I have to tell you I love how you format your videos, with the book look and chat, and how you talk to us, your audience. How you offer the suggested products and videos is so kind and gentle, just sharing instead of hard selling. I so appreciate your fun and soft demeanor. Thank you! 🧡🖤🧡🖤🧡
Your comment made me so happy. At one time I almost stopped doing the cookbook chats! Glad you enjoy them. Also, I genuinely want to share the things I love and use frequently but never want to come across as pushy. Thank you for your kindness!
What a fun episode! My mom gave me this cookbook in 1978 for my 19th birthday. 46 years later, it's still the cookbook I grab. Love the Halloween theme! Always a joy to watch. Thank you for sharing your talents with us.🎃🙂
The pepper’s faces were so well worth carving! I have an orange 🫑 in my fridge now and this morning I precooked ground beef with 🥫 tomato sauce, cabbage slaw and corn (trying to do something different) so this will be perfect for dinner!
1. Stuffed Peppers - You can always use Italian Sausage and pasta sauce to give it a little more flavor (also Panko bread crumbs on top for added depth). 2. Cheese Balls - A thought for the stem would be to use a celery stick or pretzel sticks (and you can eat them as an added benefit). 3. Pumpkin Cookies - Really cute, no suggestions.
My mom had that version of Betty Crocker's cook book, and she gave it to me when I moved out on my own. It's the foundation of my cooking education. It's still my go-to for certain recipes: sweet and sour meatballs, poultry stuffing, pie crust. I haven't actually tried any of the recipes made in this video, although I've probably looked at them a literal thousand times. 😊
amazing how just a few deft knife cuts perfectly captures the classic comical jack-o-lantern 🎃 look. back when i was a kid my grandma would occasionally make ground beef stuffed into green bell peppers 🫑 , which were way too pungent for my 7 year old palate. i’m sure if she had used orange bell peppers i would have loved them. watching you prepare them made me think of putting cumin and chili powder for a tex-mex taste, and topping it with crema or queso fresco. i love how you curate your videos with your recipe books, it is as interesting as the food you make is delicious. bravo, anna 😊
My very first cookbook. It's the 1969 high school text version from Home Ec class and the cookbook I've used for nearly 50 years. I have many other cookbooks now, but it's still a favorite that's right in the middle of the shelf with others I frequently use. Great vid as always Anna.
Hahaha thank you! That's so funny. I remember watching an episode of Keeping Up Appearances where Hyacinth tells someone 'Yes, you need real skill to master cling film!' I guess it really stuck with me. 😂
One of my favorite cookbooks I have is a similar looking binder Betty Crocker Cookbook, but printed in the 80’s. I might make a cheese ball like that to bring to Thanksgiving. So cute!! Thanks for sharing! ❤
My favorite cookies in life were my mom's pumpkin chocolate chip ones. They had no orange. Randomly, they might have oatmeal, or nuts as well. Those were great, too. They weren't so tiny as yours, and they did spread much more. They were flatter, too. But oh my god, they were sublime.
Love the hat!!! I have been using that cookbook since 1980 ❤🎃🍁 My kids are 40,35,25 and every year, I make them a Halloween stocking ❤❤❤ we’ve always celebrated the scary season big from huge yard displays to making goodie bags for each little goblin who comes to the door 💀💀 Thanks Anna and tell your mom Happy Halloween!!!
This is such a cute video! From the theme to the hat and the apron! I will be making alllll of my stuffed peppers with a jack-o-lantern 🎃 face from now on regardless of the time of year, that are so cute!!
OMG! Those stuffed peppers are darling! Stuffed peppers like this (well, never _this fun_!) were such a part of Autumn and even October dinners growing up. What else to do with all those green peppers in the garden in the late fall? Yum! So great! AHHH! The pumpkin cheeseball! Love it! Pumpkin cookies! (Little Hallowe’en me is losing it! 🎃) What a fun Hallowe’en video, Anna! Wishing you a very fun, safe, and Happy Hallowe’en! 🍁🎃😃✨
Your videos always make me so happy. They feel like a warm hug and remind me of cooking with my mom. She was a fan of Betty too. Thank you for all you do!
Hi gal. You're so welcoming and easy to learn from and you seem to be so kind. Im envious of you. Im nearly 100 and wish that I'd not have been so timid when it came to living life. Luv ya gal. 😊
Fun recipes! I agree, the crushed cheese crackers would add a nice touch to the cheese ball. The revised edition of Betty's cookbook was one of my first cookbooks as an adult and I used it so much, it's falling apart. Mine has a metal spring binding. I had Betty's 1965 Boys and Girls cookbook as a child. (I just realized that her adding "boys" was forward thinking since so many things in the 1960s were girly, especially regarding homemaking.) Thank you!
Maybe could add orange food coloring mixed into cheese ball mixture before forming for fall season ideas. Red food coloring for valentines or Christmas ideas. Yellow food coloring for Easter. Green food coloring for St. Patty. I enjoyed the three recipe ideas very creative. Loved the budget friendliness and looked delicious too. Thanks again for a fun creative video. Love from long time Ky Sub. 💙👍
When I'm watching you make the cheese ball, it's giving me an idea - What if you used it to fill the inside of a small baked pumpkin, that you carved a face into? That way when people spread the cheese, they could also use the spreading knife to cut off small chunks of cooked pumpkin along with the cheese, to put on their crackers. I don't know if the particular cheese mixture in this video would necessarily be the best one to use for something like that, but I'm sure there are other cheese blends that would taste great with pumpkin. I wonder if there are recipes for something like this, where you bake the dip inside the pumpkin.
My grandmother’s stuffed pepper recipe has the same ingredients, but nothing is cooked ahead of time . Stuff the peppers with the raw ingredient and simmer until the meat is done. Very similar to stuffed cabbage.
Sounds like how my mom made stuffed peppers except she didn't put rice in hers, they were meat stuffed peppers and rice was served on the side. I was not a fan. They were greasy and disgusting and I burped bell pepper for days afterwards.
Cute! My mom got us kids to eat stuffed green peppers back in the day by boiling the peppers first, as you mentioned, and instead of tomato sauce, she'd open a can of tomato soup, top them well and bake under foil. The sweeter tomato soup went well with the peppers. No cheese topping for us, but we usually had cheesy macaroni as a side, made a great combo.
It just so happens I'm making stuffed peppers as I watch this, and using orange peppers for mine as well because they felt festive! Love it. I have this cookbook and it's one of my favs. Highly recommend the sausage brown rice casserole on p. 54 and the brown sugar drop cookies on p.268, specifically the chocolate chip cherry ones- WITH the glaze! I make them with salted butter rather than shortening and they're divine. Think I may try those pumpkin ones but will cut back on the orange!
Great ideas! Those cookies are my favorites. I took them to work and they were inhaled. LOL. As for the cheeseball, I line a small bowl with plastic wrap and put the mixture in it so it is easier to form. The bowl does most of the work. The rubber band idea is genius!
Anna your stuffed peppers are so cute!!! Now that you've tried the recipe I was thinking that making these with a Mexican twist (chili powder and salsa to season, sharp cheddar and Monterey jack to top) would be so yummy too! So glad you're healing up well after your surgery!!!
I'm feeling a replay/ cook-along this week!!!!! Those peppers are ADORABLE (page 291 in the 1976 BCC). When I actually make stuffed peppers, I just load it up with a mixture of raw beef, bread crumbs, egg, onion, garlic, no rice, oregano, basil, romano. I don't boil the peppers. I cover them in tomato sauce, stick them in an oiled dutch oven with a lid, and pop them in a low oven (300°) for an hour, check, maybe another half-hour, check, until soft but not smushy. But it's Betty Crocker, and Betty isn't known for spiciness. Her guacamole has no garlic! You can never go wrong with a cheese ball! Very cute (page 18, 1976 ed). Betty didn't bother with pumpkin cookies in 1976. Bummer! Definitely a replay and cook-along! Have a great week, and thank you, Anna!
I saw Catherine from Catherines Plates do the peppers last week and she actually did boil hers and i thought then it was too much. I like a little crunch in my peppers!!! Ill be sending your cookbook out this week. Im so excited for you to get it!!!❤❤❤❤
Green peppers are heartier than orange peppers, so the boiling time might actually be necessary. Also, I made these same pumpkin peppers one year for my family and it was a hit.
Anna, I have the 1976 version of the Betty Crocker 's Cookbook and checked for the recipes you made. Only the stuffed peppers were in my edition. It wasn't exactly the same; missing the mozzarella topping. I think if I were making them, I'd include the cheese. I thought they might be good using Italian sausage for the filling instead of ground beef. When you did the book review and mentioned the coconut chews you made for one of your videos, I looked for them in my cookbook and they were there as a variation of Pecan Fingers. I found it interesting to compare the different versions of the cookbooks. Many of the things you mentioned in your review were similar but lots of differences roo. Love your videos and look forward to them each week. Take care.
I love your videos. My husband just bought me the 1986 version of your cookbook over the weekend from a thrift store. I am very excited to start cooking from it!
If not using the tops of the peppers, I cut them up from around the stem and cook w the beef. It bulks the mix up and no waste. Love your videos as always!!
So fun! I always make a pot of chili on Halloween. One year, I made cupcakes with Milano cookies as tombstones. They were great right away but after a day or two, the moisture from the cake migrated to the Milanos.
Love the peppers so cute ❤❤ To get my peppers to stand up I just shave each hump at the bottom being careful not to go all the way through and if you do, use that piece and put it in the inside to cover the hole❤
Love the stuffed Jack-o-peppers! Going to be making these this weekend…also making some mummies in a blanket with cut up strips of crescent roll dough!
THAT HAT!!! 😍I love it so much! I have no idea how to sew or anything like that but I’ve always wanted to learn maybe this hat is my sign. lol! Great video as always!
I think it would be a great sewing project for beginners. The pattern has great written instructions but also comes with access to a video tutorial. Very helpful!
Love your channel!! I bet you could use some very thinly sliced deli cheddar (or just some sargento) cut into shapes to fit the pumpkin after you've taken the rubber bands off.
Recently found your channel and I ❤ it! My mom still has some of these cool, old cookbooks. My all time favorite is the old Betty Crocker Cooky Book! I love that you also use old dishes to cook with. They are the best! Also, I love cheese too! 😉 🧀
@Cooking_the_Books, Anna, You’re a Halloween GENIUS! The Orange stuffed peppers with pumpkin faces were Adorable! The Cheeseball looked so much like a pumpkin with the added touches you made 🎃. The Pumpkin Cookies looked delectable! I LOVE the books & RECIPES you pick as well as the dishes , tableware, apron, hat & cooking utensils. Not to mention the videos! 👍🏽Hoping you make MORE FALL ITEMS. 🍂🧡🍁~Anita
That's my wedding cookbook and it has been well used over the years. (I've had to do massive repairs to it.) Hubby didn't like the stuffed pepper recipe but I used green peppers and neither of us really are fans of those it turned out. Your little pepper jack-o'-lanterns were adorable. Your cheese ball was really cute, too bad you didn't have some kitchen twine instead of the rubber bands. Brilliant use of the pepper stem. I always made those pumpkin cookies with store bought dried orange peel which doesn't have the strong flavor of fresh. The browned butter glaze is really good too. This was so much fun to watch, thank you for all your hard work making it.
