Loaded Baked Potato Salad

Yesterday was my oldest daughters's 2nd birthday. Wow! Where did those two years go?! We had a nice small family get together, and although not everyone that we were hoping to see were able to make it, we had fun with those who did!

I decided to make potato salad to go with supper (my first time ever making it!). I decided to skip the traditional seasonings and create my own. I know I'm not the first one to come up with this, but I'm still proud of it!

You'll need:
5lbs of potatoes, diced into whatever size you like for your potato salad.
1 dozen hard boiled eggs, again, chopped to your size preference
Bacon bits
Shredded Cheddar Cheese
Mayo (I used about 2-2.5 cups, but it was a little dry in the end, so feel free to play with this amount)

Mix it all up and chow down! I know some potato salads are served hot or cold, and u think this could be one, but I'm not sure how it would be re-heated because of the eggs. I served it cold and got lots of complements!

Be prepared, my recipe fed 8 adults and a 2 year old and we only ate about a 3rd of what I made!

New Site to See!

I love when I find a new blog to follow. Sometimes, I really get into a slump of what to cook, what to wear, where to shop, where to eat, or somewhere for my creative outlet.

This new Site to See is a cooking blog of a mom with 2 young girls (much like myself, no wonder I like her!). Her recipes are down to earth and simple. Most importantly for me, and the limited groceries in my town, you can find most of her ingredients at even the more basic grocery stores!

Follow this blog and get ready for some yummy times!

http://www.khlovesfood.blogspot.com/

I eat *my* veggies!

Not as often as I should, but I try! One of my favorite veggie fixes is also one of the fastest ones! Very few ingredients too!

What you need:

Bag of frozen veggies (any will do!)

Butter/Margarine/Butter Flavored Cooking Spray (any will work, as long as it's not too high of a water content)

Salt, Pepper and Garlic(powder, fresh or minced will work)

OR

Garlic Pepper

Toss it all into a pan, and cook on medium till the veggies start to brown around the edges...

You will need enough butter to keep the veggies from sticking to the pan, and give the spices something to stick to! After that, it's all about how buttery you like your veggies to taste!

Enjoy!

You can make this meal a little more hearty by adding some chicken to the mix. Just make sure to fully cook it first. The veggies will cook very fast and won't give the chicken much time in the pan!

**Tip: if you use Butter flavored spray (yes, I'm talking about the stuff us use to spray the cookie sheet), you will feel like you're using a crazy amount. And you may need to keep adding more, but, it's calorie free, so don't stress!

Quick Toddler Lunch!

I believe that I am currently parenting one of the pickyest toddlers there is... of course, I also believe that most parents feel this way at one point or another!

 

After yet another lunchtime of me watching my child push one thing after another off of her tray, I just about gave up and let her eat popcorn and peanut butter. However, I decided to try one more thing, and go figure, it worked!

 

It's basically homemade Mac 'n Cheese, but with Spaghetti noodles instead of Elbow pasta.

 

• Boil the noodles and drain
• Add in a slice of cheese
• Add a touch of milk and/or butter to make it creamy

... viola'! Success!!!

I left the noodles full length. They made for added fun (and added Mommy free time) during lunch time!



Ooey Gooey Lemon Cake

Ok, so, I'd seen a recipe on Pinterest (yes, I have an addiction) for a cake that requires one can of lemon pie filling, and one box of angel food cake. For some space cadet reason, I thought that you could use any cake mix. So, when I sent my husband to the store, I did not have him get a box of angel fook cake, just a can of lemon pie filling. Oops!

Looked up the recipe, looked in the pantry. I had:

and this:
 and that was it. I did have most of the baking ingredients needed to make the cake on it's own, but I was feeling brave, so I made my own little concoction... and it was a hit!

Instead of following the ingredients on the box, combine:

Cake Mix

Pie Filling

2 Eggs

1 Tbs Oil

1 1/4 cup of water

Bake according to the instructions on the box, check it before you take it out. The toothpick will not necessarily come clean, as this is an ooey gooey cake, but, you should be able to see that it's baked and no longer a batter.

After it cools, sprinkly the top with powdered sugar! Enjoy!

I have no picture of the finished product. I took it to Thanksgiving and it was gone before a picture could be taken, but... that tells you how yummy it was!

From Scratch Hot Cocoa

You know those first days of winter when you haven't gone out and bought the hot chocolate mixes, but it's suddenly snowing and you're in the mood for a good cup of Hot Cocoa, but you don't want to go out and deal with winter? Well, that happened in my house this year...

So, Hot Cocoa from scratch:

You'll need:
Milk (I used Whole)
Chocolate Chips (I used Semi-Sweet)
Brown Sugar

I put in about 2 cups of Milk, 1 1/2 Tbs of Brown Sugar and somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 a cup of Chocolate Chips. Just heat on Low/Medium heat and stir constantly until it all melts.

*Tip: The Chocolate Chips will take forever to fully melt/disolve into the milk. You'll think that turning the heat up will help, but it will only curdle/scald the milk. Just be patient! If you do end up with little swirls of unmelted chocolate, it just makes a yummy little surprise as you drink your Hot Cocoa!

Mmmmmm!



Pizza Pizzazz

Often my husband and I go out to eat, and between the (sometimes) appetizer, the salad, the rolls etc, by the time the meal comes, I'm already stuffed! Not that I don't love a good take-home box, really, I do :), but I hate that I usually leave most of a side that is fried, and I do love my fried foods. I love french fries, fried okra, fried mushrooms, fried cauliflower, homemade potato chips, egg rolls, crab rangoon (did I mention I love fried things?) etc., but by the time they've sat in that take-home box overnight, they've turned into a soggy mess. I've put them in the oven, but it tends to just dry them out (unless I'm missing the perfect setting). I ususally end up tossing them outside for the stray cats that wonder by...

Not anymore! Folks, I have found the solution!

 

Yup, the handy dandy always faithful Pizza Pizzazz. We've always used it for pizza (duh), chicken patties, garlic bread etc. but that was about it. I had some fried okra and homemade potato chips from our dinner the other night, and really really wanted to try to salvage them. I put them on the Pizzazz with the top and bottom heaters on for 6 minutes... perfection! They were crispy on the outside, and were actually hot on the inside, and NOT dried out! Yummy! Never again will I leave or toss my fried sides!

On the slightly weird side, I put ketchup on my fried okra. My husband, a southern boy, says I'm nuts.

Gluten Free Cookie Recipe Book!

http://www.frugalskills.com/pdf/Gluten-Free-Cookie-Recipes-by-Frugal-Skills.pdf

Click on ^that link to download a Gluten Free Cookie Recipe book! The Recipe list is:

Brown Rice Flour Mix

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Gingersnaps

Sugar Cookies

Peanut Butter Cookies

Shortbread Cookies

Almond Butter Cookies

Oatmeal Cookies

Linzertorte Cookies

Storage Tips

Cinnamon Chocolate Brownies

I have this new found obsession... Cinnamon in Chocolate. I add cinnamon to my chocolate cake, brownies, cookies, and even hot chocolate. My husband says it's out of control, I tell him he's wrong, and he better just accept it! The funny thing is, he loves everything I bake!

Basically, I followed your average from the box/bag chocolate cake recipe, except in place of the oil, I added my Home Made Crock Pot Apple Sauce  Yes, I may have a slight obsession with that recipe! The nice thing is, you taste zero apple, just the cinnamon, and it keeps the cake so super moist! While this is a cake mix, the applesauce makes it more the thickness/texture of brownies.

For the frosting, I heated up about half a can of Sweetened Condensed Milk, and about half a bag of chocolate chips... I added a touch of milk after it was all mixed, just to make it easier to spread on the cake. The SCM keeps the frosting soft for days!

Ooey Gooey Spice Cake

Seriously, this is the best spice cake I've ever made! EVER. It was sooo moist, so rich... MMmmmm. I usually find spice cake to be dense and kinda dry, so I wasn't thrilled when my mom asked me to make this one night. However, I was out of oil... and eggs. So, I improvised.

I used a boxed mix, replaced the oil with melted butter (exact measurements) and used my Home Made Crock-Pot Apple Sauce in place of eggs. 1/2 a cup per egg.

Ah.Maz.Ing.... Seriously...

Homemade Applesauce/Apple Butter in a Crock-Pot

I'd found a recipe on Pinterest for Crock-Pot Applesauce. I had a bunch of home grown apples (not my home) that were getting pretty nasty looking, so I decided I'd better do something with them! I made mine with a few variations from the Pinterest pin, so I'll share my version instead.

What you'll need:

Apples

Juice (I used White Grape, but I assume many would use Apple :)

Cinnamon

Sugar

If you like your applesauce to be a bit on the chunky side (like me), the only real way to get texture, without having hard bits of apple, is to leave some skin on. So, if this is your chosen method, chop the apples into very small chunks/dices. If you like silky smooth applesauce, peel the apples, then chunk them any size. The smaller they are, the faster they'll be done!

Put the apples in a crock pot on high for a fast (2-3 hours) result, or low if you're going to be away from the crock pot for a while. Add about a cup of your chosen juice, and sprinkle in some cinnamon and sugar. If you're using a sweet apple, you probably don't need much sugar, if any. You can always add more at the end, so if you don't want to commit to a lot of cinnamon at this point, you don't have to... it just makes your house smell really yummy if you add it at this point!

Check the apples after a few hours. Stir the juices in and around every once in a while if you're around to do so. Once they are soft enough to mash, you can do so with a potato masher or a hand held blender. Taste test, add more sugar and spice if you like, and viola'! It's done!

The recipe (for me) is the same for apple sauce or apple butter. For butter, take the lid off and let some of the juice evaporate. I wouldn't leave for hours at a time on this part, because you don't want it to get dried out!

Here's mine!

Homemade Croutons

On Pinterest, I'd found a recipe for home made croutons. I followed the recipe to a T for my first batch, but both my husband and I thought they were very bland. So, in the many batches we've made since (yeah, ours are that good), we've altered the recipe to make them much more bold flavored!

What You'll Need:

1/2 stick of Butter

Bread, cubed

Butter Flavored Cooking Spray

Seasoning: Garlic, Onion, Parmesan, Spicy etc... just one needed per batch!

Cut up bread into whatever sized croutons you like. I wouldn't go too small, but they don't have to be huge. I think mine were about 1 inch long x .5 inch wide x.5 inch thick... but again, your preference. We've used Panera's Sundried Tomato Bread, and French Bread, and also some Sesame from Panera. Any kind will work really, though I haven't tried sandwich sliced bread.

Either leave the sit out on the counter for ONE night, or bake them in the oven at 300 for 10 minutes so they can dry out a bit.

Melt the butter in a pan on MEDIUM heat (don't ever change the heat setting from medium!), and sprinkle some of your chosen seasoning in. Just a light dusting over the top of the melted butter. This will absorb into your croutons... the more seasoning you use, the stronger the flavor!

Let the bread sit in the pan in a single layer. Check one or two pieces ever few minutes to see if they've started to brown on the other side. Once they brown, flip them over. Just before you flip them, spray them with the Butter Cooking Spray and sprinkle on another dusting of seasoning.You'll almost need to do this piece by piece to not burn any. You don't have to toast the exact opposite side of the crouton, just make sure that you're toasting a side not already toasted!

Once the other side has browned, take the off the heat. They can sit in the pan to cool and will stay good and crunchy. After they have cooled, put them in an air-tight storage bag or container. 

 My husband and I have found this to be a great way to rescue bread that might be tasting a little old or dried out. They last for weeks after you make them, so make several batches to have on hand! We will never buy croutons again!

German Chocolate Cake... with a Southern twist!

In this world, I have a few things that make me smile, whether I'm sad, angry,  having a night with my family, or out with my girlfriends. One of those never fail things, like most women I know, is chocolate. So, it seemed fitting that my first recipe post, was about chocolate!

My husband's favorite cake is German Chocolate Cake, complete with the gooey pecan and coconut frosting. I try to make it for him for his birthday every year, and just to be nice through out the year. 

A couple of years ago, we were visiting his family in super south Arkansas. A family friend brought over a cake that he instantly fell in love with. It was a large thin chocolate sheet cake that this sweet woman had poked holes in with a fork, then poured Sweetened Condensed Milk over. It was incredibly rich,... and oh so yummy! 

Last week, just to let him know how much I appreciate his hard work, I decided to make a combination of these two cakes. With my 2u2 (2 babies under the age of 2) girls, making things from scratch just doesn't happen much, so I used cake from a box and frosting from a can (don't tell Martha Stewart!). I baked the cake, then used chopsticks to poke holes in the cake, then poured Sweetened Condensed Milk over it, spread out with a spatula. I microwaved the frosting for 30 seconds so that it would be easier to spread because the SC Milk had made the top of the cake super moist and sticky.

My husband loved it, so did my 18 month old daughter! 

The SC Milk kept the cake super moist and gooey till we finished it (which wasn't long)!

Chocolate Banana Bread Recipe

So, no, I haven't made this yet, but one of my friends posted it on a forum that I participate in... and it sounds so yummy, well, who am I to deny it to anyone! So, if you try it, please leave a comment to let us all know how it went!

Chocolate banana bread

Ingredients:

1 stick Butter (softened)

1 cup Sugar

2 Eggs

3 Ripe Bananas

1 tbsp. Milk

1 1/2 tsp. Cinnamon

2 Cups Flour

1 tsp. Baking Powder

1 tsp. Baking Soda

1/4 tsp. Salt

1 cup Chocolate Chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease loaf pan.

In a small bowl combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt; set aside. Cream butter and sugar; add eggs one at a time In a separate bowl mash bananas and mix with milk and cinnamon. Add banana mixture to creamed mixture. Add flour mixture and mix until just combined; set aside.

In a microwave safe bowl microwave chocolate chips for 90 seconds or until melted, being careful not to burn. Add 1 cup of banana bread batter to melted chocolate and mix.

Pour batter into loaf pan; alternating banana and chocolate/banana mixture.

Bake 60-70 minutes or until cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack before slicing.