au gratin potatoes

8-10 medium potatoes

1 lb of cheese

1 stick butter

1/2 cup flour

2 1/2 cups of milk

garlic powder

salt

pepper

directions:

Wash potatoes and put in a large pot. fill with water to just covering all potatoes. turn on hi. boil until potatoes are soft enough to pierce with a fork easily.

pour off hot water and fill with cold water to cool potatoes down. I sometimes do this twice to hurry the process along.

using a regular table knife gently peel off the peels of the potatoes and then dice the potatoes into bite-sized pieces. place in a large bowl or casserole dish.

Dice the cheese into small cubes. add to potatoes

to make the white sauce start by melting the butter in a saucepan. as soon as it is melted add the one-half cup of flour and stir quickly. once the flour is completely mixed with the butter add the milk and whisk it well. stir constantly over medium heat adding garlic, salt, and pepper to taste. when the sauce is thickened, pour it over the potatoes and stir. sometimes I put the bowl in the oven again to melt the cheese, but sometimes the hot sauce does the job nicely.

I usually dice the cheese while the potatoes are boiling. also, when making the white sauce I try to have all of my supplies right there such as the whisk, wooden spoon, milk, flour, salt pepper, and garlic so that I don’t risk having to leave the sauce to fetch an ingredient.

Peanut Clusters

10 oz bag of butterscotch baking chips

8 oz can of roasted peanuts

This recipe is so very easy and simple but I thought I would put it up on the blog in case people didn’t know or couldn’t remember how mom would make these. She would always make them around Christmas time if I recall. It’s as simple as melting The butterscotch chips and then dumping the peanuts in and stirring it up. Then spooning clusters onto wax paper or foil. They will cool down and be ready to eat shortly.

Chocolate chip cookies

Pre heat oven to 375

2 cups of butter or margarine

1 1/2 cups of white sugar

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

Mix well

Add:

5 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

1tsp salt

1 bag chocolate chips

Spoon onto a cookie sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes

When mom would make chocolate chip cookies she would double the recipe. this recipe is for a double batch. On the bag of chocolate chips where she got the recipe it would say to use the whole bag of chocolate chips but mom would double the recipe and still only use half the bag of chocolate chips so she could get more batches of cookies out of one bag of chocolate chips. I use one whole bag of chocolate chips for this recipe or if I’m buying bulk chocolate chips from Cosco it is 2 cups of chocolate chips.

lemon bars

here is the recipe in case the photo is too hard to read:

crust:

2 cups flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 cup soft butter

combine and roll out onto 9 x 13 sheet.  Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.

filling:

4 eggs

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup flour

6 tbsp lemon juice

pour onto already baked crust bake for 20-25 minutes.

How lucky are we?  this is straight from moms recipe collection!  the only thing I need to add to this is a little clarification to moms instructions on how to know when it is done.  when the edges start to get brown and the top looks like a ton of little bubbles have popped all over it!

I believe the traditional way to serve these is to cut into squares and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

good luck!