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I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

Fruit Desserts

Fresh Summer Cherry Cobbler

This Fresh Summer Cherry Cobbler is bursting with ripe, sweet cherries and topped with a fluffy, crumbly cobbler topping. Perfect with a scoop of ice cream.

I know I am late to the party when I say this, but I love the show “Suits.”

While I am working, I always have a podcast or show streaming for backgrounds noise. I have powered through so many podcasts from start to current episodes (Young House Love) or shows that way. I primarily use Hulu, but I just recently “discovered” that Amazon has a bunch of great movies and shows on there. Sure, I watched plenty of B movies on there. Like Hallmark Channel style movies, that are so simple and sappy. But, I saw that Suits was available and I decided to give it a try. Now, I’m almost done with season 4 and it’s been just 2 weeks.

…

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Roasted Strawberries

Roasted Strawberries

This recipe is a perfect example of ‘do as I say, not as I do’…

Well, not exactly.

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You see, the recipe part is fine. But when you look at my process pictures you might notice how slapped down a piece of parchment on the baking sheet. Well, I didn’t properly cover the baking sheet when I did that. Nope, I should have ripped off another big ass piece of parchment to cover the ENTIRE baking sheet. If you don’t then the juices will make a mad dash to the edge of the parchment and hop onto the baking sheet. And that lovely, sugary syrup will toil and boil on your baking sheet and cement itself on there.

So, cover the ENTIRE baking sheet with a big ass piece of parchment so you won’t have to throw out your baking sheet like how I had to throw out mine. Okay, so I probably could have scrubbed with all my might to get the cemented on syrup off but 1) I have no time for that crap 2) I probably would have just scraped off the non-stick coating making the pan just about useless.

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Anyway, the strawberries are incredible. They are juicy, full-bodied, and down right scrumptious. The combination of the strawberries, sugar, lemon, and bourbon all work so well together. The sugar makes the strawberries even sweeter and helps make the best syrup ever. The lemon makes all to pop and enhances the sweetness too. And the bourbon… well, the bourbon just makes them all the better to the 10th power.

The concentrated flavor in the mushy berries are perfect for topping a cup of yogurt, bowl of oatmeal, slice of toast, adding to smoothies or milkshakes, piling on a scoop of ice cream, or layering in parfaits. And, of course, awesome for piling on pancakes or waffles. Yep, you’re damn right I was gonna say waffles. #WaffleWednesday

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I used vanilla sugar, which is just sugar that has been infused with scraped vanilla beans. I have a big ‘ol container of this that I use in tea or things like this. But plain granulated sugar is just as fine as well. And if you have a vanilla bean lying around then scrape that and add it to the while mess of ingredients when you are mixing them up.

You’ll love these strawberries. I insist that when you have the chance stock up on this beautifully ripe summertime fruit when you have the chance. Fill your cart up and then make loads and loads of roasted strawberries. They won’t last long in the baking sheet or in your fridge.

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These strawberries will change your life. I swear. Now, do as I say!

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Roasted Strawberries

Makes 1/2 Cup

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds fresh strawberries
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 Tablespoons Bourbon
  • 1 Tablespoon lemon juice

Process

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cover your entire rimmed baking sheet with a large piece of parchment paper or a non-stick baking liner.
  2. Hull the strawberries. Halve the strawberries. Only quarter them if they are really large.
  3. Combine all of the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.
  4. Pour the strawberries on the baking sheet.
  5. Bake for 50-60 minutes. Store in an air-tight container for up to 1 week. Serve on pancakes, waffles, oatmeal, quinoa, or yogurt. Enjoy!

Cherry Crisp Waffles

Cherry Crisp Waffles

1o days until the wedding!!!!

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HOLY SMOKES!!!! I’m excited and nervous. Not nervous about marriage, no I’m exited about that! I’m nervous about the ceremony and the reception. We have so much still to do and still to coordinate.

The jam favors need to get labeled, the gifts need to be packaged up, the centerpieces need some work. But it is getting there!

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Thankfully, my dress is all done with. I had the final fitting last week. It needed a bit more of adjustment to fix two things but I hung around for that and was able to take my dress home that night. YAY!

On the other hand Price had his final fitting and they had to take his pants in another 3/4″ of an inch! Yep, he lost another 3/4″ since his first fitting in Mid March. He’s been working so hard and it’s really paying off by sticking doing another round of Whole30 (in April) and Whole30-ish foods since. Like right now, we are doing Whole30 most of the time with a daily cheat thing. It’s a good balance for us.

So making these Cherry Crisp Waffles the other day meant that we were really treated our selves. But let me tell you, it was worth it!!

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The sweet, yet tart cherries were the perfect accompaniment to the sweet waffles. The honey flavor in the Honey Wheat waffles paired so nicely with the cherries and the cinnamon flavor in the crisp topping. I never used to be a fan of crisp toppings as I didn’t love the texture of the toasted oats but I’ve begun to change my tune as it really adds a fun crunch.

This just screams summer to me. Makes for a great brunch-y breakfast. Or even a dessert. Wouldn’t it be fun to change things up and do a real breakfast for dinner night and finish it off with one of these waffles.

As the recipe makes 6 waffles I called up Autumn’s daycare teacher, who lives than a block away, to offer them breakfast. Autumn and I delivered them before they headed off to church. Autumn of course didn’t want to wear pants for our walk over! HA!!

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I hope that you enjoy these as much as we all did.

And 10 days!!!! AHHHHH!!!!!! YAAAA!!!! WOOOOHOOOO!!!!! EEEEE!!!!

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Cherry Crisp Waffles

Makes 6 waffles

Ingredients

Process

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Preheat your waffle iron as well.
  2. Mix together the crisp topping mix with the butter. Mix until all of the topping is moist. Sprinkle onto a cookie sheet. Bake for about 7-8 minutes and mix the topping, return to the oven for another 6-7 minutes. Let cool.
  3. While the topping is baking, combine the honey wheat mix with the water in a large bowl. Mix until just combined.
  4. Scoop out a 1/3 Cup of batter into your waffle iron. Bake until your waffle iron beeps, at this point steam  should have stopped escaping and your waffle is golden brown. Place on a cooling rack while you make the rest of the waffles.
  5. Serve your waffles by adding a big scoop of the cherry pie filling to the waffle, and then sprinkling the topping crumble on the pie filling. Add whipped cream or syrup, if you wish.

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Krusteaz has provided me with all sorts of fun mixes to create waffle recipes in a collaboration of their #BreakfastNight and my #WaffleWednesday. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thanks for all of your comments. I appreciate them all.

The perfect pair: Pear and Apple Pie

Pear and Apple Pie

Guys, let’s talk about coke.

Not that coke… jeez I’ve never even had a cigarette.

I’m talking the other addicting form of Coke. Coca-Cola!

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Ignoring the fact that I post a pie recipe every Friday, Price and I have been trying to reshape our diets. We have been shifting more and more to the Paleo diet. As a treat, we have a slice of pie at some point during the week, but the rest typically goes to our dog walker or Autumn’s daycare teachers. It’s been going well with some easy swaps- quinoa for rice, zoodles for pasta, and sweet potatoes with everything when all else fails. Cheese is the hardest to give up but at least the adjustments we have been making have been helping curb the cheese and sweets cravings.

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Like soda. We stopped buying soda. We get seltzer and add some lemon or lime. Or if I am horrible, I go for my drug of choice… Country Time Lemonade Mix. (At least I only put in about a Tablespoon in my 24 oz waterbottle since I don’t actually like lemonade). Which brings me to the point of this story… I grabbed a Diet Coke at work during a Lunch & Learn.

I only drank half of it and felt so gross.

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I couldn’t believe how blah I felt after just half of a soda. I used to feel like I could drink a Big Gulp full and it was refreshing. But now it’s just gross. This actually just makes me happy. Happy that we have been making smart choices to better our diets.Thankfully, as a result we have purged junk from our bodies and have been curbing cravings too.

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While I’m glad that we have been curbing our sugary cravings, I’m still glad to crave some fresh pie straight from the oven. And this is a pie worth craving!

The combination of pears and apples goes together to well. This pie has less cinnamon than your typical apple pie and more ginger so there is a nice complexity to the spices used. I don’t normally do an egg wash on pies but I went for it this time, and added a heafty sprinkling of sugar, which gave it a nice look and added crunch to the top.

Yum!!!

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Pear and Apple Pie

Makes a 9″ pie

Ingredients

Crust

  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces, chilled
  • 1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

Filling

  • 4 large Bartlett pears
  • 4 large baking apples, such as Cortlands
  • 1 lemon
  • 1/2 Cup flour
  • 3/4 Cups sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ginger
  • 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 3 Tablespoons butter
  • 1 egg
  • 2 Tablespoons water
  • 3-4 Tablespoons sugar for sprinkling

Process

  1. To make the crust, in the bowl of a food processor, combine flour, salt, and sugar. Addbutter, and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal, 8 to 10 seconds.
  2. With machine running, add ice water in a slow, steady stream through feed tube. Pulse until dough holds together without being wet or sticky; be careful not to process more than 30 seconds. To test, squeeze a small amount together: If it is crumbly, add more ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time.
  3. Divide dough into two equal balls. Flatten each ball into a disc and wrap in plastic. Transfer to the refrigerator and chill at least 1 hour.
  4. While the dough is chilling, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Ready your pie plate by placing it on a rimmed cookie sheet.
  5. Peel the pears and apples. Cut the fruit into 1/4″ thick slices. As you add the fruit to a large mixing bowl, add the juice of the lemon to prevent oxidation.
  6. Add the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and vanilla extract to the pears and apples. Mix gently.
  7. Roll out one of the disks to be large enough to compeltely cover the pie plate. Place the dough into the pie plate. Add the filling to the pie crust. Then add the 4 pats of butter on top. Roll out the other other disk and then cover the filling and crimp the edges.
  8. Mix together the egg and the water. Brush the top of the pie with the egg wash and then sprinkle with sugar.
  9. Bake for 55-65 minutes. Serve hot or let cool on a wire cooling rack. Store in an air tight container for up to 3 days.

Crust Sourced from Martha Stewart, Pie by I am a Honey Bee

Peach Pie Trifle

Peach pie trifle – Fresh peaches and cool whipped cream with a sweet glaze surrounding each bite. Tasty treat fit for any occasion

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My apologies for missing my weekly ‘Friday Pie Day’ post last week. Boo!

I had traveled for work on Monday and Tuesday and when I arrived at work on Thursday I was sick. Well, me being a dummy, I didn’t realize it until the end of the day. I just figured my coldness was just from the building controlled AC. Nope, I had the chills. I was so cold I sat under my coworker’s desk to huddle around the space heater she uses in winter. Fast forward to the evening and I was passed out on the sofa with a fever of 101.4.

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I was out sick on Friday and while I could have quickly written this post I decided to sleep off some more of the yuck I was feeling. And even then I napped on Saturday and Sunday. This virus that settled in my throat whooped my butt. It just shows that I need to boost my immune system more to fight off plane germs to handle some more upcoming work and personal travel. Wish me luck!

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So here we are, a week later, and I’m finally feeling like me again. And I have this amazing Peach Pie Trifle for you guys! A coworker, who transferred from our Boston to DC office came back for a visit and came over for dinner. She always enjoyed the goodies I would bring into the office, specifically the trifles I would make. I even made her one for her going away party that we hosted at our house. She requested a trifle for this visit so I created this one especially for her!

Okay, so this isn’t really a pie but I was inspired by peach pies for this recipe. Plus, it’s always fun to take something and remix it into something new. 🙂

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I made my favorite cake recipe for this trifle but you can do it quickly with a boxed cake mix. But I swear this is some good cake. And I hadn’t made a cake in so long, I wanted to just pop cubes of freshly baked cake right in my mouth, but I resisted and used it for the trifle. Worth the wait!

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I made 1 large trifle but this would be great if it was served in individual glass bowls or jars. Mason jars even make for great trifle serving vessels.

There is no rhyme or reason in the layering of the trifle. It doesn’t matter if you start with peaches or cake first, but I always finish trifles with whipped cream. I specifically make shallow layers so that when people are digging in they are sure to get goodies from all of the layers.

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Peaches are super fresh and in season now. Now is the best time for delicious juicy peaches so be sure to make some Peach Pie Trifle now.

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Peach Pie Trifle

Makes 1 very large trifle, serves 12-16 people

Ingredients

For the cake

  • 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 2 Cups sugar
  • 4 large eggs, at room temperature
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 Cups Self-rising flour
  • 1 1/4 Cups all-purpose flour

For the filling

  • 3 lbs of peaches
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 Tablespoons vanilla extract, divided
  • 1 pint heavy whipping cream

Process

  1. To make the cake, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease 2 9″ round baking pans.
  2. In a large bowl/stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each egg. Add the vanilla extract and beat the mixture again.
  3. Combine the flours together and then add half of that to the butter mixture, beating well to incorporate. Then add half of the milk and beat again. Repeat this process to add the rest of the flour and milk.
  4. Evenly divide the cake batter between the 2 cake pans. Bake for 25-28 minutes, or until a toothpick that is placed into the center of the pan is clean of batter upon removal. Let cool.
  5. While your cake is baking, slice your peaches into thin wedges. In a large skillet, combine the peaches, sugar, and 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract. Over medium heat cook the peaches down until they are just soft. Using a slotted spoon, remove the peaches. Bring the syrup mixture to a slow boil and cook for 3-5 minutes. Add to the bowl of peaches and let cool completely.
  6. Beat the heavy whipping cream and remaining vanilla extract until there are stiff peaks.
  7. Cut the cool cake into squares by slicing the cake into strips and then rotating the pan and cutting again.
  8. In a large trifle bowl or in individual bowls, layer the cake, peaches, and whipped cream. Repeat thin layers until you have exhausted each layer. It’s suggested to finish with whipped cream. ( I did the following: cake, whipped cream, peaches, cake, whipped cream, peaches, cake, whipped cream.)

Trifle recipe idea created by I am a Honey Bee, cake recipe slightly adapted from Buttercup Bake Shop Cookbook

 

PS… my helper wasn’t too helpful, but I think I’ll keep her 😉

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Banana Pudding

Banana Pudding

So I was doing a really good job of doing weekly posts for my Sprint Cup Snacks series last year, but then tragedy struck!!! My damn desktop crapped out on me. And where were my photos that I needed to edit and slap into my drafted posts? Oh, on the damn desktop! So bam! My posting schedule hit a speed-bump, so I had to face the I would just have to redo some recipes I already made. And of course instead of attacking them quickly I fell behind on my posts, and then got busy, and then had a baby… well you get the point!

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And since Daytona is next Sunday (yay!!!!!) I just knew I had to get into gear (see what I did there?) and finally get around to posting the last few recipes that I had passed up last year.

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I’m kicking things off with this delightful Banana Pudding that I made for the Coke 600 race at Charlotte Motor Speedway way back in October. I had to pick something super southern to honor this race. And Banana Pudding was the perfect pick!

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I had made this and brought it into work and one of the guys there was saying how great it was. Well, that was nice of him. What I didn’t know was that he was from the South. He continued on saying how he grew up eating Banana Pudding and how this reminded him of his childhood and how good this Banana Pudding was. Well… score!!! yay!!!

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And I think we all need more pudding in our lives. Just because.

And I think we can justify having this as there is fruit involved. Totally healthy. And it does has reduced fat vanilla wafers, which really just does a better job of holding up the wafer texture better than the regular vanilla wafers, but still… ha!

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Banana Pudding

Makes 12-16 servings

Ingredients

  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
  • Dash of salt
  • 2 1/2 cups milk
  • 1 (14-oz) can of sweetened condensed milk
  • 2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 3 cups sliced ripe bananas, about 5-6 bananas
  • 1 box of reduced-fat vanilla wafers
  • 2 cups of whipping cream

Process

  1. In a medium saucepan, combine the flour and salt. Place on your stove-top over medium heat.
  2. Gradually stir in the milk, sweetened condensed milk, and egg yolks, and cook, stirring constantly, for 8 to 10 minutes or until thickened.
  3. Remove the custard mixture from the heat and then add in the vanilla extract.
  4. In a 5 quart trifle dish, out 1/3 of the pudding on the bottom of the trifle dish, then 1/3 of the vanilla wafers, then 1/3 of the banana slices, and lastly 1/3 of the whipped cream. Be sure to place some of the pudding, banana slices, vanilla wafers, and whipped cream along the side so everyone sees the yummy layers. Repeat the process 2 more times topping off with whipped cream.

If you are serving these individually, then just serve in 1 cup dishes or in pint ball jars. Layer the ingredients in the process stated above to create a dessert with 6 layers.

Adapted From: My Recipes

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Crock Pot Baked Apples

Every night Price and I are up between 2 am-4am, depending on when Autumn has fallen asleep. Ideally, we get her down between 9-10.30 and then we immediately brush our teeth and drive into bed as well. Gotta maximize on our sleep! Anyway, there are some pretty interesting things on TV in the middle of the night.

Sometimes we watch something we’ve DVR’d but other times we’ll find some random thing to watch while I’m pumping and he’s feeding Autumn. Lately, we’ve been watching the Australian Open. So weird to be watching live tennis in the middle of the night. But to change it up, the other night we watched the first episode of Wahlburgers, a reality show about the burger joint run by the Wahlberg family. Made me want a burger in the middle of the night. Hello… always hungry now!

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Other nights we turn on Weatherscan and just so happen to leave it on for like an hour as we sometimes are zombies in the middle of the night. There is just something so relaxing about their music in the middle of the night. no?

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Anyway, besides the TV we watch in the middle of the night, I often end up browsing Pinterest. My pins are pretty varied but lately I’ve been thinking about slow cooker recipes. I have fallen deep in love with my slow cooker. It just makes things so much easier now with a new baby. Between feeding her, changing her, snuggling with her my time gets sucked up pretty quickly. And it’s not like I have any problem with that but that is the way things go. Basically it just means it’s time to reinvent how we typically get meals on the table.

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Since slow cooker recipes are a big part of our life now, it made perfect sense that Price picked out these Crock Pot Baked Apples for this month’s Secret Recipe Club. This month I had Emily’s blog called Life on Food. Emily has lived all over, including Iowa, Maine, and Connecticut, and her travels are reflected in the recipes she features on her blog. Totally jealous she gets to Disney every year too!!

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These Crock Pot Baked Apples are killer. Well, actually, I don’t like baked apples. So I took Price’s word for it when he said they were really, really good. I know, how can I not like baked apples?!?! It’s a texture thing that has to do with the skin. But Price wanted them so I made them. That’s what happens when you love someone… you make them baked apples! And then your house smells amazing!!

Make these for yourself, or at the least for someone you love!

Crock Pot Baked Apples

Makes 6 apples

Ingredients

  • 6 Gala or Macintosh apples
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup diced walnuts
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
  • 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup apple cider or apple juice
  • 2 tablespoons orange liquor (optional)

Process

  1. Remove the stem, core, and seeds from the center of each apple while keeping the bottom of the apple. This basically creates a bowl shape.
  2. In a large bowl, mix brown sugar, walnuts, butter, cinnamon, and vanilla extract. Fill the apples with the filling and place them in the crock-pot. Pour in the liquids into the bottom of the crock pot.
  3. Cover and cook 2 1/2 to 3 hours on high heat until the apples are soft and begin to collapse.

Adapted from Life on Food

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Secret Recipe Club

Check out my 2 years of Secret Recipe Club posts!!!!

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