Rosalie's Beans and Rice

My friend Rosalie made us beans and rice tonight, and it was delicious! Even my husband, who normally doesn't like beans and rice, loved them and had several servings.

Ingredients
olive oil
2 onions
2 or 3 cloves garlic
2 small cans tomato sauce
salt, pepper, chili powder
2 cans beans, undrained (we used black beans, but you can experiment)
2 cups dry rice

Directions

1. Slice the onion and chop the garlic. Saute in olive oil until the onion begins to brown and wilt a bit.
2. Add the tomato sauce and two cans of water. Season with salt, pepper and chili powder to taste. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes or so. 
3. In another pan, cook the rice as usual.
4. Add the beans (with their juice) to the tomato sauce mixture. Stir and heat through.
5. Serve the bean mixture over the rice.

Lemon-Pineapple Cheese Pie

This recipe comes to me from my friend Rosalie. The walnuts in the crust are my favorite part, I think. It's best eaten second-day, but who can wait that long?

Ingredients:

1/2 cup chopped walnuts (probably use more than that)
1 stick margarine (melted--I use butter instead of margarine)
1 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese (softened)
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg
1 15 oz. can crushed pineapple (drained)
1 box instant lemon pudding mix

Directions:
Mix 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts (measure the finely chopped nuts, and use a little extra), flour, and melted margarine together until moist then spread evenly in baking dish letting some of the crust come up the sides of the dish. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degree oven. Then set aside to cool.

Take cream cheese, powdered sugar, and egg and mix until well blended. Then fold in the drained pineapple. Add the cream cheese mixture to the crust and bake for another 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees. Cook until filling is solid but not overly brown. Remove from oven and let cool.

When cream cheese filling is cool, make the instant lemon pudding according to box directions, then add to the top of the dessert. Put in refrigerator to chill about an hour or so then serve.

Marbled Chocolate Banana Bread

I love a good banana bread, and the chocolate makes this one particularly tasty. The bread is moist and freezes well.

Ingredients
2 Cups all - purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 Cup sugar
1/4 Cup butter, softened
1 1/2 Cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)
2 eggs (or 1/2 cup egg substitute) 
1/3 Cup plain low - fat yogurt
1/2 Cup semisweet chocolate chips
Cooking spray

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups, and level with a knife. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk.
3. Place sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute). Add banana, egg substitute, and yogurt; beat until blended. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist.
4. Place chocolate chips in a medium microwave-safe bowl, and microwave at HIGH 1 minute or until almost melted, stirring until smooth. Cool slightly. Add 1 cup batter to chocolate, stirring until well combined. Spoon chocolate batter alternately with plain batter into an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Swirl batters together using a knife. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

Classic Buttercream Frosting

Because everyone needs a good buttercream frosting recipe! This one comes from savorysweetlife.com.

Serves: 2.5 cups

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks or ½ pound), softened (but not melted!) Ideal texture should be like ice cream.
3-4 cups confectioners (powdered) sugar, SIFTED
¼ teaspoon table salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
up to 4 tablespoons milk or heavy cream

Instructions

Beat butter for a few minutes with a mixer with the paddle attachment on medium speed. Add 3 cups of powdered sugar and turn your mixer on the lowest speed (so the sugar doesn’t blow everywhere) until the sugar has been incorporated with the butter. Increase mixer speed to medium and add vanilla extract, salt, and 2 tablespoons of milk/cream and beat for 3 minutes. If your frosting needs a more stiff consistency, add remaining sugar. If your frosting needs to be thinned out, add remaining milk 1 tablespoons at a time.

Wedding Cake Cupcakes

I made these for my daughter's birthday party, and they were yummy. Kristina wanted chocolate cupcakes, so I substituted a chocolate cake mix, and it worked just fine. Topped the cupcakes with buttercream frosting. Yumminess! The original recipe (and tips) comes from recipegirl.com.

1 (18.25 ounce) box white cake mix (I used 15 or 16 oz., and it worked fine)

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup granulated white sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/3 cups water

2 Tablespoons vegetable or canola oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup sour cream

4 large egg whites

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Place cupcake liners in cupcake pans (you'll need approx. 36).
2. In a large bowl, whisk together cake mix, flour, sugar and salt. Add remaining ingredients and beat with hand mixer for 2 minutes, or until well blended.
3. Use ice cream scoop to fill prepared cupcake tins- fill about 3/4 full. Bake about 18 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Tips (included with the original recipe)

*Recommend: Most companies have downsized the size of their cake mix. Some readers have made this recipe as indicated using the smaller size mix and still had great success. Others bought a 2nd mix and added in the missing ounces to the first box. It's up to you on what you want to try. Reading through some of the comments on the post may help...

*You can use either regular or light sour cream for this recipe, but heck... since it's a wedding cupcake and you want it to be as delicious and moist as possible, I recommend going for the full-fat kind.

*Add 1 teaspoon of almond extract (in addition to the vanilla) if you wish to have a different flavor.

*Using an ice cream scoop is perfect for getting the batter into the cupcake tins without spilling.

*You can also use this mix to make cake. Pour into greased and floured cake pans. Bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.