– 1/4 cup olive oil – 1 1/2 teaspoons red pepper flakes – 1/2 teaspoon salt – 3 garlic cloves, chopped Saute together. (Be careful not to burn the pepper flakes – have the garlic ready.) Add one 28once can of crushed tomatoes. Stir in until bubbling. Done! I don't remember exactly how much this makes, but I know it feeds a family of six and then some! (For meat lovers, mix in some pre-made sausage.) Add salt and pepper to your liking – but I warn you, taste first!
Some associate pretzels with Lent and vice versa. It is said, pretzels were first made by a monk. Seeing the three holes, he likened them to the Trinity, and when upside-down, it reminded him of arms crossed in prayer, as some areas of the world do. During the Lenten season, my CCD class has to eat pretzels for a snack instead of cookies or animal crackers as a Lenten "sacrifice".
Now, you could go to the store and buy a bag of pretzels, or you could buy a box of frozen soft pretzels. OR you could make your own:
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/8 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup bread flour
2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
2 tablespoons baking soda
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons coarse kosher salt
Directions
In a large mixing bowl, dissolve the yeast, brown sugar and salt in 1 1/2 cups warm water. Stir in flour, and knead dough on a floured surface until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, and turn to coat the surface. Cover, and let rise for one hour.
Combine 2 cups warm water and baking soda in an 8 inch square pan. Line 6 baking sheets with parchment paper.
After dough has risen, cut into 12 pieces. Roll each piece into a 3 foot rope, pencil thin or thinner. Twist into a pretzel shape, and dip into the baking soda solution. Place onto parchment covered baking sheets, and let rise 15 to 20 minutes.
Preheat an oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C).
Bake in the preheated oven for 8 to 10 minutes, or until golden brown. Brush with melted butter, and sprinkle with coarse salt, garlic salt or cinnamon sugar.
These are best when right out of the oven (ohhhhhhh, heavenly....) but cover them with a towel and they still taste good in the morning - just warm up in the toaster oven.
1 cup of butter 4 eggs -2 1/3 cups flour -1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder -1/2 teaspoons baking soda -1/4 teaspoon salt 2 cups sugar 2 tablespoons lemon juice 1 cup buttermilk (or sour milk*)
If you let the butter and eggs stand out for half-an-hour at room temperature, the softer and warmer ingredients will make a lighter, fluffier cake.
*For sour milk, put a tablespoon of lemon juice per cup of sour milk in the bottom of a cup measure. Fill up to measure with milk and mix it together. Let it stand for five minutes.
Grease and lightly flour three 9" round cake pans.
Stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt (hyphened ingredients).
In another, large bowl, beat butter on medium for 30 secs. Add the sugar and lemon juice. For a stronger lemon flavor, you can add 2 teaspoons for shredded lemon peel. Beat until combined. Add eggs one at a time, beating well until combined. Alternately add flower mixture and buttermilk (or sour milk).
Pour into prepared pans and bake in oven for 25 to 30 minutes. When a wooden toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean, they are done. Cool for ten minutes on racks. Remove carefully from pans and cool completely for at least another hour. I know you'll be impatient, but wait or else you'll destroy the cake altogether.
When you put it together, spread each layer with frosting and stack.
This recipe has never, ever, evereverever failed me and I've often had to sort of squeeze by on ingredients. The measurements are easy to remember too!
1/2 cup of butter (usually a stick) 1/2 cup of peanut butter 1/2 cup of sugar 1/2 of brown sugar 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract one egg 1 1/4 cups of flour
(optional: you can add nuts, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, white chocolate chips, butterscotch ships, or other filler. My brother even used ham once......... (I do not claim responsibility for the results if you use ham.) Just put in as much as looks right!) After you mix all the above in the above order in one bowl (one at a time), the dough shouldn't be too dry and crumbly but it also shouldn't be to oily or smooth. It should be lumpy and stick to itself, but also crumble a bit. This is ultimate peanut butter cookie material. But don't worry, whatever you have, if you added the ingredients correctly, it should turn out fine. If it's too wet, however, add some flour. If it's too dry, add vanilla or milk or even just a bit of water. Add small amounts at a time!
I have a nifty little gadget that looks like an ice cream scoop but far smaller for cookie dough and it works like a charm. If you don't have one of these, however, you can use regular table spoons. As they say in cookie recipes everywhere, "drop by rounded tablespoon onto cookie tray two inches apart." I recommend this for your first batch. After you know how much they'll flatten and spread out, you can just cram your cookie sheets as tight as they'll go. Usually, though, these cookies don't spread whilst baking in the oven.
Okay, so you've got your cookies on the cookie sheet. The signature of peanut butter cookies is to flatten them with a fork. Feel free! Another way, especially if you added "chips", is to leave them in a ball. Often times, if you don't over cook them, the ball form results in only partially cooked cookies, leaving the inside sweet, mushy, and with full flavor. Of course, this is a problem if you're worried about "egg poisoning", but just find eggs that are guaranteed not to have salmonella and it's super tasty. (Although you won't be able to flatten them completely with the chips in, flatten them best you can and the oven will take care of the rest. If, while you're flattening, you find the fork sticking in the cookies, unwilling to come out, console it by dipping it in sugar every few cookies. This not only acts like flour with bread dough, it leaves a nice, but thin, sugar blanket on top of the cookies. You could also do this with cinnamon.)
Whether you flatten them with a fork or leave them round, put them in the oven for nine minutes at 375. This is almost always long enough. If you find your cookies dripping over the edge of the sheet, well, silly, you need more flour! When nine minutes are up, test the cookies. You can do this several ways. You can scoop one up and pop it in your mouth, getting pieces of it everywhere and burning your hand, mouth, esophagus, etc. You can cut one open like a scientist to see if it's cooked to the core. You can try to lift it off the sheet with a spatula and fail. If you're an experienced baker, you could tell by the level of brown the cookie has become.
I recommend a different method, personally. I take my finger and gently press the edge of the cookie and lift if from the baking sheet ever so slightly. The cookie is light and fluffy, visually crinkles up a bit when you lift it, and it's just screaming, "I'M DONE!" If the edges are brown, they are definitely done. Usually, the best cookies are the ones that are just lightly tan all over - a nice even coat. Ideally, they will not be stiff. At least that's the goal. Let them cool on the cookie sheet for about two minutes and then slip your spatula under. If you waited just the right amount of time, the cookie will welcome the spatula and climb on willingly. Be careful during this period if you choose to move them to the cookie sheet - this is when they are in the prime and are ready to cool for best quality, but they will easily pull apart. Gently slide them onto a cooling rack. (If upon, tasting your work - if you did the rounded cookie - the inside is cooked against your will, decrease the time.)
Now, recipes always say "allow cookies to cool completely before storing" and this is generally a good idea. While eating them before they are completely cool is the best cookie-eating idea ever, the extra moisture cookies have before they are completely cool encourages, well, not only mold in the cookie jar but something far more likely - sogginess. (This sometimes happens when you mix cookies in the same jar too.) Cookies that have been sitting in their own sweat, if you will, do not taste their best.
Please enjoy these cookies. Eat each one slowly because, I bet you, they will not hang around long.
Combine 2 1/2 tablespoons of tapioca with: sliced strawberries (suggested: 4 cups) at least 1 cup of sliced rhubarb 2/3 cups of sugar 1 tablespoon of lemon juice a pinch of ground nutmeg a pinch of salt
Mix all this well
Roll the bottom crust out and put into the bottom of a pie plate
Pour in the filling from above
Slice upper/top crust into strips: -lay every other strip horizontally across the top of the pie -weave the other half of the strips under-over vertically (or viseversa)
(You may want to lie a sheet of foil on the rack underneath to catch any drippings.)
Put the pie on rack in center of oven for 20 minutes.
Rotate pie 180 degrees and lower the temperature in the oven to 325 degrees.
1/3 cup of butter 1 cup of chocolate chips 1 3/4 cups of crispy rice cereal
1 (8 ounce) package of cream cheese, softened 1 1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk 3/4 cup of peanut butter 2 tablespoons of lemon juice 1 teaspoon of vanilla 1 cup of whipped topping
1/2 cup of chocolate fudge sauce
In a saucepan or small pot, melt butter and chocolate chips over low heat, stirring. When the melted chocolate is smooth, mix in the crispy rice cereal until coated. In a pan of 9 inch diameter, press the chocolate-coated cereal onto the bottom and sides. (I suggest using a sheet of wax paper, but you can also use a spatula or spoon or knife.) Chill this in the refridgerator for half-an-hour. This will be the crust.
While the crust is chilling, beat the soft cream cheese until smooth and fluffy. (Doesn't take very long.) Gradually, beat in sweetened condensed milk and peanut butter, mixing until smooth. Stir in lemon juice and vanilla, and then fold in the whipped topping with a spatula.
With said spatula, pour this into the crust. Drizzle chocolate fudge sauce over the top - less to be aestetically pleasing, more for taste. Then freeze all this for four hours or more. Keep frozen until you serve.
Then enjoy! I recieved a complement for this one. I don't much like cream cheese, but this was quite good.
