Jolene's Recipe Journal

  P is for Parsley, Parmesan and Pesto! This year I'm participating in a bi weekly challenge with some blogging friends to post recipes using all of the letters in the alphabet.  It can feature a food that begins with the letter of the week or the recipe name can contain the week's letter. I went through a big pesto phase last summer but I cheated and bought it from the store. I dropped by the farm and they had lovely bundles of fresh herbs so I decided to try my hand at making it from scratch. All it takes is 6 ingredients and a food processor. I'm not sure why this recipe is called parsley pesto when there's an equal amount of basil, but whatever, just roll with it. It suggests you can swap the basil for cilantro but that's not ever happening at this house, I've got the cilantro tastes like soap gene. I added the olive oil to the food processor first. Next up, parmesan cheese.  Shredded or shaved real parmesan, NOT the green shaker container abomination.  I ...

One of my favorite treats to make is donuts and I've made several from Sara Mellas' Easy Baked Donut cookbook and they've all been winners.  After battling the weather and our wild turkey population for a week, I finally had enough berries to make the Glazed Blueberry Cake Donuts. You start by pureeing 2 cups of blueberries in a food processor or blender.  I absolutely love my Blendtec and recently got the mini Wildside jar which was just perfect for this. To the puree you add melted butter, oil, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, blueberry flavoring and sour cream. The book says you can skip the blueberry flavoring but you may not get a strong blueberry taste.  I compromised and used 1 teaspoon of it.  In another bowl you combine your dry ingredients, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Whisk the dry mixture into the wet, making sure it's well combined but don't work it to death. I was so excited about the beautiful color of the batter, I took a dozen pictu...

My plan for today's recipe was to keep it super simple. Lemon tartlets topped with raspberries, 4 ingredients, don't even need to turn on the oven.  That was derailed when I discovered I couldn't get my hands on the ready to serve phyllo dough cups.  I ran around to a few stores, even had my husband searching but the best I could come up with were Pepperidge Farm puff pastry shells. They come 6 to a package and he picked up 4 packages for me.  I started off doing them 6 at a time but then moved them to a sheet that would hold 12.  Be sure to keep any that you're not baking in the freezer until they are ready to go into the oven.  I got a pretty decent puff out of them. I know we were super careful getting them from the store to home, putting them in a cooler with ice packs but they could have varied in temp anywhere between the factory and the grocery door. Once they are cooled, grab a spoon and very carefully lift out the center disk.  I ran it all around ...

 It has been such a hot summer that we've barely gotten any use out of our fire pit. My son has been despondent over the lack of s'mores so when I chose my recipes for this year's Summer Dessert Week I had to make sure I included some form of them.   These s'mores brownies start by making a graham cracker layer with crumbs, butter, sugar and cinnamon. Press it into a 13x9 baking pan and bake for about 8 minutes. Set it aside to cool.   The brownie layer mimics the chocolate bar portion of the treat. I've done from scratch brownies a few times and this version is pretty easy. I wasn't sure about folding in the marshmallows but went with it anyway. On top of the brownie layer you crumble up some graham crackers and then sprinkle on more marshmallows.  I didn't measure. I just added until it looked like each brownie would have a nice amount of topping. I was a bit disappointed at the lack of color on the marshmallows when they came out of the oven so I hit the...