Festive Cranberry Cheese Dip

A friend introduced me to this recipe a couple years ago and I like it so much, I'm looking forward to eating it around the holidays!  I'm making this recipe next week, so I'll add the exact measurements to this post, but for now, here's the general idea in case you feel so inclined to make it for an upcoming event.

You add a 12 oz. bag of cranberries and one store-bought pint of pico de gallo to a blender or food processor.  Add sugar to taste (I'm thinking maybe 1/2 cup?) and a handful of cilantro.  Add a few drops of red food coloring to beautify it.  Then pour it over an 8 oz. brick of cream cheese.  Garnish with cilantro and serve it with rice crackers.  Yum-O!

Energy Bars

I love these! They're such a treat, but you can sneak anything into them! These are jam packed with all kinds of good stuff! I got the idea for the recipe from the "Cool Cooking" cookbook series by Lisa Wagner, but I modified it a bit to make them even more healthy.

1 Cup Chocolate Chips
1 1/2 Cups Rolled Oats
2 Cups Crisp Rice Cereal
1/2 Cup Flaked Coconut
1/4 Cup Sesame Seeds
1/2 Cup Flax Seeds
1/4 Cup Sunflower Seeds
1/2 Cup Walnuts, Almonds or Peanuts
3/4 Cup Peanut Butter
3/4 Cup Brown Sugar
1/2 Cup Honey
1/2 Cup Maple Syrup

1. Put the chocolate chips, oats, cereal, coconut, seeds and nuts in a large mixing bowl and mix them together.

2. Mix the peanut butter, brown sugar, and maple syrup in a saucepan over medium heat stirring until everything is blended and the brown sugar has dissolved.

3. Pour the hot mixture over the dry ingredients and stir until everything is completely blended.

4. Pour the mixture in to the prepared baking pan. Use your hands to pat the mixture into the pan.

Then you are supposed to refrigerate for 3 hours, but that is totally not going to happen at my house!

Corn & Black Bean Salsa

A coworker shared this recipe with me and I love it! Unfortunately, I ate it before I remembered to take a picture of it.

1-2 Tomatoes (medium to large)
3 Avocados
1 Can White Shoepeg Corn, drained
1 Can Kidney Beans, drained
1 Can Black Beans, drained
1/2 Bottle Italian Dressing
Lime or Lemon Juice

1. Dice the tomatoes and avocados, place in a bowl and sprinkle a little lime/lemon juice over the avocado to keep it from turning brown.
2. Add the corn and beans.
3. Pour italian dressing over the top and stir together!

Serve with chips. If you chill it in the fridge for about an hour before serving, the flavors blend together better.

Raisin Bran Banana Muffins

Everyone needs more recipes for using up over-ripe bananas. I tried this one the other day and we loved it. They're healthier than the average muffin with the fruit and fiber in them.

2 Cups Raisin Bran Cereal
1 1/4 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/4 Cup Walnuts, chopped
1 1/4 teaspoons Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1 Egg
1 Cup Buttermilk
1/4 Cup Cooking Oil

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the cereal, flour, sugar, walnuts, baking soda and salt.
3. Break the egg into another bowl and beat it together with the buttermilk and oil.
4. Mix the wet and dry ingredients together.
5. Fill greased muffin tins 3/4 full with mixture.
6. Bake about 20-25 minutes.

Staples Grocery List

I've been wanting to create a "Staples" Grocery List for awhile since we always run out of things we need, but we don't notice until we need them. We use the same things over and over, so I wanted a list that we could just mark as soon as we run out of something. Here's what my list looks like.

I've attached links where you can download them for yourself. One of them is a PDF in case you like it just the way it is and the other is a Word Document so you can edit it to fit your needs. I apologize that the PDF version has a blank second page, I could not get it off no matter how I tried! The Word Document looks like junk, of course, because they don't have the same fonts and it threw all the formatting off, but you can at least get a start from what I've created. This is my first accomplishment from my list of 55 in 500! Woot, woot!

Staples Grocery List PDF
Staples Grocery List

Staples Grocery List Word Document
Staples Grocery List

Hawaiian Sweet Bread

• I busted out the old bread maker and have been loving using it to make dough lately. You know how the bread in those machines always has such a hard crust? Well, just making dough in them works awesome and then you just transfer the dough to the oven for baking. We've eaten a lot of fresh bread this week. Yum!
  
• 
  
• 1 Cup Pineapple Juice
• 2 Eggs
• 4 Tablespoons Butter, softened
• 1/4 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1/4 teaspoon Coconut Extract
• 5 Tablespoons Sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon Salt
• 2 Tablespoons Dry Milk Powder
• 2 Tablespoons Dry Potato Flakes
• 3 Cups All-Purpose Flour
• 1 Tablespoon Active Dry Yeast

1. Measure ingredients into the bread machine in the order listed above and set the dough setting.

2. Place dough in a 9X5 inch loaf pan. Allow to rise until doubled. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

3. Bake for about 30 minutes.

Sweet & Sour Chicken

Sorry this food didn't pose very well for the camera, but I thought a bad picture was better than no picture. I wanted to post this recipe because it's super easy and also because if you take out the chicken, pineapple and bell pepper, it's your regular run of the mill sweet and sour sauce served in chinese restaurants, so you could make it for dipping wontons or eggrolls too.

1 3/4 Cups Water, divided
3/4 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Distilled White Vinegar
1/4 Cup Cornstarch
1 (8 oz.) Can Pineapple Tidbits. drained (juice reserved)
Yellow (1 drop) & Red (2 drops) Food Coloring
4 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts, cooked and cut into bite size pieces

1 Bell Pepper, cut into bite size pieces

1. In a saucepan, combine 1 1/2 cups water, sugar, vinegar, reserved pineapple juice and food coloring. Heat to boiling, then turn off heat.

2. Combine cornstarch and 1/4 cup water, slowly stir into saucepan. Continue stirring until mixture thickens.

3. Add cooked chicken pieces, bell pepper and pineapple. Heat until warmed through.

Serve over rice or chow mein noodles.

Cinna-YUM Roll

Ok, Lame food title, I know...but it's true. I have been in search of the perfect cinnamon roll recipe for a couple of years now. I make them twice a year because they're such a pain in the %@&, but I love them, so I keep trying to make them. I always end up with disappointing results. The dough has no flavor, it's too tough, not fluffy enough, not dense enough, the filling is not gooey enough, too crispy, doesn't cling to the roll, the frosting tastes like raw powdered sugar, the recipe doesn't make enough, it's not spreadable, etc. etc. etc. Let me also add that I am not a baker. I love to cook (obviously), but I can't say I've ever really 100% successfully baked anything. So I am certain this is a large contributor to the fact that my cinnamon rolls have never quite worked. All the more reason to find a perfect recipe, you know?...fool proof! So, I think I did.

After working hard all day laboring over these rolls, I grunted as I removed them from the oven and they were overcooked. I wasn't surprised, of course, but annoyed. I frosted them up knowing we were about to dig into yet another crappy batch of cinnamon rolls. And then?! Whoa! These were good! Really, really good! Not to say they were perfect, but the problem was the baker, not the recipe. I really think this recipe is perfect. I have some plans to change a few of my techniques here and there next time I make these, but I have finally found a winner.

To give credit where credit's due, I found this recipe on the "all recipes" app on my IPAD. Awesome app, by the way, and it's free. I use it all the time. This recipe was called "Clone of a Cinnabon"...and it really was.

Dough

1 Cup Milk, warm

2 Eggs, room temperature (see all this temperature junk?? This is exactly why I hate baking. The moon has to perfectly align with the planet in order for a baked good to come out right...sorry, I digress)

1/3 Cup Margarine, melted (I used butter, but I'll try margarine next time since the recipe calls for it and maybe the special scientific process used in creating margarine is necessary for the said baked good to come out right)

4 1/2 Cups Bread Flour (I used all-purpose flour, but again, will certainly use the bread flour next time since it will probably make these even more delicious...unimaginable)

1 teaspoon Salt

1/2 Cup White Sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons Bread Machine Yeast

Filling

1 Cup Brown Sugar, packed
2 1/2 Tablespoons Ground Cinnamon
1/3 Cup Butter, Softened

Frosting

1 (6 oz.) Package Cream Cheese, softened
2/3 Cup Butter, softened
3 Cups Confectioners Sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1/4 teaspoon Salt

Ok, admittedly, when I made these, I doubled the frosting. The recipe shown here is the doubled recipe because I think it's necessary and when I make these again, I want them to have the right amount of frosting. I made one batch and it wasn't enough, so I made a second batch separately. It was probably more than necessary, but I can't say it hurt them:)

1. Place dough ingredients in the pan of the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select dough cycle; press start. (Note: I'm sure you could make these without a bread maker, but since I can't bake, I couldn't tell you how).

2. After the dough has doubled in size, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, cover and let rest for 10 minutes. (Note: I didn't have to flour a surface, the dough was dry enough that it didn't stick).

3. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon.

4. Roll dough into a rectangle (it says 16x21, but I didn't measure and I just felt lucky enough to be able to get it into a shape that somewhat resembled a rectangle).

5. Spread dough with 1/3 Cup softened butter and sprinkle evenly with the sugar/cinnamon mixture.

6. Roll up dough and cut into rolls (it says 12, I got 15).

7. Place rolls in a lightly greased 9X13 inch baking pan. Cover and let rise until nearly doubled, about 30 minutes (ha ha, while typing this I realized I totally skipped this step!). Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees.

8. Bake rolls in preheated oven until golden brown, about 15 minutes.

9. While rolls are baking, beat together all the frosting ingredients.

10. Spread frosting on warm rolls before serving.

Ta Da! (Hailee says that's short for Da Da Ta Da!) Happy Baking!

Retirement Cake

Here's an idea for a retirement cake. I made this one for Ty's mom. She retired this month and now they are off in Arizona for a month. So fun! You just cook one cake mix on a cookie sheet and another cake mix divided between two round cake pans then stack them all together.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Muffins

Your kids will love cutting into these and finding a surprise inside! We make these for breakfast. Sorry I suck at taking pictures:)

1 Cup Flour
1/2 Cup Oats
1/4 Cup Sugar
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1 Egg
1/4 Cup Oil
3/4 Cup Milk
1/2 Cup Peanut Butter
Jam

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Grease muffin tin.
3. In a large bowl, stir together flour, oats, sugar baking powder and salt.
4. In another bowl, mix together the egg, milk, oil and peanut butter.
5. Mix together the wet and dry ingredients until just combined.
6. Fill muffin cups 1/2 full with mixture.
7. Cover each muffin cup with the other 1/2 of the muffin mixture.
In this picture I've covered 1/2 with the rest of the muffin mixture and half still have the jam exposed.8. Bake in oven for 15 minutes.

Unfortunately I overcooked mine so the pictures aren't great, but you get the idea:)
Variation ideas:
1. Replace the peanut butter with mashed bananas and use whole blueberries in the middle instead of the jam.
2. Replace the peanut butter with cream cheese and use sliced strawberries or peaches instead of the jam.

Easy Enchiladas

Don't be afraid to make enchiladas, they are so easy!! Don't be afraid of using enchilada sauce, either. If you don't use it, then you're really just making burritos. You can make it as spicy (or not spicy) as you want. My kids eat this just fine. You can change this recipe up however you want or to fit what ingredients you have. Here's the basic recipe.

Enchilada
Corn Tortillas
1/4 Cup Vegetable Oil
Shredded Chicken, Shredded Beef or Beans
Shredded Cheddar Cheese

Sauce
1/4 Cup Vegetable Oil
2 Tablespoons Flour
2-3 Tablespoons Chili Powder
1 (8 oz.) Can Tomato Sauce
1 1/2 Cups Water
1/4 Teaspoon Cumin
1/4 Teaspoon Garlic Powder (or 1 garlic clove, minced)
1/4 teaspoon Onion Salt

1. Heat oil for sauce in a skillet over medium-high heat.
2. Stir in flour and chili powder, reduce heat to medium, and cook until lightly brown, stirring constantly to prevent burning flour.
3. Gradually stir in tomato sauce, water, cumin, garlic powder, and onion salt into the flour and chili powder until smooth, and continue cooking over medium heat approximately 10 minutes, or until thickened slightly. Season to taste with salt.
4. Spoon some of the enchilada sauce into a baking dish.
5. Heat oil for enchiladas in a separate skillet over medium-high heat.
6. Using tongs, place one corn tortilla in the oil for 30 seconds, flip to the other side for 30 seconds, then remove. You don't want it to get crispy.
7. Dip the oil-covered tortillas into the sauce in the skillet and cover both sides.
8. Sprinkle desired meat or beans onto tortilla, then sprinkle with cheddar cheese.
9. Roll up and place seam-side down into the baking dish (on top of the sauce).
10. Repeat steps 6-9 until you have as many enchiladas as you want.
11. Spoon more sauce over the top of all of them.
12. Sprinkle with cheese.
13. Put all of them under the broiler until cheese is melted.

Delicioso! Serve with mexican rice and refried beans.

For a couple variations on the enchiladas, you could add chopped scallions, chopped green chili's and/or bits of cream cheese into the filling.