"They Have Doctors for this Kind of Thing!!!!"

Actually I'm probably not as bad as some. Fall is my favorite season. I have set up some of what I have. Some Halloween decor on my window, Autumn leaves on my railing.



The main reason for the subject of this post is the various amounts of cookie cutter stuff I have, and I bought more today, that I hardly ever use. I do plan to change that. Here are some of my goodies:

I bought these ones just a little while ago. Fourteen different Halloween shapes!

I have had these for a while. Why is it if it is "Mini", it's so much cuter?

I had no food colouring so I went out to get some. This is what I came home with:

If you check out all the many blogs I follow, most of them are crafty type ones. I have an inner crafter that wants to get out, then I look at all the "stuff" my husband and I have together and I wonder, do I really want to add more to the pile? I have a ton of seasonal type stuff that I have collected over the years that I have used in my preschool classes of the past. And I will be going through my halloween tub to see what else i can decorate with.

I am actually not working this year, other then up keeping my home, and loving it. Now that I have time I could actually craft in, I'm looking at others ideas and getting excited, but as i have said, they would need a place. I have favorites on so many sites with seasonal stuff, I'm worried I will exceed my limit.

Anyhow, I really was going to make cookies today but will put it off til tomorrow.

TTFN

Gwen :)

Zesty Chicken Tortilla Bake

I have to say I absolutely love the Whats Cooking Magazine that is put out by Kraft. It comes out every 3 months (1 for each season) I look forward to getting them in my mail. They even have a website http://www.kraftcanada.com/ that also has all their recipes. Yummy food that has easy to follow recipes. I found this one while I was unpacking and flipping through it I saw a couple of recipes I wanted to try. Its the Christmas issue they put out last year. So last night I tried out the zesty chicken tortilla bake.

This is actually only the second time in my life I have have made a white sauce.

Place the filling in the middle of the tortilla, then roll.

They are now ready to go into the oven. I used a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper because it worked well for the chicken enchiladas.

now they are cooked. Don't they look yummy?

The recipe recommends that you put them in 2 9 x 13 pans. I thought the cookie sheet would be fine as they all fit on the pan. These are pretty runny so I did end up with spillage on the bottom of the oven.

This is my wonderful husband cleaning up the cheese sauce dripping fro the bottom of the oven.

Zesty Chicken Tortilla Bake:

1/2 cup Miracle Whip dressing ( I actually don't like Miracle Whip so I used Kraft mayonnaise)
1/2 cup flour

3 cups milk

2 cups Kraft Tex Mex shredded cheese divided

1 1/2 lb. (675 g) boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked, cut into bite-sized pieces

1/2 cup salsa

1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

16 small flour tortillas

Heat oven to 375 F

Mix dressing and flour in medium saucepan with whisk until well blended. Gradually stir in milk. Bring to a boil on med heat, stirring constantly; cook and stir until thickened. Add 1 cup cheese; cook until melted, stirring constantly. Reserve 1 cup of sauce.

Stir chicken, salsa and parsley into remaining sauce; spoon 1/3 cup down centre of each tortilla. Roll up. Place 8 roll ups seam side down in each of 2 (13x9-inch) baking dished sprayed with cooking spray; top with reserved sauce and remaining cheese.

Bake 25 min or until heated through.

This recipe is definitely a keeper. We really enjoyed it.

cheers,

Gwen

Bacon and Egg English muffins

I know it is way to early, and has nothing to do with cooking, but i couldn't wait to wear my Halloween socks. I love the dollerama. Where else can you get cute socks for a dollar?
Last night i defrosted some Bacon, one of my husband's favorite foods, and made some bacon and egg muffins this morning. basically you can fry your eggs in a regular frying pan, which is admittedly much faster, but I wanted to use the adorable heart pan that i got from the dollerama last valentines day. I really should have bought at least one more so i could cook more then one egg at a time. By the time i realized this and went back to the dollerama they were all sold out:( So I am melting margarine so the egg doesn't stick. A healthier choice would be to use cooking spray but this tastes better.

I find that it takes a long time to have the egg bake all the way through, so halfway through i lift up the cooked egg and gently pour the uncooked egg into the pan , then flip it over on top. It becomes one as it it is fully cooked.

Here I have placed the cooked one in a frying pan to keep warm until i have cooked them all.

See? don't they look great?

Meanwhile i have been cooking the bacon on my ginormous Formans grill. I love this grill, i use it all the time. It is slanted so the fat runs off. i filled 3/4's of a soup can with the drippings.

When everything is getting close to done, toast your English muffins and place cheese on them

Add egg and bacon.

And if you are want you can have the extra bacon on the side. I added Ketchup before I put them all together as we like ketchup with our eggs.

And now you have a filling and healthy breakfast. Yum!!!

Cheers, Gwen.

Gwen's Winter White Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is a magazine i picked up in Dec 2005. It has lots of awesome cookie recipes in it, and not just for Christmas. This recipe is one of my favorites in it.


As you can see the page is well used.

This is really what this recipe is called. I, however, am not the Gwen who invented them. I have tweaked them a bit.

Instead of just putting white chocolate chips and perhaps some walnuts in this recipe, I have added semi sweet chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and peanut butter chips. you can use all or any of these combos.

I like to roll out cookies while I'm waiting for the first batch to bake. This makes the pans faster and easier to load.

Nothing can beat the combo of warm, fresh baked cookies and milk:)

Gwen's Winter White Chocolate Chip Cookies:

2 1/2 c all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1/2 c butter, softened

1/2 c shortening

3/4 c white, granulated sugar

3/4 c packed brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

1 12-ounce package white baking pieces(2 cups) ( I use 1/2 cup of each flavoured chip. Or however you want to flavour the cookies having the total of chips = 2 cups:)

1 c walnuts (optional)

1) Preheat oven to 375 F. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and shortening for 30 seconds. Add white and brown sugars and vanilla. beat until combined; scrape bowl. Beat in eggs. Beat in as much flour mixture as you can. Stir in remaining flour mixture. Stir in baking pieces (chips).

2) Drop dough by rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart onto greased cookie sheet. (I always like to line my cookie sheets with parchment paper) Bake 8-10 min or until cookies are lightly browned. Transfer to wire rack; cool. makes about 48

TO STORE:

layer between waxed paper in an airtight container; cover. Store @ room temperature up to 3 days or freeze up to 3 months.

Enjoy!

Gwen :)

lemon meringue pie

I have to confess, I did not make this from scratch. No fresh lemons were sacrificed for the making of this dessert. I made the pie from the Sherriff lemon pie dessert mix. All the instructions came with the package and are easy to follow, so why did i think this worthy to post? I beat the egg whites by hand, by hand i tell you! With only a whisk!

Why was i so crazy as to do this? I was moving. Just about everything was packed. I, however was having a craving for something sweet. Thinking to myself..... I have eggs, I still have a pot that's accessible, I haven't packed away the ready to use graham crusts yet. LETS MAKE LEMON PIE!!!

It wasn't until I started to get the egg whites ready to be beaten that I realized a slight hitch with this plan. All that I hadn't packed away, that could be used, was a small metal whisk. I guess i could have just had lemon pie minus the meringue and thrown out the egg whites, but i decided that I wouldn't be defeated and lemon meringue pie really needs the meringue to deserve the title.

Let me tell you now, there are reasons that people have invented mechanical devises, then electrical devises for these things. Its a lot of hard work! Egg whites are impervious to grumblings, curses and swearing. Verbal abuse doesn't do a thing. They must be physically beaten into submission. It took me about a half an hour to get the egg whites to the soft peak stage. By then I waved the white flag and surrendered. I added the sugar, and put the meringue on the pie and cooked it. I won in the end because I ATE the pie.



I had to take photographic evidence that i did indeed beat this by hand.

See? Soft peaks.

I'm all about making cooking and baking as easy as possible. I love these graham crusts that are ready to use. I never seem to be able to evenly coat the pan with the crumbs when i do this myself!

Despite all, doesn't this look yummy? By the time my husband came home at the end of the week the pie had all been polished off. I did feel bad and have promised I will make him another pie. Now that i can find my hand mixer, i should get on that fairly soon.

Cheers :)

Gwen