Katy Rice Festival Results

Another successful year at the Katy Rice Festival. They had a limit of 2 entries per person so my husband got stuck having to enter a dish since I wanted to try some new recipes I came up with. They also had a limit of 1st place per household. 1st place got $75 and a huge gift basket, 2nd got $50 and 3rd got $25. Here's what the results were:

I got 1st place with Coconut Rice Chocolate Covered Cherries, 2nd place with Italian Rice Crips.

My husband got 3rd place with Shrimp With Herbed Vegetable Rice.

My dad got a 1st place with his Smoked Fish and Rice Fingers and 2nd with his Rice Banana Split Dessert.

To make the day more exciting the Katy Homes and Lifestyles Magazine got some pictures of us to put in the upcoming issue so I'm looking forward to seeing that.

I will post more pictures as well as the recipes soon.

P.S. I saw this contest on Jenny's site for Martha's contest for bloggers check it out here.

Daring Bakers Goes Vegan This Month

I was supposed to post this yesterday, but ran into several problems which included not getting connected to the Internet and also short on time due to the festival I participated yesterday so please excuse me for posting this a day late.

I've always been fascinated with the idea of making my own crackers. Usually around Christmas I'll make food baskets for people instead of gifts because I'm the worst at figuring out what to buy someone. I didn't get around to making crackers last year but this year I feel more confident in giving it a go after this challenge.

This month Sheltie Girl of Gluten A Go Go and Shel of Musings from the Fishbowl hosted the Daring Bakers first ever Vegan recipe challenge.

Makes 1 sheet pan of crackers

* 1 1/2 cups (6.75 oz) unbleached bread flour or gluten free flour blend (If you use a blend without xanthan gum, add 1 tsp xanthan or guar gum to the recipe)

* 1/2 tsp (.13 oz) salt

* 1/2 tsp (.055 oz) instant yeast

* 1 Tb (.75 oz) agave syrup or sugar

* 1 Tb (.5 oz) vegetable oil

* 1/3 to 1/2 cup + 2 Tb (3 to 4 oz) water, at room temperature

* Poppy seeds, sesame seeds, paprika, cumin seeds, caraway seeds, or kosher salt for toppings

1. In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt yeast, agave, oil, and just enough water to bring everything together into a ball. You may not need the full 1/2 cup + 2 Tb of water, but be prepared to use it all if needed.

2. For Non Gluten Free Cracker Dough: Sprinkle some flour on the counter and transfer the dough to the counter. Knead for about 10 minutes, or until the ingredients are evenly distributed. The dough should pass the windowpane test (see http://www.wikihow.com/Determine-if-Bread-Dough-Has-Been-Mixed-Long-Enough for a description of this) and register 77 degrees to 81 degrees Fahrenheit. The dough should be firmer than French bread dough, but not quite as firm as bagel dough (what I call medium-firm dough), satiny to the touch, not tacky, and supple enough to stretch when pulled. Lightly oil a bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

or


2. For Gluten Free Cracker Dough: The dough should be firmer than French bread dough, but not quite as firm as bagel dough (what I call medium-firm dough), and slightly tacky. Lightly oil a bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

3. Ferment at room temperature for 90 minutes, or until the dough doubles in size. (You can also retard the dough overnight in the refrigerator immediately after kneading or mixing).

4. For Non Gluten Free Cracker Dough: Mist the counter lightly with spray oil and transfer the dough to the counter. Press the dough into a square with your hand and dust the top of the dough lightly with flour. Roll it out with a rolling pin into a paper thin sheet about 15 inches by 12 inches. You may have to stop from time to time so that the gluten can relax. At these times, lift the dough from the counter and wave it a little, and then lay it back down. Cover it with a towel or plastic wrap while it relaxes. When it is the desired thinness, let the dough relax for 5 minutes. Line a sheet pan with baking parchment. Carefully lift the sheet of dough and lay it on the parchment. If it overlaps the edge of the pan, snip off the excess with scissors. or4. For Gluten Free Cracker Dough: Lay out two sheets of parchment paper. Divide the cracker dough in half and then sandwich the dough between the two sheets of parchment. Roll out the dough until it is a paper thin sheet about 15 inches by 12 inches. Slowly peel away the top layer of parchment paper. Then set the bottom layer of parchment paper with the cracker dough on it onto a baking sheet.

5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit with the oven rack on the middle shelf. Mist the top of the dough with water and sprinkle a covering of seeds or spices on the dough (such as alternating rows of poppy seeds, sesame seeds, paprika, cumin seeds, caraway seeds, kosher or pretzel salt, etc.) Be careful with spices and salt - a little goes a long way. If you want to precut the cracker, use a pizza cutter (rolling blade) and cut diamonds or rectangles in the dough. You do not need to separate the pieces, as they will snap apart after baking. If you want to make shards, bake the sheet of dough without cutting it first. I precut mine with a pizza roller and topped the crackers with 3 seperate toppings, cinnamon sugar, cajun seasoning and the last one with plain salt.

To keep the flavors of the seasoning and sugar from mixing, I put a paper towel over the other section of dough.

5. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the crackers begin to brown evenly across the top (the time will depend on how thinly and evenly you rolled the dough). Guess mine ended up a little too thick it took an extra 5-10 minutes to bake.

6. When the crackers are baked, remove the pan from the oven and let them cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. You can then snap them apart or snap off shards and serve.

I ate the cinnamon sugar crackers with some applesauce yummy! The seasoned ones were good by themselves.

Breakfast Tacos

I usually make a stock pile of these when my husband goes hunting that way he can wrap up what he wants in foil and heat it over the fire and they're quick and easy to eat. I decided to make some this past weekend to use up some eggs I had. What I like most is that you can add whatever you like to it. Most of the time I do cheese and bacon or breakfast sausage, but this time I added some seasoned taco meat I made for enchiladas. Some pan fried potatoes are also really good in these.

Breakfast Tacos

Makes 2

2 eggs

1 teaspoon Mrs. Dash

1 teaspoon cayanne pepper or red pepper flakes

Lightly butter a small skillet.

Beast eggs and seasoning together and our into hot pan.

Cook the same as you would do an omelet. Once once side is finished flip the egg over and cook the other side.

Using the spatula cut egg in 4 slices.

If you are adding a lot of toppings then use 1 slice of egg per taco and you will make 4, otherwise add 2 slices of egg to each taco. Add desired toppings then roll up.

Don't forget to save those egg shells. For an easy craft project thoroughly clean each shell and allow to dry. Add confetti, crushed egg shells, hole punches or shredded paper. For a less messy version fill with candy or toys. Using small scraps of tissue paper cover the opening hole and glue down the sides.

My mom makes these for her church to sell at the annual festival to help raise money and let me tell you they're a hot item!

Beef and Lime Rice Taco Salad

I've been busy trying out new ideas I had for the upcoming rice festivals and had one that was ok but can't figure out what's missing. My inspiration was a taco salad and the recipe came out good it's just missing a flavor I can't put my finger on. For sure the taco meat needs a packet of taco seasoning and it needs more lime juice since the only time I tasted lime was when I got some of the zest. I'll make this again, but it's not strong enough to be one of my entries in the contest this year and it made enough for my husband and I to eat lunches all week long, made too much. Of course I forgot to take pictures of the finished dish put together, but at least I got a quick little one.

Beef and Lime Rice Taco Salad

1 pound ground beef

3 cups water

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cumin

2 bags Success 10 minute rice

1 grated lime rind

juice from 1 lime

Toppings: salsa, shredded cheese, sour cream, tortilla chips

Cook beef in a 3 quart saucepan over medium-high heat until it crumbles. Drain meat and pat dry, set aside. Wipe pan clean. Add water, salt and cumin to pan and bring to a boil. Add rice; cover, reduce heat to cook 20 to 25 minutes or until water is absorbed and rice is tender. Stir in lime rind, juice and meat. Serve salad with desired toppings.

National Pecan Cookie Day

Growing up I was spoiled with my parents home cooking and learned so much by helping out in the kitchen. I'm not sure what sparked our interest in entering contest, but I remember getting very interested when I was in high school. I was the Treasury person of our local 4H chapter and later became President of my school FHA my senor year of high school. We had a local Pecan Festival that we attended every year, my parents in the adult division and my brother and I in the youth until we were old enough to join the big players in the adult. So given my history with pecans of course I had to participate in National Pecan Cookie Day!

Butter Pecan Cookies

(Adapted from Martha Stewart)

3/4 cup pecans

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/3 cup sugar, plus more for coating

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a baking sheet, toast pecans until fragrant, about 6 minutes. Let cool completely; finely chop.

With an electric mixer, cream butter and 1/3 cup sugar until light, about 1 minute. Beat in vanilla, salt, and flour, scraping down sides of bowl, just until dough comes together. Fold in pecans.

Separate dough into 12 pieces; squeeze dough to shape into balls. Roll in sugar. Place, 3 inches apart, on a baking sheet.

Gently flatten with the bottom of a glass (reshape sides if necessary). Sprinkle with sugar.



Bake until golden brown, rotating sheet halfway through, about 15 minutes. Sprinkle with more sugar. Cool cookies on a wire rack.

Makes 12.

Overall the cookies came out pretty tasty and I liked that they were quick to make. They also didn't take any eggs. I would recommend cooking them a little less the 30 minutes as mine got a little browner then I would have liked. They were very light and crisp and crumbly. It seems like how you shape them is how they're gonna come out so next time I might skip the glass pressing and just do cookie balls.

7up Contest

Now that the contest has passed I wanted to share my entry that made it to the top 20 for 7ups contest and won me $200. I was inspired by thinking of things I like to eat and how I could incorporate 7up into the mix. First thing that came to me was sauce. Well I'm sure they had a million and one sauces so I had to think outside of the box. What can I do with liquid? I can boil something in it so that's when my recipe came to life. It's a strange thing you have to taste it to be able to describe it, but the 7up made the noodles really sweet so to balance that out I made a really spicy counter part. It's one of those that people will never guess what you put in the dish that's for sure! I had no idea of what they would pick because there was a huge Latin influence on the contest so I can't wait to see what recipes won. I was really worried because it's best when the shrimp are cooked on the grill so I made extra notes in hopes they wouldn't toss me aside because of it.

Sweet and Spicy Shrimp Pasta
Serves 4 to 6 people depending on serving size

Shrimp:
1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/3 cup 7UP
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon ground pepper
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoon butter

Pasta:
4 cups 7UP
1 tablespoon olive oil
8 ounces angel hair pasta

Sauce:
1 stick butter
1 teaspoon Mrs. Dash
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning
1 tablespoon Tequila

Prepare a medium-hot fire in a grill.*

While the grill is heating up, lay out 2 layers of foil about 24 inches long. In a bowl combine all ingredients except 7UP and mix thoroughly. Spread the shrimp evenly in the center of the foil in a long strip. Pour 7UP on shrimp then wrap foil into a packet and double wrap with the 2nd sheet of foil. Place foil packet on grill and cook for 10-15 minutes.

Bring 7UP to a boil then add in olive oil and pasta. Cook until all liquid is absorbed.

Meanwhile combine all sauce ingredients in a small pot over low heat. Continue to stir until butter is melted. It will still look thick do not over melt until butter is clear, remove from heat.

To assemble. Combine cooked pasta with sauce and shrimp. Be sure to pour any left over juices in the shrimp packet in with the pasta. Serve family style on a large platter garnished with parsley flakes, if desired, and French bread lightly toasted and topped with butter, garlic powder and parsley.

*Shrimp can also be cooked in the oven or on stove top if grill is not available, but cooking times will very.

Ike update

We were very lucky during the storm. Started feeling the effects around Saturday morning at 3am then lost power at 4:45am. Power came back on around noon then lost phones and water pressure which came back later that night. Many neighborhoods around us are still without power. Attached some pictures from around my husbands dad's house who lives 10 minutes away from us. We were under curfew until 2pm yesterday so couldn't get out. Only damage in our neighborhood was a blown over stop sign and some down signal lights and some trees pushed over that were newly planted. Overall our rain gage got 2.25 inches from the storm and overnight we had gotten another 3 inches from the cold front that came through.

Vacation Pictures

Thank you for everyone keeping us in your thoughts during the storm. We have started out with a pretty morning, but should start to see rain start soon it's getting dark outside.

On a happy note I got my pictures sorted out, but still have trouble getting it down to less pictures to post then what I did. You can view them here if you want to take a look. Click on Alaska and Seattle and the password is vacation. I use the site to post pictures and not as a business so please do not order anything off the site, everything defaults to their pricing. I hate how snapfish deletes them so this works much better for me and holds more. If you want a copy of any of them just let me know and I'll send them via email. Hope to have some winning pictures for this years photo contest from the trip so I'm excited about that. I'm writing a letter to Santa for a bigger national geographic camera to get shots further away because as you'll see I had trouble when it went to digital zoom.

Hope you enjoy it's fun to look if you have some free time.

Let me know if you have any questions or need any more details. Here's the highlights...

Day 1 - We flew into Anchorage and walked around near the hotel and had dinner at Corsair Restaurant. My hubby got talked into this and then we were mad we went here because it wasn't the greatest for the price. We saw a great sunset and walked back to the hotel.

Day 2 - Got up and drove to Seward while stopping at a Salmon hatchery in Anchorage but didn't see any fish then headed to Potters Marsh where we didn't see any birds so that wasn't a good start to my wildlife I wanted to see. We stopped at the Animal Refuge and saw all sorts of animals there and it was a neat place. While we were driving we saw another sign for salmon swimming so we stopped and that was cool to see. They also had a pretty park area and there was a glacier near by that we drove near. We hiked Exit Glacier and to my husbands disappointment we couldn't touch it. It was still really neat to see up close and it was a nice hike. Leaving there we saw a bear cross the road. At that point I looked like a total tourist. I forgot where we had lunch I'll have to look it up. We checked in the hotel and then went to dinner at Ray's.

Day 3 - This was our glacier boat tour and we were warned that there was a storm coming in and we might not have a full day, but we still took a chance. Made it all the way out to the coast and had to turn around at 6-8 foot seas with gust up to 61 mph. Another boat made it 5 miles further and turned around at 12 foot waves. Sooo no seeing the glaciers and hearing the ice cracking for us. Got back at 4pm instead of 8pm. Since it was raining when we got back we went to the Sealife Center. I expected it to be bigger, but the indoor bird area was really cool and had to be my favorite part.

Day 4 - It was raining in the morning, but that was no big deal since we were driving to Denali (7 1/2 hours with all our stops). Started out at 51 degrees and ended up in Denali at 65 degrees. First stopped in Anchorage for lunch at Moose's Tooth. Their beer was really good and so was the pizza. Drove down to Talkeetna which was a waste of time except we got some good views of the mountain. Went into Denali park and got to see lots of moose, bunnies and beavers.

Day 5 - We did a flight tour of Mt Mckinley and got to land on a glacier. So amazing how the clouds roll in so quick. They said we were lucky because some of the other flights they would have to cancel due to the weather. I got to be the co-pilot on the way back because the guy sitting up there was annoying everyone. We got back and had a late lunch at the Salmon Bake then headed back in the park to find wildlife.

Day 6 - Had a bus tour of Denali park scheduled (wild tundra wilderness tour) and must have picked the perfect day because we saw lots of wildlife. Our tour guides name was Clay Walker. Don't think he knew what we were talking about when we mentioned the singer, but it was still funny. That night we ate at the hotel. The rockfish dinner sounded good but they were out so I stuck with a seafood pasta. Food was ok but overpriced.

Day 7 - Took lots of pictures outside the hotel then headed back towards Anchorage and ate at Glacier Brewhouse. I think by far this was the best meal we had on our trip. Caught our plane to Seattle and checked in the hotel at 10:30pm. Ignore the excess of mushrooms I had to get some good shots for a photo contest.

Day 8 - Since we got in late the night before we slept in and then headed out to lunch at Ivars. Then we walked down to the market which we both loved. Drove around Seattle a little then headed to the Ballard Locks. Before dinner at the needle we had a beer at Gorden Biersch which was across the street from our hotel. I was shocked the dinner was really good at the Sky City as I had originally expected it to be pretty tourist. (The one in Houston the food is horrible) Headed across the street from the hotel fo a slice of cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory.

Day 9 - We drove to Snoqualmie Falls then out to Woodinville to the wineries and a brewery. I didn't know they don't grow the grapes there, they just produce some wine. Learn something new all the time. Checked in our hotel in Kirkland and went to dinner with some friends that moved up there.

Day 10 - Was our flight home and after boarding the plane with 200 people the pilot lets us know there's a broken part so 2 hours of sitting there we finally got up in the air.

Hurricane Ike

Due to the hurricane beelining straight for us I probably won't get to post anything until next week. If the power goes out I'll be cooking a lot of stuff on the grill and stove top. Thank goodness for my gas stove! I'm almost done with the vacation pictures so that might get added in the mean time.

Keep the Texas coast line in your thoughts.

5 Minute Chocolate Mug Cake

So what do you do when it's late at night and you crave something sweet? Why you bake a cake in less then 5 minutes that's what. I got this recipe via a forward from a friend so no telling where it came from. I decided to give it a go. The problem in my house is that there's only 2 of us so when I want cake it never gets eaten all so I have to pawn it off on people or throw it away. I can't tell you how many coffee mugs I have stashed away in the cabinet. I think they multiply when I'm not looking! This would make a cute idea to make and give away or at least have all the dry ingredients packaged up in the mug.

5 Minute Chocolate Mug Cake

4 tablespoons cake flour ( that's plain flour, not self-raising)
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
a small splash of vanilla essence
1 coffee mug

Put dry ingredients in mug mix well
Add the egg and mix thoroughly.
Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.
Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla essence, and mix again.

(you can also do all the above in a bowl and then pour it in your mug)

Microwave for 3 minutes at 1000 watts. The cake
will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed!

Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.

EAT!

Note: This can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly more virtuous.

Overall this cake tasted good. I think I would add a little more of the dry ingredients next time, because my extra large eggs I buy were a little too much for this recipe and made it a little sponge like similar to a bread pudding. The only thing I didn't have is the frosting, but with the chocolate chips it didn't need it. I also used the large coffee mug since I've never made this I didn't want a huge mess in my microwave to clean up. I guess it would do ok in a regular one, but it did rise pretty high out of the large mug I used as it was heating up, but when if finished it sunk back down.

On a side note the guy came to look at the fridge on Saturday before I left for vacation, turned some knobs and the sucker kicked back on. I was so mad it was that simple until he left and 1 1/2 hours later the thing died again. Luckily they scheduled a call back and on Wednesday the guy said it sounds like it needs a new motor. To top off my weekend the Internet at the house won't work. So we had a guy coming out to replace our modem. My vacation started that Friday can't come at a better time! I will have an update on my vacation as soon as I get finished organizing the pictures.