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Breads, Cakes

Carrot Pineapple Bread

by Pinch and PeckLeave a Comment on Carrot Pineapple Bread

In the continuation of “The Week of the Pineapple” I found another recipe that I could use. In addition, I am desperately trying to find something that sounds good and would actually be EATEN in the house. Lastly, Thanksgiving is right around the corner and wouldn’t it be nice to find some family recipes that I could actually use? Or at the very least give as a hostess gift?

Enter the “It’s not a carrot cake, it’s carrot bread that taste exactly like carrot cake”. This thing is really good y’all and perfect for those of us that don’t have an over active sweet tooth (me). As much as I love cakes and cookies, I’m honestly not a big fan of frosting. My husband and daughter think that there is something seriously wrong with me and that perhaps a doctor could help.

Also, this could not be easier. The whole process took minutes if you don’t count shredding the carrots. What was even nicer was that my daughter is currently studying for some culinary exams, and was using carrots to practice knife cuts…I just scooped up the “practice” and ran it through the mini-Cuisinart.

I will admit at this point I still hadn’t put two and two together and realized I was basically making a carrot cake in a loaf pan. Apparently some subtleties escape me. I baked it and let it cool and the whole time thinking “There is an odd but familiar smell in the kitchen”. Duh.

You can certainly make a frosting, but I think it’s too much. If you want extra sweetness, I would think a glaze would be a much better bet. I like this one so much I’m actually going to add the recipe for easy printing!

We have our first hit!

Carrot Pineapple Bread

Pinch & Peck
Bread that tastes exactly like Carrot Cake
Print Recipe
Cook Time 55 mins
Course Breakfast, Dessert

Ingredients
  

  • 1 1/2 cup flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1 cup shredded carrot
  • 2/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/2 cup crushed pineapple, with juice
  • 1 tsp vanilla

Instructions
 

  • Set oven to 350
  • Combine first six ingredients in a large bowl. Give a quick whisk to blend.
  • Stir in the remaining ingredients and beat at medium speed until well combined (about 2 minutes)
  • Pour into a greased and floured 9×5 loaf pan and bake for 50 to 55 minutes.
JELLO!, WTF Wednesday

Wine & Roses Salad

by Pinch and PeckLeave a Comment on Wine & Roses Salad

I was about halfway through prepping this recipe when I realized that my sweet, small Grandmother was a legit bad ass. This is the OG Jello Shot. I certainly can’t even imagine the life that my Grandmother had. Her husband was away – often off fighting a war – and she was left with raising babies and keeping a home all by herself. I’ve got Alexa, 7-11’s, grocery delivery and I still need a glass of wine every night. I’ve been told that she used to have ‘ironing’ parties. They would bring their laundry and boards to have some company. I am in love with the idea of them essentially doing jello shots and laundry.

I’m also a big fan of the fact that this is under the ‘salad’ section of this cookbook. I’m going to bring this to work and simply tell people I’m having a salad for lunch…and then fall asleep at my desk.

This recipe took a bit of planning as I didn’t have everything I needed. Seriously, who has PORT in their cupboard? I actually had a hard time finding it the wine section of the grocery store and realized I was having a hard time because there was ONE bottle available. I’m guessing Port isn’t flying off the shelf.

Also, #2 can. That one took me for a little loop as well. I didn’t realize that the cans we buy all have a size rating. The ones we typically buy are #1, 10 to 12 ounces. A #2 can is 20 ounces, and because you didn’t ask, a #3 can is 51 ounces. Don’t say I never taught you anything.

Final Thoughts:

100% impossible to make this attractive on a plate. It’s jello with bits in it. It sort of just…plops there. If I had pre-planned I would have tried to make them in smaller molds, or maybe lined the bowl with saran wrap so I could un-mold the whole thing.

It tastes fine though, if you like cranberries, pineapple and pecans. Which my husband doesn’t. Also, gave my daughter a big bite to try before I realized I was contributing to the delinquency of minors. She didn’t like it either though.

Cookies

Pineapple Drop Cookies

by Pinch and PeckLeave a Comment on Pineapple Drop Cookies

My mother tells me that this was my Grandmother’s favorite cookie. She also shared that Grandmommy used to make these for my sister and I when we were kids. I really wish I could remember that. The fact that she and I both liked the same thing makes me happy. However, these days I prefer my pineapple in a Pina Colada on a cruise ship.

You can’t get any easier when it comes to these cookies. Other than sifting the dry ingredients, it was pretty much a dump and mix. There was some guess work with what the size of the cookie should be, the baking temperature and for how long. My own little British Bake Off technical challenge if you will.

I ended up doing three batches of cookie; large, medium and small, and set the temperature to the all popular 350. The baking time ended up being around 15 minutes, but they come out super soft. How they were intended to be is a bit of a mystery, but I prefer softer cookies, so went with that. The smallest sized batch came out a bit crispier at 15 minutes.

These things are good! Like really good. Good enough to have a few packed in my lunch box for work today. The icing drizzle was my addition and not part of the original recipe – but for a cookie – I thought just a BIT more sweet was needed. And drizzling is just fun if I’m honest. It’s important to note that I packed these in an air tight zip lock last night and this morning they are a bit….mushy? I wonder if baking for a longer period of time is needed. And quite possibly my drizzle screwed up an otherwise perfectly fine cookie!

All in all – a damn good cookie!

Dips

Rink Tum Ditty

by Pinch and Peck1 Comment on Rink Tum Ditty

I can think of a handful of foods that are obviously named; Oranges. Pancakes. Cup cakes. Granola Bar.

Some are named after who created or discovered them: Bartlett Pear. Fettuccine Alfredo. Loganberry. Monterey Jack Cheese? First made in Monterey, California. Cantaloupe? Some say from Cantalupo, It;aly.

So, I ask you…what the hell is Rink-Tum-Ditty?? Why is it named that? More research is definitely needed. However, I’m trying really hard to not google any of these things before I make them. I don’t want to know what they are supposed to look like, or be swayed by updated recipes. I laughed out loud when I typed that sentence, like I’m going to find multiple versions of Rink Tum Ditty?

I’ll say one thing for these old recipes – most of them are pretty simple. Once again, I have all the ingredients for this one on hand. I do have some concerns over the raw eggs, but let’s pretend it’s not a problem. If the past has proven anything – it’s that we won’t eat much of it anyway.

I guess that’s it? Just chuck it all in a bowl and mix? I felt like there should be more… But no, I guess that’s it. Seems quite liquid to serve on a cracker, doesn’t it?

Final Thoughts:

It tastes…..like cheesy tomato soup. It doesn’t taste bad…it just tastes like tomato soup. I’m still not entirely sure what the eggs bring to the dish, or what the purpose of them was. Maybe it thickens it a bit? But believe me, it’s not thick at all. Thicker than water – but it sort of just drips off the cracker. My husbands opinion was “meh”. If nothing else, we’re making progress from where we started.

I think there are quite a few possibilities with this if I wanted to re-invent it. My first thought was that this should be a hot dip. Maybe substitute the milk for cream cheese, add more shredded cheese and bake in a small dish? Or better yet – let’s steal the crab from the Lime Crab Mold and make a Cheesy Tomato Hot Crab dip? 🙂 Quite a few ideas to play with here – and not expensive enough for the mistakes to piss me off too much.

In the end, Rink Tum Ditty is….fine. The name is dumb as hell though.

WTF?

Molded Crab Meat

by Pinch and Peck3 Comments on Molded Crab Meat

The idea of this website was born sitting around my folks kitchen table, drinking wine and going through the piles of old recipes that have been handed down to her over the years. We all agreed the first post should be Grand mommy’s Apple Crisp; but where to go from there was up in the air. The possibilities were endless. Every night I would flip through the pages and try to figure out what to do next – and it just kept bringing me back to this one.

No sane person would read this and think “Yum”! No sane person would even make it!? Why would you? I am apparently, not sane. There’s a lot to unpack here. Why would anyone make this? Why would anyone EAT this? What exactly does lime jello bring to the party? HOW do I update this and make it cool – and you know – edible?

Oddly enough, with the exception of the crab meat, I actually had all of these thing on hand. With the small amount of crab needed – I could justify spending the money and make crab cakes for dinner.

If I’m honest, this recipe couldn’t be easier. It’s a small amount of chopping, but mostly a dump and wait sort of thing.

With Halloween approaching – I would imagine this would make an excellent Halloween Mystery Feel Box. Albeit a fairly expensive one.

I have never had so much fun making something before. Every single ingredient had us laughing and asking “why?!!?!?” What is this supposed to taste like when it’s done?!?!

Death. That’s what it tastes like.

This is, without a doubt, the worst thing I have ever put in my mouth. Ever. Up until I made this, I thought the worst thing that happened in my house was my husband putting mayonnaise on his macaroni and cheese.

My daughter is very concerned about the idea of updating this – if it’s possible. I’ve apparently traumatized both of them for life because of this lime green monstrosity. One of the good things to come of this is that I now have a very strong scare tactic if I want something done. “Clean your room or you’re getting Lime Jello Crab for dinner!”

Here’s the thing that’s going to keep me up at night though:

People actually ATE this. On purpose. Assuming I did it correctly, how in the bloody hell am I going to update this.

I usually like to end these posts with some ideas of what I might try – or little tweaks in the cooking process. I’m speechless. I’ve got nothing.

Here’s a pretty picture of Lime Molded Crab. You are very welcome.

Cakes

22 Minute Chocolate Cake

by Pinch and Peck2 Comments on 22 Minute Chocolate Cake

This is exactly what I think an old recipe from past generations should look like. Handwritten on an aged piece of paper with what are probably food stains on it. There were a couple things about this recipe that made me eager to try it out. The first was the line ingredient Oleo used throughout. It only took me a second to figure out that Oleo is just margarine. Which is not really something I would ever cook or bake with. Even though my original intention was to cook all these recipes, at least the first time through, with no changes to the original, I didn’t think a trip to the grocery store just for margarine was worth it.

The second thing that jumped out at me was close the bottom of the page “add 1 pound of sugar”. In truth, that’s just a bit more than 2 cups – but it’s still a shed load of sugar! Also, couldn’t tell you how excited I was to have actual instructions to follow. Should be a pretty easy process.

Our ingredients aren’t too crazy – with the exception of the shortening. It’s not often I have that in a cake mix, and I honestly don’t think I’ve ever melted it before. Getting the cake mixture together was easy enough – and it, for the most part, resembled cake batter.

Mix the flour and sugar in a bowl and set aside. Bring the butter, cocoa, water and shortening to a boil, and add to the flour/sugar mixture. Add the eggs, buttermilk and soda. Pouring it into a greased 12 x 18 pan was odd though. That’s a big pan. And makes a VERY thin cake.

These were the ingredients for the ‘frosting’. And I’m going to use the term ‘frosting’ very loosely. Bring the milk, butter and cocoa to a boil and then add a POUND of sugar, and a cup of nuts. We’re going to play the odds here and given my family is from Texas, any reference to a ‘nut’ is going to be a pecan.

Visually, this isn’t a bad looking cake at all. Looks can be quite deceiving though. The cake is far to thin and over baked, and the ‘frosting’ is basically flavored granulated sugar. It literally crunches in your mouth. It was not a good mouth feel.

Personally, I think this recipe can really work with some tweaks. I would use a much smaller pan, or two small rounds to get a lighter more ‘cake like’ structure. The sugar in the frosting would need to be melted or cooked down in some way for that to work. The butter and the sugar could probably be creamed in a mixer as well to make a fluffier frosting. Quite a few changes could be made to this.

It wasn’t inedible – however a trip to the dentist afterwards may be needed because of all the sugar. The cake, after a night in the fridge, almost took on a chewy consistency. I would never label this, as is, as a chocolate cake. Chocolate was not the taste you identify at all. At this point, we’re going to mark it as ‘undefinable’ and see where the next attempt takes us.

Bake Fail, Desserts

Apple Crisp – Take 1

by Pinch and Peck4 Comments on Apple Crisp – Take 1

Seems only logical that this whole process start with my Grandmother’s Apple Crisp. From what I can remember – this thing was next level. A wonderful layer of warm and gooey sweet apples, with a layer of sweet crisp on top. And it’s important to note – the top layer was actually CRISP. Problem is – NO ONE can recreate it. There was serious Gandolf / Dumbledore sorcery going on here.

The biggest problem comes that there are no instructions; no cooking times or temperatures – no instructions at all. Just the list of ingredients. I have a feeling I’m going to be seeing this quite often in my new adventure.

That’s all we have to work with. No pastry, no crust. Just apples and some other stuff in an baking dish. Hence the title of this post : ‘Apple Crisp – Take 1’. We’ll be re-visiting this one from time to time.

My gut tells me to make some sort of crumble with the flour, sugar and butter. However, when I tried to get my Mom to remember as much as she could about Grandmommy making this – the one thing she could remember is her just plopping big blobs of butter on the top before she baked it.

This was the chain of events that lead to our first Apple Mush.

Peeled and sliced six apples and then I cooked them on the stove top for a short period of time with the sugar and cinnamon. Mistake #1

I poured everything in an 8×8 casserole dish with the water. (What the hell is the water for???) Then I proceeded to unceremoniously dump the flour and big bits of butter right on top. It just felt wrong to tell you the truth!

Unsure of what temperature I should use, I went with the classic 350 and went from there. 20 minutes later it was just a buttery uncooked flour mess.

Another 20 minutes later it was still buttery uncooked flour – but after pre-cooking on the stove, and then cooking in the oven for 40 minutes, the apples were starting to disintegrate. Best at this point to cut my losses and mark this one up as a Baking Fail.

It didn’t taste HORRIBLE. It definitely had a slight uncooked flour taste – but the apples themselves were tasty; albeit super mushy. My husband, who is a huge apple pie fan, scraped some of the top off and had some apple mush with ice cream later that evening and lives to tell the tale.

Couple thoughts for next time: I won’t be pre-cooking anything. That didn’t help or achieve anything. I also won’t cut the apples as thinly. Lastly, I’ll go with my gut and maybe use the flour, sugar and butter to make a crumble of sorts to go on top and see how that goes. If you have any ideas, please feel free to let me know!

I’m sure my Grandmother is having a good laugh in Heaven right now.