Rock Your Weekend Lemon Berry Cake

When You Need a Conversation Stopper

Last time around, we did some breakfast food. This time, let's go all the way to the opposite end of the day and do a dessert!

We do hope you're not tired of blueberries yet, as they'll feature in this recipe too - this time as a supporting character instead of as a star.

Do you like berry lemonade? We think this is the best time of year for it, as the weather heats back up and the days get longer. The thing with berry lemonade, though, is that it gets awfully watered down in all the heat. But if you bake all the same flavors into a cake, there's no melting ice to ruin it. It's like six times as sticky, though, so maybe keep in mind the need for a plate and fork instead of a cup and straw.

Lemon Berry Cake

Ingredients:

1 box yellow cake mix (18 ounce, give or take a bit)

1 cup vanilla flavored Greek yogurt

4 extra large eggs (5 if using large or medium size)

1/4 cup plus 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil or melted butter

3 Tablespoons lemon juice

2 Tablespoons poppy seeds

1 cup cherry pie filling

1/2 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

1 Tablespoon strawberry syrup

1 teaspoon lemon extract

Tools:

Mixing bowl, spoon, measuring cups and spoons, blender or food processor, Bundt pan, non-stick spray, hand mixer (optional)

First off, pour that box of dry cake mix into the mixing bowl. Break up any large lumps you might find - it's easier to do this now, before adding any wet ingredients to it. 

Measure your yogurt and oil or butter into the bowl. Crack the eggs into it, and jab the yolks with the spoon to break them. Don't get too excited and start stirring it yet, though - we still haven't added the bulk of the wet ingredients.

Now is probably a good time to go wake the oven up (even though running the oven in warm weather is such a distasteful idea). You'll want to set it to preheat to 325. Look on the bright side: at least we're not making pizza or bread. We'd be telling you 450 for either of those!

Crack open your can of cherry pie filling (well, we always just use the canned stuff, but maybe your family is extra fancy and makes it from scratch. If you do make it yourself, we're jealous and would like to try some) and dump a cup of it into the blender or food processor, along with the blueberries, lemon juice, lemon extract and strawberry syrup. Blend it up until it's a purplish mixture about the consistency of a jar of store-bought jelly. Alternatively, you can choose to stop a little sooner and go for the consistency of preserves - lumps are fine, they just lend the cake more texture.

Take everything in the blender and pour it out into the bowl of cake mix, and then add your poppy seeds. If you intend to employ the hand mixer, give everything a once- or twice-over with the spoon before turning it on so it doesn't go "poof!" and give your kitchen a nice dusting of cake mix bits. If you're not using a mixer, stir gently by hand for about two minutes to make sure everything is all homogeneous.

Once you have your cake batter stirred smooth, grab your Bundt pan. Spray it lightly with the non-stick spray, making sure to get into all the little fluted nooks. Pay special attention to the center, also - we've discovered that if the cake is going to stick somewhere, it's there. Pour your cake batter into the pan - be sure to scrape the sides of the mixing bowl and get all the berries! - and smooth it over with the spoon.

Tuck it into the oven on a center rack and let it bake up for about 45 minutes. Sometimes the cake is set and ready to go after 45, but more often than not, it needs a few minutes longer than that. We think it varies based on the amount of syrup in the cup of pie filling.

It's ready to leave the oven when a toothpick poked into the deepest part of the cake comes out clean, and the edges have begun to pull away from the sides of the Bundt pan.

Allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before you make any attempt to remove it - moving it too soon can result in cake chunks, instead of a whole cake. Wiggle a butter knife gently around the edges and the center if it's still holding on after you've tried inverting the pan.

This cake's texture will be springy and soft, and sort of custard-y when you cut into it. You can see for yourself in the photos - we jabbed it with the blunt end of a knife, and the cake just dented instead of crumbling. It even returned to shape before we got around to drizzling glaze over it!

Don't worry, it's done; we promise it’s cooked all the way through. The softness is the result of using yogurt when most cakes use milk or water, and rounding out the wet ingredients with egg and semi-solid fruits.

The berry flavors on their own aren't overly sweet - they're more tangy - so we do recommend breaking out your favorite glaze recipe or melting some store bought frosting over it before serving. Don't disappoint the resident sweet tooth!

When you decide to make this cake we want to see! You’ve seen how ours turned out we’d love to see yours! Show us over on Facebook? 

If you live in The Colony and you need someone to take a look at your appliances, don’t forget to give us a call. We’re here to keep your home running smooth whether something has broken, or just if you think something is off. 

Phone: (214) 599-0055
Website: https://appliance-rescue-service.com/contact-us

Culinary Adventure: Sourdough Pancakes!

Get ready to taste the best pancakes you’ve ever had. 

This recipe is going to require a good bit of planning ahead. It's going to take at least a week of forethought. We know, that sounds like an awful lot - usually these are one-day recipes, or even just a few minutes. But that week of planning will lead you to the best and fluffiest pancakes, and it will make things like bread and tortillas easier in the future if you choose to keep it going.

You're about to embark upon a culinary adventure. And it starts with a science experiment.

Allow us to introduce you to sourdough.

There are two ways to get started with this. Three, if you happen to have a friend with a starter who's willing to share (which we can basically guarantee they will be - keeping a starter alive requires frequent discarding, which means a nice chunk of active starter is up for grabs each time). You could start your own; there are tutorials all over the internet for it. You could order some dehydrated starter from a business, and bring it back to life with a little flour and water. Or maybe you can ask that friend we mentioned earlier - it seems like, after quarantine, everyone knows someone with a little sourdough monster living in a jar in their kitchen.

A starter requires a little bit of attention each day, as well as some feeding and some culling. Basically, once it's alive, you toss out enough of it to get it back down to a manageable size, then add flour and water until you've reached a 1:1:1 flour to water to starter ratio. Give it a stir, put a lid on it, and let it sit until feeding time tomorrow. Or if you're likely to bake a bunch, skip the discard and add that much more flour and water. (In case you haven't guessed, we bake a bunch.) And when you don't plan to bake too much, or if you might have to leave town and no one will be around to feed it, you can put it into the fridge or freezer so that it goes dormant.

Once you have that starter ready to go (it'll smell strongly of yeast and it'll be visibly bubbly), you get to do the fun part: make a great big mess measuring it out!

It's squishy. It smells funny. It might be a food. Your dog will love it. Please be sure to keep it away from the fuzzy friends in the house - sourdough starter is no good for them, but they have no way to know that themselves.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup active sourdough starter

1/4 cup melted butter

3 eggs

1 1/4 cup milk

2 teaspoons almond extract

1 2/3 cup flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 cup fruit or chocolate chips (optional - we used blueberries for the example in the photos)

Double double… what? What do you mean it’s too early for that still?

Tools:

Mixing bowl, whisk, measuring cups and spoons, spatula, pan or griddle, non-stick spray. Optional: hand mixer.

Measure your liquid ingredients into the mixing bowl and whisk them all together. Try not to have too much of a difference in temperature between the eggs, milk and butter when you start mixing... because hot butter plus eggs plus milk is also the recipe for scrambled eggs.

Add your dry ingredients one at a time, holding the fruit or chocolate chips for last (if you've chosen to use them). Start gently so you don't wear the flour - but once you've got everything dampened, you can switch to using a hand mixer to speed things up if you prefer. Your batter will be thin, and possibly a little lumpy, but that's okay.

Start the heat under your pan or griddle and allow it to warm up to medium.

Fold your fruit or chocolate chips (again, assuming you've chosen to use them) into the batter. You should probably do this part by hand, as using a mixer can pulverize delicate fruit. Then again, pureed berries in the batter can dye the whole pancake vibrant colors. Maybe you're cooking for Rick Riordan fans who have been clamoring for blue pancakes. If that's the case, or if you want, say, pink or purple for a theme party, go ahead and smash all the berries you want.

Turn the heat under the pan or griddle down to low, spray with non-stick spray. Give the layer of spray a quick smear with the back of the spatula (this sounds weird, but it helps prevent the bubbly, uneven-looking cooking on the bottom) and pour a blob of pancake batter in.

Wait until you can see bubbles coming up to the uncooked top of the pancake most of the way into the middle, and the edges begin to look all set up. That usually takes a minute and a half to two minutes on our griddle, but you know your kitchen better than we know it, so make your own call here.

Slide the spatula under the pancake, lift and flip it all in one motion. Keep in mind, the more you drag it out, the more pancake batter drips you'll be stuck cleaning up later.

Cook for another minute on this side, lift an edge with the spatula and check for doneness. If it still looks pale, let it cook a little longer. If it's looking a bit scorched, lower the heat even more, and maybe feed that one to the family pet (cooked sourdough is fine!).

Once the pancake has reached the desired color on both sides, move it to a plate and start the process over again, repeating until you have enough pancakes or you run out of batter. We like to keep the plate of pancakes covered with another plate of the same size inverted over top to trap some of the heat, but be aware that it'll hold moisture too - and no one wants soggy pancakes unless they're drowning in syrup.

Now that you’ve got a stack of pancakes, let us know what you think over on Facebook! Is this going to be a regular breakfast addition for you? Would you rather try doing something else with your sourdough starter? (Hint: The internet has tons of ideas.) Or maybe you’d rather check out a different breakfast option entirely, something a little sweeter. For that we suggest checking out our Apple Oatcake, still just as good, if a little less work intensive.  

Now that we’ve helped you feed yourself, potentially for months if not years, it’s time to clean up the kitchen. What do you mean you’ve got a busted dishwasher? That’s ok, we can help with that too. If your dishwasher is busted and you live in The Colony or the surrounding area, we can help you. Dried out valves, peeling liners, flooding kitchens, we’ve seen them all and we’re here to keep your home running smoothly. Give us a call at ((214) 599-0055 ) or visit us at our website to set up an appointment today. 

Build Your Own Barbecue Sauce

15 Minutes and you’ve got a customized sauce that can’t be beat. 

Everyone appears to be getting ready for Memorial Day. In case you've forgotten (like we always seem to), it's the end of this month. And now that anyone over the age of 16 can get vaccinated, you might even be able to set up a backyard get-together with some of the people you've only been able to see on Zoom or at a distance all year.

Good news! Even if you have forgotten the holiday, and you've been putting zero forethought into a party, we're here to help you make it look like you're totally on the ball with this one. You're ready for this party and you didn't even know it. Go you.

We're about to throw a fistful of things in a pan and make something awesome: homemade BBQ sauce. It's not like all that store-bought stuff that's too sweet and full of things you can't pronounce. This one will be a new "family secret" recipe that's the envy of the neighborhood block party a couple years from now.

And here's the kicker. It'll only take about 15 minutes of your time.

You're going to need less than a dozen ingredients - unless you change it to your own taste - and chances are they're all already in your kitchen or pantry.

 Ingredients:

30 ounces of tomato sauce

3 Tablespoons honey (or maple syrup, agave, corn syrup - whatever you have handy or like best; we had fantastic results with raspberry syrup)

2 Tablespoons molasses

1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 Tablespoon hot sauce (again, choose what you like best - we like Tabasco or Sriracha)

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 1/2 teaspoon ground mustard

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Tools:

Measuring cups and spoons, saucepan with a lid, whisk, storage container or bottle, can opener (if using canned sauce)

Open up your tomato sauce and pour it into the saucepan. (How often do we really use a specific pot for its intended purpose? This is notable!) Light the burner and bring it up to medium-high. You might want to cover it if it's heating quickly, as tomato sauce likes to make a splatter-y mess.

Measure in your other liquid ingredients: the Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, the honey/syrup, molasses and any hot sauce you might want to use. It helps to do the stickiest one last and to spray the measuring cup with non-stick spray before you start measuring. Alternatively, you can just scrape the measuring cup clean with a regular spoon and throw them both into hot water as soon as you're done. Whichever way you like, just make sure not to let the molasses and honey or syrup dry in place. It's awfully irritating to try cleaning them once they've become a congealed lump, and they like to stick to the sponge or brush as they come off the cup.

Once all your liquid (semi-liquid? Molasses can be tricky) ingredients are in the pan, give everything a good stir with that whisk you only use once in a while. Put the lid back on the pan if you chose to use one.

We know the dry ingredients don't sound like you're using enough of them. Trust us, you are. The flavors will meld together as the sauce heats. And you can always add more of an individual spice later if you really feel you need to - but remember, the only way to lessen the amount of a spice in a sauce is to make more sauce! So unless you really need half a gallon of BBQ sauce (maybe you do, we're not sure here - you could be planning a really BIG outdoor party), just start small.

Scoop up your little teaspoons and half teaspoons and tablespoons of spices and add them to the pan. If you're a big fan of making things blend easier, you could even sift them into the pan rather than lump them in - but we feel like the heat, the moisture and the whisk will take care of any clumps for you over the next few minutes. The only thing that routinely gives us trouble is the mustard.

After everything is in the pan, give it a good stir with the whisk. Put the lid back on (unless you're not using one - daredevil) and lower the heat down to medium-low. Allow everything to simmer together for about eight minutes. To prevent scorching, stir it often, and make sure to scrape the sides.

At the eight minute mark, turn off the heat and remove the lid. Give it a few minutes to cool before you attempt taste testing or moving it to any kind of plastic container. Unfortunately, your sauce will probably not be the envy of the neighborhood if it's full of melty plastic bits.

Should your sauce not be spicy enough, add some more hot sauce - or if you're super adventurous, puree a hot pepper or two and stir that in. If it's lacking a zesty, tangy note, add a little orange extract or a squirt of lemon juice. If you'd rather it be sweeter, add a bit more of your honey/syrup or stir in some superfine sugar.

Make sure you keep a note of whatever you did to make the recipe your own! And enjoy your holiday.

And that’s that! Let us know if you opt to make this in the comments below or over on our Facebook page. We’d love to hear about the different spices you add to make it your own. 

So long as your grill is fine, you’re good to go after this point, but what if it’s your stove that’s on the fritz? If that’s the case, you can give us a call  at ((214) 599-0055) or head over to our website. Wherever you live in Carrollton and the surrounding areas, we’ve got you covered. Appliance Rescue Service is here to help and here to keep your home, and your home appliances, running smoothly. 

Set It and Forget It Rice Dinner

Stuffed Full Of Flavors And Textures

Time for a set it and forget it dinner! We've done a bunch of "easy" dinners in a row, but the common denominator with all of them is that they require you to be present and, well, actively cooking them. This one breaks that mold. All you do with this one is dump it into the slow cooker (or instant pot, if you'd rather), give it a stir, and allow it to cook. The end. It's that simple. As long as you plug the thing in and turn it on, you'll come home to dinner. And if you use one of those fancy crock pot liners, you won't even have a pot to wash!

Ingredients:

2 links smoked turkey sausage (we like Oscar Meyer brand)

1 tablespoon butter (salted or unsalted; your choice - can substitute margarine)

2 cups brown rice

4 1/4 cups water

1 can kidney beans, drained

1/2 yellow onion

1 celery stalk

1 bag frozen peas and carrots

1 tablespoon dried parsley

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper

1 teaspoon dry mustard powder (please do not substitute seeds)

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon fennel (optional; very strong stuff, and occasionally difficult to find)

salt and pepper, to taste

Tools:

Crock pot, crock pot liner (optional), knife, cutting board, colander (fine mesh), measuring cups and spoons.

Start by chopping your onion, celery and turkey sausage. Don't worry yourself too much about the idea of mixing meats and veggies at this step - the turkey sausage is precooked, so you have no cross contamination worries here.

We like to have big chunks of onion for this recipe, tiny crescents of celery and thin rounds of sausage. The variation in shape, size and texture helps make up for the fact the rest of this meal will be, for the most part, quite soft.

If you choose to use a crock pot liner, now is a good time to place it. Be sure to follow the package directions so it doesn't melt in and ruin your dinner! We love the liners because of the time savings on cleaning, but we will acknowledge it's an extra, technically unnecessary expense.

Drain your kidney beans through the colander and rinse them thoroughly. We don't want that canned taste transferring to the rest of the food (but we're using canned anyway, because we also don't want the time and effort of cooking from dry).

Once the beans are drained, pour them into the crock pot. You may need to readjust the liner a little after this step, assuming you've used one.

Measure out your rice and give it a quick rinse in the colander you just emptied. Just like veggies, make sure you wash off your rice! People often seem to skip this step, but any produce not marked "washed and ready to eat" technically deserves this extra attention. You may need to use a spoon (or your fingers, no judgement as long as they're clean) to get the rice back out of the colander and into the crock pot - expect this step to take a moment or two.

Now that you have your rice and beans in the pot, start adding your vegetables and the turkey sausage. It doesn't really matter what order you do them in, since we're going to give this all a good stir soon - but we prefer to get the frozen peas and carrots into the pot first because they're more likely to bounce. Somehow, peas in particular always seem bouncier when they're cold.

After all of the meats and veggies have joined the starch party already in the bottom of the crock pot, measure out your water and add it in. Make sure you don't rush here and measure inaccurately. Too little water means crunchy rice, and too much water will lead to a porridge-like substance that only smells like food.

Now it's time for you to add the spices. If you come across anything in the list of spices you don't like, feel free to substitute. This recipe is flexible and very forgiving. Assuming you use the suggested spices, toss them in the pot and give everything a good stir. Make sure the chunks of dry mustard, in particular, have dissolved (too much mustard in a bite can really put you off the rest of the meal). Now add in that chunk of butter, cover everything over, and set the crock pot on low for about eight hours.

After your workday is over, you'll come home to a hot meal with minimal effort. And even if you didn't use a crock pot liner, you'll have next to no dishes! 

Let us know in the comments below or over on our Facebook if you decide to give this a try! We’d love to hear how it goes and anything you add to it. 

If on the other hand your stove is giving you trouble and that’s the reason you need a set it and forget it meal, we can still help. Give us a call at ((214) 599-0055)  or visit our appointment page.

Seared Ravioli With Italian Chicken

Comfort Food That Works On The Run

Welcome back to that lovely time every year where the weather has no better idea what it's doing than we do! Even the professionals appear to be clueless. Centuries of weather research and technology, and still the best we can do is educated guesses.

This week, let's do a recipe that can be a comfort food on chilly, rainy, dreary days... But that doubles as something easily portable in the event the weather is actually pleasant and the games or outdoor plans are good to go. (We've all had those nights, haven't we? The ones where we're sure beyond sure that the soccer games would be cancelled, only to hear from the coach two hours beforehand that the field is dry enough for the kids to play? That's just our house?)

Let's make some seared ravioli with Italian chicken!

Ingredients:

1 25 ounce package frozen cheese ravioli (or 48 ounce, depending on how much your family eats per meal)

1 pound thin chicken cutlets or tenderloins (again, adjust to how much your family eats)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 10 ounce bottle Italian salad dressing

1 8 ounce can diced tomatoes, drained

1/2 of a small yellow onion

1 zucchini

2 cups fresh spinach

2 teaspoons dried parsley

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram

salt and pepper, to taste

Tools:

Knife, cutting board, dutch oven or deep pot with lid, colander, mixing bowl, measuring cups and spoons

Fill your pot up with water, plop the lid on it and turn up the heat - we'll have to boil your ravioli for a few minutes to start off. But we can make use of the time we'll spend waiting for it to boil. Whatever you do, don't check on it too frequently. Surely you know a watched pot won't boil (okay, it will, but why bother staring at it? It's boring).

While we're waiting for the water to come up to a boil - and totally not looking at it, right? - take the half an onion and your zucchini and dice them up. Smaller chunks for pickier eaters, just like the last few veggie recipes (or if you really want to hide them, shred them with a grater). Open and drain your can of tomatoes. Put your tomato and zucchini together into the mixing bowl and set them aside for later. If you've grated the onion, you can add that here, too - but if it's diced, you'll want to sauté it. We'll address that in a later step.

By now the water should be boiling. Drop in your frozen ravioli - being mindful of the splashes, of course - and set the timer for about two minutes shy of however long the package says they'll take. For example, if the package says five minutes, it's wiser to go with three minutes for the purposes of this recipe. You can always cook them a little longer if necessary, but you can't un-boil them if you overdo it.

Once your ravioli are par-cooked, drain them into the colander and put the pot back on the burner. Add that olive oil to the pan and once it's back up to medium heat, put in your chicken. Sear the chicken for about five minutes each side. We find it helpful to put the lid on while the chicken is cooking, since it usually means fewer oil spatters to clean up later.

After you've cooked your chicken (if you're not sure, check it with a meat thermometer!), drop your diced onion into the pot and sauté it until it's translucent. (This adding-onions step only applies if you did, in fact, dice your onion instead of grating. If you grated it, skip to the next step. No, that's not an excuse to skip checking if your chicken is done.) 

Make sure you still have some oil left in the pan. If not, add a little more, because we're about to add pasta. Ravioli sticking to the pan at this stage will lead to ravioli pieces after the next step, so this ‘checking for oil’ thing is highly important for presentation value. Take your ravioli from the colander and add them to the pan in a single layer. Keep the heat on medium and sear the outsides of them. Flip once you can both smell and hear them getting a good sizzle on. You might need to remove them to make room for another wave - if you do remove some, put them in a covered dish to keep them warm, and allot a little extra time when you mix everything together just to make sure they're as warm as the rest of the meal.

When your ravioli are nice and toasty, go ahead and pour in your vegetable mix from a few steps ago. This is a good time to add your seasonings (the garlic powder, parsley, oregano, marjoram, salt and pepper) too, and to add back any ravioli you may have had to set aside. Add in your spinach, and give it a good stir - we want to wilt the spinach, but we don’t want it to disintegrate. Cover the pot again and let everything simmer for about three or four minutes.

Now comes the fun part. Taste test! Everyone reacts differently to seasonings, and everyone's preferences are individual. That's why we saved that Italian dressing until the very end. The dressing is a very punchy taste, and it can quickly take over a dish if you aren't careful. So add however much or little you prefer to your portion, and allow the rest of your family to do the same. That should prevent the worst of the "I don't like it" faces from the kids and veggie haters.

So, what’s your opinion on this one? Does it sound tasty enough for a weeknight attempt? Or are you still a little unsure? Let us know in the comments below or over on  our Facebook page. We’d love to hear from you. 

And if maybe your appliances are making you make some faces, give us a call. We can't fix it if your face gets stuck like that (thanks, Mom) - but we can do something about the machines. You can get hold of us at our website, or by calling us at ((214) 599-0055).