Grandma's Cloud Cookies

These meringue cookies are crisp on the outside, and meltingly tender at first bite. They are light and airy, the way clouds ought to taste.
They have only four ingredients, and you bake them by preheating your oven, then turning it off as soon as you put the cookies in and leaving them in with the door closed for at least 4 hours. You can just leave them in the oven overnight if you'd like to wake up to cookies in the morning!

Grandma's Cloud Cookies

6 egg whites
1 1/2 C granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
12 oz (1 bag) chocolate chips
Preheat your oven to 400 F.

Beat the egg whites until you reach soft peaks. Slowly add in the vanilla extract and sugar, and beat until incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Plop fist-sized dollops of batter onto parchment-paper-covered cookie sheets. (The cookies don't expand, so they don't need to be too far apart.)
Put them in the oven. Turn the oven off immediately, and leave them in the off oven with the door closed for at least 4 hours.

Swedish Pepparkakor (my favorite cookie)

Swedish Pepparkakor

2/3 C. packed brown sugar           3/4 tsp. baking soda
2/3 C. molasses                            2/3 C butter                  
1 tsp. ground ginger                     1 egg              
1/2 tsp. ground cloves                   3 1/2 C. flour
1 tsp. cinnamon

Heat brown sugar, molasses, and spices just to boiling. Remove from heat, add baking soda and stir.  Add butter and stir until melted. Pour into mixing bowl and cool. Add beaten egg and mix. Add flour one cup at a time. Knead on a floured surface for 1-2 minutes, then wrap in plastic wrap and chill until firm - at least one hour. Roll out on a floured surface to about 1/8 inch thickness and cut into desired shapes. Bake on greased or parchment paper lined sheets at 325 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Cool on a rack. Decorate with icing if desired. Makes 4-5 dozen cookies. Store in tightly covered container - the cookies improve with age.

(Legend says put a pepparkor in the palm of your hand, make a wish, and tap it with one finger. If it breaks into three pieces, your wish will come true!)

Swedish Christmas Cookies

In case you didn't know, my grandparents were from Sweden. I love the recipes my grandmother gave me and would like to share some with you.

Swedish Christmas Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground cardamom
• 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
• 1 cup unsalted butter, (2 sticks), at room temperature
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
• Colored sanding sugars or chopped toasted pecans

Directions

Whisk the flour, cardamom, and salt in a bowl.


Put the butter and confectioners' sugar in a food processor, and process until smooth. Pulse in the egg, vanilla, and Lemon zest until combined. Add the flour mixture and process to make a soft buttery dough. Divide dough in half onto 2 (12-inch long) sheets of plastic wrap, using the plastic, shape into rough logs. Refrigerate the Dough logs for 30 minutes until just firm enough to shape into uniform logs, 8-inches long by 2-inches in diameter. Refrigerate until firm, at least 2 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.


Scatter either the sanding sugars or toasted nuts on a work surface and roll the logs until completely coated. Cut into 1/4-inch thick cookies and space about 1 inch apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake until golden around the edges, about 20 to 25 minutes. Cool cookies on the pan on wire racks. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks.

Colder Weather, Halloween, Thanksgiving and on our way to Christmas!

Looking forward to brand new recipes for the holiday season. We have moved since our last post, lost some good friends who also moved away and gained some new. Now that we are settled in our new home it's time to start warming the kitchen with new flavors and smells for the season. Getting colder outside means new Chili recipes, baking and those wonderful warm your tummy recipes. Post some of your favorites it you like and I will post mine. Happy Holidays!

More recipes to come

Sorry for the lack of posting my creations. More to come this week, I promise. But to hold you over....

My tips for making white gravy from scratch

The "rue" is made up of melting butter and or using sausage grease to mix with your flour.

After the flour and butter mix comes to a bubble add warm milk. Very important to add your milk warm.

Wait for it to come to boil using med high temp on stove while stirring slowing so it doesn't burn on the bottom.

Obviously, half and half or Whole milk would taste better but if you are worried about calories then skim works too.

If your gravy does not thicken to the right consistancy, then you can use a little (4 tbsp) of corn starch and mix with water in seperate bowl and add to boiling gravy to thicken. You can add more of the corn starch mixture as desired making sure not to add too much so the gravy does not taste too floury. Is that a word?

Season to taste with pepper, salt, season salt, garlic or what ever you might like. Good luck!! Post your results.

Dog ate my cake?

Not really a recipe for sucess is it?  My fourteen year old had his birthday yesterday and wanted a homemade cake. So I baked a four layer chocolate and vanilla decorated cake. Unfortunately, the dog got up on the counter and ate part of the cake five minutes before we were set to leave. So a store bought cake was what we had to bring to the restaurant. Oh well. Better luck next time!

Happy Labor Day/ Massaged Kale Salad

This is a great easy to prepare cold salad. If you have never tried kale, I suggest you might want to try it this way!

List of Ingredients

Bunch of Kale
1- mango
1/4 c- sunflower kernels
1- lemmon (halfed)
1/4 c - honey
kosher salt
pepper to taste
1/4 c - olive oil

Prepare Kale by washing and stripping the leaves from the middle vein. Pile leaves on cutting board and chop. Place Kale in salad bowl and drizzle with 1/2 of olive oil, salt and 1/2 squeezed lemon juice. Massage with hands until mixed. Cut up peeled mango and add to Kale.

Dressing
In small bowl squeeze other half lemmon, other half oil, 1/4 cup honey and pepper to taste. Drizzle over Kale mixture and toss. add sunflower kernels right before serving. Can be refrigerated ahead of time. Enjoy!!!  (This was a favorite recipe of mine from the show from food network... Aarti Party) I made a few changes.

Aarti Party

Jennifer's Bacon Tomato cups

In a bowl mix

8 slices cooked crumbled bacon
1 med chopped tomato
1/2 small chopped onion
3 oz swiss cheese grated
1/2 c mayo
1 tsp fresh or dried basil

Grease mini muffin pan. You will be using a can of layered store bought biscuits. Pull them apart in thin circles. Push on circle into each muffin cup using a http://www.pamperedchef.com/our_products/catalog/product.jsp?productId=184&categoryCode=BK
Mini tart shaper shown in link above or something similar. You can even use your fingers. Fill each muffin cup with mixture from above. Bake at 375 for 10-12 min. Thanks Jennifer M.

Best Banana Cake

Made this cake tonight to use up some ripe bananas... Yummy.

1- stick softened butter
2- eggs
1- cup sugar
Three mashed bananas
4 tbsp milk
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
4 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. Check with cake tester and frost with white whip frosting. The kids loved this!

Tonights dinner--got leftovers?

Made homemade sloppy joes the other night and had plenty to freeze.

Tonights dinner was Biscuit Bake!

Take your homemade sloppy joes (about two cups)
one can Ranch Style Beans
Add them to 9X9 nonstick pan
Top with 1 cup grated sharp cheddar
They use flaky biscuits (any brand will do) pull them apart and place over the meat,bean and cheese mixture.
Bake at 400 for about 20 min and then set oven to 350 for another 10 until biscuits look very done.

Link to homemade sloppy joes   Rachel Ray's Sloppy Joe recipe

(I use ground turkey instead of beef and double the recipe for leftovers depending on your family size

Banana Bread - Can't go wrong

3 very ripe mashed bananas
1 cup sugar
4 tbsp melted butter
1 egg
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
Add nuts or choc chips (optional)

mix all together in bowl. pour into loaf pan and cook at 325 for one hour.

Not the gourmet for dinner

Not the gourmet for dinner tonight. Husband worked late, food got cold and boys were hungry, not hungary (Michelle) So breakfast I served. Warm at one time scrambled eggs, half wheat half white pancakes with cinnamon sugar and vanilla, and biscuits with bacon. You can pile almost anything on a rectangular griddle and get it all done in a hurry. The problem is storage in my kitchen and that won't fit in any cabinet I have.

Next on the food agenda is to find my crepe maker my grandma gave me. She was Swedish and could really cook. I learned a lot from her. I remembered the hidden crepe maker in the closet watching one of my favorite shows "The Great Food Truck Race" on Sunday nights. They feature a food truck that makes crepes. If you have any recipes for crepes I would love to see them!

My first day and my first Blog!

This is my first time posting on Cooking at home with Suzi! Hi I am Suzi. I will be posting about cooking in my house for my family with my favorite recipes!!