Lizzie's Strawberry Cupcakes

These strawberry cupcakes showed up on the September Sweet As Pie Cooking Club menu.  Being in a mood for fall food, they didn't catch my attention until I realized I had local strawberries in the freezer.  And I had been saving them for some reason...not sure what...maybe just the right recipe to come along.

Trisha's photo shows that she used paper cupcake liners.  The recipe doesn't say to use them, and I'm not a big fan of them, so I didn't use them.  I didn't want to take a chance of half the cupcake sticking to the liner.  Have you ever tried to eat cupcake off the liner?  Oh, just me?  Ok, nevermind.

If the strawberries don't have syrup, just add a sprinkling of sugar and let them sit in the bowl for a few minutes while they make their own syrup.

The kitchen smells like one big strawberry as these bake!  Yum!

As for the icing, comments in the review say that folks had trouble getting it to blend well.  The butter needs to really be at room temperature and even then mine didn't come out looking as glossy as the photo.

They are VERY good!

Here have a bite.

Jack's Brunswick Stew

With fall in the air, despite 80 degree plus temps outside, Trisha Yearwood's uncle Jack's Brunswick Stew sounded really good!  My mother made Brunswick stew when we were growing up and it's been a while since I've had it.  Some BBQ joints around here make it, just be prepared for a "smoked" flavor though.  I was glad to see a stew on the Sweet As Pie Cooking Club.

The recipe called for 1 lb each of beef, pork and chicken.  Since it's difficult to get this small amount at the meat counter (unless you ask the butcher which I usually don't), I chose a package of beef for stew, a small pork roast, and a small package of chicken breast.

This recipe said to puree everything.  I guess I don't get out much because stew, in my opinion is not pureed.  Soups may be pureed, but not stews.  I guess it's a regional thing.  It took about 4 hours to make it so if I pureed everything it would have taken even longer!

I used less corn than it called for but other than that, I followed the recipe...well, except for puree.

Anyway, to make a 4 hour long story short I thought it was good.  The Bassman ate a bowl and didn't care for more.  

Huh?  He didn't like it?!

Not really.

Now what was I to do with the rest of it?  It makes a LOT!  These things have a way of working themselves out.  I took a bunch of it to his aunt's house since his uncle had just passed away and the family was coming in for the funeral.

I liked it, but won't make it again.  And that's a potato chunk in the photo, not pureed.

Sorry Jack and Trisha.

Skillet Rosemary Chicken

I can hardly believe September has come and gone as well as another month of Sweet As Pie Cooking Club recipes!

One thing I wanted to do with our meals this fall is to try more "one pot" meals.  Seems to me though, most one pot meals are really "almost one pot"!   So this Skillet Rosemary Chicken from Food Network fit perfectly in my plan.  It takes 2 pots.

I used chicken thighs because, once again, there were only chicken-zilla breasts at the store.  And I wanted tender chicken, not tough chewy chicken.  Dried rosemary from my herb pot worked well and I didn't need to buy fresh rosemary.  The lemon juice adds a nice zing, although I didn't include the halves in the final one pot.

The Bassman has a like/hate relationship with mushrooms.  I decided to put them in and he could decide to eat them or not.  I wish I had used cremini, like the recipe calls for, because I don't know that I've ever had cremini mushrooms before.   So that means, I'll try this dish again.

Here it is, right out of the oven.