Are your children driving you nuts? Try Grandma’s recipe for Cooked Playdo.

• 1 cup flour ( I used organic )
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1 cup water
• 1 Tablespoon Olive oil
• 2 teaspoons Cream of Tartar

Measure and stir together all ingredients in a medium saucepan. Here’s my granddaughter stirring things up.

Have an adult cook the mixture over medium heat.

Keep stirring until the mixture comes together like this.

The heat binds the ingredients together. There is a residue left on the bottom of the pan. This will come out easily when you soak the pan in water later to clean it. No harm done.

Carefully turn out the hot Playdo onto a countertop. Knead until smooth. Color with your favorite food coloring by making an indentation in the dough, adding a few drops of color, and kneading it into the Playdo.

Once cooled and colored it is ready for children to play with. This Playdo is much easier for children’s small hands to work. It’s also a nice way to teach children how to knead dough. Store this Playdo in a small zip top plastic bag. Make a new batch any time this one no longer seems fresh: about a month. Its the salt that keeps this Playdo safe. You can expect little ones to enjoy a salty lick from time to time. No harm done.

 

Easy, yummy, simple sugar cookies. They mix up quickly using a self-rising flour.  Sturdy and crisp, these sugar cookies make a wonderful base for ‘just-a-little’ frosting. Seriously, that’s all you need…

Add a glass of cold milk and I dare you to stop at just one! ©thepalacegreen

Simply Sugar Cookies – quick!

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups self-rising flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter at room temperature
• 1 egg at room temperature
• 1 tsp. good vanilla
• 1 Tablespoon milk

Additional flour for rolling out the dough.

MIX:  In a medium mixing bowl beat together the butter and sugar. Beat in the egg. Stir in the vanilla. Blend the self-rising flour into this wet mixture and add the tablespoon of milk to help incorporate the flour. If necessary add a scant more milk. Cover the dough with plastic wrap after gathering it up into a loose ball. Chill 30 minutes or store up to 3 days in the refrigerator.

SHAPE:  When ready to bake the cookies, remove the dough from the refrigerator and let it rest to make it workable ( about 15 minutes ).  On a clean floured surface, roll out the dough to 1/8 inch or so thickness. Cut out the cookies into desired shapes using cookie cutters.

BAKE:  Preheat the oven to 400° (375° convection oven.) Bake on a very lightly greased baking sheet for 6 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Watch carefully for over-browning.  As the sheets begin to heat up with subsequent batches of cookies the baking time necessary will reduce.

SERVE:  These babies are best decorated with butter cream frosting. A mere ruffling of icing along the outer edges will do the trick. The cookies are crisp, the frosting is soft…oh my.  Add a glass of cold milk and these are heavenly.

 

 

Our family treasures this recipe from the Swedish heritage of my husband. His grandmother was the first Swedish American in the family. She was born to Swedish immigrants living in the Chicago area. This was her recipe. I’ve never seen a rye bread recipe quite like this one. Swedish Rye Bread toast is wonderful with PALACE GREEN® Fresh Raw Raspberry Freezer Jam.

Swedish Rye Bread – Traditional bread-making technique from the Palace Green®

makes 2 loaves 

In a small cup or bowl soften 2 packages traditional yeast (or 2 Tablespoons loose measure) in 1/2 cup warm water.

In a saucepan heat together on medium-low heat just until sugar and shortening are melted:

• 1 & 1/2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup strong flavored molasses
• 2 tsp. salt
• 2 Tbsp. Crisco (unflavored)

Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl stir together:

• 2 cups Rye flour
• 4 cups unbleached Bread flour, plus additional flour as needed

MIXING AND KNEADING: Cool the hot milk and sugar mixture. Then pour the warm milk – not hot, you will kill the yeast! …into the flour mixture. Stir. Now pour in the softened yeast mixture. Stir. Add additional bread flour as needed (up to a cup) by hand to gain a soft dough consistency. Dump out the dough onto a clean floured surface.  Knead until smooth and elastic, using additional flour to work out the stickiness. Shape into a ball. Place into a clean greased bowl, turning once to grease the top of the dough ball. Cover with a damp towel or lightly greased plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place till double in size (about 1 1/2 hours.) Punch down in bowl. Turn out onto a floured surface.

SHAPING AND SECOND RISE: Divide dough in half. Cover; let rest 10 minutes. Shape into two loaves and place into greased loaf pans. Cover again and let rise in pans till double (about 40 minutes.)

BAKING: Bake at 325° for one hour. Cover with foil the last 15 minutes if over-browning occurs. Loaves should sound hollow when tapped with the knuckles of your hand. Rest pans on their sides to cool then remove bread from pans; cool. Store in tightly sealed plastic bags. Makes 2 loaves.

SERVE: Slice and toast to serve. Delicious topped with our Fresh Raw Raspberry freezer jam.   ©thepalacegreen