Category: Recipes

Thursday, July 28, 2017 – No Bake Peanut Butter Squares

It was a slow day on the island today, no visitors except for the 2 young couples who spent the night in the guest quarters.  This morning they walked a few more trails but the wind was predicted to increase through the day and they decided to make their return trip by boat to Boothbay earlier than expected.

With the weather the way it was, both Brian and I puttered around.  I cleaned the guest quarters to get ready for the next overnight guests and Brian hung out in the Whistle House (aka man cave).  The on again off again rain and strong winds kept us inside most of the day.  I am making great progress on Brian’s sweater, just the sleeves to go, and we still have our ongoing Solitaire battle, Brian is in the lead at 2:06 minutes, I need to beat him if even by a second.

With such a slow day, I thought I would share one of my simplest but yummiest go to treats.  I made these for the Wednesday Warriors this week as well as the overnight guests as their welcome treat.  They taste just like homemade peanut butter cups.

NO BAKE PEANUT BUTTER SQUARES

½ cup butter

2 cups confectioner’s sugar

1 ½ cups graham cracker crumbs

1 cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky)

12-ounce package of semi-sweet chocolate chips (melted)

Line a 13 x 9 pan with foil to make removal easier. 

Melt the butter in the microwave at 10 second increments.  Combine the graham cracker crumbs and confectioner’s sugar in a medium size bowl. Mix in melted butter and peanut butter until the mixture forms a firm ball.  Spread the graham cracker mixture into the foil lined pan, pushing down with hands or spoon to make a firm even layer of mix.  Spread the melted chocolate evenly across the top of the graham cracker mixture. 

Refrigerate the pan for 10 minutes, remove and score the chocolate with a sharp knife into desired size squares, I usually cut 1 inch squares because they are very rich.  Place back into refrigerator for 2-3 hours before making final cut and plate the squares while you snack on some!

Guests today – 4

Guests total – 844

USCG – 6

Wednesday, June 29, 2017 – Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

This recipe has been my standard go to recipe for years, it was adapted from one of my dad’s recipes who was a master baker since the 1940’s in the New Bedford, MA area.  It is one of those recipes where you can tweak it to make it your own with mix-in’s.  I use the base recipe for White Chocolate/Macadamia Nut cookies which are also a favorite.

The best part about this recipe is the compliments you will get when you bake them for someone.  We had overnight guests this past weekend and I baked a batch to share upon their arrival.  James, the young gentleman in the group, wrote a note in the guest book; ‘Thanks Tara for the amazing cookies, they are better than my mom’s’.  High praise indeed!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

½ cup butter (softened)

½ cup brown sugar

¼ cup white sugar

1 ½ tsp vanilla

1 large egg

1 ½ cups semisweet chocolate chips (or another flavor)

1 cup chopped nuts (pecans, walnuts, macadamia nuts)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Beat butter in a large bowl for 1 minute until smooth.  Add sugars, salt and vanilla and continue to beat 1-2 minutes. Beat in egg at low speed until blended.  Stir in flour and baking soda.  Then add the chips and nuts.

Drop by tablespoon (because everyone likes a big cookie) onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  Bake 10-12 minutes until golden on outer rim and light gold in center (this will give you a soft cookie).  Cool on rack for 2-3 minutes and then transfer cookies to wax paper for about 5 minutes to absorb some of the oils and completely cool.

A few hints:  Make a double batch, you will want to share some and eat some.  Also, use parchment paper in most baking of cookies, makes a huge difference.  And always use nuts with this recipe, I have tried many times to make the recipe without nuts and usually it turns out as a failure, the extra oil in the nuts must make the difference.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do.

Saturday, June 3, 2017 – Yikes no chocolate on the island

When you live on an older sailboat in warmer climates, the last thing you want to do is heat up the cabin with the oven to bake cookies or some other sweets!  I am a big fan of no bake cookie bars.  I have a few recipes that are my go to’s.  I have mentioned before my husband is no a sweets eater but even he likes these bars!  Give them a try and by the way, the freeze well so keep out a few for today and then freeze the rest for emergency situations like when you forget to buy chocolate on your one day off the island!

Chocolate Oatmeal Bars – No Bake!!!!

Ingredients:

1 cup butter

½ cup packed brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups old fashioned oats

½ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp salt

½ cups chopped walnuts (optional)

1 cup dark chocolate chips

¾ cup chunky peanut butter

Line an 8 x 8 baking pan with parchment paper.

In a saucepan, melt butter and brown sugar together until butter is completely melted and sugar is well dissolved, stirring frequently.  Mix in oats, vanilla, cinnamon and salt.  Cook over medium heat and stir constantly for 4-5 minutes.  If you are adding walnuts, mix in at the last minute.

Pour half of the oat mixture into the parchment lined pan and press down to an even layer

In microwavable bowl, melt the chocolate chips and peanut butter together until well blended, usually at 30 second increments.  Pour about 4/5’s of the melted mixture over the pressed down oat mixture.  Then add the rest of the oat mixture and press down firmly.

To drizzle melted chocolate or icing, I usually use a baggie or Ziploc bag.  I put the melted mixture into the baggie and squeeze to one bottom corner of the bag. Twist the bag close so no mixture escapes the top of the bag and snip a very small corner of the bag where the melted chocolate is and slowly pipe the chocolate over the top of the oat mixture.  No need for fancy equipment when baking most of the time!

Refrigerate the pan for about 4 hours until set.  Pull the parchment paper out of pan and place on cutting surface.  Cut cookies into 1 inch squares and then indulge.  Absolutely the best with a cup of tea on a windy cold day on an island out in Sheepscot Bay.

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Another foggy day on the island, at least as our morning started.  It was trying to brighten up on the eastern horizon but we were not going to hold our breath!  I am starting every morning by checking my phone for text messages to find out if we may have visitors arriving on the island and this morning a text was waiting for me from USCG.  They were bringing a crew by boat mid-morning to trouble shoot the main light and stage more equipment for the fog horn upgrade.

I was so excited, guests with appetites!  First thing I thought of was what could I bake them for a coffee break?  Final decision – Cinnamon Roll Muffins.  This recipe was a big success this winter in the mooring field in Vero Beach, FL where we spent the winter on our sailboat, Scout.  I would wake up in the morning, bake a batch of muffins and dinghy to the surrounding boats to go along with their morning coffee.  Brian complained he tried to fix the light and he didn’t get anything special, and I have the USCG coming out and they get homemade muffins.  I set the coffee pot up, mugs out, hot muffins on the plate, I was ready to meet these guys.

They arrived as we walked down to the beach and the next thing we knew there were 4 guys in orange on the beach carrying a lot of equipment and their boat was tied up to a mooring. The crew out of South Portland spent the morning working on the main light, double checked the emergency lights and batteries, gave Brian some secret handshake information on ways to resolve the light problem in the future and yes, they ate my muffins.  I even rowed the dinghy out to the 2 boat guys and gave them a thermos of coffee and some muffins.  I love this job! Hopefully they will be back soon to finish up the fog horn repairs, it may take a few days to complete.  I offered to feed the crew while they are here, already figuring out the volume of food you need to feed 4-6 young men. I may need to up the provisions over the next few Wednesdays to be ready for the invasion.

The rest of today has been completing a few blog posts, crossing off small tasks from the to-do list and drinking hot tea to keep the chill out.

Cinnamon Roll Muffins

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, and grease a 12-cup muffin tin.  Don’t use muffin papers, the papers will not peel off the muffins (experience talking here).

2 cups flour

3 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

¼ cup sugar

3 tablespoons melted butter

1 egg, beaten

1 cup milk

Topping and Filling

1 cup brown sugar

3 tsp cinnamon

1 ½ cups chopped nuts (I used walnuts)

3 tablespoons melted butter

Frosting

2 oz. cream cheese

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon milk

A dash of vanilla or maple syrup

Mix together the topping/filling ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

In a large bowl, mix the muffin dry ingredients together, combine the wet ingredients until well blended and pour into the dry ingredients. Mix until combined.

Fold in ½ of the topping/filling into the muffin batter.

Spoon about ¼ cup of the batter into the pre-greased muffin tins.  Top with remaining topping/filling, gently press down on topping to adhere it into the batter.

Bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes, and gently remove muffins to cooling rack.

Combine the frosting ingredients.  Spoon into a small baggie, twist closed and push frosting into a corner of the baggie, snip a small hole in the corner and pipe the frosting onto the muffins.  Best if served warm or they can be microwaved for 10-20 seconds to reheat.

Guests today – 0

Guests total – 27

US Coast Guard – 6

East winds, calm-8 mph, overcast, 48 degrees outside and a toasty 65 inside

Monday – May 29, 2017  Memorial Day

The morning was a pea soup fog kind of morning, we could sort of see the water but the fog and light mist made the island feel cold and unhospitable.  We were fairly convinced there would be no visitors today, the fog was just too thick.

In honor of Memorial Day, our US flag was to be flown at half-mast in honor of the men and women who lost their lives protecting our freedom.  We spent some time reading up on the flag protocols to be sure we were honoring this tradition in the correct manner.  I never realized when a flag is flown at half mast, it is to be flown at full mast and then lowered, with the same sequence followed at sunset.  Making sure our flag is flown correctly every day is something we take seriously and will do our best to carry it out daily.

As we suspected, it was a quiet day on the island.  Yes, we spent more time weedwacking trails and raking more grass, but that is now the norm in our day.  My blisters have blisters from the amount of raking we have done in the past 10 days.

The dogs did their best to stay warm by ‘cocooning’ in the blanket on the couch in front of the heater, they do have the life!  They were only willing to make an appearance when a potential treat was offered or they could beg something from us during lunch.

Since our nor’easter on Friday, the main light in the lighthouse was out and the emergency lights were on.  After spending time on the phone with the US Coast Guard trying to trouble shoot the problem, Brian was unable to get the light to stay on for more than 2 minutes before the circuit popped.  The result was no main light, a foggy day, and the USCG would be out sometime this week with a crew to work on the light and start the updating process for the fog horn.

The afternoon was spent in comfy fleece (multiple layers) and sitting with the dogs in front of the heater.  It was a lazy afternoon of solitaire, knitting, and listening to a little country music on the satellite radio we finally have working.

Today’s recipe will be one you should keep around for the end of the summer when the garden is producing zucchini in record number and you are stumped as to any other ways you can eat zucchini, I present to you Zucchini Potato Pancakes.  I put this recipe together last week and froze half which I used last night as a side dish.

Zucchini Potato Pancakes

1 medium zucchini, shredded

1 package of dehydrated hash browns that had been soaked in hot water per the package instructions

¼ onion, red or white, finely chopped

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

6-8 tablespoons of flour

1 tsp of baking powder

1 tsp salt

½ tsp of black pepper

1 large clove garlic, finely chopped

Any other spices of your choice

Mix the zucchini, hash browns, onion, eggs and garlic.  Stir in 6 tablespoons flour, baking powder and seasonings. The batter should be fairly stiff, if it is too wet add the additional flour.  You want the mixture to stay in form when placing in skillet.

Heat a large skillet and use 1 tablespoon butter with 1 tablespoon vegetable oil in pan, once melted together, turn the heat to medium heat.  You do not want the butter to smoke or burn.  Place a heaping spoon of the batter into the skillet, do not crowd the pancakes in the pan, make several batches, cook on each side 2-3 minutes until golden brown.  Remove to cookie sheet in keep warm in oven when finishing the next batch.  Drain the used butter/oil mixture and start with new butter and oil, cook next batch as described above.

I made enough for leftovers and I froze them when cooled in a Ziploc bag.  Last night, I pulled them from the freezer, placed in the pan with the rest of the dinner, cooked at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.  If the pancakes had a chance to thaw first, I would have only heated them for about 15 minutes to crisp them on the outside.  The end result was the zucchini potato pancakes were as good as leftovers as they were freshly made.

Guests today – 0

Guests total – 27

Temps hovered at a raw 48 degrees, gentle mist or dense fog for most of the day.

NW winds 15-20 mph

May 28, 2017 – Recipe
I love to bake, it is soothing and allows me to share a little love with others around me. My dad was a master baker in the Fall River/New Bedford, MA area for over 50 years, and even he had short cuts at home when short on time but wanted something fresh from the oven. My short cut for over 30 years has been Jiffy All Purpose Baking Mix, like Bisquik but with a better flavor and is made by a New England company out of Chelsea, MA. Last night, Brian and I were just worn out from our day but we love to sit down for a hot dinner and discuss our day, this has been a large part of our day while cruising on our sailboat over the past 3 years. I needed to come up with a quick meal without much effort, the result was baked macaroni & cheese, and cheddar cheese biscuits with a twist.

Cheddar cheese biscuits with a twist
Preheat oven to 450 degrees

1 cup Jiffy Baking Mix
Fresh oregano chopped
1-2 cloves of freshly chopped garlic
¼ tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp ground black pepper
¼ cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
½ finely chopped jalapeno pepper
1/3 cup milk (may need a little more depending on how dry the mixture is)

Mix all above ingredients. This recipe makes 4 drop biscuits perfect for a couple’s dinner. I like to use parchment paper when baking, helps with the cleanup. Drop the biscuits on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 10 minutes at 450 degrees.

Here is your chance to create a simple biscuit, Brian loves spicy food, that is why the jalapeno is added, I would rather have a sweet biscuit so an alternative to all the other add ins, you could try some honey and maybe a small amount of cold butter added into the batter.

Hope you enjoy!