Fruit Rocks

This past Sunday was a day of baking, baking, and more BAKING! Mom and I baked at least 8 different types of cookies for a grand total of over 300 cookies... I know, we're nuts. You see, every year my mom bakes cookies for her department at work and this year two sub department were added to her departments adding a lot more people to bake for. Anyway, one of the types of cookie we decided to make was my (actually Mommom's aunt, actually my mom's mom's mom's brother's wife if you really want to get specific) Aunt Wilma's Fruit Rocks. 

some of the other recipes below :)

Okay, let's get down to business (to defeat the Huns). I had a Red Bull this morning, can you tell? That was a Mulan reference for those who are Disney illiterate. Dang, not sure someone with ADHD that drank a Red Bull should be writing a blog post. *Deep breathe* Okay, I halved this recipe because it makes A LOT! It still made maybe around 4 dozen? halved. It's pretty great. My mom's huge standing mixer almost couldn't handle it. Mom and I made this recipe before maybe 2 years ago and I guess we mixed it too long and the fruit "rocks" became fruit "gravel". The pecans got too crunched and the cherries were smashed and turned the whole cookie a pink color. They were still good. They were better this time though.

You may notice that in the directions there's not a point in time where it tells you to put in the "syrup" (which I assumed was corn syrup) or the optional wine. Got to love recipes that were handed down several times (that's for real, not sarcasm, they really are the best...). I put both those ingredients in after the eggs. Perhaps Aunt Wilma will comment on when it's actually supposed to be done. If not, your guess is as good as mine. I did put the wine in. I hosted a "Friends-mas" party the night before and there was some leftover wine (Thanks Dwayne!), so I went for it. 

These cookies scream Christmas to me! They're amazing. I have such happy memories of Mommom making them. They're not the most attractive cookie, but they sure are good! They're one of Matt's favorites which still shocks me. 

Fruit Rocks (Aunt Wilma's Recipe)

Ingredients:

5 sticks butter
1.5 cups sugar
12 eggs
6 cups flour, sift with spices
1 t. cloves
1 t. allspice
1 t. cinnamon
2 lbs candied pineapple
2 lbs candied cherries
2 T. syrup
5 quarts pecans
3 t. wine (optional)

Directions:

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time beating after each addition. Flour fruit and nuts as you add to batter. Add remaining flour. Drop by spoonful on greased baking sheet and bake in slow oven 325 degrees about 10 minutes.

Chocolate Crackled Cookies

No Bake Caramel Cookies

Christmas Cookie Bark

Peanut Butter Christmas Cookies

White Chocolate Dipped Ginger Cookies

Whole30

In case you haven't noticed, I have not blogged any of Mommom's recipes during the month of November. Why? Because Matt and I were on a detox/diet/cleanse called Whole30. Most (if not all) of Mommom's recipes are not Whole30 compliant, so I needed to take a hiatus. I'm going to use this post to give you an insight into our journey.

Who? It was my idea, but Matt was along for the journey and I honestly could not have done it without him doing it too.

What? Whole30.

Where? Definitely easier to stick to it and eat a decent amount of good food if we just stayed home (which we did most of the time, favorite recipes at bottom), but we chose to continue to live our lives also.

• Disney - I knew this was going to be hard because my go-to meal there is chicken nuggets or a cheese burger. Both of those were out. At Hollywood Studios there's a "quick service" restaurant called ABC Commissary. They have the option of green beans as a side, so I was able to order a bun-less, cheese-less cheeseburger with green beans without too many odd looks thrown my way. At the beginning of November, my parents were camping at Fort Wilderness Campground and one of the places we eat when we stay there is Trial's End breakfast buffet. When we got there I asked the waitress about the scrambled eggs in case milk or butter was added to it. She didn't know, but brought out one of the chefs that answered all my questions and even made Matt and I special eggs that we could eat! It was an awesome experience!
• Bridal Shower - One of my friend's bridal shower was in the middle of this quest and I was a little worried about sticking out or appearing rude for not eating the food. I didn't have anything to worry about. They offered plenty of fruit, veggies, and ice water. My plate and cup were full. I think my biggest fear was people accusing me of being pregnant because of my lack of wine. I don't think anyone noticed at all.
• Work: Work wasn't very hard for me. A couple of times someone offered me chips or cookies and I would just decline not wanting to get into why I didn't want any. I mostly just packed my lunch. We also packed Matt's lunch, but since he works 24 hour shifts he had more meals to eat there. They eat dinner as a "family" and therefore he's not always in control of what's for dinner. He told enough people about what he was doing, so he maybe only had a few meals where the protein was all he could partake of. 
• Restaurants: We ate a couple restaurants while on this. It wasn't always easy, but we made it work.
• Chipotle - I had read on many blogs that Chipotle was a good place to eat while on Whole30. We had the Carnitas over a bed of lettuce and I had them load on the guacamole and salsa. If we went again, Matt would need to order double meat. It wasn't very filling for him.
• 5 Guys - Their burgers are made of just meat. Nothing else added. I ordered mine wrapped in lettuce (super messy) with mustard, grilled onion, grilled mushrooms, and hot sauce. Very yummy!
• Outback - Steak! We told our waitress we were lactose intolerant so they wouldn't add a pad of butter to our steak (nor bring us out bread and butter). We had it with steamed broccoli and a baked potato.

Why? Of course I wanted to lose weight, but I picked Whole30 because I really wanted to just feel better too! I have really bad acid reflux and a poor digestive system (thanks dad...) that is so often and so bad that it frequently causes me to choke, cough, and/or vomit. I knew I made it worse by my meal choices and just being overweight in general. I also would get headaches and migraines weekly for an unknown reason. It took maybe three days on Whole30 before all of those symptoms stopped. Not only did it help me succeed in the reasons I did the program, it helped us in areas I didn't even know it could. I felt so much better that it was almost unbelievable that just changing my diet would lead to such a drastic change in my life and attitude. I had read about some couples that had a hard time getting along during the program because of giving up their favorite foods, but we got along better. We were able to love ourselves more and therefore love each other better.

I really can't wait to do this again. January can't come soon enough! My parents are going to do it too and I know they're not looking forward to it, but I'm excited for them!

If you have any questions, please ask!

Some of our favorite recipes:

Creamy & Smoky Chipotle Pork Chops

Coconut Chicken Thai Curry

Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken over baked sweet potatoes with Paleo Ranch Dressing

Easy Homemade Mayonnaise

Roasted Cabbage Wedges

Autumn Roasted Veggies

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

You may or may not have noticed that I haven't posted in awhile. Matt and I have been doing Whole30 (look for post next week on it!) and Mommom's recipes are not Whole30 compliant (at all). BUT, Matt's co-workers have been missing home baked goodness, so for his paramedic's (Randy) birthday I said I would make him cookies. Oatmeal raisin is his favorite, so I looked in Mommom's cookbook for a recipe. 

Mommom got this recipe from Barbara Johnson who is one of my mom's cousins.Turns out that this recipe was one of my granddad's (Daddad) favorites, so I was pretty sure this was going to be a hit. I wasn't able to taste them, so I was counting on Daddad's taste buds for this. Randy loved them and so did the rest of the crew. Success! I was pretty jealous that I didn't get to try one myself though.

When baking, I ALWAYS forget to put butter out to soften. It's a horrible habit that causes me to take a really long time to bake anything. Just as I was noticing that I didn't put any butter out to soften, I looked at the recipe to find that this recipe called for NO butter. Thank goodness! It calls for vegetable oil instead. Is this a common thing in oatmeal cookies? I wouldn't know. I'm not a huge fan of them and therefore don't make them a lot (poor Matt). Also, when I was getting ready to start mixing, I noticed that the recipe was written in all caps which meant that I had no idea if "T." stood for tablespoons or teaspoons. I made an educated guess and went for teaspoons. It worked. 

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Ingredients:
1.5 cups flour
1 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla
2 cups raw quick-cooking oats
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup nuts (optional)

Directions:

Sift flour , soda, and salt - set aside
Mix oil, sugars, egg, and vanilla
Stir in flour mixture and oats until well combined. Stir in raisins.
Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls on lightly greased cookie sheet
Bake 10 to 12 minutes at 375 degrees.

Joe's Cheese Boat

When football season started this year, my parents and I decided to switch hosting watching the Broncos at our houses. I happened to get our Monday night game against the Houston Texans. We were coming off a two weekends in a row losing streak, so we needed a win. The Broncos did win and so did this dish!

I've had (Uncle) Joe's Cheese Boat several times growing up, but had never made it myself. I thought that watching a football game was the perfect time to make it! It was pretty easy and delicious! The only thing that took a while was the prep work. There's a lot of chopping and dicing that goes into this yummy dip! Never fear though! I have a handy dandy chopper. Mine is from Princess House and one of my favorite gadgets in the kitchen. I use it all the time! Here are a couple similar ones at Bed Bath and Beyond and Target. My chopper has two different dicing sizes. I used the bigger one for the green pepper and onion and the smaller one for the jalapenos. Since everything was going to be mixed together anyway, I let the chopper store it all until I was ready for it. It saves me lots of time and annoyance!

Matt missed out since he was working, but my parents and I enjoyed it. I will definitely be making this again and maybe one day I'll be able to make it as good as my Uncle Joe!

Joe's Cheese Boat

Ingredients:
1 large loaf French or Italian bread
1 large package scoop Fritoes
2 eight ounce packs cream cheese (softened)
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1 medium to large tomato, diced
1 medium onion, chopped
2 three ounce pkgs thin sliced corn beef
3 to 5 jalapeno peppers, diced and/or several drops of hot sauce to taste

Directions:

Hollow out the loaf of bread. Mix all ingredients from the cream cheese down. Place in hollowed out loaf and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. If not hot enough cover and bake a few minutes longer. Serve with bread cubes and Fritoes.

Peanut Butter Cookies

The week was running out and I still hadn't made something from Mommom's cookbook, so decided on making these peanut butter cookies. I've made them before and was pretty sure I had all the ingredients at home. I was wrong, I still hadn't bought any baking soda after realizing I didn't have any while making the Morning Glory Muffins a couple weeks ago. Since it worked for those muffins, I wasn't too worried about it. Nope. Nope. Nope. Something went wrong and I'm blaming the lack of baking soda and the surplus of baking powder. 

While I was baking, my cousin Timothy showed up. Where there is food, there is Timothy. Actually, he had no idea I was baking (or making dinner, which he stayed for). He was nice enough to eat a good amount of the batch. Matt ate some too. Both agreed that there was something off though.

I wasn't satisfied with funky cookies, so the next day Matt bought be some fresh baking soda on his way home from work and I remade the whole thing. They turned out way better! They were just like I remembered. I'm so glad that I started over and did it again. It was well worth it! Orange County Fire Rescue station 66 B shift got that batch. 

The recipe is pretty straight forward and easy, especially if your best friends gave you a standing mixer as a wedding present (thanks Ashleigh and Shannon!). As always when baking, make sure your butter is softened. You shouldn't need to worry about that with the shortening though. The only problem I had was with flour being flung out of the mixing bowl before it could be mixed in. Next time I would add the dry ingredients a quarter at a time. 

Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

3 cups flour

1 t. baking soda

1 t. baking powder

2 eggs

1 cup shortening, half butter

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1 cup chunky peanut butter

1 t. vanilla

Directions:

Cream butter and sugar until smooth, add peanut butter and blend, add eggs and vanilla and blend until smooth. Add dry ingredients in half at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Scoop out small balls of dough the size of a walnuts and place on cookie sheet. Use back of fork and press dough flat.

Bake 7 to 8 minutes at 350 degrees. 

Poppyseed Chicken

I had picked this recipe a week before I was going to make it mostly based on the fact that I already had a majority of these ingredients in the refrigerator/pantry including four pounds of frozen chicken breasts in my freezer. Well, the best-laid plans... Hurricane Matthew decided to grace us with his presence and knocked out my power for four days making me clean out the entirety of my refrigerator and freezer. Okay, Matt actually cleaned it out while I was at work. My stomach can't handle the smell of "bad" food. After seeing/smelling all the wasted money in the trash, I still needed this comfort meal, so we went out and re-bought all the perishable ingredients. Totally worth it.

This meal is not appealing to the eye. Not at all. The day before I made this, Mommom had Matt and I over to her house for her fried chicken which is a much more attractive chicken entree, but no one makes fried chicken like Mommom, so I doubt that I ever try it (on my own). She doesn't make fried chicken just for anyone, so I was feeling pretty special until we got to her house and she said she made it for Matt... what the heck?! My dad and Matt (it wasn't even his birthday!). They're not even blood, Mommom! Anyway... darn ADD, end of rant and back to poppyseed chicken... it's not pretty, but it's oh so good! I said I wanted something comforting and it delivered. 

The recipe says that it serves 4, but I didn't trust it. I'd say more times than not, we all eat more than a "serving" and I really wanted to have enough leftovers for both Matt and I to be able to take some to work the next day, so I one and a halved it. Totally not necessary. We ended up with six HUGE servings. I bet you could easily serve five non-gluttony ridden adults just on the original (below) amounts. Matt and I both loved it and can't wait to have it again!

Poppyseed Chicken

Ingredients:
2 lbs, cooked and cut up chicken
1 (8oz) sour cream
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 1/2 c. Ritz crackers
1 tsp. poppyseeds
1 stick melted butter

Directions:
Put cooked chicken in bottom of casserole dish. Mix sour cream and soup together. Pour on top of chicken. Mix crackers, poppyseeds and butter together. Pour on top of sour cream mixture. Sprinkle more poppyseeds on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. 4 servings.

Morning Glory Muffins

Saturday, October 1st was Magic Kingdom's 45th anniversary! We celebrated the milestone by heading to Magic Kingdom to ride/eat everything that was there opening day (and still is there). We wanted to get there early to see the presentation and of course to get started on those rides! Since we would be getting up early, I made these the night before so we could chow them down on our way over. 

According to the cookbook, Mommom got this recipe from a

magazine and loved it. We loved it too! They were super easy and delicious! I'll definitely be making these again! I didn't have any raisins, but I had craisins so I used those instead. Matt prefers them anyway. I'm not sure what was going on in my head, but I was unaware that I didn't have any baking soda. It was already pretty late when I started baking, so I looked up a substitution since I was pretty sure I could use baking powder instead. I just wasn't sure how much. For future reference, it's a 3:1 ratio. I used 6 teaspoons of baking powder instead of the 2 teaspoons of baking soda. Despite thinking that I had just made a terrible mistake, they turned out perfectly!

Morning Glory Muffins
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
2 t. baking soda
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. salt
2 cups grated carrots
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup coconut
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 (8oz) can crushed pineapple, drained
1 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 t. vanilla extract

Directions:
Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; stir in carrots and next 4 ingredients. Make a well in center of mixture. Combine vegetable oil and remaining ingredients; add flour mixture, stirring just until moistened. Place paper baking cups in muffin pans. Spoon batter into paper cups, filling two-thirds full; bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan immediately. Yield 18.

Julie's Spinach and Strawberry Salad

We've been trying to eat healthier, so I thought a salad was probably a good idea. It's officially fall, but it's Florida, so strawberries are always in (and I love them). 

Mommom wrote in her note that this was from one of my Texas cousins. If I'm thinking of the right Julie, then this is my mom's cousin's daughter's recipe to be exact. I'm not sure I've had it before, but if I had it when Julie made it then she had to have brought it to a family reunion. If she did that then I probably ate it. After all, it has spinach and strawberries on it and something is wrong if I say no to that...

The recipe has a good number of options. I went mostly with the main ingredients. Like I said, I love spinach and strawberries, so I wasn't going to switch them out with something else. I decided against the bean sprouts, but obviously went with the bacon (who says no to bacon anyway?). I cooked some turkey bacon and crumbled it up on top. I'm sure the bacon bits you can buy in can would be just as good and I'm positive that what Matt likes to call "man bacon" (pork) would be delicious too. I also quartered (is that the right word?) the recipe since it was just Matt and I eating it.

We both thought it was great! I've been very impressed with Matt for expanding the type of salads that he likes. When I met him, the only salad he'd eat was chicken caesar salad. When he saw we were having salad he had two questions: "Will there meat too?" and "Are you going to put avocado on there?". He was satisfied that was going to be served with blackened shrimp and was ecstatic that the recipe had absolutely no avocados. If/when I make this again, the only thing I would "change" would to add some sort of cheese like crumbled feta. The recipe was very refreshing and everything I hoped it would be. 

Julie's Spinach and Strawberry Salad

Ingredients:
10 cups spinach (or red leaf lettuce or mixture of both)
3 cups strawberries (may use green grapes or mixture of both)
1 cup broken walnuts
fresh bean sprouts (optional)
4 oz bacon bits (optional)
Dressing:
1 1/2 cups oil
1 1/2 t. worcestershire
1 1/2 t. paprika
3/4 t. dry mustard
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup poppy seed
1 1/2 t. red onion

Roasted Asparagus

The other day, Matt and I were trying to decide what to have for dinner after deciding to bail on our previous plans to go to Epcot's food and wine festival. I realized that I still needed to make something out of mommom's cookbook this week. I had some turkey sausage that needed to be cooked, so I asked Matt to find a side dish out of the cookbook. He picked out the roasted asparagus recipe. 

When I first met Matt, he hated all things vegetables. He would only tolerated broccoli. One of the first vegetables that I re-introduced him to was asparagus and he now loves and requests for it often! Needless to say, I was not surprised that this was the recipe he chose. 

In Mommom's note, she said she got this recipe from Joyce Rice and from further inquiry I found out that Joyce was my mom's Home Economics teacher in Jr. High School. Her note also said that she liked to marinate the asparagus over night or at least from the morning of until supper time. 

I make roasted asparagus (a different recipe) all the time and I'm slightly picky about it. I always want super skinny asparagus and right after washing it, the woody ends need to go. Even if you are not making it that night, you still should cut of the ends and put it in a jar with water just like you would do to any fresh flowers you bring home. I never thought of marinating it in all the goodies for longer than just the time to mix all the ingredients together. I will definitely do that from now on. I was able to marinate it for the hour or so that the main dish was being prepped and cooked since I didn't know I was making it until a few hours before dinner. I also really like that it's all mixed in a baggie. Before, I would always mix all the ingredients in a bowl and then have something else that needs to be cleaned. While Matt and I probably slightly prefer my other recipe for roasting asparagu, I did learn a few new tricks about marinating from this recipe and it provided a good alternate to what we normally have.

Roasted Asparagus 

Ingredients:
Asparagus (1lb)
Olive oil (about 2 tablespoons)
Garlic (about 1 clove minced)
Tarragon (about 1/2 teaspoon)

Directions:
Place above ingredients in baggie. Coat the asparagus well.
Place asparagus in single layer in backing dish.
Place in preheated oven 475 degrees and bake for 3 minutes. Turn the asparagus over and baked an additional 4 minutes.

Polynesian Volcano

I was standing in the middle of my living room the other day just staring at my huge bookshelf of just cookbooks and smiled proudly. I have so many cookbooks it's crazy and I love all of them. They each have a story, but my favorite story is for the one that sits first in line at the very top. A few years ago, my grandma (my mom's mom and will hence forth be referred to as Mommom) asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted all her recipes. All her favorites that she's collect from cookbooks, magazines, friends, etc over the years. Not only did she come through for me with all the recipes, but at the end of most of them was a little note of the history of the recipe and maybe a tidbit of who's favorite it was/is and who makes it best. I was in love! I haven't made most of the recipes in it. I might have been a little intimidated at first, but I'm ready now. I have decided to set off on an adventure of making at least one of her recipes a week until I've made them ALL and to blog about each one! Wish me (and Matt) good luck!

First off the block, Polynesian Volcano! The reason I decided to make this one first is because I hosted "girl's night" this week and I like to theme my meals around the movie we're watching (we happen to be in the middle of watching the top 100 Disney movies). This week's movie was Swiss Family Robinson. While I don't think their ship wrecked anywhere near the Polynesian islands, I still wanted an island feel for the dish.

Mommom didn't have a note for this one, but I do know it's one of my Uncle Joe's favorites. We've had it at least three years for his birthday that I can remember. He probably knows the history of the dish or it might even be his recipe. I don't know. Funny story from his birthday this year, my great-grandmother (Granny) wasn't too thrilled with him or anyone else really (she gave him a tomato for his birthday) and she wouldn't really comment on the dish (she had obviously had it before). She just kept asking who's birthday was next and they better want something "American". She was essentially insulting his choice without actually saying it. Fun fact: The Hawaiian islands are part of Polynesia and therefore their meals would be considered "American". If you are feeling a burger though, don't make this. You'll be disappointed. Granny has since passed, but this was a fun story to remember while prepping the meal.

The recipe doesn't give the quantity for each ingredient, so I kind of just guessed a good amount of each for the number of people that were going to be eating it (the amounts I used in purple below). This would easily serve 4 adults. I hate celery. I felt I needed to keep it in the recipe though. After all, I didn't have to put it on my volcano. Ashleigh and Shannon both loved the meal and even went back for seconds. That's the biggest compliment I think there is!

Polynesian Volcano

Ingredients:

Rice, cooked (2 cups uncooked in my rice cooker)

Chinese noodles

Chicken, cooked, cubed (1lb)

Can crushed pineapple, heated (8oz can)

Celery, chopped (2 stalks)

Green onion, chopped (2)

Shaved coconut (1 cup)

Sliced almonds, toasted (1/2 cup)

Grated cheddar cheese (2 cups)

Chicken gravy made from chicken broth (1/2 cup) and cream of chicken soup (8oz can) 

Directions:

Arrange food on table in given order. Serve to plate in like order.