Recipe(tried): Chicken Florentine, Cousin Lula's Sweet Tater Souffle, Garden Herb Potatoes, Fall Spice Cake

Hello Everyone!

It's early October and I went ahead and changed my garden flag from autumn leaves to one with a black cat wearing a witch's hat on a jack-o-lantern. How many of you also have those garden flags that you change by the month? I love them!

It's been raining every late afternoon since last week. Not for long, just a little while, enough so that I don't have to water the new patch of lawn I put in.

Today was a good day to bake a Fall Spice Cake and make Cousin Lula's Sweet Potato Souffle, two new recipes. They are delicious! Now, I am completely out of pecans with today's recipes...luckily we'll be leaving on the 19th for the mountains and will go by Ellis Brother's Pecans in Vienna, Georgia. They have the best selection of pecans, chopped, whole, candied, glazed...they sell them by the pound bags, or in containers. I always get about 6-7 pounds to last me the whole year. The best part of their store is all the little containers you get to sample pecans out of! I love the glazed and candied ones.

For dinner tonight we enjoyed:

Florentine Chicken
Cousin Lula's Sweet Potato Souffle
Green Beans in Balsamic Oil
Garden Herb Pearl Potatoes
Garlic Bread
Fall Spice Cake

Happy Fall! Gina

Florentine Chicken
serves 2

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, slightly flattened out
4-5 baby spinach leaves per chicken
2 t. feta cheese per chicken
2 t. shredded mozzarella per chicken
Montreal Chicken seasoning
1 tomato, cut up
olive oil to drizzle on bottom of baking pan

Season chicken breasts and lay out flat. Put baby spinach leaves on, layer on cheeses and roll up securing with toothpicks. Drizzle olive oil on bottom of glass baking dish. Put chicken in pan and divide tomato pieces between and around the chicken. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

Cousin Lula's Sweet Potato Souffle
Consuming Passions
Michael Lee West
serves 4-6

2 c. cooked, mashed sweet potatoes (canned is fine)
1 c. sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 stick butter, melted
1/2 c. evaporated milk
1/2 t. nutmeg
1/2 t. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400. Whisk all ingredients together and pour into a greased 2-qurt baking dish. Bake 20 minutes. Remove from oven and add topping.

Topping:
1 stick butter
1 c. brown sugar
1 c. crushed cornflakes
1/2 c. chopped pecans
10 pecan halves

Melt the butter, add the sugar and cornflakes and stir. Spoon over the potato mixture. Sprinkle on the chopped nuts, dot with pecan halves and return to oven for another 10 minutes longer to bake.

Garden Herb Pearl Potatoes from a bag of Reser's...found in the refrigerated section of the produce area at Publix.
I put them in a pan with a little olive oil and brown them up. Delicious!!

Green Beans in Balsamic Oil
serves 2

enough fresh green beans for 2
season them with salt and pepper
put them in a small saute pan with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and olive oil and cook on medium low til crunchy tender, about 20 minutes.

Fall Spice Cake
Consuming Passions
Michael Lee West
yields: One 9x13-inch sheet cake

1 3/4 c. flour
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 t. ground cloves
1/2 t. ground nutmeg
1 t. ground cinnamon
1 1/2 sticks butter, room temp.
3/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar
3 eggs
3/4 c. buttermilk
1 t. vanilla
1 c. chopped pecans
3/4 c. raisins soaked in vanilla or lemon brandy (optional)

Preheat oven to 375. Grease and lightly flour a 9x13-inch pan. Sift together the dry ingredients. Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk. Add the remaining ingredients and blend. Bake 35-40 minutes. Frost with caramel icing when cool.

Caramel Icing:
1 stick butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 T. evaporated milk
1 c. confectioners' sugar

In a saucepan, combine the butter and brown sugar. Cook over low flame for three minutes, stirring constantly. Gradually add the milk. Bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and cool. Add the confectioners' sugar and beat. If it's too thick, add 1 t. milk.