Chewy Chocolate Walnut Cookie Recipe

When it comes to comfort food many people will reach for chocolate cookies.  There is nothing better than an oven baked  chocolate walnut cookie that melts in your mouth. They taste great when eaten when they are freshly baked and they are just as good served cold with a glass of milk. 

This cookie recipe is quick and easy to make and are the perfect treat for your family after a day in the park or working in the yard.  Serve this cookie with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream and your family’s cravings will be satisfied. 

My mother was a baker and as soon as the weather started to turn cool in the autumn season she would bake cookies for mid-day snacks.  I always looked forward to the chewy chocolate walnut cookies and recall thinking about them on way home from school.  Sometimes I would eat the cookies when they came out of the oven, other times they were served at room temperature. It didn't matter these cookies were always mmm good.

Brownie Chunk Cookies with Walnuts

Gather your ingredients for chocolate walnut cookie.

One Package of brownie mix (23-2/3 ounce

2 large eggs

1/3 Cup vegetable oil

6 ounces of semisweet chocolate morsels

½ cup of chopped walnuts

Pam baking spray with flour

Mixing bowl

Electric mixer

Teaspoon

Cookie Sheet

Cooling wire rack

Food storage container or cookie jar

Melted Chocolate  (optional)

Make this cookie recipe for the upcoming school week and you will have six dozen cookies to serve to your children and their friends for an after school snack. 

Recipe Instructions

1. Put your oven rack in the center and heat oven at 350F
2. Put the brownie mix, eggs and the oil to the mixing bowl and mix well with electric mixer.  Blend until batter is smooth with no brownie mix lumps.  Turn off the mixer and set it aside.  Add the chocolate morsels and the chopped walnuts and fold them into the batter. 
3. Spray Pam with flour onto the baking sheet to prevent cookies from sticking.
4. Use a teaspoon to measure out the cookie size.  Drop the rounded teaspoonful of cookie batter onto the cookie sheet.  Space the cookies two and half inches apart.
5. Bake the chocolate brownie cookies at for 12 minutes.  Before removing from the oven insert a toothpick into the center of the cookie.  Remove the toothpick and if there is not batter then cookies are done.
6. Set the baking sheet on a wire rack and cool the cookies.

Delicious Dessert Ideas

For a special treat melt milk chocolate morsels in a double boiler.  When the chocolate is completely melted dip one ½ of the cookies into the chocolate and the set on wax paper to cool.

Serve this cookie as a delicious parfait dessert.  Crumble cookie and put at the bottom of a parfait glass.  Next add a scoop of frozen vanilla ice-cream.  Then add another crumbled cookie, top again with ice cream.  Garnish the parfait with drizzled chocolate sauce and a dollop of whipped cream. Your family will wipe the parfait glass clean.

Here is a YouTube recipe for No-bake chocolate peanut butter cookies.   They sure look good!

Mexican Chili Rellenos with Chicken Casserole Recipe

This Mexican chili rellenos and chicken casserole is an easy and flavorful recipe that both kids and adults love. Serve with a side salad and crusty bread and this dinner entrée is a nutritious and scrumptious.

In the autumn when the days are cooler I like to make casseroles during the weekend to serve to my family throughout the week.  I normally put the casserole together but do not cook.  I then freeze or refrigerate the casserole.

One dish meals are a good choice for busy moms as you can cook them in the oven quickly and serve.  

Gather your ingredients:

2 10-1/2 ounce can of creamy chicken verde soup (undiluted)

1-1/2 cups of chicken broth

½ cup sour cream

4 cups of shredded chicken

1 package of 24 six inch yellow corn tortillas

3 cups of shredded Mexican blend cheese

1 cup chopped canned green chiles rellenos

1 cup diced scallions both white and green

¼ cup of diced fresh jalapeno peppers

1 clove of garlic minced

½ teaspoon of cumin

½ teaspoon of cayenne pepper

Salt and black pepper to taste

1 teaspoon of butter to grease the baking dish

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350F and Grease a 13x9 inch glass baking dish.  

In a sauce pan heat the chicken broth, sour cream, chicken soup then add the chili rellenos, onion minced garlic, jalapeno, cayenne pepper, salt, black pepper.  Blend all of the ingredients and bring to a boil.  Remove from the heat and let the mixture set.

Add one cup of the liquid mixture to the baking dish and spread it across the baking dish.  Top the soup with a layer of 6 corn tortillas.  Cover the tortillas with a layer of shredded chicken.

Top the chicken with a layer shredded Mexican cheese, and then cover the cheese with liquid mixture, tortillas, chicken and cheese.  Layer the casserole with these ingredients until all ingredients are used.   Top the casserole with a layer of cheese and then bake for 35 minutes. 

Let the casserole rest for five minutes before you cut and serve topped with sour cream and chopped green scallions or jalapeño peppers.

Tips:

Keep leftovers in the refrigerator for 3 days or freeze.

This is a good casserole to make for informal dinner party. 

Hearty Baked Potato Soup Recipe

Baked potato soup is a hearty soup is a full flavor soup that your children and spouse will enjoy.  Homemade soup is always a good meal, as you can make it the day before and serve on a school night when you are pressed for time.

Source: recipenewz.com via RecipeNewZ on Pinterest

In my house my husband does most of the cooking but that is not to say that I do not cook.  I enjoy making comfort food and tend to do most of cooking and baking in the fall and winter season. 

 I enjoy making fresh soup in the morning and then letting it simmer on the stove.  If my hubby and I are out in the yard working all day the baked potato soup sure does taste good.  I like to serve this soup with a loaf of Italian bread and a side salad. 

Here is my recipe for baked potato soup.

Gather ingredients for baked potato soup:

6 cooked baked potatoes
3 Tablespoons low fat and salt free butter

½ cup of fine diced leeks

¼ cup of chopped celery

2 tablespoons of thinly sliced scallions

3 tablespoons of all-purpose white flour

1/8 teaspoon of ground black pepper

¼ teaspoon of kosher salt

1 ½ teaspoon of minced garlic

2 cup whole milk, half and half, heavy cream or buttermilk

1 ¼ cups of shredded sharp cheddar cheese

3 cup low fat chicken broth

8 slices of turkey bacon

¼ cup low fat dairy sour cream

Recipe

Step 1
Cut baked potatoes in half and scoop out the pulp. Mash the potatoes with metal masher and put in a mixing bowl.

Step 2
For stove top preparation you would set the burner at medium high and melt the butter in a 6-quart Dutch oven pot.  Turn burner down to medium and cook the onions and the celery.  Cook down to remove the moisture.  Cook until onion and celery is tender. (Stir while onions and celery is cooking so they do not burn)

Step 3
Add dry ingredients; salt, pepper, and flour. Add garlic and mix all ingredients well. Then add the milk.  Mix all ingredients and turn the stove down to medium and let the soup cook for approximately ten minutes.  When the soup thickens you would then add your potatoes, one cup of cheese and the chicken broth.  Stir well until the cheese has melted.

Step 4
Remove the soup from the stove and set on counter.   Use a handheld blender to make the soup creamy.

Step 5
Use a ladle to fill the six soup bowls with six-ounces of the baked potato soup.  Garnish the soup shredded cheddar cheese, crumbled turkey bacon, scallions and a dollop of sour cream.
  
Tips:
Store any leftover soup in airtight container or freeze.

Optional serve the baked potato soup in a bread bowl.  I call ahead of time and ask bakery to bake me some bread bowls.  I usually serve the soup this way when I am having company. 

Leftover Turkey Vegetable Soup Recipe

Here is a delicious soup recipe that you can make with your leftover turkey.  

I make this recipe every year on Black Friday and leave the soup pot simmer on the stove all day.  That way when weary shoppers arrive they can have a hearty bowl of soup.  You can also serve the soup with a salad or with crusty hot from the oven popovers. 


Make this recipe with a chicken stock or low sodium broth and leftover vegetables or frozen vegetables. I will then add fresh herbs and seasonings.  Serve this turkey soup to your family and it will warm them on a cold day and also help them to fight off flu and cold. 

Gather your ingredients:

2 /32 oz of low sodium chicken stock
2 cups cubed cooked turkey  
1 cup leftover mashed potatoes  
2 boxes of garden blend frozen vegetables
1 stalk of finely chopped celery  
1 tablespoon of fresh lime juice
½ cup of egg noodles (precooked)

1 tablespoon chopped fresh garlic

1 sprig of Rosemary chopped

add salt or pepper to taste 

Heat the chicken broth, in a large pot, Cook at a medium heat. Add the mashed potatoes, vegetables, and celery. Cook the vegetables, stirring so they do not burn. Continue to cook all of the ingredients for 10 minutes.  

Add the turkey; stir to mix turkey into the soup. Reduce the heat to simmer and allow the soup to cook. Add the garlic, lime juice, rosemary salt, and pepper and stir. 

Continue cooking until the vegetables are done.  Next, add the ½ cup of egg noodles.

Simmer the soup until the egg noodles are cooked. Stir the soup to prevent the soup from sticking to the pan. When the soup is fully cooked remove from the heat and allow soup to rest for 5 minutes before serving.

Tip:  

•  Store any remaining soup in an airtight container. Refrigerate your soup for up to 4 days or freeze for up to 2 months.

• Add more flavor of your soup by adding red curry paste. 
•  Turkey Vegetable Soup: Image by Susan Golis

 

View video for other leftover turkey recipes:

Hunt for Chanterelle Mushrooms in Autumn

Hunting for chanterelle mushrooms is a fun activity especially if you enjoy hiking in the woods and viewing wildlife. My husband and I discovered that the heavily wooded landscape that surrounds the Ozark Mountains is an ideal hunting ground for wild mushrooms. We took a stroll in the woods in the middle of September and discovered many mushrooms however most of the fungi that we found was highly toxic. Therefore we needed to do some research to learn more about wild mushrooms. 

Image Credit Wikipedia Creative Commons

The library had many books on mushrooms grown in the wild.  We studied the books and learned the characteristics of the Chanterelle mushroom;  they have a sweet scent like apricots and that they do not grow in rotting wood, but rather in areas close to the ground by oak, pine, birch, maple and other hardwood trees. We also learned that the best time of the year to hunt for these mushrooms in the wild was September through October and if the weather continued to be mild you could hunt for them in early November. 

The chanterelle mushroom is easy to locate as long as you keep your eyes on the soil line, they are a brightly hued orange-yellow, although there is a copycat mushroom that is highly poisonous. So you need to be certain that what you are picking is a chanterelle mushroom.  After weeks of studying books on wild mushrooms we decided it was to our best interest to hire a mushroom picker to make sure that what we found was edible. My brother volunteered his services and thus it was a fun autumn family activity.

We selected a day in autumn when there was rain in the forecast and we prepared for the day by gathering our rain gear, hiking boots and pest repellent.The expert mushroom picker met with us in the morning and we spend most of the days in the woods hunting for wild chanterelle mushrooms. 

Note:  Hunting for wild mushrooms is nothing like strolling down a nature trail, to be successful in mushroom hunting you need to go off trail and walk through leaf piles, climb over timber and cross over streams.  You may find the mushrooms in moss or pine needles and it will require you to gently move the moss or needles away from the mushroom stalk and you may get your hands dirty.   If this is not to your liking then trust me hunting wild chanterelle mushrooms is not a hobby for you.