Christmas Cookies

Christmas Cookies

Ingredients:

                                         2 1/2 cups flour

                                         1 tsp baking soda

                                         1 tsp salt

                                         1 cup butter, softened (2 sticks)

                                         1 cup packed brown sugar (or 1/2 cup packed splenda brown sugar)

                                         1/2 cup granulated sugar (do NOT substitute splenda)

                                         2 eggs

                                         2 tsp vanilla

                                         1 package (12 oz.) m&ms (or chocolate chips)

Directions:

(Preheat oven to 350 degrees.)

1.  Beat butter, brown sugar, & granulated sugar in a large bowl until light & fluffy. 

Beat in eggs & vanilla.

2. In a separate bowl combine flour, baking soda, & salt. Add flour mixture gradually to butter mixture and beat until well blended.

3. Stir in m&ms (or chocolate chips).

4. Drop by heaping spoonfuls onto cookie sheets. Bake 12-14 minutes or until lightly browned.

5. Cool & enjoy!

Cookies turn out best when this is your view from the kitchen and you play Christmas music while baking.

Do you have any special Christmas treat recipes? Post a link in the comments if you're willing to share. :) Happy baking!

Inside-out Chicken Pot Pie

Tonight's dinner was fantastic! A definite hit. There is only one alteration I will make next time: double or triple the filling! Here is the recipe I found in All You magazine and tweaked a bit.

Ingredients
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
4 Tbsp. flour
2 Tbsp. butter
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 can mixed veggies (14.5 ou.)
3-4 chicken thighs, cooked & cut into bite sized pieces (more if you really like chicken!)
1/2 tsp salt
1 can Pillsbury biscuits

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Whisk cream & flour in a bowl. Set aside.
3. Melt butter in a large pan over medium heat. Saute onion for 3 minutes.
4. Stir in broth, veggies, chicken, & salt; bring to a boil.
5. Stir in cream mixture; continue cooking, stirring until mixed well & thickened.
6. Transfer mixture to a 13x9 baking dish.
7. Arrange the uncooked biscuits on top, drizzle a little cream over the top of each biscuit if you have some left over.
8. Bake until biscuits are golden brown, about 18-20 minutes.
9. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

This changed the way I do dinner.

So I tried a new dinner idea: frozen crockpot meals. I spent Sunday evening gathering all my ingredients and had everything ready for the whole week. It took a while to package everything, but it has made the rest of the week a breeze. 

First, I gathered all the recipes I wanted to make for the week.

Then I chopped everything up and put all the ingredients for each recipe into a labeled big, ziplock bag. (I put the date, any extra instructions, like serve over rice or add a cup of this, and the cook time.)

Then I put them all in the freezer.

 labeled bag

frozen Teriyaki Chicken

 frozen Chicken Tortilla Soup

So Monday morning I pulled a bag of frozen ingredients for Mediterranean chicken out of the freezer and dumped it all straight into the crockpot, set the temp on low and when I returned 8 1/2 hrs later this was awaiting me:

Mediterranean Chicken

It was delicious!! I think I'll never use the oven again. :D

I'm excited about this because:
1. It's super easy and I'm lazy busy.
2. This will be great when Crockett leaves because it will be hard to cook for one person and I can have leftovers for a few days (I love leftovers).

Here are the recipes I tried. I've only made Mediterranean Chicken, but it was great. I'll update as I make the others. (Update: The Teriyaki Chicken was great too! Next time I will add more chicken and carrots and less pineapple and onion.)

Teriyaki Chicken

 med - large bag of carrots 

(I used fresh, whole carrots and peeled/chopped 5.)

red onion in large chunks

2 cans pineapple (undrained)

4 garlic cloves

1 cup teriyaki sauce

(I used HEB brand marinade.)

 bag instructions:

add 1/4 cup teriyaki sauce and cook low 8 hrs or high 4 hrs, serve over rice

Chicken Tortilla Soup

3 cups chicken broth

1 1/2 cooked chicken (cut into strips or cubes)

1/2 onion

1 cup frozen corn

2 green onions

28 ou. can tomatoes (undrained)

1 cup chopped veggies

(I used a can of mixed veggies.)

4 garlic cloves

1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp crushed red peppers 

(I omitted this.)

salt to taste 

(I added about 1 2 tsp.)

bag instructions:

cook on low 8-10 hrs or high 6 hrs

Mediterranean Chicken

3-4 pieces of chicken

(I always use thighs.)

1 bag of frozen artichoke hearts

1/2 jar of green olives (drained)

28 ou. can tomatoes (undrained)

bag instructions:

cook low 8 hrs or high 4 hrs, serve over rice

I also am planning on doing Savory Chicken, but will add that recipe when I get to my computer. I'll also post the links to all the awesome sites I got these recipes from because they have a lot more. The recipe for the soup was the only one not specifically designed for freezing in advance, but since it is a crockpot recipe I imagine it'll work just fine. I'll let you know!

Happy Cooking!

- B