Craftyminx

Cookies for Santa or a Cowboy

Santa usually ate pie at our house... Pecan pie. What can I say, the man knew my mom's pie. ;) When we did make cookies for Santa, they were these cookies - Cowboy cookies, because everyone knows Santa is a cowboy in the off-season. We make these cookies for everything in my family. They are yummy and everyone loves them.

Here's what you'll need:

1 Cup Shortening

1 Cup Sugar

1 Cup Brown Sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

2 Cups flour 

1 tsp. soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking powder

2 Cups oats (we reduce to 1 1/2 Cups if adding nuts)

1 - 12 oz package chocolate chips (I like the mini chips more, but that's just me)

1/2 cup Chopped nuts (we always use pecans)

 

Cream the first 3 ingredients in a large mixing bowl, add the next 2 ingredients and mix till blended,  in another bowl combined all dry ingredients (except the chocolate chips and nuts) until blended.

Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture a little at a time until all is blended. Then add chocolate chips & nuts.

Drop by teaspoon on cookie sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes at 350 degrees. 

I like these cookies more when they are a little chewy so I tend to underbake them just a little bit. And of course they're always better warm out of the oven.

You can download the recipe cards and some gift tags below.

Download Cowboy Cookies

Breakfast Casserole

My mom makes this every year on Christmas morning. We usually end up eating it for a couple of days afterward too since it's easily reheated in the microwave.

You will need:

1 bag of frozen hashbrowns ( you may not want to use the whole bag, I did this time)
1lb. Sausage
6 eggs
2 cups shredded cheese
2 cups milk
salt and pepper

Have I mentioned that Holiday cooking doesn't involve healthy ingredients?

I never cook my hashbrowns long enough! They need to be kind of crispy because they tend to get a little mushy after it bakes. I don't mind it, but I wish I had the patience to cook them until they were crispy haha. I also add some salt and pepper to the hashbrowns.

Use the same pan to brown the sausage. If it has a lot of grease, drain it before you add it to the baking dish.

Add plenty of salt and pepper to the egg mixture.

Bake on 325 degrees for 45 minutes. or until the top is a golden brown color.
Let cool at least 30 minutes, slice and serve. Or put it in the fridge overnight and reheat slices in the microwave if you know you'll be in a hurry the next morning.
Download the recipe cards below :)

Download Breakfast_casserole

My all-time favorite brownies

I can't believe we're already half way through. I hope everyone is enjoying the 12 days of christmas so far! I know I am! Getting to make all of my favorite recipes and doing all these crafty things has really been reviving my spirit as of late. Ok on with day six...

I'm not sure how brownies are Christmas food, but I think they could make really cute little gifts to surprise friends with.  In the brownie world, there are cakey and fudgey and people who like one usually don't like the other. I'm a fudgey brownie gal myself so I'm going to show you my trick for making any brownie recipe extra fudgey and wonderful.

The secret ingredient to fudgey brownies = chocolate syrup. You can replace almost all the fat in any brownie recipe (even the boxed kind) with chocolate syrup and it will result in a fudgey and lower fat alternative. Cool right?!

For this recipe you'll need:

4 T. butter
1/4c. chocolate syrup
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 c. sugar
2 large eggs
3/4 c. flour
1/2 c. cocoa
pinch of salt
1 T. vanilla (or less to taste)
optional mix-ins: marshmallows, nuts, chocolate chips ( I used two handfuls each of walnuts and chocolate chips for my brownies)

Make sure you scrape the sides really well to keep the cocoa from sticking around.

Pick some mix ins. I just eye-balled it and used a couple of hand fulls of walnuts and chocolate chips

Line your baking dish with parchment paper becuase fudgey means sticky unfortunately and you want to be able to get these out of the pan! Bake them in a 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes (this will vary).
This is the hardest part, waiting for them to cool. They have to be cool in order to cut, so give them at least 2 hours, but it works best if you wait overnight. I like to lift them out of the pan with the parchment paper to cool on the counter.
If you want big pieces cut them in to 9 pieces. I wanted small ones for gift-giving so I cut them into 16 pieces.
wrap with wax paper secured with a sticker tag. and then I wrapped mine with kraft paper and a scrap of yarn.

Enjoy! Download the tags and recipe below :)

Download Brownies

Cheese Logs

I remember my mom making this cheese ball for holiday parties and me always hoping she'd make some for us to keep at home because I loved it so much. I prefer to make the recipe into cheese logs because they are easier to wrap up and take to parties or give as gifts.

You will need

2 - 8oz packages of cream cheese
1/2 cup to 1 cup of ground pecans
1/2 pound of sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 pound of cheddar cheese
1 t. of garlic salt (I like to use more to taste)
2 T. milk
2 T. Paprika
2 T. Chili Powder

I hate grating cheese, but the pre-grated stuff doesn't work with with recipe. It won't hold together.

FYI  - I used my stand mixer thinking it would be faster, but I think it is actually better to do this by hand.

You can make these even smaller if you want to. I think mini cheese logs would be a really cute gift.

You can't really roll it at this point because it sticks a lot. Just press it together until it's kind of in a log shape.

I use another piece of wax paper for this and spread some spices out first so it doesn't stick

I wrapped mine up with simple kraft paper and some divine twine. Add a gift tag and it's ready to gift. Or just skip the rolling, adding spices and gifting parts and dig in with some crackers (or a spoon if we're being honest here) like Sheldon and I like to do ;)

Download the recipe cards and tags below.

Download Cheese_Log_recipe-tags

Gift tags for spiced tea

Surprise, There's more for today! Because of some printer problems, which an awesome Canon tech support person helped me fix, this part of the spiced tea post had to be postponed.

 I just wanted to show you a photo of the tea finished and ready to gift. Sorry for having to post a picture I had to take a 9pm. I'm really ready for sunlight past 6pm again.

You can download the tags here: Download Spiced Tea tags

Come back tomorrow for The DIY projects that started this whole series. I'm really excited about them!

Spiced Tea Mix

Yay! The first day of my 12 Days of Christmas is here!! I hope you enjoy the next 12 days. I thought we'd start out with one of my favorite holiday treats.

 
When I was in college, I went to a friend's house who was older and used to cook for my lowly college self quite often. One time during the holidays, she offered me some spiced tea. I was leery. I don't like spiced anything, and the spiced orange potpourri smell will drive me away from any location very quickly. But being a good house-guest I tried some. I was blown away. This stuff is good. It's not good for you at all, but it is very soothing and definitely tastes like a Christmas drink should.

To make it you'll need the following:

2 cups of Tang drink mix
2 cups sugar
1 cup instant tea (unsweetened)
1 package lemonade kool-aid
1/2 Tbsp. All-Spice
1/2 Tbsp. Cinnamon
You'll also want some kind of container (a zip-lock bag will work just fine)

Tang? I didn't even know people still drank Tang, but it is a very necessary ingredient in this mix. Trust me.

 
 
 
This is a drink you will want to serve with a spoon because the spices don't dissolve and you want to stir before sips to make sure you get all the flavors.

I've decided to draw up some recipe cards for all of my recipes during this series so click the link below to download the recipe cards in a pdf. Forgive my rudimentary drawing skills :)

Download Spiced Tea