Jolene's Recipe Journal

I've been making this Nestle Toll House pie for almost two decades now. It started as a treat for my sister's birthday and after all this time, I've still not managed to get pictures through the bake up to the finished product in one shot. I also change up the methods and baking vessels depending on availability and other things.  Sometimes I use a deep dish pie crust that comes already in the metal tin.  Sometimes I use a glass or metal pie plate and the premade rolled crusts from the store.  I always leave out the nuts due to allergies and instead I crush up a cup of Rice Krispies cereal and add that with the chocolate chips.    I like to use silicone pie edge shields but you can do foil crimped around the edge.  You just don't want it touching the top of the cookie part because it will stick and then peel the beautiful browned top layer off when you remove it.   After I get the shield on I always sprinkle the top with some more chocolate chips and then press them d

It's Muffin Monday and I'm firmly in fall mode so I chose these Cranberry Orange Muffins from Taste of Home. I really wanted to use fresh cranberries but wasn't able to get them so I used dried instead. I didn't get any process shots this time around because I had two other recipes I was working on at the same time.  I used a food processor to cut the shortening into the dry ingredients because it was going to make clean up much easier.   Since my guys are both allergic to tree nuts I omitted the pecans called for in Ronni D's recipe.  Sometimes I'll use crushed Rice Krispies in place of nuts but I didn't have any on hand.    I filled the liners with a large cookie scoop and got 12 muffins. I sprinkled the tops with turbinado (raw) sugar before baking.   I love the cranberry and the orange together, the beautiful crumb inside and the crunchy sparkly top. They were great as is, but I also like them split and griddled with a bit of butter.  Thanks so much to S

We are a house divided when it comes to favorite breakfast foods. My husband likes French toast, my son, pancakes, but I am a huge fan of waffles. I love how the little pockets hold just the right amount of maple syrup, the crispy outside and the soft inside. Since it's apple season here I wanted to use them in waffles and I found this recipe on the Taste of Home website. I had Honeycrisp on hand and I cut them in 1/4 inch pieces. I added some maple sugar to the dry ingredients, if you can't get your hands on any you could add some brown sugar or just leave it out.    To the wet ingredients I squeezed in a bit of vanilla bean paste extract. My milk was really cold and it kind of partially re-solidified the melted butter but it still worked out okay.    I made two batches, first in my round Belgian waffle maker, they went too quick to get photos of.  The second batch I made in a standard iron.  Either way, I like to use a large cookie scoop to ensure that I get the same size wa