Want a great batch of homemade cookies the kids will absolutely love? Do you have a craving for some great chocolate chip cookies? Then look no farther then the Ghirardelli Triple Chocolate Cookie Mix. I picked this up for like $5 for a double batch box at BJ’s Warehouse Club.

Ghirardelli triple chocolate cookie mix review

The kids wanted to bake some cookies and the middle one always loves chocolate chip cookies (he can’t have peanut butter cookies which are also a family favorite due to a peanut allergy). We saw the Ghirardelli cookie mix on sale for just under $5 and decided to give it a try.

Here are the Ghirardelli chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven and ready to eat - yummy!

It didn’t take long to bake the cookies and the kids couldn’t wait to devour them. The cookies left the whole house smelling great for hours afterwards. You just have to give them a try.

This is a recipe from my late father-in-law, Phil Maillie. He loved to make this for his grand children during the spring and hot summers here in North Carolina. Everyone loved these smoothies – they were just so good! It’s not truly a sole blueberry smoothie recipe as it has other fruits in it like bananas, but you will love it nontheless.  Here is this cherished recipe! I guarantee you will love it.

Ultimate Blueberry Smoothie

Ingredients:

1 Cup of fresh bluberries

1 whole banana (peeled of course)

Splash of orange juice

3/4 Cup of ice

1 container of plain yogurt (8 oz.)

3 tsp of sugar

Directions:

This is the simple part – put all the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth and creamy.  Serve and enjoy.  You can garnish the smoothie with mint leaves in a fan shape or some sliced fruit like strawberrys, cherries, orange slices, etc. to acieve that look of perfection.

I got this recipe from my mother who in turn got it from a good friend of hers.  It was her personal favorite and I have been making this very same banana bread recipe for 13 years now.  Ever since I have looked to make banana bread has been the one recipe I turn to every time.  This recipe makes two loaves and I usually add nuts to one and the other one I leave without the nuts due to the fact that I have a son with nut allergies.  I personally prefer walnuts in my banana bread, but you can make it either way to your own taste desires.

Best Banana Bread Recipe

Ingredients:

3 bananas

1 tablespoon of water

1 cup of sugar

1/2 cup of Crisco (I use butter sometimes instead)

2 eggs

2 cups of flour

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon of salt

1/2 cup of nuts

1 teaspoon of vanilla

Directions:

Mash the bananas, water, sugar and other ingredients listed above.  Let this mixture stand for 15 minutes (be sure to use brown bananas as that will give better flavor to the banana bread).

Doesn't the banana bread from this recipe look delicious?

Then bake in the oven for 35 to 45 minutes at 350°.  Be sure and turn on your own like to watch when they’re ready because every oven is old different and some cook faster than others and if you don’t watch it you could burn the outside or the underside of the banana bread very easily.  Let cool then slice and serve.  You can also dress it up a little by garnishing it with a little confectionary sugar.

Here is the banana bread garnished with confectionary sugar.

This banana bread is great in the morning with coffee, at lunchtime, dinnertime or as a quick snack.  Kids love this recipe.  It is also a big hit at Christmas time and the holidays!

I don’t know if my mom actually made this recipe up or if she got it from her mother.  All I know is – I love it! She made this cherry crunch pie recipe a lot.  It’s easy to make and it’s definitely been a family favorite for years.  Both kids and adults will love this pie recipe.

Mom’s Cherry Crunch Pie

Ingredients:

1 jar of pitted cherries in water (16 oz.)

1 box of yellow cake mix

1/2 cup of crushed walnuts

5 tablespoons of butter

Directions:

Butter the pie plate or spray it.  Put the whole jar of pitted cherries in with a squirt of lemon juice.  Next add dry cake mix in a bowl.  Mix with a fork and add the 5 tablespoons of hot melted butter and 1/2 cup crushed walnuts.  Mix the ingredients in the bowl with a fork and then pour over the cherries in the pie plate.  Be sure and start in the middle and then go outdoors towards the edges as you fill the pie plate.  Bake for 30 minutes at 300° in the oven.

Doesn't it look delicious? It tastes far better then it looks - Wait until you try it!

This is such a delicious recipe that when I’m in the mood to make this cherry crunch pie I almost can’t wait for it to finish baking.  I serve it with a little Cool Whip on top of each slice.  This could also be a great idea for a delicious dessert to top off a wonderful Valentine’s Day meal – husbands love this!  As they say the key to a man’s heart is through his stomach and it doesn’t get much better than my Mom’s Cherry crunch pie.  Enjoy.

Cherry Bon – Bon’s

Ingredients:

1/2 cup soft butter

3/4 cup sifted confectionary sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 1/2 cup flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

20-25 maraschino cherries

Directions:

Mix the butter, sugar and vanilla.  Then blend in the flour and salt.  If this mixture is dry add 1 to 2 tablespoons of milk.  Mix well all the ingredients.

Here is the actual recipe and it is at least 30 years old!

Drain the cherries.  Press 1 tablespoon of dough around a well drained cherry making sure to cover the whole cherry.  Repeat this for all the cherries.  Then bake at 350° for 12 to 15 minutes on an ungreased cookie sheet. 

You can make an icing with confectionary sugar and a teaspoon or two of water till you get a liquid consistency or just powder it on if you prefer it that way.  Serve and enjoy.

Here is my Mom's original recipe for these sweetheart cookies that she wrote out over 30 years ago!

I suppose they could also be a Valentine’s Day cookie as well.  Being it’s a short bread cookie with red jelly it would be easy to make it very festive.  You would just need to try and make it look like hearts instead of a circular hole with the jelly.  Find a heart shaped plastic or metal object that you could use to press into the cookie dough and make a heart shape impression (you could also use other shaped objects like Christmas trees, smiley faces, etc… to change for the season or occasion).

I also found instead of jelly that using preserves works and tastes better.  You can use strawberry, raspberry or blueberry preserves.  I have done the first two, just be sure for the raspberry preserves that you buy seedless preserves – the seeds may be an added texture that most will find undesireable in a cookie.

Sweetheart cookies with jelly

Ingredients:

3/4 cup shortening

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg yolk

1 + 1/2 cup flour

dash of salt

jelly – any kind

Directions:

Add all the above ingredients except the jelly in a bowl and mix well with an electric mixer.  Chill the dough for one hour.  Form the dough into small balls with your hands and then place them on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Make an impression with your thumb or fingers and then fill this hole with the preserves.  If you are going to be using this cookie recipe for Valentine’s Day instead then find a heart shaped object you can press into the dough to leave a heart-shaped hole (as I stated above there is no limit to the types and shapes of impressions you can use. Just find objects shaped like Christmas trees, 4 leaf clovers – St. Patricks Day, a star, etc…).

Bake at 350° until very light brown.  Keep in mind that ovens do vary in their temperatures and cooking times so keep a close eye on the cookies so they don’t get too brown.  Remember they are a short bread cookie so you want them to be light in color and not too hard.  As a general guide I have found you should bake them for about eight minutes or so.  This recipe makes around 30 cookies depending on the size of the balls of cookie dough that you use prior to baking (obviously, you can make the cookies bigger or smaller based on this).  I always double the recipe so there are plenty of these great sweetheart shortbread cookies to go around.

To  add a Valentines Day touch you can always, after baking, place a candy heart (you know the ones that say I love you, will you be my Valentine?, etc.) in the middle of the jelly.  For Christmas use a tree or star shaped object.  Let cool and then serve and enjoy.

Vanilla pudding cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 box vanilla pudding

1 box vanilla cake mix

Confectionery sugar for garnishing

Cupcake wrappers

Directions:

these are pretty easy to make, basically you just follow the cake mix directions that come on the cake mix box and you also follow the pudding mix directions on the pudding box.  Be sure and mix these in two separate bowls – one for the cake mix and one for the pudding mix.  Then pour the cake batter into the cupcake wrappers in a cupcake tin.

For baking simply follow the directions on the boxes.  When cooled cut out a small circular top from the cupcakes and save the top – you will use this in a second as the lid.  Pour the pudding mix in the whole and top off the cupcake with its hat or the top you just removed earlier.  Then sprinkle the top with confectionery sugar and enjoy. 

Don't they just look wonderful?

These cupcakes look great and taste great too.  As an alternative, instead of confectionery sugar, you can use a chocolate sauce or syrup like Hershey’s and this will give it more of a Boston cream type of effect.  Both ways they taste great.  And I guarantee your kids will love them too.

Mom’s Christmas Ricotta Cake (Casade)

Required ingredients:

2 lbs. Ricotta cheese

Marble cake mix

1/2 cup sugar

4 eggs

1 bag of chocolate chips

1 (16 oz.) jar cherries

Instructions:

Grease a 9 x 13 baking dish.  Then mix the cake following the directions on the box it came in.  Be sure and poor only one third of the cake mix on the bottom of the baking dish (discard the rest or use in another recipe). 

Put the rest of the ingredients into a bowl and then mix them together with a spoon  – not an electric mixer.  This is your filling.  Spoon the filling over the top of the raw cake batter covering all the top of the batter completely. 

Then bake the casade for one hour and a half on 300°.  When cooled sprinkle the top with confectionery sugar for a decorative and sweet garnish.  Serve and enjoy.

The Best Sweet Potato Casserole

ingredients:

5-6 sweet potatoes

1/2 C milk

1 1/4 C sugar

1/2 stick of melted butter

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

1 C mini marshmallows

Directions:

Bake the sweet potatoes at 375° for one hour and a half.  Be sure and rub them with vegetable oil before baking.  The peels will slide off when finished.

Smash up the sweet potatoes in a bowl and add the half cup of milk, one and a quarter cups of sugar, one half stick of melted butter, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, two eggs beaten, and 1 cup of mini marshmallows.  Mix all the ingredients well.  Then spray large casserole dish (9″ x 13″ works well) and place the mixed sweet potatoes in the casserole dish.

Picture of sweet potato casserole prior to baking.

Next comes the topping – my kids favorite part.

Topping ingredients:

1 C brown sugar packed

1/4 C flour

1 C pecans crushed real good

*1 stick of butter melted – be sure and pour this in the bowl last*

Directions:

Mix the melted butter to the dry ingredients last after mixing the dry ingredients well with a spoon.  Then take this topping and spread on top of the sweet potatoes in the casserole dish to completely cover it.

The best sweet potato casserole after baking and ready to serve!

You can double the topping if you like.  Some people prefer the sweeter, cruncher topping. I have found, myself, that I don’t need this and the recipe is perfect as described above.

Be sure and prepare the sweet potato casserole the day before you plan on serving it.  Then bake the day you are ready to eat.  Bake for 35 minutes at 375° and be sure and bake it covered with aluminum foil. Serve this tasty dish and enjoy – it will be the talk for days.

The best sweet potato casserole already half gone at Thanksgiving and the meal has barely begun...

Doesn’t it just look yummy?  Wait until you try it.  It will be the first plate or dish that you run out of and will surely be everyone’s favorite!

Deep dish pumpkin pie

1 3/4 C flour

1/3 C firmly packed brown sugar

1/3 C sugar

1 C margarine or butter cut into small pieces

1 C chopped nuts

1 (16 oz.) can of pumpkin

1 (14 oz.) can of sweetened condensed milk

2 eggs

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp all spice (aka Jamaican pepper)

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 350°.  Combine the flour, sugar, brown sugar and cut up margarine or butter until crumbly.  Stir in the chopped nuts.  Be sure and take out one cup of this resulting mixture which will be used later as the crumbly topping.

Press the remaining mixture firmly on bottom and halfway up the sides of a 12 x 17 dish.  Pour in the remaining ingredients except the other cup of the crumb mixture which you removed earlier.

Top with the remaining crumb mix and bake for 55 minutes.  Let cool, serve and enjoy.