Day 2 of the Recipe Hop!

Welcome back to Day 2 of the Creative Cuts & More Mega Recipe Blog Hop which features the Apron Holiday Treats Recipe Kit. We have 24 designers who will be showcasing wonderful pages and yummy Holiday Treat recipes.

As part of the celebration CC&M will be having a great sale. For the next six days, we will offer 20% off the entire store. But act quickly, it is only for six days – this sale will end on Nov 14th. Make sure you enter this code: recipebloghop2009 during checkout.

As a continuing part of the celebration CC&M will of course give away great gifts. Each day we will give away one kit. Here is the twist – go through the blog hop, leave wonderful comments for the great designers. After you have finished the blog hop, return to www.diecutdiva.com and instead of leaving a comment, you need to share a recipe to have a chance at winning the kit. Share the recipe on your blog and link it back and get another chance to win the kit. Help us also make this a great recipe swap.

Die Cut Diva
Pam Smerker
Nathalia Castellon
Dawn Lusk
Stephany Zerbe
Jennifer Hansen
Lisa Somerville
Lila Holgate
Kazan Clark
Rachel Hope Baird
Ellen Sosnoski
Cecilia Stricklin
Lori Craig
Cambria Turnbow
Angie Pearl
Laura Davis
Noelle Reese
Holly Brown
Rachel Sztonyk
Deb Felts
Jen Johnson
Amber Hillman
Carla Mayfield
Cindy Lawrence
Chris Dickinson
Die Cut Diva

Auntie Pam's Special K Bars

3 cups Special K cereal
1/2 cup karo syrup
3/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
6 oz chocolate chips
6 oz butterscotch chips

Grease a 9 x 13 inch pan with butter. Combine sugar and karo in heavy
saucepan. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat, add peanut butter and vanilla.

Combine mixture with Special K and press into prepared pan. Cool in
refrigerator.

Melt chocolate chips together and spread on pressed mixture. Cool and slice.

Cranberry-Marshmallow Salad (We call this *Pink Fluff*...I make it every Thanksgiving and Christmas)
2 cups sugar
1 large bag marshmallows
1 large can crushed pineapple; well drained
1 lb. fresh cranberries
1 cup shredded coconut
1 pint whipping cream

Put berries through food grinder. Cover with sugar. Let stand overnight.
Mix marshmallows, pineapple, coconut, and cranberries.
Whip cream to firm stiffness and fold into above mixture.

Mom's Chocolate Covered Peanuts (Love you Mom!)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 cup salted peanuts

Melt together chocolate and peanut butter over low heat. Add peanuts, then
drop by the spoonful onto wax paper or greased cookie sheet. Refrigerate.

Mom's Chocolate Peanutters
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup, firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1 package (6 oz) semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup salted peanuts

Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Combine brown sugar, shortening and vanilla in large bowl. Beat til
creamy. Add egg. Continue to beat. Add flour mixture alternately with
1/4 cup milk. Stir in chocolate chips and salted peanuts. Drop by level
teaspoonsful onto greased cookie sheets.

Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes.

Mom's Peanut Butter Fudge (It doesn't feel like Christmas without this!)
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 pinch salt
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/2 jar (~1 cup) marshmallow cream
1 cup peanut butter
2 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cook sugars, butter, milk and salt to form a soft ball in cold water
(~234-240 degrees). Stir constantly over low heat. Remove from heat and
add remaining ingredients. Beat til creamy (be quick!) Spread onto buttered cookie sheet. Let set; slice into squares.

Perfect Apple Pie Filling (from Irene Matsumoto, who was my patient when I worked as a physical therapist in Straub Hospital in Honolulu)

5-7 tart green apples; peeled and sliced (love my Pampered Chef apple thingie!)
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoon flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoon butter
1 recipe double-crust pastry or a package of prepared piecrusts
milk

Mix sugar, flour, salt and spices. Sprinkle half over 9" pastry-lined pie
pan. Heap apples into pastry shell. Sprinkle with remaining sugar
mixture. Dot with butter. Cover with top layer of crust. Brush top with
milk. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 450 for 10 minutes, then lower oven
temp to 350 and continue to bake for another 40 minutes.


Here are the additional products I used to complete my album (although I still have 5 pages yet do complete!).

• Stamps:
• First Christmas, Have a Cookie, Signed with Love (all from Gina K)
• Recipe Favorites (Stampendous)
• Lovin' from the Oven (Our Craft Lounge)
• What's Cookin' (Hero Arts)
• Vintage Picnic (Paper Trey Ink)
  
• Accessories:
• SU grograin ribbon, metal rimmed tags, potholder incentive stamp, word window and circle punches,
  
• May Arts glimmer ribbon
• stitched grograin
  
• Making Memories sparkle brads
• Nestabilities labels, Cuttlebug
• tiny and teeny tiny buttons from A Small Cleverness, one of our LSSs
• Microsoft Publisher (to format the recipe cards, and tags)
  

Recipe Collecting!

I'm very excited that my friend Chris Dickinson invited me to take part in this week's Creative Cuts and More Blog Hop. This is a 2-day extravaganza of recipes, with 24 artists participating each day. Can't wait to see what delicious new ideas are along the way! I'll be back tomorrow to share the album I've been working on, and to share some favorite Sweet Treat recipes, but for today I thought I'd share with you a couple of old family favorites.

This first recipe is one that I use on *everything* when it comes to savory dishes. You may have seen the gourmet brands of Creole seasoning at the market...I like to make my own because it is fresh and fabulous, plus I can adjust the proportions (some like it hot!) and leave out the MSG, so here's my own version of Cajun yumminess that gets my authentic stamp of Louisiana approval! ;) (I think that sizes of jars/bottles change periodically...it doesn't have to be exact!)

Creole seasoning
28 oz box Morton's salt
1.5 oz box ground black pepper
2 oz box ground red pepper
1 oz bottle pure garlic powder
1 oz bottle chili powder

Mix well (be careful for the *fumes*...it's strong stuff!) and store in an airtight container. As you can see, it makes a bunch!

The second recipe I'd like to share is from my days at Westlake High School in Mrs. Farley's home economics class! She taught our class how to make yeast rolls, and I've made this recipe nearly every single year since! We love having fresh bread with our holiday meals. It goes quickly around here! Last year when I made it, I called Mrs. Farley to let her know how much we have enjoyed having them each and every year.

Refrigerator Rolls
2 pkg yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 1/2 cups milk
2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup shortening; melted
1 egg; slightly beaten
5 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
Pam

Add warm water (~80 degrees) to yeast.

Scald milk. Pour into mixing bowl with sugar, salt and shortening. Mix
well.

Add 2 cups of flour, softened yeast, and beaten egg to milk after it has
cooled to lukewarm. Add remaining flour and milk. Turn soft dough out
onto lightly floured board. Knead until satiny.

To refrigerate (option to bake later): Oil a bowl. Place dough in bowl and cover with wax paper and a towel. Allow to come to room temperature before using.

Spray muffin tins (or loaf pans) with Pam. Shape dough into rolls. Cover lightly with wax paper. Allow to rise until doubled in bulk.

Bake in 425 degree oven for 15-25 minutes, until golden brown. Brush with
butter as rolls come out of oven. Remove immediately from pan. Serve hot.

Fresh bread is a lot of work but it is SO worth it! I like to make about 1.5 dozen clover-leaf rolls and use the remaining dough for loaves. Goes great with leftover ham or turkey! You could probably half this recipe to make it in your bread maker if you wanted to. I did that with a Southern Living sourdough bread recipe that I kept going for almost 10 years.

I hope you have fun as you make your way through today's hop! There'll be lots of yummy eye candy as well as recipe goodness to enjoy! Come back tomorrow for the Sweet Treats round! Hope to see you then!