Happy Thanksgiving my dear friends!

I probably wont be posting this week due to the preparations for Thanksgiving at my house, but I wanted to take a minute to wish you all a wonderful, fun filled, blessed Thanksgiving. My wish for you all is to be surrounded by the love of family and friends and of course, great food. I have my menu planned out and have been soaking up all the wonderful Thanksgiving posts of my blog friends. When I am using your recipes this week I will be saying a little prayer for each of you, that you all are having a beautiful day filled with what we are thankful for all year long!
Happy Thanksgiving!

Cheese Wafers

How can you resist a recipe that starts out like this?

These little savory wafers will be perfect to snack on for Thanksgiving Day when everyone is ready to eat and the meal is just not quite done. These little snacks are melt in your mouth luscious. With just a couple of ingredients they are easy to whip up. They need to chill in the fridge so they are the perfect "make ahead" nibbles. I remember eating these back in the 70's when I was a kid. How about we go a little retro today?

Here is the rest of the ingredients: flour, salt, butter and a bit of cayenne pepper. Not enough to scare off the kids though. Trust me, they will love these.

Cream together your cheese and butter. Add salt, cayenne pepper and then work in your flour with your hands.

You will end up with a small dough ball like this.

Roll it into a pretty little log and wrap in wax paper and put in the fridge. Super easy.

Slice it up into little thin wafers like this and put on a parchment covered cookie sheet.

Just like this. Then bake for about 8-10 minutes just til they're a little bubbly and just set.

So pretty and delicious.

These really need to cool really well. If you try to eat them too soon they will just crumble up. Once they are cool they are much easier to eat.

Cheese Wafers

1/4 pound of butter

1/4 pound of cheddar cheese, grated

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 dash red pepper

Cream together butter and cheese. Stir in salt and red pepper. Slowly add the flour, 1/4 cup at a time, until well blended. Knead dough until smooth. Roll into a log and wrap in wax paper and chill in the refrigerator. Slice thin and place on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes or just until golden. Makes about 2 dozen.

Old fashioned Coconut Cream Pie

Today I am bringing you my familys all-time favorite pie! Yay pie! The other day I was going over our Thanksgiving menu with my husband and he said "yea yea yea but what about the pie"? We all became big fans of this pie when his grandmother (RIP Memaw) would make it for the holidays. She would literally make everyones favorite pie. If that meant there were 9 different kinds of pie then so be it. We loved bringing home the leftovers. Boy but that woman could cook. We always just loved the coconut (we would taste the others just to make sure, it was only right-ha!). You start out with a baked pie shell just like this one here-

Mix your sugar, cornstarch and salt in a saucepan, gradually add your 3 c. milk
Stir constantly...
Keep on going....til it thickens and boils for one minute.
Stir half of hot mixture into 3 slightly beaten egg yolks.


Just like this....

Then put it all back in the saucepan and cook another minute. Add all but 3 tablespoons coconut and vanilla and mix well.

Pour into your baked shell.

Now for the meringue.(Dont be nervous. Sometimes it make me nervous).

Beat egg whites, salt and cream of tarter til soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Spread this over your filling making sure your touch all sides. Sprinkle that 3 tablespoons coconut you saved over the top. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes.

Old fashioned Coconut Cream Pie

9 inch baked pie shell

2/3 cup sugar

3 tbsp. corn starch

3 c. milk

3 eggs, seperated

1 cup shredded coconut

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 tsp. cream of tartar

Dash of salt

1/4 c. sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla

Mix sugar, cornstarch and salt in saucepan. Gradually add milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture thickens and begins to boil. Let boil for 1 min. Remove from heat and stir half of the mixture into 3 egg yolks, slightly beaten. Blend it back in with remaining hot mixture. Cook another minute. Remove from heat. Reserve 3 tablespoons coconut mix in the remaining coconut and 1 tsp. vanilla. Pour into pie shell. Beat egg whites, cream of tartar and salt until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar and vanilla while beating. Spoon over filling making sure to reach the edges. Sprinkle with reserved coconut. Bake at 350 for about 8-10 minutes or until golden.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

The Pioneer Woman Cooks!

I have been following The Pioneer Womans blog for awhile now. I just cant get enough of her stories of her life, gardening, and especially the cooking. I have made too many of her recipes to count and I am not fibbing when I say I have never had a bad experience with any of them. So much to my delight, she has published a cookbook. In this book she does the step by step tutorials that I love so much. Everyone needs this book in their collection. She has some cute stories in there too and some great photography of the ranch that she lives on. I got mine at Wal Mart but I saw it at Borders too. Love it!

Fall Weather and Spice Tea

Happy Fall Everyone! Its not super cold here but there is cooler temperatures down our way. It has been mid 70's and just gorgeous outside. This morning when I woke up and opened all the blinds to let in the light I noticed that the trees in the backyard are changing colors. Keep in mind that in our area we really dont have a change of seasons. It usually works this way. Super hot one day, then a cold front blows in, its cold for one or two days then back to super hot. Thats pretty much it in a nutshell. The trees in our backyard looked so pretty that I had to go outside and take a few pictures to show you. They looked really pretty with all the different shades of fall. This is my favorite time of year!

My backyard!

My sideyard!

My pretty little BellaGrace keeping watch. Shes a sweet little doll and she is just enjoying the sun.

Charlie watching the dogs behind us making sure that he is ready if they want to play.


I went to Wimberly Market Days this weekend with some great girlfriends and I found this bleeding heart plant. I have tried to grow it before and had no luck. We shall see this time. It is beautiful right now. I re-planted it in a bigger pot and it perked up. I hope that I can protect it through our harsh winter. Ha!


With the cooler temperatures settling in I am reminded of when I was a kid and my mother would make this spice tea. This is a truly southern recipe that is very popular. It is also a great gift for teachers, girlfriends and just to make for yourself.

Here are your ingredients:

Just put them all in a bowl...

Mix the ingredients thoroughly with a fork until well blended.

Put in an airtight container until ready to use. So simple! So tasty! This recipe can easily be doubled or tripled.




Add a heaping tablespoon per coffee cup full of steaming water.

This is great for a winters day. It will warm you from the inside out!