HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!!

I love Valentines Day. At the risk of sounding pathetic, I have not received a Valentine gift from a significant other except one time when I was a teenager. I have received cute things from my sweet children and something special from my Mom every year.

For as long as I can remember, I have made giant sugar cookies for my children on Valentines Day. I guess I like this day because of the significance of love. I do not think you need a special day set apart for showing that you love someone, you should be showing you love them each and every day, but I also think it is a good reminder to do something special for that someone in your life who means the most to you. Maybe I'm a sentimental old fool, but the idea of having someone (meaning other than my kids or mother) actually bring me a bouquet or something special from them that says "I love you" is something I still hope for.

Here is a picture of a giant cookie I made today. It is pictured next to a regular sized cookie to show how large it is.

This is the recipe I used. It is a soft, cake like cookie. I will include the frosting recipe I used as well. This frosting is great when you don't have any butter on hand. It also is not super sweet and helps to balance the sweetness of the cookie.

Mandy's Sugar Cookie Recipe

1 cube butter

1 cube margarine

1 & 2/3 C. sugar

2 eggs

4 & 1/2 C. flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 C. sour cream

1 tsp. vanilla

Cream butters and sugar, add eggs and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and sour cream. Mix well. Roll out on a floured surface. Cut into desired shapes and bake at 350* for 10 minutes.

Frosting

1 & 1/2 C. shortening

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. butter flavoring

4 Tblsp. flour

2 Tblsp Dream Whip powder

1 large bag powdered sugar

2/3 C. water

Combine and beat for five minutes

Most Requested

I have made it a tradition to ask my kids what kind of cake they want for their birthdays. When they were little, their requests were for dinosaurs and castles. Now that they have grown up, the most common requested item is fruit pizza. My Mom invented this recipe or put two recipes together or expounded a recipe or something. It is a bit time consuming but well worth it. I actually like this better the second day when the middle layer has had time to somewhat absorb into the crust layer. I made this one for my third boy who had a birthday party yesterday. It has already been devoured!

Fruit Pizza

Crust:

1/2 C. butter

1/2 C. shortening

1 & 1/2 C. sugar

2 eggs

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

2 & 3/4 C. flour

2 tsp. cream of tartar

Cream butter, shortening, sugar and eggs. Mix together and add the dry ingredients. Spread on a greased jelly roll pan and bake at 400* for 12 minutes. Cool

Filling:

16 oz. of cream cheese softened

3 Tblsp. pineapple juice

1 & 1/4 C. sugar

Mix cream cheese, sugar and fruit juice until smooth. Spread over crust. Put sliced kiwi's, bananas, mandarin oranges, halved grapes, strawberries, pineapple, berries or whatever your heart so desires.

Topping:

Combine fruit juices from frozen thawed strawberries and canned pineapple or mandarin oranges to make 1 C. of juice. Add 1 Tblsp. cornstarch to this and stir. Cook in saucepan until thickened. Cool and spoon over pizza.

Squash Dessert!

I LOVE this dessert. It makes me feel good when I eat it too because it is made from squash so that negates the sugar....right? This is a recipe I got from my Mom and I am unsure where she acquired it. The recipe calls for yellow cake mix and I used butter pecan cake mix this time. It was a scrumptious change. I may even use that kind from here on out. It also calls for pumpkin but is so sweet and a cooked banana squash mashed up sure balances the sweetness and makes it irresistible! My Dad grows the best garden and he always has HUGE banana squash in the fall. The one I used for this dessert is from his garden last fall. My parents keep them in the cold root cellar all winter long. Seriously, trust me and use squash in place of the pumpkin.

Pumpkin Dessert

1 pkg. yellow cake mix (set aside 1 C. of it)

1/2 C. soft butter

1 egg

Filling

2 C. pumpkin (squash)

3/4 C. brown sugar

1 tsp. salt

2 eggs

3/4 C. evaporated milk

1 tsp. vanilla

Topping

1 C. reserved cake mix

1/4 C. sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 C. butter

Grease bottom of a 9X13 pan. Combine cake mix, butter and eggs. Mix together with a pastry blender. Spread on the bottom of the prepared pan. Stir together the filling ingredients and pour over the crust layer. Mix the topping ingredients using a pastry blender and sprinkle it over the filling. Bake in a 350* oven for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. On a side note, you may top this with whipped cream if you so desire. YUM!

So Sweet Sunday

This is an extremely easy cake to make. I cannot remember where I got the recipe. My 14 year old boy learned to make this a few years ago and used to make one every Sunday. He can no longer be talked into it; must be the age. He will turn 15 this week and has other interests. I decided to make one today as everyone was craving it and we hadn't had it in a long time. I do have to admit that half of the cake stuck in the pan! It is baked in a bundt pan and this picture is only half of the cake. I haven't glazed this cake yet either because it calls for orange juice, I do not have any and couldn't think of a suitable substitute. So if you decide to make a poppy seed cake, your finished product will likely look much better than this one does. :)

P.S. The top picture is of the poppy seed cake that I made for my son's birthday. It did not stick and is pictured glazed. The glaze makes a ton and I usually like to set the cake in a bowl so more of the glaze soaks into the cake.

Poppy Seed Cake

1 cake mix (I like lemon)

1 & 1/4 C. water

1/2 C. oil

4 eggs

1 small package of instant pudding (I use lemon)

1 tsp. almond extract

2 Tblsp. poppy seeds

Blend all the ingredients and bake in a well greased and floured bundt pan at 350 for 40 minutes.

Glaze

1/4 C. orange juice

3/4 C. sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. butter extract

1/2 tsp. almond extract

Mix together and brush over cake