Recipes: Amish Friendship Bread Variations

Amish Friendship Bread is making the rounds amongst my friends, I received two last week from different people.  Here is the traditional recipe:

1 c. starter
3 eggs
1 c. canola oil
1 c. milk
1 c. sugar
2 t cinnamon
1/2 t vanilla
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
2 c. flour
1 large box instant vanilla pudding

Preheat oven to 325 degrees, grease 1 large load pans and mix an additional 1/2 c. sugar and 1 1/2 t cinnamon.  Dust the greased pans with half of the cinnamon/sugar mixture.  Pour batter evenly into the pans and sprinkle the top with the remaining mixture.

Bake for 1 hour.  Cool until bread loosens from the sides of pan.

For "my" recipes, I did NOT coat the pans with the cinnamon/sugar mixture.  Here they are, based on some recipes I found but tweaked by me:

Strawberry Cheesecake Bread
* I have not made this with these exact measurements, but this is how I plan to make it in the future.
- cinnamon
- vanilla pudding
+ 1 small package strawberry Jello
+ 1 small package cheesecake pudding
+ 1/2 c. diced strawberries

One of the recipes I based this off of calls for an extra 1/2 c. of milk and slice thawed strawberries.  It took 2 hours to bake and was so moist that it just fell apart.  Oh, it tasted good, but I couldn't hand a loaf over to anyone.  I suggest skipping the extra milk and dicing fresh strawberries to keep it a true bread.

White Chocolate Lemon Bread
* Created this in a desire to replicate Tastefully Simple's Lotsa Lemon Bars, which they no longer sell.  I'm happy to report that the flavor is all there!
- vanilla extract
- cinnamon
- vanilla pudding
+ lemon extra
+ lemon pudding
+ 1/2 to 1 bag of white chocolate chips.

Took about 1 hour and 20 minutes to bake.  I used a 1/2 bag of white chocolate chips, but I'll admit that the chips are pretty sparse, you may want more.  My lemon bread is pictured below:

Other recipes from various sources, including Mommy's Kitchen (what a great site):

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bread
* I made this one, but I forgot the eggs.  I dolled some out to some friends and they still thought it was great, so I think there's a lot to be said for chocolate and peanut butter.
- cinnamon
- vanilla pudding
+ 4 T creamy peanut butter
+ 1/2 bag Reeses peanut butter chips
+ chocolate pudding

Apple Cinnamon Bread
+ 1 c raisins
+ 1 medium, diced apple

Recipe: Skinny Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies are from my new cookbook Perfect Light Desserts by Nick Malgieri and David Joachim.

David's Skinny Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes about 30 cookies

1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
4T (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 c. light brown sugar firmly packed
6 T sugar
1 large egg
2 T whole milk
1 t vanilla extract
1 1/2 c. (about 3/4 bag) of chocolate chips

Set racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat to 350.

Mix flour, baking soda, and salt together and set aside.

Beat the butter and sugars togethe

Beat in the flour mixture.

Fold in the chocolate chips.

Chill the dough in the bowl for 15 minutes to keep the cookies from spreading too much while they're baking.

Form the dough into 1 1/2-inch balls.  Arrange the balls of dough 2" apart on cookie sheets.

Their specific directions call for a mixer and a rubber spatula, amongst other things.  I used my hands, a wooden spoon, and bowls.  Why would I make more dishes?  Anyway, the cookies were quite good.  They have a much different flavor than your usual Nestle Chocolate Chip Cookies, and they're a little on the small side, but they're not as bad for you ... not to say they're good for you.  I'm thinking you could even go for a half bag of chocolate chips, because each cookie was LOADED with chips.  This is my second recipe with Nick and David - so far, they're wonderful

Per cookie: 114 calories, 5 g fat, 1 g fiber

Recipe: Buffalo Chicken Chili

It doesn't look like much, but it's good.  I adapted the recipe from something I saw on either (a) a major food manufacturer website or (b) a frugal mommy blog.  I don't remember, so now I'm claiming it.  It got a lot of positive feedback from my neighbor's Super Bowl party.

Almost-Famous Buffalo Chicken Chili

Most of a rotisserie chicken (like, cut off a breast to eat for dinner one night, then pick it clean and dice it up)
1 large onion, chopped
2 medium celery stalks, chopped
2 medium carrots (or about 15 baby carrots), chopped
1 (28 oz.) can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 (15 oz.) can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 c. chicken broth
2 t chili powder
1/2 t salt
1/4 c. buffalo wing sauce

Spray 5- to 6-quart slow cooker.  Mix all ingredients except wing sauce.  Cook on LOW for 8 to 10 hours.  Stir in sauce.

I made it with 2 T of chili powder last time and, umm, had some bite to it.  Still really good, though.  I use "Most of a Rotisserie Chicken" because I have it on hand.  I hate raw chicken passionately.  If you, however, don't buy rotisserie chickens, the original recipes calls for "2 1/2 lbs. boneless chicken thighs, cooked, cut into pieces."

Book Review: Lucky by Alice Sebold

Alice Sebold is best known for The Lovely Bones, a fictional story about a young girl who is raped and murdered by a creepy neighbor.  It was recently made into a movie.

I expected Lucky to be another uncomfortable story, something that makes you squirm. I hadn't read the description carefully and was surprised to find that it was a memoir about Alice Sebold's rape.  She a college freshman and, well, it was quite brutal.  It was a stranger in the woods story, something college women are told doesn't really happen.  Sebold goes through the rape, the aftermath, the trial.  She writes about her parents' reactions, how her friends react, how boys respond.

In the tunnel where I was raped, a tunnel that was once an underground entry to an amphitheater, a place where actors burst forth from underneath the seats of a crowd, a girl has been murdered and dismembered.  I was told this story by the police.  In comparison, they said, I was lucky.

It's a hard read.  Because, like she points out, no one really knows how to treat a rape victim.  She gets mad about it, she cries about it, she makes jokes about it.  Everyone around her has similar reactions - they want to be overly helpful, they want to avoid her.

Lucky is an uncomfortable true story, it makes you squirm.

Read it.

Book Review: Open by Andre Agassi

I'm just going to come out and say it: What a douche bag.

I listened to Open by Andre Agassi on CD, I didn't read it.  It was a long drive.

Here is what I am left with:

Andre Agassi HATES tennis

Andre Agassi wore a hair piece for a short time, because he was an insecure douche bag.  Brooke Shields is the one who finally convinced him to be done with it. 

Andre Agassi has, essentially, an eighth grade education.

Andre Agassi dabbled in meth.  I got the impression that it was sort of like how people drink sometimes.  No big deal.

Andre Agassi really HATES tennis. 

Every CD I thought that he might move on from hating tennis.  Nope.  He also talks about several games serve-by-serve.  Good grief, if you think watching tennis is boring ... just wait until you listen to someone talk about it.  Even the most exciting parts of the book (see: Brooke Shields, hair piece, and meth) are tame.

Usually, I like people more after reading (or listening to) their memoirs.  Let me tell you something, say I was somewhere and Andre Agassi showed up ... I would have no interest in meeting him.  He's miserable and when he's not miserable, he's just boring.

Skip it.

Book Review: The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Book Lushes is an online book club for, umm, book lovers.  We're people who love books.  For January, Powers that Be chose The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  I hadn't heard of the book and was a bit reluctant to buy it.  Unfortunately, the library had a waiting list 12 people long ... so I sucked it up and made the purchase.  I'm glad I did.

The Help is the best book I've read in years.  It's up there with Memoirs of a Geisha - capturing moments of history in the voices of unforgettable characters.  It takes place in Mississippi the early 1960s, when slavery is illegal but Jim Crow is in full swing.  It's sad, it's funny.  I read it quickly, and I think it's a treasure.

The story is told from three women's points of view.  There is Minny, an older black woman who has served as a house maid/nanny for decades.  She does her job dutifully and has, up to this point in her life, played by the rules.  There is Abilieen, a younger house maid/nanny who has gotten in trouble for mouthing off all her life.  Finally, there is Skeeter, a recent college grad who was bred to be a Southern Belle but instead finds herself lost the bigotry of her town and friends.  It's an amazing, and dangerous, relationship that the women form and what they create ruffles the entire town.

Read it!

Book Review: Official Book Club Selection by Kathy Griffin

Make no mistake, this is a memoir - not a comedy.

Official Book Club Selection by Kathy Griffin holds a promise - that she'll talk as much dirt of herself as she does about everyone else.  You hear names like Brooke Shields and Jack Black.  The Jack Black tales hold no surprises - he's exactly as you picture him.  Most the stories concerning celebrities are naturally funny.

She talks openly about her plastic surgery, something she wishes she hadn't gone public with (only because now everyone asks her about all the freaking time).  She talks very openly about her failed marriage too - it's sad to read.  It's hard to picture Kathy Griffin being serious and sincere, but she is.  She is in a lot of the book.

What I came away with was a new appreciation for her craft.  I think a lot of us only know her as that ugly, annoying actress from Suddenly Susan who later got a bunch of plastic surgery and a reality show.  According to Griffin's memoir, she worked her ass off for more than a decade before she got any attention.  She took big risks, some paying off and some not.  She lived with her parents till she was 27, she took acting classes in Hollywood.  She took the freaking bus there (and back).  She did a lot of grassroots comedy and paid her dues.  Unlike Paris and Kim, she didn't make a sex tape and get famous overnight.

So, good for her.  I like her.

Read it, if you have the time.

A Good Cookbook

How do you know when you have a GOOD cookbook?  How many recipes do you need to make and like before you know it's a keeper?