Tag Archives: dessert

A week off for me, a cookie recipe for you!

28 Dec
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These are a great cookie for any time of year, but they have made it onto our trays for the past two years now.

With the holidays in full swing, I took a week off from my regular blog posting in order to prepare for, and celebrate the Christmas holidays with my family.

Today, however, I have one last cookie post for you. It’s a recipe I posted last year also, but it’s great for any time of the year, so I thought it would be a good one to post.

Next week you can look forward to a return to my regular posting schedule once again. I will be showing a few of the great gifts that we received for Christmas this year that I think you’ll enjoy, and I will be back to posting recipes again too.

My blog will also be taking on somewhat of a new twist in the new year, but you’ll have to wait until next week to see exactly what that means.

Until then, enjoy today’s recipe!

Oatmeal Scotchies
INGREDIENTS

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp grd. cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cups packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups quick or old fashioned oats
1 2/3 cup (or one 11 ounce bag) butterscotch chips

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl.

Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla in large mixing bowl.

Gradually beat in flour mixture.

Stir in oats and chips.

Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 7-8 minutes for chewier cookies, 9-10 for crispier cookies.

Cool on cookie sheet 2 minutes, transfer to rack to cool completely.

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Family Movie Night & a Recipe: Homemade Hot Chocolate

7 Dec

ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 9, 2011

It’s a Friday and for us Friday nights are sometimes Family Movie Nights. It’s the end of the week and it’s often a wind-down night as well. We look forward to it.

In the winter, our Family Movie Night movie is usually “The Polar Express” at least once.

I got this book in 1993, before there even *was* a movie!

We have the hardcover version of the Chris VanAllsburg book, and it’s even autographed. We also have the special bell from the story as well as the cd of the story from a gift set that we received a few years back. You can find the book and the movie here on Amazon.com.

There are several bell crafts you could do to go along with “The Polar Express” if you’d like.

Cups, pipe cleaners, stickers and glitter make for an easy jingle bell craft. If you have a real jingle bell, you can put it inside so that the bell actually rings.

You could:

1) Cut out a bell from construction paper and decorate it with glitter or other materials,

and

2) Turn a styrofoam drinking cup upside down, put a pipe cleaner through the top (gold works well) turning it into a bell that way, decorating it on the outside any way you’d like.

During the winter months, Family Movie Night often includes a special treat: Homemade Hot Chocolate. My kids LOVE this recipe and it came from a cookbook I received as a gift from one of my Stampin’ Up! customers several years back. The cookbook is called “Old Fashioned Holiday Recipes.” It was full of many great recipe ideas, but this one has always been a favorite find and perfect for our Family Movie Nights. It would go especially well with the “Krispie” Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe from yesterday!

Two mugs of hot chocolate

Hot off the stove tonight!

Creamy Hot Chocolate
INGREDIENTS

1 (14 ounce) can Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk (NOT Evaporated Milk)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 1/2 cups hot water
Marshmallows, optional

DIRECTIONS

In a large saucepan over medium heat combine Eagle Brand, cocoa, vanilla and salt; mix well.

Slowly stir in water. Heat through, stirring occasionally. Do not boil.

Top with marshmallows (optional.)

Store covered in refrigerator. Makes about 2 quarts.

Hot chocolate can be stored in the refrigerator for up to five days. Mix well and reheat before serving.

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The Reverse Dinner Party

3 Dec
Just two years ago, we were in the midst of all this, but a great new tradition did come out of it!

Just two years ago, we were in the midst of all this, but a great new tradition did come out of it!

Some of you know that two years ago my husband had surgery on his leg. He had ruptured his achilles tendon and he had a cast on his leg for several months, and was on crutches with a boot for several more. It was a long year for him and for us, and a very humbling experience, but believe it or not, some good did come out of it.

The Reverse Dinner Party is one of those good things.
During the initial few weeks after the surgery we had lots of help from family and friends. We had people raking leaves and bringing meals and staying over, all to help us out. It was an incredible outpouring of generosity.

When things died down a little, we had some friends of ours, the Garabedian family, ask us if they could bring us dinner and hang out for the evening. We welcomed the fun and the food, and we said we’d make dessert. So they cooked at their house, we cleaned up at ours, and made dessert, and they arrived on our doorstep that evening with their two girls and our dinner.

It was their turn to cook dinner this time, and we were treated to turkey and all the fixins!

It was their turn to cook dinner this time, and we were treated to turkey and all the fixins!

With that one gesture, a new tradition was created: The Reverse Dinner Party. Our friends had brought dinner to us at our house but the next month when Don was more mobile, they asked us to come for dinner at their house. It seemed unfair to have them make dinner for us again, so we decided to treat them and we brought dinner to them at their house and this time they provided dessert.

It became a fun treat and a little bit of a break, too. If you had to clean your house for company, at least you “only” had to make dessert along with the cleaning. If you had to cook the main dish, at least you didn’t have to worry about making your house presentable for guests at the same time.

Monkey bread and pumpkin pie for dessert!

Monkey bread and pumpkin pie for dessert!

There was also an element of surprise with some of our Reverse Dinner Parties. We would try not to tell the others ahead of time, what we were going to make. We’ve had all kinds of things and so far there has never been a time where we haven’t liked what the others have made. It’s also been a fun time to try out something new.

This month, we did know that the Garabedians were bringing a turkey diner, so I planned a pumpkin pie for dessert, to go along with it. I also made a new dessert that I had on hand in my pantry: a banana chocolate chip monkey bread. Both desserts and all of the dinner courses got all thumbs up from all nine of us.

This year we agreed to do a Yankee Swap in between dinner and dessert.

This year we agreed to do a Yankee Swap in between dinner and dessert.

We’ve had our dinners in all seasons, indoors and out. We’ve had drinks and desserts over a fire, sometimes we play games, and this time around we incorporated a Yankee Swap, just in time for the holidays. The kids and the adults all had a blast, so I’m sure we’ll do it again next year.

In the end, it’s a night together with friends and it’s the sharing of a meal that really matters. It amazes me to think that we began this tradition two years ago, and I am grateful to our friends who asked simply if they could bring us dinner.

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Five Thumbs Up: Apple Butter Bars

30 Nov

Caroline loves using the pastry cutter to cut the butter into recipes. This one provided a perfect opportunity to use it!

I’ve got a great new recipe for you, and it got all thumbs up from everyone in my house this week! That almost never happens!

I originally found this recipe for Apple Butter Bars on Pinterest, but it’s from the site Three Many Cooks.  I pinned it because my kids love apple butter. Overall the recipe seemed somewhat healthy: no eggs, no white sugar. Apple butter is healthy in itself, so other than the stick of butter that helps to form the crust and topping, it’s not so bad for you, I don’t think.

Caroline made these herself and it was a very easy recipe to follow. If I could change any one thing about it, I’d double it! It makes an 8×8 dish, but with five of us, it didn’t leave many leftovers to last into the next day(s).

Here is the recipe from Three Many Cooks. Enjoy!

Apple Butter-Cinnamon Bars with Oatmeal Crumble

Makes 16 bars

Relatively healthy ingredients makes for a keeper on my list!

INGREDIENTS

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup old-fashioned oatmeal
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter, melted
1 cup apple butter
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Spread the apple butter between the layers.

DIRECTIONS

Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position, and heat oven to 350 degrees. Coat an 8- by 8-inch baking pan with vegetable cooking spray, then line pan bottom and up and over 2 sides with heavy-duty foil to facilitate removal of bars from pan. Coat foil with vegetable cooking spray.

Mix flour, oatmeal, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. Stir in butter with a fork until well mixed and clumps form. Spread half the oatmeal mixture over pan bottom and up the sides about 1/4 inch, pressing to form a thin crust. Mix apple butter and cinnamon in a small bowl; spread mixture over crust and then sprinkle remaining oatmeal mixture over apple mixture.

Bake until crisp and golden brown, 35 to 40 minutes. Set on a wire rack and cool to room temperature. Use foil “handles” to remove bars from pan. (Can be double wrapped and frozen for several months.). Cut into squares and serve.

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Pumpkin Palooza Recipe of the Day: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 Nov

Originally posted on: November 16, 2011

OK seriously, what could be more perfect than the combination of pumpkin AND chocolate chips!? Last year I made these for a school party and the kids loved them.

At the time, I wrote on Facebook that a friend of mine posted this recipe and she got it from Allrecipes.com. I can’t remember who the friend was though! What I do remember is they were delicious!

I did double it when I made it last year. I didn’t even use my standup mixer, I used a wooden spoon. You could use one though if you have one.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies III
from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

  • 1 cup canned pumpkin
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 egg
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon milk
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts ( I did not use walnuts)

Directions

  1. Combine pumpkin, sugar, vegetable oil, and egg. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon, and salt. Dissolve the baking soda with the milk and stir in. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and mix well.
  2. Add vanilla, chocolate chips and nuts.
  3. Drop by spoonful on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for approximately 10 minutes or until lightly brown and firm.

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A word about re-runs

19 Oct

Yup, I’m already thinking now about my holiday baking!

Fall is here, and winter is coming. Last year I began posting daily around this time of year, in order to fit in all of my holiday-worthy and seasonal recipes.

I also featured winter crafts and children’s book recommendations to go along with each of the recipes in December.

This year I will be re-running some of those recipe posts as I see fit, in order to let my newer followers in on those yummy treats. Although I do try out new recipes once a week or so, when it comes to my holiday baking, I am steeped in tradition and I do not veer off that path very often. Therefore, I won’t have 20 new Christmas Cookie Tray recipes for you again this year, since I shared most all of my tray treats with you last year. So if you are a regular, long-time reader, you may see a few things that ring a bell as looking awfully familiar. I hope those re-runs will remind you that you always wanted to try that recipe last year and never got to, or that you loved it so much you can’t wait to make it again.

In the meantime, if you’d like to look back at my holiday treats from last year right now, you can type in Pumpkin Palooza (Thanksgiving) or Your Tray or Mine? (Christmas), or even click on November and December 2011 to take a look!

As always, if you have a recipe you’d like me to try, feel free to email it to me and I’ll add it to my list, which is super-long, of things I want to try one day! Thank you in advance for sharing your recipes with me and for being such a great, supportive blog audience!

Jen

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Lazy Cake Cookies

12 Oct

This recipe needs just a few ingredients, cooks fast, and makes a great dessert to bring or even mail, anywhere!

I love going on Pinterest, you find so many great things that other people have already tried out. I’ve found some nice new additions to my repertoire, and today’s recipe is one I tried out this summer and have done many times since.

In July my school book club had it’s summer meeting which is one that is at someone’s house and everyone brings something to munch on. This year I wanted to bring dessert and I was looking for something new.

Lazy Cake Cookies from the I’m a Lazy Mom blog was it. When I saw the limited amount of time and ingredients needed, I was sold. It was summer after all, and who wants to spend all day baking? Not me.

The other thing about summer is that it’s both of my sister-in-laws’ birthdays, all in the month of August, with mine. My West Coast sister-in-law is at the beginning of the month, I’m in the middle and my East Coast sister-in-law is at the end of the month. So I decided that if this recipe was good (and it was), I’d make these cookies for their birthdays.

I’ve since made them for a play date in September and for when we went to my cousin Val’s for dinner this summer.  They’re great for any occasion and everyone always likes them.

See how cute? Chocolate hearts!

The neat thing is you use a cake mix as your base, and I’ve done white, chocolate and yellow. Chocolate was my favorite (surprise!) with white as my next favorite and yellow as my last favorite. Another neat thing about this recipe is that because it’s a bar cookie, you can use a cookie cutter to cut them into cute shapes. I did hearts for both my sister-in-laws because we love them, and I actually kept all the “scraps” and put them into a ziploc bag for my family to munch on after we shipped off the cookies.

Next time you need a fast recipe, a recipe to make and take, or just a recipe for your own family, give this one a try. You’ll be hooked on how fast it is, and you’ll make them again and again. I know I have!

LAZY CAKE COOKIES
INGREDIENTS

Cake mix, eggs and butter!

1 box yellow, white or chocolate cake mix

2 eggs, beaten

5 Tablespoons melted butter

2 cups mini chocolate chips or m&ms. (I don’t do mini.)

Use a pizza roller for ease in spreading!

DIRECTIONS

Mix the first three ingredients. Batter will be dry.

Add in your filler (chocolate chips, m&ms, etc.)

Spread in a 9×13 greased baking dish. (I find that spreading with a pizza roller works great!)

Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Make them and take them!

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Swedish Apple Pie

5 Oct

When September rolls around, it’s time for apple pie!

It’s my second-favorite time of year, other than summer: it’s fall in New England! There’s nothing like it, a beautiful season for all of the senses.

It’s actually already October now, really more pumpkin time than apple time, but I realized that I had never posted this recipe and I made it at least a month ago! It’s an oldie but goodie from my mom’s kitchen. The recipe card she originally wrote the recipe on states that she got it from “Good Neighbors.”

I like this recipe because it’s different than your typical two crust apple pie and because it’s fast. When I don’t have a crust on hand, I almost always have flour, sugar, butter and eggs, which is just about all you need to make this pie.

Before you whip out your pumpkin ingredients this October, try this pie while it’s still apple-picking time!

Simple ingredients mean that I almost always have them on hand!

SWEDISH APPLE PIE

Fill a 9″ pie plate 2/3 full with peeled Cortland or Macintosh apple slices.

Sprinkle with a mixture of:

1 TBL Cinnamon
2 TBL Sugar

Next, in a medium bowl, mix together:

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) melted butter or margarine
1 egg
3/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1 cup flour

Spread over apple slices and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve with whipped cream, ice cream….or both!

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My new toy and TWO new recipes!

28 Sep

Isn’t it SO beautiful???

I have a new toy.

I’m *so* excited about it.

It’s something  I’ve wanted for a long, long time. Years and years.

Thanks to the folks at epicurious, I finally have it.

What is it you ask? (See, I always know when you’re asking.)

It’s my new Kitchen Aid Pouring Shield for my stand up mixer.

I know, I know!!!  I’m excited too!

When we went to Washington DC this summer for our White House luncheon, we got a goodie bag from the organizers of the event. There was all kinds of stuff in it, and one of the goodies was a gift card from epicurious! We could spend it however we wanted, on ANYTHING!!

I’d never been on their website before, and omg…there was tons! But, I had a budget of course, and I stayed within $2.85 of that budget. My pouring shield was on sale!! I couldn’t even believe my luck!! Even better…I had a coupon code for being a first time shopper (10% off)…and you KNOW how much I love coupons…I was even able to get a cupcake plunger too (you’ll see that come up on here  eventually too, I’m sure.) It was almost as exciting as meeting Michelle Obama. Well not quite. But you know what I mean.

So now I had to try it out, but I needed to wait for a time when I needed to mix something. You don’t just use a pouring shield every day, you know.

The pouring shield was a dream come true. No baking cocoa all over my counter and wall. Love, love, love it!

On Tuesday when Caroline asked me approximately 47 times if she could bake cupcakes, I knew I had my opportunity. We had a no school day on Wednesday and it would also be a grocery shopping day, so we’d be re-stocked on all the items we needed to make cupcakes, since for every recipe she showed me we were out of something.

We opted to go with Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Butter Cream Frosting.

I know….you had no idea we’d go with the chocolate. Shocker, I’m sure.

Caroline found this new cupcake recipe on the Cookie Madness website. We did not use the no powdered sugar frosting recipe that went with it, however, because we had powdered sugar at our house. I’ll post both recipes  we used, so that you can see what we did for frosting.

This recipe was perfect for testing out my new pouring shield. It worked great every time, not one speck of powdered sugar or cocoa went flying anywhere! I’m in love…

COOKIE MADNESS QUICK CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES

INGREDIENTS

2/3 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup unsweetened natural style unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted after measuring (4.5 oz)

Cool for a few minutes in the pan and then on a cooling rack, before frosting.

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line 12 cupcake cups with paper liners.

Mix together milk and lemon juice and set aside to curdle.

Beat oil and sugar with an electric mixer until smooth. Beat in
egg, vanilla, salt, and baking soda until well blended. Beat in cocoa powder. With a large mixing spoon or rubber scraper, stir in the flour alternately with the milk until flour is absorbed.

Divide batter equally between 12 paper-lined cupcake cups. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Cool in pan on rack 20 minutes. Remove to platter to continue cooling.

Each of the three girls got to frost four cupcakes and eat one, saving another for the next day.

CHOCOLATE BUTTER CREAM FROSTING
Better Homes & Gardens

INGREDIENTS***We halved this recipe which was more than enough for 12 cupckaes.***

1/3 cup butter
4 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup unsweetened baking cocoa

Milk as needed

DIRECTIONS

In a bowl beat butter or margarine til fluffy.

Add in cocoa.

Gradually add 2 cups of powdered sugar, beating well.

Slowly beat in 1/4 cup of milk and vanilla.

Slowly beat in remaining sugar.

Picasso over here took about five full minutes to frost each cupcake. Each one was perfectly done when she finished.

Beat in additional milk if necessary to make of spreading consistency.

One full recipe makes enough to frost the tops and sides of two eight or nine inch layer cakes.

One each, saved for the next day.

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A Great Snack for Fall: Cranberry “Brownies”

21 Sep

Alex’s favorite new snack.

Yesterday morning, as I was debating which fall dessert recipe to post for today, Alexandra came up to me and said, “Mom, when are you going to make that snack again?”

“Which snack?”

“You know…The One.  In the bag. The one you made us.”

Well, that narrows it right down, right?

Actually, the thing that clued me in was when she said, “In the bag,” because this particular snack was so yummy I cut them up and put them in baggies for the kids to take in their lunches the day after I first made them. They all loved them and I knew this new recipe was a keeper for sure.

So there it was. The snack. In the bag.

That’s what I should have called today’s post.

I tried this recipe a couple of weeks back when I was absolutely starving late one night and even though I was so starving, by the time it finished I was too tired to eat anything and I went to bed. It’s from a cookbook that Alexandra actually got for me for Christmas at last year’s Holiday Shoppe at school and it is the first recipe I’ve tried from it. The cookbook is called “Home Cookin'” and is an AT&T employee cookbook. The recipe is credited to Joan E. Dill.

Although it says “Brownies,” they are actually not chocolate based.

And yes, I still made them.

It also said in the recipe, “or Apple” so I actually did both. I used craisins and apples.

I’m going to make them again this weekend probably because Alex is having a serious craving for them, apparently.
CRANBERRY BROWNIES (or APPLE)

Craisins and apples are a great match for fall.

INGREDIENTS

1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
1 to 1 1/2 cups cranberries or cut up, peeled apple
1/4 c. water

DIRECTIONS
Cream butter and sugar.
Beat in egg.
Sift flour, soda, baking powder and cinnamon together.
Add to creamed mixture with vanilla and blend well.
Add water, as needed to help, as mixture will be thick.
Mix in cranberries (and/or apples).
Spread in greased , floured 8×8 baking dish.
Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes until center is set.

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