Saturday night baking: Ranger Cookies

I completely forgot a friend's birthday a few weeks ago.  I knew it was coming up and bam!  it was over.  I'm blaming my forgetfulness on the kids being sick lately but in truth I am just a scatterbrain most of the time. :)  So I bought a cute little belated birthday card but knew that wouldn't be enough for him to forgive me.  They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach so I'm taking an apology gift of cookies to church tomorrow.  I found an awesome recipe for Coconut Cream Pie cookies but didn't have any cream cheese so that recipe will be coming to you at a later date.  I decided to try Ranger Cookies from my Betty Crocker cookbook because Jess likes coconut, raisins and oats.  Can't go wrong, right?  I baked up a few without raisins and I am thinking tossing in chocolate chips in place would be mighty tasty.  I mean everything is better with chocolate!

Ranger Cookies

1/2 C butter, softened
1/2 C sugar
1/2 C brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 C flour
1 C quick oats
1 C coconut
1 C raisins, dried cherries, Craisins, or mixed dried fruit bits

Beat butter with an electric mixer on high speed for 30 seconds.  Add sugar, brown sugar, baking powder and baking soda.  Beat until combined.  Beat in egg and vanilla until combined.  Add flour slowly and beat until combined.  Stir in oats, raisins and coconut.  Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheet.  Bake at 375 degrees for 8 minutes or until edges are golden. 

The recipe says it makes 48 cookies.  Has anyone else ever been able to make as many cookies as the recipe states?  Maybe I just make mine bigger but I always end up with way less than the stated amount.  I ended up with 25 cookies.  Anyway they are very soft and chewy and I will definately be adding those chocolate chips I mentioned before. :)

Happy Baking!

Pot Roast with Buttermilk Gravy

Pot Roast with Buttermilk Gravy sounds like the perfect recipe for this cool day.

3 lb beef chuck roast
3 T oil
1 onion, chopped
3 T flour
1 C buttermilk
1 C water
 4 T beef bouillon granules
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp pepper

Brown roast in oil.  Remove roast to slow cooker and top with onion.  In skillet, add flour to drippings and cook and stir until brown.  Add buttermilk, water, bouillon, thyme and pepper, cook and stir until thickened.  Pour gravy over roast and cook on low setting for 5-7 hours.

Tips:
If you have bouillon cubes like I do, I subsituted one cube per T and it turned out fine.
To make buttermilk, simply add a splash of white vinegar to milk and let sit for a minute or two.

This roast rocks!  Chuck roast is one of my favorite meals and this recipe didn't let me down.  I am saving all the gravy and tonight we'll have roast with mashed potatoes and other sides and tomorrow I'll chop the leftover roast into smaller pieces and we'll have Manhattans.

I hesitate to post a pic because the pic does not do justice for just how yummy this roast is.  Yet I enjoy looking at a picture to help me decide if I want to make the recipe so here it is: 

Before serving remove roast from crockpot and remove meat from fat.  I'm also going to skim off some of the fat floating in the gravy.

Easy Beef Stroganoff

Today was a huge day at our house!  Hannah decided to start walking.  She's been 'cruising' for quite some time and the last few weeks standing up in the middle of the room.  Yesterday she was playing a game with herself dropping a toy, bending down to pick it up and standing again.  I knew it would be soon but I can't say I was ready for her to walk across the room today.  And that is what she did.  There was no step step fall, it was stand up and walk several steps across the room.  It hit me today that our 'baby days' are coming to a close.  It's bittersweet for me.  Having babies in the house is awesome but then I start to think of all the work of babies and think that a preschooler and a toddler might not be so bad! 

Gerald requested tacos for tonight and being the sweet wife I am, I made stroganoff instead. ha!  I figure if I'm the cook I get to veto any votes and have the ulitmate power of meal decisions. :)

On aother note I have to take time to rave about my newest pampered chef purchase!  I have been looking at the salad chopper scissors for a few years but couldn't bring myself to spend the money on them.  I have only had them a little over a week and I already wonder what I did without them.  They are the biggest time saver and my favorite use is to chop noodles, spaghetti, boneless chicken breast, etc for the girls.  Sure you can break spaghetti into smaller pieces before cooking but it's still hard for a 3 year old to get even the smaller pieces on their fork.  With these scissors I put Sadie's spaghetti in her bowl and snip snip snip voila!  Bite sized pieces with no mess and very little work.  It is also awesome for Hannah, who has only 4 teeth.  Yes, I used the scissors for tonight's meal. :) 

Beef Stroganoff

1 lb ground beef
onion, chopped
can of cream of mushroom soup
carton of sour cream
worcestershire sauce
beef bouillon
can of mushrooms
noodles (I use Kluski but No-Yolks are fine too)

Brown beef and onion until cooked through.  Meanwhile start cooking noodles according to package directions.  I add a cube of beef bouillon to the water to give the noodles a little extra flavor.

Drain beef and combine with soup, 8 oz sour cream, splash of worcestershire sauce and a cube of beef bouillon.  Adding a can of mushrooms is optional.  Heat.

Drain noodles and add to beef mixture.

Hot German Potato Salad

Dad was telling me a while ago that he remembers potato salad that wasn't yellow or cold.  I found this recipe online and asked him if it sounded right.  I'm going to give it a whirl tonight along with some burgers on the grill and some of those leftover settlers' beans. 

Btw, I'm not sure the settlers' beans are something I'll make again.  Neither of us were all that crazy about them but you never know about a new recipe until you try. :)

9 potatoes, peeled
6 slices bacon
3/4 C chopped onions
2 T flour
2 T sugar
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp celery seed
1/8 tsp pepper
3/4 C water
1/3 C distilled white vinegar

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  Add potatoes and cook until tender but still firm, about 30 minutes.  Drain, cool and slice thin.

Cook bacon, drain, crumble and set aside, reserve drippings.

Saute onions until they are golden brown.

In a small bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, salt, celery seed, and pepper.  Add to the sauteed onions and cook and stir until bubbly, then remove from heat.  Stir in water and vinegar, return to the stove and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  Boil and stir for one minute.  Carefully stir bacon and sliced potatoes into the vinegar/water mixture, stirring gently until pototoes are heated through.

Rainy Friday night, I'm thinking Settlers' Beans and a Movie

Forecast is looking gloomy tonight and with a sick kiddo our plans for seeing the new movie Rango has been tossed in favor of dinner and a movie in.  Sadie picked out two new movies this week:  Bambi and Snow White so I'm sure it'll be a Disney Movie night.  She's been calling Bambi the "Fumper" movie all week long after seeing the commercial where the cute little bunny says, "They call me Thumper."  Anywho I don't mind watching Disney movies with my babies, one day they will be too big to sit and watch cartoons with mom and dad on Friday night.

So the recipe for tonight is Settlers' Beans.  I think I'll bake a pan of cornbread to go with it.  It's hard to serve beans in this house without having some good ole Jiffy cornbread to go with it.  Now if only Gerald and I could agree on what level of brown-ness for the bread.... But that is a conversation for another time. :)

Setthers' Beans
1/2 lbs bacon, crisply cooked and crumbled, drippings reserved
1 med onion, chopped
1 lb ground beef, browned
15 1/2 oz can kidney beans
15 oz can butter beans
16 1/2 oz can pork and beans
1/4 c brown sugar, packed
1/2 c bbq sauce
1/4 c ketchup
1 t chili powder
salt and pepper to taste

Saute onion in 3 T reserved bacon drippings.  Combine with bacon and beef, mix in beans.  Add brown sugar, bbq sauce, ketchup, chili powder, salt and pepper.  Spoon into a 2 qt casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees for one hour stirring occasionally.  Or pour into crockpot and cook on low for 3-5 hours


This recipe sounds like it'd be great for those days when you forgot to lay something out for dinner.  I buy ground beef in large packages when it's on sale and bring it home and put it into smaller meal sized packages in the freezer.  If I have time I'll brown 3-5 lbs of beef and onion and then freeze it in ziploc bags in meal sized portions.  This makes meal prep quick and cuts down on mess when you're presssed for time.  And it would be perfect for this recipe!

Have a great weekend everyone!

First post-New Recipe!

Ouch, one line from being finished with this first post and I accidentally deleted it.  I hope this isn't an omen. 

My intent is for this blog to be about cooking with recipes and tips but I guess we'll just see where it goes.  Maybe I'm creating this blog as an outlet for my frustration in wanting to make a cookbook with my family and not getting the response I was hoping for. :)  (If you're feeling guilty at this point, maybe it is you I am speaking of. haha)  Friendly reminder:  Eakins family let's get those recipes together!!

Anyway enough of trying to guilt my family into participating in my cookbook project.  Tonight I tried a new recipe called Mom's country fried steak.  In my opinion country fried steak implies a piece of cubed steak floured, fried to a golden brown and smothered in cream gravy.  Wipe the drool off your chin, this is nothing like that.  I also made mashed potatoes, green beans in an iron skillet fried with bacon drippings and beer bread.  I realize there is nothing healthy about this meal but it sure was tasty!

Here's a tip for those of you who don't know.  When making mashed potatoes add some cream cheese to them before mashing.  It improves taste and texture and also makes them super yummy when re-heated.  I never make mashed potatoes without it!  If cream cheese is on sale super cheap buy a few bricks, toss them in the freezer for this use.  (Do not use frozen cream cheese for cold dips, when thawed it has a gritty texture but when mixed into mashed potatoes you can't tell)

Mom's Country Fried Steak
2 lbs round steak
flour
salt and pepper
1 med onion, chopped
1 sm. green pepper, chopped
1 T vegetable oil
1 T browning sauce

Cut steak into medium sized pieces.  Place each piece between two sheets of wax paper and pound lightly using a meat pounder.  Roll in flour and salt and pepper to taste.  Place steak, onion, pepper, and oil in skillet and cook on low to medium heat until steak is cooked through.  Remove steak and add 1 T of flour to drippings and stir until blended.  Slowly add water until desired consistency is reached; stir in browning sauce.  Add steak to gravy and simmer on low heat for 45 minutes to an hour.  Salt and pepper to taste.