Honey Cookies

When I was a kid, my family always got our baked goods at a local bakery outside of Nashville called Beckers Bakery. The cakes were wonderful but their cookies were the best! Especially their Honey Cookies. When we moved away, I was never able to find another bakery that had these kinds of cookies, so I pretty much gave up trying & only have them on the occasions I go back home.

Today, however, I had a mad craving for honey cookies. So I looked up recipes for them. I didn't really expect to find any good ones, but I did come across this one called Honey Bee Cookies from cooks.com. I made it today (with minor alterations) and they came out great! They almost taste just like the ones from Beckers! They are however, very sweet. Even for me & I love sweets. I don't remember the ones from the bakery being quite so sweet, but then, it's been a good 10 years since I've had theirs. So it's hard to judge. But my little one liked them too, so I'll make them again.

Now that I'm on a a cookie making roll, I will only send my home made cookies in her school lunch. I really don't want her to have all the preservatives & junk that are in store bought pre-packaged cookies. Cookies are not meant to have a year long shelf life. They are to be eaten and enjoyed immediatley. But she wants cookies, and my husband likes to have one with lunch too, so I usually end up making big batches on the weekends.

And although I don't think my husband will like these, I think they came out pretty good.

here's the recipe:

Honey Cookies

• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 stick of butter, softened
  
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 egg
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. Beat butter, brown sugar, honey and egg in a medium bowl on medium speed, scraping bowl constantly, until smooth. Stir in remaining ingredients.

3. Drop the dough by Tablespoon fulls onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.

4. Bake until set and light brown around edges 8 to 12 minutes. Let stand 3 to 5 minutes before removing from cookie sheet, then remove from cookie sheet with metal spatula onto a wire rack. Makes 12 cookies.

Spiced Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes

I was so excited when I found this recipe here at Foodess, that I absolutely HAD to make it THIS weekend. It simply couldn't wait another week. Finances be damned! We MUST have Guinness Cupcakes!

I've been eyeballing a lot of variations on chocolate Guinness baked goods, but this one seemed to be the most simple & straightforward recipe that didn't require me to purchase new kitchen equiment.

And unlike just about every other recipe I make, I didn't alter this one little bit.

Ok, well, not the cupcake part anyway. I did use my own butter cream frosting though.

So here it is:

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 3/4 cups cocoa
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup soy milk (alright, so i altered that one little thing. the original calls for regular milk)
  
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup Guinness beer

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees and line two muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt, and spices.

2. In a separate bowl, blend together eggs, soy milk, melted butter*, beer, and vanilla. Add to dry ingredients and beat on medium speed of electric beaters for 2 minutes. Fill cupcake liners to three quarters full. Bake for 25 minutes, or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.

*be sure to use beer that is at room temperature. I would recommend leaving a bottle out overnight in fact. I had left a bottle out for about an hour before making this, but it was still cold. Which meant that when I added it to the melted butter, it immediately solidified the butter. Somehow, I don't think this was the desired effect. But it worked out anyway.

I used the same frosting from the Vanilla Rum Spice Cookie recipe.

Personally? I think these ROCK! It's a perfect blend of Guinness & chocolate without one overpowering the other. I will totally make these again. And again and again..

But, that is just me. If you're not a Guinness fan, then these probably wouldn't do it for you. I, however AM a fan & these DO work for me very well!

I'm so glad I didn't wait to make these! Yum!

Vanilla Rum Spice Cookies

These are SO good!

When I took them out of the oven last night, I gave my husband a small bite. Just to see if he'd like them.

And I swear to you, I thought his eyeballs were going to roll back in his head, and all he could say was "MORE OF THOSE!!"

Yep! That's what I was going for! Now, I gave him the un-frosted variety because he doesn't like frosting at all. But they're really good either way.

The funny thing about these, is that they're not what they're supposed to be. They're supposed to be Root Beer Cookies. I found this great little recipe here at Makes and Takes. And thought that was a brilliant idea!

Unfortunately, I couldn't get my hands on any root beer flavoring. But I did have some rum flavoring hidden in the back of my spice rack & it's been begging me to use it for over a month now. So, I thought, what the heck? I'll give it a shot.

And y'know what?

They're divine! I don't think I'm even going to try the root beer version now!

Here's what I did:

Makes about 2 dozen

• 1 cup vegan butter
• 2 cups light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp imitation rum extract
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
  
• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt

Cream butter and brown sugar until very light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the rum & vanilla extracts. Whisk dry ingredients together. Add a little at a time to the creamed mixture. The dough should be slightly sticky

Chill for at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease several baking sheets, or line them with silicone baking mats or parchment paper. Roll into balls & place on cookie sheet. With a spoon, press down on the top of each ball, so it's flattened a little bit.

Bake for 6-8 minutes. More if you're cookie balls are a little bigger. When done transfer to a plate or paper towels to cool.

My frosting is a little free-form and I make it a little differently depending upon what it's going on. For these cookies, this is pretty much what I did:

• 1 stick of earth balance butter
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• 1/2 cup soy milk
• 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
• a whole lot of powdered sugar

mix all ingredients together well and keep adding the powdered sugar until you get a nice stiff consistency.

Then I filled the little spoon sized depression on top of the cookies with the frosting, and volia!

I suppose you could cover the whole cookie with frosting, but in my personal opinion, the flavor of the cookies is subtle and delicate and too much of the frosting would be overpowering. Plus, they look pretty with just a dab of frosting.

Everyone in my household LOVES these, so this recipe is definitely a keeper!

Wow!

I haven't posted in a long time.

It's been busy in my house & I haven't had a lot of computer time in the past few weeks. And on the rare occasions I can get to the computer, I've spent catching up with an old friend I haven't talked to since 7th grade!

facebook is an amazing thing.

So, in the past two weeks I've still tried new recipes, but I did the quick and dirty versions of them to save time and a little money. Eventually, I'm sure I'll do them the slow and clean way, but since I'm pretty happy with the results I got, I think I'll stick to my way for now.

The first thing I tried was Dragon's Rice Pudding.

Now let me say, my mothers rice pudding is a wonderful thing. This is total comfort food for me & it's what I want to eat on the occasions I need my mama.

However

my mothers rice pudding recipe is...difficult. It requires kitchen equipment I don't own
(ie: corning wear and/or a casserole dish. since i'm vegetarian i don't own such things) and although I do love rice pudding, it's really not worth going out & buying these items I'll never use for anything other than rice pudding.

So, I had been searching around for a rice pudding recipe I could do on the stove top. And Voila! Dragon had one posted that's perfect! (have i mentioned how much i love Dragons blog? No? Well, I do! Great recipes there!)

Unfortunately, the craving for it was high, and resources were low. So I made do with what I had.

And this is what I did:

Cranberry and Lemon Rice Pudding by Dragon

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups water
2 cups soy milk
3 strips of lemon rind
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup short-grain rice
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 large egg, beaten

Directions:

1. In a saucepan combine water, milk, lemon, cinnamon and salt. Cover and bring it to a boil, over medium heat.

2. Reduce the heat to medium-low and add the rice. Cook the rice, uncovered for about 25-30 minutes or until the rice is almost tender. Stir often.

3. Add the sugar and cranberries. Cook for another 5 to 10 minutes or until most of the liquid is absorbed. Remove the pan from the heat.

4. Stir in the egg quickly until well combined. Return the pan to the heat until the rice is slightly thickened. Stir constantly. Remove the lemon rind. Cool the rice to your desired temperature.

Spoon into bowls and sprinkle with ground cinnamon and/or lemon zest.

Let me just say that this is sinfully good. No, really! It's seriously that good! I brought some to work to share with my friend there & those were her exact words!

The pudding is on the left in the picture up there. That's my little wanna-be bento box. I spend way to much free time oogling bento sites. some day i'll go there. some day...

on the right hand side of the picture is the other new recipe I tried.
Again, this is the quick and dirty version of the origianal which you can find at Buff Chickpea

YaYa's Potatoes

1/2 a bag of red potatoes
2 onions, sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/3 cup vegetable broth

1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
Sea salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place the cut up potatoes in a greased baking dish Set aside while you make the lemon dressing.

In a medium bowl, combine olive oil, lemon juice, broth, oregano, garlic, and a little salt and pepper. Pour the dressing over the potatoes, and give everything a good toss.

Sprinkle with additional kosher salt and cracked black pepper and put into your preheated oven.

Bake for 30 minutes, give the potatoes a toss, then bake for an additional 45-50 minutes, tossing every 20 minutes or so.

Personally, I really liked these. Never, thought they were ok. He didn't hate them, and he ate them, but he said he likes the crash potatoes better. But I made them again anyway for me, because they're fast, yummy, filling and re-heat really well!