Tomato swirl bread is a recipe that I came up with a couple of years ago. I love tomato soup and toasted cheese, I mean who doesn’t, right? Well this bread is the perfect bread for the toasted cheese sandwiches that you dunk into the soup…It is also fantastic with summer salads and anything else you want to make. I originally posted this in 2007 and I need to update the images….In the meantime give this a try…it really is good.

YUM! This has a faint aftertaste of tomato soup!

I took the original tomato bread recipe from The Farm Journal Bread Cookbook. I did tweak it a bit as I felt that whole wheat would need a stronger flavor. This scented the entire kitchen this morning. It would make great toast to go with tomato soup, or cheese soup…it would be a good base for burgers…or even a bologna sandwich.

Dough 1-tomato

• 1 c tomato sauce
• 2 tbs butter
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cloves (just trust me, o.k.?)
• 2 Tbs ketchup
• 1 package of dry yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp)
• 1/4 c warm water
• 4 cups or so of whole wheat flour OR white flour OR a blend. I used whole wheat.

1. Soften yeast in water.
2. Heat tomato sauce, butter, and ketchup and let cool to lukewarm. Add sugar, cloves, salt and yeast mixture to tomato mixture and mix in enough flour to make a soft but kneadable dough (or mix according to mixer directions).
3. Turn out and knead until smooth and elastic.
4. Rub lightly with oil and set aside to rise.

Dough 2- whole wheat

• 1 1/2 c warm water
• 2 Tbs butter
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 pack dry yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp)
• 4 cups or so whole wheat flour

1. Soften yeast in 1/4 c water with sugar. TO other 1 1/4 c water add butter until butter melts (you may need to microwave it and let cool to luke warm). Add salt and yeast mixture…then add flour until you get a soft, kneadable dough…proceed as above.
2. Let balls of dough rise until double-about 1 1/2 hours. punch down and knead lightly…cut each ball of dough into 2 equal pieces. Let rest 10 minutes.
3. Roll each ball out into a rectangle of equal sizes. Place a tomato dough rectangle on top of a whole wheat rectangle and roll up tightly pinching dough together at bottom to seal. Repeat with other loaf.
4. Let rise in greased bread pans for 1 hour or until double.

Bake at 375 for 30 minutes or until loaves sound hollow when tapped…Let cool if you can.

First of all let me just say that this chocolate bundt cake is easy and amazing.

You may skip to the recipe now…. (more…)

O.k. I made these for Renee at Flamingo  Musings… really I did. I wanted to send them to her with a cookbook..

I am nice that way.

So I baked them and let the kids each have one…and saved 2 dozen for Renee…and then…stuff happened. Lots of stuff. Stress. Life. And pretty soon the cookies were gone and I still hadn’t sent a thing to Renee.

Did I feel awful? Yeah. Dang. I hate saying I am going to do something and then not doing it. But there ya go. Life sometimes gets in the way. So, here is the recipe. And Renee? I will get the cookies to you as soon as I can, girlfriend.

These are chewy and chocolatey…with a tiny bit of citrus from the cardamom. Candied orange peel would be amazing in these. Don;t overbake them or they will be hard and not chewy..unless you want them that way.

Chocolate Cardamom Pecan Cookies

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 1 1/2 tsp fresh cardamom
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup pecans
• 1 cup bittersweeet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup finely chopped candied orange peel
• Turbinado sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 350F
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment
3. Cream shortening, butter, eggs, vanilla, and sugars together and beat well
4. Mix dry ingredients together and stir into the butter mixture
5. Fold in remaining ingredients except turbinado sugar
6. Chill for 30 minutes
7. Drop by rounded teaspoons  in turbinado sugar
8. Place on the cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes or until just barely done. Allow to cool for 1o minutes before removing from the cookie sheet.

4 dozen cookies

Images: marye audet (c) 2010 all rights reserved

Browned butter is a wonderful ingredient. It was used a lot in vintage recipes because it gives a lot of flavor easily. In these cupcakes the butter adds a rich, nutty, caramel flavor that pairs nicely with the very sweet penuche frosting. Although the frosting has coconut and pecans it is more like pralines than the traditional frosting for German Chocolate cake.

The frosting is very thick and has a creamy fudge-like consistency. It is best just to spoon a dollop on the top rather than trying to spread it. You wouldn’t believe how amazing the house smells while these are baking. (more…)

This is not a joke, although it sort of feels like one. I can tell you that I never expected to make snow ice cream in Texas!

Last thursday it snowed here in the Dallas area…and snowed… and snowed. I felt like I was living in Pennsylvania or Southwestern New Jersey again. I seriously felt like rereading the Long Winter, and Katy and the Big Snow. We had a great time playing in it; believe it or not we got over 10 inches of the white stuff. It broke a record here!

In fact, there is still snow on the ground in some areas and it has been 55F this week. I can’t ever remember snow lasting a full week here, either. I wanted to give the kids a special memory and so I decided to make snow ice cream.

It is simple to make and the ingredients are easily procured in many states in the winter time. You need:

That’s it. It was great fun, and something that I am sure my kids will remember forever. Make memories with your kids as much as you can… Time goes by so fast!

images :  marye audet