Kitchen Adventures 1.5

Last week was a pretty crazy week. I helped Shaye decorate for VBS Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday before corralling little ones Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. On top of that, we had a going away party for our friend Andy Dale Monday night and then small group Wednesday night. It was quite the week to say the least! To top all of that off, we had a going-away/birthday party at work Thursday. With everything else going on, I had to do my baking Tuesday evening. It meant skipping girls' night, but sometimes we just can't do it all

Here is a picture from the going-away party. We were a small group, but we had fun!

Tuesday evening was a busy one for the oven. I had two desserts and my dinner to make, so strategy was key. I began with the banana nutella cake, which I posted several weeks ago. Check the earlier post for the recipe and a pic. While the cake layers baked, I mixed up the blueberry sour cream coffee cake. It's a good thing I have a stand mixer and a hand-held one, plus several mixing bowls, because I used them all! Once I popped the coffee cake (which I baked in a bund pan) in the oven, I made chicken tetrazzini for my dinner. At one point I had the oven going and every burner used on the over. The heat was on in my kitchen!

Everything turned out well, thankfully. The coffee cake was a smash success, there is still cake left (but we did have four of them!), and I just finished off the tetrazzini for lunch today.

Following are the coffee cake and tetrazzini recipes.

Blueberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake
(from mixingbowl.com)

Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 t. vanilla
3 cups flour
1 1/2 t. baking powder
3/4 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
1 cup sour cream, 8 oz

Filling:
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 T. flour
1/2 t. ground cinnamon
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 to 3 T. milk

Directions:
In large bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream, beating well after each addition. Spoon a third of the batter into a greased and floured 10 inch tube pan. Mix brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. Sprinkle half over batter. Top with half of the berries. Repeat layers. Top with remaining batter. Bake at 350 for 55 to 65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack to cool completely. Mix glaze ingredients. drizzle over cake. Note: If using frozen blueberries, do not thaw before adding to batter. (I set them out when I started mixing and they were fine.)

Here are a few pics at various stages.









While that deliciousness was baking, I made myself some dinner for the week. I turned to my handy dandy Triple T cookbook again, which is actually titled "Homemade with Love". Here's the recipe.

Chicken or Turkey Tetrazzini

Ingredients:
1/4 c. butter
1/4 c. flour
slat and pepper to taste
1 c. water
1 bouillon cube
1 lb. spaghetti noodles, cooked
1 lb. turkey or chicken, cooked
Parmesan cheese

Directions:
Dice meat into cubes. In a small sauce pan, dissolve bouillon cube with water. In medium sauce pan, melt butter and add flour, salt and pepper; will be thick. Add bouillon to this. Make sure the heat is not too high, otherwise your sauce will stay thick. In mixing bowl mix meat and noodles together. Pour into a greased casserole dish. Pour sauce over the top and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Cover and bake at 350 degrees until done, about 25-30 minutes.

Here is the picture of the tetrazzini: