Tomato and Avocado Egg Salad

Becky and I used some leftover deviled eggs for this recipe and quite enjoyed it.  Amelia too.  We also didn't let the flavors blend for an hour, but you surely could if you plan further ahead than I typically do...

Tomato and Avocado Egg Salad
6 hard-cooked eggs, chopped
2 avocados, chopped
1 c. chopped tomato
1/2 c. chopped red onion (or some green onions)
1/4 c. chopped fresh parsley or cilantro, optional

Dressing:
2 T. mayonnaise
2 T. sour cream
1 T. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. hot pepper sauce

Mix dressing ingredients in a small bowl. 
Combine eggs, avocados, tomatoes, onion, and parlsey in large bowl; toss gently to mix.  Add dressing, stir gently just until mixed.
Refrigerate at least one hour to blend flavors.  Serve on spinach leaves or as a sandwich filling or to fill hollowed out tomatoes.

From the American Egg Board

Oven-Baked Oatmeal Topped with Strawberry Jam

This is absolutely delish! Baking the oatmeal gives it more of a crumbly texture instead of your standard gooey oatmeal texture and then adding the warm milk softens it up again. Seriously so good. It's really pretty sweet too, so you could get away with cutting down on the sugar and you'd still be fine.

Oven-Baked Oatmeal Topped with Strawberry Jam

1 ½ C quick-cooking oats
½ C sugar
¼ C butter, melted
½ C milk
1 egg
¾ tsp. salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 ½ tsp vanilla
½ C strawberry jam (or any other flavor)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 inch baking pan. Combine all ingredients in large bowl except the jam. Spread into baking pan. Drop spoonfuls of jam on top of oatmeal – do not spread. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Spoon into bowls immediately. Top with warm milk.

From Beyond Oatmeal by Carlene Duda

Strawberry Vanilla Pancakes

We made these yummy pancakes one morning in Utah. I had lots of helpers which is always exciting. They even had to line up to help there were so many helpers. :) Imagine trying to do math (to triple the recipe) with all those little helpers too...

Strawberry Vanilla Pancakes

1 1/2 C flour

3 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3 eggs

1 container (6oz) vanilla yogurt

3/4 C water

3 Tbsp butter or margarine, melted

Fresh sliced strawberries

Strawberry syrup or maple syrup

Heat griddle to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients; set aside. In a medium bowl, beat eggs, yogurt and water with wire whisk; beat in butter. Pour egg mixture into flour mixture all at once, stir until moistened.

Pour slightly less than 1/4 cup batter for each pancake on griddle. Cook until bubbly, then flip and cook the other side.

Top with strawberries and syrup and enjoy.

Cucumber Sandwiches

This is another delightful treat Molly turned me onto. I always thought cucumber sandwiches sounded kind of weird but let me tell ya, they're goo-ood. The various parts of this recipe should be made no more than 1-2 hours ahead of serving time. Do not assemble the sandwiches until right before you serve them. You do need to use an English cucumber because they have fewer seeds and are less watery.

Cucumber Sandwiches

1 loaf square white bread (not the rounded top kind and not super cheap, you don't want it to fall apart)

1 English cucumber (these are the kind that are wrapped in plastic wrap)

1 lemon

Salt

Pepper

1/2 tsp Dill

8oz cream cheese, softened

Cut crusts off bread and cut each slice into 4 pieces. (Or you can use a cookie cutter or biscuit cutter and cut circles or flowers out of the bread and get about 3 per slice of bread.) Place in a zip-top bag so they don't dry out while you finish the rest.

Finely chop 5 slices of cucumber and set aside. Thinly slice* the rest of the cucumber and place in medium bowl. Squeeze the juice of 1/2 a lemon over cucumber slices. Add 1/2 tsp dill and salt & pepper to taste. Stir gently then put aside to marinate for about 1 hour.

In another bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Stir in the reserved (finely chopped) cucumber.

Spread cream cheese mixture onto one side of each slice of bread. Top with one slice of cucumber.

These are best served immediately but if you aren't serving immediately, cover sandwiches with a wet paper towel (get paper towel completely wet then ring all the water out) and plastic wrap so they don't dry out.

If you do the round cut outs this will make about 50 sandwiches.

*If you have a mandolin it makes slicing these a breeze and keeps them all uniform in size - fabulous!

Devonshire Cream

This is so yummy with Cream Scones or really any type of scone and so easy to make. I did forget a picture so just imagine a cute bowl with fluffy white stuff in it...

Devonshire Cream

1 C heavy whipping cream (no cheating here - you have to use heavy whipping cream)

1/4 C sour cream

2 Tbsp powdered sugar

Whip cream until peaks form. Add sour cream and sugar and stir in until incorporated and thick.

I do this in the Bosch or Kitchen-aide and it works perfectly - just do the last part with the low setting.

Cream Scones

We serve yummy cream scones at Molly so I've been looking for a good recipe and this one is just lovely. I've made it with 1 C all-purpose flour and 1 C bread flour and that worked as well. The bread flour makes them nice and light.

Cream Scones

2 C bread flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

4 Tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

4 Tbsp cold butter, cut into cubes

3/4 C heavy cream

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla

Sugar for sprinkling

Heat oven to 400˚. Place flour, baking powder, sugar, salt in a large bowl and mix lightly. Cut butter in using a pastry blender or two knives until it resembles coarse meal. Stir in heavy cream, egg, and vanilla and mix by hand until it forms into a slightly moistened dough.

On a floured surface, grab enough dough to fit into your hand and gently roll it into a ball. Flatten the ball (and shape the edges) until the disk is about 1/2” thick. Repeat with rest of dough. Cut each disk into 4 or 6 pieces and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Sprinkle tops with sugar. Bake for 15 minutes until the bottoms are golden brown. Remove from pan to cooling rack.

Serve warm with butter and jam, or Devonshire cream and jam (my favorite!), or lemon curd.

Makes a ton of bite size scones. (“ton” being a very accurate cooking term for when I forget to count... every time I make them...)

Lemon Yogurt Muffins

I tried these muffins this weekend and they were really good! They're even better after you let them cool and let the sugar on top crystalize a bit.

Lemon Yogurt Muffins

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup lemon or plain yogurt
6 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
1 tablespoon lemon juice
TOPPING:
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup sugar

In a large bowl, combine the first six ingredients. In another bowl, beat the egg, yogurt, butter and lemon juice. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fill muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake at 400 degrees F for 20-24 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes; leave muffins in pan. Using a toothpick, poke 6-8 holes in each muffin. In a saucepan, combine the topping ingredients. Cook and stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Spoon over warm muffins.