Snowflake Sugar Cookies

Yesterday, I was a busy baking Elf making cookies as far as the eye could see. I couldn't wait to try out my new huge snowflake cookie cutter that my sister in law got me for Christmas. You can just use your favorite sugar cookie recipe or the one in the Better Crocker cookbook. The icing recipe I tried came from here.

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF WINTER!
And in case you missed it, be sure to see my Christmas home tour here~Rebecca

Cauliflower Two Ways {Pinned and Tried}

The food of this week apparently was Cauliflower. We are eating very healthy and trying out new recipes. This week I tried two new recipes I had pinned on Pinterest- one that we absolutely loved and one that didn't make the cut.

Number one was Creamy Cauliflower Sauce from pinchofyum.com. (Click for recipe). I used it as pasta sauce on veggie noodles with broccoli and chicken. (Side note: I was extra excited to try this out in my new Blentec blender with the "sauces" button, which worked flawlessly by the way. Not an endorsement, just love my blender!) I served it to my family without telling them what it was. They all told me it smelled amazing and then they tasted it- and LOVED it. They didn't even realize it was cauliflower sauce until after their plates were empty. We definitely will be making this again. And again times infinity.

Big mom hi-five in the air for me! Lindsay from pinchofyum also uses it for creamy garlic rice and chicken alfredo pizza sauce, which I would love to try.

via

The second recipe was basically substituting a cauliflower mixture for pizza crust. I used a cheesy cauliflower breadstick recipe I had pinned and basically made a pizza crust with it. I followed all the directions, multiplying times four to feed the family and putting it on a cookie sheet. After cooking for 40 min, I spread a little bit of red sauce on and sprinkled pizza seasoning and cheese over the top the same way I do homemade pizza. After cooling for a few minutes I cut with a pizza cutter into "breadsticks." Unfortunately, it didn't go over great. I liked the taste but the rest of the family thought the cauliflower taste was too strong. Also, even after all that baking, they still were limp and kind of like an omelet consistency. Maybe it needed to cook longer? I guess we'll never know since I won't be cooking it again :( But I praised my family for trying something new and humoring me! I served it with a delicious spinach salad so they weren't too starving :)

So those were our dinner adventures this week! Have you tried anything new lately?

~Rebecca

Kids' Mini Thanksgiving Chocolate Pudding Pies

Election Party

Last night we had an election party with some friends. We decorated with a patriotic/fall theme and everyone brought a treat to share. 

I made cupcakes:

I also made Crockpot Hot Chocolate, recipe found HERE, it was yummy and almost gone at the end of the night!

I also made these delish Coconut cookies, recipe found HERE.

And the best news: The election results were in our favor!!! YAY!!!

Have a great week!

Rebecca

Pinned and Tried: Cauliflower Chowder

The Rundown: a little creamy, delicious. Very similar to potato soup but very low carb. It was a hit, everyone liked it (especially with bacon!) 

Original recipe found HERE.

Grace's Corn Dogs {Kid Friendly, and Baked not Fried}

I just realized I've been doing a lot of recipes lately.  I dunno, I guess that's just what I've been up to. This weekend, my two oldest decided they would pick a new recipe from their kid's cookbook and make it this week (with mommy supervising, of course). First up: Corn Dogs.

We've never made these before. The recipe called for Grand's Corn Biscuits which we could not find at the store so I searched online for homemade batter. I ended up combining a few different recipes and then modifying it to fit what we wanted, ie: baked, not fried, no fancy ingredients, simple enough for a kid to do, etc.

This is what we came up with and 4 out of 6 taste testers thought they were delicious.

Grace's Corn Dogs

popsicle sticks

16 hot dogs (2 packages)

Combine 1 cup cornmeal, 2 cups flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper, 1/4 cup sugar, and 4 teaspoons baking powder. Stir in 1 egg and 1 cup milk.

Put some flour in a small bowl and roll dogs in flour to lightly coat (it helps the batter stick). Insert sticks into dogs and twist in batter, coating well. Place on greased cookie sheet. Bake 15 minutes at 350'. Serve with ketchup and mustard. Makes 16 corn dogs.

I think it would also be fun to cut the dogs into bite size pieces and dip in batter for appetizers.

It was fun having my daughter make these and seeing how proud she was when (mostly) everyone gobbled them up!

By the way, have you ever heard this song? (It keeps going through my head) "Corn dogs, corn dogs, they are so good to me! Corn dogs, corn dogs, they are so good to me! Good when they're hot! Good when they're cold! Good when they're fresh! Good when they're old! Corn dogs, corn dogs, they are so good to me!"

Have a great week!

We Are In Love With These Healthy Cookies! {Pinned and Tried: Guilt Free Oatmeal Cookies}

I pinned this recipe last week and have really been wanting homemade healthy snacks so I tried it out today. These are not "no bake" but they are just as easy and require no fancy equipment. I just used a fork to mash the bananas and mixed everything by hand with a bowl and spatula. The only thing I would add to the recipe is to mention to flatten them a little since they don't spread. (I always use my cookie scoop, thus the "mound" shape). Also I used a random bag of leftover white chips instead of chocolate or raisins.

So here it is:

Guilt Free Oatmeal Cookies

made with bananas and applesauce, no butter, sugar, flour or eggs.

3 ripe bananas, 1/3 c applesauce, 2 c oats, 3 tb milk, 1tsp vanilla, 1tsp cinnamon, 1/2 c raisins or choc chips.

Preheat oven to 360', combine all ingredients well, put on greased cookie sheet, bake 15-20 min. Made 2 dozen.

And just to prove their goodness, here are a few shots of us stuffing our faces with them!

original recipe found here:

http://www.favfamilyrecipes.com/2014/01/guilt-free-oatmeal-cookies.html

Happy St Patrick's Day: An Easy Green Treat {Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies} and a cute little Leprechaun.

We were looking for a new chocolate chip cookie recipe and I love them soft. I always check allrecipes.com because of the reviews. I found this one with simple ingredients and tried it out. I simply added about 5 drops of green food coloring for a St Patricks Day treat that was fun for the kids and did it "cookie bar" style by throwing it into a 9x13 pan because I was short on time. They turned out perfect and oh so yummy and soft! They were a hit with everyone- 5 stars in my book!

Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies from Allrecipes.com

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup shortening

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

2 cups all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine flour, soda and salt. In another bowl combine sugars, softened butter, shortening, and vanilla. Beat in egg. Gradually add flour mix, add chips. Bake 8-10 minutes or add to greased 9x13 pan and bake 20 min.

AND...... just for fun, here are a few pics of our little cutie.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, don't forget to wear green!

Easy Christmas Treats (With a Shoe theme!)

I was in charge of a Christmas / Shoe themed event for teenage girls at my church. This is what I came up with:

High-heel pull apart cupcakes:

Chocolate dipped nutella shoe decorated cookies:

And they were delicious to "boot"! :) Happy Christmas eating :)

Eggplant Parmesano / Natural Remedies for Labor Induction??

I have had several friends and some sources on the internet say that supposedly Eggplant Parmesan is supposed to help induce labor. Here I am, 4 days till due date still pregnant, so my awesome husband brought home an eggplant and made me this super delicious dish! It's worth a try, right?

I used the recipe found HERE 

I have never had Eggplant Parmesano, or eggplant at all for that matter so this was a new "adventure" for me. It was SOOOO good! So good, in fact, I told my husband it was the type of gourmet dish that would tempt me to become a vegetarian! I definitely recommend this dish and for you to check out this recipe over at The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

It's been about an hour since I indulged and I haven't gone into labor yet (ha!) but at least my tummy is full and happy :)

Happy Memorial Day, enjoy your holiday!

Merry Christmas Eve! {Reindeer Pancakes}

We made these super fun, easy pancakes for the kiddos for our traditonal Christmas family pancake breakfast this year. They were quite popular AND delicious :)

Black Cat Cookies

Feelin' like an awesome mom today 'cause I made 4 dozen Black Cat Cookies for my kids' Halloween school parties tomorrow!

I discovered this recipe online about 4 years ago when I was looking for something that was festive and made from simple stuff I had on hand. It easily became a fun tradtition and they are pretty tasty too.

For the recipe, you can go HERE.

Rebecca's Easy Chicken and Dumplings

For Soup:
Cube 1 very large chicken breast, or 2 -3 small ones into 3 cups of water in a pot. Cover and boil 20 min.
Add 2 cans cream of chicken soup, celery salt and pepper to taste, 1 cup frozen veggies, and dumplings. Cook about 6 min. uncovered. Serve soup in bowls with dumplings on top, and enjoy! Serves 6 adults.
For Dumplings:
Combine 2 cups flour, 3 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 cup cold butter, 1 cup milk. Drop by large spoonfulls on top of soup. They will still look moist on the outside after cooking but are done when cooked inside. Makes about 12-16. (This is actually my drop biscuit recipe and you can use this for yummy biscuits in the oven at 350' for 12 min also!)

Our Garden

 Beautiful sunflower my husband planted for me :)

My husband has spent a lot of time and hard work to get this garden going. We are finally starting to enjoy the fruits of his labors and it is not only rewarding but oh so delicious!

 green beans

zucchini bread

yukon gold potatoes

and much more to come!

Pinned and tried: Hard cooked eggs

According to this pin, if you cook eggs on the rack in the oven at 325 degrees 30 minutes, it makes for the creamiest hard cooked eggs and is Alton Brown's preferred method.
There were four problems with this: the grill in my oven was barely the right size to hold the eggs, in fact one of the very last ones I put on slid through and luckily I picked it up fast enough that only a little bit of cracked egg spilt all over and I was able to wipe it up quickly.
Second, it was tricky not only carefully setting them on the hot grill, but trying to figure out how to pick up the hot eggs as well. (I used a folded over dish towel and worked quicklu but carefully!)
Third, while the yolks were indeed the creamiest I'd had for hard cooked eggs, the outsides if the whites were rubbery. Hubby was not a fan.
Fourth: when I hard boil eggs, I add vinegar to the water which makes for easier peeling. With this method you obviously cant do that. It must have taken me at least 20 minutes to peel off tiny bit by tiny bit of shell off 18 eggs. I was going crazy!
Result: fail. It's back to hard boiled eggs for us.
Have you ever tried this? Did it work for you?

Easy Easter "Bunny Trail" Mix

Corn chex, raisins, pretzels, spring m&m's, teddy grahams, and marshmallows. Give kids a bag and let them fill it and mix it up! Yum!