Good afternoon!!!  Well, it's the day before Valentine's Day, and I am sure many kitchens were busy with the wonderful smells of Valentine's!!!  My baking starting at 8:30 this morning, and my kitchen got finished clean up at 3:30 this afternoon.  Well, we had to take time for lunch with my sister-in-law and nephew.  I made up a meat sauce last night and threw it in the slow cooker so I could just heat that up while the cookies were baking this morning, and then I just cooked up some penne and we had shredded mozza cheese for on top!!!  They enjoyed it - I used country sausage and ground beef in my meat sauce - love using some sausage for some kick!!!

Today, I baked a batch of the Grandma's Best Sugar Cookies like the other day, except I only have 1/2 butter and 1/2 margarine.  Hubby did not like them as well, and so I know now that butter is better for these cookies just as they had said.  Also, both times I have left out the baking soda!!!! and yet they raised just fine because of the cream of tartar I guess!! LOL!! 

My sister-in-law brought over some butter so I could make some real buttercream icing.  Sorry I forgot to take a picture of it, but I will share my recipe, and a picture of the cookies all decorated - no cheating with pre-made icing this time!!!

Easy Buttercream Icing

1/2 cup butter, softened (wasn't totally softened, so used the pinterest tip of grating it. IT WORKS!!)
4 and 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 and 1/2 tsp. vanilla (I only used 1 tsp)
5 Tbsp. milk (I only needed 4)

Cream butter till light and fluffy.  Beat in vanilla, and then I put in icing sugar 1/2 cup at a time, and then 1 Tbsp. of milk, until I had the desired consistency.  (Some days I use the 5 Tbsp. of milk, so I do not know if the weather has anything to do with it or the temp in the house.)

Yield : About 3 cups of icing - Will frost 24 cupcakes.

I also made a very easy and wonderful cookie that I found from the website
http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2013/01/23/strawberry-chocolate-chip-cookies/

Of course, I had to put my own little twist on it for Valentine's, so here it is:

Strawberry Your Choice Chips Cookies

1 box (18.25 oz) strawberry cake mix (I used Duncan Hines mix)
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 large eggs
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 and 1/4 cup white chocolate chips and Valentine M&M's (mixed to make the right amount)

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk together cake mix and baking powder.

In smaller bowl, whisk together eggs, canola oil, and vanilla extract.

Add liquid to the dry ingrdients, and mix well with wooden spoon until all the dry mix has been incorporated.

Add in choice of chips and mix together.

Using a cookie scoop, place cookies on cookie sheet.  Note: they do expand!!

Bake for 10 minutes - do not let the cookies get brown (ssshhhh - a couple of mine did).  Remove from oven and allow cookies to cool on cookie sheets for 3 minutes.

After the 3 minutes, remove from cookie sheet to a wire cooling rack to finish cooling.

Yield : 2 and 1/2 dozen with using the cookie scoop.

These cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to a week....if they last that long.  Oh my, the possibilities one has now for cookies - all the different cake mixes and chips and all!!! 

Thank you for joining me today, and Happy Valentine's Day to you all tomorrow!!!

Hello Friends!!!
   Well Valentine's is just two days away, and I need to start on my goodies for my hubby.  Tomorrow my sister-in-law is coming over, and we are going to bake some cookies for the children, so I wanted to get Hubby's homemade chocolates made today.  So I will share my "Special" recipe - lol.  Enjoy!!

Take one bag of your choice of chips - hubby loves Hershey Special Dark.

 Pour contents of bag into chocolate melting pot.  Turn on high until chips are melted.  Stir frequently to help the melting process.  (You can also melt over boiling water in a double broiler, or in microwave.)

Have molds ready.  These silicon molds are for making ice cubes, but I find they work perfect for making chocolates.  I got mine at the dollar store up the street. (Not the Dollar Tree store.)  Pour melted chocolate into chocolate funnel - so much easier for filling without being too sloppy.  Fill molds to desire thickness of chocolate.  If intricate, like the Love words - then I would recommend to fill fairly full. 

After you have put chocolate in molds,  pound to make sure the air bubbles are out of the chocolate.  Place molds on cookie sheet so to lay flat and place in freezer for a half an hour to a full hour.  Take out of freezer, and press out from the bottom of the mold.

I then bagged each of the Love chocolates in a seperate zip close snack bag.  Then I placed the snack bags in a nice little cellophane Valentine Baggy and stapled shut.

I think Hubby is going to love these, even tho they will be very rich, they will last him a while!!!
I hope you have enjoyed looking at my creations - as you can tell, it does not take a smartie to figure these out - lol
Have a great day!!!

Oh my, how the time has gone by since my last blog.  I am so sorry my dear friends,  I ended up with that nasty flu over the Christmas holidays, and there was  no cooking or baking done for Christmas here this year.  But finally seem to be getting back on my feet, and a little cooking being done now and then.  I did take some pictures of some things, so I will try to catch you all up on some things.

Hope everyone had a Blessed Christmas and a great New Year!!!

Well, today I will share a recipe with you that I got from a free book from Amazon entitled Grandma's Best Cookie Recipes by Marg Ruttan.  This is a sugar cookie recipe, and became a big hit at the Super Bowl party - lol - the little girls requested "cookies with icing and sprinkles" lol.  Enjoy!

Grandma's Best Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter (margarine may be used, but the taste of butter in these is recommended)
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 375 F.
Cream together butter and sugar.  Add eggs and beat thoroughly.  Stir in vanilla, cream of tartar, and salt.  Gradually mix in flour.
Using cookie scoop, scoop dough onto ungreased cookie pans. You may also roll into 1' balls and place on ungreased cookie pans.  Using floured tines of fork, gently press into 1 and 1/2" circles.
Bake cookies 8 - 10 minutes, or until golden brown.

Yield using cookie scoop : 38 cookies

Decorated with premade (canned) butter cream icing and a variety of sprinkles.

The sweetness of the icing, counters the lack of sweetness in the sugar cookie!!! I really liked them!!

Hello Friends,
   Here I am back again for this week.  Sorry that this is only getting to be about once a week, but things are busy at this time of year.   I know one of my recipes today is a repeat, but I did make the stuffing moister, and I took pictures during the process, and I DID stuff the turkey this time - yay!!  This was my first time to cook a stuffed turkey, and I was truly happy with the outcome.  So, yesterday we had the turkey with the sausage and apple stuffing - which I think will become a favorite here - no more boxed stuffings - I personally have never been a fan of that stuff anyway!!  Wished I could give you my gravy recipe, but I do not have one, I just make it and it is usually thick and no lumps - lol. 
   Today I baked cookies, and I got the recipe from another website, but I did changed it a bit.  Here is the link to the original though.  http://www.hugsandcookiesxoxo.com/2012/11/m-m-cookiesextra-thick.html

So, here are my recipes for today.

Sausage and Apple Stuffing
8 cups cubed white bread (I used french bread)
1 pound country sausage
2 medium sweet onions, diced
3 medium Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and chopped
1 cup chicken broth
1 Tbsp poultry seasoning

Cube bread and leave out on a cookie sheet to dry out; or place in oven at 250 degrees F for 10 minutes or until dry to the touch. When ready to make stuffing, place bread cubes in a large mixing bowl.

Brown country sausage in frying pan; breaking into pieces as it cooks. Cook until there is no pink left in the sausage, With a slotted spoon, remove sausage from frying pan, and add to the cubed bread. Mix together, breaking up any larger pieces of sausage.

Pour fat from frying pan, reserving but 1 to 2 tablespoons for sauteing onions. Add onions; saute them until they are tender, not brown. Stir in the chicken broth and apples; heat to boiling. Pour over bread and sausage mixture; add poultry seasoning. Mix or toss until evenly moist.

Ingredients

Cook and chop up sausage - I love my Pampered Chef Chop and Mash!!

Add sausage to bread crumbs - I dried these out a couple of days ahead by just leaving out.

Saute chopped onion

Add chopped apple and 1 cup chicken broth and bring to a boil.

Mix into bread and sausage mixture, and add poultry seasoning!!

Close up - doesn't it look awesome?!

This is the finished turkey!!!

I cook my turkeys in a bag.  You can probably see the cut bag in the picture.

I shake 2 Tablespoons of flour in the bag.  I have rinsed my turkey, and then patted it

dry with paper towel.  Then I baste the turkey with vegetable oil, and sprinkle poultry seasoning

on the turkey.  Turkey was cooked at 350 degrees F. for almost 3 hours.

Close up of the yummy stuffing, and how it was bulging out of the turkey!

The basting of the oil on the turkey makes a nice brown and crisy skin!!

Take the turkey out of the roaster, and take the bag out of the pan, leave the drippings.

Add some more chicken broth, and bring to a boil and make your gravy, adding some more

poultry seasoning and a little salt to flavor.  Oh, I also use a little soy sauce to make the gravy

a little darker in color.  And I also use a water and flour mixture to make my gravy, but make sure

your liquid is boiling, and you whisk in the mixture constantly so you do not get lumps.

 

 

 

Now on to the cookies!!!

M&M's Extra Thick Cookies!!

1 cup softened butter or margarine - I used margarine.
3/4 cup white sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 extra large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 and 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
12 oz. bag of chocolate chips
1/2 bag M&M's

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Beat butter and sugars.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.  Add to wet micture.  Stir in chocolate chips and M&M's.  These are very stiff so use something very sturdy to stir, I broke my wooden spoon, and it wasn't a thin one - lol.

Using cookie scoop, scoop dough onto greased cookie sheet.  Bake 12 minutes, and when the cookies come out of the oven, immediately push in a few more M&M's.

Yield : 3 and 1/2 dozen cookies.

Cookie mixture.

Scoop of cookie dough on greased cookie sheet.

Fresh out of oven and ready to have M&M's added.

Added M&M's.

 

These cookies were a big hit with the neighbors!!!  I HAD to share with them all!!

Hope you all enjoy, and have a great day!!!

 

Hello Folks!!!  This has been a busy week. A belated Happy Thanksgiving to all my family and friends here in the US!!  And Happy Birthday today to my wonderful husband!!!
This week, as many families do, we got together for Thanksgiving dinner.  My contributions were corn pudding, apple crisp, and pumpkin pie.  So my morning was busy cooking.  My sister-in-law said, "I thought you would do all your baking yesterday."  And my reply was, "If I am not making the whole meal, then why not have fresh desserts!"  I had to make my house smell somewhat of Thanksgiving. lol
My hubby is not a cake fan, so again yesterday, I baked pumpkin pie again.  This is one of his favorite desserts, and he gets overload on it during November and December, and if we celebrate my Canadian Thanksgiving, then he gets it again in October!!

Well, on to my recipes for today.

Corn Pudding

2 eggs beaten
1 cup sour cream
1 box Jiffy cornmeal  muffin mix
1/2 cup margarine, melted
1/3 cup onion, chopped
1 cup shredded cheddat cheese
1 can cream style corn
1 can whole kernel corn, drained

Whisk together each ingredient in the order it comes to make a smooth mixture. Pour into a well buttered 2 qt. dish.  Bake at 350 degrees F. for 45-55 minutes, or until the top begins to golden and crack, and the sides begin to pull away from the casserol dish, and the muffin mixture feels done.

Ingredients

Nice and smooth texture

Yummy, golden edges

Cracking on the top, but I did cook this for another 10 minutes.

Apple Crisp

7 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and sliced.

Topping
2 cups flour
2 cups rolled oats - quick cooking
2 cups lightly packed brown sugar
2 tsps. cinnamon - heaping

Combine these ingredients, and then cut in,

1 cup butter or margarine.

 Take 1/4 of your crumb mixture, and toss it in with your apples.  Place sliced apples in a well buttered 9x13 pan. They should look like they almost fill the pan.  Cover with remaining mixture, and pat down. 
Bake at 350 degrees F.  for 40 - 50 minutes, or until your apples are tender.

Please note : This mixture can be cut in half, but the family here likes lots of crisp, and when using Granny Smith Apples, they can be a little tart, and this crumb makes a nice balance for the tart to the sweet.

Also, if made ahead, can be placed back in the oven at 350 degrees F. for about 20 minutes to reheat, and then serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream.

Granny Smith's all peeled, cored, and sliced.

As you can see, the pan is well buttered.

Crumb Mixture

Yummy, I love my pastry blender for cutting in the butter.

About 1/4 of mixture tossed with the apples.

Can smell the cinnamon and makes your mouth water.

Rest of crumb mixture patted on top.

Ready to put in oven.

Crisp is done and smells awesome!!!

Look at those oats!!! Smell the sweetness of the brown sugar!!

Well, I hope you have enjoyed my blog for today.  I trust you all will have a wonderful weekend.  Another busy one with practising for the Christmas Musical!!!  Later, my friends, and God Bless!