Recipes for Simple Homemade Yummies

CAROB MINT COOKIES

My first all-original recipe! I was attempting to re-create some natural cocomint cookies that I used to love but they quit making.

2 eggs
1-1/2 cups oil
1/2 cup honey
2 cups sugar
4-1/2 cups flour
2 tsp soda
1/2 cup carob powder
2 tsp mint

Ungreased cookie sheet. The consistency is similar to peanut butter cookies (hold their shape while baking). Make them whatever size and bake them in the oven until they're cooked :-)

YOUR BASIC CHIP COOKIES

The all-purpose recipe I do everything with. Not very sweet. The kids are used to unsweet cookies and think they've got something.  Everybody else looks askance at the brown cookies. 

3 eggs
3/4 cup butter
2 cup sugar, part brown or Sucanat
2 tsp vanilla
4.5 cups flour (or 1.5 cups flour and 3 cups oatmeal)
1 tsp baking soda
1.5 cups whatever kind of chips
1 cup whatever kind of nuts

These spread out while cooking. Cook at 375° for ten or twelve minutes, depending on how big they are. 

To make them Snickerdoodles, roll them in sugar and cinnamon before baking, and grease the cookie sheet.

NO-BAKE COOKIE BARS

1 cup honey
1 cup peanut butter

Cook together in a large pan on medium heat until bubbly. Then stir in:

4 to 6 cups crisp rice cereal or quick-cooking oatmeal.  

Pat this into a greased shallow pan.

Melt one cup of a softer kind of chip like Butterscotch (gasp) or peanut butter chips with one cup chocolate chips. Spread that over the top. Refrigerate.

QUICK BREAD

3 eggs
1-1/2 water, if you use dry dates. Use less water at first and see if it's enough.
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup turbinado sugar
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 rounded TBS baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup chopped nuts
1 cup chopped dates or raisins

Bake at 350° until it's done. 

CHILI-MAC

3/4 cup chopped onion 
1 lb ground beef

Cook those together in a large frypan. Drain the fat, then stir in:

15 can kidney beans (drained) 
8 oz can tomato sauce 
7.5 oz can cut up tomatoes (not drained) 
1/2 cup elbow macaroni (uncooked) 
2 tsp chili powder 
1/2 tsp garlic salt 
1/4 cup water

simmer 20 minutes, stir in 1/2 cup shredded cheese

POTLUCK PASTA

Big pot of hot water, and put in it:

2 cups uncooked pasta 
one package frozen vegies 
1/2 cup chopped onion

Cook that until the pasta's done. Drain the water.

Stir in: 
1 can condensed soup (Cream of Broccoli is really not that bad) 
8 oz sour cream 
1/2 cup milk 
1/2 cup shredded carrot 
1 tsp oregano or basil 
1/4 tsp pepper

Cook just until it's heated. The carrots will still be mostly raw.

Sprinkle with Parmesan or cheddar cheese. 

DINNER FOOD

It took a non-cook type like me a long time to figure it out. But basically, you need four things: 

meat / pasta / rice
onion / vegies
broth / cream / canned soup / eggs
seasoning

Most combinations of those four things make an acceptable dinner dish.  You either boil it in a pot, scramble it up in a big frypan, or bake it in a casserole dish. 

Once I got this idea through my head, dinner wasn't such a big worry any more :-)

NO-BAKE CHEESECAKE

It's got a fresher and lighter taste than the baked-with-eggs kind.

Crust: 
2 cups finely chopped pecans or graham crackers 
1/4 cup sugar 
1/2 tsp cinnamon 
1/2 cup butter

Stir together, pat into the bottom of a pie dish.

Filling:

1 cup boiling water 
1/2 cup sugar 
1 TBS gelatin (the seaweed kind: Knox comes from horses' hooves)

Stir for five minutes. This is to get the gelatin melted and dissolved.

Add: 
two 8 oz packages cream cheese 
1 tsp vanilla.

Blend throughly until smooth. Pour into the crust and chill for a few hours.

ORANGE VANILLA PIE

Put 1/4 cup cold water into a blender and turn it on low. 
Sprinkle 1 TBS gelatin into that, then 
1 cup boiling cream, poured in slowly 
Blend for two minutes.

Then stir in: 
8 oz cream cheese, 
6 oz frozen orange juice concentrate 
3/4 cup Fructose 
1-1/2 tsp vanilla

Pour into a graham cracker crust and refrigerate.

WAY EASIEST FRUIT CRISP

If you have berries but "pie" sounds like too much work today.

6 cups apples or blackberries 
1/4 cup flour 
3/4 cup sugar equivalent 
1/2 tsp cinnamon (for apples) or orange peel (for blackberries)

Put that in a pie dish.

Crumble together 
2 TBS butter 
1/2 cup flour 
1/2 cup brown sugar / Sucanat

Sprinkle that over the top. Bake 350° until the fruit's bubbly and the topping's golden.

CAKE BROWNIES

4 eggs 
1-1/2 cups butter 
2 cups milk 
2 tsp vanilla 
2-1/2 cups sugar or reasonable facsimile thereof 
1 cup cocoa / carob powder 
3 cups flour 
2 tsp baking powder 
1/2 tsp baking soda 
2 cups chopped nuts

Greased pan large enough that batter is one inch deep. Bake at 350° for 20 or until toothpick comes out clean.

NO EGGS CHOCOLATE CAKE

This is the BEST. Everybody screams about how great this is.  

3 cups flour 
5 TBS cocoa / carob 
2 tsp baking soda 
1-1/2 cups sugar 
1 teaspoon salt 
1/2 cup + 2 TBS oil 
2 TBS vinegar 
2 tsp vanilla 
2 cups cold water

Greased and floured 9 x 13 pan, or two layer cake pans. 350° for 30 minutes.

CHOCOLATE CHIP BIRTHDAY CAKE

2 eggs 
1/2 cup butter 
1 cup sugar 
1 tsp vanilla 
1 cup sour cream 
1 tsp baking powder 
1 tsp baking soda 
2 cups flour 
12 oz chocolate chips

Greased and floured bundt pan at 350° for 45 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

WEDDING CARROT CAKE

4 eggs 
1 cup oil 
8 oz can crushed pineapple (undrained) 
2 cups sugar 
2 cups flour 
2 tsp baking powder 
1 tsp baking soda 
2 tsp cinnamon 
1 tsp vanilla 
3 cups shredded carrot

Greased and floured 9 x 13 pan, or two layer cake pans. 350° for 30 - 35 minutes.

FROSTING

8 oz. cream cheese 
1 TBS orange juice concentrate 
1/4 cup butter 
2 cups powdered sugar (two parts Fructose mixed with one part cornstarch) 
1 tsp vanilla

BISQUICK

(Bisquick recipe from Gloria Pitzer, The Recipe Detective.)

8 cups flour 
1 1/4 cups nonfat dry milk powder 
1/4 cup baking powder 
1 tablespoon salt 
2 cups shortening (they do make some reasonably healthy kinds of shortening)

Mix all together until it's like fine crumbs. You can store this in an airtight container in a cool place for quite a while.

What I like to use Bisquick for is to make nearly anything into super-fast dinner. Mix two cups of this with two eggs and some water until it's a runny batter, add some salt and pepper or Spike to make it non-boring, then pile some cooked vegies and meat in a casserole dish and pour that over the top and cook it until the crust's golden.

If what you're using for filling has runny ingredients, add eggs or flour to make it set up. If you're using eggs be sure the middle gets fully cooked.

Chicken pot pie: cooked chicken, chicken soup base or gravy, peas, fried onions, shredded carrots or peas, etc. Make the Bisquick crust reasonably thick.

Vegetable Casserole: cooked broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, onion, green pepper. Add salt to the crust.

Pizza pie: ground beef, tomatoes, cheese, olives, etc., mixed with just a little bit of pizza sauce. Add Italian seasoning or oregano to the Bisquick mixture which can be runny.

Sloppy Joe pie: cooked ground beef with ketchup, onion and bouillon. Cook that in a pan until bubbly then put it in a casserole dish. Make the bisquick crust really thick, add paprika, and spoon it into blobs on top.

Southwest Pie: corn, green onions, canned black beans, cheese, salsa mixed with eggs, and use salsa liquid in the crust. Sprinkle with cheese after it's baked.