Almond Roca (kind of :) )

1/2 c coarsely chopped pecans, toasted
1 c butter
1 c sugar
3 TBSP water
1 TBSP light colored corn syrup
3/4 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 c finely chopped pecans, toasted
(I didn't toast my nuts, and it turned out okay)

Line a 13x9" baking pan with foil. Sprinkle 1/2 c coarsely chopped nus in pan. Butter sides of a heavy 2-quart saucepan. Melt butter. Add sugar, water and corn syrup. Cook and stir over medium-high heat until mixture boils. Clip candy thermometer to pan. Reduce heat to medium, and continue boiling at a steady, moderate rate. Stir frequently until temperature reaches 290 deg. Pour candy into prepared pan. Let stand 5 min until firm. Sprinkle with chocolate. When chocolate has softened, spread. Sprinkle with 1/2 c finely chopped nuts. Chill until firm. Lift out of pan with foil, and break into pieces.

Molasses Crinkle Cookies

These are some of my mom's cookies, that I love. Normally if a cookie doesn't have chocolate in it, I don't have a problem with eating too many, but there's just something about these cookies. Mmmm.

3/4c butter, softened
1c brown sugar
1 egg
1/4c molasses
2 1/4c sifted flour (I never sift it though :) )
2tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger

Mix butter and sugar in blender until light in color. Add egg and molasses, blending well after each addition. Sift together flour, soda, salt, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger, and blend into butter mixture. Chill dough in the fridge. Roll into balls the size of large walnuts. Dip tops in sugar. (I like the big sugar crystals...they're made by Wilton. Sometimes I have to double check the label because it looks like glitter :) ) Place sugared side up on greased baking sheet. Bake for 10min at 350deg. Bake just until set, but not hard.

Almond Roca, chocolate dipped peanut butter balls, and molasses crinkle cookies coming soon....

(Here are some gingerbread cookies...they're really not that tasty, but are fun to make...if you want the recipe I can put it up, but they're not that special :) )

Crunch Time!

This year for Thanksgiving I'm in charge of rolls, and pies, so I thought I'd get some recipes up there, in case any of you want to try one out for Thanksgiving. As soon as I get them made, I'll put up some pictures. We're having pumpkin, chocolate, peanut butter, apple, and cherry. (The pumpkin was one of the first posts that I did so you can look in October if you want the recipe; for the cherry, I'm making a crust, opening a can of cherry pie filling, pouring it in, and baking it in the oven. :) )
(Here's the cherry, and pumpkin pie...a little overdone, but hopefully it tastes okay.)

Aunt Gabbie's Peanut Butter Pie

Aunt Gabbie's Apple Pie

This is another one of Royce's favorites...Gabbie always finds us the best recipes :) It didn't look at all like I was planning, because my crust was giving me troubles, but I think it will taste really good, because I think I put a little too much shortening in the crust :)

6-7 cups apple—sliced thin w/lemon to keep white (I use Jonagold, Gabby uses Granny Smith & maybe a mix)

1 c sugar (if jonagold’s are sweet, reduce sugar)

½ c flour

1-2 T corn starch

½ t cinnamon

¼ t nutmet

Peel, core, slice apples thinly—put 1T? lemon juice over them to keep them white while in bowl

Mix all dry ingredients together

• 2 choices

  1. Gabby usually layers apples in thin layer, then sprinkles part of dry over them and repeats like a lasagna---trouble is, you have to come out evenly with apples and dry mix

  2. I poured the dry over the apples and stirred it in & poured it in the pie shell. Worked out fine. Gabby does this also

Dot top of apples with butter and top layer of crust

Bake @ 425 for 40-50 minutes

Gabby puts the crust covers you girls gave her over the edges so they don’t get too done

If you want, you can brush the crust with milk or ½ & ½ & sprinkle sugar on it

(My mom sent me the e-mail with Gabbie's recipe :) )

Chocolate Pie

This is my mom's really good chocolate pie that we always have for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

2 squares chocolate

2 cups milk

5 T flour

¾ cup sugar

Pinch salt

2 eggs

1 T butter

1 tsp vanilla

Baked pastry shell

• Melt cocolate,

• add milk gradually stirring constantly until smooth

• heat in double boiler (I just stir it all the time)

• Mix flour, sugar, 7 salt and add to mik

• Stir until thickened and then cook for 15 minutes

• Add butter, cool slightly 7 add vanilla

• Pour into baked crust

• Serve cold with whipped cream

Lasagna

Here's my mom's lasagna. Whenever we had company over, my mom would always make lasagna.

1lb ground beef
1/3 c onion
1-2 cloves garlic (or garlic powder)
2 can tomato sauce (just plain sauce)
1 c water
1 carton cottage cheese
1/3-1/2 block mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/3-1/2 block cheddar cheese, shredded
1pkg lasagna noodles, uncooked

Brown hamburger with onion and garlic. Drain fat off meat. (Sometimes I leave it on...it's not very good for you, but sometimes it's really tasty :) )
Add tomato sauce and water to meat.
Spray a 9x13 pan with Pam. Start your layers with the meat sauce. Then add a layer of the uncooked noodles. Spoon around 2-3 TBSP of cottage cheese next; then add another layer of meat sauce, then a layer of moz cheese, then cheddar cheese. Then you start a new layer of noodles, and continue like that. (You kind of have to eyeball the layers with how much you want on each layer...it's not too picky though...it should taste pretty good, even if you don't get your layers very even.) When you make your last layer, make sure you get sauce all around the edges, so that you don't have any bare noodles, and put a little more shredded cheese on the very top than you have the rest of your layers. Cover with tinfoil, then bake it in the oven at 350deg, for around 1hr 15min. You want to check it at around an hour, and if it looks too runny, you can take the foil off; from there you just want to make sure your noodles are done, and then it's ready!

Maraschino Cherry Thumb print Cookies

Here are some yummy cookies that are fun for Christmas. Of all the cookies I make these are Royce's favorite. I like them because they're really pretty :)

Maraschino Chocolate Thumb print Cookies

2 (10oz) Jars of Maraschino Cherries
1 1/2 C Flour
1/2 c unsweetened cocoa
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2c butter, softened
1 c granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 c semisweet chocolate chips
2 TBSP milk

Drain cherries, reserving 1 tsp juice. Combine flour, cocoa, salt, and baking powder in a large mixing bowl. Mix well. Put butter and sugar in medium bowl. Beat with an electric mixer on medium for 3-4 min. Add egg and vanilla; mix well. Add flour mixture; mix well.
Put chocolate chips and milk in a small saucepan and heat, stirring constantly, on low heat until chocolate melts. Add reserved cherry juice. Let cool slightly.
Shape dough into 1"balls. Place on ungreased baking pan. Push in centers with thumbs(I never use my thumb...I have a knife with a round handle at the end, so I never use my thumb:) ), then spoon 1 tsp chocolate mixture into each thumb print and top with a cherry. Bake at 350deg for 10-12 min, or until cookies are firm. (Be sure not to overcook, or they become hard...not as tasty) Let cool on wire racks.

Chicken Noodle Soup and Homemade Rolls

Poor Royce is sick today, so I made him some chicken noodle soup and rolls. (And finally something turned out again! Which is good...because I'm planning on making 8 pies for Thanksgiving :) )

Chicken Noodle Soup:

1 can chicken broth
1 1/2 c water
1 peeled carrot, chopped
1 peeled potato, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 can chicken (I use the big cans from Costco...you could use fresh chicken too...obviously you want to cook the chicken first)
1/2 c uncooked noodles

Heat broth, water, carrot, potato, and celery over med/high heat until rapid boiling. Add chicken and noodles, and cook over med heat around 10-12min.


Aunt Gabbie's Dinner Rolls (so, so yummy)

4c flour
2 1/4 tsp yeast
1/4 c sugar
2 tsp salt
2 TBSP powdered milk
1 tsp lemon/lime juice
2 TBSP oil
1 1/2 c warm water (like baby bottle warm-180ish)

Mix all ingredients in bread machine on dough setting. When finished, knead dough slightly on lightly floured surface, and shape into 12-16 rolls. Let rise for 30 min. Bake at 350 deg for 20-25 minutes. Remove rolls from pan.

(And if you forget to put the yeast in, you can put some oil and cinnamon and sugar on it and bake it and try to pull it off for Family Home Evening treats. :) )

Cursed!

I'm not very superstitious, but I think I've been cursed. Since I've made this blog, I can't cook anything! Nothing is turning out. So if I cook anything again that doesn't taste like doody, I'll post it :)

"Why give me a great gift, only to snatch it away? What did I do? Huh? Did I ask for too much? Did I fly too close to the sun on my beautiful hot dog wings?"

Halloween Rice Crispie Treats

I decided to take the easy route for Halloween treats this year. :) I've had them once before with candy corn, and they are so good! It surprises me, because I really don't like candy corn or rice crispie treats, but together they are really good. And if you can't tell, they're supposed to be shaped like a pumpkin. Because that's as creative as I'm going to get this year. :) I don't know how well it would work, but I was thinking if you had a gingerbread man cookie cutter, you might be able to make some skeletons out of them, if you had a little older audience...our world is determined by a three year old. (Who has a sissy Mommy.)

Crepes

1c flour
1 1/4c water
3 eggs
pinch salt

Mix all ingredients thoroughly; let rest 5-10min. (I never let it rest, and it seems to turn out okay :) )

Pour onto a hot, (medium-ish) greased (Pam-ed) griddle. Cook for 2-3 minutes; you can see when it's ready to be flipped...it starts on the edges and turns kind of a pale yellow color, and when the whole crepe is that color/consistency, then you flip it over, and cook the other side for around 10-15 seconds.

I've always heard that crepes are scary to make, or are hard or something, but I think it's a lot easier than pancakes...it's really easy to tell when it's ready to flip, and when you do flip it you don't have to worry about it sticking to the pan, or getting stuck on the spatula, or anything else.

For the filling, you can go sweet or savory. When I make them, I usually just microwave some frozen strawberries, (no sugar added) wrap them up, and then I spray some whip cream on the top. I've also made scrambled eggs with a few bacon bits, and rolled that up. I think I've even done salsa with the eggs too. So just try it out, and experiment with different stuff you like. Another good thing about crepes is that they're super cheap! So try it out. Do it. Now. Stop looking at the computer and do it. Now.

Cute Halloween Treats

"Creepy Crawly Cupcakes"

"Bakers One bowl spider web brownies"

I found a couple of cute ideas for little Halloween treats. I found them on the Kraft web-site...I haven't tried them, but I thought they might be fun to do, and easy enough for just a quick treat.

I have made spiderwebs on sugar cookies, and they were really cute. (Especially with an orange or green background frosting on the cookie.)
If you have any good ideas for Halloween, or have seen anything, let me know, and I'd love to try them!

http://www.kraft.com

Paula Dean's Pumpkin Pie

(I'm not a big fan of pumpkin pie, but this is really good, and I thought it would be a good one to try with Thanksgiving coming up. I have some leaf cookie cutters, and it's really pretty if you make a little extra pie crust and cut out the leafs and put them on top of your pie when you bake it...next time I'll take a picture.)

1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
2 cups canned pumpkin, mashed
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg plus 2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1 cup half-and-half
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger, optional (I just used cinnamon)
1 piece pre-made pie dough(I made it from scratch..pretty easy, and really tasty)
Whipped cream, for topping

Crust: (I just used the recipe off the Crisco container...it makes enough for a bottom and a top crust, so you have enough to make your leafs on the top.)
2c flour
1tsp salt
3/4 stick butter flavored shortening stick
4-8 TBSP ice cold water

Blend flour and salt in mixing bowl. Cut shortening into flour mixture using a pastry cutter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs with pea-sized pieces remaining. Sprinkle ice water 4 TBSP at a time, and mix gently with a fork. Add more water by the tablespoon until dough holds together. Divide in two, and form into a ball. (You don't want to work it too much or it won't be flaky) Roll out dough 2" past edges of pie pan, and put in pan. Pinch edges to make a boarder.

I baked the crust at 350 for about ten minutes; I didn't use pie weights, and the crust got a little bubbly, but I didn't care enough to use the weights. (I did poke holes in the bottom with a fork before I baked the crust. You can use beans instead of pie weights if you want; you just put tinfoil on the bottom of the crust, and put the beans on top to keep the crust down.

For the filling, in a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese with a hand mixer. Add the pumpkin and beat until combined. Add the sugar and salt, and beat until combined. Add the eggs mixed with the yolks, half-and-half, and melted butter, and beat until combined. Finally, add the vanilla, cinnamon, and ginger, if using, and beat until incorporated.

Pour the filling into the warm prepared pie crust and bake for 50 minutes, or until the center is set. Place the pie on a wire rack and cool to room temperature. Cut into slices and top each piece with a generous amount of whipped cream.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

½ c butter, softened
½ c peanut butter
½ c sugar
½ c brown sugar
1 egg
1 ¼ c flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 c chocolate chips

Heat oven to 375.

Cream butter, peanut butter, sugars until light. Add the egg and mix until fluffy.

Blend the flour, baking powder, soda and salt together well. Add these dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Add the chocolate chips.

Drop cookie dough by teaspoonfuls onto lightly greased baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 min at 375.

Whole Wheat Pancakes

(These are so good! You won't even know it's whole wheat.)
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon common granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons oil
additional oil for frying (I just used Pam, no stick spray...it's kind of pointless to have whole wheat if your going to fry it in oil)
Spray frying pan. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in one bowl. In another bowl, scramble the egg, then add the milk and the 2 tablespoons of oil. Mix the dry and wet ingredients together, well enough to eliminate dry spots but no more.
Heat the frying pan to medium temperature. Pour a pancake. The pancake will bubble. When the bubbling settles down and the edges are slightly dry, flip the pancake. When the pancake looks done, remove it and start another one.