Our chickens make beautiful Eggs!

Biscuits and Gravy

Make cream biscuits using previous recipe - https://www.nickandalonakitchen.com/2025/01/cream-buiscuits.html

Then make the gravy as here. :) 

Goes together fabulously! And pretty quick to make - breakfast in under 30 minutes with minimal ingredients

 

Ingredients:

1 lb country sausage 

2 cups milk

1/4 cup flour 

salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Add sausage to frying pan, breaking it up. Cook, while stirring for about 5-6 minutes until cooked. 

2. Add in 1/4 cup flour and stir to coat. 

3. Slowly pour in 2 cups milk and bring to a boil. Cook for a few minutes until thickened!

4. ENJOY! 

What we liked:

So quick, easy, delicious. 

What we didn't like:

it is gone too fast!!! 

What Kaspian thought about it:

loved it. 

Next time:

make more!

Cream Buiscuits

Easy, fun,  and fast, with just a few ingredients, the best biscuits! 

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1.5 cups heavy cream

Directions:

1. Combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a bowl. 

2. Pour in the heavy cream. 

3. Mix, with your hands, it's very thick and sticky. 

4. Take out of bowl and put on a silicone mat and mix folding the dough in half and on top of itself. This will create the fluffy biscuit layers. 

5. Squish out the dough into a circle or square and cut with a circle cutter. This recipe will make 12

6. Bake at 400 F for about 12 minutes. 

Serve warm - great in biscuits and gravy. 

What we liked:

So quick and easy and really great with just a few ingredients 

What we didn't like:

nothing - great!

What Kaspian thought about it:

Loved it. 

Next time:

Make more!

Cake with sweetened condensed milk. Ube.

We used ube sweetened condensed milk for the frosting and it worked out marvelously. 

We used regular sweetened condensed milk for the cake parts. The cake itself will be thin and flimsy, but can be assembled in a yummy form. Ours is definitely not very pretty, and next time, we would spread the batter more evenly or in a different form for better layers. 

 Nick made the cake topper! 

Ingredients:

For Cake: 

300 g sweetened condensed milk

3 eggs

1 pinch salt

180 g flour

10 g baking powder

spray to spray silicone mats or cake pans

For Frosting: 

500g whipping cream (about 2 cups)

80 g UBE sweetened condensed milk

2 tsp vanilla paste or liquid

Directions:

Make the batter: 

Preheat oven to 350 F 

1. In the stand mixer with the whipping attachments, beat eggs with a pinch of salt until fluffy. 

2. Without stopping mixing, add in the 300 g condensed milk

3. In a separate bowl combine flour with baking powder. Slowly, in parts, add in to the egg mixture. 

4. Use silicon mats and pour batter on sprayed or oiled mats directly. We used two mats and made them the same size. We made two rectangles. 

5. Bake for about 10 minutes. We suggest baking each layer separately. We find they cook differently on different layers. 

Make the Frosting: 
1. Beat cold whipping cream with vanilla. When whipped, slowly add in the ube condensed milk

Once the cake is cooled, assemble. We cut each layer in half both width wise and lengthwise, resulting in a total of 8 layers of cake. 

Assemble cake spreading the frosting evenly between all layers. Put frosting all around the sides and top. Put in the fridge to sit for at least 2 hours. We left ours overnight. 

Decorate with chocolate or berries. 

What we liked:

It was really fun to make and eat. 

What we didn't like:

The layers were very thin and would do something differently next time. 

What Kaspian thought about it:

He liked it, so did Brenton

Next time:

Use different forms or spread them thinner or perhaps do a different batter altogether. 

Crawfish and Andouille Sausage Etouffee

This was fairly quick and easy to throw together for a dinner, as long as we had the crawfish. We always have long grain rice (we used basmati and it worked out, was very fluffy). We added andouille sausage the second time we made it and it was fabulous! 

This recipe does make a lot, halving it might be more reasonable for a smaller group. 

Ingredients:

6-8 cups of long grain white rice, we used basmati. We usually have rice left over for various things too. 

4-6 cups  turkey or chicken stock depending on how concentrated it is and your tastes

4-6 cups water 

1.5 cup butter

2 large onions, chopped

3 stalks celery, finely chopped

4-5 cloves garlic, chopped

1/2 cup flour

2 cans crushed tomatoes

2 lbs crawfish tails

1 package andouille sausage

green onions - chopped for garnish

salt and pepper to taste

3 tbsp Cajun seasoning

Old Bay seasoning to taste 

Directions:

1. Set rice to cook in rice cooker. We love our Zojurishi, it really makes a difference

2. Make the roux with about half the butte rbutter and flour. We used a cast iron pan. Melt butter, gradually add in the flour and stir constantly until flour is cooked and mixture is thickened. 

3. Take the other half the butter and fry onion and celery until softened. Add garlic until fragrant, about one minute. 

4. Add in tomato sauce and stock and water. 

5. Add in the roux

6. Mix

7. Add in crawfish tails and andouille sausage and bring to a simmer

8. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 5-10 minutes

9. Serve etouffee over cooked rice and garnish with green onions. 

What we liked:

It was easy, fun and yummy. 

What we didn't like:

Nothing, it was great. 

What Kaspian thought about it:

Brenton actually loved it and at 2 years old ate three whole bowls! 

Next time:

Nothing, these are great. 

Chocolate cupcakes

It was Kaspian's Birthday, so we made some chocolate cupcakes with white frosting. 

They were all approved by kids and adults alike! 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 all-purpose flour 

1/2 cup  cocoa powder

1 teaspoon espresso powder or very very finely ground coffee

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup  brown sugar

1/3 cup oil - we used sunflower

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup plain white yogurt

frosting is buttercream and sprinkles for decorating

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F . Line 2 12-cup muffin pans with cupcake liners. 

2.  Whisk the flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl until combined. 

3. In bowl of stand mixer whisk the eggs, sugar, brown sugar, oil, and vanilla together until smooth. Pour half of the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Then half of the yogurt. Mix. Then add the rest of the dry ingredients and the rest of the yogurt. 

4. Fill cupcakes about 1/3-1/2 full. Just distribute the batter evenly among the 24 cupcakes. 

5. Bake for 18-21 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 

6. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

Frost cooled cupcakes with chocolate buttercream or frosting of choice. 

What we liked:

These came out super cute especially with the toppers :)     

What we didn't like:

Nothing, it was fun to try a new recipe

What Kaspian thought about it:

He liked his birthday cupcakes! 

Next time:

No changes necessary. 

The GREAT WHITE tomato!

We grew some great white tomatoes this year. They are pretty much AMAZING. They are HUGE. We ended up planting them by accident, we thought our seedlings were not going to make it (they did!) and we rushed to the local nursery and purchased some heirloom tomatoes. One of the varieties was the Great White. The other really good one we got from them was a pear shaped yellow tomato. I don't remember the name of that one, something something sun or sunshine or something like that. But, the yellow tomatoes were the first to ripen. Then, they stopped in the summer, and now that it is cooler are back to producing. They must like the colder temperatures. Very interesting. 

Astrid's absolute favorite though is the chocolate PEAR. They are so sweet!
But, anyways, back to the great white. It is actually yellow once it ripens. It is huge and pretty awesome all around!