Old Fashioned Icebox Oatmeal Cookies

My mother gave me this receipe she got from her cleaning lady who is from a long line of Czech families. Her cleaning lady's mother used to make these and keep them in the "ice box," so she would have them ready to bake when her children got home from school. These cookies are WONDERFUL and SO easy!

Ingredients

1 cup of shortening (my mother used 2 sticks of Smart Balance 50/50 margarine)
1 cup of white sugar
1 cup of brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 1/2 cups of flour
1 tsp of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
3 cups of oatmeal (my mother used quick cooking oatmeal)

Directions

If you use margarine, let it come to room temperature (or you can cut it into tiny cubes and that will soften it quicker). Cream the margarine or shortening with the sugars in a large bowl. Add the eggs and vanilla to the sugar mixture and mix well. Mix the flour, salt and soda with a whisk and then blend the flour mixture into the sugar mixture. Add the oatmeal all at once and mix well with a spoon.

Turn the soft dough out onto a piece of wax paper or plastic wrap. Shape into a log roll inside of the wax paper or plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight then slice and bake. Bake on parchment paper lined cookie sheet or one sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 12 to 15 minutes. When baked, remove from the cookie sheet and cool on a cooling rack. This recipe makes 30 BIG cookies.

You can slice and bake as many as you want and just store the remainder in the refrigerator still wrapped in the wax paper or plastic. You can put the wrapped cookie dough in a big Ziploc bag so it won't dry out if you are not going to use all of it soon.

Easy Chicken Enchilada Pasta Skillet

I was looking for something fast and easy to cook for dinner tonight. We were blessed in that we didn't suffer too much damage here from Ike, but lots of the communities around us did ... and they are packing our grocery stores and gas stations ... so I'm staying away from the store and wanted to use what I had on hand. I came up with this recipe. The whole family loved it ... which is rare. I wanted to get this posted before I forget what I did. :o) Add a salad or a green vegetable to this and you have a complete meal.



Ingredients

1 thirteen ounce can of chicken breast, drained
1/4 to 1/2 cup of chopped frozen onion
1 can of 98% fat free cream of chicken soup
1 can of green echilada sauce
2 or 3 shakes of garlic powder (or to taste)
2 cup of shredded cheese, divided (4 cheese mexican blend, monterey jack, pepper jack ... whatever you have on hand)
1/2 of a twelve ounce bag of cooked whole wheat blend egg noodles (or any other noodle you have on hand)

Directions

1. Cook noodles according to package directions (I put the noodles in boiling water and then started with the next step while the noodles were cooking to tender)

2. Drain chicken and mix with onions in a skillet that is heating on medium high. Once onions are soft, add the soup, enchilada sauce and garlic powder. Mix well and heat through. Add one cup of cheese and mix until melted. Turn the heat to low.

3. Drain the pasta and gently stir into the chicken mixture in the skillet.

4. Sprinkle the remaining one cup of cheese on top of the chicken and noodle mixture and serve.

Sour Cream Cake

I don't have a photo of this one. But, next time I make it, I'll take a picture to post. This is one of our famiy's ALL time favorites. It is my mother-in-law's recipe. This cake is wonderful served warm out of the oven with some Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream. There is not a thing low fat about this cake, but it is a delicious treat!

Ingredients

2 sticks of butter, softened (told you it wasn't low fat!)
3 cups of sugar
6 eggs
8 oz. of sour cream
2 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. vanilla
3 cups of flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
cinnamon and sugar and shortening (for greasing and flavoring your bundt pan)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Grease a bundt pan with shortening. Then sprinkle some sugar and cinnamon over the greased pan. Set aside.

Cream your butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl. If you haven't softened your butter, a tip is to cut it into tiny sqaures before you put it in your mixing bowl. Once, you've creamed your butter and sugar (beating it together until it is a creamy texture), then add your eggs, sour cream, almond extract and vanilla. Mix until well mixed and creamy. Add your flour and baking soda and mix just until well combined. Don't overbeat or it can make it tough.

Pour the cake batter into your greased bundt pan and bake for about and hour and a half or until a knive inserted comes out clean. This is easy to do and wows guests everytime!

Angel Biscuits

These are an old time family recipe. I can remember watching my great-grandmother in Northern Louisiana making these, and she would tell me how to do them. She lived until she was 101 (passed away in 2000) and always had "little ditties" for us when we would come visit. She had 39 great-grandchildren. I wonder if she ever showed them how to make Angel Biscuits? Anyway, my mother-in-law makes these, too. I have never made them that people did not rave over them. They are pretty easy and ALWAYS a hit! You just have to allow some extra time. You can make the dough a day ahead and store in the refridgerator then roll them out and bake them the next day which saves time.

Ingredients

5 cups of flour

1/2 cup of sugar

1 tsp. of baking powder

1 tsp. of baking soda

1 tsp. of salt

3/4 cups of shortening (tip: buy the sticks of shortening ... they are pre-measured and much neater and faster to work with)

2 cups of buttermilk

1 and 1/3 Tbsp of yeast

1/2 cup of warm water

pinch of sugar

Combine the yeast, warm water and a dash of sugar in a glass bowl. The sugar will proof the yeast and make sure it is still good. If the yeast mixture starts expanding then it is good ... the yeast is eating the sugar and is still alive. Set this aside.

In a large bowl, add the dry ingredients. Cut in the shortening to the dryin ingredients until the shorting is blended in. Use a pastry cutter/blender to do this or you can use two knives to cut it in ... but the paster cutter is well worth the small amount of money they cost. Wal-mart or Target will have them.

In a large bowl (or I use a very tall glass) add the two cups of buttermilk. To the buttermilk, add the yeast.

Make a well in the bottom of the dry ingredients (just move the flour mixture to the edge of the bowl until you can see the bottom of the bowl in the middle). Add a little bit of the buttermilk/yeast mixture to the well in the flour mixture. Stir with a fork until well blended. Then add a little more buttermilk/yeast and blend that with the fork. Keep doing that until all of the buttermilk/yeast mixture is mixed in with the flour mixutre. The dough will be sticky.

You can now put plastic over the bowl with the dough and store it in the refridgerator over night. The dough is usually easier to work with if it has been refrigerated for and hour or so ... but you don't HAVE to do the refrigeration step.

When you are ready to roll out your biscuits (which are really more like bread than biscuits), heat the oven to 400 degrees. Sprinkle about 1/2 cup of flour on a CLEAN kitchen counter (one that has been santized and then cleaned with clear water and dried). Turn the dough out onto the floured counter. Sprinkle a little flour on top of the dough that is on the floured counter and knead the dough a little. Take a floured rolling pin and roll out the dough to about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Use a floured glass or a biscuit cutter to cut out your biscuits. Remove those cut out biscuits and put them on a cookie sheet that has a layer of parchment paper on it. Then knead the remainder of the dough ... adding flour if it starts sticking to things but try not to add too much flour or they will be tough.

Once you get all of the biscuits cut out and put on the cookie sheet, I sometimes melt some butter and brush over the top of the biscuits and let the biscuits rise a little ... maybe 20 or 30 minutes (but you don't have to do either of those steps).

Put them in the oven for about 15 minutes until they are golden brown on top. Serve warm with butter, honey and/or jelly. DELICIOUS!

Dorothy's Chocolate Meringue Pie

Over Easter, I was on a baking roll! (pardon the pun.) I got this recipe from a dear friend of my in-laws'. She is known far and wide as a pie maker. Everytime she comes to see my boys, she brings a homemade banana meringue pie because that is my boys' favorite. Dorothy grew up in a very large family, and her job was to make the pies for the family as a young girl. I sat and picked her brain before Easter, and this is the recipe she gave me. I made it and it turned out WONDERFULLY! Not quite at pretty as hers, but just as tasty. I need to practice on the pretty part. This recipe makes 1 pie.

Crust:

1/2 stick of crisco

1 cup of flour

Dash of salt

2 Tbsp of sugar

3 to 5 Tbsp of ice water

Mix the flour, salt and sugar together in a small bowl. Cut in the crisco and add the ice water. Roll out crust and put it in your pie plate. Poke holes in the bottom of the crust to keep it from bubbling up. Bake at 350 degrees for abotu 20 minutes until lightly brown.

Pie Filling:

3 Tbsp. of cocoa

Dash of salt
1 C. of sugar

1/4 C. of flour

2 C. of milk

3 egg yolks, beaten (save the whites for the meringue ... leave at room temperature)

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 stick of butter, cut up

Mix all of the ingredients in a pan (if you have a double boiler, you can use this, but I just used my hard anodized pot) adding the butter last. Continually stir it until it comes to a boil and bubbles. Turn the heat down, continually stirring it, until the mixture thickens up like pudding. If you are using an electric cooktop, you may want to remove the pan from the burner while you stir the mixture and it thickens ... I'm used to cooking on gas which I like much better, but for the time being, we are in a house with electric burners and it is taking some getting used to.

Pour the hot mixture in the baked pie shell.

Meringue:

With your mixer (stand mixers are best for this), beat three egg whites, 2/3 cups of sugar, 1 tsp. of vanilla, and 2 tsp. of cream of tartar. Beat it until it forms stiff peaks. Smooth the meringue on top of the warm pie filling, smoothing it all the way to the edge of the crust to prevent shrinking. Bake in a 400 degree oven for about 8 to 12 minutes ... watching to make sure you don't burn it but that the peaks are delicate brown.

A BIG thank you to the anonymous poster who asked how much sugar was needed in the filling!!! I forgot to put that ... I surely hope no one tried to make this without the sugar. I would feel TERRIBLE! My sweet mother-in-law made a pumpkin pie one year and forgot the sugar ... not so good ... actually pretty AWFUL. Anyway, a big thanks to the commenter who noticed!

Tossed Spinach Salad

This is a wonderful recipe I got from my mother-in-law. It is one of our family's favorite salads, it is easy to make and always a crowd pleaser.

Salad Ingredients

1 package of baby spinach (10 oz.), torn

1 pound of mushrooms, sliced (I bought mushrooms already sliced ... I don't like them, but the slices were big enough that I could pick them out)

1/2 pound of sliced bacon, cooked & crumbled (I used about 1/2 cup of Hormel Real Crumbled Bacon ... I got a big bag of this at Sam's and love it! So easy to use!)

3 ribs of celery sliced (I "stripped" my celery before I sliced it ... I took a veggie peeler and peeled all the strings off of it and get it down to the tender white part ... it is much tastier and easier to slice this way)

1 c. of shredded cheddar (I used about a cup and 1/2 of Kraft Sharp Cheddar Crumbles)

3 hard boiled eggs, chopped (I love egg in my salad)

3 to 4 green onions, chopped


Dressing Ingredients

1 Cup of Ketchup

3/4 c. of white vinegar

3/4 c. of vegetable oil

1/2 c. of sugar

1 tsp. of salt

1 tsp. of Worcestershire Sauce

In a LARGE salad bowl, combine the salad ingredients and toss. You'll need a large bowl to start out, but once you add the dressing you could transfer it to a smaller bowl.

Whisk all of the dressing ingredients together or put them in a jar with a tight lid and shake. Wait to toss the salad with the dressing on until you are ready to serve the salad. And, when you do, only put about 1 and 1/2 cups to 2 cups of dressing on it at the MOST. The recipe makes about three cups, but that is WAY too much dressing!

Creamy Italian Noodles

I get in a side dish rut. My "go to" is always instant brown rice cooked in chicken broth. It is good, but it gets boring after a while. So, I found this recipe and adapted it a little bit. All three of my little boys LOVED it and asked for seconds. You could add cooked chicken to it and make it a main dish.

Ingredients

1 (8 oz.) package of whole wheat pasta (the original recipe called for wide egg noodles, but I used whole wheat penne pasta)

1 package of dry Italian salad dressing mix

1/2 cup of milk (I used whole milk but you could use whipping cream or fat free milk)

1/2 stick of butter

1/4 cup of grated Parmesan cheese

1. Cook noodles according to package direction and drain. I didn't rinse mine ... just drained it.

2. Cut the butter into chunks so it melts easier. Stir that up in the hot noodles. Add the remaining ingredients and stir.

3. Serve hot.