As a reminder, the Secret Recipe Club is a group I’ve been a member of since it was started last year in April. Amanda of Amanda’s Cookin‘ had the great idea for the club, which grew from a small group of bloggers to hundreds of bloggers in no time at all! The club even has a website now! If you’re interested in participating you can find everything you need to know there and you can check back there everyday to see featured recipes from past “SRC” reveals.

Ironically, two of my last three SRC posts have been on breads… and this time around I chose bread again!

My assigned blog is Sweet Beginnings written by Jaida. I must admit I had not previously heard of her blog (which by the way is one of the group things about this club) and I was secretly happy to see the title was “sweet beginnings” – before visiting I wondered if that meant Jaida would have mostly sweets on her blog, much like mine.

Although she does have an entirely separate index just for “Sweet Treats”, she also has a much larger selection of “non-sweet” recipes including many meat and main dish recipes. Because I still have not mastered taking a good photo of a main dish I usually avoid those for blog posts. Although I definitely scoped out the sweets section, I finally decided on the Green Onion, Cheddar, and Asiago Beer Batter Bread.

I love homemade breads and I love how quick and easy beer bread can be when I’m in a crunch and don’t have time for a yeast bread. I decided to sub Parmesan for the Asiago Cheese because we always have it on hand, and I reduced the amount. I also decided to add fresh chopped spinach to the bread. I didn’t both cooking the onion or spinach ahead of time, I have a yeast bread recipe I make that uses green onions and fresh spinach – because I don’t cook before adding to that bread I thought I would see if I could skip that step here as well. Seemed to work fine!

I didn’t want the name to get too lengthy so I decided on “Cheesy Veggie Beer Bread”.

Cheesy Veggie Beer Bread

Modified slightly from Sweet Beginnings, from Recipe Girl

• 3 cups Flour
• 3 tablespoons Sugar
• 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 1 cup Shredded Cheddar Cheese
• 1/4 cup Shredded Parmesan Cheese
• 1 cup chopped Green Onions
• 1 cup chopped Fresh Spinach
• 1 (12 oz) can or bottle Beer (I used Coor’s Light)

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Add cheese, onion, spinach and beer. Stir until dry ingredients are just moistened. Spoon batter into a prepared 9″x5″ loaf pan (I used the Pampered Chef Stoneware Loaf Pan so I did not grease my pan, if you are using metal coat with cooking spray). Bake in preheated 375°F oven for about 45-50 minutes. Cool 5 minutes in pan before removing from pan to cool completely. Enjoy!

This month I was assigned “Crumb”. Isabelle, the Canadian author of the blog, started Crumb for the same reason I started my blog – as means of keeping record of the recipes she tried and created, for herself and to share with family and friends.

When I check out a blog it’s always fun to find something you have in common right away!

Isabelle has a great selection of recipes and an amazing categorized recipe index.

Due to my love of baking sweets, I scrolled down to find that section and was drawn to the Chocolate Brownie Biscotti, yum! Then I saw Chocolate Banana Bread and thought about that. But having just made Banana Bread a few days before we were Banana-Breaded-Out.

Then I looked through the Meat sections. Uh, yes, although you may not get this looking through my blog, we DO eat more than desserts! I actually make full meals every night… Mr. Swan wouldn’t have it any other way! That’s when I noticed Mom’s Pot Roast with Beer and Onions. That would FOR sure be a hit in our house, will be making that soon.

What I finally decided on for this post was Isabell’s Overnight Potato Herb Bread (which would pair perfectly with the previously noted Pot Roast…. I’m feeling a repeat soon!).

This recipe caught my attention because unlike (most) other yeast breads, it is refrigerated overnight. I followed her recipe pretty closely. I was trying to “health” it up a bit so I only used 2 Tablespoons of oil (pretty big reduction) and I increased water to 3/4 cup. My “tablespoon of dried herbs” consisted of 1 teaspoon of rosemary, 1 teaspoon of thyme, 1/2 teaspoon marjoram, and 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder.

This bread is amazingly delicious – we demolished the entire loaf embarrassingly fast!

Overnight Potato Herb Bread – adapted slightly from Crumb (originally from Bread on Bread)

• 1 pkg Active Dry Yeast
• 1 tablespoon Sugar
• 3/4 cup Warm Water
• 1 cup Warm Milk
• 2 tablespoons Oil
• 1/4 cup Sugar
• 3 teaspoons Salt
• 1 tablespoon dried herbs (rosemary, thyme, marjoram, garlic, etc)
• 2 Eggs
• 1 cup Mashed Potatoes
• 6-7 cups Flour

In a measuring bowl, dissolve yeast and tablespoon of sugar in warm water. Let stand 5 minutes to proof.

Once yeast mixture is foamy, stir in warm milk, oil, remaining sugar, salt, eggs, herbs, and potatoes. Stir until mixture is blended and smooth.

Add flour, 1 cup at a time, until a soft dough forms. Mix well between each addition.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead. Add flour as needed to keep dough from sticking. Knead for 10-12 minutes, or until the dough feels soft and elastic.

Lightly coat the inside of a large mixing bowl with oil and place dough in the bowl, turning to grease top. Cover tightly with plastic warp and place in the refrigerator overnight or until needed (up to 18 hours, if necessary).

Remove dough from refrigerator and punch down. Let stand for 5 minutes, and then knead vigorously for 4-5 minutes. Shape into a ball and place in a lightly-oiled pie tin (or loaf pan if regular loaf is desired; I used a 8″ round stoneware pan). Cover with a damp cloth and set aside to rise until doubled, or around 3 hours (the second rise takes longer than usual because the dough is still cold from its stay in the fridge, which slows down the growth of the yeast).

Preheat oven to 375 (F) degrees and bake the loaf for 40-45 minutes or until the bread is crusted and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. Remove from pan and return to oven for 5-10 minutes to crisp up the crust.

Click below to find links to all of the SCR posts from today’s reveal:

This month my assignment was the blog “Kitchen Trial and Error” – short for “Isn’t Everything in the Kitchen Trial and Error?” Clever title! Despite have quite different lives, Kate, the author of the blog, and I do have quite a bit in common.  We are close to the same age and (fairly) recently married. Both work full-time jobs during the day and enjoy baking/cooking and blogging purely as a hobby… and started our blogs for some of the same reasons!

I really enjoyed browsing through Kate’s blog. She has such a wonderful mixture of recipes – you can find almost anything you want to cook or bake in her recipe list! And she has pumped out 264 posts in less than two years. That’s more than 3 each week! I envy her dedication to making that happen with a busy work life. I’m sure you’ve noticed that I have been slacking on my recipe posts for several months now – it’s horrible that this is only my 7th post since mid-August! Please stick with me – I’m hoping to get back to it in January!

After considering several different recipes including Knock-Off Mongolian Beef, Apple Cider Glazed Chicken, and Pumpkin Sugar Cookie Bars… I finally decided on something completely different: Milk Chocolate Cookies.

I was drawn to these cookies because the recipe was so unique. I also had the idea to top these with crushed peppermints to make them a festive Christmas cookies! Kate adapted the recipe from Rachel Ray Everyday Living. I assume the recipe came from her magazine but I tried to find it online so I could compare.

What makes this recipe so unique? First you melt chocolate and butter on a double broiler – I then transferred mine to a bowl to cool:

Add sugar, eggs, and vanilla to the chocolate mixture:

Stir together dry ingredients in a separate bowl (this is the Pampered Chef 2-cup Prep Bowl):

Finally, stir dry ingredients into chocolate/egg to complete the dough.

The first time I made these mine turned out flat – they deflated in the center. I tried again, increasing the flour to 1/2 cup. That helped a little but I still had the same problem. I’m wondering if it was my chocolate possibly (Hershey’s)? I think I will try these again with a different kind. Despite the flat cookie appearance these was SO unbelievably tasty that I wanted to use the recipe!! Quite possibly the richest, most delicious chocolate cookie I’ve tasted. And Kate’s turned out beautifully so I’m sure the cookies can come out thicker like hers. Any secrets I should know, Kate?!

I also love the peppermint on top of these – it makes these the perfect cookie to add to your Christmas baking list!

Milk Chocolate Peppermint Cookies (adapted from Kitchen Trial & Error, adapted from Rachel Ray Everyday Living)

• 15 ounces Milk Chocolate
• 2 tablespoons Butter
• 2 Eggs
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 1/2 cup Flour
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder

Melt chocolate and butter over a double boiler. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. Beat eggs, sugar, and vanilla together until thick and fluffy. Whisk together flour, salt, and baking powder in a separate bowl. a separate bowl. Add the melted chocolate to the egg mixture while beating on low speed. Stir in the flour mixture until incorporated. Refrigerate dough 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees (F). After dough has chilled, drop by rounded spoonfuls onto cookie sheets and bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and top with crushed peppermint. Bake another 5 minutes. Cool on cookie sheets about 5 minutes then remove to cool completely.

Click the image below to see the links to all of the great posts from other bloggers in my Secret Recipe Club group!

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This month I was assigned “Simply Cooked”. Sarah, the author of the blog, is a math teacher living in Hong Kong. I enjoyed reading her “About Me” page (always the first think I look for on a new blog). She introduces herself as a veggie lover with a carnivore husband. One great thing about her blog – especially for international readers – is that she provides metric and Imperial measurements on nearly all of her recipes. In addition to being just a few months shy of six full years of blog posts and recipes, Sarah also includes quite a few book reviews and photography/light box tutorials. I enjoyed browsing through her selection of recipes. So many of the recipes looked delicious to me but were a little out of my normal “cooking comfort zone”. It’s a great thing to have an excuse to branch out a little but I also had to think about the fact that many were also out of my husbands “eating comfort zone”.  So I decided to play it safe and I chose the Whole Wheat Walnut Bread.

I do frequently make yeast breads, but this one was a little different from the few recipes I normally rotate between. I enjoyed the change of pace. I frequently put walnuts in quick breads, but can’t remember ever using walnuts in a yeast bread. This was a great addition to the rest of our meal – baked ham, scalloped potatoes, and veggies. And it was perfect for making sandwiches with leftover ham. The first time I made this exactly as written. I prefer bread to be a little sweeter so the next time I increased the honey. This recipe will be a new staple in my bread “rotation”. Thank you Sarah, for a great recipe!

Here’s the starter after sitting 8 hours:

And the dough after rising 2 hours (sorry for poor picture quality!):

And the final product:

Whole Wheat Walnut Bread

• 1/2 teaspoon Active Dry Yeast
• 1 cup Water, lukewarm
• 1 1/2 cups Bread Flour
• 1/2 teaspoon Active Dry Yeast
• 1 cup Water, lukewarm
• 1/4 cup Honey
• 1 tablespoon Oil
• 3 1/4 cups Whole Wheat Flour
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 1 1/2 cups Walnuts, toasted

To prepare the sponge starter, dissolve 1/2 teaspoon yeast in 1 cup lukewarm water in a medium bowl. Let proof until bubbly, about 5 minutes. Add 1 1/2 cups of bread flour and stir until a thick batter forms. Cover the bowl and leave at room temperature to rise and bubble for 6 to 8 hours. The starter is ready to use now or can be put in the fridge overnight (bring back to room temperature before using.)

One the sponge starter is ready, dissolve the remaining 1/2 teaspoon yeast in 1 cup lukewarm water in a large bowl. Let proof for about 5 minutes. Add the sponge starter and mix well. Stir in the honey, oil, 2 cups whole wheat flour, and salt. Stir in remaining flour. Add the walnuts.

Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for ten minutes, adding only as much flour as needed to keep it from sticking. Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic. Grease the bowl and return the dough, turning it to coat it in oil. Cover the bowl and allow the dough to rise until it is doubled in size, about 2 hours.

Divide the dough into two pieces and form into loaves. Place on a baking pan and leave them to rise again, about 30 minutes. Bake at 400 degrees (F) for 30 to 40 minutes, until the loaves sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Cool on a wire rack.

To see other great recipes from this month’s Secret Recipe Club, follow the links below!

This month I was assigned The Slow Roasted Italian. One of the great things about this club – and also one of the reasons it was designed – was to get bloggers to choose a recipe for a blog they may not have visited or otherwise known about it. Before getting my assignment for the month I had not visited this blog. Donna, the author of the blog, has a great selection of recipes.

She has everything from Italian Style Mac & Cheese to Unique Burgers to some tasty looking Cocktails! The past few rounds I’ve branched away from sweets, but when I found these Double Chocolate Almond Cookies I knew what my selection would be!

Donna adapted this recipe from the Tate’s Bake Shop recipe. I noticed she made the addition of coffee, which I really liked – adding coffee to chocolate baked goods is always a good move!

To me it seemed like this recipe had a pretty high ratio of butter compared to other cookie recipes. I like thicker cookies so I reduced the amount of butter in this recipe. My version is below.

Krista’s Double Chocolate Almond Cookies

• 1 cup Butter (unsalted)
• 1 cup Sugar
• 1 cup Brown Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
• 2 tablespoons Coffee, Room Temperature
• 3/4 cup Cocoa
• 2 1/2 cups Flour
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1 cup White Chocolate Chunks
• 1 cup Chocolate Chips
• 1 cup Slivered Almonds

Cream butter and sugars in mixer. Beat in eggs, then vanilla and coffee. Stir in cocoa, flour, soda, and salt just until blended. By hand, stir in white chocolate, chocolate chips and slivered almonds. Drop by large spoonfuls on a cookie sheets. Baked at 350 (F) degrees until done.

Click the link below to visit the other Secret Recipe Club posts in today’s group.

One of the NEW products for this fall/winter is Butterscotch Rum Sauce. The recipe today is for Butterscotch Rum Brownies using a Chocolate Cake Mix, Pumpkin, and the sauce with only a few other ingredients! The Butterscotch Rum Sauce has amazing flavor that is not comparable to Caramel Sauce…. but if you don’t have access to the Butterscotch Rum Sauce, caramel ice cream topping would be a tasty substitution in the recipe.

The spicy sauce used in the bars is perfect for winter and the holiday season. This is my featured recipe for this round of the “12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies” hosted by Brenda of Meal Planning Magic. Normally I bake everything from scratch, but in case you missed my post for “12 Weeks…” last Thursday, click here to see my Cinnamon Spiced Butter Pecan Cookies – which were also very easy and started with a cake mix base!

But first, there are just too many great things going on in October to NOT share with you…

#1. Unglazed stoneware is 20% off this month – with NO limits! Get as many as you want with the discount! This is a great deal, I LOVE stoneware!

#2. Limited Edition “Help Whip Cancer” PINK Products. There are 13 super cute pink products available only in October and only online. I’m not going to post all, but here are the two I just ordered yesterday – see what I mean by super cute?!

#3. I am selling mixes in the Small Batter Bowl as individual items or with a set including the Pampered Chef tools to prepare the recipe. The bowls with the mixes are $20 and each of the sets is $70 – but on sale for $65 in October!

If you’re not tired of my Pampered Chef sales pitch and you are still reading – back to the recipe. These were dark, rich, exceptionally moist, and had great flavor!

Krista’s Butterscotch Rum Brownies

1 Dark Chocolate Cake Mix

1 cup Pumpkin

1/4 cup Milk

2 Eggs

1 teaspoon Vanilla

1/3 cup Chocolate Chips

1/3 cup Butterscotch Chips

1/3 cup Pampered Pantry Butterscotch Rum Sauce

Mix dry cake mix with pumpkin, milk, eggs, and vanilla in the Classic Batter Bowl or other large bowl. Spread batter in the bottom of the Stoneware Rectangle Baker (one of the 20% off items this month) or other 13″x9″ pan. In a Prep Bowl or other small bowl mix the chocolate and butterscotch chips. Sprinkle half of the chips on top of the batter. Bake in preheated 350° oven for 8 minutes. Sprinkle with remaining chips and drizzle 1/3 cup of Butterscotch Rum Sauce on top (works best if you microwave ~15 seconds first). Swirl into batter with knife and return to oven. Return to oven for 20-25 minutes or until brownies are set up.

Don’t forget to check out all of the other sweet treats prepared by everyone participating in the “12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies”. Click the image below to see all of the links!

I was THRILLED to see that the challenge this week at the CSI Project was “Fall Food” – click here to see the challenge entries! How perfect! I’m entering this post and recipe in the challenge.

These bars were a big hit last fall! I was finally able to find some pumpkin last week and can’t wait to whip up another batch of these! A copy of the original posts follows:

I do not like pumpkin enough to crave it during the spring or summer, but I think it is the perfect fall and winter flavor – which is why it’s a great choice for this round of the 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies. Can you believe another week has flown by and it is down to 9 weeks until Christmas!? Click here to see the other cookies I have selected in previous rounds.

Pumpkin is also a good choice because yesterday I just announced my latest giveaway… a Pampered Chef Limited Edition Holiday Pumpkin Dish. Click here to go to that post and enter to win!

I came across these while browsing for pumpkin recipes one day a few weeks ago. I always like to find different versions of a recipe and then make my own BUT, I found this on about fifteen sites and ALL were the exact same version, and ALL seemed to point back to Dozen Flours Pumpkin Pie Snickerdoodle Bars. If you read the post on that site you will see that is where the recipe originated. If you have been reading my blog you will know that I almost always develop mine own recipes. However, after seeing this one replicated exactly on so many sites, I figured I better not change much. I subbed a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger for the pumpkin pie spice and doubled the white chocolate.

First make the Snickerdoodle Cookie Dough:

Then make the Pumpkin Pie Layer:

Finish with a Spiced White Chocolate Frosting:

Pumpkin Pie Snickerdoodle Bars (adapted from Dozen Flours):

Snickerdoodle Layer

• 3 cups Flour
• 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 2 cups Brown Sugar
• 1 cup Butter, at room temperature
• 2 Eggs, at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract

Pumpkin Pie Layer

• 1 cup Flour
• 1 cup Sugar
• 1/2 cup Butter, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon, ground
• 1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg, ground
• 1/4 teaspoon Ginger, ground
• 1/4 teaspoon Cloves, ground
• 2 Eggs, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups Canned Pumpkin

Topping

• 2 tablespoons Sugar
• 2 teaspoons Cinnamon

Frosting

• 2 oz White Chocolate, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon, ground
• 1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg, ground
• 1/4 teaspoon Ginger, ground
• 1/4 teaspoon Cloves, ground

Snickerdoodle Layer
Sift dry ingredients and set aside. In separate bowl beat butter, sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth. Stir in dry ingredients until well blended. Line a 9×13 pan with parchment paper and lightly grease. Spread cookie dough batter evenly in prepared pan

Pumpkin Layer
Mix all ingredients until well combined. This layer will be pourable and not as thick as the cookie dough. Pour over the cookie dough layer and smooth out the top.

Topping
Combine sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle mixture evenly on top of the pumpkin batter.

Bake in preheated 350 degree (F) oven for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the pan comes out clean. Let the bars cool completely.

Frosting
When bars have cooled completely place the chopped white chocolate into a zip-lock bag. Microwave on low power until the chocolate is melted. When it is melted open the bag and add the spices. Seal bag and knead to mix the spiced into the white chocolate. Snip a corner off the bag and drizzle the melted chocolate over the top of the bars and let it harden.

Life the bars out of the pan using the parchment paper and place on a cutter board to cut into bars.

As I mentioned in previous 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies posts, WordPress does now allow me to add the code to show a link tool. So click the images below to go to another site that does show links to all of the posts by the other bloggers participating in these groups!

And a special one this week, Sweet Pea at the Newlyweds Blog has a Pumpkin Recipe Round-Up:

See more great Thanksgiving recipes below! If you have a recipe that’s a favorite at Thanksgiving, please add it. (Please type in the name of the recipe, not YOUR name in the box below)

You can also share with your readers by adding this to your blog. Use this code:

<script  src=http://www.inlinkz.com/cs.php?id=24340></script>

These were such a treat growing up, my mom made these bars for fall cook-outs and wiener roasts!  They are an amazing fall treat! A copy of the original posts follows:

In one month I will have an amazing kitchen, I have to repeat that to myself whenever I find myself thinking… I wish I could bake, I wish I could bake!

The primary hold-up right now is the counter-top. You cannot have a sink without a counter-top. We have the dishwasher, but have been told that it cannot be hooked up until the sink is installed. You get where I am going… there is a whole cycle of things just waiting on the counter-top.

Knowing that I would be without a kitchen for some time, I did bake one last thing in the Little House (name we gave the house I began renting in December where I lived until we moved to our house last week) before moving. This is the perfect time of year to enjoy these bars. In short, the are the bar version of apple pie. They only way to make these better would be to use apples from the backyard apple tree when making them. My mom brought me to big bags of apples from my parents apple tree over the weekend. Unfortunately that was after I made these with apples I bought. I guess I will just have to cut and freeze the home-grown apples so I can make more when the kitchen is finally put back together.

These apple bars are a family favorite, and an especially good fall-time treat. If fact, my whole family gathered for pictures at a state park over the weekend for family pictures. Afterward we went to one aunt and uncle’s to eat. My grandma made and brought these bars there. A few rows were gone right away… before the burgers even made it to the grill!

The original recipe is from a local cookbook, the one I refer to often. The are appropriately called “Snowy Glazed Apple Squares”. The original recipe in there uses corn flakes cereal. I wanted to switch it up a bit and add some extra flavor so I used Honey Bunches of Oats with Pecan Bunches cereal and increased the cinnamon.

Here is how they are made:

Cut butter into flour and sugar.

Beat egg yolks into milk.

Add to flour mixture and toss lightly.

Divide the dough in half and roll out to fit in pan.

Sprinkle crushed cereal flakes over the dough.

Like I mentioned before, I used Honey Bunches of Oat with Pecan Bunches but you could use any flaked cereal.

Spread apples over the cereal.

And then cinnamon and sugar.

Top with remaining dough.

Beat egg whites until foamy and spread on crust.

The finished product.

Krista’s Snowy Glazed Apple Squares:

• 2 1/2 cups Flour
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1 cup Butter
• 2 Eggs, separated
• ~2/3 cup Milk
• 1 1/2 cups Honey Bunches of Oats with Pecan Bunches, crushed*
• 5 cups Apples, sliced
• 1 cup Sugar
• 1  1/2 – 3 teaspoons Cinnamon (to taste – I like 3!)
• 1 1/4 cups Powdered Sugar
• 3 tablespoons Water
• 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla

Combine flour and sugar in a bowl and cut in butter until mixture resembles small crumbs. In a measuring cup, beat egg yolks with enough milk to make 2/3 cup. Add to flour mixture and toss lightly. Divide the dough in half. Roll one half to fill a 15×9 inch jellyroll pan. Sprinkle crushed cereal flakes over the dough. Spread apples over the cereal. Combine sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over apples. Roll out the remaining dough to the same size and place on top. Press dough to seal edges. Beat egg whites until foamy and spread on crust. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven until apples are done (45-60 minutes).  Make a glazed by mixing the powdered sugar, water and vanilla. Cool slightly after removing from oven before spreading glaze on top. Cut into bars to serve. These are great while still warm!

*Or other flaky cereal of choice.