Oatmeal Crispies

I am not going to lie.... it has been hard not having the kids here every night.  But I am starting to get use to it.  Cally and I have had a rough go of it for the first several days but we are ok now!  And I know she will be home to see me on Labor Day weekend so it is all good!!!!!

Here are some more pictures of Cally's dorm apartment.  Her apartment is really nice.  She has her own bedroom, which makes it nice since she has never had to share a room before.  The apartment has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, living room and eat in kitchen.  Even though the school makes it mandatory to purchase a meal plan she can still cook in her kitchen if she feels like it.   The comforter and pillow sham is a Vera Bradley set.  Back in July I had blogged about Cally and I spending the day in Tipp City.  We were in a neat shop named Urban Ava's and this comforter set in twinXL was a give away to sign up for.  We signed up and I won it, needless to say Cally was ecstatic.  This is one of her favorite new patterns.

I guess I should get to telling you about these cookies.  The recipe is one from Pioneer Women.  They were the best oatmeal cookies I have ever had.  The had a crispy texture and a good oat taste.  I made them again on a half a sheet cake pan as bars but they were not as good.  When I did them as bars they seemed a little dry.  I did do a few things different with my cookies, I used butter flavored crisco, I balled mine and placed them on a cookie sheet with parchment paper and flattened them with a glass that I dipped in sugar.  So the tops had a nice sugar crunch to them after they were baked.  I love sugar sprinkled on cookies.


Oatmeal Crispies
Pioneer Woman

1 c Shortening (Crisco)
1 c Packed Brown Sugar
1 c Sugar
2 whole Eggs
1 t Vanilla
1-1/2 c All-purpose Flour
1 t Salt
1 t Baking Soda
3 c Quick Oats
1/2 c Finely Chopped Pecans

In a large mixing bowl, cream shortening with both sugars until well combined.

In a separate bowl, beat eggs together. Add vanilla and stir to combine. Add to the shortening/sugar mixture and mix well.

In a separate bowl combine the flour, salt and baking soda. Mix carefully into the egg/shortening mixture until well combined. Now add the quick oats and mix well again. Finally add the finely chopped pecans and mix well to combine.

Divide the dough in half and place each half of the dough onto a sheet of waxed paper. Roll the dough into a log and then wrap it tightly in the waxed paper. Now you can either chill or freeze the dough until later or you can go ahead and slice the dough evenly into cookie rounds.

When you are ready to bake them place them on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes until they are golden brown.

Grand Raspberry Trifle and Move in Day

It has been a rough week.  Billy moved out on Monday to Columbus and we moved Cally yesterday to Portsmouth.  Give us a little time and I am sure everyone will be ok.  I went to the store today without Cally and that was a little weird.  Cally and I were a team, we did everything together so it is going to take some getting use to that she has moved away for the school year.

Billy says he has move out for good.  He is renting a house year round in Columbus so he will not be coming home in the summer like Cally will.  We helped Billy move his things on Sunday morning and he just wanted us to take everything in and leave it because he had plans and then he finished setting everything up on Monday by himself.  I do not envy him, I would not want to live in town or in a house with 5 guys and 1 bathroom.  But they are young and love being right there on campus.

Cally is living in an apartment style dorm room.  In her apartment there are 4 bedrooms (each girl has their own bedroom) and 2 bathrooms (2 girls share a bathroom).  There is also a full eat in kitchen and living room area.  It is really nice.  We arrived in Portsmouth yesterday morning about 11:30 we stayed until 7:00pm and Bill and I arrived home about 10:00 last night.  It was a long day.  Cally's room is really cute.  I think she will have a good school year!

This Grand Raspberry Trifle was the raspberry dish that Cally made for the fair.  It ends up that it is the same  recipe as the raspberry dish that won 1st place except that the 1st place lady made homemade pound cake for her dish and Cally used a frozen pound cake.  I think you really could not tell the difference and Cally's trifle was amazing.  I really like the pound cake soaked in the lemon juice syrup !

In this picture you see the judge getting into Cally's trifle to taste it for judging.  And right beside Cally's is the other trifle that took 1st place.  Cally's dish was very pretty as well as very good!

Grand Raspberry Trifle

Ingredients

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1 cup seedless raspberry jam

4 cups raspberries

2 cups heavy cream

1 1/2 pounds favorite pound cake

Directions

In a small saucepan, bring 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 cup water, and lemon juice to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar, 1 to 2 minutes. Let cool.

In a small bowl, combine jam with 3 cups raspberries, mashing slightly.

 In a large bowl, whip cream and 2 tablespoons sugar to stiff peaks.

Slice pound cake 3/4 inch thick; brush both sides of slices with lemon syrup.

Fit 1/2 of slices snugly in the bottom of a 4-quart trifle dish or other glass bowl, trimming edges if necessary. Gently spread top of layer with 1/2 of raspberry mixture, and then 1/2 of whipped cream. Repeat to make one more layer; garnish with remaining cup raspberries. Refrigerate until ready to serve, up to 24 hours.

Root Beer Float Cheesecake ---- 2nd Place Desserts 2012 Clark County Fair

Root Beer Float Cheesecake

1 1/2 Cups shortbread cookie crumbs
2 Tablespoons butter, melted
4  8 oz packages cream cheese, softened
1 Cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons root beer extract
1 1/2 Cups whipping cream
1/2 Cups plus 2 Tablespoons powder sugar

Combine cookie crumbs and butter, press into the bottom of a 9 inch springform pan.  Beat cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla for 2 minutes in a large bowl with electric mixer at medium speed until well blended.

Add eggs, beat until blended.  Transfer 1 1/4 cups of batter to a small bowl.  Add root beer extract and stir. Spoon half of the cream cheese mixture into crust.

Spoon half of the root beer mixture over the cream cheese mixture.  Repeat layers.  Swirl with a knife to create marbled effect.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes or until center is almost set.  Loosen cake from rim of pan, cool completely.  Remove rim of pan.  Chill.  Beat whipping cream in a large bowl with electric mixer at high speed until thickened.  Add powdered sugar.  Beat at high speed until stiff peaks form.  Spread over cheesecake.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Peach BBQ Pork Tenderloin----Blue Ribbon Winner

This was my Blue Ribbon Winner at the fair this year.  I usually use this rub and bbq sauce on my ribs.  I actually set out to the store to buy ribs to enter in the pork dish of the day contest.  After seeing the price of baby back ribs I decided to try this recipe on a pork tenderloin.  Oh that was a great decision to make.  After putting the rub on the meat the night before and letting it sit in the fridge overnight the tenderloin smelled awesome the next morning.

I fixed mine for the fair in the crock pot.  It was tender and really moist.  I fixed it again yesterday but this time baked it in the oven instead and it was still just as tender and moist.  It did make the house smell good when it was in the crock pot all day...yummy

Peach BBQ Pork Tenderloin

Pork Tenderloin

The night before mix together the pork rub.  Trim off any fat on the tenderloin.  Rub the tenderloin with the pork rub.  Wrap in foil and place in the refrigerator overnight. (I used about half of the rub but use as much as you desire, my left over rub I sprinkled on pork chops after I placed them on the grill and they were really tender and had a good flavor to them)

Pork Rub


3T brown sugar
1 1/2 T smoked paprika
1T hickory smoked salt
1 1/2T black pepper
1t garlic powder
2T herbs of Provence

Mix all together and rub on tenderloin.  Wrap in foil and put in refrigerator overnight

Next day, Place tenderloin in crock pot and cover with half of the Peach BBQ Sauce.  Cook on low for about 5 hours. Or bake in 350 degree oven for 45 to 60 minutes.

Peach BBQ Sauce

4  3.5 oz Peach Baby food
1/3 C ketchup
1/3 C red wine vinegar
2T soy sauce
1/2 C brown sugar
1/2 t garlic powder
2 t ground ginger
1 t cinnamon
1 t salt
1 to 2 t liquid smoke

Mix all together

If desired before serving may be grilled out on the grill for a more smokey taste.

Award winning Butterscotch Cookies

Seems like I have been gone forever.  Last week I was busy cooking and baking for competitions at the fair and then the weekend came and I wanted to update my blog and tell you all about my winnings and my Internet was out.  Problem solved now, I had to go to town and buy a new router this evening and we are back in business.

I did very good at fair this year.  I entered 6 different dishes and I placed on 5 of them.  I won 1st place on Peach BBQ Pork Tenderloin, 2nd place on Root Beer Float Cheesecake, 3rd place on Butterscotch cookies, 4th place on Raspberry Cheesecake and 5th place on Scalloped Potatoes.  I made my Real Buffalo Chicken dip but it did not place.

Today I am going to tell you about our Butterscotch Cookie contest.  In this contest we were all given the same recipe to make.  We were told to follow the recipe and bring 12 of our best cookies for judging.  Cally talked Nikki and Laura into doing this contest with her.  So the night before the contest the girls all made their cookies here at my house.

The recipe says to mix the cookies up, form into a log, wrap in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator over night. The next morning the girls all took turns baking their cookies.  Then I baked mine after I got off work.  These are a few things I know we did different.  Me, Nikki and Laura used salted Butter and Cally used unsalted butter.  I used vanilla extract while the girls all used vanilla paste.  I took my cookies right off the cookie sheets and put them on cooking racks while I think the girls let theirs cool some on the cookie sheets before transferring them to the cooling racks.

Even though they were all mixed up and baked from the same kitchen they all looked and tasted different.  Mine were the most pale, Cally's were a little more golden than mine and then Nikki and Laura's were a nice golden brown.  Theirs were a little more crunchy while mine and Cally's were more chewy.

When we go to the fair we are assigned a number and we put our cookies up on the judging table with our number. Then we take a seat in the audience and we can watch the judges taste our cookies (or dishes for the other contests) and make their decisions.  It is fun to watch them as they judge and interact with each other.  For the cookies there were 3 judges.  They would look the cookies over, see how done they were on the bottom and then taste them.  They were back and forth with our 4 entries.  Before I noticed them make their final decision I saw them turn over all Nikki and Laura's cookies and examine the bottoms.  Usually this means they are so close they are looking for one to have a better appearance to place one above the other.

It ended up that Nikki took 1st place, Laura took 2nd place, I took 3rd place and Cally took 4th place.  They placed 1st thru 5th and we received kitchen gifts for winning.

Cally had a lot of fun having her friends compete in the cookie contest with her.  I will post more of my winning recipes as the week goes on.

Butterscotch Cookies

1/2 C butter, softened
1 C light brown sugar
4 t white sugar
1 egg
1 t vanilla

Mix together the following:
1 1/2 C flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt

Beat butter, sugars, egg and vanilla.  Add flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  Form into a roll, refrigerate until next day or until ready to use.

Cut into slices about 1/4" thick.  Bake at 350 degrees for 8 minutes.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Smores

Yum
I can not believe how cool it is out.  We have been extremely hot lately and then today it is so cool I am wearing a sweat shirt and sitting by the fire.  So that is a good excuse to make these Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Smores.  I will eat regular smores but am not a big fan but these smores with chocolate and peanut butter are amazing!

We are having a good night just relaxing by the fire and roasting marshmallows and making smores.  Our yard has corn field on 2 sides.  Bill snuck into the corn field and was trying to scare us.  I had no idea he was even in the field because I am hard of hearing but the kids and dogs heard him moving around and were concerned.  I just kept saying I was smelling a skunk and was afraid it was a skunk.  Our oldest dog has been sprayed by a skunk before and I do not want to deal with that again.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Smores

1 Graham Cracker

1 Reese's Peanut Butter Cup

1 Marshmallow

Roast marshmallows until soft.  Take 2 graham crackers and place the marshmallow and a Reese Cup between the crackers squish together and enjoy!

Caramel Nut Chocolate Chunk Cookies, the Gathering and Cally's 19th B-day

Today Bill and I took our Corvette to an all Corvette show in Lancaster OH called the Gathering.  I would guess that there were 300 corvettes lining downtown streets in Lancaster.  Bill and I traveled to Lancaster with some couples that we met at a previous car show.  We are excited to join their car club and be able to go on more outings with this group.  It was a blast to meet people from all over and see all different years and colors of Corvettes.

When I was grocery shopping on Saturday I found a bag of Caramel Bits.  I thought these sounded yummy. They are balls of caramel that are ready to use right out of the bag without having to unwrap the caramel pieces.  So that put me to thinking about what kind of cookie I could make with these caramel bits to take to the car show with me.  I came up with Caramel Nut Chocolate Chunk Cookies.  I think they taste like a Turtle.  Maybe I should have called them Turtle Cookies.  I am not entering the best cookie in the county this year but if I was this would be the cookie that I would enter.

The dough was so thick on these cookies that once I put the caramel, chocolate chunks and the nuts in the bowl and went to mix it all together that I broke my paddle attachment for my mixer..... I was bummed as this is my scraping paddle attachment so I guess I will have to drop some hints for a new one.  The dough was so good to eat and I had a hard time keeping my hands out of the bowl while I was trying to put the cookies balls on the sheet.  They are soft with a little crunch from the nuts and the caramel makes them chewy.

Caramel Nut Chocolate Chunk Cookies


1 C butter
3/4 C brown sugar
1/3 C white sugar
1 small box white chocolate instant pudding
2 eggs
2 t vanilla
2 1/4 C flour
1 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1 bag chocolate chunks (12oz)
1 bag caramel bits (11oz)
1 C pecans, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream together the butter and sugars.  Beat in the instant pudding mix, until blended.  Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until combined.  Blend in the flour, baking powder and baking soda.  Stir in the chocolate chunks, caramel bits and the pecans.

Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto cookie sheets covered with parchment paper.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Cally turned 19 this week, here is a picture of Cally and her birthday cake.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CALLY