Last Sunday I was able to cross goal #6 “Open our home at least once a month” off my list for January. A couple friends from work came over and we had a really great time. I made broccoli and three-cheese lasagna from Real Simple using this tomato sauce, both of which are amazing.
I was more calm about hosting than any other time we’ve had people over. I used to get really stressed about making sure that everything was perfect and my cooking lived up to my food blogger reputation. This time around, I tried to keep things in perspective: it’s about building relationships, not being perfect. Nevertheless, I had just just enough control freak left in me to want to provide dessert.
Due to time (and possibly motivational) constraints, I didn’t want to commit to something too involved. I also didn’t want to make anything that was going to serve a lot of people; there was only going to be 4 of us. In the end, I settled on a recipe I’d made before: the Pioneer Woman’s Blackberry Cobbler. Of course, I made some adjustments, as it’s an incredibly simple recipe and lends it self to a little bit of messing around.
Raspberry Cobbler
Serves 8
Ingredients
- 1 stick salted butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup self-rising flour (or 1 cup AP flour + 1 ½ tsp baking powder + ¼ tsp salt)
- 1 cup milk
- 14 oz frozen raspberries, thawed
- ¼ cup sugar, for topping
Directions
- Using paper towels, pat the raspberries dry as best you can.
- Pour 1 cup of sugar and flour into a mixing bowl and stir to combine. Whisking in the milk.
- Melt the butter in the microwave. Pour the melted butter into the sugar/flour/milk mixture and whisk it all together.
- Butter a 9″-ish pie plate (8″ or 10″ would probably be fine too).
- Pour the batter into the buttered baking dish. Sprinkle the raspberries evenly over the top of the batter. Sprinkle ¼ cup sugar over the top.
- Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 50 minutes, or until golden and bubbly.
- Enjoy with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream
Ooh, that does look easy! I definitely agree with this principle — if it’s going to be stressful, I’d rather not make it. Then having people over won’t be fun, it’ll be a pain, and that means I’m much less likely to make the effort!