Buckeye Cookies

I'm from Cincinnati OHIO. And when I moved out to Utah it took a while to figure out what was strictly "eastern talk," in other words, "Utah-unfamiliar vocabulary" and visa versa. For instance, you don't say "oh my heck" or "oh my gosh" out in Cincinnati. They don't know what "heck" and "gosh" mean. So that was one thing nice about moving out here. I got several new Mormon expressive phrases added to my vocabulary. So when I started talking about buckeye cookies when I 1st moved here, no one knew what I was talking about. Not only did they not know what a buckeye cookie was, they didn't even know what buckeyes were. So THIS is what a buckeye is.

And HERE is a buckeye cookie.

When we were little we would go on nature hikes and collect buckeyes. There are a lot of trees and woods and forests in Cincinnati, everywhere. Everyone's back yard has a ton of trees- One thing I really miss about Ohio. So in tribute to the Ohio Buckeye, A lot of Cincinnati-ins make these buckeye cookies. They're super good, and super easy. They Taste like a Reese's, actually better than a Reese's. Ive made them ever since I was little and your supposed to dip just 1/2 of the cookie in chocolate, but early on I started dipping the whole cookie in chocolate. The more chocolate the better. Sometimes I use just milk chocolate sometimes I use just white chocolate, sometimes I use both white and milk chocolate. Tonight I used BOTH

Buckeye Cookies

(original recipe: HERE)

3/4 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2.5 cups powdered sugar

3 cups white and milk chocolate chips

Crisco

With electric mixer, mix butter, peanut butter, and vanilla on high speed until completely/ thoroughly mixed. Gradually mix in 2.5 cups powdered sugar till dough comes together. Roll dough into walnut size balls and place on plate in freezer for at least 1 hour. Melt chocolate over double boiler. (If you don't have a double boiler, melt chocolate in microwave w/ Tablespoon Crisco. 30 second intervals till smooth and melted. Dip buckeyes into melted chocolate. Store buckeyes in fridge or freezer.

Sopapilla Cheesecake

Sopapilla Cheesecake

original recipe here

1 can refrigerated crescent rolls

1 bar cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup butter, softened

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

In a mixing bowl, cream together cream cheese, 1/2 cup sugar & vanilla, set aside. Open the crescent rolls & slowly unroll the rectangle of dough & divide it into 2 square pieces, taking care not to seperate the individual crescent rolls as you do so. With a rolling pin, shape the 2 square pieces to fit into a glass, buttered 9x9 pan. Place 1 square into the bottom of the pan, spread the cream cheese mixture over top & then place the remaining square of dough on top. In a smaller bowl, mix together 1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup sugar & 1 tsp cinnamon. Spread evenly over top of sopapilla. Bake at 350 25-30 min or until golden. Remove from oven. Let cool in the pan before serving. Enjoy!

Jiffy Pizza

I like Jiffy crust mix more than Pillsbury refrigerated dough. Jiffy dough is bready, and chewy whereas Pillsbury dough isn't so bready; its more cardboardy and preservativey. I still think Pillsbury pizza dough is good, just not as good as Jiffy. I throw this pizza together quite often because its easy, fast, so cheap, and you almost always have these ingredients at home(at least we do). The Velveeta was at one point just an after though (from a left over box of mac & cheese) but it adds this buttery fried taste. Its good without the Velveeta but its absolutely amazing times 1 million with the Velveeta, so you decide.

Jiffy Pizza

1 jiffy pizza crust mix

8 oz pizza sauce

Velveeta cheese

shredded italian cheese blend

thinly sliced deli Ham

Ranch

Mix pizza dough according to pkg directions. Knead dough. Let dough Rise 5 min. Place/spread dough into buttered 9x9" glass casserole dish. Bake 3-5 min at 375. Top slightly baked crust with pizza sauce, several dallops of velveeta, italian cheese, and ham. Bake 18-22 more min at 375. Cut into squares. Dip in Ranch(:

Halloween Crispy Treats

Ive been wanting to make candy corn crispy treats for a while, but I wasn't sure what recipe to use. The one on Brachs site is similar to my recipe except it calls for chocolate chips, so the crispy treats turn out brownish in color. Taste wise, chocolate chips sound good, but color wise, not so much. So I decided to incorporate the chocolate chip idea, but use white chocolate instead. Then I found another site called itsybitsyfoodies that has a recipe very similar to my recipe however it doesn't use any chocolate chips whatsoever however the crispy treats call for marshmallow creme in addition to the marshmallows which I thought sounded like a fabulous idea. So I combined my favorite aspects of both recipes and came up with my recipe, which I believe couldn't look/taste more perfect. Also, I use a 9x9 pan which makes my crispy treats extra thick kind of like the ones at thecrispery.com.

Halloween Crispy Treats

6T butter

6 cups Rice Crispy cereal

1 cup white chocolate chips

4 spoonfulls marshmallow fluff

1 cup mellowcreme pumpkins

Pillsbury Vanilla Frosting

In large saucepan, Melt butter on low heat until almost melted. Stir in marshmallows, stir continuously on low heat until butter and marshmallows are completely melted. Remove pan from heat and immediately stir in cereal, until evenely combined. Quickly Stir in white chocolate and transfer mixture into buttered 9x9 glass square dish. Press down. Press globs of marshmallow fluff evenly scattered over top of crispy treats. Press in 1 cups worth mellowcreme pumpkins. Cut into 9 large squares. Frost top of each square with Pillsbury vanilla frosting

Ginger Cookies

Pillsbury Ginger Cookies
1 cup sugar

3/4 c Crisco

1/4 c molasses

1 egg

2 1/4 c flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

2 cups white chocolate chips

Beat Crisco and sugar till creamy. Beat in egg and molasses. Beat in baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, salt, nutmeg, and cloves. Gradually Mix in flour till well combined. Mix in 1 cup white chocolate chips. Roll dough into golf size balls; roll each ball in sugar. Place 2" apart on cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for 8 min. Melt remaining 1 cup white chips with 2 teaspoons Crisco, 30 sec intervals in microwave, stirring in between each interval. Dip cookies in white chocolate, coating 1/2 of each cookie.

Blue m&m Cookies

After making colored sugar cookies, just the other day, I started wondering why we sometimes add color to sugar cookie dough but never add it to chocolate chip cookie dough, so that's exactly what I decided to do and it turned out great. I used my new favorite m&m cookie recipe and added just a few drops of Betty Crocker gel blue food coloring. Here's the recipe (again) and a picture (below)

Blue m&m Cookies

1 cup sugar

1/2 c brown sugar

1 cup crisco

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 (3.4 oz) pkg vanilla pudding mix

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 cups flour

Few drops Betty Crocker blue gel food color

1 cup mini m&ms

3/4 cup mini white chips

Beat Crisco and sugars till creamy. Add baking powder, salt, vanilla, eggs, and pudding mix. Beat till well combined. Gradually add flour till dough comes together and is well mixed. Add drops of food color, couple drops at a time, till dough reaches right color. Mix till color is even and well incorporated. Add m&ms and white chips. Shape dough into golf size balls and bake 8 min at 350

Smart Cookie Company

Smartcookie is a cookie store where you can make customized cookie-ice cream-sandwiches or you can just order cookies, or you can use it to place cookie orders for missionaries. My mom goes to American Fork about once a week to pick up clothes from the dry cleaners so she decided to check out this AF Smartcookie store once and for all. I don't know what the selection was like since I wasn't there and I've never been, but She bought me 2 really pretty sugar cookies. I was skeptical about trying them since I hadn't heard much about "smartcookie" The 1st one I tried, the yellow one, was not that great. It was a lemony sugar cookie and I don't like lemon. The 2nd cookie, the flower cookie, was a normal sugar cookie, not lemony. It, however was really good. In fact I might have even liked it more than the sugar cookies from Provo Bakery. It was really doughy and I love doughy cookies. It was as doughy, if not maybe even more doughy than how I make my cookies. And the frosting, I believe, was a fantastic tasting cream cheese frosting. So a doughy professional bakery style cookie with super good frosting. What could be better than that? SmartCookie= A+ except for the gross lemon cookies (: