What's Cooking at The Cromer's

I think this is one of the things that makes the Holiday Season GREAT! Getting together with family and friends and cooking...........Then distributing it around to other friends and family members, or coworkers etc. As you can tell by the pictures we have a fun time. We have tried to teach some of our crafts to lots of people over the years. That is how we learned it by someone teaching us. We have lots of new people in our family this year so they got to learn also. We had fun!!!! Check out the Photos. MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!!

Ok I have a few recipes that will make you the hero at your next party or get together. (Or even with the kids) and all three of them are easy to do, and you should be good on your first try. The first one is Faux Toffee: Faux Toffee (Tastes like the real thing but easier) 1 Sleeve of Saltine Crackers 1 Cube of Butter 1 Cup of Brown Sugar 1 Bag of Chocolate Chips Butter a cookie sheet well then spread the crackers over the entire pan, just line them up in order. It should take almost the whole sleeve. Turn the oven on 350 degrees to warm up. In a sauce pan over medium high heat melt the sugar and the cube of butter. Once it is all melted together pour over the crackers and spread evenly. Bake in your oven for 5 minutes. It should be bubbly all over. Bring out of your oven and let sit for just a minute. While it is still hot pour the bag of chocolate chips evenly over the entire surface. Let it sit for a minute then spread the chocolate all around kind of like a frosting. It will melt ...

Family Home Evening last night... Nicole and I started to make some "Spudnuts" (Doughnuts). Then everyone else seemed to join in and help out. Spudnuts used to be available in Utah but I haven't seen them for years. Spudnuts are doughnuts made with mashed potatoes. When our family goes to California we always seem to hit a Sputnuts shop, they are all over California. I don't remember where I got the recipe from but here it is. The Recipe: Spudnuts ½ Cup warm water 1 Package of Yeast 1 Teaspoon Salt ½ Cup of Sugar 2/3 Cup of Shortening 2 Cups hot milk 1 Cup room temp mashed potatoes 2 Eggs 6-7 Cups of Flour Oil for frying Pour the yeast in to the warm water and let sit for 5 minutes or so. In a large bowl add salt, sugar, shortening, and milk. Let it cool down a little. Add the potatoes, eggs, yeast mixture to the milk mixture. Add the flour 1 cup at a time till it forms nice firm dough. (A little more if you need or a little less.) Sprinkle some flour on your counter...

We haven't done this in awhile..... We had some family pics taken. here are a few of them: Oh and one of our little kiddos.... :)

I was reading something the other day and was fascinated by a statement in it. So I wrote it down. Sorry I don't even remember where I saw it so I can't give credit to that person. I thought it was pretty interesting lets see what you think? "Wasted opportunities come back to haunt us later in life, but it is never too late to start learning." So lets keep learning if you have stopped!

Well here is one of the recipes I have been working on to enter in the contest that I talked about before. it is made in a 6" Lodge Dutch Oven. It is a Chocolate Lava Cake and it is goooood! And it is small enough that you don't really get to over eat with it. Here is the recipe: Dutch Oven Chocolate Lava Cake 6” Dutch oven Ingredients: 1 Stick of Butter (no margarine) 4 Squares of Bakers Chocolate (semi-sweet or unsweetened) 2 Egg yolks 2 Eggs 1 cup of powdered sugar ½ Cup of flour 1 Pinch of Cinnamon In a sauce pan or another Dutch oven melt the butter and the chocolate. Stir until all the chocolate is melted. Take off the heat and add the egg yolks and eggs one at a time mix good, then add the powdered sugar and cinnamon and continue to mix, then the flour and mix. Mix it until all the white is blended in. Pour the mixture in to a greased 6” Dutch oven. (I have also used 2-5” ovens for this too) Cook with 10 coals on the top and 6 on the bottom for about 30-...

Well guess what one of the things was that I got for my birthday? Yep just what I needed another Dutch Oven! It is a small one that Lodge just started making. It is a 6 inch oven that has a 1 Quart capacity. For those smaller meals. One of the groups on the Internet that I frequent is a Dutch Oven Group called The Art of Camp Dutch Oven Cooking . They are having a contest for recipes for the new 6 inch Dutch oven, so I thought that I would try a few different recipes in it and see how they turned out. With it being so small I is a little tougher to downsize my recipes. So I thought that I would start with a Mixed Berry Cobbler. (it sounded easy) I don't have the completed recipe yet because this is my first time trying it. So I will post it later after it gets a little more perfected. It was a little to much like cake for my taste yet so I will keep you updated on the changes then I will post the recipe. First I mixed the batter part. Some Butter in the Dutch oven: Add the berries...

Well the other day Connie started some soup that we didn't use. So for dinner the other night Nicole and I made Home Made Chicken Noodle Soup with real Home Made Noodles. As I said in a previous post we won a new Rolling pin (above) in the cook off the other day, and I was anxious to give it a try. So we made a noodle dough as follows: Egg Noodles: 2 Cups of flour 2 Egg yolks 1 Egg 2 Teaspoons of salt 1/2 cup of Water We used a food processor but you could do it by hand. Mix the flour, eggs, and salt then give it a pulse, then add the water a little bit at a time until you have a good dough. Put some flour on your counter then roll them out to about 1/8" thick. I don't think it needs to be too fancy. Then we cut them in strips and put them right in the hot soup base and let it cook for about 15 minutes. Yes they were yummy. I wanted to add dumplings but Nicole doesn't like them like her Dad! :) It turned out really good and they are easy. Some people will tell you that...

Well Connie and I entered another Dutch Oven Cook off the other day. It was at The Sportsman's Warehouse in Midvale , and put on by the Storm Mountain Dutch Oven Chapter of IDOS . We decided to cook some easy things. I think my new outlook is to cook things that real people would want to try instead of being overly fancy. Now that's not to say we won't do new things because I think that is the fun and the challenge to cook something new. We started setting up at about 8:45 and it started at 10:00AM It is a fun group to be involved with and it was pretty low key for a cook off. Well we cooked: Country Fried oops Baked Chicken, and Honey Bacon Loaf for our bread. (Disaster) Then for dessert we did Grandma's Chocolate Zucchini Cake. We ended up taking 5 th place out of 5 teams. (Not to well, but we had fun) The bread didn't rise correctly so it was a "Boat Anchor". I had to apologize to the judges because they would have to taste it. :) I thought the cake ...

As I was reading some of my regular Blogs this morning I ran across this. They are amazing! Pretty cool huh?

From Halloween From Halloween From Halloween From Halloween From Halloween Nuff Said..........

Over the weekend I tried something new in the Dutch oven. Yep...Peanut Butter fudge! It turned out pretty good. I didn't cook it with charcoal though I just did it on the stove top. And yes I could have used charcoal but didn't because I was a little lazy. This is a pretty easy fudge recipe to do. I forgot to take pictures of it! Here is the recipe: 1 bag of Peanut butter chips (like chocolate chips but peanut butter flavor) 1 Cup of white chocolate chips 1 can sweetened condensed milk 1/2 cup of pecans 1 teaspoon of vanilla Pour the milk, and chips (both flavors) in a 10" Dutch Oven (you could use a regular sauce pan for this part if you want.) Cook on low stirring regularly until it is all melted. Butter the sides and bottom of a 10" oven then pour the melted mixture in. Put it in a cold place or in the fridge and let it set up. I waited about an hour. Then we sliced it up, and ate some of it. The rest of it went to a Halloween party at a Singles Ward that Byron goe...

Well we got to play butchers last week. Dallin went deer hunting with his Father in Law, and he brought home a deer.(He did specify that his FIL did shoot it) Now usually when I got a deer I would take it to a processing plant and have them butcher and package it. But Ken (FIL) said he would come over and help us do it. So we did it! We got a bunch of roasts, steaks, stew meat, and some jerky meat. We did take some pics of the process, but I decided that I better not blog those! Now we will be playing with some of the meat and learning some new things that I haven't made before. And of course we will be using the Dutch ovens with some of it also. I'll post some of those venison recipes as we do them. We will make some deer jerky, and also I want to try some summer sausage. So this should be fun!

Ok I got an email from my sister the other day and it had a bunch of desserts on it. Maybe you have all seen it or one similar. You pick on and then scroll down and it tells you about your personality etc. And of course at the top it says don't cheat and look at the bottom. Well the list of desserts they had it was kind of hard for me to pick. I wanted like pie or something different then what was shown. If I remember I think the choices were chocolate cake, strawberry shortcake, carrot cake, white cake with chocolate frosting, angel food cake, and probably a couple others I don't remember. Well I chose Carrot cake! But as I chose that I was thinking about my wife's carrot cake. I don't like some others that I have had in the past. Well anyways here is the question.....What is your favorite dessert? I'm always looking for ideas for upcoming cook-offs and I thought maybe your choices would be better than mine. I have a ton I want to try but their is never enough tim...

I've been working on a new Dutch Oven dessert recipe so I thought I would post it here to see if I could get any help on what I could add or take away. I may use this one in an upcoming cook-off. It is a Chocolate Pumpkin Tort. OK you'll notice by the picture that it has a Chocolate cookie crumb crust that happens to be mint flavored. (My kids really liked it so that may stay.) Then the next layer is melted Chocolate chips. They were milk chocolate. The original recipe calls for semi sweet. And then a pumpkin pie over it. Here are the things I may change, let me know what you think? I was thinking of changing the Chocolate Chips to white chocolate, to give a good contrast in color when you slice it, then on the top I would swirl or stripe some chocolate chips. Maybe a dab of whipped cream with some pumpkin pie spice on it? What do you think? Remember its all done in a dutch ovens. I'll post the recipe as soon as I'm. done with the practicing and changing. Here is anothe...

Ok on Saturday I did something I haven't ever done before that I thought would be fun to pass on......I went to an Auction! Yep just what you think of going through your mind right now. The auctioneer was standing up on their podium and talking fast. My Youngest brother called me and said you might be interested in this, so I grabbed Katie and we went over! When you get there you were able to look at all the items that were going to be auctioned. It happened to be a sporting goods auction of some store that had closed down or something. They had sleeping bags, tents, waders, fishing poles, DUTCH OVENS, stoves and all kinds of things. (Yes I know I should have let all of you know about it, but it happened too fast) Katie and I went around the warehouse and marked a sheet of the things we might be interested in. Then we got registered so that we could bid. The auctioneers add 10% to your merchandise that you purchase. I had a bunch of things marked so we sat down and found out what ...

Ok this post will let you know just how crazy this Cromer house is!! Most of you know that we had to put down our old dog about a year ago or so. (Cheyenne was her name) I thought our back yard was looking pretty good without a big dog around. Well a couple of months back a friend of mine at work (Tony) told me that some friends of his had some great looking puppies available that live by him in Draper. Well I went to check it out with him. I didn't tell any of the family what I was doing :) We got there and I think they had like 2 little chocolate lab females and 4 other black labs. Darn I latched on to one of the chocolate ones. They were pretty cute but they were a muddy mess. (it was raining that day). Well needless to say I brought one home. Everyone was really excited especially Nicole. She really missed Cheyenne. After a month or so a friend of Dallin found a white lab. They looked all over for an owner and checked to see if it was micro chipped but the could find nothin...

Well Dallin and I were in a Cook-off this past weekend At Cabela's in Lehi. There were six teams entered. We got there about 7:30Am to set-up and get things ready. You can't start anything until the starting time. (Which was 9:00) We had what they call a cook's meeting at 8:30 and go over all of the time frames etc. any rules that need talked about and that kind of thing. They gave us a few items just for coming. It was a three pot cook off IE: Main course, Bread (Yeast), and a Dessert. We cooked a Cherry Glazed Pork Tenderloin for our main course, Italian Stuffed Rolls for our bread, and what we call ohh lala Cinnamon Chocolate Cake . They have time frames for everything that is one of the unique things or differences in cooking in a competition. Dessert was due at 12:00, Bread was due at 1:00, and the Main course at 2:00. The awards were at 3:00pm The Cabela's Cook-off is kind of fun because they give gift cards for the prizes. Well we had FUN! But we didn't take...

Well "our baby girl" just hit another great milestone I thought I would share it. She received her YW recognition award for getting all of her personal progress completed at Church. She has worked very hard through the summer to finish it up, because she is done in the YW program. She always laughs about my blogging so I'll show her and put her in "The Blog". :) It was nice we had dinner and the program.

Ok we had quite the Family Night tonight (Monday 22nd) It started pretty early about 4:00PM Jamie and Dallin decided they needed some Spaghetti Sauce. Katie and Ryan helped do some last Saturday. Tomatoes were procured and were waiting for us all when we got home from work.So we began setting up, slicing, straining, cooking, bottling, sealing, and stacking. Sure sounds easy huh? It really is a pretty good family activity. We started doing it years ago now none of the family likes the store stuff so we have to do it. It is pretty convenient though. We have lots of great neighbors that pass us tomatoes and we use the farmers market to purchase them also. ( The new puppies ate our tomatoes and the plant!) Katie and Ryan went and got us dinner while we kept up on the Sauce. We also made some pizza sauce that we have never done before. We will have to try that out later this week. Well here is the pics of our fun! Spaghetti Sauce

Well last night we were asked to help do some Dutch Oven cooking at the Grand Re-opening of the Pioneer Craft House in South Salt Lake. It was fun! A bunch of local folks were asked to come over and do some cooking. Their were people cooking Scones , Taco Soup , Cobblers , Apple Streusel Cake , while they were having a ceremony to re-open the Craft house. Its a fun place to visit and see all the exhibits. I guess they have puppet shows there and movies also on the weekends. Connie and I cooked three different things, two of them we had never done before. (Good time to practice) We cooked a Peach Crisp one of our old stand-bys that we are always ready to cook because Connie bottles the filling, and we keep it in our storage. We also cooked a Pineapple Blueberry Cobbler. They both turned out GREAT! My favorite though was a Peach Plum Crisp that we put together. Fresh plums that Cameron had just picked the night before. I'll put recipes on as soon as I figure it out. Click on Pioneer ...

We had some fun about a month ago that I thought I would share around. On August 5th we had a Block Party . Yep we haven't had one of those for awhile. The family was out on the lawn and talking with some of the neighbors and we decided we would have a block party. Well it so happens that is was about the same time frame as the "Night out Against Crime". So I contacted the City of South Salt Lake and arranged with officer Heddlesten to be able to block off our street. He got everything Ok'd through the city and we started to go to work on it. I had a great bunch of folks that helped out. (Thanks everyone). :) Well I won't bore you with all the details but we had a blast! We covered both sides of Adams Street and both sides of 500 East from Welby to 2700 South. I counted about 110 people there throughout the night. It was Pot luck so we had a little bit of everything. (except Dutch oven) We got to meet a lot of new people that i didn't know before. We had a cou...

Well here we go! I don't know exactly what I'm doing but I'm going to give it a try. I read enough Blogs now that I should be doing one. I guess you could consider me a major lurker. Well anyways welcome to "Our World". It should be fun. We have a lot of different things going on so I'll just start it up and get going. I first thought this would just be about Dutch Oven cooking because that seems to be a big focus in my life right now. but I do believe we will try and mix it up a little. I think that will work the best and see where it goes. I do hope to be putting on a bunch of my Dutch Oven Adventures though. We have lots of different things we cook now so hopefully it should be of interest. I will of course add some recipes and instructions, and yes I will put in some easy ones for you beginners. I'll try and keep you filled in on what's going on around the Cromer Compound (maybe not a good word?) also. Well here we go. I hope I have it set right so...