Strawberry Marshmallow Pie

I do believe I found my favorite pie!  I always say I’m not much of a “sweets” eater, and I’m not for the most part.  I can take it or leave it.  But I’ve also said I don’t have to worry so much about what to make with desserts or treats because it’ll get eaten (usually).

This will so not even come close to be a “good for you” sort of pie.  I did use fat free cream cheese and there are fresh strawberries.  But the marshmallow cream is what does it.  It added THE best flavor to this pie by far.

INGREDIENTS

1 box Pillsbury® refrigerated pie crusts, softened as directed on box

2 packages (8 oz each) cream cheese, softened

1 jar (13 oz) marshmallow creme

4 cups sliced fresh strawberries

1 container (12 to 14 oz) strawberry pie glaze

DIRECTIONS

1 Heat oven to 450°F. Make 1 pie crust as directed on box for One-Crust Baked Shell using 9-inch glass pie plate. Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool completely, about 30 minutes.

2 Unroll remaining pie crust on work surface. With desired cookie cutters, cut shapes from crust. Place on ungreased cookie sheet; bake 6 to 8 minutes or until light brown. Cool.

3 In medium bowl, beat cream cheese with electric mixer on high speed until light and fluffy. Stir in marshmallow creme. In large bowl, mix strawberries and pie glaze. Reserve 1 cup strawberry mixture; set aside. Spoon about 1/3 of the marshmallow mixture into pie crust; top with remaining strawberry mixture, and the remaining 2/3 marshmallow mixture. Top with 1 cup reserved strawbery mixture. Arrange cut outs over filling. Cover; refrigerate at least 8 hours or until set but not firm. Store covered in refrigerator.

**This strawberry pie recipe by Joyce Gaddie of Clinton, Tennessee, won 1st Place at the Pillsbury Refrigerated Pie Crust Pie Baking Championship, 2009 Tennessee Valley Fair.

Garnish with three miniature marshmallows on top of each slice, if desired.

So the waiting part.  Yeah, not so good with that.  I let it sit for….oh two hours.  I had to take my pictures first and then cut a piece.  When the directions say wait for 8 hours, it does need to wait for 8 hours.  However, I didn’t mind one bit that it wasn’t set when I ate it.   I decided then that this was my favorite pie!!!

Loved, loved, loved it.

Patricia – Two Girls Cooking  😉

Source:

Pillsbury

 

Chocolate Sprinkle Thumbprint Cookies

Oh how sweet are these cookies  that I found on Brown Eyed Bakers site!  I was nervous, as always with adding the frosting to the cookies, but I was ready to give it another try!

Brooklyn has been telling me lately that she wants to spend more time with me.  Since we both love to cook we decided to put our best effort forth in making these cookies.  Hoping that we can, first make them taste good and second come close to looking as good as Brown Eyed Baker does.  Thanks to her my grand daughter and I got to spend some awesome quality time baking awesome cookie!

Apparently I didn’t buy enough chocolate sprinkles so we used some pretty colorful ones too!!

I sure take my hat off because I’m not sure I could begin to know how to come up with a cookie ingredient just by taste.  Dinner?  Sure, but for cookies or desserts, I turn to these awesome blogs for my help.

Chocolate Sprinkle Thumbprint Cookies

Yield: 2 to 3 dozen cookies, depending on size

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Bake Time: 18 minutes

For the Cookies:
2½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Chocolate sprinkles

For the Chocolate Icing:
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1½ cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
4 tablespoons whole milk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour and salt; set aside. Pour the chocolate sprinkles into a small bowl; set aside.

2. Using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream together the butter, powdered sugar and vanilla extract until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture. Once it is mostly incorporated, slowly increase the speed back to medium-high and beat for another minute or so until a dough forms.

3. Scoop out a tablespoon of dough, roll it into a ball, and then roll it in the chocolate sprinkles and place it on the baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough, spacing your cookies about 1½ inches apart on the baking sheet. Make a slight indentation with your thumb (or the back of a melon baller – my favorite tool for this task) on the tops of all the cookies. Bake for 10 minutes, then make a deeper indentation in the middle, and bake for an additional 8 minutes. The cookies should not brown much at all around the edges. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

4. Meanwhile, make the chocolate icing for the filling. Beat the butter with an electric mixer on medium-high speed for 2 to 3 minutes, or until light and creamy. Reduce speed to low, add the powdered sugar and cocoa powder and mix until combined, then increase the speed to medium and beat until smooth. Add the milk and the vanilla extract and beat until light and fluffy. Add more powdered sugar or milk to achieve the desired consistency.

5. Once the cookies are cool, pipe some frosting into the middle of each cookie (or you can spoon it in). Store leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.

I was so pleased with the taste of the cookie.  Way to go Michelle.  She did what she was trying to do in my opinion!!!  These taste awesome.  Reading her post, she says she’s trying to get as close to the bakery that makes these cookies.  I have no idea what they taste like, but what she has here, is pretty dang good to me (and my family who keeps asking if they can have more!).

You’ve got to try these for sure.  The flavor of the cookie…I can’t come up with how it tastes, but it’s a very good thing!!

Patricia – Two Girls Cooking

Source:

Brown Eyed Baker

Home made Pasta Sauce

Do you have a recipe that takes you back to when you were a child growing up?  This spaghetti sauce is one for me.  I’ve made this for so many years I can’t even remember when I first started making it.  My mom makes it her way and I make it my way.  Pretty much the same but my mom adds some green peppers to her sauce.  I eat hers, but I’m not a huge fan of green peppers, so I leave it out.

What makes this so good to me is not just the flavor, but adding the black olives to it.  Most people don’t add black olives to their pasta sauce (that I’ve had or seen anyways).

Since Craig isn’t a fan of spaghetti sauce with onions and black olives, I don’t make this often at all.  Last night I was in the mood for spaghetti.  And I decided to give it a try.  I left out the onions (which he later said he’d eat if it was in there because it’s the raw onions he dislikes) because I didn’t want to give him too much with black olives!!  You can either use a packet of spaghetti seasoning or you can create your own.  I created my own until the flavor came through.

Ingredients

2lbs ground turkey

2 cans large tomato sauce

1 can large tomato paste

1 can black olives (drained)

1 large onion chopped (if you so choose)

(I don’t measure the spices I use because I use what I need until the flavor is how I like it)

large palmful season salt, large palmful of oregano, large palmful of basil leaves, 4 cloves fresh garlic (minced), small palmful of garlic salt, small palmful of pepper.

Directions:

In a frying pan cook the ground turkey until cooked through.  I added some oregano to the meat when it was close to being cooked.

In a slow cooker I added the rest of the ingredients and cooked on low for at least 2 hours.  The longer it cooks the better the flavor.  After the sauce is put together, add the meat and mix well.

I haven’t found sauce this good in any jar!!  This is worth the while making this and having tons of left overs for during the week when you need something quick to put together.  Craig wants me to make stuffed shells.  I’ll stuff the shells with the meat sauce and top with cheese!!

Add whichever veggies you like to your sauce.  I’m not a huge tomato fan so I’ve always made this with the sauce instead of fresh tomatoes.  (I have made it at least once with fresh tomatoes grown from my garden).

So good.

Patricia – Two Girls Cooking  😉

Butter Brickle Ice Cream

Ever since it started getting warm out I’ve been craving ice cream. It’s pretty rare, though, for me to find my favorite flavor, Butter Brickle. It’s a very simple flavor: creamy, buttery ice cream with bits of crunchy toffee. I don’t know why I never see it in the stores anymore. I get a little too excited when they happen to have some at my favorite local ice cream shop. I finally decided it was time to try to make some on my own. This recipe was one of the only ones I could find, so I’m very glad it turned out to be just what I was craving!

Ingredients:

2 cups half-and-half
1 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 teaspoons butter flavor extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups whipping cream
3/4 cup toffee pieces (I used Health Bits o’Brickle)

Directions:

In a medium saucepan, combine half & half, brown sugar, and butter.

Stir constantly over low heat.
When mixture becomes bubbly around the edges of the pan, remove from heat. (This never really got bubbly around the edges for me, I just went until it started to bubble)
Chill this mixture along with the bowl of your ice cream freezer.
Before freezing, add whipping cream and both extracts, mix well.Freeze according to your ice cream maker directions.
Add toffee bits after freezing process.

 

This was very rich and creamy, you can really taste the butter flavor. I wasn’t sure I wanted to share this because it was so good! I did share with my husband and my mom, and we even let Sam have a little taste. Everyone really enjoyed it. The only problem I found was that 1 quart didn’t last long!

– Jodi

Blueberry-Banana Stacks

So today I was supposed to have a little guest blogger.  However, she decided it was best to go outside and play.  I found this snack that I wanted Brooklyn to try and make since there was no stove or hot things involved.  And I wanted her to type in how she made it while I took the pictures.  But again, play time was more important!  So Nana made them!!

Nothing too hard about making these at all.  They were pretty good if I do say so myself.  And the kids sure didn’t have a problem coming in and making the ones I made either!!

I used fat free cream cheese, the rice chips are full of fiber, the fruit…..A great snack for the kids (and the big kids as well.

Ingredients

• 6 mini chocolate, caramel, or berry-flavored popcorn cakes (use as many as you want)
• 1 – 2 tablespoons strawberry-flavored cream cheese
• 6 banana slices
• 6 fresh blueberries

Make ItSpread cakes with cream cheese and top with banana slices. If desired, dollop with additional cream cheese and top with a blueberry. Serves 2.I made about 12 of the stacks so that there was enough to pass around for all of us.  They are all gone!!!!  I’m not sure if you can call these healthy or not but it’s better than snacking on candy!!Have a great weekend.

Patricia – Two Girls Cooking

Source:

Parents.com