Thanksgiving Desserts for your holiday dinner!

Happy Thanksgiving!!! This year I will be spending my turkey day a little different, but let me explain... I am only cooking a few things, WHAT!!!! Did she say only a few things??? YES MA'AM! Well I usually do everything myself but this year my husband's family is making this a joint\family effort. So since I am the cookie queen, I get desserts, cranberry sauce and I made some apple cranberry stuffing...

Cookie #1 are my magical chocolate chip cookies

Recipe for about 2 dozen depending on size
Preheat oven to 350
2 and 1/4 cups of flour
1 teaspon of baking powder
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup of white sugar
1 box of vanilla pudding dry
1 tsp of vanilla
1 cup of soften not melted butter
2 eggs
2 cups of milk chocolate chips

Mix all dry ingredients first (flour, baking powder, sugar, packaged dry pudding) in one bowl.

 

Beat eggs, butter, vanilla together in another bowl
combine the wet bowl with the dry bowl until dough forms.
add chocolate chips and mix by hand just a few times until it looks like below

Bake on 350 for 10-12 minutes, the edges will start to turn light brown. Do not over bake.


Cookie #2 White chocolate cranberry cookies

Recipe for about 2 dozen depending on size
Preheat oven to 350
2 and 1/4 cups of flour
1 teaspon of baking powder
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup of white sugar
1 box of vanilla pudding dry
1 tsp of vanilla
1 cup of soften not melted butter
2 eggs
2 cups of white baking chips
1 cup of craisins or dehydrated cranberries.

Mix all dry ingredients first (flour, baking powder, sugar, packaged dry pudding) in one bowl.
Beat eggs, butter, vanilla together in another bowl
combine the wet bowl with the dry bowl until dough forms.
add white chocolate chips and craisins and mix by hand just a few times until it looks like below

Bake on 350 for 10-12 minutes, the edges will start to turn light brown. Do not over bake.

Cookie #3 Pumpkin Caramel Cookies 

1/2 cup baking butter, room temperature

1 + 1/2 cups granulated sugar, divided

1/3 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 + 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons + 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, divided

1/8 pumpkin spice

1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 (14 ounce) bag Kraft Caramels

 In a large mixing bowl beat the butter and 1 cup sugar together for about 2-3 minutes. Add the pumpkin and vanilla mix by hand until it looks like above.

In a small bowl whisk together the flour, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, pumpkin spice, ginger, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add to the sugar mixture just until combined. Refrigerate 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes scoop up very slightly rounded tablespoons of the dough, stick a caramel in the center and roll into a ball (TIP COVER YOUR HANDS IN FLOUR SO THE DOUGH MIXTURE DOESN'T STICK TO YOUR HANDS). Set on one of the parchment lined cookie sheets please do not let them touch each other. Repeat until all the cookie dough is used up. Refrigerate at least 2 hours.

After 2 hours preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Whisk the remaining 1/2 cup sugar with 2 tablespoons cinnamon in a wide, shallow bowl. Roll the cookies in the cinnamon sugar and bake 2 inches apart for 14 minutes.

line them up on parchment paper at least 2 inches apart, I also used spray butter on the parchment paper.

Bake for about 12-14 minutes at 350, do not over bake.

I will post some more holiday recipes later on. :-) Hope you enjoy!

DIY Party Favor Ideas & Flower Girl Basket

I've been quite a little busy bee lately working on several projects. I wanted to share a few of those things with you.

I made these for party favors, they can be used for engagement parties, bridal showers, baby showers, weddings, etc. They were very inexpensive to create. I bought the mints in bulk at Sams Club for $8.00 for 24.  I bought the paper and flowers at Michaels for less than $4.00 (big sale and coupons).  I already purchased the burlap type yarn at Walmart. I created the wording in MS Word and printed on regular white card stock and cut.

-Cut the paper to the size of the wrapper of the mints leaving some of the silver showing. Cut it about 3.5 inches long
-roll the paper around the mint securing it with craft glue
-wrap the burlap style yard around the mint holding it with a tie/knot
-use a hole punch and put a hole in the top corner of the white cardstock printed saying and place the burlap yarn through the hole.
- create a bow as you were tying your shoes
-glue the paper flower on with craft bond glue and your all set.



The next project I worked on was Flower Seed Packets. I cut the paper a little bigger than the actual seed packet. I scored big on the seeds, picking them up at the dollar tree for 10 cents each. Then I folded the paper twice, I folded the bottom up almost covering the whole packet then folded the upper half. I punched a hole through both folds and tied it up with burlap ribbon/yarn. I printed out a cute saying and cut them out to fit on the seed packet.

The next project was a flower girl basket. I had a little basket, then I hot glued the blue ribbon around the handle, I cut pieces of white tulle then I hot glued the pieces of tulle all around the basket making it look like a tutu then covered the ends of the tulle with orange ribbon. I also have orange flower petals in the basket.

Fall back Monday with Blacklist, Corn Dog and Strawberry Cheesecake...

Fall back Monday was quite a boring day at work, I pretty much counted the minutes until I was heading home. It was really cold and windy today. I guess that's why I couldn't wait to go home and snuggle up with my better half.  Not to mention one extra hour yesterday means driving home from work when its dark. WAAA WAAA.

I've never been much of a TV buff but tonight a new Blacklist comes on. I have to say I am quite addicted to this show. I LOVE JAMES SPADER and his character Red Reddington... He is superb in this show and definitely keeps me guessing. I do believe he will end up being Elizabeth Keene's father. Just a wild guess because he acts like a father figure and seems to know very much about her and her childhood.

So here I am sitting at home eating a state fair corn dog and strawberry cheesecake (recipe below), there went my diet... I will pretty much tell you running on the treadmill just went out the window. haha!

No Bake Strawberry Cheesecake Recipe: 

For the crust or purchase a graham cracker pre-made pie crust
1 package of graham crackers
4 tablespoons of melted butter
2 tablespoon of sugar

For the Cheesecake:

1 pound of cream cheese
1/2 cup of heavy cream
1 tsp of vanilla
1/2 cup of powered sugar

Strawberry Topping:

1 pound fresh (washed and cut) or frozen strawberries
1/4 cup of sugar
1 pkg of gelatin can be strawberry or plain
1 tsp of vanilla
4 tablespoons of water (if you need to add more water, just make sure to have cornstarch on hand to thicken the sauce)

Prepare the crust:
Use a blender or food processor and grind the crackers up into a fine powder, add remaining ingredients and blend until smooth, then push mixture using your fingers or a spoon into a 8 or 9 inch pie plate. The slides should slightly come up.

Prepare the topping:
In a sauce pan combine strawberries, sugar and 2 tablespoons of water and cook over medium to low heat until soft. sprinkle gelatin and add remaining water. Whisk the gelatin until smooth then sit pot to side of stove to cool.

Prepare the cheesecake:
 Mix the cream cheese, sugar, heavy cream on low to medium until smooth. Add vanilla and mix a few more seconds.

Final Steps:
Pour the cheesecake mixture into the graham cracker crust pan. Let it sit for an 1-2 hours then pour chilled strawberry topping on top and return to fridge for 1-2 hours (best over night)

Slice and Serve!!!!

Crazy Weather, Shepherds Pie and Happy Friday!

First of all it from freezing cold to 80 pretty much over night and I can't say I am terribly unhappy about that, it surely was nice to go trick n treating in warm weather. I can't say my owl or hubby was thrilled about the warm up. She was a cat wearing a velvet long sleeve dress with hood and boas and he was Garfield.  I think they both enjoyed their costumes better the previous weekend when it was 60. They were both good sports and we had a blast last night.  Unfortunately the warm weather is not here to stay, cold front coming in tonight and tomorrow we are back in the 60's.  boo-hoo!

So I have the left over chili and a 10 pound bag of red potatoes I desperately need to use.  I figured I would combine the two, for tonight's dinner.  So you ask WHAT'S FOR DINNER?

Shepherds Pie


So here is what you'll need:

Left over chili
1 can of corn drained
1 can of peas or lima beans drained
1 can of carrots drained
baking dish
potatoes peeled and diced
water
salt
butter
garlic
cheese if desired

First boil the water and salt on the stove in a pot
add peeled and diced potatoes and cook until tender/soft
drain the potatoes
add a few teaspoons of butter & garlic & cheese if desired to pot, add cooked potatoes and MASH!!!
Butter or spray butter a baking dish (glass or metal)
Add chili and all drained canned veggies to greased pan
top with mash potaotes
and baked on 350 for 20-30 minutes or until potatoes are browned.