Turtle Pumpkin Pie

Turtle Pumpkin Pie
From Martha Stewart
Prep: 15 min. plus refrigeration

¼ cup plus 2 Tbsp. caramel ice cream topping, divided
1 Graham Cracker Pie Crust
½ cup plus 2 Tbsp. pecan pieces, divided
1 cup cold milk
2 pkg. (3.4 oz. each) Vanilla Instant Pudding
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tub (8 oz.) Cool Whip Whipped Topping, thawed, divided

Pour ¼ cup caramel topping into crust; sprinkle with ½ cup pecans. Beat milk, pudding mixes, pumpkin and spices with whisk until blended. Stir in 1 ½ cups Cool Whip. Spread into crust. Refrigerate at least 1 hour. Top with remaining Cool Whip, pecans, and caramel topping just before serving. Makes 10 servings.

Crock Pot BBQ Ribs

Crock Pot BBQ Ribs

Boneless or bone in Pork or Beef Ribs (however many you need to cook)
Put in Crock pot on slow for 6 –8 hours or on High for 4-6 hours
30 minutes before serving, pour off most of the liquid and add your choice of BBQ sauce to taste and let it warm up.

It's back!

Gourmet Girls is back and better than ever. I will be posting the new recipes as I get them. Thanks to everyone who participated.

Potato Breakfast Casserole

I always make this for breakfast over the holidays or on special occasions.

Potato Breakfast Casserole
Submitted by Lisa Loffeler

24 oz. pkg. Hash browns
1/2 c. melted butter
1 c. heaping monterey jack cheese
1 c. heaping cubed ham
1 c. heaping cheddar cheese
6 eggs
1 c. evaporated milk
1/2 t. seasoned salt
In 9x13 pan spread potatoes on bottom and up sides. Pour melted butter over potatoes. Bake crust at 425 for 25 minutes. Layer jack cheese, ham, and cheddar. Beat eggs and add milk and salt. Pour over potatoes and egg/cheese layers. Bake for 40 minutes at 350. Delish!

White Christmas Punch

White Christmas Punch
Submitted by: Carol Anderson

6 oz. Can frozen limeade
7 cups water
3 cups sugar
juice of 2 or 3 limes
2 qts. 7 up or sprite
Stir sugar into water stir until sugar is dissolved. Add remaining ingredients
except sprite. Freeze.
To serve: Partially thaw ice. Pour sprite over it. Use a potato masher to break up ice and make into a slush.

Caramel Popcorn

Caramel Popcorn (Streetman family)

Ingredients:
2 Bags Microwave Popcorn Popped (We like Homestyle Pop-Secret)
1 Cube of Butter (1/2 Cup)
1 Can Eagle Condensed Milk
2 1/2 Cups Golden Brown Sugar
1 Cup Light Karo Syrup
1 tsp. Vanilla
Colored M&M’s (Halloween mix or Christmas Mix.... With Peanuts is esp. Yummy)
Instructions:
Pop Popcorn and spread out evenly on a cookie tray that has the little sides. The 2 bags will do about 2 trays.
In a pot melt the butter but do NOT brown.
Stir in the condensed milk, brown sugar, Karo Syrup, & vanilla.
Bring to boil on Medium/Medium High Heat.
Boil 5-7 minutes (NO longer than 7) until the “softball” stage.
Softball Stage: When you can take a small spoonful/ drop of the mixture and drop it into a glass of cold water it will make a little softball that stays that way.
Am I making any sense???? If you over boil it the caramel will get REALLY hard after it cools on the popcorn.
Drizzle mixture over popcorn.
Mix in M&M’s after the popcorn cools slightly to avoid melting/bleeding of colors.

Fun Thanksgiving Turkeys from Pillsbury.com

Check out these cute and easy Turkey cookies that Becky Peterson found.
http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/ShowRecipe.aspx?rid=40040

Soft Sugar Cookies

Soft Sugar cookies

Submitted by: Alauna Westover

1/2 cup butter

1 egg

1/2 cup sour cream

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix and add:

31/4 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

Roll out and cut out shapted. Bake at 325 for 10 mins.

Edible Eyeballs from Familyfun.com

Edible Eyeballs from Familyfun.com http://jas.familyfun.go.com/recipefinder/display?id=50282

Carrots
Cream cheese
Pitted black olives
1. Simply slice carrots into 1-inch-thick chunks, top each with a blob of cream cheese and one half of a pitted black olive, and serve.

Brain cupcakes from Familyfun.com

Brain cupcakes from Familyfun.com http://jas.familyfun.go.com/recipefinder/display?id=50461

RECIPE INGREDIENTS:
12 Cupcakes (Classic Cupcake Recipe)
Buttercream Frosting
Food Coloring

1. Bake a batch of classic cupcakes. 2. Spread a coat of light orange icing (we stirred drops of yellow and pink food coloring, and just a touch of green, into 2 cups of buttercream frosting until we had a hue we liked) on a dozen cupcakes. 3. Use a pastry bag fitted with a number 10 round tip to top them with fat zigzags. It works best to first pipe two zigzags down the middle and then fill in the sides.

Creepy Eyeballs from Familyfun.com

Creepy Eyeballs from http://jas.familyfun.go.com/recipefinder/display?id=40173

RECIPE INGREDIENTS:
1 package white frosting
1 box vanilla wafers
Green or blue "LifeSavers"
Red gel icing
Chocolate chips
1. Spread frosting on vanilla wafers. Put one life saver on each wafer. Place a chocolate chip in the middle of the LifeSaver". With the red gel icing, draw bloodshot lines on the frosting. Then eat!

Spider Pretzels from Familyfun.com

Spider Pretzels from Familyfun.com

These arachnid treats are easy to make and they look positively lifelike crawling across your child's snack plate.
For each:

2 round crackers

2 teaspoons smooth peanut butter

8 small pretzel sticks

2 raisins

With the peanut butter, make a cracker sandwich. Insert eight pretzel "legs" into the filling. With a dab of peanut butter, set two raisin "eyes" on top. Makes 1.

Pizza Mummies From FamilyFun.com

Pizza Mummies from Familyfun.com

RECIPE INGREDIENTS:
English muffins
Pizza sauce
Black olives
Scallions
Red or green pepper
Cheese sticks or slices
1. Heat the oven to 350° F. For each mummy, spread a tablespoon of pizza sauce onto half of an English muffin (toast it first, if you like). 2. Set olive slices in place for eyes and add round slices of green onion or bits of red or green pepper for pupils. 3. Lay strips of cheese (we used a pulled-apart cheese stick) across the muffin for the mummy?s wrappings. 4. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the muffin is toasty.

Cheese-finger food from Familyfun.com

RECIPE INGREDIENTS:
Mozzarella string cheese
Green bell pepper
Cream cheese
1. Wearing plastic gloves or sandwich bags over your hands to keep the cheese as smudge-free as possible, use a paring knife (parents only) to cut each string in half and then carve a shallow area for a fingernail just below the rounded end of each half. 2. Mark the joint right below the nail as well as the knuckle joint by carving out tiny horizontal wedges of cheese, as pictured. 3. For the fingernails, slice a green bell pepper into 3/8-inch-wide strips. Set the strips skin side down on your work surface and trim the pulp so that it's about half as thick. Then cut the strips into ragged-topped nail shapes and stick them in place at the ends of the fingers with dabs of cream cheese.

From Familyfun.com

Cranberry Cider

Cranberry Cider

Submitted by: Becky Quinn

1 1/2 cups sugar

4 cinnamon sticks

1 qt. Cranberry juice

1 qt. Water

2 cups Orange Juice

2 Tbsp. Lemon Juice

Mix ingredients together

Simmer for 30 mins

Serve warm!

Apple Bites from FamilyFun.com

These toothsome treats are a fun and healthy break from Halloween sweets.
RECIPE INGREDIENTS:
Apples
Slivered almonds
1. Just quarter and core an apple, cut a wedge from the skin side of each quarter, then press slivered almonds in place for teeth. 2. Tip: If you're not going to serve them right away, baste the apples with orange juice to keep them from browning.
Recipe from FamilyFun.com

Amish Breakfast Cereal

1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
1 cup Brown sugar
2 eggs
3 cups Quick Oats
2 teaspoons Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Salt
1 cup Milk
1 cup Apples, chopped
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup Dried Cranberries

Mix oil. sugar, and eggs in a bowl. Add in the oats, baking powder, salt, and milk. Stir in the fruit. Place in a 9 x 13 baking pan. Bake at 350 for 30 mins. Pour milk or cream over the top. Yum!

Becky said she stores the leftovers in the frige and it's still yummy.

Kelli's Fabulous Caramel Apples

The key to great caramel apples is proper temperature and homemade caramel. (The caramel we had was "Kneaders" caramel and Kelli isn't allowed to share it.) So everyone be on the look out for a good caramel recipe.

You should begin by washing your ROOM TEMPERATURE granny smith apples (really you can use whatever apples you like, but granny smith are nice and tart which goes well with the sweet caramel).

Then insert the stick into the center of the apple that has the stem removed. Place the clean apples on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper so they won't stick once they are dipped in the caramel.

Candy temperatures are the VITAL step. Caramel should be heated to 180-200 degrees. You can do this in the microwave for short intervals stirring occasionally. If you plan on making alot of caramel apple and frequently you might want to invest in a digital candy thermometer. If this is more of a once in a while kind of thing you could just use any kind of theremometer and shoot for more around 190 degrees to be on the safe side.

Once your caramel is hot and ready, dip your apples into the caramel and then twirl the extra caramel off the apple. This requires a little bit of shaking too. Be sure to wipe the bottom of the apple against the side of the bucket and set the apple onto the waxed paper. If you place the apple in the fridge for a few minutes, it will help keep the caramel nice and shiny! If you are going to add toppings add them while the caramel is still warm. Anything with chocolate isn't a good idea because it melts and will fall to the bottom. You can however dip the entire apple into chocolate and then add toppings. If you are going to dip the entire apple into chocolate let the caramel apple cool completely and then heat your chocolate to 120 degrees and no warmer. Begin heating your chocolate in the microwave stirring it and checking it's temperature until you reach 120 degrees. If it gets to hot, which happens almost everytime, simply add some more non-melted chocolate. Kelli had a bowl of unmelted chips ready to go if this happened. After the caramel apple is dipped you can either sprinkle other toppings on or let it cool.

Here are some topping ideas:

Cinnamon and sugar- This is mine and Tiffany's favorite!

Nuts- Kelli uses Peacansp

Crushed oreos

Caramel then milk chocolate drizzled with white chocolate

Some other suggestions were to place the finished caramel apples in little paper muffin cups and then wrap them up with clear celophane. Who wouldn't want that as a gift?

To cut your apple get a long seraded knife and simply cut round all four sides of the apple stick. It leaves the core of the apple and gives you a "flower" look with the apples pieces.

Cream of Chicken and Mushroom Soup

Cream of Chicken and Mushroom Soup
Submitted by: Alauna Westover

4 T. butter Place in pot and melt. Then add:1/2 cup chopped onion and soften. Then add 1 pound sliced mushrooms and cook 10 mins. Then add 1/2 cup flour and cook 1 min. Then add 4 cups chicken broth and 2 cups half and half.

Boil until thickened. Then add 1 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon hot sauce, 3 cups cooked diced chicken, and 1 teaspoon tarragon.
Simmer 20 mins.

Tortilla Soup

Tortilla Soup
Submitted by: Janae Peterson

Soup:
3 cans chicken broth
1 can white hominy, drained and rinsed (it comes in a can in the Mexican food section)
1/3 cup fresh or frozen whole-kernel corn
1 carrot, diced
1 cup diced zucchini
1 cup diced, cooked chicken
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1 bay leaf

Garnishes:
1 lime, cut into wedges
1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
2 cups baked tortilla chips
1 sliced jalopeano pepper (I never put this in)
Fresh thyme

Bring all soup ingredients to boil in large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer 15 minutes until soup is hot and vegetables have softened slightly. Ladle soup into 4 serving bowls. Garnish each serving as desired. Serve with bread. Makes 4 servings.