Cream Cheese Cookies

When we would visit my in-laws in Cleveland, somehow I always managed to end up in their kitchen.

When they visited us, my mother-in-law ended up in our kitchen.
 

After every meal, my mother-in-law would bring out her tin of homemade goodies, usually kolache and chocolate chip cookies. She and my father-in-law called it, "bakery." I was recently looking through the many newspaper and magazine clippings of recipes that my mother-in-law had saved and found a cream cheese cookie recipe. I love cream cheese, so I thought it was worth making! In the directions it said, "this grand, adaptable dough can be dropped by spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet, put through a cookie press (if you're lucky enough to have one) or chilled until firm and then rolled with a rolling pin and cut with cookie cutters."  I love the part that talks about a cookie press and being lucky if you own one! When my "sous chef" saw me getting out the ingredients to make these last night, he came over to help me.  Since Dominic is still learning to crack an egg, I did the "separating" of the yolk from the white. I think he thought I was using some magic when I put just the yolk and not the white into one of the shells! Since I don't own a cookie press, we used the bottom of a drinking glass. Maybe I'll get "lucky" and the kids or the hubby will get me a cookie press for Mother's Day (hint, hint). These cookies are fine without frosting, but they are even better with it!

You can also make them a little bigger and add sprinkles - yummy!

 
Ingredients:

1 cup shortening
3 ounces cream cheese
1 cup white sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups white flour

In large bowl, put the shortening and cream cheese. Mix well by hand with a large spoon or with electric mixer until fluffy. Next, add the sugar, egg yolk, and vanilla extract and mix well again . Lastly, with a large spoon, add the flour, a half a cup at a time, until all the flour is well incorporated. Cover with plastic wrap and put into the fridge for about a half hour. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick spray and set aside. Roll the dough into 2 1/2 dozen equal sized balls or if you prefer bigger cookies, then roll into 15 equal sized balls. Flatten with the bottom of  a drinking glass and sprinkle a little white sugar on top if desired. Bake for 15 minutes or until the edges and the bottom of the cookies are starting to turn brown. Let them cool five minutes and the remove to wire rack to continue cooling.

Kolaches

Both of my in-laws were great cooks.  My mother-in-law made the world's best potato salad and chocolate chip cookies. My father-in-law made pork chops that were out of this world. He told me his recipe one time and I really wish I would have wrote it down!!  Kolaches, potica (nut roll), pierogi and Slovenian sausages were almost always on the "menu" when we went to Cleveland to visit.  I have tried to make both potica and pierogi and the end results have not been pretty.  I'm not even going to attempt to make the Slovenian sausage :)  Kolaches, on the other hand, are more up my baking "alley." Back a handful of Christmases ago, I was turning my house upside down looking for a kolache recipe because my mother-in-law was coming over to visit from her assisted living facility where she lived and we had promised her we would make kolaches.  She didn't know her recipe off the top of her head, so I was really scrambling to find a recipe that didn't use yeast! I finally found one in a Christmas cookbook and the hubby, Lauren and my mother-in-law had a good time baking together.  Good memories for sure:

My mother-in-law cut the dough into squares, but I found a 2-inch round biscuit cutter works just as well. My father-in-law will be gone nine years in April and we just passed the three-year anniversary of my mother-in-law's passing in January.  Even though my hubby doesn't talk about it much, I know that he misses them.  I'm going to surprise him when he comes home from work tonight with these kolaches.  Maybe it's time to try again to make potica and pierogi!!! I'll let you know how it turns out :)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

3 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 1/4 cups white flour

Strawberry preserves

1 tablespoon powdered sugar, optional

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and lightly spray two cookie sheets with non-stick spray.  Set aside. In medium bowl, put the butter and cream cheese and mix well with electric mixer or by hand until smooth.  Add the flour and combine well.  On a lightly floured counter or board, knead the dough about 10 times and then roll out to about 1/8 inch thick.  Cut out 24 circles with the round cutter and put 12 on each cookie sheet.  Put 1/4 teaspoon of strawberry preserves in the middle of each circle and fold the opposite sides together, pressing gently. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until the bottoms of the kolache are starting to brown. Remove immediately to wire rack.  When cool, sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired.  Makes 24 cookies.