Bloomin' Onion Bread

Bloomin' Onion Bread

1 loaf sour dough bread (best if round)
1 lb jack cheese sliced
1/2 C sliced green onions
1/4 C melted butter

Slice bread in a crisscross pattern leaving about and inch to an inch and a half between slices.  Place bread on tin foil on cookie sheet.  Stuff slices of cheese between every bread slice, getting it in deep. Topping it with the onions and stuffing them down deep also.  Drizzle the melted butter over top of the cheese and onions.  Wrap in tin foil and bake at 400 until cheese is melted and bread is warm through. Approximately 15-20 minutes.

**My friend Suzette made this for me and I was in love. Thanks Suz!
**This pic is obviously before it was baked.  I couldn't stop eating it long enough to get a picture after the cheese was melted.
**Great to accompany any meal, especially soups!

Cazookie

Cazookie

1 1/4 cups white sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup butter

3/4 cup shortening

2 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups plus 3 tablespoons flour

2 C chocolate chips

Cream together sugars, butter, and shortening.  Add eggs one at a time and beat until fluffy.  Add baking soda, salt, and vanilla.  Add flour and mix until incorporated.  Stir in chocolate chips. Make golf ball size balls and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet and freeze solid. Once solid, they can be stored in a zip lock baggie.

When ready to bake, line a muffin tin with paper liners. Place frozen cookie balls in muffin tin and bake at 350 for 15 min or so until golden on the outside and ooey gooey in the middle. Immediately take paper liner off and serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

**This is Breanna's famous chocolate chip/m&m cookie recipe! When Josie requested a cookie pie for her birthday dinner, I recalled Breanna telling me about her Cazookie.  I was doing it for Josie and wasn't at all excited about the dessert. HOLY COW! So dang good!  Now I have 20 frozen cookie balls in my freezer, ready for when I need a Cazookie!

**Also, to make serving quick and easy, I pre-froze scoops of ice cream in a muffin tin and then we just popped them out.  It was awesome!

**The picture doesn't do it justice at all, next time I'll cut into it so you can see. Mmm!

**New Huge Version:
4 inch ramekins
1/2 C cookie dough balls frozen
Bake at 350 for 27 minutes
Serve with ice cream on the side.

Snickerdoodle Pumpkin Sandwiches

Snickerdoodle Pumpkin Sandwiches

Snickerdoodles 

1 cup butter, softened 
1 and 1/2 c sugar 
2 eggs 
1 t vanilla (I use Mexican vanilla but any kind will work) 
2 and 3/4 c flour 
2 t cream of tartar 
1 t baking soda 
1/2 tsp salt 
3 t cinnamon and 3 T sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix thoroughly. Stir dry ingredients together in separate bowl and add to creamed mixture. Chill for 20-30 min. Roll into Tablespoon size balls and then toss in the cinnamon/sugar mixture, coating the dough evenly. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned but soft.


Pumpkin Cream Cheese
 
8 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup pureed pumpkin  
1/4 c brown sugar 
1/2 c powdered sugar 
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or more)
1/2 tsp vanilla

Beat all ingredients with an electric mixer until smooth. Adjust powdered sugar to taste and texture. (It is kind of nice when it isn't too sweet, so you can taste the pumpkin better!)  Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.  Remove from fridge, spoon about 1 T of cream cheese onto the flat side of the cookie. Press another cookie onto the cream cheese to make a sandwich.  Put in a container to store in the refrigerator.  For some reason they are better a bit chilled!


** This is the same as my other Snickerdoodle recipe, but when I do the sandwiches I cut back on the flour a bit so they are chewier, but not as pretty!
**We also like making really small sandwiches, about a teaspoon of dough per cookie. Super cute and tiny!
**Adapted from The Stirring Place

Corn Muffins

Corn Muffins 
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (10 ounces) 
1 cup fine-ground, whole-grain yellow cornmeal (4 1/2 ounces) 
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder  
1 teaspoon baking soda  
1/2 teaspoon table salt  
2 large eggs  
3/4 cup granulated sugar (5 1/4 ounces) 
8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), melted 
3/4 cup sour cream  
1/2 cup milk
sugar 

Instructions

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Spray standard muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray.

Whisk flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl to combine; set aside. Whisk eggs in second medium bowl until well combined and light-colored, about 20 seconds. Add sugar to eggs; whisk vigorously until thick and homogenous, about 30 seconds; add melted butter in 3 additions, whisking to combine after each addition. Add half the sour cream and half the milk and whisk to combine; whisk in remaining sour cream and milk until combined. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients; mix gently with rubber spatula until batter is just combined and evenly moistened. Do not over-mix. Using an ice cream scoop or large spoon, divide batter evenly among muffin cups, dropping it to form mound. Do not level or flatten surface of mounds.  Sprinkle with sugar for a crunchy top. About a Tablespoon per muffin!

Bake until muffins are light golden brown and skewer inserted into center of muffins comes out clean, about 18 minutes, rotating muffin tin from front to back halfway through baking time. Cool muffins in tin 5 minutes; invert muffins onto wire rack, stand muffins upright, cool 5 minutes longer, and serve warm. With Honey Butter!

**Adapted from America's Test Kitchen
** I feel like 18 minutes is too long and dries them out.  15-16 minutes in my oven is just perfect!
**Perfect combo with any chili or fall soup!

Pea Pot Pie

Pea Pot Pie

Monette's Pie Crust
            and
1 C diced, sauteed onions
1 C diced, cooked carrots
1 C frozen peas, thawed
1 C frozen corn (petite, white), thawed
2 C diced, cooked potatoes
3 C cooked, diced chicken
2 T butter
2 T flour
2 t chicken bouillon granules
2 C milk

Prepare vegetables and place in a large bowl or pot.  Melt butter in saucepan and whisk in flour.  Cook for 1 minutes.  Add bouillon granules and milk (or half and half if you like it really creamy), cook over medium heat until thickened and bubbly.  Pour over vegetables and stir to mix sauce in.  Place in a 9 x 13 pan or other casserole dish that can fit all the vegetables.  Roll out pie crust recipe and top pan. Cutting vents for steam.  Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until crust is golden.

**My kids love this, and it's called Pea Pot Pie because that is what Grayson called it when he was 2 and it stuck.  They always wish there was more crust, but I'm trying to keep it a bit healthy and the crust is the unhealthy part.  You can take out or add any vegetables you like, keeping the quantity around 8-9 C before the sauce goes in.
**I have only made it when the filling is warm, so there isn't much cooking or warming up of the inside, just the crust.  So if you prepare it before hand, take that into consideration when calculating your bake time.
**When I cook the vegetables, I use one pot.  I saute the onions and take them out.  Fill it with hot water and add the potatoes and carrots (that are cut to similar size), when they are close to done, I throw in the peas and corn.  After a minute I pour the whole pot into a strainer, then return the vegetables to the pot and add the chicken.
**I've never decorate it the same, I used a heart cookie cutter around valentines and layered the hearts, I've cut out an "M" for Magleby and a lot of other fun things.  Be creative for your family!

Halloween Dinner 2011

Each year I do a fun Halloween dinner.  A great tradition that my Mom started and it is constantly changing and morphing to accommodate my fam, but it happens! It always happens!  I pin some sheets up in the kitchen so they can't see what I'm making and then I deliver it to them while speaking in a british witchy voice...kind of lame and kind of funny all at the same time.

"Now eat this up you little twit!"

I come up with a menu, it started out as completely normal food with funny names (like spaghetti was worms with bloody mummy grime) and then they got to order and they never knew what was coming first....maybe dessert or maybe a salad.  Soon my kids were guessing what dinner was and so I decided to switch it up each year.  They put what order they want the items in...1-5.  I've only documented the last two.  So here's this years and I'll get last years up soon.

 

 Menu

 Mini Pumpkin Vomit

(Chili with corn for added affect!)

 

 Spider in a Web

(Corn muffin with honey butter spider web.)

 Pumpkin Guts

 Bathroom Garbage

(Q-tips - marshmallows in melted butterscotch chips.)

(Band aids - graham crackers with white frosting and red gel frosting.)

 Goblin Grins

(Snow pea pods with slivered almonds and a pepperoni.)

Greek Style Yogurt

Greek Style Yogurt

1 gallon skim milk,  plus 1 cup (less or more)
1/3 C plain greek yogurt
1 t vanilla

Heat the milk in a heavy bottom pot (that has a lid), slowly to 180 degrees to prevent scorching. Use a candy thermometer.  Once at 180, turn off the heat and let milk cool to 110 degrees.  Stir in the yogurt. Put lid on pot and place somewhere a temp of 100 degrees can be maintained. (I have an oven that if I heat for a minute or so and then put on the oven light, my temp stays between 100 and 110... I used a meat thermometer to keep it in check.)  Let sit for 6-8 hours or until yogurt is set and yellowish liquid is on top.  Remove yogurt, scooping with a large spoon and place in a cheese cloth (4 layers) lined strainer sitting in a bowl.  The bowl should be pretty big, a lot of liquid comes off. Wrap up cheesecloth on top, spinning together.  Place in the refrigerator overnight.  The next morning, remove yogurt from cheese cloth and place in a bowl, using a hand mixer, mix in enough milk to reach desired consistency.  Mix in vanilla. If you want it sweetened, add agave to taste.  Place in tupperwares in the fridge.  My batch makes between 6 and 9 cups of yogurt. 

**So Breanna makes incredible whole milk yogurt that is to die for HERE, but I am in love with non fat Greek yogurt and didn't have great success with it the couple times I followed recipes.  That was until....I saw Bre's mom Lisa at a fruit stand and she told me a couple secrets....First,  after straining, most recipes say to stir in some of the strained off liquid to soften the consistency.  That left me with an incredibly sour yogurt.  Lisa told me to stir in more skim milk.  Wow, did that ever change it.  It was creamier with a way better flavor!  Second, other recipes use a cup of yogurt, but the 1/3 cup does what it needs to and doesn't overwhelm with a strong flavor.
**I know my picture looks like there are chunks, but I have never noticed anything but creamy, tart goodness.  However, I usually am eating this with fruit and granola.
** I did a little calculation, my last batch had 21 grams of protein per cup. Booya!
**No one eats this but me. Oh well.