Since Columbus Day cookie baking has been in full swing for me. I plan to have all cookies done before Thanksgiving as I did last year, when I was able to create a wonderful cookie tray to share on Thanksgiving. I plan to make this a yearly tradition.
When do you begin cookie baking?
In exactly six months we will celebrate Christmas. I especially enjoy the Christmas season which leads up to that big day for all of the memories, cheer, ambiance, food, smells, and lights; for me that is the best time of year. I’m anxiously awaiting Autumn because that will signify the beginning of the holiday season; I love when October arrives.
To celebrate Christmas in June I am sharing this recipe with you. Santa loves these!!
Well…we have come to the final month of our cook-through challenge.
So to end it I really want to have another
*Wildcard month*
That means only one thing: you can make any recipes from the cookbook which you haven’t made so far during this challenge
I encourage you to have fun, take photos, share your food with others and link your blog posts back to this post on my site so that we all can see what you are making and enjoying. It is not a requirement to have a blog to join-in on this. I’d love to see your comments though if you are participating.
I know that you will find satisfaction in various ways by choosing your own ingredients and creating healthy dishes in your own kitchen. A good home-cooked meal is always a great centerpiece at any gathering and shows your feelings towards others. 🙂
Thank you for following along on this adventure!!
I hope you were able to try out some new recipes in the past year and have lots of fun and creativity in your cooking/baking. I made several from my cookbook even though I didn’t write up complete posts here on my blog and I have added them to my rotation of recipes.
Here are a few images of those goodies –
Homemade chocolate cake with homemade peanut butter icing – better than any boxed cake mix and tub of icing!!
Crumb-Topped Apple Pie – so good!!
Homemade Caramel Corn – once you start eating this you won’t be able to stop!!
I substituted Venison for Beef in this yummy Fajita mixture
(To read more detailed information concerning the cook-through challenge please go to this link: Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge)
Happy Cooking!!
🙂
Spring is around the corner and we often think of lighter food fare for our menus at this time of year. We’ve been eating ‘heavier’ comfort foods for several months now and want to change up our menus a bit.
For this month lets grab those Eggs
We are fortunate to have Amish neighbors who sell free-range chicken eggs. They are so much better than the ones you buy in the store. There is a quality difference in them. We will buy several dozen at a time because we eat eggs everyday for breakfast and I love to have breakfast food for supper at times as well. And since I enjoy baking homemade items I certainly need them for my recipes too.
I encourage you to have fun, take photos, share your food with others and link your blog posts back to this post on my site so that we all can see what you are making and enjoying. It is not a requirement to have a blog to join-in on this. I’d love to see your comments though if you are participating.
I know that you will find satisfaction in various ways by choosing your own ingredients and creating healthy dishes in your own kitchen. A good home-cooked meal is always a great centerpiece at any gathering and shows your feelings towards others. 🙂
(To read more detailed information concerning the cook-through challenge please go to this link: Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge)
Happy Cooking!!
🙂
When I think of February I often think of a local community spaghetti supper which is a fund-raising event.
So for this month let us all make some
Pasta recipes
You may even want to challenge yourself to make homemade pasta noodles and/or garlic bread recipes
I encourage you to have fun, take photos, share your food with others and link your blog posts back to this post on my site so that we all can see what you are making and enjoying. It is not a requirement to have a blog to join-in on this. I’d love to see your comments though if you are participating.
I know that you will find satisfaction in various ways by choosing your own ingredients and creating healthy dishes in your own kitchen. A good home-cooked meal is always a great centerpiece at any gathering and shows your feelings towards others. 🙂
(To read more detailed information concerning the cook-through challenge please go to this link: Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge)
Happy Cooking!!
🙂
Happy New Year!!!
Welcome to 2018 and month nine of our challenge. Wow! We’re almost completely through a year in our cookbook challenge.
For this month I’ve decided to go with
quick bread recipes
I encourage you to have fun, take photos, share your food with others and link your blog posts back to this post on my site so that we all can see what you are making and enjoying. It is not a requirement to have a blog to join-in on this. I’d love to see your comments though if you are participating.
I know that you will find satisfaction in various ways by choosing your own ingredients and creating healthy dishes in your own kitchen. A good home-cooked meal is always a great centerpiece at any gathering and shows your feelings towards others. 🙂
(To read more detailed information concerning the cook-through challenge please go to this link: Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge)
Happy Cooking!!
🙂
Yeah – December has arrived! That means we are at month eight of our Cooking-Through Cookbook Challenge and you probably know already which category I’ve chosen; don’t you?!
December only means one food for devouring by children of all ages:
COOKIES!!!
When I dream of Christmas I always dream of cookies and I’m sure you do too. We all have our holiday favorites which we’ve been enjoying for generations in our families but you may want to go outside of that box for this month and enjoy some other new cookie recipes which are in your chosen cookbook for this challenge you are participating in. I have recently acquired a couple of vintage cookie cookbooks and have been drooling over them for months so I’m hoping to also include a few of those recipes for us this holiday season.
I encourage you to have fun, take photos, share your food with others and link your blog posts back to this post on my site so that we all can see what you are making and enjoying. It is not a requirement to have a blog to join-in on this. I’d love to see your comments though if you are participating.
I know that you will find satisfaction in various ways by choosing your own ingredients and creating healthy dishes in your own kitchen. A good home-cooked meal is always a great centerpiece at any gathering and shows your feelings towards others. 🙂
(To read more detailed information concerning the cook-through challenge please go to this link: Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge)
Happy Cooking!!
🙂
Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving
My most favorite time of the year has arrived. When November 1st rolls around I know that the holiday season of Thanksgiving and Christmas has come. I enjoy the food and ambiance of this season better than any other time of year.
For November there couldn’t be any other category for our challenge than:
Pies and Pie Crusts
When you think of Thanksgiving you most certainly think of homemade-from-scratch pies alongside that yummy Turkey or Ham (or at least I do :0) ). This month’s category gives you an opportunity to bake and share some pies when you celebrate Thanksgiving with your loved ones. Pumpkin is always on the top of my list but there are many other pies out there that are just as scrumptious. And nothing beats a homemade pie crust. It is so simple to get together that you’ll be asking yourself why you’ve been buying those pre-made ones from the grocery store (the secret is ice cold water and other cold ingredients to get it just perfect when blended together). Last Autumn I had shared a Pumpkin Pie recipe and story which can be found at this link, if you’re interested.
I encourage you to have fun, take photos, share your food with others and link your blog posts back to this post on my site so that we all can see what you are making and enjoying. It is not a requirement to have a blog to join-in on this. I’d love to see your comments though if you are participating.
I know that you will find satisfaction in various ways by choosing your own ingredients and creating healthy dishes in your own kitchen. A good home-cooked meal is always a great centerpiece at any gathering and shows your feelings towards others. 🙂
(To read more detailed information concerning the cook-through challenge please go to this link: Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge)
Happy Cooking and Baking!!
🙂
I’ve been crazy for baking cookies lately and I’m very proud that I’ve been ambitious enough to try all new recipes!
This past weekend I pulled out my Grandmother’s Better Homes & Gardens cookbook and made two from there with my own twists added in.
I first baked the Peanut Butter Cookies which I’ve named Peanut Butter Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies because I added milk chocolate chips to them for a bit of chocolate and they are very good.
Here is the recipe which I used for the Peanut Butter cookies:
Before I make anything I always sift/whisk the dry ingredients together in a bowl. I creamed the wet ingredients together with my stand mixer, added the flour mixture by hand and then 1 cup of Nestle Milk Chocolate Chips (my fave!).
I used a cookie scoop to measure them all the same and put some chips on the top of the cookies (like you would do with a Hershey Kiss for the Peanut Blossom cookies) and then pushed them down a bit.
I baked them at 350 degrees (not the 375 as listed in the recipe) for 12 minutes and then allowed them to cool on the sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to the cooling racks.
As you can see the bottoms are nice and brown and they are great to eat!
My second recipe was the Drop Sugar Cookies.
First, I want to say that as I tasted one of these I had this overwhelming feeling stir through me of familiarity in taste. I’m 99.9% positive that this was the same recipe which my Grandmother used for her annual Christmas Cut-Out Sugar Cookies which I loved so much. It was an amazing feeling!
After mixing the batter I chilled it in the fridge for approximately 20 minutes before I scooped them and tossed them around in sprinkles.
I baked them at 350 degrees too for 15 minutes instead of the recipe’s noted temperature of 375. I allowed them to cool on the sheet for 5 minutes like I did with the other cookies. Also it is very good to chill the dough in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before you make the first batch of drop sugar cookies and also to chill it between the batches as they are baking.
By rolling them around in the sprinkles before baking you can see how the cookies really have color throughout. If I make them and roll in the sprinkles as I did today I will cut the sugar back to 1/2 cup versus the 3/4 cup in the recipe or I may keep the sugar the same and just add the sprinkles to the top of the scooped cookies.
I certainly have more great cookie recipes to add to my rotation and with Christmas right around the corner I can’t wait to bake them for friends!
For some unknown reason I’ve been infatuated lately with making and eating cookies. In the past month I’ve baked several dozen cookies of various types and have frozen some for future nibbling. I don’t know why the sudden allure to bake them so much but they do make me happy!!
Because of inspiration I received after my Molasses Cookie post I plan to look through the ones which my Grandmother had and bake more of those to help bring back some long lost memories (just in time for the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons which are quickly approaching!). Maybe that is the reason my soul is craving cookies! They are small yet tasty pieces of our past which bring comfort through our recalled memories. And the happiness they are bringing me is helpful to my craving soul right now. Maybe my Grandmother is trying to help me through the simple yet satisfying process of baking 🍪 As I recall from my childhood I don’t have many memories of actually baking with her. It seemed that cookies and pies always magically appeared in her kitchen and she always had something to share and send home with us.
I hope to bake and share some more ‘From My Grandmother’s Recipe Box.’
😌
I have been doing a lot of cooking and baking in the past several weeks; however, not anything new from my Cooking-Through Cookbook choice for the year.
Last week I made a new recipe of Chocolate Chip cookies and my first-ever batch of Ginger cookies. Both were from my one Allrecipes magazine and they were really good.
Today I decided to make my first-ever batch of Molasses cookies. I’ve been wanting to bake Molasses cookies for a while now. I found the recipe which belonged to my Grandmother and decided that was the one to make. I used a mild-flavored brand of molasses called ‘Grandma’s Molasses’ and followed the recipe as written but without the cloves. I didn’t take any photos while mixing the batter but I have photos below after chilling it.
I baked them for 10 minutes and allowed them to cool on the sheet for 3 minutes before moving them to the cooling rack.
My husband said that he likes the Ginger cookies better than these (and there was molasses in those cookies as well as ginger added to these cookies but the amounts were different for each cookie). Maybe it’s the type of molasses used but I don’t care for the flavor of these so much either. I don’t recall my Grandmother baking these and if she did I don’t remember eating them (I was a rather picky-eater as a child so Molasses wasn’t something I would have enjoyed at that time of my life). I do want to try other Molasses cookie recipes though to see if I will like any of those better than these.
Try them and let me know what you think.
Update on 10/22/2017: After allowing the cookies to sit for a day I’ve discovered that the flavor is much better than it was yesterday and I do enjoy the cookies.
🙂
Welcome to month five of our cooking-through cookbook challenge.
I hope you’re having fun!
This time of year for us is when Autumn is beginning to come around and Fairs are in full swing. Baking and comfort foods are about to take center stage in our kitchens.
So for September let us enjoy:
homemade-from-scratch cakes
This includes any frosting recipes that you may find in your book to go along with those homemade cakes you’re about to bake.
I encourage you to have fun, take photos, share your food with others and link your blog posts back to this post on my site so that we all can see what you are making and enjoying. It is not a requirement to have a blog to join-in on this. I’d love to see your comments though if you are participating.
I know that you will find satisfaction in various ways by choosing your own ingredients and creating healthy dishes in your own kitchen. A good home-cooked meal is always a great centerpiece at any gathering and shows your feelings towards others. 🙂
(To read more detailed information concerning the cook-through challenge please go to this link: Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge)
Happy Cooking & Baking!!
🙂
We now have been cooking-through our books for three months and have enjoyed various recipes. I have been enjoying this challenge especially since I’ve really been looking at certain sections of the book and reading various recipes which I’ve been overlooking for many years. Even though I’m not making every recipe in my book I am actually concentrating on a particular section each month and determining which recipes to try. I think that having a full month to actually look at certain recipes is a good thing for me.
For August I’m introducing something unique to my challenge:
*it’s a Wildcard month*
That means only one thing: you can make any recipes from the cookbook which you haven’t made so far during this challenge
I encourage you to have fun, take photos, share your food with others and link your blog posts back to this post on my site so that we all can see what you are making and enjoying. It is not a requirement to have a blog to join-in on this. I’d love to see your comments though if you are participating.
I know that you will find satisfaction in various ways by choosing your own ingredients and creating healthy dishes in your own kitchen. A good home-cooked meal is always a great centerpiece at any gathering and shows your feelings towards others. 🙂
(To read more detailed information concerning the cook-through challenge please go to this link: Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge)
Happy Cooking!!
🙂
I hope that you found the challenge of chicken and beef recipes exciting and made some yummy food last month!
For July lets dig through our books for some yummy
Appetizers and Beverages
I encourage you to have fun, take photos, share your food with others and link your blog posts back to this post on my site so that we all can see what you are making and enjoying. It is not a requirement to have a blog to join-in on this. I’d love to see your comments though if you are participating.
I know that you will find satisfaction in various ways by choosing your own ingredients and creating healthy dishes in your own kitchen. A good home-cooked meal is always a great centerpiece at any gathering and shows your feelings towards others. 🙂
(To read more detailed information concerning the cook-through challenge please go to this link: Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge)
Happy Cooking!!
🙂
Month One was fun with salads and salad dressings and I hope you are enjoying this opportunity to create some new foods for those you love. I know that I have found some “keeper” recipes which I will add to my rotation of foods.
For Month Two the categories are:
any Chicken or Beef recipes
or make them meatless if you are vegetarian
I challenge you to look through your book for recipes which fall into the above category and make as many as you want too.
I encourage you to have fun, take photos, share your food with others and link your blog posts back to this post on my site so that we all can see what you are making and enjoying. It is not a requirement to have a blog to join-in on this. I’d love to see your comments though if you are participating.
I know that you will find satisfaction in various ways by choosing your own ingredients and creating healthy dishes in your own kitchen. A good home-cooked meal is always a great centerpiece at any gathering and shows your feelings towards others. 🙂
(To read more detailed information concerning the cook-through challenge please go to this link: Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge)
Happy Cooking!!
🙂
I recently acquired these two cookie books…
And all I’ve been able to do is dream about cookies.
I’ve been making more cookies lately (just the standards which I love so much) and I Love, Love, Love what Betty says in her Picture Cook Book about them:
I don’t have a proper old-fashioned cookie jar but I do like having cookies in an air-tight container on my kitchen counter (as I do now).
So I couldn’t help myself when I learned about Betty’s vintage cooky book. I was drawn to it immediately and searched for one online; a used one, of course.
This Betty Crocker Cooky Book is from 1963 (First Edition First Printing) and it looks like new. I don’t know if the price sticker on the front is from 1963 though. The cover with all of the cookies just draws you to this book and there are many recipes inside.
This Woman’s Day Cookie Cook Book is from 1963, Third Printing.
It only cost 75 cents back when it was sold in ’63 which is such a bargain by today’s standards.
I’m guessing that many housewives in the 1960’s were very busy baking cookies once they retained one or both of these publications. I can only imagine how magical Christmas must have been back in that time with so many cookies coming out of mom’s oven. They can really make a home so warm and inviting especially when the smells are floating through the house as they are baking. Ah…such great memories!!
What cookies do you enjoy making and keeping in your home? Do you have a proper old-fashioned cookie jar full of cookies all of the time? Please share some of your cookie memories with me.
Chocolate chip are my most-favorite cookies and I love using milk chocolate and dark chocolate chips versus the semi-sweet; and I must use butter in the recipe! I’ve been addicted to the Nestle brand of chips because the chocolate content is better than Hershey’s (in my opinion the taste is so much better) and European chocolate is the best over anything because their number one ingredient is almost always chocolate (cocoa) versus sugar. Do you look at the ingredients listed on your chocolate chips? When you see sugar listed first you will find that the taste is just not as good as those which have the cocoa ingredients first.
(On a side-note, I love European chocolate over the American chocolate. If you haven’t tried any European chocolate you’re missing out on something very extraordinary in taste and quality. It seems like sugar has become the number one ingredient in all chocolate made in America anymore and the cocoa content is minimal.)
So many cookies…
so little time…
On a recent cool, damp and rain-all-day Saturday I threw together my Italian Sausage Vegetable Soup to simmer all day in the crockpot and I made a wonderful bread to go along with it as well as a salad. I posted my recipe once before but wanted to share it with you again as well as give you a few photos.
Italian Sausage Vegetable Soup
Take approximately 1 pound of Italian Sausage and boil in water until it is cooked (you may want to put a few knife holes in each piece so that it will cook better). Then take the sausage out of the water and either slice it up or take it out of the casing so that it is like ground beef pieces (or buy Italian Sausage already out of the casing) and place into a frying pan which has olive oil (or your oil of choice) heated in it and fry for a little while (until pieces are the way you like or some have browned, your choice). When almost finished frying, add in some minced garlic and diced onion (again, your choices). When the garlic and onion have heated for about 2-3 minutes, transfer everything to your crock pot.
To this meat mixture, add two 15-oz cans of beans/peas (I used one can of Northern Beans and one can of Black Eyed Peas; you could use whatever you like or have on hand), a quart of home-canned tomatoes (or a comparable size that you buy in the stores), carrots (as much as you want), roughly 2-3 cups of beef broth (or other broth you have or like), pinch of salt and pepper or other seasonings you prefer. Put on high for an hour or two and then low for 6 hours. Add in 1/4-1/2 tsp Italian Seasoning and some frozen or fresh chopped sweet peppers, frozen or fresh sliced zucchini and squash (I have frozen zucchini and squash from my garden last year). Keep on low until ready to eat (roughly two more hours). If you want you could add spinach or kale at some point in the recipe (I added kale near the end).
To go with the soup, I made a Cheddar Herb Bread using white sharp cheddar cheese (use a good quality cheese if you are able to) as well as dried rosemary (store bought) and my own dried parsley versus the cilantro that is mentioned as an option in the recipe; I make mine in an 8″ x 8″ square dish. I saw this recipe once in a Better Homes & Gardens magazine and am glad I gave it a try; it is a quick and easy bread to mix together. Here is the link to that recipe on their website: Cheddar Herb Bread. It is a fantastic bread! It reminds me of a rosemary bread that we received at a well-known Italian restaurant along with some dipping oils and it smells so good in the kitchen when baking. I reheated my piece in the microwave at supper time and put on some butter; yummy!
Enjoy!
I love used vintage cookbooks from the early to mid 20th century and I’m happy with my small but ever-growing collection. When I search online for vintage cookbooks I always narrow my results to ‘used’ books because I want a book with character.
I decided to treat myself and leave work early one day last week to go to a used-book sale at a library in the city where I work (“early bird gets the worm,” as they say). They have two sales a year and I was there for one before but this time I was concentrating on looking through all of the cookbooks for anything vintage. So many of the books looked rather new and appeared as if they weren’t even opened or used and only $2.00 for most books. I found several Better Homes & Gardens cookbooks and Betty Crocker ones too. Most were newer and not the vintage ones I enjoy but I did find a reprint of the 1950 Betty Crocker Picture Cook Book. On the inside it states that it is a reprint of the 1950 book and I believe the reprint date was 1988 or somewhere around that time and that it includes all of the original content/recipes from the book. I chuckled to myself as I flipped through it and recognized the pages from my original book which is the First Edition (Sixth Printing). Also, this one had a soft cover and copies of the front and back cover of the original one and it just wasn’t the same for me (many pages seemed distorted as it was “reprinted”).
Here is my original book which I bought last year through Amazon and has the character I’m looking for in a vintage book. It is in very good condition for its age too. I’m not going to get into too much detail about this book in relation to the recipes and content exclusive to this cookbook because Marianne over at Happily Mrs has chosen to cook-through this book for my challenge and she will most likely be sharing much with you as she blogs about her food. I bet you will want to buy one for yourself too! 🙂
These older cookbooks are more then just a collection of recipes. They give us a glimpse into the home life of housewives during the time period they were written and are so valuable in that regard. The newer cookbooks today just don’t compare to these older ones, in my opinion. Everything which I’ve made from this book so far has been really good and a “keeper.” I love all of the photos and how-tos included. I’ve been successful with my white yeast breads using the recipe and photo instructions in here.
I want to share the character of my book with you which makes it so much more special. I am thinking of myself as a safe-keeper of these older books until I pass on into the next life. Hopefully the next person will care for these books in the same manner that I do. They are getting more rare and difficult to find in such good condition. But the antique business has picked up in recent years in the United States and throughout the world more people are beginning to appreciate the value of these vintage items and prices are going through-the-roof for such things.
At one time it lived here although I don’t remember if the seller who sent it to me was from this place.
As I turn the page with the above sticker I am greeted by such a wonderful dedication page.
I’m sure Hilma so enjoyed cooking with this book. It probably brought a smile to her face every time she saw this from her friend, Sarah Fiske.
This book has a section on ‘making work easy’ with short cuts. I wrote about this once before at this link: Unique Discovery.
This book is truly a treasure and has so much it in that I want to make as well. If I could go back to the 1950’s and have a cookbook club I would certainly use this book and have a monthly dinner party to enjoy all of the foods. 🙂 I’ve been wondering though how much this book cost when it was published and sold in the 1950’s. Does anyone know? I’m very happy that I purchased this book as ‘used’ versus a reprint. I would like to read it as a novel but I keep getting distracted or side-tracked with something in the book or something else all together. As I type this post I am sitting here listening to Old Fashioned (Vintage) Christmas music and enjoying my trek through the mid 20th century. If you find one of these used treasures somewhere along your travels in life just hang onto it. There is a lot inside that you will enjoy!
As we begin this challenge I want to say Thank You to everyone who will be joining in this food adventure. I look forward to making more recipes from one of my favorite cookbooks which I have used for over 20 years and will share my experiences with you as I cook-through my book. I’m sure all of us will find good recipes to add to our cooking/baking rotation.
So grab your recipe book and let’s getting cooking!!!
For Month One the category is:
Salads/Salad Dressings
I challenge you to look through your book for recipes which fall into the above category and make as many as you want too.
I encourage you to have fun, take photos, share your food with others and link your blog posts back to this post on my site so that we all can see what you are making and enjoying. I know that you will find satisfaction in various ways by choosing your own ingredients and creating healthy dishes in your own kitchen. A good home-cooked meal is always a great centerpiece at any gathering and shows your feelings towards others. 🙂
(To read more detailed information concerning the cook-through challenge please go to this link: Chaotic Cooking-Through Challenge)
Happy Cooking!!
🙂
