Sweet Suppertime

heavy on the butter and sugar...

Disneyland Bengal BBQ (copycat)

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If you hang around our family, or this blog, long enough you will have no trouble figuring out that we are Disneyland fans.  Let me think of a stronger term…fanatics.  We love Disneyland.  We have often talked about how Disneyland takes us to another land and it’s the land of our childhood.  Raising six kids with Disney movies and trips to sunny California (thank you soccer and baseball trips), we have created more than a few memories inside the park. 

I remember on one trip, we had been inside the park so often and had completely satiated our need to ride the rides.  One morning at the hotel my oldest pulled out a map of Disneyland.  He tore the map into “lands”.  The family brainstormed a game we could play together.  In the end, we all put our names in a hat and drew out teams.  Two people per team.  The rules were a simple game of hide-and-seek.  Once we had our teams, each team drew a folded “land” from the torn-up map.  Each team had to start in their land, ride one ride and then they could move about the park in any manner they chose.  If you found another team you took a photo of the team and sent it to the group.  That team was then “out”. The last team standing received some prize and I don’t think any of us could tell you what the prize was. 

I’ll never forget hiding behind a large tree near The Haunted Mansion with Michael and us both looking at our phones only to see a photo of our backsides as we hid behind the tree.  We had come out of hiding long enough to stand in a line to get a pass of all passes during the year of a million dreams.  We knew the risks.  We accepted them and we paid the price. If I’m not mistaken, Tod and Keven won The Game that day.  In all fairness, Tod had his wallet and he and Keven got new shirts and hats to go full incognito.

I don’t know when our tradition of stopping at The Bengal Barbeque started, but it was around this time.   Often, now, you will hear one of us say “hey, I am stopping at The Bengal BBQ for a banyan, I will catch up to you”.  Just as often that person is followed by several others to grab a skewer of meaty and saucy deliciousness.  We all have our favorites.  So much so that Lacey stopped at Town Hall and requested the recipe.

Earlier this week we celebrated Katey’s birthday.  For a family who is on a Disneyland Diet (due to Covid-19), it seemed appropriate to celebrate in Bengal Barbeque style.  Lacey has made a few adjustments to the recipe because that is what we do. It was delicious! As we reminisced about Disneyland and Katey we played music from the Tiki Room and Indiana Jones and hoped that some of those present would be able to use their season passes soon.

Here’s to family memories, holding out hope, great memories still to be had, season passes, and a family who is always game to be a child again.  Oh—and to the creation of The Game which will stand in Balser history forever.

Hope you have fun whipping up these magical skewers and don’t forget to turn on the tiki music.

Chieftain Chicken Skewers

Serving Size:
6-8
Time:
15 minutes
Difficulty:
easy

Ingredients

  • 6 whole cloves
  • 2 T. red wine vinegar
  • 1 C. ketchup
  • 1/2 C. crushed pineapple
  • 1/2 C. brown sugar
  • 1/2 C. soy sauce
  • 1/4 C. orange juice concentrate
  • 3 T. water

Directions

  1. Simmer cloves in red wine vinegar for 5-10 minutes
  2. Add the rest of the ingredients, bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer for 5 minutes
  3. Brush on grilled or baked chicken skewers

Bengal Beef Skewers

Serving Size:
6-8
Time:
15 minutes
Difficulty:
easy

Ingredients

  • 1 C. teriyaki sauce
  • 1 C. soy sauce
  • 1 T. red wine vinegar
  • 1 C. brown sugar
  • 1/2 C. sherry cooking wine
  • 2 whole bay leaves
  • 1 T. ground black pepper
  • 2 T. fresh ginger
  • 1 T. fresh garlic

Directions

  1. Add all ingredients to a sauce pot and simmer 5-8 minutes
  2. Brush over sirloin steak skewers

Banyan Beef Skewers

Serving Size:
6-8
Time:
15 minutes
Difficulty:
easy

Ingredients

  • 1 C. soy sauce
  • 1 1/2 C. water
  • 1 T. ground black pepper
  • 3 T. sesame oil
  • 1 t. ground red pepper
  • 1/2 t. cayenne pepper
  • 1 t. fresh garlic
  • 1 T. corn starch

Directions

  1. Mix all ingredients except corn starch, and bring to a boil
  2. Add enough water to the corn starch to make a bit of a paste, add it to the boiling mixture and remove from the heat once it is thickened.
  3. Brush over sirloin baked or grilled steak skewers

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

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Sunday breakfasts are a favorite for me and my family. Depending on our church schedule, I usually end up with extra time to bake something extra delicious. This past Sunday morning called for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins.

As I gathered my ingredients to make these delicious fall muffins, I realized I was about one cup short of chocolate chips. Seeing as how I had refilled my chocolate chip canister earlier this week, I imagine that more than one pair of little hands found their way into the jar. Luckily, we had about a dozen fun-sized Hershey bars leftover from recent activity. So my girls and I chopped those up to mix in and saved the 1/4 cup of chocolate chips for sprinkling on top. Adaptability is the name of the game around here! The chopped-up chocolate chunks were delicious in this recipe and many other substitutions would work just as well. I’m thinking about trying white chocolate or cinnamon chips but you could easily omit the chips completely and have pure pumpkin muffins.

Here’s hoping you have extra time this week for extra delicious Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Serving Size:
16 Muffins
Time:
35
Difficulty:
East

Ingredients

  • 2 C flour
  • 1 t. baking soda
  • 2 t. pumpkin pie spice
  • 1/2 t. salt
  • 1/4 c. milk
  • 1/2 c. vegetable oil
  • 1/2 c. sugar
  • 1/2 c. light brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 c. canned pumpkin puree
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 c. chocolate chips (reserve a few for topping the muffins)

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 425 and line a 12 count muffin tin and a 6 count muffin tin with paper or silicone tin liners.
  2. Mix flour, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, and salt together in a bowl and set aside.
  3. In another bowl mix milk, oil, sugars, pumpkin puree, and eggs until well blended.
  4. Add wet ingredients to the dry and mix gently, only until just combined.
  5. Add chocolate chips and gently stir until incorporated.
  6. Fill tins almost all the way full* and bake for 5 minutes, reduce the heat to 350 and continue baking another 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

*because this is such a heavy batter as long as you leave about 1/4″ space from the top of the liner the muffins will puff up, not over the edges

The Mystery of the Missing Donuts: Baked Pumpkin Spice Donuts

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When September rolls around here in Utah sometimes it doesn’t feel like the ushering in of Autumn. We’ve been known to have temperatures well into the 90’s, or early freezes and snow flurries depending on the year. Sometimes all you have is the word, September to remind you that the seasons are changing. But a pumpkin spiced donut helps too.

We first whipped up a batch of these on September 1st, just to make sure we kicked off fall right. They were worth waking up extra early on a Tuesday morning to make sure my first grader had cinnamon sugar in the corners of her mouth as she skipped off to school. I guess mandatory masks have their plus sides.

We only waited a few days for another batch, a breezy Saturday morning where you could almost smell the leaves changing colors. We savored the first batch, eating all six before they cooled, and I left the remaining on the kitchen counter. We had a few to take to grandmas and a few for later. I knew the donuts wouldn’t make it through the day but I was surprised after loading the girls up the car to find the plate completely empty. No donuts for later, and none to share at grandmas house.

I began a frantic search for the eight missing donuts, after interrogating each child and deciding the two-year-old was the likeliest culprit. We searched in cabinets, toy baskets, garbage bins, anywhere we thought those stubby two-year-old arms could easily reach. After a half-hour of searching not a single donut turned up. We couldn’t even find cinnamon sugar evidence anywhere. With no real evidence, we came to the conclusion that she fed them one by one to Rico, our Great Pyrenees. In fact, the lack of evidence is what led us to that conclusion, it was all licked up, every last crumb.

Trying to find the humor while living my own “who stole the cookies from the cookie jar” moment would’ve been easier if these pumpkin spice donuts weren’t so perfectly delicious. Thankfully, enough time has passed now, and enough batches of donuts have been eaten in the meantime, that we can laugh about it now. And whenever I have a half dozen of these lovelies baking in the oven without fail Rico appears at the door, looking extra drooly and expectant. I can’t blame him.

**You will need a donut pan! Don’t have one? I’d suggest you invest! I bought mine at King Arthur Flour. Don’t want to buy one? I saw a great tutorial on how to make your own here

Baked Pumpkin Spice Donuts

Serving Size:
16-18
Time:
1hr
Difficulty:
Beginner

Ingredients

  • 15 oz. can of pumpkin puree
  • 3/4 c. brown sugar
  • 1/3 c. vegetable oil
  • 1/3 c. buttermilk
  • 4 T. melted butter
  • 3 eggs
  • 3 1/4 c. flour
  • 1/2 t. salt
  • 2 1/2 t. baking powder
  • 1/4 t. baking soda
  • 2 t. pumpkin pie spice
  • CINNAMON SUGAR COATING
  • 3/4 c melted butter
  • 3 t. cinnamon
  • 3/4 c sugar

Directions

  1. Mix the pumpkin, brown sugar, oil, buttermilk, eggs, and melted butter.
  2. In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and pumpkin pie spice
  3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, mix only until combined. Over mixing will make the donuts tough and dense.
  4. Spoon the batter into a large piping bag, or a ziplock bag with a corner snipped off.
  5. Pipe the batter into a greased donut pan, filling them about 3/4 full
  6. Bake at 350 F for 18-25 minutes (depending on your oven) or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
  7. Remove onto a cooling rack
  8. For the cinnamon sugar coating, mix cinnamon and sugar together,
  9. Dip both sides of the donut in melted butter and then in the cinnamon sugar mixture.

After School Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Sweet Suppertime Chocolate Chip Cookies
Danny is 17 and believes in chocolate chip cookies with all his heart.  It has come from years and years of being indoctrinated after school by a very specific chocolate chip cookie. He doesn’t know how easy it is to make, that’s my little secret.  But I do love making cookies for my kids.
I think before you can talk cookie–or in this case share a cookie recipe–you sort of have to set some fundamental cookie rules. It’s important for any reader to know that, while I like dark chocolate and have been known to bake with semi-sweet morsels now and then, I am definitely a milk chocolate kind of girl.  Additionally it is important to note that I am loyal to a soft and chewy chocolate chip cookie. I have often tried a new recipe only to find out that it’s too “cake” like or “crispy”.  This cookie is soft and chewy, a bit salty and loaded with chocolate chips.  Sometimes I toss in white chocolate chips, sometimes peanut butter chips and if I feel domestic a dip them halfway in melted chocolate.  What I love most about this recipe is that it’s a small batch and I am in and out in under an hour which makes it the perfect cookie for an after school snack.  And because I whip these babies up in a bowl with a wooden spoon and a bit of elbow grease the clean up just seems simpler.
In this recipe I use shortening, it keeps the dough soft and if you take a look up here you won’t see vanilla.  What?! No vanilla? I forgot to add it one day and found that I really liked the flavor of the dough better without it so…no vanilla here.  If you love vanilla add a bit.
Cream the sugars and shortening together until it’s nice and creamy and then add the egg, stirring the dough until you can’t tell you added the egg, about 20 strokes.  Add the salt and baking soda followed by the flour.
Stir until the flour is incorporated and then add all those happy little chocolate chips!   These I just fold gently into the dough and then using a cookie scoop, put 12 balls of cookie dough on a cookie sheet or pizza stone.
After placing them on an ungreased, cool cookie sheet I like to push them down gently with my fingers and sprinkle just a bit of sea salt on top.
Pushing them down just seems to keep them from flattening out too much which gives them that crispy edge that I don’t care for. I also bake just a few the first round so that I can see if they need more flour to keep their shape.  Most of the time they don’t.
Sweet Suppertime Chocolate Chip Cookies

Bake at 350 degrees for about 9 minutes.  Cool on your cookie sheet for about two minutes before transferring to a wire rack.  They are fast, easy and delicious and they make my house smell like “home” when the kids come through the door.  These are the perfect after school chocolate chip cookie.

After School Chocolate Chip Cookies      Sweet Suppertime

Preheat oven to 350 Degrees

1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white super
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour
1 cup milk chocolate chips

Cream shortening and sugars together.  Add egg and stir.  Add soda and salt evenly over the dough and stir until well incorporated.  Add flour and once the flour is absorbed into the dough fold in the chocolate chips.

Drop by teaspoonfuls or use a cookie sheet to drop 12 balls of dough onto a cool, ungreased cookie sheet or stone.  Press the dough down lightly with your fingers and top with a few sprinkles of sea salt.

Bake at 350 degrees for 9 minutes or until edges are turning golden brown.  Remove from oven and cool for two minutes before transferring to a wire rack.