Peach Bread

Peach Bread. Photo: SouthernBelle Taste.

Last night,  I wanted something moist and peachy so I had this odd idea to bake a peach cake. :)  Yesterday was also the 4th of July, and hubby grilled a variety of delicious meats.  We watched the fireworks in our neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods, and before I knew it, it was already 10:30pm.  So, the peach cake did not get baked.

Today, I worked from home, and during my lunch break, I decided to quickly whip up a baked peach sweet. Instead of cake, I went the bread route.  Peach Bread!  I have several cans of peaches, so I used one of those since this was a trial recipe.  My mom prepared several quart bags of fresh peaches that I have frozen, but I didn't want to "waste" those in the trial.

This bread turned out great.  So the trial was a success!

Here is my recipe:

Peach Bread

1 can of sliced peaches (do not drain)
1 tsp of vanilla extract
3/4 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of butter
2 large eggs
1 cup of whole wheat flour
3/4 cup of all purpose flour
3/4 tsp of baking powder
3/4 tsp of baking soda
1 1/4 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 tsp of salt
1/2 cup of walnuts (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 10" loaf pan.
2. In a blender, pour slice peaches w/ syrup and chop. (I only allowed the blender to chop the peaches for about 3 seconds. I didn't want the peaches to be totally liquefied, which is why I stopped it so soon.)
3. Pour peaches in a bowl and add vanilla extract. Set aside.
4. Beat sugar and butter together.
5. Add eggs separately to the sugar/butter mixture.
6. In a separate bowl, mix flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. 
7. Add flour mixture and peach mixture interchangeably to the sugar/butter/eggs.
8. Add walnuts.
9. Bake in loaf pan for 50 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Peach Bread. Photo: SouthernBelle Taste.

Enjoy!

Interior Taste: Flipping a Vintage Chair

After moving into a home and having our first child, my focus has been on decorating our home, specifically the family room and baby girl's room.

I am a budget shopper, so when I saw that someone was selling this chair on our online community yard sale for only $5, I told the hubs that I had to have as my first "flip" project.

I bought the chair knowing I would spray paint it and upholster the seat.  I watched this Youtube video for ideas on upholstering chairs.

First, my hubs detached the seat from the chair, and then, I spray painted it gray.  I bought the spray paint from Walmart for $3.97.

While the chair was drying, I used a staple gun to upholster my new fabric to the cushion.  I bought 3/4 yards of fabric from Joann's Fabric for $7.  The fabric was in the "outdoor fabric" section and slightly tough, which is what I desired. I used a 50% coupon for this fabric. I had enough fabric leftover to make a small pillow.

After the chair dried, I reattached the cushion to the chair, and voila!  We have another seating space in our family room.

So basically, I got this chair for $14.50  ($5 for chair + $4 for spray paint + $5.50 for fabric (since I had fabric left over))! Plus, it now has a personal touch...my taste.

Cool Vegetable Salad

Photo: Southern Belle Taste.

Sometimes, it's refreshing to just eat vegetables.  No meat...just veggies.  While I was pregnant last year, I often craved a savory bowl of cold veggies, and that craving is reappearing as I type.  I wanted to make a veggie salad that was simple, yet good. One that didn't have mayo and pasta. So this is what I came up with.  (Considering this is currently approximately 7 months later since the first time I made this, I'm pretty sure I don't have everything accounted for precisely!  Excuse me, please!)

Vegetable Salad 
2 cucumbers (cut in cubes)
1 tomato (cut in cubes)
1 can of corn
1/3 cup chopped red onion (I honestly did not measure this.  Just seems to be an acceptable amount.)

Dressing 
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar (if there appears to be too much oil, add 1-2 extra tsp of vinegar)
2 tsp of Sea Salt  (or enough to your liking)
1 tsp of pepper (or enough to your liking)
Dash of cayenne peper
Juice of a small lime

1. Cut up cucumbers, tomato, and red onion in a medium size bowl.
2. Drain water from can of corn. Add corn to vegetable bowl.
3. In another bowl, mix the dressing ingredients.
4. Pour dressing over vegetables and stir together.
5. Chill in refrigerator until time to serve.

Bacon Wrapped Chicken Bites

Photo: Southern Belle Taste.

Who doesn't love chicken and bacon? I do suppose there are many non-pork eaters, and that is perfectly fine!  Here's a little appetizer recipe for those house parties that need comfort food in small serving sizes.

Photo: Southern Belle Taste.

This recipe is very simple! 

Bacon Wrapped Chicken Bites
4 chicken breasts (cut up in strips- 3 strips per breast)
6 strips of bacon (cut in half) (I used thick peppered bacon.)
2 bell peppers (6 slices per bell pepper)
Seasoning for chicken (use my favorite- Tony Chachere's Creole seasoning)
Toothpicks for securing

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Cut up chicken breasts, bacon, and bell pepper.
3. Season chicken strips.
4. Lay out 12 pieces of bacon. 
5. Place chicken strips on top of bacon slices.
6. Place bell pepper on the edge of chicken and roll up bacon and chicken into a roll. Secure with a toothpick. (See picture above.)
7. Line a cookie sheet with foil and place bites on sheet.
8. Place in oven for 40 minutes or until chicken and bacon are done.

What's One Thing You Could Spend a Million Dollars On?

Photo: http://www.rodale.com/cheap-healthy-food

The other day (which was actually months ago), Hubby asked me, "So, if someone gave you a million dollars, and you could spend it on just one type of thing, what would it be?"

Naturally, since I love shopping, Hubby was expecting shoes, clothes, or jewelry to come from my mouth, but you know what I said...without any hesitation..."Food!"

Lol, I love creating, trying, and learning about new foods, and if I could only spend money on one thing, at least I know that it would be going to the nourishment of my body, you know?  I eat food for enjoyment...my healthy foods are for enjoyment and my comfort foods are for enjoyment, so I can't go wrong.  Running/exercise to maintain my weight wouldn't cost me a thing because it doesn't cost anything now!

So, after he broke down the question, and I rethought my answer, I still said food. :)

Peanut Butter Cup Brownie Bottom Cheesecake



Peanut Butter Cup Brownie Bottom Cheesecake.
Photo: Southern Belle Taste.

As you know, peanut butter is a favorite in our home...mainly because of hubby.  Last week, he found this Peanut Butter Cup Brownie Bottom Chessecake recipe and sent me an email saying, "Will You Make This For Me?" (and that was it...lol...nothing more, nothing less...lol)  Of course, I definitely said yes as I love making new things.  I've only made a cheesecake once, and it was an original cheesecake flavor. So, I knew this would be fun to try. The only thing I was suprised of is that hubby doesn't like cheesecake, but he wanted to try this one. It was the peanut butter and Reeses cups that got him.

So, this weekend, I made sure I had all of the ingredients and supplies.  I had a springform pan, but it is at my parents' home in Alabama, so we had to purchase one of those, as well. 

This will not be a detailed posting with ingredients and directions because you can head over to Tasty Kitchen or Erika's flickr site to get her recipe.  I'm simply doing a review, and what a review it is!

This cheesecake baked perfectly for 1.5 hours.  I did just as the recipe instructed, and there were no problems! I did have quite a bit of cheesecake filling left over, so I made a little graham cracker crust in a personal size baking dish, and poured the rest of the filling over it.  Many reviewers stated that they used their excess filling as miniature cheesecake bites....Aaaahhh, I wish I had read those reviews before I did mine!



Slice of Cheesecake.
Photo: Southern Belle Taste.


The cheesecake is definitely rich! Oooo, rich. So, don't think you can skip running with this one.  The peanut butter flavor is smoothly present and compliments well with the brownie crust. 

For the topping, I also had a lot of it left over.  I did not have chocolate chips so I used peanut butter chips and 2 white chocolate baking squares to create the topping. Tastes wonderful!

Try it out! Hubby said I can add this to my list of signature sweets.  Thanks Erika!

Strawberry Cobbler

Strawberry Cobbler.
-Southern Belle Taste-

For 3 consecutive weeks, I made a fruit cobbler each weekend.  First up was a Blackberry Cobbler.  I had never made one before because I had no need to!  My parents have a blackberry vine along the pasture fence beside their home, and each spring/summer we would always pick gallon buckets of blackberries.  We would wash them off and drive them up to grandma's house so she could make Blackberry Cobblers.  Ooooo, the best!

So, I called grandma and got her recipe for the Blackberry Cobbler.  It was so simple, but grandma reassured me of one thing, "Anytime you make a fruit cobbler, make sure you cook your fruit on the stove before baking in the oven in the pie crust."  And boy, I tell you, I have definitely tasted the difference between uncooked apples in apple pies vs. cooked apples in apple pies.  A world of a difference!

After making the Blackberry Cobbler, which I succeeded with it tasting just like Grandma's, I made a Peach cobbler the 2nd week with fresh peaches my mom had frozen for me and the exact same recipe grandma gave for the Blackberry Cobbler.

Well, the 3rd weekend, hubby wanted me to make a Strawberry Cobbler like his grandma would make. I have never heard or tasted a Strawberry Cobbler, so I did not know what to expect.  I simply went by the same ingredients and instructions that grandma gave me for the Blackberry Cobbler.  Hubby confirmed that the Strawberry Cobbler was a hit and that it tasted like his grandma's!  (I was sooooo happy!) However, for me, I would prefer the Blackberry Cobble over any cobbler.  Here is what I did.

INGREDIENTS

Pie Filling
2 1/2 to 3 cups of sliced strawberries
1/2 cup of water
1 cup of sugar
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp butter
1/2 to 1 Tbsp cornstarch (dissovled in equal ratio of water...refer to package instructions)

Crust
2 cups of flour
3/4 cups of Crisco shortening
1 tsp salt
Ice cold water

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.


Crust
1. First, make your crust. There are a lot of crust recipes out there, but this one hasn't failed me yet. In a mixing bowl, I combine the 2 cups of flour and salt.  Then, I dump the 3/4 cups of Crisco in and use my fingers to combine the flour with the Crisco. Many recipes say to cut the Crisco into the flour with butter knives, but that's for the bird watchers.  After all mixed, it should resemble cornmeal.  One tablespoon at a time, add ice cold water to the mixture to form a dough. It may take 4 tablespoons of water.  Roll dough into a ball and divide into two balls.  If you have time to refrigerate the dough balls, it helps when rolling out the crust.  If not, dash flour on the counter and roll out a ball for the bottom layer of your pie. Once rolled, place in pie dish. Roll the other ball out and save to top your pie. Refrigerate both while preparing pie filling.

Pie Filling
2. In a medium saucepan, bring your strawberries and water to a boil. Let boil for about 5-7 minutes.  Add sugar. Let boil for another 5 minutes. Add nutmeg, vanilla, and butter.  Mix and do not let stick.  Add cornstarch/water mixture. Let thicken slightly.

3. Pour pie filling into pie crust. Top pie filling with pie crust either by simply placing the rolled out crust on top or doing a pie lattice. For assistance on completing a pie lattice, refer to YouTube.  Howdini has an easy one.  To prevent the crust edges from browning, cover with foil.

4. Bake pie in oven 50 minutes to an hour.

5. Let slightly cool (but not too much because warm cobbler is soooo good) and enjoy with a scoop of ice cream!

Blackberry cobbler w/ a scoop of ice cream.
-Southern Belle Taste-