White Chocolate Peppermint Cake Mix Cookies

Leave a comment December 21, 2018 surafire

Just because it has become a routine, starting last year, so a fairly new routine, I am making the white chocolate peppermint cake mix cookies again. A long title, I know, but if you’re interested to know how to make them, visit the post, White Chocolate Peppermint Cake Mix Cookies

There, you will find the recipe, and the reason for the long title, on how to bake this holiday favorite. I’m quite proud of them, not only because they’re beautiful AND taste delicious, but because it’s MY very own, personally written recipe!

Merry Christmas, and don’t forget to leave some of these beauties out for Santa this year!

Baked Broccoli and Baked Red Hot Cauliflower

Ingredients

1 head of cauliflower broken into florets

1 head of broccoli broken into florets

4 tbsp olive oil

Red Hot hot sauce

Salt

Pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

We’re going to take our head of cauliflower and our head of broccoli and wash them first before we break them up into florets. Some florets come off way bigger than the others so I usually break them off the head first, then cut them all to be similar, bite sizes and put them in two separate bowls; broccoli in one bowl, cauliflower in the other.

Next, we’re going to dry them off by patting them dry with some paper towels. This just helps the sauce stick to them, otherwise the oil will just run off.

In the bowl of cauliflower we’re going to drizzle 2 tbsp of olive oil over the florets. If you don’t think you’ve coated them enough, don’t hesitate to use a little more olive oil. Next, we’re going to do several shakes/squirts of Red Hot hot sauce into the cauliflower. I do just enough that all the cauliflower is tinged pinkish-orange. Unless you’re REALLY into spicy things, don’t over do it, just flavor it to your tastes. And, if you’re worried about kids eating it, just 4-5 shakes is perfect. My 11 year old loves it and it’s not too spicy!

Add salt and pepper to taste and toss the cauliflower in its bowl until it’s all well coated. Now we’re going to take a baking sheet and cover it in tin foil just to keep the sheet from getting messy and help with clean up. You don’t HAVE to do this but I recommend it as the cauliflower, when cooking, can stick a little. Spread your cauliflower on the baking sheet in a single layer and set it aside. Now on to the broccoli!

To the broccoli, we drizzle 2 tbsp of olive oil over it, or more if you’re not confident its coated well enough, and then we just season it with salt and pepper. On a second baking sheet, cover the sheet with tin foil and spread your broccoli out on it in a single layer.

If you’re doing asparagus, you’re going to wash your asparagus, cut off the white stems then dry the asparagus using some paper towels. Next, spread your asparagus in a single layer on a tin foil covered baking sheet. Drizzle the asparagus with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. That’s it! Simple preparation!

Slide your baking sheets into the oven and we’re going to bake them 20-25 minutes or until the tips of the florets start to turn brown or the tips of the asparagus start to turn brown. My family likes them a little more brown than others, so some of the tips look a little crispy, because I think it’s -delicious-! But, that doesn’t mean you have to cook them as long as I do. Once your 20-25 minutes are up, the broccoli/cauliflower/asparagus will be browned slightly and firm, yet easily pierced with a fork.

Remove from the oven and serve with your favorite main dish. I served these with some fried chuck steaks. Also, if I have left over veggies, which is rare, I just heat them up in the microwave and they’re still SUPER tasty!

Creamy Spinach Risotto

3 Comments March 19, 2018 surafire

I watch a lot of cooking shows and I always see them eating risotto; spinach risotto, pumpkin risotto, lobster risotto, mushroom risotto… the list goes on! For those of you who know me, I love rice, and I love anything that combines rice with a creamy element and I’m hooked. So I watched all the seasons of Hell’s Kitchen with Gordon Ramsey (again) and I’m like, “Hey! I’ve never eaten risotto, let alone cooked it, so I’m going to make some.”

Steph looks at me and says it’s hard to make a good risotto and it must be, otherwise Gordon Ramsey wouldn’t constantly scream at his chefs about making bad risotto! But I like a challenge and, like I said, creamy rice dishes, so I was willing to try. Mind you, when I started on this adventure I didn’t have the special Arborio rice. I eat a bunch of Basmati rice which is typically paired with Indian food and a long grain rice. Arborio is a short grain rice. In fact, 99% of the time, Basmati rice is what I cook. I don’t use instant rice at all. I just pop my rice and water in my rice cooker and away it goes! When I did this recipe, I had left over, already cooked Basmati rice and some leftover spinach greens I had bought for a salad, hence the reason I didn’t have much spinach in my rice, so this is how I’ll present this recipe to you with just a few little tweaks! And before you go assuming the rice would be overcooked, I will say that Basmati rice holds up really well and did not get squishy/overcooked at all! Amazing!

Ingredients

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 cups cooked Basmati rice

4-5 cups hot chicken stock (hot as in heated up on the stove top)

*You can substitute chicken stock with vegetable stock if you want
a vegetarian dish*

1tbsp minced garlic

1/2 C chopped onion

2/3 C dry white wine

1 lb spinach leaves stemmed and sliced thinly

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

1/4 C Parmesan cheese

1/4 C heavy cream

First things first and that’s to get your chicken stock into a sauce pan and heat it up. I keep mine on medium/medium low, once it’s hot, because we don’t want to add cold stock to risotto.

Next, we’re going to snap the stems off our spinach leaves. Then I just gathered the leaves in a clump and sliced them into thin little strips. Also, cut up your onion and have it ready to go.

In a nonstick skillet, heat up your olive oil on medium/medium high and cook it gently, about five minutes until it’s just tender.

Once the onions are cooked, add your 2 cups of cooked Basmati rice. Stir the rice in until it is coated with oil. If you’re using Arborio, first remove the onions and set them aside then add 2 cups of that uncooked Arborio. You’re going to cook the Arborio in the oil until the rice is almost completely clear with a little white dot in the middle and then add your onions when the rice is ready.

Add in the 2/3 C of white wine to deglaze the pan and burn off the alcohol. Deglazing means basically removing any of the brown residue in the skillet for the dish you’re making. Let this cook until the wine is no longer visible among the rice.

We’re now going to add our garlic and then add the hot chicken stock a cup at a time. I kept a ladle in my stock pan and just added as I went along. So, one ladle/cup of stock, let the rice absorb it, then add another, let the rice absorb it, and continue with these steps until you’re left with half the amount of chicken stock that you started with. Between each ladle of stock, if you’re not sure when to add the next, we’re basically adding the next when the stock is no longer readily visible in the rice.

An important tip to mention is that you have to constantly stir your risotto or it will start to stick and burn, so be diligent and not leave it on its own. This is our baby!

Reduce the heat if necessary, just to keep our risotto simmering, and then continue adding the stock one ladle/cup at a time until there’s about 2 ladle fulls left. If you’re using uncooked Arborio rice, your risotto is ‘done’, when the rice is tender and still holding a firmness like al dente pasta. If it’s crunchy, it’s not done, and you need to continue to add chicken stock until it’s cooked. If it’s mushy, you went a little too far and it’s overcooked. It’s a little bit of a science to master! If everything has gone well, your rice should be nice and creamy by now so we’re going to finish it up.

Add the cheese, the spinach, and the vinegar and mix it all in well. If you don’t have the white wine vinegar, don’t use apple cider or plain white vinegar but instead use some lemon juice. I’ve done this recipe without the vinegar and it’s just not quite the same. The vinegar gives it a wonderful tang that makes this risotto AWESOME.

We’re going to add the last 2 cups of chicken stock, one ladle/cup at a time, and let the rice absorb it and the spinach wilt. Once the stock is absorbed and you’re left with your creamy risotto, turn the heat off under your skillet and add the cream, mixing it into the risotto until it’s all brought together and warm. This should take no more than 1-2 minutes.

Now our risotto is ready to be served. Risotto is always a dish you want to serve immediately because it will be slightly loose when its fresh and hot, like a good risotto should be. Once it’s cooled off (or put in the fridge as leftovers), it will firm up and even microwaving it won’t loosen it up again, but it still tastes fantastic!

Treats from Chihuahua

Leave a comment February 6, 2018 surafire

A little table talk today about something my friend Olga brought back from her family visit to Chihuahua. I really am the small town girl I claim to be and unfortunately that means I’ve never left the country, even though I’m only about 5 hours away from the border of Mexico. I’ve heard all types of stories about the culture and the food and, best yet, the fresh fruit they sell in open air markets.

While I didn’t get fruit, Olga did bring me back a coffee mug, which is great because I love coffee, as well as a package of Galleta Ranchera Integral, which (since my Spanish is not great), roughly translates to Wholegrain or Wholemeal Biscuits. She was told they’re made by local Indians though I don’t have any more information than that. If anyone is from that area or knows more, I’d be interested to hear about it!

The biscuits were semi-soft, bready, with that grainy whole meal texture as you chew great with coffee or hot tea. Just a hint of sweetness and a simple, enjoyable taste like whole wheat bread with a touch of honey in it. I actually put honey on a second one and it was even better.

I figure imagination can take you far when it comes to combining flavors, but alone, these little cookie/biscuits were an interesting and nice little surprise.

Ingredients are wholemeal flour, sugar, vegetable oil, baking soda, salt, eggs and milk.

New Years Tamales

Leave a comment January 29, 2018 surafire

Usually around here, we make tamales before Christmas, but this time, it got put off until New Years eve and then it didn’t make it here until now. But, I’m a firm believer if you’re willing to put in the work for tamales, they’re good any time! I will make a whole bunch of them then freeze them for later or give them away to family and friends though, I will admit, I hoard most of them for myself!

Ingredients for Filling

Bone-in Pork Butt (Mine was around 6-7 pounds)
Chili Powder
Salt
Pepper
Garlic Powder or Fresh Minced Garlic
Onion Powder
1 10 oz bag Red Chili Pods (I use mild, but you can use a mix of mild and medium or mild and hot depending on your level of heat you want)

Tools and Extras You Need

1 package of corn husks
Large tamale pot with steaming tray in bottom
Tongs
Cookie Sheet
Spoon or masa spreader

What I do is put my pork roast in the crock pot the day before I want to make tamales so that the meat is cooked and cooled by the time I’m ready to roll it up.

Cooked Pork

So I take my pork roast and I make a rub with the chili powder, salt and pepper and I rub it into the meat generously. In order for your rub to stick, make sure that you dab the roast dry with paper towels before putting your rub on. After that, I put it in the crock pot, on low and I cook it for 6-8 hours or until the roast is peeling away from the bone.

Shredded Pork

If you are ready to make your tamales, you’re going to need to soak your corn husks to soften them up. I have a large tupperware container I lay the husks in and fill it with water. Let them soak for about an hour, so make sure that you schedule all your steps in accordance. We’ll leave them in the water until we actually ready to fill the husks.

Once the pork roast is cooked, I let it cool and then I go in and shred it, making sure to get all the bones. You would think that big bones are all you’ll find, but in fact, I did find a couple smaller pieces which might have broken off or been shaved off when the butcher cut it, so just be thorough and careful.

Soaked Corn Husks

Red Chili Pods

In a medium sized pot, combine 5 cups of water (or until pods are just covered) and then add 3/4 of the bag chili pods of your choosing (be they all mild or a mixture of mild and hot to get that extra spice.) I use mild because my stomach can’t handle spicy food even if I crave it! We’re going to bring the water to a low boil and we’re going to cook the chili pods until they’re nice and soft. I find that my cooking time varies depending on the chili’s. Once they start boiling, I would say it takes about 20-25 minutes respectfully and I stir my pods and turn them over just to make sure they’re cooking evenly.

I would like to make mention that there are so many ways to make tamales that you will see variations all over the place. If you don’t want to use powdered garlic and powdered onion, simply add 2 tbsp of minced garlic to your water and one whole onion, cut up, to cook with your chili’s.

Chili Stems Removed

Once your chili’s are cooked, we’re going to remove them from the heat and fish them out to put on a plate to cool some. The reason for this is because I then pull the stems off the chili’s. Some people just blend it all up but I don’t. And if you try to pull the stems off when they’re fresh out of the water, you’re going to burn your fingers.

Red Chili Sauce

Now, if you have a blender that you can put hot liquids into, we’re going to put our cooked chili pods into the blender and then pour about 3 cups of the chili water into the blender. Some people just pour out the chili water, but its got great flavor and I hate to waste it. If you’re not comfortable with working with hot liquid, just wait until it’s cool, and if your blender isn’t going to hold all the water and the chili’s, please don’t overfill it or it WILL spew out of the lid and you’ll be burned or covered in red chili sauce. Simply do it in batches.

Pork and Chili Sauce

We’re going to puree it until it’s all nice and smooth, or as smooth as it’s going to get. Set half a cup of the red chili puree aside for your masa then pour the rest of the red chili sauce into the shredded pork meat and then mix it in together until well incorporated. Now it’s ready to be used for our tamale stuffing so it’s time to prepare our masa Dough.

Ingredients for Masa Dough

2 pounds lard
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
5 pounds masa flour
2-3 cups chicken broth

If you have a stand mixer, I encourage you to use it, but if you don’t, just mix it by hand, which is what I do, even though I have a stand mixer. Weird, I know! But I like the handy work that goes in to making tamales.

Snow Cap Lard

Add 1 pound of lard to your mixer and mix it until it’s soft and fluffy. If you’re working by hand, just get a little down and dirty with a good heavy spoon and work your lard with it.

Next, add 1 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp of salt to your lard and mix them together.

Masa Flour

Add 2.5 pounds of masa (half the bag)and mix it well with your lard. If doing it by hand, just do it like you would a bread dough, though let me warn you, our masa is going to be STICKY so you’ll have it all between your fingers.

Add 1 cup of chicken broth and 1/4 cup of the red chili sauce to the masa mix. If it’s dry and not the consistency of peanut butter, add a little more chicken broth (up to 1/2 a cup), until its the consistency we want.

Mixing Masa Dough

So now we have our masa dough and our filling ready, and our corn husks have soaked, it’s time to take some husks out and rinse them off, pulling off the little corn silk bits that might be left. We’ll then get some of the extra water off by letting them drain in a colander.

Now we’re going to lay out our work station with our masa, our filling, our corn husks, and a cookie sheet to lay our our finished tamales.

Spread Masa on Corn Husk

You’ll notice your corn husks are triangular in shape. Take a husk and place the wide end of it on the palm of your hand as that’s where the masa will go. Spread a couple tablespoonfuls of masa over the middle of the corn husk in your palm, but don’t take the masa all the way to the bottom of the husk or the edges as it’ll make a mess. Once your masa is spread, leaving a thin layer (just how I like to spread my peanut butter on toast), we’re going to take a

Pork on Masa

couple tablespoons of our filling and put it down the center of our masa layer. We then fold both sides of the husk towards the middle, then bring the pointed end up against the seam. Voila! You have your first tamale. Now just repeat these steps until you’re done!

Center Fold

I lay my tamales on the cookie sheet, folded side down to hold it shut until I’m ready to load my tamale steamer.

Folding End to the Seam

So we’re going to fill our steamer with water to the fill line which is where it’s just below the steaming rack. Also, as a nice little trick, put a penny in the water so that when your water is getting low, the sound of the penny bouncing around will let you know that you need to add more water. To add water, I usually pour it down the side wall of the pot, as long as the water isn’t going directly into a tamale. Basically, you just find a gap to add water so we don’t burn our pot dry while cooking.

Tamale Pot Steamer

Next, we’re going to place our tamales in, folded side down, with our seams against the side of the pot. As you load in more tamales, put your seams against the other tamales already in the pot which will keep them from unfolding.

Tamales in the Pot

Once your pot is loaded, cover it with the lid and bring the water to a boil. Once it’s boiling, turn it down to a simmer and let steam for 2.5 – 3 hours. To test if the tamales are done, take one out with your tongs and lay it on a plate. Peel off the corn husk (carefully since its hot), and if it peels away clean from your masa, they’re done! If not, let them steam a little longer.

As you might have noticed in our featured picture, the tamales are actually tied shut with a little bit of corn husk. I did this because my other half can’t eat chili’s so I tied them shut to mark them as just being shredded pork and cheese.

*I just wanted to mention that the masa recipe we used is enough for two batches as there isn’t an exact science as to how much dough you’ll need or how much pork will be left over. You can mix both batches instead of just one masa batch, put the leftover masa in an airtight freezer bag and freeze it to use later.

Irresistable Pecan Pie

Leave a comment January 10, 2018 surafire

That’s right! We’re going DOUBLE pecan pie since I believe that pecan pie should actually have a fair amount of pecans in it and not just a bunch of custard jelly topped with a few little slivers.

I got this recipe years ago from Allrecipes and it’s written by IHART44, So thanks, IHART44, for sharing this wonderful recipe and converting a pecan pie hater into a pecan pie lover.

Ingredients

1 prepared pie shell, unbaked and thawed

3 eggs beaten

3/4 C light corn syrup

2 tbsp dark corn syrup

3/4 C light brown sugar

3 tbsp melted butter

1 pinch salt

1/2 C finely crushed pecans

1 C quartered pecans

1 C pecan halves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mixing Together Filling Ingredients

In a medium bowl, mix together eggs, light and dark corn syrups, brown sugar, butter, salt and finely crushed pecans. It’s pretty simple, really. I just stirred them all together with my trusty blue spatula!

If you’re using a frozen pie shell, make certain that you let it defrost. I poked a few holes in the bottom with a fork just to keep it from blowing up like a balloon.

Spread quartered pecans over bottom of defrosted/room temperature pie crust. I bought a big ole bag of pecan halves and just broke them into a couple pieces because we want some big chunks, not like the crushed ones we added into our corn syrup mix so don’t go poking through the store looking for pecan quarters. Just buy the halves and make them work!

Pecan Quarters on Bottom of Pie Shell

Pour syrup mixture over top of pecans, then arrange pecan halves on top of pie.

Bake in a preheated 350 oven for one hour or until firm; let cool at least an hour before serving. Since I have a convection oven, I did mine on convect bake at 325 for about an hour and 10 minutes.

Pecan Pie Halves On Top of Filling

You don’t want to overcook since your pecans on top will burn if you’re not careful, but you don’t want to under cook, otherwise you’ll have a jelly mess. Letting the pie cool is essential as it will set up during the cooling process. Once it has had time to cool off, slice it up and serve it. (I served mine with some butter pecan ice cream! Yum!)

Our Finished Pie

Spiced Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

3 Comments January 5, 2018 surafire

My dad is a true lover of oatmeal cookies and some time ago I had found a recipe for them. (I think it was off the oats container). Not to say that they weren’t pretty tasty, but I like cookie shaped, soft and chewy cookies and the ones I made, while they tasted good, weren’t the texture that I desired. So, I got a little itch of creativity and decided to fiddle around and come up with something I thought better fit my idea of what I want and these are the ones I came up with.

Ingredients

1 C butter softened
1 1/4 C packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp Watkins All Natural Pure Vanilla Extract
1 1/2 C flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp baking soda
2 1/2 C rolled oats
1 C Sun Maid Golden Raisins
2 C boiling water

Please note, before you begin these cookies, I wanted to tell you that this specific batch DID NOT have raisins and you do not have to add the raisins. The reason I didn’t add them is because I made this batch for my father who was in the hospital and he just doesn’t like raisins. But I do, and I find that the golden raisins are just tastier, both in flavor and texture, then regular raisins, but you can use either!

Preheat your oven to 325.

Boil your 2 cups of water. I use my Pyrex measuring cup that holds 4 cups, put it in the microwave a couple of minutes and I’m set. You’re going to add your raisins to the water to re hydrate them so they’re nice and plump and soft. Let the raisins sit in the water while you prep your dough.

Mixing Wet Ingredients

First, take your
Cream together your butter and your brown sugar. Add your eggs and vanilla and mix them in well until you have a nice, fluffy mixture.

In a separate bowl, combine your flour, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and baking soda. You can sift these together to make sure you get some of that spice in it all and to ensure that your cloves break up, since for some reason my ground cloves have a few unground lumps in them.

Now we’re going to slowly add our dry ingredients to our wet, mixing them in until incorporated. Man, it smells so good with all that butter and spices!

Mixing Dry Ingredients

Now we’re going to add in our oats, stirring enough to make sure that there are oats in all the dough.

Lastly, we’re going to add the raisins. Over the sink and a colander or strainer, pour your raisins out to drain off all the water. Then we’re going to add them to our cookie dough, stirring them in just as we did the oats. We don’t want to completely smash them up so be gentle to keep your raisins intact.

Cookie Dough on Parchment

Alright! Our dough is ready to be baked. Drop by spoonfuls, or by cookie scoop fulls onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. These will spread out so give them the space they need to grow!

Now we’re going to bake on 325 for about 15-18 minutes. I always say ‘about’, because everyone uses a different oven and things change. You want them to be golden around the bottom edges and just turning on the top. When you take them out of the oven they will be squishy, so let them set up on the cookie sheet otherwise they’re just going to end up falling completely apart and making a delicious mess rather than a delicious cookie!

Finished Cookies

Salisbury Steak

Leave a comment January 2, 2018 surafire

So, this has become one of my favorite things to make which is a fairly inexpensive meal and filling and outright tasty. Especially since there’s gravy involved. I mean, who doesn’t like gravy?

There are literally hundreds of recipes for Salisbury Steak out on the internet. I’ve tried a few over 2017 and I found one that I altered slightly that was amazing. Of course, when I went back to find it, I could not, for the life of me, remember where it was, so I did what I could, from memory, with some things tweaked I’m sure, and came up with this recipe for it. I can definitely say that it didn’t disappoint. In fact, it was pretty delicious.

I have realized in the past that when I make Salisbury Steak, there’s just not enough gravy for everyone to get their fill and be happy, so I made some extra gravy since, as I said before…who doesn’t like gravy!

Steak Patty Ingredients

2 lbs ground beef
3/4 c seasoned bread crumbs
1/8 c LEA & PERRINS Original Worcestershire Sauce<img class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-1057″ style=”border: none !important; margin: 0!important;” src=”//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=smalltowneats-20&l=am2&o=1&a=B000RYFQ44″ alt=”” width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ />
1/8 tsp Morton Coarse Kosher Salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 1/2 tbsp minced garlic
2 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp McCormick Ground Mustard
2 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp POMPEIAN Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Gravy Ingredients

1 package mushrooms, washed and sliced
1 sweet onion, halved and sliced
4 C beef broth
1 tsp LEA & PERRINS Original Worcestershire Sauce
1 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp flour
1-2 tbsp butter
salt and pepper to taste

Patty Ingredients

In a bowl, combine your ground beef, bread crumbs, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, garlic, eggs, mustard and ketchup and knead in the bowl until well incorporated.

Ingredients Mixed for Patties

Form into patties. Yes.. forming into patties is sometimes a little easier said than done when doing it by hand. I made mine as thin as I could, which was about 1/4 inch, and they still puffed up into thick patties, which is fine, but if you’re going for that traditional Salisbury steak LOOK, you want them to be somewhat flat. Now, I don’t have one, but this is where a burger press comes in handy. That’s basically a weight you set on top of your patties to keep them flat. This is only if you own one or are really looking to making ‘flat patties’. If you’re interested, like I am, in acquiring one for future use, I’d recommend the Cuisinart Cast Iron Grill Press.

Cooking the Patties

In a skillet on medium to medium high heat, drizzle in your olive oil and, once it’s hot, lay your patties in it. We’re going to cook these babies up until they’re done on both sides and not pink in the middle. Some Salisbury steak recipes want you to cook them about 80% and then transfer them to the oven or put a lid on them and finish them off. IF you want to do that, this is okay! I usually, once my gravy is done, lay them in the gravy, turn the heat on the stove down low, and let them simmer/marinate in their juices.

Cooked Onions

Once the patties are done, remove them from the pan and empty the pan of any extra grease. Now we’re going to add our sliced mushrooms to the pan, and a pat or two of butter, and cook them about 5-7 minutes on medium heat until they’re starting to get tender and slightly browned. We’re then going to add the onions and cook them together until the onions are translucent. I did mine slightly different, I cooked my onions and put my mushrooms in. So..backwards! It turned out just fine, but when I do it again, definitely cooking the mushrooms first!

Mushrooms Going In

Next, we’re going to sprinkle the mushrooms and onions with the flour and mix them together well, cooking the flour about 2 minutes until it sticks to the veggies.

Dusting Veggies with Flour

Now we’ll add our beef broth, ketchup, Worcestershire and mix them together, simmering it until it begins to thicken and reaches the consistency of the gravy you like. If you get it too thick, just add a little more beef broth, about 2 tbsp at a time so we don’t thin it out too much. If it’s too thin, just let it simmer, stirring frequently until it reaches the consistency you want. Salt and pepper to taste.

Making Gravy

Now here comes the part I was talking about, where we add the patties into the gravy. I just laid them into the pan with the gravy, turned it down to low and covered it, letting it simmer for about 10-15 minutes. After that, I served them up over a bed of rice, but you can serve them over mashed potatoes, or egg noodles or just plain how they are, and spooned some of that awesome gravy over the top. YUM!

Letting the Patties Simmer in Gravy

Snowball Cookies

1 Comment December 16, 2017 surafire

Alright, I’m making a public announcement here, just for the record… I have never made these cookies before. Granted, there’s a few things I’ve never made before that are put up here, but if it’s super delicious I just say ‘hey, this worked out!’

So I made these cookies, and the ‘batter’ came out like.. sand, really. You know when you make a pie crust and they say to cut in the butter until the dough makes little pebbles? Well this made.. pebbles, but really tiny pebbles. I’m not sure if that’s ‘normal’, but I went with it! And, honestly, even if it’s not ‘normal’, I thought these were perfectly tasty. Could they have been ‘better’? Maybe! But I’ve never eaten a snowball cookie, so I don’t know what it’s supposed to be like, so I can only say from this one experience that I thought they were tasty! I have seen pictures where people use a cookie scoop to scoop them up and.. yeah, that would have just been a pile of ‘cookie dirt’ on the sheet. How I POSSIBLY messed these up, I don’t know as I was very precise in the way that I measured the flour because this recipe actually came with a warning on how they’d be dry if you didn’t measure the flour with the spoon method. Yup.. I used a spoon to measure the flour. None the less, I do recommend, if not for these cookies but other cookies, a scoop which is super handy.

OXO Good Grips Medium Cookie Scoop

Hey, this is a big step considering I’m an ‘eyeballing’ type person who guesstimates how much of something goes in a recipe, so I know I followed it! But, for the sake of sparing you some ‘sandy’ dry ‘batter’, I’m going to make a slight change to the flour which, in my opinion, can’t hurt. I’ll make these again and give you an update on how that changes the texture of the cookies.

ANYWAY…. let’s get down to the cookies.

Ingredients

1 C butter softened
1 C powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 C flour
1 1/3 C chopped pecans
Extra powdered sugar for dusting cookies

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Since I have a convection oven and wanted to put more than one sheet in at a time, I put it on convection bake at 325.

Creamed butter, sugar and vanilla

Cream your butter and powdered sugar together until well mixed. Once that’s done, just add in the vanilla until it’s well incorporated and each of those cookies gets a little taste of that delicious vanilla flavor.

Now we’re going to add the flour, mixing gently so we don’t overwork the dough. Just make sure you get all your butter and flour mixed together. I am told that it’s important to not scoop the flour from its source into your measuring cup because this compacts the flour and then you have a dry cookie, so if you’re worried about that, just spoon the flour into your measuring cup to measure it out.

Ninja’d Pecans

Once that’s done, we’re going to stir in our chopped pecans. I had pecan halves and since this is supposed, from what I understand, be like a pecan sandy cookie in a ball form, I just tossed my halves into the Ninja Professional Blender with Nutri Ninja Cups (BL660) and gave them a few bursts. This made some ‘pecan dust’, which might…MIGHT have affected the dough a little, as well as some pecan pieces. Honestly, I think having the dust in the cookie was a good move because you can really taste the pecan flavor!

Dough before pecans are mixed in.

Now that it’s all been brought together, you should have a crumbly dough. Mine was SANDY, not crumbly, which as I’ve mentioned, was probably a little on the dry side for this cookie, but worry not, I already cut back the flour a tad in your ingredients list. I gave you a close up of my pecans and my dough after the flour had been added so you can see the texture of what mine came out to be like.

Cookie Dough

Now we’re going to roll these into balls about 1 inch in diameter. Mine didn’t roll, so I pressed them, which made them.. bumpy with fingerprints and not all pretty and professional smooth like a ‘snowball. But hey… no one will question if they’re homemade!

Cookies on the Sheet

Place them on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Don’t worry, they won’t spread out, so just put a little space between them and cram that cookie sheet up! Since I didn’t know if they’d spread, I spaced mine out, but I found out during the second batch that I wasted a lot of cookie baking space.

Now I baked mine on 325 (convection oven) for 12 minutes. This was until they were basically set up and had a very small touch of brown on the bottoms and on some of my finger indentation ridges I left behind which marked these cookies as HOMEMADE. They don’t get brown unless you overcook them (yes.. I overcooked about 4), so don’t wait for these babies to brown up completely or they’re going to be a bit..overly crunchy. Regular oven at 350, the recipe calls for 15 minutes. I don’t know if that’s just going to cremate them so just be diligent and watch them from the 10 minute mark on, just in case!

First dusting on the left, second dusting on the right

Once done, place the cookies on cooling racks. Once they’re WARM and not oven hot, we’re going to take them, one at a time, and put them in the bowl with the extra powdered sugar, coating them. I put some foil beneath my cooling rack so I’d not have powdered sugar everywhere. And, once the cookies are cooled completely, we’ll dust them one last time. We dust them when they’re warm because the sugar will melt into the buttery cookie a little to give it some sticky surface for the second dusting, just in case you were wondering.

After their second dusting, you simply grab some nice cold milk or a hot cup of coffee or tea, and enjoy!

Overall, I found these to be perfectly tasty made the way I made them, but if you are a snowball connoisseur then I’m sure you’ll have some criticizing for my (MAYBE DRY) cookies, but hopefully the flour adjustment I’ve made will have these delicious little pecan cookies tasting glorious!

Snowball Cookies

White Chocolate Peppermint Cake Mix Cookies

3 Comments December 8, 2017 surafire

I’m sure most of you have heard of ‘cake mix cookies’ and that by adding simply ‘one or two more ingredients’, you can have delicious cookies.

I’m not really the type that takes the ‘easy’ road when it comes to baking something that I want to bake, so finding an ‘inexpensive’ way to make cookies wasn’t really on my roster. I am, however, previously known to be a cake mix hoarder. Why? Well, I make cakes for friends and so I’d always have cake mix on hand. I think at one point, I had 14 boxes of cake mix that were not destined to become a cake, but when I was at the store I was like “Ooo, I don’t think I have any cake mix.” Yeah… that’s me! Cake Mix Hoarder!

So, I had 3 boxes of cake mix, two red velvet and one vanilla and thus I decided to try this ‘cake mix cookie’ thing that people just rave over. I did the crackle cookies which is where you mix the cake mix with the eggs and just some melted butter, roll it into balls and dip it into a powdered sugar/cornstarch mix and bake. Don’t get me wrong, they weren’t gross, they just weren’t COOKIES! They were more like little, rounded cake bites.

Sorry guys who like cake mix cookies… my socks were not blown off by the cake mix cookie revelation.

What I decided to do was experiment and try to get it to make ACTUAL cookies without having to add 500 more ingredients and so I came up with something that I think worked GREAT! I mean.. I’ve had five cookies since yesterday, when I made them, and that’s saying a lot, considering the size of them. I thought they were super delicious, so I’m going to share with you the recipe I came up with. Be forewarned, however, that this is VANILLA cake mix. Know that any time you make something with powdered chocolate (aka–chocolate cake mix), that it’s going to be more dry, so I would stick with non chocolate cake mix for this specific recipe, but don’t worry! I’m going to come up with a chocolate one for you. I’m actually thinking of ‘chocolate peppermint’ or even a ‘german chocolate’. Now, Stephanie can’t eat coconut but I love it. Love, love, love it, so I can’t exactly just not bake with it!

Anyhow, let’s get on with the cookies so you can revel in their deliciousness, especially if you like peppermint. Not to mention, they’re good for the holidays since peppermint is like the Christmas flavor.

Ingredients

1 box Duncan Hines Signature French Vanilla Cake Mix

3 large eggs

1 stick butter, softened

1/2 C packed brown sugar

1/8 teaspoon Watkins Extract Peppermint

1 bag Ghirardelli Premium Baking Chips, Classic White Chocolate, 11 oz

3 peppermint candy canes

Preheat your oven to 350 for a regular electric oven with the heating element on it, or 325 for gas or convection. I have a convection oven and if I don’t knock off 25 degrees of the cooking temp and go with the longer, slower way of baking, things tend to burn.

Butter and Brown Sugar

First things first…as with 99% of cookie/baking recipes, we’re going to cream together the softened butter and the brown sugar until it’s nice and fluffy. Once that is done, add the eggs, one at a time and mix until well incorporated.

Adding in the Eggs

Now I poured in the cake mix and began mixing. It’s going to be kind of dry and you’re going to think ‘Oh my gosh, there’s not enough moisture’ for a minute or two but there is. Don’t freak out, just keep mixing until you get all that dry cake mix blended in and its a sticky, semi-loose dough. Kinda like really thick icing is how I would describe the texture.

Butter, Eggs and Sugar

I was going to tint my cookies red because I wanted it to match the candy cane crumble and when I went for the red food coloring, (pause for funny story), I remembered at one point my OLDEST kid decided he needed red food coloring for some costume blood apparently, because I had found the container out in the garage after his ‘fake massacre photo shoot’ he did for fun with his friends around Halloween last year. (Yes… I use food coloring that long!) Sooooooo… I decided to make it a pale blue because that says ‘snowflake’ and ‘snow’ to me.

Add the food coloring of your choice or leave the cookies white, which now that I think about it, would have matched the red and WHITE candy canes! Oh well! Then mix until all your dough is the desired color. You can even semi-mix it and have ‘streaked’ cookies which would be just fine!

Cake Mix Batter

Add the peppermint extract. I use pure extracts. Extracts that are imitation have a yucky flavor but if you’re not bothered by that weird, somewhat metallic tang, use what you have on hand. This is a fair reminder to you all… any time you use a strong flavored extract such as almond or peppermint, it’s best to start off very small and work your way up to the desired flavor. Don’t just go dumping that stuff in because it can quickly overpower what you’re cooking! I started off with literally two drops of peppermint. I wanted these cookies to be minty, but I didn’t want it to burn my mouth and upset my whole digestive system with its cool, crisp, minty flavor. Eventually, I added about 1/8 tsp of mint until it was to MY liking. This doesn’t mean you can’t add more if you want. Plus this gives you the chance to eat some dough. I know there’s this big thing where everyone is like O.M.G, you can’t eat raw eggs anymore! You’ll get a worm or a disease!

Tossing in the White Chocolate Chips

I’m like, hey look… I’ve been eating raw eggs since I was a kid and.. I’m still going to taste my stuff. It’s important when you buy your eggs, that they’re kept at 43 F in the grocery store and as well at home. Does this mean your eggs are safe? No not really, but the cold does help prevent the growth of Salmonella. In fact, 1/3 of egg producers do not vaccinate their hens for Salmonella because the law doesn’t require chickens to be vaccinated while in other countries, like Britain, law requires ALL hens to have their vaccinations before they begin producing eggs for public consumption. So, while I’m not telling you that its ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY SAFE by any standards, I’m telling you that I’m a risk taker and I’m gonna taste my batter and hope I don’t get sick later! The choice, inevitably, is yours!

White Chocolate Chips Folded In

Once you’ve got your dough all colored and pepperminted up, it’s time to simply fold in the white chocolate chips. I like to continue to fold them in until I’m sure there’s enough in the batter that every cookie gets some of them.

After this, I place the dough on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. This time I used my new ‘cookie scoop’ and it kinda scooped BIG cookies because I couldn’t really scrape off excess dough due to its sticky, chocolate chip filled body. This is the reason I had larger cookies, and cookies that reached out to hug their neighbors. If you’re more precise that I was, all you need to do is give them about 2 inches of space between them, their neighboring cookies and the walls of your baking sheets for them to have space to grow.

Cookie Dough on Parchment Paper

I got 12 cookies per sheet. I have large baking sheets.

If you’re baking them on 325 due to having a gas or convection stove, bake them for 10-11 minutes. If you’re baking them on 350 for an electric stove, check them around 8 minutes. The edges should be browning slightly for them to be done.

While your cookies are baking, take your candy canes and unwrap them and break them into pieces. No, you don’t have to break them into pieces to be cookie toppers by hand, but I did discover that, while the straight shaft of the candy cane was easily broken under my bashing rolling pin, the crook part, because you’re practically hitting two parts of it at once, had a tendency (before I put them in a ziploc bag and beat them on the counter top), to shoot across the kitchen before shattering into uneven pieces. Place your broken candy canes in a ziploc bag and beat them until you get little bits. I got some dust too because I was overzealous in the abuse of my candy canes, but the cookies that had the most ‘bits’ on them were SO delicious so I encourage bits over dust.

Candy Cane Fodder

Once your cookies come out of the oven with their slightly browned edges, sprinkle them with the candy cane bits so that the bits will melt and stick to the cookies. I still had some fall off which, much to my 11 year old’s delight, meant he got to pick them off the cookie sheets later.

Let the cookies cool before you try to take them off the pan. They’ll be crunchy on the edge and nice and moist in the middle once cooled. But if you try to take them off the sheet before that, the middle is probably going to fall out of it.

As you can see, my blue, I guess because of the ‘white’ or ‘off white’ of the vanilla cake, came out looking more green. Stephanie actually asked me if they were pistachio (even though they had candy canes on top) and I was like ‘NO! They’re the white chocolate peppermint we have been DISCUSSING!’ Hah! None the less, these cookies, in my opinion, I thought were pretty amazing! I hope you enjoy them for your holiday gatherings!

Small Town Eats and Treats

Author: surafire

White Chocolate Peppermint Cake Mix Cookies

Baked Broccoli and Baked Red Hot Cauliflower

Ingredients

Creamy Spinach Risotto

Ingredients

Treats from Chihuahua

New Years Tamales

Ingredients for Filling

Tools and Extras You Need

Ingredients for Masa Dough

Irresistable Pecan Pie

Ingredients

Spiced Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Ingredients

Salisbury Steak

Steak Patty Ingredients

Gravy Ingredients

Snowball Cookies

Ingredients

White Chocolate Peppermint Cake Mix Cookies

Ingredients