Best Ever Monster Cookies

I make these cookies for many different holidays so this week they're for Valentine's Day!

Monster Cookies are not new and the recipes for making them are endless. Probably 95% of my cookies are homemade, but sometimes you just need a quick and easy recipe. 

I decided to come up with my own version of Monster Cookies which are easy and great to throw together when we have unexpected visitors or to serve at club meetings or any other last-minute function.

Grandma Coy's Caramel Chocolate Bars

This recipe came from my mother-in-law Coy. 

She cut it out of a magazine years ago and has been making them for holidays and her grandkids ever since. 

My son Daniel especially loved these delicious cookies and Coy always made sure to bring him a special container all his own.

Sadly, Coy recently passed away, so I wanted to share her cookie legacy and recipe.

Salted Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake

 

I had a request to do a blog post about this cheesecake because the kids think it just delicious!

I found the original recipe for this decadent cheesecake in a Paula Dean Cookbook, but for time and convenience sake, I made a few small changes to make it lots easier.

For one of the changes, I use a pre-made graham cracker crust and I use a bottled caramel sauce instead of melting caramels. 

I also add a little vanilla. We just love our Homemade Vanilla. 

7-Up Biscuits

Someone sent me this recipe for 7-Up Biscuits and it was probably one of my kids. They're always asking me to try new recipes they found on-line or from some magazine.

It's hard to believe that these biscuits only have 4 ingredients, especially after tasting them! They come out light and fluffy and mix up easily so are great if you're in a hurry or short on time.

                          

WWII Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake

My daughter Alexis always wants a homemade chocolate cake for her birthday nearly every year. 

In the last couple of years, she has bugged me to try a recipe she got from the mother of a friend she met while in college. 

The Chocolate-Mayonnaise Cake became really popular during War World II when some food staples such as eggs and butter were in supply and housewives had to make do with what they had on hand. 

 

Savory Meat Pie

I think I found this recipe in an old Food Network Magazine and it has gotten rave reviews from my family every time I make it. 

In fact, my husband asked me to never ever share this recipe. He doesn't know that thousands of people have already seen it in that magazine, haha. 

This is an absolutely delicious savory beef, veggie, and cheddar cheese pie. I use store-bought puff pastry or pie crust but you can use your favorite pie crust recipe.

Grandma Elder's Carrot Cake

This is a moist delicious carrot cake that's not too sweet and gets rave reviews when I make it. 

I usually make it as a sheet cake but it is so much prettier as a layer cake!

My mother-in-law Coy Lynch handed down her mother's Carrot Cake recipe to me many years ago. Her mother was Annabelle (Sharer) Elder from Alexis, Illinois. 

I never got to meet Annabelle but the cousins all talk fondly of visits to her house. Annabelle and her husband John H. had 5 children, one of which is the famous and highly successful high school coach John K. Elder. 

Make Your Own Hamburger Buns

There is something very comforting about the smell of freshly baked bread.

This past Christmas, I received a few new cookbooks and one of them has a recipe for Hawaiian Grilled Cheeseburgers. We have been grilling pineapple and putting them on cheeseburgers occasionally, but that recipe took the sandwich to new heights.

To keep on the level of awesomeness of the cheeseburger recipe, I decided to try my hand at making homemade buns.

Blackberry Cobbler (or One Cup Cobbler)

This is a really quick and easy dessert, and it quickly becomes nearly everyone’s favorite.  
You will get repeated requests for this dessert! 

A berry cobbler is a very homey comfort food. It's a dessert that’s not really fancy but gets the same reaction every time:  Dessert Heaven!

Blackberry is our favorite berry to use but just about any fruit works well.  Our next favorite fruits to use are peach and cherry.  

Cheesy Bacon Dip

Summer is nearly here along with endless barbecues, July 4th parties and family gatherings.  Looking for recipes to take along I thumbed through a cookbook my daughter Alexis gave me for Christmas last year.  

Trisha Yearwood’s cookbook Home Cooking with Trisha Yearwood is full of really yummy recipes which were passed down through the years from Trisha’s mother, aunts, cousins, and longtime friends.  I love those kinds of recipes.
 

Aunt Janey's Sour Cream Coffee Cake

My daughter Jami met her husband Donnie, fell in love and got married a few years back.  (Seems like yesterday!)  

We are really pleased with her choice for our son-in-law, just a great guy.  We also have had the pleasure of meeting many of his family members, which, happily we love too!

Donnie's mother Julie and grandmother Mary are wonderful cooks and I'm still trying to get their Apple Pie recipe (best I've ever tasted) and homemade Chicken and Dumplings recipe. 

Donnie's Aunt Janey and Uncle Eddie live in southern Ohio in a beautiful hilltop home.  Aunt Janey shared this recipe with me after bringing it to one of our fall parties. She told me she originally found the recipe in a magazine years and years ago.
It is absolutely delicious!

Make in the Morning Cinnamon Rolls

I am anxiously awaiting the perfect outdoor temperatures so I can once again tap my maple trees to make maple syrup.  The temps need to be above 40 degrees during the day and below freezing at night. This causes the sap to run.  

While waiting all I can think about are recipes using maple syrup.

This is a pretty easy homemade Cinnamon Roll recipe and perfect for a lazy Saturday morning.

These can be started in the early morning hours before everyone wakes, and are ready in about 1 to 1½ hours, start to finish.   Their also just as good the next day! (if any make it that long)

Quick and Easy Strawberry Cake

This is an easy sheet cake or layer cake that's ready in no time using a pre-packaged cake mix and frozen strawberries. 

We pick our strawberries at a nearby farm every year around the first week of June to make our own natural Homemade Strawberry Jam.  And I always buy extra strawberries to chop and freeze to use with desserts, on ice cream, or in salads.  

There is nothing like the taste of summer fresh strawberries!  

Well It's January and June is quickly approaching so I decided to use up some of last summer's strawberries to bake a cake for my husband Bill’s birthday.

This cake is also perfect if you’re looking for a Valentine’s Day dessert.  Or bookmark or Pin this recipe for summer and use fresh garden strawberries.  Great to serve at outdoor barbecues and summer dinner parties too!

Perfect Sourdough Bread

Sourdough bread is great buttered, toasted, served with dinner, or used for sandwiches. 

In my opinion, bread making is an art and a science.

There is a special pleasure working with bread and just the aroma of baking bread throughout the house is well worth the effort.

I grew up eating my mother’s homemade bread.  We would beg and beg her to make it and it was always eaten hot from the oven covered with butter.  
My mother never looked at a recipe to make her bread, she just mixed it up and it was perfect. Every Single Time. Sigh.

I can't just whip up a loaf of bread, I always have the recipe right next to me and I have been practicing for years.  In the past, I’ve had as many bread failures as successes I think, but I kept at it. 

Using a sourdough starter is an ancient method to make leavened bread.

Sourdough Bread Starter

Sourdough Starter

Let me start this post by saying I am no expert when it comes to bread making and I believe bread making is an art form. I have been practicing for years and kicked up the experimenting in the last few years.  
I have tried to get a sourdough starter going a few times with no luck.  But my son Daniel absolutely loves a good sourdough bread so I persevered. 

Making good loaves of bread is time consuming so it's not for everyone.  But the joy and feelings of accomplishment you get when the bread turns out perfect are well worth it. 
I have never actually met anyone who has been successful at getting a starter to ferment or live. 
There are plenty of websites with instructions, and even rants about how easy plain flour and water is to start,  but what good are they if they don't work for me or you? 

Well let's get started.  Here are a few tips on how I got my starter to work.

It needs restating and underscored that the better the ingredients the better the end product.  

Also, if quick and easy bread is what you are more interested in try my Easy Beer Bread recipe. 

Sourdough is time consuming.  It just is.

Hearty Beer Bread

A rich thick hearty easy bread to make, this is I think the best beer bread I have made so far.  

There is no kneading or rising needed so it’s super easy to make. 

Beer adds its own unique flavor and because it's a product of fermentation, it also adds its own leavening agent.

The bread will take on what ever character or flavor of beer you use, so the bread can and will taste a little different each time you make it.

I like using Imports, stouts or stronger flavors of beer.  

But a domestic beer will work just fine too.

And in case putting beer in bread is of concern for you, a great percentage of the alcohol evaporates during the baking process.

There are many debates as to whether beer or bread came first in early civilization. But one thing is certain; both have been in the human diet for thousands of years.

Coconut Macaroons

Here's another of our favorite Christmas cookies: Coconut Macaroons.

These are easy cookies to make, have just a few ingredients, but pack a big punch of flavor.

Adding a little almond extract gives the cookie just enough extra flavor, but not enough to over shadow the coconut.  
If almond is the flavor you wish to dominate add a little more extract.

These store well in a sealed air tight container.

These can be made Gluten Free, just use GF flour.

Lemon Bars

I usually bake cookies to give out as gifts during the Holidays.  Some years I have made as many as 50 to 60 dozen cookies!
Each year I get the most requests for this cookie recipe.  And I have to say it is one of my favorite cookies too.

Many Lemon Bar or Lemon Cookie recipes call for lemon zest or grated lemon rind added to the cookie.  I have found that the zest or rind added makes the cookie slightly tarter.  Without it, the cookie is a perfect delicate lemon flavor with a delicious crust.

These cookies are best kept in the refrigerator but after tasting them they may not last long enough to worry about it.  If giving as gifts, I suggest you wrap each individual cookie bar in Sarah Wrap so they store better, do not stick together and do not absorb the odor or flavors from other cookies.

Moist Banana Nut Bread

I really adore bananas and use them in many dishes, try to eat 4 to 5 of them a week and even make my own homemade Banana Cream Pie.

There are many banana nut bread recipes out there and many are pretty good. But of all the Banana Nut Bread recipes I have tried, (and there have been many), this one is my absolute favorite.  It turns out moist and delicious every time with lots of banana flavor. 

I also like that it makes enough to eat now and enough to save a loaf for later.  This recipe makes perfect mini loaves for gift giving around the Holidays.

This recipe came from my husband’s cousin’s wife Casey Elder.  She posted on Facebook in 2010 about how wonderful this bread was and something like her whole house smelled divine from baking banana nut bread.  (Maybe that part I envisioned in my own head, lol)

Easy To Make Doughnuts

Homemade Doughnuts

Cutting out doughnuts with my old cutter

I have been researching flour and trying to find a better quality and healthier brand to use.
I came across an article in the Mother Earth News magazine my husband recently picked up for me. It’s about bread making and using a more natural flour.  One of the flour brands recommended was King Authur.

There is nothing better than homemade-fresh-from-the-oven bread topped with real butter.  When growing up my mother made us loaves of bread, and I have yet to taste better.