Fantasia, you asked above about holiday cooking/baking. We don't do too much of that now. When Kingskid and I were younger, our family would often make candy from family recipes around Christmas for gifts (and ourselves). Now, there's less demand and less time. However, my wife and I are planning to contribute to the family Thanksgiving, which is usually my parents' affair. She'll be making her Granny's cheese potatoes and I'll be helping out with whatever dessert they decide they want. Last year I made my first cheesecake for Thanksgiving, and it turned out pretty well. I'm hoping I have a chance for a repeat.

Tonight, we tried a new soup recipe. It was sort of a twist on the old beef vegetable soup that I remember my Grandma making when I was younger. The tortellini definitely make it better. I will say that the soup would probably work better if you get the veggies cooked before you add the pasta. We had to cook it a bit longer to finish the zucchini, and the tortellini fell apart (which wasn't a terrible thing, but if you're hoping for whole pasta, you'd want to avoid this). It wasn't a fantastic soup (like Jo's sounds), but it was very good and it filled us up.

I'm working on my baking and photography skills. And the following is the result of todays "work".

Irresistible Coconut Brownies
¾ cup butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 ½ cups flour
½ cup cocoa
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup coconut

In a saucepan, melt butter. Remove from heat. Add sugar, eggs, and vanilla; beat well. Add flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt; stir until well blended and smooth. Add the chocolate chips and coconut. Spread in a greased 9x13 inch pan. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes, until set. Cool and serve with a glass of milk.

). One cup of coconut is the amount I think this recipe would need if you were to put coconut in the whole thing. Although next time I think I will put the whole cup of coconut in, because that way there will be more brownies left for me. *mischievous grin* I really am a nice sister.

SnowAngel

Cold pumpkin pie is a Thanksgiving tradition at our house. The last couple of years, we have bought pumpkin, cook, and frozen them for making pies and other desserts. It taste so much better with real pumpkin! Oh, and it has to have real whipped cream, not Cool Whip.

Double Layer Pumpkin Pie
8 oz. cream cheese
1 T. each milk and sugar
1 ½ cups whipped cream
1 cup milk
2 pkgs. (4 serving size) vanilla pudding
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. clove
¼ tsp. nutmeg
1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin

Mix cream cheese, 1 T. milk and sugar in large bowl until smooth. Stir in whip cream. Spread on bottom of crust. (I use a pre-baked crust, can be made with a graham cracker crust too.)

Pour 1 cup milk into large bowl. Add pumpkin, pudding mixes, and spices. Beat with a wire whisk until well mixed. Spread over cream cheese layer.

Refrigerate 4 hours or until set. Enjoy!

SnowAngel

I tried pumpkin pie last year, I don't particually like it, I guess its the same with Vegemite outside of Australia not many people like it. I however do not like Vegemite either. Sugar/sweetness doesn't go with pumpkin for me.

I'm a pie person! I love apple and banana cream, fruit, and pumpkin.

Purpleotter, my whole family loves pies. We have several favorites and after that we like to experiment with old and new recipes. I'm think the next time we have pie, I'm going to make that pumpkin pie recipe with applesauce instead of pumpkin. It sounds good and I think it will work.

Today, I had to use the leftover pumpkin from Thanksgiving. So I sort of made my applesauce cookie recipe. I add cloves and nutmeg, used mini chocolate chips instead of white chocolate chips, and pecans and coconut inplace of walnuts.
Pumpkin Cookies (with Pecans & Coconut)
½ cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup pumpkin
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

1 ½ cup white flour
½ cup wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon ginger
1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon cloves
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
¾ cup coconut
½ to ¾ cup pecans, chopped
1 cup mini chocolate chips, optional

Preheat oven to 400F. Mix butter and sugar together in mixer. Add pumpkin, beat. Add eggs and vanilla, beat. Add dry ingredients, mix well. Stir in coconut, pecans, and chocolate chips. Drop onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 7 minutes. Cool. Store leftover cookies in an airtight container; be sure to place wax paper between layers of cookies.

Note: I didn't use canned pumpkin, so if using canned pumpkin it might need less flour.

The top cookie only has pecans in it and the rest have mini chocolate chips and coconut.

SnowAngel

Those look really good! I also love peanut butter cookies.

This year for Christmas, my in-laws got me Aplets and Cotlets. I'd never heard of them before, but they're apple and apricot jelly candies with walnuts thrown in. They reminded me a LOT of Turkish Delight, and lo and behold, when I went to the manufacturers website, they make Turkish Delight as well. LOL

Has anyone else ever had these? They're strangely addictive.

This year for Christmas, my in-laws got me Aplets and Cotlets. I'd never heard of them before, but they're apple and apricot jelly candies with walnuts thrown in. They reminded me a LOT of Turkish Delight, and lo and behold, when I went to the manufacturers website, they make Turkish Delight as well. LOL

Has anyone else ever had these? They're strangely addictive.

No, I have never heard of them, but they sound delicious.

While I was browsing my cousin's pinterest page last week, I found a recipe for homemade oreos. So, I made some last weekend and again today. Today though I changed the recipe just a bit. I only baked the cookies for 9-10 minutes and I made half of the filling chocolate and the other half was mint (colored green of course). Yum! Oh, and I made them heart-shaped, very cute.

This is the recipe I used: http://www.mykitchenaddiction.com/2012/ ... ade-oreos/.

SnowAngel

Homemade Oreos, now there's something I should never, EVER make. My husband and I can clean out a storebought package in a hurry. That's very cool though SnowAngel. I bet they were quite tasty. Especially the mint ones. I love mint and chocolate.

For the past couple years, my husband has requested Molten Chocolate Cake for his birthday. Yeah... This year however, he asked for something different. Molten Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter filling. I found a recipe on Food & Wine website I think I'm going to try out.
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/molt ... er-filling
Looks easy enough. But I've never had much luck getting the little cakes out of the ramekins. They always pop open on me, so I just serve the cakes in the ramekins.
Any other Molten Chocolate Cake addicts out there?

Molten chcolate cake is rather nice.

I am half vegetarian if that makes sense, well not really, I eat chicken and fish. Anyway I always like to make this vegetable lasagna.

this isn't the one i usually make but it is something similar http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/20784/v ... an+lasagne

Homemade Oreos, now there's something I should never, EVER make. My husband and I can clean out a storebought package in a hurry. That's very cool though SnowAngel. I bet they were quite tasty. Especially the mint ones. I love mint and chocolate.

They were really good. We still love Oreos too, but we don't buy them anymore. Because the company has done something we don't agree with, which makes me very sad. I have a cookies 'n cream cupcake recipe I want to try and I need "oreos" for it, so I had to find a substitute for them. I'm hoping these will work.

I'm going to try making them lemon next time I make them.

I love lasagna, ILoveFauns, but for me it has to have beef and no veggies. However I'm sure my older sister would try that recipe, so I am not going to tell her about it.

SnowAngel

I am half vegetarian if that makes sense, well not really, I eat chicken and fish.

Here in the USA we just say that you don't eat red meat.

I'm going to try making them lemon next time I make them.

The cookie? Or chocolate with lemon filling? *just isn't a huge fan of lemon flavored foods.*

Speaking of Oreos.... Today is Kansas Day! Kansas turns 152 years old today. I thought about making a Kansas Dirt Cake to celebrate (which uses Oreos... yes, those two topics are connected ) but I'm having company over tomorrow so I might make it then instead. A couple variations of a Kansas Dirt Cake....

And the recipe...
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,186,147 ... 00,00.html

These things are soooo good. But I've always wondered which state came up with it first because I think it's typically "fill-in-the-name-of-your-state-here Dirt Cake".

I'm going to try making them lemon next time I make them.

The cookie? Or chocolate with lemon filling? *just isn't a huge fan of lemon flavored foods.*

Both is what I'm think would be good. But I might make the cookies vanilla instead of lemon, that way I could make some of the cookies with vanilla filling for my Dad who likes golden oreos.

I made buttermilk biscuits and gravy today at the request of my little sister. And I was planning to take some pictures of the biscuits, so I could post the recipe with pictures. But there was only one biscuit left. Next time I make biscuits I will do a double batch instead the usual batch and half and hopefully have some to photograph.

SnowAngel

Any other Molten Chocolate Cake addicts out there?

Many years ago when I was a younger and slimmer man, my Maternal Figurehead would produce a massive chocolate cake for my birthday. It was only once a year and the cake was nothing but solid chocolate (Pattertwig would be mortified at the sight of this thing )...I don't know what my Maternal Unit put in it, but I do remember that she went through many sticks of butter, Hershey's cocoa powder, milk chocolate chips, homemade chocolate frosting, and then the whole thing would be slapped together onto a plate that bordered on being a two-man lift. We refer to it as "Coma Cake" because we were certain that we'd all end up going into diabetic shock if we ate more than the minimum amount. Good stuff, but very rich!