christian relief fund

Hey!  1 week of voting started today for the Chase Community Giving contest, round 2. One of the contenders will win $500,000! Christian Relief Fund has a very good chance if we help them. These guys help children in 3rd world countries by providing food, clean water, education, etc. If just 10,000 facebook users vote for them, they can win this grant! It will feed 1277 children for a year.  So far we have around 870 votes, and the contest ends May 25th.  I still believe we can get 10,000 votes!  Or at least be ranked in the 25th position, and get a little money to help kids from starving.  I was wondering if you could vote... it takes less than 90 seconds.  4 days left... let's do this!

This is for REAL!  Our friend directs CRF.  If you want to talk more about to make sure it isn't a scam, you can e-mail me.  =)

All you have to do is click on this link: http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/510183054-christian-relief-fund?src=twitter  and "like" CHASE on Facebook.  Then click the green Vote & Share button.  Let's do this and feed 1277 kids for an entire year!  It ends on the 25th, so there isn't a whole lot of time left.  Thanks so much!  With God we can do this!  =)

Also, if you would pass this on to all your Facebook friends, this would spread like wildfire!  There's a TON of people on Facebook... let's get this going! 

Thanks again!

(Btw.  We're kinda embarrassed about not posting in forever.

There will (hopefully) be more recipes soon.

If you follow Camille's blog, you'll notice she hasn't posted in, like A YEAR CAMILLE, SHHESSH!

Haha, jk.

BUT.

I (Abby) have mostly been making dinner, and it's a little hard trying to take pictures of the process when it's already 7:30 and dinner still isn't made.

Not... that that's ever happened.  :P

Pizza Pockets {Camille}

Hello guys! Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted something! ;) Abby and I have been very busy, so bare with us as we try to post more. :)

Here is a recipe for my family's new favorite lunch food. These Pizza Pockets are amazing {much better then Hot Pockets......trust me ;D}.

You'll Need:

1/4 cup onions chopped

1 tablespoon butter or margarine

1 pound ground beef

8 ounces mozzarella cheese shredded

1/2 cup pepperoni chopped

2/3 cup pizza sauce

1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning dried crushed

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

2 8-ounce cans refrigerated

crescent dinner rolls

1 egg

1 tablespoon water

Directions:

 1. In a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat, sauté onion in butter or margarine until tender. Add beef and sauté until it loses most of its pink color. Remove from heat; drain off fat. Stir in cheese, pepperoni, pizza sauce, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper; set aside.

2. Preheat oven to 400°. Separate the 2 cans of dinner rolls into eight rectangles. On waxed paper, roll each piece into a 7 x 6-inch rectangle; pinch perforations together. Place 1/2 cup of the meat mixture on half of one rectangle. Moisten edges of rectangle with water and fold in half to completely enclose the filling. Press edges together, fold over and crimp with the tines of a fork. Repeat with remaining rolls and filling. Place pockets on ungreased baking sheets.

3. In a small bowl, beat egg and water. Brush on top of each pocket, being careful not to let egg drip onto baking sheets. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown.

And then fight over the pockets with the rest of your siblings. ;)

It's a wrap! {Abby}

Hey guys.

Whew, it's been a while hasn't it?

Sorry about that.

There's this little thing called life that sometimes gets in the way of posting.

I'm sure you can understand... right?

Not to excuse us from not posting.  I mean, we even got an e-mail from Blogger themselves telling us we needed to post on our blog so they know we are an actual person, not a robot.

How embarrassing!

And no Blogger, we are not a robot.  We are actual people.  With actual lives.

Anyways... I'm posting now... so... yea.  And I feel really awkward doing so because this is pretty embarrassing.

But, enough of that.  On to the point.

Today my mom made these pita/soft bread tortilla things.  Whatever they're called.  Then she cooked some chicken and this.. uh... like ranch sauce.  It was really good.  I'm not much of a person to "branch out" so to speak when it comes to food.  I'm pretty picky, and I don't really like to try new foods.

But, let me tell you, this was amazing.

No.

Let me show you.

Yum.

We ate that for lunch.  No dinner.  Wait.... I dunno.  We ate it at 3:00pm cuz we had a late breakfast.  So... did we eat it for linner?

So now I'm gonna go eat, uh, dinner.  At 8:30pm.  And then we're gonna go watch National Treasure 2.  And possibly another movie.

Yea.  We're those kinds of people.

Homemade Salsa {Camille}

Sorry things have been kind of slow on here recently. Abby and I have been busy bees! To make it up to you, here is one of our favorite recipes for homemade salsa! This is *so* much better then the sala from the store! :)

Ingredients:

Half a can of diced tomatoes {we use a 14 ounce can}

Two tablespoons diced jalapenos

about 1/4 teaspoon cajun seasoning {a little of this stuff goes a long way! lol!}

Directions:

Put all the ingredients in a small bowl and mix them up! It's as simple as that! {Note: When adding the cajun seasoning, you might have to season to taste a little bit....our family likes spicy salsa!}

Let me know if you try it! :) I'd love to hear how it turned out!

Here's a Quick-Tip For Ya! (Abby)

Sorry we haven't been posting any recipes lately. There were a lot of votes for the cream puff recipe, actually one of my recipes, so that one will be up before you know it! (Well... sorta...)

Today I, sadly, don't have a recipe for you either, BUT I do have a really quick tip I find helpful. (:

You know my latest recipe, the chocolate chip cookies? Well, ya know how if your making a lot of cookies, around 100 or more, it gets kinda hard, and time consuming, to scoop each individual cookie. You are constantly taking pans out of the oven, putting them in, putting the cookies on cooling racks and scooping on more cookie dough. You are literally in the kitchen for hours, not to mention the countless times you scoop on cookies and take them off. Believe me, I've made 300 cookies all at once before (I told you I make a lot of cookies... every one is always asking me to make cookies, so I'm always making them.)

It is very time consuming and tiring to do all that. Especially if you are cooking a meal before that - you don't wanna spend another 2 hours working in the kitchen after that, do you? (Unless you are a robot, you are answering NO.)

SO... you should be happy you are reading this post right now! This doesn't work for all cookies out there, but it especially works good for chocolate chip cookies.

Start by spraying a regular sized cookie sheet with some oil or cooking spray. Next take the dough (if you are doubling it, take half of the dough, tripling it take a third of the dough, and so on and so forth) and start spreading the dough out.

This is where it gets a little tricky and you really have to work with it. You could even pop the dough in the microwave for just a few seconds, 10 at the very most, to warm it up a bit more. This makes it easier to spread. I like to use rubber spatulas for this part.

If your doing this at the moment, then you have already experienced the dough not wanting to spread, and also you'll pick up the dough with your spatula/spoon, and you'll really only have a big dollop of dough in the middle of your pan.

I suggest spraying the spatula/spoon with some oil before starting, and also taking small parts of the dough and spreading them at a time - don't plop the whole thing down at once and try to spread it from there.

You can also do this on a round pizza pan to make a cookie cake, then decorate it with some icing and there you have it - a really cute, really good, really fast cake! Perfect for those who don't exactly desire cake. We usually do this for one of us kids birthdays, because we're all in August, except for one in July. My birthday comes last, and we're all usually sick of so much birthday cake that we just make a cookie cake instead.

Ok, so you've put all the dough on the pan, cooked it on 375 for about 20 minutes (make sure to keep a close eye on it though!), now what?

Easy-peasy. Let it cool down a bit before doing this. Just take a knife (be careful not to scratch your pan!) and cut the cookie in to smaller bars.

A few days ago I was cooking cookies for about 50-60 people, and all I did was double the recipe and spread (with my moms help... I couldn't for the life of my spread it out. I think I started it out wrong. LOL) out the dough on to two cookie sheets, and cooked them separately. After that I just cut them in to bars, and voila! You've got really good cookies, that didn't take any time at all, and hardly any time in the kitchen! Love it.

 Hope you enjoyed and found this helpful. Remember, you can always send us an e-mail of yours if you made them! *wink* Have a great week and God bless!

howdoweboilwater.email@gmail.com

World Famous Chocolate Chip Cookies (Abby)

 

Hahaha, no, I don't call them that... my dad does.  But, they are SUPER easy (I'm not just saying that) and pretty good, if I do say so myself. (; (Btw, I believe this recipe came off of a Sam's Club chocolate chip bag.) I have made this recipe sooo many times that I never get out the written recipe because I've memorized it! Lol. Let's get to it!

First you'll need:

2 1/4 cups of flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

Mix it all together in a separate bowl and set aside.

This is the auto-mixer I'm using. You can use a hand mixer if you want. I've used both, but this one is obviously easier. (; It's a 'Bosch.' I'm not sure where we got it, but it's a really good one. (:

Here are the attachments I'm using. I don't think this really matters, but I thought I would mention in case it does or you just wanna know.

 

In the mixer, mix:

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 sticks of butter (1 cup)

1 tsp vanilla

Then add 2 eggs and mix!

Next mix in the dry ingredients you mixed earlier. I like to put in about half of the flour mixture, mix it in, and then add the other half. The recipe doesn't say this, but I do because I feel like it mixes up a bit better.

 

.Next add in the chocolate chips! I add about 1 1/2 to 2 cups. You can add in nuts now if you want to. I don't, but if you like yours with nuts you can. :D

 

 YUM-O. Hehe, I think I say this with about every recipe I've posted... *rolls eyes*

I use a cookie dough scoop (yes, I make so many cookies that I actually have a cookie scoop... kinda like an ice cream scoop.... but for cookie dough). My scoop is about 1 inch, I believe, so you can just use like your regular spoon and make them round if you don't have a cookie dough scoop.

I put them about two inches apart, or 12 cookies on a regular sized cookie sheet.

Bake for 10-12 minutes (watch them, because sometimes it takes less and sometimes more depending on the oven) in a 375 degree oven.

I have doubled, and even tripled, this recipe and it comes out the same. (: When I make just one recipe, it makes aprox. 34 cookies, or around there. When I triple it it makes about 120 cookies. Once I did this, and I cooked them all at one time (when I make this much I usually just cook a few batches and then put the rest in the fridge for another time) I was in the kitchen for HOURS and I finally came out with about 120 cookies! lol! 

Btw, I don't recommend cooking 2 cookie sheets at a time. I put one in at a time, not both in at the same time. I don't think they would cook very evenly if you put them both in there at once.

 ... I saw that...

 

Here's the recipe (:

________________________________________________

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2  ¼ cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

¾ cup brown sugar firmly packed

¾ cup granulated sugar

1 cup softened butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 package semi-sweet chocolate chips (12oz)

1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Combine flour, salt and baking soda in bowl and set aside.  Combine brown sugar, granulated sugar, softened butter and vanilla and beat until creamy.  Add eggs and beat.  Add dry ingredients and mix well.  Stir in chocolate chips and nuts (if desired).  Drop mixture by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.  Bake 10 minutes.

Pumpkin Pancakes (Camille)

Okay, by now your starting to notice a trend on this blog. First we had Blueberry Muffins, then Waffles, then a amazingly yummy Pumpkin Roll, Banana Muffins, and now Pumpkin Pancakes. Yes, we are more into desserts and breakfasts, but I might be posting a dinner recipe soon (*wink*).

Here are some really yummy Pumpkin Pancakes that I made this morning for breakfast. Our family loves anything with pumpkin, so they loved these (as usual). If you have a larger family (which is unlikely, I don't know very many families that are larger then ours) you could double this recipe easily.

Okay, here's the recipe!

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

3 tablespoons brown sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups milk

1/2 cup canned pumpkin (or pumpkin puree)

1 egg

2 tablespoons cooking oil (or melted butter) plus butter for serving

tons of maple syrup for serving (what can I say? I like a little pancake with my syrup)

**********************************************

Okay, start by getting everything you'll need together. Get out all of the ingredients (duh) 2 medium bowls, and a griddle (or frying pan).

Now you're ready for the fun part!! :) Start by mixing up all the dry ingredients (make sure you measure the sugar and spices correctly because that is very important to this recipe).

Now whisk up the wet ingredients (I used a fork).

Okay,  gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients (remember to do it gradually), and mix until combined. The batter should be a little lumpy.

While you were mixing all that tasty goodness together, your griddle should have been preheating. To make sure it is hot enough take a drop of water and throw it on, if the water sizzles then you are ready to start cooking your pancakes! Use a 1/4 cup measuring cup and spoon them on.

While they are cooking heat up your syrup (we always put it in a mug in the microwave for 60 seconds).  There's a picture of our dirty microwave (it's well used. ;D).

Go back to your pancakes and turn them to the other side.

Make sure they are cooked well (they should all the light brown) before transferring them to a plate. As you can see, I just had to taste one of them......*grin*.

Here's a picture of  my yummy breakfast. I ate my pancakes with two eggs to add some protein. :D Hope you enjoy these!! I know I did!

P.S. If you made this, or any other recipe on here, please email us and let us know how it turned out (and send pictures!) our email address is howdoweboilwater.email@gmail.com.