Chocolate Rum Balls

These rum balls are delicious, but off limits to kids.  They make great gifts.  My husband requests them every year.  If you want to make a kid friendly version, substitute the rum with Orange Juice.  They are not quite as good, but the kids will still enjoy them.

Chocolate Rum Balls - allrecipes.com

Ingredients
3 1/4 cups crushed vanilla wafers
3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 cup rum

Instructions
 1. In a large bowl, stir together the crushed vanilla wafers, 3/4 cup confectioners' sugar, cocoa, and nuts. Blend in corn syrup and rum.
   2. Shape into 1 inch balls, and roll in additional confectioners' sugar. Store in an airtight container for several days to develop the flavor. Roll again in confectioners' sugar before serving.



Notes:
I discovered this time around that if I have just a sprinkle of water on my hands and rub my hands together that they form much easier and won't stick to your hands while you roll them.  They get more potent as the time goes on, so be careful!  Don't eat and drive! Heehee

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries, who can resist them?  My daughter requested them for a class party, and then I made some for the family too.  We won't talk about the fact that Christmas is a busy season as it is, and that my husband had been traveling extensively, and that I had had two of my three children home sick in the past week and that I was frazzled and that I had to memorize 8 pieces of music for a Christmas concert I was to sing in with our church choir.. and the fact that I got up at 4 30 in the morning to make these beauties!  It was all worth it.  And I got permission to use my words on songs I didn't get memorized!  Wahoo! (These are also nice for Valentines or any other occasion you can think of)
I got this recipe from allrecipes.com  it truly is a wonderful website if you have not discovered it yet.

Don't buy the overpriced chocolate dipped strawberries in the stores - they are so easy to make and delicious!  Makes about 3 packages of strawberries.  If you have chocolate left over use them to drizzle over cookies, or dip other fruit.  Very good.

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries
Ingredients
16 ounces milk chocolate chips
2 tablespoons shortening
1 pound fresh strawberries with leaves
  
DIRECTIONS
   1. Insert toothpicks into the tops of the strawberries (washed and completely dried!).
   2. In a double boiler (bowl over hot water in a pan), melt the chocolate and shortening, stirring occasionally until smooth. Holding them by the toothpicks, dip the strawberries into the chocolate mixture.
   3. Turn the strawberries upside down and insert the toothpick into styrofoam for the chocolate to cool. (or in this case, I used cupcake papers and just put a berry in each.  Enjoy.

Scottish Shortbread Cookies

I found this recipe online.  It is a shortbread recipe that was passed down from generation to generation.  I made a little change to it.  Rather than baking it in a pan and then cutting them into slices, I rolled them out and treated them like sugar cookies.  I kept the temperature at 325F as in the original, but because they were smaller, the batch was done after 20 minutes.  I made stars and then drizzled them with chocolate that I had left over from Chocolate Dipped Strawberries (Yes, I have that on my blog too)

Enjoy.
Source:
http://weheartthis.com/2009/08/24/scottish-shortbread-recipe/

Scottish Shortbread
Yield: 5 dozen depending on size of the cookies
1 lb. butter, softened a day in advance
1 c. sugar
1 egg
6 c. flour
1/4 tsp. salt (pinch)
1/4 tsp. baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Cream sugar and butter in large bowl. Beat in egg. Sift together flour, salt, and baking powder (I use a whisk for this) in a separate bowl.
3. If you have a Kitchen Aid Mixer, put on your bread kneading attachment and slowly add flour mixture on lowest setting until ingredients are evenly combined. You will have a very dense, mound of dough when mixer is done. If you do not have a Kitchen Aid Mixer, you will need to add the flour mixture by hand. Do not attempt to use a hand mixer or lesser mixer to add the flour, it WILL burn out the motor (Since I’ve been making this, I have officially murdered 4 hand mixers and one Sunbeam stand mixer, so thank goodness I got a Kitchen Aid last year–my reign of terror over small appliances has ended). Add the entire flour mixture into the large bowl with the other ingredients and use hands to combine. Rub the butter mixture into the flour using both hands until the dough resembles coarse meal Start squeezing and punching the dough to force it to stick together. Once the dough starts to stick, knead the dough until it forms a very stiff, dense ball (about 40 times—yes, you read that correctly). Think about how everything was combined using only hands for centuries and don’t feel so bad.
4. THIS IS WHERE I ROLLED THE DOUGH OUT AND MADE COOKIE SHAPES:
Divide the dough in half, place in two 7×11-inch pans. Take a fork and pierce the dough in rows, careful not to press fork too deeply (should go about 1/2 way down).
5. IF MAKING COOKIES BAKE FOR 15-20 minutes per batch until the edges begin to turn golden.  Original Recipe:Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Shortbread will be very light, almost white with barely golden edges when done. Remove from oven, cut immediately with a sharp knife into rectangles, or “fingers” (I prefer to cut off all the edges first). Cool in pan. 
Becky's Change:  Let cool completely and drizzle with melted chocolate.


Recipe Notes

Submitter's notes:
My grandmother's family hailed from Scotland. Along with the necessities, they brought with them was a recipe for Scottish shortbread. This recipe has been passed down through generations. The area that my grandmother’s family settled was in a little steel mill town in Pennsylvania where other Scottish immigrants had settled. There were so many in the area, that the Presbyterian Church that my grandmother attended served shortbread at communion instead of wafers. Now THAT is Scottish. I can’t remember a Christmas growing up where we didn’t have shortbread. Now you, too, can channel your inner Highlander!
Sidenote: if you own a Kitchen Aid Mixer like myself, you’re going to be one happy camper because this will be a breeze. If you do not, prepare for some tired arms!

Chicken Gnocchi Soup

I recently went to Olive Garden with my family.  Since it was cold out that day I had their "Chicken Gnocchi Soup" rather than the usual Salad that I have with my meal.  It was so good and tasty, that I had seconds of it and took my main meal home with me to reheat for dinner.

I looked on the internet and found a few different versions of copies.  Here is one I tried that I found on Pioneer Woman's Site: Tasty Kitchen
(http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen/recipes/soups/chicken-and-gnocchi-soup/)

Preparation:
Saute garlic, grated carrots and 1/2 chopped onion in 2 Tablespoons of Olive oil

Add cooked,chopped chicken and 4 cups of good chicken broth
(the recipe calls for 3 cooked chicken breast halves, I used an already made rotisserie chicken and cut it up into bite size pieces)

Add 2 cups of heavy cream (I did not have two cups of cream and added last 1/2 cup of half and half)

Add 1/2 to 1 teaspoon dried Thyme and season soup with salt and pepper to taste (I used about 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper and it had nice flavor)

Add about 1/2 cup thawed, drained chopped spinach (the original used fresh spinach chopped, but I didn't have any on hand and this was an easy substitute

Bring to boil and boil for a few minutes then add gnocchi

Add 1 (16 oz) package of Potato Gnocchi
return to boil and allow to boil for about 4 minutes.  After that turn the heat to low and allow to simmer another 10 minutes.

I tasted it at this point and decided to add about 1 teaspoon of Knorr Chicken Bouillon granules to enhance the chicken flavor.  Turned out great.

Here is the recipe:

Chicken Gnocchi Soup


2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 peeled large carrots, grated
1/2 onion, chopped
2 Tbsp. olive oil
3 chicken breast halves, cooked and cut up (or Rotisserie Chicken)
4 cups chicken broth
2 cups heavy cream (or mix of heavy cream and half and half)
1/2 teaspoon thyme
salt and pepper to taste
16 oz package Potato Gnocchi

Preparation:
Saute the onion, garlic and carrots in olive oil over medium heat until onion is translucent.
Add chicken, chicken broth, heavy cream, salt and pepper, and thyme.  Heat to boiling, then add gnocchi.  Gently boil for 4 minutes, then reduce the heat to low and continue simmering for 10 minutes.  Add chopped fresh (or defrosted frozen chopped spinach) and cook for additional 2 minutes. Taste and add chicken bouillon if you desire. Enjoy!  I will be adding this to our soup favorites.  It is nearly identical to the soup they serve in Olive Garden and oh so good!!