Classic Rolled Sugar Cookies Recipe (Christmas Cookies)

I'm not a a baker!  I really don't like making these cookies because they take FOREVER but they were always a big hit and I spent many years helpin my mom with these cookies.  She usually did get the compliments, but she'd give us kids the credit for the decorating.  Ha ha!  I sure do miss my mom!

This is also all my brother ever wants for Christmas.  When you think about it, this is a very nice gift!  They take a lot of work, time, love, sweat, swears, and they are sweet and delicious.  I'm thinking GIFT CARD this year.  Ha ha!

My brother and my baby girl!

A funny story and then I'll share the recipe!  A few years ago, my sister sent me a picture of her showing me that she was baking these cookies for my brother's Christmas gift!  He's a sly devil, as he asked BOTH of us that year!  So I asked her for the recipe because obviously she had our mom's recipe.  She said she'd bring it to me when they came to see our new house.

She and her honey came to see us, from Charlotte, NC, before heading to my brothers.  She brought us some of the cookies but NO recipe.  She said, I didn't remind her to bring it.  Well... well... that was true.  Ha ha!  So, no recipe and we were a day away from our Christmas gathering.  Sigh!

Baby girl with my sister and her honey!

So began the frantic recipe hunt!  I thought mom always used her yellow cookbook when we made the cookies, so I went to my cookbook bookshelf and looked.  THE PAGE WAS MISSING!!!  So I looked in my grandmother's old Betty Crocker cookbook and the sugar cookie recipe page was missing from her's too!  WHAT THE...

Then I was really scrambling.  I looked on vintage recipe sites, pinterest, cookbook.com sites, and even my grandma's Encyclopedia of Cooking book.  In there, I found a recipe that seemed close.  After discussing this weirdness with hubby,  I wondered how my sister had the recipe.  Thinking back... I vaguely remembered emailing it to her when mom was still alive.  YES!  Hit the email archives... JACKPOT! (but I kept the Encyclopedia handy)



via GIPHY

So now that I have the recipe too, I'm putting it here so it won't mysteriously disappear again!

Making Christmas cookies or any cut out sugar cookies is always more fun if:
1. You enjoy baking
2. You do it family and friends (and a cocktail).
Doing it by yourself is torture, unless of course you are 1.

Rolled Sugar Cookies from the Pillsbury New Family Cookbook (1973)

Yield: 72 Cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup butter softened (I used real butter of course!)  {my mom used margarine }
1 cup sugar
1 egg
3 tablespoons cream or milk (I recommend 2% or higher - I used half and half)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tsp anise extract (Not sure if this was my mom's add in or in the original recipe.  We DO NOT like licorice so I used almond extract)
3 cups unsifted flour (with self-rising flour, omit baking powder and salt)
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt (I used my Himalayan pink salt and they were great!)

Directions:
In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar.
Beat in egg, cream, vanilla, and flavored extract
Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt until well mixed

Wrap the dough in wax paper and refrigerate for easier handling.

Getting ready to chill the dough while I chill with a rum and coke! 

Preheat oven to 400
Roll out dough, one-third at a time on a floured surface to 1/8 inch thickness.
Cut into desired shapes
Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets
Bake 5 - 8 minutes or until slightly golden.
Cool on rack

Decorate as desired

Enjoy!

Homemade Ketchup Recipe

Okay, we hardly ever eat ketchup so I've not really stressed about the ingredients of what I'm buying, but we've been exercising 30 minutes a day and watching our carbs and sugar.  The result... 2 lb weight gain.  Thanks!

So I am looking at everything!  Sugar is in almost everything and sugar is evil.  I think I've mentioned before that I don't have a huge sweet tooth, so cutting sweets is not a big deal for me, but finding out it's in almost everything I buy, just sucks.

So I'm trying to cut it out in places I know where it is.  Ketchup is one of those places.  I've searched pinterest and this recipe is very common out there.  I've made my own tweaks but that's how I "own it'  You need to do the same!  "Own it!".

Homemade Ketchup
Ingredients
2 6oz cans of tomato paste
1/4 cup honey (use your local honey)
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 packet stevia (optional - I might leave it out of the next batch)
1/2 cup of water
Pink salt, garlic powder, onion powder, and pepper to taste.  Start with a 1/4 tsp of each.  You will need to add more to "own it!".
Additional Tracy "own it" ingredient was white wine.  Yum!  - We usually have chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon on hand which make great cooking add in!

Put all of the ingredients in a saucepan and simmer for 2 hours.  Taste and add more seasoning.  Mine was way too sweet when I tasted it but adding a few more shakes of the garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper made it pretty awesome!

Use a funnel and slowly pour your ketchup in a container (preferably glass) and store in the fridge.

I had saved our last ketchup bottle to store my homemade ketchup.

I'll be on the lookout for a glass bottle or 2 for the next batch of ketchup.  I must note that the brand on the bottle that you see, is the the best store bought ketchup we have ever had!

Enjoy!

Loaded Toasties - Fun & Easy Breakfast

Honey wanted to call this almost chicken on a float.  How appetizing.  Not sure my name is much better, but these were pretty easy.  I made these after Christmas with left overs of ham, cheese block, and Walmart's Everything Italian bread.

Loaded Toasties
Ingredients:
2 slices of bread
2 eggs
shredded cheese of choice.  I used Monterrey Jack
Breakfast meat of choice (optional).  I used left over ham from Christmas dinner.  2 slices.

preheat oven to 400 degrees

I cut the 2 ham slices into small pieces and threw them in a small fry pan to brown.

Prepare a cookie sheet with non stick foil or spray regular foil with cooking spray.

Prepare the bread slices by cutting a hole in the them to nest the eggs.  Save the hole you cut out and set next to bread slices on cookie sheet.

Break an egg into each hole of the bread slices

Top each slice with the shredded cheese.  I already had some block cheese shredded and set aside.  I probably used 2 small handfuls.  (3/4 cup?)

Top each slice with your browned breakfast meat.

Add pepper if you like

Bake for 5 minutes or until whites are set.

Serve with cut out toasts and pepper to taste if you like.

Enjoy!

Healing Chicken Noodle Soup

Okay... I'm on day 6 of the flu.  I'm still running a fever.  It's the worst week to miss work.  Yay me! But amidst dozing, changing "Sliders" episodes on Netflix, and putting my robe on and off (hot, cold, hot, cold) I've been inspired to blog some.

I was at work the day I started getting sick and since I made this on day 2 of feeling like poo (hey, that rhymes), I didn't put my all into this.  I made it the best I could in hopes of the garlic, onion, and broth would do their thing and make us feel better.

The problem is that after I made this soup, honey and I were too sick to really eat.  We never could get much of this in us.  Maybe a half a cup at a time and honey sometimes passed on it completely.  He's only started eating more the past 2 days.  So although, this should be a healing recipe, it didn't really help us this time because we hardly ate any of it.

Here's the quick homemade recipe with a picture of the final product.  It was my lunch today, but I could only eat about 1/4 of.  But Baby dog got to enjoy a little taste.

I have to admit, this could have looked better too if I hadn't felt so bad.  I got feeling weak part way through shredding the chicken, so it's half chunked, half shredded.  ha ha... also I couldn't stand slicing the onions so I stopped at 2.  I put noodles in it because honey likes the noodles.  I wish now, that I had not even added noodles since he hardly ate any.  I completely forgot celery, but I don't really like cooked celery anyway.  If you forget it, I think they make celery seasoning if you have that.

Healing Chicken Noodle Soup
Ingredients:
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 cartons low sodium chicken broth (reserve 3/4 of 2nd Carton)
1 package of carrots (I used Bolthouse organic carrot chips) 12 oz.
2 celery bits or seasoning for flavor
1 tbsp of Better than Bullion
Pink Himalayan Salt to taste
pepper to taste
2 large sweet onions or 3 medium
fresh garlic (as much as you can stand)
olive oil
noodles of choice (optional)



Put the chicken breasts in your stock pot and cover with filtered water.  Bring to a boil and reduce heat and cover for about 30 minutes to cook the chicken and create a broth base.

While the chicken cooks, gather the rest of your ingredients, slice your onions as you please and peel and chop about 8 garlic cloves.

Go ahead and throw 4 whole cloves in the pot while the chicken simmers.  Chop the other cloves and put in a small fry pan with olive oil and brown it over medium low heat to bring the flavor out more.

Once the chicken is done, remove from pot, shred, then put back in pot.

Add the rest of your ingredients.

If adding noodles, I added about 4 small hand fulls (my hands are small!).  I still had too many noodles it for us.

Add 1 carton of chicken broth, keep your pot on a simmer temperature, put the lid on it and go take a nap!

In a few hours, your soup will be done and may need a bit more broth and possibly salt and pepper. The noodles soak up the broth and it can hardly look like soup after spending the night in the fridge.  So keep your reserved broth handy.

Enjoy and feel better!

Sausage Casserole Recipe

Sausage Casserole Recipe

This recipe is another one of my mother's staples from our childhood.  I am not sure if this was a southern living recipe or something handed down.  My grandmother did not make this though, that I am aware of.  I note that it could be a southern living recipe only because my mother was obsessed with southern living cookbooks.  Sadly, I had to give a ton of her cookbooks away, but as I inherited her obsession with cookbooks, I am not limited to just southern living.  Wait... where was I going with that?? (My sister read this and let me know that it may have been our "Aunt" Bev's recipe.  Aunt Bev was our mom's Bff since we were littles.)

Anyway, we had this like every week or every other week... a lot!  My guess is because it was fairly inexpensive, easy to make, and pretty darn good.  

My version is made half and half.  Half for honey with mashed potatoes and half for me made with fauxtatoes.  I also use turkey sausage instead of mild sausage to save on fat content and I do like the taste of turkey sausage.  

Sausage Casserole Recipe:

Ingredients:

Jenni-O mild turkey breakfast sausage (entire package) or mild sausage of choice

Potatoes (4 - 5 servings)

Raw cauliflower (almost 2 cups)

EVOO 1 tbsp 

Half and half (I use Horizon organic) 3 tbsp or so

Salt (I use pink Himalayan) a few shakes

Black Pepper a few shakes

Canned sauerkraut (1 can) or 1/2 Jar (not Bavarian style)

Grated Parmesan (a few shakes)

Okay.. we all know that I'm horrible at remembering to measure.  My goal this year is to get better at that for my 20 readers.  =)

Cut up your potatoes into small pieces.  Place in a medium size pan and cover with water.  Shake a bit of salt on the water and boil until soft for mashing.

While your potatoes are boiling, steam your cauliflower and brown your sausage.

When your potatoes are done, drain them and add 1 tbsp of butter, about 2 tbsps half and half and a few shakes of salt and pepper and start mashing.

Now mash your cauliflower with about 1 tbsp of butter and maybe 1 tbsp of half and half.  Also add a little salt and pepper to taste

When the sausage is finished, drain any water or fat.  I hardly ever have to drain turkey sausage.

Now you are ready to assemble...

In your larger casserole dish, add your cooked sausage.  If you have minced onions, go ahead and sprinkle those on top of the sausage.  I didn't have any so I sprinkled Parmesan cheese.  

Next, add your sauerkraut.  I did drain mine by pushing the fork against the sauerkraut and draining the in the sink.  I pulled the sauerkraut out with the fork and spread it all over the sausage.

next, I added the mashed potatoes to one half of the casserole and the mashed cauliflower to the other half of the casserole.  This made a normal carb and a low carb dinner.  =)

Mashed potatoes on left

mashed cauliflower on right

Sprinkle a little more parm on top and then  bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.  

Yummy out of the oven

Normal carb mashed potatoes serving

Low carb mashed cauliflower serving

Delish!

Enjoy!

Please let me know if you make any of these recipes and how you liked them.  I'd love to hear from you.

Valentine's Day History

Happy Valentines Day!  

The ultimate Love... John 3:16

Enjoy this video of a brief history of Valentines day from the History Channel.  

the ad is 30 seconds if you can skip it

click the link below and enjoy.  

Valentine's Day History from the History Channel

Tracy's Tipsy Chili Recipe

Tipsy Chili!

I must admit, that until my mom passed away, I had never made my own chili.  Her chili was so yummy, why should I make my own?  Anyway, a while after she passed away, the search was on for her recipe.  I found it, and here it is.  

It's yummy!  

So from that recipe, I evolved slightly.  Basically, I season it as I like it, or rather as honey and Kelly like it.  They are my taste testers as to when it's done.  

I prefer to simmer my chili as long as possible, so I normally make chili on the weekends.  Today is an exception.  It's an after work chili that's been simmering an hour or so now, but it will be amazing re-heated tomorrow after everything marinates.

I did post a picture of the spices on Insta and FB to see if anyone could guess my secret ingredient.  So far, the guesses have been cocoa powder, coffee, bacon, and beer.  All great guesses and ideas!  Thanks Chrissy, Dawn, Cheryl, and Dawn!  My mom's secret ingredient was taco bell sauce packets!  Medium!  Try it.  She would be okay with me sharing!

Enjoy my super easy recipe and of course, "own it" and make it your own!

Ingredients:

1 1b. of ground meat of choice (I used organic ground chicken)

1 28 oz can of tomato sauce or puree (I accidentally got puree this time, but it just made for a thicker chili)

1 8 oz can of diced tomatoes ( I prefer low sodium if I can find it)

1 8 oz can of chili beans

1 8 oz can of black beans

Various spices:  (I am horrible at measuring) I always forget the bay leaf, so this recipe was with out it.  Wait, does anyone know what the bay leaf flavor is like? (squirrel)

chili powder - 2 shakes to start

garlic minced and/or garlic powder - lots of it

cumin - 3-4 shakes

onion flakes - 3 shakes

cayenne - 2 shakes to start

seasoning salt - 1 shake or none at all

sriracha (because I was out of of Frank's hot sauce) - a good squirt of sriracha or about 5 shakes of Franks to start

1 green pepper - chopped

1 sweet onion - chopped

1 tbsp of olive oil

I think that's everything!

• brown your ground meat in a non-stick pan (I can't find my orgreenic since the move, so I'm using the old T Fals for now).  I don't add spray oil or any oil.  Drain when finished if any liquid or grease ( sometimes, I season the meat with the dried onions and some garlic while it browns)
• while the meat browns, add 1tbsp of olive oil to your big cooking pot and cook the chopped green peppers and onions on medium heat.  (sometimes I go ahead and add a little garlic while the veggies cook)
  
• when the meat is done, add it to the pot with the peppers and onions
• add your canned puree or sauce, the tomatoes, and rinsed beans.  
• start shaking your seasonings
  

• add your secret ingredient... mine is... ta da!... 1/2 a cup or so of Cabernet Sauvignon!  I bet you were curious about the tipsy part of the chili (no, the cook isn't tipsy).  
• simmer for a few hours
  
• If you like, top with cheese, onions, and greek yogurt or sour cream.  Serve with cornbread, on top of rice, baked regular or sweet potato, with tortilla chips, or just in the bowl!  Sometimes left overs top a salad.  
• I'm hungry
• I'll take a glass of wine now... oh, beer is good with this too.

Enjoy!

Egg Roll Bowl Recipe

Egg Roll Bowl

photo by Tracy Hilbun

This is pretty easy, although not super fast, to make.  I also like the short list of ingredients.

Ingredients:

Large bag of slaw mix (5 servings size).  I used the mix that has the red cabbage and carrots in it.

1 large onion coarsely chopped

1lb of ground turkey sausage (or ground meat of choice – pork, chicken, beef maybe?)

2 tbsp rice vinegar

2-4 tbsp low sodium soy sauce

In a large skillet, brown the ground meat on medium heat.  (I used ground turkey sausage because I didn’t have ground pork or chicken.)   After the meat is browned, set it aside and use the drippings to cook the chopped onion pieces until they are soft (I like mine a little browned).   **Because I used ground turkey sausage, I did not have any drippings left in the pan but I did have some stored bacon drippings from Christmas, in the fridge. 

When the onion is ready, add the bag of slaw mix to the skillet.  Still working on medium heat, gently stire the mixture occasionally for about 20 minutes. 

photo by Tracy Hilbun

Once the slaw is cooked, add the ground meat back in the skillet and then add the rice vinegar and soy sauce.  Stir gently to mix.  Then set to low heat and let this simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

Photo by Tracy Hilbun

Your low carb, yummy dinner is now ready. 

Enjoy!

Photo By Tracy Hilbun

Honey, did ask for some of the left over brown rice, from Saturday’s meal, to eat with his and a bit more soy sauce.  But I didn’t have a fortune cookie for him.  

**Disclaimer:  This is not my original recipe.  It’s how I made a version of the recipe.  Not sure who originated it as there are so many versions out there with Paleo version, Trim Healthy Mama, and another diet plan that’s a secret as an egg roll in a bowl.

Positive Thinking

I'm not generally a negative person, but I worry a lot!  Maybe that does make me negative... =(

This morning, while driving into work, I caught myself worrying about my busy day at work and really dreading going in more than normal.  As I caught myself, I tried to consciously change that thought to... "it will be fine, just relax, enjoy your day, life is good, and for goodness sake... PRAY ABOUT IT instead of worrying and dreading it.  So.... here I am, smiling.  We've got one chance to enjoy this life.  I'm wasting it with worry about the future, our finances, my weight and health, work, the drive, our kids, etc.  

Sigh... this is going to be hard, but I really, really want to change my thought patterns and be healed of this fear and worry for good!  

God is sovereign!

I pray that you have a wonderful day.  If you struggle with worry, fear and anxiety, I feel you.  I'm praying for you too.