Cooking with Susie Q

With Christmas so close, the shopping becoming frantic, you may have a few last minute gifts to come up with. Why not consider giving gifts of food? It will perhaps give them something new to try, or at the very least give them something to share that they didn’t have to prepare. I’m sharing a few of my family’s favorites and I hope you might try at least one of them. Have a very Merry Christmas and make sure to take time to enjoy the family. So often we are so stressed out over finding the “perfect” gift and agonizing over who did we not buy “enough” for, that we tend to be exhausted and just thankful that it is over. Try to spend Christmas Eve day-the whole day- doing nothing but spending time doing nothing-you deserve it!

Directions: Grease a large cookie sheet. Set aside. In a heavy 2-quart saucepan, over medium heat, bring to a boil, sugar, corn syrup, salt, and water. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Stir in peanuts. Set candy thermometer in place and continue cooking. Stir frequently until temperature reaches 300 degrees F or until a small amount of mixture dropped into very cold water separates into hard and brittle threads.
Remove from heat; immediately stir in butter or margarine and baking soda; pour at once onto cookie sheet. With two forks, lift and pull peanut mixture into rectangle about 14×12 inches; cool. Snap candy into pieces.

Directions: Grease an 8×8 inch dish. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine milk, sugar and butter. Bring to a rolling boil, and let boil 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter, marshmallow creme and vanilla until well incorporated. Spread into prepared dish. Let cool completely before cutting into squares.
I’ll be looking forward to hearing from you with any suggestions or recipes you like. I can be reached at susieqcooking@ainop.com or c/o Pioneer Times, PO Box 456, Houlton, Maine 04730. See you next week!