[Jamestown1630]

This year, Christmas and Hanukkah fall at the same time. I wish everyone a happy and blessed Holiday!

(If you would like to be on or off of this weekly cooking thread ping-list, please send a private message.)

-JT

[Dacula]

Watergate salad from a few days ago.

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3506407/posts

[pugmama]

This is a great holiday dessert. I also love the site as it has so many great recipes.

http://www.kj.com/blog/chocolate-pavlova-with-amaretto-cherry-compote-cocoa-nibs

[pugmama]

Thanks for the recipes JT. Cookies look great.

[trisham]

I LOVE potato pancakes! :)

[capt. norm]

I'm in Dante's cooking "inferno".....tossed in there because I lost our time honored handed-down family recipe for toast. Gotta go buy a new toaster that comes with directions.

[Qiviut]

I finally purchased some recipe software this week & have been putting my recipes on it. It’s been a lot of fun & reminded me of some really terrific recipes I’d forgotten about. I got so engrossed in the project that when I looked at the clock (thought it was still Tuesday) it was 3 a.m. Wednesday morning! I was so pooped yesterday that I had to take a 2 hour nap .... unlike my ‘younger’ years, I can no longer function on only 4 hours of sleep!

One recipe I had forgotten about was “Broccoli Salad Supreme”. I made it for a potluck several Christmases ago after my niece sang in a Christmas concert. If I remember correctly, I cut the sugar in half (per some comments on the recipe) & it didn’t hurt the recipe at all. I also ran across a rum ball recipe & that prompted me to remember some chocolate bourbon balls I’d made - nice gift idea.

Way back when, the Silver Palate Chefs ran a series of articles in the Sunday Parade Magazine. The pictures of the food were gorgeous & I loved their recipes - several are in my “all time favorite” category. They had some ‘gift ideas’ in the articles that appeared around Christmas and maybe next year I’ll made some of those for presents. With my recipe software, I can add pictures to a recipe ... for these old articles, I scan it into a PDF, use my snipping tool to outline what I want, save it as a jpg & then I can attach it to a recipe as the picture. This software will also allow the printing of cookbooks so I can share family recipes with my nieces. I’m really glad to have this project ... after Jan 1, it’s going to be a long, cold couple of months, perfect for getting my recipes in good order, until the weather breaks and I can get out in the garden again.

Some recipe links:

Broccoli Salad Supreme
http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/broccoli-salad-supreme

Chocolate Bourbon Balls
http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/chocolate-bourbon-balls.aspx

By the way, I could not find chocolate ‘wafer’ cookies so I got Oreos, scraped off the white filling & used the chocolate part - worked like a charm. I especially like this recipe because other than butter, there is no ‘melting’ of anything .... most recipes require melting chocolate.

[greeneyes]

Thanks for the ping.

Thanks to more recent studies, butter and Lard are no longer forbidden foods. So I have a new cookbook : 100% Natural Lard. It even tells how to render fat to make your own. It has a resource page of where to order quality lard without chemical additives.

Perfect Pastry: Recipe for 3 crusts

1 tsp. salt
2 cups flour
3/4 cup lard, chopped
1/4 cup cold milk

Use pastry blender or fork to cut the lard into the salt and flour till coarsely mixed. Add milk gradually till it can stick and form a ball. Roll it out on a floured surface (1/3 makes 1 crust for 9 inch pie)and place in pan -prick with fork. Bake @450 for approximately 15 min.

It has been a long time since I made a pie crust, but my grandmother’s pastry chef told me the secret is to get it done quick - less handling the more tender and flaky the crust. (She gave me some lessons right after I got married and was getting ready to move away from my hometown).

MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone. God Bless.

[MomwithHope]

Love me some potato pancakes. I use a Cuisinart (lazy) but I used a combo of grated and mushed. Also add garlic, onion and some baking soda, as I like mine a bit on the fluffy side. I always fry mine in bacon grease which I save in the freezer in cubes.

[MomwithHope]

My Christmas Toffee

1 cup butter
1 3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups sliced almonds, toasted or not
1/ tsp. vanilla
1 cup semi sweet chocolate pieces - sometimes I use 1/2 semi sweet and 1/2 milk chocolate

Butter a large cookie sheet. Melt the butter in a double walled pan, add the sugar, use a metal whisk - small works good. Use high heat then later turn down to medium. you need a good digital probe thermometer. I keep it in the pot while stirring. Stir almost constantly until it reaches 310 degrees. Turn off the heat. Work fast. Leave on the stove, add the vanilla, stir just a bit, add 1/2 of the almonds, stir well then dump onto the cookie sheet and quickly spread until even. Then sprinkle on the chocolate pieces. After a minute they will liquify, spread them around with the spatula evenly. then sprinkle the rest of the almonds on. Cool completely, you can even stick it in the freezer for a bit. then break up into pieces.

I tripled this recipe and it filled up all 3 of my cookie sheet set of 3 different sizes. Probably could have gotten more out of it with a 4th sheet. This batch turned out a little thicker than I like.

[mylife]

Everybody loves those dang raisins and they aint bad, but I prefer Craisins

http://www.food.com/recipe/oatmeal-cranberry-cookies-31821?layout=desktop

[Trillian]

I can’t wait to try this. The texture in the cake in the pictures looks perfect.

My Daughter’s Pound Cake

1 cup butter
3 cups sugar
6 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 pint of heavy whipping cream
3 cups all-purpose flour

Grease and flour one 9 or 10 inch tube pan or spray pan heavily. Cream butter and sugar with mixer until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix well. Add the flour, one cup at a time while adding cream a little at a time until all flour and cream is mixed in well. Add the vanilla flavoring and blend well. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 1-1/2 hours or until center springs back from small amount of pressure.

This does not have to be made in a tube pan. Be sure and grease or spray pan heavily and let cake sit and cool for about 12 minutes before removing from pan. Enjoy!

http://thesouthernladycooks.com/2015/11/03/my-daughters-pound-cake/

[boatbums]

Taking this for Christmas dinner with family:

Zucchini Crescent Pie

4 cups zucchini, unpeeled and thinly sliced
2 medium onions, chopped
1⁄2 cup butter
1⁄2 cup fresh parsley, chopped (or use 2 tbs, dried flakes)
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
1⁄2 teaspoon black pepper
1⁄4 teaspoon garlic powder
1⁄4 teaspoon dried basil
1⁄4 teaspoon dried oregano
2 eggs, slightly beaten
2 cups muenster cheese, shredded
1 (8 ounce) can Pillsbury Refrigerated Crescent Dinner Rolls

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Saute zucchini and onion in butter over medium low heat until zucchini is tender, about 10 minutes. Stir in parsley, salt, pepper, garlic powder, basil and oregano; remove from heat.

In a separate bowl stir together eggs and cheese; add vegetable mixture. Separate rolls into triangles. Arrange in an 9x11 pyrex dish, 11 inch quiche pan or 10 inch pie pan pressing seams together to cover the bottom and sides of pan to form a crust. Add vegetable mixture. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Let stand for 10 minutes before slicing.

[Trillian]

Christmas morning breakfast, brunch or dessert?

Oreo Pancakes

Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
6 tbsp granulated white sugar
1 cup buttermilk
1 large egg
3 tbsp melted butter
6 oreos, finely crushed (I pulsed mine in a food processor)

*I toned down the sweetness for these pancakes. If you want your pancakes to taste more dessert-like, you can add more sugar and crushed oreos into the batter and if the batter gets too thick, you can add a little bit of milk to thin it out.

for the cream
2 cups cold heavy cream
1/4 cup granulated white sugar
2 oreos, finely crushed

chocolate syrup for drizzling
homemade recipe here:
http://kirbiecravings.com/2016/04/homemade-chocolate-syrup.html

Directions:
In a large bowl, add flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar. Whisk together. Add in egg, buttermilk and butter. Whisk a few times until batter comes together, but a few lumps still remain. You don’t want to overmix pancake batter. Gently stir in crushed Oreos. Let batter sit a few minutes to thicken.
Grease your skillet and bring to medium heat. Measure out 1/4 cup of batter. Pour batter into middle of skillet, using a spatula to help scrape out batter from measuring cup as it will be quite thick. Cook pancake until bubbles begin to break the surface, then flip to other side and cook until pancake is done. Repeat with remaining batter. You should have enough batter for about 10 pancakes.
To make cream, pour heavy cream and sugar into a large mixing bowl of a stand mixer. Mix on high speed with a wire whisk until cream becomes stiff peaks. Using a 1M star tip, pipe cream on top of one of the pancakes. I piped a thick outer circle and then less in the middle as I didn’t want the pancakes to be overwhelmed with cream. Sprinkle some crushed Oreos over cream (you can also mix the Oreos into your cream but I want to keep the cream white to look more like Oreo cookies). Gently place a pancake on top. Repeat with cream, crushed Oreos and pancakes. I made two stacks of five. Serve immediately with chocolate syrup.

http://kirbiecravings.com/2016/12/oreo-pancakes.html