Annie, of last year's cookie baking fame, showed me how she makes her fabulous Chocolate Chip Cookies on Saturday night. Believe me, they were yummy! Here are the videos (it's in two parts) and the recipe follows. :)


(watch Part 1 in high quality)


(watch Part 2 in high quality)

Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1 cup of butter-flavored Crisco
• 1-1/2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon (plus a little extra) vanilla
• 2-1/4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon (plus a little extra) salt
• 1-2 cups of chocolate chips (amount depends on personal preference - I prefer about 1.5 cups)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a mixing bowl, cream together the Crisco and brown sugar then add the eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet mixture in the mixing bowl. Once all dry ingredients are mixed in then add chocolate chips. Scoop out dough with a cookie scoop, roll into a ball in your hands, and press the ball onto the lined cookie sheet (I use a Silpat). Press down the ball so it forms more of a disk shape about ½" thick and round the edges. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-11 minutes, or just before cookies turn golden brown. Drop the cookie sheet on a sturdy surface after you remove cookie sheet from oven to let cookies flatten a bit.

Things I did this weekend:

• Decorate for Christmas with Jen (yes, it's not even Thanksgiving)
• Put an autumn wreath on the front door (even though it's Christmas inside, I figured it's still Thanksgiving outside)
• Baked some dinner rolls for a family gathering tonight. I used my sister's recipe (at the end of this entry... Thanks, sis, for the photos. I totally borrowed them).
• Finished up some TwoPeas projects (still a few more to go that are due tomorrow... AHH!
• Started on my card club project for this Thursday. We're making advent calendars. I'll post the finished project once I'm finished.
• Bought tickets to go see The Forgotten Carols live with the fam and Jen. :)

And the recipe in Marisa's words...

DINNER ROLLS

2 Tbsp. yeast
1/2 cup warm (105º-115º) water
2 Tbsp. sugar
2 cups hot (120º-130º) water
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter shortening
2 eggs
2 tsp. salt
7-8 cups flour
butter, melted

Mix together yeast, 1/2 cup warm water, and 2 Tbsp. sugar. Let sit for 10-15 minutes to proof (get all fluffy). Whisk in large mixing bowl 2 cups hot water, 1/2 cup sugar, shortening, eggs, and salt. Add yeast mixture. Add flour one cup at a time. Let dough rise in greased bowl for one hour. Shape; bake at 350º for 16-22 minutes (I baked mine for 18 minutes). Brush with melted butter.

You could let the rolls rise for another hour after you shape them, but I was crunched for time and didn't let them rise again and they turned out just fine. It's just your personal preference.



Okay, here's how I shaped them. I put my left hand into an "OK" shape.



Then, I pinched off enough dough to make about a 1 1/2-inch ball. Instead of rolling the ball, I just put that dough atop the hole I made with my left hand, then pushed it through the hole with the pointer finger of my right hand, while slightly closing the hole. As the dough gets to the end, I pinched it shut and put the seam side down on the greased baking baking sheet. If you look in the top right-hand corner of the picture below, you can see the shaped rolls before they were baked. They look like little white domes. This method of shaping is so easy ... even my four-year-old can do it! (Although, the rolls he makes are quite a bit smaller.)

Just wanted to share a quick recipe with you! :) One of my roommates in college made this peach cobbler quite a bit and I absolutely loved it. It's more of a cake-y cobbler than most. You could almost call it a peach cake instead of cobbler. :)

And even better than that, it's SUPER easy to make and doesn't require strange ingredients.

Sara's Peach Cobbler

1. Melt 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter/margarine and pour in 13x19 pan.
2. Mix the following in a bowl:

1-1/2 c. flour
1 c. sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 c. water
1-1/8 c. milk

3. Pour batter mixture into pan over butter (it will sort of swirl all together--the butter will NOT stay on the bottom of the pan).

4. Pour fruit over top of mixture (it will sink to the bottom during cooking). I use one large can of peaches, or 2 standard cans, and slightly drain them so that only half of the juice is left. :)

5. Bake for 40 minutes at 375 degrees.

YUM!

Some of you asked about Nacho Chicken. I mentioned it in my Twitter updates. :) Anyhow, here's the recipe. This is definitely NOT Weight Watchers... lots of cheesy goodness!

Ingredients:
1 bag (7 oz.) nacho flavored chips
1 large onion, diced and softened in microwave (about 3 minutes)
3 chicken breasts, cooked and cut into bite-size pieces
1 can (10-3/4 oz.) cream of mushroom soup
1 c. chicken broth
1 can (10-3/4 oz.) cream of chicken soup
1 can (10 oz.) Rotel Tomatoes with Chilies, drained
½ lb. shredded cheddar cheese (2 c.)

Directions:
Crush chips and put half of crumbs in bottom of 9x13 baking dish. Mix onion, chicken, soups, tomatoes, and broth. Pour over chips. Top with other half of chip crumbs. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake 325 degrees for 30-40 minutes.

Number Of Servings: 6-8

Sorry 'bout the recipe hijacks recently. ;) It's the reason I haven't made any cards. Eek!

Last night, I braved an awful snow storm to drive over to Annie and Amber's to make sugar cookies. Yum! These are the best, if I do say so myself. Here are some fun shots of the evening. The sugar cookie recipe is at the bottom. Seriously it's a really good recipe. Try it. :)









Sour Cream Sugar Cookies

1-1/2 cups sugar
2 sticks margarine
1 egg
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup sour cream
4-1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

1. Cream together sugar and margarine. Add egg, vanilla, and sour cream. Add dry ingredients. Mix well, but only until flour is incorporated.
2. Refrigerate and shape.
3. Place on lightly greased baking sheet. Bake at 425° for 5 minutes (or longer if they're a bit thicker... just watch the first batch and then adjust the cooking time accordingly).

EDITED TO ADD: I changed the "cube" of margarine to "stick" of margarine. That happens when it's a family recipe, ya know?

Also, the icing! It's just Martha's royal icing recipe. See it here. There's also a video of Martha using the royal icing. Enjoy! :)

One of the gals at work is an amazing baker! (WHAT UP, Kathy!) She makes awesome sugar cookies, to die for breadsticks, and I'm sure anything she touches is just as good.

Anyway, a bunch of us have been asking her to show us how to make her famous breadsticks. Let me tell you, these are awesome! With out fail, everyone who tries them, loves them instantly. So, yesterday a bunch of us gathered at Paula's house and Kathy showed up how to make the breadsticks. At least, that's how it started out. Our breadstick demonstration morphed into a hot cocoa party! We had soup and other treats (including the breadsticks) and then we all tried different kinds of hot cocoa.

So yummy!

So here's Kathy's recipe, which happens to be an award-winning recipe! She won a bread recipe contest in Paper Crafts magazine a while back. This is that recipe! Enjoy! Seriously, ya'll need to make them and when you do, leave a comment and let us all know how they were. :)

Kathy's Best Ever Breadsticks

Mix together and set aside:
1-1/2 c. very warm water
1 Tbsp. yeast
1 Tbsp. Malted Milk powder
1 Tbsp. sugar

Add to yeast mixture:
4 c. OR 1 lb. bread flour (Kathy weighed the flour on a kitchen scale)
1 tsp. salt

1. Knead 5 minutes (Kathy used a Kitchen Aid mixer with the dough hook attachment on medium-low speed). Let rest 15 minutes (or don't let it rest... Kathy's never does).

2. Roll out on lightly greased surface (Kathy uses Pam cooking spray) so that the dough is a 7-8 inch wide rectangle and 1/2 inch thick. Cut into strips with pizza cutter.

3. Gently stretch, double over and twist each strip of dough and place on lightly greased jelly roll pan. You can also just place them on the pan without stretching or twisting.

4. Melt 1 stick of salted butter (8 Tbsp) and brush over top of dough, reserving 1/3 for after baking. Sprinkle with garlic salt (use powder if you REALLY like garlic, otherwise it gets too salty). Also sprinkle McCormick's Salad Supreme, and parmesan cheese.

5. Let rise until doubled.

6. Bake in 400 degree oven until golden brown, about 12-15 minutes.

7. Brush with remaining butter.

Makes great pizza crusts (two medium pizzas).

And, and just 'cause I can (hee hee!) here's a picture from the hot cocoa portion...

November and December is such a crazy, busy time, isn't it? That's why my monthly stamp club only meets once during those two months. On the first Thursday of December, we get together and have a fun night to make a project that is a bit more time and resource consuming. It's my Merry Christmas to them! :)

This year, we're making recipe boxes complete with recipes inside from each member of our stamp club. :)

The tin I chose for the project is the Maya Road Coffee Break tin. I needed 15 of them, so I completely wiped out the 13 that TwoPeas had, and then I bought 2 on Ebay. I'm not sure of any other stores that have them available, but I bought them a few weeks ago, so maybe some stores have re-stocked. :)

Tip on covering the tin... A 1" circle punch is the perfect size to punch out an opening for the latch on the front of the box. Just find the center of the strip of patterned paper, and then punch a half circle. :)

Each recipe card is 6" x 2-5/8", so I formatted the recipes on my computer, printed out the cards, and then trimmed them to the correct size. Not too hard.

Anyhow, on to the pictures...

Great Recipes Box - Tin: Maya Road; Simple Serifs Mini Alphabet stamp set, Apple Cider Designer Series Paper, Close to Cocoa and Naturals White card stock, Chocolate Chip ink, Really Rust marker, and Chocolate chip wide grosgrain: Stampin' Up!

So at my WW meeting yesterday, I wrote down an awesome soup recipe. I made it yesterday and it's pretty great. :)

1 Point Cheese Soup

2 16oz. pkg. of broccoli, cauliflower, and carrot mixture
10oz. Rotel tomatoes with green chills
10oz. Light Velvetta cheese, cubed
3 14.5oz. cans of fat-free chicken broth

1. Combine veggies and tomatoes
2. Cook in pot on medium heat until veggies are tender.
3. Place veggies in blender and mince.
4. Return mixture to pot with broth and add Velvetta cheese.
5. Heat until cheese melts. DO NOT BOIL.

Ten 1-cup servings. 1 point each.