marie-madeline studio

Smaaaaack!

Boiled Custard - "SMACK"

- 2 cups sugar

- 6 rounded tablespoons flour

- 6 egg yolks

Put in a pot, and mix, blending with just enough milk to make a paste (sorta gravy-ish). Add...

- 4 cups milk

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly.  When thickened add...

-2 teaspoons vanilla

- 1 stick butter

Stir well.  Eat! (That's the best part, right?) Tastes fabulous warm or cold!  Great over chocolate cake or (like we did here) with oreos crumbled over the top.

Want chocolate custard? --- Add 2 tablespoons cocoa to sugar

Want egg custard? --- Add ground nutmeg

Want coconut custard? --- Add 1 cup coconut

Want to make a pie out of it? --- It fills up two!

 

Happy Smacking!

xo the Long ladies

pardon us...

...while we talk about cheese.

Yes, you read that correctly.  You see, we just have to take a moment and rave about our wonderful new cheese.  In our house, cheese is a must-have staple.  It's like running out of stick butter or chocolate chips (just ask Abigail) or milk-- no good.  We've always been big cheese eaters.  In fact, if you slapped some mozzerella or cheddar on a rock, we would probably eat it.  And oh my.  It makes everything taste better.  Or, in some cases, it makes somethings bearable.  The amount the recipe calls for?  Well, that's just never enough.  You always need at least 1/2 a cup more. 

See?  Once we get started it's hard to stop.

Okay... that was just a little background for you so it's time to move forward.  Some of our good friends (that live in another state-- just miles away) just happened to start making their own raw cheese.  Enter jumping-for-joy excitement.  Our particular favorite, naturally, is their mozzerella variety as it's wonderful on burritos and our pizza.  It makes the pizza even better (we hardly thought it was possible).  Is there anyone out there that doesn't like cheese??

Thanks for listening to our cheese raving.  We plan to be back with wedding pictures or the giveaway winner soon!

xox the Long ladies 

per request: The official M&M cookie recipe!

We had a request for our M&M cookie recipe --- here it is!  Please give it a try... they are deliciously, mouth-wateringly yummy.  Of course, we always double this recipe.  That way there's plenty of dough to eat, and a fair amount to cook too! 

M&M Cookies

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

1 cup shortening - we use butter

2 eggs

3 - 3 1/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup M&Ms - we'll tell the truth.  We never measure our M&Ms, and probably put in quite a bit more than it calls for!

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Cream sugars and shortening together.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Mix in flour, baking soda, and salt.  Drop on cookie sheet.*  Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes.  Make sure not to overbake!

*By the way, these cookies really spread out when you're baking them, so if you don't want monster M&M cookies the size of your face, we'd recommend making the dough balls quite small... about the size of a golf ball.

Happy eating!

xo the Long ladies

A day (or two) to bake.

It just wouldn't be right to not take some time off from the normal day-to-day happenings and bake for Christmas. 

Of course, that meant making some puppy chow, icebox oatmeal cookies, traditional sugar cookies, peanut butter balls, peanut & chocolate clusters, fondant, peanut butter fudge, and M&M cookies.  Yes, that's quite a bit.  My hands still smell like vanilla.

Would you believe we forgot to get sprinkles when we went to the store??  Our bad.  It was quite sad, as we always like to use green & red sprinkles, plus red hots.  We made up for it by scrouging around in the cabinet for green sprinkles left over from last year.  Oh, and a few sugar cookies boast multi-colored sprinkles left over from our ice cream sundae desserts. 

And, naturally, while we cooked we ate cookie dough before it was baked, sipped coke, and listened to some of our favorite Christmas songs from years past, along with a new one or two.

xoxo us

a handmade Christmas

These days, with Christmas only days away, there are so many things we all want to do for each other... buy for someone, bake for someone, sew for someone.  As can be guessed, sewing has always played a big part in our Christmas gift giving.  We have fond memories of the matching flannel pajama + quilts sets lovingly made by Mom, blankets (for us and baby dolls), outfits (always).  For some reason the pj, quilt sets are extra well-remembered.  They made such an impression --- everyone had their own special floral flannel.  They all went together, yet none of them matched.  And, Mom remembers sweetly the life-size (well, it was life-size then) doll with blonde yarn hair and the cozy alligator sleeping bags (seen above - Mom's on the left, Aunt Karrie on the right), complete with white ric rac teeth, felt eyes, and lined in red perfect-for-the-inside-of-an-alligator's-mouth flannel.

Sadly, we can't make as many handmade Christmas gifts as we'd like, but stitching up love for someone else is still close to our hearts.  We love to see others make something special for someone that's special to them.  There's nothing like it. 

So, we wanted to come up with a few ideas to give all of you.  Ways to make some of our how-tos stretch even farther--- right into Christmas.

1. Braid a rug (Round, long, small, large.  Anyway--- they're pretty.)

2. Make a messenger bag (They can be perfectly "specialized" with different fabrics.)

3. Bake cinnamon rolls (These look so cute in round foil pans with ribbon wrapped around them.)

4. Make a set of coasters (C'mon.  Everybody loves pretty coasters.)

5. Sew up a Christmas-y skirt (Pretty perfection.)

6. You could always do some handstitching to brighten up a shirt. (It would even look good matching the Christmas skirt!)

7. Give a batch of yummy hot chocolate mix (So good and simple as pie!)

8. Make pillowcases (Everybody uses them, right?)

9. Try extra-fun pillowcases (If plain ones don't suit your fancy.)

10. Stitch up a pretty fabric flower (They look lovely in groups of three too!)

Of course, if none of these seem quite right, we'll forever recommend an alligator sleeping bag.  We can all say that, since every single one of us has slept in one at some time.  There's nothing like them. 

Happy sewing and lots of love from our cozy home~

xoxo us

A slice of Thanksgiving

Tuesday was frying chicken.  Today was pie + rolls.  Tomorrow is everything else.

Having pie on Thanksgiving is just an absolute must!  It was our first time trying to make our own cherry pie.  Cherry pies always remind us of our (great) Aunt Mary, who died a couple years ago.  She made the best pies in the world, especially cherry.  She was so sweet, and we know there's no way our pie could even taste half as good as hers.

A word about fried chicken.... we know, we know.  Traditionally everyone's supposed to have turkey.  Well, we never quite caught onto that, as Dad dislikes turkey (Mom too).  So, we cook a lot of other things --- roast, chicken fried steak.  This year it's fried chicken.

We know there's so many things to be happily grateful to Christ for!  If we started naming them all we might just spill over.

Have a very beautiful Thanksgiving, All!

With much love and thank yous~ Kristie, Apphia, Achaia, Abigail, & Abiah

 

PS.  We plan to be back Friday or Saturday with the details of our After-Thanksgiving-Happy-December sale, so if you're not a newsletter subscriber be sure to check back! xx

recipe try-outs

As of late, we've been having fun trying out some new recipes.  It seems like they've just been popping out of the woodwork and calling our name.  It probably helps that we have several men in this house who are always up for a new food-related-item.  Ahem.

So, enter our try at Friday Cookies {above}.  Most of you probably have no idea what a Friday cookie is.  That's okay!  Most of the time they fall under the heading of "Soft Lofthouse cookies" or "Those cute cookies with sprinkles that you get at the store, with lots of icing".  Well, we've taken up calling them Friday cookies, as we used to get them every single Friday. (We've completely grown out of that.  Healthy reasons helped too.)  When we found this recipe, we knew it was a must try.  And, what do you know??  They were ready to eat with Friday night movies.  Ahh....  Now, a word on the taste.  They aren't exactly like the store-bought variety, but real close (and very yummy).  Oh!  The recipe calls for letting them sit for at least 3 hours for the flavors to blend together.  We'd definitely second that.  In fact, they taste even better after a couple of days.

Another new try-out was this Peanut Butter Chocolate dessert.  It's really yummy too.  The recipe calls for a 9x9 pan, and I made it in a 6x11, or something like that.  Let's just say, it's a nice hearty, tall dessert.  Sorry we didn't get a picture of it almost running over the sides of the pan.  My personal opinion was that there was a little too much cream cheese in one of the layers, so I may try and tweak it a little.  Truthfully, we aren't big cream cheese in dessert eaters around here.  (Except for some of the boys that hardly know what cream cheese is, let alone what is exactly tastes like...)

Oh, and we did try these Olive Garden style breadsticks, and they were really really good! Next up to try might be this, or this, or this, or this.  Oh, and these are so cute too!  We'll probably never get around to trying these, though they are so terribly lovely we might just make them for decoration... what do you think?  We better stop right now.  We must have food on the brain!

xxx Kristie, Apphia, Achaia, Abigail, & Abiah.... who are trying to be adventuresome cooks

Holiday.

 

 

 

 

Last Saturday we hosted a fun (girls only) party and had our great friends, Darison & Emerson over.  We had so much fun!  The day included miniature pizzas (they got to do all the making themselves), soda out of fun glasses (thanks, Jenny!), and super duper ice cream sundaes... with more toppings than you can imagine, naturally.  We finished the day off by playing a number of different games.  Thanks so much for coming over, Dare and Em!  We cannot wait to do it again!

We plan on being gone on a little holiday, so it will be quiet around here until September.  (Unless, of course, we decide to pop in and say hello while we're gone!)  Happy day to all of you!                         xxx the Long ladies

 

Enjoying a favorite {again}

 
Turtle Dessert

24 ice cream sandwiches

1 (12 1/4 oz.) jar caramel topping

1 1/4 cup toasted chopped pecans

1 (12 oz.) thawed Cool Whip

1 (12 1/4 oz.) jar hot fudge topping- heated

Place 12 ice cream sandwiches in a 9 x 13 baking dish.  Spread evenly with caramel topping and sprinkle with 1 cup pecans.  Top with 2 cups Cool Whip and remaining ice cream sandwiches.  Spread remaining Cool Whip evenly over sandwiches.  Sprinkle with rest of pecans.  Cover and freeze for at least 2 hours.  Let stand 5 minutes before serving.  Cut into squares.  Drizzle with fudge topping.  Eat!

After our dear Mamie served this dessert to us a few years ago, we knew we had to have the recipe!  However, we'd forgotten it for a year or two (confident it got completely lost in the much-too-large dessert category in our recipe box. Ahem.).  Sunday night company meant pulling out a dessert, and we came up with this!  Boy, are we ever glad we rediscovered it.  It's easy to make + looks so pretty when cut into squares + soooo yummy.  Enjoy!

xxx the Long ladies

PS  Thanks so much for your sweet comments about our vintage goodies!  We did post back a comment to a couple of you! xx 

monkey business.

 

There's something about this ooey-gooey cinnamon-y bread that makes it perfect for special occasions or Saturday mornings.  And the fact that it goes together in a snap is enough to make us happy.  We like to serve it for breakfast every holiday, with a big glass of milk!

Monkey Bread

20 frozen dinner rolls (we like Rhodes best)

3/4 to 1 c. brown sugar

1/2 pkg. (or more) cook and serve vanilla pudding

1-1/2 tsp. cinnamon

6 TBSP butter

Coat a bundt pan thoroughly with cooking spray.  Place your frozen rolls in the bottom of the pan.  Sprinkle over rolls - brown sugar, pudding, cinnamon.  Top it all off with small chunks of butter.  (You can use more butter if you like your bread more syrup-y.)  Cover bundt pan with greased waxed paper and place in a warm area overnight.  In the morning, bake your Monkey Bread at 325 degrees for 25-30 minutes.  While hot, flip your bread onto a pretty platter, and scoop any gooey goodness out on top of the bread.  Enjoy!

We always double this.  Somehow, one bundt pan is never enough.

xo, the Long ladies

Ps. This bread has been known to fall over the sides of the pan.  We would suggest popping an empty cookie sheet onto the oven shelf below.  (To prevent any monkey business, you know.)