Cinnamon Candy

My big sister, over at Burnt Toast likes to give me challenges for Simple Cooking. The other day she challenged me to make a Cinnamon Candy recipe she found. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! I love candy, particularly cinnamon candy. This was a really great and fun recipe. And like the goal of the blog says, simple! You can find the original recipe here.

So lets get started!

Ingredients:

2 cups of sugar

1 cup of water

1/2 cup of light corn syrup

1/2 a tsp cinnamon extract

1/2 a tsp red food coloring

You will also need a candy thermometor. You can get one at Walmart for just under four dollars. :)

Alright! So lets get started. In a pot start cooking the water, sugar, and corn syrup on a medium heat.

Let it cook to a boil on the medium heat, we wanna heat this up slowly. As it rises to boiling be sure to stir it occasionally. Once boiling, place a lid over it and let it cook for three minuets. Go a head and take the lip off then and turn the heat to a medium/high heat. From here on out let it boil, and do not stir. The mixture will thicken severely as it boils. Use your candy thermometer to check the temperature. You want it to be at 310 Fahrenheit, also known as the Hard Crack Point. It will take about 15-20 minuets for it to reach that point, just keep an eye on the thermometer.

Once it's reached the hard crack point, remove the pot from heat and add in your cinnamon extract and red food coloring. Mix well and fast, and be sure it's all well away from your face as the fumes will be strong.

Quickly pour onto a greased baking sheet and using a spatula spread it out so it cover the whole surface.

Using a sharp knife, or a pizza cutter, start to score the sheet of liquid candy into roughly one inch squares. You can cut them as big or as small as you like, however. The gel will trying to form back together, you just have to keep repeating the scoring lines until it's cooled enough for the lines to stay in place. I had some issues with it pushing around on the sheet so mine are all deformed, but the over all shape really doesn't matter.

Let it sit at room temperature till it's completely cooled and hardened. This only takes about ten minuets or so, not too long at all. The pieces break apart easily into their squares, like sugar glass, and that is all there is to it!

The texture is the same you would get in say, jolly ranchers, and things, so just by changing the flavore of the extract this recipe opens up a lot of candies to you, if you want to make others.

Note about the cinnamon, I felt the flavor wasn't enough for me, next time I'll probably add a full teaspoon instead of just half, but it's still very good.

LEFTOVERS! This makes a lot candy.

Who will like this: Children will love this! It's homemade candy, I don't think any kid wouldn't like it! Also, anyone who enjoys cinnamon flavored candy!

That's all there is to it my loves! Go out and enjoy the cinnamon goodness that is this candy!

Alyce Sheahen's Banana Bread

An Introduction to This Recipe:

This recipe started belongs to Cassie's great Grandmother. She never wrote down her recipes. So if a family member wanted it, they had to follow along with her and write it down as she went. Cassie shared this with us on the Simple Cooking Group .

This is actually my third attempt at this recipe, which is why it's taken so long to post a new blog. I have been hell bent on this recipe being the next entry. The first time I attempted it, I cooked it exactly as instructed. The very middle didn't cook at all and the top caved in because of it. The second time I cooked it for longer and on a higher temperature, and it turned into a Banana Brick.

I knew it wasn't my oven, because it cooks everything else just fine. And I was following the recipe exactly. It had to be the pan. Well a few days ago I bought some 9" round pans, and decided to use those instead of the traditional loaf pan. Today I gave it my third try and SUCCESS! I now have banana bread in the shape of round cakes! Enjoy!!!

First, oreheat oven to 350 degrees. Next....

Cream Together:

1/2 cup shortening (See note at bottom of entry on Shortening)

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 bananas

Sift Together:

2 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Little by little add the dry mixture to the wet mixture, mix well, and repeat till all is mixed together well. Don't worry if it is a bit chunky, it doesn't have to be smooth.

Now add in a tsp of vanilla. This is also where you add in nuts if you choose to do so.

Pure dough into pan. If you use a bread loaf pan, as tradition dictates, I suggest splitting it into two pans or cooking half now and half after the first, as the center tends to not cook for me if I place it all in a bread pan at once. Alternately you can use round pans or small casserole/cake pans, they work just as well, and in my experience, the 9" rounds take about half the time to cook.

Whatever your choice in baking dish is, place the dough into it after spraying it with non stick cooking spray.

Place in the hot oven and cook for 40 minuets. If using a more sallow pan like a round pan, keep a close eye on it, it should be ready after about 20 minuets.

When is is all done it make appear slightly under-cooked. This is alright as long as it's ONLY slightly and not drastically under-cooked. You can keep it in the oven for longer, but be careful, because if it gets over cooked it will be dry and not as good. Let it cool for a few minuets then go a head and cut right into it! It's delicious! Especially when its still warm and has butter on it. Hope you enjoy it!

Note on shortening: Shortening and butter were used to replace the use of lard in recipes. The shortening and butter, when melt in the oven, create the little air like pockets we see in cakes, breads, and other baked goods. The most common shortening is Crisco, but you can replace shortening with butter if you like. The ratio for that is..

1 cup shortening + 2 tbs water = 1 cup butter

Roughly a cup for a cup then. It is recommended, however, that if you choose to replace shortening with butter, you chill the batter before cooking it. Butter melts at a lower temperature than shortening does, and in baking, timing is everything. If the butter melts too soon, it can create a problem with the turnout, but chilling the dough and subsequently the butter will help it last a little longer, to melt at a more opportune time.

Who will enjoy this: EVERYBODY! I honestly don't know a single person who doesn't like banana bread unless they have an allergy, in which case, shame on you for eating noms in front of somebody who can't have it!

Cassie's AWESOMESAUCE Feista Chicken Enchiladas

This one is the FIRST!!! recipe that has come to me through our Simple Cooking Group . One of my best friends, Cassie posted this. Now growing up I never liked the way my parents made enchiladas, but when I read Cassie's recipe I just had to give it a try since it was so different from what I am used to. It was so amazing! Its just... all I can say is you can't understand till you try it for yourself! So with a large THANK YOU to Cassie, we dive right in!

Ingredients:

1 small onion, chopped ( or how ever fine you wants it )

1 clove garlic, minced

1 lb chicken breast chopped ( i use 2 breasts from a bag of frozen breasts. we have done strips, corsely and finely chopped. it all depends on the size ou want to bite into )

1 cup salsa, divided  ( THIS  is your real deciding factor of how spicy and the base of the flavor. I probably use about 2 or 3 cups in total. )

4 oz cream cheese ( if you cut it up it melt quicker and spreads nicely )

1 Tablespoon chopped cilantro

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 cup shredded cheese  (what ever you like. i usually use coby jack cheese and probably use about 2 cups.... )

8 tortillas

Alright so this is the list as Cassie posted it. I highlighted the first two in red as I did not use them, since I had plenty of onion and garlic in my salsa. FOR the salsa, I used the fresh from scratch stuff I made in my previous entry. 

Alright so lets start cooking!

1. Preheat the over to 350 degrees
2. In a larger sauce pan heat it up on low with either oil or butter, however you prefer it. Chop up your chicken and toss it in.
3. As the meat starts to slowly cook, add in your onion and garlic. (Like I said I didn't do this due to my salsa.) saute it a bit.
4. Add in a cup of the salsa.
5. If you ought your cream cheese in bar form, it's only half a bar that you need. I cut that up into 8ths so it would melt faster and spread it around the entire pan. 
6. When its about half melted, add in the cilantro, (see previous entry on how to cut up easily) and the cumin. I actually added a ton of the cumin, as I just really really love the flavor. It wasn't too strong just right, mmm yummie!
7. As it all melts down and starts to come together, you'll find it becoming very sauce like all on it's own accord. this is good, we want that. just be sure you're checking your chicken to know it's cooking through all the way. Once the chicken is done, add in your shredded cheese to goo-a-fy!

Alright so now that we're all cooked up, its time for the baking pan. A larger casserole dish is best but I didn't have one so I had to make due.

If you have more salsa, lay it out on the bottom of the dish.

Next, lay out a tortilla. and scoop some of the dish onto it. You can do this one of two ways. You can double the tortilla shells and put the sauce in there with the rest of it. Or you can use one shell and strain the sauce back into the pan. If you use only one tortilla and the sauce it will rip through and it really isn't fun to deal with that. I learned it the hard way. That's when I started to strain out the chicken and sauce.

Wrap it up burrito style or however you like, and lay it seam down in the baking dish. Rinse and repeat, you know how it is, till you baking dish is all filled up.

Alright, so now you should have a lot of leftover sauce with some chicken. Get a spoon or measuring cup or something and drizzle it all over the top of the shells, covering them completely. There may or may not be chicken int he sauce, that's just fine. The more chicken the merrier! After that, if you have any more cheese, just lay it out on top. You can never....NEVER have too much cheese!

Now we bake! Put it in the now hot oven for about 15-20 min. Any longer and the edges of our tortillas will may burn. Mine were only in for 15 and it smelled like they'd burned. Luckily they didn't. Once it's all melty and hot you can take it out of the oven.

Now I actually had to use two spatulas to get these out, they were THAT full, and they still broke up on me! HAHAH! Once you have the enchilada onto the plate, use what's left of the salsa to top it off.

There is SO much food there it's insane! But OH! So mouth watering delicious! I water just thinking about it, this is my new favorite meal, I kid you not.

That's all there is for this super easy!

Who will like this: Adults, especially if you like Mexican food. Children might if you make a smaller one for them, and also if they aren't picky about "foreign objects" I.E.: the weird red or green things. Also depending on the spice level of the salsa that you use, people may not enjoy it if they aren't big on spicy foods. My version in pretty mild, as I didn't make a very spicy salsa for it at all.

LEFTOVERS!!!! We had tons of left overs. They were really good fresh and cold form the fridge the next morning for breakfast. May sound odd but everything you should have for your first meal is right there wrapped up in a nice shell. It's hard from cold and since you wrap the end up, nothing falls out and you can eat on the go if you need to!

That's all for Simple Cooking tonight, you got two entries for the price of one! Enjoy the Enchiladas and let me and Cassie know exactly what you think of them over at the Simple Cooking Group or right here in the comments for Simple Cooking.

Until next time. I love you all, and remember to love yourselves too!

~Alex~