Coffee Cake

I was trying to find a different "special" breakfast for Christmas morning. Growing up we always had Dutch Babies and although I do enjoy them I wanted to find something different. This year I found it. Coffee Cake, and seriously the best Coffee Cake I've ever had. I loved that I could fix it and throw it in the oven and serve, no "extras" no need for syrup, or powdered sugar.  Next time you're looking for something different for breakfast, doesn't even need to be a special occasion give this a try. I promise you'll love it

Coffee Cake
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup white sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 butter (softened)
1 egg
3/4 cup milk or buttermilk
2 tsp vanilla bean paste

Topping
1/4 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup white sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/4 butter (softened)

Preheat oven to 350
Grease a 9X13 pan
In a bowl mix (topping ingredients) add all dry ingredients and then cut in butter until crumbly
In a separate bowl mix cake ingredients. Add flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cut in butter.
Mix should be coarse crumbles
In a small bowl mix egg, milk and vanilla together
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. This batter will be VERY thick.
Spread batter into pan and top with crumble topping
Cook 25-30 minutes
Enjoy!!!
I even think this would be amazing around Halloween and Thanksgiving with some canned pumpkin in the cake batter part. I can only eat pumpkin flavor in the Fall, so I won't be able to try it until next year.

Shrimp Ceviche

It's been a while since I posted, with Christmas and New Year's it's just hard to find the time to post. But that doesn't mean I haven't been finding amazing recipes, with all the cooking, baking and eating that occur this time of year I was bound to find some great recipes to share and I did. We celebrate Christmas Eve with 13 dishes, and we always like to try to find something new we haven't tried before. This year we tried a shrimp ceviche, and it was out of this world. We had 14 guests who all raved about how good it was and the nice thing was it was so easy. Not to mention we were able to prepare almost all of it the day before and then right before eating just adding a few last minute ingredients. You can substitute the shrimp for a white fish like cod, we stuck with the shrimp since we also had "fish" in one of our other dishes that night. Trust me try it, you'll like it and remember it's not raw, the acid in the lime juice actually "cooks" the fish so the texture is that of cooked shrimp/fish. 


Shrimp Ceviche
1 lb fresh shrimp (or white fish)
8-10 limes
1 jalapeno or Serrano chili
1 cup chopped cilantro
1/2 cup chopped green onion
1 pint cherry tomatoes cut in half
2-3 cucumbers chopped
2 avocado chopped
salt to taste

Chop shrimp into small pieces and place in bowl
Slice limes in half and squeeze all juice onto the fish
Add 1/2 cup of cilantro, 1/4 cup of the green onion, the entire amount of chili you want to add and a touch of salt.
Cover your dish and refrigerate for several hours or overnight
Before serving add all the rest of the ingredients: chopped tomatoes, chopped cucumber, remaining cilantro, remaining green onion, avocado, and additional salt if needed.
Serve with chips
Enjoy!!!