Strawberry Margarita Bundt #BundtBakers

Sometimes I'm lucky and am able to cover 3 events with one post.  That is not the case today.  Three events.  Three desserts.  Three posts. Each one just as delicious and exciting as the next.  You will see that I have already posted a Banana and Coconut Cream Pie for Improv Cooking Challenge and a Carrot Cheesecake for Crazy Ingredient Challenge.  Both were creamy and delicious but this Strawberry Margarita Bundt Cake......it is mine and Frank's personal favorite.

Our friend, Patricia, from Patty's Cake, is hosting this month's Bundt Bakers event and has chosen the theme "Cocktails".  YUM!!!  Patricia left it up to us whether we wanted to add actual alcohol to our recipe.  You know me...Pass the Tequila!

I knew, as soon as I heard the theme, that I was going to go with Strawberry Margarita.  This is because I had a jar of homemade Strawberry/Tequila jam that our son, Anthony, had made for us and I knew it would be the perfect glaze for this cake.

This was one of the desserts I offered up after Easter Dinner.  It was a great addition to our table and the best part.....it was easy peasy!  I started with a boxed cake mix, substituted packaged Strawberry Margarita Mix and Tequila for the water and baked it up. You could easily make this non alcoholic by using a full cup of Margarita mix and deleting the Tequila and substituting plain strawberry jam for the Strawberry/Tequila jam that I used. 

When the cake was cooled, I melted the entire jar of Strawberry/ Tequila jam and poured it over the cake.  Now, if you are not fortunate enough to have a son that provides you with Strawberry/Tequila jam you can just use 8 oz of Strawberry Jam.

I served it up with a dollop of whipped cream and a cute little Easter cookie.  It was a great ending to a perfect Easter feast.

Strawberry Margarita Cake

1 box yellow cake mix

3/4 c. strawberry margarita mix

1/4 c. tequila

3 eggs

1/3 c. canola oil

8 oz. Strawberry/Tequila jam

Place all ingredients into large bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment.  Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes.  Pour into a bundt pan that has been liberally treated with baking spray.  Bake in a preheated 350* oven for 35-37 minutes, until a skewer inserted removes cleanly.  Remove to a rack and allow to cool for 10 minutes before removing the cake from the pan onto the cooling rack.

When cake is cooled completely, place onto a cake platter.  Melt the jam in a small saucepan over low heat and drizzle over the top and down the sides of the cake.  Print Recipe

More Fun "Cocktail" Bundt Cakes

• Banana Daiquiri Bundt Cake by Bizcocheando
• Caipiroska Bundt Cake by I Love Bundt Cakes
• Dirty Banana Mini Bundts by Passion Kneaded
• Eggless Bundt Anise Pound Cake by Sneha’s Recipe
• Harvey Wallbanger Bundt Cake by The Queen of Scones
• Irish Car Bomb Bundt Cake by Making Miracles
• Limoncello Pound Cake by Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite A Whiskered Accomplice
• Maracuya Sour Bundt Cake by Patty’s Cake
• Midori Splice Bundt Cake by All That’s Left Are The Crumbs
• Mimosa Bundt Cake by Palatable Pastime
• Strawberry Margarita Bundt by A Day in the Life on the Farm

#BundtBakers is a group of bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bundts with a common ingredient or theme. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme or ingredient.

You can see all our of lovely Bundts by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about #BundtBakers, can be found on our home page.

Carrot Cheesecake for #CrazyIngredient Challenge

The vote came in over at Crazy Ingredient Challenge and the winners were  Carrots and Graham Crackers.  CIC is a fun little group where each month the members vote on 2 sets of 4 ingredients. The ingredient with the most votes from each group get joined together to give us the mandatory ingredients to be used in a recipe.  It is fun and you can join us by emailing Lori at lorisculinarycreations@hotmail.com.

I was extremely pleased with this month's ingredients and immediately knew that I was going to make a cheesecake to serve up after Easter dinner.  Carrots and Easter just seem to go together so well...I guess because of that cute little bunny rabbit that hides eggs all over the world.

I found this recipe at Taste of Home and knew it would be perfect.  I adapted the recipe slightly by using frozen carrots that I thawed and pureed instead of cooking my own.  I also omitted the streusel topping and added a dollop of whipped cream to each slice before serving.

The cheesecake is baked in a water bath so the top was perfect without a crack to be seen.  The recipe recommends allowing the cheesecake to refrigerate overnight which was perfect because I certainly had enough to do on Easter Sunday and was happy to have as much prepared as possible beforehand.

My friend, Rob, who joined us for dinner said that it was "the best cheesecake" he had ever had. Music to every cook's ears.  

Carrot Cheesecake

adapted from Taste of Home

2 sleeves full size graham crackers

1/4 c. sugar

1/3 c. butter, melted

3 packages cream cheese

1 1/4 c. sugar

2 T. brown sugar

3 eggs

1/4 c. heavy cream

2 T. cornstarch

1 T. sour cream

1 1/2 t. vanilla

1 t. lemon juice

1/2 t. ground cinnamon.

1 (12 oz) package frozen carrots, thawed and pureed

1 pint heavy cream, whipped

Place the graham crackers in a heavy duty gallon sized bag that zips shut.  Using a rolling pin, smash and roll the crackers into crumbs.  Add the 1/4 cup sugar and butter to the bag.  Shake and knead to combine.  Press this mixture into the bottom and 2" up the sides of a 9" springform pan.  Bake in a preheated 350* oven for 6-8 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack.  Leave the oven on.

While crust is cooling, beat cream cheese and sugars in the large bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until smooth.  Add the eggs, cream, cornstarch, sour cream, vanilla, lemon juice and cinnamon.  Beat at medium speed until well combined, scraping as necessary.  Add the carrot puree and mix in on low speed.  

Pour filling into crust.  Place pan on a double thickness of foil and securely wrap the foil around the bottom of the pan and up the sides.  Place the springform pan into a flat bottomed roasting pan and add hot water to come up to 1" on the sides of the pan.  Bake for 60-70 minutes, until the center is just set.  Cool on a wire rack for half an hour.  Remove the sides of the springform pan and cool to room temperature.  Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight before serving with a dollop of whipped cream.  Print Recipe

More Carrot and Graham Cracker Creations

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No Bake Banana Coconut Cream Pie #ImprovCookingChallenge

I'm Bananas about Coconut so I was pretty happy with the ingredients for this month's Improv Cooking Challenge.

Improv Cooking Challenge is a group of bloggers led by Nichole of Cookaholic Wife.  Each month we are assigned two ingredients and are allowed to post any recipe we like as long as those ingredients are included.  Kind of like Chopped but with no time constraints.

As soon as I learned what this month's ingredients were I knew that I wanted to make my husband a pie.  He loves Banana Cream pie and he's crazy about Coconut Cream pie so I knew he would go ape over a Banana Coconut Cream Pie.  Ape, get it?  Banana's?  Oh, never mind!

I found this easy peasy No Bake version by Nestle's while doing a google search.  I used a premade graham cracker crust that was not deep dish.   This meant that there was a bowlful of filling left for Frank to have sans crust while he was waiting for the pie to set and be served the following day.

Since the pie was filled to the brim, I didn't "frost" it with the whipped topping as suggested in the original recipe but dolloped the topping on when serving.

Banana Coconut Cream Pie
adapted from Nestle's

1 premade graham cracker crust
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1 c. water
1 (3 oz) pkg banana cream instant pudding
1 c. coconut flakes
1 (8 oz) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
1 lg. banana, sliced

Whisk together the sweetened condensed milk and water in a large bowl.  Mix in the pudding and coconut.  Fold in 1/2 of the whipped topping (1 1/2 cups).

Place the banana slices in a single layer on the bottom of the pie crust.  Pour the filling over the bananas.  ( If you are not using a deep dish crust, you will have filling left over.) Refrigerate for at least 4 hrs before serving with dollops of the remaining whipped topping.  Print Recipe

More Coconut and Banana Creations

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BLT Grilled Cheese with Avocado #FantasticalFoodFight

April is National BLT month.  It is also National Grilled Cheese month.  So when Sarah, the leader of our Fantastical Food Fight, chose the theme of BLT for this month, I decided to combine the two.

Sarah instructed that our entry must be a sandwich that contains bacon, tomato and a leafy green.  I decided to use baby spinach as my leafy green.  I also added some avocado slices for a little extra green.  You can learn all about Fantastical Food Fight and how to join by going to Sarah's introduction post.

Layer upon layer of goodness in this sandwich.  Start with a slice of cheese, add the bacon, layer on the spinach and then the tomatoes.  Top this with some avocado and then another slice of cheese. Generously butter the outside of the bread and grill it to a golden brown.

This would make a perfect breakfast, you could even add an egg if you so chose.  It would also be  a marvelous lunch paired with some chips or fries or you could do as I and serve it up with a hearty bowl of Bean Soup that you make from your Easter Leftovers and call it dinner.

BLT Grilled Cheese with Avocado

For each Sandwich:

2 slices whole wheat bread

butter, room temperature

2 slices colby jack cheese

4-5 slices bacon, cooked crisp

small handful of baby spinach leaves

2 tomato slices

3-4 slices avocado

Place one slice of bread on a board and cover with a slice of cheese, bacon, spinach, tomato and avocado.  Place the second slice of cheese on top.  Cover with a second slice of bread buttered on the side facing up.  Carefully, transfer the sandwich to a hot griddle, placing the buttered side of the sandwich down.  Butter the slice of bread now facing up.  Grill until bottom is golden brown.  Flip so that the top buttered side is on the griddle and grill until that side is golden brown and the cheese is melted.  Print Recipe

More Amazing BLT's

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Slow Cooker 40 Cloves of Garlic Chicken #4theLoveofGarlic

Tomorrow is National Garlic Day.  We have been celebrating for the past 6 days with Cam of Culinary Adventures with Camilla.  She invited 6 of us to try out the Garject garlic press from Dreamfarm and had Melissa's Produce provide us with a slew of garlic.  We received regular garlic, minced garlic, black garlic and elephant ear garlic.  We got TONS of garlic!!

Dreamfarm is also allowing us to raffle off 6 of their amazing garlic presses.  The Garject is not your ordinary garlic press.  It is heavy duty and equipped with an ejection handle so that you need not worry about peeling the garlic before mincing.  I can't tell you how much I love mine!

I have been going Garlic Crazy around here.  I have made Quick and Easy Garlic Knots and this yummy Garlic Soup with Noodles and Peas.

You can learn more about this celebration and enter to win your very own Garject by going to my Intro post.  Hurry, the raffle ends tomorrow.

The first thing I thought of when I received all this garlic was 40 Clove Chicken.  I had made 40 Clove chicken once, before I started blogging.  I braised it in the oven and it was decadent and delicious.  The day that I was making this was an errand day and I had planned to do a Whole Chicken in the Crockpot.  I decided to make my 40 Clove Chicken in the Slow Cooker to enjoy this wonderful gift I had gotten.

The Garject, as wonderful as it is, did not help me at all with this recipe.  All 40 cloves had to be peeled.  The best way to do this is to give each one a sharp whack with the side of a butcher knife. The skin will split and then easily peels off.  I had gotten a garlic stone as a sponsor gift for an event last year, but haven't been able to locate it since our move.  That doesn't mean that I had to run my errands with my hands reeking of garlic.  Wash your hands, rinse, rub them on your stainless steel sink, wash again, rinse and all that garlic odor will be gone.

I placed the chicken, breast down into the slow cooker, surrounded it with sweet potatoes and garlic and left to take care of all my running around.

When we got home the house smelled absolutely amazing.  I guess a vampire may not have thought it smelled wonderful but I, a self professed garliholic, swooned when I walked in the door.  Within moments I had the chicken carved and the dinner was served.  We had plenty of chicken for dinner that night using the breast meat and enjoyed pot pie using the dark meat and leftover gravy later in the week.

Slow Cooker 40 Cloves of Garlic Chicken

adapted from Cooking Light

1 whole chicken (3-4 lbs)

1 c. chicken stock

1/4 c. dry white wine

3 T. flour

2 T. butter, melted

2 T. lemon juice

salt and pepper to taste

2 t. Italian Herbs

2 sweet potatoes, peeled and quartered

40 cloves of garlic, peeled

Treat crock of slow cooker with cooking spray.  Wash the chicken with cold water, season inside and out with salt and pepper and place breast down into the crock. Scatter the sweet potatoes and garlic around the chicken.  Whisk together the chicken stock, wine, flour, butter and lemon juice.  Pour over the chicken, potatoes and garlic.  Sprinkle with the Italian herbs.  Cover and cook on high heat for 6-8 hours.

Remove the chicken to a cutting board.  Remove the skin and wings, discard.  Cut off the drumsticks and thighs, place onto a platter.  Remove the breast meat from the carcass and remove any bones, slice and place onto the platter.  Surround with potatoes and garlic.  Strain any fat from the gravy. Ladle gravy over chicken and serve.  Print Recipe

Jelly Bean Cookies and The Weekly Menu #EasterLeftovers

Happy Day after Easter everyone.  I am rejoicing in my Living God.  Easter is my favorite Holiday of the year.  It is the celebration of the birth of Christianity.  Had our Lord not arose that Easter Morning 2000+ years ago our world (certainly my world) would be vastly different.  I hope that you had a wonderful celebration and should you profess a  different religion or no religion at all, I hope you had a wonderful Spring weekend.

Sue of PalatablePastime asked our  Holiday Fun with Blog Friends group to get together today to share some recipes using up our Easter leftovers.  Whether or not you celebrate Easter, you are sure to find some recipes in here that you will love and that will help you use up leftovers all the year through.

I'm sure you are going to see lots of recipes using ham.  I like to make Split Pea Soup with my ham bone. I also like to serve lamb on Easter.  Lamb just speaks Spring to me.  Leftover Lamb goes into this delicious casserole.  Did you serve a Beef Roast?  How about turning the leftovers into French Dip Sandwiches?  YUM!

Today, though, I am sharing a recipe to use up something that you have left from Easter that you didn't cook up first.  Today we are using up the last of those jelly beans!  I found this easy sugar cookie recipe containing jelly beans at Taste of Home.

I adapted this recipe very slightly, using half and half instead of milk, as my milk had passed it's expiration date.  These cookies are very sweet.  The next time I make them I am lowering the added sugar to 1/2 cup.  My Angel Face thought they were perfect but she is the Jelly Bean Queen.

Jelly Bean Cookies

slightly adapted from Taste of Home

1/2 c. shortening

3/4 c. sugar (I will reduce to 1/2 c. in future)

1 egg

2 T. half and half

1 t. vanilla

1 1/2 c. flour

1 1/4 t. baking powder

pinch of salt

3/4 c. small jelly beans

Cream together shortening and sugar in large bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment.  Add the egg, half and half and vanilla beating until well blended.  Add the flour, baking powder and salt. Mix at low setting until incorporated, increase speed and beat into creamed mixture.  Reduce mixer to lowest setting and stir in jelly beans.

Using a small cookie scoop, place onto a baking sheet lined with parchment, spacing 1" apart.  Bake in a preheated 350* oven for 10-12 minutes, until edges are golden brown.  Print Recipe

Now that you've enjoyed your Easter meal, chocolate or whatever else, give the leftovers another lease of life! Get some inspiration from all the leftover recipes being shared today:

• Ham, Pea and Onion Risotto from Family around the Table
• Macaroni and Cheese with Ham from Palatable Pastime
• Jelly Bean Cookies from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Deviled Ham and Egg Salad from Cooking with Carlee
• Loaded Stuffed Potato Pancakes from Jolene's Recipe Journal
• Leftover Lamb Pasta Sauce with Eggplant from Caroline's Cooking

Weekly Menu featuring Easter Leftovers

Meatless Monday

Egg Salad Sandwiches

Leftover Spring Vegetable Soup

Tuesday

Mac and Cheese with Ham and Broccoli

Wednesday

Greek Tacos (using leftover lamb)

Tomato/Mint Salsa

Thursday

Kapusta using leftover Kielbasa

Fish Friday

Crab Alfredo (using leftover crab from raviolis)

Stay tuned for recipes and photos in upcoming posts.  I pray that you and yours had a joyous Holiday and that this time of rebirth brings you renewed hope.  Thanks for visiting today.

Garlic Soup with Noodles and Peas #4theLoveofGarlic #SoupSwappers #EasterWeek

Today is the final day of Easter Week.  Tomorrow we will be celebrating the Victory of our Risen Lord.  I want to thank Christie of A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures for all of her hard work this week. There have been some awesome recipes shared.

Today is also Soup Saturday Swappers, a group started by me this year where we all get together on the third Saturday of each month to share soup/stew recipes based on a theme chosen by one of our members.  I chose the theme Root Vegetables for this month.

This Garject from DreamFarm made easy mincing of wonderful garlic provided by Melissa's Produce.
DreamFarm and Melissa's provided the #4theLoveofGarlic participants with products to use in their recipes.
I received no monetary compensation for this post.  

You will just have to trust me when I tell you that I chose this theme before my friend, Cam of Culinary Adventures with Camilla, invited me to join  her and 5 others in  #4theLoveofGarlic to celebrate National Garlic Day.  Six bloggers, Six days of Garlic Recipes sponsored by Dreamfarm and Melissa's Produce.

I did, however take advantage of #4 the Love of Garlic, by choosing this day out of the 6 available to post my recipe, knowing that I could incorporate it into both my soup post for #SoupSwappers and my final post for #EasterWeek.  I love when things work out like that!!

I had made Garlic Soup in the past, using a recipe that I had gotten from Weekends in a French Kitchen by Mimi Thorisson, and enjoyed it.  The recipe I am sharing today came from the NY Times and is brothy instead of pureed and contains pasta and peas.  It is like a garlicky egg drop soup with additions.

I made a broth seasoned with minced garlic, thyme, bay leaf and kosher salt.  I added the past and while it was simmering I cut some slices of artisan bread and but them under the broiler to toast. Once toasted they were rubbed liberally with a clove of garlic that I had halved for the purpose and placed into shallow bowls. When the pasta was tender, I added the peas and beat 2 eggs with a tablespoon of olive oil.  I had some garlic flavored olive oil so I added that to intensify the flavor even more.

This soup is extremely garlicky.  If you, like me, believe there is no such thing as too much garlic, you will LOVE it.  However, if you want to tone it down a bit, just use regular olive oil in place of the garlic infused. Want to tone it down even more? Omit the garlic rub on the toast.  As for me?  Bring it on just as it is!!

I think this soup would be a great starter for an Easter Dinner featuring lamb as the entree.  Lamb and garlic pair so wonderfully together that this would be like a prelude to a symphony, add a potato gratin and you have a perfect, simple Easter Feast.  You will find more great #EasterRecipes at the bottom of this post.

I want to thank Melissa's Produce for all the wonderful garlic.  I have been in garlic heaven here as you will see during this week long #4 the Love of Garlic event.  That Garject from DreamFarm makes mincing garlic so easy peasy that you can't wait to use it, especially since it ejects the peel so easily and cleanly that you don't have to worry about peeling it first. You can win your very own Garject by entering the raffle found here.

We would love to have you join us over at Soup Saturday Swappers.  Next month we are celebrating English Stew hosted by Sneha of Sneha's Recipe.  Just leave your email address and blog name in the comments below if you want to join us and I will send you an invitation to the group. In the meantime, keep scrolling past this recipe to see what root vegetables the others have turned into soup this month.

Garlic Soup with Pasta and Peas

adapted from NY Times Cooking

5 garlic cloves, 4 minced and 1 halved

Salt to taste

1 bay leaf

3 sprigs thyme

1/2 c. elbow macaroni

1 c. frozen peas

4 slices of artisan bread loaf

2 eggs

1 T. garlic infused olive oil

ground pepper to taste

Place 6 1/2 c. water, minced garlic, salt, bay leaf and thyme into a large soup pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes.  Remove bay leaf and thyme sprigs and add pasta to the pot, simmer for another 10-12 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add the peas and allow to simmer until warmed through, 5 minutes or so.

While soup is simmering, place bread slices under the broiler until toasted, flip and toast other side. Remove from broiler and immediately rub with halved garlic.  Place one toast into each of 4 bowls, set aside.

Using a fork, beat together the egg and olive oil.  Add two ladlefuls of broth to the egg mixture and remove the soup from the heat source.  Slowly add the egg mixture to the soup, stirring constantly. The soup will thicken slightly and have ribbons of egg throughout.  Ladle the soup over the toasts and serve.  Print Recipe

More Easter Recipes

• Garlic Soup with Pasta and Peas by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Mounds Cake by Family Around The Table
• Roasted Root Vegetable Soup by Amy's Cooking Adventures

More Soup made with Root Vegetables

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