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!