A Family Favorite Recipe

This week, we Word Quilters will share some old family recipes. We shared a few favorites last week, so here we go again. Karen, tempted us with the goodness of the store bought dough. It is good, even raw. I have a cookie dough story. You know how you're not supposed to take your own goodies into the movies, well one night some boys did. Now, I'm not boasting that they broke protocol, but their food choices did amuse me.

Later in life, my son told me about when he and a friend ran into another two friends at the movies one holiday weekend. My son's favorite bought holiday treat is Borden's egg nog. He and his friend bought two pints and had them in their letter jackets. They showed their buddies, who then opened up their jackets--they had two rolls of cookie dough to eat during the movie!

The Old Recipe: My Grandmother Dora Covington used to make an "Ice Box Cake" at Christmas, meaning it was refrigerated, but never saw the inside of a baking oven. Hey, Karen, maybe you could make this for your family.

I've made this two different ways with candied cherries and with chopped dried apricots. The latter has more of a tart flavor.

This cake can be made way prior to the holidays and stored in the fridge or freezer and sliced when needed. Its sweetness makes it go well with a bold cup of coffee (preferably free trade coffee, Sam's Club carries some).

1 box vanilla wafers crushed
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 large can coconut (or bagged equivalent)
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
8 ounces candied cherries, chopped or 8 ounces chopped dried apricots
2-3 Tbs. melted butter

Mix ingredients thoroughly, press into a medium size loaf pan, sprayed with Pam.

Enjoy this old recipe passed down through four generations of women in my family: Dora to Sylvia to Cathy, and I've passed it along to my daughter Sheryle. Enjoy!

Do you have a favorite family recipe that you make during the holidays?

My Favorite "Stress-less" Cookie Recipe

Okay, so when my family heard our book was going to have lots of cookie recipes in it they all chimed in and asked if I was sharing mine. Of course that was after they stopped laughing. You see my best chocolate chip cookie recipe is this:

• Go to the refrigerated section of your grocery store


• Purchase a tube of Pillsbury Chocolate Chip Cookie dough


• Preheat oven according to directions


• Place chunks of dough on cookie sheets (I spray lightly with oil even though it says not to)


• Bake for 12-15 minutes


• Destroy wrapper and receipt from store before family discovers the cookies are not made from scratch.

That last instruction is very important if you want to save yourself years of teasing.

I do on occasion spruce up the recipe by rolling the chunks of dough in chopped macadamia nuts or chopped pecans.

Hey, if they hadn't found the wrapper they never would have known I didn't spend all that time measuring and mixing and baking their favorite cookie.

I'm not the only one who appreciates a good shortcut, am I?

Holiday cooking tips to lessen the load

My approach to lessen the cooking load in December is to use tried and true recipes that my family likes. I often try one new recipe, usually a vegetable, for fun and variety, but staying with the family favorites, once you have a few years’ experience, is my recommendation.

I often make wild rice, and also popular at our family feasts is a vegetable marinated in salad dressing, like cooked asparagus. Here is my favorite wild rice recipe:

Wild Rice

1 cup wild rice
4 cups chicken broth (about 1 and ¾ cans)

Rinse rice with water and drain.
In large sauce pan bring rice and broth to boil.
Reduce heat to simmer; cover and cook, stir occasionally, until rice is cooked, about 45 minutes.
When cooked the rice kernels will be bursting open and tender.
Let cool and serve.
The chicken broth gives it a delicious flavor.
Some folks add soy sauce or butter.

Since my family likes waldorf salad, we enjoy a healthy version of that, with apples, pecans, grapes, celery and a combination of mayonnaise and yogurt.

Stick mainly with recipes that are easy to make and popular with your family for relaxing meals at Christmas time.

Don't forget to divide up the work; if someone offers to bring a dish, say yes. My husband is in charge of cooking the meat, whether it is lamb, roast beef, turkey, etc.

Leslie's Put-It-on-and-Forget-It Cooking Tip

December cooking tip

Get out your crock pot! Wintertime is perfect for putting on soups or stews in the morning and forgetting about them until the smell permeates your entire home. Once fixed, soups can be refrigerated for several days—or even frozen, if needed—allowing anyone to grab a quick bowl, along with a green salad and a piece of toast or some crackers.

Some of our favorites include clam chowder, chicken taco soup, ground beef taco soup, chili, white chili, and pot roast. Yum!

What’s your family’s favorite soup, stew or chowder?

Brenda's Christmas Cooking Tip

What's my cooking tip? Don't!

Take the family out for dinner at a restaurant and relax! The holidays can be like holidaze and often we need to nurture our family-together time. This is a picture of my goofy family having a goofy time while building memories.

Tell me how often you spend time together at a sit-down meal? According to Traits of a Healthy Family, eating together at least three times a week is considered a strength. I hope you can claim that. If not, make it your new year's resolution. . . for the kids' sake.

Christmas Kitchen Tip - The Cookie Swap

By: Trish Berg

Yes, I know. I have swapping on my mind...all the time. As a supper swap mom for almost 6 years now, I know how supper swapping can save moms time, money and add deeper friendships to their lives. I love supper swapping so much I write The Great American Supper Swap so moms everywhere can become supper swap moms.

But swapping is not limited to suppers. Nope. Not at all.

In fact, one of the BEST swap I participate in is a Christmas cookie swap every December.

About 5 girlfriends and I each get together and decide on which type of cookies we will each make for the swap. Then each of us makes 6 dozen of that one type of cookie. You can make them ahead of time and freeze them as well, depending on your schedule.

We then choose a December day to meet for lunch at one of our homes to swap our cookies. We have a delicious lunch together, sit and visit, chat and laugh and eat way too much great food.

Then, when it is time to go home, we each leave with 6 dozen cookies - 6 different varieties - to share with our own families over the holiday time.

Swapping is an amazing way to simplify your life, maximize your labor, and yes, even save money and add deeper friendships to your life.

Over the years, I have swapped baby-sitting with friends, house cleaning, even participated in a clothing swap.

But around the holidays, I simply adore my Christmas Cookie Swap. It is so much simpler to make 6 dozen of the same cookies than 1 dozen each of a different kind of cookie. Grocery shopping for the ingredients is easier, and you can get it done in one afternoon.

And, my kids LOVE the variety of cookies that come home with me, from Snicker Doodles to cut out Christmas trees and nutmeg logs.

So grab a few girlfriends, decide on which type of cookie you each want to make, and GET SWAPPING!!!

To help you get started, here is the BEST cut out cookie recipeyou will ever taste. I am not kidding...

I can't take any credit for these awesome cookies, but I do guarantee they are the BEST Christmas cut out cookies you will ever make or eat. The recipe is my friend, Holly, and it has become a Berg family MUST HAVE every Christmas!

Holly's Christmas Cut Outs

1 c. real butter (USE REAL BUTTER)
2 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 c. sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla
5 c. all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
Powdered sugar

Directions:
1) In large bowl, cream together butter and sugar and eggs with a wooden spoon (do NOT beat!)2) Add sour cream and vanilla.
3) Add soda and salt.
4) Stir in flour , 1 cup at a time.
5) When you add the last cup of flour, mix with your hands.
6) Roll out on the counter, use powdered sugar instead of flour on that surface and your hands.
7) Use your favorite cut out shapes, and bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes or until golden.

Holly uses butter cream frosting from the can, which tastes great, and is much easier. But you can use any icing you like!

Until next week, happy swapping....

Trish Berg
www.TrishBerg.com

December Kitchen Tips

Don't ask me for homebaked cookies in August. The last thing I want to do is to turn on the oven and add more heat to my South Texas kitchen. But when the first fall leaf plunges to the ground, I'm game for cooking--whatever!

This week, the Word Quilters will give a few of their best kitchen tips for December. My tip is to find some old recipes with simple ingredients. I stole the essence of this idea from the food columnist of The Courier, Conroe, TX where my weekly column appears. Candace Carver suggested buying old cookbooks as gifts because of the simple ingredients.

Her advice immediately resonated with me because so many of the cooking shows on TV or diets in magazines list ingredients that are not in my pantry. The older cookbooks use simple and fewer ingredients. For young cooks or those who love vintage recipes, search out old cookbooks at yard sales and library sales.

I'll share a recipe for "Cold Slaw" from a cookbook put together by the founding members of Almeda, TX. My husband's grandmother Beulah Messecar was only six when her family moved from Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) and settled in Almeda. Not all the old recipes sound appetizing like the chocolate cake with saurkraut in it (I have made it. It was very moist) or the "Plum Pudding" with suet, but most sound very yummy.

Velma Hughes' Cold Slaw

1 lg head Cabbage
(finely chopped)
1/3 cup Wesson Oil
3 Tablespoons prepared mustard
1/2 cup \Apple CiderVinegar
1/2 cup Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Salt

Mix mustard, sugar, wessonoil, vinegarand salt. Pour over cabbage. Chill.

Cathy's note: This is tangy, but very good, quick and easy! Enjoy!