Slow Cooker Chunky Black Cherry Applesauce Recipe

Sorry, no picture available...bummer!


Ingredients

8 cooking apples, peeled and chopped
1 (16-ounce ) pkg. of frozen unsweetened pitted dark sweet cherries
1/2 cup sugar or to taste
1/2 teasp. cinnamon
1/4 teasp. nutmeg
1/4 teasp. almond extract

Directions

put everything in a 4-quart slow cooker
cover cook on Low for 10 hours or until fruit is soft
cool and put into a container and store in the refrigerator
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this can be served with pork chops or other meats
or make a parfait layering it with yogurt
serve it warm over pound cake or gingerbread

Homemade and All-natural Thin Mint Recipe

 Sorry, but I can never have enough good Thin Mint cookies, so here's another recipe..

Chocolate Wafers:
8 ounces organic butter, room temperature
1 cup organic powdered sugar, (I use Wholesome Sweeteners brand)
1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
1 cup cocoa powder (I use Dagoba's cacao powder)
3/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
Chocolate Peppermint Coating:
1 pound good quality semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
natural peppermint oil to taste

Preheat your oven to 350. Racks in the middle zone.
Make the cookie dough: In a mixer cream the butter until it is light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar and cream some more, scraping the sides of the bowl a couple times if necessary. Stir in the vanilla extract and then the salt and cocoa powder. Mix until the cocoa powder is integrated and the batter is smooth and creamy, sort of like a thick frosting. Add the whole wheat pastry flour and mix just until the batter is no longer dusty looking, it might still be a bit crumbly, and that's o.k. You don't want to over mix and end up with tough cookies.
Turn the dough out onto a counter, gather it into a ball, and kneed it just once or twice to bring it together into once nice, smooth mass. Place the ball of dough into a large plastic bag and flatten it into a disk roughly 3/4-inch thick. Place the dough in the freezer for 20 minutes to chill.
Rollout and bake: Remove the dough from the freezer and roll it out really thin, remember how thin Thin Mints are? That's how thin you need your dough, about 1/8-inch. You can either roll it out between two sheets of plastic, or dust your counter and rolling pin with a bit of flour and do it that way. Stamp out cookies using a 1 1/2-inch cutter (this time I used one with a fluted edge, I've done hearts and other shapes in the past). Place cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool completely on a baking rack if you've got one.

Make the peppermint coating:
While the cookies are in the oven you can get the coating ready. I use a makeshift double boiler to melt chocolate (a metal pan over a saucepan of gently simmering water), but I know many people who swear by melting chocolate in the microwave. Slowly melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally until it is glossy and smooth. Stir in the peppermint extract. If you think the chocolate needs a bit more peppermint kick, add more extract a drop or two at a time - but don't go overboard.
Finishing the cookies: You are going to coat the cookies one at a time and then gently set them on a parchment-lined baking sheet to set. Drop one cookie into the chocolate and (using a fork) carefully make sure it gets fully coated. Lift the cookie out of the chocolate with the fork and bang the fork on the side of the pan to drain any extra chocolate off the cookie. You are after a thin, even coating of chocolate. Place on the aforementioned prepared baking sheet, and repeat for the rest of the cookies. Place the cookies in the refrigerator or freezer to set. They will set at room temperature, it just takes much longer, and I prefer them straight out of the freezer anyways ;)
Make 3 or 4 dozen cookies.

What sport should you play?

Homemade Girl Scout cookies

ILED UNDER SWEET STUFF, BAKING BY NICOLE | 49 COMMENTS

Girl Scout cookie season is just around the corner. As usual, I’m not really planning to buy any of the Girl Scouts’ offerings - although I am happy to support local troops in other ways - because I know that I can make cookies that are as good or better at home. Girl Scout cookies still contain partially hydrogenated oils, even if they have decreased the amount to come in under the FDA’s definition of “zero trans fats per serving” (no more than .5g per serving). Homemade cookies are made with real ingredients - butter, sugar, flour, chocolate - and really do have zero trans fats. They’re still indulgent treats, but treats you can feel good about eating!

You can find recipes for four of the Scouts’ best sellers here, including an easy to make version of Thin Mints that you don’t need a cookie cutter to shape:

• Homemade Thin Mints - minty chocolate wafer cookies dipped in chocolate
• Homemade Samoas - shortbread topped with coconut-laden caramel and drizzled with chocolate
• Homemade Do-Si-Dos - crispy peanut butter sandwich cookies with a peanut butter filling
• Homemade Tagalongs - peanut butter cup-like cookies with a shortbread base

And if you’ve had enough of the cookies on their own, try using them in another way:

• No-Bake Vanilla Cheesecake with Thin Mint Crust
• Samoas Bars - samoas flavors in an easy to make bar cookie variation

After Eight mint and vanilla cheesecake

Serves: 6 Preparation time: 15 minutes cooking time: 20 minutes, plus cooling 2 hours

chilling time: overnight

Ingredients

125g light digestives

100g After Eight mints (12)

25g reduced fat spread

600g light or medium fat soft cheese

100g golden caster sugar

1tsp vanilla extract

125g fat free (0%) Greek yogurt

2 medium eggs

To serve, 100g fresh raspberries

1tbsp raspberry jam

Method

Lightly grease a deep 20cm cake tin with a removable base. Preheat the oven to 180˚C, 350˚F, Gas Mark 3.

Whizz the biscuits and the After Eight mints in a food processor, to make fine crumbs. Melt the low fat spread and add to the crumbs, until the mixture comes together. Tip into the tin and press down firmly to make a neat, base crust.

With an electric whisk, beat the soft cheese, sugar and vanilla together in a large bowl and then add the yogurt, and the eggs, one at a time. Mix until well blended.

Stand the tin in a roasting dish and pour the filling over the crumb base. Bake for 20 minutes until it has just set around the edges but is still wobbly in the middle. Turn the oven off and leave the cheesecake in there to cool slowly for a couple of hours: it will continue to cook and this helps to avoid the top cracking, so don’t open the oven door.

Refrigerate until ready to serve, preferably overnight.

To serve, loosen the edges of the cheesecake with a spatula and unmould onto a plate. Crush the raspberries lightly, combine with the jam and spoon on top.

Tip

The pure peppermint oil in After Eight mints gives a light mint flavour to the cheesecake crumb. The chocolate helps to reduce the amount of fat in the recipe, as it melts to bind the crumb together. You can use any combination of fruit on top; sliced clementines cut the sweet vanilla filling well.