Lisa's Kitchen Blog

When you live in a house full of monkeys, it's important to feed them the things they would eat in the wild. That means lots of bananas, and, of course, monkey bread. Here's their favorite monkey bread recipe, courtesy of Grandma!

1 pkg. (3 1/2 oz.) cook-and-serve butterscotch pudding mix
1 cup brown sugar
4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, melted
3 tubes (10 oz. each) refrigerated biscuits
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans (optional)

In a large resealable plastic bag, combine pudding mix, brown sugar, cinnamon, and pecans, if desigred. Pour the butter into a shallow bowl. Cut biscuits into quarters.

Dipseeral pieces into the butter, then place in the bag and shake to coat. (Note: the butter gets cold fast because of the cold biscuit pieces being dipped into it, so you may need to rewarm it.)

Arrange coated pieces in a 10" fluted pan. Repeat until all biscuit pieces are coated and in the pan. Pour any remaining butter and mix over the biscuits in the pan.

Bake at 350 degrees F. for 30-35 minutes or until browned. Cool for 30 minutes beore inverting onto a serving platter. Makes 10-12 servings.

I love taking a box of cake or brownie mix and turning it into something sort of homemade! Last night for dessert, I tried something new, and it was a hit. I was trying for the flavor of chocolate-covered cherries, or cherry cordials, with the creamy filling. They turned out great, and Jayson even said, "This may be the best thing you've ever made." He's a sucker for chocolate and cherries, though. Here's how I did it!

Cherry cordial brownies

1 family-sized box of brownie mix, plus the ingredients called for on the box
1 cup dried cherries or cherry-flavored dried cranberries
1 8-oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 Tbsp. flour

Preheat oven and prepare brownie mix as directed on the box. stir in the cup of dried cherries. Pour batter into a greased 9x13 baking dish.

Beat together the cream cheese, sugar, egg, and flour. 

Spoon the cream cheese mixture on top of the brownie mixture, forming stripes. Drag a butter knife through the batter in the opposite direction as the stripes, going one way and then the other, to marble the batter.

Bake as directed on the brownie mix box. You'll need to add a little time, but start checking the brownies about the time the box says they'll be ready. When a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean, they're ready! Serve with ice cream, hot fudge sauce, and, of course, a cherry on top!

Whenever I go to a certain seafood chain restaurant that rhymes with Fred Globster, I always get the coconut shrimp. There's something about the crunchiness of the coconut and the sweetness of the fruity dipping sauce that just makes me feel like it's summer and I'm someplace tropical.

For my husband's birthday, the boys and I got him a giant outdoor fryer. It's fairly huge, and can fry a turkey lying flat, or four fried chickens at once. It also came with two baskets for frying a couple of different things at once. As you know, we love fishing for catfish, and this little gadget will make it much easier to host a fish fry. We are looking forward to lots of tasty fried fish this summer, but we had to go ahead and try it out.

Today, as we were bracing for what is HOPEFULLY the last snowstorm of the season, we decided to fry ourselves some lunch. We made corn dogs and fries, and since I am in desperate need of sunshine and a tropical feeling, I tried coconut shrimp. I found a recipe on our sister site, Allrecipes.com, and customized it a bit. I have loved this site for years, so you can imagine how excited I was when Meredith purchased it! It's a great addition to our family of magazines and websites.

The coconut shrimp was delicious! It tasted every bit as good as in the restaurant, but we made a giant batch for around $6. You can't beat that!

If you live in an area where fresh shrimp is readily available, then lucky you! Use your fresh shrimp! I live in Iowa and it's a million degrees below zero, so I went with frozen. The shrimp I bought was precooked, peeled and deveined, but had the tails still on. Perfect for this dish.

Coconut shrimp

1 egg
1/2 cup flour
2/3 cup beer
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/3 cup flour
1 1/2 cup coconut
24 shrimp (I used 28 large shrimp, which came in a 12-oz. bag)
Oil for frying

Dipping sauce

Orange marmalade or apricot preserves
Orange juice

Clean and/or thaw shrimp, if necessary. In a medium bowl, combine egg, 1/2 cup flour, beer, and baking powder. Stir to combine. Put 1/4 cup flour in a small bowl, and coconut in a separate small bowl.

Dredge shrimp in flour. Shake off the excess flour.

Dip shrimp in batter, and allow the excess to drip off.

Dip in coconut to coat both sides. Place on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper. Repeat until all shrimp are covered. Place baking sheet in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Heat cooking oil to 350 degrees. Fry shrimp in small batches for 2 to 3 minutes, or until golden brown. Drain on a platter lined with paper towels.

To make dipping sauce, spoon some of your favorite marmalade or preserves into a small bowl. Add orange juice, a little at a time, and stir well. Add juice as needed until it reaches a dipping consistency.

Put some Jimmy Buffett on the radio, pour yourself a margarita, and enjoy!

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When life gives you snow, make snow ice cream!

I have been wanting to make snow ice cream all winter, and today, I finally did it! Both of my parents said their moms would make snow ice cream for them and their siblings on snowy Iowa winter days. My Aunt Carolyn said my Grandma Foust mixed milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla into the snow. My Grandma Tilton likely used a similar recipe. I didn't want to use raw eggs, so I asked around and found several suggestions.  One friend said she uses just snow and as much sweetened condensed milk as needed. Another said her recipe calls for 4 cups of snow, 1 cup of milk or cream, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. I combined the two for my first attempt, and it worked out well!

Keep in mind making this really isn't a science. You have to adjust your ingredients based on how your ice cream tastes, and the consistency you want. 

First, you need a big bowl of clean, freshly fallen snow. We had a bunch of unexpected snow this morning (it's still falling!), so my boys got out of school early. Perfect! Luke and Will went outside with a big mixing bowl and a measuring cup after lunch, and filled the bowl with snow. They assured me it was clean. I took their word for it.

I gave the ice cream a good stir with a big "granny fork" to get the frozen bits smoothed out. Then, I dumped in a can of sweetened condensed milk and gave that a good stir. We needed a little more liquid, so I added about a teaspoon of vanilla to about a cup of milk, and added it. I gave everything a good stir, the boys and I tasted it, and we decided it was just right! It tasted just like old-fashioned homemade ice cream! You really just have to go for it and add as much liquid as you think you need. After you stir it around, if it's too dry, add more liquid. If it's too wet, add more snow! I suppose the quantities would also vary depending on what kind of snow you have. Today's snow is wet and heavy.

We ate all of our ice cream right up, so I'm not sure how it would taste if you put leftovers in the freezer for later. I would probably suggest just making batches to eat as snow is available. That kind of makes it more special anyway!

I served the snow ice cream in the sundae dishes from The Morning Glory Cafe, which my Grandma and Grandpa Tilton owned when my mom was little. I am so lucky to have these dishes. I had mine with a few vanilla wafers, because one of my favorite treats when I would go to my Grandma Foust's house (other than her snickerdoodles) was vanilla ice cream with vanilla wafers. It was nice to make a treat for my boys using these memories from my grandmothers. Maybe someday they'll tell their kids and grandkids about how their mom used to make them snow ice cream when they were boys!