Christmas Cookies

All 10 pounds of my Doernbecher Dough is officially BAKED. YUM, they are good! We've decorated some, given away lots, and have lots more to decorate, share and eat. Emmalee really enjoys helping decorate (and eat) them.

3 Crockpot Recipes

I have been asked to share a couple of recent crockpot recipes i've tried recently. So here they are! Warning: The first two recipes are probably enough to serve 6 or more. Our family of 3 had too much leftovers to even consume the next day. The last one is so simple and easy and I thought it went great with mashed potatoes. Enjoy!

Chicken Taco Soup

2 cans chili beans
2 cans black beans (I used pinto & white beans)
2 cans stewed tomatoes
2 cans mexican tyle tomatoes
2 cans corn (I used half a bag of frozen corn)
1.5 lbs chicken breast
2 packs ranch dressing mix
2 packs taco seasoning

Mix everything together in crockpot and cook on low for 6 hours. Shred chicken and return to crockpot for two more hours. Serve with tortilla ships, shredded cheese and sour cream.


Chicken Stew

2lb skinless chicken breasts cut in 1 inch cubes
2 cans fat-free chicken broth
3 cup potatoes; peeled and cubed
1 cup onion; chopped
1 cup carrots; sliced thin
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp pepepr
1/2 tsp rubbed sage
1/2 tsp dried thyme
6 oz no-salt-added tomato paste

1/4 cup cold water
3 tbsp cornstarch

In your crockpot, combine the first 11 ingredients; cover and cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours. A half hour before serving, mix water and cornstarch until smooth; stir into stew. Cook, covered, 30 minutes more on high or until the vegetables are tender.


Sour Cream and Onion Chicken

4 chicken breast halves
1 12-oz can of low fat cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup fat free sour cream
1 1/2 cups water
1 packet of onion soup mix

Place chicken into crock pot or slow cooker. In a medium bowl, mix all the other ingredients together. Pour mixture over chicken and cover. Cook at low setting 6-8 hours or higher setting for 4-6 hours. This is the easiest meal to put together! It's very creamy and goes well with wild rice or potatoes.

My Potatoes

Do you like a good baked potato? In the mood for some comfort food?

I made Bacon Ranch Potatoes last night - a recipe i've used for several years. This isn't a recipe you want to share at your next Weight Watchers meeting.

Ingredients
8 Large Red Potatoes

1 Cup Ranch Salad Dressing

1 Cup Sour Cream

1 Cup Cheddar Cheese, divided

1/4 Cup Crumbled Cooked Bacon

1 teaspoon salt


Preheat oven to 350. Cut potatoes into quarters. Place in a large saucepan. Cover with water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Cook until tender, about 8 minutes; drain well.

Meanwhile, combine salad dressing, sour cream, 1/2 cup cheddar and bacon in a large bowl. Add potatoes and salt; stir well. Spoon potato and bacon mixture into a medium baking dish.

Top with remaining cheese.

Bake potatoes until bubbly, about 20 minutes.

Hope you like them.

Readers Response to: My Calzone

I read with interest and saw the mouth watering pictures of your Calzone. I thought your grandma would enjoy it so I went out to get the ingredients for your Calzone recipe. Now, please recognize that I am not Emeril, Julia Childs, Rachel Ray, or any of those otherfamous chefs / cooks. When I attempt a recipe, I do as I am told ( a trick I learned early in my marriage) and follow directions explicitly with no deviations, creativity, or second guessing ( another trick I learned). To my dismay, our nearest Win Co is clear over in Medford, a round trip of some 60 odd miles. At $4.05 a gallonfor regular fuel and my little truck getting approximately 18 miles per gallon, I determined that it would requireapproximately 3.3 gallons of fuel (presuming there were no construction delays, wrecks, or any other unforeseen reasons that the vehicle would be idle in traffic consuming additional fuel) to go get the flattened pizza dough.At $4.00 per gallon and 3.3 gallons (at the minimum), my cost for this trip would likely be about $13.499 cents, just rounded off, $13.50. So the package of flattened out pizza dough is shaking out to be pretty darn closeto costing me $16.50.

I determined that I could lessen the cost of the trip to Medford by purchasing the other ingredients at the same time. I had heard that Win Co was a pretty decent place to shop for ingredients to all sort of recipes and for snacks andsome general household products. I proceeded to load the items into my shopping cart and was pleased to find thatWin Co had everything I needed except the fresh tomatoes. Upon inquiry, I was told that a local Italian restaurant, the "Olive Garden", had been in earlier and bought every tomato they had. Another shopper volunteered that the"Olive Garden" was featuring Calzone that night and probably needed all the tomatoes they could locate. I finishedgathering the rest of the ingredients and proceeded to check out. I believe that I made a pretty good buy on the items, especiallysince I wasn't going to have to go traipsing all over to accumulate the various items. Other than the tomatoes, of course. I have listed the purchase price for each of the items, primarily so that I could keep a running "tab' on the cost to prepareyour Calzone recipe, which looked and sounded scrumptious! Feel free to review my list and offer comments.

Ingredients:

Pizza dough 3.00

Ricotta Cheese 4.29

Tomato Sauce 2.18

Onions 1.88

Spinach leaves 1.56

Pepperoni 7.29

Chicken Sausage 9.72

Mozzarella Cheese 5.29

Italian Seasoning 1.85

Keeping up with the "tab", I am now at $37.06 for the ingredients and $13.50 for my fuel for a preliminary cost of $50.56,and I still needed the tomatoes. Upon returning to Grants Pass I found that our Farmers Market, did have the required tomatoes. In fact they had their vine ripened tomatoes on sale, which really pleased me. I did some quick calculating ( in my head, as I did nothave a little hand held calculator handy) and determined that it would take me two trips to get the tomatoes as our little truck wasonly rated at one half ton load. Not wanting to be accused of being miserly, I just took it on the chin for the extra fuel expense because it is only about 5 miles to the Farmers Market, which meant it would only be 15 more miles. As you will remember, the little truck gets approximately 18 miles per gallon (without a capacity load), (we don't know what it gets when it so loaded, as the most we usually have is 8-10 sacks of steer manure, at the most).

Long story short, we bought the tomatoes (taking the two trips) and now are set to prepare our version of your Calzone. We did a quickcalculation (fortunately one of those little hand held calculators was handy) and came up with the following total cost involved:

Fuel $13.50

Win Co purchases $37.06

Tomatoes $3980.00

(2000 pounds (a ton) at $1.99 a pound)

Grand total $4030.56

We love you very much and we are always anxious to try out your new and exciting recipes. But.... please remember..... we are on social security and just can not be extravagant with our funds. In future would you please just not send us any recipes that require a ton of tomatoes. My stomach won't tolerate the acid and my wallet won't tolerate the expense!!! We still love you. Don't take this as being critical

Have a great day!!!

Papa and Grandma

PS .... regards those leftovers, we had enough to feed a small African nation!!!

My Calzone (...pulling a 'Pioneer-Woman')

Ingredients:

Pizza dough

Tomatoes

Ricotta Cheese

Tomato Sauce

Onions

Spinach leaves

Pepperoni

Chicken Sausage

Mozzerella Cheese

Italian Seasoning

This is not how I usually make my calzones. But my friend Ivory came over with it, and we worked it in! You know that my husband loved it - the more meat the better, right? What's nice about making a calzone is you can make it as light and healthy (or as fattening and heavy) as you'd like. You control the ingredients.

I buy the flattened out pizza dough from Win Co for three bucks. I take it home and smear half of it with riccotta cheese, smear some tomato sauce on top of that. Then come the chopped tomatoes. I use a ton! Because after you sprinkle those tomatoes with plenty of italian seasoning, they will be the center of the flavor of your calzone. On top of the tomatoes I added a few chopped onions and then layere spinach leaves, sliced sausage and sliced pepperoni. Sprinkle at least 2 cups of shredded mozzerella cheese and that's it. Fold the dough over, knead the ends, and sprinkle a little more cheese on top if you want. Bake at 350 for 15-25 minutes, and let cool for 5 minutes before you cut into it or all your yummy gooeyness comes melting right out.

A great thing about making your own calzone:

They're gigantic, and they taste awesome the next day!

(guess what i'm having for lunch...)