Kitchen Tip Tuesdays

I love Tammy's new graphic for Kitchen Tip Tuesdays! Be sure to check out her site to see more Kitchen Tip Tuesdays.
My tip this week isn't just for the kitchen, it can be used in different areas in the house (including the kitchen) & even in other places.
I got this tip from The Home Show. It was a show that was on in the late 80's & early 90's. The host was Gary Collins & they had a few different hostesses but I can't remember their names. It was a nice show to watch. It had interviews with various people, home tips, crafts, recipes, & just things like that. It was a good wholesome show. Not many of those these days.
Carol Duvall used to do crafts & things on this show & I really liked this one & have been using it for years....at least 15 years, but maybe longer. LOL
I guess we could call it the "tube 'o bags" trick.
You know those plastic grocery bags (like WalMart's)? They are hard to put away, hard to have a nice place to store them. I know there are cute little hanging bags you can buy to put them in, but I've just always used this tube trick.
You take an empty paper towel tube & stuff a plastic bag down into it, leaving one handle sticking out the top like this:

Then you take your next bag & thread the bottom of the bag through the loop, like this:

Then you cram that bag down into the tube, also leaving one handle sticking out.

Repeat this process until your tube is full & you can't fit any more bags into it. You can actually get quite a few in there. I counted the other night & I got 10 bags into one tube.

You can see this one is full as the first bag is starting to come out the other end.

Since you hook each bag into the handle of the last one you put in, it makes it like a dispenser, you pull one out & then next one pops up, just like Kleenexes.

These little "tube 'o bags" fit nicely into drawers. I keep a few in one of my kitchen drawers. I also use these bags as trash bags in our bathrooms & in the little wastebaskets that are in each bedroom, so I keep quite a few of these tubes up on a shelf in our laundry room.
I keep a tube in our fishing boat. Years ago when our daughter was little we had a camper & I always had at least one, if not more, of these "tube 'o bags" in a drawer in our camper.
Also, you could decorate these if you want. I remember coloring flowers on one of these with our daughter when she was little.
I guess I think this is a pretty useful trick, I've been doing it for a lot of years! I learned it from The Home Show & have been using this trick ever since.

Parmesan Twists Breadsticks

This is another recipe that I got from the internet quite a few years ago, so I have no idea where I got it & no way to link to it. I haven't made breadsticks in a few years & thought it was time to get back to it. I found this recipe in my binder & thought I'd give it a try. It was really good. I marked KEEPER at the bottom. That means that everyone in my family loved them & wants to have them again.
Here is a picture of them after they had risen & just before going into the oven:


Parmesan Twists Breadsticks
3/4 C. Water
2 T. olive oil
3 C. bread flour
1 t. salt
1 T. sugar
2 t. active dry yeast

2 T. melted butter for brushing on the breadsticks
Parmesan Cheese

You could use your bread machine for this if you'd like.
1. Combine water, yeast, & sugar in a small bowl & set aside. In mixer combine the olive oil, salt, & flour. Add the water/ yeast mixture & mix with the dough hook. I mix this way for 5 minutes or so, it takes the place of hand kneading for 8-10 minutes. If the dough is too sticky, add more flour. If it seems to dry, add warm water 1 t. at a time until you have a nice dough ball.
2. Place dough in a greased bowl, turning to coat it. Cover with a towl & set in warm place to rise for 60-90 minutes or until doubled.
3. Punch down. Divide dough into 20 equal pieces. Roll each piece into 10-12 inch rope. Pinch end of 2 ropes together & then twish them together & pinch them together at the end. Place twists on cookie sheet. Melt the 2 T. butter & brush onto the twists. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Cover & let rise in a warm place for 30-60 minutes or until doubled.
4. Bake in 400 degree oven for 12-15 minutes.
Yield: 10 breadsticks
These are delicious served warm.

I baked mine for about 1 minute too long. I was in the laundry room & didn't hear the timer going off. As soon as I left the laundry room I heard it dinging so I RAN to the kitchen! Sure enough, just a little more golden brown than I like, but they were still delicious!



They were really good served with cheesy Chicken Spaghetti.
I think they would also be great with any tomato based pasta too.
And also served as an appatizer, maybe dipped in nacho cheese sauce, garlic butter, or marinara sauce.

Kitchen Tip Tuesday

I have a pretty good kitchen tip today. And the funny thing is, I just learned it today.
I got a new widget on my sidebar. It's called chef's tips & each time my page is opened, a new tip is displayed. I try to remember to look at it each time I get online so I can learn any new tips.
I learned one today from this widget & here it is:
It said that to keep garlic from sticking to your knife when dicing it, spinkle it with a little salt first. I thought that sounded like a good tip & gave it a try today when making some sauce. It worked! I was mincing my garlic, so by the time I got done there was some garlic sticking to my knife. My first thought was that it really didn't work that well. Then about 20 minutes later I needed to mince up some more garlic for my meatballs. I did not salt the garlic & as usual it really stuck to my knife & my fingers. It really showed me the difference.
From now on I'll be salting my garlice before I dice or mince it!
It doesn't take much, not even a whole pinch of salt. I just used my shaker & salted it like I would salt something on my plate, which is definitely less than a pinch.

Also, click on widget if you would like to have it on your site too.

Happy Kitchen Tip Tuesday! You can find more tips on Tammy's Recipes.

Cheesy Tuna Tater Pie

This is one of those really cheap, really easy, & really good (I think) meals.
Our local grocery store usually has free sample tastes of different recipes. Not like WalMart's free sample tastes, where it's just a taste of a product they are selling. This is where a lady sits at a table with a hot plate of something, but it's a recipe made up & there are little sample dishes to try, but there is also a stack of printable recipes & a few sample products sitting there so you can see what you need to get to make this recipe. (Saturday-yesterday- it was an oreo ice cream pie kind of thing. Yum!)
Well, that is how I got this recipe, & I know it was more than 6 years ago. I love that this hometown, locally owned grocery store does this. And I'm so happy that they are still here & thriving even after the Super WalMart moved in quite a few years ago. :)
If you like tuna, I'm sure you'll like this savory pie. If you don't like tuna, you may want to skip this one.

Cheesy Tuna Tater Pie

Crust:
1 Pillsbury Refrigerated Pie Crust
OR Make your own. Here' my recipe.

Filling:
3/4 C. Hungry Jack (or any brand) mashed potato flakes
6 oz. (1 1/2 cups) shreded cheddar cheese
2 T. chopped pimiento-stuffed green olives (I never add these)
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup (OR 1 batch of homemade condensed cream of chicken soup)
1 (6 oz) can water-packed tuna, drained & flaked
1 egg
1/2 cup canned french fried onions.

1. Heat oven to 400. Prepare pie crust as directed on package for one-crust. Bake at 400 for 5 minutes. (or use your own crust & bake in pie pan for 5 min.)
2. Meanwhile, in medium bowl, combine potato flakes, 1 cup of the cheese, olives, soup, tuna and egg; mix well.
3. Remove partially baked shell from oven. Spoon filling into shell. Return to oven' bake an additional 15 minutes.
4. Sprinkle top of pie with french fried onions and remaining 1/2 cup cheese. Bake an additional 10-15 minutes or until cheese is melted and onions begin to brown. Let stand 5 minutes fefore serving.
Makes 6 servings.

The only reason I never add the olives is because we all love olives here. If we have a jar in the frig, it never lasts long. So I never have olives on hand for this recipe. LOL I would like to try it with the olives in it sometime.

Andes Creme de Menthe Cookies

Since I'm such a mint lover, these are one of my favorite cookies. I just got the recipe from the back of a bag of Andes baking pieces. I've been making these for a few years.
Here is a link to the official site's recipe.

Andes Creme de Menthe Cookies
1/2 cup salted butter - softened
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 package (10 oz.) Andes® Crème de Menthe Baking Chips
2-2/3 cups sifted all-purpose flour

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350° F.
Blend butter, sugars, baking soda, baking powder, vanilla and eggs until mixed.
Stir in Andes Baking Chips and then flour. Chill approximately one hour in the refrigerator.
Measure out approximately 1 oz. of dough. Form a ball and slightly flatten.
Raise oven rack one level above the middle and bake on non-stick baking pans.
Bake at 350° F for approximately 8 - 10 minutes.
Cool on pans for two minutes before removing.
Yield:
4 dozen cookies.

Oatmeal Bread

I think we have found our new favorite bread! Well, at least ONE of our favorites.

It's called oatmeal bread & I've had it printed & in my recipe notebook for so long I don't remember where on the internet I got it. It was a long time ago that I found it, because I printed up a lot of bread machine recipes. I haven't used my bread machine in a few years. You can use this in your bread machine, or do it by hand, or even in your mixer. I decided I'd use my mixer's dough hook this time & see how it did. It did great! And saved me some time & energy to boot.

I think I let the dough hook knead it for about 5-7 minutes.

Oatmeal Bread

1 C. warm water

1/4 C. molasses

2 T. butter

3 C. bread flour

1/2 C. quick cooking or regular oats

2 T. dry milk

1 1/2 t. salt

2.75 t. regular active dry yeast OR 2.25 t. bread machine or quick acting dry yeast

If you do it by hand (or mixer) add the yeast to the warm water & set aside.

Combine the rest of the ingredients. Add water/yeast mixture. Use the dough hook in you mixer to knead for 5 minutes or so. Put into a greased bowl & cover for 90 minutes. Punch down & knead for just a few minutes. Press into a roll about 12-18 inches long. Put on greased pan & cover with towel to rise another 30-60 minutes. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes.

This bread was delicious. My husband says that it is his favorite. It went really great with one of my favorite meals, roast, potatoes, & carrots (after I took this picture, I mashed up my potatoes & smothered them in gravy...*giggle*).

And the next day it made such a good sandwich. The bread was buttered ( with real butter, no fake stuff for homemade bread) & then slices of roast added with some of the gravy. Oh my.

This was a great sandwich!

The next day I had just a tiny bit left of one little piece of meat & some gravy. I shredded the meat into the gravy & had a beef manhattan on this bread. YUM!

'Course I forgot to take a picture...

And then later I made this ham & cheese on the oatmeal bread. Our 6 year old proclaimed it "the best sammy I've ever had!" LOL It was pretty good!

I like how this bread let me make some thin slices too.

It's very good bread. I've already made it again since these pictures were taken!

Kitchen Tip & Tempt My Tummy Tuesday

I'm going to try to participate in both Kitchen Tip Tuesdays AND Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays. You can see more kitchen tips at Tammy's site & more tempting recipes at Lisa's site.

My recipe this week is Milk Chocolate Cookies with Malted Cream.

I first saw this recipe over at Cookie Madness

and the origional recipe is at the Food & wine site.
I LOVE malted milk, so I sure wanted to try them.

Milk Chocolate Cookies with Malted Cream

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
6 ounces milk chocolate, melted and cooled slightly
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
FILLING
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup chocolate malt powder, such as Ovaltine
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups confectioners’ sugar

Preheat the oven to 350°. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
Make the cookies: In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the butter with the brown sugar and granulated sugar until smooth. Add the melted chocolate and vanilla and beat until smooth. In a small bowl, whisk the flour with the cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the bowl and beat at low speed just until incorporated. Roll the dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper to a scant 1/4-inch thickness and refrigerate until firm, about 15 minutes.
Using a 2-inch round cookie cutter, stamp out as many rounds as possible and transfer to the baking sheets, 1 inch apart. Gather the scraps and chill, with the cut-out rounds, for 10 minutes. Reroll the scraps and stamp out more rounds.
Bake the cookies in the lower and middle thirds of the oven for about 10 minutes, until dry and set; shift the pans halfway through baking. Transfer the cookies to a rack and let cool completely.
Make the filling: In a medium bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the butter with the chocolate malt powder at medium speed until light, about 3 minutes. Add the vanilla and confectioners’ sugar and beat at low speed just until combined. Transfer the filling to a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch plain tip. Arrange half of the cookies on a work surface, bottom side up, and pipe a 1-inch mound of filling onto each. Sandwich with the remaining cookies, pressing to spread the filling to the edges. Serve.

I just love to see my cookie jar filled with cookies!

I have to say that these were very good cookies. They were pretty rich, but rich is good.

I will make these again, but I think I do need to find a smaller cookie cutter. These were just a little big for how sweat they were. I think they would be great the size of oreo cookies. It would just be more work.

I also think these would be really good with a mint filling instead. I love the malt, I'm just a mint freak, so I'm thinking a few drops of peppermint extract & a few drops of green food coloring.

I do think I'll try that one of these days!

I hope you enjoy my tip & that it tempts your tummy!

P.S. PLEASE keep praying for Baby Caiden. He is still in ICU on a ventilator. He has been on the vent for almost 2 weeks. This last week he had pneumonia again, & now has an infection in his blood. I ache for your prayers for him.

Butterfinger Cake and a CELEBRATION!

Look at this Butterfinger Cake! Oh mercy, it is so good!

First I want to tell you that I found this recipe over at The Southern Plate. Wow, she has some good recipes!

Here is a link to her cake & recipe.

I made this cake sometime last year, & let me tell you that it is DELICIOUS. And it gets even better after it has been if the refrigerator overnight. Good luck on waiting that out. Mercy.

I also just have to share why we had a celebration here.

Our 18 year old daughter got accepted into college last week!

She had just one college in mind, she applied, & she was ACCEPTED.

We are just so proud of her. We are THRILLED. And so very THANKFUL.

God led us to homeschooling when she was just a little thing, & we followed His call.

For 13 years we've been on this road, & it's been wonderful journey.

Sometimes the road was rocky, & sometimes it seemed like it was uphill a lot of the way (Latin 2 for me...LOL).

But it was the way we were led & it was so worth the journey. Gosh, I don't want to make it sound like it was all hard & uphill. It was wonderful. Teaching your own child how to read is just a joy that's so hard to put into words. Seeing that lightbulb come on when they realize what you're trying to teach them is also beyond words for me.

It was years of hard work & I wouldn't change it for anything. We'd do it all again (and we are, because our son is finishing up kindergarten this year)!

Now it's not just "my" grades that I gave her.

It's not just "my" official transcript.

It was her SAT scores.

And it was her getting an offer of admission to a big university.

I'd love to tell y'all which one. But because this is the internet, I don't really want to put it out there where our little darling is going to be. :) I will tell you that it is one of the 'big ones' here in Indiana. I'm not big on sports, but I think it's considered a "big ten" college. LOL It may have something to do with basketball....I don't know.

Before I chatter on & on, I want to give God all of the glory & honor & praise! Without Him, we simply could NOT have done this. Thank you God.

So we needed to celebrate! I asked her what kind of cake she'd like. Her favorite cake is Lori's Creme de Menthe cake. She did just have that cake a little over a month ago, so she picked this Butterfinger Cake. It had been a long time since I made it.

Butterfinger Cake
1 box devil’s food cake mix
1 bottle caramel topping
1 can sweetened Condensed milk
1 large tub cool whip
1 Butterfinger bar (I used 2 because I couldn't find a BIG one)
Prepare cake according to package directions. Immediately after removing cake from oven, poke several holes all over the top with a fork. Mix sweetened condensed milk and caramel together, pour over hot cake, spread it over the entire cake. Chill well. After cake has chilled completely, spread cool whip over the top and sprinkle crushed Butterfinger bar on top of cool whip.

Try this cake. It is amazing.

Kitchen Tip Tuesday

My kitchen tip this week is how to make sub buns.
You can use any of your homemade bread recipes. On this day I chose Homemade Italian Bread.

Just make your bread as you usually would. After the first rise, instead of putting it in a loaf pan, hand shape it into abour 6 inch long skinny rolls. Place on greased baking pans to rise the second time (covered with a towel).

Here's a picture of mine right after shaping them:
And here they are after rising:

And after baking:
These homemade sub buns worked perfectly for these meatball sandwiches!

You can see more Kitchen Tip Tuesdays over at Tammy's Site.

P.S. I would also like to ask for continued prayers for my babysitting baby Caiden.
He just turned 3 months old on Sunday (March 1). He is in ICU on a ventilator. He has RSV & has been in Severe Respiratory Destress. He has been on the ventilator for almost 1 week. PLEASE pray for him. You can see a picture of him here & here.
Please feel free to put him on your church's prayer chains. Thank you so much.

I have just found Tempt My Tummy Tuesday. Please visit Blessed With Grace to see more tummy tempting recipes.

Baby Caiden

I haven't had an update on Baby Caiden for 3 days. I hope to find out something at church this morning.
Thanks for praying for him & please keep it up!
Thank you.
This picture of him was taken while he slept in the sling I wear him in.
My good friend Stacey sent this wonderful sling to me!