PW French Onion Soup

I just enjoyed this PW French Onion Soup, one of our November Sweet As Pie Cooking Club selections (I am a little behind on the November menu!)

Be aware it takes a couple of hours to prepare this, but it's worth it.

After a long onion prep and simmer...

....and the bread has been toasted and cut into croutons for easier eating (my preference)...

...and smoked gruyere, my latest cheese addiction... is piled on top and broiled ...

it's ready to eat...

I promise there is soup under all those yummy layers!

And I had a second ladle full...

Have a great weekend!

PW Angel Sugar Cookies

We don't eat a lot of cookies at my house, except for the occasional college kids cake mix cookies.  So I held off until the holidays on making this September Sweet As Pie Cooking Club selection thinking these Pioneer Woman sugar cookies might be good to give as a gift.

I was excited to start using these cute recipe bookmarks that I got on sale at Anthropologie.  I don't do black Friday shopping but the Wednesday before Thanksgiving you can get some good deals too.

There's a whole book full of them!  They're perforated and you tear them out of the book, fold in half or tear them into two bookmarks.

The colors and graphics are so cute and fun!  I just love flipping through it and looking at them.  Much better than these bookmarks...random notepad papers, coupons, etc.  Ugh.

Now on to the cookies.  Once the butter has softened and all the ingredients are stirred together, it doesn't look so appetizing here.  But it's easy to stir together, no stand mixer necessary unless you just want to use it.

After an hour in the frig, they're a nice chilled consistency to spoon onto the cookie sheet.  I liked the idea of using the buttered bottom of a glass to apply the sprinkles and flatten the dough.

Don't crowd them though, especially if you don't want the sides to touch.  Since these are "crumbly" I really didn't want to overcook them so the edges are just barely browned.

PW says in the cookbook that these cookies don't travel well.  I was a little worried about that but I piled them on a couple of trays and sent them on their way.  Maybe they can handle a long ride in the car!

Yum!  They are light, crispy and the center is slightly soft if you don't overcook them.  Oh, and it makes many more than 18 as stated in the recipe.  Now that would be 18 ENORMOUS cookies.

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Pioneer Woman Pecan Pie...Again

My favorite men in my life, the Bassman and my Dad love Pecan Pie.  After I made PWs Pecan Pie the first time, and gave it away, I wanted to make it again and this time I planned to EAT some of it myself!!

This was also my challenge to overcome my fear of making the "the crust".    The crust recipe makes 3, so there's already one handy in the freezer from the first pie.  I like that and the crust taste good, it's light and flaky.

One of the Sweet As Pie Cooking Club ladies said hers turned out runny.  I just hope the pie I gave away wasn't runny, but I don't know for sure!   PW says cook it ... and cook it some more...without burning it...until it's only slightly jiggly.   Kinda high maintenance keeping a check on it while it's baking.  

Using a 10 inch pie pan, the crust came just to the top, not enough to ruffle.  No ruffle, less fuss.  I left the foil over the edges for 40 minutes instead of the 30 minutes in her recipe, so it wouldn't brown too much while trying to bake long enough to get the jiggle out.

It baked for about 75 minutes, until the jiggle was pretty much gone.

This recipe has more sugar than my usual pecan pie recipe, maybe that's why it tends to be more jiggly.  But it wasn't runny, so it turned out good.

Only a small slice for me, please.  I usually eat the pecans off the top and have a bite or two of the crust so I need lots of help eating pecan pie.  That's where my two favorite men come in!

Wounded Warriors

Each year Semper Fi of North Alabama hosts about 30 wounded veterans, flying them into town to show them some of the sites and activities of this area.   

For the past few years, the Bassman has volunteered his boat and a day of fishing on Veteran's Day with the Wounded Warriors.

On their last day in town, we attended the farewell dinner.

Entertainment was provided by Easton Corbin.

This lady warrior had served multiple tours in Iraq and took General Libutti up on his offer to dance.  They had a lot of fun with it!

A young marine was eager to hold the door for us as we left.

Thank you Wounded Warriors for your service and sacrifice.

Goodnight Moon

Tennessee River, Wheeler Lake

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High Cotton Barn

Grandaddy's barn this fall

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Better-Than-Fried Mozzarella Sticks

I'm not a daily "sit down and watch Dr Oz" person, but occasionally one of the segments will catch my attention.

Like the one where they talked about these Better-Than-Fried Mozzarella Sticks.  I pinned it and planned to try it on game day this fall!

These get extra points because I was able to use my dried oregano and homemade marinara.

I thought they needed to heat and brown a little more.  So I let them stay in the oven a minute or two longer than the recipe said and a few of them ended up like this.

Good thing it doesn't affect the taste!

Definitely a winner!

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All My Bloggy Friends at Love Bakes Good Cakes