Relief Society Dessert Exchange

Thursday Night's Dessert Exchange was full of chocolatey goodness and lots of tips from Ann on how to go about making great chocolate candy desserts.

You can do fun things with molds. They have molds for all seasons including some interesting designs...

The newer molds are not even plastic.

Molds are great but you don't have to have molds to make a wonderful dessert. You can coat fudge, brittle, and peanut butter nougat in melted chocolate for a great dessert.

Orson Gigi's is a great place to buy chocolate wafers to melt for dipping chocolate.

Be sure when you melt your chocolate in your microwave that you do it 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between intervals.

We learned from Ann that the streaky swirls in chocolate is caused by the cocoa butter rising to the surface from chocolate that is too hot or cold. You want your chocolate to be just right.

Ann has a separate set of paint brushes she uses just for painting chocolate into molds and onto chocolate.

To keep your finished product nice and shiny wear gloves so that your finger prints don't end up on the chocolate.

Thanks to Ann for all the great tips on making candy and thanks to everyone who brought desserts to share! If you brought a dessert on Thursday and want to share the recipe on this blog, just post it as a comment. If you didn't attend on Thursday but would still like to share a favorite dessert recipe please feel free to post it as a comment. The more the merrier!

Fried Potatoes

It's back to working on my family history project and on Sunday I exposed my family to another recipe that was a favorite of mine when I was younger. This was one that my dad would make for us. He rarely cooked but when he did he would make us fried potato slices which we would douse in vinegar and salt. YUMMY!!!

Not very healthy but SOOOOOOOOO good!!!!

Very simple to make. I use two large frying pans at a time in order to make a bunch and heat them up to a medium high heat. Add vegetable or canola oil deep enough to cover the potato slices. I skin the potatoes and slices them about an 1/8 th of an inch thick. When they start to brown on one side you turn them over and brown them on the other side.
You don't want them too brown because you want them a little soft in the middle - not crunchy. The trick is to have them crunchy at the edge and soft in the middle. When they are done put them on a plate or dish with a couple of pieces of paper towel to take off some of the excess oil. You can then dish out onto individual plates and sprinkle on salt and vinegar.

Family Project Continues

Of course I can't do anything half-hearted so not only am I compiling the recipes that we ate as we were growing up but I am making as many of them as I can so I can have the pictures to go with them. Names that I am calling myself right now are: overachiever, martyr, exhausted, and crazy (feel free to pipe in with any additional ones you can think of). :)

Many of the things we ate were not elaborate by any means... they were simple and easy to make. My dad likes things simple. He was a meat and potatoes kind of guy. Nothing fancy, weird and no foreign foods as this was going WAY too far out of his comfort zone. Over time he fell in love with Chinese food and Taco Bell (or as he calls it "the Taco Bells) but that is the extent of his foray into eating ethnic foods.

Here are the family recipes that I made this week:

*warning: the French Toast recipe is unlike any you will have seen before!!! There are NO typos in the recipe!!! YES it really calls for pepper! DO NOT put syrup on this French Toast!!!


Homemade Maccaroni & Cheese
(my great grandmother's recipe)

5 cups grated mild cheddar cheese
6 cups uncooked macaroni
3/4 cup milk
pepper
cooking spray

Cook macaroni according to package directions and drain. While macaroni is cooking set oven at 375 degrees. Spray a 9 x 13 baking pan with cooking spray. Pour 1/2 of the cooked macaroni into the baking pan and spread evenly in the pan. Sprinkle with 2 cups of the cheese. Sprinkle on some pepper. Layer on the rest of the macaroni and top off with the rest of the cheese spreading it out to cover the macaroni. Sprinkle on more pepper. Pour the milk over the macaroni so that it spreads out over the bottom of the pan (it will keep the macaroni moist as it bakes). Put in the oven and bake at 375 degrees for 20 - 25 minutes until cheese is melted and slightly crunchy on top.

Serve with ketchup (sounds weird to some but is very good!).


French Toast

5 large eggs, beaten in wide bowl
1/4 cup milk
1/4- 1/2 tsp pepper (according to taste)
slices of bread (white or wheat according to preference)
cooking spray

Heat a non-stick frying pan to medium heat on the stove and spray with cooking spray. While pan is heating up mix together the eggs, milk and pepper. Spear a slice of bread with a fork and dip it in the egg mixture covering both sides of the bread with it. Place it in the frying pan. Add more slices of bread covered in egg mixture until frying pan is full. Flip to the other side when it has browned on one side. Brown the other side and remove from pan. Continue cooking slices of bread covered in egg mixture until the egg mixture is all gone. French toast is good served with ketchup or with Spaghettios.


Don't knock 'em till you try 'em!!!

Thanksgiving Day Activities

What a day...what a day!!!! While I gave my youngest a long overdue haircut I looked for a show on t.v. to catch his attention. I found something that caught all 4 boys' attention.  

No, it wasn't this....

It was this....

Brett could not believe his eyes when he came upstairs and saw his boys watching a Barbie movie on t.v.  In all fairness what initially caught their attention was a mean dragon but the mean dragon did not have the spotlight for long.  Oh and also please note in the pictures the resulting haircut on my youngest.... I did pull out the correct attachment but got distracted and forgot to put it on and simply started buzzing his hair with the attachment that was currently on the clippers ..... the #1.  Can you say soldier boy?????  Yikes!!!!

After the haircut I got myself ready and then made my thanksgiving assignment.... Cauliflower casserole.  yummy!!!

One head of cauliflower cut up and boiled until cooked through

one 8 oz package of mushrooms sliced

one cup grated cheddar cheese

one tin cream of chicken soup

approx. 1 cup of italian seasoned bread crumbs (you can make your own bread crumbs with 2 slices of whole wheat bread crust crumbled in a blender and then mix a teaspoon of italian seasoning into it)

As the cauliflower is cooking, fry up the mushrooms in a frying pan sprayed with non-stick spray.  Combine the cheese and tin of cream of chicken soup (do not add water) in a sauce pan and put on medium low heat stirring frequently until all the cheese is melted and it creates a sauce.  Drain the cooked cauliflower and place it in a non-stick pan or casserole dish sprayed with cooking spray.   Sprinkle the fried mushrooms on top of the cauliflower.  Pour the cheese sauce over top of the cauliflower and mushrooms.  Sprinkle the bread crumbs on top of the casserole.  Set your oven to broil.  Put the casserole in the over (do not cover it) and broil for two minutes.  Check to see if the bread crumbs have browned.  If they are not quite brown yet give it another minute but do not walk away! The bread crumbs go quickly from a golden brown to burned if you do not watch carefully.  When the bread crumb top has browned pull it out of the oven and you are ready to eat.  

The above picture was actually taken before going into the oven.

Well what would Thanksgiving be without eating some great food?

or being chased by Grandpa's remote control car...

Man down!!!

or playing with Grandma's toys...

or being stared down by great-grandpa's scary cow... (note how far away my oldest is from the cow).

and how mean he was looking at me??? yikes!! 

My youngest was standing at the fence and the cow ran at him.  He jumped back and started laughing...

 That cow will be hamburger meat in a few days.  I think he knows it!!!

And of course mom makes you have your picture taken before you can have your dessert.  

It was a great day and we love getting together with family.  Family is something we are so thankful for.  Other things my boys said they were thankful for included but are in no particular order: our house, life, their body, the earth, friends, food, moms and dads, Heavenly Father and Jesus, Legos, Christmas lights, people, animals, plants, and of course brothers.

Good luck to all those who are braving the stores tomorrow.  I have chosen to stay home and believe it or not... sew.  I have to finish my Festival of Trees entry.  I still have the binding to do on three stockings before I am done.  Good luck in the stores!!!!!