Sugar Cookies

These are super easy and so good. So take a stand and say 'no' to Pillsbury refrigerated cookie dough this holiday season.

Unlike other sugar cookie recipes I found, this one doesn't require the dough to be refrigerated before using - which is good, because I generally want cookies now. I used cookie cutters to make little Christmas trees, stars and candy canes. Then I put red and green sugar sprinkles on. And then I ate a whole spoonful of cookie dough (because I'm a grown up now and no one can tell me not to!).

One note: I rolled out the dough to about 1/4" (with a soda can) and I think that was too thick. The dough spread when it baked and my trees and candy canes looked fat and bloated - just like I felt after eating 500 of them... (really, they're that good).

Merry Christmas!


Prep Time: 15 Minutes
Cook Time: 10 Minutes
Ready In: 25 Minutes
Yields: 48 servings

INGREDIENTS:

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups white sugar 1 egg 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.
2.	In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients. Roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls, and place onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3.	Bake 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden. Let stand on cookie sheet two minutes before removing to cool on wire racks.

source: allrecipes.com

Meat & Potatoes

I tried making a pot roast in the slow cooker and ran into a couple of issues - both of which stem from a fundamental problem in the world of cooking: recipes are geared towards people who already know how to cook.

My issues:

1. The recipe calls for 5.5 lbs "pot roast." So I was in the meat department of my local grocery store looking for "pot roast," but such a thing does not exist. They had rump roast, chuck roast, and tri-tip roast, but no "pot roast." I was just about to reach for my phone and call my mom to ask her which I should buy (in retrospect, funny how my first thought is to call my mom and not ask the butcher who was standing 30 ft. away) when I noticed that the chuck roast was on sale for $1.99/lb. So I bought that.

2. The recipe instructs to cook on high for 3-4 hours but gives no guideline for determining when the roast is adequately cooked. After 3 hours there was still a lot of blood coming out when I poked at it. After 4 hours, I thought it looked done. Fortunately, Blake was over and he remembered something about meat needing to have an internal temperature of 160-degrees. I managed to find a meat thermometer and my roast was only 140-degrees. So we put in The Godfather II, let it cook another hour (for anyone who is counting, we're now at 5 hours) and it just barely reached 160-degrees. Unfortunately, we found that it was overcooked.

So the meat was tough and fatty (should I have used something besides chuck roast?) and the gravy was way too salty (I suggest using only half of the onion soup packet). But I had added some red potatoes and mushrooms and they were quite tasty.

At the end of the day, I don't think I'm a meat & potatoes kind of girl.

Awesome Slow Cooker Pot Roast

Submitted by: Brenda Arnold Rated: 5 out of 5 by 2992 members

Prep Time: 10 Minutes Cook Time: 8 Hours

Ready In: 8 Hours 10 Minutes Yields: 12 servings

"This simple pot roast makes its own gravy in the slow cooker."

INGREDIENTS:

2 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed cream of mushroom soup 1 (1 ounce) package dry onion

soup mix 1 1/4 cups water 5 1/2 pounds pot roast

DIRECTIONS:

1.	In a slow cooker, mix cream of mushroom soup, dry onion soup mix and water. Place pot roast in slow cooker and coat with soup mixture.
2.	Cook on High setting for 3 to 4 hours, or on Low setting for 8 to 9 hours.

Nutrition Info (per serving)

Calories 435 (52% from fat) | Protein 45.6g | Fat 24.5g (sat 9.1g) | Carbohydrate 5.2g | Fiber 0.3g | Cholesterol 127mg | Iron 4mg | Sodium 663mg | Calcium 27mg