Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Ingredients:
Your favorite chocolate chip cookie dough
Your favorite cake mix

1.Roll your dough into 2" balls. Freeze the cookie dough balls at least 4 hours.
2.Make your cake batter. Pour into lined cupcake pan filling each cup about 2/3 full.
3. Place frozen balls of cookie dough on top of the batter of each cupcake.
4. Place in oven and bake for 15-20 minutes.
5. Cool, frost/decorate your cupcakes, then enjoy!!

Notes: Do not skip the freezing process otherwise you will just have a baked cookie inside a cupcake. If you want actual cookie dough in the cupcake, you must freeze the dough so that it's still doughy when you are finished cooking it. Also, do not cook longer than 20 minutes. 17 minutes was fine for our cupcakes.

Cheeseburger Bacon Pasta

I can't believe I haven't posted this yet. We usually make this for company because it's easy and makes a lot. Plus it's yummy!

8 oz. any fun noodles you want
1 lb. hamburger
5 slices of bacon
1 can tomato soup (I actually had to use tomato sauce once, with a dash of sugar it tasted the same)
1 cup cheddar cheese

Cook noodles. Cook hamburger, drain, cook bacon. Cut bacon into tiny pieces. When noodles are drained put everything together until cheese melts. Serve with BBQ sauce and mustard.

Cheesy garlic bisuits (aka red lobster biscuits)

Set your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and spray a cooking sheet with nonstick spray.

Dump into a bowl: 2 cups of buttermilk biscuit mix (like Bisquick or Jiffy mix), 1/2 a teaspoon of garlic powder, and 1 to 1 1/2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese.

Stir everything together.

Pour in about 2/3 cups of milk. Stir until combined.

It gets pretty thick, and you can add a little more milk if you need to. But don’t add too much, otherwise it’ll get really sticky. Use the two-spoon method to drop lumps of the dough onto your cookie sheet

Stick them in the oven and set the timer to 10 minutes. Now, melt 2 Tablespoons of butter and stir in 2 teaspoons of oregano and 1 teaspoon of garlic salt.

When the timer goes off (10 minutes, remember?) brush some of the butter mixture over each biscuit. Then, pop them back into the oven for another 5-6 minutes.Or until they’re lightly browned. If you’d like, you can brush them with the garlic-herb butter again and let it soak in before you serve them.

If you’re having people over, you’d better double the recipe. These will get snatched up really quick!

Mac N' Cheese

For some reason I get a lot of requests for this from family and friends. So those of you that don't know it, here it is:

Macaroni noodles
heavy whipping cream
assorted cheeses

It's just something I put together so I don't know how much to tell you to use besides...whatever feels good. I would guess 1/2 cup whipping cream and 1 cup cheese. We like combinations of cheeses. Our favorites are cheddar with swiss, or cheddar with fresh parmesan.
Testimonials:
"Thats some good stuff.....mmmmm...mmmm" Uncle Tom
"I Lub noodo" Robby
"Wheres the beef?" Bruce Lee
"Me like cheesey." Chris Farley
"I pitty the foo who doesn't like Net's mac and cheese; sucka!" Mr. T
"All I do is sit and eat, sit and eat." Whistler's mother


written by the J MAN

Best Dip EVER!!

This is seriously the best dip ever! If you are going to the store this week you have to get the stuff to make this dip. You will not be disappointed.

Someone in our ward made this for our Halloween potluck and Johnny and I absolutely loved it but couldn't find who made it. Then at our ward Christmas potluck and it was there again! So we made sure we tracked down the sister this time.

Here it is:
1 lb. (16 oz) pork sausage
2 bricks (8 oz. each) cream cheese
1 can ( 15 oz) Rotel dices tomatoes (or another brand dices tomatoes with chilies)
Cheddar cheese
Tortilla chips

Brown sausage, drain, add cream cheese and tomatoes, stir until cheese is melted. Put into a 9 X 9 dish and sprinkle with cheddar cheese. Bake 350 degrees until top cheese is melted. Serve with tortilla chips. Yummy hot or cold.

This is not spicy at all so those of you that like a little kick can get the spicy sausage and spicy Rotel.

Hope you like it as much as we do!

Rich Pumpkin Pancakes

I made these on Halloween morning. They're really flavorful and super moist. This is my version of a recipe I got off of allrecipes.com. To me, they taste like pumpkin bread. Note: I used an entire can of pumpkin, but the recipe only calls for 1 cup. You can use a whole can if you like, but it makes them super rich.


Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup milk-you made need more to thin out the batter a little
1 cup of pure pumpkin
1 egg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Directions
In a separate bowl, mix together the milk, pumpkin, egg, and oil. Combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and salt, stir into the pumpkin mixture just enough to combine.
Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

Yummy Fall Dinner

I was given a butternut squash and didn't know what to do with it. One of the craft blogs that I like to look at The Feathered Nest had this butternut squash soap and bread on it. So we made it for dinner. Both were really good, even Robby liked them! The soup is full of flavor.

Butternut Squash & Corn Chowder

2 T vegetable oil
1 1/2 pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1 inch chunks (about 5 cups)
1 medium onion, chopped
10 oz frozen corn, thawed
1 1/2 t curry powder
coarse salt and pepper
2 cans (14.5 oz each) vegetable broth
1/2 cup heavy cream

In a large heavy pot, heat oil over med-high heat. Add squash and onion. Cook until onion is soft, about 6 minutes. Add corn and curry powder and cook until curry is fragrant, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add broth and simmer until squash is tender, about 25 minutes. In a blender, blend the soup until smooth, working in batches if you have to. Return to pot and stir in cream. Heat through but do NOT let it boil.

*I never have broth so I used chicken bullion and I didn't have curry so I used a little basil, still turned out great*

Artisan Bread
(14-20hours rising)


3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
1 5/8 cup water

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

*After taking the lid off my pan my bread was done in 5 minutes, so I'd watch it close*