July 4th Food

One of my favorite food memories from July 4th is Blueberry Buckle.  Growing up, my best friend Emily's mom was a great cook and I loved being at their lake house in the summer for many reasons but partially because of the yummy homemade food.  I remember coming back from a swim in the lake excited to sneak into the kitchen to see what Mrs. Taylor had been cooking.  Sometimes there were homemade chocolate chip cookies and usually around the 4th there was Blueberry Buckle.  Being from a primarily frozen-food household, I had never heard of Blueberry Buckle and loved the name almost as much as the taste.  I have fond memories of the dessert and this year I'm going to try my hand at it.   Mrs. Taylor was nice enough to email me her recipe:

Blueberry Buckle

3/4 c. sugar

1/4 c. Crisco (or oil)

1 egg

Combine sugar, crisco and egg; beat until smooth.  

Combine dry ingredients as follows:

2 c. flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

Then, after mixing the dry ingredients thoroughly (so baking powder blends well),  

add these to the creamed sugar mixture. 

Then stir in 1/2 cup milk and

fold gently in 2 c. blueberries (washed & drained).

Spoon into a 9" square pan -- Sprinkle with topping.

Topping:  

1/2 c. sugar

1/3 c. flour

1/4 c. soft butter (cut butter in with pastry blender until topping looks somewhat like cornmeal.

Bake at 375 for 45 minutes.

Enjoy!!!      

Amazing Red Velvet Cupcakes That Are Good For You (kind of)

This past Saturday Brad and I had a barbecue dinner party for a bunch of our friends to kick off the summer.  I made a ton of food including homemade pesto flatbread, bbq pulled chicken, sweet potato fries and of course, dessert!  I have always wanted to try Red Velvet Cupcakes so I grabbed an old recipe from my files.  The cupcakes turned out wonderfully!  I didn't know it at the time of baking and eating that this recipe was from Cooking Light.  I would NEVER have known this was a "light" cupcake recipe.  Actually, the lightness probably added to why I liked them:  they were fluffy and didn't feel like lead in your tummy after eating.  Knowing that these were light, I am bummed that I banished the cupcakes away to my husband's office.  Please let me know if you've had success with other light versions of desserts since now my home is cupcake free!  

Here is the recipe and the Light Red Velvet Cupcake