Mrs. Roy's Holiday Treat Recipes

A month or so ago, Mrs. Roy promised to post some favorite holiday recipes, so here they are.  Fill up those cookie jars and Enjoy!

Rolo candy

Place small pretzels on an aluminum-foil lined baking sheet. They can touch; it doesn’t matter. Put one rolo candy on each pretzel. Put the pan in the oven at 250 for about 4 minutes; just long enough for the candy to get soft but NOT melted. Remove from the oven and push a pecan half into each candy. Put the entire pan in the frig for about 30 minutes to speed up the cooling process; then they are completely hardened again, you are done!

Acorns

Use bite size Nutter Butter cookies and Hershey kisses. Melt a small amount of chocolate and dip the bottom of each kiss, then press onto a cookie. When they have cooled a little, put the rest of the melted chocolate in a zip lock bag and cut a small corner off the bottom. Squeeze small drops of the chocolate onto the other side of the cookie to resemble a stem.

 Magic Squares

Melt 1 stick butter in a 9 X 13 pan. Pour in 1 cup of graham cracker crumbs and stir together and press out to make a crust covering the whole bottom of the pan. Sprinkle 1 cup chopped pecans, 1 cup coconut and 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips over the crust. Then pour one can of sweetened condensed milk over the entire pan. (Or you can pour the milk in first and put the other stuff in afterwards; either way works). Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes until the edges and coconut are browned. Let it cool completely and cut into squares. You can make small squares because it is very rich!

WHAT'S RIGHT WITH THIS WORLD - ICE CREAM

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.  Mrs. Roy loves ice cream.  And Mrs. Roy loves her brother.  One reason Mrs. Roy loves her brother is because he gave me this super easy chocolate ice cream recipe.  It tastes like a Wendy's Frostie.  There are only three ingredients.  You don't have to cook anything.  Mrs. Roy knows you are going to love it, too.

Mrs. Roy's Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream

1/2 gallon chocolate milk
1 regular size container of Cool Whip, thawed
1 can sweetened condensed milk

Dump it all in your ice cream freezer, put the paddle in and put the lid on, turn it on and when it stops - enjoy!

Mrs. Roy's Homemade Freezer Waffles

Mrs. Roy has been busy this morning making waffles for breakfast - and for the freezer.  I learned a long time ago that my waffles freeze just fine and fit in the toaster and are better than the store-bought frozen waffles.  So when I want to have some waffles for breakfast, I just whip up a batch of batter and cook it all; then I don't have to do that again for a while.  This process is so easy and so cheap that it gets the double gnome seal of approval!

The recipe for these waffles comes from one of my favorite cookbooks, "Not Just Beans" by Tawra Kellam.  She has changed the name of the cookbook and now sells it as "Dining On A Dime" but it's the same recipes.  These are real basic recipes that use ingredients you have on hand and it contains things you really eat.  http://www.livingonadime.com/ is the link to her website.  I recommend both the website and her cookbook.  Here's the waffle recipe:

2 eggs
2 cups flour (I use self-rising but if you use plain flour, add 4 tsp. baking powder and 1/4 tsp. salt)
2 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil, margarine or butter, melted
1 2/3 cups milk

Heat waffle iron.  Beat eggs in a medium bowl until fluffy.  Beat in remaining ingredients just until smooth.  Do not overmix.  Pour batter onto center of hot waffle iron.  Bake 5 minutes or until steaming stops.  Remove carefully.

As you can see, I put mine out on a baking rack and let them cool.  That way, both sides stay crisper.
I store my waffles in a zipper freezer bag and pull them out individually as needed.  I put them in the toaster just like the store-bought version.  And one batch of this recipe made all the waffles shown in the photo plus the two I ate.

Yes, making the waffles myself from scratch might take a few minutes but I save money, use ingredients I have on hand and I avoid all the preservatives and packaging associated with store-bought frozen waffles.  It's just another example of Mrs. Roy's way of doing things.

Mrs. Roy's Famous Oatmeal Cookies

When Mrs. Roy was a little girl, Mom would make oatmeal cookies and I would burn my fingers trying to get them off the hot pan before they had cooled enough.  When my own children were young, they would stand in the kitchen and wait for the cookies to come out of the oven and I always had to make a double batch so we would have some for later.  Even Mr. Roy has been known to hover when oatmeal cookies are in the oven.  Friends of my children would request them.  I recently took a bag to my grown son and his friends promptly lost their manners.  These cookies are really that good.

I think Mom got the recipe off the back of an oatmeal box somewhere along the way.  All I know is I've never fed these cookies to anyone that they didn't love them.  They are easy to make, cheap and you will usually have the ingredients on hand to whip up a batch whenever the mood hits.

These aren't fancy gourmet oatmeal cookies.  They don't have any raisins or wheatgerm or any secret healthy ingredients.  In fact, the first ingredient is butter-flavored Crisco.  That's right; people are surprised to find these cookies are made from Crisco instead of butter. 

Mrs. Roy will again stress that these cookies are NOT diet food or health food, even if they are made of oatmeal.  So enjoy but Mrs. Roy hereby disclaims any liability for any extra pounds associated with following this recipe. 

Mrs. Roy's Oatmeal Cookies

3/4 cup butter-flavored Crisco

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup water

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups oatmeal, uncooked

1 cup self-rising flour

Preheat oven to 350.  

Beat together the Crisco, sugars, egg, water and vanilla until creamy.  Add the oatmeal and flour and mix well.  

Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of dough onto a cookie sheet or baking stone.  I have a scoop that is a little larger than a teaspoon; I usually flatten the cookie dough a little with my hands before putting them in the oven. 

Bake for 12-15 minutes until the top and edges start to brown.  Do not overcook!

Let them cool on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes before moving them to a cooling rack; they will want to tear apart while they are warm but will firm up as they cool.  However, a warm oatmeal cookie (or 2 or 3) with a big glass of milk is worth a little mess of broken cookies!

Makes three dozen.