Peanut Butter Hearts (Reese's style)

Happy Valentines Day!

Brad loves Reeses peanut butter cups so for Valentines day I decided to try and make him some homemade ones. I saw this recipe on line (Yea, via pintrest, isn't everything via pintrest these days?) and decided to try it out.

These are....AMAZING! Better than Reeses, sorry, but true.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 C Peanut Butter - creamy is our choice

3 C Powder Sugar

1 C Cake flour*

1/4 C butter

6 Tbsp milk

In your mixer, mix the peanut butter, butter, powder sugar and flour until its a coarse mixture. Then add the milk a tablespoon at a time until the dough comes together into a play dough consistency.

*The first batch I made with 4 cups of powdered sugar but I didn’t care for the taste, so the second batch I substituted 1 cup with the cake flour. The second batch was much better in my opinion; it was sweet but did not have the ‘chemical’ taste like the first batch. Cake flour is softer than all-purpose flour but I would think you could use all-purpose if you wanted.

Taking out about 1/4 cup at a time, roll the dough out to about a 1/2 inch thick. Any thinner and they don't stand up to the chocolate. I found it was also easier to work with only a 1/4 cup of the dough at a time, any more and they were hard to pry off the counter top. It helps to sprinkle some powder sugar or flour down before you roll it out. Place the peanut butter hearts on a cookie sheet lined with parchment or saran wrap. Freeze for at least 30 min's.

Usually I buy chocolate bark for all my "coated" projects but this time I wanted these to be as close to the real thing as possible so I bought several Hersheys bars to melt instead. 'Nuke them in a microwave safe bowl for 10 seconds at a time until smooth. Then, dunk the frozen peanut butter heart in and flip over with a fork.

Gently bang the fork on the side of the bowl to knock off some of the excess chocolate. Scrape the back of the fork over the edge of the bowl then transfer the heart to another lined cookie sheet.

Add sprinkles or chopped nuts.

These are seriously so delish! However, because of the Hershey's chocolate they do melt quickly so keep them in the fridge, if they last past the first serving.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Pumpkin, Pumpkin and more Pumpkin: Recipes 5

This is my mom’s recipe and one of my favorite applications for pumpkin. Sadly, there are no pictures because if I made these I’d be too tempted to eat two with coffee in the morning, one after lunch, maybe one for snack, a few after dinner…see, bad things happen when I make these. Plus add in the temptation of all the Halloween candies around my house and I’m sure you’ll understand why I am only sharing the recipe and not making the cookies for pictures.

If you have more self control than I do, by all means, go, right now, make these yummy cookies!

Pumpkin Cookies

1 Cup Sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup pumpkin

1 Tsp baking soda

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp cloves (or 1/2 tsp cinnamon)

1 cup nuts (pecan or walnut)

Cream the sugar and the shortening together until light and fluffy. Add in the egg, then the pumpkin. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, soda, salt and spices. With the mixer on low, add the flour to the wet ingredients until incorporated. Using a wooden spoon, mix in the nuts.

Drop by spoonfuls onto a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 15-18 min.’s

These are great as they are but are even better with a light powder sugar glaze over top. Just mix ½ cup powder sugar with enough water (1 tsp at a time) until a thin runny consistency. Drizzle over top of the cookies and serve with a good cup of coffee.

Yum!

Pumpkin, Pumpkin and more Pumpkin: Recipes 4

Pumpkin Pancakes

I just made up a huge tripple batch of these for breakfast tomorrow and then extras to freeze for later. They freeze really well but I do reccomend putting a  squair of parchment paper between each pancake to help pull them apart once they're frozen.  

Pumpkin Pancakes

2 cups Pumpkin

1 cups flour

1 ¼ cup milk

1 egg

2 Tbsp melted butter

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

3 Tbsp brown sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

½ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp salt

In bowl mix the pumpkin, milk, egg, butter and sugar. In another larger bowl, combine the flour with the remaining ingredients, substituting pumpkin pie spice for the other spices if you prefer. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, mixing until just incorperated. Don’t over mix. Let stand for 5 min’s then cook on a hot griddle until bubbles form, flipping and cooking for another 1-2 min’s.

Serve with syrup, powdered sugar, cream cheese or all three combined.

Yum!

Pumpkin, Pumpkin and more Pumpkin: Recipes 3

5 min Pumpkin Coffee Cake – in a mug

I came across this recipe here. I absolutely love the idea of the single serving coffee cake. I can’t tell you how many sleepless nights I’ve sat up reading wishing I had a small treat to warm my bones. Plus, since this is all made in one coffee cup there is minimal clean up – Bonus!

This is my adaptation using pumpkin. If you don't want to use pumpkin, you could substitute apple sauce, sour cream, yoghurt or mashed berries.

Cake Ingredients:

1 Tbsp Butter
2 Tbsp Sugar
1 Egg
2 Tbsp pumpkin puree
¼ cup plus 1 Tbsp Flour
1/8 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp pumpkin pie spice (or a combo of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger)
Sprinkle of salt


Crumb Topping:
1 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

In your microwave proof coffee mug, add the Tbsp of butter and microwave for 5 seconds to soften it. With a fork, add in the sugar and stir until completely integrated and slightly fluffy. Add the egg and pumpkin, mix until combined. Add the remaining ingredients and stir until everything is incorporated.

In a separate small bowl, combine the crumb topping ingredients and mix with your fingers until combined and crumbly. Add to the coffee cup.

Microwave for 1 min, stop, then at 10 seconds at a time, microwave for 3-4 more times until a fork stuck into it comes out clean.

I really loved this concept. The cake needs a bit of tweaking, mine came out a bit more like bread pudding than coffee cake but tasted delish! I’m thinking of a ton of possibilities including chocolate coffee cake, coffee flavored coffee cake and one with cream cheese in it instead of the pumpkin.

Yum!

Pumpkin, Pumpkin and more Pumpkin - Recipes

Pick a Pumpkin…Any Pumpkin.

Safeway has large (ugly) pumpkins on sale this week for $5.99 or if you’re heading out to the pumpkin patch this weekend grab an extra pumpkin. We’re not making pumpkin pie, although you won’t miss it when we’re done, so you don’t need a “pie” pumpkin. Any ‘ol ugly big pumpkin will do.

Start by scooping out the seeds. Then hack the pumpkin up into manageable pieces. Using a melon baller or just a good spoon, scrape out all the stringy bits and toss them. Rub the Pumpkin skin with a bit of olive oil or a sprits of Pam spray.

Arrange on to several cookie sheets and roast at 400 for 20 min’s. Turn off the oven and leave the pumpkins in for another hour.

Meanwhile, rinse the seeds in a colander several times picking out all the orange bits left clinging on for dear life. Scrub dry on a towel, this helps remove some of the slime and will help the seasoning adhere. Once dry, place in a roasting pan.

Mix the following:

2 tbsp melted butter

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp ground cloves

¼ tsp chili powder

Sprinkle of salt

Combine the mix with the pumpkin seeds and roast at 375 for 10-15 min’s. Watch them closely because of the sugar they can burn easily.

(Sorry, no picture of these, I forgot before we devowered them all!)

Once the pumpkin is cool enough to work with, you can peel off the skins, they should come off very easily but a little nudge with a knife can help if needed. Smash up the pumpkin pulp and toss it into a few zip top bags for use later.

If you kiddo’s are like mine and were helping with each step they could and were chomping at the bit to get to the pumpkin, cut it into long rectangles, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar or drizzle with agave nectar and then cinnamon, stick a popsicle stick in it and let them go to town on a Pumpkin pop.

I froze several of these the same way on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and they’ll have them as desert popsicles another time.

Yum!

Later we’re making:

Pumpkin Brown Sugar Body Scrub

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

Mashed Pumpkin for a side dish

Pumpkin cookies/whoopee pies

5 min. Pumpkin coffee cake

Pumpkin pie ice cream.

All of that from just our one big pumpkin. Did you get yours yet? Come on, Can’t wait! Trust me, I’ve already been using the body scrub and had a coffee cake yesterday. They’re both divine in their own way. Here’s a sneek preview of the coffee cake:

You make it in a coffee mug in the microwave! How great is that!

Kitty Litter Cake and Brains in a Cup Recipes

I wish I could do my whole Halloween party over again this weekend. Ok, well, maybe not because of all the prep but still, I’ve gotten so many new great food ideas I just want to host a Halloween buffets. Oh, there’s an idea…maybe Halloween night, after school, before Trick-or-Treating. Hum, something to mull over. I’ll definitely be making some bloodied worms, bloody eyeballs and maybe mice meatloaf’s the rest of this week.

As promised, here are the recipes for Kitty Litter Cake and Brains in a cup. Yum!

Kitty Litter Cake

1 Box spice cake mix

1 Box white cake mix

1 Box instant vanilla pudding

1 Container white sandwich cookies

Tootsie rolls in various sizes

Green and Blue food coloring

Bake the cake mixes according to the directions in any pan. Mix the vanilla pudding and chill. Once the cakes have cooled, crumble the cakes together into a large bowl, add the vanilla pudding and mix to combine.

It’s best if you go to the dollar store and buy a new kitty litter pan but a disposable pan will work in a pinch. The scoop is a must in my opinion, it sells the whole thing as a kitty litter pan, plus it really creeps people out to have to serve with it.

In a zip top bag, dump all the sandwich cookies and crush up. This is a great time to get out any buried aggression, not that I have any, just saying. Once they’re pretty pulverized, not into a powder but little chunks, start adding drops of the blue and green food coloring. I usually add 10 or so drops, spread around inside the bag, then reseal it and mix around. Keep adding 10 at a time until the mix is mostly colored. The goal is to get it to look like kitty litter so, some pieces will be darker than others and some will be the sandy color of the white cookies. Dump over the top of the cake spreading evenly.

Now comes the fun part. Unwrap the tootsie rolls, microwave one at a time for 10 seconds then let your imagination run. Twist them into turds, flatten them into piles of diarrhea or dice into little balls like rabbit poop. Use various sizes, combine them, put them next to each other etc. I sometimes mix in one of the green tootsie rolls with one of the brown ones because for some reason, every now and then, cats eat something that causes them to poop something semi-green.

Yum!

Brains in a Cup

2 Box White Cake Mix

2 can’s white frosting

2 cups grape, cherry or strawberry seedless jam

Food Coloring

Clear cocktail cups – disposable or real – or any other clear jar of your choice, jar’s would make a cool specimen looking brain.

Mix the cake mix according to the directions and pour in two 8x11 pans. Drop a few drops of red food coloring onto the surface and swirl a knife in the mix to unevenly distribute.

Bake, then cool.

In a squeeze bottle, heat the jam with 2 tbsp water for 30 seconds. Squeeze a dollop into the bottom of 8 cups.

In a bowl, combine both the white frostings and enough drops of red food coloring to make it pink. Then, scoop a big dollop out into a separate bowl and add two drops of all the food coloring colors. This should produce a black or brown bit of frosting. Mix this back into the pink to produce the delicious brain color.

Using a round cookie cutter slightly larger than the base of the cups, cut out 8 circles, place them on top of the jam dollop in the glasses and drizzle more jam around the edges and onto the top just for taste. Using the top of a spare cup, cut out 8 more circles from the other cake and set aside.

Using a piping bag loaded with your frosting and a #5 round tip, (Walmart, JoAnns or Michales all have these) pipe random swirls, squiggles and lines onto the side of the cup. It doesn’t have to be completely covered. Add in your second circle of cake and then cover it with more brain squiggles.

As the final touch, using a toothpick, drag a line down the center of the frosting then fill the line with a squeeze of your red jam.

Yum!

Lemon-licious!

Yesterday I mustered up the courage to tackle the girls room and actually accomplished the task. (Somewhere in there I forgot to start the lemon curd so we had stirfry last night instead.) I cleaned it all out and took out a whole box of donation toys. Seriously, I don’t know where these toys came from, I swear I just cleaned it all out a month or two ago and yet there was still an entire box full of things to donate. I haven’t figured out a storage solution for their stuff yet, its still too easy for them to make a mess. I need something for their million baby dolls and something else for their toys. Either way, I got it all cleaned up and semi organized into some bins in the closet. I did have a bit of motivation considering someone was coming at 7p to look at the bunk beds. What ever works right? The person liked the beds and will be back to pick them up on Sunday since it was pouring down rain last night. I sold it for double what I bought them for. Yea! Now I’m searching for new, new, bunk beds for them.

Today, I started the lemon curd (yea for remembering!) and worked in Anthony’s room all day finishing the painting. The only thing left is to sew his curtains and that’s first on my list tomorrow. After that I’ll post some pictures, I think it looks pretty awesome and he’s super proud of it.

With the lemon curd I made lemon chicken for dinner and a lemon and dark chocolate tart as a sweet treat. I really need to stop cooking. Every time I find a new recipe, like this one, I cook myself out of a dinner out. Brad’s theory is why go out to dinner when I can make it so much better at home. I really need to be a bad cook, then we’d go out to dinner more often and I’d get a break. Oh well, regardless, it was a delish dinner. One I guarantee I’ll be making again and tweeking, like maybe orange curd into orange chicken. Yum!

Luscious Lemon Curd in the Crock Pot

(Curd is not as gross as it sounds, its basically a lemon jam/jelly)

3 Large Lemons

6 tbsp butter room temperature (or nuked for 10 seconds)

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 egg yoks

Zest all the lemons.

If you don’t have a zester, use a very sharp knife and take off just the yellow part, the white is bitter. (Get a zester, totally worth it) Juice the lemons. In your mixing bowl, or with a hand held mixer, blend the butter until soft, add the sugar and blend for 2 min’s. Add the eggs and egg yokes, mix until incorporated, being sure to scrape the sides of the bowl so everything gets mixed. Next add 2/3 cup lemon juice. Reserve the rest for use later – like lemon chicken! The mixture will curdle, don’t stress, it’s suppose to. Pour the entire mixture into your crock pot and put on warm or low.

This is not something you can “set it and forget it” but it’s not nearly as intensive as regular lemon curd. Just stir every hour or so until it’s thick enough to coat the back of a spoon or 175 degrease. Mine took a little over 5 hours on warm. Transfer to an air tight container, mix in 2 tbsp zest and cool. It will keep for a few weeks in the fridge.

It’s perfect over toast, great swirled into cheesecake, wonderful with shortbread or perfect with a spoon. J

Lemon Chicken (adopted from a Rachel Ray recipe) No fancy pictures - sorry

3-4 large chicken breast diced

¼ cup flour

2 tsp powder ginger

1 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

Vegetable oil

1 tbsp rice wine vinegar

½ cup chicken broth (1 Knorr broth cube and ½ cup water)

1 cup lemon curd

2 tsp lemon zest

2 tsp lemon juice

1 lemon sliced into rings (I used the left over lemon from juicing)

3 green onions diced

In a zip lock bag combine the flour, ginger, salt and pepper. Add the chicken, seal the bag and shake to coat. In a wok or large pan, heat the oil, add the chicken and cook until brown. Remove the chicken. Add the vinegar and broth. Mix in the lemon curd, juice, rings and zest. Add back in the chicken, stir to coat and cook for 5 min’s. Serve over rice with the diced green onions.

Shortbread

2 cups flour

½ cup powder sugar

2 sticks butter softened

Dash of salt

1 tsp vanilla or almond extract

In your mixer bowl add the softened butter, mix until fluffy. Add the sugar, (slowly!), mix until combined. Add the salt and vanilla. Scrape down the sides and mix for 1 min. Pour out onto a strip of saran wrap.

Using your hands compress into a disk and cover with more saran wrap.

Refrigerate for at least hour.

Roll flat and cut out cookies or press into a buttered tart pan. Bake at 375 until just starting to brown on the edge.

Dip in chocolate or serve with lemon curd….or both! I made a tart, spread the remaining lemon curd over it and drizzled it with dark chocolate. Yum!

Bountiful Baskets Organic Bananas Bread

It’s that time again, time to order Bountiful Baskets. I still haven’t used up most things from the last basket. I still have almost all of my plumbs from the plumby paradise pack. I plan on making:

Asian Plum Sauce

Plumb Tart

Plumb freezer jam (to use in jam thumbprints for Christmas cookies)

This week I’m going to make lettuce wraps and crab rangoons for dinner one night to serve with my homemade plumb sauce. Yum! That's about as far as I've gotten with meal planning so far. Check back tomorrow for the rest of the weeks meals plus ideas for the beautiful hatch chilies that the grocery stores are brimming with. Tonight I served an ultra intensive, gourmet meal...Tuna sandwiches on toasted buns.

For now, my organic bananas from the basket two weeks ago turned brown super fast, before we could eat them. (Which is a surprise considering how fast my monkeys go thru bananas!) So, I froze them for later.

Today I made ‘Bountiful Banana Bread.’

6-8 brown bananas (thawed if they were frozen)

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp nutmeg

½ cup butter

½ cup brown sugar

2 eggs

Topping:

1 cup oatmeal

2 tbsp flour

¼ cup butter (softened)

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Mix the bananas, vanilla, butter, sugar and eggs. Add in the flour, soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Mix until just combined. Don’t over mix once you add the flour in otherwise the final product is tough not tender. Pour into greased loaf pan, muffin pan or mini loaf pans until ¾ full.

Mix (hand are best) the topping ingredients until combined. Sprinkle on top of the uncooked batter, pressing in only slightly to help it stick.

Bake in 350 degree oven.

Regular loaf pan – 45-50 min’s

Muffins – 25-30 min’s

Mini loaf pans 30-35 min’s

Till tooth pick inserted in the center* comes out clean.

*Last week was our best friends birthday. That particular day she happened to be working a double shift and her husband was in night school so we were babysitting her kids for the evening. Well, Brad was babysitting I was out for the night. Her oldest, my beautiful niece Alana, wanted to make a birthday cake for her mom to eat when she got home. Alana mixed up everything on her own and got it into the oven. The details from there are a bit sketchy. I’m not sure if a timer was set, for how long or if it was just ignored. Alana claims Brad said he checked the cake, Brad claims he told Alana to check it. Regardless, after blowing out the candles and cutting into the cake at 9 at night after a double shift, it was soup in the middle! Alana was so disappointed. It turned into a laughable forever memory as they picked out the cooked edges of the cake but I’m not sure Alana will bake a cake with Brad again.

What can I say, the man is married to Betty Crocker, he doesn’t have to be Betty. J

Spicy Garlic Cashew Chicken

This is one of the meals from last week that I never got around to posting.

This is one of my favorite marinades/dressings for grilled chicken. You can control the heat by the amount of jalapeño’s you put in. *When the grocery stores are brimming with New Mexico Hatch Chilies and there is a guy out front of the store fresh roasting them, I usually substitute the hatch’s for the jalapenos. Taste as you mix to assess the heat level. It does decrease in heat when you cook it but you want the mix to be tolerable fresh as well because it’s good as a finishing drizzle over the top of the grilled chicken.

Recipe adapted from EliseA over at Simple Recipes : Spicy Garlic Cashew Chicken

Ingredients:

Chicken – bone in, bone out, breasts, thighs, wings – doesn’t matter, what ever you prefer

¼ cup Olive Oil

2 tbsp Soy Sauce

2 tbsp Brown Sugar

½ bunch Cilantro

1-2 Jalapeno’s (*see note above)

1 Lime - juiced

1 cup Cashews

With gloves on or with oiled hands, cut the tops off of the jalapenos and remove the seeds. (I typically use only one jalapeño but I leave most of the seeds in it. That heat is good for the kids once grilled but has enough of a kick when raw for Brad and I to enjoy.)

In your food processer, blender or bowl for your immersion blender, add all the ingredients and pulse until a smooth paste forms. If the mixture is not coming together you can add in more lime juice or up to 2 tbsp of water.

Reserve 1/3 of the mixture for drizzling over the finished chicken.

Coat the chicken with the remaining mixture. Let stand for at least 2 hours but overnight is best.

Cook on the grill until done or in the oven, covered, for 30 min’s at 400 until done.

Serve with rice, black beans and corn on the cob. Yum!

Sorry I didn't take more pictures for this one, I was making it in kind of a rush and the pictures I did take are very poor quality so I'm just skipping them. You'll have to use your imagination...or better yet, make this and you'll know exactly how it looks. :)

Green Chile Chicken Enchilada Casserole

In the crock pot. (Phew! Long title!)

This is another noshtalgic food for me. My mom use to make a version of this when I was a kid. The only thing I’ve changed, I think, is adding in more veggies.

Ingredients:

3 Chicken breasts

2 cans Cream-of soup (what ever kind you like)

1 10pkg tortillas

1 lrg can Green Enchilada Sauce

3 small cans Green Chiles

1 can olives

1 pkg cream cheese

2 cups cheddar-jack cheese

1 onion

2 stalks celery

1 red pepper

2-3 carrots

2 cups corn (not pictured because I forgot)

1 bunch cilantro

*Cook the chicken in the oven at 350 for 20-30 min's until almost done. Dice.

Cut the tortillas into wedges.

Mix together the cream-of soups, cream cheese, enchilada sauce and diced veggies.

Add a cup of the soup mix in the bottom of the crock pot. Layer the tortillas next, then the chicken, some of the cheese and some of the cilantro. Top with more of the soup mix then continue the layers until the crock pot is 3/4 full. Top with remaining (or extra) cheese.

Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 6 hours.

To shorten the cooking time, sauté the veggies until tender and cook the chicken until completely done. Then you can cook it in the crock pot for only 2 hours on high just to meld everything together.

*I don't care for raw chicken cooked in my meals, so I always at least par-cook it first. If you are not opposed to it, then you can dump the raw, diced chicken in the crock pot. Increase the cooking time to 6 hrs on high or 8 hrs on low.

You really can't over cook this; it just gets better with time and crunchy cheese!

Food!

Have I mentioned that I love food? Well, just incase I didn’t mention it before, I Love Food, I Love cooking and I Love new recipes! Here are three recipes (two are new to me) that I made between last night and today.

Breakfast Bars

I found this recipe while flipping thru the internet. (Ipad users, have you discovered the Flipboard app yet? It’s a way cool app that allows you to literally flip thru the internet. You pick the categories you like and you can flip thru all the postings in that category. I can spend hours flipping thru the craft and blog sections.) Anyways, thru my flipping I came across this blog and her recipe for Chocolate chip cookie balls. I’m always looking for a good ‘breakfast cookie’ for my mom. We both really like a little something sweet first thing in the morning with our coffee but we wanted something semi-healthy. Other versions I’ve tried taste more like cardboard than a treat. This one however looked good and I thought I could easily modify it to a breakfast bar. I made my version suit our tastes and what I had in the pantry so be sure to check out the original version if you’re interested.


Oatmeal Cranberry Breakfast Bars

2 cups Walnuts
2 cups Oatmeal
1/4 cup Agave Nectar (Learn about Agave Nectar here)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup dried cranberries
¼ cup white chocolate chips

Add the walnuts and oats to your food processor.

Pulse until they are a fine powder.

Add in the agave and vanilla. Pulse a minute or two until you get a fine, thick mixture that sticks together. Dump out into a bowl and add the cranberries, stir to incorporate.

Line an 8x8 baking pan with parchment paper and press the mixture out evenly. Add a sprinkling of cranberries on top and press in.

Refrigerate for 1 hr to set the mixture. In a microwave safe bowl, melt the white chocolate chips with a small drizzle of oil. Cook 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between until melted. Flip the bars out onto a cutting board and cut into squares.

Spread a thin layer of the white chocolate on the back and set, chocolate side down, on parchment.

 Refrigerate to set.

They are fabulous! The original recipe which called for chocolate chips inside the cookie balls as well as the melted chocolate on the outside were estimated at about 60 calories per ball. I figure, one of the bars with the cranberries and small bit of white chocolate are about the same. These with a 100 calorie yoghurt, tall latte and piece of fruit? My idea of a heavenly breakfast!



Cabbage Salad

This is another noshtalgic food for me. My mom has made this for years. Considering its oil and sugar content she doesn't make it often so its a treat whenever she does. Usually she has to make a double or triple batch so that my brothers and I can all take some home and still leave enough for her to eat. Using her exact recipe, I made this for us for the 4th of July and maybe a bowl or two in between.

Mom’s Cabbage Salad

2 large chicken breasts
½ cup cashew pieces
1 head cabbage
2 packages chicken Ramen noodles
2 green onions

Dressing:

1 cup oil
6 tbsp white vinegar
4 tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 flavor packet from the chicken Ramen noodles

Boil the chicken until cooked thru. Cool and dice. In a bowl with a lid, mix the dressing ingredients, shake to combine and set aside.

Dice the cabbage and green onions, add to a large bowl with the chicken.

Add the cashew pieces and smashed up packages of dry Ramen noodles. Pour the dressing over the top, mix to combine.

Resist the temptation to eat right away and let it sit for at least a few hours. If you’re strong willed, let it sit overnight, I promise it’s best after the dry noodles get a chance to soak up the yummy dressing.

On side note: How cute is my mom? When ever she gives us kids a family recipe to add to our own collection she puts them on one of these:

It’s a 3x5 recipe card with her picture on it, just incase we ever wonder where the recipe came from.



Chocolate Chip Cookies

Friday nights are dessert night in our house. I try really hard to not make or have a dessert available for any other night unless it’s a special occasion. I am not the greatest at enforcing this rule since I have the biggest sweet tooth in the house, but none the less, I try. Thru my flipping I came across this blog and her recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bean Balls. Strangest name for a cookie ever, but it caught my attention. I modified the recipe a bit to fit what I had in the pantry. Yes, these are made with beans. Trust me. Also, the original recipe called for rice flour so that it is a gluten free recipe. Bonus for anyone who's gluten intolerant!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bean Balls

2 cans chickpeas, rinsed, drained (*and de-skinned)

1/2 cup peanut butter
2 tbsp whole wheat flour
1 tbsp ground oatmeal
2 tbsp Agave Nectar
1 tsp vanilla
½ tsp salt
3 tbsp Splenda
Drizzle of fat free ½ and ½
1/2 bag chocolate chips

(*I thought I read on her blog that you should first skin the chickpeas, so I spent 30 min’s shucking the little peas out of their skins.

Wherever I read this, the author called it a relaxing almost Zen activity. Maybe it could be if I wasn’t doing it at 8:30 at night with kids past their bedtime waiting on chocolate chip cookies. It was only after I was almost done did Anthony point out that her recipe did not in fact require skinning. Oh well.)

Combine all ingredients except for the milk and the chocolate chips in a food processor until well combined. Drizzle about 1 tbsp of milk in while the food processor is running, keep adding just enough to reach a doughy, smooth consistency. Scoop the dough into a bowl and fold in the chocolate chips.

Using a cookie scoop, place a dough ball onto a lined cookie sheet (I use a silpat instead of parchment when I can) a few inches a part. These do not spread at all so flatten them down a bit.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 min’s until just golden.

The verdict: Yum! Everyone liked them. Seriously, try these! Despite my efforts to hide that I was going to make the cookies with chickpeas, Anthony caught on pretty quick and even volunteered to help. He loved them even knowing they were made with beans! Brad had no idea they were different than any other chocolate chip cookie but did comment that the dough was not very sweet. I think next time I make them, and at this point I will make them again, I will add more agave nectar to the mix and make them into cookie bars instead of balls. Anthony (a 10 year old boy) also reminded me that we should wait to see how our tummy’s handle them since the cookies are made with beans.

“You know, Mom: Beans, Beans, the magical fruit….”

Ahh, boys!