Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hope everyone enjoys the holiday with friends and family!

Be blessed!

Pumpkin Bars

Since its that time of year for pumpkin to be in style, I thought I'd post a pumpkin recipe I can tolerate. I do not like pumpkin pie or anything pumpkin flavored, except these bars. Yum!
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Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Ingredients needed:
1 spice cake mix
3 eggs
1 can Libby’s Pumpkin
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup water
1 container prepared cream cheese or vanilla frosting

1. Blend cake mix, pumpkin, eggs, oil and water in large mixing bowl until moistened.
2. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes.
3. Pour batter onto greased deep baking sheet.
4. Bake for 18 to 23 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
5. Allow to cool. Spread frosting on top.

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Variations:
This recipe was originally written to be done as cupcakes, but I make them into bars and it works beautifully without the hassle of individualness.

ENJOY!!

Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

This is a family recipe from as far back as I can remember. We ALWAYS have these cookies during the holidays. Most people I know that make these do not make them the way we do, they always have hard, crunchy cookies. These are soft and oh so yummy!!
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Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Ingredients needed:
1 yellow cake mix
1 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup water
2 eggs
1 pkg. Hershey Kisses

1. Mix cake mix, peanut butter, water, and eggs in medium mixing bowl until fairly smooth mixture.
2. Drop one inch balls of cookie dough onto greased cookie sheet.
3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.
4. Remove from oven and immediately top with a Hershey’s Kiss.
5. Let cool 5 minutes, than remove from pan.

ENJOY!!

Coffee Cake

This is another family recipe that has been around a long time. A staple during the holidays.
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Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Ingredients needed:
Dough:
2 pkg. dry yeast
½ cup warm water
½ cup warm milk
½ cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
½ cup shortening
4 ½ to 5 cups flour

Filling:
Stick of melted butter

1lb finely chopped walnuts
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup milk

2 cans poppy seed filling

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water, stir in ½ cup milk, sugar, salt, eggs, shortening, and 2 ½ cups of flour. Beat until smooth.
2. Mix in remaining flour until dough is easy to handle.
3. Put dough on floured counter. Knead until smooth and elastic.
4. Place in greased bowl, flip over and cover with towel. Let rise until dough is double in size.
5. Punch dough down, shape, cover and let rise until double again.
6. Make nut filling at this point. In small bowl, mix finely chopped walnuts, sugar and milk. Mixture should be sort of thick, but spreadable. May need to add a little more milk.
7. Split dough into four equal portions. Flour a counter and begin to roll into a circle until dough is about ¼ inch thick.
8. Spread butter on dough with basting brush. Spread poppy or nut filling.
9. Roll up into log and tuck ends in.
10. Place on light colored greased cookie sheet.
11. Cover with towel, let rise until double in size.
12. Place in middle of oven, bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until browned medium on outside. When you touch it, it should bounce back when it is finished and sound hollow.
13. Brush butter on top of loaves promptly after pulling out of oven.

Serve warm or cold! Makes 4 loaves.
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Variations:
You can use whatever you want for filling, the two listed above are the family favorites and we never seem to deviate!

ENJOY!!

Rave Reviews ~ Cream of Potato Soup

So I made a huge pot of this soup at the Peaslee's. Laurie kinda looked at me skeptically when she saw me starting with chicken broth as the base. She wondered how it would be potato soup with chicken broth.

Well, all in all, it turned out really yummy!! All the kids liked it, Lolo liked it too. I must say it wasn't precisely like Outback's potato soup, but it was really close. Since I know I can closely copycat their recipe, I'll be making this more often and avoiding paying $5 for a small bowl of there soup.

As a suggestion, I would cut back on the chicken broth by at least one can. It's not that it did anything to ruin the flavor, but there was more cream than potato. Or you could just add more potatoes I suppose too. I did a double batch and added five pounds of potatoes and we still had more "broth" leftover. You could also cut back on the butter. It was very prominent and while I love butter, I think we could make it slightly healthier if you did exact amounts of flour/butter.

Let me know if you tried the recipe and what you think.

Cream of Potato Soup

This is a recipe I found on the web that is supposed to emulate Outback's potato soup. It comes close! Hope you enjoy as much as I do.
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Ingredients Needed:
2 pounds potatoes, boiled and diced
3 cans chicken broth(16 ounce)
1 medium onion, diced
2 cups water
white sauce(see recipe below)
salt & pepper
bacon crumbles
cheddar cheese
chives

1. Boil potatoes until tender, drain and set aside.
2. In a large kettle, bring chicken broth, water, onion and seasoning to a boil.
3. Slowly stir in white sauce.
4. Add potatoes.
5. Heat until warm, about 10 minutes.
6. Serve garnished with bacon crumbles, cheese and chives.

White Sauce
1 1/2 sticks butter
3/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1. Melt butter in pan.
2. Stir in flour and cook for about two minutes.
3. Add in heavy cream slowly to reduce lumping.

ENJOY!!