Cider-Glazed Bacon Wrapped Turkey

Jaidi and Justin Clayton's Cider glazed Bacon Wrapped Turkey

Turkey

1 quart Apple cider

1 cup Butter

Cheesecloth

1 pound Bacon

Carrots

Celery

Onion

Stuffing (if desired)

Here's what we did for the turkey:

Melt 2 sticks of butter in 1 quart of apple cider.  Place cheesecloth in mixture. Keep in warm so the butter stays melted.  

Prepare turkey by rinsing, drying and stuffing if applicable.  Dice carrots, onions and celery and place in bottom of roasting pan.  Place turkey in pan on roasting rack (alternately, you can roll aluminum foil in rolls and place turkey on this As a Rack).  

Wrap turkey with bacon.  You can do a weave on top or just coat the turkey with bacon all over the top.  The legs, wings breast, anything that sits on top.  

Take cheesecloth out of the apple cider butter mixture and place on top of the bacon and turkey.  

Place in oven legs first for 30 minutes at 450 then reduce the oven temp to 350 and cook until done to 165 degrees. 

Baste the turkey with the apple cider butter mixture every 30 minutes and rotate the paneach time til the turkey is done cooking, about 4 hours.  

This can also be done on just a turkey breast.  

It's super good and we highly recommend it!

Homemade Pancake Mix

Tonight I wanted pancakes, but I had no pancake mix...so I searched online and found a recipe that could easily be used for a large batch of dry ingredients.  

I used this person's recipe.

http://www.keyingredient.com/recipes/176322942/fluffy-pancakes/

And multiplied the dry ingredients by ten. The wet ingredients she listed work at about cup mix.  

Here is what is in my large plastic pantry bin. 

10 cups all purpose flour
1 ¾ cup plus 2 tbsp white sugar
3 Tbsp plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tbsp plus 2 teaspoons baking soda
1 Tbsp plus 2 teaspoons salt

So here is what is on the outside of my jar.  

Homemade Pancake Mix

For Every 2 Cups Mix:

1 ½ Cups milk

4 Tbsp White Vinegar

Combine and rest for 10 minutes to create soured milk.

 2 Eggs

4 Tbsp Butter, melted

2 teaspoons vanilla

 In a small bowl combine Soured milk, eggs, butter and vanilla. Add to pancake mix in larger bowl. Mix until most lumps are gone. Let batter sit for 10 minutes, and then drop ¼ batter onto hot griddle.

We made them tonight and they were really good.  I am glad now that I have lots of mix now.  I know that we need to double the mix for our family.  We got about 15 medium sized pancakes out of the doubled batch. I would highly recommend this mix if you want to have a homemade pancake mix.

Mama's Tater Tot Casserole

Ann Mecham

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 30-60 minutes

Serves 8

Ingredients:

1 lb. Ground Beef

1 Onion, chopped

1 Green Pepper, chopped

1 can Green Beans

1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup

1 can Cream of Chicken Soup

1 can Evaporated Milk

2 cups Sharp Cheese, shredded

1 pkg. Tater Tots

Salt & Pepper to taste


Steps:

Soften Onion and Green Pepper in a large skillet. Add Ground Beef and brown. Mix in Cream of Chicken Soup, Evaporated Milk and Cheese to beef. Mix Green Beans and Cream of Mushroom Soup together in a separate bowl. Pour Beef mixture into a 9x13 pan, spread Green Bean mixture on top, cover with Tater Tots and sprinkle with more Cheese. Bake at 350 for 30-60 minutes; until hot and bubbly throughout and Tater Tots are done.

Strawberry Pie Filling

Aunt Ruth 1977 via Becky Parker

Prep Time minutes

Cook Time minutes

Serves 6

Ingredients:

1 C Water

1 C Sugar

3 Tbsp. Corn Starch

1 small pkg Strawberry Jello

Strawberries

pre-baked Pie Shell

Cool Whip (optional)

Steps:

Mix Water, Sugar and Cornstarch and bring to a boil, boil for 2 minutes. Add in package of Strawberry Jello. Let cool. Fold in Strawberries. Pour into a pre baked Pie Shell. Garnish with Cool Whip and serve.

Variations:

Make filling as above - Butter a 9x13 baking dish. Put filling in dish. Sprinkle 1 dry cake mix over the top of filling. Cut up 1 stick of butter and place slivers all over dry cake mix. Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes, until top is golden brown. Serve hot with ice cream.

Lofthouse Style Sugar Cookies and Fruit Pizzas

Justin and I were going to a friends house for dinner and games last night. We offered to bring dessert and decided on fruit pizza, individual ones, for each person. I spent about 20 minutes searching for the perfect fruit pizza recipes and then decided to work one together from other recipes online. Here is the result!

First, I found this website, with the PERFECT Sugar cookies. You know those cookies you can buy at the grocery store, Lofthouse Sugar cookies. They are the ones that are always soft and yummy frosting on top...Yeah the ones pictured on here. They are amazing, and yummy and oh, so delicious. Anyway, the link above has an amazing copycat recipe that is worth the time. I have trimmed down some of her comments in the directions and pasted the result here. Hope you enjoy!

Super Soft Sugar Cookies

1 Cup Crisco
1 Cup Sugar

1 Egg
1 tsp. Vanilla
1 tsp. Almond Extract

1 cup Whipping Cream

1 tsp. Baking Soda
1 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
About 5 cups Flour

(Kitchenaid mixer works well for this recipe) Using the whisk attachment Cream together the sugar and Crisco really well- run the mixer for a good 7-10 minutes. Add the egg, vanilla and almond and mix for another minute or two. Add the whipping cream and beat the mixture until it becomes fluffy about 3-5 more minutes.

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients.

Change your mixer attachment from the whisk to the paddle and get all the dry ingredients incorporated. The dough will not be as thick as regular cookie dough.

Use a 1 inch cookie dough scoop to roll out the dough into 1- 1 ½ inch balls. Smooth out all edges and then place on the cookie sheet and flatten them, keeping edges smooth.  

Bake at 350 degrees for 8-9 minutes. You do not want them to brown. 8 minutes came out perfectly in my oven.

Cool while the next batch of cookies is in the oven. When the next batch is about to come out, move cookies to a cooling rack and roll out and flatten the next batch of cookies.

To store, place in a plastic container or zipper bag.

Yields about 24 cookies. (I got 46 out of the recipe – depending on size you roll them)

 Now, on to the fruit pizza side of things. I searched for the perfect recipe for the 'pizza sauce' for these fruit pizzas. I found this site and worked with those ingredients, but modified the amounts. So here is my Fruit Pizza Sauce recipe!

2 8-oz packages Cream Cheese

1 cup Sugar

2 teaspoons (+) Vanilla

about 12 ounces of Cool Whip

1/2 can of crushed pineapple

Cream together Cream cheese, sugar and vanilla. Fold in Cool Whip and crushed pineapple. Refrigerate for a couple hours to allow it to re-thicken a little bit. 

So you take your cooled Supersoft sugar cookie, top it with some yummy refrigerated Fruit pizza sauce and then top that with your favorite cut up fruit. We used Strawberries, raspberries, grapes and kiwi. Mandarin oranges are also great, along with blueberries and any other fruit. 

This was a huge hit for dessert. The kids LOVED it. They keep wanting more. The Fruit pizza sauce also works great as a fruit dip. All in all, its a great dessert!

Pumpkin Dump Cake

http://cookiesandcups.com/pumpkin-dump-cake/

Ingredients

• 1 15 oz can Pumpkin Puree
• 1 10 oz can Evaporated Milk
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 3 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter melted
• 1 cup coarsely crushed graham crackers or pecans
• 1/2 cup toffee bits (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Spray a 9×13 baking pan lightly with cooking/baking spray
3. In a large bowl combine the pumpkin, evaporated milk, sugar, eggs and pumpkin pie spice. Stir to combine.
4. Pour into your prepared pan.
5. Sprinkle your entire box of cake mix on top, followed by your nuts or graham crackers and toffee chips.
6. Pour your melted butter evenly on top.
7. Bake for 45-50 minutes until center is set and edges are lightly browned.

Quick notes

Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.

Chicken Curry

http://mamaandbabylove.blogspot.com/

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons curry powder
1.5 teaspoons ground cumin
1.5 pounds chicken thighs, cut into 1 inch pieces
2 cups chopped peeled sweet potatoes
2.5 cups baby carrots
2 cup coarsely chopped mango
1 cup chopped onion
1 zucchini chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
chicken bouillon
.5 cup raisins (for garnish)
.5 cup peanuts or cashews (for garnish)

Dump everything into two gallon freezer bags, shake it up, seal, label and put in the freezer.

To cook, take out of freezer and set on counter for about 30 minutes, then dump contents of bag into slow cooker. Cook on high for 4 hours, or low for 8 hours.