I’ve been contemplating whether or not I would update more successfully if I changed to a different format. Maybe a few pictures, a little bit of commentary, and the recipe. I don’t know though. I’ve gotten good feedback on the step by step pictures, and even though it is very tedious to stop and take picture of every single step, and then blog every single one of those steps individually… I LIKE the way this blog is set up. I’d appreciate feedback on this, if you have some.

Either way, I won’t be posting at all if I don’t get to cooking! I have made a list of things I’d like to make and feature on Jenn Cooks in the future, so hopefully I will start checking those off soon! Just need a little free time and spare change

Moving on! Like I mentioned, I made these cookies way back in April and took them to a family gathering, probably Easter? See, it’s been so long, I don’t even remember! Either way, they received really good reviews! At least from those of us who like lemon. And they were super easy to make.

You’ll need: Lemon cake mix, eggs, vegetable oil, 2 lemons, lemon extract, powdered sugar

Start by pouring the cake mix into a large bowl. Add two eggs.

1/3 cup vegetable oil

The zest from two lemons… hard to see, but it’s in there! (Quick note: remember zest your lemons first, then squeeze them for the juice!)

2 Tablespoons of lemon juice

Just in case there wasn’t enough lemon flavor for you, go ahead and add in 1/2 teaspoon of lemon extract.

Stir that all up.

Drop heaping teaspoonfuls into balls. There is no picture of this because this dough is very sticky and messy… it’s not like a traditional cookie dough. Roll those balls in powdered sugar and place on a cookie sheet.

Bake for about 10 minutes at 375 degrees, or until the edges are slightly brown. This was the first pan through the oven, so the edges are more brown than I liked. The others were pulled out of the oven a little sooner. Don’t worry, they were still quite tasty!

Lemon Burst Cookies
Source: Brown Eyed Baker

1 (18.25-ounce) package lemon cake mix
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
Zest of 2 lemons
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
½ teaspoon lemon extract
1/3 cup confectioner’s sugar

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat.
2. Pour cake mix into a large bowl. Stir in eggs, oil, lemon zest, lemon juice and lemon extract until well blended.
3. Place confectioner’s sugar in a bowl.
4. Drop heaping tablespoonfuls of dough into balls and roll in confectioner’s sugar until lightly coated and place on baking sheet.
5. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. Cool for 2-3 minutes on the cookie sheet and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Anyway, as usual, I’m behind in blogging and with no good excuse — today’s recipe was made on Mother’s Day. It’s a Butterfinger Cake that I found at Southern Plate. Super easy to make, and DELICIOUS. I did plenty of breaking my diet the day I made this, and that surely included a gigantic serving of this dessert.

You’ll need: Devil’s Food Cake Mix (plus the eggs/oil/ingredients requested on the box), caramel topping, condensed milk, butterfingers, and Cool Whip

Make the Devil’s Food Cake according to the directions on the box.

In a small bowl, add your jar of caramel topping. I used this 2-cup glass measuring cup because it has a pour spout. That will be important in a minute.

Add the can of sweetened condensed milk.

Give it a good stir until they are mostly combined.

Go back to your still warm devil’s food cake. Take a fork and stab the cake. Really go at it, until it is covered with poke holes.

Pour the caramel mixture over your holey cake.

Pour it all on there, and let it start soaking in. It might take awhile.

In the meantime, crush your butterfinger bars. Obviously, I crushed mine a little earlier in the process because that’s the full can of sweetened condensed milk I’m using in this picture.

Spread most of the crushed Butterfinger over your cake. Then stick it in the fridge for awhile to continue settling and soaking up that delicious caramel sauce.

Before serving, top cake with the container of cool whip and sprinkle with the remaining Butterfinger crumbles.

YUM!

Butterfinger Cake
Source: Southern Plate

1 box devil’s food cake
1 bottle caramel topping
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 tub cool whip
Butterfinger bar

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.

The recipe calls for a glaze, but I left it off, both due to not having enough lemon juice (I was trying to use up a lemon I had in the fridge) and to save a few extra calories. The muffins were good enough without the glaze, I don’t really feel it was needed! Pictures and directions are for muffins with no glaze.

So if you’re interested in a blueberry muffin with a slight hint of lemon flavor, read on!

You’ll need: butter, sugar, flour, salt, baking powder, milk, eggs, lemons, blueberries.

First, you’ll want to zest and juice your lemon. (Zest first, juice second.) Then you can set these aside for a minute.

In a large bowl, add 1/2 cup butter and 1 cup of sugar.

Cream together until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs, one at a time…

Beat well…

Add the second egg…

and beat well again!

Add 1/2 cup milk,

Lemon zest. The recipe calls for 2 teaspoons, I didn’t measure, but I doubt I had that much. I just dumped in all that I got off of that one lemon I had.

2 Tablespoons lemon juice.

Beat until combined.

In a separate bowl, add 2 cups of flour

2 teaspoons of baking powder

and a dash of salt.

Give it a quick stir together, and then

gradually add your dry mixture to your liquid mixture.

Beat until just combined.

Add in 2 cups of blueberries. You can use fresh or frozen. I used fresh, but if you use frozen, don’t thaw them first unless you want purple muffins.

Fold the blueberries into the batter.

Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners.

I used an ice cream scoop to portion out the batter between the cupcake liners, and ended up with 15.

Bake at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes. These got a little more brown than I would have liked, as I wasn’t watching the oven very closely. They were still very good.

You can add the glaze at this point if you’d like, but I didn’t feel it was necessary. Enjoy!

Lemon Blueberry Muffins
Source: Simple and Delicious Magazine

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup 2% milk
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
Dash salt
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

GLAZE: (Optional)
1-1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon butter, melted
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the milk, lemon juice and peel. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt; add to creamed mixture just until moistened. Fold in blueberries.
Fill paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. Bake at 400° for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in muffin comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack.
In a small bowl, combine the confectioners’ sugar, lemon juice, butter and vanilla; drizzle over warm muffins.

(Recipe says yield of 11 muffins, I got 15.)

Before Christmas I had bought a bag of chopped macadamia nuts and a bag of white chips, so I did a quick Google search for White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies, found a recipe labeled “The Best White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookie Recipe” and said OK! Good enough for me!

And they were. Quite delicious little cookies, they were a big hit with my family at Christmas and an even bigger hit with my coworkers last week. This recipe came out to nearly three dozen cookies using my cookie scoop so there are plenty to share!

Let’s get started.

You’ll need: Butter, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, salt, eggs, flour, baking soda, white chocolate chips, and macadamia nuts

In a large bowl, add 1 cup of softened butter

1 cup of sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 teaspoons of vanilla

and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Using an electric mixer, beat until creamy.

{{At this point there should be pictures of adding eggs, but I forgot to TAKE those pictures, sorry!}}

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

In a smaller bowl, add 2 1/2 cups flour

and 1 teaspoon of baking soda.

Give it a quick stir to combine and then…

Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture…

… until well blended.

Add the white chocolate chips. The recipe calls for 10oz, but I saw no reason not to add the entire 12 oz bag.

And 1 cup of macadamia nuts. (And did you know there is no ‘e’ anywhere in the word macadamia? Cause I keep trying to put one in there, and my spell check keeps yelling at me!)

Stir those in until they are well distributed.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until set.

Let cool for a couple minutes, and then remove the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Then enjoy! And for the sake of your hips, please share with others. They’ll love you for it. (Your hips and your friends!)

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
Source: Whipped

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoons baking soda
10 ounces white chocolate (chips or bars cut in chunks)
1 cup macadamia nuts, chopped into chunks

Directions:

Heat oven to 375 F. In large bowl, beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, and salt with electric mixer until creamy. Add eggs, beat well. Stir together flour, and the baking soda; gradually add to butter mixture,beating until well blended. Stir in white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until set. (Edges are golden brown and center is set.) Cool slightly, remove from cookie sheet to wire rack to cool completely.

Creamed corn, margarine, Jiffy corn muffin mix, onion, egg, salt

In a bowl, add 2 cans of creamed corn

2 sticks of margarine

Diced onion

2 eggs

2 cups, 4 tbs of Jiffy cornbread mix

1/2 cup water

and salt to taste.

Mix it all up

and pour into a 13×9 pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until browned and cooked through. Mine was a little undercooked in this picture, but I was out of time!

Scalloped Corn
Doubled recipe for a 13×9 pan

2 cans of creamed corn
2 sticks of butter or margarine
2 eggs
Onion, diced
2 cups and 4 Tbs. Jiffy cornbread mix
1/2 cup water
salt to taste

Mix together, and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes until browned

I found this recipe on the back of the bag of toffee chips. Let’s get started!

You’ll need: Flour, brown sugar, peanut butter, shortening, milk, vanilla, egg, baking soda, salt, and chocolate covered toffee chips

Start with 1/2 cup of shortening. Do yourself a favor and buy the handy little sticks of shortening– MUCH easier for recipes. I didn’t have any, and I was trying to use up this little container of Crisco.

Follow the shortening with 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar

3 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Beat until well blended

Add one egg. Clearly, I broke mine while adding it to the bowl.

Beat in the egg until just blended

In a separate bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

and 3/4 teaspoon salt

Stir with a whisk to combine

Gradually add to peanut butter mixture

Continue until all of the flour mixture has been combined with the peanut butter mixture.

Add the bag of toffee chips. The recipe indicates to use part of the bag, and sprinkle the cookies with the remaining chips, but that’s just more work. So I added them all to the dough and called it good.

Go ahead and stir those in.

Drop onto an ungreased cookie sheet

Bake at 375 for 7-8 minutes or until set. Don’t over bake them– they’ll be hard as a rock if you do!

Cool for two minutes, then remove to a wire rack to finish cooling. Enjoy!

Heath Bits Peanut Butter Cookies

1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cup Heath milk chocolate toffee bits, divided

Heat oven to 375.
Beat shortening, peanut butter, brown sugar, milk and vanilla in large bowl until well blended. Add egg; beat just until blended. Combine flour, baking soda, salt; gradually beat into peanut butter mixture. Stir in 1 cup toffee bits; reserve remainder for topping.
Drop by heaping teaspoons about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet; top each with reserved toffee bits. Bake 7 to 8 minutes or until set. Do not overbake. Cool 2 minutes. Remove to wire rack. Cool completely.

This week, I have a super easy cheesecake that I found over at Buns in My Oven. Cookies and cheesecake? How can you go wrong? I put this together for an ill-fated birthday dinner a couple weeks ago. My mom was supposed to come over for her annual birthday dinner, where she always requests White Chicken Parmesan, but there was rampant sickness in her house. I’d already made the dessert however, so my coworkers got to benefit from Mom’s birthday.

I have to apologize for the quality of the pictures here. My camera went missing a few weeks ago, so all I had available was the camera on my phone. Photo quality aside, this was one tasty cheesecake!

You’ll need: Cream cheese, sugar, eggs, vanilla, butter, oreos

First, crush 28 oreos. I suggest using a food processor, but this can be done with a baggie and a rolling pin if you’re determined.

Add 4 tablespoons of melted butter or margarine and stir until the crumbs are moist.

Press into the bottom of a 9×13 pan. (I lined my pan with parchment paper first, per Bun in My Oven’s suggestion.) Bake crust for 10 minutes.

Put 3 packages of softened cream cheese into a large bowl

Add 3/4 cup sugar

and 1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix until well blended.

Add the eggs one at a time

mixing well after each addition

Crush the remaining oreos by hand. You just want to break them up a little, they don’t need to be pulverized.

Stir the oreos into the cheesecake batter

and pour onto the oreo cookie crust.

Spread the cheesecake layer evenly over the oreo crust layer.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Refrigerate at least 3 hours, or overnight.

Slice and enjoy!

Cookies and Cream Cheesecake
Source: Buns in My Oven

1 package of Oreo cookies
4 tablespoons butter, melted
3 packages cream cheese (24 ounces total), room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Using a food processor, blender, or rolling pin, crush 28 Oreo cookies into crumbs. Pour into parchment or wax paper lined 9 x 13 pan and pour melted butter on top of cookie crumbs. Stir to coat all the cookie crumbs with butter and press into the pan to form the crust. Bake the crust for 10 minutes.
2. Beat cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla until well blended. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing just until blended.
3. Crumble remaining Oreos with your fingers and add to cheesecake mixture. Stir together to combine and pour over cookie crust. Smooth the batter and place in the oven for 30-40 minutes, until the edges are set but the center is still slightly jiggly. Cool on a wire rack and then refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight.

Delurker Day! Basically it just means, if you’ve been reading and not commenting, please “delurk” and leave a comment. Even if you’ve got nothing to say about the recipe, feel free to just say hi.

Moving along!

You may have noticed that I put the “Watergate” salad in quotations in the title. There’s a good reason for that. According to Kraft, this particular jello salad is called Watergate Salad. I’ve even recently seen it referred to as Pistachio Fluff. But in my family, we have a different name for it. One that’s not exactly appetizing and blog friendly… are you ready for it? This is Barf Salad. Yes, like that-thing-you-do-when-you-have-the-flu salad. Yum, right?

The story goes, however many years ago, my cousin Matt laid eyes on this green jello concoction and said “I’m not eating any of that barf salad!” It’s been barf salad ever since, and to this day, he still won’t eat it. I hope you will though, it’s quite tasty! This salad, Watergate, pistachio or barf, has always been one of my favorite things to find on the food table at family get togethers. It’s now my job to make it.

Here’s how.

Pistachio pudding, crushed pineapple, mini marshmallows, pecans, cool whip.

In a medium sized bowl, dump one box of dry pistachio pudding mix.

Add to that one 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple without draining.

I gave it a quick stir at this point. This is also the point at which I realized that a green bowl was probably not the best choice for this particular dish. It happened to be the most appropriately sized bowl that I had though!

Add 1/2 cup chopped pecans. I used pecan chips because I was too lazy to chop pecans. Or because they were out of any other kind of pecans at the store. Or both.

1 cup of mini marshmallows

Finally, 1 1/2 cups cool whip.

Stir until everything is well combined. Make sure you get everything up from the bottom… just when you think you’re done, you’ll pull up a spoonful of pineapple pudding goo and realize you haven’t quite gotten it yet.

And the finished product! Doesn’t it look good? Okay, maybe not in that green bowl…

Okay, that’s a little better. You can probably see why this dish earned its endearing name, but it’s still delicious!

Watergate Salad

1 box Pistachio pudding mix, dry
1 20 oz. can crushed pineapple, undrained
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 cup mini marshmallows
1 1/2 cups whipped topping

Combine all ingredients. That’s it!

I found this little dip recipe on a quilting blog, believe it or not. Back when I thought I was going to be able to learn how to sew in straight lines, I added a bunch of quilting and crafting blogs to my feed reader. I kept most of them even after I packed up the sewing machine, and a little while back, I found this gem.

I made this dip and took it to my Christmas Eve dinner. People seemed to enjoy it, but I have a feeling it would have gone over better if I had, you know, been ON TIME. I was too busy breaking my car out of its candy coating (a layer of ice) to get out the door on time. Oh well! It was still good!

Cream cheese, sour cream, shredded cheese, pizza sauce, green pepper, green onion, pepperoni, crushed red pepper, garlic powder, oregano. (Ritz crackers)

In a bowl, add 8 oz. of softened cream cheese

1/2 cup of sour cream

1 teaspoon oregano

1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper. Honestly, if I make this again, I’ll probably leave this out. It give it just a little bit of a kick, not too spicy, but I’m not a fan of ANY spicy. Up to you, but I personally think the dip would be just as tasty without the peppers.

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Mix until well combined.

Spread in a 9-inch pie plate. (Sorry for the quality of the photo… my camera suddenly decided flash was unnecessary, it was dark outside and I didn’t have the time to fight with it!)

Top with 1/2 cup pizza sauce

Green onion

Diced green pepper

and diced pepperoni.

Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

Add 1 cup of cheese and return to the oven.

Bake 5 more minutes, until the cheese is melted. Serve with Ritz crackers.

Pepperoni Pizza Dip
Found at Sister’s Choice Quilts

8 oz. cream cheese, softened
½ cup sour cream
1 tsp oregano (or Penzey’s Pasta Sprinkle)
¼ tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp crushed red pepper
½ cup pizza sauce
½ cup or more diced pepperoni sausage
½ sliced green onion
¼ diced green pepper
1 cup shredded cheese (I used a mixture of mozzarella and cheddar)

Preheat oven to 350. Beat together the cream cheese, sour cream, oregano, garlic powder and crushed red pepper. Spread in a 9 inch pie pan. Spread the pizza sauce over the top. Sprinkle with the pepperoni, onions and peppers. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle evenly with cheese. Return to the oven and bake for 5 more minutes until golden. Serve with Ritz crackers.

Serves 12 or more.

Last year I posted my intention to post more recipes… I eclipsed my 2008 list by three whole recipes, so I call that a success, however limited! I don’t have any specific goals for 2010 except to continue trying new recipes and sharing them here with all of you! Thanks for reading and commenting, I appreciate every single one of you!

January
Taco Soup, Take One
Chop Suey
Scrabble

February
Potato and Double Corn Chowder
Taco Soup, Take Two – Far better than take one!
Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake

March
Cherry Fluff
Fiesta Taco Casserole

April
Reeses Pieces Peanut Butter Brownies
PW’s Creamy Mashed Potatoes

May
Salisbury Steak
Sausage and Cheese Stuffed Shells
Jenn’s Favorite Salad

June
Coconut Lime Banana Bread

July
Jello Shots

August
Creamy Chicken Enchiladas

September
No new posts.

October
Cheesecake Marbled Brownies
Amaretto Apple Streusel Cupcakes

November
No new posts.

December
Coconut Fudge Cups
Peanut Blossom Cookies

Thanks for a great year here at Jenn Cooks! I look forward to sharing the coming year with each of you. I wish you all a healthy and happy new year!