This is an easy and tasty homemade BBQ sauce from Smuckers.com (the jelly people).

1 cup ketchup
1/2 cup grape jelly
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tsp ground mustard
1/4 cayenne or black pepper

Mix all ingredients well in a medium mixing bowl. If jelly has been refrigerated, warm in the microwave before using. Divide sauce in half, using the first have to coat or baste. Warm the second half in a small saucepan and serve as dipping sauce.

Variations:

Honey BBQ or Maple BBQ
Add 1/4 tsp salt and either 1 tbsp honey or pure maple syrup.

Blackberry BBQ
Substitute blackberry jam for grape jelly.

Less Sugar
Use low sugar ketchup and sugar free jelly or jam.

This is another great no-bake recipe, and it only takes 5 ingredients and 1 large saucepan to make.

2 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks)
2/3 cup (5 fl oz) evaporated milk
1 small package butterscotch instant pudding mix
3 1/2 cups quick oats

Combine sugar, butter, and evaporated milk in a large saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a full, rolling boil. Remove from heat.

Stir in instant pudding mix. Add quick oats and stir well to coat. Drop on to wax paper. These can cool on the counter top or in the refrigerator.

This is a quick and easy way to make some tasty cookies right on the stove! I’m not sure where my mom got the original recipes, but we’ve been making them for years.

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups quick oats

Combine sugar, cocoa, butter, and milk in a large saucepan. Mix well and bring to a full, rolling boil. Boil 1 minute and remove from heat.

Add peanut butter and vanilla and stir well. Add quick oats, stirring to coat all of the oats. Drop on to wax paper. These can cool on the counter top or in the refrigerator.

I purchased the book “No-Bake Cookies” because I wanted to find my mom’s old recipes for no-bake cookies. The book, while it had tons of other great recipes, did not include any recipes that came close to the no-bake cookies I love. When I was growing up, I used to make Chocolate Oatmeal No-Bake Cookies because it was one of the only things in my mom’s cookbook that didn’t involve using the oven, just one big pot on the stove top.

Occasionally, my mom would make a different version of the no-bake cookies. These extra special cookies were butterscotch, not chocolate. Again, this recipe was not in my new “No-Bake Cookies” cookbook, and I was quite disappointed. I’ve searched all the cooking websites several times trying to find a recipe that could produce similar cookies, always with no results.

As luck would have it, my mom still has her old hand-written cookbook. I found two recipes that I had thought were gone forever: Chocolate Oatmeal No-Bake Cookies and Butterscotch Oatmeal No-Bake Cookies. Now that I have these recipes, I plan on stashing them securely in between the pages of my own cookbook and here online.

Here’s a fun & festive variation of my favorite party drink. I’ve had sangria served in a variety of glasses, but I find plain drinking glasses work best. This works with dry wine or semi-sweet wine, my recommendation is St. Julian’s Simply Red.

1 bottle (750 ml) red wine
1 cup orange juice
2 oz (2 shots) white rum
1 lemon, thinly sliced
1 lime, thinly sliced
1 cup halved strawberries
ice cubes
additional fruit for garnish, if desired

Place sliced fruit in a large punch bowl or pitcher. Add orange juice then red wine and rum. Stir well (it’s okay if the fruit gets crushed). Chill for at least 2 hours.

Remove fruit from sangria and place in serving glasses with ice cubes. Pour sangria over fruit and ice. Garnish with additional fruit as desired.

To make White Sangria, use white or blush table wine and substitute Peach Schnapps for rum.

Try mixing in other seasonal fruit, such as raspberries, watermelon, or peaches. Top with maraschino cherries and rim glasses with sugar!