Marriage Reteat Food

Our Sunday School class had a marriage retreat last weekend, and I made coffee cake, chicken salad, and chocolate chip cookies.

Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake
2 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup margarine or butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream
1 egg
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup raspberry preserves
1/2 cup sliced almonds

Heat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 9 or 10 inch springform pan. In a large bowl, combine flour and 3/4 cup sugar. Using a pastry blender or fork, cut in margarine or butter until the mixture forms coarse crumbles. Reserve 1 cup of the crumb mixture. To the remaining mixture, add baking soda, baking powder, salt, sour cream, 1 egg, and almond extract. Blend well. The batter will be very thick. Spread batter over bottom and 2 inches up sides of springform pan.

In the same bowl, combine cream cheese, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1 egg. Blend well, and pour over batter in the pan. Carefully drop spoonfuls of preserves evenly onto the cream cheese filling. Sprinkle the reserved crumbles evenly on top of the coffee cake. Sprinkle almonds evenly over crumbles. Bake for 45 -55 minutes, or until cream cheese filling is set, and the top is a deep golden brown. Cook for 15 minutes. Remove sides of pan. Serve warm or cold. Refrigerate leftovers.


My mom and I have been making this recipe for years. You can use any flavor of preserves you want, or none at all. You can also leave off the almonds if that is your druther. It is good stuff.


Chicken Salad
Chicken
1 celery stalk, diced
4 green onions, chopped
1 green apple, peeled, cored, and chopped
1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1 small container plain Greek yogurt
1/2 - 1 cup mayonnaise

Cook and dice chicken. I use the skin-on, bone-in kind, because during the winter, I can usually find it for 99 cents a pound, and well, that's cheap. I think the packages I buy are between 1 -2 pounds. I boil the chicken in a stock pot, and then save the broth for something later. Deskin and debone the chicken before chopping.

Mix in chopped apple, green onion and pecans. Mix the curry powder and pepper in with the yogurt, and then toss the yogurt mixture into the chicken mixture. Add mayonnaise until it is the amount of creamy you want. I just like mine creamy enough to stick together, so I use a scant 1/2 cup, but if you want it CREAMY, I would recommend closer to a full cup. You could also use more Greek yogurt and less mayo, but that does change the taste a bit.


The recipe for my chocolate chip cookies is already catalogued to the left, but I had taken a picture, so I included it. Brad loves big cookies, so I use the ice cream scoop to make them. They end up baking for 12-15 minutes.