Crazy for Coconut Macaroons

I love Tastefully Simple. I really like using their stuff because most of the time, they only require you to add two ingredients to any of their mixtures. It's fabulous!

With this recipe, all you need is 6 tablespoons of room temperature butter and 2/3 cup of condensed milk. THAT'S IT! Seriously!

Toss the butter and the condensed milk into a mixing bowl and blend together

Then toss in the cookie mixture and continue to blend together (I always use a hand mixer since I'm lazy). This is how it'll turn out.. the coconut smell is AMAZING!

If you want to make the mixture into cookies rather than bars, just plop the dough onto a cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes at 375*. 

You'll have fabulous macaroon cookies that were extremely easy to make. I wish all my cooking only took, literally, 3 minutes to prep. 

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Cookies

A few days ago, I worked on making Pumpkin Icing since I had made some of my Grandma's Cream Cheese Cookies. Normally when I make these, the icing has lemon juice..so I figured I'd experiment and see if I could come up with a "fall friendly" icing. 

Cream Cheese Cookie Ingredients: 

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

NOW - If you're wanting to press the dough through a cookie press, the ingredients listed above will work. If you're wanting to use cookie cutters, you will need to add more flour to the dough. In order for me to do that, I'd take globs of the dough and put it on the counter (which had flour sprinkled over it) and kneaded the dough while adding flour till I got a consistency that would allow a floured rolling pinto flatten it out without sticking. 

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and lightly grease cookie sheets. If you have a seasoned Stoneware piece, that works fabulous!  

In a large bowl, cream together butter, cream cheese, and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolk and vanilla. Stir in flour until well blended. Drop dough by spoonfuls or use a cookie press to place onto prepared cookie sheets. 

Bake for 15 minutes in preheated oven. Cookies should be pale on top and a golden brown on the bottom. Let them cool completely! 

Pumpkin Icing:

• 8 oz package of cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
• 1 tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar (more if you prefer to pipe the frosting on instead of spreading)   

In a large bowl, mix frosting ingredients with electric hand mixer. Spread onto cooled cookies, or pipe on with an Easy Accent Decorator.

Pumpkin Pancakes

It's Fall. Which means.. there's pumpkin. PUMPKIN! Yay!! 

( I took this photo last Fall )

Since this is my absolute favorite season, I take full advantage of using pumpkins in recipes and experimenting with it. Can't blame a gal for trying, right?

This morning, I tried making some Pumpkin Pancakes and they came out AWESOME! We even tried making some Pumpkin Sauce (yum!).

Here's the recipe for you :) 

 Pancake Ingredients:

• 2 cups self rising flour
• 2 teaspoons packed brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
•  2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup Libby's® 100% Pure Pumpkin
• 1 large egg
• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 
  

 Combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder, and pumpkin pie spice in a large bowl. In a seperate bowl, combine milk, pumpkin, egg and vegetable; mix well. Add to flour mixture. Stir just until moistened; batter may be lumpy.IF you want thicker batter, use 1.5 cups of milk instead of 2 cups. 

We used a "Mini Whipper" in a 8qt. Stainless Steel Mixing Bowl. (Totally doable in a 6qt or even 4 qt mixing bowl).

 HEAT griddle or skillet over medium heat; brush lightly with vegetable oil. Pour 1/4 cup batter onto hot griddle; cook until bubbles begin to burst. Turn and continue cooking 1 to 2 minutes. Repeat with remaining batter. Serve with pumpkin sauce!

 To make the Pumpkin Sauce, you'll need these: 

Pumpkin Sauce Ingredients: 

• 1 cup maple syrup
• 1 1/4 cups LIBBY'S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

In a small sauce pan, heat 1 cup maple syrup, 1 1/4 cups Libby's® 100 Percent Pure Pumpkin and 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice in small saucepan until warm. 

Once everything is all said and done...ta dah!

Stuffed Oreo Cake

I've made this a few dozen times and every time I do, it's gone within 24 hours. So,  here's the recipe:  

 

Cake

12 creme filled chocolate sandwich cookies, coarsely chopped

1 pkg white cake mix

3/4 cup water

1/2 cup sour cream

3 egg whites

2 Tbls vegetable oil

Icing

6 creme filled chocolate sandwich cookies, coarsely chopped

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cup sour cream

3 Tbls butter or margarine, softened

1. Preheat oven to 325. Spray Stoneware Fluted Pan with nonstick cooking spray. For cake, coarsely chop cookies using Crinkle Cutter; set aside. Combine cake mix, water, sour cream, egg whites and oil in Classic Batter Bowl; mix according to package directions.

2. Pour half of batter into pan. Sprinkle chopped cookies evenly over top of batter but not touching sides of pan. Spoon remaining batter over cookies.

3. Bake 50-55 minutes or until Cake Tester inserted near center of cake comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Loosen cake from sides and center tube of pan. Invert onto Nonstick Cooling Rack; remove pan. Cool completely.

4. For icing, coarsely chop cookies; set aside. Combine powdered sugar, sour cream and butter in Small Batter Bowl; beat until smooth. Ice top of cake allowing some to flow down the sides. Sprinkle top with cookies. Let stand until icing is set. Cut into slices. Store leftover cake, covered, in refrigerator.

I ended up making two of these..one for the auction and another for us at the house. Just to give you fair warning, this is a VERY decadent cake. VERY VERY VERY decadent. I hardly ever eat cake and this is making my blood sugar go through the roof. It'd delicious and something I'd definitely recommend for pot lucks, BBQ's and such... good grief, it's a ton of sugar, lol. I'm surprised how good it is considering it has sour cream in it, lol.

Stuff It.

For the last week or so, I've been on a personal mission to find Acorn Squash. I know our "local" commissary has 'em, but when you live an hour away from there.. you don't exactly want to drive all that way for squash. 

Well. After bombing out at all the local grocery stores, fruit / veggie stands and still ended up squashless.. I finally caved in and went to the commissary..yes, I picked up other groceries while I was there to make the drive worth while, lol. 

Ingredients

• 1 (6 ounce) package broccoli and cheese flavored rice mix
• 1 pound turkey breakfast sausage
• 1 medium acorn squash, halved and seeded
• 1/2 cup chopped apple
• 2 teaspoons crushed coriander seed
• 1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Directions 

1.Preheat oven to 350*. While the oven is warming up, cut the Acorn Squash in half and scoop out the seeds. When you put the halves in the oven (face down), make sure to put water in the pan (I used a roasting pan) since the water will help keep the squash from drying out. Bake for 45 minutes.

 2. Follow the directions on the box of rice. Once it's done cooking, set aside. 

3.In a medium skillet over medium heat, cook sausage until evenly browned; drain, and set aside.

4. Take your apples and chop them up (within reasonable bit sizes), set aside. 

5.  In a large bowl, mix together the prepared rice, sausage, apple, and coriander. Stuff each squash half with the mixture.

 Since I couldn't find crushed coriander anywhere, I ended up having to use my Mortar & Pestle to to crush all the seeds:

6. Cover stuffed squash halves with aluminum foil and bake for another 30-35 minutes, or until squash is soft.  Remove foil, and top stuffed squash with cheese. Continue to cook until cheese is melted, about 5 minutes.  

The finished product...tah-dah!! 

I think the next time I make this, I'll use White Cheddar rather than Monterey cheese..and I'll switch out the turkey sausage for Chorizo or something. Give it some kick! All in all, it came out really well and the guys really liked it.

Butternuttery Squash Goodness

Fall is upon us and I figured I should start experimenting with other things in terms of cooking. 

Whenever I go to the town market or even our Commissary, I notice they have Butternut Squash and Acorn Squash. In all honesty, I've NEVER cooked with either of those things and I was a lil intimidated considering they're both rock hard squashes. After doing a little bit of research, I figured I'd tackle some Butternut Squash and if that went well, I'll try an Acorn Squash next. 

I ventured onto www.allrecipes.com and searched for some kinda recipe that incorporated this particular squash.. and I wanted something that WASN'T a soup.I already have a good amount of soup recipes! Here's the lucky winner I decided to make:

Garlicky Baked Butternut Squash

  Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 3 1/2 pounds butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

 I actually ended up using 5 cloves of garlic, alot more Parmesan than the ingredients called for (my family likes thinks rather cheesy), Pampered Chefs Garlic & Parmesan seasoning, and I used olive oil that's infused with walnuts cause I really enjoy the "earthy" taste. 

Before you get started, make sure to pre-heat the oven to 400*!! 

 To mince the garlic, I used my Food Chopper... it made pretty quick work of the cloves..and, smelled amazing!

  Peeled the Butternut Squash with my Serrated Peeler....

Once the squash was all peeled, I sliced it open and scooped all the seeds out with my Large Scoop..

When you're all done scooping out the seeds, you then chop up the squash into 1 inch cubes (think in terms of bite size). If the cubes are too large, it could take longer to cook it all the way so it's not crunchy. I was honestly surprised as to how hard this freaking veggie was..but my knives managed to slice through it without too many problems. After you've measured out your parsley, salt, pepper, oil and chopped up the squash, you toss 'em all into a big bowl: 

Personally, I tossed in some Parmesan and shook about 2 tbsp of Pampered Chefs Garlic Parmesan seasoning (what harm could it do?).. from there, I dumped the squash mixture into my Rectangular Baker (Stoneware), covered it in aluminum foil and popped it into the oven for an hour. Once an hour rolled around, I just stuck some of the different pieces with a fork to check for tenderness (if its still hard on the inside, just bake a little longer)...luckily, the pieces were done cause Eric and John were griping about being hungry. 

After all was said and done, this was a VERY easy recipe to make...ESPECIALLY since it's the first time I've ever made this dish and used a squash. Eric was actually rather skeptical about it since he's a meat and potatoes kinda guy.. so to have a dish that's simply all veggie wasn't "ok" with him, lol. He and John ended up devouring the entire baker worth of squash!!

So, this is definitely going on my recipe book :) My next challenge will be Stuffed Acorn Squash! 

Enjoy! 

White Winged Heaven

Oh my goodness...OHHHHH my goodness. I think I finally got it! 

A few weeks ago, I attempted to make Belgian tomato soup like one of my favorite restaurants...and honestly, it fell short from what I was wanting it to taste like. Very short. After racking my brain for a while to figure out how they made this liquid gold, I finally broke down and picked some of the staffs brains the next time I ended up going to the restaurant for some soup. The gals were EXTREMELY nice and gave me little hints as to how they made it, but never disclosed the measurement amounts of ingredients. So, I ended up winging it when it came to throwing stuff together and it came out FABULOUS!

Here's what you'll need...and keep in mind, this will definitely make enough to feed a few people, or just three people and have enough for left overs the following day!

1 3/4 cup finely chopped carrots

1 1/3 cup finely chopped celery

2 1/2 cup finely chopped onion

3 teaspoons of crushed garlic

1/2 cup (1 stick) of salted butter 

2 cups chicken stock

15 oz cream cheese

28oz can of crushed tomatoes

2  15oz cans of petite cut tomatoes

5 thin slices of white bread (Belgian bread is cut very very thin, so if you're in the States, use 3 pieces of regular sized bread or 2 pieces of thick white Texas toast)

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 teaspoons of sugar

Chop up the carrots, celery and onion. I actually used my Pampered Chef food chopper in order to get mine cut up fairly small. Once they're all chopped up, toss in a stockpot with the butter and saute till the vegetables are nice and tender.

Then toss in the garlic, simmer for one minute, then add the chicken stock. 

Here's how it should look at this point:

Add the crushed and diced tomatoes in addition to the cream cheese into the stock pot; allow to simmer on low for 30-40 minutes to allow the flavors to blend together. 

 Here's how it'll look:

While the soup is simmering, take your bread and cut the crusts off.  

Gotta love easy directions, right? :)

Toss the bread into the stock pot and stir to ensure they become completely saturated & disappear into the tomato mixture. 

Once the bread is in the stock pot, stir around in order to break them up. Then put the tomato mixture into a blender and puree it so there are no lumps in the soup. VERY easy! Once it's all pureed, you're all set to go!

If you're feeling "extra Belgian", you can drop a little bit (a few drops) of heavy whipping cream in the middle of the soup to give it a little swirly effect. Serve with some bread and there you have it! Belgian tomato soup! 

This is VERY very easy to make and it's absolutely delicious! Eric and John completely demolished their first and second helpings! YAY! This recipe is DEFINITELY getting added to my personal cookbook and I'm sure we'll be using it once Fall officially hits us :) 

Smakelijk!!

Bavarian Garlic Soup

Ahhhhhhhh...I love garlic! 

It's good for your heart, not to mention, it helps keep vampires away. Although, I wouldn't exactly turn this one away or anything...

Anyway, when Eric and I visited Bavaria back in 2010, there was this fabulous restaurant at the base of Mt. Jenner we went to that made this absolutely amazing garlic soup. 

The fabulous Bavarian garlic soup at the restaurant:

We were in the area for several days, and every single day..we went back there for this soup. It's insanely delicious! The day before we left back for Belgium, I talked to the gal who actually made it and asked if I could "possibly" get some sort of run down for the recipe so I could attempt to make it when we get home. Ya know, for reminiscing purposes, lol. She actually gave me the recipe! How cool is that?? 

1 tsp garlic salt

3 tbs unsalted butter

16 cloves garlic

1/4 cup sifted flour

1 cup cooking cream

1 1/2 cup chicken (or vegetable) stock

2 tbs chopped parsley, plus additional for garnish

2 slices crusty bread

Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan, preferably with a rounded bottom (easier for whisking). I'm sure you can use already minced garlic, but I prefer to do everything from scratch with fresh ingredients :) 

Keep the butter on a low heat and add the garlic, finely minced or squeezed through a garlic press. Sauté gradually, on low heat, making sure the garlic does not brown.

When the garlic has softened (5-10 minutes), begin whisking in the flour so that it forms a thick paste. Add the milk and whisk (use a silicone whisk). Add the stock and garlic salt; whisk.

After you let it cook for about 10 minutes, use a  fine strainer to pour the soup into (have another bowl or pot to put the soup in it). The strainer will catch all the lil chunks of garlic so you don't have floaties in your soup. TRUST ME, it's not a nice texture when you leave the garlic in there! 

Cut the bread into croutons and toast. Serve the soup topped with croutons. (obviously, I didn't use croutons)

 

This is a GREAT soup to make when it's really cold outside (like it is here) and it's VERY filling! I double the recipe since there's three of us here and the guys like having left overs for the next day. So, I highly recommend that you double it if you have a family...ESPECIALLY if you have family members who eat like mine! The only real time consuming part is peeling all of the garlic, but I tend to look past that since the final product makes the effort worth while. 

Enjoy!