Swig sugar cookies

If you don't know what Swig is, don't worry. I had never heard of Swig until just recently. I had my first encounter with Swig while we were in St. George with Elliott's family in September. Swig is a small little drink shack that started in St. George. They apparently created the 'Dirty Dr. Pepper' and 'Dirty Diet Coke.' From what I gather, dirty means they add coconut flavored syrup to the drink. I had a Dirty Dr. Pepper. It was actually pretty good. Elliott always adds random flavored syrups to Dr. Pepper, but I have never had one that tastes really good. Coconut actually tastes good. Who knew?

Along with their drinks they have these delicious soft sugar cookies. Those are definitely something to talk about. I could have eaten 10 of them. A few weeks ago we had a Relief Society activity where we were supposed to bring our favorite cookie or treat to share. I found this recipe for the Swig sugar cookie and thought I would try it out. I was kind of disappointed with my first batch that came out of the oven. They were nothing like the swig cookies. They were hard and crispy. My second batch I took out a little early and they were perfect! So the key to these cookies is to under bake them. That is what makes them soft on the inside and kind of crispy on the edges. So make sure you watch these cookies and take them out right as the middle looks like they are just barely set and the edges are lightly cooked. Let them sit on the pan for just a few minutes to cool and then transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Swig Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter (at room temperature)
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 cups sugar
3/4 cup powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons water
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cream of tarter
1 teaspoon salt
5 1/2 cups flour

Cream together butter, vegetable oil, sugars, water and eggs. Combine the dry ingredients and slowly add to the butter mixture. Mix until everything is combined. Your dough should be a little crumbly and not sticky at all.

Roll into golf ball sized balls of dough and place on a cookie sheet. Put 1/4 cup sugar and a pinch of salt in a dish (this is in addition to the sugar and salt listed above.) Stick the bottom of a glass in the sugar and press lightly into the center of the dough ball.

Bake at 350 degrees for 8 minutes. Watch the cookies. They should be just barely brown on the bottom and the middle barely set. Move cookies to a cooling rack. Once they are cool, put them in the fridge.

Sour Cream Frosting

1/2 cup butter (room temperature)
3/4 cup sour cream
1 2 pound package of powdered sugar (you wont use the whole thing, but just make sure you have enough)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup milk
food coloring (optional)

Cream together butter, sour cream and salt. Slowly add powdered sugar. When it gets so thick that it is not frosting like add a splash of milk. Alternate this process until your frosting is the desired consistency. Add 1 drop of food coloring and whip on high for 1 minute.

Keep cookies in a sealed container until they are ready to serve. Frost right before serving.

A Swig cookie, the cookie is cold and the frosting is room temperature. I stored my frosting in the fridge and the cookies on the counter and I thought they tasted great that way too.

Enjoy!

Slow cooker cream cheese chicken chili

I had this brilliant idea to make a new soup or chile every week during the fall and winter. So far, I haven't been doing so well. But I have tried a few new recipes lately. One was a chili that was so ridiculously easy and really good!

If found this recipe at Plain Chicken. I made it as it. But next time I will cut back on the chicken. I felt like it had a ton of chicken compared to the rest of the ingredients. I give you the original recipe and you can adjust it if you want.

Slow Cooker Cream Cheese Chicken Chili

2 chicken breasts (I put mine in frozen solid, straight from the freezer)
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can corn, undrained
1 can Rotel tomatoes, undrained
1 package ranch dressing mix
1 teaspoon cumin
1 Tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon onion powder (I used onion salt bec I don't have onion powder for some reason)
1 8 oz package cream cheese

Place chicken on bottom of crock pot. Pour the whole can of corn (undrained), Rotel, and black beans in. Top with seasonings and ranch mix. Stir together. Cut cream cheese into large cubes and place on top. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 4-6 hours. Stir in cream cheese. Use 2 forks to shred chicken and stir together. Serve with tortilla chips or bread.

Enjoy!

Hawaiian Haystacks

I don't know about you, but I had Hawaiian Haystacks growing up. I think it might be a Utah Mormon thing. Because I encountered several people while in St. Louis who had never heard of such a thing. They are missing out. I found a recipe for the chicken sauce recipe that I think is really good. I will be using it from now on rather than my simple chicken gravy sauce.

Hawaiian Haystacks

2 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces
3 Tablespoons butter
1/2 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup flour
2 cups milk
1 cup chicken broth
Cooked rice
Topping choices: sliced olives, tomatoes, shredded cheese, pineapple chunks, green onions, mandarin oranges and chow mein noodles. Or anything else your little heart desires.

In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium heat and add the onion and raw chicken. Saute the onion and chicken until the onions are soft and translucent and the chicken is cooked through, about 5 to 6 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for about one minute, stirring, until fragrant.

Sprinkle the flour over the onions and chicken and stir to combine. Cook over medium heat for one minute-this helps get rid of the starchy, flour taste. Slowly whisk in the milk and chicken broth. Cook, stirring constantly with a whisk, and bring the sauce to a simmer over medium to medium-high heat. Add the salt and pepper. Continue simmering, stirring the sauce frequently, until the sauce has thickened, about 5-8 minutes.

Serve the chicken sauce over rice with your choice of toppings.

Enjoy!

Smothered Sweet Pork Burritos

This recipe is amazing! I have tried several Cafe Rio sweet pork recipes and they are all overly sweet and taste mostly like coke and brown sugar to me. This recipe is the closest recipe I have found to the true Cafe Rio pork. I ate a ton of pork before it even made it to the burritos. The burritos are just as delicious.

The recipe can be found at Mel's Kitchen Cafe.

Chipotle chicken and corn chowder

I pinned this recipe a while ago and one of my friends commented on it about how it is really good and a "go to" dish in their house. I figured in would give it a try. And she was right, it is really good. And it has become one of our favorite soups in our house. It is really simple to make. The only change I made was I do not add the tortilla chips to the soup, but rather serve the soup with chips on the side. I am not a fan if soggy chips.

The recipe can be found on Brown Eyed Baker's website.

Creole Chicken, Red Beans and Rice Soup

I wanted to make red beans and rice, but didn't have everything needed for it, so Bo told me to look up recipe for red beans and rice soup and this is what I found, with a little bit of my own twist...

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 chicken breast
4 Kiolbassa Jalapeno Beef Sausage links (I added this and got it from Costco, LOVE!)
Creole seasoning
1 yellow onion chopped
1 Tbsp celery seed (or you can do 1 C chopped celery, I just didn't have any on hand)
1 cup diced carrots
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1 tsp worcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves
Pinch crushed red pepper
1 pound dried red beans, rinsed, picked over, soaked overnight and drained
4 C Chicken broth
1 tsp cornstarch
2 C white rice, cooked
1/2 C chopped green onions (green part only, I didn't have onions so I didn't do this part)

Directions:

Boil the red beans the night before for 45 minutes (last time I prepared the beans they were still hard after just soaking them and boiling them the next day, so I took extra time to make sure these turned out right. You may know a better way of preparing the beans, this is just what worked for me) After boiling them, put in a bowl full of water to sit over night. The next day I boiled again for about 10 minutes to make sure they weren't hard.

Cook the rice in a rice cooker or however you usually cook rice. 2 C rice, 2 C water.

In a large sauce pot, heat the olive oil. Season the chicken with creole seasoning. When the oil is hot, add the chicken and sear both sides for 4 to 5 minutes. Add the onions, celery, and carrots. Season with Creole seasoning. Saute the veggies for 4 minutes. Add the garlic, worcestershire sauce, bay leaves, pinch of crushed red pepper, red beans, and sausage. (This sausage mentioned above is fully cooked so it really only needs to be warmed. Adding it here was perfect.) Saute for 1 minute. Add the broth and bring the liquid to a boil.  remove some of the broth and mix it with the cornstarch. Once mixed well, add back into the soup to thicken. Reduce the heat to a simmer, uncovered.

Serve with the rice. Enjoy! We really loved it. :)

Find the original recipe HERE.

Maple Cinnamon Ham Glaze

We had some friends over for dinner tonight and luckily I found this glaze, it was about the only thing that saved me from all the other things going wrong. It's super simple too. I KNOW you will like it! :)

1/4 C packed brown sugar
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 C maple syrup

Stir brown sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl until well combined. Pour in maple syrup and stir until smooth. Enjoy over some delicious ham!

You can find the original recipe HERE, thanks!