Joy in the Kitchen!

I'm not sure where this recipe came from, but I remember eating them and puckering when I was fairly small.  The recipe calls for tiny cucumbers, about the size of your little finger.  It is a great way for me to control my cucumber patch right now since it's producing more cucumbers than I need for other pickles!  These are quick and easy.  They do make you pucker up though.  Very tangy and the horseradish adds some bite. These are one of the reasons I love to can.  You won't find these pickles on the shelf of any store, and they are a fun addition to a special meal!  (I especially love them with roast beef.) Sally Lund Pickles Enough finger-length cucumbers to fill 3 pints (or 6 half-pints if you prefer) Wash cucumbers being sure to brush off all the prickly spines.  Pack in to jars.   Mix the following together, heating enough to dissolve the sugar: 2 C. apple cider vinegar 1/4 C. brown sugar 1/4 C...

I don't remember when Mom started making Dilly Beans , but she has as long as I can remember and I've always loved them.  My kids really love them.  I save them for special occasions like Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Birthday's.   If I didn't limit them, they'd be gone before fall was over.  I don't count these as a vegetable much to my children's dismay. The recipe is simple and EASY.  They can be done with minimal equipment and canning skills.  My biggest problem in sharing this recipe is giving a quantity of fresh green beans.  When I do them, I just pick my patch of beans, save out the nice straight ones for this and snap and can the rest as regular green beans.  Then I do however many quarts of dilly beans as I ended up with straight beans for. :)  Yesterday it was 6 quarts.... today I had 4 quarts. Warning :  This vinegar solution is lower in acid that the currently recommended amounts.  It is the same reci...

We used to make these easy candies all the time.  I had about forgotten about homemade tootsie rolls until my daughter texted me today for the recipe.  She said she wanted to make some sort of treat that wouldn't use the stove or oven.  This treat is PERFECT! My daughter Jaylyn, who is 11, mixed these up in the mixer by herself.  It is easy enough to mix with a spoon and then knead with your hands until it's mixed smooth though, so a younger child could do without a mixer and just a little supervision. (Assuming you don't mind little kid hands & little kids tasting all over your dough.)  It's a bit like working with playdoh. Tootsie Rolls 3 C. powdered sugar 3/4 C. regular powdered milk (not instant) 1/2 C. cocoa powder 2 T. butter or margarine, softened 1 tsp. vanilla 1/2 - 2/3 C. corn syrup Mix dry ingredients until blended.  Add softened butter, vanilla and corn syrup. (start with the 1/2 C. & see if you need m...

My husband's Grandma was such a cookie maker.  Each Christmas for years she baked cookies and made candy.  Lots of it!  She packaged it in boxes and sent to her children and grandchildren.  These O'Henry Bars often made it into those packages. They're really similar to a granola bar. At least those chocolate covered granola bars.... which I think are just a glorified candy bar most of the time.   I don't think you'd be out of line (much) to eat one of these for breakfast or a keep you going sort of snack.  Sometime I'm going to try adding craisins or rice crispies in the dough. These are easy and quick to make.  We did have a hard time getting them to cool in the house though so we put them in the freezer for a bit to speed things up.  Perfect!   You will want to have a glass of milk close by, they are rich! O'Henry Bars 6 C. quick oats 1 1/2 C. brown sugar 1 C. butter, softened 3/4 C. corn syrup 1 tsp. vanilla...

This recipe got a thumbs up from my family!  I love when an experiment turns out!  I had some leftover chicken I needed to use but we all agree here that pepperoni and cheese with olives or ham and cheese would be terrific too.    I made my own dough but you could easily use frozen roll dough thawed for this.... you'd either need 2 portions of dough or make half sized bundles though. To start, I had a few pieces of leftover fried chicken I bought at the store a few days ago.  Not enough for each of us to have a piece, but too much to save just for someones lunch.  I tossed that in a small pan with about an inch of water and simmered it for about 15 minutes so it was heated & would debone easy.  Any cooked chicken would work.  You just need about  2 Cups.  The dough recipe is just a modification of my favorite pizza dough recipe.  I used my Kitchen-Aid mixer to mix the dough, but it could be mixed and kneaded by h...

Is there really anything better than a good chocolate chip cookie , Other than TWO good chocolate chip cookies?  That's an emphatic NO!  There are so many recipes for chocolate chip cookies out there and I've tried quite a few of them.  I've posted a few already on my blog.  This is one of my favorites.  I got the recipe at a church dinner from Margaret.  Margaret has 7 children... 5 of those are boys.  They're all grown now, but I'd bet you that when they were all home, she knew how to cook a big batch of a lot of foods to keep those tummies happy!   This makes at least 6 dozen average sized cookies. (I use a normal sized cookie scoop - or about a walnut sized piece of dough rolled into a ball)  If you don't need to EAT 6 dozen cookies today, go ahead and roll the dough into balls and freeze.  If you'd rather, you can roll the dough into logs and freeze.  When you're ready to bake, just thaw a few minutes and sl...

Jaylyn and I wanted to make some kind of cookie to take camping but we were low on regular chocolate chips so the usual chocolate chip cookies were out.  We DID however have several packages of Hershey's Mint Chocolate Chips we bought last fall to use for Chocolate Mint Fudge.  While trying to decide if those would tasted good in a regular chocolate chip cookie, we noticed the recipe on the back of the package for Double Chocolate Mint Cookies.  (of all the places to find a recipe!  lol )   We don't try new cookie recipes often, but since we needed to use these chips up - we gave it a whirl.  Jaylyn did most of the mixing and used the cookie scoop to put the dough on the cookie sheets.  They didn't take much time at all. They are DELICIOUS!!!  Soft and moist, perfect amount of chocolate and mint.  Mmmmm!  We doubled the batch and ended up with 6 dozen cookies. If you'd like to try this recipe & need the ingredie...