Pretzel Salad

This one comes from the Snow family cookbook. It's exceedingly delicious.

3 C crushed pretzels
1 C melted butter
3 tsp sugar
8 oz cream cheese
1 C sugar
1 large cool whip
2 C water
2 small pkg. berry flavored Jell-o
2 Pkg frozen strawberries or raspberries

Combine pretzels, melted butter, and 3 teaspoons sugar. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Cool. Mix cream cheese, 1 cup sugar, and cool whip. Spread on pretzel crust mixture. Boil water and add Jell-o. Fold in prozen strawberries or raspberries and pour Jell-o mixture over cream cheese mixture. Let set for several hours.

Skillet Lasagne

This is adapted from my sister Mari's recipe. I never have three kinds of cheese, so we just use mozarella.;)

1 lb ground meat (I use turkey burger)
1/2 tsp minced garlic
2 T minced onion (if you like it.. Dave doesn't, so I don't use it)
2 cans diced tomatoes, any flavor
1 small can tomato sauce
1 1/2 C cottage cheese (or ricotta, if you're fancy)
1 T dried basil
1 T dried parsley
1 C grated mozarella
2-3 C uncooked mini bowties or any other favorite pasta

In large skillet, heat 2 tsp olive oil and saute the garlic and onion. Brown meat, adding a little salt and pepper if you like. Dump tomatoes (with juice) into a large measuring thingy and add water to make one quart. (It's something like half a can.) Add tomato sauce. You can season this mixture with garlic, basil, onion salt, and pepper if you have plain diced tomatoes. In another bowl, mix cottage cheese, dried basil, and dried parsley together. When burger is browned, scatter uncooked noodles over the meat and pour the watery tomato mixture over the top. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until noodles are cooked, about 20 minutes or so. Stir in half the cheese until melty. Turn off heat and dollup cottage cheese mixture on top. Finish with the rest of the mozarella and cover skillet. Set aside for a few minutes so cheese can melt. This recipe also makes quite a lote and is very excellent with homemade french bread.

Sour Cream Sugar Cookies

This recipe is my mother-in-law's and it makes super soft, yummy sugar cookies. The trick is roll them thick and take them out of the oven before they start to brown. They don't look done at all, but let them cool on the pan and VIOLA! BTW-- this recipe makes a truckload of cookies. I half it all the time and it makes around 30 fat, delicious cookies.

1 C butter or margarine (butter powder from storage works great and cuts the fat in half, if you're interested)
4-6 C flour
2 C sugar
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1 C sour cream
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 375. Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla and mix well. Mix in sour cream, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Add flour one cup at a time until a soft dough is formed. I usually leave it just a little sticky so I can use more flour to roll them out without drying the cookies out. Roll thick, cut into shapes, and bake 8-10 minutes. (If you have one of those light silver insulated pans, 9 minutes is perfect.;)