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And, we all enjoyed pumpkin bars for dessert that I made last night. They were delicious!

Pumpkin Bars

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups white sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (I omit these)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups canned pumpkin
• 2 teaspoons baking soda

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9×13
pans or one jelly roll/cookie sheet with sides.

Mix all ingredients in order above until well
blended. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Cool completely and frost with cream cheese
frosting (which I use 2 sticks butter, softened, 1 block cream cheese, softened,
2 cups sifted powder sugar, a tad of vanilla)

DELICIOUS - I am telling you!!

One of my favorite shows is Jon & Kate Plus 8… and one episode they show Kate making something called “Monkey Munch”… which reminded me of this recipe I got off of a Chex box when I was a kid… it was for “Puppy Chow”. My sister remembers me making this quite a bit but yet I don’t think I’ve ever made it for my kids. I decided to make a batch tonight for the kids’ snack this week. It turned out so yummy!

Ingredients

• 9 cups Chex cereal (any kind)
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1-2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Directions

1. Measure cereal in large bowl and set aside.
2. Microwave or melt the chocolate chips on the
   stovetop over medium low heat (I prefer stovetop). Stir.
3. Add peanut butter. Stir until smooth.
4. Add butter. Stir until smooth.
5. Add vanilla. Stir.
6. Pour mixture over cereal, stirring until
   coated.
7. Pour mixture into large Ziploc bag and add
   powdered sugar. Shake until well coated. (I find that 1 gallon size ziploc bag
   is just enough room to mix 1 batch of this recipe).
8. Spread on waxed paper to cool.
9. Store in Ziploc bags or large sealed bowl.
   

   

   Oct

   24

   Potato Chowder

   Filed Under my kitchen, recipes | Leave a Comment

   This recipe deserves it’s very own post because it’s so darn good! I found this years ago on a message board I used to frequent called MyCoupons. I don’t go there anymore, but I had taken away many wonderful recipes from the Let’s Get Cooking forum! I’m sorry I don’t know the origin of this recipe, other than I’ve been making it for a good 6 years and consider it our own now.

   

   Potato Chowder
   Serves 8

   Ingredients

   • 8 cups diced peeled potatoes
   • 1/3 cup chopped onion
     
   • 3 14 1/2-ounce cans chicken broth
   • 1 10 3/4-ounce can condensed cream of chicken soup — undiluted
   • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
   • 8 ounces cream cheese — cubed and softened
   • 12 bacon slices — cooked and crumbled, optional

   Directions

   In a slow cooker, combine the first five ingredients. Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours or until potatoes are tender. Add cream cheese; stir until blended, I use my potato masher to combine it to my desired consistency. Garnish with bacon and chives if desired.

   This makes just enough for my family of 7, but if I want leftovers, I usually will have to double the batch, which just BARELY fits in my crockpot

   

   Jun

   24

   Snickers Salad Recipe

   Filed Under my kitchen, recipes | Leave a Comment

   I got this Snickers Salad recipe from my friend Marcy several summers ago… the first time I made it, people confused it with the potato salad and were surprised to find that it was a sweet dish. Once they figured out that it was a dessert, they loved it. Snickers Salad is one of those recipes that EVERYONE asks me to make when we attend a summer gathering. I have made Snickers Salad MANY times!

   Ingredients:
   1 large tub of Cool Whip, thawed
   1 large package of vanilla instant pudding
   1 cup of milk
   6 snickers bars, cut in bite size pieces (those popables work well too) or 3 super size snickers bars
   3 medium size Granny Smith apples or other tart apple, cut up into small chunks

   Directions:
   In a large bowl, combine milk and pudding, then mix in the cool whip. Add the Snickers and then the apples.

   Note: Toss apples with lemon juice to keep them from getting brown.

   

   Jun

   19

   Paula Deen’s Potato Casserole

   Filed Under my kitchen, recipes | Leave a Comment

   I tried out a new recipe for Father’s Day - it was a huge hit… everyone loved it. I’m saving it!

   Potato Casserole
   Courtesty of Food Network

   2 cups mashed potatoes
   1/2 cup sour cream
   House Seasoning, recipe follows
   1 small onion, sliced thin
   1 small bell pepper, sliced thin
   8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter
   1 1/2 cups grated Cheddar
   4 medium potatoes, cooked
   6 slices bacon, cooked crisp

   Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
   Spread mashed potatoes evenly on bottom of casserole dish. Layer sour cream evenly over top. Sprinkle House Seasoning, to taste. Saute onion and bell pepper in butter; evenly layer over top of sour cream. Slice potatoes and layer over onions and bell peppers. Add butter. Sprinkle House seasoning. Finally top with cheese. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from oven and crumble bacon over top.

   Yield: 6 Servings

   Cook’s Note: Leftover mashed potatoes work wonderfully in this recipe.

   House Seasoning:
   1 cup salt
   1/4 cup black pepper
   1/4 cup garlic powder
   Mix ingredients together and store in an airtight container for up to 6 months.

   

   Apr

   25

   Brown Sugar Chewies

   Filed Under my kitchen, recipes | Leave a Comment

   A few nights ago, I had a sweet tooth….. I scanned my pantry, my freezer, my refrigerator and nothing was going to do it for me. I really have been avoiding buying “sweets” that appeal to me, in an effort to eat “healthier”. If it’s not here, I won’t eat it. But…. I needed something. I was about to open a bag of brown sugar and eat it by the spoonful. Then I sat down to my favorite search enginge Google and searched out brown sugar recipes, what I came up with was Brown Sugar Chewies. I got the base of the recipe from Food Network, and added a little twist, by throwing in about a 1/4 c. of chocolate chips and 1/4 c. of butterscotch chips. Apparently these are quite similar to “blonde brownies”? I’ve never had them before, but it sounds like a nice recipe that Grandma would have made…

   Family reviews? Tanner, Ashlyn, and McKenzie loved them. David thought they were good, but not great. Bailey didn’t like them at all. They are gone though… I had a few the night I made them and a couple the next day (I cut them into little bars)… and the kids ate the rest for snack and dessert. This one is a keeper and is relatively inexpensive to make also!

   

   Brown Sugar Chewies

   INGREDIENTS
   1/4 cup butter
   1 cup packed light brown sugar
   1 egg, beaten
   3/4 cup all-purpose flour
   1 teaspoon baking powder
   1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
   1/4 cup chopped pecans (didn’t have them, so I left ‘em out but substituted the chips)
   Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

   DIRECTIONS
   Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray an 8-inch square pan with vegetable oil cooking spray.
   In a small saucepan, melt the butter. Turn off the heat, add the brown sugar and stir until smooth. Stir in the egg. Stir together the flour and baking powder and stir into the brown sugar mixture. Stir in the vanilla and pecans. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes. When cool, dust the top with a sifting of confectioners’ sugar.

   This recipe makes “9 servings”. I doubled it… and it made the plate shown in the picture.

   Apr

   20

   Strawberry Shortcake

   Filed Under my kitchen, recipes | Leave a Comment

   David bought a bunch of strawberries on sale the other day. I’m really bad about letting strawberries go bad before we use them all, because they go bad so quickly. I made a big thing of strawberry topping and shortcake tonight. It was delish!

   
   
   

   Strawberry Shortcake (courtesty allrecipes)

   INGREDIENTS
   3 cups all-purpose flour
   1/4 cup white sugar
   4 teaspoons baking powder
   3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
   1 cup butter
   2/3 cup heavy cream
   1 egg, beaten
   3 cups sliced fresh strawberries
   3 tablespoons white sugar

   DIRECTIONS
   1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
   2) In a large bowl, mix flour, 1/4 cup sugar, baking powder and cream of tartar. Cut in butter with pastry blender or two knives. Stir in cream and egg. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead 2 minutes. Press into a half-inch thick sheet. Cut into squares. Place on baking sheets. 3) Bake in preheated oven 20 minutes, or until golden.

   Strawberry Topping

   Mix 4 cups sliced strawberries and 1/2 c. sugar. Refrigerate 1 hour before serving. Makes 6 servings.

   Apr

   18

   Homemade Maple Syrup

   Filed Under homemade goodies, my kitchen, recipes | 1 Comment

   We had BFD (Breakfast For Dinner) tonight - yum! This is one meal all the kids devour.
   
   We are all out of real syrup… and being on a very tight food budget this week, I couldn’t buy any at the little store in town, so I google’d a few recipes and found one that I thought I’d try from allrecipes.com. It got rave reviews from my kids and even passed David’s taste test with flying colors. The only thing I’d change is maybe adding a bit more maple flavoring next time, I used 1/2 vanilla and 1/2 maple. This is what I came up with (a few tweaks from the original).

   

   Homemade Maple Syrup
   Ingredients:
   1 cup Water
   1 cup Brown Sugar
   1 cup White Sugar
   1/2 tsp maple extract (next time I’ll do 1 full teaspoon)
   1/2 tsp vanilla extract
   About 1/4 c. corn syrup to thicken it up (this could easily be omitted I think)
   
   Directions
   Bring water to a boil in a saucepan over medium heat, add both sugars until dissolved. Add extracts and allow to boil for 5 minutes or so, stirring frequently. Then, slowly stir in Karo syrup, and let sit for a few minutes to thicken (mine sat the entire time I made the pancakes and it was still nice and warm!)

   I’m not sure I will ever buy syrup in the store again. It’s not that authentic $8.00 per bottle maple syrup, but it’s better than Eggo and Aunt Jemima and much cheaper! Now I just need to look for the perfect little pitcher or container to keep it in, for my refrigerator!

   Note: I am going to try to start being a better photo-gger… I don’t take very good pictures in the moment of things and I go back and wish I’d taken a closer picture of this or added that. There are so many wonderful blogs out there with great pics that I looove, especially when it comes to cooking/baking. So… I do aspire to be a better photo-gger But here it is anyway.

   Apr

   18

   Pancakes From Scratch Mix

   Filed Under homemade goodies, my kitchen, recipes | Leave a Comment

   We normally make our pancakes from Bisquick when we have it. I noticed the box was pretty low and enough for only one batch so I dug out this recipe I got a couple of years ago and now I can’t even remember the source… I’m sorry! But, it’s a great substitution for boxed/bagged pancake mix and it makes delicious pancakes! My family loves them and they are easy to add chocolate chips or blueberries!

   

   Pancakes From Scratch Recipe

   Ingredients For Dry Mix
   3 C flour
   1/3 C Sugar
   1 Tbsp baking powder
   1 1/2 tsp baking soda

   Store in airtight container in dry, cool place.

   Directions For Preparing Pancakes
   In a bowl, combine 1 egg and 1/4 cup milk. Whisk in 1 cup pancake mix. Pour batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto a lightly greased hot griddle; turn when bubbles form on top of pancakes, flip and cook until golden brown.

   Great for add ins like chocolate chips, strawberries, blueberries, etc.

   Dec

   14

   Cookie Recipe: Caramel Shortbread Squares

   Filed Under christmas recipes, memories, recipes | Leave a Comment

   Some of my fondest childhood memories were from going to my Aunt Barb’s house for Christmas dinner, seeing all of my cousins, and having a wonderful meal (ok - yeah, the presents were nice too, but those stopped when we turned 18 LOL). Aunt Barb also sent home these gigantic cookie/treat trays home with each of our families. I used to pick out all the Rosettes before my mom, dad and sister could get their hands on them LOL. Anyway, this was something we always looked forward too and we totally noticed when she’d skip a year here and there

   I love to bake things…. so a couple of years ago I started making goodie trays for our friends/family and passing them out. They could never compare to Aunt Barb’s of course, but I’m trying

   Anyway, I am trying to post recipes of things I’m including on our cookie trays this year… the Chocolate Crinkles being the first one. Here is another, this one is a little bit of work, but the results are delicious and well worth the effort!

   Caramel Shortbread Squares (from allrecipes.com and tweaked a bit)
   INGREDIENTS
   1 1/3 cup butter, softened
   1/2 cup white sugar
   2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
   1 cup butter
   1 cup packed light brown sugar
   4 tablespoons light corn syrup
   1 cup sweetened condensed milk
   2 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips
   Half & Half
   
   DIRECTIONS
   1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 C).
   2) In a medium bowl, mix together 2/3 cup butter, white sugar, and flour until evenly crumbly. Line 12×13 pan with non stick foil and press dough into a 9 inch square baking pan. Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool completely (you can chill in freezer/fridge for quicker results)
   3) In a 2 quart saucepan, combine 1 1/3 cup butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, and sweetened condensed milk. Bring to a boil over LOW heat (key here is LOW heat - this does take awhile and you do need to stir it so it doesn’t burn). Continue to boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon for about 3 minutes. Pour over baked crust. Cool until it begins to firm.
   4) Place chocolate and about 2 or 3 Tbsp half and half in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat for 1 minute, then stir and continue to heat and stir at 20 second intervals until chocolate is melted and smooth. Pour chocolate over the caramel layer and spread evenly to cover completely. Chill.
   5) Cut into 1 inch squares. These need to be small because they are so rich.

   Dec

   10

   Cookie Recipe: Chocolate Crinkles

   Filed Under Christmas Cookies, recipes | Leave a Comment

   David’s work is having a cookie exchange tomorrow, so he came home to bake these cookies. Every once in awhile, he gets a wild hair and decides to bake something. These are one of our favorite Christmas cookie recipes. We got it from my mother-in-law. They are SO good!

   
   Chocolate Crinkles
   
   
   2c sugar
   1/2 c veg. oil
   2t vanilla
   4 squares unsweetened chocolate (melted and cooled) or equivalent of cocoa powder (back of cocoa powder can says 12 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder and 4 Tbsp oil)
   4 eggs
   2 c. flour
   2t baking powder
   1/2t salt
   1 c. powder sugar

   Mix sugar oil vanilla and chocolate. Add eggs to mixture, one at a time. Stir in flour, salt, and baking powder. Refrigerate 2 to 3 hrs. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Make tsp size balls and roll in powder sugar, place 2″ apart on cookie sheet. Bake 10 to 12 minutes.

   Christmas baking is officially under way. I will try to post all of our favorite recipes as I make them

   Dec

   4

   Turkey Pot Pie

   Filed Under recipes | Leave a Comment

   I had to use up the rest of our leftover turkey last night and decided to make my first attempt at turkey pot pie. My mom’s is so good that I haven’t ever tried to make my own. One of those “impossible to imitate” type of recipes but it was a request from David, so I begrudgingly gave it a try.

   I used my mom’s pie crust recipe, which I have used before for regular pie crust.

   Mom’s Pie Crust
   1/3 c. + 1 Tbsp Shortening
   1 cup Flour
   1 tsp salt
   2 to 3 Tbsp ice cold water (I put some in the freezer about 10 minutes before I start making the crust).

   Using a pastry blender (or a fork works fine too), blend the dry ingredients into the shortening until about pea sized balls are formed, add 2 Tbsp water (more if needed) until the dough begins to form a ball and pull away from the sides of the bowl. Roll out onto floured surface. Poke holes in bottom crust and bake at 450 for 3 to 4 minutes.

   This makes 1 pie crust, so for a double crust like turkey pot pie requires, you’d need to double this. I like to make them separately so I don’t have to guess as to how much to roll out. Seems to turn out better for me doing each crust separately.

   I made 2 pot pies last night for my family, we have a half of one leftover. Everyone liked it.

   You could definitely use a store bought pie crust and it would make this recipe 10,000 times easier

   Filling for 1 pie:
   1 cup chopped turkey meat
   1 can cream of chicken (celery or mushroom can be substituted)
   veggies of your choice (canned or fresh cooked veggies)

   Heat turkey with cream of chicken soup thoroughly. Place into bottom of pie crust, top with veggies (I chopped carrots and potatoes and boiled them for a few minutes til they were fork tender but still firm) and scatter thin pats of butter over the top, place second pie crust on top and bake for about 30 minutes at 450 or until pie crust is brown on top.

   Easy! And YUMMY! And inexpensive to prepare!

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