Pound Cake

Princess Jean-Marie's
       favorite Pound Cake:

Ingredients:
1 cup of butter
3 cups of sugar, sifted
6 eggs
3 cups of cake flour, sifted
1 8oz of sour cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla





Preparation:
Cream butter, add sugar 2 tablespoons at a time.
Add in this order: 1 egg, 2 heaping tablespoons of flour and 1 heaping teaspoon of sour cream. Mix well.
Repeat in this order until all ingredients are used.
Add salt and baking soda with the last teaspoon of sour cream.
Stir in lemon juice with vanilla
Pour batter into greased and floured 10 inch tube pan
Bake at 325 for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until cake tests done.

Princess Jean-Marie donated this recipe from the Junior League cook book. Thanks, Jean-Marie!!

If anyone has any recipes to share, by all means pass them along! Remember to site the cook book's name :)

Homemade Turkey Soup

Glad to see that you're here; considering I was sooooooo what is the word....... graphic?

Ok so assuming it doesn't bother you to remove the package from the turkey ~ pop that thing in the oven and bake her up.... here goes:

After turkey is cooked, pull off as much cooked meat as you can.
Place turkey in large pot and simmer with water for about an hour.
While bird is simmering, chop:
Celery
Onions
Mushrooms
Carrots
and anything else you like to throw in there.
I add fresh green beans and squash.
Those lil green peas are good too.
Dressing ~ leftover from your turkey is really good
Two cans of tomatoes
Pull out your bird and let cool. Once cooled pull off the rest of the meat. add all meat to pot with water. 
Add chicken bullion, garlic, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper.
Toss in all your chopped ingredients and let simmer 20 minutes.  add spices to adjust to your taste.
Put in bow tie pasta and simmer another ten minutes.
Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.
Voila!

Elk Vomit ~ my fanny!
It's Delicious!

Note: it's always better the next day!!

Squash Casserole

4 cut up squash ~ boiled in chicken broth
8 pieces of cooked bacon
1 cup of sour cream
1 can of cream and mushroom soup
chopped onions
chopped carrots
garlic, salt pepper
2 cups of grated cheddar cheese
1 stick of butter
1 sleeve of town house crackers

Preparation:
Cook bacon and drain
Saute onions and carrots in bacon grease
Add mushroom soup, salt and pepper, garlic
Then add crumpled bacon, squash and sour cream
Pour into your cooking dish

In separate pan, melt stick of butter
Crumble the sleeve of crackers and saute until crispy.
Add cheese on top of casserole
Then sauted crackers
bake at 350 for 20 minutes
Enjoy!!!

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Nibblings For The Neighbors!

The Messy Chefettes strike again!!
PBC and Flibbertigibbet are let loose in the kitchen
to dip bugles

And chocolate mint truffles

Dipping chocolate by Bakers:
SO much easier than the ole fashion way ~ with chocolate chips, powered sugar, milk, and a double boiler that would get so hot and burn when left accidentally unattended...

Look how cute they turn out

Neighbor Nibblings Galore!

Preparation ~
Truffles:
1 8 oz cream cheese
1 package of mint oreos ~ blend in a mix master
Add together and set in frig for 20 minutes
Take out and roll into balls.
Put back into frig for 20 minutes
Warm up your dipping chocolate
We use tooth picks to stick in the truffle and dip.
Sit in frig uncovered till ready to serve

Bugals and Strawberries:
Take 'em outta the bag and dip em!

Warning: bath may be needed due to excess warm gooey choclate spillage

Egg Nog You Over It's So Good



 Candy canes, whipped creme and Cinnamon
Add personal fave spikage if so desire.
NOTE:
Stay clear of Lucifer until Christmas has passed ~
FYI: Lucifer is my scale.
He's extremely rude and nasty acting.
Especially over the holidays!
Avoid Lucifer at all costs! 

Chicken Sausage Yum Yum!

This recipe is one of our faves!  Out of all the meals I've cooked for my friends, this is one of the most requested! Soooo...If you are wanting to impress your guests, here's the dish for you!

Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts
2 cans of cream of mushroom soup
1 cup of sour cream
Package of country ham
Onion
Mushrooms
Sausage (I use spicey breakfast sausage)
Cajun seasoning
Garlic
Italian seasoning
Thyme
Paprika
Colored tooth picks.

Cook sausage in one pan.
Add a pat of butter to the pan with the country ham.
While sausage and ham are cooking, slice mushrooms and chop an entire onion.
Drain sausage.
Remove ham ~ it doesn't need draining, the juice is yum!

Add mushrooms to one pan and the onions to the other.
Sounds weird but don't be washing out those pans between ingredients!

Take cooked country ham and set it inside raw chicken breast.
Add sausage on top of country ham.
Lately, I've used the chicken cutlets, they are easier to maneuver because you are going to be stuffing your breasts. Ha!
Anyhow, if they are the normal chicken breasts, flatten each breast with a mallet. Sprinkle each piece of chicken with all 5 spices. 
Roll chicken up with ham and sausage inside and pin shut with a COLORED toothpick.
Set chicken inside a baking dish
Meanwhile, add onions and mushrooms to either pan. Add soup, and all the left over sausage and country ham. 
Add all 5 spices again to soup mixture.


Pour over chicken.
Bake for 45 minutes at 400.

Serve with aspargus, salad and french bread for dipping!!!!

Notes:
 ~ I say colored toothpicks so your guests (or peeps) can easily pull them out after the chicken is cooked. Before they even taste a bite, enforce the no choking allowed rule and yank out those toothpicks!
~  save some sausage and country ham out for omelets in the morning :)
~ Best made the morning of or even the night before.
~ freezes well too!

Popper Pasta Salad

Pasta Salad with a Pop!
Spinach and Mozzarella Ravioli
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
artichokes
jalapeno stuffed olives
tomatoes
chopped onion
mushroom
salami
garlic
salt and pepper
Italian seasoning
*small package of pine nuts ~ I almost skipped this ingredient but glad I didn't....added lots of flavor!!
Pepper Shooters (cherry peppers stuffed with provolone and prosciutto ~ maybe 10 diced.  You can get these at Costco ...think I've seen them at Mr. Public's store too.

Make your pasta salad the morning of or even the night before so the flavor can soak in.

Death By Chocolate Brownies

This is so good, it's ridiculous.
It's also such a cheater recipe, it's embarrassing.
Ghirardelli Triple Chocolate Brownie Mix.
2 pouches of mix
2/3 cup water
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
Dish size - I used a 10x6 dish. 
Bake 325 for 50 minutes.
The kicker is the chocolate cake icing on top; covered by mini chocolate chips. 
Add black berries, strawberries and whipped cream.
Note:  after your brownies cool off, place in frig.  When cooled, spread entire carton of icing and sprinkle bag of chips on top. Place back in frig until guests come so it won't turn into chocolate glop.
Additional note: Would NOT recommend eating over three brownies in one sitting....

Greek Lemon Chicken

Greek Lemon Chicken is a FAVE around our house....
Ingredients:

Chicken breasts, boneless or bone in.

3 large lemons
2 cups of chicken stock
1 onion
Mushrooms
12 Red potatoes
1 cup of fresh chopped oregano
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
1 tbs Cavenders seasoning
2 tbs chopped fresh parsley
1 cup Olive oil

Preparation:

Cut up lemons and squeeze into mixing bowl. Add olive oil, herbs, garlic.

Slice mushrooms and entire onion.
Season both sides of chicken with salt, pepper and marinade with all ingredients in bowl   
Place sliced onions, mushrooms, potatoes in cooking dish.  Add chicken with marinade
Bake at 400 for 50 minutes               

If the cooks got the night off and you’re wondering weather or not to chop those herbs, you can still use cheater herbs that are in your veggie section in the grocery stores.  There’s always dry herbs but the real deal is just that……

French bread -
2 sticks of butter
3 tbs of 4 cheese mixture
Large tablespoon of chopped garlic
3 tbs of fresh chopped herbs – parsley, oregano, basil

 Note: I get 4 cheese mixture from Sam’s or Costco – it’s huge but you can add it to anything!  There should be lots of left over herbed butter.  If you went through all that trouble chopping those herbs, put that herbed butter in a container and store it up to two weeks.  It’s great to cook with!

TA DA!!!!
YUM! YUM!

Autumn Walnut Cheesecake

After having walnut cheesecake at a local family owned bistro, I couldn't help myself.
I had to ask the waitress "WHAT IS IN THIS CHEESECAKE????????'  She came back with the words, spices, walnuts, cloves, cream cheese scratched on an already used napkin.
(I'm really hoping it was my napkin.)
I decided to take matters in my own hands.
I came home to look the full recipe up on the internet.
I found recipes alright, but none with his limited ingredients.  Instead I combined four different recipes and Viola!!!!! Here she is!!!!

Ingredients:
Crust:
2 and 1/2 cups of ground Cinnamon graham crackers.
1/2 cup of brown sugar
3/4 ground walnuts
1 stick of melted butter
1 large tablespoon of cinnamon

Cheesecake Filling:
4 packages of cream cheese (8oz each)
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
3 tablespoons of flour

CHEESECAKE TIPS: first of all, there are a couple of tricks to these cheesecakes: set all your items out and do something else for an hour.  your cream cheese, eggs and butter really should be at room temperature or it won't blend correctly and honestly won't take as good.  Trust me!
Secondly, don't overcook your cheesecake, when it starts splitting on the top, you know it's time to take this baby OUT!

Preparation:
Grease bottom and sides of your 10 inch spring form pan. in a food processor, combine your cookies, then walnuts and brown sugar until blended.  add butter.  press on the bottom and sides of the pan.  bake for 8 minutes at 325 degrees.
blend together your cream cheese until smooth.  add maple syrup. add eggs, one at a time.  blend well. add vanilla, flour, and cream and gently blend all together. (don't get crazy with the blending - such as don't crank up and the blender and start a load of laundry.  It just doesn't take much!)
Pour mixture into your spring form pan and bake for 1 hour at 325.

MORE TIPS: Cool in the pan and refrigerate for AT LEAST FOUR HOURS!!!
Do not get overexcited to pop that spring form pan open and taste your cheesecake masterpiece or you Will have a disasterpiece instead of a masterpiece!!!!!!

Once cooled, carefully remove sides of spring form pan and cut into slices.
add caramel, whipped cream and walnuts. 
ENJOY!!!!

NOTE: picture is shown without walnuts and or caramel due to overindulgence of taste testers, but I'm hearing that chocolate sauce instead of caramel does just as well!

Chunka Chunka Burning Luv Cake!

The cake that is actually shown above tasted as yuck as it looked. At least you know... I'm a tried it, fried it, turned it burned it... true black and blue cook. I will keep you abreast of my disasters and how to avoid them.

Truth be told... this Chunka Chunka Burning Luv Cake is the bomb! (like you really trust me after I confessed what a kitchen liar I really am)

Just to let you know.... this is the original picture I was going to use in my Let Them Eat Cake picture.

Unfortunately....
We ate it before it had time to make its debut in the header picture :)
You'll be needing......
1 box of cake mix. Can be yellow or chocolate, but make sure it already has pudding in the mix.
1 cup of water
MIX ITEMS
1/2 cup of vegetable oil
4 eggs
MIX ITEMS
1 cup of sour cream
1 small package of vanilla or chocolate instant pudding mix ~ don't try to get fancy putting chocolate pudding in vanilla cake and visa versa unless you want your cake to taste like the cake I'm holding up top.
WooF!
One package of semisweet chocolate chips ~ not milk chocolate (once again...see above picture)
TASTE ITEMS
Preheat oven to 325 (dark pan) or 350 (light pan) I prefer 325.
Don't forget to spray something like Pam in your cake pan.
Pour in and cook her up for 40 minutes!!!
Depending on your oven, I would check it with a broom straw after 38 minutes, you never know.
Let cool for about 20 minutes. Loosen sides with a knife and place a plate over pan.
flip
If  chocolate chips stick to bottom of the an, no worries!!!!! Just scoop them out and pile them on top of your cake. 
When COMPLETELY COOLED sift powdered sugar on top disguising any faux pas and adding extra taste not to mention pizazz!.

This cake is easy, yummy and it won't last long around your castle!
Trust me :)