Honey Glazed Carrots

We discovered a new recipe for our Christmas Dinner and will now be on every special family dinner menu!

Ingredients

16 ounces carrots, regular or baby
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
2 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp brown sugar, packed
1 tsp dill
Pinch of thyme
Dash of Love

Directions

Microwave carrots for 5 minutes or boil in sauce pan for 10 minutes. Drain water.
In a large skillet melt butter over medium heat. Add carrots, honey, brown sugar, dill and thyme. Toss gently to coat carrots. Cook until carrots are tender, stirring occasionally. We doubled this recipe for our family gathering.

Cutout Cookies

This is our tried and true Cutout Cookie Recipe. Easy to mix, easy to handle and doesn't lose its shape when baking.

Ingredients 

1 cup margarine
1 tsp vanilla
1-1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs
3-1/2 cups flour
2 tsp cream of tarter
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
Pinch of Love

Directions

Cream margarine and vanilla with mixer. Add sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beat continuously. In a separate bowl sift flour, baking soda, salt, and cream of tarter together. Add the dry ingredients gradually, mixing on low speed.
Divide into 4 parts. Shape into a disk, wrap dough in plastic or wax paper and chill 3-4 hours.

On floured surface roll dough to 1/4 inch thick. Cut shapes (don't forget to dip the cutter in flour so it doesn't stick).
Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 375 for 6-8 minutes. Cool 2 minutes before removing from cookie sheet.

Icing

4 cups powdered sugar

4 TBSP milk

2 TBSP Karo

Food coloring

Mix well. Add enough milk to make spreadable, a little runny. Divide into bowls, add coloring. Apply with small knife or place in small squeeze bottles with fine tips.  To layer icing when decorating, allow first layer to set (dry) before adding next color.

We usually double this recipe and make a couple batches!

Holiday Cookies 2015

I was on my own this year now that Katie moved on campus and everyone else is working. So I began mixing and refrigerating cookies, cleaned up, then baked a batch whenever I had time. Very stress-free this year!

Pecan Pie Bars and Coconut Dream Bars

Chocolate Cookies

Enjoy this moist Chocolate Cookie that tastes like a brownie! Try adding walnuts, mini marshmallows or mint chips.

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter
12 ounce bag chocolate chips
1-1/4 cup light brown sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1-1/2 cup flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
Dash of Love

Directions

In a sauce pan on medium heat melt butter and chocolate chips. Remove from heat and cool 5 minutes.
In a mixing bowl beat brown sugar, eggs and vanilla. Turn mixer to medium speed and slowly add melted chocolate.
Add the remaining dry ingredients gradually mixing on low speed.

Refrigerate for 2 hours.

Preheat oven 325.
Line the cookie sheet with parchment paper. Scoop 1 Tablespoon of cookie dough, placing an inch apart. Bake 15 minutes, cool 5 minutes then remove cookies to cooling rack. Makes about 5 dozen.

Pork and Sauerkraut

This is a special recipe by my late mother in-law, Aggie Dye. Richard and I have tweaked the recipe and I believe the secret is to let it slow cook all day. Another secret is using brown sugar and a can of tomatoes which turns it to this gorgeous golden color!

1 - 2 lbs pork roast

1 pkg smoked sausage, cut into 3 inch links
1 pkg Hungarian and/or hot sausage, optional
2 lb pkg sauerkraut (not canned)
1 onion, cut in wedges
mild yellow banana pepper, optional
1-14 oz can diced tomatoes
3 TBSP brown sugar
Sprinkle with Love

Place pork roast in bottom of crock pot. Sprinkle with pepper.  Place the following items in this order: onion, banana pepper, 1/2 kraut, links of sausage, remaining kraut, brown sugar, stewed tomatoes. Do not stir. cook on high for 5 - 7 hours, until pork is fork tender.

LEFT OVER PORK
We shred pork, stir in lots of BBQ sauce for sandwiches. The flavor of the marinaded pork roast is awesome!

Sweet Baby Ray's Crockpot Chicken

Richard shared this recipe with our band camp cooks and the kids thought it was awesome! They'll probably keep it on the menu for years to come!

4-6 chicken breasts
1 bottle Sweet Baby Ray's sauce
1/4 cup vinegar
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp garlic powder
Dash of Love

Mix together everything but the chicken.
Place chicken in the crockpot (frozen is okay)
Pour sauce mixture over chicken
Cook on LOW for 4-6 hours.


Shake a lot of love on it before serving!

Freezer Meals

I've been pinning freezer meals on Pinterest for several months and now that school has started I decided to try it. First I had to talk Richard into the idea which wasn't hard at all. For years he has prepared meals for our family 90% of the time but now that he's working full-time and long hours I've been on my own in the kitchen. He was happy to help and feel needed in the kitchen again.

I learn a couple things.
1. Purchase your ingredients the day before you make the meals. We shopped at Sam's club at noon and didn't really begin until Saturday afternoon We were so exhausted by evening that we quit and had to get everything out to finish on Sunday.
2. Plan on making recipes with just one type of meat. We were working with chicken and ground beef.

5 Quart bags Spaghetti Sauce
The first thing were did on Saturday was put on a crockpot of Almost Homemade Spaghetti Sauce with 3 pounds of ground beef browned with chopped onion, 124 oz Ragu, 4 small cans mushrooms, italian seasoning, brown sugar.

Not pictured is 2 Sloppy Joe Meals with 2 pounds of ground beef, 2 cans Manwich. So we actually made 19 meals!

3 Stuffed Pepper Meals
We cut the tops off 12 green peppers and diced the tops to put in the rice mixture with 2 pounds ground beef, 4 cups rice/water cooked (made about 8 servings), onion, garlic, cumin, italian seasoning, a large can tomato sauce. Stuffed each pepper then placed on a cookie sheet and froze for a few hours before bagging. The extra rice mixture was placed at the bottom of each bag. 1 small can of tomato sauce will be place on top of peppers when we cook in the crock pot on low for 6-8 hours.

2 Baby Ray Chicken BBQ Meals
On Sunday we cut the tops off of 8 chicken breasts so we had about 3 ounce portions, then used the bottom pieces to cut into strips for the other recipes. Added 2 bottles of Baby Ray BBQ Sauce, vinegar, brown sugar, red pepper flakes and garlic powder.

2 Chicken Fajita Meals
We sliced red, yellow, orange and green pepper, 1 large onion with 3 pound of chicken strips, 2 cans tomatoes with chilies and seasoning.

1 Chicken Parmesan Meal
1 pound of chicken strips, seasoning, 1 can Italian diced tomatoes

1 Chicken Pot Pie Meal
1 pound of cubed chicken, 1 bag Campbell's Chicken Pot Pie sauce, 1 bag of frozen mixed vegetables.

3 Meat-loaves
3 pounds ground beef, 1 large onion diced, 3/4 cup milk, 1 egg, 1 sleeve saltine crackers, salt, pepper, garlic, oregano, half of a large can tomato sauce. We baked one meatloaf for dinner. I was too exhausted to make anything else!

This should help us for the next few weeks. I just don't know what to put in the crockpot tomorrow!