Iced Molasses Cookies

These are definitely a husband-pleaser!!  Mu husband loves these!!  I bought this cookbook on a whim and it was well-worth the money spent just for this one recipe (well, she does have an excellent corn muffin recipe, too!).

These are so easy to make.  The only thing you would probably need to run to the grocery store is molasses, but you should have the rest of the ingredients in your pantry.

This recipe comes to you from The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook by Allysa Torey and Jennifer Appel.  Once again, I do not know these women and I am not getting paid to endorse their book.  Enough said!!  On to the recipe!!

Iced Molasses Cookies

Ingredients for the cookie
2 cups all-purpose flour, SIFTED (it must be SIFTED!!!)
2 tsp baking soda
1 T allspice
1 t cinnamon
1 1/2 sticks UNSALTED butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/4 cup light molasses

Icing
4 T vegetable shortening like Crisco
2 cups powdered suger
2 - 3 T water

Preheat over to 350 degrres.

 In a large bowl, sift the flour with the baking soda, allspice and cinnamon - set aside.

In another large bowll, cream the butter with the sugar until smooth.  Add the egg and mix to combine.  Add the molasses.

Kind of makes a pretty design!  Oops, I digress!  Back to the recipe . . .

Add the dry ingredients (.i.e., flour, baking soda, allspice and cinnamon) and mix thoroughly.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased baking sheet, leaving a couple of inches between each cookie.  Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.

Cool the cookies on the baking sheet for a minute or two before removing them to a wire rack.

To make the icing, combine the shortening, the powdered sugar and the water.  Using an electric mixer, beat until smooth (adding more water if necessary - only a little at a time).   Spread the icing on the cookies once they have completely cooled.  Enjoy!!!  These are really good!  See if they are a husband pleaser for you, too!

Sourdough Whole Wheat Noodles

I have been looking for a good whole wheat noodle recipe for years.  I stumbled upon this recipe this weekend and thought I would give it a try.  I found this recipe on the Simply Homemaking Blog.  It sounded good and so much better than the other recipes I have tried.  The others turned out very dry and quite tasteless.  So, keeping my fingers crossed, here's hoping this is a good recipe.

Sourdough Whole Wheat Noodles

1/2 cup Sourdough Starter*

3 eggs

1 1/2 whole wheat flour

1 1/2 tsp salt (I omitted this)

In a medium bowl, mix the sourdough starter, 3 eggs and whole wheat flour (and salt if you add it).  It might seem a little dry, so you will probably have to knead it with your hands.

Cover the bowl with Saran Wrap and let it rest for 6 to 8 hours.  She did this the night before.  I am doing this the first thing in the morning and will make the noodles later on this afternoon. - so stay tune for my progress!

*If you don't have a sourdough starter, here is a link from my blog on how to start one:

How to create a sourdough starter

Or you can email me and I can send you a dry starter.  My email address is OHGoats@aol.com

After 6 to 8 hours, your dough should look something like this:

Flour a flat surface and scrap the dough from the bowl onto the surface.  This will be sticky so don't be alarmed!  Knead the dough into the flour until it is not sticky.  Divide the dough into 8 equal parts and cover with Saran Wrap to prevent the dough from drying out..

If you have a pasta machine**, you can roll out the dough and cut it.  If you don't, dust a flat surface again with flour, roll out the dough with a rolling pin until you have the desired thickness.  Using a ruler and a pizza cutter, cut your noodles.

(**You can find very nice, inexpensive pasta machines on eBay.)

You can either cook the noodles now in boiling hot warm or, as I did, I let them dry so I could use them for dinner.

I found this pasta rack on eBay - very inexpensive.

Verdict on the noodles.  They were GREAT!!  My husband loved them.  They weren't starchy - very nice texture and taste.  Definitely a keeper recipe.

Paula Deen's "Not Yo Mama's Banana Pudding"

I know Paula Deen has been a hot subject lately in the news media.  I haven't been following it that closely so I won't comment on her guilt or innocence.  All I know that her recipes are darn good.    I had never tried any of her recipes until this "media frenzy" started.  So out of curiosity, I bought her Southern Cooking Bible.

Leafing through the pages, I found this recipe.  I have never had Banana Pudding but my husband had.  So I thought I would surprise him with it yesterday.  This is so easy to make, you can literally whip this up in minutes.  The hardest part is cutting the bananas!

Paula Deen's Not Yo Mama's Banana Pudding

Ingredients

1 box of Vanilla wafers
(she used Pepperidge Farm Chessman cookies - too expensive for my budget - the vanilla wafers worked just fine)
6 to 8 bananas - cut into 1/4 inch slices
2 cups cold heavy whipping cream
2 cups milk
1 package (5 ounces) instant french vanilla pudding (I couldn't find french vanilla, so I used plain ole vanilla)
1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
1 packaged (8 ounces) cream cheese - at room temperature

Put your mixing bowl in the refrigerator or a freezer - you need a "chilled" bowl to whip your cream.

Cover the bottom of an 13 x 9 inch baking dish or pan with the vanilla wafers and layer the sliced bananas on top.

In your chilled bowl, using either a handheld mixer or stand mixer with a whisk attachment, whip the cream with the sugar until stiff peaks appear.

In a separate bowl, combine the milk and pudding mix, blend well using a hand held mixer.

In another bowl, beat the condensed milk and cream cheese together until smooth.

Using a spatula, fold the whipped cream into the cheese mixture.  Add the cream cheese mixture to the pudding mixture , stir until completely mixed.

Pour the mixture over the cookies and bananas and top with the remaining cookies (I forgot to do that - oops!!).

Anyway - we all make mistakes!  Refrigerate this for 3 hours (if you can resist!!).

OH MY, is this ever good!!  My husband loved it!  Since I have never had banana pudding before, I had nothing to compare it to.  He said it was really good.  This is definitely a keeper recipe.