One of my friends gave this to me 11 days ago.  Yesterday, I finally was able to bake the bread and fell in love with this recipe.  It was so simple and easy to make.  I was very hesitant at first because I am not the type that likes to do the whole pass along to friends deal.  I hate it in fact.  If people send me emails saying I have to send it to 10 friends or something happens, I delete it.  So when I received this Ziploc bag full of weird liquid and a paper that said I needed to squish and mush, I thought, oh boy, what am I in for now?  I faithfully followed the directions and wham-mo, I almost ate the whole 2 loves by myself.  Luckily I have a house full of 5 boys and 1 husband to help me make sure I didn’t gain 10 pounds in one day!  Thanks guys!  I have included the PDF you give to people when you give them their own starter and also the recipe for the starter.  Enjoy and share the love of this FABULOUS bread.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  DO NOT SKIP the step of sprinkling the sugar/cinnamon mixture all over the bottom and sides of the pans.  This is a crucial overall yummy effect that you will miss the flavor of if you don’t do it.

Amish Bread Recipe

My oldest son was in the mood to fix dessert for the family last night.  I told him he could pick what ever he wanted and he decided on a new recipe.  We REALLY loved it.  Remember to have plenty of vanilla ice cream to serve with this.  One 9×9 pan was enough for our family of 7 for one serving each.  He made two pans so we will some more tonight!  Another reason why I like this recipe is it’s all made in the pan you bake it in.  No mixing bowls to clean up afterward.  This is also a GREAT food storage recipe as it uses everything you have in your storage.  No store bough items.  LOVED IT!!

Hot Fudge Sundae Cake

1 cup flour                         2 Tbl oil

3/4 cup sugar                  1 tsp. vanilla

2 Tbl cocoa                       1 cup chopped nuts (opt)

2 tsp baking powder     1 cup brown sugar

1/4 tsp. salt                      1/4 cup cocoa

1/2 cup milk                     1 3/4 cup super hot water

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix flour, sugar, 2 Tbl cocoa, baking powder, and salt in an ungreased 9 inch square pan.  Mix in milk, oil, and vanilla with a fork until smooth.  Stir in nuts.  Spread batter evenly in the pan.  Sprinkle with brown sugar and 1/4 cup cocoa.  Pour hot water over batter.  Bake for 40 minutes.  While warm, sppon into desert dishes and top with lots of ice cream.  Spoon sauce from pan onto each serving.  Note: sauce will thicken as it cools.

I LOVE homemade mashed potatoes. I HATE the long process of making them. I don’t know what it is about them, but if I had to choose between fixing them and fixing pre-packaged stuff, I would choose the pre-packaged for ease of time. Yet, the taste of homemade mashed potatoes cannot compare to anything at all. This year I will be making mine the day before, so my Thanksgiving Dinner isn’t filled with me in the kitchen all day long. This recipe can be made a day or two ahead of time and stored in the fridge until you are ready for them. I am sure it’s all a mental thing, but sometimes we need those mental times to help us along life’s road.

Make-Ahead Mashed Potatoes

5 pounds potatoes, cooked and mashed
1 8oz. package cream cheese
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp. garlic salt
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all the ingredients. Mix well and place in a large, greased casserole dish. If making ahead, refrigerate. Otherwise, cover and bake at 325 for 45 minutes. (If refrigerated first, let stand 30 minutes at room temperature and then bake as directed.) Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Are you looking for a new recipe that you will truly be grateful for? I found this recipe many years ago and it’s become a family tradition that I bring my yams on Thanksgiving Day. My family always raves about them, even those who are not big fans of the yam. I promise you that you will give thanks at your Thanksgiving feast (not only for this great recipe, but for all your many blessings as well)!

3 c. cooked, mashed yams

1/2 c. sugar

1/3 c. milk

1/2 c. butter – melted

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

Topping:

1 c. brown sugar

1/3 c. butter – melted

1/3 c. flour

1 c. nuts – chopped (I use pecans)

In boiling water, cook yams in skins. When soft, peel and mash with electric mixer. Add sugar, milk, butter, eggs and vanilla. Spray a 9×13 baking pan. Pour yams into pan. Using mixer, blend brown sugar, butter, flour and nuts until crumbly. Sprinkle over yam mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 45 minutes. Enjoy!

During General Conference, I became a brave woman and fixed real BBQ baby back ribs on the grill, with the smoked wood and everything.  It was quite the process but turned out sooooo delicious.  I found a great website that has a fantastic array of recipes and ideas for barbequing.  My favorite recipe I found was for their Memphis Dust.  This is the rub that I used to flavor my ribs with.  Mmmm, I thought, until I tried this rub on chicken.  Oh man was my whole family in heaven!!!!!  It was made for chicken.  Wow!  I can’t say enough of how good it was.  I wanted to share this recipe with you.  You will make a quart size bag of the rub with this recipe but boy is it worth it!  Side note:  Everything in here is important, so don’t leave any ingredient out or try to substitute.

Memphis Dust Recipe

Yield. Makes about 3 cups. I typically use about 1 tablespoon per side of a slab of St. Louis cut ribs, and a bit less for baby backs. Store the extra in a zipper bag or a glass jar with a tight lid.
Preparation time. 10 minutes to find everything and 5 minutes to dump them together.

Ingredients
3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup paprika
1/4 cup kosher salt
4 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
2 tablespoons ground ginger powder
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons dried rosemary, ground to a powder

Keep it stored tight in a bag in a dark place.  You can’t go wrong with this rub.

Last night gave me a wake up call.  We were so active during the summer that I got out of the habit of planning my menus consistently.  It was 5:40 pm, we were at my 6 year old’s soccer game, and my husband said, “After our meeting gets done, I will only have a few minutes to eat dinner before I go to bishopric meeting.”  Soccer was from 5:30 to 6:30, we had a meeting for our other son from 6:30 to 7:30, mutual for our oldest at 7:00, then bishopric meeting.  At that point I realized I had forgotten to THINK about dinner and my mind was racing frantically trying to figure out what I could possibly fix in 10 minutes.  Ha!  Have you ever whipped up a nutritious meal in 10 minutes while at a soccer game?  Yesterday would have been a perfect day for a crock pot meal.  Now, here I am at a soccer game, stuck.  At that point I was just hoping my husband had eaten a large lunch!

So today is a shout out to everyone reminding you to get back in the swing of things and plan your menus ahead of time.  With so many schedules combined together, you may only have a small window of time to eat dinner together.  By looking ahead at your calendar and planning appropriately, you can have those crazy days like mine and still sit peaceful knowing dinner is already cooked at home ready to be eaten.

We have great tools to help you plan.  Our Weekly Menu Planner notepad and Shopping List notepad are currently on sale right now.  They will be that way until we get closer to lowering our quantities, which will be very soon.  I’ve got mine ready to use as soon as I am done blogging.  Feel free to leave any other suggestions on our blog as to what works great for you.  We love to get new ideas and share them with everyone!  Happy meal planning, everyone!