Amy's Kitchen Creations

Menu for October 3rd-7th

2011-10-02T17:16:00.000-05:00

I start my new job tomorrow! It's a 7hr day with all kinds of orientation. I'm sure it'll be a long day full of lots of information. To make things a little easier as we transition into my new job (with different hours and a separate commute) I'm going to start planning our weekly menu. This will help Matt too because he'll likely be home before I will, therefore he'll be cooking a lot more for us.
Sunday: Homemade Chicken Chow Mein
Monday: Tortellini Pasta Bake with garlic bread
Tuesday: Biscuits & Gravy
Wednesday: BBQ Bacon Chicken
Thursday: Spaghetti and Meatballs with leftover garlic bread
Friday: I'm thinking we'll get some take-out. We're having our friends' 15month old over for a sleepover so it'll be something kid-friendly.

Our Weekly Menu 8/8-8/19

2011-08-08T14:27:00.000-05:00

Monday 8/8: Spaghetti and Meatballs with side salads

Tuesday 8/9: Take out Fake out orange chicken (recipe)
Wednesday 8/10: Creamy Taco Mac (recipe) with side salads
Thursday 8/11: Alfredo Pasta Bake (recipe)*
Friday 8/12: I will be gone for the night, Matt will be on his own...
Saturday 8/13: I will be gone for the night, Matt will be on his own...
Sunday 8/14: Dinner out
Monday 8/15: Homemade pizza (will make extra dough to throw in the freezer, too) (recipe)
Tuesday 8/16: Porkchop Hashbrown Bake (recipe)
Wednesday 8/17: Low-fat Zesty Shrimp pasta (recipe)
Thursday 8/18: Shrimp tacos with spicy avocado sauce (recipe)
Friday 8/19: At Mom and Dad's for the weekend

What I'm baking this week:
Monday: Cookies and Cream Rice Krispie Treats to bring to a meeting that I'm co-leading. (recipe)
Thursday: Brownie stuffed chocolate chip cookies to bring to my conference with me to share. (recipe)

Buffalo Chicken Salad

2011-07-31T14:27:00.000-05:00

My Husband LOVES buffalo anything. Buffalo wings, buffalo chicken wraps, buffalo chicken salad, buffalo chicken pizza, buffalo chicken flavored pretzels. If it has buffalo chicken in the name, he'll eat it. This man has a heat tolerance I've never known before. I can never ask him if something is too spicy, because to him it's not. However, when I take a bite, I feel like my lips will start on fire. There have only been a few things to ever make him sweat from the heat. One of them being my Mom's salsa. Nobody else in my family can manage her salsa, but he loves it!

We had some bags of lettuce to use up so I figured buffalo chicken salad would be a light, yet tasty, meal. I was at the grocery store and was prepared to buy chicken breasts from the meat section but decided that a rotisserie chicken would work just as well and would probably be much easier.

Our salads ended up being HUGE. Seriously. Neither of us could finish our plates! We had plenty for leftovers the next day and it was delicious even on the second day.

The only recipe I have for this is for the hot sauce coating. The rest is up to you. Use whatever lettuce you like and whatever veggies you like. I preferred ranch dressing but my Husband chose bleu cheese for his dressing of choice.

Hot sauce coating
Amy's Kitchen Creations original recipe

2 tablespoons butter
1 cup buffalo sauce
2 tablespoons worchestshire sauce
1 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper

To start, take all of the meat off of the rotisserie chicken and shred it to your desired size. In a small frying pan turned to medium-high heat, add two tablespoons of butter. Let it melt. Add the chicken pieces to the butter. Add the rest of the ingredients and combine. Make sure all of the chicken pieces are coated. Cook until the sauce isn't as thin as it was originally (about 10 minutes or so).

Let cool a bit and then top your salad with the chicken pieces and dressing!

Enjoy!

Alfredo Pasta Bake

2011-07-31T14:00:00.001-05:00

When I saw this recipe on Carrie's blog I knew that this dish would be something that I would enjoy as well as my alfredo' lovin Husband. I haven't made it for us yet but I did make it for a friend after she had surgery. She said that her kids loved noodles of all varieties and I knew that her Husband, a meat and potatoes kind of guy, would enjoy this as well.

Because I was making this for kids ranging in ages from 1-8, I didn't use italian sausage because I knew that it could be a little spicy and would make dinnertime more hassle than delicious.

Below is the recipe that I used. Remember, I made this for a friend so I had to alter the way I prepared it a little. I wanted to make sure that it was ready for her to just put in the oven and not worry about it. Carrie has the original recipe on her blog.

Alfredo Sausage Bake
Recipe from: Carrie's Sweet Life

2 jars of Alfredo sauce
2 bags of frozen tortellini, cooked per package directions
2 cups of mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/2 cup of parmesan cheese
1 package of ring bologna, cut into slices

Cook the tortellini per the package directions. While the tortellini is cooking, place the bologna in a frying pan with a little bit of oil. Fry them until they're cooked through. Drain on a paper towel.

When the tortellini and bologna are cooked, combine the tortellini, sauce, bologna, parmesan cheese and 1 cup of mozzarella. Stir until well combined but be careful because the tortellini will be soft and you don't want to break them.

Pour the mixture into a lightly greased 9x13 baking dish. Top with remaining 1 cup of mozzarella cheese.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes until cheese is bubbly and golden brown.

Like I said, I didn't make this myself but the recipient gave rave reviews and everyone loved it. I know that my Husband was bummed that I didn't make two batches, one to keep for ourselves, so I'll have to put this on the menu for us soon. It was super simple to make!

Ice Cream Cake and Cupcakes

2011-06-21T09:21:00.000-05:00

On a Monday morning I was contacted and asked to make an ice cream cake and 1 dozen cupcakes for a 6th Birthday party on that same Wednesday. [insert panic here]

I was so extremely nervous for two reasons. #1: I've never made an ice cream cake before and #2: I've never made a cake/baked good for anyone other than family or coworkers before.

Everything turned out fine. They were to pick up the order at about 4:00pm Wednesday. At 3:50 I slid the decorated cake back into the freezer to freeze a little more before they picked it up, at 4:02 my doorbell rang. Talk about finishing in the nick of time!

I googled countless ice cream cake recipes, watched an ice cream cake video on youtube and just went with my own plan of attack. I didn't follow a specific recipe, but I had the idea in my head. I event went to a local Dairy Queen to check out their cakes, prices and decorations.

Marble cake was the Birthday girls choice!

Ice Cream Cake
My original recipe

1 baked and cooled cake, flavor of your choice
96 oz of your favorite ice cream, softened (I used chocolate and vanilla)
2-3 sleeves of crushed up oreo cookies (I purchased the family size oreo box)
Hot Fudge sauce
Cool Whip or Homemade whipped topping
Buttercream frosting to decorate your cake with
9x13 disposable pans (regular cake pans would work fine, but I was giving this away and didn't want to give away my glass 9x13 pan)

Once my cake was baked and cooled, I knew I wanted to transfer it to a pan other than the pan it was baked in so I took it out and noticed that I needed to cut it down. I used my cake leveler to cut it in half lengthwise. I put the half that I was using in the disposable pan and set the half that I wasn't going to use aside. (I had intentions of making cake balls with it, but it really didn't end up to be that much so I just tossed it.)
Set your ice cream out now for about 5-10 minutes to let it soften up. You want it to be smooth and stirable but not soupy. Put a layer of ice cream on top of the cake. I did about 1/2 to 3/4 of my container of ice cream.

Freeze for at least 1 hour (this is when I made the cupcakes for the same order)

After the vanilla ice cream has refroze somewhat, I prepared the cooke fudge layer. I crushed up oreos and ccombined them with hot fudge sauce. I wouldn't recommend this again. The hot fudge got very thick and wouldn't spread as I was hoping it would. I revamped my plan and instead, I sprinkled the crushed oreos on the vanilla layer and drizzled some chocolate ice cream topping over the crushed cookies. I was very generous with both the oreos and the chocolate topping because I wanted them to be very noticeable in the cake in both presentation and taste.

I also sprinkled some Nerds candies on the fudge layer because I heard that the Birthday girl loves candy. Looking back, I should have sprinkled more nerds to create more of a layer rather than a sprinkling.

After you've taken the cake out after freezing it with the cookie fudge layer, you're ready for the final ice cream layer. In this case, chocolate. I tried to go a little heavier with the chocolate ice cream because that was a request from the chocolate lovin' Birthday girl.

At this point, it was about 10pm at night and I was ready for bed. After I had spread the chocolate layer on, I popped it in the freezer and froze it overnight and all day while I was at work the next day.

On Wednesday when I got home from work, I quickly frosted the top with my cool whip, added a few decorations/writing in Buttercream frosting and sprinkled more nerds on top. I can't believe I don't have a picture of the final cake uploaded yet. I'll upload that and edit this post soon.

It was a lot of fun to make and I'm glad to have had the experience. I was so relieved when the Mom of the Birthday girl text me and gave me rave reviews. Her Daughter loved the cake, they all loved the cake!

Whew! Ice cream cake = success.

Here are a few picture of the cupcakes. Both the ice cream cake layer and the cupcakes were box mixes-Duncan Hines marble. Easy & tasty!

White Buttercream Frosting
Source: The Girl Who Ate Everything
Review: I really loved this frosting. I'm not a fan of usual buttercreams and tend to go with the whipped toppings but this was really tasty. It wasn't too sweet or thick. It was so easy to make and light to work with too. It was a very smooth frosting.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
Source: Hershey's 'Perfectly Chocolate' Chocolate Frosting
Review: I was sort of 'meh' on this recipe. I realized that I didn't follow the steps exactly though. It says to alternately add the powdered sugar and milk and without realizing I added all of the milk and then added the powdered sugar. The frosting had a little of a gritty taste to it which could be in part to my error. I'll definitely make this again and make sure to follow the instructions. My Husband who is a chocolate frosting lover, really liked the frosting but also commented on the gritty texture.

Baby Back Ribs

2011-06-16T12:05:00.001-05:00

I don't know about you but I'm definitely a meat girl. Not so much meat and potatoes, but I definitely enjoy having meat. Steak, ribs, burgers... I enjoy them all. I remember when Matt and I first started dating, we went to dinner at Applebee's one night before a movie and they had some sort of ribs as a special. I ordered it and it was very tasty. Matt later told me that he was shocked that I ordered ribs. He may deny it but I bet that's when he knew he wanted to marry me. ;-)

We don't have ribs too often, but when they're on sale at the grocery store, we'll buy a rack. They're a very tasty and often simple to prepare meal. We usually have a salad with our ribs or a lighter side. If we feel like splurging a little, we'll have some mashed potatoes or a baked potato.

This recipe is all Matt's creation. He's usually the cook when we have ribs. Up until now, his best recipe was the steamed ribs he did on the gas grill.

Baby Back Ribs
~~Amy's~~ Matt's Kitchen Creations original recipe

1 rack of ribs (peel the skin off the backside of the ribs)
1 cup of brown sugar
1-2 Tablespoons of Tastefully Simple Seasoned Salt*
1-2 Tablespoons of Tastefully Simple Everyday Grilling Seasoning*
2 Tablespoons of Tastefully Simple Awesome American BBQ Sauce

After you've removed the skin off the backside of the ribs, rub 1/2 cup of brown sugar on each side of the ribs. Let sit in the refrigerator for 40 minutes while you prepare your charcoal grill. (a gas grill would work too, but honestly, these ribs were the most tender, flavorful ribs we've ever had)

Just before placing on the grill, season both sides with the Tastefully Simple seasonings. *Matt wasn't sure exactly how much he used, he just sprinkled the seasonings on. Use your own judgement.

Grill for about an hour and a half rotating every so often. At the one hour mark, spread the BBQ sauce over the ribs. Continue cooking for another 30 minutes. Let rest slightly before enjoying!

Smoothies

2011-05-30T08:00:00.003-05:00

This is actually a recipe that Matt whipped up for Breakfast on Friday morning. I had taken a PTO day so he made us breakfast that morning. He scrambled some eggs up with a chopped vidalia onion and some cut up sausages. He added this smoothie to go with it and it was perfect!

I really like smoothies but don't want to purchase them everyday. Our only options around our house for smoothies are either McDonald's or Caribou. Neither of which I consider to be real smoothies.

This one is super easy and our magic bullet makes it even easier! Smoothies in about 5 minutes flat for uber cheap!

Smoothie

Source: Amy's Kitchen Creation Original

1 cup frozen fruit (we used a blend of strawberries, blueberries, melons and grapes from Aldi)

1 cup (8oz) orange juice

Put both ingredients into the magic bullet and blend until you reach your desired consistency. We like ours thin but not too thin.

What I love most about the bullet is that there is no additional cleanup. You make your smoothie in the same cup you'll drink from. One dish is dirtied and no time is wasted!

Here's something my dear 'ol Husband doesn't know... when I made his smoothie tonight (he's been sick and requested a smoothie for 'dessert') I added 2 tsp of flax seed. hehehe Feel free to add flax seed or any other extra ingredients for added nutrition, I bet you'll never notice!

We were at Aldi again the other day and picked up a different fruit blend. I can't wait to try it. Smoothies are definitely an easy way to get in your daily recommended fruits.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

2011-05-29T09:00:00.001-05:00

My Mom recently had a Birthday and I offered to make her Birthday dessert. I was eager to try my hand at red velvet cake and this was the perfect occasion. I asked her if she wanted a cake or cupcakes and she chose Birthday cupcakes! Awesome! Cupcakes are easy, transportable and always well received.

I've never eaten red velvet cake before. I always had this preconceived notion that it would taste 'funny'... as if there was an absurd ingredient in it or something. Who knows. I was wrong. I was so wrong. These were phenomenal. They were perfectly moist and oh so delicious. Oh, and that cream cheese frosting? It was TDF (to.die.for). Definitely the perfect companion for my new beloved red velvet.

Annie never lets me down. I found this red velvet recipe on her website and it was perfect.

The batter is a beautiful, deep red color!

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Source: Annie's Eats
Yield: about 24 cupcakes

Ingredients:
For the cake:
2½ cups cake flour
1½ cups sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tbsp. cocoa powder
1 tsp. salt
2 large eggs
1½ cups vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
2 tbsp. (1 oz.) liquid red food coloring
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. distilled white vinegar

For the frosting (see note at end)
8 oz. cream cheese
5 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2½ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line cupcake pans with paper liners. In a medium bowl, combine the cake flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt; whisk to blend. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the eggs, vegetable oil, buttermilk, food coloring, vanilla and vinegar. Beat on medium speed until well blended. Mix in the dry ingredients on low speed and beat until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared liners. Bake, rotating the pans halfway through baking, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 18 minutes. Let cool in the pans 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the frosting, combine the cream cheese and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat on medium-high speed until well combined and smooth, about 2-3 minutes. Mix in the vanilla extract. Gradually beat in the confectioners’ sugar until totally incorporated, increase the speed and then beat until smooth. Frost cooled cupcakes as desired. In my picture I used a Ziploc bag with a hole snipped at the end. My Mom doesn't have piping bags on hand (not many people I know do) and I didn't think to bring one with.

*Annie recommends to increase the quantities by 50% to make more frosting. This will allow you to have more frosting on your cupcake and if you're swirling it by using a large star tip, you'll want to have the additional frosting. You may end up with some frosting leftover, but hey, you'd rather have that than to be short frosting, right?

I had these cute edible decorations left from Christmastime and I used those to decorate a few of the cupcakes. Although they are edible, I don't think they're desirable. I don't know about you but when I'm eating a cupcake, I really don't want to bite into a hard crunch. I think they're really pretty on these cupcakes though. It really makes them look elegant; like little pearls.

Banana Walnut Muffins

2011-05-29T00:19:00.000-05:00

Eeek. I didn't realize my picture was that bad. I guess that's what I get for taking pictures at 10:30pm in an already dark kitchen. See that cute stand that I have my muffins on though? I saw my Mom had one when we were visiting and she said that she got them at Walmart for $3! When I was there the next day, lo and behold they still had some in stock! I grabbed two of these black ones and a white wire bowl that is currently housing my apples.

See?

Anyway... back to the muffins... My Mom had made some muffins a few days ago and passed this recipe along.

Banana Walnut Muffins

Adapted from: Giada De Laurentiis

Ingredients:

2.5 cups of flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp table salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 tbsp flax seed

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

1 cup applesauce (original recipe calls for vegetable oil)

1 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

4 mashed bananas

Preheat your oven to 350*. In a large bowl combine the flour, baking soda, table salt, baking powder, nutmeg, cinnamon, flax seed and walnuts, . Stir to lightly combine.

In a separate large bowl, combine your sugars, oil or applesauce, vanilla, eggs and mashed bananas. Make sure to mash your bananas completely or you'll end up with banana chunks that won't bake properly during the baking time (trust me, i know.)

Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until well combined.

If you're not using cupcake liners, generously grease a muffin pan with baking non-stick spray. Divide the batter evenly into the cups. I filled them 3/4 full to almost completely full. I got two pans out of the recipe, so 24 muffins total.

WW info: 5pts per muffin

These would be a great breakfast combined with a smoothie and a small yogurt. Light, refreshing and filling!

Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites

2011-05-28T23:41:00.000-05:00

I'm really not a fan of peanut butter in treats like this. If I'm going to eat peanut butter I'd rather have a PB&J sandwich. I know, I know some people may now be considering me insane. But, it's true.

These little morsels may be a game changer though. My willpower and I can beat these little guys. I had a few of them the day I brought them to work, but that was it. I was satisfied without them. Yay!

They're really very easy to make. If you've got some pretzels, peanut butter, melting chocolate (I used almond bark) a few other ingredients and a little bit of time set aside, you too can make these!

Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites

Source: 17 & Baking

1 cup creamy peanut butter
2 tsp butter, room temperature
2/3 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
Pretzels (round pretzels or even the square ones will do!)
2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips (or almond bark)

In a small bowl, beat the peanut butter and butter together until smooth and creamy. Beat in the powdered sugar, light brown sugar, and vanilla extract until well mixed – you may need to add more to get the filling thick and stiff enough to hold its shape.

Roll teaspoons of the peanut butter mixture between your palms to form balls. Sandwich between two pretzels and put on a plate or cookie sheet. Freeze the pretzel sandwiches for half an hour.
Melt the chocolate according to package directions. (I put mine in the microwave for 30 seconds and then stirred it around and it was good enough. It all melted together nicely after being stirred around)

Dip each pretzel sandwich in chocolate, about halfway. If you're really feeling crazy, dip the whole darn thing. People will get a surprise bite of pretzel-y peanut butter-y goodness when they bite in. Kind of like those Take 5 candy bars!

I set each dipped pretzel sandwich on waxed paper to let them all dry.

Creamy Chicken Taquitos

2011-05-11T08:00:00.001-05:00

This was a fabulous, filling meal. I've had taquitos at restaurants before, usually in their appetizer samplers. They've always been pretty good. I'm pretty certain that they're always fried though. Which is obviously, why they taste so good :-)

This recipe was SO simple to prepare. Honestly. I cooked the chicken the night before, let it cool, put it in the refrigerator and then the next night it took all of about twenty minutes to prepare and only about 15 minutes in the oven. Super simple!

As you can see, there was enough filling to feed an army! I used a whole package of 10 tortillas. I made burritos with it because I knew I'd need to break into another pack of tortillas with all of that filling and I really didn't want to.

I love how crispy these got in the oven without getting too crispy. I wish I would have been better prepared. These would have gone great with some lettuce, fresh salsa, gresh guacamole and sour cream. A very quick and delicious meal for any night of the week. These would be perfect as an appetizer as well.

Go easy on the spice and you've got yourself a perfect kid-friendly, finger food meal! You could even reserve a bit of the chicken mixture, without any of the seasoning to make some for the kids; then continue on and spice it up to your tastes.

Creamy Chicken Taquitos
Adapted from: Annie's Eats

Ingredients:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup Vine Ripened Salsa from Tastefully Simple
1 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice (I used bottled)
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin (I omitted)
1/2 tsp onion powder (I omitted)
2 tsp Garlic Garlic from Tastefully Simple
3 tbsp chopped cilantro (I used cilantro cubes)
2 tsp Onion Onion from Tastefully Simple
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
1 cup shredded Mexican cheese (any cheese will do)
10 tortillas (approx. 6 inch size)
1 tbsp Ole Ole Fiesta Sauce from Tastefully Simple
a pinch or two of coarse salt

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 425. I lightly sprayed a cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray. You could use parchment paper or a silpat as well.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the cream cheese, salsa, lime juice, spices, cilantro, chicken, fiesta sauce and shredded cheese. Mix thoroughly until well combined.

If you need to, microwave your tortillsa just a little to make sure that they're flexible enough for tightly rolling.
Spoon about 2-3 tablespoons of the chicken mixture onto the tortilla. Roll the tortilla up tightly around the filling. Place them seam side down on your baking sheet. Continue this process with the remaining filling and tortillas. Filling them more/less to your liking.

Line them up, evenly spaced on your cookie sheet and lightly spray the tops of them with cooking spray. Take a pinch of your salt and sprinkle it over the tops. Don't skip this step. It may sound odd, but it'll be delicious.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until crisp and golden brown. Serve plain or with your favorite toppings.

I'm bummed that I didn't take any other pictures. If you want a drool-icious photo, go check out Annie's post.

Perfect Party Cookies

2011-05-10T08:00:00.000-05:00

I've really been on a baking kick lately. I just love to be in the kitchen and baking. I love when my recipes turn out, I love when my kitchen smells of whatever is happily baking in the oven, I love the smiles on faces when someone tries something I make and they enjoy it. Baking is also a great stress reliever for me.

The only thing I don't love? Having cakes, cookies, muffins, cupcakes sitting at home and staring me in the face. I do not have very strong willpower. I will eat them. So, when I can make something and bring it to someone or somewhere I'm the happiest! I get to do something that I enjoy, gift it to someone and call it a day without adding any calories to my daily intake.

I made a double batch of these cookies one day last week to bring to my Dentist appointment and to a staff meeting at work. Who brings a box of cookies to their Dentist, right? Well, my Mom used to work at this Dentist office so I know them pretty well. I knew they wouldn't mind getting a little box of sweets for a lunch time treat.

They went over well at both locations. The Dentist emailed me and said "I just ate one of those chocolate chip cookies and thought I had died and gone to Heaven. THANK YOU soooo much for bringing them in. You are the best." Now, if that's not a compliment, I don't know what is. At our staff meeting, a coworker had three of them before we even left the meeting room. Again, I'd say that's a pretty good compliment.

You will not be disappointed when you make these cookies. They're so easy to prepare and not to mention, you don't get that many dishes dirty. You don't even need a kitchenaid/stand mixer! I mixed this all up with a spatula! One thing to note, if you're doubling the batch like I did, make sure you have enough sprinkles on hand. You'll need 8 tablespoons (1/2 cup) of sprinkles. I might have a sprinkle obsession and had plenty of them, but I don't know if non-baking households will have a sprinkle surplus like I did.

This would be perfect to make with kids. Not too many ingredients, simple measurements and they look fun and festive. They're sure to catch a kid's eye!

This was my second time making a double batch. Can you tell I had to get creative with my sprinkle options? We've got a little Christmas sprinkles, some Spring-time sprinkles and some rainbow sprinkles.

Perfect Party Cookies
Source: Stephanie Cooks

Ingredients
1 cup of flour
1 cup of boxed yellow cake mix
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup butter melted & cooled slightly
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup chocolate chips
4 tbsp sprinkles of your choice

Directions
Preheat oven to 350. Sift together your flower, cake mix and soda, set aside. In a large bowl, beat together the melted butter, egg, egg yolk and vanilla until slightly creamy. Add the sugars and stir well.Add the flour mixture, stir well to combine. Add your chocolate chips and sprinkles, sitr well to combine.

(At this point in Stephanie's recipe, she says to refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes because the dough will be runny. I've made these twice now and did not have runny dough either time. Use your discretion. If your dough is runny, refrigerate for 30 minutes. If it's not, you could charge on and not worry about refrigeration.)

Using a cookie scoop, place dough onto a greased cookie sheet. Keep dough cool in between batches. I did put mine in the refrigerator while a batch was baking.

Bake 12-15 minutes until the edges are golden brown and the center sets. Cool for 5 minutes on the cookie sheet and remove to a wire rack.

Personally, I love a cookie that is a little crisp but also a little chewy so I took them out at the 12 minute mark, let them cool on the sheet and then transferred them to the wire rack to cool completely.

These cookies were even worthy of me taking out my cookie jar from the cupboard! I still have some dough at home in the refrigerator. I think I'm going to bake up some cookies and sell them, bake sale style, at my garage sale this weekend. Like I said, I don't want to add too many calories to my daily intake!

Comments:

For some reason, when I made these last night again, they ended up being really thin. They spread out so much on my cookie sheet. I ended up only being able to put 6 on a cookie sheet at a time because they spread so thin. Personally, I loved them this way. The outside was just crisp enough, but they were still chewy. My Husband said "I feel like I'm eating a wafer." However, her liked them enough to still eat two.

I'm not sure what I did. I think because I was multi-tasking in the kitchen, I probably added a little bit too much, or not enough, of something. I still enjoy them, but just make sure to watch your measuring!

Or else you'll end up with a giganto cookie!

Creamy Vanilla Pudding Cake

2011-04-16T13:29:00.013-05:00

This dessert is one that I made as a teenager one time when my Grandma came down to Minnesota to visit when she lived in North Dakota. She had one bite of this dessert and was forever in love with it! Whenever she visited us she requested that I make this dessert. If we were up in North Dakota visiting her, she made sure she had all of the ingredients on hand so that I could make this for her. She eventually coined it, "Amy's Dessert." That's how I have it written on my recipe card. I don't even remember where I got the recipe from. I'm going to start calling it "Creamy Vanilla Pudding Cake" but deep down, it'll always be "Amy's Dessert." I always felt very special that she wanted me to make this dessert for her. We didn't live near either set of my Grandparents growing up so visiting them was always at least a weekend long visit. We'd go shopping, go to garage sales or just hang out at their house.

Grandma would always make us supper, at least once during the weekend, in her teeny tiny townhouse. There'd be 6 people, at minimum, in her townhouse but she always made us a homecooked meal in that cramped kitchen. My favorite meal? Her homemade mac and cheese. I think it's just elbow macaroni and velveeta, but as a kid, I loved it. I should get her recipe for that so I can always remember it the way Grandma used to make.

If you make this dessert, I hope you enjoy it as much as my Grandma did.While making it, I had faint memories of making it in my Parent's kitchen.

Creamy Vanilla Pudding Cake
Recipe origin: unknown
Ingredients for the crust:
1 cup of flour
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup brown sugar

Ingredients for the filling:
1 8ounce cream cheese, softened
1 cup cool whip
I cup powdered sugar
I also added about 1/4tsp of almond extract to the filling but that's not called for in the original recipe

Ingredients for the topping:
2 pkgs vanilla instant pudding (5oz size box)
2 1/2 cups cold milk
Cool whip per your preference (if you want a lot of cool whip on top, use a lot; if you want a little, use a little)

*cool whip note: I used almost all of a 16oz container of cool whip between the 1 cup used for the filling and the topping.

Mix the crust ingredients until they're well combined and the result is a moist but crumbly mixture. I used a pastry blender to help me with this process. Once combined, press mixture into a 9x13, lightly greased, pan. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes until light golden brown.

The crust needs to be completely cool before you can top it with the filling.

When you're ready to make the filling, combine the softened cream cheese and the powdered sugar together. I put the cream cheese in a medium sized mixing bowl first. I whipped it up a little with my hand held mixer until it got really creamy and soft. Then, I added the powdered sugar and used a spatula to help mix the two together knowing that I'd create way too much powdered sugar dust if I went at it with my hand held mixer! Once they were well mixed together using the spatula, I used my hand held mixer for a minute or so to make sure that they were completely combined. Fold in the 1 cup of cool whip and spread out evenly on the crust. After they're mixed together, it sort of resembles marshmallow fluff I thought. It's a stirable mixture but it looks really sticky.

Then, it's time to prepare the filling! Combine your 2 packages of pudding mix with the 2 1/2 cups milk in a medium bowl (I used the same bowl I used for my filling) and whisk until it's thick. You don't want it to become set in your bowl, but you want it to be thick and pourable.

Pour the pudding mixture onto the filling layer and make sure it's spread out evenly. The final topping is the cool whip layer.

Top with as much or as little cool whip as you'd like. I top mine with just enough so that it's almost touching the top of the sides of my baking dish.

I think I should work on making my layers more even, don't you think? Oops! It's not too pretty when you look at it from this view.

I do think that the next time I make this, I may make the crust layer a double batch so that it's a bit thicker. There is so much on top of it that I just feel the crust should be thicker.

I'll be eating this tonight for an early Easter meal with my Husband's family. I'll definitely be back to share how it was received by everyone. I hope it's as good as I remember it being.

If you make this, I'd love to hear how you like it!

Edited to add: Well, it got rave reviews at dinner! My Husband's Grandma even asked for the recipe. I think that's always a compliment. I still think I'd double the crust layer next time and be careful to not be cool whip heavy for the topping.

Spicy Black Bean Burritos

2011-04-06T22:26:00.003-05:00

Coming from someone who doesn't typically enjoy black beans, this was really good and I will likely make them again. They were very simple and it was a fun, filling dinner that both my Husband and I enjoyed.

Spicy Black Bean Burritos

Recipe from: None other than Annie's Eats

Yield: about 6 servings
Ingredients:
For the bean filling:
2 tsp. vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. minced chipotle in adobo sauce
¼ tsp. kosher salt
Dash cayenne pepper
1/3 cup chicken broth
2 (15 oz.) cans black beans, drained and rinsed
6 tbsp. fresh salsa

6 (9- or 10-inch) flour tortillas, warmed
Shredded cheese
Diced tomatoes
Shredded romaine lettuce
Chopped green onions
Low-fat sour cream

Directions:
To make the bean filling, heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, chili powder, chipotle, salt and cayenne; stir, cooking just until fragrant, 30-60 seconds. Add the beans and the broth to the pan. Bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and allow the mixture to simmer for 10 minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat, stir in the salsa and mash the mixture with a spoon or fork.

Spoon about a third of a cup of the bean mixture down the center of each tortilla. Top each serving with a pinch of shredded cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, green onions and sour cream. Roll the tortilla up tightly, burrito style, and serve immediately.

Chinese Chicken & Broccoli

2011-04-04T20:19:00.000-05:00

I apologize for the 'in your face' picture. We had finished our meal and I realized that I didn't take a picture. So, after we packed up leftovers for lunch for the next day, I snapped a photo. It works, right?

We love Chinese food. A little too much probably. I was excited to see this recipe on Annie's blog. (Side note: You'd think I'm BFF with Annie or that I'm getting paid to say her name all the time. Nope, I'm not. I do wish I were BFF with her so that she could be my one-on-one cooking instructor though! I just love her recipes and they're always tasty. Not to mention, beginner friendly recipes!)

This was a great weeknight meal and I'd bet that you have all these ingredients in your kitchen right now! If you love Chinese food you should definitely try this recipe. I can't wait to make it again, really. I can see using this sauce base as the sauce for Kung Pao chicken. Or, make this recipe as it states but add all the veggies that Kung Pao calls for, a little extra spice and you've got... Kung Pao Chicken & Broccoli!

We also made homemade cream cheese wontons with this meal. Actually, Matt did. He's the 'fryer' in our kitchen. They were also so very good. The cream cheese was still ooey and gooey a little on the inside. When we order Chinese, by the time our food gets here, the cream cheese has hardened and it's not as enjoyable as if they were fresh.

Chinese Chicken & Broccoli

Recipe from: Annie's Eats

Ingredients:
1 tbsp. peanut oil, divided
1½ tsp. sesame oil
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
4 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 tsp. grated fresh ginger
¼-½ tsp. red pepper flakes
4 cups broccoli florets
6 tbsp. chicken broth, divided
2 tbsp. oyster sauce
1 tbsp. hoisin sauce
4 tbsp. soy sauce
1½ tsp. cornstarch
3 scallions, chopped
Sesame seeds, for garnish (optional)

Directions:
Heat a half tablespoon of the peanut oil and the 1 1/2 tsp sesame oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken pieces to the pan and sauté until golden brown and cooked through. Transfer to a bowl with a slotted spoon and cover with foil to keep warm. Add the remaining half tablespoon of peanut oil to the pan. Add the garlic and ginger (I forgot/didn't have ginger so I omitted) and sauté until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the red pepper flakes and broccoli florets to the pan. Pour in about half of the chicken broth – it should steam and boil quickly. Allow the broccoli to cook until crisp-tender and the broth has mostly evaporated. Add the oyster sauce and hoisin sauce to the pan. In a small bowl, whisk together the soy sauce and cornstarch, and add to the pan. Stir in the remaining chicken broth. Return the chicken pieces to the pan. Cook, stirring frequently, until the sauce has thickened, about 2-3 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the scallions. Serve over rice and garnish with sesame seeds, if desired.

Chocolate Almond Cake with Pecans

2011-03-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

I was excited to see this cake on Annie's blog. I've never made a bundt cake of any kind and they always come out looking so nice. I've used my bundt pan many times before when making monkey bread, but never any cake.

It was fairly simple to make, and I had most all of the ingredients at home. The almond extract really adds a nice flavor to the cake. It's the cake's secret ingredient!

Chocolate Almond Cake

Recipe: Annie's Eats

Ingredients:
For the cake:
2¼ cups flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking powder
¾ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1½ cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. almond extract
1½ cups sour cream
6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled slightly

For the ganache:
6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
¾ cup heavy cream
1 tbsp. light corn syrup

Directions:
To make the cake, preheat the oven to 325˚ F. Grease and flour a 10-cup Bundt pan. I had a 9.75 cup pan so that's what I used and it worked just fine.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; whisk to blend. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter and sugar. Beat together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 4-5 minutes, scraping down the bowl as needed. Mix in the eggs one at a time, blending well after each addition. Blend in the vanilla and almond extracts.

With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients in three additions alternating with the sour cream, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients and beating each addition just until incorporated. Mix in the melted chocolate just until combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, spreading the batter evenly. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, about 50-60 minutes. Let cool in the pan 10 minutes. Invert onto a cooling rack and gently remove the cake from the pan.

Like I said before, I've never made a bundt cake so I'm not sure this is supposed to happen. When I inverted my cake onto the cooling rack, I noticed that it had a lot of, what seemed to be, extra at the bottom. "Feet" as you will. I've never known bundt cakes to be raised up that high. I've always thought they should be more flat at the bottom. Do you think I did something wrong?

To remedy this problem, I simply just cut off the excess.

To make the ganache, place the chocolate in a small heatproof bowl. Bring the cream to a boil in a small saucepan. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate let stand 1-2 minutes. Whisk in small circular motions until the mixture is well blended and the ganache is smooth. Stir in the corn syrup. Drizzle the ganache over the cooled cake and garnish with sliced almonds before the glaze sets.

Don't forget to add your corn syrup or you'll wonder why the ganache is more like a frosting and not very drizzle-y. Not that I'd know from experience or anything...

Because of my error, I decided I'd just spread the ganache around, like a frosting and add the pecans all around. I loved the idea in my head, but I'm not sure how I feel about it once it was said and done. I just hope it tastes ok. We tasted the cut off part and that seemed dry. However, that was after it was sitting out while I made breakfast and such, so that could largely be the problem.

I took this cake to my Grandparent-in-Laws house for dinner. I also brought some vanilla ice cream to go with it.

Saturday Breakfast: Eggs Benedict

2011-03-29T09:00:00.005-05:00

I've never had Eggs Benedict before so you can probably understand why I've never made it either. I saw this post on Joelen's blog and thought it would be perfect for our Saturday Morning Breakfast.

I figured it should be easy but yet something 'special' that we wouldn't have time for each weekday morning.

I struggled with this recipe. I don't know if it was too much to focus on in the morning or what. Maybe it's because I've never poached an egg so I didn't really have any clue what a poached egg looked like? I was really bummed and was starting to get very cranky in the kitchen.

First of all, I over poached my eggs. I ended up with hard boiled yolks but poached egg whites. Ugh.

So, I decided to fry up a couple eggs for our eggs benedict. It worked well enough. Although, on one of my fried eggs, I overcooked it and it was cooked through. Dangit. I'm sure one of the best parts of Eggs Benedict are the creamy yolks.

Secondly, the hollandaise sauce calls for vinegar and you could definitely taste the vinegar. The hollaindaise wasn't very creamy either.

I was so bummed that this breakfast wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. (Get it? Egg humor!) I'll definitely try again. I may try this recipe for Eggs Benedict. It's more simple for me, the beginner poacher.

Here is the recipe that I followed from Joelen's blog.

Eggs Benedict
Recipe: What's Cookin, Chicago?

2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
12 large eggs
6 english muffins, split & toasted
12 slices Canadian bacon
1 recipe for Foolproof Hollandaise

Fill a large 12 inch skillet nearly to the rim with water. Add the vinegar and salt and bring to a boil over high heat. Once it comes to a boil, remove off heat.

Crack an egg into a small bowl and one at a time, carefully pour the egg into the skillet. Repeat with the remaining eggs,being careful not to crowd the pan. (You may want to only poach 6 eggs at a time to avoid crowding.)

Once your eggs are in the skillet, cover the pan and poach the eggs until whites are set but yolks are slightly runny, about 5-7 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer eggs to a paper towel-lined plate.

Meanwhile, preheat your broiler. Arrange your toasted English muffins, split side up, on a baking sheet and place a slice of bacon on each. Broil until they begin to brown, about 1 minute.

Arrange 1 poached egg on top of each English muffin. Spoon 1-2 tablespoons of hollandaise sauce over each egg. Garnish with minced fresh parsley and serve.

Foolproof Hollandaise
makes 2 cups

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
6 large egg yolks
1/2 cup boiling water
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
salt to taste

Whisk butter and egg yolks in a large heat resistant bowl set over a medium saucepan filled with 1/2 inch of barely simmering water. Be careful not to let the bottom of the bowl touch the water. Slowly add the 1/2 cup of boiling water into the bowl and cook, whisking constantly. It will eventually thicken when the sauce registers 160 degrees, in about 7-10 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir the lemon juice and cayenne if using. Season with salt to taste and serve over eggs benedict above.

Mom's Banana Bread

2011-03-28T08:00:00.001-05:00

My Husband's coworker brought him some bananas that were ready for baking. I know, I know, your first thought is... what? This guy is single and doesn't do any baking for himself. But, he knew the bananas could be used by someone and he knew that I liked to bake so he brought them to work for my Husband to give to me. I thought it was a very nice gesture.
As I was looking through my recipe books, my recipe box & my blog, I realized that I did not have a recipe for banana bread. Growing up, my Mom often made banana bread and it was so good. Moist, flavorful and delicious. I couldn't believe that I didn't have it written down somewhere!

Luckily, when I text her "SOS -- I need your banana bread recipe!" she was happy to oblige and called me with her recipe. Although we don't know the origination of this recipe, we assume that it came from my Grandma, her Mom. My Mom has been using this banana bread recipe for many years. It's the banana bread I've grown up with. As soon as I tried some of my fresh banana bread, I was happy that it tasted just like Mom used to make.

Mom's Banana Bread
Recipe: Amy's Kitchen Creations Family Recipe

Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups of Flour
4 teaspoons Baking Powder
1 tsp Baking soda
3/4 cup Butter
1 1/4 cup Sugar*
4 Eggs
2 cups Banana

Mix all ingredients into a bowl until well combined. You can add raisins or nuts if you'd like. When adding them, put a tablespoon or two of flour in a separate bowl, add the raisins/nuts and mix them up with the flour a little. They'll be coated with the flour. This will keep them from falling to the bottom of the bread when baking. This recipe makes two loaves of bread. If you're like me and only have one loaf pan, you'll be baking bread for a couple hours. It's worth it though!

Bake at 350 for 60 minutes.

Enjoy your slice with a little bit of butter or plain, whichever you prefer!

*My Mom said that she does half Brown Sugar and half White Sugar in her recipe. I did 1 cup White sugar, 1/4 cup Brown sugar.

PS- I now have the recipe securely in my recipe box! I will definitely be making this more often now that I have the recipe stored.

Pork Chop & Hashbrown Bake

2011-03-27T09:00:00.001-05:00

This recipe is definitely comfort food. Carrie received it from Madelyn and I've seen it on a few blogs since then. It's so easy, so delicious and ultimately comforting. I'm not sure if it's a family recipe from Madelyn but it really doesn't matter. You should definitely make this!

Pork Chop & Hashbrown Bake

From: Carrie's Sweet Life

Ingredients:

5 pork chops
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup
1/2 cup Milk
1/2 cup Sour Cream
24oz package of frozen hashbrowns, thawed
1 cup shredded Cheddar Cheese
1 large can french fried onions (French's onions)

I made the mistake of not reading my recipe before I got started so I used frozen hashbrowns and it worked just fine. Also, the original recipe calls for 6 slices of pork tenderloin, but all I had available was 5 pork chops so I just used what I had and again, it was just fine.

I baked our pork chops in the oven at 400* with a few seasonings on them. I cooked them about 30-40 minutes I think, until they were done.

While the pork chops are baking, combine the soup, sour cream & milk. Add the hashbrowns, half the cheese and half of the fried onions. Spoon that mixture into a lightly greased 9x13 pan.

When the pork chops are done, layer the pork chops on top of the hashbrown mixture. Bake at 350* for about 40 minutes. Add the rest of the cheese and onion pieces on top and bake for an additional 5 minutes.

This recipe was so good. It was so simple to prepare, the leftovers were great & it was the perfect meal for a Sunday night. Comfort food at its finest!

Tortellini Soup & Southwest Turkey Panini Sandwiches

2011-03-26T13:40:00.000-05:00

While I love soup, I've only ever made homemade chicken nooodle. This soup was so easy to whip together. I was actually shocked at how easy it was. It seems like it should have an excessive ingredient list and take a lot of time. It couldn't be farther from the truth.

It worked out perfectly to make soup this week. We had a rainy, windy, sleety (here in Minnesota, that is a perfectly acceptable word to describe the weather. Trust me.) day and this was exactly what we needed.

Tortellini Soup

From: Annie's Eats

*I doubled this recipe so that we could have leftovers for a couple days. The original recipe says it yields 3-4 servings.* The original recipe is listed below.

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 cup chopped onion

2 cloves minced garlic

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1 (15oz) can diced tomatoes, with juices

4 cups low-sodium chicken broth (can also use vegetable broth)

9 ounces tortellini, any variety (I used Bertolli tortellini from the refrigerated section)

3 cups fresh baby spinach, loosely packed (I used bagged spinach)

Salt & Pepper to taste

Grated Paremesan, optional for serving

In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the chopped onions to the pan and cook until beginngin to soften, about 5 minutes. Add in the garlic and cook, stirring frequently, just until fragant, approximately 1 minute. Mix in the oregano (I threw in some basil too) and diced tomatoes. Add the chicken brtoh to the pot. Bring everything to a boil. Add your tortellini to the pot and cook according to package directions. (My tortellini really puffed up. I've never made tortellini of any kind before so I'm not sure if this was normal. Perhaps that's because it was 'fresh' and not frozen tortellini? I'd be interested to hear if this happens to anyone else.)

One minute before the tortellini is fully cooked, stir in the spinach. Remove from the heat & season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm with grated Parmesan, if you choose.

I knew that just having soup wouldn't be satisfying for Matt so I paired it with homemade ciabatta panini.

At work, we have a cafe called The Muffin Man and it's so good. A funky little cafe that's a much needed break from the lunch options at our Cafeteria. Have you ever had broccoli that was so badly cooked that you could mush it with your tongue against the roof of your mouth? If not, you're lucky. If so, you can probably imagine my dissappointment when I added a side of broccoli to my lunch one day at the cafeteria. Blech. Anyway, back to our lunch paradise; The Muffin Man has a southwest turkey grilled sandwich. Southwest mayo, roasted red peppers, turkey and cheddar cheese on ciabatta bread, grilled to perfection.

That was my inspiration for these sandwiches. Our grocery store was out of red peppers (yes, really) so I had to skip the peppers. I had spinach leftover from the soup so I added some spinach to our sandwiches. I didn't have any cheddar cheese so I used some shredded cheese that I had in the refrigerator. These sandwiches are completely customizable to whatever you may be feeling.

Southwest Turkey Grilled Sandwich

Inspired by: The Muffin Man Cafe

Ingredients:

Loaf of cooked ciabatta

Turkey deli meat

Fresh spinach leaves

Prepared chipotle mayo, recipe below.

I bought a loaf of 'Take and Bake' ciabatta at our local grocery store. I sliced it in about 4" sections and then cut them almost in half lengthwise. Similar to how they would cut your bread at a sub shop. I then put it in the oven and baked it per the directions. When done, spread mayo on both halves, add your deli meat, cheese, spinach and then place on a warm griddle for a few minutes on each side. Just until cheese melts.

I'd really like to invest in a panini maker or a sandwich griddle. These were fantastic sandwiches. My Husband, Matt, loved them so much. He declared them "the best sandwiches ever." Our meal of tortellini soup and southwest turkey panini sandwiches won him over so well, he said that it puts his previous favorite meal to shame.

Chipotle mayo

Amy's Kitchen Creation original

(Although I'm sure I'm not the only one to ever make this)

2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

A few tablespoons of mayo

Cut up the peppers so they're smaller and then stir them into your mayo. If you'd like it spicier or less spicy, just adjust the amount of peppers you put into the mayo or add a little additional mayo.

Buttermilk Pie

2011-03-23T08:00:00.003-05:00

This is a recipe that I found on Amy's blog. Amy is a very, very talented Woman. She's an Opera-singin'-pie-bakin'-beautiful-picture-takin' Blogger! She describes this Buttermilk pie as 'Man-Pleasin'. She wasn't kidding! Matt loved it. I also shared it with my Mom and Dad. They weren't as thrilled with it. Like Amy says, it is a very sweet pie. If you're watching your sugar intake, this will definitely be an indulgence for you. Well, it's not like you should or would want to eat something like this everyday anyway...

I really wanted to bake something on a low-key Friday night, so I decided to try Amy's Buttermilk Pie. Being from Minnesota, I've never had a slice or even heard of Buttermilk pie. I had everything available and it was something new, so in an effort to expand my baking skills, why not!

I had to email Amy because I was concerned that I had about 3/4 cup leftover buttermilk filling. She said that's normal and usually always has some left. I wonder if next time, I should try deep dish crusts and see how that turns out.

Clearly, I need to be less eager to try my baked goods...that's not a crack in the pie, that's a knife mark from starting to slice the pie before taking it's photo!

Our oven has issues and bakes unevenly. Does anyone know if there is some sort of solution to this? I put the two pies side by side in my oven, just like they're pictured below. The pie on the right, the filling bubbled over and had a little bulge to it once cooled and out of the oven. I cooked the one on the right a litle longer because it was pretty 'jiggly' when the timer went off. I only had it in the oven for about 10 or 15 minutes longer than the first pie, but they baked completely different.

I definitely think that I will be making this pie again, perhaps for Easter? If you've never heard of or tasted Buttermilk pie, it's definitely worth a try. It's super easy to prepare and you'll likely have all of the ingredients already at home!

Saturday Breakfast: French Toast with Fresh Whipped Cream and Strawberries

2011-03-22T20:38:00.003-05:00

As much as I love the weekends, they always go way too fast! I know that everyone says that but my Husband works Sunday-Thursday so our weekends together consist of Saturdays. A one-day weekend. Boo. I really like when I can make a breakfast that's something other than yogurt or oatmeal which is usually what we eat for Breakfast during the week.This is where I'll start a new 'series' of Saturday Breakfasts. These will be breakfasts above and beyond the 'normal' quick and easy breakfasts.

The yummiest part of this breakfast was the fresh strawberries and fresh whipped cream. We recently bought a magic bullet and you wouldn't believe how easy it is to make fresh whipped cream. Not to mention smoothies, salsa, guacamole..I'm in love with that thing! What's better yet, we got it for $20 thanks to also using a Kohl's gift card.

French Bread French Toast

Any Amy's Kitchen Creation Original Recipe

Half of a loaf of french bread, sliced

Fresh strawberries, stems removed & berries sliced

4 Eggs

Splash or two of milk

~1tsp Cinnamon

Crack eggs and place in bowl, add the splash (or two) of milk and the cinnamon and beat together. I always spray a litle non-stick cooking spray on my cooking surface (griddle). Heat the griddle to medium-high heat. Dip your bread into the egg mixture, flip to the other side and make sure that side is coated as well.

Place on griddle for a few minutes each side until golden brown and the egg mixture is obviously cooked.

Serve with fresh whipped cream and strawberries and a shake or two of powdered sugar.

Fresh Whipped Cream

If you have a magic bullet, pour about 1 cup of Heavy Whipping Cream into the short cup. Add a tablespoon or so of powdered sugar and a little splash of vanilla. Blend together until the bullet stops making the blending sound and makes more of a whirring sound. (Thats the wording from the recipe book that comes with the bullet :-))

If you do not have these ingredients, you could use a blender or kitchenaid mixer to whip up some whipped cream!

Enjoy your Saturday morning Breakfast!

Tastefully Simple Tip!

2011-02-28T09:57:00.000-06:00

If you ever have a leftover Tastefully Simple dip mix, you can add a few tablespoons of milk to it to thin it out enough to have a salad dressing. Just eyeball the milk to get it to your desired consistency. I used this dip (an old seasonal product) as a sauce base for our pizza night and then thinned the rest with some milk to make a salad dressing for our side salads. It was a unique, fun new way to enjoy our salads.

Try a Spinach and Herb salad dressing, a Fiesta Party Mix salad dressing, or for a limited time try a Smoked Paprika and Garlic salad dressing.

Pizza Night!!

2011-02-28T09:37:00.000-06:00

This pizza was fantastic and that was largely in part to using Annie's pizza crust. The crust was SO easy to make. When you make a batch there is enough for two pizzas so you can freeze one like I did or use this recipe when you want to make enough pizza for a game night or when you're feeding a larger crowd.

I was really scared to make my own dough, I've never really made anything with yeast and didn't want it to flop. I was pleasantly surprised! Annie's instructions are so easy to follow. I've copy and pasted her exact instructions below and have put my notes in italics.

I've tried homemade pizza before using Trader Joe's prepackaged pizza crusts but it didn't turn out. The crust was too thin and it didn't hold up to the toppings on the pizza. This crust is the opposite of that. The bottom of the crust is crisp and sturdy but also soft and chewy, exactly like pizza crust should taste. It held up to the pizza toppings nicely and provided a huge sense of satisfaction as we ate it. I don't know about you but when I make something that tastes really good, I feel like a Chef in a world-renowned restaurant. I did it. I am a good cook.

As far as pizza toppings, that's up to you! There are so many possibilities, just think of the pizzas that you like. Spinach and Mushroom? Veggie? Alfredo pizza? Cheese? Sausage? Yum! The one pictured above is a take off of Annie's Chicken Ranch Pizza. I knew I had most the ingredients, but I wanted to add some bacon to ours. I also drizzled a bit of BBQ sauce on our pizza before baking.

Basic Pizza Dough

Ingredients:
½ cup warm water (about 110°)
1 envelope (2 ¼ tsp.) instant yeast
1 ¼ cups water, at room temperature
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
4 cups (22 oz.) bread flour, plus more for dusting
1 ½ tsp. salt
olive oil or non-stick cooking spray for greasing the bowl

Directions: (don't be scared. It seems like a lengthy process, but it's not that bad, honest)
Measure the warm water into a 2-cup liquid measuring cup. Sprinkle in the yeast and let stand until the yeast dissolves and swells, about 5 minutes. Add the room temperature water and oil and stir to combine.

Place the flour and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Briefly combine the dry ingredients at low speed. Slowly add the liquid ingredients and continue to mix at low speed until a cohesive mass forms. Stop the mixer and replace the paddle with the dough hook. Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Form the dough into a ball, put it in a deep oiled bowl, and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise until doubled in size, about 1 ½ to 2 hours. Press the dough to deflate it. I think I put a little too much oil in my bowl, there was always a 'layer' sort of of oil. I would suggest dabbing some oil onto a paper towel and rubbing the paper towel on the inside of the bowl to oil it.

Measure a piece of parchment paper to fit your pizza stone. I tried to roll out my dough without knowing how big my stone was and as it turned out, I could have made a bit larger of a pizza. I would have rather had that happen than to find out that I made my pizza too big for my stone. To bake, place a pizza stone in the lower third of the oven. Heat the oven to 500° for at least 30 minutes. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Divide the dough into two equal pieces. Form both pieces of dough into smooth, round balls and cover with a damp cloth. Let the dough relax for at least 10 minutes but no more than 30 minutes.

If you're only going to make one pizza, now is the time to freeze the other. Wrap the portion you're not using tightly into plastic wrap and store inside a freezer-safe bag. The double layer is important because the dough will continue to rise for a bit and will pop out of the plastic wrap, so by putting it in a plastic bag as well, you'll keep the dough contained. Working with one piece of dough and keeping the other covered, shape the dough and transfer to a pizza peel or round of parchment dusted with semolina or cornmeal. Top as desired. Slide the dough onto the pizza stone. Bake until the crust edges brown and cheese is golden brown in spots, about 8 to 12 minutes. Repeat with remaining ball of dough or freeze for later use.

Thawing instructions for frozen dough:
Freeze the dough until it is ready to be used. The day you plan to use the dough, transfer it to the refrigerator in the morning to thaw in time for dinner that evening. (If using the dough for lunch, transfer to the refrigerator the night before.) The dough that has been frozen tastes every bit as good as fresh, so it is incredibly convenient to have available for a quick, throw-together meal.

Oven Scrambler

2011-02-10T08:00:00.001-06:00

Introducing... my very first guest blogger. My wonderful Husband, Matt, is sharing a recipe with us today. Here is his recipe for a breakfast he made for us when we had a random weekday off together.

Ok so for this recipe I used a one time use aluminum pan. You could use this or a glass baking dish would work too. I sprayed the pan with non stick spray, set that aside. I then took 3 potatoes cut them into quarters and sliced those up, added them to a frying pan with a bit of EVOO and some Tastefully Simple Seasoned Salt. I fried those for about 10 minutes just to get a nice golden brown, while those fried, in a bowl I mixed together 4 eggs with about a ¼ cup of milk and some tastefully simple Bacon Bacon and added that to the aluminum pan and placed it in the oven at 350. After the potatoes started showing some color I pulled the eggs from the oven stirred them around, and added the potatoes. I placed them back into the oven for another 5 minutes. Once the 5 minutes were up I took turkey lunch meat that I had cut up, tossed in with the eggs and potatoes and sprinkled sharp shredded cheese on top and placed in the oven just to get it melted.

Amy's Opinions:

It was a very good breakfast. It was something that was quick and easy. It was nice to have a 'treat' for Breakfast. Typically, we take yougrt & english muffins or cereal or frozen waffles to work and eat after we get to work. On weekends, or on weekdays that we're off together, it's nice to have a heartier breakfast.

You could definitely make this for a large group, just add more ingredients! This would be great with some fresh onions too, but we were all out.

My only suggestion for improvement would be to have smaller chunks of lunchmeat.

Chocolate Malt Cookies

2011-02-09T08:00:00.001-06:00

You know when people have news to share, whether good or bad, they ask the person who is about to receive the news "are you sitting down?" Well.. before you go any further, I need to ask you...

Are you sitting down? Are you ready for this?

These chocolate malt cookies from Smells Like Home are phenomenal. Oh. em. gee. They are fantastical. I noticed them when there was a virtual baby shower for Annie. Annie has a completely cute little boy named Andrew and they're expecting their Daughter, Caroline, very soon. So, some of her blog friends hosted a shower for her. How cute!

I didn't realize until after I made these cookies, but I have the Martha Stewart cookbook that they're originally from. I thumbed through the book a little the other night after realizing it and found so many cookies that I'd like to make in there!. Where shall I send a dozen to first?

Ok, I'm done rambling, onto the cookies!

Dressed up for Valentine's Day!

Chocolate Malt Sandwich Cookies
From: Smells Like Home
Originally From: Martha Stewart

Yields: 18-20 sandwiches

Tara made note that she could not find malted milk powder in grocery stores around her. I was prepared to use Ovaltine as a substitute per her suggestion, but much to my surprise, there was malted milk powder on the shelf right next to Ovaltine at my local Target.
Cookie Ingredients:
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1/4 cup plain malted milk powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt (I used sea salt which I wasn't a fan of. Perhaps that was too coarse)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup sour cream
3 tablespoons hot water
Ingredients for the sandwich filling:
10 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup plain malted milk powder
3 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons half-and-half
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Let's get bakin!
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sift together flour, cocoa powder, malted milk powder, baking soda, and salt. With an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Mix in egg, sour cream, and hot water. Reduce speed to low; mix in flour mixture.

Space tablespoon-size balls of dough 3 1/2 inches apart on parchment paper-lined baking sheets. Bake until flat and just firm, 10 to 12 minutes. (I took them out at the 10 minute mark. I didn't want them to get too crispy) Let cool on parchment on wire racks.

Multitask!
While the cookies are baking, melt chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simming water, stirring. Let cool. (I've never melted chocolate in this manner before. I've always melted it in the microwave in ~30 second increments. I'm an impatient person, but melting chocolate this way was super stress-free. It was almost therapeutic watching the chocolate slowly, slowly melt into a smooth velvety chocolate) With an electric mixer, beat malted milk powder and cream cheese on medium speed until smooth. Gradually mix in half-and-half, chocolate mixture, and vanilla. Refrigerate, covered, until thick, about 30 minutes. Beat on high speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes. After chilling, the filling will be very thick and dark but as soon as you start to beat it, the color will begin to lighten and the filling will become very fluffy.

Match up cookies of similar sizes into pairs. Using a tablespoon-size cookie scoop, scoop a heaping tablespoon of the filling onto the bottom of one cookie. Sandwich with another cookie until the filling pushes to the edges of the cookies. Repeat with remaining pairs of cookies. Cookies can be kept at room temperature between layers of parchment in airtight containers up to 3 days.

I originally made these for a coworker who helped me restore a huge Excel document that I accidentally erased. I could have kissed her I was so happy! I figured she deserved something home baked as a thank you. We often go to her for all of our excel questions and I don't know that she ever really gets a proper Thank You.

Take your baked goods to work day!

I sent the rest of the batch to work with Matt. I have to admit, I really love the compliments that come rolling in when I send treats with him to work. The one that I'm most humbled by.. his 'Work Mom' is a novice cook and baker. She's always bringing homemade cinnamon rolls, egg bakes, pastries etc to work for her coworkers. She told him that these were 'the best cookie I've ever had.' I really feel honored that she said that. A couple different coworkers of his told him that I should open a bakery. Little do they know, if money were no object and that was completely doable, I'd open a bakery in a heartbeat. Definitely a pipe dream.

Unfortunately, I can't take the credit for these wonderful concotions, that's all Mrs. Martha's doings. I'll gladly reel in the compliments though :-)

Bacon Wrapped Smokies

2011-02-08T10:45:00.000-06:00

Bacon Wrapped Mini Weenies
Amy's Kitchen Creation Original Recipe

I know there are hundreds of recipes out there for mini weenies. Some in bbq sauce, some wrapped in bacon, some just thrown in a crockpot. These are super easy to make. We were having a potluck at work and I wanted to bring something that you could sort of classify as an entree. Usually at our work, potlucks are a lot of chips, store bought dips, store bought fruit trays etc. I wanted to make something at home, even if it was using prepackaged foods.

Everyone loved them. I only made a small crockpot full and they were gone in about two hours, if that. I made them again for another occasion with family shortly after. Delicious.

Ingredients
1 package of bacon-I used regular (not maple) and regular cut (not thick cut)
2 packages little weenies (whatever brand was on sale)
Sprinkles of Everyday Grillin Seasoning, Seasoned Salt and Black Pepper
Few drizzles of Bayou Bourbon Glaze

Cut your package of bacon into thirds. Lightly spray an 8x13 pan with cooking spray Using a strip of bacon from one of the third sections, wrap it around the little weenie, secure with a toothpick and place in your pan. Repeat this process until you're out of bacon and weenies.

I baked them at 350 for about 30 minutes I think. I didn't set a timer, I just watched them while I prepared dinner. Cook until the bacon is done and even a little crispy.

I left them cool while we ate dinner. Once they were cooled, I took all of the toothpicks out and stored them in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, I heated them in the microwave real quick and when I got to work I put them in a mini crockpot and they were ready for our lunch potluck.

You'll have to excuse my picture. This is a picture of the leftovers. I've also decided, mini weenies don't photograph so well.

Crab Bread

2011-01-04T11:13:00.000-06:00

As soon as I saw this on Molly Jean's blog, I knew that I wanted to make it right away! I love crab, imitation and all. My DH didn't like this, but that had a little to do with the fact that I burnt the bread a bit. Oops.

Crab Bread
adapted from The Rookie Chef

1 package of imitation crab legs
8 ounces of cream cheese
~1 teaspoon Garlic Garlic from Tastefully Simple
~1 1/2 teaspoon Onion Onion from Tastefully Simple
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons shredded cheddar cheese

I put my bread in the oven for a little while before topping with the crab mixture. I think that's where I went wrong, the bread was too crumbly and too crunchy. I didn't want a soft, mushy bread so that's why I put it in the oven in the first place. (You know, how sometimes with topped bread, the bread is nice and soft but then the mixture makes it even more soft?) I think it would have been fine to just follow Molly's recipe as it was.

We enjoyed these for our movie night on NYE. We're very exciting people, can't you tell? :-)

Minnesota Salad

2011-01-04T10:12:00.000-06:00

The cafe where I was first introduced to this salad recently closed so I needed to come up with my own version. It's pretty spot-on, even down to the dressing! I love it. It's a light, refreshing salad. When I made it to have at Christmas with my Family, my Dad even liked it, commenting to my Mom that she should get the recipe.

It really is a hit! The measurements aren't included because you can make as little or as much as you want.

Minnesota Salad
inspired by The Meadows Cafe

bag of iceberg salad (the kind that has cabbage and carrots in it)
cooked and cooled wild rice
cucumber, diced small
peas & corn, I used a bag of frozen that I let thaw

Top with your favorite Honey Mustard dressing. (I can't remember what kind I used) I think it would also be great with Ranch.

Enjoy!

Oreo Truffles..again

2010-12-17T08:42:00.000-06:00

I made oreo truffles again this year. I'm sure I'll be asked to make them for many years. These weren't for family, friends or even Secret Santas. My Husband's coworkers love these truffles. I've told them how easy they are. I've told them that they're just oreos and condensed milk. They don't care. One of his coworkers specifically, talks about these truffles year round. She'll tell other coworkers "Have you had Matt's Wife's truffles?" I'm happy to oblige. I'm happy that I can make something so easy and they're so well received. So.. a week ago I set aside time on Sunday to make these truffles. I had two packages of oreos ready and waiting. I even used double stuffed. I didn't realize how many truffles two packages would make.

When making them, I used a cookie scoop, scooped it into my hand and then cut that in half. I didn't want ginormous truffles, bite sized was more realistic I thought. Well...that gave me enough truffles to send 6 dozen into work with Matt. We probably had a dozen left at home too.

I predicted that I'd get an email from his coworker that has my email address. The subject line "sooooo goooood". That's it. No message. I assume she was busy eating a truffle and didn't have time for any more words than that.

Truffle Delight!

Pretzel Candies

2010-12-17T08:34:00.000-06:00

I'm sure you've seen these everywhere, but they're too yummy not to share. Besides taking these to work and being asked "did you use diet rollos".. (uhm, huh?) everyone loved them and were excited to have some.

Pretzel Candies

also called Turtle Treats

I don't have an original recipe

1/2 bag of pretzel twists

3 bags, yes 3, of rollo candies

1/2 bag (large bag) of pecans

white almond bark, optional

Turn oven to 250*. Place pretzels in 'single file lines' (as I told my Husband, my pretzel placement chief) on a baking sheet. Top each pretzel with a rollo candy. Put the baking sheet in the oven for a couple of minutes. Just long enough where you can tell that the candy is starting to melt. You do NOT want to melt the candy completely in the oven.

Take the baking sheet out and immediately take a pecan and squish down the rollo with the pecan. Let the candies cool completely. I left them out overnight, on the baking sheet, covered with plastic wrap. The next morning I drizzled them with melted white almond bark. The almond bark doesn't take too long to cool. Once they almond bark was hardened, I transferred the treats to an air-tight container and they were ready for sharing!

The most time consuming part of this recipe is unwrapping your rollos.

Corn, Tomato and Avocado Salad

2010-12-16T11:32:00.000-06:00

I have been wanting to try a salad like this for awhile now. I made meatloaf the other night and wanted a healthier, lighter side dish to enjoy with it. I found this recipe that seemed quick and easy so I went for it!

Corn, Avocado and Tomato Salad

recipe from: Paula Deen via Food Network.com

(I'll note the substitutions I made below)

2 cups cooked corn, fresh or frozen

1 avocado, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved

1/2 cup finely diced red onion

Dressing:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon grated lime zest

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Directions:

Combine the corn, avocado, tomatoes and onion in a large glass bowl. Mix together the dressing ingredients in another bowl, pour over the salad, and gently toss to mix.

My substitutions

I didn't have cherry tomatoes on hand, but I chopped up about two roma tomatoes that worked well.
I didn't feel like chopping an onion so I added some Tastefully Simple Onion Onion to the dressing as I mixed it up.
I didn't have fresh cilantro on hand, but I found these cilantro cubes at the grocery store a while ago and they worked great! I used two or three and the salad had great cilantro flavor. They were really handy and I am definitely going to use them in place of regular cilantro wherever I can.
I used fresh grated limes, then squeezed the juice of one lemon and used that as my lime juice.
My avocado wasn't ready yet so I let the corn, tomatoes and dressing sit in the refrigerator overnight until the avocado was ready. I would probably suggest doing this even if you add the avocado. It really let the flavors mingle.

This salad was delicious. I wasn't expecting it to have a lot of flavor and I certainly didn't think that my Husband would like it, but I was very surprised. He loved it and I did too! Ianticipate making this repeatedly this coming Summer (yes, I know it's only December) with fresh corn on the cob, or even roasting some corn on the cob and using roasted corn. Yum. This would be perfect for a BBQ picnic. Definitely a crowd pleaser!

With that being said... I'm going to go heat up my leftovers for lunch. Luckily I have some of this salad to go with it as well. Can't wait!

Absolutely Almond Peach Slow Cooker Recipe

2010-06-23T10:01:00.000-05:00

This is another Tastefully Simple recipe. It's divine! It's the perfect dessert for a rainy evening, or a cold Winter's day. This was created by my Sponsor/Upline who lives in Washington.

Absolutely Almond Peach Slow Cooker Recipe

Recipe created by Nancy Hinschberger

Ingredients:

2 bags frozen peaches, thawed.

1/2 cup orange juice

2 Tbsp Tapioca (this could be left out)

2 Tbsp Brown Sugar

A dash of nutmeg

Absolutely Almond Pound Cake

1 1/2 sticks butter

1 cup water

Directions:
Put the frozen peaches in the bottom of a greased slow cooker, then mix in 1/2 cup orange juice, 2 Tbsp tapioca, 2 Tbsp brown sugar and dash of nutmeg and stir all of these together until mixed.

Then mix in a separate bowl the absolutely almond pound cake as directed on the box with the butter and water, then pour this over the top of the mixture in the crockpot. Then cover and turn on high and let cook for 3 1/2 hours. Then serve with ice cream or cool whip.

My Husband's creation with chocolate syrup, coconut, pecans and a few white chocolate chips.

Can you tell he's got a sweet tooth? ;-)

'The Original'

With some white chocolate chips

Note: not all of these desserts were consumed in one night. This recipes makes A LOT and we enjoyed this over a few nights. Be advised...making this at 7:00pm is NOT a good idea. You'll be rushed to get a taste of this heaven and will probably burn your tongue.

Smoky Bacon Chicken Casserole

2010-06-23T09:50:00.000-05:00

An occasion such as my 50th post, truly deserves a great recipe. Luckily, I have one! This was a recipe by a fellow Tastefully Simple consultant, one who I've gotten to meet and hang out with :)

Smoky Bacon Chicken Casserole

Recipe by: Ann Scheinost

20 oz. package frozen shredded hash brown potatoes

1 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese

1 - 2 Tbsp. Onion Onion

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. ground pepper

2 Tbsp. olive oil

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

3/4 cup Smoky Bacon Grill Sauce

Directions:

Combine first 6 ingredients in a greased 9 x 13 baking dish; mix well. Spread potato mixture in a thin layer covering the bottom of the pan. Arrange chicken breasts on top of potatoes. Pour desired amount of Smoky Bacon Grill Sauce over each breast. Bake uncovered at 400° for 30-45 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink and potatoes are crisp and golden brown. Makes 4 servings.

This makes a wonderful dinner, served with some vegetables. It also makes a lot so it's perfect for a couple days worth of lunches too!

Low-Fat Zesty Shrimp Pasta

2010-06-23T09:34:00.000-05:00

This is a recipe that I first found in a Kraft Food and Family magazine, before they started charging for the subscription. I was so bummed when they did that, I loved getting that magazine in the mail! I don't have the heart to subscribe to it when I can go to their websites and get the same recipes.

Low-Fat Zesty Shrimp Pasta
You can access the original recipe from Kraft Food & Family.

I make it according to how big (or small) of a meal we need. If I'm making a small batch just for a lunch or two, I'll use a smaller amount of noodles etc. The italian dressing is also versatile, you can use as much or as little as you'd like. I don't really follow the recipe anymore, I just make it as I go. Those are the best kinds of recipes, aren't they?

My version of Low-Fat Zesty Shrimp Pasta
1/2 box of spaghetti noodles
1-2 cups of italian dressing
1 14oz can of artichoke hearts (you may feel like chopping these up a little if you don't want large pieces)
1 pint of fresh mushrooms
2 teaspoons Onion Onion
1 bag of thawed, pre-cooked shrimp (you can use raw too, if you'd like, you'll just need to cook accordingly)

While the noodles are boiling, toss the dressing, artichoke hearts, mushrooms and shrimp into a saucepan on medium-high heat. Let these all cook together until the mushrooms are cooked and everything is heated through.

Drain your noodles. Combine the saucepan mixture and the noodles with another 1 cup italian dressing. mix together and serve.

It's a simple, light dinner that you can tailor to anyone's tastes. Add some roasted red peppers for a little extra color!

We served this with Warm Artichoke and Spinach Bread. Yumm! I guess we were really in the mood for artichokes, huh?

Warm Artichoke and Spinach Bread

2010-06-23T09:33:00.001-05:00

This was a recipe inspired by this recipe on the Tastefully Simple website. I didn't have a loaf of bread and I didn't have the 25-30 minutes to wait for the bread to cook, so I improvised.

It's not a very pretty picture, but I promise you that it was delicious!

I had some small rolls that I had previously gotten on sale that I had froze. I took 3 out, let them thaw and then cut them in half. I combined a block of cream cheese with Artichoke and Spinach Warm Dip Mix, a 14oz can of artichcokes, some Kraft Parmesan Cheese (in the green container) and a cup of shredded cheese. You're supposed to use swiss cheese, but I just used what I had on hand.

Spread the cream cheese mixture onto your bread, pop it under your broiler for a few minutes, until the mixture gets a little more ooey gooey and the bread hardens up a little.

Serve!

We served this with Low-Fat Zesty Shrimp Pasta.

It really is, that simple! Everytime I do a Tastefully Simple party, when the guests sample the Artichoke and Spinach Warm Dip Mix, I can't wait to get home and make it myself. It's great with crackers/chips as a dip, but it's phenomenal on bread! I'm sure the recipe that I adapted from would also be fantastic and I'll most definitely be trying that.

Confetti Crisps

2010-06-23T09:07:00.000-05:00

This is a fabulous recipe that I found in a Pampered Chef recipe book called Delightful Desserts. I have had the cookbook for so long, I don't even remember when I got it. I first made this recipe for my Grandpa-in-law's, surprise 70th Birthday last year. It was a HUGE hit, I don't think that my Husband and I even got to taste any, it was gone that fast! More recently, I made it for my Cousin-In-Law's Graduation party, and again, it was a hit! I got asked by three different people for the recipe.

It's super simple, and super tasty. Definitely make this soon!

Also, think of the endless possibilities with this. You could use white chocolate chips, you could add craisins, toffee pieces... whatever your heart desires! I'd love to see what other toppings you make it with!

Confetti Crisps
Recipe adapted from a Pampered Chef cookbook
1 sleeve plus 1/4 sleeve of saltine crackers
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup butter (do not use margarine)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup milk chocolate chocolate chips
1 cup twist pretzels, broken into small pieces
1/3 cup chopped peanuts
1/3 cup regular sized M&Ms

1. Preheat oven to 350*. Arrange crackers side by side in a single layer on a baking sheet. You may need to break some in half so that you can cover the sides/top/bottom of the baking sheet evenly.

2. Combine brown sugar, butter and vanilla in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally until mixture comes to a full boil across the surface. Boil, stirring constantly, 4 minutes.

3. Immediately pour sugar mixture over crackers and spread evenly. Bake 10-12 minutes or until sugar mixture is bubbly and lightly browned. Remove pan from oven to a cooling rack.

(you can see how I had to arrange my crackers in order to fill the pan :))

4. Immediately sprinkle baked crackers with chocolate chips. Let stand 3 minutes, allowing chips to soften, then spread evenly over surgace. Sprinkle with pretzels, peanuts, baking bits and raisins (if desired) Lightly press toppings into melted chocolated. Let stand at room temperature to cool completely. Refrigerate for 20 minutes to firm chocolate. Cut into squares and serve.

The original recipe calls for 40 saltines, mini pretzels, semi-sweet chips, mini M&Ms, and also states that raisins are optional. The original recipe also uses Pampered Chef products, which I did not use.

2010-06-17T09:05:00.000-05:00

Buffalo Chicken Lasagna

Recipe from: Carrie's Sweet Life

Originally from: A year of Slow Cooking

I think my crockpot hates me. Even though I put sauce on the bottom of the crockpot like the recipe says to do, it burnt on the bottom. It also turned to mush. I know traditional lasagna isn't exactly firm, but these noodles were falling apart and had no consistency at all. It was edible though. It took awhile to prepare, but that's because I didn't have any leftover chicken breast in the refrigerator so I had to cook, cool and shred it the same day I was making it.

I also used oven ready lasagna noodles, so I don't know if that's part of the reason it was so mushy?!

I'd definitely try this again, but I might bake it in the oven instead. It had good buffalo flavor, but I felt like it needed more meat maybe?

Layered Fiesta Dip

2010-06-17T08:57:00.000-05:00

Layered Fiesta Dip

Recipe From: Myself!

This was a quick and easy lunch I made for myself one day. I had some Tastefully Simple spicy black bean dip left from a previous season, my Mom had made some corn and black bean salsa that she left at our house and I had shredded cheese and sour cream in the refrigerator. The hardest part was deciding what I wanted to make with the ingredients. Nachos? Quesadilla? Burrito of sorts?

I decided to layer it all in a bowl. Bean dip on the bottom, salsa, cheese, sour cream, repeat.

It was really good. My eyes were much bigger than my stomach, because I couldn't eat anymore than half of it. The cute little bowl came in a chip/dip set we got as a wedding gift. Excuse my kitchen chair being in the picture. I think I need to invest in some backdrops or something :)

We're NOT moving!

2010-05-26T08:43:00.005-05:00

EDIT: After getting back into the kitchen, planning a menu and overall enjoying my time in the kitchen, I've decided that Amy's Kitchen Creations is here to stay! We'll keep the "life" blog, but that'll be more of a house/what we're doing/where we're going type blog. Stay here for recipes and fun kitchen related stuff!

ORIGINAL POST: Rather than having a cooking blog, a weight-loss blog and I've started to think about having a "life" blog...We've created a new blog for all three. C'mon over to our NEW blog. It's still under construction, but I'll have a new post up and running shortly!

I'll eventually delete this blog.

Check me out!

2010-04-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

I'm guest blogging on Carrie's blog today! Follow this link http://www.carriessweetlife.com/2010/04/sun-dried-tomato-mac-and-cheese/ and check it out. Don't her dark chocolate butterscotch muffins sound yummy? I think they'd go perfectly with my coffee today...

Naked Turkey Burgers

2010-04-20T10:50:00.000-05:00

When you're out of buns, what do you call your turkey burgers? Nakey Burgers!

These were super easy, super delicious and super quick!

Pictured with leftover Sun-Dried Tomato Mac & Cheese and a heaping serving of frozen veggies!

Naked Turkey Burgers
an Amy's Kitchen Creations original recipe
1lb lean ground turkey
2 Tablespoons Sweet Pineapple Chipotle Salsa
1/2 Teaspoon Onion Onion
1/2 Teaspoon Garlic Pepper Seasoning

Combine all ingredients together and form into patties. I got 5 patties from the pound of turkey that I used. I had enough leftover for a very thin patty, but instead I formed it into a meatball. These would be great as meatballs for a quick dinner too.

Refrigerate patties for about 15 or 20 minutes. I did this while my Husband was preparing the grill, but I was hoping that since the patties were very moist, I wanted them to have time to stick together and try to prevent them from falling apart. It worked!

The patties were very moist and very flavorful. I love the Pineapple Chipotle salsa...ohmygoodness..yumyumyum! My Husband and I have already purchased and eaten ~~two~~ three jars. I have been meaning to try this salsa on grilled chicken breasts too, I think that would be phenomenal. I put some on my turkey burgers last night and that was great too. Good thing the salsa is only 1 ww point per 2 tblsps!

Homemade Caramel Rolls

2010-04-20T10:49:00.000-05:00

I'm getting quite adventurous in the kitchen, if I do say so myself. For Easter, I made Annie's Honey Yeast Rolls (although I didn't blog them) and over the weekend I made cinnamon rolls. I said "So Long" to our weight watchers lifestyle and let us have a "cheat" day. It was so nice, making a nice gooey, warm ~~breakfast~~ lunch for us. (They took about 2 hrs from start to finish...and I didn't start until about 9:30am)
They were really good, especially for it being my first attempt. The middle of the rolls didn't seem to brown as much as the rest. I *think* that may be due to the fact that I put a pan on the oven rack directly under the rolls to catch the caramel drips...anyone think that might be the case?

My rolls weren't the most uniformly rolled, and they weren't rolled as tightly as they could have been, but like I said, it was a first attempt, and they tasted good so it was a success!

I googled and got my recipe here. I would do a few things differently next time.

Maybe only make half a batch. This made 3 pans. For two people, that's an insane amount of carbs to be hanging out taunting you.
Don't be so cautious with the caramel. If you're going to ruin your diet, ruin your diet dangit. They only had a taste of caramel, I wanted the kind you get at bakeries and such that are overflowing with sticky, ooey, gooey caramel deliciousness.
Also put a little more cinnamon/sugar mixture on the dough before rolling. Again, I was pretty cautious with it and in the end, it could have had a little more cinnamon/sugar taste.
Roll the dough a bit tighter so the rolls stuck together more.

A benefit of marrying a fisherman...(clean) fishing line made cutting the rolls a cinch! Thanks, Honey!

Shrimp Tacos with Spicy Avocado Sauce

2010-03-17T13:09:00.000-05:00

After uploading and putting this picture in the blog post, you can't really see the sauce or the shrimp and the tomatoes on the far left taco kind of look like a strawberry to me. Oh well. It's not a very pretty plate, but it's a delicious one, that's for sure! If you're looking for a quick, filling and tasty meal, you have to make these. We went from unthawed shrimp to taking our first bite in about 45minutes. My Husband and I prepared this together; he marinaded the shrimp, chopped up tomatoes and cooked the shrimp mixture while I prepared the sauce. Ok, so he more or less made dinner and I helped. It was still a lot of fun being in the kitchen together.

Shrimp Tacos

an Amy's Kitchen Creations original

1lb unthawed shrimp (we used 14oz of the pre-cooked kind)

Half a package of imitation crabmeat

a few leaves of cilantro

2/3 cup Italian Dressing

Marinade the shrimp, cilantro and dressing while you're preparing the sauce below. When the sauce is made, throw the shrimp (with about 1/2 of the marinade) in a pan to warm up. The sauce will boil a little and you may need to drain some of it out while you're cooking so that your shrimp aren't sitting in a bath.

Makes 8 tacos (4servings of 2 tacos per serving)

Spicy Avocado Sauce

an Amy's Kitchen Creations original

1 tblsp Franks Red Hot Sauce (love this stuff!)

2 tblsp Ranch Dressing (if you have fat free on hand, that would be even better!)

1 whole avocado, peeled

2 tblsp Light Sour Cream

I was originally going to mix this all together in a bowl, so I started with the ingredients in a cereal bowl but then quickly changed my mind when ~~common sense kicked in and I knew that a whisk wouldn't get this to the consistency I wanted~~ I attempted to use my immersion blender with the whisk attachment and I ended up whipping avocado chunks on my wall. Oops! That's when I knew I needed to convert ingredients to my blender!

Put all sauce ingredients in a small food processor (or blender, if the only FP you have is a ginormous one) and pulse/blend/whip it together until it is all combined and you get a nice smooth consistency. It's a thick sauce, more like a condiment than a sauce I guess. I wasn't sure what to add to it to get it more sauce like without risking points value (think taco sauce from a jar consistency), any suggestions? The sauce makes about 10 tablespoons (30tsps) and a serving size is 1 tblsp (2 tsps) for 1 point.

When the shrimp is warmed to your liking, take them off the heat, drain the remaining liquid and get ready to assemble your taco! We served these with 6" Fajita Carb Balance Whole Wheat Tortillas from Mission. (They're 1 ww point per tortilla and they're delicious!)

2 tacos served with lettuce, tomato, 2 tortillas and 1 tablespoon of sauce = 6pts*
2 tacos = 4pts*
1tblsp sauce = 1pt*

ENJOY!

*points are based on my calculations and are not validated by Weight Watchers.

Healthy eating on a budget

2010-03-15T08:09:00.000-05:00

What are your favorite Healthy meals that are easy and cheap to prepare?
What are your favorite lunches to bring to work (assuming you brown bag it each day like I do)?

Vidalia Onion Chicken with cracker coating

2010-02-17T11:14:00.000-06:00

This was a fantastic recipe! The picture doesn't really do it justice I don't think. It was a recipe that I created after we got home late one night from running errands, going to the gym etc. It was the first time I think I've ever breaded chicken with something. As you can see a few spots got a little darker than others, but overall it was delicious. The crackers gave it a nice crunchy coating while the vidalia dressing gives it a smooth flavor. The green beans on the side were a perfect companion.

Ingredients (everything is approximate. I used what I had available)

Chicken Breasts, I used 4, two for each of us

1 cup of Tastefully Simple's Vidalia Onion dressing

4oz of crushed Cheese It Up crisps (also from Tastefully Simple)

Sprinkling of parmesan cheese

Dip each chicken breast in the vidalia onion dressing, then coat it with the cracker crumbs. Place the chicken on a baking sheet sprayed with PAM. Bake at 400 for about 30minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Right after taking them out of the oven, sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Serve immediately.

No Bake Key Lime Cheesecake

2010-02-17T11:05:00.000-06:00

It's not the greatest picture, but the taste will definitely make up for it, I promise. I followed this Tastefully Simple recipe. The cheesecake was light, refreshing and a perfect dessert for a weeknight meal. It took no time at all to prepare, and was a hit with both my Husband and myself. I forsee this one a lot this Summer at potlucks and Birthday Parties!

Ingredients
1 Tastefully Simple Key Lime Cheeseball Mix
8oz softened cream cheese
8oz tub of thawed cool whip
1 prepared graham cracker crust

Combine the cheeseball mix and the cream cheese, make sure to blend it well. Fold in the cool whip. Spoon the mixture into the graham cracker crust. Chill for 2hours. Garnish with the crumbs from pkg 2 of the key lime cheeseball mix. Makes approximately 6 servings.

**If you use a fat free whipped topping, and a fat free cream cheese, the approximate points values for one slice (6 slices per pie) would 5pts. If you use full fat cream cheese and full fat whipped topping the approximate points value is 10pts per slice**

Crockpot Orange Chicken turned ugly...

2010-02-17T10:48:00.000-06:00

This wasn't a succesful recipe, as you can see. Which is very unfortunate because my Husband and I love Chinese food, and I was excited to find a recipe for one of our favorites! I saw it on this blog originally. Doesn't her picture look much, much better than mine? Yikes. I was so sad to let such a tasty entree go to waste! What happened was, we were gone much longer than I thought we would be and so our lovely orange chicken dinner, shriveled up and burnt. So, so sad.

(eww... just think how fun it was to clean this up!)

This one is definitely on our list to make again, we'll just need to make sure we're home in time!

Ingredients

1.5lbs of boneless, skinless chicken breast cut into chunks

1/2 cup flour

olive oil for browning the chicken

1.5 tsps salt

6 ounces orange juice concentrate w/ no pulp, thawed

3 tblsp brown sugar

1 tblsp balsamic vinegar (I omitted because I didn't have any)

3 tblsp ketchup

Use a 4qt slow cooker for best results (this may have been part of my problem too,I was using a large slow cooker). Dredge the chicken in the flour, shake off the excess. When you're done dredging the chicken, throw away the remaining flour, you don't need it for anything else. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet and brown the chicken on all sides. Sear it so that it gets a nice coating on each side.

Put the chicken in the slowcooker. In a small mixing bowl, combine the remaining ingredients (salt through ketchup). Taste a little, if you'd like the chicken to be sweeter add a little more brown sugar.Pour the sauce mix all over the chicken and gently coat all pieces.

Cover and cook on low for 6hours, or on high for 3-4hours.

We had the intentions to serve it with white rice, but since we didn't eat it...no rice for us. You could serve it with a brown rice too.

Check out Krista's blog here, she's got some suggestions at the end of her recipe.

Homemade Cream Puffs

2010-02-17T09:34:00.000-06:00

I made these for our Valetine's Day dessert. I don't have the recipe right now,it's in my Taste of Home cookbook which is at home. For now, I'll share the delicious pictures with you. They are huge puffs, and next time I make them, I'll make them a lot smaller. This was my first time making any sort of dough recipe and it was a tasty success! I will definitely branch out into making more dough recipes.

Crockpot Baked Potato Soup

2010-02-17T09:09:00.000-06:00

I've never had baked potato soup before but after seeing it on Stephanie's blog, it looked like something I'd really like to try. I have to say, I was unimpressed. I am pretty sure my disappointment comes from never having the soup before so I didn't know what to expect. It was definitely an easy recipe, and it surely makes enough for a large crowd. I'll add my suggestions after the recipe.

Ingredients

5lbs of potatoes, peeled and chopped

1 onion, diced (I used Tastefully Simple's Onion Onion Seasoning)

4 cloves of garlic, minced (I used Tastefully Simple's Garlic Garlic Seasoning)

1 tsp seasoned salt (again, I used Tastefully Simple's Seasoned Salt)

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp red pepper

2 quarts chicken broth (8 cups)

2 pkgs cream cheese

crumbled bacon, shredded cheese etc for garnish

Make sure to use a large slow cooker. I'm not sure the size of mine, but I used the largest I had. Put the peeled and chopped potatoes in the stoneware of the cooker. Add the seasonings and pour in the broth. Cover and cook on low for 8hours or high for 4hours. When done, the potatoes should be fork tender.

You'll need to blend the potatoes, broth and seasonings all together. You can use your blender or an immersion blender. I used the immersion blender I got for Christmas from my parents. I love it! It was so fun to make, and it made a heck of a lot less mess than it would have it I had to blend it in my blender. (I'm a messy cook. If you can transfer from crock to blender back to crock without mess, go for it!) After that's all blended together, crumble in the cream cheese, cook on high for about 30 minutes or until the cream cheese is completely dissolved.

Dish it up, garnish and enjoy!

My Suggestions/Comments

I didn't realize how thick of a soup it would be. I swore I was forgetting something in the recipe, milk or more chicken broth or something. It was so thick. Almost too thick to even enjoy it. It definitely stuck to your ribs! The night we had it we had a friend's 7yr old Daughter over and she kind of picked at it, but mostly at the (turkey) bacon that was crumbled on top. I wouldn't say it's kid tested or approved.

Since we had 3/4 of a crockpot FULL of leftover soup, I added about a cup of milk to it and that really helped the consistency. I ate it a couple days afterwards for lunches, and then ended up tossing the rest because neither my Husband or I enjoyed enough to keep eating the leftovers.

I think I'll definitely try this again, maybe using more chicken broth and see if that helps, or if it really just needs some milk in it?!

My Husband the game show contestant...

2010-02-08T14:02:00.003-06:00

Me: Let's play a game. We're going to guess how much we have spent eating out since January 1st. Your choices are, (A) $512.82 (B) $179.32 (C) $229.63 or (D) $325.80.

Him: I'd like to use my 50/50, please take away two of the wrong choices.

Me: Okay, here are the final two choices, (A) $512.82 or (D) $325.80

Him: D, final answer.

Me: YOU WIN! Let me tell you what you've won! You win a month FULL of homemade, home prepared, eaten at home meals! This prizes includes 20 days of breakfast food prepared at home, 20 days of lunch foods prepared at home & 20 days of dinners prepared at home. No stopping at gas stations, coffee shops or morning drive thru required (or allowed)!

But WAIT! There’s more…

You’ll also receive a fatter wallet, smaller waistline and leftovers for lunches until your heart explodes (in the good happiness kind of way)! No more last minute decisions for making a breakfast, lunch or dinner! Everything will be thought out, prepared, packaged and ready for you to devour at breakfast time, lunchtime or dinnertime!

Please make sure to read the fine print of your prize! (Holy balls, we spent nearly a week’s worth of your pay on food. Besides the money we spent on groceries. WTF. This is ridiculous and that’s why I vow that we’re not going to eat out anymore. The only food we’ll be buying is groceries)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was an actual email, played gameshow style, between my Husband and I just now. As I sat here eating my ravioli frozen meal I was curious as to what we've spent eating out (including caribou and gas station coffee & snacks). We've added this up from time to time, had a small anxiety attacked and brought our eating out to a hault. But we always wind up back in the same pattern.

Let's think of what we could have bought with $325.80... 8 Nintendo Wii games at ~$40 a piece, paid off $ 325.80 worth of debt, we could have bought this couch from Slumberland

I could have treated myself to a Spa Day, my Husband could have bought some fishing stuff for his Summer tournaments

Yuck. It kind of makes me sick. We also spent $596.27 in grocery trips. So a grand total of $922.07 for TWO people for food in one month. Ugh. That's nearly our mortgage payment. That's nearly a whole paycheck of my wages. In food. The only other people I can think of that spend nearly $1,000 in food would probably be The Duggars.

I hereby proclaim that we will not eat out for one month, unless necessary (I have a conference for my part-time job coming up that I'll need to purchase lunch and/or dinner for. That's the only necessity I can think of right now). We will pack snacks in the car for after work when we're hungry and are tempted by the gas station nastiness. We will not spend $922.07 on food, in one month, ever again (unless we have multitudes of children, which I doubt).

Almond Pound Cake Trifle

2010-02-08T09:35:00.002-06:00

Yum! This was so easy, so tasty and very refreshing! I prepared a Tastefully Simple Absolutely Almond Pound Cake, crumbled it up and layered it with fresh strawberries, banana slices and cool whip flavored with Tastefully Simple's Strawberry Chiller drink mix (just the powder).

You can purchase the Almond Pound Cake here. The strawberry chiller mix was a Seasonal item so it is no longer available for purchase. If you're interested in purchasing it and live in the Minneapolis area, email me (address along sidebar) and I can see if another consultant has one available.

This made quite a few servings and would be perfect for an Easter Dinner dessert, or even a picnic treat!

Garnish with some chocolate shavings for extra pizazz!

Enjoy!

Bacon Bacon Stuffed Mushrooms

2010-01-18T15:17:00.000-06:00

I don't have a picture of these tasty little morsels, but as soon as I make them again I'll definitely post a picture. They were so easy to make, and most of all, they were delicious! I made them for my Husband while he was watching the game and I thought he was going to eat the whole plate full! They are a Tastefully Simple recipe that I found when trying to decide what to make with the products I still have from Fall/Winter. Search all of Tastefully Simple's recipes by going here.

Bacon Bacon Stuffed Mushrooms
1 pkg Warm the Oven! Savory Cheese Dip
8oz Cream Cheese (I used neufchatel)
1 1/2 tablespoons Bacon Bacon
~22 mushrooms, cleaned and stems removed (I used one large package)
1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese (I didn't have any on hand, so I omitted)

Mix the cheese dip mix, cream cheese and Bacon Bacon together. Let chill for 2 hours.

Spoon about 1 teaspoon of cream cheese mixture into each mushroom. You're going to have leftover cream cheese mixture, so feel free to spoon a little extra in, or purchase some extra mushrooms and you'll have a large recipe. (I spooned a little extra into each mushroom). When stuffed, put mushrooms in a glass baking dish (I think this would work better than the cookie sheet I used!) and broil on low for about 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.

WW pts= 1pt per mushroom. If you use full fat cream cheese and cheddar cheese, your points values will likely increase.

Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies

2009-12-10T07:56:00.000-06:00

These were a super simple and fun recipe to make! I made them for a treat to bring to a baby shower at work. I think they turned out delicious! I won't be able to make them too often, Matt doesn't like anything with mint so if I make them...I'm the only one that'll eat them...and then I'm in trouble!

I googled for a 'cake mix cookie' recipe, and found this one. I changed it up a bit to meet my needs and it worked perfectly!

(sorry for the dark picture, I was using my phone)

Candy Cane Cookies
1 chocolate cake mix
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil
Hershey's Candy Cane kisses

Mix the cake mix, eggs and oil together. I had to add a little more oil, probably about 1 teaspoon because the mixture was so dry.Scoop using a cookie scoop and place on a baking sheet. Bake at 350 for about 8 minutes. Cookies will be very fluffy and soft. I immediately pressed a candy cane kiss onto the cookie and the kisses began melting. The melted so much so that they don't even look like a kiss anymore!

They took awhile to cool, but I placed them in plastic ziploc bags and took them to work! I made them on Tuesday and it's now Thursday. The cookies are very, very soft and chewy.

Some suggestions I have for trying this recipe:
Let them cool a little bit more before putting the kiss on so they keep their kiss shape.
Bake them a little bit longer for a harder cookie, maybe 9-10 minutes instead.
Chop up the kisses and incorporate them into the batter for a mint chip type cookie.

Enjoy!

Who wants to win?

2009-12-10T07:14:00.000-06:00

You can win a new HP Touch Smart computer by going here, here, here, here, or here.

Leave a comment in any of their posts and you're entered to win! Tweet or Blog about it and leave another comment with a link to your tweet/blog and you will be entered again!

Here's a question for my readers (and my followers, all 9 of you..) Leave me a comment and tell me.. What's the best thing you've ever won? (sorry I've got nothing cool to give away...)

Tastefully Simple Gift Ideas

2009-11-30T08:31:00.000-06:00

(I know I haven't updated this poor, neglected blog in a long time, here's to a new start!)

I wanted to share with you, all of the wonderful gift ideas Tastefully Simple has to offer this Holiday Season. First, I'd like to point out, with any $50 purchase you'll receive a free Bruschetta Cheeseball mix. This offer is not valid with online orders. You will need to call or email me to place your order. My contact information is listed on my website.

One of the gifts that I plan to give this Season is the Granola Delights. For just $16.95 you can purchase two bags of our new granola mix. Oh So Berry granola snack mix is packed with rolled oats, almonds, pecans, cherries and cranberries. This all natural product is great when paired with a warm bowl of oatmeal, or even on top of cold cereal. Nutty Good granola snack mix is a blend of rolled oats, cinnamon, brown sugar, vanilla and pecans. I'm planning to stir a little into my cookie dough, and make some tasty oatmeal cookies in the near future.

A wonderful gift for the person on your list who loves to read is the book by our CEO and Founder, Jill Blashack Strahan. It's a collection of short stories, as Jill shares her life lessons as she molded her beliefs and principles- the Laws of Abundancy, Magic and Realness. You can purchase the book here.

While that gift recipient is reading Jill's book, perhaps they'd enjoy some of our 'open and enjoy' treats. Featured in the gift set appropriately titled 'Open and Enjoy!' You'll Receive Spicy Olive Twist Cream Cheese Dip, Mild Red Pepper Dip and our new Cheese it Up Crisps. All of the products included in the gift set are also available for purchase seperately.

Check out this part of my website for more great gift ideas. I can help you create the perfect gift for anyone on your list. We also have beautiful organza bags that are sold separately so you can make anything a great looking gift! We also have collections; one purchase can satisfy many of your gift giving needs. Check them out here.

I can have anything you order shipped directly to your recipient, no matter where they live! You can also include a short message on the packing slip for your recipient.

Think about all the other occasions you give gifts-Birthdays, Anniversaries, New Baby, College Students, Babysitters etc.. wouldn't they love a gift that's practical, delicious and a great value?

We have a 100% personal satisfaction guarantee. If you're not completely satisfied with anything you purchase, please let me know and we can get it taken care of for you.

Any items purchased before December 9th will be guaranteed by Christmas. Here is more information on our shipping and delivery.

Have you heard? Tastefully Simple has been featured on Delilah!

Interested in hosting your own taste testing party? Follow this link to see what's in store for January Hosts!

Looking to make more moolah or new friendships? Maybe you want to be home more, maybe you want a life, maybe you want to get out of the house? Learn more about becoming a consultant. You can sign up online, or have an in-home taste testing party to get your business off and running!

I'd love to answer any questions you may have about the business or our products. If you're in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area, I'd love to do an in-home taste testing party for you and your friends! Leave me a comment with your email and I'll get back to you, or feel free to contact me with information from my website.

Simply Yours,

Birthday Recap

2009-10-28T12:38:00.002-05:00

We went downtown to a little cupcake bakery/cafe to celebrate my Birthday. This place was recommended by some of the girls on my local Nest board and it wasn't too far from my work, so off we went!

I didn't think to take pictures of the actual cafe, it was kind of a cramped space and it was pretty busy. I wasn't expecting that at first, but we were on University Avenue right by the U of M campus so I should have known. We even drove by the new TCF Stadium, which Matt was pretty impressed with. Little did he know, a wrong turn on my part took us that way, but hey, we'll pretend we had to go that way.

We went to.... Cupcake!

The handles on the door when you enter the cafe, look like whisks, I thought that was pretty clever :-) It was a cute little shop, it was also a cafe so you could order sandwiches, soups etc. I wish I would have taken more pictures, ooops!

We chose four cupcakes, two for the each of us. We decided to sit down and eat a couple and save the other two for another time. We rushed ourselves along because we weren't exactly sure the time limit of our parking spot. There was a sign that said both 1hr limit and one that said 15min limit. We didn't exactly know how to decipher them so decided we would hurry!

I ate the chocolate mint cupcake, and Matt ate his mocha cupcake. They were both very good. My frosting had a strong, but not too strong, mint flavor and Matt said the same thing about the coffee taste in his (strong, but not too strong). My cupcake was pretty crumbly and fell apart, but Matt's had nice texture and stayed together nicely.

They were both good, I just wish mine would have held together better. I'm excited to try my other one, The Betty Crocker. A vanilla cupcake, with a swirl of pink icing and sprinkles. Typical Birthday Girl treat, don't you think? Matt has The Coco Loco waiting for him at home, a lemon curd filled vanilla cupcake topped with marshmellow frosting and shredded coconut.

Overall it was a fun atmosphere. The employees were friendly, it was a nicely decorated cafe, tabletops were clean, there were seats available. I also enjoyed being able to watch the decorator pipe icing onto the cupcakes.

There was something that really freaked me out while we were there. While I was getting us some ice water, I noticed they had their patio door open, and as I looked over, what did I see? A baby mouse! Not kidding! The mouse did not, I repeat did not, go in the cafe, but it very easily could have. That really kind of grossed me out. If you own or even work at a cafe, I would suggest not leaving the door open intentionally! Eeek! The only other con that I have is there was literally, no parking other than the paralell parking right in front of the cafe, which had no room when we were looking for a spot. We parked a little ways up the street and took our chances with our time limit.

On our way home, we were stuck in rush our traffic! Bad idea Birthday Girl! I should have known going that way at around 4:30pm was going to be trouble. However, I really wanted to try Cupcake after hearing so many positive reviews. Although it really wasn't what I expected, it was still fun to go to! It kind of makes me want to start my own cupcake shop :-)

For dinner we went to ... Rey Azteca! We had a coupon, and it was close to home so we decided to go there. YUM! I definitely give it two thumbs up! We were seated promptly, they took our drink order shortly after we sat down, and then our server dissappeared. They were a little busy so I can understand though. The food was excellent and they have huge portions! Matt had fajitas and I had a plate of enchiladas that came with two tacos and a stuffed pepper. Very delicious, and very filling! They also serve tortilla chips with salsa and a white dip. The best I can describe it is a cucumber, ranch, sour cream type dip.

I have no pictures :( I think we were so hungry we were ready to eat! The margaritas were excellent as well!

I had a great Birthday! Lots of love and wishes from my family and quality time with my Husband! We closed off our night by stopping at Target and picking up toilet paper and paper towels (ahhh..the life of being an adult!) and went home to get ready for my Tastefully Simple party.

What's on your appliance wishlist?

2009-10-24T13:46:00.008-05:00

Being a first time home owner, there are so many appliances that I wish I had. I am very thankful that the home we bought was completely furnished with appliances, but if I woke up to a few (quite a few, actually!) extra digits in my bank account, I would definitely be purchasing these bad boys...

Front Loading Washer and Dryer

These beauties have quite the list of features! You can delay your wash start time so that you can have laundry running when you're not even home! Or you could delay it so that it starts after your child's nap time without having to remember to go start the washer! The feature I think I would love the most is that it has TimeWise Technology. The wash time and the dry time are the same! There is also a timer, so you always know how much time is left in the cycle!

Cooktop stove and a double oven!

I can just imagine how much easier Holiday baking would be if I had a double oven! I've often gone to one of my Mom's friends' house for an annual Holiday baking day and she has a double oven. It's a breeze to get our baking done! I wouldn't say we get home sooner, because we all chat the same amount of time :-)

I love the look of a cooktop stove, but I can almost guarantee that I would probably burn myself, or something by forgetting that I turned on the burner!

Chest Freezer

I've been wanting one of these for quite some time now. We just need to bite the bullet and buy one! (Recommendations appreciated!) I want to have the additional freezer space so that when frozen food is on sale, especially meat, we can stock up and not worry about how much room we'll have in our side by side refrigerator/freezer. I'd also like to make double batches of meals (lasagna and other dishes) so that we have easy meals on hand for those busy nights and those nights where neither of us feel like cooking!

In addition to these appliances, I'd purchase a new dishwasher, and a new microwave, both in black. What's on your appliance wishlist? What color appliances do you like best? Stainless steel? White? I like black because it looks sleek, and you wouldn't be able to see any fingerprints etc on it like you do with stainless steel!

Check out the giveaway that inspired this post!

Our First Anniversary!

2009-10-21T14:58:00.003-05:00

Don't mind that this post is ten days late :-/. Oops!

We had a lovely Anniversary weekend. We spent both Saturday and Sunday enjoying eachothers company, reminiscing about a year prior. "What were you doing at this moment a year ago" I often asked my Husband. I even asked my parents, the Friday (10/9) of our Anniversary weekend, what they were doing a year ago to the day. My Mom thought I was talking about the 9th, which would have been the Thursday before the wedding, the day that my Dad was stung by a large group of bees! My Dad replied to the question, "Running all over the place!" Which yes, he was right! The few days before the wedding were a flurry of errands, last minute checklists, "Where's this?" "Who's got that?" "Did we remember..."

We had a gorgeous day for our wedding. We truly could not have asked for a better day. I will always say, the weather we had that day was the gift from our Angels in Heaven. They truly were smiling down on us. Here are a few pictures from our wedding:

It's fun to look back! I can't believe how fast a year went though! I don't think life will slow down either! I'm thankful to have Matt in my life, and I'm thankful for the memories we've had during our relationship. We're approaching four years together, and it's been wonderful! Here's to many more!

To celebrate our Anniversary, we went to The Melting Pot in Minneapolis. It was delicious! Neither of us had ever had fondue, and were excited to try it! It was a wonderful experience. It was such a romantic environment! Although I had told him about it, I was shocked to see red roses sitting at our table when we arrived. My Hubby followed my clues and asked them to add it to our table when he made the reservation. How sweet! This is our cute little booth, minus the roses. I didn't remember to take a picture until we were leaving!

The meal started with fresh cheese fondue, prepared right at our table by the waiter. Made with shredded cheese, a little bit of beer, and some other spices, it was ooey gooey deliciousness waiting for us to dig in! We enjoyed the cheese fondue with bread, cold vegetables, and apples.

Next up was our salads. We both chose caesar, a favorite! As we were finishing up our salads, our main course came. Our little booth table was now filled with food! We had a plate of our meat (lobster, steak, filet mignon, brat pieces, chicken and shrimp), we had plates to eat from, as well as a dish of vegetables to cook, and many sauces for our dipping enjoyment! We also ordered a couple drinks, mine was SO good! I ordered the 'Love Martini' made with peach schnapps, malibu rum, cranberry juice and garnished with a fresh strawberry. Matt ordered the Blackberry Margarita and wasn't too fond of it. Mine was so good, we ordered another and shared it during our fabulous dessert!

Here's an 'action shot' of our food cooking. We chose the Bourguignonne oil to cook our meat. It's a European style fondue. We had many sauces to choose from, including tempura batters which fried our food. My favorite was probably the Honey Mustard and the Sweet and Sour type sauce we had. A very full plate of delicious meats!

Last, but certainly NOT least, our decadent dessert platter and our ying yang chocolate fondue. We chose the best of both worlds-white chocolate and milk chocolate creatively swirled together! It was almost too pretty to even eat. We dug right in, and realized we didn't take a picture of our dessert options. This plate came chock full of gourmet desserts. Marshmallows rolled in crushed graham crackers and crushed oreos, cheesecake, pound cake, strawberries, bananas, and I think some brownies too.

As you can see, we (shamelessly) cleaned up our chocolate!! The waiter even brought us some additional strawberries and marshmallows for us. It was pure delight!

I think we're well accustomed to fondue, and we can safely break out our fondue pot we received as a wedding gift! I think fondue nights will be at least, a monthly occasion in our house!

I would highly recommend going to The Melting Pot for any special occasion!

Get a fun signature for your blog!

2009-09-28T14:28:00.004-05:00

Just go here. You can choose your color, size, font, angle and more!

Have fun!

I'm a bad blogger!

2009-09-24T10:04:00.012-05:00

It's been over a month since my last blog post. It wasn't even an update, just a thoughtful request for a family in need. I need to be better about keeping up with this!

So what's new in The Jung Life since the last post? Well let me tell ya!

Matt got a raise-yay! With the economy the way it is, I'm thankful everyday that we both have jobs to go to, and his company allowing raises is just an added blessing. Unfortunately, my company is not in a financial position to give raises, so I will just be happy that I have a desk to come to each day!

Matt finished up his bass tournaments, overall a decent year. He did more tournaments with his Dad this year, which I know he really enjoyed. We even took a road trip to the Albertville area in July for one of his tournaments. We found a cheap hotel, a nice place to have dinner, and of course we did some shopping! It was a fun little get away!

I am still an Independent Tastefully Simple consultant, and still loving it! I attended the National Conference in Mpls in August, and it was a whirlwind of a weekend!! So much learning, product testing, giveaways, shopping, and FUN! I made new friendships, got to know other people on my team a lot better, learned new things; it was great! Speaking of which, check out this incentive for my customers. Who doesn't love free stuff! If you'd like to join my email list, leave me a comment with your email address!
We bought a new (to us) car. We said goodbye to the rollerskate and hello to a 2003 Chevrolet Trailblazer (no pictures yet). Why you ask, was it called a rollerskate? When I first bought it my Dad said he could just as well 'strap a rollerskate on my ass' because he was sitting so low to the ground :-) It was also the first car I ever owned. Which leads me to tell you...
....I cried as we pulled away in our new vehicle. It was weird, because I wasn't sad to buy a new car, I wasn't being forced into buying a new car. I think I was just sad at the new realization that I'm growing up. We bought the trailblazer because we'd like to have a family soon, and I want a vehicle that we can grow into, a vehicle that suits us better. But that car I was leaving, was my first car. I bought it. It was mine. I got not one, but two speeding tickets in it! It was the car I had when I started my first 'real' job. It was the car I had when I met Matt, when we moved in together, when we bought a house, when we got married. That little car had a lot of memories!
I'm looking ahead to the memories that our new car will bring too. It'll be the vehicle that brings our babies home from the Hospital. It will be the car to take them to their first day of preschool. It will be the car that we'll take as a family when we go camping and create those precious memories for our children.
Next on the list of what's been happening with us:
I joined Weight Watchers. I went to the doctor for my annual appointment and my weight was the main topic of our discussion. That was on a Tuesday around noon I think, and by 6:00pm that night, I was signed up. I've been successful at ww before, losing about 15lbs, so I know I can do it. I know the program works, and I know that I need/want/am committed to doing it!! I have enjoyed it so far. It took some adjusting, getting used to a different lifestyle, but I think I've got it now and am getting better at it. It's really what I needed.
We want to start a family soon, and I know that by shedding this excess weight, I can provide my future baby a much healthier, cozy home for 9 months! Not to mention, I'll be able to focus on the nursery and cute baby things, rather than worrying about the medical risks being overweight + pregnancy can have.
I weigh in on Thursdays, and I should use this blog as my outlet for frustrations, or if I feel like shouting from the rooftops with excitement! I'm also going to get to cooking more ww friendly meals, and look forward to making some 'take out fake out' meals; our favorite take out meals, but healthier and cheaper than going out for them!
I've also been having a pumpkin craze lately. I want to make new pumpkin recipes, make my own pumpkin puree for pies, bars and cheesecakes. Of course, I'll need to make them all ww friendly!
So, there you have it readers! That's us in a nutshell for the past month or so. I will try to be better about keeping this updated! I love to hear your comments, so feel free to leave them!

Pray for this family

2009-08-22T00:41:00.002-05:00

This family needs your thoughts and prayers as they go through this unbelievably hard time. I can't even imagine having to go through this.

Hello August!

2009-08-02T13:49:00.015-05:00

Well August has surely come quick, hasn't it? Only two more months and Matt and I have been married for a whole year already. 365 Days! Wow. Our August has started out with a bang, and things won't slow down until September! Matt has four fishing tournaments, I'm on-call for work one weekend, I'll be out of town for Tastefully Simple's National Conference another weekend, and we'll be going to the LeSuer County Fair to watch my Dad in another demo derby. Then we'll be knocking on September's door!

Speaking of tournaments, Matt and his Dad participated in a Fishers of Men tournament yesterday on the LeHomme Dieu Lake Chain. In a contest of about 40 other boats, they took Second Place as a team. They both took home a check and a plaque. They'll be participating in another tournament with FOM at the end of August on the Horseshoe Lake Chain.

I wasn't able to go to their weigh-in, like usual because it was up near Alexandria, MN and they left on Friday morning at about 5:00am. They came home Saturday; tired, hungry and worn out! I guess those are the signs of a successful tournament!

While Matt was away, I went to the Eden Prairie Annual Corn Feed with my Parents as well as our cute little friends K & N. We had fun, despite the forceful winds that caused hot dogs, chips and plates to fly away! We enjoyed delicious corn, tasty hot dogs, cold beverages and hot dogs (or a sloppy joe!). Then, we played at the park, and on the way home stopped at Dairy Queen for a cold treat. All in all, it was a fun day!

The look on their faces in this picture are kind of comical. I think this was before a wind gust that took away K's plate. :-) I would say we had a fun first weekend in August!

Some other things I accomplished this weekend while Matt was gone:

Made flyers and put my car up for sale
Demolished some of our laundry piles
Created a 'cleaning reminder list' We've been really bad about staying on top of the cleaning so I hope we can be more mindful of it now that I've created a list of what we should be doing daily/weekly

Some things that I'm hoping to start new with this month

Make healthier choices (eating better, drinking more water, taking vitamins daily)
Cook something I've never made before at least once a week
Start my day less rushed (which would involve getting up on time!)

Here's something I've made recently that went over very well! Here is a link to the recipe. I altered it a little bit and used a graham cracker crust and sliced the strawberries, but it was still delicious! I had my pies ready to serve in about a half hour. Now that I know what I'm doing and how to make them, I would bet I could have them ready again in 15 minutes.

That was a pretty long post, but that's our life in a nutshell right now. I should add to my list, I want to be better about blogging!

Fair Fun

2009-07-25T14:50:00.003-05:00

I'm not too sure where Matt's seen a cow with a crooked head before? L to R: Matt as the cow, Amy as the goat, Bre as the pig and Kate as the chicken!
We're some pretty good looking farmers!

2009 Demolition Derby

2009-07-25T14:13:00.013-05:00

Another successful derby under my Dad's belt! He's been participating in demo derby's for 5+ years, and each year is as fun as the last!! This year he only ran a truck, a truck in which he transformed from 'The Red Rocket' to this blue bad boy.. He spent many weekends gutting the inside, taking safety precautions, and making sure all regulations were followed. After we painted it, he was ready to rumble! This year's derby was July 24th, a Friday night. We usually have quite the crowd of friends, and family gathered to watch and this year was no exception! We had signs, an air horn and plenty of loud voices ready to cheer him on! Our family friend, Joe, was also competing this year, but not in the same class. They both did very well, their vehicles lasted quite awhile, but they were unable to finish in a qualifying place. (Dad was so close-4th place!) Way to go boys!

Tips to stop eating out

2009-06-08T17:07:00.004-05:00

Mr. Jung and I have been looking for ways to cut back on our eating out. We often find ourselves tired from a long day at work, commuting home, thinking "Let's just get dinner somewhere." Although I enjoy cooking, I still decide eating out is a better option. Well I'm starting to really realize...it's NOT. It's costing us money (that we're trying to save) as well as calories (when we should really be cutting back).

I frequent the cooking message board on The Nest. Everyone there has such wonderful recipes to share, as well as tips to save money on your grocery shopping etc.

Today I went there and asked for their best tips to help Mr. Jung and I to curb our take-out habits. Here are just a few of their suggestions.

Meal Planning. Each Sunday, create a meal plan, and grocery shop for those meals, for the coming week so that you already know the things you could make for dinner. This way you're not thinking about going to the local burger joint because the ground beef you have isn't thawed. If you plan your meals, you can take out the beef the night before and it will be ready for you when you come home!
Don't budget for eating out. This way you know if you go out to eat, you're spending outside of your budget. Hopefully this well also help you save some money! If you must go out to eat, plan for it. Don't let it be a last minute decision. Make it a special 'date night' for you and your spouse/significant other.
Use your crockpot. It's the friendliest appliance in your kitchen! Throw dinner in there before you or your significant other leave for work and voila! You have dinner waiting for you when you get home, you're not waiting for dinner.
Keep some easy, go-to meals on hand. When you're making chicken alfredo for dinner on Wednesday, cook up some extra chicken for your chicken casserole on Friday. When you get home on Friday, half your work is done! Fry up two lbs of ground beef on Sunday when you make spaghetti, so when you want some tacos on Monday, you're practically done already!
Cook ahead. When you're making that lasagna, make two batches and freeze one! When you know you've got a busy day at work coming up, all you have to do is take it out and bake it. Simple as that!
Mix it up! Have breakfast for dinner. Keep it light; have soup and sandwiches. Have salad with some extra chicken breasts.

Those ladies on The Nest, sure told me! There are plenty of ways to keep yourself from wanting to go out to eat, or picking up take-out. If all else fails, and you're really craving something (chinese, pizza, thai food) make it yourself! It'll be a learning experience, and you'll probably save a good deal of money. You'll also probably have enough for leftovers the next day.

We're going to try and really cut back on our eating out/take out this month by using these tips. I'll report back at the end of the month and let you know how we did!

Chicken Burritos

2009-06-07T19:26:00.004-05:00

Chicken Burritos
Recipe from: Me
Inspired by Chipolte/Qdoba

I made these tonight after having some leftover chicken. My Mom and Dad gave us a huge package of chicken breasts that they got at Sam's Club. The package was huge, and each individual chicken breast was also a very decent size. The whole package cost about $12, and fed us both for 2 meals, and we still have two chicken breasts to use. So about $2.00 per meal, per person. What a good deal! We'll definitely be going to Sam's Club to pick up some more

(sorry for the poor quality, i took it with my phone)2 cooked and shredded chicken breasts

Mozzarella cheese

Lettuce

Corn

Sour Cream

Cilantro and Lime Rice (not pictured)

Onion Onion and Rockin Chipolte seasoning from Tastefully Simple

This was so simple and easy to prepare. We used whole wheat Mission Tortillas. (Go here to print a $1 coupon on a package of whole wheat tortillas just like I used!). I prepared the rice ahead of time (Uncle Ben's white rice) and let it sit on the stove with some cilantro and lime juice mixed in while I prepared the rest of the meal.

Next, I put the chicken in a skillet with some EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) and some Rockin Chipolte dry dip mix and some onion onion from Tastefully Simple. I simmered that together until I was sure that the spices were well mixed in.

While the chicken was simmering together, I drained abut 3/4 of the liquid out of a can of 'corn 'n' peppers' I had in the cupboard. I put the corn in a saucepan on the stove with the remaining liquid and let that simmer until the liquid had dissolved. I even let it stick to the pan a bit (kind of like when you're burning something and it sticks :-)) because I didn't want it to be soft like corn that you would boil, I wanted it to be a little bit firm.

When everything is done, top your tortilla with chicken, corn, sour cream and lettuce! I was going to add some avocado slices but our avocado was way too soft. You could add whatever you wanted to these to make them your own!

Serve with a side of rice, or even put the rice in your burrito (I forgot...)

Comments from my Husband: "These are so good" "Was this easy to prepare? (I say yes) Good! We have to have this weekly!" "This is definitely on my Top 10 list!"

So.. all in all, I woul have to say these were a success!

Congratulations Graduate!!

2009-05-15T12:27:00.000-05:00

My little Sister graduated from college last night. I'm so proud of her and all that she has accomplished. She's been through quite a bit in her 19 years of life and she's come out of it all stronger and better than ever!

She'll always be my little Sister, but we're both growing up faster than I ever thought we would. Remembering a time when we never thought we'd get our drivers license, or graduate High School, or move out of the house, we're facing reality now. We've both graduated High School, taken college courses, I'm married and thinking of a family of my own, and she's looking to start her career, all the while we keep adding candles to our Birthday cakes.

Wait a second....weren't we just 15?

Time flies when you're living your life!

Congratulations Bre! I am so proud of you and all that you have accomplished, and done. You're a strong woman and pretty kick-ass! May your dreams take you wherever you want to go and I wish you all the success in the world! You're going to make things happen!

Goals

2009-05-10T13:55:00.001-05:00

I've got a list compiled of our goals as a couple on our refrigerator and a list of goals that I want to accomplish in the kitchen. Why not share them here! Goals that I have completed will be in red bold text.

2009 Cooking/Baking/Kitchen goals:

Make bread from scratch, using yeast....something I've never done!

Make homemade pizza (we used trader joe's pizza crust the other night...very tasty!)

Learn cake decorating (I took the classes at Michael's from January 2009-April 2009)

Organize our kitchen cabinets (this is an easy task...I'm just not that daring yet I don't think...)

Get new flooring in our kitchen

Get new counter tops in our kitchen

Finish our coffee theme in the kitchen

Pick up something I've never cooked with before at the grocery store each time we shop

Limit grocery shopping to when necessary only

Eat out only once every other week

Shop at Aldi when possible to save money

Make a trifle

Make homemade cinnamon/caramel rolls

Enter a baked good into a State/County Fair

Make homemade ice cream

Invite family over for a brunch/dinner, with table decorations, appetizer, dessert...the whole works!

2009 Goals for our marriage

Lose weight (isn't that #1 on nine out of ten people's lists?)

Go to as many concerts as we can afford

Go camping/hunting/fishing together

Put a substantial amount into our savings

Get pregnant

Finish decorating/painting/organizing our home

Get a new bed set (and one for the spare room if affordable!)

Buy laptops

Buy new vehicles

Take a class together (fitness class or a class like photography etc..)

Buy a new camera and take pictures as a hobby (more Amy than Matt's goal ;-)

Those goals seem attainable, don't you think? It's already May, we've got about 6.5 months to get those goals done! Speaking of that, isn't it crazy that it's almost June? The year is almost half over! We've been married for 7 months tomorrow! Where does the time go!

Identity Crisis?! Maybe...

2009-05-10T13:52:00.000-05:00

I've changed the name and the domain of my blog! You can now find me at www.thejunglife.blogspot.com

Although I'm still going to post recipes in this blog, I wanted it to be more than that. I wanted it to be a way to stay connected to family and friends and have more than just recipes, and food. I wanted to share what's going on in our life and chronicle our first pregnancy/child when the time comes for that.

:-)

The Great American Bake Sale!!

2009-04-08T20:43:00.001-05:00

In a couple of weeks my Husband and I are hosting a Bake Sale to support Share our Strength and raise money to help end childhood hunger in America. This event is sponsored in part by Domino sugar, and C&H Sugar. I encourage all of you to visit their website and sign up to host your own bake sale. It's free, and best of all..you're helping a good cause!

My suggestions for holding a succesful bake sale:

Recruit your friends, family and neighbors to help you bake and organize the sale
Get your community involved! Post flyers asking for donated baked goods or donated time to get prepared for the bake sale
Get Grandma's recipes-the traditional baked good favorites will always be a hit! Homemade donuts anyone?!...
Make something for all tastes and personalities. Have trail mixes, chocolate lover items, healthier options, small portions for the newlyweds, or large portions for the growing families.
HAVE FUN! You're doing something great for kids all over America. How can you not have fun!

This fundraising event is endorsed by a couple of my favorite Food Network celebs such as Sandra Lee and Duff Goldman. I think Duff is holding a bake sale sometime this month as well at his Charm City Cakes bakery. If you're going to be in his area, that would definitely be something worth checking out!!

I can't wait for our bake sale! I have started ripping recipes out of magazines, prepare my favorite recipes, even my Husband is going to bake some things! I think he's going to be in charge of selling the baked goods while I'm inside promoting the Tastefully Simple Spring & Summer 2009 product line.

I think oreo truffles may even make an appearance at our bake sale...

Or maybe some yummy gooey delicious brownies?!....
Or even a beautifully decorated, raspberry filled cake...yumm...

What are you waiting for? Go sign up today!!

Looking for another way to use your baking skills to support a worthy cause? Check out what Molly is doing over at The Rookie Chef .

Tastefully Simple

2009-04-02T09:12:00.000-05:00

"Founded in Alexandria, Minnesota, in June of 1995, Tastefully Simple, Inc. is the original national home taste-testing company featuring more than 50 simple and delicious gourmet foods.

In addition to our website, products are marketed primarily through home taste-testing parties by consultants who offer samples, easy meal ideas, recipes, serving suggestions and fun!"
-excerpt from Spring/Summer 2009 catalog

I became an Independent Consultant in June of 2008 and I've loved every minute of it! Although I joined just a few months before my wedding, I was able to still plan my wedding and focus on that, as well as run a business and make some extra cash!

I was an Independent consultant for another company for about a year before joining Tastefully Simple. What a difference!! Tastefully Simple is a much better fit for me, my lifestyle and my hobbies! Tastefully Simple was founded by Jill Blashack Strahan. (http://www.jillblashackstrahan.com/) She was a young Mom, Wife and Entrepreneur. She's come a long way-from founding the company in a shed on a friend's property to now being a member of the Inc. 500 Hall of Fame!! She's an inspirational woman to many!

If you're interested in the business opportunity, or if you'd like to place an order, please check out my website. You are able to order directly from the website with a flat shipping rate of $7.95, otherwise feel free to email me your order and you'll save ~$1 on shipping!!

Browse the website, let me know what you think!! http://www.tastefullysimple.com/web/ajung

M.I.A

2009-03-29T10:47:00.000-05:00

I've been missing in action for awhile...I'm sorry!!

I don't even have any good excuses!! My blogging is a bit complicated though, due to our home computer not letting us upload pictures, therefore I upload them at work, email them to my home email and then update.

I have some fun stuff to update though!

Wilton cake class pictures
Mozzarella chicken with steamed broccoli
Monkey Bread
Kitchen inspiration pictures (from my lovely Aunt Jeanne!)
Chicken Enchiladas
My favorite snack inspired by our Honeymoon to Mexico (yumm!)
Valentine's Day breakfast and dinner (I told you it's been awhile since I've updated!)

Check back this week for all these wonderful updates!

Have a good week!!

~Amy

Football Cookies

2009-02-22T14:39:00.001-06:00

This update is way late, but I wanted to share it anyway! I had taken 3 cake classes by the time the Superbowl came around this year and I wanted to share my creative skills I had learned. I had found a cookie cutter set from asking around on the "What's Cooking?" board of TheNest and it included a football shaped cookie cutter!! It also came with letters of the alphabet, so I took my creative side a little farther using the letter cutters. I will have to come back and add the recipe since I didn't write it down. It was in a Better Homes and Garden cookbook I received at my Bridal Shower this past fall. I love it!

Sugar Cookie Recipe

Recipe: Better Homes and Garden Cookbook

I made the cookies according to the recipe in the book, and decorated them using my [cake] class buttercream icing colored appropriately.

They were a lot easier to make than I thought they'd be, and everyone LOVED them. We didn't come home with any extra cookies, which surprised me because there wasn't a huge crowd at the party, but hey, less calories for me!

They took the longest time to decorate, but I had my Sunday afternoon available so I sat down at our kitchen table, and got to work!

Tangy Chicken and Vegetables

2009-02-22T14:25:00.000-06:00

This was a very impromptu meal. It was quick, easy and delicious!! I wanted to create a chicken meal that was hearty, but also included the vegetables that we had bought. We have a serious problem of buying fresh produce with great intentions but then we never use it before it goes bad. The italian dressing in the meal gave it a tangy kick, but the rice and mushroom soup gave it a creamy, savory flavor.

You can adjust this recipe to however many people you need to feed. The ingredients are based on just my Husband and I.

Tangy Chicken and Vegetables

Recipe from: Myself

2 chicken breasts

cream of mushroom soup

zucchini and yellow squash

italian dressing

Rice, cooked

Place the chicken breasts in a pan with some italian dressing covering the bottom of the pan, fry up the chicken breasts, adding italian dressing to your liking. I added dressing after it cooked for awhile and all cooked into the chicken. While the chicken is cooking, prepare cream of mushroom soup according to the directions on the can, using milk.
When the chicken is done, set aside and let rest. Rinse out your pan, and add the sliced zucchini and squash, along with italian dressing to fry them up in. Cook the vegetables until they are done to your liking.

Place serving of rice on your plate, top with a chicken breast and the mushroom mixture along with your vegetables.

I served this with a side of steamed broccoli, my favorite!!

Stuffed Peppers

2009-02-22T14:13:00.000-06:00

These peppers were delicious! They were so easy to make and were very filling! I made three and we each only ate one. Yum! This would be perfect for a weeknight meal! The only thing is they take awhile in the oven, but the prep and getting them to the oven takes no time at all!

Stuffed Peppers
Recipe from: Myself
-------------------
Rice, cooked (you can make more or less to your liking)
1lb of hamburger, thawed (or ground turkey if you like)
1 cup of spaghetti sauce
Salt and pepper
~5 peppers (I used 3 and had lots of leftover meat mixture)

Cook rice and combine it in a large bowl with the hamburger, spaghetti sauce and seasonings you choose. Mix it all together. Add 1 cup of the spaghetti sauce so that the mixture sticks together. You could certainly add more than 1 cup if you would like the mixture inside the pepper to have more sauce.

Wash your peppers and clean out the seeds inside, poke holes in the bottom of the pepper so that the grease from the hamburger when cooking can drain out into the bottom of your pan. Make sure the hole is actually a hole and not a slit in the pepper as that wouldn't allow enough room for the grease to drain.

When peppers are washed and cleaned out, set them in a pan (a 9x13 or 8x8 pan would work just fine). Stuff each pepper with your mixture. I topped each pepper with some parmesan cheese too, you could do that if you like as well.

Bake at 350* for 45 minutes. After 45 minutes, take them out and add some spaghetti sauce to the top of each pepper, and/or some shredded cheese or parmesan cheese and bake for an additional 15 minutes.

The final product!!

Like I said, they're pretty time consuming once in the oven, but overall its a very easy dinner!! I made this with some fresh bread and like I said, they were very filling!

Enjoy!

Wilton Cake Classes at Michael's

2009-02-08T20:19:00.000-06:00

I have successfully completed my first course in cake decorating classes! It was so much fun to do! I took them every Monday night for the month of January. You can definitely see the progression, and improvement with each class I took :-) I had a lot of fun making the cakes, learning new techniues, experimenting with flavors and using my creative side! I plan on taking the 2nd, 3rd and 4th courses as well. I highly recommend the classes to anyone. The class was about $15 dollars and then the price varied according to which supplies you chose to buy. My instructor was very helpful in suggesting alternatives so that we could use things already in our kitchen rather than having to buy something additional.

Here is a picture of my first cake. This was the cake I made to bring to my first class. We were told to bring a baked, iced cake. While it still meets the requirements, it wasn't a very pretty cake!You can see my Husbands head there in the background (Hi Honey!). I guess while trying to get a good picture, I wasn't taking into consideration my background ;-) On another note, look at all that frosting!!! Yuck! Definitely a beginners cake. Wow.

My first class was cancelled due to weather, so I took the opportunity to practice on my own at home. I colored my icing, and decided to use a cookie cutter to make a small indent on the frosting, and then pipe stars to create my design. I used a single heart cookie cutter to make this design and I just overlapped them at one point. I'm not really sure why it shows up flourescent looking, but it was blue and orange. Color suggestions from my Hubby!

This is the cake I brought to my second class (the first actual class). A basic vanilla 8x13 cake, cut in half and layered onto eachother to make a more square cake, rather than round. I was pretty proud of my piping skills for the words, but the more I look at it after having finished my course..yikes! That blob in the upper rigt corner of the cake....a rose. Well, its supposed to be anyway :) Those little things are hard to make!! I'll get better at it, I promise!

My third cake. Probably one of my best?! I probably could have done a few less flowers, but I stil think its pretty cute. It was definitely a "girly" cake. Bright pink, and vibrant purple! I told my Husband that I wanted to make a filled cake and he said to make it raspberry filled. Hmm..I wasn't really sure how to pursue my filled cake, but thought I didn't have much to lose, why not! I filled it with fresh raspberries, cut in half, mixed with that strawberry glaze you can buy in the stores. It was actually pretty darn good! The next time I need to make a cake, I think I'm going to make it raspberry filled, but I have a few ideas for improvement!

The grand finale....

We were told to bring an iced cake ready to mimic one of the designs in our class book. We were going to practice our roses, and learn leaves and vines. I was excited to see all that I learned from start to end, but also sad that the class was coming to an end.

TA DA! Sorry for such a dark picture, and for the missing piece. My Husband and I dug in before I remembered to take a picture :)Up close and personal with the roses. Although they don't look bad, there is still some room for improvement! The leaves were easier to make than I though, the vines were as well.

I have made quite the improvement, wouldn't you say? :) I've signed up for Course 2-'Royal Icing & Flowers' There will be plenty more cake pictures to come!

Welcome!!

2009-01-31T10:03:00.001-06:00

Thank you for visiting my blog. I created this to share some new recipes, and to gain recipes for myself. I enjoy cooking and baking, and wanted to share it. I frequently visit The Nest's 'What's Cooking' board where members can share their recipes, ask cooking questions and get advice. A lot of the members on that board have recipe/cooking blogs, and I get so many ideas and inspirations from them that I wanted to have a blog to share with them as well!!

Please feel free to leave comments, questions or suggestions. I hope you enjoy!!I will have more recipes posted, hopefully daily, but our computer is being wonky about letting us upload pictures so I have to be a little sneaky about it :-)

On this "warm" January morning, I'll leave you with a picture of where we went on our Honeymoon-The Riu Resort in Cancun, Mexico. ::peaceful sigh:: ....I want to go back!! This picture is courtesy of google images, because like I said, our computer won't let us upload any of our real Honeymoon pictures. This is exactly what the beach looked like, exactly how the weather was for our whole trip. It was pure bliss....

Oreo Truffles

2009-01-31T09:24:00.000-06:00

This recipe is a popular one on the nest message board, "What's Cooking?" that I frequent. I made them during the Holidays, and they were a huge hit. They're so fun to make because you can make them a variety of different ways. You could use mint oreos or peanut butter oreos. You could make them for the Holidays and use Holiday sprinkles to decorate them, you could make them for a football game and decorate with piped icing with your team colors, you could make them for a Baby shower and decorate with pink and blue. They're versatile for ANY occasion!

Easy Oreo Truffles

Recipe: Adapted from this Kraft Foods Recipe

----------------------------------------------

1 pkg (1lb 2oz) OREO cookies

1 pkg (8oz) cream cheese (I used sweetened condensed milk so that no refrigeration was required)

2pkg (8squares each) BAKERS semi sweet chocolate (I used almond bark for dipping)

Mix 3 cups of cookie crumbs with your cream cheese (or sweetened condensed milk). Shape into 42 1-inch balls. Once I shaped them, I stuck them outside, covered, so that they could harden up before dipping in the chocolate. I recommend doing this, otherwise I've found that if they're room temperature, the melted chocolate will almost melt the oreo ball. When they're a bit firmer, the dipping process is a lot smoother. Also using toothpicks helped me dip them, shake off the excess chocolate and set them neatly on the counter.

Dip into the melted chocolate, and set aside on wax paper lined baking sheet, or in my case-the kitchen counter! If you want to decorate them with sprinkles of any kind, I would do it when the chocolate/almond bark is still a bit wet, so that they stick. Same with sprinkling them with the remaining oreos. Otherwise they tend to fall off the oreo ''ball".

You can see the assembly line I had going when I started the dipping process. These truffles are definitely a messy endeavor, but SO worth it! You will fall in love with them!

I made mine and put them in 3 little boxes that I purchased at Michaels, added some ribbon, and they were ready to go to our Holiday parties!

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

2009-01-28T19:47:00.000-06:00

I figured I should get to adding some recipes here, I created this blog in the beginning of January and January has almost escaped us already! I made this soup awhile back, but this would be perfect now that Minnesota's coldest month has hit us. It's quick, easy, and hearty! I made a huge pot of this and we had it for lunch the next couple days. It was very good! I even sliced up some fresh bread to accompany it.
Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup
Recipe from: Myself
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1 bag of egg noodles
1 rotisserie chicken
carrots
celery
any other vegetable you may like
1 box Swansons chicken broth

Heat the broth in a large pot on medium-high heat. While the broth is heating up, you can cut the meat off the chicken and either shred it or cut it into cubed pieces for the soup. Add the noodles to the broth, cook them according to package instructions. In the meantime, cut up your vegetables. If you want your vegetable pieces a little bit on the softer side, add them about halfway through the noodle cooking time. If you want your vegetables with a firm texture, add them the last 2-3 minutes of the cooking time.

Continue to let everything boil together until the noodles are done and the vegetables are done to your liking.

Enjoy with fresh bread, or even a side salad!

Hello!!

2009-01-04T13:12:00.001-06:00

Just Married Kitchen has just been created!!

Check back soon for recipes and updates!