Christmas Cookies

Merry Christmas!! I hope you are having a wonderful day with your family. What do you do as a family for Christmas? Do you watch movies together, cook together, check out each others gifts from Santa? If you are looking for an afternoon activity, make cookies together. This is a wonderful family friendly recipe!

Michael's favorite thing about Christmas is his grandmothers Christmas Cookies. We were not able to see his family for Christmas last year or this year and he suggested I try to make grandma's famous cookie. He told me if I could this, he would love me forever. How could I pass this up! If I was successful, he would be mine forever!!

It is hard to duplicate what grandma does. My grandmother to, was a great cook. I have a few of her handwritten recipes on index cards, but I wish I had of gotten her to teach me more. I plan to have a sit down with Michael's grandma the next time I am able to go to get recipes and have her teach me things.

The Christmas Cookie recipe is basically a sugar cookie with a slightly thin icing on it. I was instructed not to decorate these like I would my regular sugar cookies with royal icing. These required sprinkles and red hots because that's what grandma does.

I got the cookies made and tried my hand at the icing. Grandma doesn't have a recipe for the icing. The instructions I got were, melt some butter, add some powdered sugar and milk and a touch of vanilla and that's it. Don't you just love recipes like that. Grandmas just know how much of what to put in them and what to do . I had no idea how much of anything to start with! So after 2 failed batches, I was able to get the icing close to Grandmas. Michael said it must be a Grandma thing. They weren't spot on, but he still liked them. The next time I go down, I will have to have her show me how to make them.

I am entering this is Bake at 350's Flavor of the month. Be sure to check out other bloggers cookies. Enjoy!



Christmas Cookies

Printer friendly recipe

Source: Michael's grandmother

Ingredients:

1 stick of margarine
1 stick plus 1/3 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons milk
4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder

Directions:

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter, margarine, sugar, eggs and vanilla.

In a separate bowl combine the flour salt and baking powder. Add a little at a time into the creamed mixture. Add the milk

Bake at 350 degrees for about 8-10 minutes. You want the cookies to be slightly golden in color.

Christmas cookie icing

Ingredients

1 stick of butter
3 cups confectioners sugar
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
2 Tablespoons milk

Directions

Melt the butter on low-medium heat. Remove from heat and add in vanilla and confectioners sugar. Add a little milk at a time to reach the desired consistency. This will be a fairly runny icing, but should be at a spreading consistency.

To decorate:

Add your favorite sprinkles and red hots to make your Christmas cookie your own.

Chicken and Dressing

Dressing is one of those things that is required at Thanksgiving. It is the one food item that I look forward to the most. I could eat it at any time, but it just doesn't feel right to eat dressing in the summer. My grandmother always made the dressing for our family on Thanksgiving and Christmas. She passed away a few years ago and I thought she took the art and recipe for dressing with her. I have searched for a recipe that could come close to her dressing.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving last year. I asked Michael's mom if she or his grandma had a dressing recipe. She did so I reluctantly tried it last year. I knew that this could not even come close to the dressing my grandmother made every year. I was shocked when it turned out perfect!!! Michael said it tasted just like his grandmas! This tells me even more that we are ment to bet together!! I am in love with this dressing and come June, I may just decide to make it again.

I am entering this as a part of Bake at 350's Flavor of the Month. The Flavor of the Month for November is traditions. This is a tradition in both of my and Michael's families and I plan to continue that in the future. I truly hope you try this one!! Be sure to stop by Bake at 350 for other bloggers traditions. Enjoy!

Chicken and Dressing

Printer friendly recipe

Source: Michael's grandmother

8-inch pan of cornbread

8 slices toasted bread, or day old bread
4 eggs. beaten
1 med. onion, chopped
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 1/2 Tbsp. poultry seasoning
1/4 tsp. allspice
pinch of sage
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 cans cream of chicken soup
2 cans chicken broth
2 Tbsp. margarine
Boiled chicken, use 1/2 of chicken, off the bone

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 º, 325º if using a glass pan.

Crumble breads and add in all other ingredients to margarine. Dot the margarine on top. Bake at 350º for 45 min. or until till brown.

EDIT: I am editing the recipe to state be sure to use low sodium chicken broth. I have made this again since I publishsed this post for Christmas. I had my mom get chicken broth without thinking about it and the regular chicken broth adds to much salt to the flavor. If you go with full strength broth, please reduce the amount of salt you add.

Pumpkin Bars

This month's Flavor of the Month over at Bake at 350 is pumpkin. Well, there has been a shortgage on pumpkin this year. This is tragic. I have been looking everywhere for a can of pumpkin and have been laughed at by Michael who thought the idea of a pumpkin shortgage was just nuts! I had a friend find 3 cans for me and I have been trying to figure out which recipes were worthy of my cans of pumpkin.

I have never made a Paula Deen recipe. She uses way to much butter and fries to many things for my taste, but when it comes to dessert, she can't be wrong, right? I saw this recipe on the Food Network and again went through my question of is it good enough to use a can of pumpkin. The answer is definetly yes!! Yes!! These are absolutely so good. They pumpkin bars themselves are so moist and flavorful. Add the cream cheese icing and you are seriously in heaven. My non pumpkin eating husband ate two pieces last night and then asked me to save some before I took them to work. Please try these!!! Enjoy!

Be sure and stop by and see what other pumpkin recipes everyone else came up with.

Pumpkin Bars
Printer friendly recipe

Source Paula Deen, Food Network

Ingredients

4 eggs
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
15-ounce can pumpkin
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Icing:

8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until light and fluffy. Stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix at low speed until thoroughly combined and the batter is smooth. Spread the batter into a greased 13 by 10-inch baking pan. Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting. Cut into bars.

To make the icing: Combine the cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and mix at low speed until combined. Stir in the vanilla and mix again. Spread on cooled pumpkin bars.

Key Lime Pie

This month's Flavor of the Month challenge from Bake at 350 was lemon or lime. I decided to go the lime route and make a key lime pie, which I found out that Michael loves.




After looking through several recipes, I decided on a pie from Culinary Concoctions by Peabody. It has a very creamy texture and the coconut in the pie crust gives it a woodsy feel that compliments the tartness of the key lime. A few suggestions, make sure you are planning to share this pie. If not the results could be deadly. I ate half of the pie myself! Also, when zesting the lime, make sure you so it very finely. I did not do it as finely as I should have and have a speckled pie. It is a wonderful key lime pie. Enjoy!

Key Lime Pie

Printer friendly recipe

Source: Culinary Concoctions by Peabody

Ingredients:

1/2 cup key lime juice, fresh if possible

1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

1/3 cup Mascarpone cheese, room temperature

1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk

1 to 2 teaspoons finely grated lime or key lime zest, divided

5 egg yolks

whipped cream, for garnish

1 coconut-pecan graham cracker pie shell (recipe follows)

Directions:

Whisk sweetened condensed milk with the egg yolks. Whisk in Mascarpone cheese. Stir in whipping cream and lime juice. Stir in 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons lime zest. Pour into a prepared graham cracker crust and bake at 325° for 15 to 20 minutes.

Coconut-Pecan Graham Cracker Crust

Ingredients

1 ¾ cups crushed graham cracker crumbs

1/3 cup sweetened coconut flakes

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup pecans

7-8 TBSP melted butter

Directions:

In a food processor, blend together graham cracker crumbs, coconut, sugar and pecans. You want to make sure that none of the coconut is visible. Add about 7 TBSP melted butter. Pulse a few times. If it seems like it needs more butter add the remaining TBSP. Pour contents into a pie pan and press to form a shell. I used 4 mini pie shells.Bake crust for 10 minutes at 400F. If you are using the mini pie pans, prebaking is not necessary.

Red Velvet Whoppie Pies

Bake at 350 is doing a Flavor of the Month challenge each month for anyone to join in. This month the Flavor of the Month is pie. She suggested a few types of pies and whoppie pies were one of them. I had seen them around on other blogs and thought they were the cuties little things. Who doesn't love cookies with a sugary filling? These tasted really good!! The only problem I had with them was that they were a bit messy. I know that I shouldn't have a problem with mess!! Anyway, I made the cookies, which I believe that I made to big, and then added the creamy filling and put the topped with the other cookie. Well, the tops slid off, so I had sliders. Next time I make these, I will make the cookies smaller and then not put as much filling. In the end they really did taste great.

Red Velvet Whoppie Pies

Printer friendly recipe

Source: Better Homes and Garden

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1-oz. bottle red food coloring (2 Tbsp.)
1 recipe Whoopie Pie Filling, recipe below

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment; set aside. In medium bowl combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

2. In large mixing bowl beat butter on medium to high 30 seconds. Beat in brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk, beating after each addition just until combined. Stir in food coloring.

3. Spoon batter in 1- or 2-inch diameter rounds, about 1/2-inch high on prepared baking sheets, allowing 1 inch between each round.

4. Bake 7 to 9 minutes for 1-inch cookies or 9 to 11 minutes for 2-inch cookies, or until tops are set. Cool completely on baking sheets on rack. Remove cooled cookies from baking sheets.

5. To fill, dollop Whoopie Pie Filling on flat sides of half the cookies. Top with remaining cookies, flat sides down. Makes 60 one-inch or 42 two-inch cookies.

6. Whoopie Pie Filling: In medium mixing bowl beat 1/4 cup softened butter and half an 8-ounce package softened cream cheese until smooth. Fold in one 7-ounce jar marshmallow creme.

7. To store: Refrigerate in airtight container up to 4 days. Let stand at room temperature 15 minutes before serving.