Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies

One of my very favorite things about the holiday season is ginger cookies, gingersnaps, gingerbread, gingermen...you name it, I love it!  I stumbled upon this recipe and it will be added to my ginger collection!  Dont over cook them, they stay soft and chewy and are super easy to make!

Ginger Crinkles
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 cup sugar for dipping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cream the oil, sugar, egg and molasses.  Mix together the flour, soda, salt, cinnamon and ginger and add to the liquid ingredients.
Roll dough into walnut size balls and sdip into sugar. 
Bake at 350 until slightly brown for about 8-10 minutes.  Do not overcook!!

Poutine

I think that is how you spell it...this is from Canada!  It was different and I was starving but I liked it!  Give it a try!

Poutine

French Fries (we used shoestring, next time will try steak fries)
Brown Gravy
Cheese Curds (what they use in Canada, we used cheese "crumbles")

Bake fries in oven, when they are done pour hot gravy over them and sprinkle with cheese.  Let cheese get a little melty and then enjoy!

Grape Nuts Bars

I love grape nuts and somehow this came up in conversation with a co-worker. He showed up the next day with a 4 pound box that was about 3/4 full! I didn't want to be eating grape nuts for the rest of my life so I decided to try a recipe on the back. It honestly took 5 minutes to make and they are really chewy and tasty and have tons of grains and fiber! Even my roommate who doesn't like grape nuts thought they were pretty good.

Grape Nuts Bars
1 cup sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
3/4 cup peanut butter
4 cups grape nuts cereal

Combine sugar, corn syrup and peanut butter in bowl and microwave for two minutes, stirring after each minute. Add cereal and stir in. But in a foil lined, greased 9 x 13 pan. Allow to cool completely. Then lift bars out on foil and cut into 30 pieces. Each piece had something like 140 calories and 2.5 grams of fat...give or take a bit!

I brought half of them for my co worker, we decided they would be good with chocolate, nuts, coconut, etc to make them like a granola bar!

Super Soft Bread

This bread was amazing right out of the oven and stayed soft for the next week! I found it...I got the recipe off of a blog I stalk: www.mymuffinthursdays.blogspot.com . Its my friend Ben's sister-in-law Emily whom I have never met but she has some pretty good recipes! I don't usually make bread, it seems to never turn out but this was super easy. Try it!!

Super Soft Wheat Bread

4 c warm water

1/4 c honey

1/4 c sugar (you can use all honey if you want)

1 1/2 T yeast

1/3 cup canola oil

5 tsp salt

8 or more cups flour (I started out with 6 wheat and 2 white but added quite a bit to get it unsticky)

Dissolve honey, sugar and yeast in warm water. Let this sit for a few minutes until everything is dissolved and there are bubbles forming on the top. Pour into mixer bowl, add canola oil, salt and 4 cups flour. Mix for 2-3 minutes.

Add 4 c flour and mix until dough pulls away from the side. You can either put flour on your counter, pull out the dough and knead by hand till it is smooth and elastic or you can do like I do and let the kitchen aid mixer do all the work.

Jamie's note here: There is an easy way to test when the dough is ready, you pull off a chunk and slowly stretch it between your hands. If it rips then its not ready, if it stays together and becomes really thin then you have enough gluten and its perfect. One of these days I will remember to take a picture of this step and show you!

Place in a large bowl, cover and let rise for an hour or until doubled. Its ready when you make an indentation in it with your finger and it stays indented.

Divide dough into 3 equal portions. Shape each loaf and place in sprayed bread pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes until tops are browned. Or if you have a food thermometer stick it in and when the temp is 190 degrees and rising its done.

Allow to cool in pans for a few minutes and then pull them out. Enjoy!!

Tomato Update

We have 4 tomatoes off of Tomato and they are delicious! I think we might go buy a couple more plants...the 21 tomatoes off him are not going to be enough....

Blackberry Icecream

Delicious! It is kind of a lot of work and for some reason it took 2 hours to turn into icecream...we make icecream weekly and it never takes that long. It was so worth it though! I think I might go eat some right now...

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/07/blackberry-ice-cream-part-1/

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/07/blackberry-ice-cream-part-deux/

Asian Noodle Salad

We feed those poor boys dinner and it was all "girl food"...stuffed peppers, asian noodle salad. There was some chile cheese bread that redeemed us though, i think. So we are going to make them a more manly meal this next Sunday. Anyway, us girls thought the salad was delicious! I am too lazy to retype the entire recipe so here is the link:

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/03/my_most_favorite_salad_ever_ever_ever_ever/

Check out the rest of this site. Its one of my favorites when I am looking for new recipes to try!

Brazilian Lemonade

This stuff is amazing...I think it just might be our favorite drink. Last time Kimberly made it she added extra lime. I liked it better that way, gave it a little kick and not as sweet. Jill, Kimberly and I are having our moms over for dinner tonight and are going to make it again because we like it so much! And the margarita glasses make it that much more enjoyable!

Brazilian Lemonade

2 limes

1/2 cup sugar

3 T sweetened condensed milk

3 cups water

ice

Wash limes, cut off the ends and cut into wedges. Place in blender with sugar, sweetened condensed milk, water and ice. Blend in electric blender. Strain through strainer to remove rinds and serve over ice. Best when served immediately and does not keep more than an hour or so!

And this is the logical thing to do with your glasses when you are done drinking the lemonade!

Burgers...Buns...Fries...

I really like to grill, really like to...even though our grill is a piece of crap. Anyway, I found a couple or recipes on a blog I like, http://www.prudencepennywise.blogspot.com/ and decided to try them out. The meal was very yummy and I think we all ate a little too much!

Catalina Cheeseburgers

1 1/4 lb. ground beef

1 4oz. can diced green chiles

1 egg

2 tsp minced garlic

1 1/4 tsp salt

1 T ground black pepper

Mix it all together, form into patties and throw on the grill. After you flip them add cheese so it gets all melty and yummy. Put on hamburger bun with tomatoes and a big bunch of cilantro. The cilantro really added a great flavor!

Homemade Hamburger Buns

1 cup milk plus 1 T divided

1/4 sugar

2 T butter

1 tsp salt

1 egg, yolk and white divided

2 1/4 tsp yeast

3 cups flour

In microwave safe bowl combine 1 cup milk, sugar and butter. Heat just until butter is melting and liquid is warm, not hot. In bowl combine salt, egg white, yeast and 1 cup flour. Add liquid to this mixture and then add remaining flour one cup at a time until its not sticky. Knead dough, place in greased bowl and cover and let raise for an hour. When you can poke dough with your finger and indent stays you know it is ready. Punch down and shape into 10 balls. Place on baking sheet and let raise till doubled in size, about 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 450. Mix egg yolk and 1 T together and brush over top of rolls. Bake for about 15-18 minutes or until nicely browned.

These were super simple to make and tasted so much better than the cheap buns you buy at the store!

Homemade Fries

Potatoes

Sweet Potatoes/Yams

Cut up potatoes into fry shape, don't cut too thick or they will take forever to cook. Place in bowl of cold water for at least ten minutes. Drain and pat dry. Then place on a greased cookie sheet and drizzle a couple tablespoons of oil over them. Mix around with your hands to cover fries then arrange in a single layer on the pan. Sprinkle with salt or favorite seasoning. Place in 475 oven for about 15 minutes or till tops of fries are browned. Pull out and flip fries over and cook till the other side is browned.

Meet Tomato

This is tomato, our tomato plant. We bought him at Walmart a month or so ago. When I took these pictures there was 6 tomatoes growing. Last night when I went out to water him there were 17! Can't wait for them to start turning red so I eat them and use them in some recipes!!

Lightened-Up Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

We were out of regular flour and sugar but had a bunch of blueberries that needed to be used. So we pulled out the whole wheat flour, ran across the street to borrow some sugar, improvised on the recipe a little bit and came up with some healthy and tasty blueberry muffins. (original recipe is from BHG).

Lightened-Up Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

1 cup milk

1/4 cup plus 2 T applesauce

1/2 tsp vanilla

2 eggs whites or 1 egg

2 cups whole wheat flour

1/3 cup sugar

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup fresh, frozen or canned (drained) blueberries

Heat oven to 400 degrees and spray muffin pans (makes 12 muffins). Mix milk, applesauce, vanilla and eggs whites in a bowl with a fork. Stir in flour, sugar, baking powder and salt with a spoon just until combined (batter should be lumpy). Gently stir in the blueberries. Divide among muffin cups. Bake 15-20 minutes till golden brown, immediately remove from pan and emjoy!

Mango Sorbet

I was going to put this recipe up, it is amazing! Seriously amazing! But my roomie said we don't want our secret to get out so I am not putting it up. I am just going to tempt you with a picture of it...

Copycat

We ate at a really cool old fashioned diner in Oakley Utah this past Saturday called the Road Island Diner. It was really tasty! So we decided to recreate the meal. We improvised a little bit but it was really really good. There was not one bite left in the pan! Its not much of a recipe, you can use any amount of any of the ingredientst that you want. First start by cooking a bunch of hashbrowns till they are crispy and brown, layer them in a sprayed 9X13 pan. Then put a layer of ham, green chiles and tomatoes. Then cook up some scrambled eggs, slightly undercook them since this is all going in the oven. Layer those and then top with slices of cheese, any kind will work. Pop it in the oven until the cheese is melted and bubbly and voila, you are done. It was even better with some salsa verde on top, yum!

Paninis and Soup

I got a panini grill a year or so ago and I love it! It makes the best sandwiches, even if its just a grilled cheese. All you need is some good bread (french, sourdough, foccacia, etc) and sandwich toppings and you are set. Here are some we have made recently that have been a big hit!

Tomato, Avocado and Mozzarella Panini

2 slices bread (I used french bread)

Tomatoes, sliced

Avocado, sliced

Mozzarella cheese in thick slices

Assemble sandwich with a little salt and pepper and pop on the grill. So tasty.

Amazing Turkey Panini

Spinach Artichoke Mayo

Pesto

Turkey slices

Muenster slices

Tomato slices

Foccacia Bread

On one slice of bread spread Spinach Artichoke Mayo, on the other slice spread some pesto. Then build your sandwich with turkey, muenster and tomato. Throw it on the panini grill. This one has tons of flavor. The idea for it came from a sandwich at Zupas and from what I hear our rendition was better than the original!

To make the spinach artichoke mayo: put a glob of mayo, a handful of spinach and a few artichoke hearts in a food processor and blend them all together.

Its been rainy and cold for over a week here in Utah so soup has sounded really good. This was really easy to make and tastes really good!

Tomato Basil Soup

1 can tomato soup (26 oz)

1 can milk (fill up soup can)

1 can diced tomatoes (14.5 oz)

1 T olive oil

Salt, pepper and garlic to taste

Chopped up basil, grated cheese and croutons.

Put first four ingredients in pan and simmer on stove until hot. Season with salt, pepper and garlic to taste. When ready to eat dish into bowls and sprinkle with basil, cheese and croutons.

NieNie's Chocolate Cake Magnifique

Kimberly found this cake on a blog and we had to make it...enjoy the pics for now! This cake was super chocolatey and super rich but really good!

I Am Not a Perfect Cook!

I don't have any new recipes to put on here today...there was the possibility of two but that just didn't happen. On Monday night I made some Strawberry/Lemon Muffins that sounded really good. I looked in the oven when they were baking and thought they look a little flat, then looked at the recipe and realized I forgot to put in the baking powder!! When I realized this my roommate Jill piped in, "I need to take a picture, Jamie actually messed something up". So my strawberry/lemon bricks went into the trash. I tried tasting them, disgusting! Then last night Kimberly made some really good brownies that had pecans in them and were going to have homemade caramel on top. The directions weren't printed out, so we improvised, then found the directions and realized we were doing it horribly wrong. Instead of caramel we ended up with sugary white stuff that tasted ok warm but got scraped off the brownies before we ate them. This weekend I am going to attempt an amazing looking chocolate cake, keep your fingers crossed!!

Ice Cream and Sorbet

We have gotten in the habit of making homemade icecream a couple times a month and have come up with some pretty good stuff. I didn't take any pictures because I was too busy eating it so instead I will put up some pics of the people that helped make and or eat it! Poor Dave is probably getting really tired of hauling ice cream back and forth the 35 steps from his house since our freezer is too full to put it in!

Strawberry Ice Cream

4 cups strawberries sliced or pureed in blender/food processor

2 1/2 cups sugar

1 quart half and half

1 cup lemon juice

Mix all ingredients together and put in ice cream maker. It tastes amazing...strawberry with a hint of lemon, yum!

Pineapple Sorbet

1 pineapple

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

2 tsp vanilla

Cook sugar and water in pan until sugar is dissolved. Cut up pinapple and puree with sugar water and vanilla. Chill in fridge for four hours and then put in ice cream maker.

Make Strawberry Mango Sorbet by substituting 1 pound of strawberries and 3 mangoes for the pineapple.

Rice Krispie Treats

Everyone always raves about my rice krispie treats...the secret people is extra marshmallows! No one wants crunchy, dried out treats, they want gooey, chewy ones! They work really well to bribe my friend Nick...

Rice Krispie Treats

6 cups rice krispies

1/4 cup margarine

16 ounce bag of marshmallows

Melt butter and marshmallows together...just till melted, stir periodically. If you cook them too long they will go hard once they cool. Dump in the rice krispies and mix till everything is nicely coated. Put in a 9X13 pan, grease your hand and press them down lightly, dont smash them!

Mix-ins are also fun...reeses pieces, m&ms, and the newest discovery Oreos! They were incredible...I think I am going to go eat one of them right now...

Avocado Cilantro Hummus

A couple of weeks ago a bunch of friends came with me to stay in my boss's condo in St. George.

We were at Costco buying all of the food for the weekend and there was some company there selling all types of hummus. We sampled the Avocado Cilantro and it was so yummy! So I decided to recreate it.

I attempted to make homemade pita bread to go along with the humus. They looked like big fluffy pillows and sounded so easy on the blog that I found them. Mine never "puffed" so we had flat breads instead. One of these days I will try them again and put the recipe up. Even though the pitas were less than perfect the hummus was pretty darn good!

Avocado Cilantro Hummus

1 can garbanzo beans (drain and reserve the liquid)

4 T lemon juice

4 T olive oil

1 tsp salt (I like salt and added a lot more than this)

1 avocado

1 bunch of cilantro

Put all the ingredients in a food processor or blender with some of the reserve liquid. Blend, adding more liquid until it reaches the consistency you want. I probably used three-fourths of the liquid. Eat on pita bread or with pita or corn chips.

Its really tasty, low-fat and has some good protein!

Thai Chicken Pizza

I am a slacker, I know...but after sitting at work for 8 hours a day staring at a computer the last thing I want to do when I get home is get on the computer and update my blog. But I going to do better, well try to do better, I promise!

The other day I told Jill that I was craving two random things, Thai food and pizza, and she told me I could have both! I have never had this kind of pizza but it was incredible...really incredible!! You have to try it!

Thai Chicken Pizza

Pizza Dough:

1 cup warm water

1 T honey

2 tsp yeast

3 cups flour

1 tsp salt

2 T olive oil

Pizza Sauce: (double the sauce, it will make pizza even better!)

3 1/2 T peanut butter

3 T rice vinegar

2 T soy sauce

1 T minced fresh ginger

2 tsp honey

Pizza topping:

1 chicken breast cooked and sliced or shredded

1 tsp salt

4 green onions, sliced

1 cup grated mozzarella cheese (I used a lot more!)

1 carrot, peeled and grated

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1/2 cup chopped dry roasted peanuts

Directions:

1. Pour warm water into small bowl; stir in honey until dissolved. Add the yeast, stirring until dissolved. Let stand till creamy, about ten minutes

2. In large bowl combine flour and salt. Add yeast mixture and olive oil; stir well to combine. When dough has pulled together dump out onto lightly floured surface and knead in more flour till dough is no longer sticky. Put in a large greased bowl, cover and let raise until doubled, about 1 hour.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

4. Punch down risen dough on a floured surface. Roll dough out onto large cookie sheet or pizza pan.

5. To make pizza sauce combine all ingredients and stir until smooth.

6. Spread sauce over crust and then sprinkle with all of the ingredients. Top with mozzarella cheese.

7. Bake for 20 minutes or until cheese is lightly browned.

8. Enjoy!!

New Year's Resolution Cookies

We have TONS of candy in our house from the holidays, I am not kidding you, it is tons! My roommate Jill and I decided last Sunday that we wanted to make cookies because on Monday we had to start eating better...so instead of chocolate chips we cut up a bunch of different kinds of candy bars and threw them in. They were a huge hit with everyone! Sadly though, we still have a ton of candy. I forgot to grab the recipe so I will put that on later but for now here are a few pictures to make your mouth water!