My Plate Runneth Over

Hello readers, if you are still out there.

    I know that it has been a little while since my last post, but several things have happened since then. I have been so busy with all these things that I haven't had time to get in the kitchen and cook. Last week was a anomaly in the ALPHAbiteICAL household - The Mrs cooked dinner two nights last week! Even the pooch-o was confused by it all.
Let me fill you in.

Poultry Princess
    The Mrs has started a new job as the student recruiter for the Department of Poultry Science. She is in charge of planning and hosting events for the department, helping with the Poultry Science Club, traveling around the state to high schools to tell them all the things the department has to offer, and a whole host of other things that I am forgetting. Her first big event was this past weekend and it went very well, and the food there was very good too: smoked chicken (of course). 
    I am so proud of how well she is doing this job, however her jokes nowadays have become a bit fowl. I dont want to ruffle her feathers, and dont get me wrong some of her jokes have been some clucking funny, but others...not so egg-celent . If you know any good chicken jokes send them our way. To get you in the mood, watch this video courtesy of Lawrence Welk.

Poison precautions
    In the food business it is important to know how to not poison your patrons. The owners of the cupcakery I work at approached me to see if I would be willing to become ServSafe certified.The health department requires that at least one person on staff be certified to insure food safety. Well we had that one person, but they felt that it would be better if there were multiple people on staff were certified including themselves. They are in the process of expanding their business and opening a new location soon, and thought that the more people that they have with the certification the better for them.
    I have been studying my brains out and am happy to report that I passed. The tricky part about the studying and the test was I work at a bakery not a restaurant. Things like how to properly freeze fish for sushi and how to hold food at temperatures for hot service on a buffet and transporting cold food for catering isn't what I do at my job. We make cupcakes. Hundreds of cupcakes every day, that is it. It just wasn't practical for me, but to pass I had to learn it. And I passed, so there you go.

Promotion
    As I said before, the owners of the cupcakery are expanding their business. They are opening a new store location hopefully by the end of November/early December, and are also looking to open another store location ideally in the middle of next year. I really like my job baking cupcakes all day; it really is a lot of fun for me. However, I knew that I could not be a permanent part-time employee.
    With them expanding, I also knew there had to be something else for me with their company. After a few conversations and then an interview, I am now the manager of the cupcakery! They hired me to take care of the day to day things so that their efforts can be focused on opening the new store locations. I am very excited about the new job and extremely pleased to be full-time.


    All that to say I haven't gotten to cook in my kitchen much and I am having withdrawals. I need to whip up something fast or I am not going to know what to do with myself. Thank you to everyone that has shared recipes with me I am adding them to my list of things to try as we speak. If you have something that you think that I would like send it my way!

Just look at what some of my friends have sent me:

Homemade Pop Tarts with a sweet avocado filling found on scarlettabakes.com sent via from my good friend Jenn. 

She said, "Make these and invite me over to eat them." 

I will Jenn!

Pumpkin Pancakes found on tastykitchen.com sent via my cousins Blair and Chad. They tried this recipe and said it was perfect for the season. I cannot wait to try them too!

And, my parents' next door neighbor shared a family pecan cookie recipe with me. I think that I will make them for when our small group meets next.


I'm hungry, so I'm off to the kitchen. Stay tuned for what ever happens next.

-J

P is for Peach

Party over here, Party over there!

A Peach Pyramid

Perhaps you are one of those people that that have phriends. Perhaps you like to throw parties for your phriends. Well for "P", I wanted to take the opportunity to show you a few fun recipes that you can party down with.

First I want to show you a highly portable dessert for your party guests. Being bigger than the average bear, I find it difficult to maneuver around a crowded room at the best of times. Add a drink in one hand plus a plate of food in the other, that my phriend is a recipe for disaster. Why just the other day at a phriend's birthday party, I poured half a glass of lemonade on the floor trying to push my way up to the chip bowl. Talk about embarrassing.....  no let's not talk about it..

With that fresh on my mind, I thought we could use a grab-and-go food that is easy to eat. Also I didn't want a plate. No knife or pfork required please. (the k and p are silent respectively).

Pie with no knife or pfork? Bring it on!

With these Peach Pie Pops you quite literally grab, and go. Go mingle. Go socialize. Go pal around, if you will. Go do practically anything you want.
This will also help you be a better host. With this dessert you are free to move around you party and pop in and out of conversations. Phenomenal!

Peach Pie Pops

 For Dough*

•  2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1t salt
• 1/4 vegetable shortening
• 1 stick of unsalted butter
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup of ice water
• plus one more egg

For Filling

• 1 peach, small dice
• 3T butter
• 2T all purpose flour
• 2T sugar
• 2T brown sugar
• 1/4t ground cinnamon 
• pinch of nutmeg

makes 16 servings

*you can use frozen pie dough for this recipe if you wish.

Sift flour, salt, and sugar into a large bowl. Cut in the shortening, and then the butter. Combine the egg and water and stir into the flour mixture until dough forms. Split dough in half and warp in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

For the filling, melt butter in a skillet. Stir in flour, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg for 3 minutes. Add peaches and cook for another 3 minutes until thick.

Roll out dough very thin, 1/4"-1/8" thick. Cut small circles of dough and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Fill with pie filling, leaving a 1/4" boarder around the edge.

Press a 6" lolly-pop stick into the filling. With a little bit of egg wash, wet the rim of the exposed pie crust. Top with another piece of crust and crimp the edges with a pfork. Poke vent holes in the top of the pie with your pfork as well. Brush the top with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake for 15-20 minutes in a 375 degree oven until the crust is golden brown.

Don't have phriends to throw a party for? No worries!  

Just look at the fun you can have with a Peach Pie Pop and a camera with a self timer.

and now I have glasses.

That was a party in itself. I hope that you enjoyed that as much as I did. Anyway more phantastic recipes to come! Stay tuned!

-J