Sugar Coated Pecans

There are lots of fancy food gifts that are given at Christmas time. These are fancy. These are easy. These are delicious! Whenever I make these pecans, no one can keep their hands off of them. And making these yourself will save you tons of money on buying something similar to serve or give away. (And anyone who receives them will be begging you to make them more! Soon!)



Sugar Coated Pecans

1 egg white
1 tablespoon water
1 pound pecan halves
1 cup sugar
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 250ºF. Grease a cookie sheet that has sides.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the egg white and water until frothy. In a separate bowl mix together sugar, salt and cinnamon.

Add pecans to egg white mixture, stir to coat nuts evenly. Remove the nuts and toss them in the sugar mixture until coated. Spread nuts on prepared baking sheet.

Bake at 250ºF for 1 hour. Stir every 15 minutes.

Enjoy!!

Country Breakfast Casserole

Due to some technical difficulties, I was not able to get my recipe up last night. But here is today's recipe, just a little late!

This recipe is from one of my favorite websites, Allrecipes.com. They have so many wonderful recipes there, with lots of user reviews and often, pictures of the recipes. Country breakfast casserole is one of those yummy, homey brunch recipes that everyone seems to love. It has eggs, sausage, gravy, cheese. Really, what's not to love? It is very easy to put together and has become a favorite at our house. When you have family all gathered around for breakfast, why not try this? It is delicious.


Country Breakfast Casserole

1 16 oz. package bulk sausage
2 green onions, chopped
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
6 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup water
½ cup milk
1 2.64 oz. package country gravy mix
5-6 slices bread, cut into 1 inch cubes
2 tablespoons butter, melted
paprika, to taste

Preheat oven to 325ºF. Grease an 11 x 7 inch baking dish.

Brown sausage in a large skillet; drain fat.

Combine sausage with green onion and spread evenly across the bottom of the baking dish. Top with shredded cheese. Whisk together eggs, water, milk and gravy mix; pour over cheese and spread evenly. Arrange bread squares evenly on top. Drizzle melted butter over the bread and sprinkle with paprika.

Bake 40 minutes or until knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool 10 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

Classic Dinner Rolls

Last year I ended my 12 recipes of Christmas with my pretty and tasty Pumpkin Knot Rolls. This year I am adding another yeast dinner roll to the list of recipes because I just enjoy making (and eating) them so much. This is a faster and simpler roll than the pumpkin knot rolls. It is made with quick rising yeast so one of the rising periods of traditional yeast breads is replaced with a ten minute resting period. You will get lots of ooohs and aaahs for homemade rolls, and these make your kitchen smell heavenly!


Classic Dinner Rolls

2 - 2¼ cups all purpose flour
1 envelope rapid rise yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup milk
¼ cup water
2 tablespoons butter

Combine 3/4 cup flour, undissolved yeast, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Heat milk, water and butter until very warm (120ºF to 130ºF). Add to flour mixture. Beat 2 minutes at medium speed of an electric mixer, scraping bowl occasionally. Add 1/4 cup flour; beat 2 minutes at high speed. Stir in enough remaining flour to make a soft dough. Knead on a lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic, about 8 to 10 minutes. Cover and let rest 10 minutes.

Divide dough into 12 equal pieces; shape into balls. Place in greased 8-inch round pan. Cover; let rise in warm draft free place until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

Bake in preheated 375ºF oven for 20 minutes or until done. Remove from pan; brush with additional melted butter if desired. Serve warm.

Yield: 12 rolls


Notes: I make this dough in my stand mixer, which has a dough hook. I do all the kneading with the dough hook, which leaves my hands free to grease the pan and clean up the inevitable mess I've made of the flour or other ingredients on my kitchen counter. In the winter my kitchen is colder than in the summer and my rolls usually take more than 30 minutes to double in size. If I want to hurry the process along, I will sometimes turn my oven to 200ºF and place the pan on the cook top. This seems to provide just enough warmth to move the rising process along to meet my time constraints. This has become one of my favorite go to roll recipes when making homemade rolls. I hope you give it a try and enjoy them as much as my family does!

Only 10 more recipes until Christmas!

Butter Meltaways

I had to start my third "The 12 Recipes of Christmas" with a cookie. Nothing says Christmas to me more than Christmas cookies. This is a fairly simple butter cookie that looks pretty on the cookie plate, but more importantly tastes great. It has a great crunchy texture and a sweet, buttery taste that children and adults alike enjoy. You can easily sprinkle this cookie with plain granulated sugar, but at Christmas time I like to mix some red and green sugar in to give it a festive appearance.


Butter Meltaways

½ cup butter, softened
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup sugar
½ cup powdered sugar
1 egg
½ teaspoon vanilla
2 ¼ cups flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
additional sugar

In a mixing bowl, cream butter, oil, and sugars. Add egg and vanilla. Mix. Combine flour, baking soda and cream of tartar; gradually add to the creamed mixture. Mix until all ingredients are incorporated. Chill several hours or overnight. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart on ungreased or parchment lined baking sheets. Flatten each dough ball lightly with a glass dipped in sugar. Bake in preheated oven at 350ºF for 12-14 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on wire racks.

Yield: 5 dozen


Notes: To make the sugar stick to the bottom of the glass, flatten one dough ball first, then dip in sugar and press on cookie again. Next dip glass bottom in sugar before flattening each cookie. You an easily add colored sugar to granulated sugar, or use all colored sugar if desired. Please use a vegetable oil with little to no flavor. I use pure canola oil. Enjoy!

The Recipes Are Coming!

I will be launching my third annual "The 12 Recipes of Christmas" tomorrow. There will be another round of fantastic recipes for you to try during the holidays. I make each and every one of these recipes and they have all become cherished at our house. I will have some new recipes that I just discovered this year, along with some old favorites that make our Christmas special each year. I hope you will all come along with me and discover a few favorites for your families, too!

Chocolate

I have a confession to make. I have a new addiction. It's not Bejeweled Blitz or Facebook, (though some in my family may argue otherwise).

I can't stop buying chocolate chips! I currently have eight (8!) unopened bags in my pantry, and that doesn't count the four opened bags I have in there as well. (Or the two bars of bittersweet baking chocolate.)


I can't help it. I love to bake with them, and when the good quality ones go on sale, I stock up. I have nothing against the store brands, in fact I'll purchase them when nothing else is on sale or they are on sale for a great price. But when Nestle's, Hershey's and my all time favorite, Ghirardelli's go on sale, I can't seem to help myself.

In my defense, they are not all semi-sweet. Some are dark chocolate or bittersweet, some are mini's, and one is even white chocolate. And let's face it, this time of year every store puts the name brand chips on sale. And, the manufacturers have all put out coupons, making the savings even greater. So I have lots of chocolate chips at the ready for all kinds of baked goodies. Now the question is, what do I bake first?

A Few Cakes

I know my blogging is erratic at best, but I'm trying to get back into it. I am planning on having my 12 Recipes of Christmas again starting in December, and need to get back in the habit of posting (semi) regularly.

I have been making a lot of desserts and cakes lately. In fact, I took a Wilton's beginner cake decorating course back in August and really enjoyed it. It was a gift from my husband who knew I would love it, but probably needed a little nudge to get into it. A lot of it I already knew, but there were some new techniques and tips that I took from the class and has helped improve my cake decorating skills.



I made this cake for my friend Lola who had a little girl in July. This was actually the "graduation" cake I made for my Wilton course. I was really happy with how it turned out. I used a technique called pattern gel transfer to "trace" the outline of the sheep onto the cake. I was really pleased with how it turned out and enjoyed giving it to Lola's family to enjoy. It was a vanilla cake with almond buttercream.



This was my son's 11th birthday cake. He is a big Cubs fan and wanted a big cake to celebrate with. He had a laser tag party with several of his friends, three of which are White Sox fan. They ate the cake, but it did take a little prodding. This is a chocolate chocolate chip cake with vanilla buttercream.



This was my daughter's 8th birthday cake this year. She had asked me several months before her party if she could have a four tiered cake! I told her sure, and she proceeded to sit down and draw a picture of how she wanted her cake. She had an arts and crafts birthday party in our basement and the girls were thrilled with the cake. Half of it is chocolate chocolate chip, the other half vanilla cake. All with vanilla a buttercream.



I made this cake for a cake walk at my kids' school. It is a 6-inch chocolate chocolate chip cake with chocolate buttercream icing. It is "wrapped" in Kit Kats and topped with M&M's. This cake was popular and went quickly!

I plan on sharing more cakes soon. I still have a few more that I am proud of and have never shared here. Hope you have enjoyed seeing them as much as I enjoyed making them.

Happy Halloween - Cookie Style

I have been dying to make new cookies and test out my decorating talents. I finally did! I am the room mom for my daughter's first grade class, and as such was in charge of her Halloween party this year. Along with planning crafts and games, I came up with some cute cut out cookies to decorate and take in for the kids to eat.


I already had several Halloween cookie cutters, but while hunting for a (cheap) cape for my third grade daughter's vampire costume at Goodwill, I found a set of brand new, still in the package, Wilton Halloween cookie cutters, three of which I did not have. I bought them for 99 cents and added them to my other cookie cutters.


I decided on five different cookie shapes: a ghost, pumpkin, black cat, two different bats, and a Frankenstein. I didn't actually have a Frankenstein cookie cutter, so I used a crimped round cutter and made the face myself. The cookies are chocolate sugar cookies, and the cookie glaze is an allrecipes.com cookie icing recipe. So simple!


The results were pretty much what I was looking for, and the kids all really loved them! I had a lot of fun, too. I think my favorite are the Franks and the ghosts. Now I'm dreaming about pretty Christmas cookies!

Allrecipes Excitement!

It is no secret in my house that one of my favorite websites is Allrecipes.com. So many wonderful recipes with comments and ratings by the users. And most of the recipes are from home cooks like me, so they are very doable and don't usually have exotic ingredients. They also have pictures of the recipes, most posted by users. I love seeing a picture of what I'm going to cook. I have submitted several of my own pictures and enjoy seeing them pop up next to a recipe here and there.

Each day the website has a contest with all the pictures submitted and the top four vote getters are featured the next day on the Allrecipes home page. Yesterday I was picture #3 - the cupcake cookie. That's my username - JOSEPHINE. So excited! I've tried many times to make it into the top four, but this is my first time. Hopefully it won't be my last!

Cookies!!!

I have been away from the blog for awhile now, and I'm trying to get my toes wet again with a new post, hopefully to be followed by more posts.

So my new found passion is cake and cookie decorating. I can't call it new, really. I have been making my kid's birthday cakes for many years now. And I have always aspired to make pretty cookies. But my husband reignited a passion when for an anniversary gift he signed me up for a Wilton cake decorating class. I have thoroughly enjoyed it, and have started searching out cake and cookie related sites and blogs. One of my new favorites is Bakerella. She has some amazing recipes and something called cake pops that I'm dying to try my hand at. (I'll post if I ever actually do!) While searching her blog, I discovered her pretty cookies and found out that she was inspired by a book called "Cookie Craft". I checked it out of the library and was hooked!

I made my first set of fancy cookies two days ago, and decorated them yesterday. I have to admit, for a first effort I'm pretty impressed. I used the sugar cookie recipe from the book but used my own cookie icing recipe that I had tried previously. I loved the results. I used an apple cookie cutter that I've had for quite some time but had never used, and my brand new cupcake cookie cutter I bought at Crate and Barrel last month.

Because I didn't want to make too many icing colors (I am a bit lazy) I frosted the leaf of the apple with white icing and covered it with green sugar. The stem was the same brown I used for the cupcake cups, and then I used red for the perfect apple. I think anybody who loves apples would love a plate of these yummy cookies!

The cupcake cookies reminded Brendan and I more of sundaes than cupcakes, but I love them anyways. I struck to a simple white frosting for each one (see note above about laziness) and made brown cupcake cups for each one. I did try various different sprinkles and designs so that there were several different kind of cupcakes on the plate. I topped most of the cookies with the a red cherry on top (made with the apple red frosting).

All in all I'm quite satisfied with my cookies. The best part is they taste great, too.

Easter Cakes

We celebrated Easter a week early with my family and this year my mom asked me to make some cake for the festivities. Now if you know my family, you will know that they are not cake people. (Not my husband and kids, but the family I grew up in, and funny enough, all the spouses of my brothers and sister, except mine of course!) They would rather eat pie, cheesecake, baklava, buckeyes, ice cream, dirt pudding, cookies, etc. over cake.

But my mom knows how much I like making cake and thought it might be a nice change for us. So, I searched for some easy and cute cake ideas for Easter. Being that I was traveling to Ohio and making everything there, I didn't want anything too elaborate. I found the bunny cake idea here, and the chick cupcake idea, here.

I made chocolate cake for the two bunnies. The white bunny was made from a round 9-inch pan, the brown bunny from a round 8-inch pan. They were supposed to look like a mommy and baby, but my mom pointed out that it looked more like a mom and teenager bunny.

I made vanilla buttercream for the bigger bunny, and chocolate buttercream for the littler bunny. The ears are just cut out from paper and of course the eyes and nose are jelly beans. The chick cupcakes were lemon cake with lemon buttercream frosting. Delicious!


I was very happy with how cute they were, and the eleven grandkids all thought they were adorable. That didn't stop them from devouring them, though!

Hope you have a great Easter!

A Month for One Birthday!

Zoe turned six this month, but it seemed like we were celebrating it one way or another every week this month! I know I baked three different treats for the events, and she made her own ice cream pie to celebrate with. But, it has been fun.


The first treat I baked were cookies called half and halfs. They are a half chocolate chip cookie, and half chocolate chocolate chip cookie, stuck together! I made these extra large and sent them in for her birthday treat for school. According to Zoe, they were a hit!



Because I was making so many cakes/ treats for her birthday parties, I suggested that Zoe make one of her famous ice cream pies for the family to eat on her actual birthday. She chose chocolate ice cream and sprinkled a variety of chocolate chips and sprinkles on top.



The first cake I made was for our family party. Usually, this is the only party my kids have each year. But Zoe has been asking for a "friend" party for quite some time, so we decided that she could have a friend party, too, this year. This cake was a two tier cake. The bottom tier was chocolate chocolate chip cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, the top tier was white almond sour cream cake with almond swiss meringue buttercream. I made the decorations out of marshmallow fondant. Zoe explained the colors and decorations that she wanted, and I came up with this cake.


The following weekend was her friend party. We had ten little girls running around our house having a great time for Zoe's first "friend" party. Zoe loved being the center of attention and also loved her big 6 cake that she requested I make for this party. I took two nine inch chocolate cakes, cut a hole in the middle of one and carved the other one to look like the top of a six. Then I frosted over the whole thing with vanilla buttercream frosting. Zoe requested orange frosting with polka dots, so that is what she got! I was very happy with how the cake turned out.

Overall, I think Zoe would say that her month of birthdays (and treats) was a good one!

Writing - 2nd Grade Style

My daughter's 2nd grade class had a writing party for the parents today. It was meant to show us all the growth the children had made in their writing skills since the beginning of the year. The kids' journals, several stories they wrote, and their spelling sentences notebooks were all out for us to peruse and comment on. There were snacks and beverages, too.

About half an hour into the party, the parents were asked to sit at their child's desk. The kids got out a pencil for their parents and a paper was handed out to each student. At the top of the paper was a writing prompt that our kids picked out specifically for us. Some were "What is your favorite color? And Why?" or "What is your favorite animal? And Why?" or even "What is your favorite Bible story." Emma's assignment for me was "The best joke is . . . " I immediately got nervous. Couldn't think of any jokes. Not one.

Then the students were asked to walk away from their parents to give them some room to write. I thought for a few moments and then the words began to flow. This is what I came up with (and later had to read to the entire class filled with parents and students!):

In my life I have heard many jokes that make me laugh. My kids try to tell me jokes all the time, just to see if they can make me giggle. And while I love all kinds of jokes, my favorite one came from a popsicle stick.

Every summer my kids devour boxes and boxes of popsicles. And every time they eat one, they (or I) read the joke out loud. The summer of 2004 we came across a simple joke that to this day still tickles my funny bone.

Here it is:
What did the girl melon say to the boy melon when he asked her to marry him?
We're too young. We cantaloupe.

I had forgotten how much fun it can be to write from a prompt. As an adult, I rarely take the time to explore some free expression through writing (other than this blog, of course). I think I would enjoy it again.

A Good Album

Are you looking for a good album that the whole family can enjoy? (Okay, I can't guarantee it for teenagers, but all other age ranges are included.)

On the way to school today with the van full of carpool kids, we listened to an old favorite of our's, "No" by They Might Be Giants. This has to be the best "kids" album out there.

It will not make the parents cringe when they hear the first strains of the first song, it will not make the big brother groan that he has to listen to little kid music, and it will not make the little sisters whine to put on different music.

It will make you want to hear as many songs as you can before you have to get out of the van and go to school, it will make your mom leave it playing, even after the kids go to school because the songs are so fun, and it will have every kid (and parent) singing along at the top of their lungs to every tune.

This is what happened this morning in our van. I was driving six kids to school, my three plus three others. About half way to our destination, Ian finds the "No" CD and puts it in. Two seconds later the whole van is singing Fibber Island. This is no small feat. My passengers are one sixth grade boy, two fifth grade boys, two second graders, a girl and a boy, and one kindergarten girl. Oh yeah, and me, the 37 year old chauffeur. By the time we were listening to John Lee Supertaster the three youngest kids were swaying and moving like backup singers and telling the older boys to, "Look at us!"

It was a great way to start the morning!

College Fun

When I was several years younger, I attended John Carroll University. I am a proud graduate and alumni of many years and have lots of fond memories of the old alma mater.

One of the fixtures on the campus is what many students referred to as the "big head." It is a statue of our school's namesake, Archbishop John Carroll.

This is what it normally looks like:


However, apparently several of the students took advantage of all the snow in Cleveland right now and had some fun with the statue before leaving on Spring Break. Archbishop John Carroll currently looks like this:


I love it!

Winter Fun

Since it seems we can't get away from the white fluffy stuff just yet, I thought I'd post some pictures of my family having fun in it. This is from a sledding trip a little earlier this winter.

This is my oldest walking up the hill with his sled.


This is my middle child. She was thrilled when I bought her pink snow pants last year (thank goodness they still fit!) instead of the usual black hand-me down snow pants from her brother that she usually has to wear.


This is my youngest. She got pretty tired walking up and down the hill all afternoon, but had a great time anyways!


Here's my youngest again with her dad. We only have one sled that multiple riders can go on, so Brendan and I went on a lot of rides with the kids.


Brendan caught this photo of all the kids and I trekking up the hill once again. By this time the toes in my right foot were a block of ice, and I decided that after one last run I was going back to the van for some hot chocolate!


And finally, some pictures of the parents, who probably enjoyed the day sledding as much as the kids. (Nothing like flying down a hill on a piece of molded plastic to make you feel like a kid again!)

Pig Cookies

I made these little piggy cookies yesterday for my daughter's second grade class. They spent almost a month reading Charlotte's Web and yesterday took the big test over the whole book. Today they are watching the movie and I thought these would be the perfect treat to eat during the show.

They are really easy to make and don't even need any cookie cutters! Take your favorite sugar cookie dough and roll it out. Cut into circles with a drinking glass. Use a small spice jar or extract lid to cut out the small circle for the snout. (I actually used the large side of a frosting decorating tip.) Cut out a small square out of the dough scraps. Cut in half into two triangles. Place at top of circle like two ears. Cut two slits into the snout with sharp knife. Sprinkle with pink sanding sugar and use two chocolate chips for eyes. Bake as directed. Simple, cute, and yummy!

Reading

Last night I was reading stories to my daughter, Zoe, before bedtime. She chose the first book, If You Give a Pig A Pancake, one of her current favorites. Weary of reading the same six books over and over again for months, I suggested that maybe I could pick the second book. she happily agreed and I came back with Mike Mulligan And His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton. While I had probably read this book at least 100 times to Zoe's older brother when he was a little guy, I had never read it to her.

I began reading and she listened intently and studied the illustrations on each page. She felt bad for the steam shovels that were left "to rust and fall apart." She excitedly waited to see if Mike and Mary Anne could dig Popperville's cellar in just one day. She wondered how Mike could get out of the cellar as they built the town hall over him and Mary Anne. She proclaimed the book "Great!"

But the best part was when I read about Henry B. Swap. If you will recall, he was one of Popperville's selectmen who thought he could get part of the cellar dug for free by taking on Mike Mulligan's challenge that if he and Mary Anne could not dig the cellar in just one day, they would not get paid. When he thought about this, "he smiled in rather a mean way." When I read that sentence Zoe sat and thought for a few moments then looked up at me and said, "I don't have an evil smile because God doesn't want me to have one." So true, and wise beyond her years!

Turning 37

Back at the end of December I celebrated my 37th birthday. My morning started by taking my 10 year old son to 7:00 AM mass because he was an altar server. On the way home we stopped and got some birthday donuts to share with everyone.


We are not into grand celebrations, but Brendan took the day off from work and we spent the day together as a family. At some point Brendan made some excuse to leave and brought me back these gorgeous flowers. I let each of my three kids pick a board game and I played each one with them. I made something for dinner and we ate at home.


Lots of my friends and family asked if I made myself some fancy cake. The answer is: No. I made myself homemade cinnamon rolls. And not just any cinnamon rolls, but the most delicious and yummy cinnamon rolls I have ever made or probably eaten in my life. They were huge, soft, and gooey. I made a delicious cream cheese frosting that sent the rolls from great to FANTASTIC! And the best thing, the recipe made 17 rolls. So we had rolls the next morning and later the next day for a snack! We stuck a candle in one of the rolls and my kids and husband sang "Happy Birthday" to me.


After the rolls I opened my awesome gift. It is a heated mattress pad! If you have never had one, just imagine your cold, chilly bed preheated to a cozy warm temperature. Aaaah, I've enjoyed it everyday since!

Snow Time Again

Every year I write about making and eating snow ice cream with my kids. It is one of the winter rituals my kids look forward to every year. And with the amount of snow that is being predicted for our area coming in the next few days, I thought I would again post about snow ice cream.

The pictures here are from December 27, 2009. Our Christmas eve this year was white and the kids were able to sing "White Christmas" on the way to their Grandpa's house on that evening as we had gotten a few inches of snow the week before. Christmas day, however, was a different story. It rained much of the day and all the white snow lined yards turned to a mucky green.


On December 26, the rain turned back into snow and we got close to a foot of snow. My kids urged me to "put out the bowl" to collect the snow so that we could make our first batch of snow ice cream of the season. I made my husband do it (I didn't want to go out on the cold, snowy deck to place the bowl on the grill) and it sat there until December 27. After I unsuccessfully attempted to open the screen door which was hopelessly frozen shut, I put on my boots, my hat and scarf, my gloves and winter coat and went out the front door to trudge around to the back of the deck to collect the now full bowl of snow.


I brought the bowl inside and began making the snow ice cream. It's rather simple, really. Start pouring in half and half and stir the mixture occasionally. When it begins to resemble soft serve ice cream, add 1/2 cup of sugar and a little vanilla extract. Taste and decide whether it needs more sugar or not. If you run out of half and half, milk can be used to finish the mixture until the right texture is achieved. Eat immediately!


This particular batch used a full pint of half and half. After that ran out, I used some whole milk that was leftover from a fudge recipe. Being lactose intolerant, I declined to eat any ice cream (besides the little tastes to ensure good flavor). My kids, however, ate almost the whole bowl. It is a fun (and yummy) tradition!