Danny's Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

This recipe comes from my husband. He has it memorized from when he was a teenager! He knows how to cook the important things in life. I'm mainly putting it on here so I always have the recipe...I don't have it memorized, and I have actually never made it myself! (The cookies in the picture were made by my mom, who followed Danny's instructions).

1 stick butter
1/2 cup shortening
(or 2 sticks of butter)
3/4 cup white sugar
cream together
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 3/4 cup flour
chocolate chips "to your enjoyment"
bake at 350 degrees 8-10 minutes

He claims that it doesn't matter if you don't cream the butter and sugar first, you can just mix it all together....I would cream the butter and sugar and then add the eggs and then the rest.

Slow cooker BBQ Baby Back Ribs (can be a freezer meal)

BBQ Baby Back Ribs recipe downloaded here: http://newleafwellness.biz/2016/01/31/40-pre-baby-freezer-meals/
Yields: 5 servings
Ingredients
• 3 lbs baby back ribs, cut to fit in crockpot
• 1 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Materials
• 1 gallon-sized plastic freezer bag
To Freeze and Cook Later
1. Label your freezer bag with the name of the recipe, cooking instructions, and “use-
by date” (which should be 3 months from the prep day).
2. To your freezer bag, add all ingredients.
3. Remove as much air as possible, seal, and freeze.
Cook
1. The night before cooking, move frozen bag to your refrigerator to thaw.
2. The morning of cooking, pour contents of freezer bag into your slow cooker.
3. Cook on “low” setting for 6-8 hours or until ribs are cooked through and tender.
4. Pour ribs onto a cookie sheet covered with aluminum foil. Bake for 15 minutes at
350 degrees F.
Serve with extra BBQ sauce and corn on the cob.

Husband's reaction: he liked it! You can't go wrong with ribs and my husband.

My New Favorite Sugar Cookie Recipe!

I have shared a sugar cookie recipe on here before, but I visited my old college roommate, Brinda, last year who shared this recipe with me, and I fell in love! It has almond extract in it. I don't like almond extract! But I love these cookies. The key is to not put too much almond extract in. DO NOT OVERDO IT! Put even less than it says if you want, but don't accidentally put in more, or it will be gross. This is your warning! :)

Mama's Sugar Cookies from Brinda

1 cup margarine
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp almond extract (and not a drop more!!!)
4 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Cream together margarine and sugar until smooth, add eggs and mix again until fluffy. Add vanilla and almond. Add flour, soda, and salt, mix well. Refrigerate for two hours (or as long as you can stand it...I'm not patient! but it is kind of important for handling the dough without it being sticky). Roll out 1/4 inch thick. Cut with cookie cutters. Bake at 350 degrees for six minutes. Let cool on sheet for a few minutes and then move to rack to continue cooling. (Six minutes might be too short depending on your oven. I would say 6-8 minutes).

Hellooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's been three years! I started thinking I needed to add a few newer recipes that I have come to love to this blog. Mostly for my own sake so I never lose them. :) I've recently started enjoying making some freezer meals to help me feel prepared and for those nights I don't have it all together. Also, I've started to embrace meal planning (something I have not enjoyed in the past).

Life is very different than it was three years ago! I live in a different place, I have a three year old and will be having a new baby in a few months. It's about time I recorded some of these newer recipes in this newer stage of life, don't you think?

And just so you know that my trusty husband is still around to rate my recipes and approve what I cook, here's a picture of him sweetly making dinner for me one night when I wasn't feeling up to it. (He made spaghetti and meat sauce that was very tasty).

Oh Hello, It's Been A While....

Looking up recipes for a recipe exchange at play group (yeah, I have a child and I go to things like "play group" now...weird!) got me back on this site. I feel kind of bad that I let it die. Having a child changes your life, and cooking is more of a chore than a pleasure now. That's sad, huh? Maybe I'll come back and share some more recipes someday. Lately I've been using a recipe book I got for Christmas called "The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner ...Again!" (It's her second book). I really like all the recipes I have tried so far. They are pretty simple and all have been pretty delicious too. I wish I could share those, but they are copyrighted and I don't want to do anything illegal or wrong. If you need a new cookbook though, it's a good one! 

This is the one!

Yummy & Funny From Our Little Garden

This summer we have harvested two big watermelons from our garden plot. We have a little piece of land at a community garden, and we had so much fun gardening last year that we decided to do it again this year. Check out these pictures of the yummy watermelon we grew:

Being pregnant and feeling sick and both having full time jobs, we have neglected our little garden quite often. Overgrown with weeds and with produce begging to be picked, I just feel guilty when I think about it. One example of our neglect is that our carrots were never properly thinned out. So they look funny when they are pulled up. And we probably should have pulled them all up months ago, but we didn't. So some are HUGE. Because of the crowded carrot patch, our lovely carrots come out looking like legs sometimes:

 Danny thought these carrots were so funny that he hunted down our camera and took these pictures.His favorite was the pair of legs that looks like it's desperately needing to use the bathroom...

 He laughed for a while about that one. And then he put them both together so it looks like our leggy carrots are out on a date. How precious!

Forgive me...I have a good excuse!

I know I have neglected this blog, but I have a good excuse!!!!

I have been battling "morning sickness" for the past couple months, because I'm going to have a baby!

Because of this, I have NOT felt like cooking at all. I haven't even felt like entering my kitchen most days.

Luckily, my sickness has subsided with the arrival of my second semester, and I am actually feeling like cooking again. Hopefully I can start posting again soon.

But you'll have to forgive me again around the end of February. . . I'm going to be busy with another little thing then.