Pumpkin Torte

This dessert was inspired by our 3 year old. One night he and I made a pumpkin pie for Papa. I let him eat some of the pie filling straight out of the can. He loved it so much that when he was given a piece of pie the next day he told his Papa that he liked it better the night before! What you need:

• 1 package of mini graham cracker pie crusts
• 1 small box of vanilla pudding, prepared
• 1 small can of pumpkin pie filling
• 1/2 container of cool whip

Directions:

• Put one large spoonful of pudding in the bottom of each pie crust. Spoon pie filling over it. Top with a dollop of cool whip.
• Enjoy!

Rhubarb Butter Crunch recipe

This recipe comes from Lovina Eicher who maintains a homestead in rural Michigan with her husband, Joe, and together they are raising their eight children. Lovina contributes snippets of her traditional Old Order Amish life in a weekly column, Amish Cook, that appears in various newspapers across the country. Rhubarb Butter Crunch Ingredients:

• 3 cups fresh, finely chopped rhubarb
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons flour

Topping:

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups raw rolled oats
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup butter or margarine

Mix rhubarb, sugar and flour well and place in a greased baking dish. Combine the topping ingredients and sprinkle over rhubarb mixture. Bake at 370 degrees for 40 minutes. Serve warm with milk or cream (or ice cream - yum!).

Watch a video tour of the Eicher house when it was under construction -

The best chocolate chip cookie recipe . . .

. . . I have ever used. Ever since college when I tried to bake my first batch of chocolate chip cookies (instead of just eating the dough) I have been searching for a great chocolate chip cookie recipe. It seemed that every time I baked a batch of cookies there would be something not quite right. Was it the oven, the cookie sheet, me, or the recipe?

Evidently, it was the recipe.

I finally used my great aunt's recipe for chocolate chip cookies. I have had this recipe for years, but for some reason it had slipped through the recipe cards and I never used it.

Unless I ever find a better recipe for chocolate chip cookies, this is the recipe I'll be using from now on. This recipe makes about 4 dozen (good-sized cookies - I don't waste time making tablespoon-sized cookies) cookies and we are already down to the last dozen (in fact I am munching on a couple as I type this - gotta watch out for crumbs in the keyboard).

Great Aunt Florence's Chocolate Chip Cookies:

What you will need:

• 2/3 C. light brown sugar
• 2/3 C. granulated sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 small pkg. chocolate chips (I just dump in as many as I want)
• 1 C. Crisco
• 2 eggs
• 2 1/2 C. flour
• 1 T. boiling water

Combine the first seven ingredients and mix well. Add flour and water and beat well. Now, I am not sure why the water should be boiling, but I used boiling water and had great success so that is how I guess it should be done.

Drop whatever size you want (recipe says teaspoon, but I prefer more of a dollop) on a cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Be sure not to over bake!

There really is no bad chocolate chip cookie. Unless it is a burnt chocolate chip cookie!

Happy Baking! :)

No work meat loaf recipe is excellent

The wind is gusting and snow is falling. It is a perfect day for meat loaf. I know a lot of folks don't care for dishes with the word "loaf" in the title, but this is quite possibly one of the best tasting meat loaf dishes I have had. So, without further ado, lets get to the recipe.

What you will need:

• 1 lb. lean ground beef
• 1 egg
• 1 (8 oz.) can tomato sauce
• 2 C. packaged her seasoned stuffing (think stove top stuffing)
• Salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine meat, egg, 1/2 C. tomato sauce, stuffing and seasonings. Shape in loaf in a shallow baking dish. Bake 1 hour.

Remove from oven and pour the remaining sauce over the loaf. Bake additional 10 minutes.

When my wife cooked this last week we didn't have tomato sauce so she substituted some three cheese spaghetti sauce. I have to say it made this rather tasty.

Introducing the Butterball turkey podcast

Lets talk turkey! From the folks who brought you the toll free helpline (1-800-Butterball) for cooking your Thanksgiving turkey comes the new wave of technology - the Butterball Turkey Podcast. The closer Thanksgiving gets, the more podcasts will be added to the Butterball website. Currently, there are three podcasts for you to listen to. Six podcasts in all will eventually be available for download.

Here is what is available as of today, November 15.

• Butterball Turkeytalk Preview - an intro to what will be covered in these podcasts
• Get Ready - Preparation 101
• Countdown Continues - Preparation 102

Oh the wonders of technology. See, now you can download these podcasts and put them on your MP3 player. While you are prepping your Thanksgiving meal you can have these podcasts playing and hopefully helping you cook the best turkey ever.

Visit Butterball.com and head over to the Turkey Podcast.

Via the Detroit Free Press.

Corn Chowder

This recipe is delicious and perfect for a fall day. What you need:

• 1 can sweet corn
• 1 can creamed corn
• 1 can cream of potato soup
• 1 soup can of milk
• 1 large can chunk chicken

Optional ingredients:

• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 2 diced potatoes
• 2 large spoonfuls of sour cream
• butter
• more milk
• diced carrots
• ham, diced smokey links, or some other meat

Directions:

• Combine everything and bring to a boil.
• Serve with homemade bread or rolls.