SIMPKINS GRANOLA COOKIES

Sometimes a cookie is all I need.  I actually really enjoy baking cookies. I know some people think they are too much trouble.  At least that's what I hear every year when I start talking about having a cookie exchange before Christmas.  Maybe this year.  

A couple of days ago I decided to look through some recipes I have just loose in a small plastic box. One of the things in there was a 16 - page paid advertising supplement I had saved from our newspaper called Gifts & Goodies.  It was full of cookie/bar recipes from the 11th annual Holiday Cookie Contest.  They all looked so good. When I decided I wanted to fill the cookie jar, I started from the back and found this recipe for Simpkins Granola Cookies on page 13.  This winning recipe was from Betty Tolles, from Lenexa. "Simpkins" was her maiden name.  I enjoyed reading the narrative about Betty that was included on the page.  She said you could use any cereal for the granola.  I bought some granola cereal that also had raisins and sliced almonds in it.  So some of the cookies have an added treat in them. I substituted stevia for the sugar to reduce the calories.  My experience is that stevia when used to cook isn't as sweet as sugar. But that's what we are used to and what my husband prefers. If you are like us, use the stevia.  Otherwise, use sugar.

My husband especially liked them so I don't think my cookie jar will be full very long.
  

SIMPKINS GRANOLA COOKIES

1/2       cup margarine, room temperature
1/2       cup brown sugar (I used 1/4 cup brown sugar blend)
1/2       cup sugar (I used 1/2 cup stevia)
1           egg
1           tablespoon + 1 teaspoon milk
1           teaspoon vanilla
1           cup whole wheat flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour)
1/2       teaspoon baking powder
1/2       teaspoon baking soda
1/2       teaspoon salt
1           cup granola or oatmeal

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Combine margarine and both sugars in a medium size mixing bowl and mix well with a fork.

Add the egg and mix in.

Stir in the milk and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir them lightly with a fork until they are thoroughly mixed.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and stir until completely blended.

Add the granola. Mix well.

Using a small scoop (1 tablespoon size) place dough about 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet.

Bake 10 minutes or until light brown. (You can see they do flatten somewhat.)

Remove from cookie sheet and cool on wire rack.

WHOLE WHEAT BELGIUM WAFFLES

I know what you are thinking. What? Another recipe for waffles? BUT this is one that makes a really, really good waffle from the cookbook entitled Holidays & Parties, easy recipes from home economics (family and consumer science) teachers of CA, NV, AZ, and UT. "My 20 year old son won't eat any other waffles.  No other recipe even compares to these - delicious for breakfast or lunch." Carol Winter from Hillcrest HS, Midvale, UT (contributor of this recipe)

WHOLE WHEAT BELGIUM WAFFLES

2         eggs
1-1/4   cups milk
5         tablespoons oil
1-1/2   cups whole wheat flour
3/4     teaspoon salt
2         teaspoons baking powder
3         tablespoons stevia or sugar

Mix eggs with milk and oil until light and fluffy.  

Sift dry ingredients together and fold into milk mixture, just until mixed.  

Bake in hot waffle iron.  

Serve with fresh fruit and cream, syrup, powdered sugar or butter and jam.

CHOCOLATE ZUCCHINI CAKE

The other day when I shared those awesome Zucchini Muffins, Friend Lynn, told me about a really good recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Cake that she had from Sunset magazine.  I immediately asked her if she would send me the recipe to share with you.  I needed something to take to the dentist office on Wednesday when I had an appointment to get two new crowns and thought this sounded perfect.  Remember I took them a loaf of  Banana 3 - Way Batter when I got my teeth cleaned.

Since my appointment was at 10:00, I made the cake the night before.  I wasn't sure if my one zucchini would be enough to make the two cups, so we stopped by the grocery store and my husband went in to buy me another one.  After we got home and I was getting ready to grate the zucchini, I realized I didn't have enough stick margarine. Soooooo, you guessed it. My considerate husband said he would go back to the store and get me some. (Turns out the zucchini I had actually produced more than two cups - but I didn't tell him.)

As soon as I walked in Linda, the hygienist and Dee, the receptionist saw my foil-covered plate. They both cheered with glee.  Dee quickly removed the foil to see the cake (I had told her the day before when she called to remind me of my appointment what I was going to bring.) and Linda immediately pinched off a piece of one of the slices. There was no doubt that they didn't think the cake was delicious. Dr. G. and Sandy, his assistant, didn't get to try it out before I left, but they were very appreciative.  Dee told me they would have to think of reasons for me to come in more often. I do enjoy sharing my recipes with people who make me feel so special.

CHOCOLATE ZUCCHINI CAKE

2 - 1/2   cups flour, unsifted
1/2         cup cocoa
2 - 1/2   teaspoon baking powder
1 - 1/2    teaspoon baking soda
1             teaspoon salt
1             teaspoon cinnamon
3/4        cup soft butter or margarine (1 - 1/2 sticks, room temperature)
2           cups sugar (I used 1 cup sugar/stevia blend)
3           eggs
2           teaspoons vanilla
2           teaspoons grated orange peel
2           cups grated zucchini
1/2        cup milk
1            cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour a tube pan.

Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.

Cream the margarine and sugar until smooth.

Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.

With a spoon stir in vanilla, orange peel, and zucchini.









Alternately stir in dry ingredients and milk into the mixture, including the nuts in the last addition ( dry ingredients). Doing this will keep the nuts distributed throughout the cake as it bake. TIP!! Always start and end with the dry ingredients.  3 times dry ingredients and 2 times wet ingredients works perfectly.

Pour batter into pan.

Bake for 50 - 60 minutes. Check doneness with a toothpick. When inserted in the center of the cake, if done, the toothpick will come out clean.

Cool 15 minutes on wire rack.

Remove and continue to cool while you prepare the glaze.

POWDERED SUGAR GLAZE

2       cups powdered sugar, sifted
3       tablespoons milk
1       teaspoon vanilla

In a small to medium size bowl, combine all three ingredients and stir til smooth.






Drizzle over the cake.

PRALINE PUMPKIN DESSERT

What a beautiful dry day we had in Kansas City Tuesday.  Windy as the dickens, but "3 out of 4 ain't bad", is it. At least that's what the song says. The ground is so wet from all of our rain it is slushy when you walk on it.

I saw this recipe in an email I got from Betty Crocker.  I love pumpkin desserts and this one looked like a good one to take to Hillcrest Thrift Shop Tuesday. When I took it in and told them I had forgotten the whipped topping, they all started complaining (jokingly).  With one bite though, all I heard were oohs and aahs and positive compliments. I told them that was good to hear. Amy asked me hadn't I made it before. Then I told her they were all "guinea pigs" (I wanted to spell it "ginnie pig" but my husband didn't want me to.) for my blog.  Then she asked me how I made all these desserts and not gain a lot of weight. I told her what I tell everyone, "I eat one piece and then give the rest away."  When my shift was over and I went to get my pan, I have to admit I was glad there were a couple of servings left.  It really is good and I was glad I would get to enjoy more than one piece of this one.

PRALINE PUMPKIN DESSERT

1           can (15 oz) canned pumpkin
1           can (12 oz) evaporated milk (fat free okay)
3          eggs
1           cup sugar (1/2 cup sugar/stevia blend okay)
4          teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1           box yellow or spice cake mix (sugar free yellow okay)
1 - 1/2  cups chopped pecans or walnuts
3/4      cup margarine, melted (I used 1 stick *)
whipped cream, if desired

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease or spray a 9 x 13 - inch baking pan.

Combine pumpkin, milk, eggs, sugar, and spice with a wire whisk until smooth.

Pour into the pan.

Sprinkle the dry cake mix evenly over the pumpkin mixture.

Sprinkle with pecans.

Pour melted margarine evenly over top. (I like to thinly slice the stick margarine and evenly place them over the top.)

Bake 50 to 60 minutes or til knife comes out clean. (50 minutes was plenty of time in my oven)

Cool 30 minutes before cutting.

Serve warm or cold with a dollop of whipped topping, if you like. (I did forget mine and no one complained - after they took a bite.)

Store in the refrigerator.

CHERRY CAKE

When Hillcrest Thrift Shop had their annual end of the summer picnic in mid September, I offered to bring a dessert. With my reputation, what else could I do. The recipe came from Lia Wilson's Quick Fixes with Mixes cookbook. I revised the frosting because I didn't like the consistency of it.  I thought it was really, really sweet, but everyone else thought it was really good.

CHERRY CAKE

1           white cake mix
1-1/3    cups milk
2          tablespoons canola oil
3          egg whites
3/4      cup white chocolate chips, melted
1           jar maraschino cherries, well drained, divided

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour 12 - cup tube pan.

In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, milk, oil, egg whites, and white chocolate.  Beat on low speed to blend, then beat on medium for 3 minutes.

Gently stir in 3/4 cups chopped cherries.

Pour batter into prepared tube pan.

Bake til done, about 38 minutes.  Check doneness by inserting a toothpick into the center of the cake.

Cool on wire rack for about 10 minutes.

Remove by inverting onto cake platter.

CHERRY FROSTING

(revised)*

3          tablespoons margarine, softened

4          cups powdered sugar

2          tablespoons maraschino cherry juice

6          maraschino cherries, cut in half

milk as needed for desired consistency

In a mixing bowl, combine the margarine,1 cup of powdered sugar, and cherry juice.  Gradually add the rest of the powdered sugar. Add milk if necessary for desired consistency a spoonful at a time.

Frost the cake and place the 12 cherry halves on the top of the cake with cut side down.

This is what my finished cake looked like.  The frosting was too thin (with her 1/3 cup of milk) and even using 5 cups of powdered sugar.  I didn't like the looks of the chopped cherries mixed in with the icing either. I admit that is why I have waited so long to finish this post.  The cake was too good not to share it with you though.

OATMEAL PUMPKIN SPICE BREAD

Thursday afternoon our Northland New Neighbors Mexican Train group met at Friend Dee's home.  We had 8 there so we split up and played two tables of four each.  I played with Friends Janice, Patricia, and Carol.  Ready to play, we each chose 15 dominoes and started making our trains.  I had to take this picture:

Do you see why? I'll let you see if you can figure it out.  (I'll let you know at the end of the post.)

Dee was just taking her Oatmeal Pumpkin Spice Bread out of the pan when I got there. (She offered to put it back in the pan for my picture, but I told her that was okay.) Didn't it make a pretty loaf?!

OATMEAL PUMPKIN SPICE BREAD

1            15 - oz can pureed pumpkin
4           eggs
2/3       cup canola oil
1/3        cup unsweetened applesauce
2/3       cup water
2 - 1/3  cups whole wheat flour
1            cup old fashioned oats (save 1 teaspoon for sprinkling on top)
1 - 2/3 cups sugar
2          teaspoons baking soda
1           teaspoon cinnamon
1           teaspoon nutmeg
1/8       teaspoon ground cloves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly spray two loaf pans with cooking spray.

Place the pumpkin, eggs, oil, applesauce, and water in a large mixing bowl.  Blend together using a mixer until creamy.

Mix the flour, oats, sugar, baking soda, and spices in a smaller mixing bowl.

Add the dry ingredients into the wet, and using a spoon, mix thoroughly until smooth. 

Divide the batter evenly between the two pans. Sprinkle the tops with the saved oats.

Bake for 45 to 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  

Allow to cool in the pans before removing.

Dee found the recipe online at fitsugar.com.  It was adapted from Paula Deen's Pumpkin Bread recipe.

Did you figure out why I took the picture? 

We were so anxious to get started that all four of us made our trains but no one had the double twelve. (See it isn't there in the "station". ) So we each had to start drawing a domino, until finally someone drew the double twelve.  Then we adjusted our trains with the extra dominoes we had drawn.  We had a good laugh over that one.

HOW TO MAKE A STRING QUILT BLOCK

I have always been fascinated with String Quilts.  This sample block I made for this tutorial though is a first for me. I have a difficult time with "random" as you have heard before if you follow my blog. To make this sample, I used some scrap strips I had leftover from a quilt I made one of my granddaughters, Sadie. Her favorite colors were yellow and orange. The blue middle strip was from another project.

I have a hard time throwing away scraps, which is a good thing if you want to make a quilt by this method.  When Blankets of Hope (my church's quilting group) used to have cutting sessions (most of the time we use cut 6 - 1/2 inch squares to make our quilts/throws), I would save the scraps.  When we decided to get all of our donated material organized by colors, I ended up with at least two bags of just scraps.  I told everyone that we might someday might some String Quilts. 
Jump ahead a few years and enter Linda to the group.  She showed interest in the bags of scraps and I told her to take a bag and have fun.  She ended up making two String Quilt tops for us to make blankets.  

Her quilt tops inspired me to do a tutorial which required me to actually make a block.

As I said Linda made two quilt tops for us.  Generally speaking String Quilts are completely random, but one of hers wasn't. 

In it she had the center diagonal strip the same creating an interesting design in all of this randomness. (I'm calling it a diagonal - diamond - border.)

The other one was completely random.














While I like both, I really like the pattern in the first one. That is why my sample block has the blue strip in the middle.  While Linda used a green and I used a blue print, any one strip will make that pattern as long as you always just use it for the middle strip. You might notice in the picture of the first one, that Linda had other strips that were also dark or bold, but because the strip didn't appear in the same place on the other blocks, they don't "stand out".

My directions will be for the first quilt top - the one with a "diamond - design -border". You can make the block any size you want. I made mine a cut 8 - 1/2 inch square that when put together with the other blocks will be 8 inches finished.

Let's get started:

Cut an 8 - 1/2 inch block from a piece of muslin or sheeting.

With the scraps cut a strip 2 inches wide and 13 inches long from the fabric you are going to use for the "border". (You might need to have more than a scrap to have enough fabric to make a number of blocks. Cut 2 inches strips and then cut the strips into 13 inch pieces. You will need one for each block. See total number of blocks below for different sizes.) Make a mark in the middle on both ends of the strip on the wrong side.

Lay the strip diagonally across the block matching the mark with the corner of the block. (I just turned the end up for the picture so you could see that my mark and the corner match up.)

Pin the strip down to hold it in place and then place the next strip you are going to use face-down on top of it matching the edges on one side (right or left - it doesn't matter which way to go first). Sew through all three thicknesses with a 1/4 inch seam.  

Set the seam by pressing on top of the seam first, and then flip out the strip and press the seam open. Lay the next strip right side down on top of the second strip and repeat. (Might be a little hard to see in the picture.)

Once you have finished one half, start on the other half by laying the strip on top of the blue center strip (in my sample) matching the cut edges and sew it down as you did before. When you are finished, the block will look like this with four strips on each side of the center strip which will be the "border".

Here is what it looks like on the back side.

Trim the strips edges off using the block edge as the cutting line.

Continue making blocks until you have the amount needed to make your quilt top. 

When you join the blocks together turn the blocks so that the center strips makes a diamond border. 












Things to remember when making a String Quilt:

1. While generally speaking String Quilts are totally random, you can make a striking design by having the center diagonal strip the same width and print. (doesn't have to be a dark print). The same width will make it easy to "quilt" it by "stitching in the ditch". Do not use the print anywhere else in the blocks.

2. The strips are randomly arranged and do not have to be the same width for the entire length of the strip. (In my sample, I made one of the yellow strips narrower on one end than the other end to illustrate this.) The strips also can be varying widths with each other. 

3. No two blocks should be exactly the same.  That's why this is a great project to make using up your scraps from all of your projects.

To quilt Linda's two quilts I "stitched in the ditch" along the block seams.  I need to stitch somewhere else because there is too much room left unquilted.  Linda did not always make the green center strip the same width.  If she had, I would have also "stitched in the ditch" on each side of that strip. I will probably match the green and just stitch diagonally across the blocks. The stitch will show, but hopefully not look too bad.  

Linda sewed together strips of material two inches wide for me to use for the binding. She even pressed them for me. How nice of her.

Now I need to get busy and get them finished.  We meet on the first Thursday of the month, so I will make sure I have them totally finished by then.  I will also update this post and add a picture of them finished.




I hope you have found this tutorial helpful.  If you have any questions, please let me know in a comment below. 

Suggestions for sizes for finished quilt sizes:

While I didn't give any requirements of material for a finished quilt, I will say a good size for a quilt with a finished 8 - inch square (block) would be:

             Blocks              Total # of Blocks       Finished size (inches)
Crib:       3 x 6                        18                     24 x 48

Twin:      8 x 11                       88                    64 x 88  

Full:       9 x 11                        99                    72 x 88

Queen:   10 x 12                    120                    80 x 96

King:      12 x 13                    156                    96 x 104