Salty Cookies

I’ve decided to slowly post once more with my dial-up, before my high-speed gets hooked up today. That’s right–today!!

Can you tell I’m a little excited?

For all of you who commented on the sugar cookies–please, come share them!

I accidently tried to make them off the top of my head read the recipe wrong, and instead of 1/4 tsp salt, I put in 1 tsp.  Huge difference! 

Luckily, I am a cookie dough eater.  It’s true.  Sometimes I even make cookies, not necessarily because I want cookies, although that is definitely a perk, but because I want cookie dough.  I know, sad but true.   Although after tasting the dough last night, I may have cured myself from my cookie dough love.  Yuck!  It actually made me sick to my stomach. 

Oh, who am I kidding, I’ll probably still be sampling my cookie dough when I’m making cookies for my grandkids.

Because I am cheap, I couldn’t just throw out the dough, no, I decided to not just double, not just triple, but quadruple the recipe.  I actually had to run to town to get more sugar and butter.

So please, stop by for cookies, and a cup of tea.  We’ll have  a nice little visit.

Just don’t come to early, because between taking a trip to town (yes, I know, it’s only 5 minutes away, I just hate going!)  and feeling icky from the salty dough, the cookies are still in dough form in my fridge.  Give me time to roll, cut, bake, icing and sprinkle them.

Happy Saturday!

The teacher gifts that almost weren’t.

Teacher gifts almost overwhelm me.  There’s so many of them to do.  Every year I say that this is going to be the year that I am organized.  They’ll be thought out, made or bought, and wrapped well in advance.  Ha!  Last year, I was on top of it.  And it was so nice.

This year, I had lofty plans.  On a trip to the city last month, I picked up cute little Christmas loaf pans.  I was going to bake  a loaf of some sort in them, wrap them in cello, tie with a  ribbon, and ta da!  Cute little gift.  Except it didn’t happen that way.    First of all I lost the pans.  Then I found them, but didn’t have enough time to do anything in them.  What to do?  Cause an empty pan just doesn’t say Merry Christams, no matter how cute it is!

Finally I remembered the pan of peanut butter fudge in the fridge that I had made the day before.  So I put some fudge in a little bag, placed it in the pan, tied some festive ribbon around it, added a cute little tag, and…done!  Quick and easy.

Here’s my fudge recipe.  This is such an easy recipe to make.  And very yummy, too.

1 cup butter or margarine

1 cup peanut butter

3 1/2 cups icing sugar

1 tbsp flour

1 tsp vanilla

Melt butter and peanut butter together on stove.

Add icing sugar, flour and vanilla.  Stir well.  Put in 8×8 pan, and chill in fridge.

 

That’s it.  Enjoy!  Let me know if you try it.

Do you have any fool-proof, quick, easy, always-have-the-ingredients-on-hand-recipes?  Share them with me, please!

How many calories in cookie dough?

Is it blowing my diet if I eat a little whole bunch of cookie dough?

Oh, who am I kidding.  Of course it isn’t!  It’s just cookie dough–a bunch of ingredients mixed up together!  There’s no calories in that! 

And at the rate I’m going, there won’t be many cookies anyway. And that’s where the calories are.

~sigh~ If only it really was like that.

Happy Friday everyone!

Pizza, anyone?

Ray was just telling me that he and his apprentice, Mike, went to Pizza Delight for lunch today. As they were finishing up, they noticed two somewhat large men leaving. They got talking to their waitress after, who told them that these two men had eaten…..37 PIECES OF PIZZA at the buffet for lunch!!! Which works out to 4 LARGE PIZZAS!!!

Unbelievable! They definitely got their money worth!

Overheard…….

Mackenzie:  I don’t like that!

Darian:  What, Mackenzie?

M:  I asked Mommy what we gonna have for supper and she said pork chops and me don’t like that!

D: But Mackenzie, pork chops is just meat and you like meat.

M:  No me don’t!

D:  But Mackenzie, you like weiners, don’t you?

M:  Yes.

D:  Well, weiners are just dead pigs, and pork chops are dead pigs too, so you’ll like them! 

M:  Okay, me try them!

Yummy!  Don’t you wish I’d invited you over for supper tonight! 

WFMW: The Clean Plate Club

We have a new club here at the kitchen table.  “The Clean Plate Club”.  We have  a few fussy eaters and nothing seemed to be working.  So Saturday night (with no prior thought or warning)  I blurted out “Who’s going to be a member of the clean plate club tonight?  I know I am.”  Daddy immediately piped up with “I am, too”.  And two of the three kids joined that night.  And were rewarded a cookie after supper.

Now the thing about the club, is that membership expires daily, and so you need to join again everyday.  And sometimes there are treats after, and sometimes not.  You gotta keep them guessing!  But whether the are treats or not, all recieve much praise and accolades, high fives and hugs from Mom and Dad.  Last night we only had four members, instead of five and the kids who joined were rewarded with a piece of sugarless gum after supper.  I’m sure the little girl who missed out last night, will join tonight!  It works for me!

My very first WFMW!  You can find lots of other great tips over at Shannon’s.  Be sure to check it out!

Cinnamon Rolls

I told Shannon ages ago that I would post this recipe for her.  I know there was a story behind it, but I can’t remember it now.  (Shannon, maybe you can refresh my memory!)   I do remember we were talking at church about cinnamon buns, and she told me that she’d never made them before without yeast.  So here it is:

Oh, before I forget, I’m including the recipe for the glaze, but I have never made it.  The first time I made this recipe, they were gobbled up before I had a chance to glaze them.  I decided that since evidently everyone liked them just fine without it……..(and it’s just another bit of sugar that Ray doesn’t need).

Cinnamom Rolls:

2 Cups Flour
3 tsp baking powder
2 tsp white sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 Cup shortening
1 egg, well beaten
1/2 Cup milk
1/4 Cup margarine
1 Cup sugar (more or less)
Cinnamon

Combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Cut in shortening.  Add milk and knead lightly.  Roll into a rectangle, about 1/2 inch thick.  Spread with margarine.  Cover with brown sugar and sprinkle liberally with cinnamon.  Roll and cut in 1-inch pieces,  and place on greased cookie sheet.  Rolls shopuld touch each other.  Bake at 425 F for 8-10 minutes. Partially cool and spread with glaze.

Glaze:

2 Cups icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Milk, as needed to blend

Mackenzie’s Breakfast Order

Mackenzie, what would you like for breakfast?

(Long pause while she thinks about it…..)

“I want peanut butta toast, not put in that thing (the toaster!), with jam, folded, on my cabba…what’s my plate called again?”

“Cabbage Patch Kids plate”

“Two peanut butta toast folded with jam on my own cabba patch plate with juice in my own cup, not a boy cup.”

Translation: A peanut butter and jam sandwich, cut in half on her cabbage patch kids plate with juice in a sippy cup.  Everyday it’s exactly the same.  I don’t know why I ask, except I love the answer!

Thank goodness we don’t have any peanut allergies here.  I think my kids could live on peanut butter!

Chocolate Pudding Recipe

Okay, here it is, the recipe for the yummy chocolate pudding that we had for lunch yesterday. (I hope that it really is yummy, and doesn’t just seem that way to me because of the memories associated with it!)

4 Cups milk
3 eggs
5 Tbsp cornstarch
4Tbsp cocoa
1 1/3 Cups sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

Scald milk. Beat eggs and add dry ingredients, mix well.
Pour into milk while stirring.
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thick, try to get all the lumps out (personally, I don’t mind the lumps, as they remind me of Nanny’s pudding, but I’m sure most people wouldn’t find them quite so enjoyable!)
Remove from heat.
When cool, add vanilla

Chocolate Pudding!

Yum…We’re having chocolate pudding for lunch today. No, I don’t mean the kind that comes in the little plastic containers, and I don’t mean the kind that comes in a box that you mix with milk. I’m talking the old fashioned, cooked on the stove with scalded milk kind. The real stuff!

I have so many memories of this as a kid. I remember Mom making it for Lisa and I when we were very little. How exciting it was to have pudding for lunch! Like having dessert first! I remember that we had to eat our bread and butter with it, and nothing was yummier than bread and butter dipped in chocolate pudding! I can also remember Nanny Dominey making this for her grandkids (there were a lot of us!) in the kitchen of the old house, before the fire. At Nanny’s we always had it with homemade bread, I remember the crusts were so dark, and how I hated them, but the bread itself was so yummy!

When I look back now, with the wisdom that comes from being older, did Nanny make this for us when she had a house full of grandkids because it was inexpensive? That never crossed my mind back then. Or did she make it because she enjoyed the sheer enjoyment that we got from eating chocolate pudding for lunch? That’s why I think she did it!

So today, we’re having chocolate pudding for lunch. And I know that some people would think that it is terrible to feed this to your kids for lunch, but I’m making memories! Besides, it’s got lots of milk, some eggs, and not too much sugar in it. And remember the rule, you have to eat your bread and butter with it!

It should be cooled enough now, so it’s time for lunch. I can’t wait to have that first taste of bread with butter dipped in homemade chocolate pudding. I can already taste it!