Sugar Cookies

Thursday night after our family watched another Hallmark Christmas movie...I decided to bake some sugar cookies for a "midnight" snack! Not the wisest of choices when you start them at 8pm...they really did turn into a "midnight" snack. ;) But, they are ever so worth it. Simple, quick, and they turn out almost perfect every time. 

Here is the recipe:

SUGAR COOKIES

3/4 cup Butter, at room temperature
1 cup Sugar
2 Eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
2 1/2 cups Flour 
1 tsp Baking Powder 
1/2 tsp Salt 

*Whip butter until creamy. Add sugar, eggs, and vanilla; mix well. 
*Add flour, baking powder, and salt. 
*Form into a ball.

*Wrap in lightly floured plastic wrap.
*Chill at least 1hr (this is the secret to perfect sugar cookies).
*Roll dough on floured surface, cut, and bake at 400° for 7-8 min.

Makes about 2 dozen...depending on how thick you make your cookies. 


I double my recipe! (And since no one ever has a big recipe and I have to do the calculations myself while baking, I'm adding the double recipe for big families) :)

Sugar Cookies-Doubled

1 1/2 cups Butter, at room temperature
2 cups Sugar
4 Eggs, at room temperature
2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
5 cups Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Salt

*Whip butter until creamy. Add sugar, eggs, and vanilla; mix well. 
*Add flour, baking powder, and salt. 
*Form into a ball.
*Wrap in lightly floured plastic wrap.
*Chill at least 1hr (this is the secret to perfect sugar cookies).
*Roll dough on floured surface, cut, and bake at 400° for 7-8 min.

Makes about 4 dozen...depending on how thick you make your cookies. 

Buttercream Frosting  

12 oz Butter, at room temperature
1 lb Powedered Sugar, sifted
1 - 1 1/2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

*Cream butter with the paddle attachment in your mixer. 

*Add the sifted powdered sugar ... once the mixture has come together, stop and scrape the bowl and paddle attachment. 

*Turn your mixer up to medium speed and paddle for about 5 min to make the mixture light and fluffy. 

*Turn mixer to low and vanilla and if you want to add any other flavorings; once incorporated return mixer to med speed and continue to paddle for 2 more minutes.

~I use little plastic containers to divide up the frosting and add the food coloring. If you're like me and want a lot of colors to choose from, be wise in your coloring choices. By that I mean...you don't want to have to make a ton of frosting just to have color options. So for me, I frosted all the Christmas trees first with the green, and a few mittens. Used up as much green as I was going to, then added a few yellow and red drops, to get brown for the tree trunks & gingerbread men. Make sense? Any other time I would have just made brown to begin with, but then you're left with a lot of wasted frosting...that adds to the expense, and the waste...not good. So make a plan! :)

Here are a few pics:

Don't mind the white ones...those were the "midnight snack" ones. ;)

Hope you enjoy these as much as our family does~ 
Heather 


 

Homemade Soft Pretzels....with a Twist!

  Alexis our oldest is always begging to bake something. We have this book called "The Ultimate Book of Kid Concoctions 2" by John E. & Danita Thomas, that grandma sent them. Long story short...Alexis was begging last week to make these "Crazy Pretzels" and I caved and let her have at it. I figured it would be a good way for her to incorporate some math into her day (besides school work) and most importantly the ability to follow directions! And boy oh boy am I glad she did! These are sooo good. Now this could be the pregnancy talking/tasting, but they just hit the spot when you need a little snack....or the entire batch...it's up to you. If I were you I'd share, but be prepared to make a double batch to make them last! Although if you have a "normal" size family, aren't into devouring an entire tray, or have self control, it might be safe for you to just tackle the single batch. ;) 

 They are super simple...my favorite! Here's how it goes...you ready? There are 6 ingredients. Do you think you can handle it? :) 

1 Package Yeast, 1 Tbsp. Sugar, 1 1/2 cups Warm Water, 4 cups Flour, 1 tsp. Salt, 1 Egg, beaten

(The rest is below in the bottom picture)

The girls watching the yeast proof...

Kneading the dough...

My dough snatchers...

Beautiful baby soft ball of dough...

I used a heart shaped cookie cutter for my "Crazy Pretzel" shape...Brushing it with egg gives it the nice golden look...otherwise they look a little anemic...

Here is the end result...Notice Ty's race car w/ driver...Alexis' flounder fish...Addie's number 3...Gabe's pretzel knot...

*Dip them in good old American mustard while they are still soft & warm and you've got yourself one delicious snack!

Recipe for "Crazy Pretzels"... (click to enlarge photo)

  We've made these 4x's in the last week. It makes a great snack to take with to all the baseball games. Now I know some of you cringed at the fact that I say "dip it in mustard," but it really is a lot healthier than cheese and gives it a nice kick. You can also sprinkle some Kosher salt on top before you bake. 

Hope you enjoy them as much as we have!

Freezer Meals

  I know I have written about this subject before, but I thought I'd revisit it. Have any of you ever done freezer meals, or monthly meal planning? Well, if you haven't, keep reading, it is wonderful thing to start!

  I originally bought this book Fix, Freeze, Feast, 2 years ago, to start a "Club" of moms who got together monthly and prepared meals together. It was in the works with about 4-6 ladies with families of the same size. I believe football season started for our boys and things just got to busy to actually put our plans into action. Sad, but true. I ended up doing it on my own and it was such a relief in my household chores. I would just wake up, decide what sounded good for dinner...pull it out of the freezer and let it thaw some on the counter and put it in to cook when the time was right. I had a homemade, healthy, no fuss, no mess, yummy meal awaiting my hubby and family when he got home from work. It made meal time pleasurable instead of stressful. It is quite nice too that these recipes are for a "club" of sorts, so all the recipes are for really big batches. I cut them in half or thirds depending on the recipe for one meal to feed our brood. Family dinner is SO important! How many families do you know that sit together at a table for dinner every night? This is one thing that Bob and I both think is so important for our family. Maybe once a week (but hardly ever) do we not actually sit together at the table and have dinner.

  I am an extremely picky food person. If I could get a job sniffing out drugs trying to be smuggled in/out of the country, like a narcotics dog...I'd be a millionaire! Unfortunately when it comes to the smell of food, my nose is more of a problem than a blessing. Wat too sensitive! I hate to admit this, but usually when I'm cooking dinner, I try to breath through my mouth, so I don't smell what I'm cooking...otherwise it becomes unappetizing. Again, sad, but true. Maybe this is why I prefer to eat out. I never have to smell it being cooked, or see what is going into it. lol Sorry, I get sidetracked...so the gist of this rant is that I'd probably eat about half of the recipes that are in this book. Which means if you are a "normal" person, you'd probably be willing to eat almost all of them. :)

  These are a few of my favorites: 

      *Garlic Mashed Potatoes

      *Margarita Pork Chops

      *Breakfast Burritos

      *Granola

      *Manicotti

 There is a Freezer Inventory list to keep track of what you have put in and taken out. 

  Also, these Freezer Labels with directions for cooking, that you can print out and attached to your meals before placing them in the freezer.

  A perfect idea for meals maybe for a family that just had a new baby, or for any other reason that may come up to give a meal! Instead of it being a burden to figure out what you're going to give, and how you'll have time to do it, this allows you many options at your fingertips so that you may give freely without hesitation. That in itself is a blessing!

-I did notice that the cover is new on Amazon for this book, but I would assume that the meals are the same, or if anything, improved.

  I encourage you to look into this type of meal planning. You and your family will be blessed by it. I have gotten out of the habit of using the freezer meals when we moved and I am hurting because of it. I have gotten into the habit of not figuring out what we are having until 30min before we need to eat. Not a good idea! So, back to what I know works for us...I can't wait to start again. It's actually quite fun to take one day and prepare all your meals for the month, or even 2 weeks at a time. It's one day of messes and hard work, for a month of ease. Anything to help be organized and do our jobs of keepers of our homes, in a way that is pleasing to the Lord.

Blessings~Heather

Are you going Bananas...I'm going Bananas!

Shelby is enjoying the bounty of Banana Bread! What a sweetie :)


So, the story goes...Alexis and I were at Freddy's and were about to pick up some bananas that are usually $0.49-$0.69 cents a lb. When my eye caught some "ORGANIC" ones with red tape all around them. "Hum" I said. What's with all the red tape?!?! So, I went up and squeezed one thinking "they've got to be going really bad"...wrong! They were perfectly firm on the inside, but ugly and rotten looking on the exterior. Then the best part...I looked up and there it was $0.29 cents a lb!!! Hello, "I think I hit the mother load" I say to Alexis. She looks oddly at me, then I explain how these are 1/2 the price of "normal" bananas, but 1/3 the price of "ORGANIC!" She shrugs and says "ok." lol (Yes, I'm crazy, yes, I love a bargain, yes, my children eat tooonnns of bananas) Seriously, there was an entire pile of bananas lookin' all ugly and being perfect inside, and calling my name! Ha *There were 3 more bunches that I had already cut up to freeze that aren't pictured*

What does one do with so many bananas?!? I cut up the worst looking ones to freeze, since I figured they'd go bad first. Placed them on cookie sheets.

Cleared out two shelves in the freezer for all these beauties, froze them, then placed them in a Ziploc baggie for smoothies!

This is the scrumptious banana bread that we made.

It's supposed to be a healthy recipe, but I was out of all the healthy stuff, so I improvised to make this:

Banana Tea Party Bread

*1 3/4 cup Flour (whole wheat)
*2 tsp Baking Powder
*1/2 tsp Salt
*1/2 tsp Cinnamon
*1/3 cup Brown Sugar

-On a separate plate, I mashed and combined:
*2 Bananas
*4 Tbsp Olive Oil (canola oil)
*4 Tbsp Sour Cream (plain yogurt)
*2 tsp Vanilla Extract

-Then add and combine the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients bowl.

-Pour batter into loaf pan 9x5. Sprinkle with Brown Sugar over the top, for a crunchy sugary topping!

*Bake at 350 degrees for 45-55 minutes (or until knife comes out clean)

*() these are the ingredients that I didn't have. ;)

YUM!

Baby Food

After a conversation with the ladies at the park yesterday I was inspired to make something "homemade", and I decided...baby food. You can't really go wrong, right?! Also, my camera battery died so I couldn't take pics, but as soon as it's charged I'll make more and post. :)

*BAKED APPLES

-2 Apples, cored
-A pat of Butter for each
-Cinnamon

*Core your apples, then put your pat of butter in the opening, sprinkle with some cinnamon. Place in a pan (I used a loaf pan) fill with about an inch or two of water. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes until soft (I turned them over half way through cooking).

*Once cooked, slice into chunks and place in a food processor. Pulse for a few seconds, look at the consistency and add a spoon full or two of left over water through the top of processor. Continue until desired consistency is met. Spoon into a muffin tin and place in freezer. Let it freeze overnight until frozen. On a sheet pan, fill with an inch or so of hot water, place muffin tin on it and wait a minute then remove, and turned upside down and they should come out just like ice from an ice cube tray!

**I wrapped each "puck" in plastic wrap, then foil and labeled for the freezer. I hear they last for 1 month. Miss Shelby enjoys eating them frozen to relieve teething pains. The big kids tried them, and asked if I could make more and make them into Popsicles...sounds a little gross, but they assure me it's really good. :)

*CARROTS

-As many Carrots as you want to cook (I used 4 or 5 big ones)

*Wash and remove ends of carrots. Chop into one inch chunks. Place a few inches of water into a stock pot, add a steamer pan/basket over top, turn stove onto high, put a lid on. Once boiling, add carrots to steamer pan/basket. Allow to cook for about 10-15 minutes or until tender.

*Add cooked carrots to food processor. Pulse for a few seconds, look at the consistency and add a spoon full or two of left over water through the top of processor (I think I read that if your baby is under 7 months of age, you SHOULD NOT use the left over water! Something about NITRATES. Use breast milk, or fresh water instead). Continue until desired consistency is met. Spoon into a muffin tin and place in freezer. Let it freeze overnight until frozen. On a sheet pan, fill with an inch or so of hot water, place muffin tin on it and wait a minute then remove, and turned upside down and they should come out just like ice from an ice cube tray!

**I wrapped each "puck" in plastic wrap, then foil and labeled for the freezer. I hear they last for 1 month.

Super simple and super healthy for you wee one!

Raspberry Parfait

We tried this one for breakfast last week, and Loved it! I honestly didn't think that I would, but it was really good. It was a little tart, so if you try it, you might want to use sugared strawberries, and raisins, or something less sour than plain raspberries, and Craisins. You might also want to cut this recipe in half, unless you want extra.

Serves 8

Ingredients:
*1 cup of Crasins
*3 tsp. finely shredded orange peel (set aside)
*6 Tbsp. orange juice
*2 tsp. vanilla
*2 8oz. packages of cream cheese, softened
*3 Tbsp. raw cane sugar
*2 cups frozen raspberries (fresh when in season)
*2 cups homemade granola (I used the recipe from "Fix, Freeze, Feast" book)
*Honey
*Shredded orange peel (optional)

1. In a small bowl combine Craisins and orange juice. Cover and microwave for 45 seconds; let stand 1 minute to plump Craisins. Stir in vanilla; set aside.
2. In a mixer combine cream cheese and sugar; beat on medium speed until smooth. Stir in Craisin mixture and the 3 tsp. of orange peel.
3. In 6 tall glasses layer cream cheese mixture, granola, raspberries, and repeat layers. Drizzle with honey and top with additional orange peel.

*I made this big of a recipe so that I could have leftovers. Just put your cream cheese mixture into a sealed container and store in the fridge. It's quick and easy to put together in the morning. We used wine glasses for fun...it looked really pretty, and the kids thought it was a great treat!