I made 4 dozen cookies Tuesday night.....

it's Thursday, and I ate the last one for breakfast this morning. No kidding.

No, I didn't eat all 48 of them by myself. I had a little help, times four.

So tonight I decided to make more. Because they were really good. And I don't make really good cookies very often.

It's not for lack of trying. It's just that Grandma Judy gave the baking skills to all her other grand kids. Me, I got nothing but eating skills. Lots and lots of eating skills.......and this Kitchen Aid mixer.

This is the Kitchen Aid mixer Grandma used through my childhood. I'm pretty sure that it was her guilt over my lack of baking skills, and her fear of my children growing up never seeing me make a homemade cookie, that persuaded my grandma to give me her mixer a few years ago. It still purrs like a kitten, so there was no reason for Grandma to part with it. Maybe it was just her desire for a shiny new one and my obvious need for any baking help I could find. Whatever it was, I ended up with this beauty.
Sure it's dented and dinged, but it made a lot of mean cheese balls in it's time, so it's earned the right to be a little worse for wear. Now, the mixer makes it's home in a lonely corner of my pantry cabinet, only seeing the light about once or twice a year when I have delusions of knowing how to bake.
Like this week, when a craving for homemade chocolate chip cookies began to plague me, and Luke was nowhere around to make them. Seems he thinks that moving out gave him the right to not make me cookies anymore. The nerve......Now I have to resort to torturing my hand-me-down mixer.
However, thanks to a recipe from my

"Favorite Recipes From Quilter's" cookbook, my cookies turned out great. I should have know when the first ingredient was shortening! A staple in Grandma's cooking, of course my mixer was going to love it! So did my family, apparently, as evidenced by my very empty cookie jar. Who can blame them? It's not very often my baking results in something so....edible.
So now, my cookie dough is chilling in the fridge. Isn't it pretty?

By the time Charlie gets home from work, the house will smell like delicious oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and Grandma's mixer will have one more success under it's belt bowl.
Now, I'm off to finish cutting pieces for my next quilt while I wait to taste test my cookies.

Best Ever Sugar Cookies

If you love a soft and sweet sugar cookie, I have the perfect recipe. This recipe came from my grandma, and I don't know where she got it. All I know is that I don't bake, but every year around the holidays I end up making these cookies. They are too good, my second batch in as many weeks is chilling in the fridge right now! Here's the recipe for your eating pleasure:

1 1/2 Cups of butter
3 Cups of sugar
1 tbsp. vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
6 Cups of flour
1 Cup of sour cream
3 eggs

Combine all of this and mix well. A kitchenaid type mixer is a must, as this dough is super thick and sticky. Once mixed, chill well in the refridgerator. If your dough isn't cold enough, it will be impossible to roll and cut the cookies.

Once dough is chilled, roll and cut into desired shapes. A pastry sheet is best, and it will take a lot of flour to prevent the dough from sticking! PAM sprayed on the cookie cutter also helps.

Bake at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes. (I have larger cookie cutters that take a little more than 10 minutes to cook completely.)

Let the cookies cool, and then frost them with this frosting:

4 oz. cream cheese
3 Cups of powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tbsp. milk
1/4 Cup of butter

Happy Eating!

Warning:Make at your own risk!

I had a moment of weakness at the grocery store yesterday. Actually, a few moments of weakness in a few different aisles, and when I left I had all the ingredients to make really good Chocolate Oat Bars. I found this recipe almost 10 years ago in a recipe book of my mom's, and I've made them so many times since I have the recipe memorized. I'm not much of a baker, so that's saying a lot!

If you're up for some major acne breakouts and instant weight gain, whip up a batch of your own! They only take about 10 minutes, which is why they're so dangerous! Here's how:

Melt 1 cup of butter. Add a tsp. of vanilla and 1/2 cup of brown sugar. Stir until the sugar is mostly disolved.

To this, add about 3 cups of uncooked oats. I use Quaker Oats. Cook this mixture on low about 3 minutes. You may need to add more or less oats, just add enough to soak up almost all of the butter mixture.

While that cooks on low, spray a 9x9 glass pan with Pam. Add 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips to a new pan and turn on low to melt.

Press about 1/2 to 2/3 of the oats mixture into the bottom of the glass pan. Be sure to stir the chocolate too, so it doesn't burn.

When almost all the chips are melted, add 1/2 cup of peanut butter and melt into the chocolate. Stir until smooth. Then, pour this into the glass pan.

Sprinkle/crumble the remaining oat mixture on top of the chocolate. Then, refrigerate until firm.

That's all there is to it. While it firms up, I recommend stocking up on acne wash!

Warning-Really Good Cake!

I had a moment of weakness last night, brought on by a false sense of safety after losing weight over the weekend, and I made this cake:

Best Ever Chocolate Fudge Layer Cake.

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, make this cake if you have little or no self restraint, like me! This cake turned out sooooo good, and it was super easy. It is so good, I'm sure it will probably be gone tonight. That weight I lost over the weekend? I think I found it.

Mmmmm, Mmmmmm!

The past week I tried a new recipe, and an oldie but goodie. Here they are, try them if you want. Remember, I'm cooking for a husband that eats 24/7 and 3 growing kids, so if your family is smaller you may need to 1/2 the recipe!

First, I found this recipe in another Kraft Foods magazine. It took less than 30 minutes, and was a big hit with all of the kids!

3 packages of 3-cheese tortellini
2-3 cups of frozen peas
8oz cream cheese, 2 cups milk, 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, deli ham

Cook the tortellini according to directions
Drain Tortellini, in saucepan heat 8oz cream cheese, 2 cups of milk, and 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese. Add frozen peas and sliced up deli ham (to personal preference, I used ham lunch meat). Add tortellini and heat on low until sauce thickens slightly. Eat & enjoy!

Last night I made a family favorite, Meat Balls and Dill Sauce. My Mom has been making this as long as I can remember, and I still love it! The sauce is also great on mashed potatoes or noodles.

I used 1 bag of already made frozen meatballs, cooked according to package, but if you want to make your own mix hamburger & sausage, add a splash of 1/2 & 1/2 and breadcrumbs, form into 2" balls, and bake until done. (Sorry about the vagueness, I warned you I'm not a good cook, I just fly by the seat of my pants!)
For the sauce:
1 cup margarine
1/2 cup flour
2 cups sour cream
2 cups chicken broth
2 tbsp. dill weed

Heat margarine, and add flour to melted margarine. Mix well with wire whisk, then add chicken broth and sour cream and heat thoroughly. Add dill weed. Add cooked meat balls, or pour over the top of meat balls and serve!

Tonight, I'm taking the dinner shift off. Watch for new recipes soon, I plan to try a few more later this week!