Matt Robinson made the first ones of these I tried.  Then Katie H, and I figured I’d give it a shot for Christmas! It was a little bit of trial and error to get the dipping chocolate consitancy correct but I think I’ve got it! Here ya go! 

Crush

one regular sized (14ish oz) package of oreo cookies (with the creme)

and set aside.  With an electric mixer, fluff 

one regular sized (8ish oz) of creme cheese 

until smooth.  Slowly add in the crushed cookies, and mix until smooth.  

Using a spoon and your trusty clean hands, role the “dough” into balls with about an inch diameter (the size isn’t that important really)  Place on a wax paper covered  baking sheet and chill in the freezer for at least 2 hours (I chilled them over night)

Melt 

1 regular (16ish oz) sized bag of simi-sweet morsels 

in a double boiler with

4 tablespoons of butter

until smooth.  It may take a little more butter, but really it just needs to get really hot to be smooth.  One by one, drop the frozen balls in, roll them around in the chocolate, and return them to baking sheet.  Put them back in the freezer. 

For the pretty white chocolate drizzles:

Melt

1 regular sized bag of white chocolate chips 

in a double boiler with

2 tablespoons of milk

**butter just made mine gross.  so I used milk. I don’t know why.  

With a spoon, drizzle white chocolate on the top

Let the chocolate harden, and serve cold!! Yum!!

So, this is not pretty, and therefore I didn’t take pictures.  kthanks

This is a spin off of a recipe from the Famous Darla Shaffer.  Who is an awesome cook.  Andy shared it with me, and at first it involved frozen hash browns.  Okay, but as usual, I couldn’t find them.  And therefor, I improvised.  So here ya go

Fry

1 package of bacon

and crumble it all up.

Beat

8 eggs

and mix with the bacon and

3/4 a package of sharp cheddar cheese

6 slices of sliced toast

1/2 cup of shredded fried potatoes 

Pour it into a 9x13 dish and cover it with the rest of the cheese.  

Now, if you’d like, you can cover it and put it in the fridge ‘till Christmas morning.  

Bake it at 350 for 45-1 hour.

 Ennnnjoy!!!!

This is the icing I used on my grapefruit cake!

With an electric mixer, fluff

16 oz of plain creme cheese

Add

1 tsp of lemon juice 

(I used grapefruit juice)

Gradually add 

1 cup of confectioner’s sugar

until thick.  

Enjoy!!! 

So, my dad LOVES grapefruit.  I’ve always been a little afraid of it.  I mean I love grapefruit scented stuff, but the actual fruit is so bitter.  I learned from making this cake, however, that its yummy and I feel healthy when I eat it.  

I got this recipe from “Cooking with Mickey and the Disney Chefs.”  My family took Tom and me to Disney over Thanksgiving, and for our big thanksgiving meal, we ate a restaurant called the Brown Derby.  It was super classy.  My sister had this cake for dessert, and I LOVED it! It doesn’t have any milk either, so its really thick and AWESOME! I also didn’t take pictures.  Sorry.  

(I basically just copied this from the cookbook, but as I am terrible at navigating all grocery stores but the Super BiLo in Rock Hill, I substituted some stuff I couldn’t find at the Lexington Piggly Wiggly) 

Brown Derby Grapefruit Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

In a large bowl, sift 

1.5 cups of flower

3/4 cup of sugar

1.5 teaspoons of baking powder

1/2 teas of salt

In another bowl, whisk 

3 egg yolks (SAVE THE WHITES)

1/4 cup of vegetable oil

6 tablespoons of fresh or canned grapefruit juice

(honestly I used about 1/2 cup, and the recipe calls for 1/4 cup of water and 2 tablespoons of canned grapefruit juice)

(I also saved the grapefruit quarters for the top of the cake) 

until smooth.

Whisk two mixture together.  

Beat 

3 egg whites

1/4 of corn starch 

(the recipe calls for creme of tartar-something I am incapable of finding…)

until thick.

Fold egg whites into flour mixture gently.  

Grease a 9” round cake pan, and pour cake batter in.  It should be relatively thick.  

Bake at 350 for 25-30 min or until it springs back.**

**My cake didn’t brown, but it sprung back when touched.  Just FYI :-D

So while thats cooking and/or cooling, you could make the creme cheese icing.  Or you could just buy it!   

Ice the cake and enjoy! 

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  Last year, however, I was studying in London, and no one there celebrates thanksgiving, because, well thanksgiving is a solely North American tradition.  (Canadians celebrate it also, just a few weeks before we do…I don’t think Mexico does, but I could be wrong).  At any rate, a few of the American’s that I knew decided we would get together and have our own celebration.  It was a great sucess.  We cooked a turkey, mashed potatoes, pie, the whole works.  I decided to make my favorite dish, Broccoli Casserole.  I called my mom, got the recipe, bought the ingrediants, and headed off to the host’s house to make the dish.  Only one problem…they didn’t have measuring cups.  I figured, I’ve been cooking long enough, I know what measurements look like.  As you can guess, I was wrong.  Instead of tasting like broccoli goodness, the casserole tasted like onions and mayo mixed together and heated up.  Gross.  

This year, I tried again, this time in America, and with measuring cups.  And it was AWESOME.  Tasted just like my mom’s! 

 Lee Family Broccoli Casserole Heaven:

Preheat oven to 350

Mix

1 Cup of mayonnaise

2 eggs

1 can of mushroom soup

2 Tsp of chopped onions

1 cup of grated chedder cheese

in a large bowl

Cook

10 oz of broccoli 

Mix

broccoli

1/2 cup of original stuffing 

with the rest of the ingredients  

Pour the mixture into a casserole dish

Add more

grated cheese 

stuffing

on top.  

Bake for 20 min

i lit my oven on fire.  so i took a break from cooking. 

last night i made eclairs but the creme failed miserably.  

 maybe i’m losing my touch. i hope not.

Hannah and Tom and I carved pumpkins on wed.  And I wanted to make pumpkin things, so we saved the insides!! It made a giant mess, but, trust me, it was worth it!! 

So here is how you do it!!!!! 

Raw Pumpkin:

Take your pumpkin insides, and separate the seeds from the pulp.  Save the seeds though! You can roast them (which i’ll probably do tonight, so look out for the recipe!!)

Put the pulp in the blender and grind it all down till its smooth-ish

Put the

gloop (I used about 3 cups) and

1/2 cup of water.

in a sauce pan.  Boil it down until the water has soaked all the way in.  Make sure you stir it continuously.  You can save this for a while if you’d like! 

From Scratch Pie Crust

Mix 

1 cup of flour 

1/2 teaspoon of salt

Add 

6 tablespoons of softened butter

Mix with an electric mixer until it looks a little like cornmeal 

Slowly add table spoons of

ice water

until its doughy and sticks all together

Make a ball out of the dough, and refrigerate it for at least 1 hour.

The Pie!!!

Preheat your oven to 425

Mix

3 cups of boiled down pumpkin gloup

1 cup of sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon 

1 teaspoon of nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract 

4 eggs

1.5 cans of evaporated milk

1 tablespoon of brown sugar

Mix it all with an electric mixer.

Take your piecrust out of the fridge, and roll it out with a rolling pin.  Lay it in 

9 inch pie tin

even it out through the tin, and make the edges pretty.  

Pour your filling into the pie nice and full like.  Place the pie on a cooking sheet and place it in the oven

Cook it for 15 min on 425, then turn the heat down to 350 and bake it for another hour.  

**Because I didn’t read all of the directions before I started, I didn’t have time to bake it all at once, so I did the first 15 min, and turned off the over, leaving the pie in it.  I went away for about 30 min, came back, and turned the oven to 350 and let it cook for an hour.  It worked perrrrrrrfectly.  

So I only got to one part of the menu, however, it was AWESOME.  I’m currently eating leftovers.  If you have a crock pot, try it! Its SOO easy!! and YUUUUMMMMMYYYY!

The goal was chcken noudle soup, but I either cut the potatoes too thin or i left it in too long or didn’t put in enough water or something.  Because it doesn’t have a broth.  So we called it Stoup

Chicken and Potato “stoup”

Combine:

2 chicken breast, frozen

1 can of corn (including the juice)

1 can of beans, cut

3 medium potatoes, cubed

3 tablespoons of fresh parsely

3 tablespoons of salt

2 tablespoons of pepper 

1/2 a green pepper, diced

1 tablespoon of canola oil

6 cups of water

in your crock pot.  Cook it for 4.5 hours on high.

Cut the chicken with a wooden spoon, then add 

12 oz of egg noodles 

1 cup of water

Cook for 45 min to an hour.  

We ate ours on Pillsbury flakey biscuits.  And it was AWESOME!!!!

tomorrow will (hopefully) be an epic cooking day, including from scratch sour dough bowls, crock pot chicken noodle soup, and from scratch pumpkin pie. yum.

In my voice and movement class, we were working on “calls,” which is basically yelling in a way that is SUPER loud.  So we did it by having vendor calls, and I sold Sopapillas! My wonderful roommate told me to use that word because it has an OOO sound in it.  And I did.  yay.  Too bad, going into class I had no idea what it was.  heh.  So another wonderful friend, Philip, explained to me that they were flour tortillas fried with cinnamon and sugar on top. And them I came home and made one. I honestly had never even seen a real sopapilla, so this was made totally from hear-say. And it was faaaaaaantastic.  And now I’m going to teach you.  Well, tell you.  I’m not in your house to teach you.  Because that might be weird.  Sorry.  

Hear-Say Sopapilla.  

Fill a frying pan half way with

canoalla oil. (Maybe 2 cups maybe less)

Heat it on medium high for about 5 min, until its warm enough to fry things in.

Take your

flower tortilla

and place it in the hot oil

Sprinkle

cinnamon and sugar

over the side that isn’t frying.  

Let it get puffy, take it out, and enjoy!

I put wiped cream on mine.  Yummm