Stuffed Sweet Potato

Stuffed Sweet Potato

Gather all ingredients before beginning recipe

Equipment: Oven safe pan, Oven, Knife, oven mits, measuring cups

Step 1
Sweet Potato 1 ea

Step 2
Marshmallows 1 Cup
Caramel Sauce 2 oz

Always wash your hands and sanitize work area and equipment before starting any recipe.

• Once you cook your sweet potato make an cut in the top of the potato.
• Using oven mitts open the potato by pushing the ends toward the center.
• Place ½ the marshmallows into the sweet potato
• Pour 2 oz of your favorite caramel sauce over the marshmallows.
• Place the rest of the marshmallows over the caramel sauce.
• Put potato bake on an oven safe pan and put back in the oven on Broil.
• Remove from oven when marshmallows start to brown.
• Serve as soon as possible.

baking........finally

Saturday December the 13th,
started out as a early day-7'ish AM
all the dogs were wide awake
We hit the kitchen about noon time after
several trips through the kitchen & out to the shed
finally we had ALL things gathered for our baking.

Rex & Spot had there list in hand.
Circles on recipe cards were for liquids
& Stars were for dry ingredients.
Bowls were set out along with measuring spoons.
& MY FAVE Kitchen Aid Mixer!!!

We started with our Triple Threat Cookies
but, after re-looking at the recipe-the boys & I decided
there wasn't enough chocolate in it...
There Can NEVER be enough chocolate in a cookie...
So thus for-the Suicide Cookie was born!!!
It contains over 7 different chocolates
It's outer side is like a cookie but,
the inside is more like a brownie!!
Sweet Perfection!!!

One lucky winner of our contest will win 4 of these!
Yes they are big enough to share or
eat alone with a BIG glass of milk!!!


Once those were finished being mixed &
scooped in the baking pan-
we moved on to rex's favorite cookies
Rex Cookies...I know how original on the name but,
It is his favorite & yet I don't know anyone else who
makes them like we do...soooo that is it's name!!
& family can identify with it!

Winner of contest will receive 6 Rex Cookies.

Same as before I labeled the ingredients with circles & stars.
The boys had their list in hand & started mixing.
This recipe has 2 layers of almond *special recipe* cookie mix
& 2 of molasses *special recipe* cookie mix
Once the ingredients are mixed as needed I layered them in the pan ready to bake.

We went over to my mother's kitchen to bake everything**
(mind ya' 4 years back I broke my oven-
poor thing didn't stand a chance with me that year)
Of course while I baked the boys played...
But, when it came to testing our cookies they were 1st in line!!

Everything came out amazingly awesome!!
The family gave everything 5*****
After returning home I was exhausted
I went pass out while spot & juicy were sleeping.
Rex stayed spend the night with the g'dogs.
when I woke up I wrapped everything firmly in brown paper for safe storage.
Also I had to hid them in containers. With the way my dogs are-
they will try to smell them out & EAT them ALL...
I can NOT have that...I did place a few on the side for them-

Come Monday we will make our Holly Balls.
These are about 2-3 dozen balls liquor for the adults
& 2-3 doz. balls for the children non-liquor.
of course made with Chocolate, at least 3 different kinds.

The topping change each year for I always manage to
find powders that I find to give a new unique taste to the holly balls...
The winner of our contest will receive 6 of each. Making 1 dozen.


I also have one other item that I
will be shipping out to our Contest Winner.
It is my very own special secret recipe!!
Star's Cajun Bread Pudding.
It will arrive in loaf size.
Enough to share with others!!
OR be greedy...it's ok...Eat it all by yourself!!!
I have been preparing this recipe for what will be 8 years this Christmas day.
so...I guess you can say it's a tradition of mines...& It is to DIE for!!
LOL or I like to say "So good it'll make you wanna slap yo' momma"
(please No physical momma abuse)

That is it...Our Saturday-wasted on baking
Not to bad if I say so myself....

Best of Luck to the Winner of our Contest!!
Stay tuned for the Announcement on Thursday AM
BUT.....Still time to Enter if you haven't so YET!!!
ONE Entry Per Person Please...
Contest!! Page
XOXO

Day 6--Chocolate Covered Snow Peaks

Times:

Prep

40 min

Inactive Prep

8 hr 0 min

Cook

1 hr 0 min

Total:

9 hr 40 min

Yield

about 24 cookies

Ingredients

• 4 large egg whites at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons superfine granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 225 degrees F and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat egg whites on low-medium speed with the whisk attachment until the whites become foamy. Add the cream of tartar and turn speed up to medium, beating until just fluffy. Add the sugar gradually, so it incorporates into the whites slowly without collapsing them. Once all the sugar has been added, add the vanilla and increase the speed to high, whisking until the meringue is firm and glossy, about 5 to 7 minutes.

Place meringue mixture into a piping bag with a medium-sized nozzle attached. Pipe 24 bite-sized "kiss"-shaped meringues onto the trays and place in the oven. Bake for 1 hour undisturbed then turn off heat and leave in the oven overnight to really dry out.

Melt chocolate over a double-boiler or in the microwave on medium power for 30 seconds. Holding each meringue by the peak dip the bases in chocolate so the bottom half of the meringue is coated. Let any excess chocolate drop off before placing on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Allow to set at room temperature - do not put in the fridge. Once set, store in an airtight container

Day 5--Hazelnut Tea Cookies

Hazelnut Tea Cookies

Times:

Prep 18 min

Inactive Prep 1 hr 5 min

Cook 25 min

Total: 1 hr 48 min

Yield 45 cookies

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon table salt
• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 1 cup powdered sugar, plus additional for coating
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups hazelnuts, toasted and finely chopped

Directions

Heat oven to 325 degrees F and arrange racks in upper and lower third. Combine flour and salt in a medium bowl and whisk until aerated and evenly combined; set aside.

Place butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add sugar and vanilla and continue to mix until whipped and light, about 2 more minutes.

Add half of the nuts and mix until evenly incorporated and nuts are broken up, about 1 minute. Add flour and mix until well combined, about 1 minute. Remove bowl from mixer and stir in remaining nuts.

Shape dough into 1 tablespoon balls and place on baking sheets, spaced at least 1 inch apart. Bake, rotating pans halfway through, until underside of cookies are brown, about 25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool 5 minutes on baking sheets.

Meanwhile, place some powdered sugar in a medium bowl. Once the cookies have cooled, roll them in the powdered sugar until just coated and tap off excess. Let cool completely and re-coat in powdered sugar, tapping off excess sugar, before serving.

**NOTE**
Add pecan instead of hazelnuts.
This way it's called a Cocoon-
A Special Cajun Cookie
For Christmas every year my mother
& her BF used to prepare these.
It used to take 5 gals in the kitchen
to completely prepare these to be enjoyed!!
Amazingly Delicious!!!
~ Maybe one day when I have a kitchen
with a oven that works
I may try these with my boys....L

Day 4--Chewy Chocolate-Cinnamon Cookies

Chewy Chocolate-Cinnamon Cookies

Ingredients:

• 6 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
• 2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons plus 1/4 cup granulated sugar, divided
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Spray cookie sheet with nonstick cooking spray.

2. Beat butter until creamy. Add brown sugar and 3 tablespoons granulated sugar; beat until blended. Add egg, baking soda, corn syrup and vanilla; beat well.

3. Stir together flour and cocoa; beat into butter mixture. If batter becomes too stiff, use wooden spoon to stir in remaining flour. Cover; refrigerate about 30 minutes, if necessary, until batter is firm enough to shape. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Combine 1/4 cup granulated sugar and cinnamon; roll balls in mixture. Place balls 2-inches apart on prepared cookie sheet.

4. Bake 9 to 10 minutes or until cookies are set and tops are cracked. Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely. 40 cookies.

These cookies would be nice tasting with a cup of hot tea or apple cider.

Day3--Greeting Card Cookies

Greeting Card Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• DECORATIVE FROSTING(recipe follows)

Directions:
1. Beat butter, sugar, egg and vanilla in large bowl until fluffy. Stir together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt; add to butter mixture, blending well. Refrigerate about 1 hour or until firm enough to roll. Cut cardboard rectangle for pattern, 2-1/2 x 4 inches; wrap in plastic wrap.

2. Heat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease cookie sheet. On lightly floured board or between two pieces of wax paper, roll out half of dough to 1/4-inch thickness. For each cookie, place pattern on dough; cut through dough around pattern with sharp paring knife. (Save dough trimmings and re roll for remaining cookies.) Carefully place cutouts on prepared cookie sheet.

3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until set. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheet. (If cookies have lost their shape, trim irregular edges while cookies are still hot.) Carefully transfer to wire rack. Repeat procedure with remaining dough.

4. Prepare DECORATIVE FROSTING; spoon into pastry bag fitted with decorating tip. Pipe names or greetings onto cookies; decorate as desired. About 12 cookies.

DECORATIVE FROSTING: Beat 3 cups powdered sugar and 1/3 cup shortening in small bowl; gradually add 2 to 3 tablespoons milk, beating until smooth and slightly thickened. Cover until ready to use. If desired, divide frosting into two bowls; tint each a different color with food color.

Day 3--Butterscotch Nut Fudge

This looks like a "slap yo' momma Good" recipe
Watch out Mommas IF you come to my house!!!

Butterscotch Nut Fudge

Ingredients:

• 1-3/4 cups sugar
• 1 jar (7 oz.) marshmallow creme
• 3/4 cup evaporated milk
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
• 1-3/4 cups (11-oz. pkg.) HERSHEY'S Butterscotch Chips
• 1 cup chopped salted mixed nuts
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Line 8-inch square pan with foil, extending foil over edges of pan.

2. Combine sugar, marshmallow creme, evaporated milk and butter in heavy 3-quart saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to full boil; boil and stir 5 minutes.

3. Remove from heat; gradually add butterscotch chips, stirring until chips are melted. Stir in nuts and vanilla. Pour into prepared pan; cool.

4. Refrigerate 2 to 3 hours. Remove from pan; place on cutting board. Peel off foil. Cut into squares. Store tightly covered in refrigerator. About 5 dozen pieces or about 2-1/4 pounds candy.

NOTE: For best results, do not double this recipe.

day 2--Chocolate Sour Cream Cake

Chocolate Sour Cream Cake

Ingredients:

• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1-3/4 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 1 container (16 oz.) dairy sour cream
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• FUDGE FROSTING(recipe follows)

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 13x9x2-inch baking pan.

2. Stir together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add butter, sour cream, eggs and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 3 minutes. Pour batter into prepared pan.

3. Bake 40 to 45 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack. Frost with FUDGE FROSTING. 12 to 15 servings.


FUDGE FROSTING

3 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1-1/3 cups powdered sugar
2 to 3 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter in small saucepan over low heat. Add cocoa; cook, stirring constantly, just until mixture begins to boil. Pour mixture into medium bowl; cool completely. Add powdered sugar alternately with milk to cocoa mixture, beating to spreading consistency. Stir in vanilla. About 1 cup frosting.

Chocoholic Chocolate Lover

Are You A Chocoholic Chocolate Lover?? Take The Quiz Below & Find Out!! BTW: I Scored A BIG FAT 30

It's your friend's birthday and the only present that comes to mind is a box of chocolates. Do you:

a) Buy her a box of your favorite chocolates and hope she will open them in front of you, so that you can devour most of them yourself?

b) Buy her a box of her favorite chocolates and insist that she eats them all herself?

c) Have some chocolates sent to her house, so that you don't even have to look at them?

d) It's no use! The prospect of giving a box of chocolates to anyone else is too much to bear; so it's time to think again?

A work colleague is leaving to go to a new job and brings an enormous chocolate cake into the office on her last day. Do you:

a) Politely decline - on the grounds that you are on a diet?

b) Down tools immediately, you could never sit and work while

chocolate cake was a few inches away from you?

c) Accept a piece and eat it quickly, so that you are available to polish off any leftovers?

d) Leave the room straightaway; claiming you must dash off to do an important job and hope it is all gone when you return?

A common 'saying' is that many people prefer chocolate to sex! Do you:

a) Absolutely agree? Nothing comes before your chocolate!

b) Decide that chocolate will be here today and gone today, but sex can always wait until tomorrow?

c) Totally disagree? You can always have chocolate after sex!

d) Find yourself struggling to decide between the two?

You and your partner are invited out to friends for a meal. When a severely chocolaty dessert arrives on the table, everyone (including you) is full. Do you:

a) Say you couldn't possibly eat another thing, or you might explode?

b) Wish you hadn't eaten so much for the other courses? A lesson to be learnt for the future.

c) Squeeze some in? It seems a pity for all that chocolate to go to waste!

d) Politely say that you are full, but rather than regretting it the next day, say that you could always take some home to eat later?

Christmas is always a bad time for anyone trying to avoid chocolate, as boxes seem to be everywhere in the workplace and become too much for most of us to bear. Do you:

a) Feel unconcerned about the prospect of having chocolate staring at you from every angle; you'll just eat what you want? After all it is Christmas!

b) Decide it's time to take a few 'sickies.' It's the only way you are going to get into that new dress?

c) Display complete willpower and walk past every box, without looking?

d) Sneak into work early one morning and remove all the boxes out of sight, without eating any? MF

You are alone in the house with no chocolate and the kids are in bed asleep. A sudden craving for chocolate comes over you, unable to leave the house. Do you:

a) Desperately search through the kids' school bags, hoping you might find something - even though there's not much hope?

b) Call one of your friends and ask them to bring some over, as it's an emergency?

c) Call your partner and inform him that his evening at the gym is not as important as your chocolate. He'd better come home straightaway?

d) Turn off the T.V. - avoiding all those chocolate adverts - and sit down to read a good book instead?

You decide to 'throw' a barbeque and everyone thinks a chocolate fondue is the perfect end to the meal. Does the sight of all that melted chocolate make you:

a) Run for the nearest ladle?

b) Ditch the barbeque, you'd rather go straight to dessert?

c) Make sure you get the most marshmallows, so you can have more to dip in the chocolate?

d) Keep yourself distracted by the 'Hot Dogs?' or at least that's what you're telling yourself.

You entered a competition on a chocolate bar to win a day at a chocolate factory, with as much chocolate as you can eat. Never imagining you would win, you find yourself the lucky winner. Do you:

a) Jump around in excitement. You can hardly wait to tell your friends, they'll be so jealous?

b) Let someone else go in your place. The prospect is too much to endure?

c) Ask if you can take a friend? After all you don't want to be sick on your own in a strange place.

d 'Grit your teeth' and throw the letter away, hoping that they (and you) will forget all about it?

A mystery box of chocolates, in the shape of a heart, is delivered to your door on Valentines Day. Do you:

a) Rip the box open immediately and devour them? After all, a box of chocolates is a box of chocolates!

b) Look at them lovingly and wonder who sent them? Not wishing to spoil the box by opening them.

c) Put them in a prominent place in the house, so anyone visiting can see them, then you can eat them later?

d) Put them away in a safe place and treasure them forever?

How many chocolate biscuits do you eat a day?

a) At least one packet? You can't cope without your daily allowance!

b) You only eat them on shopping day? After that they have all gone!

c) You are not quite sure, because you spend most days eating other peoples?

d) None. You are on a strict diet and you never keep any in the house. Even the kids aren't allowed any? MF

Scores

1 a) 4 b) 1 c) 2 d) 3

2 a) 1 b) 3 c) 4 d) 2

3 a) 3 b) 4 c) 2 d) 1

4 a) 1 b) 2 c) 3 d) 4

5 a) 4 b) 3 c) 1 d) 2

6 a) 2 b) 3 c) 4 d) 1

7 a) 4 b) 3 c) 2 d) 1

8 a) 4 b) 2 c) 3 d) 1

9 a) 4 b) 2 c) 3 d) 1

10 a) 4 b) 3 c) 2 d) 1

10 and under

Congratulations for having such amazing willpower. It doesn't matter how much you want to eat chocolate, it's not going to take over your life, or prevent you from getting into your favorite clothes!

11 - 24

You like other people to think you have chocolate under control. Sadly you are only deluding yourself - your chocolate tendencies are more obvious than you seem to think!

25 - 30

You are a true chocoholic! There is nothing standing in the way of you and your chocolate and you don't care who knows it. Any man in your life will have to be prepared to be second best!

Sweet Section

Sweet Section-I thought I'd share my new profound love for sweets!!!
ok we all know most women can not help themselves for chocolate!!
well, neither can this one-but there are other sweets out there that make me layer on the chunk-one of my all time favorites are called "petit fours"
these are small cakes covered in a cooked-fondant like icing. when done properly they are amazing delicious!! imagine for a min. light fluffy almond flavored cake covered completely in a slight lemon tasting sugared icing. ohh yeahh that is goooooood!!!! It takes only 2 bites to completely eat it all. It is that small. About 1 & half inches thick & squared!!

Here is a link to the BEST EVER ones...This Co has mastered the art of making petit fours & luckily we can buy them over the Internet instead of traveling way out to New Orleans for them...Also check out their one of a kind ONLY found their special cake...It's the best ever-if anyone else does it-they are copy cats...this co. is the original to hold it...Doberge Cakes I have eaten the chocolate one before...How amazing tasteful...very bite is pure sin!!! I would love to try the caramel one of these days...I'll let ya know how it taste as well...

http://gambinos.info/index.html


With all this new found interest in cakes & sweets as a whole I may spark up a contest from it as soon as we can get pass these very hot days of summer....Hurricane Days I like to call them...BLAA the worse part of living in the South.... Stay tuned-More from my kitchen of what challenges of sweets I may concur!!