Posted in Home and Garden, tagged Savvy Entertaining, Shanna Hatfield, Spring on February 18, 2014| Leave a Comment »
I saw this photo of Columbia Hills on Pinterest and it made me smile.
Not only is it a beautiful photography, it made me think of spring and warmer temperatures and blue sky and green grass – all the things lacking in my gray-laden world right at the moment.
If you are wishing for spring, gaze at this for a few moments and dream of being there. You can almost smell the rich earthy aroma and hear the birds singing.
She Who Can’t Wait for Spring
Posted in Holidays, tagged History Channel, President's Day, Savvy Entertaining, Shanna Hatfield on February 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Happy President’s Day!
Here is a link to a fun and educational page offered by the History Channel. Learn all kinds of interesting facts about the day and our presidents.
Posted in Desserts, Entertaining at Home, Holidays, Pie, Recipes, Valentine's Day, tagged Raspberry Pavlova, Savvy Entertaining, Shanna Hatfield, Valentine's Desserts on February 14, 2014| 1 Comment »
If you’re looking for an easy dessert that appears to take a lot of effort to create, Pavlova is a great choice. It uses a few simple ingredients and is topped with berries and whipped cream.
How could you go wrong?
Ingredients
Start by beating egg whites and salt until they form soft peaks.
Slowly add in sugar, a tablespoon at a time until well blended and glossy, stiff peaks form. Then add in remaining ingredients.
Line a baking sheet with parchment. Form a heart, using a spoon to spread out the meringue (or a circle). You want the edges to be higher than the middle.
Bake in a 250 degree oven for one hour and 15 minutes. Turn off the oven and let cool completely before removing.
Top with whipped cream and berries (or cherries) for a beautiful dessert your sweetheart will love.
Raspberry Pavlova
2 egg whites
pinch of salt
1/2 cup plus one tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. corn starch
1 tsp. white vinegar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Berries
Whipped Cream
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Beat egg whites and salt in a metal bowl on medium speed until soft peaks form.
Gently sprinkle the sugar into the egg whites, one tablespoon at a time. The mixture should now be glossy stiff peaks.
Gently fold in the cornstarch, vinegar and vanilla.
Line a baking sheet with parchment and use a spoon to shape the meringue into a heart (or circle). Make sure the edges are higher than the middle.
Turn the oven down to 250 degrees and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. The meringue should be very pale. Turn off the oven and let the meringue cool completely.
Just before serving, remove the meringue from the oven and top with whipped cream and berries.
Serve and enjoy!
She Who Wishes You All a Happy Valentine’s Day!
Posted in bread, Entertaining at Home, Main Dish, Recipes, Valentine's Day, tagged Heart Hamburgers, Savvy Entertaining, Shanna Hatfield, Valentine recipes, Valentine's Day on February 13, 2014| 2 Comments »
If your true love is a carnivore like mine, then today’s recipe will be a big hit! Make your meat-eater happy with these fun Heart Shaped Hamburgers. (Sorry for the photo of raw meat right up front…)
On a side note – if you don’t want to make burgers, you could also cut the meat into heart shapes for use with pasta (think meatballs, except in the shape of hearts).
We’ll start with the dough for the buns then move on to the burgers.
Ingredients for the buns.
Start by scalding milk with oil and sugar.
Once the milk mixture has cooled to lukewarm, you can add in a package of yeast.
Sprinkle yeast over the milk and let rest for a minute.
Stir in yeast and four cups of flour.
Place the pan in a warm area, cover with a tea towel and let the yeast do its thing for about an hour. I like to put my pan in front of the fire. It is warm and makes the dough smell heavenly.
When they’ve puffed up a bit, bake them in a 350 degree oven until the tops are golden brown.
Slice open and build that perfect burger. (And you might not even need to slice, since the two hearts are easily separated.)
For the burgers, add whatever spices you like to the meat, then flatten it out to whatever thickness you like. I think ours were about 1/2 inch thick.
Using the same cookie cutter (so the meat and buns are somewhat uniform), but out heart shapes in the ground beef.
How fun is that? Grill them or fry them or cook them however you like.
(I may have begged until CC cooked our outside on the BBQ. Good thing the snow is gone and the temps warmed up yesterday!).
Once the meat is cooked, place it on your bun, add your favorite toppings and enjoy!
Hamburger Hearts
Dough
2 cups milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup sugar
1 package active dry yeast
4 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/3 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tbsp. salt
Hamburgers
1-2 pounds of ground beef
spices
your choice of condiments
Scald the milk, oil and sugar in a medium saucepan over medium heat (bring heat to nearly a boil, but don’t let it boil!). Set aside and cool to lukewarm (think temperature of a baby’s bottle). Sprinkle yeast on top of milk and let rest for one minute.
Add four cups of the flour and stir until just combined. It is going to be sticky. Cover with a tea towel and set in a warm place for an hour.
Remove the towel and add baking powder, baking soda, salt and final 1/2 cup of flour. Stir to combine.
Roll out and cut into heart-shapes with a cookie cutter. I used one that was about four-inches wide. Place a single layer of hearts on a baking sheet, then place a second layer on top of the first (like you’re making a heart sandwich, except without the filling).
Cover with a tea towel and return to a warm area to rise for another 20-30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
When dough is ready, bake for about 10- 15 minutes, until the tops are a lovely golden brown.
You should be able to easily separate the tops and bottoms of your heart-sharped buns, but if not, just got them in half.
While the buns are baking, mix your ground beef with whatever spices you like. Pat it out to whatever thickness you like your burgers then use the same cookie cutter you cut out the buns with to cut out your burgers.
Cook (grill, fry, toss on the barbecue – whatever you like), then slide onto the bun. The bread will be just slightly bigger because it expands and the meat tends to shrink a little.
Top with your favorite condiments and listen to your meat-eater praise your efforts.
With the cookie-cutter I used, I had 24 hearts or 12 buns. The number you get will depend on the size of your cookie cutter. I used a 1 1/2 pound package of ground beef and got six burgers. You can cut the bread recipe in half if you want to make a smaller batch.
She Who May Have Enjoyed These, Too
Savvy Entertaining 