Cookies for Valentine's Day

Since Valentine's Day is tomorrow.  I just thought I'd share 3 of our favorite cookies to make for Valentine's Day.  These are in no particular order...we love them all nearly equally!

Cookie #1:  Homemade Oreos...here and here

Add a little red food coloring to your frosting, to make them a little more Valentine.  Mmmm....my boys love these!!  

There is one thing I don't like about making these cookies....frosting them :)  It really isn't a big deal, but I just don't like doing it.  SO....my boys and I made these a week or two ago for a scout meeting and we decided to just use the cookie scoop for the frosting.  It was great!!  Also perfect ratio of frosting to cookie for me :)  ...2:1...2 tablespoon sized cookies and 1 tablespoon size portion of frosting.  AND....so quick and easy!!

See how great that is :)  Oh...and don't mind the upside down honey bear in some of the pictures.  Sometimes we store it that way when we are trying to get that last little bit of honey out. :)

Cookie #2:  Sugar cookies with butter cream frosting

Mmmm....these are SO good!!  Melt in your mouth good!!

Cookie # 3:  Peanut butter blossoms with Hershey Kisses or Reece's Peanut Butter Hearts...here or here

If you make the peanut butter blossoms with Reece's Peanut Butter Hearts instead of Hershey Kisses, just make sure you let your cookie cool longer before pressing it into the cookie...~10 minutes...so that it doesn't melt.

OR....

If you don't want to make cookies....I'd recommend making Raspberry Rolls...So good!!  

Homemade Root Beer

This is the perfect recipe for Halloween, or anytime really.  But really...if you have a big witch's cauldron, isn't this the perfect Halloween beverage?

I remember my parents making homemade root beer growing up, but have never made it myself....and it has been a long time since I have had it.  One of our sons had a couple friends over the other night and we decided pizza and homemade root beer sounded good....and the root beer is fun.  You need a 5 gallon insulated drink cooler to make this...or if you don't have one(like me), you can split the ingredients into two smaller ones.

Of course, being the terrible photographer that I am, I forgot to get a picture of the finished product.  I only got this picture at the beginning.  I almost didn't post because of that, but decided to share and next time we make it I will get some better pictures and update :)

Homemade Root Beer

Ingredients:

4 lbs. sugar

3.5 gallons of water

1-2 2oz bottle of root beer concentrate (found in grocery stores by the vanilla), I added one bottle and ~1T.

4.5-5 lbs of dry ice

5 gallon insulated drink cooler

Directions:  Combine sugar with one gallon of hot water and stir until the sugar has all dissolved.  Add your root beer concentrate, start with the 2 ounce bottle....after you add all of your water, taste it and add a little extra concentrate...if you like a little stronger root beer taste.  NOW, you want your root beer mixture to be as cold as possible before you add your dry ice, BUT you don't want to add the water then extra ice or you will water down your root beer.  SO I put ice into the container that I was using to measure my water(2 qt pitcher), then filled it to the amount and added it to the warm sugar/root beer water.  Add 2.5 gallons of water, so that you have the total of 3.5 gallons.  If your root beer is cold when you add your dry ice, the dry ice will carbonate your root beer more...does that make sense?  Add your dry ice and give everything a good stir.  Put your lid on the container, loosely.  If you put it on tight, the pressure will make it all explode.  If you leave the lid completely off, your root beer will be flat.  Brew your root beer for approx an hour.  As it sits longer it will become slushy...yummy!!  We left some overnight in our cooler and it was still slushy the next day.

Make sure that you handle the dry ice carefully and with gloves.  If you touch it to bear skin, it will burn you.  If you eat the slush, make sure that it is slush not the actual dry ice.

Also, I would recommend making this outside.

I hope this makes sense.  If you have any questions, leave a comment and I'll try to answer.

a few Thanksgiving Foods

 Like I said in my last post.....I have very few Thanksgiving type recipes.  Here are a few recipes that I LOVE...that would be welcome on my Thanksgiving table or on my table anytime:)

 

Dinner Rolls

 

Grape Salad

 

Crusty Rolls

  

Boston Market Cornbread

 

Broccoli Salad

Happy Halloween - Candy Corn

 Hope you all have a Happy Halloween.  A friend of mine told me to try this combination last year at Halloween....seriously....candy corn and peanuts...SO yummy!!  Tastes a lot like a Payday.  Delish!!

 I didn't make these cupcakes.  Someone dropped them off at our door, but I thought they were SO cute!!  I love the 'candy corn' frosting.

Halloween - Pumpkin Shaped Cookie

So...I didn't really know what to name this post.  I didn't want to say 'pumpkin sugar cookie' and make you think I had some wonderful sugar cookie recipe that included pumpkin in the ingredients.

SO..anyway....just wanted to share a quick easy pumpkin shaped sugar cookie....I used my FAVORITE sugar cookie recipe....with butter cream frosting, then just added a Kit Kat for the stem.

Skeleton Halloween Veggie Tray

I made this veggie tray for my son's birthday party(Halloween baby:)) several years ago.  I know I have posted this picture before, but thought I'd share it again.

Skeleton Veggie Tray

Made with cucumbers, celery, carrots, sugar snap peas, bell peppers, broccoli, sliced mushrooms and cherry tomatoes.

Valentine's

I just finished making some homemade oreos for my kids to take to school for their teachers tomorrow. I colored the cream cheese frosting pink, made a cute tag(my opinion), and put them in a clear Chinese take out container. I thought about making some soft sour cream sugar cookies(seriously the BEST sugar cookies EVER!), but remembered I sent those at Christmas time:)