Tag Archives: recipes

After School Snack: Strawberry Banana Yogurt Smoothies

11 Apr

Great for sore throats, warm weather, a healthy snack!

We had an unusually warm, hot actually, March this year. The weather broke all kinds of records and we loved the taste of summer that came during spring. It meant a couple of things for us though: First it meant that springtime allergies kicked in early, so everyone started with sore throats and runny noses in March instead of April. Second, it meant that the daily “can we get ice cream” and “can we get frozen lemonade” questions started early as well.

When I pick my kids up at school we drive by one of our city’s popular ice cream drive ups as well as past our favorite frozen lemonade stand. On occasion, on super hot summer days we’ll stop there after school as a treat, but I wasn’t really ready to start that in March. Not yet. It’s an expensive treat, one we don’t do too often.

One particularly hot afternoon, as an answer to their pleas, I decided to make smoothies, something I often do as an after school snack, but not usually in March. On this particular afternoon though, I had fresh strawberries in my fridge, (frozen works well too) and I had bananas in my freezer, which I often use for banana bread, but they work well for smoothies too. I had some vanilla yogurt in my fridge, so I felt I could easily pull off some smoothies for an after school snack.

A blender doesn't have to be expensive to make a delicious treat!

My “recipe” isn’t exact, but into my blender I threw: a bunch of strawberries, two frozen bananas, milk, about a cup of vanilla yogurt, and some ice to make it have a frozen feel, like a milkshake, but healthier.

I added a dollop of whipped cream and a straw and I had a restaurant-quality summer beverage for my kids for after school. Not bad! Everyone was happy and I was glad there was even enough for me to have some!

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Shrimp and Asparagus Pasta

10 Apr

I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I really love the “Daily Recipes” that I get in my email inbox from Allrecipes.com. I’m constantly making a note to try one out “some day” and last week I had a chance to try a new one. I had everything on hand with the exception of one ingredient: mushrooms, which I had actually had on hand but it turned out they weren’t good anymore so we threw them out. The recipe was fine without them but I’d add them in if I had them next time.

Everyone loved this recipe and I’d definitely make it again. I made some notes and adjustments below.

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 pound fresh asparagus (I used a bag of frozen from Aldi’s.)
  • 1 (16 ounce) package egg noodles (I used a pound of wheat spaghetti.)
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil (This was a lot. I’d do less next time and add a bit more lemon juice instead.)
  • 1 cup butter (I think you could cut some of this out as well. Maybe down to  1 1/2 sticks instead of two.)
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1 pound medium shrimp – peeled and deveined (I used a bag of frozen from Aldi’s.)
  • 1 pound fresh mushrooms, thinly sliced
  • 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

  1. In a small saucepan, boil or steam asparagus in enough water to cover until tender; chop and set aside.
  2. Bring a large pot of salted water to full boil, place the pasta in the pot and return to a rolling boil; cook until al dente. Drain well.
  3. In a large saucepan, saute garlic in the olive oil over medium-low heat until the garlic is golden brown.
  4. Place butter and lemon juice in the saucepan. Heat until the butter has melted. Place the shrimp in the saucepan and cook until the shrimp turns pink. Place the mushrooms and asparagus into the saucepan, cook until mushrooms are tender.
  5. Toss the shrimp and vegetable mixture with the egg noodles and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

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Pizzelles: a special treat this Easter

9 Apr

Easter isn’t the same as Christmas, where we have a ton of different kinds of cookies, or even like Thanksgiving, where we have tons of homemade pies for dessert. We usually have Grandma Rose’s Rice Pie for dessert as well as the Easter Sweet Bread and that’s usually it (and don’t get me wrong, that’s plenty!!) This year though, we had a special treat: I made Pizzelles! Pizzelles bring me right back to my childhood whenever I eat them. Grandma Grello still makes them and I love them.

We’d been having a discussion about them with her recently and I realized that even though we received a Pizzelle Maker years ago from my mother-in-law as an anniversary gift, it’d been a really long time since I’d used it. I thought that this Easter would be a great time to make them for an extra-special treat.

The great thing about the Pizzelle Maker is that it comes with the recipe, several of them. The basic recipe is a quick and easy recipe and once you get the hang of how much batter to put on the machine, the pizzelles come quickly, about every 30 seconds. It says the recipe makes about 30, but I probably broke up at least six of the “mistakes” into bits for the kids to eat as I was getting the hang of how much batter and how long to cook them. I also let them each eat a whole one once I did get the hang of it. We ended up with about 20 of them at the end.

For the batter, they recommended using one heaping teaspoon in each of the two molds, but when I tried that, they were too small, only about half the size of a regular cookie. So I upped it to one heaping TABLESPOON instead and it worked out perfectly. They also recommended putting the batter into the center of the mold more towards the back, which seemed to work out well.

One important trick is to be sure to take them off and place them on a flat surface to cool (assuming you want them to be flat.) They come off the mold warm and soft, and they will form any shape you put them on, so even a plate that isn’t entirely flat will cause them to be off-kilter a bit. I put them directly onto a plate and then brought them to the cooling racks on the table and quickly slid them onto the racks to cool completely flat.

I think that’s all the important things to note. Here’s the basic pizzelle recipe I used as well as my adjustments to it.

INGREDIENTS

3 eggs

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1  3/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup melted butter, margarine or oil (I used oil)

3/4 cup sugar

DIRECTIONS

Beat eggs and sugar.

Add cooled melted butter or margarine (or oil) and vanilla.

Sift flour and baking powder and add to egg mixture.

Batter will be stiff enough to be dropped by spoon. (Use one heaping tablespoonful per cookie.)

Batter can be refrigerated to be used at a later time.

Makes 30 pizzelles.

*For chocolate pizzelles add 3 tablespoons cocoa and 3 tablespoons sugar.

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Just in time for Passover: Meringue Cookies

6 Apr

Cookies for Passover!

Good Friday and Passover fall on the same day this year, so I am making sure to post recipes for both. On Wednesday I posted my family’s Easter Sweet Bread recipe and today I am posting a recipe passed along to me by my friend Pam. I tried these out with my “focus group,” aka my three kids, and they all immediately gave them two thumbs up. They were quick and easy. I worked that day and got home about a half hour before the kids did, and the timing was perfect; the cookies were just coming out of the oven.

As I was making them, I questioned whether or not they were in fact a healthy treat since they did not contain egg yolks or flour. However, I figured out as I went along that the chocolate chips and sugar kind of cancelled out any healthiness they might have had.

The kids loved these cookies and are already asking me to make them again. They’re certainly easy enough that I could make them any time.

A few notes:

*The recipe below calls for mini chocolate chips but I only “do” regular chocolate chips, so that’s what I used. It also said that you could use any variety of chocolate chips, but I only had the chocolate variety at the time.

*Pam noted that you could use food coloring to make the cookies fit any desired theme.

*It says to use Parchment Paper on the tray, which I missed and a few of my cookies stuck to the tray, I’m assuming because of it. Next time I’d be sure to use the Parchment Paper.

Enjoy!

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

Chocolate chip meringue cookies

makes 2 /12- 3 dozen cookies
2 egg whites
1/8 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. cream of tarter
1 tsp. vanilla
¾ C sugar
6 oz. mini choc, chips, or any flavor you like or feel free to mix and match
·       in large dry mixing bowl beat egg whites till foamy
·       gradually salt, cream of tarter and vanilla
·       slowly pour in sugar, ¼ C at a time
·       beat until peaks form and will be white and shiny
·       fold in chips
·       drop tsp. worth of batter onto parchment covered cookie sheet
·       bake 300 degrees for 20minutes
·       cool before removing

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Knorr sauce mix: sometimes you just need quick and easy

5 Apr

I was going to put the salad right on the plate, but I just couldn't. I'm definitely an "on the side" girl!

Not everything has to be from scratch, not everything has to be a full course meal every time.

Yup, that’s what I try to tell myself on a regular basis.

Don’t get me wrong, we have mac and cheese with hot dogs at our house too.

Sometimes.

On occasion.

Next time we do, I’ll take a photo and post it.

Shortcuts are good!

I actually LOVE mac and cheese and hot dogs, and it has to be the kind of mac and cheese out of a box.

With the powdered cheese sauce.

But, I digress.

With busy schedules that are never the same and with holidays and birthdays mixed in there, sometimes I just need something quick and easy to make for dinner.

Last week’s dinner was one of those nights. I had to leave right after dinner for Girl Scouts and while I was cooking dinner I was helping whoever needed it, with homework too. This ended up also being the night that my daughter accidentally fell on the stairs while trying to jump up and touch the door jamb, hitting her head instead and knocking herself out, with a slice of pepperoni in her mouth.

It was a crazy night.

But again, I digress.

My cousin had given me a package of Knorr Garlic and Herb sauce that she’d tried, when I was at her house last. She’d had it over veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, carrots) and she thought I’d like it.

I was going to make it over a veggie to go with our meal last week, tortellini, when I realized that on the front of the package itself it showed the sauce over tortellini, so I decided to try that. I chose asparagus for my veggie and had a fast and easy, complete, relatively healthy meal in a matter of a few minutes.

My kids all liked it, so I’d make it again for sure.

So today’s post isn’t a recipe exactly, it’s more a product review I guess, or a meal suggestion. The recipe for the sauce is contained on the back side of the packet of sauce. Give it a try and see what you think.

And tell me: what is your best shortcut meal idea?

Everyone gave this meal a two-thumbs-up review!

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The Un-birthday-cake Birthday Cake

2 Apr

Although I'm crafty, I'm not an artist so birthday cake decorating is not really my thing. But, each time, my kids always say they love my cakes and that means so much to me.

Every once in a while I have one of those slap-myself-on-the forehead realizations, the kind where I think to myself, “Why didn’t I think of that,” or even “Why didn’t I think of that sooner?”

Birthday party cakes was one of those moments.

Although I don’t bake them from scratch, I always make our cakes at home and do my best to decorate them despite my lack of artistic ability, but the funny thing is none of us in our immediate family actually really like the traditional birthday cake kind of cake, you know the yellow or chocolate cake with the birthday cake frosting on it. Yet, I just kept making them three times a year, six times if you count friend parties AND family parties. Sometimes I’d do cupcakes instead, but still it’s like cake.

And then last year it happened: my sister in law and her family were here for Elizabeth’s birthday and I made some kind of comment about making the cake even though none of us actually eat it.

Her brilliant answer: “You know, I’ve done brownie cakes and chocolate chip cookie cakes instead, and frost them just the same. It works out great.”

Light bulb.

Slap on forehead.

Why didn’t I think of that????

We love brownies! And, we love cookies!

Elizabeth's "cake" this summer was our first brownie birthday cake.

So last summer I tried out a frosted brownie cake for Liz’s party and it worked out great! I did it two more times over the summer, once for her friend party and once for July 4th, and then again in October for Caroline’s party. Over and over I just kept thinking to myself, “I can’t believe I never thought of this!”

Here it is again, birthday party time and once again, we are doing the un-birthday cake birthday cake. I briefly toyed with the idea of trying out a cookie cake this time and I even grabbed the recipe from my friend Shelley, but I just didn’t have the time to pull it off this weekend. Next time….

In any event, a great time was had by all, and everyone loved the “cake.”

Surprise, it's a brownie! And, this was a budget-friendly brownie cake with the brownie mix from Price Rite and the frosting from Aldi's. My secret ingredient: I throw chocolate chips into the batter.

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In honor of Oreo’s 100th Birthday

30 Mar

If you'd like to celebrate right along with Oreo in honor of their 100th birthday, I highly recommend these Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Can you find the Oreo Cookies in this picture?

I bet you can’t, they’re hiding INSIDE the cookies!

Last year I posted this recipe on Facebook after seeing it in a Macaroni Kids newsletter that I get in my inbox each week. From what I read, they got it from a blog too, so I have included that in the recipe information as well.

I made these several times last year, including as an End of Year gift for our kids’ teachers and for a birthday gift for my sister-inlaw.

They are SO delicious but each one is like eating THREE cookies, just so you know.

Here is the recipe for you. It’s easy and makes about 25 cookies.

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

INGREDIENTS

2 sticks softened butter

3/4 Cup packed light brown sugar

1 Cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 Tablespoon pure vanilla

3 1/2 Cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

10 oz bag chocolate chips

1 bag Oreo Cookies

DIRECTIONS

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.   In a stand or electric mixer cream butter and sugars until well combined.  Add in eggs and vanilla until well combined.

2.  In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt and baking soda.  Slowly add to wet ingredients along with chocolate chips until just combined.  Using a cookie scoop take one scoop of cookie dough and place on top of an Oreo Cookie.  Take another scoop of dough and place on bottom of Oreo Cookie.  Seal edges together by pressing and cupping in hand until Oreo Cookie is enclosed with dough.  Place onto a baking sheet and bake cookies 9-13 minutes or until cookies are baked to your liking.  Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.  Serve with a tall glass of milk, enjoy!

Makes about 2 dozen VERY LARGE Cookies

Please visit Jenny’s blog at picky-palate.com

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Another new recipe!

29 Mar

I love anything with balsamic vinegar, so I thought this recipe was worth trying.

I get daily recipe emails from a few different places. One of them is Allrecipes.com, whose website I frequent. This one sounded good and I love anything with balsamic vinegar, so I decided to try it. It’s one reason I bought so many cans of diced tomatoes last time they were on sale. I had several recipes calling for them and this was one of them.

Overall, I think everyone liked it. We served it with whole wheat spaghetti, so anyone who didn’t like the chicken could have pasta and the tomatoes were big enough that they could be picked out if anyone didn’t like those. I liked the whole thing and I think I’d make it again.

BRAISED BALSAMIC CHICKEN

INGREDIENTS

6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (I used about 10-12 tenderloins instead.)

ground black pepper to taste

1 tsp garlic salt

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, thinly sliced (I chopped rather than sliced.)

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar (I ran out and only had 1/4 cup but I think 1/2 would have been too strong.)

one 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried rosemary

1/2 tsp dried thyme

DIRECTIONS

1. Season chicken breasts with ground black pepper and garlic salt. Heat olive oil in medium skillet and brown the onion and seasoned chicken breasts.

2. Pour tomatoes and balsamic vinegar over chicken and season with basil, oregano, rosemary and thyme.

3. Simmer until chicken is no longer pink and juices run clear, about 15 minutes.

We served ours on a bed of whole wheat pasta, which worked out great!

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It was like a crepe buffet!

28 Mar

Having apple cinnamon crepes for breakfast is like having apple pie for breakfast.

Is there such a thing as a crepe buffet? If not, then I think we invented one. If so, then I think we had one at our house too.

Two Sundays ago, Don asked me the fateful question: What do you want for breakfast today?

Now had he asked me, “What are we having for breakfast today,” maybe my answer would have been different, like “Scrambled Eggs” or “French Toast” or whatever we usually have for a typical breakfast on the weekends.

What I wanted, what I was craving, was Nutella Banana Crepes.

But on that day he asked me what I *wanted* for breakfast. Well what I wanted was crepes with bananas and Nutella in them. Yup, ever since National Nutella Week, when I saw them somewhere on some yummy food blog out there, I have been craving that very item. So when he asked, that was my answer.

“I want crepes with bananas and Nutella in them.”

His answer: “WHAT????”

We went back and forth for a bit, as in, “I’m not making that,” and “Fine, I’ll make it,” to “No, fine, I’ll make it.”

The kids were having fun garnishing their plates with whatever we had on hand that day.

It was settled. We were having crepes for breakfast. I was SO excited. The kids were excited too, when they heard.

Don found a recipe on Allrecipes.com for Basic Crepes that he followed to a “t” with one exception, which I’ll note later on when I post the recipe.

I cut up some apples to saute, as we decided to make a whole bunch of different kinds of crepes: the banana Nutella as requested, some apple cinnamon, some scrambled egg with ham, and some with just egg and cheese.

It was a regular ole’ crepe buffet at our house that morning!

There’s a commercial on TV now, I don’t even know what it’s for, come to think of it, but it has couples being asked “what’s the most romantic thing he’s done for you lately?” It’s a very funny commercial, and I thought of it that morning as Don handed me a crepe on a plate, just for me: a chocolate peanut butter crepe. There was just one, and I could’ve easily polished it off myself, but I shared.

Yes, I shared my peanut butter and chocolate chip crepe with my kids!

I know, that’s big for me, sharing my food.

I cut off some pieces for each of the girls and I ate what was left.

It.Was.Delicious.

And so, that is the story of how we very possibly invented, or not, a crepes buffet at our house that day. It was so successful that our kids now want to have that for breakfast EVERY Sunday.

Ooops.

Basic Crepes Recipe from AllRecipes.com

It was crazy-busy in Don's Kitchen that morning as he prepared all kinds of crepe varieties for us!

INGREDIENTS

(we doubled this recipe)

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons butter, melted

DIRECTIONS

  1. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour and the eggs. Gradually add in the milk and water, stirring to combine. Add the salt and butter; beat until smooth. *This is where we changed the recipe. Mix all the wet ingredients together first and all the dry ingredients together and then combine them and whisk. The very first comment alludes to the same fact.
  2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each crepe. Tilt the pan with a circular motion so that the batter coats the surface evenly.
  3. Cook the crepe for about 2 minutes, until the bottom is light brown. Loosen with a spatula, turn and cook the other side. Serve hot.

    A crepe buffet...who would've thought?

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New recipe, new product review

27 Mar

The Weelicious oatmeal recipe for the crock pot is one of our favorites.

Back in January I posted the recipe for the Weelicious Overnight Crock Pot Oatmeal and said how much my family enjoys it. One of my gripes about it though, is that as delicious as it is, it makes a thick “skin” on the inside of the crock pot, which takes forever to clean. Normally I have to soak and scrub, soak and scrub.

I found the idea of the slow cooker liners intriguing.

Therefore, I was intrigued when I saw a coupon for Reynold’s Slow Cooker Liners back in early March. I decided that since I had the coupon and since I use my crock pot kind of a lot, they’d be worth trying out and I could decide at that point if they were worth buying again. The cost at Shaw’s was $3.99 for four liners and I had $1.00 off.

Around the same time, I discovered a new Overnight Slow Cooker Apple-Cinnamon Steel Cut Oatmeal on Pinterest, which was originally from Monica at The Yummy Life blog. I decided to try the recipe and the liners at the same time.

The recipe was indeed “yummy” as the title of her blog implies! It was very similar to the Weelicious one but it had brown sugar and butter that were extras. I always add apples to my Weelicious recipe, but they were in this new one too. I also noticed she had two other overnight oatmeal recipes on there. I might check them out in the future too.

As for the liner, it was okay. I opened the box and found the instructions, which say:

1) Open the slow cooker liner and place it inside the slow cooker bowl. Fit the liner snugly against the bottom and sides of the bowl; pull top of liner over rim of bowl.

2) place ingredients in lined slow cooker first, then turn on slow cooker. Place lid on slow cooker. Cook according to recipe.

3) Carefully remove lid to allow steam to escape. Serve meal directly from lined slow cooker.

4) Cool slow cooker completely; remove liner and toss.

The illustrations show a sparkling clean slow cooker at the end.

I followed the directions and had no problems using the liner. It fit inside my slow cooker easily and the cover went on without a problem.

All ingredients ready to go.

In the morning we ate our oatmeal as usual and I followed the directions, serving it right out of the container. I was worried that the plastic might tear when I was scraping the spoon against the sides to serve it, but it didn’t rip.

The "after" photo, after the liner had been removed. Not as clean as I'd expected but not as bad as without.

I let the crock pot cool completely before pulling out the liner. I was surprised to find that the crock pot wasn’t as clean as I’d expected it to be, based on the illustrations in the directions from the box. However, it also wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it would be without the liner and it was much easier to clean.

Overall, the jury is still out as to whether or not I’d buy these again. I think it will depend on how the liners do with our other recipes. I do think the cleanup was much easier though, so we’ll see how it does with something like “gravy” or BBQ Beef. Those can be super-messy and that might be the true test for me.

Here is Monica’s recipe for the oatmeal. I also like that she included the Weight Watcher’s Points at the bottom.

The magic of the crock pot: it cooks while you sleep. I love coming out in the morning and having breakfast already done, especially on a school day.

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 apples, peeled, cored, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (2-1/2 to 3 cups chopped)
  • 1-1/2 cups fat-free milk (I had 1%)
  • 1-1/2 cups water
  • 1 cup uncooked steel-cut oats
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1-1/2 tablespoons butter, cut into 5-6 pieces (optional)
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 tablespoon ground flax seed (I don’t have flax seed so I skipped this one.)
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • Optional garnishes: chopped nuts, raisins, maple syrup, additional milk or butter

DIRECTIONS

Coat inside of 3-1/2 quart (or larger) slow cooker with cooking spray (I used the liner instead). Add all ingredients (except optional toppings) to slow cooker. Stir, cover, and cook on low for 7 hours. Spoon oatmeal into bowls; add optional toppings, if desired. Store leftovers in refrigerator. Freezes well.

To reheat single servings: Put 1-cup cooked oatmeal in microwave proof bowl. Add 1/3 cup fat-free milk. Microwave on high for 1 minute; stir. Continue cooking for another minute, or until hot.

Recipe can be doubled in 6-quart or larger slow cooker. Increase cooking time 1 hour. I doubled mine and cooked it from 10 pm to 8 am.

Weight Watchers PointsPlus: 4 pts per 3/4 cup serving

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