Gingerbread Cookies

Gingerbread Cookies

2 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Sift flour, baking soda, salt and spices onto waxed paper. Beat vegetable shortening with sugar until fluffy in a large bowl; beat in molasses, egg, and vanilla. Stir in flour mixture, a third at a time, blending well after each addition, to make a soft dough. Wrap dough in foil and chill 4 hours, or overnight. Roll out dough, one quarter at a time, to a 1/8" thickness on a lightly floured pastry board.Cut with 3" cookie cutters. Place 1" apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees) 8 minutes, or until cookies are firm but not too dark. Remove to wire rack with spatula, cool.

I ignore the sifting part and just stir all the dry stuff together. I also found, thanks to my mom, that using powdered sugar instead of flour when you roll out the cookies works great!

Brownie Journey

I have been searching for the perfect brownie recipe. For the first time, I decided to apply what I learned in my food science class and treat my cooking like a science experiment. I wanted to find a brownie that was moist, chocolatey, fudgey, not cake-like, used baking cocoa powder, and is absolutely delicious. I just finished take 4 and they are getting pretty near perfection, so I thought I'd describe the process to you. Just like any scientific experiment, I tried to restrain myself to only changing one variable at a time so I could monitor the effects, but I just couldn't help myself. The changes made each time are in red, and the comments/results are in blue.

version 1.0
"Fudgy fudge brownies" from cooks.com
1 1/4 c. flour
1/4 c. cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs
2 c. sugar
3/4 c. butter, melted
1 tsp. vanilla

Stir tigether flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Mix well. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla. Beat with wooden spoon until smooth. Stir in dry ingredients; mix well. spread batter evenly in 13x9" pan.

Bake 350 degree F oven for about 25 minutes. Do not overbake. Brownies are ready when edges are just set and center is still soft.

results:

1. Not Chocolatey enough.
2. Too sugary. Sugary texture, too.
3. Excellent tip in the last paragraph. Taking it out when the center was still soft made the brownies moist and dense.

Version 2.0

1 1/4 c. flour
1/2 c. cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs
2 c. sugar
3/4 c. butter, melted
1 tsp. vanilla

Stir tigether flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Mix well. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla. Beat for a long time in the kitchenaid until sugar has a chance to dissolve more. Stir in dry ingredients; mix well. spread batter evenly in 13x9" pan.

Bake 350 degree F oven for about 25 minutes. Do not overbake. Brownies are ready when edges are just set and center is still soft.

results:

1. still not chocolatey enough!!
2. Less sugar texture, but sugar crystals still didn't dissolve totally, resulting in a still sugary texture (as well as taste)

Version 3.0

1 1/4 c. flour

1/2 c. dutch cocoa

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3 eggs

2 c. sugar

3/4 c. oil

1 tsp. vanilla

Stir tigether flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Mix well. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla. Beat for a long time in the kitchenaid until sugar has a chance to dissolve more.

ahhhhh! a large glass dish just dropped and shattered on top of my kitchenaid, covering my kitchen and filling my brownie mix with large shards of glass!

version 3.5
"Fudgy fudge brownies" from cooks.com
1 1/4 c. flour
1/4 c. dutch cocoa (we had some that Alex's Dad brought us back from Europe. Before that we were using generic aldi brand. Maybe someday I'll do some research on different types of cocoa.)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs
2 c. sugar
3/4 c. oil (I wanted to find a substitute for the butter because it is kind of expensive)

1 tsp. vanilla

Stir tigether flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Mix well. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla. Beat with wooden spoon until smooth. Stir in dry ingredients; mix well. spread batter evenly in 13x9" pan.

Bake 350 degree F oven for about 25 minutes. Do not overbake. Brownies are ready when edges are just set and center is still soft.

results:

1. really tall right out of oven, then deflated in center when cooled.
2. battery and undercooked.
3. way more chocolatey!

Version 4.0

1 1/4 c. flour
1/2 c. dutch cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs
1 3/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. margerine, melted
1 tsp. vanilla

Stir tigether flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Mix well. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla. Beat with wooden spoon until smooth. Stir in dry ingredients; mix well. spread batter evenly in 13x9" pan.

Bake 350 degree F oven for about 25 minutes. Do not overbake. Brownies are ready when edges are just set and center is still soft.

Results:

1. Best yet!
2. Chocolatey
3. not too sweet, no sugary texture ( I think that the batter before had just reached a saturation point with the sugar, reducing the amount really helped.)
4. more puffy/airy, but not cakey (this may be due to the fact that I mixed the wet ingredients extra long in an attempt to dissolve the sugar, but I may have mixed the eggs so much that they got air in them and worked as a leavening agent)
5. margerine ended up being a way better substitute to butter than oil. Makes sense, huh?

Rice Crispy snowmen

Rice Crispy Snowmen

This is a fabulous recipe to do with toddlers in the winter!

Ingredients:

3 T margarine or butter

1 package (10 oz Marshmallows)

6 Cups Rice Krispies cereal

pretzil sticks

icing

assorted candy, chocolate chips, raisins, small cookies, crackers, etc.

Heat Margerine and Marshmallows in a large microwave-safe bowl on high 3 minutes, stirring after every minute. Stir till smooth. Add rice Krispies and stir. (You can also follow the stovetop recipe for these if you want.) Next, coat a pan in cooking spray. Then spray your hands really well with cooking spray (this is really gross, but you have to grease your hands to make the krispie treats not stick). Form the rice crispie mix into balls and make snowmen. Make sure the base is wide and stable since krispie treat mix is still soft. Insert pretzil sticks for arms. Chill the snowmen in the fridge or cover and let the treats cool and set. Then, decorate your snowmen and enjoy the delicious treats!

Homemade Beef Pot Roast

We made this the other night and it was really good.

1 Beef Roast (2-4 lbs)

3 chopped Large Carrots

1 chopped Bell Pepper

2 C. chopped celery

1 T. Minced Garlic

2 T. Onion Flakes

1 cube of beef bullion

1 C. hot water


Defrost the roast. Slice roast so it is no thicker than 2 in. thick at any point. Place in roasting pan or large cake dish. Combine carrots, celery, bell pepper, minced garlic and onion flakes in a bowl and mix well. Evenly distribute vegetable mixture around the roast. Add beef bullion cube to hot water and mix until dissolved. Add liquid mixture to baking dish. Cover the dish with lid or aluminum foil. Place in 400 degree oven for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until meat is cooked. Remove and let sit for 15 minutes. Remove from baking dish and serve.

This is great for leftovers too.

Substitutions which can be made: Beef - Pork, Oven/baking dish - Crockpot, Omit or add additional vegetables to taste

Hush Puppies

1 C. yellow cornmeal

½ C. sifted flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

¾ tsp salt

2 tsp onion – minced

1 egg

2/3 C. milk

Combine all ingredients together and mix well. Drop into hot grease. Fry until brown.

Shirley Tucker

Angel Biscuits

2 pkg dry yeast

3-4 tbs warm water

5 C. all purpose flour

3-6 tbs sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 C. shortening

2 C. buttermilk

Dissolve yeast in warm water and set aside. Sift flour, sugar, baking powder and stir into yeast mixture. Add buttermilk to make a soft dough that can be handled. Roll on floured board. Cut with 4 inch biscuit cutter (anything will do), and brush tops with melted butter or margarine. Fold in half and place on greased cookie sheet. Bake in pre-heated 400 degrees oven for 10-20 minutes or until golden brown. To pre-bake, bake for 5-8 minutes (just until they set up) but do not brown. Cool and place in freezer bags and freeze until needed.

Betty Kethan

Self Rising Biscuit

1 pkg yeast

1 C. warm water

1 tbs sugar

1 tbs oil

4-5 C. Flour

Milk

Combine all ingredients into bowl. Add enough milk to make a stiff dough. Make into patty or roll out and cut with cutter. Grease pan and brush biscuits with oil. Bake on 375 for 20 minutes.

Lorene Loggins