Spiced Pear Bread {Recipe Revealed!!}

A humungous THANKS to Scottyboy & KatyGirl for asking Kaylee from Life Chasers to share her Nutmeg Spiced Pear Cake recipe. This blog was a couple of years old but it was exactly what I needed!!

Recently, I did some reorganization in my cabinets. I pulled all the oldest canned goods out to our wire shelving and put the newer items in the cabinets below. When I pulled out all the older cans I noticed I had six cans of sliced pears in juice. Uh, why? Why did I buy six cans? I like pears, but why do I have quite so many? I refuse to throw out good food and I knew I wanted to make them into a dessert, specifically a sweet bread for Kit and me.

After many, many Google, Pinterest and AllRecipes searches I stumbled on the above linked recipe and added my own tweaks. Below is my version of the recipe and I will make comments below the recipe why I chose to make those changes.

Spiced Pear Bread

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons ground nutmeg

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon  baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

3 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup pear juice reserved from drained cans

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cans (30 ounces) pear halves, reserve juice for  and mashed

1 cup chopped almonds

Directions

In a large bowl, combine the first six ingredients.

In another bowl, whisk the sugar, oil, eggs, cider, and vanilla.

Add to the dry ingredients and stir well.

Stir in pears and pecans.

Pour into a greased and floured 10-in fluted bunt pan.

Bake at 350F for 65-70 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean.

Cool before removing from pan to a wire rack.My changes from the original linked recipe:

• Doubled the amount of nutmeg and cinnamon
• Reduced the amount of salt
• Used juice from canned pears instead of apple cider
• Still had some juice wasted–perhaps make the sauce linked in the recipe with the pear juice
• Increased amount of pears to 30 oz from 29 oz. Simply because I have 15 oz cans instead of the family size cans.
• I topped my pear bread with nuts instead of mixing them in, but I like the idea of nuts throughout the bread
• I got to use my new silicone bunt pan…so strange, but it worked!
• I had a small bunt pan, so I actually made a bunt and a small loaf

This was an awesome recipe
and you can bet your bunts I will be making it again!

~Kat~

Coconut Red Velvet Tres Leches Cake {Recipe Revealed!!}

I’m sure you’re probably freaking out a little bit that this exists somewhere. I couldn’t find it on the internet anywhere so I decided to share my recipe here.

This is the least labor intensive version of a tres leches cake and the same recipe I followed for my birthday cake last year.

This was the first time I toasted coconut. And I followed the recipe I found here. I made mine on the stove top and it was super easy.

Step one: bake your cake, follow box directions.
Step two: toast coconut and allow to cool
Step three: cool cake completely, I always seem to be running out of time and chill mine in the fridge after the pan is cool.

Step four: this is a key difference, whisk together 1 can evaporated milk, 12 ounces coconut milk (if you’re lazy, a whole can is just 14 ounces), and 1 cup half and half.

Step five: poke holes in cake and evenly pour milks into pan.

Step six: cover and chill overnight, ideally. If you don’t have time at least get two hours of soak time.

Step seven: cut a piece, top with coconut shavings and devour.
You can also whip up some heavy whipping cream and sugar if you prefer.

You’re welcome.
~Kat

Independence Day

Did everyone have a safe and fun Fourth of July?

It poured rain all day in south central Kentucky, but that didn’t stop many folks from celebrating our nation’s birthday.

Cutting up with friends from work over a couple of beers/or/glasses of wine was a perfect way for me to ring in the holiday. The cheddar dogs and pineapple angel food cake didn’t hurt either.

You remember that recipe?
Pineapple angel food cake is easy!
One box of angel food cake
One large can of pineapple

Bake 350° for 30 minutes 
And devour!

Been crafting lately too. I made coasters using the bottle caps I have been collecting. Now I just need a cute lil coffee table to stack them on.

Have a fantastic 5th of July!

What’s Up with Kat

Since I’ve been back from Spain I have been trying to get my rhythm. Not too hard, but it does take time.
I tried to save the weakest chick of nine thar hatched (just before I got home). Sadly, Mr. Chicklet didn’t make it but we had some happy times before he passed.

Been cooking with my girl. I assisted with cake decorating for a sports themed baby shower. What is even better is I didn’t mess up the cake. I didn’t do the fancy writing but icing that sucker was a task in itself!

Picked some fresh strawberries, mashed and mixed them to make strawberry pies. Folks at work made the one pie disappear in under 30 minutes. Maybe more pie next time.

My poppies and tiger lilies are blooming. It makes the backyard look super jolly!

Made a fruit tart for some friends with my girl and now that I know how easy it is I really want to do one! Maybe I can borrow her tart pan sometime :-)

We also purchased a wee soft shell turtle. We plan on letting him grow bigger and releasing him into our backyard pond. There are some sliders in there now and frogs and I don’t want Jubal to be bullied by the other creatures in the pond.

Those are the highlights of the last couple of weeks.
We have been enjoying hot days but not the too stinking hot days we are used to in June. Such a relief after last year’s scorcher.

Kat’s V-Day 2013

This Valentine’s Day went pretty well. I was very pleased that Kit and I decided to stay at home. I hate the stress of going out for a fancy dinner only to find every restaurant over-packed with other noisy people. Besides our food was better. First, we got semi-dressed up and were witnesses at a friend’s wedding. We had lunch with the happy couple and then went trudging to do the V-day shopping we should have done days before.
I was surprised how many men were snatching flowers with a desperate look in their eyes and how many folk there were in the grocery store.

This is a hugely popular DIY gift on Pinterest. The project is called 52 Things I Love About You. On each card I wrote something that I love about Kit. I copied some from another crafter, but I found that the ones that meant more were the personal ones. My Kit rarely wears pants. He is a shorts-man. Because of that fact I wanted him to wear shorts for our wedding. The phrase “Two Wild Banshees” is one of those things I catch him saying all the time.

When Kit looked through the cards on Vday, he was chuckling and smiling all the way through. Because I wrote on the face of the cards, they can still be played with normally.

Supper started the only way it could; with wine. I bought a bottle of the same wine we had for our wedding (a peach chardonnay) and threw some frozen peaches into it. Perfecto.

Honestly, the first thing I did was begin marinating the shrimp and steak. The shrimp was medium, fully-cooked and frozen. I used a lemon ginger marinade that I should have started the night before, but the hours run away from me. The marinade for 1 pound of shrimp is:

• 2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 3/4 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 3/8 onion, chopped
• 5/8 clove garlic, peeled
• 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger root
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh cilantro leaves (I used cubed bouillon style cilantro)
• 1/4 teaspoon paprika (dash)
• 1/8 teaspoon salt (dash)
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper (dash)

I cubed up a steak and threw it into a gallon bag and tried to follow this steak marinade recipe: (I didn’t have W-sauce, oops!)

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 4 cloves minced garlic
• 1/2 onion diced
• 1 teaspoon yellow mustard
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• dash of pepper

As you can see in the photo above, I skewered quartered small sweet onions, whole mushrooms (baby portabellas were on sale), whole grape tomatoes, and fat slices of red and green bell peppers. I baked these kabobs on a cookie sheet (I recommend putting aluminum foil on the trays to help with cleanup). Bake them for 10-12 minutes at 450F, flip them over and bake an additional 7-8 minutes. Thanks for the oven kabobs recipe, Sarra!

I made coca-cola cake for dessert. I failed to check my stock of butter and only had enough to make the cake and not the glaze that went on top. What makes coca-cola cake special or different from a regular chocolate cake? I honestly have no clue. Google is not helping a sister out either. It was a good recipe that I have to try again when I can do the glaze as well. I honestly love my mom’s recipe for crazy cake. This was more moist…almost like a light brownie.

The rest of the evening was spent enjoying our present that we gave to each other. Our Roku is so much better than jewelry I may never wear. Tons of Netflix TV shows at our fingertips. In one month, the Roku has already paid for itself several times over because we were frequent users of Redbox.