Challah Bread

Traditional Jewish bread made on Jewish holidays.

It was amazing! For the recipe... click HERE

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Typically I just get those tubes of Toll House cookies and bake those, but one day I figured... what the heck... my daughter and I can make homemade cookies. I found this recipe for chocolate chip cookies from my Amish cookbook and they are AMAZING! So much better than those refrigerated tubes. Plus, I can add extra chocolate chips, peanut butter, whatever to them. They are wonderful!

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter (or 1 stick)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 pkg. of chocolate chips (7 oz)
1 tbsp hot water
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg
1 1/2 cup flour
vanilla

Directions:
1. Mix together butter and sugar in a large bowl

2. Add the egg, hot water, and some vanilla to taste (I usually put a cap full of vanilla in and I microwave the water in a cup so it's nice and hot when I add it) and mix with butter and sugar.

3. Add flour, salt, and baking soda to the mixture and beat until smooth

4. Add chocolate chips and blend into the mixture

5. Scoop out spoonfuls of cookie dough and put on cookie sheet

6. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes or until light brown

See how simple this is? And my daughter LOVED them. She kept begging for more! The store bought kind have her done when she is halfway through a cookie.

Triple Berry Jam

Ingredients:
3 cups of crushed blueberries
5 cups of crushed strawberries
3 cups of crushed blackberries
12 cups of sugar

Directions:

1. Heat up the canning jars and lids

2. Mix together all ingredients (this is a huge quantity of berries and sugar and it might need to be divided into 2 pots)

3. Turn up the heat and let sit stirring occasionally until it really starts to froth a lot on top.

4. Remove cans from hot water bath and pore in berries.

5. Remove lid from hot water bath and secure lid with rings.

6. Place back in hot water bath for 30 minutes then remove.

7. Repeat process until all the berries are gone. Should make about 10 pints.

Canning Blueberries

At Suzanne's Fruit Farm, Sophie and I picked TONS of blueberries. Since I don't have much freezer space it was important that I can them. But I didn't want them to be mushy and therefore limit my uses for them. So I decided to do a "raw pack"

Ingredients:
Canning jars, lids, and rings
Blueberries
Water
Sugar

Directions:

1. Place canning jars and lids in a large canning pot or canner with hot water from the stove.

2. Once the jars and water from the canner are hot. Put about 8 cups of water in a glass bowl and place a desired amount of sugar in there. I did about 1/2 cup of sugar. Heat this sugar water in the microwave for about 2 minutes on high.

3. Once the sugar water is hot, remove and drain a jar from the canner.

4. Put 1/2 cup of sugar water into the bottom of your jar.

5. Next, fill it the jar with blueberries leaving only about an inch of space from the top. Press down on the blueberries so you don't have too much empty space.

6. Fill the remainder of the jar with sugar water until the water is within a 1/2 inch from the top.

7. Take a hot lid out of the canner and place the lid securely on the jar and tighten or fasten it on with the canning rings.

8. Place the jar back into the hot water. For Quarts leave in the hot water for 20 minutes. For Pints leave in for 15 minutes.

9. After the designated time is up, remove from the canner. If the lid is concaved after it has been in room temperature for 30 minutes or longer, it is securely fastened and ready to be stored in your pantry. If not, place in the refrigerator and use.

10. Continue to repeat this process with all of your jars.

Ranch Chicken & Potato Packets

This recipe is meant to be done with a grill, but I did it in the oven. It turned out fine and was super easy... but it took about an hour in the oven to cook.

Ingredients:
1 large potato
6 boneless chicken strips (uncooked)
Sprinkle of chicken marinade (I used the Montreal Chicken from Grill Master)
some bacon bits
Ranch dressing

Instructions:
1) Heat the grill up or preheat your oven to 400 degrees F

2) Take your raw potato and slice them into thin or small chunks. The smaller the better because they will cook faster.

3) Cut and place 2 sheets of foil onto a baking sheet and divide the potato pieces between the two sheets of foil

4) Sprinkle seasoning and bacon bits on top of the potatoes

5) Place raw chicken (3 pieces per foil sheet) on top of the potatoes

6) Squirt desired amount of ranch dressing on top of the chicken. Be generous!

7) Wrap each packet of foil on the cookie sheet and place them on the grill or oven

8) Cook for 45-50 minutes or until the chicken and potatoes are tender and break apart easily.

Serves: 2

*Note- Picture up top is BEFORE I put them in the oven... not after. They didn't last long after I pulled them out of the oven.*

Lorraina's Pico de Gallo

Again a recipe I received from my friend Lorraina while in Nebraska. Lorraina is originally from Mexico and therefore knows how to cook excellent Mexican food!

Ingredients:
2 big tomatoes
1/4 white onion
2 jalepenos
1 tsp cilantro

Directions:
Dice the ingredients and mix together!

Southwest Chicken Salad or Wrap

We essentially got this recipe while in Nebraska from Lorraine and we tried it last night. It was wonderful. Brian didn't think we had enough lettuce for both of us, so he put a little bit of salad in his but ate it as a wrap. Either way, it was delicious... sorry there aren't any pictures currently.

Ingredients:
1 big bag of salad mix
pico de gallo
cheese
1/2 a pound of chicken
Pampered Chef Southwestern seasoning mix
Olive oil
Tortilla chips
Ranch dressing

Directions:

1. Place chicken in a hot skillet with olive oil. Sprinkle PC seasoning mix over the chicken and cook until done.

2. Remove chicken and place in your salad with pico de gallo, cheese, a few crunched up tortillia chips and serve with ranch dressing.

It was so amazingly easy!

*Note- For ingredients to Lorraina's Pico de Gallo see previous post*