Fried Chicken and Cheesesteaks

 Grease or spray a half sheet pan.     Preheat oven to 350. 1 stick butter, browned 2 sticks butter, melted Mix together dry ingredients in an extra large bowl: 3 cups flour 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt Combine browned and melted butter, stir in: 3 cups brown sugar then:  2 Tablespoons vanilla extract 4 eggs Gently mix wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, then stir in: 1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped  (I accomplish this by putting nuts into a gallon ziploc bag and taking out my frustration with the bottom of a heavy saucepan!) Spread on prepared half-sheet pan.    Bake approximately 25 minutes until lightly golden brown.  

Life with three kids gets interesting.    Someone, probably someone with the same last name, left the freezer open a little bit ... enough that the ice bucket had chilled water and most of the food thawed.     Including a whole quart of New Jersey blueberries frozen for a winter pie.   I also had three ready-for-baking overripe bananas.  So I decided the only course of action (besides tossing thawed meat and cleaning the freezer) was to make muffins - a LOT of muffins: Melt (or better yet brown !) a two sticks of butter.    Stir in three mushed overripe bananas.  Cool a little bit then stir in 1 1/2 cups of milk and a cup of sour cream, then 5 eggs, 1 Tablespoon vanilla and if you have it on hand a dash of orange oil .     Then add one cup of brown sugar and one cup of white sugar.  In a separate bowl measure 7 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon salt and 3 Tablespoons of Baking powder (YES TABLES...

Do you have a few extra hours today?     Want to spend them by the stove making as many calories as humanly possible in one pot?  And you have a candy thermometer at the ready?   Do you have real cream, butter and good vanilla?    Have I got the recipe for you!   I decided to try my hand at homemade caramels, so I read about 3 dozen recipes, decided I didn't want "microwave in seven minutes" or "open a can of sweetened condensed milk"  I wanted a recipe that belonged in my circa 1908 house ...      So I settled on this one:  http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2014/12/10/moms-caramels/ with a few modifications: In a large pot (I used a seven qt dutch oven), combine: 1 qt (4 cups) heavy cream 3 cups white sugar 3 cups brown sugar 1 pint (2 cups) corn syrup 1 pound (4 sticks) butter, sliced into pieces 1 Tbs kosher salt Mix them all in the pot, then move to stove on medium-low heat....

What to do on a rainy day with four young children to entertain?   (I was borrowing a couple of them for the morning)    Make cookies!     We didn't have quite enough time to make rolled cookies, wait for them to cool and then frost/sprinkle them, so I needed a recipe that added the sprinkles before baking.    These also TASTE very, very good.    Soft Sugar Cookies ~ 2 dozen  2 cups  all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 sticks butter, softened 1 cup granulated sugar  1 T brown sugar 1 large egg 2 t double strength vanilla  Preheat oven to 375 standard/350 convection.   Whisk flour with baking powder and salt.    In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar.    Then add in egg and vanilla (use the good stuff).       Much like when making peanut butter cookies, roll balls of dough in sugar (ma...

I've been playing around trying to develop a non chocolate go-to cookie, and I think these are a winner.   1 stick butter, softened 1 C brown sugar 1 egg 2 tsp vanilla 1.75 c flour 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 1 c chopped pecans Cream butter and sugar, mix in egg and vanilla.   Mix in dry ingredients, then pecans.  Roll into one thick (about 4 inch) roll in wax or parchment paper and refrigerate a few hours or a few days. Slice in 1 inch slices, then cut the round in quarters.  Bake on ungreased cookie pan at 375 for about 15 minutes.