Shreaded Pulled Pork

2-3 lbs Porkloin Roast
1 Can Chicken Broth
2 tsp. Rosemary leaves
Garlic salt (to taste)

Combine all together in crock pot. cook for either 4 hours on high or 6 hours on low. Shred with forks before serving.

Great with rice!

Variations: add chopped green peppers (canned) or salsa verda for pork taco salad.

Freeze extra for a quick meal later on:

Texas Sheet Cake

Texas Sheet Cake

The secret is out in my ward that I cook. We recently had a change in my bishopric and the ward clerk’s wife was in charge of planning a FHE dinner the next night and needed some help with dessert. I was cornered into making a Texas Sheet Cake. I loved this dessert when I was on my mission. Here is a different version from one of the sisters in a ward I served in: Kelly's Texas Sheet Cake. Kelly (the sister, not me) is an amazing cook. I actually discovered this recipe days before I was asked to make a cake for FHE so I was already excited to have Texas Sheet Cake again. 

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Cake:

2 Cups Flour

2 Cups Sugar

1 tsp. Baking Soda

1 Cup (2 sticks) Butter

4 tbsp. Cocoa Powder

1 Cup Water

2 Eggs

½ Cup Buttermilk

1 tsp. Vanilla

1.      In a pan, mix butter, cocoa and water. Bring to a boil.

2.      Meanwhile mix flour, sugar and baking soda in a large bowl.

3.      Pour chocolate mixture over dry ingredients and stir together.

4.      Then add eggs, buttermilk and vanilla.

5.      Pour into large greased jellyroll pan. Bake at 350°F for ~20 minutes.

Frosting:

1 box (3 ½ Cups) Powdered Sugar

1 Cup Walnuts (Optional)

1 tsp. Vanilla

½ Cup Butter

4 Tbsp. Cocoa Powder

1/3 Cup Buttermilk

1.      Melt butter and add cocoa powder and buttermilk. Let boil.

2.      Add dry ingredients and thoroughly blend.

3.      Pour over cake after it comes out of the oven and it is still warm.

Stuffed Shells

Stuffed Shells-half of the recipe

1 box of Jumbo Shells

1 16 oz Ricotta cheese

1 egg

1 garlic clove chopped finely or 1 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp Parsley

1 tsp. Basil

1 Jar Prego Spaghetti Sauce

3 cups grated mozzarella cheese

2 tsp Oregano

Parmesan Cheese

1.      Preheat oven to 375°F

2.      Cook jumbo shells according to directions on packaging. Cool on wax or parchment paper.

3.      While noodles are cooking prepare ricotta cheese mixture by mixing ricotta cheese, egg, garlic, parsley and basil in a small bowl. Add 1 tbsp. Parmesan cheese. Add 2 cups of mozzarella cheese.

4.      Heat Spaghetti Sauce.

5.      When noodles are cooled enough to handle, open the shell (I find it easiest to press the top and bottom of the shell towards each other. This opens the shell up.) Fill shell with 2 tbsp. cheese mixture. You can freeze the shells at this point for an easy dinner later on.

6.      Cover the bottom of a 9x13 pan with about ½ of the spaghetti sauce. Line up shells on top of the sauce. Cover shells with remaining sauce then remaining mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese and parsley on top. Cover with aluminum foil. Cook in oven for 35 minutes or until the shells in the middle are cooked thoroughly, removing foil for the last 5 minutes.

Cukes and Onions

Growing up my mom would make this for dinner every so often. I loved the cukes, not so much the onions, but you need them for the right taste. I loved when I lived with the Davis family on my mission, because they kept a bucket of this stuff in the fridge. HEAVEN!!! Sister Davis and Sister Baird made fun of Bro. Davis and myself for liking it so much.

2 Large cucumbers peeled and thinly sliced
1 sweet onion thinly sliced
water
1/c rice vinegar
1/4 c oil
salt, pepper to taste
dill weed

Place cucumbers and onion into glass bowl. sprinkle salt over vegetables and add enough water to fill top of veggies. Let chill overnight. In morning, drain water and add rice vinegar, oil, salt, pepper. Add dill weed. Chill until served.

Please note the picture has far less then the recipe calls for. I think I cut it in half, but for my family, we would use the full amount on the recipe.

Great-Grandma Childs' Dutch Apple Cake/Pie

Here is a fun family recipe that my mom sent me a few months ago. This comes from an old ward cookbook my Great-Grandma Childs contributed to years ago. The recipe is well over 100 years old now. Please note that my great-great-grandmother from whom this recipe originally came from was Danish:-)

 Oh, if you really want it, you could always cook the fruit cake recipe too.

Seven Layer Cookie Bars/Triple layer bars

Have you ever had a recipe that when you look at it you think it says one thing, but when you actually sit down to read it, it says something completely different? That was me yesterday with this one. For I don't know how many years, I've read this recipe wrong in my cookbook. It wasn't until yesterday that I realized my mistake. In my recipe book it says triple layer bars but i always went on autopilot when I got to the last layer because of a similar treat that I thought these were, seven layer cookies. I thought you just sprinkled chocolate chips and either peanut butter/butterscotch chips on top. Upon closer examination, it is melted chocolate/peanut butter spread on top. Oops! Either way, these are a great cookie bar. I'll include both topping ways and let you choose how you want to top it off!

Seven Layer Cookies

Foundation for both Cookies:

·         1 ½ C Graham Cracker Crumbs

·         ½ C (1 Stick) Butter-Melted

·         1 12oz Can Sweetened Condensed Milk

·         1 bag (14oz) Grated Coconut

For Seven Layer Bars:

·         1 Bag Chocolate Chips

·         1 Bag Butterscotch and/or Peanut Butter Chips

·         1 Bag Chopped Nuts (Optional)

For Triple Layer Bars:

·         1 Bag Chocolate Chips

·         ½ C Creamy Peanut Butter

Combine melted butter and graham crackers and spread evenly over the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Top with coconut and can of sweetened condensed milk. Bake at 350°F for 20-25 minutes or until coconut is lightly golden brown. For seven layer bars, you can add the chips and nuts prior to baking. Mix with coconut to make a yummy mixture. For triple layer bars, melt peanut butter and chocolate chips. Spread over coconut layer after the bars slightly cool. Cool for 30 prior to serving.

Pastry Pie Shell

2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup shortening (or mix half butter, half shortening)
1/2 cup ice cold water (ice is in the water after it is measured. Be sure to re-measure before adding it to the recipe.)

1. In a large bowl, combine flour and salt.
2. Cut in shortening. You can either cut in by using two butter knives and criss-cross the fat until you get little pea-sized marbles, or you can dig your hands into it and break apart the shortening, and mixing it together with the flour as you go along.
3. Slowly add the water – stirring and forming a ball.
4. Split into two even halves.
5. Form into discs and place into plastic wrap, securing tightly. Refrigerate for 4 hours.
6. On a floured surface, carefully roll out pastry for the size that you want between two sheets of plastic or wax paper, making sure you don’t overwork the dough.
7. Cook as needed.

This is great pastry for chicken pot pie, sweet pastries, etc.

Dear Abby’s Pecan Pie

1 cup Karo brand light corn syrup (important!)
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/3-1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 whole eggs, slightly beaten
1.5  heaping cups of shelled pecans

1. Pre-heat oven to 350*.
2. In a medium bowl, mix well together: corn syrup, sugar, salt, butter and vanilla.
3. Add eggs. Mix well.
4. Pour into 9 inch unbaked pie shell.
5. Sprinkle pecans over filling – or arrange nicely.
6. Bake in 350* oven for approximately 45-50 minutes, or when center is set (no longer jiggly. Check with a toothpick or knife. With altitude and electric ovens, can take longer.).
7. Serve with vanilla ice-cream or whipped cream. Yum!!!!

Roasted Red Potatoes

4-5 Med Red Potatoes-quartered

1 Med onion chopped

Garlic Salt

Rosemary Leaves

Olive oil/ Oil Cooking spray

Pepper

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spread potatoes and chopped onion evenly on cookie sheet. Spray lightly with oil. Sprinkle rosemary leaves, garlic salt and pepper to taste preference. Bake for about 45 minutes or until you can skewer potatoes with a fork.

Smoothies

Ok, since I was sick starting in October I’ve started eating (drinking?) a lot more smoothies. My last week on at work I took one with me and stuck it in the freezer until later and I got some questions of what was in it and that sort of thing. So here is my update on smoothies.

First off I studied how Jamba makes theirs. It helps that I have one across the street from me. I looked at their ingredient list and stared as the combined everything. Next I googled smoothies. Smoothieweb is a great website to get ideas of what to put in a smoothie. Then I purchased some of the pre-mixed ready to blend smoothies from the store (Smith’s has e-coupons frequently for these). You just have to add juice. While looking at these I noticed that there were random cubes in the bag that weren’t fruit and it made me wonder. I looked and saw that they had frozen yogurt in them. A few days later Yahoo ran a story about freezing your own homemade baby food in ice cube trays. That got me thinking about freezing my own yogurt. Some more googling lead me to several people who said it works; just scoop and freeze.

Now to the recipe.

1 ½ cups FROZEN fruit (I usually choose strawberries, blueberries and raspberries)

3-6 FROZEN yogurt cubes

½-¾ cup Juice(like apple or grape) or flavored liquid coffee creamer*

Packet of vanilla instant breakfast (optional if you want more calories like me)

 

Combine all in a blender. First pulse on the ice cube setting a couple of times. Then set it to liquefy for 30 sec. Mix with a spoon under the blades and turn back on to liquefy until smooth. Clearing under the blades helps to save your blender motor. If there is no movement add more liquid.

Fruit Ideas:

Yes, I did star coffee creamer. Yes, I am an active Mormon. Why on earth would I buy coffee creamer? To make creamy smoothies. Let me make this clear. There is no coffee in coffee creamer. In the words of a nurse I work with, it is essentially flavored half-and-half cream. That being said I add French vanilla flavor to my smoothies (and occasionally to my hot chocolate too:-). Juice makes it less creamy and more sugary tasting (think Caribbean Passion). I personally like creamier smoothies (think Orange Dream). Disown me if you would like because I buy coffee creamer, but just remember I will be sitting on my couch drinking a yummy Berry French Vanilla smoothie:-).

By now you maybe wondering, when do I add the ice cubes? Remember when I capitalized FROZEN? I decrease the watered down taste in my smoothies by adding FROZEN fruit and yogurt instead of adding ice to make the frozen texture. Pretty nifty eh?

Fruit Ideas:

• strawberries
• blueberries
• raspberries
• blackberries
• bannanas
• peaches

Liquid Ideas:

• French Vanilla Coffee Creamer
• apple juice
• orange juice
• berry juice
• grape juice
• V-8

Yogurt Ideas:

• Vanilla
• Strawberry
• blueberry
• any berry really