Butter news

This weekend I became a baking expert.  After years and years of baking, I happened to look up the difference between using melted butter or creaming the butter and found out all kinds of iformation I never knew before.  It was the science of baking.
As an example, for mixing and creaming, butter should be about 65 degrees: cold to the touch but warm enough to spread. Just three degrees warmer, at 68 degrees, it begins to melt.  For my pumpkin bread I actually checked the temperature of the butter and started the process at the correct temperature.  It used to be that I would take out my sticks of unsalted butter and let them sit out all day or overnight until I got around to beginning.  WRONG!!!

This time I cut the butter into pieces and it got to the correct temperature in a short time.

I used it to make pumpkin bread with fresh cranberries.   I added a cup of cranberries to my favorite pummpkin bread and you can find the original (hard copy) recipe here at the bottom of the page..

The next thing I looked up about butter was whether there was a certain temperature to use for creaming the butter for making frosting. I didn't see anything about temperature but I did find that the key to perfect frosting is a lot of beating.

Buttercream Frosting
   Unsalted butter
   Sifted confectioners sugar
   Milk
   Vanilla

Use 2 cups confectioners sugar for each stick of butter.
Cream butter for 2 minutes at high.  Turn down to medium and add sugar 1/2 cup at a time.  Add vanilla to taste and milk to get desired consistency.

Honey, Mustard and Rosemary Pork Roast

Honey, Mustard and Rosemary Pork Roast
Bon Appétit | July 1994
Yield: Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients
    •    3/4 cup beer
    •    1/2 cup Dijon mustard
    •    6 tablespoons honey
    •    1/4 cup olive oil
    •    2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary or 1 tablespoon dried
    •    2 tablespoons chopped garlic
    •    1 2-pound boneless pork loin roast

    •    1/2 cup whipping cream
Preparation
Whisk first 6 ingredients to blend in 8x8x2-inch glass baking dish. Add pork and turn to coat. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour or cover and refrigerate overnight, turning occasionally.
Preheat oven to 350°F. Transfer pork to rack set in roasting pan; reserve marinade. Roast until thermometer inserted into center registers 150°F., about 55 minutes. Let stand 15 minutes.
Strain marinade into heavy medium saucepan. Add cream and juices from roasting pan. Boil sauce until reduced to 1 1/2 cups, about 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
Slice pork; arrange on platter. Drizzle some sauce over. Serve, passing extra sauce separately.

Note:
I made the recipe using 6 pounds of pork, no whipping cream and there was loads of thick delicious sauce and lots of leftovers after serving 5 hearty appetites.

Pumpkin Dutch Apple Pie

I was going to make an apple pie but then I looked at the centerpiece on my island - a cooking pumpkin.

So I looked for a recipe that uses both and found this one that I'll try tomorrow and add the picture.


Pumpkin Dutch Apple Pie

So Many Good Recipes

We had dinner at Lila's tonight and each of us brought something and everything was so good I needed to post all the recipes so I have them for future use.  Unfortunately I didn't take pictures to include so I guess that means I will have to make the recipes and then upload the pictures along with the them.  For now, here are the links:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Honey-Mustard-and-Rosemary-Pork-Roast-2130
http://www.food.com/recipe/broccoli-with-red-onions-blue-cheese-and-mint-349535
This is Audrey's salad but she added dried cherries and apricots, and used spinach and field greens
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/fall-salad-recipe/index.html

I made a pumpkin pie for dessert and did it a little differently this time by putting a caramelized pecan topping on it.  I took this picture after I got home with the leftovers (for Larry).
The original recipe, with instructions for using a real pumpkin are here --->http://divertedtodistraction.blogspot.com/2011/10/fresh-pumpkin.html

And this is the addition:

Ingredients:
1/2 cup pecans
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup brown sugar

Directions:
While the pie is baking, chop the pecans and add them to a sauce pan
with butter and brown sugar. Over low to medium heat, let the butter sizzle and caramelize the sugar, but be careful not to let the butter burn!
Remove from heat and set aside until the pie has cook for about 45 minutes to 1 hour and has firmed up a bit and just looks soft or wet in the center.  Then open the oven, and sprinkle the pecan topping evenly all over the top of the pie.

Another reason to love Wegmans

After going to a bunch of stores, my last stop was Wegmans and I had a desparate need for the Ladies room.

When I got there the door was blocked and the restroom was closed, but then I noticed this sign in front of the Mens Room

Thank you Wegmans!!!

Star Lake

Mary organized a trip to Cobble Crest on Star Lake for a group of 10 women.  Here are some of the highlights.  This is the house right on the lake.

Here's the floating dock that we took out twice for happy hour.

Here's one of our trips out.

I took a hike with Ann, Mary, Carol I, Jean M and Carol Z from the Ranger school.

When we came back we saw a little turtle on the road and rescued it and put it in the grass.

This was my bedroom with a private bath,  I got it from a random drawing :-)

Here we all are after dinner when we carved our clementines (missing Trudy)
Jean D, Jean M, Ann, Carol Z, Carol I, Me, Mary, Jo, Chris (in case I forget who everyone is when I'm old and senile (oops, forgot, I'm already old).

This was my outstanding creation.

The next time I took a hike it was to Inlet.  The day was beautiful but it was very wet.  After taking an hour to go 1 mile because it was such slow going, Carol and Jean went back to get the car and pick us up at the other end.  Good thing.

Trudy, Mary, Jean D and I went on while Jean M and Carol I went back.

Once back at the house, we had Trudy's famous Godfathers (equal amounts of scotch and amaretto, YUM!!)

Mary and I getting ready to pack up

while Trudy and some others went out for a last kayak trip

Hilton Head

On the way to Hilton Head we stopped for awhile to visit Gerry at Wadmalaw to see the final version of the house, which still hasn't been put up for sale.  On the road going to his house we ran into a swarm of love bugs and Larry still can't get them off his car.  This is an interesting article about them.

This is a view into the kitchen

 and I got to see one of those great spiders too.

We arrived at our resort about 4 and were greeted by the friendliest staff.  We were given a room on the third floor of buildin #4 - Osprey with a great view of the marshes.  It was such fun watching the landscape change everytime the tide came in or went out.

Our first stop was to Publix, my favorite southern store to get some food for the week and some 2 for 1 specials.  We had pizza for dinner that night (one of the 2-1) and again before we left.

On Sunday morning there was a welcoming brunch that had to be held indoors because of some rain.  There were door prizes and Larry, who's on a lucky streak at these things lately, won 2 decks of Marriott Vacation Club cards.

We rented bikes for the week and went out for a ride on the bike paths that are all over the island.

On Monday we finally got out of here around 2 and went for a bike ride.  We rode over to Piggly Wiggly to get more coffee,

came back and played tennis

 and then went to a wine and cheese gathering at the pool.  We played 2 games of Name That Tune

and even danced a little.  After we got back to our place the sky opened up and it poured.

On Tuesday the winds picked up and our nice peaceful water developed whitecaps.  We did a bike ride even though it looked like it was going to rain, but it never did.

On Wednesday we played golf

and we were lucky to have a perfect day.

We obeyed the sign and didn't feed the alligator.

These birds were right near the alligator, did they want to be dinner?

I don't remember what we did on Thursday, but we did see a beautiful sunset.

Friday we went to Harbor Town to walk around

 and saw some dolphins

Low tide and great for kayaking with what looks like lots of islands

And high tide,  we read that there was an 8 foot difference

On the way home we stopped in Fredericksburg and stayed at the Fairfield Inn.

Myrtle Beach

We left Saturday morning, Sept 7 *¨*•♫♪ Happy Birthday to Me ♪♫•*¨* 15 minutes ahead of plan.  We stopped at our favorite Pennsylvania Welcome Center rest stop

and then stayed overnight at the Residence Inn Fredericksburg using my free night from my Marriott Rewards card.  We went to eat again at the Mexican restaurant that we ate at last year on our way down.  If I didn't have it on my blog from then, I wouldn't have remembered the name, Cancun Margarita Bar & Grill.  I ordered the same thing as the year before, the BTO Loco burrito and this was what I had for leftovers.

Audrey and Steve came to Myrtle Beach too but we got there before them but the room wasn't ready so we went to the hot tub.  By the time we got out they were already in the room.
The first night we had Audrey's pesto pasta and Larry had my leftovers.  The weather was beautiful so happy hour on the deck was a nightly event.
The first morning we were there, we woke up to a visitor on our window.

Larry and Steve played golf twice and Audrey and I went to a sort of yoga class and water aerobics/yoga a couple of times as well as walked the beach.

Larry walked the beach one day when we went to exercise and he got a blister on his foot.  The day before we left we walked the beach, Larry left his shoes on, and I almost got 2 blisters on the same foot.  I limped for the rest of the day but they never really developed.  Guess I can't tell him he's so delicate anymore.
We went to Murrells Inlet on Tuesday and had lunch at Drunken Jack's

 Audrey had soft shell crabs

Larry and I got the sesame encrusted tuna salad that we always got and Steve must have gotten something that wasn't picture worthy :)

 On 9/11 the staff had a memorial at the pool at 8:46 AM

 On our walk there was this jelly fish that looked more like a jelly blob,

 This is where we had the water aerobic classes.

 Our last day to walk the beach

 And go in the hottub