Grandma's Cut out Christmas Cookies

Christmas wouldn't be the same without these yummy cookies!  Grandma would always roll and cut them out the day before we decorated them, she was always the one to put the frosting on while the we kids decorated them.  I don't know who is going to put the frosting on this year.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

3 3/4 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

Cream butter and sugar together

beat in eggs and vanilla

mix in flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder

Roll out dough and cut out cookies

Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.

These are the cookie cutter we use every year.

Grandma always made the frosting with powdered sugar, melted butter, milk and vanilla.  I think it is the recipe on the bag of powdered sugar.  This video is from last Christmas when Grandma made WAY to much frosting and all of us were dying from laughter!  I'm bummed I didn't pick up my camera sooner.

Making icing with Grandma

Grandma frosting the cookies

Kristen doing more eating then decorating

I'm not sure Eric is awake yet

Cookies in desperate need of sprinkles!

Mom and Nicole decorating cookies with Grandma

Enjoy!

Diane's Sausage & Hash brown Breakfast Bake

Who doesn't love a good breakfast bake?!?!?!  I love that you can do all the work the night before and then enjoy it freshly cooked in the morning! This one is pretty easy and tasty! 

Ingredients:

1 roll of sausage

1 onion

1 green pepper

1 small package of hash browns

1 1/2 cup shredded cheese

8 eggs

1/2 cup milk

any other vegetable you would like to add I choose Mushrooms

salt and pepper

Maggie felt the need to join in the fun, she is NOT one of the ingredients

Chop and saute onion

saute sausage with the onion

after sausage and onion cooked add in mushrooms 

add green pepper after everything is cooked, I didn't want these to cook down to much

put hash browns in the bottom of a 9x13 pan

add in meat and vegetables

add in cheese

mix all together

beat eggs and milk

pour over hash browns mix

Now you can either bake this right away or put it in the fridge over night and bake it in the morning

Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes

Enjoy!

Diane's Sleepover Cake

When Aunt Diane gave me this recipe I thought it was some awesome cake made for sleepovers, and I was bummed that my mom never made me a cake for sleepovers.  I was happy to learn that this cake wasn't something that I had been missing out on during sleepovers but that the sleepover part was talking about the cake itself.  It is a sleepover cake because the cake sleeps over in the fridge the night before you bake it! You're off the hook Mom!

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1 cup buttermilk

2/3 cup butter

1/2 cup brown sugar lightly packed

2 eggs

2 Tbsp dry milk powder - I don't have this but I'm guessing creamer counts

1 Tbsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Topping

1/2 cup brown sugar - lightly packed

1/2 cup pecans

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 cup melted butter

*This recipe is for 9x13 cake but I halved it to make an 8x8*

Mix all dry ingredients together

Melt 2/3 cup butter

beat eggs into buttermilk

Mix butter, buttermilk and eggs into dry ingredients

pour into a greased pan

top with 1/2 cup brown sugar

top with 1/2 pecan pieces

put the cake in fridge for its sleepover

top with 1/4 cup melted butter

ready for the oven

bake at 350 for 30 minutes

Enjoy!

Grandma's Chicken and Noodles

Grandma's Chicken and Noodles is an awesome fall/winter meal.  Grandma hasn't made this in awhile because she hasn't made the noodles so I had to ask Aunt Diane and Mom what exactly went in this recipe because of course like some of the best family recipes they live in someone's brain. This is a culmination of the three of us talking it out and this is what we came up with. 

I was so excited to make this that I forgot to take my normal ingredients picture so you will just have to imagine them.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken - brokendown into 4 pieces

1 medium onion - chopped

4-6 celery stalks - chopped

4 bay leaves

salt and pepper to taste

Grandma's homemade noodles

Water

place chopped onions, celery and seasonings in pot

add chicken

cover with water, bring to a boil and then reduce heat to med/low cover and simmer for 1 1/2 hours

Remove chicken, let it cool a bit then remove skin and bones and shred chicken

time for noodles

Bring stock to a boil and add noodles

boil noodles for about 5 minutes or so the flour on the noodles should thicken up the stock. add more flour if you need to thicken it more

Grandma always served her chicken and noodles over mashed potatoes with a side of coleslaw.  

Enjoy!

See Grandma's Homemade Egg Noodles for noodle recipe. 

Grandma's Handmade Egg Noodles

These noodles are a family favorite.  My Grandma's kitchen table covered in these noodles drying is a fond memory. You always knew a good dinner was in the future when Grandma made noodles.  These noodle also hold a bit of sadness for me, Grandma and I were always going to make them together but sadly we never did.  I actually had plans to make them with her and video the process for this blog, but she passed away about a month before my trip home that we were going to make them.   These is her recipe but I wasn't sure how Grandma mixed up her noodles so I used the method my friend Sadie recently taught me. 

Ingredients:

2 cups of flour

2 eggs at room temperature

3 Tbsp cold water

1 tsp salt 

I cut this in half and made 2 different balls of dough, I thought this would be easier to roll out

pour 1 cup of flour on the counter mix in 1/2 tsp salt

make a well in the flour add 1 egg and 1 1/2 Tbsps of cold water

use your fingers to break up the egg and mix it

slowly add more and more flour to the egg mix until you form a ball of dough

knead dough for about 5 minutes until dough is smooth, 

after your done kneading it let it rest under bowl on the counter for 10 minutes or so

after dough has rested dust the counter with flour and get your rolling pin ready

Start rolling dough, if the dough is sticky at all add more flour

You want the dough to be pretty thin.

Cover dough with a towel and let it dry out for a few hours

Grandma always rolled her dough out on her cutting board, I just transferred it on to mine to cut it.

I used my pizza cutter to cut linguine sized noodles

 I cut long strips and then cut those in half

Handmade hand cut noodles

Lay the cut noodles out to dry, I covered mine with a towel

See Grandma's Chicken and Noodles to see them cooked