Y’all, if you have little children or grand kids, you’re going to love these cookies.  What kid doesn’t like playing with Play Dough?  I know I had it growing up, and being a child of the 60’s/70’s, I got plenty of play dough in moms shag carpeting.  Do y’all remember shag carpet?  We even had a plastic rake to rake it.  Wow, glad I have hard wood floors and tile.  I’ll keep my rake for outside.

Well get your kids together, because this is a family project you will ALL love.  I have always said that the kitchen is where family begins.  So get everyone in there and make these fun and yummy cookies.  Just make sure your kids don’t make any with their play dough and add to the cookie jar.  That won’t be pretty.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 3 ounces cream cheese
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• assorted colors of paste food coloring
• 24 lollipop sticks (if you’d like to make them into lollipops)

Directions

1. In a bowl cream butter, cream cheese and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; beat until smooth.
2. In a medium bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture. Stir till soft dough forms. Divide dough into fourths. Tint each with a different food color. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Working with half of each color, shape dough into 3/4 inch balls and for each cookie place 1 pink, 1 green, 1 blue and 1 orange ball together to make 1 large ball. Shape into a 12 inch long roll (like a snake), starting at one end, coil roll to make a 2 3/4 inch round cookie. Place cookies 3 inches apart on lightly greased baking sheet. Carefully insert lollipop sticks into bottoms of cookies.  ( I made mine without)
4. Bake cookies for 8 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool and store in an airtight container.

I like to make it year round, but especially during Mardi Gras…..ENJOY

Ingredients :

• 2  pounds  boneless, skinless chicken breasts, chopped in 1” squares
• 2  tablespoons  olive oil
• 2  pounds  sausage, cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices ( I buy the spicy links)
• 2  medium onions, chopped
• 1 lb of Shrimp
• 1 large tomato diced small (or 1 large can diced tomatoes)
• 1  large green or red bell pepper, diced bite size
• 2  cloves fresh  garlic, chopped
• 3  cups  rice ( I use family size yellow rice)
• 8  cups chicken stock ( I like to make mine fresh and freeze for just this recipe)
• 1/2  to 1 teaspoon ground red pepper
• 2 tablespoons smoked paprika
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• salt and pepper to taste
• Hot sauce to taste.

Preparation

1. Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat,brown the chicken and season with salt pepper.

2. Add sausage and cook, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes or until browned add the onion and bell pepper, and cook, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes.

3. Add garlic and rice; cook, stirring constantly for approximately 2 minutes. Add broth, ground red pepper, paprika and chili powder.

4. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, cover, and simmer 15 minutes, add the shrimp and simmer another 5-10 minutes or until rice is tender and all liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat; let stand, covered, 5 minutes. 

5. add hot sauce to taste individually.

Hey y’all.  Well it’s that time of the year when we all celebrate Mardi Gras.  I have made many Kings Cakes in past, so this year I decided to change it around some and make a Kings Cake as a breakfast danish.   The creaminess of the cream cheese mixed with the strawberry’s and the light crunch of the colored sugar is a wonderful combination.  Y’all are going to be making this year round, maybe not with the colored sugars, but y’all will want it quite often.  I think I will try it with some blueberry or even raspberries next time.

Pastry:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 8 ounces cream cheese
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup fresh strawberry’s
• 1/2 cup sugar

Icing:

• ½ cup powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon milk
• ¼ teaspoon vanilla
• colored sugars (yellow/green/purple)

1. Combine your prepared strawberries (sliced thin) and sugar in bowl and put in refrigerator for about an hour. (overnight is even better)
2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk very well to distribute the salt and baking powder into the flour.
3. With a pastry cutter or two forks, cut half of the cream cheese and the butter into the flour mixture as you would butter into flour making biscuits.
4. Quickly and gently blend in the milk.  Don’t over mix.
   Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead VERY LIGHTLY for 4-5 strokes, again like making biscuits.
   NOTE This is where you can ruin your danish pastry. If you overwork the dough, the pastry will be quite tough and chewy. Just get the dough together and don’t worry about making it too smooth. If it still looks a little bit rough and lumpy, that is perfect.  Gently roll the dough into a 8- by 12-inch rectangle.
5. Turn dough out onto a lightly greased baking sheet.  I like to roll it out on waxed paper so it’s easily transferable to the baking sheet.
6. Measure and mark the dough into half making two 6×8 sections.
7. Spread the remaining cream cheese (or slice and spread) over one of the 6×8 sections, keeping it about ½ inch from the 3 open sides.
8. Spread your strawberry mixture over the cream cheese.
9. Fold the empty section of pastry over the covered section.
10. Make a couple slices in the top of pastry to let out steam.
11. Bake in a 425° oven for 12-15 minutes, until the dough is lightly browned on top.
12. In a small glass bowl, combine the sugar, milk, and vanilla.
13. Drizzle over the top of the pastry.
14. Sprinkle with the colored sugars while the icing is still wet.

Photo courtesy of my friend John Middleton.

Y’all, if you like cornbread, you’ll love this little muffin with a bit of heat.  They will disappear from your bread basket quicker than you will believe.  You can adjust the amount of heat by adding the seeds of the jalapenos or using less jalapenos in your recipe.  Either way, y’all are going to love these.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups yellow cornmeal
1 tspn baking soda
4 tspn baking powder
2 tspn kosher salt
5 tbsp sugar
4 eggs
2 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
8 oz. cheddar cheese, shredded
1/3 cup corn kernels, frozen
3 – 4 jalapeno peppers, minced (I used a food processor)

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Grease 2 12 count muffin pans (total of 24 muffins).
3. In a large mixing bowl, mix together the eggs, melted butter, and buttermilk.
4. In a separate mixing bowl, mix together the flour, cornmeal, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar.
5. Add the jalapenos, corn and shredded cheddar cheese to the bowl containing the dry ingredients. Mix so that the corn, jalapenos and cheese gets coated with the dry mixture.
6. Add the bowl containing the egg, milk, and butter mixture to the dry mixture. Mix together so that all of the ingredients are distributed evenly. Try not to over-mix the batter.
7. Divide the batter evenly to make a total of 24 muffins. Each cup should be roughly 2/3 full.
8. Bake for 15-24  minutes, ovens do differ.  They will be golden brown like your cornbread would be when finished