Pecan Turtles

Who can resist rich chewy caramel over crunchy pecans dipped in chocolate? Not me! These have become my new holiday favorite to make and give away. My good friend, Linda J., won 2nd place in a Taste of Home contest one year (sorry, can't remember which year now!) with this recipe. The only thing I do is not cook it as long as she did to make mine more like soft caramel and I dip mine in chocolate, rather than drizzle it. Yummy, yummy!
Pecan Turtles

2 1/4 cups packed brown sugar

1 cup butter or margarine (I use butter)

1 cup light corn syrup

1/8 tsp. salt

1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 1/2 lbs. pecan halves

1 1/2 lbs. melting chocolate (you can mix semi sweet chips and milk choc. chips or buy the melting chocolate discs at a bakery)

2 TBSP. shortening (to thin chocolate)

In a large saucepan, combine the first four ingredients. Cook over medium heat until all the sugar is dissolved. Gradually add the milk and mix well. Continue cooking until candy thermometer reaches about 220 degrees (or soft ball stage). Remove from heat; stir in vanilla until blended. Fold in the pecans. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a freezer paper lined cookie sheet. Chill until firm. Melt chocolate in a small crockpot and dip the turtles until fully covered and place back on freezer paper lined cookie sheet. Cool. Yields about 4 dozen.

Recipe by Linda Jonsson

Slush Punch

This is a great punch--nice and red and a great flavor. So easy to make ahead as well. When I catered with my friends, this was our standard punch.

Slushy Punch

(1) 3 oz. package cherry jello

(1) 3 oz. package strawberry jello

(1) 3 oz. package raspberry jello

Mix in a LARGE bowl or pan. Add 4 cups boiling water and 8 cups COLD water. Add 64 oz. can pineapple juice and (1) 12 oz. can pink lemonade concentrate, thawed. Pour into DOUBLED freezer ziploc bags x 2. Freeze until firm.

To serve: take out of freezer at least 2 hours ahead of time. Put one bag into punch bowl and 2 liters ginger ale. Each bag serves 25 people.

Fruit Slush

This fruit slush is a really good thing to keep on hand. I make it and then put it in 5 oz. dixie cups. For my party, I used 3 oz. cups though because the only 5 oz. ones I could find had Sponge Bob on them! Just mix up the batch, then pour it into a pitcher and pour into the cups (have them on a baking tray) and then freeze them. Get them out about 20 minutes before you want to serve them and they'll be nice and slushy. A different twist on serving juice.

Fruit Slush

3 Cups water

2 cups sugar

Mix the two in a saucepan and boil to dissolve the sugar. Let cool. Then add:

(1) 6 oz. can orange juice concentrate, thawed

3 cans water

2 cups mashed bananas

(1) 20 oz. can crushed pineapple, undrained

Pour into 5 oz. cups and freeze.

Makes (24) 5 oz. cups. Thaw 20 minutes prior to serving to make it slushy.

Coconut Rum Crescent Rolls

I just hosted a Christmas Brunch and served lots of yummies and thought I would share, since I remembered to take pictures! I don't have a habit of photographing my food on a regular basis and after we eat it, I thought, I should have taken a picture! Oh well, I'll get better. Because I really want to show you what it's supposed to look like. Isn't that why we buy all the little magazines in the grocery store check out aisle? Because the pictures make it look so yummy. And how many times do we try a recipe without a photo? Not as much as when we have a photo, is it? :) I'll post a new recipe each day until I complete the menu of what I served.

Coconut Rum Crescent Rolls

2 cans crescent rolls

2 TBSP. butter, melted

2/3 cup sugar

2/3 cup shredded coconut

1 TBSP. rum extract

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Heat oven to 350°. Grease a 9" x 13" pan. Separate crescent rolls into 4 rectangles total, firmly press perforations to seal. Brush with butter. In a small bowl, combine sugar, coconut, rum extract and nutmeg, sprinkle over rectangles. Starting with the shorter side, roll up rectangles and press to seal ends. Cut each roll into 3 slices. Arrange cut side up in pan. Bake 20 to 25 minutes. Drizzle glaze over warm rolls (let them cool off a bit from the oven, or the glaze will melt into the rolls). Serves 12.

Glaze: mix 1 cup confectioner's sugar, 2-3 TBSP. milk and 1/4 tsp. rum extract until it's smooth.

Winter Veggie Salad

This is such a great salad to make in the winter. It keeps up to 4 weeks, so they say! It's never lasted that long in this house! I made it today for a potluck for my last class at the Studio this year. Luckily, there was some left to take a picture (or attempted to at least!)

Winter Veggie Salad

1 can French style green beans

1 can Shoepeg corn (I used white corn--what is shoepeg, anyway?)

1 can petite young peas

1 jar pimentos

1 red onion, finely diced

1 green pepper, diced

1 c. celery, diced

Put all these veggies in a colander and let drain completely. I used my hand to squeeze all that I could out of them. Put the drained veggies in a container, I used a glass wide mouthed jar (the decorative kind you can get at Christmas time). Then pour dressing over the veggies.

Dressing:

1/2 cup white vinegar

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

Mix all in a cup until sugar is dissolved. Pour dressing on veggies. Put lid on jar and shake. Store in the refrigerator. Best if made a day ahead of time to let the flavors blend.

Best Chocolate Oat Chip Cookies

My hubby is a HUGE fan of the standard Toll House chocolate chip cookies. Don't deviate because he just don't like any others....until....these. He still likes his standard cc cookies, but these will do as well. I love how chewy they are..so yummy.

Chocolate Oat Chip Cookies

1 ¾ c. all purpose flour
1 t. baking soda
½ t. salt
1 ¼ c. packed light brown sugar
1 c. (2 sticks) butter, softened
½ c. granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 T milk
2 t. vanilla extract
2 ½ c. quick or old-fashioned oats
2 c. (12 oz package) Nestle Toll House semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1 c. coarsely chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl – set aside. In a large mixer bowl, beat brown sugar, butter, and granulated sugar until creamy. Beat in eggs, milk, and vanilla. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in oats, morsels, and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake at 375 for 9 to 10 minutes for chewy cookies or 12 to 13 minutes for crispy cookies. Let stand for 1 minute; remove to wire racks to cool completely. Dip in soy milk and enjoy. J

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

I use an ice cream scooper instead of a rounded tablespoon – if you leave the mound high, they’re really chewy in the middle. When you take them out of the oven, they will probably not look too done, but they will taste great!!

Oh, and if any of you make them, I need to be the judge if you baked them the right way.



Recipe given to me by my daugher, Cortney..and I copied it directly from her. I told her that SHE needed to make them for ME first, so I would know if it was worth my time! And she did add that little bit about dipping them in SOY milk! As if....

okay..it was worth my time and they are best dipped in very, very cold SKIM milk ;)

Golden Sweet Cornbread

I'm not a huge fan of cornbread, but I do love it when it's moist, a bit sweet and has corn in it. Hoggy's Restaurant has the best. The old standby Jiffy just doesn't cut it anymore. I made it a few weeks ago and it was hard, crumbly and just plain blah. So I went searching for another recipe. I found one on allrecipes.com but it had lots of comments such as: good, BUT I'd do this or that or whatever. So, I thought, I'll just pick and choose which changes I thought would be good and try it. And I think we have a winner!! It was moist, crispy on the edges and full of good corn flavor!

Golden Sweet Corn Bread

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
3 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 small can corn niblets, drained well


Preheat oven to 400° F. Put 2 TBSP. butter in a 9" round cake pan and put in oven to let it melt. (this is what makes the yummy crust!). In a large bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt and baking powder. Stir in egg, milk, corn and melted butter until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

recipe adapted from allrecipes.com