Cheesy Potato Cassserole

                                                     (aka "Funeral Potatoes"}

This is an easy, tried, and true recipe (thanks to my friend, Dona) that is perfect for a special meal, a treat for your family, or especially for a potluck! The ingredients are reasonable in cost, the prep time is quick and all you have to remember is to give it a bit more time in the oven if your stove is as slow as mine. It got a rave review at our last potluck here at our complex.

Ingredients

1lb package of shredded hashbrowns

1  can of Condensed Cream of Potato Soup

16 oz tub of sour cream

 2 c shredded Cheddar Cheese 

1/4 c green onions

1 tsp salt  (approx.)

1/2 tsp pepper

Optional: 1/2 c of crushed French Onions

Preparation

Butter or spray a 13x9-inch baking pan or casserole dish. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all the ingredients together. Pour into the pan and cover with foil. Bake for approximately 45 minutes to one hour. Remove foil and allow to brown for 15 minutes. PLEASE NOTE: Topping with panko, crushed cornflakes, or French Onions before baking adds a bit of a crunch! 

Twice-Baked Potato Casserole

This recipe is an adaptation from a recipe at allrecipes.com, one of my favorite go-to sites. It is perfect for potlucks, family dinners and with a bit of tweaking (see below), is just right for large gatherings (2 pans). This is the perfect dish to prepare the night before and bake the following day. And yes, I had to taste it for "quality control" <koff koff>.

Ingredients

• 2 large baking potatoes (or 6 regular)
• 1/2 pound lean bacon (or Real Bacon Bits)
• 3/4 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted

• 1 teaspoon dried chives
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (optional)
• 3/4 cup shredded mild Cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease a 9x13-inch casserole dish.
2. Poke a few holes into each potato using a toothpick.
3. Bake potatoes in the preheated oven until fully cooked, about 1 hour. Cool for about 15 minutes.
4. Place the bacon in a large skillet and cook over medium-high heat, turning occasionally, until evenly browned, about 10 minutes. Drain the bacon slices on paper towels and crumble.
5. Cut a thin slice from one side of each potato; carefully scoop out the flesh and transfer to a bowl. Discard skins. Mix 3/4 cup Cheddar cheese, sour cream, milk, butter, chives, salt, black pepper, and garlic powder with potatoes. Spread potato mixture into the prepared casserole dish; top with 3/4 cup Cheddar cheese and crumbled bacon.
6. Bake in the preheated oven until just bubbling, 10 to 15 minutes. Cool for at least 5 minutes before serving.
7. 
   

*Let the 'tweaking' begin. I baked 5 lbs of potatoes and, after letting them cool slightly, I scraped the contents into a big bowl and chopped them up with my spoon. I added a full bag (8 oz) of sharp cheddar, 1 1/2 c of sour cream, 2 tbsp of dried chives, half bag of Kroger 'real bacon bits', ground pepper and salt (didn't measure, just poured some on my hand and then into the bowl). I didn't use garlic salt because the chives provided sufficient seasoning). I used about a cup of milk and about 4 tbsp of butter. The potatoes were still hot enough to melt the butter when mixed in. I folded everything together, put it in one larger foil lasagna pan and one smaller, more shallow aluminum foil cake pan (about 8.5" by 12.5") for us. I used another half bag of shredded sharp cheddar to top the two pans and sprinkled liberally with dried chives and about half the pack of bacon bits. The casserole was moist, not wet, before baking and because I like my casseroles well cooked, the small one took about 25 minutes to warm through with bubbly cheese. I will probably cook the large one for about 30-40 minutes. Turned out tasty, slightly puffy and smelled delicious!*

Game Day Recipes: Cheesy Pull-Apart Sliders

This recipe was featured on our local Fox 8 News channel page and I received it in my email. It looks so good that I had to share it with you! Definitely a must-do for the big game! Put these on a table with some chili, pulled pork or chicken wings, veggies and dip plus other munchies and you have everything you need for an ooey gooey (calorie-laden but who watches calories anyway on Superbowl?) good time!

Cheesy Pull-Apart Sliders

Sliders:

• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon mustard powder
• ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
• 2 cups diced onion (about 1 medium onion)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 (10-oz) can Ro-Tel Diced Tomatoes and Green Chiles, drained
• 12 slices cheddar cheese
• 12 dinner rolls

Glaze

• ½ cup (one stick) butter
• 2 tablespoons Brown Sugar
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon mustard
• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Place a large skillet on the stove top over high heat. When the pan is hot, add the beef and season with salt, pepper, mustard powder, and paprika. Add the onion and garlic, and cook, stirring occasionally, until beef is browned and onions are golden. Stir in drained tomatoes until combined.
3. Slice dinner rolls in half and place bottom half of rolls in 9x13 baking dish. Top with beef mixture & sliced cheese. Finish off with the top half of the bun.
4. Mix all the ingredients for the glaze in a sauce pan over medium heat (or microwave about 40 seconds) and mix until melted, smooth, and combined. Pour evenly over the buns.
5. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes.

Makes: 12 burgers.

Kitchen Sink Cookies

I am a big one for "kitchen sink" recipes, since it's seldom that I have everything I need in the house for any given dish. I wanted to make something extra for the BBQ we were attending, so I started hemming and hawing (I am good at that) and did some research to find out what was a proper substitute for whatever I didn't have. I added confectioner's sugar when I found out I didn't have enough white granulated sugar, and  it combined well with the golden brown sugar. I also used more Rice Krispies because I ran out of oats. Oops. The cookies that resulted were light, chewy and tasty - and they are still keeping well at room temperature after 3 days! Here are the Little Cook's original:

"Kitchen Sink" Cookies

Ingredients

• 3/4 c golden brown sugar
• 1/4 c sugar
• 1/2 c confectioner's sugar
• 1/2 c cocoa
• 3/4 c softened butter (butter is better!)
• 1 tsp vanilla (I used maple flavoring instead because that's what I had)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 c flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 c rolled oats (once again, what I had)
• 2 1/2 c Rice Krispies (or so)
• half pkg of mini chocolate chips (about 3 oz)

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper (if you have it) or waxed paper.
3. In large bowl, beat the sugars and butter until light and fluffy.
4. Add cocoa, flavoring and eggs and mix by hand. 
5. Stir in the flour, soda, oats, Rice Krispies and chocolate chips. 
6. Drop by heaping tbsp's onto prepared pans. 
7. Bake at 350 degrees for about 13 minutes, or just until set and slightly golden. 
8. Cool, then remove from baking sheets and place on racks (I use a towel) to cool.

NOTE: This recipe made a good 40 or more cookies, plenty for the BBQ and for us, too. Like I said, they are still tasty and just right a few days later. One thing to remember - when you run out of white granulated sugar, you usually can use confectioner's sugar (as I did) in most recipes but you will have to use about half again in the recipe to compensate. It does make the cookies a bit chewy, but we do like that texture.

You may have to 'tweak' a few of the ingredients to make it your own. What you want is a relatively easy dough to spoon on, but one that is still moist, not too dry (as above).  If you use cocoa instead of baking chocolate (as I did) the cookies turn lighter as the bake. This recipe worked for me, and for the cookie monsters at the BBQ. let's see what you can do!

Strawberry Santas

I got the cutest recipe in an email for an almost-healthy Christmas project for kids and kids-at-heart like me. A rep from Driscoll's Berries asked if I would like to post this recipe and would I ever! I hope you and yours have a wonderful Christmas and holiday season. I know I have the 'buns in the oven' - well, the dough is rising for cinni buns, mini walnut sticky rolls, orange buns, apple rolls and my favorite zweiback. You may just call this a creative-in-the-kitchen sort of day, which I love best of all! Consider this to be recipe #1 in this year's Christmas Countdown!

Here is the recipe from Driscoll's for the cutest little Strawberry Santas EVER!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup finely shredded coconut
• 12 large, flat chocolate cookies such as Famous Chocolate Wafers
• 8 ounces cream cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 12 large Driscoll's Strawberries, hulled
• 12 small Driscoll's Strawberries, hulled
• 24 Driscoll's Blueberries
• 24 mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 24 mini white chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

1. Melt semi-sweet chocolate chips in a small, wide, microwave-safe bowl on low setting until smooth. Place coconut in wide, shallow, small bowl. Place cookies in single layer on serving platter.
2. Combine cream cheese, vanilla and sugar in a medium bowl and mix to create thick frosting (add more sugar as needed if too thin).
3. Place cream cheese frosting in sturdy, resealable plastic bag and snip one corner off bottom to create disposable decorating bag. Alternatively, use a pastry bag fitted with a large round tip. Refrigerate 10 - 15 minutes or until firm.
4. One by one, with strawberry tips pointing up and hulled base pointing down, pipe beard shape with cream cheese frosting at center of strawberry. Press strawberry into coconut beard-side down to adhere coconut to beard. Attach hulled end of strawberry to cookie base with a small dollop of melted chocolate.
5. Dip blueberries half-way into melted chocolate and affix two to each base of berry on cookie to form Santa's boots.
6. Pipe cream cheese frosting around strawberry tips to create heads. Use white mini chips for noses and semi-sweet mini chips for eyes.