The Cooking Family

Superbowl Party

It’s that time of year again. You know when everyone gathers around, eats food, and watches the best commercials…supposedly there’s a football game going on as well.

OK, so no matter whether you use it as a chance to hang out with friends, or watch a football game, Sunday is the day to have some yummy snacks. In fact, if you do it right, you can make a full meal of just snacks and appetizers. So we put together some ideas for you to use to make the most of your time, and keep you from having to cook long hours.

Queso Dip

Want something fast and easy, this is it. It takes less than 10 minutes to make, and can let nearly two dozen snack on this treat. Just add chips.

Queso Dip recipe

Fruit Dip

This fruit dip is a staple in our family gathering. Not just for Super Bowl parties, but any time we gather and want something easy to munch on that a little healthier.

Fruit Dip recipe

Sweet and Spicy Meatballs

This one takes a while to cook, but you let your crock-pot take care of that. Prep is simple, and done in just a few minutes with these sweet and sour meatballs. You can eat a bunch as a meal, or a few as a snack.

Sweet and Spicy Meatball recipe

Sweet Chicken Bacon Wraps

Bacon Chicken Appetizers

Warning! Making this might get you invited to all of the parties for the rest of the year. These delicious chicken bites take a little while to make, but they are oh so worth it. Just be prepared to have your friends stab one another trying to get the last one.

Sweet Chicken Bacon Wraps recipe

Glazed Pineapple Kielbasa Bites

Pineapple Kielbasa Bites

Don’t have as much time to prep your snack bites as you want, well the Glazed Pineapple Kielbasa Bites just might be it. Takes half the time as the chicken bacon wraps, but is still totally delicious.

Glazed Pineapple Kielbasa Bites recipe

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Quick and Easy Cinnamon Apples

Cinnamon Apples
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Quick and Easy Cinnamon Apples
Prep Time
8 mins
Cook Time
5 mins
 

This quick and easy side dish only requires six ingredients and tastes delicious. This dish came about when I was trying to come up with a recipe that tasted like Boston Market's cinnamon apples. These are not the same, but they have a great flavor.

Course: Side Dish
Cuisine: American
Keyword: cinnamon apples, fruit side dish, side dish
Servings: 4 people
Author: Tracy
Ingredients
  • 4-5 apples
  • 4 Tbsp butter
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • 2 Tbsp flour
Instructions

  1. Rinse, peel and core your apples and place in a bowl to the side.

  2. Mix sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and flour in a separate bowl.

  3. Melt your butter in a large non-stick skillet.

  4. When the butter is melted, add your apples and cook 3-5 minutes (until golden brown, but not until they are mushy).

  5. Remove from heat and add the ingredients from the second bowl. Mix and let it rest until glaze forms. If glaze does not form, put the skillet on low heat and stir until glaze develops.

  6. Serve hot.

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Skillet Apple Crisp

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Skillet Apple Crisp

This dish is great for when you are entertaining.

If your skillet is not oven safe, prepare the recipe the same until you get to the part when you add the topping to the filling. At this point, transfer the filling to a 13x 9 inch baking dish. Top the filling as directed and bake for an additional 5 minutes.

Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Keyword: apple crisp recipe
Author: Taynara
Ingredients
Topping
  • 3/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup pecans, chopped finely
  • 3/4 cups old fashioned rolled oats
  • 1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 8 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
Filling
  • 7 medium sized honey crisp apples (peeled, cored, halved, and cut into 1/2 inch-thick pieces)
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1 cup apple cider
  • 2 tsp. lemon or lime juice
  • 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
Instructions

  1. Adjust your oven rack to middle position and preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Topping Instructions

  1. Begin making your topping by combining the flour, pecans, oats, brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon, and salt in medium size bowl.

  2. Stir in the butter and mix until the topping is thoroughly moistened and crumbly. Set aside and start to prepare your fruit filling.

Filling Instructions

  1. Peel and core your apples. Then half them and cut them into 1/2 inch-thick pieces.

  2. Combine the apples, white sugar, and cinnamon together in large bowl and set aside.

  3. Pour the cider into a 12-inch, oven safe, skillet and bring to a simmer over medium heat.

  4. Cook until reduced to ½ cup, about 5 minutes.

  5. Transfer reduced cider to a small bowl and stir in the lemon (or lime) juice. Set aside.

  6. Heat the butter in previously used skillet over medium heat.

  7. When foaming subsides, add apple mixture and cook until apples begin to soften and become translucent, stirring frequently, for about 12 to 14 minutes. (Do not fully cook apples.)

  8. Remove the pan from the heat and gently stir in the cider mixture until the apples are coated.

  9. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the top, breaking up any large chunks.

  10. Place the skillet on a baking sheet and bake until apples are tender and the topping is a deep golden brown, for about 15 to 20 minutes at 450 degrees.

  11. Cool on wire rack until warm, for at least 15 minutes, and serve.

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Cinnamon Sugar Sticks

Cinnamon Sugar Sticks
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Cinnamon Sugar Sticks
Prep Time
15 mins
Cook Time
24 mins
 

Here's a crowd favorite cookie. I brought it to my church's potluck and they were gone in minutes. This recipe is best done with two people – one to roll the sticks and the other to roll them in the sugar. Cookies are best when served warm.

Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Keyword: cookies
Author: Tracy
Ingredients
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 Tbsp milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 1/4 cups flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 cup additonal sugar (for topping, do not mix in)
Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

  2. Cream butter, sugar and brown sugar in large mixing bowl.

  3. Add milk and vanilla extract and stir.

  4. Add flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Mix well.

  5. Place additional 1/4 cup sugar in small bowl.

  6. Roll dough in hands into sticks the thickness of a pencil.

  7. Roll sticks in sugar and place on cookie sheet. This works better if done by a second person.

  8. Bake at 325 degrees for 12 minutes for each batch of cookies.

  9. Cookies are best when served warm.

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Christmas Pretzel Hugs

Christmas Pretzel Hugs
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Christmas Pretzel Hugs
Prep Time
10 mins
Cook Time
4 mins
 

Here's a simple three ingredient recipe that makes an easy treat for those who like salty sweet snacks.

Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Author: Linda
Ingredients
  • 12 oz bag Hershey Hugs (or regular kisses)
  • 60 square pretzels
  • 11 oz M&Ms
Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

  2. Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper or baking mat. I used one with the low sides.

  3. Place the pretzels on the cookie sheet in a single layer.

  4. Top each pretzel with a chocolate kiss.

  5. Bake until they are on verge of melting, about 4-5 minutes.

  6. Once out of the oven, immediately place an M&M on top of the kiss and slightly push down. You'll need to work fast.

  7. Chill in the refrigerator for about 1 hour.

  8. Place in airtight container with wax paper between layers.

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Easy Christmas Meal

There is enough craziness going on around Christmas, between holiday parties, decorating, buying gifts, and the actual Christmas day events, you don’t need cooking an elaborate meal for a half dozen people, or less, to be one of them.

If you will be having a houseful of guests, we recommend people sharing the cooking load. As host you have enough to do with cleaning and prepping – cooking shouldn’t all on you if you can avoid it. (If you’re guests are from out of town, that’s a slightly different story.)

However, we’ve seen far too many times where there is 1,001 things going on, and someone is trying to cook an elaborate seven plus course meal for their family of four. It’s just tiring, and then you can’t enjoy yourself.

So instead, consider the following meal plan to keep things easy, so you can enjoy the whole of your day.

Main Course

A traditional Christmas dinner includes either Ham or (Smoked) Turkey. Since Thanksgiving was just a few weeks ago (for those in the United States), we opt for a Christmas Ham.

The nice thing is most hams are a set it and forget it for cooking. Very little prep work, and just adding a glaze at the end. We’ll start ours a little after breakfast, and it will be ready for lunch. And to make cutting easier, we using go with a spiral cut ham, which is half or more cut for you, to make it even easier than other types of ham.

Side Dishes

I like to vary the amount of side dishes based upon the number of people I’m having. The more people, the more variety, but hopefully someone can help cook some of them. We usually have 2 to 3 side dishes for six or fewer people.

Homemade Macaroni and Cheese is something that works if you’re oven is big enough. It typically needs to cook at or near the same temperature as the ham. Slide it on a different rack, and you’ve got two things cooking at once, and this is way better than mac out of a box!

Sweet Carrots – will easily serve up to 6 people, and gives you some color. With the added sugar, its more like a candy than a vegetable.

My wife likes her father’s Cornbread for Christmas, and it works well. It’s easy to cook, and serves 8. So it’s just enough if you want a little left over for the next day, or double the ingredients if you have a lot of people coming.

Option 2 for Bread: Now I prefer Apple Muffins. It makes more, and takes longer however. This means I get some the next day or two for breakfast, which I like, but its a lot more prep – so it may not be the best option for a simple Christmas meal.

Dessert

There are two ideas when it comes to desserts for the holidays. First is to have some something like a cake or pie, which you each at one time. Two simple ideas would be an Apple Dump Cake or a Cherry Torte. Both of these are extremely fast to prepare, and taste delicious.

The second idea is to have a snacky type of dessert which can be munched on throughout the day, like a cookie. We recently made Shortbread Cookies which were a hit. They’re small and easy to snack on, regardless of the size that will be at your house.

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Shortbread Cookies

shortbread cookies
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Shortbread Cookies
Prep Time
10 mins
Cook Time
10 mins
 

Here's a simple four ingredient recipe for shortbread cookies. This recipe can also be modified by adding colored sugar, sprinkles or cinnamon sugar.

Course: Dessert
Keyword: cookies, dessert
Author: Tracy
Ingredients
  • 2 cups butter (or 4 sticks)
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 4 cups all purpose flour
  • colored sugar (optional)
  • sprinkles (optional)
  • cinnamon sugar (optional)
Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

  2. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy.

  3. Add the vanilla extract and the flour and knead until it becomes a ball.

  4. Roll into smaller balls.

  5. If you want to add sprinkles, cinnamon sugar or colored sugar all the way around the cookie, place the sugar in a separate bowl and roll the small balls in the sugar before adding to tray.

  6. Place smaller balls on parchment paper lined jelly roll pan.

  7. Cook for 10 minutes and remove from oven.

  8. You can chose to either leave regular shortbread cookies or you can press a fork flat across the top of the cookies to give them a pattern. You can also chose to sprinkle colored sugar, cinnamon sugar or sprinkles just on the top at this time. Be sure to lightly press it into the cookie so it doesn't all fall off.

  9. Cool on cooling rack and serve when cool.

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Savory Smoked Roast With Au Jus

Smoked roast served with our smoked macaroni and cheese.
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Savory Smoked Roast With Au Jus
Prep Time
5 mins
Cook Time
2 hrs
Resting Time
10 mins
 

We are always looking for new ideas of things to cook with our smoker. A friend recommended a roast. We tried this recipe last night along with our smoked macaroni and cheese and corn and were really pleased with the results. We hope you will be too!

Course: Main Course
Cuisine: American
Keyword: smoked roast, smoker recipe
Servings: 8 people
Author: Tracy
Ingredients
  • 2 lb sirloin beef roast
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1/8 cup Montreal Steak seasoning
Au Jus
  • 14 oz beef broth
  • 1 1/2 Tbsp flour
  • dash garlic powder
  • dash onion powder
  • dash pepper
Instructions

  1. Preheat your smoker to 230 degrees. Soak and add hickory smoking chips (pecan, applewood and mesquite also work well).

  2. Trim your roast of any excess fat.

  3. Rub your roast first with salt and then rub the roast with Montreal Steak seasoning.

  4. Pour your beef broth into the water pan and place inside your smoker.

  5. Place your roast on a smoker rack and smoke until an internal temperature of 140 degrees, or until desired doneness.

  6. Remove your roast from the smoker and let rest it for 10 minutes before slicing.

  7. After the meat is finished cooking make your au jus, Take your broth (along with the fat that dripped in the pan while smoking) and pour it into a sauce pan. Add your flour and a dash each of garlic powder, onion powder, and black pepper (to taste).

  8. Slice your roast and serve with au jus.

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Crockpot Chicken and Gravy

Crockpot Chicken and Gravy
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Crockpot Chicken and Gravy
Prep Time
10 mins
Cook Time
3 hrs
Cooling Time
20 mins
Total Time
3 hrs 10 mins
 

Simple crockpot recipe that tastes great! Not recommended for cooking on low temperature.

Course: Main Course
Cuisine: American
Keyword: chicken and gravy, crockpot recipe
Servings: 10 people
Author: Linda
Ingredients
  • 3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (around 2.5 lbs)
  • 2 cans cream of chicken soup (can use healthy type)
  • 1 14 oz can chicken broth (can use reduced sodium type)
  • 2 packs brown gravy mix
  • 4 Tbsp flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
Instructions

  1. Place the chicken in the bottom of a medium sized crockpot.

  2. Season with garlic powder and pepper.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the soup, broth, gravy mix and flour and mix well. Pour the mixture over the top of the chicken.

  4. Cover and cook on high for 3-4 hours (until ready to shred). Not recommended for cooking on low temperature.

  5. Reduce to warm and shred the chicken into bite size pieces using two forks.

  6. Gravy thickens as it cools. Remove the lid once done and let it cool for about 20 minutes before serving. (Will still be hot.)

  7. Serve over rice, mashed potatoes or noodles.

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