Cheese Ball

This cheese ball recipe comes from my husband's cousin Tyler. It has become my favorite cheese ball and my go to recipe when I need to take an appetizer to a get together. The first time I had it I was not to sure if I liked it, but kept having to take more and more bites of it, just to make sure. My my third or fourth bite, I was loving it! As a side note, I made this last night for my husband's work party, as we were headed out the door and my 4 year old puked everywhere, so my husband had to go alone, he and the cheese ball made a great date!

Cheese Ball

2 (8 oz) packages cream cheese
1 small can crushed pineapple (well drained)
½ package Lipton Onion Soup mix (approx 2 1/2 Tbls)
½ cup chopped green pepper

Mix all together and roll into ball. Roll ball in ½ cup chopped pecans. Chill until firm. Serve with crackers.

Cherry Lime Slush Punch

This has become our family's favorite party punch for birthdays, holidays, and get togethers with friends. My kids' friends love this stuff and have asked their moms to make it! :) So easy, for Thanksgiving my kids froze/did it for me the day before Turkey day while I was baking a cheesecake! I created this recipe because we love cherry limeade.

Cherry Lime Slush Punch
Print Recipe
1 gallon Minute Maid Cherry Limeade (I usually just buy 2 in the half gallon containers)
2 Liter Bottle Cherry Crush Soda (1)
1/2 cup Fresh Squeezed Lime Juice
Sliced Limes

Freeze Cherry Limeade in a gallon ziploc bag overnight. A few hours before you are going to serve, take out of freezer and place bag in punch bowl. When you are almost ready to serve, pour cherry crush and fresh lime juice over frozen limeade, stir and use something sharp, like a large kitchen fork to break up ice chunks. Slice a fresh lime and float on top for garnish.

Microwave Pralines

These are SO easy and SO good! So once I was watching that hot chef guy with the wavy blonde hair(he's almost as cute as my husband) from Australia who meets you in the supermarket and comes home with you and cooks you and your family a delicious meal. And he was making carmelized pecans and just put sugar on the stove and melted it and threw nuts in and made it look so effortless! So I'm like "oh yeah chef baby, I can do that!" Um......I guess not. Didn't quite work out. So I experiemented some and came up with this recipe, it turns out perfect every time, no disasters! And the nuts actually get toasty in the microwave. You can use any nuts you want with this, I usually use pecans but sometimes I use walnuts for salads. These are so delicious on top of holiday pies! The pics I will post show me making more than 1 cup, because I was making extra for Thanksgiving.

Microwave Pralines
Print Recipe

4 Tablespoons Butter
4 Tablespoons Sugar
1/4 teaspoon Vanilla
1/8 teaspoon Cinnamon
1 cup Nuts

In a microwave-safe GLASS or ceramic type dish, melt butter. (The temp on these gets pretty hot, if you use plastic of any kind it will melt. Just trust me.:(
Add sugar and stir in.
Then stir in vanilla and cinnamon. Add nuts, stir again. Cover and place in microwave, cook on high for 1 minute. Take out and stir. You can see here that your nuts will be starting to toast and mixture will be wet still, like corn syrup.
Put back in microwave for 1 minute on high. Take out, and stir again. Your nuts will be almost done and getting toasted! Put back in for 30 seconds on high. You should see clumps of sugar, which will set up as your nuts sit for a few minutes. These are delicious just to eat, I have to hide them from my nut-crazy husband if I'm using them in a recipe!
**NOTES: My microwave is on the high-watt end, and cooks quickly. Yours may take an extra 30 seconds or so, just watch them at the end so you don't fry them. Also, like I said in the beginning of my post I sometimes double this recipe. When you do, just increase cooking time. For example, with 2 cups I will cook them for 2 minutes first, then stir. Then 1 minute. Then about 30 seconds more, with maybe 1 more 30 second interval. You are looking for your nuts to be toasty and for the sugar to be clumping up and hardening some, it will finish setting up on the counter when you are done.

Perfect, No-Fail Brown Rice

Several years ago my brother in law and his family were visiting and I was complaining to him that I loved brown rice, but could never ever get it to turn out. That's when he told me he had seen on Food Network....yes my husband's brother watches Food Network...cool, huh? (My husband doesn't know anything beyond Sports Center exists)...Anyway, he said he saw Alton Brown BAKE it. I was like "Really? In the oven? How weird!" But I looked it up and sure enough, all my brown rice problems were solved! Love love love this recipe! So awesome, always turns out perfect. Below is the recipe from Alton Brown, and following it I've included my recipe that I 1 and 1/2 (1 and 1 halved) to feed my family of 8.

Baked Brown Rice, Alton Brown
serves 4
Print Recipe
1 1/2 cups brown rice, medium or short grain
2 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 teaspoon kosher salt (or I sometimes use chicken bouillon powder)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375.

Place the rice into an 8-inch square glass baking dish.

Bring the water, butter, and salt just to a boil in a saucepan. Once the water boils, pour it over the rice, stir to combine, and cover the dish tightly with heavy-duty aluminum foil. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 1 hour.

After 1 hour, remove cover and fluff the rice with a fork. Serve immediately.

I kind of 1 and a halved the recipe to feed my family of 8. Directions are the same, except I bake it in an 8x11 glass dish.
2 cups Brown Rice
3 1/2 cups Water
1 1/2 teaspoons Kosher Salt
1 1//2 Tablespoons Butter

Shrimp Potstickers with Soy Ginger Dipping Sauce

Is your family sick of turkey and mashed potatoes and turkey sandwiches and turkey and stuffing casserole and on and on and on???? Well so is mine and so when I announced tonight that we were having Chinese food, my kids exclaimed "YAY MOM!!" This is one of our favorite things to make and eat with Asian meals. I first saw this recipe in a Taste of Home Magazine, but I didn't like the dipping sauce so I created this one instead, which is just so so good!

Shrimp Potstickers with Soy Ginger Dipping Sauce
Print Recipe
First make the Sauce:


1/4 cup Soy Sauce
1/4 cup Rice Vinegar
1 Tablespoon Sugar
2 teaspoons fresh grated Ginger Root
1/2 teaspoon Sesame Oil
1 teaspoon Thai Sweet Chili Sauce- if you don't have this then use 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes.

Mix all together, refrigerate while making potstickers.

Potstickers:
Note:I am doubling the original recipe because we love these SO much that 24 wasn't enough! And honestly, I just want to use the whole container of wonton wrappers once I buy it so this uses the whole package.


1 pound uncooked Shrimp, peeled and deveined *(if you're not a fish person, you can substitute pork.)
2 Eggs, Beaten
1/2 cup Green Onions, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
1/2 teaspoon Pepper
8 Tablespoons Canola Oil
1 package, about 56--round or square wonton wrappers. I like using round, but sometimes I only find the square ones.


In a mixing bowl, beat eggs. Add onions, salt, and pepper. In a food processor or blender, pulse shrimp til ground. Add shrimp to egg mixture and stir with a wire whisk til well combined. Place 1 level teaspoon shrimp mixture onto each wonton wrapper.

Brush edges with water and fold; if using sqare into a triangle, if using round into a half moon. Seal. This process of assembling the potstickers goes much quicker if you have some help. Isn't my assistant happy and wonderful?

In a large skillet, heat 2 Tablespoons oil over medium-high heat. Add 12 dumplings and cook for 2 minutes. Add 1/4 cup water, cover and let steam for 3-4 minutes. Repeat with remaining dumplings. Serve with dipping sauce. NOTE: you may be wondering if you turn the dumplings during cooking and the answer is "no", they come out with one side browned, the other steamed-looking. The only time I turn them is when I notice they over-browned in the first part of cooking, but I usually don't! That's more work!
Enjoy these while they last, they go quickly in my home!!

Pizookies

So a last spring my husband and I went out for a date night to a restaurant called BJ's and we ordered their amazing "Pizookie" for dessert. It was a yummy, warm giant cookie that came hot and cooked in an 8 inch cake pan with ice cream, of course. We loved it and I thought "I could make this at home!" So I did, and my family has been hooked ever since. I love just taking cookie dough out of the freezer, defrosting it in the microwave, and making this dessert for my family. And it's perfect to serve for company too, so easy and good!

Pizookies
Print Recipe
2 cups cookie dough, either homemade or store bought. If using store bought, a 16 oz container/roll is perfect.

Preheat oven to 350. Line an 8 inch cake pan with parchment paper. Press cookie dough into pan. Bake at 350 for about 15-18 minutes, depending on your oven. You want it to brown slightly on edges and top, but to be soft in the middle. Serve with your favorite ice cream or whipped cream and chocolate and caramel syrup, if desired. I don't have a pic here with the syrup on top, but we love eating them that way!

This night my kids wanted mint chocolate ice cream, but vanilla is my favorite!

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies/Ready Cookie Dough

Who doesn't love warm chocolate chip cookies from the oven with some hot chocolate this time of year? YUM. So as a special treat, I'm making these for my kids to surprise them after school today, with hot chocolate of course!! I tried this recipe from Cooks Illustrated a while back and fell in love, just like the recipe says they are soft and chewy, and I swear just as good or better than the real "Mrs. Fields" cookies you buy. When I brought some to a girlfriend recently she's all "those were SO good, they taste like caramel!", and I'm like "I know!!" This isn't that hyped recipe that circles around the internet where you throw oats in your blender and blow them up, been there done that. This is SO easy, that's partly why I love it! Just melt your butter, well I'll just share the recipe. Jessica has also posted a delicious choc chip cookie recipe on here, I've tried them and they're amazing! But why make them when I can just stop by Jessica's house and she'll usually have some to share?? :) ** I want to note here that the Cook's Illustrated recipe calls for cooking these at 325. Partly because my oven cooks a little on the slow side and partly because my husband prefers cookies that are slightly browned on the outside, but soft inside, I have changed the baking temp to 350.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Print Recipe
1 1/2 cups Butter, melted *I use salted. If using unsalted, increase salt to 1 tsp.
2 Eggs
2 Egg Yolks
4 teaspoons Vanilla (I SWEAR by Watkins, imitation or real. I get it at Walmart.)
2 cups Dark Brown Sugar
1 cup Sugar
4 1/4 cups Flour **All purpose or bread or a combination of the two are delicious!
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspooon baking soda
4 cups chocolate chips ***Using a combination of white, milk, semi sweet, and sometimes m&ms makes the yummiest cookies!

Heat oven to 350. Melt butter, add eggs, egg yolks and mix. Blend in vanilla, then sugars. **My trick again** Carefully add flour on top of butter mixture, but DON'T stir in. Add baking soda and salt on top of the flour, and stir into flour with a fork. Then blend all together, add chocolate chips, and save the earth by not washing an extra bowl! This dough is even better after being refrigerated for a day. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes, you want them to be barely starting to brown on outside, but soft and gooey on inside. Call Jenny Craig, tell her "thanks for the memories" and grab some warm cookies!!

Freezer Ready Cookie Dough:
I double or even triple this recipe ALL the time. Then I take a sheet of seran wrap, place cookie dough on it and shape into a log like you see the refrigerated cookie dough at the grocery store. Then I roll it up, and take out a sheet of tin foil and wrap it again.
Then it's ready to freeze!
When I need cookies, I just take out of freezer while I preheat oven, then slice and bake! I also love to bring cookie dough to friends, they always love having cookie dough ready to bake.