Moms Sugar Cookies

I've been using this sugar cookie recipe my whole life. And I don't think I can ever change. The same frosting too! Maybe it's just what I'm used to, but I seriously bite into store boughten, or other home-made versions of sugar cookies and just don't love them. So I'm going to stick to what I LOVE. I found some black food coloring this year that was lots of fun because usually I only have orange, white and green. But Black puts the spirit into Halloween, don't ya think? 2/3 Cup Butter - Softenend
1 Cup Sugar
2 eggs - beaten
1/4 Cup Milk
1 tsp soda
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
4 Cups flour -divided
Cream together your butter and sugar. Add in your beaten eggs. Dissolve your soda in your milk and blend. Add your vanilla and salt and mix well. Gradually add about 3 1/2 Cups flour (the rest you will use to flour your surface and your rolling pin). The key to great sugar cookie dough is to NOT over mix it. The more you mix it, the harder your cookies will turn out. So just mix the dough until everything is well combind then I kind of ball it up with my hands, cover your bowl with cling wrap and let it chill for an hour. After chilled, preheat your oven to 350*. I break my ball of dough into 2 halfs. Flour your surface well and roll 1/2 of your dough until it's about 1/4 of an inch thick. You want THICK fluffy cookies, right? Then you need Thick, Fluffy dough my friends :). Don't over roll your dough either. Use it about 3 times, then throw away what didn't get used and move on to your second ball of dough. Cook for 8-10 min. You don't want to see the light golden brown that you usually want to see on other cookies :)

And for the best Frosting ever use this recipe:
6 TBLSP Butter -softenend
3 Cup Powdered Sugar ( or more, depending on how thick you want it.)
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 Cup Milk (evaporated milk is best)
Add every thing in a medium mixing bowl except your milk. Mix with a blender while slowly adding your milk to the consistency you want your frosting. I usually don't use all the milk because I like my frosting thick! But one bit of advice about your vanilla: I usually like to use real foods, whole foods, not immitations. BUT when it comes to frosting or icecream, PLEASE use IMMITATION!! It makes a huge difference. Pure vanilla is just way too strong for frosting! Then frost those bad boys up with your kids and let your kids sprinkle them to death with treats!!! Chocolate covered toffee bits are awesome on them!!!!

Caramel Toffee Fruit Dip

If you are looking for something to serve at your next Halloween, or Thanksgiving party, you need to serve this! It's sooo easy, and fun to make with your kids, and it tastes AWESOME! If you are doing Thanksgiving you can totally switch out the cookie cutters for leaves or acorns. I had a lot of compliments for this one, it was one of those things where you just want to keep going back for! Warning: it doesn't make tons for a BIG party, so maybe double it. But if you are only doing one batch, make sure you get a really small pumpkin! Here is my rendition of this yummy treat. I know it doesn't look as appetizing as the one pictured above, but mind you I totally forgot to take a picture until last minute, so I took it with my camera phone without a cute black tablecloth to make those colors POP like that!!!! But I will tell you, I'm sure it tasted BETTER!!!

http://www.ourbestbites.com/2009/10/caramel-toffee-fruit-dip-halloween-edition/

Crockpot Coconut Chicken Curry

I bought Curry powder like a year ago knowing I wanted to make some kind of curry chicken but just never stumbled across the right recipe. Then I saw this one basically made of nothing but whole foods and soooooooooo good for you, AND it tastes great!!!! So easy to blend up your sauce, stick it in a crockpot and you are done for the day! If you like Indian Food, AND Healthy food, you have to try this one!!! I personally added about a 1/2 tsp of salt to this, but it's not necessary! And of course serve it over brown rice, or eat it plain if you are trying to eliminate carbs!

http://barefootandbaking.blogspot.com/2011/09/crockpot-coconut-chicken-curry.html

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ok, I know I promised these last week but I took a break and went on the Deer Hunt, and had a fabulous weekend eating these cookies! So I know I said before these cookies are made with whole wheat and don't even taste like it, apparently I'm wrong. I had a few people taste them and said they could taste the wheat, but they thought they were waaayyy yummy! Apparently I'm accustomed to the wheat flour taste, because I try and bake with it as much as I can! If you are scared, maybe do 2 cups whole wheat, 1 cup white flour, but I wouldn't be scared! If my little 4 year old picky eater begs for 2nd's and 3rd's, you can handle it!!! Enjoy!

1/2 Cup oil
2 eggs

1/2 Cup Sugar

1 Cup Brown Sugar

2 Cups Canned Pumpkin

3 Cups whole wheat flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp ginger

2 Cups Chocolate Chips

Preheat Oven to 350*. Cream together your oil, eggs, sugars & pumpkin. Add in your dry ingredients until well mixed. Add in your chocolate chips. Drop by the spoonful onto your cookie sheets and bake for 10-12 min. or until a toothpick comes out dry.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Like I said before, I seriously had heart-ache about which pumpkin chocolate chip cookie to blog about so I decided to blog about both of them. THEN, my sweet sister brought over a batch she made from OUR BEST BITES, and I fell in love with them. Needless to say I LOVE pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and I don't think you can go wrong having a few recipes on hand. I will post the Whole Wheat ones tomorrow, but for now, enjoy these yummy ones!

2 eggs
1 Cup Sugar
1/2 cup olive oil

1 Cup canned pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground cloves

2 Cups flour

1 1/4 Cup Chocolate Chips

Preheat oven to 325* and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper (optional). Combine the top 5 ingredients until well mixed. Then add all the dry ingredients except for the flour and mix well. Add in your flour, then your chocolate chips. Drop in big spoonfuls on cookie sheet and bake for about 14-15 min. or until toothpick comes out clean.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins -Weight Watchers

So I know this recipe is floating out there for cookies and they are good, but I personally think they are way better presented as a muffin! They just have a more "cakier" texture than cookies, so when I try to eat them as a cookie I get slightly dissapointed. But when I eat them as a muffin, I am drooling over them, weird? Yes, Weird. Anyways, these bad boys score a 1 point on the weight watchers scale if you don't have any chocolate chips in them. I put in mini chocolate chips so I would figure they only score a 1.25. They are awesome, and you don't feel guilty eating them! Let me tell you I've been stressing about which pumpkin chocolate chip COOKIES to blog about, and I just can't decide, so you are going to get both versions that are both to die for. And one of them is a whole wheat flour recipe and you can't even tell! So enjoy my pumpkin recipes this week!!!

2 Spice Cake Mixes (Duncan Hines preferably)
30 oz can Pumpkin Puree

1 12 oz bag mini chocolate chips

That's it my friends, 3 ingredients. I have halfed this recipe and it turned out great! Preheat your oven to 350*. Mix the cake mix and pumpkin really well, then fold in the chocoalte chips (using mini's keep them from sinking to the bottom of the muffin). These muffins don't rise much, so fill the muffin tins almost to the top, and put in the oven for 22-25 min. As you can see above I also did a pan of mini muffins that my kids just gobbled up and you cook them for about 11-13 min. Just watch them and when your toothpick comes out clean you want to take them out.

Beef & Broccoli

I was in need of a great recipe to serve for BUNKO last year and last minute I called my friend Amy desperately looking for ideas and she suggested Beef & Broccoli! And the great thing about this recipe is it's a crockpot meal, and it's so darn easy!!!! I Love this recipe! I serve it over brown rice. Enjoy!!

1 tblsp olive oil
1 lb petite sirloin steak
10 oz broccoli

1 tblsp soy sauce

1 tblsp brown sugar

1 1/4 Cup Water

1 packet lipton onion mushroom soup

Brown your steak in your olive oil on both sides for like 2 min each. Combine all other ingredients into your crockpot EXCEPT for your broccoli. Put steaks over sauce and cook on low for 8 hours. 1 hour before serving break up your steak. OPTIONAL - Add your broccoli about 1/2 hour before serving. Some people Love having the broccoli take on the flavor of the beef, but I personally don't. So I steam the broccoli on the side and add it when I serve it. It just depends on how you like your broccoli! But what a gread dish!

Fall Trail Mix - Paleo

This trail mix is to die for! And when you make it you will have the scent of cinnamon, nutmeg & pumpkin filling up your house. It's sooo good, and it has no oats or added sugar but a LOT of taste! It's great alone, or on top of yogurt, or how ever you want to eat it!

1 Cup almonds - crushed
1 Cup Walnuts - crushed
1 Cup Pecans- crushed
1 Cup Pumpkin Seeds
1 Cup salted sunflower seeds

2 tblsp. vanilla

Cinnamon

Nutmeg

1/4-1/3 Cup honey (or Aguave)

1 Cup Crasins

Preheat your oven to 400*. Line a cookie sheet with Parchment paper and add the top 5 ingredients to the cookie sheet and mix with hands until well combined. Spread out evenly on pan and dust the nuts evenly across with cinnamon & nutmeg. I would probably go a tad heavier on the cinnamon and a little lighter with the nutmeg. Drizzle the vanilla across the mixture then using your hands mix the nuts so they all get evenly coated from top to bottom, then once again spread out evenly across the pan. Stick in oven for 5 min. then take out and let cool a few minutes then drizzle honey evenly across the nuts and take a wooden spoon and stir it around and stick it back in the oven for 5 minutes. Take it out, add your craisins and try to keep your fingers out of it until it hardens up a bit! Sooooo good! If you really want it like nut clusters (which is how I love it, then put it back in the oven at about 240* and let it bake for about 40 minutes and then it is crunchy like trail mix. My Favorite!!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Spice Cake / Cupcakes

So Sunday was my boy Cords birthday and he turned 7! Wow! I can't believe it. Anyways, I asked him what he wanted for his birthday, a cake or cupcakes and he said Icecream Sandwiches! So I let him have that, and I chose pumpkin Chocolate Chip Spice Cake to serve to the adults, and I'm sooo glad I did! This recipe is sooooooo moist, and soooooo good! I obviously ate way more than I should have, but splurged anyways. I figure I can eat what ever I want on everyones birthday, not just my own!! And by the way, I used a can of Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting instead of making my own and it turned out Fabulous!

Here is the link:

http://jamiecooksitup.blogspot.com/2010/10/pumpkin-cake-with-cream-cheese-frosting.html

Gluten Free Tab

I have added a new category titled Gluten Free for those of you looking to find gluten free meals. I have added meals that call for flour tortillas that you can easily substitute corn or rice tortillas in place of them. It's sooo easy to cook gluten free if you just find the right substitutions! I hope you enjoy the recipes!

Egg Noodles

My family has been using this egg noodle recipe for years and years, and about 5 months ago I was asked to do a tutorial on how to make them for our ward relief society ladies. So I kind of panicked, looked on line to find the best recipe ever, and the best way to make them ever, tried 3 other recipes and ultimatley ended up liking my recipe, and my way best. My Opinion. These are just soooo easy and soooo simple that I figured why bother. Some recipes had you raise them for an hour and that is soooooooo not necessary! Anyways, follow these simple steps and you will have yummy noodles to add to your favorite Chicken Noodle Soup!

Add all those messy ingredients in a bowl and mix with a fork, until it's too hard. Then flour your hands and knead for a minute or so until well combined.

Roll out onto a floured surface as THIN as possible, otherwise you will end up with HUGE noodles!!!!Cut with a pizza cutter. I like my noodles small in length but a bit chunky in size :)Add them to a pot of boiling water, and let boil for about 15 minutes!

2 eggs
1 tsp salt
2 Cups flour
1/2 cup milk

Whisk your 2 eggs in a bowl. Add your salt and mix well. Add your 2 cups flour and stir with fork until you need to add your milk. If you feel like it's still to dry add another tsp or so of milk until it's sticky, but through kneading a little with flour on your hands it should just get tacky. Roll out on a floured surface as thin as possible and cut into thin strips with your pizza cutter. Add to a pot of boiling water and cook for 15 minutes. If you are adding the noodles straight into your soup then make sure you add them when you are at a full boil. If you are freezing them for a later use, rinse them with cold water and put in freezer bags. ( I put them into 2 bags so I have half batches because it makes quite a bit). If you are adding your frozen noodles to your soup, then open your freezer bag and put them in the microwave for 60 sec, then add them to boiling water and it only takes like 10 minutes to cook through.

Moms Chicken Noodle Soup

Isn't this like the perfect day ever to make Chicken Noodle Soup? It's cold and rainy outside and all you want to do is eat warm soup and snuggle up by the fire after! Well this soup goes way back to my childhood days when my mom made this soup! I personally have a hard time eating it any other way (even when SHE tries to change it up) Those are home-made egg noodles in there as well, which I will post a bit later. They are soooo easy, and soooo worth it. I think the noodles MAKE the soup, and nobody likes store bought soup or noodles! So here you go: 2 Chicken Breasts
Approx 10 Cups of Water
1 Can Chicken Broth (optional)
2 Carrots - sliced
1 Long Celerey stick - diced
1/2 small onion - diced
2 tblsp chicken boulion
2 Cans Cream of Chicken
1 Can Cream of Celery
1/4- 1/2 Cup frozen Peas
Salt & Pepper to taste
1/2 Batch Egg Noodles

The way I like to cook this is in the crockpot at your earliest convenience in the day. Fill your crockpot with water ( In a 3 quart crockpot I add about 9 or 10 Cups of Water) and add your chicken breasts, carrots, celery, onion, Salt & Pepper. If you have enough time to cook the chicken through then do it on low, if you only have like 2 hours then do it on high. This is actually where you get your Chicken Broth, meaning it's unnecessary to add your can of chicken broth. About 1/2 hour before you are ready to eat, take the chicken breasts out and shred with 2 forks and transfer that and chicken broth mixture to a stock pot so you can turn on your stove to med high to get it to a boil. Once boiling, add your egg noodles & Chicken Boulion. Let noodles cook for about 12-15 minutes, or until soft. Add your cream of chicken and cream of celery and stir until smooth, then add your peas last.

So if you are making this from your stove top, just follow the same steps above you just wont get much of a chicken broth out of it and that's when I think you need to add your can of chicken broth in. And it should only take you about an hour.

Pumpkin Pancakes - Paleo

And now for the paleo pumpkin pancakes I promised awhile back. You know I had to wait to post these in October, right? Anyways, these are good. And loaded with protein. Very low on carbs, and quite..... pumpkinee. You know when you get stuck in a rut and you just need to change things up? Here you go! The only extra ingredients you need that you might not have in your pantry is almond butter and pumpkin, but of course you would have pumpkin in your pantry in October! The crushed pecans on top are optional, but I thought they added a lot to it. And if you can't tell, hidden on the bottome pancake I snuck some peanut butter on it because I couldn't stand it! I had to have it. Please tell me to go to therapy for this because my gosh, the pancakes is Loaded with Almond butter!

2eggs - beaten with a fork

1/2 Cup pumpkin

1/2 Cup Almond butter (I use a tad less)

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp vanilla

1 tblsp Agave (or honey)

Just combine everything in a bowl and stir it up until smooth, cook on a grill a tad slower than you would with regular pancakes because there is no flour, and serve with real maple syrup, peanut butter, & pecans.

Pumpkin Chocolate Protein Shake

So I don't love pumpkin. Don't like pumpkin pie, but Love pumpkin dessert, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin bread. So I guess I only like pumpkin in it's sweetened form! BUT, I'm such a holiday freak, that I try really hard to follow the traditions of the holiday so I can feel like I'm in the spirit of the holiday! And pumpkin goes along with October, right? Anyways, this protein shake is actually really good! And it's kind of fun to switch things up in the fall. And it's oh so good for you because I don't add any sugar to this shake! Give it a whirl!

8-9 oz Vanilla Almond milk
1 scoop Chocolate Whey Protein
1/4 Cup pumpkin puree

1 tblsp flaxseed meal
2 tsp peanut butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg

pinch of clove (optional)

9 Icecubes

Throw everything into your mixer and let it mix for a good minute or two. You can tweak your measurements depending on your taste buds. If you don't want too much pumpkin, use only 3 tblsp. If you want more spice to it increase your cinnamon to 3/4 tsp.

Honey Butter

And here is the easy and delicious recipe for Honey Butter to go along with the yummy Honey Whole Wheat Bread I posted yesterday! The only trick to this recipe is that I sure hope you have a stand up mixer or you will need to pass your hand held mixer off to each of your kids for 5 min each!!! But it's soooo worth it!

1/2 Cup softenend Butter

1/2 Cup Honey

1/2 tsp vanilla

Just stick it in your bowl and turn the speed to high and let it whip for 12-15 minutes until you get a thick butter like texture! Slather that on your homemade bread and you'll be in heaven. Store in the refrigerator when done!