Pillsbury Recipe - Strawberry-Filled Lemon Cream Cheese Bars - May 30, 2014

I used to love to cook.  Before my 21 years of being on call day and night, I
was constantly in the kitchen, putting my five hundred cookbooks, acquired in
my world travels, to use.  I also perused magazines such as Bon Appetit and
Good Housekeeping, clipping recipes to try out on family and friends.

Once I started wearing a pager almost constantly, I knew I was taking a chance
to undertake elaborate meal preparation.  As one of my forensic nurse 
colleagues used to say, "You can make toast but you can't bake a cake".

Once my SANE position ended and I downsized and headed off to India, 
I gave away most of my cookbooks, putting a treasured few, along with two
recipe boxes into storage.  When I've been home, renting a room, I haven't
had the opportunity to do any cooking at all.  

At least, here at my son's home, I've actually cooked dinner many evenings, 
what with Laura working.  Thanks to the wealth of internet recipe sites, I've 
found a lot of my favorite recipes and have acquired several new favorites.  

I get daily recipes from Pillsbury via "Pillsbury Today's Taste" - quick, easy
dishes from main courses to desserts, requiring only a few ingredients, most
of the time, and, of course, recommending Pillsbury products.  I have always 
enjoyed their "bake off" recipes and the cookbooks from those contests and 
some of the recipes featured are from that.

This week, I tried their recipe for strawberry filled lemon cream cheese 
bars.  They were very easy to make and did not even last twenty-four hours
in our house.  Little Harper Ann, my 14-month-old granddaughter kept chanting,
 "bite, bite" if she saw us eating one!

Here's the recipe with my variation.  I added almond flavoring to both the crust
and the filling - I love the stuff!!!!  

Strawberry-Filled Lemon Cream Cheese Bars

Delicious strawberry-filled bars recipe – a delightful dessert with 

cream cheese, sugar and margarita mix!

·         prep time  30 min

·         total time  2 hr 15 min

·         ingredients  10

·         servings   32

Ingredients

Base

1 box lemon or yellow cake mix

1/2 cup margarine or butter, softened

           1/2 cup finely chopped almonds

          

***I added ½ tsp almond flavoring to this ( I LOVE ALMOND )

1 cup strawberry preserves or jelly

Filling

1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup sugar

1/4   cup all-purpose flour

            1/8 teaspoon salt

1 egg

1/2 cup frozen concentrated margarita mix, thawed

***I added ½ tsp almond flavoring to this

Steps

·         1 - Heat oven to 350°F (325°F for dark or nonstick pan). Grease 13x9-inch 

    pan. Place cake mix  in large bowl. With pastry blender or fork, cut in butter

    until crumbly. Add almonds; mix well. Reserve 1 cup mixture for topping. Press 

    remaining mixture in bottom of pan. Stir preserves until smooth; carefully spread 

    over base.

·        

            2-  In same bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, flour, salt and egg with electric mixer 

    at medium speed until well blended. Add margarita mix; beat at low speed until

    blended.Carefully pour filling over base. Sprinkle reserved base mixture over filling.

·         

      3- Bake 34 to 41 minutes or until edges begin to brown and center is set. Cool 

    completely, about 1 hour. Cut into bars. Store covered in refrigerator.

I imagine these might be great with almost any kind of preserve...perhaps mango!!!

To get your own recipes, sign up at www.pillsbury.com!

http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/strawberry-filled-lemon-cream-cheese-bars/3af854c5-ef01-41b8-9268-15bdfcff88cc

Cooking, Baking, Eating - Delights of a Lifetime - February 26, 2014

I have to admit, in recent years, my time in the kitchen has certainly waned.  I have
always loved to cook, though I didn't really begin in earnest until I was out of nursing
school.  Living in New Orleans as a young RN, I delighted in Creole concoctions,
practicing on my classmates and began acquiring what was to become a collection
of nearly five hundred cookbooks from all over the world.  Bananas Foster became
a signature dessert and one most requested by my three sons.  Perhaps this is 
what instilled the desire to become firefighters in Alex and Jeremy though I never
set our homestead ablaze.

Of course, I also enjoyed dining in restaurants as I traveled and added their 
cookbooks to my collection.  Notebooks of recipes clipped from the pages of 
Bon Appetit, Gourmet, Southern Living, Sunset, the Wednesday food newspaper
section, and the treasured recipes of friends were added to my files. 

In my mid-twenties, while living in Tampa, Florida, I took a Wilton cake decorating
course and, weekly, brought home my creations.  That grew a little tiresome when
people started requesting cake "donations" and didn't even provide the ingredients.
I had to learn to say no but learn I did.

For about six months, after moving to the San Francisco area, I even started a
catering business.  Following my back surgery, it just became too much physically.

Once I became a forensic nurse, with call for two different agencies, my time in the
kitchen became less in less.  As one of my colleagues said, "You can make toast
but you can't bake a cake."  Waiting for the dreaded beeper to go off interfered with
a lot of activities.

Once my job ended in budget cuts nearly five years ago, I got rid of nearly all my
cookbooks and other belongs.  Home now from India for a few months and helping
take care of my sweet granddaughter while Laura is going through the fire academy
( she is a paramedic ), I am enjoying cooking dinner many nights.  Most of my 
recipes are in storage but some I find on the computer.

Tonight, for dessert, I'm making a Pillsbury cookoff favorite of my sons, one I've
made for over twenty-five years.  I always loved the bake-off recipes, quick and easy,
from only a few ingredients.  

This for Chocolate Cherry Bars was created by Francis I Jerzak, of Porter, MN
for the Bake-Off® Contest 25, 1974.  

·         prep time 15 min

·         total time 2 hr 0 min

·         ingredients  8

·         servings  48

 

Ingredients

Cake Bars

1     (18.25-oz.) pkg. Pillsbury® Moist Supreme® Devil's Food Cake Mix

1     (21-oz.) can cherry pie filling

1     teaspoon almond extract

3     eggs, beaten

Frosting

1   cup sugar

1/3   cup milk

5      tablespoons margarine or butter

1     (6-oz.) pkg. (1 cup) semisweet chocolate chips

Steps

·         1    Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 15x10x1-inch baking pan or 13x9-inch pan. In large bowl, combine all cake bar ingredients; stir until well blended. Pour into greased and floured pan.

·         2     Bake at 350°F. until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. For 15x10x1-inch pan, bake 20 to 30 minutes; for 13x9-inch pan, bake 25 to 35 minutes.

·         3     In small saucepan, combine sugar, milk and margarine. Bring to a boil. Boil 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; stir in chocolate chips until smooth. Pour and spread over warm bars. Cool 1 1/4 hours or until completely cooled. Cut into bars.

 

Nutritional information                Serving Size: 1 Bar    Calories  110      Calories from Fat    35

Total Fat      4g       Saturated Fat     1g              Cholesterol      15mg      Sodium     105mg

Total  Carbohydrate    18g      Dietary Fiber    1g         Sugars  14g        Protein    1g

% Daily Value*:

Vitamin A   0%        Vitamin C    0%      Calcium     0%      Iron    4%

Exchanges:

1/2 Starch; 1/2 Fruit; 1 Fat;

*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

 http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/chocolate-cherry-bars/15d6f3ce-21b3-43fb-8cb0-

b33fb4177d3e

Thank you, Francis and Pillsbury!!!