.S. Navy.

4. Julia met her husband Paul while working for the OSS and they married September 1st, 1946.

5. Julia studied at the Le Cordon Bleu and later was privately studying with Max Bugnard and other master chefs in France.

6. Julia descirbed her first meal in France as "an opening up of the soul and spirit for me."

7. Julia joined a women's cooking club called Cercle des Gourmettes, where she met Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle who all joined together to write Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

8. Simone and Louisette wanted Julia to help write the book so that it could appeal to Americans.

9. The three ladies opened a cooking school called L'Ecole des Trois Gourmandes (The School of the Three Food Lovers).

10. Mastering the Art of French Cooking was first published in 1961 by Alfred A. Knopf and was a staggering 734 pages long.

11. The French Chef television show staring Julia Child was first aired February 11, 1963 and was immediately a success winning Emmys and Peabody Awards.

12. In 2009, the movie "Julie and Julia" was made by Nora Efron reflecting Julia's life in France and the journey to creating her cookbook and a woman named Julie Powell who was going to cook every recipe from Julia's cookbook in a year.

13. In real life, Julia thought that Julie Powells attempt to cook every recipe in a year was a stunt, was not impressed and did not support Julie's blog due to her excessive use of the F-word and never describing the end results of the recipe or how it tasted or what she learned.

14. Julia's famous Cambrige, MA kitchen is currently featured in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

15. Julia Child died August 13th, 2004 at the age of 92 and her legacy will live on forever through her cookbook.

Now for Supremes de Volaille aux Champignons...
This is what you are going to need to make this delicious recipe (for 2 people):

-1 large Chicken Breast (cut in half) or 2 small Chicken Breasts
-1/4 tsp Lemon juice
-1/8 tsp Salt
-Pinch of Pepper
-2 tbsp of Butter

For the Sauce:
-2 tbsp Butter
-1/2 tbsp minced Shallots
-4 oz. of sliced Mushrooms
-Dash of Salt
-1/8 cup of Beef Stock
-1/8 cup of White Cooking Wine
-1/2 cup Whipping Cream
-Salt and Pepper
-Lemon juice-as needed
-1 tsp dried minced Parsley or 1 tbsp fresh minced Parsley

Since no one is better than Julia Child's teachings, I'm going to give the instructions as they were given to me in the book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Rub the supremes (chicken breasts) with drops of lemon juice and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.

Heat the 2 tbsp of butter in a casserole (dutch oven or large skillet) until it is foaming. Quickly roll the supremes in the butter, lay the butterend paper over them, cover the casserole and place in hot oven.

After 6 minutes, press top of supremes with your finger. If still soft, return to oven for amoment or two. When the meat is springy to the touch it is done (I was totally shocked, this really works!). Remove the supremes to a warm platter and cover while making the sauce (2 to 3 minutes).

For the Sauce:
Heat 2 tbsp butter in the casserole (skillet/dutch oven) over moderate heat until foaming. Stir in the minced shallots and saute a moment without browning. Then stir in the mushrooms and saute lightly for a minute or two without browning. Sprinkle with salt.

Pour the stock and wine into the casserole (skillet/dutch oven) with the mushrooms/shallots and boil down quickly over High Heat until liquid is syrupy.

Stir in cream and boil down again over high heat until cream has thickened slightly.

Off heat, taste carefully for seasoning (salt/pepper), and add drops of lemon juice to taste. Pour the sauce over the supremes, sprinkle with Parsley and serve at once.

(Recipe from pages 267-269 of Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child)

I have to say, this dinner was soooo good! Dusty was really impressed and enjoyed it a ton. I have to admit that I might have licked the plate clean, the sauce is to die for! I served buttered peas with my chicken and in the book Julia also suggests serving buttered asparagus tips, artichoke hearts, creamed spinach or risotto cooked in chicken stock.

Now for the rest of the evening, I'm going to watch episodes of The French Chef and maybe even Julie and Julia to further celebrate Julia Child's birthday!

Bon Apetite!

Poached Eggs

This morning I finally conquered my last fear with eggs....I made and ate a Poached Egg! If you refer back to my earlier post "Fiesta Eggs and Potatoes", you will read all about my issues with eggs and as of this morning I don't have anymore issues dealing with eggs. I feel like a better person already! And actually, it was also a first for Dusty as well because he had never had a poached egg too! So we enjoyed our experience with our first poached eggs together...it was magical.

I actually got my inspiration from watching an episode of Julia Child's The French Chef, which was a half hour devoted to 101 ways to cook an egg. So, I sucked it up and tried it.
They are super easy to make and quite tasty.

If you have never made a Poached Egg and want to try, this is what your going to need (for 2 people):
-4 Eggs
-2 English Muffins
-Butter-softened
-Salt and Pepper

Get a small dish to hold the egg in and gently crack it into the dish. Make sure not to break the yolk.

Bring a small saucepan to a simmer over Medium-High Heat and gently place the egg into the water.

In the meantime, toast the English Muffins in a toaster and spread softened butter on them.

Allow 4-8 minutes to cook, depending on how hard you want the egg yolk to be.

Using a slotted spoon, scoop the poached egg out of the saucepan and place on your English Muffin.

Sprinkle Salt and Pepper to taste.

That's it!

Enjoy!

Individual Raspberry Cobblers

Don't you think Cupcakes are just the most adorable dessert in the world?
I DO!
Cupcakes are just the perfect size and are a small package of joy!
And so is this recipe....
This Raspberry Cobbler recipe is a hybrid of cupcake and cobbler....and it is divine!

This is what you need (for 6 individual cobblers):
-1 cup of Self Rising Flour (you must use this....all purpose flour will not work!)
-1 cup of Sugar
-1 cup of Milk
-1 stick of Butter-melted
-1/2 tsp Vanilla
-1 cup of Raspberries (or any other berry you prefer)
-Extra Sugar for Sprinkling

Get your oven nice and ready by preheating it to 350 degrees. Then butter and flour your muffin pan and set aside.
*Note: I am in LOVE with "Pam Baking Spray". The spray contains flour and it works like magic. It's a miracle for baking. I dare you to use it.

In a large bowl, combine flour and sugar, then whisk in the milk. Continue whisking as you add in the melted butter and vanilla.
Then, pour in about 1/4 cup of batter into each muffin tin and place 3-4 raspberries on top of the batter. By the end of the baking process, the raspberries will have sunk to the bottom of the tin. Sprinkle about 1/8 to 1/4 tsp of sugar on top of the raspberries/batter.

Bake for 35-45 minutes until the cobblers become a nice crisp golden brown.
Flip them over using a cooling rack and some of the fruit/batter might stick to the pan, but we aren't about appearance, we are about incredible taste! "Who's to know!"
Eat them warm with whip cream or vanilla ice cream!

Isn't that just the cutest cobbler you have ever seen before?

Enjoy!

Death By Cheese Dip

You better start writing out your Will because once you eat this, you will start feeling your arteries clog and cholesterol go up! But if you make this only once a year, it can't do that much harm! Right?
Dusty's mom introduced me to this recipe when we were visiting his parents house for Dusty's birthday. We spent the whole weekend watching football because Dusty's favorite teams were on TV and I swear the only thing that got me through countless hours of NFL football was this cheese dip!

This is who is invited to the party!

-1 package of PepperJack Velveeta
-1 cup Jalapeno Ranch Dressing or Regular Ranch Dressing (depending on your spice tolerance)
-1-1/2 cup Sour Cream
-1/2 Onion-minced
-8 oz. of Beer (because I'm naughty like that)

All you have to do is cut up the Velveeta into cubes so that you can melt it in a saucepan over Medium Heat.

Once the cheese is melted, add all the other ingredients to the saucepan, whisk it up good until fully incorporated and then heat it till it reaches a slight boil.

I got excited and had to try some....

Serve it with Tortilla Chips or Soft Pretzels. It's to die for!

Enjoy!

Huckleberry Crumb Cake with Huckleberry Sauce

Top 5 Reasons Why I Love Montana:

#5...No Traffic or Freeways

#4...Beautiful Weather

#3...Big Open Blue Sky's

#2...Gorgeous Mountains

#1...Huckleberries!!!!

At Farmer's Market last weekend I bought a pound of Huckleberries and I've been holding out for the perfect recipes to use on my precious berries and I found it!!!
Huckleberry Crumb Cake
I got the idea from Pioneer Woman when she made Blueberry Crumb Cake and I wanted to add my Montana twist to it by substituting Blueberries with Huckleberries.YUM!

This is what you need:
-1/2 stick of Butter + 1 Tbsp Butter
-3/4 cup Sugar
-1 Egg
-1/2 tsp Vanilla
-2 cups Flour
-2-1/4 tsp Baking Powder
-1/2 tsp Salt
-3/4 cup Milk
-2 cup Huckleberries

For the Topping:
-3/4 stick Butter
-1/2 cup Sugar
-1/2 tsp Cinnamon
-1/2 cup Flour
-1/4 tsp Salt

Get your oven ready by preheating it to 350 degrees and grease a 9 x 13 inch baking dish. In a bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt. In a seperate bowl, cream 1/2 stick + 1 tbsp butter with sugar. Add egg and vanilla and mix. Add flour mixture and milk alternately and mix after each addition of ingredient. Gently stir in the Huckleberries and start getting excited!

Pour in the batter and start making the Topping...

In a new clean bowl, combine topping ingredients and cut together using a pastry cutter. Sprinkle over the top of the cake.
Bake the cake for 40 to 45 minutes when the cake starts turning a nice golden brown. After you pull it out of the oven sprinkle the top with sugar.

Now comes the fun part....Huckleberry Syrup!
-1 cup Huckleberries
-1/2 cup Sugar
-4 tbsp Water

Over Medium Heat boil the berries with the sugar and water until it becomes a nice thick wonderful syrup.

Use a strainer to get rid of the unwanted berry gunk.

That's it! Use it with pancakes, waffles or better yet....pour it over your Huckleberry Cake with some Whip Cream!
Enjoy!

*Note: I did not take any of the Montana scenery pictures (gotta love Google Images!)