Cookies Galore

I was a little perplexed about what to give my friends as hostess gifts. They are all really crafty and cute, so I knew it needed to be something special. I thought it would be best to just go with something I know- cookies.

I made them little gift bags with three kinds of cookies, a cute spring dish towel and some stationary with their initial. Nothing too fancy, but hopefully, they know how much we appreciated all their hard work. I thought I would share the cookie recipes.

First up, I made my traditional chocolate chip cookie recipe. You can find more on those here.

Next, I decided to make Granny B’s Famous Sugar Cookies. These are Jeremy’s absolute favorites. I previously posted the recipe for PaPa’s sugar cookies, but these are a little bit different. They are very soft and a little bit chewy. Don’t let them get brown at all (not even the edges).

Granny B’s Sugar Cookies

½ cup butter or margarine

½ cup shortening (like Crisco)

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 ¼ cups all purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda
Additional sugar

In mixing bowl, cream butter, shortening and sugar. Add egg and vanilla. Mix well. Combine flour, baking powder and baking soda. Gradually, add to the creamed butter mixture. Shape into balls. Roll in the extra sugar. Use a glass to slightly flatten the balls. Place on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes.

If you like soft sugar cookies that are not too sweet- you’ll love these!

Last, I made chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips. They were good- just not my favorite. I think I’m just more of a traditionalist when it comes to cookies. Chocolate chip will always be #1 for me, followed closely by sugar.

You can find the recipe I used here.  You really can't go wrong with any of these easy recipes- all delicious!  

Happy cookie baking!

Cookies for Santa

One of the best parts about Christmas is all the yummy baked goods! I love baking and decorating sugar cookies. I think I would do it more often if it didn't take so much time (and make a BIG mess).

Katie came over on Saturday and we decorated lots of sugar cookies! I think we dirtied every bowl and spoon that I own. But it was so much fun and I love the finished result!

I used a Martha Stewart sugar cookie recipe and it turned out pretty well- not too much spreading. The recipe says to put the cookie sheet in the freezer after you have cut out the cookies- I did not do this. Who can wait that long??? I did refrigerate the dough for several hours before rolling it out and cutting.

Try it and let me know what works for you. You'll definitely want to leave a few of these for Santa!

Sugar Cookie Cutouts

Ingredients:
4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl.

2. Put butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Mix in eggs and vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Gradually mix in flour mixture. Divide dough into quarters; flatten each quarter into a disk. Wrap each in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour or overnight.

3. Preheat oven to 325 degrees with racks in upper and lower thirds. Let one disk of dough stand at room temperature just until soft enough to roll, about 10 minutes. Roll out dough between two pieces of plastic wrap to 1/4-inch thickness. Remove top layer of plastic wrap. Cut out cookies with a 4-to-5-inch cookie cutter. Transfer cookie dough on plastic wrap to a baking sheet. Transfer baking sheet to freezer, and freeze until very firm, about 15 minutes. Remove baking sheet from freezer, and transfer shapes to baking sheets lined with nonstick baking mats. Roll out scraps, and repeat. Repeat with remaining disk of dough.

4. Bake, switching positions of sheets and rotating halfway through, until edges turn golden, 15 to 18 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks.

I also used both royal icing and sugar cookie icing. The royal icing, which uses meringue powder, isn't quite as tasty, but is perfect for outlining.

After all our hard work decorating, we went to the Christmas light display at Chickasha (pronounced: chic- A- shay). We decided to take Ivy and Win with us, which was a little bit of a mistake. They went crazy- barking and growling at all the moving displays. They were hopping all over the car from my lap to Jeremy's to Katie's in the backseat.

Despite Ivy and Win all over the car, we had a great time seeing all the thousands of lights. It was a great way to start off the Christmas season! Cookies and lights!!!

Family Traditions

Normally, I only blog about recipes I make or events that I attend, but today was a very special occasion. My Aunt Polly turned 50 and PaPa turned 80 (they share the same birthday)! Everyone celebrated in Abilene- I was really sad that Jeremy and I couldn’t be there. Hopefully, we’ll make it for 81, since we’ll be a short drive away in Oklahoma City!

PaPa has always been very special to me- and I think it’s safe to say he’s pretty special to all my cousins, too. Growing up, we couldn’t wait to go check the cows with him and do all kinds of other tasks on his ranch. We were pretty much up for whatever PaPa wanted to do! We spent several weeks with my PaPa and MaMa every summer when I was little- those are some of my most special memories.

My grandmother was a fabulous cook and we also loved helping her out in the kitchen. She made a wonderful chocolate cake with a 7- minute icing- I’ve never had one like it. I can remember helping her put the icing on one when I was a little girl and telling her that I wanted her to make my wedding cake! My grandmother passed away when I was in high school and words can’t describe how much we all miss her!

To celebrate PaPa and Aunt Polly’s birthday, my family made a chocolate cake with white icing and sugar cookies- both my MaMa’s recipes. PaPa loves cookies that are a little bit burned- kind of weird, I know. But it can actually work to your advantage. Whenever we make cookies and they get a little too done (maybe because we forgot to check on them), we just say- those are for PaPa. Here are some Moore family recipes and a few pictures from the birthday festivities. Don’t worry if your cookies get a little brown- you can say they are for PaPa, too!

Happy Birthday PaPa and Aunt Polly!!!

THE cake

sugar cookies

My Dad and Uncle Randy

Making the sugar cookies

Dad, PaPa, Randy, and Polly

MaMa & PaPa’s Sugar Cookies

1 cup sugar
½ cup butter
½ cup oil
1 egg
½ tsp vanilla
½ tsp cream of tartar
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
2 cups flour

In large bowl mix sugar, butter, oil, egg and vanilla until creamy.

In medium bowl, mix dry ingredients.

Add dry ingredients to sugar mixture and mix well. Chill dough 15 to 20 minutes.

Roll dough into balls and place on greased cookie sheet. Flatten balls with a glass dipped in sugar
Bake at 350 degrees F for 8 to 10 minutes. (for Papa we baked for almost 15 minutes – on the verge of being burned!!)

Something to Smile About

Again, still with the theme of trying to use up pantry items. Somehow, I ended up with two very LARGE containers of oatmeal. That’s a lot of oatmeal! I had some for breakfast yesterday and today, but the thought of trying to eat my way through 2 LARGE containers one breakfast bowl at a time, kind of makes me nauseous. In addition, I would probably still be eating oatmeal a year from now- one little bowl hardly makes a dent!

So I came up with meatloaf and no bake cookies. I very rarely make meatloaf- maybe twice ever! My mom never and I mean never made meatloaf when I was growing up (nor does she even to this day). I think maybe she ate it too often when she was a kid? Or maybe she just doesn’t like it? Needless to say, I don’t have some great family recipe for meatloaf, so I have to resort to finding a recipe on-line. If you have a great recipe, feel free to share!
On the other hand, no bake cookies were a regular in my house- growing up and even now! I love them- chocolate, peanut butter, oatmeal! Delicious! I have so many memories of my bff, Amy, and I eating these cookies- or really just licking the pan while the batter? was still warm. Mmmm!

I ended up with no pictures of the mini meatloaves- Jeremy's cousin came over for dinner, so I didn't really have a chance. I really like the mini-meatloaf concept, because they are individual portions and they bake a little faster. And you don't have to worry about it crumbling apart while you try to slice it. I added a little more seasoning to my meatloaf- salt, pepper, and some garlic powder. I think it turned out well.

Dinner tonight- mini meatloaves, mashed potatoes, corn, garlic rolls, and no bake cookies! Hello carbs!

Mini Meatloaves

1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup quick cooking oats
1 teaspoon salt
1 pound ground beef
2/3 cup ketchup
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons prepared mustard

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
In a large bowl, combine the egg, milk, cheese, oats and salt. Add the ground beef, mixing well, and form this mixture into eight miniature meatloaves. Place these in a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking dish.

*Tip: put foil in your backing dish so clean up is super easy- just throw away the foil!

In a separate small bowl, combine the ketchup, brown sugar and mustard. Stir thoroughly and spread over each meatloaf.
Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes.

No Bake Cookies

4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
3 cups quick cooking oats
1/2 cup peanut butter1 tablespoon vanilla extract


Mix together sugar, butter or margarine, and milk in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil for one minute, stirring constantly.


Remove from heat and mix in cocoa, quick oatmeal and vanilla. Drop by spoonfuls on waxed paper.

This is the best part about making no bake cookies!

Ivy licked the peanut butter spoon!

A plate of no bake cookies!

Going Nuts

Over the weekend in Abilene, we had a celebration party for my parent's "neighbor" and dear family friend, Kristi. Kristi graduated from nursing school. Several of her friends came to the party and brought various party foods. One of her friends brought some completely delicious and amazing thumbprint cookies. If you love pecan shortbread cookies, butter pecan ice cream or anything else with pecans, you will love these cookies!
As soon as I got back to Nashville, I sent an email requesting a copy of the recipe. Luckily, Kristi's friend, Laura, was willing to share, so here it is! It's fabulous! Thanks, Laura!

She called them thumbprint cookies, but I'm going to call them pecan thumbprint cookies. "Thumbprint cookies" take me back to the high school days when at school events they brought in cookies with gobs of icing in our school colors- purple and gold (yellow). Those were pretty good, but these are MUCH better!

Pecan Thumbprint Cookies

2 sticks margarine
1 C sugar
2 eggs separated
1 t. vanilla
2 C flour
¼ t salt
1 ½ C finely chopped pecans
Icing

Cream butter and sugar with egg yolks until fluffy. Stir in vanilla. Add flour and salt; mix well.

Roll dough into 1” balls, then roll in slightly beaten egg whites. Dip into chopped pecans until completely coated. Place on greased cookie sheet and make a thumbprint in each. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes or until done. Cool.

Fill thumbprint indentation in each cookie with icing.

Icing:
2 C confectioners’ sugar
2 T butter
1 t vanilla
2-3 T milk
½ - 1 t maple flavoring to taste (optional)

Also, if you happen to own a dog, Target has a portion of their dollar area (you know right when you come in the door- on the right) dedicated to dog stuff. I purchased several plush toys and other cute things for Ivy. One dollar item happened to be a cute little pink visor with a flamingo on it. Of course, Ivy hates wearing anything- she just wants to chew on it. But with plenty of treats, I kept her distracted long enough to get a picture. Although in most of the pictures, she's trying to get it off! Here are the rest of the pics!

Who says you can't go home???

I had a fabulous weekend in Abilene and I really enjoyed seeing my family. I had Texas BBQ and some of my mom's home cooking. And of course, no trip to Texas would be complete without Tex-Mex!

Because of my kind, sweet friend, Melissa, I went to the Bon Jovi concert in Dallas at the American Airlines Center on Monday night. The concert was fabulous and very entertaining. They did a lot of really cool stuff with the stage and lighting. Our seats were a little high, but we had a great time!

I'm back in Nashville and I decided to bake some chocolate chip cookies. I know there are tons of versions of chocolate chip cookies and you might have a delicious recipe yourself. In fact, my family once tested out a few different recipes. My mom, aunts, and grandmothers made several different versions and all the "guys" were the judges. Of course, the judges were treading on thin ice since they were judging the cookies of their wife, mother, daughters-in-law, sisters, and mother-in-law, etc. A very sticky situation. So in order to keep in the good graces of all the women in their lives- they unanimously agreed that a warm chocolate chip cookie was the winner hands down (regardless of the recipe)!

This recipe is adapted from the Original Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie. Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) chocolate chips

Directions:

PREHEAT oven to 375° F.

COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.