Rambling #13 Trick-or-Treat! It's sugar cookie pumpkins!

So I should have posted this sooner but I had a little blogging bog down when I misplaced my camera. This blog posts pictures are from my phone camera too. I got this recipe from my friend Annalee's mom, Sherri. She is a wonderful woman who over the years has helped me in countless ways while in college and out of college. She is the best! I love that I can randomly call her and get a recipe, ask her a question, or get a place to crash while in Abilene. So one of the several great recipes I have gotten is her sugar cookie recipe and the other day I decided to make some in the shape of pumpkins. So...

Sugar Cookies
Preheat the oven to 400. In a mixer cream together butter, shortening
sugar
vanilla
and eggs
In a bowl stir together flour
baking powder
and salt
After creaming stir in the flour mixture
take your dough and chill in the fridge for at least one hour.
On a well floured surface roll out your chilled dough to about 1/8" thick. Cut your desired shapes (like my pumpkins below) and place them on an ungreased or parchment lined baking sheet.
Bake for 7-10 minutes or until the edges are a lite brown. Cool for 1 minute and then move to a wire cooling rack.
Once cooled either eat or ice them. I mixed up some icing (also Sherri's) and sprinkled them with a little orange sugar.
Aren't they really cute!!!
Hope you had a fun Halloween! Mine was yummy!!

Here are the recipes.

Sugar Cookies:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 400. Cream together butter, shortening, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Chill for at least one hour. On a well floured surface roll out dough to about 1/8" think and cut into desired shapes. Place on ungreased or parchment lined baking sheet. Bake 7-10 minutes. Cool 1 minute and then cool on a wire rack. Ice if desired and enjoy!!

Icing:
2 cups powdered sugar
1 stick of butter or 3/4 of a stick of butter
1 tsp vanilla
1-2 tablespoons of milk

Add first three ingredients into a mixer and mix on low and add milk by tablespoon until the consistency is what you would like.

Rambling #12 Dinner Fun For All!!!

I made this next recipe for dinner on Friday night, it has been a favorite of our family for years and years. We like to call it pizza pockets (they are really like little mini-calzones). This is also something that the whole family can make together. I also want to apologize, I seem to have misplaced/lost my camera. I only discovered this when I went to take pictures of this recipe and couldn't find it anywhere. So I had to use the only other camera I had, my iPhone. The pictures are not the best and I apologize but I really wanted to share this with my 5 readers. So here are your ingredients:
Pepperoni's (if need be you can use turkey pepperoni's), sausage (also can use turkey sausage), cans of biscuits (I used grands this time and it made HUGE ones so you can just get regular size biscuits), and shredded pizza cheese. It's not in the picture but you will also need a jar of your favorite pizza sauce.
Preheat oven to the temperature on can of biscuits usually about 350-375.

Brown and drain the sausage, and set aside to cool down.
Cut pepperonis into fourths. In a large bowl place cut up pepperoni's.
Add the cheese (1 and half to two bags).
Add the cooled, drained sausage.
and with either your hands or a big spoon mix all together till well combined. This is the basic filling for pizza pockets. If you want to you can add chopped onions and bell peppers here and mix well. If you have little ones eating this who don't care for veggies you can leave it at the basic filling, there is a point where you can add them later.
Now on a well floured surface, take out your biscuits and roll them flat like below. Now here you have two options, you can roll out and fill them individually or you can roll out all the biscuits at once, and then fill them.
Place a little bit of filling on half of the biscuit. You can also make a little addition here its a good place to add the chopped onions or bell peppers if they are not already mixed in
Fold it in half like so and push edges together like below
Use a fork to make sure edges are closed and poke ventilation holes in top about three times.
Place on a baking sheet with parchment paper and place in oven.
Bake for about 10-12 minutes, until golden brown.
Yummm! Now just heat up some pizza sauce (we like to use Ragu Pizza Sauce) in a microwaveable bowl.
Some people like to spread a little sauce on top and some like to dip, to each his own.
Here is what the yumminess looks like inside! Eat up and enjoy!!!!
This makes a lot of pizza pockets. There are two options here, make a little and save the rest of the filling or make them all at once. If you are saving filling all you have to do to make them again is roll out more biscuits, fill, close, and bake. Or you can make them all and save the extra pizza pockets in the fridge they are great the next day (cold or reheated). I hope you like them as much we do!!!!

Pizza Pockets

1 tube of sausage (reg or turkey)

1 bag (8 oz.) of pepperoni's (or turkey pepperonis)

2 bags (small) shredded pizza cheese

about 4 cans of (regular) biscuits

jar of your favorite pizza sauce

Preheat oven to 350. Brown, rinse, drain sausage and set aside to cool down. Cut pepperoni's into fourths. Place pepperoni's, cheese, and sausage in a large bowl, mix well. On a well floured surface roll out desired number of biscuits. Fill with filling on half of biscuit. Close using a fork to seal and to poke ventilation holes. Place on parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden brown. Heat up pizza sauce in a microwaveable bowl. Serve while hot and yummy!

Non-Adventure #16 Road Trippin' With Robin! H-town here we come!

My very good friend Robin, has a sorority sister named Blair who was getting married this weekend in the Houston area and since her husband was out of town on business, she asked if I would like to tag along. I said sure why not and soooo off we went! We left Friday night after I got done with work and minus a slight lights mishap we had a fun time jammin' and snackin' in the car!

Since our arrival to the hotel was soooo late we really didn't do anything that night. We watched a little tv and then crashed. We woke up the next morning and headed out to get some breakfast and to do a little shopping! Don't we look all bright-eyed and beautiful!
One of Robin and her husbands favorite places to eat breakfast is this little soul food place called The Breakfast Klub.
That's the building behind us.
We are standing in line on the side of the building. It is one of those places where people wait in line but thankfully the line moves quickly and with the employees coming around with menus, to chat, and to thank you for coming you don't notice the wait in line.
The menu (front)
back
You place your order at the front door and then take it to a register and pay. They give you a number and then you head to the brown shelf, get what you need (silverware, napkins, syrup, butter, and any other sauces you may want), and head to your table. My food beat me to the table. The place is known for their catfish and grits plate and of course the waffles and wings plate. Here is what we ordered.
An employee who talked with us and helped us with our choices.
The inside of the restaurant. The whole time we were inside, the soundtrack was like Michael Jackson's greatest hits. It was great! Just jammin' along while eating the best food ever!
Robin's breakfast the wings and grits
My breakfast: Bakon ( The BK spelling) and eggs
and a waffle with strawberries
We also got to meet and chat with the owner himself Marcus Davis. He was a wonderful and totally friendly guy.
Robin with Marcus Davis
Now that are belly's were full we went out to shop around a little. Robin loved this brown jacket but could only find it in a petite extra small. So she decided to take it with her other stuff to try on for a "fat guy in a little coat" moment, but it actually looked super good on her. Doesn't she look fierce! Ladies and gentlemen America's Next Top Model Robin!
After some more shopping we headed over to Central Market to get some picnic type goodies to take back to the hotel. We find that if you snack a little before a wedding then while they are taking pics and stuff you aren't sitting around dying of hunger.
After getting our snacks we headed to the hotel, snacked, put on our make-up, did our hair, and headed out to Conroe to the wedding. Here we are all bea-u-ti-ful!
The wedding was outside at this plantation, the reception was onsight as well. Here is the area they had set up for the ceremony
They said their own vows and I must say they are some of the sweetest vows I have ever heard. I tried to get a picture of Blair and Karl's kiss but it was too dark, if you look closely you can kind of see them.
Their little napkins, it says "True love stories never have endings!" soo sweet!
The cake!
The topper, I thought it was funny!
The grooms cake
The reception tent.
We had the funnest table. One of many Robin and Martha pics.
Robin and Blair, aka the bride

Me, Vivian, and Robin. Viv was a new friend we made at the party
Blair made flip flops to match the bridesmaids dresses, I thought they were so cute!
Blair had a photo booth set up for people to take pictures while all dressed up. The pics printed right out. She is apparently an avid scrapbooker and so she had pre-made pages where you choose your picture and add some captions and glue onto the pages. What a cool and fun idea! If I ever get married I want a photo booth. I always have but I want one like in the arcades on the boardwalks on the jersey shore where you take four pics and they print out in a strip. Ok back to Blair's, here is a group of people taking their pics.
Here is one of the many that Robin and I did
Another one
Me playing around in the costumes
Next we hit the floor, the dance floor!

Robin and Blair
The one and only Zappa with Robin
Bouquet time! Robin thought it would be funny to run out and try catch the bouquet but some people thought she was cheating! Hmmmm I wonder why they would think that?!?!?!?!
Robin and some of her sorority sis' (Nat, Ponder, Robin, and Bacon)

And they're off! To the honeymoon that is!

Us at the end of the night! Lookin' just a little tired!
Pretending we were smashed
After an escort back to the car by some nice, gentlemanly police officers (it was dark, and as nice as the plantation was the rest of the area was a little questionable) we drove back into Houston to the hotel and hung out to crash for the evening. We took our time in the morning, we slept in, watched a little White Chicks, some cooking shows, then we got ready, packed, and checked out to head home. This is us leaving the hotel!
Robin striking another pose. My little prodigy is looking so fashionable and stylish!
Before completely leaving town we headed around the corner to Kenny and Ziggy's (it was featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives) to get some lunch. As soon as you walk in you totally forget its in a strip center. It is like walking into another world. We got lunch to go so we could eat it on the road.
Robin got some kind of Knish
I got a turkey and provolone sandwhich. It was huge! I only ate half, I've got another half for lunch tomorrow.I also absolutely love pie and when I saw this deep dish apple pie I had to have a piece. It was huge too and I can eat the rest tomorrow as well.
While on the road we decided to stop at the giant statue of Sam Houston.
Here we are at the visitors center.
This sign was on door of the gift shop. I thought it was funny and it reminded me of something my dad would say.
Sam Houston himself.

This was on the back off the base of the statue.
Robin posing again!
Us with a model of his face
His face
Our last stop on the way home was a giant convience store where you can get literally everything, it's called Buc-ee's.
I got me some much talked about Beaver nuggets. When Leah and I took our trip she mentioned them and how much her sister's husband Richey loved them. I was going to get him a bag but they are SOOOO yummy that I don't think I will be able to part with them. So Leah and Amy don't mention that to him. And Annalee if you are reading this I am sorry we didn't get to meet up and see each other!
We had such a fun time and thoroughly enjoyed our little road trip. I can't wait for our next one!