Pilgrim Pies

Recipe Source Family Fun and my friend, Lauren.

Ingredients:

PUMPKIN COOKIES
2 eggs
2 cups light brown sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin
3 cups flour
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

FILLING/CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 to 5 cups confectioners' sugar

Instructions
1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Beat the eggs, brown sugar, oil, and vanilla extract in a mixing bowl until smooth. Stir in the pumpkin. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, pumpkin spice, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture a half cup at a time, blending each time until smooth.

2. Drop a heaping tablespoon of batter onto an ungreased cookie sheet, using a moist finger or the back of a spoon to slightly flatten each mound. Bake the cookies for 12 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

3. Meanwhile, make the frosting. Beat together the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla extract in a bowl until light and fluffy. Mix in the confectioners' sugar a half cup at a time, until the frosting is spreadable.

4. To assemble the pies, turn half of the cookies bottom side up and spread a generous amount of cream cheese frosting on each one. Top them with the remaining cookies (turned right side up).

Makes 10 to 14 Pilgrim Pies.

Libby's Strawberry Salad & Poppy Seed Dressing

Oh man. This salad is amazing. I already have a different strawberry salad recipe on the blog (which is also good), but here is the difference:
I'm pretty sure I just heard angels singing. This dressing is super duper good. It could be used for a variety of salads, not just strawberry salad. Trust me. This dressing recipe is a keeper. :) I give my husband's cousin Callie (The On Call Cook) full credit here. Go check out her blog for the most amazing recipes. Seriously. Her blog is way better than mine :)

www.oncallcook.blogspot.com (I can't figure out how to make this a link because I'm cool like that so........just copy and paste).

Libby's Strawberry Salad
Source: Libby Coombs, a sweet old lady Callie knew from church

1 head of Romaine lettuce, torn into pieces (I used spinach)
1/2 red onion, diced (I didn't have red onion on hand when I made it)
1 1/2 c sliced strawberries (use more if you'd like)
1/2 c slivered honey roasted almonds

dressing:
3/4 c mayonnaise
1/3 c sugar
2 T milk
1 T cider vinegar
Optional: (I added 1/2 TBS Poppy Seeds, but you could add less or leave them out completely as Libby did.)

Combine all the salad ingredients in a bowl.

Whisk all the dressing ingredients together in a bowl. I let mine sit in the fridge for about 15 minutes in the hopes that the sugar would dissolve to avoid the graininess, and it wasn't grainy at all. Score!

Pour about 1/4 c dressing on the salad at a time and toss to combine. Add more dressing until you've reached a dressingy-ness that you like.

Serve immediately.

Tuna Salad Sandwich

My grandparents were coming for lunch. What do you make for them? Tuna Tuna Tuna. Old people love it. I found this recipe and it looked different from the usual "mayo, pickle, tuna" recipe. For a tuna sandwich, this one is pretty good :)

Source:

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/tuna_salad_sandwich/

Tuna Salad Sandwich Recipe

INGREDIENTS
1 (6 ounce) can of tuna fish (if packed in water, drain it, and add a teaspoon of good quality olive oil)
1/3 cup of cottage cheese
2 Tablespoons of mayonaise
1/4 purple onion, chopped finely
1 celery stalk, chopped finely
1 Tablespoon of capers
Juice of half of a lemon
Pinch or two of dill
2 Tbsp minced fresh parsley
1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard

(optional - lettuce and sliced tomatoes)

Slices of French bread, lightly toasted

METHOD
Mix all of the ingredients. Serve on toast, either open faced, or in a regular sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes. For a low carb option, serve on sliced lettuce.

Chunky Carmel Brownies

Amazing, right? Right. I'm a fan of brownies with stuff in it. Doesn't really matter what the "stuff" is.....nuts, marshmallows, frosting on top, etc. Its all good in my opinion. This delicious treat has chocolate chunks AND carmel. The combination for ultimate goodness. These brownies are best after they have been cooked and then chilled in the fridge for at least thirty minutes, but I recommend 60 minutes. The chocolate chunks harden so you can tell its a chunk, rather athan a gooey chocolate fudgey thing. Chunks are good-you want chunks. Which is another reason I renamed these brownies and added the "Chunky" to it. It just sounds better, right? :) Enjoy!

Chunky Carmel Brownies

Natalie J.

Melt in Microwave:

1 cup square caramels, unwrapped (See picture below)

1/3 C evaporated milk

(You can buy the caramels in a bag in the baking isle by chocolate chips. One bag of caramels equals 2 cups caramels.)

Stir with electric mixer until dough holds together:

1 pkg Devils Food Chocolate Cake Mix (original recipe called for German, but Devils is better)

1/2 C butter, softened (do not melt in microwave)

1/3 C evaporated milk

6 oz pkg chocolate chips (half a bag)

Grease and flour (or just spray with Pam) a 9x13 pan. Press half of dough into pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 6 minutes. Take out and place chocolate chips on hot dough. Drizzle melted caramel mixture over the top.

Add remaining dough on top by pressing into little circles in your hand and them placing them on top of the carmel.

Bake 15-18 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool slightly. Refridgerate 30-60 minutes or until set.

Hints: To make the caramel mixture, put it in a glass dish with high sides, such as a measuring cup. It takes a few minutes to melt the caramel completely, so stir every thirty seconds or so. When its done, it should resemble this:

The dough can be very sticky, so place the bowl with dough in the freezer for a few minutes to get it to harden. It makes it MUCH easier to work with. I did this several times while working with the dough. When putting the dough on the top, it is difficult to make it cover the entire pan. Do your best, but when it cooks, it will fill in the holes and come out looking like this:

Need another gooey, delicious shot? Here goes.

Tropical Salsa

Tropical Salsa

1 C chunky salsa (I like Pace's)

1 can (8 oz) pineapple tidbits, drained

1 medium firm ripe mango, peeled, pitted and chopped

Mix salsa, pineapple and mango. Serve with tortilla chips. Enjoy!

Baked Snapper with Tropical Salsa

I found this recipe about 5 years ago and made it for the first time the other night. Ya know how you have a huge stack of recipes you've never made? Well, I'm trying to go through what I have and hoping to find some hidden jewels. I was pleasantly surprised! Even the husband really liked it...and thats sayin somethin! Its very healthy and the flavor was great. The only substitution I made was I used tilapia instead of snapper. I'm usually a lazy cook and I don't want ANYTHING to do with the prep work of fish. Instead I bought a bag of frozen tilapia. To make matters more convienent, the fish was individually packaged so all I had to do was thaw it in the bags, then cut the bags open. The tropical salsa on top was great too! It made it so the fish didn't need any other seasonings added. Resist the urge to salt! Oh, how tempted I was but I'm glad I resisted. Oh, and it was FAST! Loved that part too!

Baked Snapper & Tropical Salsa

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 25 minutes

Serves: 4 servings

Ingredients:

1 C chunky salsa (I used Pace)

1 can (8 oz) pineapple tidbits, drained

1 medium ripe mango, peeled, pitted and chopped

6 C torn spinach leaves, washed, well dried

4 red snapper fillets (4 oz each)

1. Mix salsa, pineapple and mango.

2. Place spinach evenly in 13x9-inch baking dish; top with fillets. Spoon 2-4 TBS of the salsa mixture over each fillet; cover with foil. Set remaining salsa mixture aside for serving with fish.

3. Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes or until fish flakes easily with fork. Serve with reserved salsa mixture.

I served this with seasoned rice. Delish!

Greek Salad & Dressing

This lovely salad and dressing was served with our Greek meal a family reunion this year. The dressing was A-MA-ZING!

Greek Salad:
greens, chopped and washed
olives
red onions
cucumbers, thinly sliced
tomatoes
feta cheese, sprinkled on top


Dressing:
1 c. olive oil
1/2 c. lemon juice
2 cloves garlic (or more :))
2 tsp. salt (or to taste)
2 tsp. oregano fresh (1 tsp. dried)
ground pepper to taste

Finely mince garlic. Combine all ingredients in jar and shake well.

Photo Source: Life Tastes Like Food