Every day on our other websites I post a “WHO KNEW?” Tip- Im posting today’s on here because it is perfect for all of the bakers out there!!
Who Knew?? Tip- For the best tasting cakes ever, always allow the eggs, milk, and butter to come to room temperature before you make your batter!
Check our REAL ESTATE Blog for the other Who Knew Tips that I’ve posted! http://danferrara.wordpress.com/
I wanted some cupcakes this past weekend so I made these! They did the job and got rid of my craving!
I’m posting this up because the picture is cute, there’s really no recipe to this dessert. It’s just boxed marble fudge cake mix and canned pink vanilla frosting. Buy the box and frosting and follow the directions! 🙂
Check out our real estate blog for real estate videos for Home Seller Tips and First Quarter Stats! Hosted by yours truly 🙂 http://danferrara.wordpress.com/
And stop by the website, we gave it a new look! www.RIHomeCollection.com
Delicious and healthy way to have pizza! Perfect for grilling and the spring and summer weather!
Ingredients
4 Links of Chicken Sausage
Pepperoni
1/2 of a green pepper diced small
1/2 of an onion diced small
1/2 of a zucchini diced small
1/2 package of fresh spinach, wilted
1 teaspoon of minced garlic
1/2 cup of broccoli, steamed
1 package of whole wheat dough
red sauce
Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
olive oil
pepper
crushed red pepper
Directions
Cook up chicken sausage by removing it out of the casing and cook stove top in a pan. Break up meat as it cooks until it is the texture of ground meat. Once the meat is mostly cooked add zucchini, green pepper, onions, and minced garlic to the sausage, let it cook until the vegetables are soft. While this is cooking, steam broccoli in the microwave for about 4 minutes. Once it is cooked, set aside. When the meat and vegetables are cooked, set them aside in a bowl. Next wilt the spinach on the stove top with a little drizzle of oilve oil, some minced garlic, pepper, and crushed red pepper flakes. Keep the spinach on low and keep it covered mixing it occasionally. Roll out the dough to the desired size. Heat grill up to 500 degrees.
When the spinach is cooked, set some of it aside to go on the pizza. When the grill is hot, turn off one of the burners and keep the other burner on medium heat. Lightly oil the side of the dough that will go face down on the hot grill. Once you get the dough on the grill, close the cover and let it cook for about 5 minutes! Watch it closely because it can burn quickly. Once this side is cooked, flip it so the other side can cook. Start putting all the toppings on quickly! Put them in any order that you desire but the order we did went as follows: red sauce, sausage and veggie mix, broccoli, spinach, pepperoni, and cheese! Grill until crust is fully cooked and cheese is melted!
Don’t forget to check our real estate blog http://danferrara.wordpress.com/
And our website – RIHomeCollection.com
This is a yummy and different way to have cheesecake! Especially with summer coming and so many types of fresh fruit being in season! Make this for your next cook out or family gathering.
Make a water bath for your cheesecake. Take empty spring form pan and wrap layers of foil all around it until there are no seams! Once this is done, set it aside until crumb crust is ready to be pushed in.
Crust
2 1/2 cups of crushed graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup of butter melted
1/2 cup of sugar
Filling
3 (8-oz) packages cream cheese
1 (14-oz) can sweetened condensed milk
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
Directions
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Make crust for cheesecake by crushing graham crackers in food processor. Once they are finely chopped, add sugar and metled butter, blend until ingredients are combined. Take crust and press into 9 inch spring form pan. Set aside. Make filling for cheesecake by beating cream cheese until smooth. Gradually add sweetened condensed milk; beat well. Add vanilla and eggs; beat on medium speed until smooth. Once everything is blended well, put in graham cracker crust. Put spring form pan with all contents in the water bath. Directions for the water bath are at the top of the page. Take a a large casserole dish and fill it with cold water. Then place spring form pan with everything in it gently in the water bath. Put in the oven at 300 degrees for 1 hour. Once the hour is up, turn the oven off and keep the cheesecake in there without opening the oven for another hour!! It is very important to keep the oven closed!!!! When the hour is up, remove it from the oven and let it cool, then place in the refrigerator until your ready to put the fruit puree on top.
Puree
Take 1/2 cup of desired fresh fruit that will compliment each other. For instance, I used fresh strawberries and blackberries. First I took the 1/2 cup of strawberries and pureed them in the food processor. Then I poured it into a sieve and strained out the seeds. Take the seedless puree and bring it to a boil on the stove for a few minutes while it thickens. Once it is thick enough, pour it into a bowl and cool in fridge. Once it is cool, spread over cheesecake. Place fresh fruit on top of the cheesecake and serve!
Enjoy!
I made this cheesecake a while ago and decided to finally post the recipe! As you can probably tell, cheesecake is one of our favorite desserts so we like to try and make all different types!
Ingredients
Crust
32 Vanilla Wafer Cookies, crushed up
1/4 cup of butter
1/8 teaspoon
Filling
6 ounces of semisweet chocolate
1 1/2 pounds of cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup of sugar
1 tablespoon of cornstarch
4 eggs at room temperature
1 (8 ounce) container of sour cream
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Directions
Heat oven to 325 F. Wrap outside of an 8-1/2- or 9-inch spring form pan with foil. Find a roasting pan that is large enough to hold spring form pan. Set aside.
Crust: Place cookie crumbs in a medium-size bowl. Stir in butter and salt until evenly combined. Pat into bottom of prepared pan (cover your hand with plastic wrap to keep crumbs from sticking). Place pan in roasting pan.
Filling: Coarsely chop chocolate or use semisweet chocolate morsels. Place in a medium-size microwave safe bowl; microwave for 1 minute. Stir until smooth. Set aside. With an electric mixer, beat cheese, sugar and cornstarch in a large bowl until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition; scrape down side of bowl occasionally. Beat in sour cream and vanilla. Blend 3 cups batter into the melted chocolate, stirring until smooth. Dollop both kinds of batter over crust. Using a knife, swirl batters together to marbleize. Transfer to 325 F oven. Pour hot water into roasting pan to come halfway up side of spring form.
Bake at 325 F for 1 hour, 10 minutes, until set. Remove cheesecake from water; remove foil. Run knife around edge of cake. Cool on rack. Refrigerate, uncovered, for 6 hours or overnight.
Hi Everyone!
I hope you are all doing great! So the last few weeks have been crazy and we haven’t been doing too much baking and cooking. But this weekend we are going to have some time! Do you have any suggestions of what I should bake? Any recipes you would like to see that I haven’t made?
Comment below with your feedback and I’ll do my best!
Have an awesome day 🙂
Yesterday we tried a new way to bake potatoes. I’m going to call them “smashed potatoes” because that’s pretty much what they are! We had them with grilled chicken and veggies. Different kind of potato side… healthy and delicious, too.
Ingredients
2 lbs of potatoes
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Parsley
Apple Cider Vinegar
Directions
Take potatoes and wash them, if they are big potatoes cut them in half to cut down on cook time. Boil the potatoes until fork tender. Once they are done, drain them from the water and place them on a well oiled cookie sheet. Take your potato masher and gently smash the potatoes. Season with a little bit more oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and parsley. Put in the oven at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven to brush on apple cider vinegar, use as much vinegar as you like. Put back in the oven for 5 or 10 minutes until brown and crispy!
I think this is my favorite meal that Dan makes. I never used to be a fan of chicken pot pie, but that’s probably because I had never had it made from scratch before. When the time comes for us to have our restaurant, it will definitely be on the menu!!
Ingredients
6 tablespoons of butter
1 cup of chopped onions
½ cup of chopped celery
6 tablespoons of flour
2 cups of chicken stock
1 cup of half and half
2 cups of diced potatoes, blanched
1 cup of diced carrots
1 cup of chopped green beans
½ cup of chopped mushrooms
1 cup of corn
2 cups of shredded chicken
2 tablespoons of parsley
2 pie crusts (we use the packaged kind)
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Grease a  9 inch round pie pan.
In a large sauté pan, melt the butter. Add the onions and celery and sauté for 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the flour and cook for about 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in the chicken stock and bring the liquid up to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and continue to cook for 4 to 6 minutes, or until the sauce starts to thicken. Stir in the half and half and continue to cook for 4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the potatoes, carrots, green beans, mushrooms, corn and chicken. Mix the filling thoroughly. Line the baking pan with one of the crusts. Pour the filling into the prepared pan. Place the top crust on top of the filling. Carefully tuck the overlapping crust into the pan, forming a thick edge. Crimp the edges of the pan and place on a baking sheet. Place the sheet in the oven and bake for about 25 to 30 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and crispy.
Remove from the oven and cool for 5 minutes before serving.
****The last few times we made this we wanted to make it healthier. We cut back on the amount of potatoes to 1 ½ cups, used skim milk instead of half & half, and eliminated butter and salt. It still tasted delicious and is a little more diet friendly!
Don’t forget to check out our real estate website — we just completely re-did it! www.RIHomeCollection.com and check our Real Estate Blog http://danferrara.wordpress.com/
Thanks 🙂
Life has been crazy lately so we haven’t been baking too much. That’s why we haven’t posted anything recently! Well here is the latest thing we baked. It’s perfect for peanut butter and chocolate lovers!
Ingredients
PEANUT BUTTER CRUMB CRUST (recipe at the bottom)
1-3/4 cups (about 11 to 12 standard) REESE’S Peanut Butter Cups
3 packages (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened
1-1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1/3 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips, melted
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
Whipped cream (optional)
Additional REESE’S Peanut Butter Cups (optional)
PEANUT BUTTER CRUMB CRUST: Stir together 1-1/2 cups vanilla wafer crumbs (about 45 wafers, crushed) and 1/2 cup powdered sugar in medium bowl. Place 1/4 cup REESE’S Creamy Peanut Butter and 3 tablespoons butter or margarine in small microwave-safe bowl. Microwave at MEDIUM (50%) 30 seconds or until butter is melted and mixture is well blended when stirred. Add to crumb mixture, blending thoroughly. Press onto bottom and 1 inch up sides of 9-inch spring form pan.
Directions
Heat oven to 400°F. Prepare Peanut Butter Crumb Crust. Remove wrappers from peanut butter cups. Cut each cup into about 16 pieces.
Beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth and creamy in large bowl. Add eggs, beating well. Add sour cream and vanilla; blend thoroughly.
Place 2 cups batter in separate bowl; blend in melted chocolate. Pour chocolate batter into prepared pan. Add peanut butter to remaining batter; blend thoroughly. Gently stir in peanut butter cup pieces; spread over chocolate batter.
Bake 10 minutes. Without opening oven door, reduce temperature to 350°F. Bake additional 50 to 55 minutes or until center is almost set.
Remove from oven to wire rack. With knife, loosen cake from side of pan. Cool completely. Refrigerate 6 to 8 hours or until thoroughly chilled. Just before serving, garnish with sweetened whipped cream and additional peanut butter cup pieces, if desired. Cover; refrigerate leftover cheesecake. Makes about 10 to 12 servings.
Cooking for Life 