Yogurt Fudge Pops

So Kat and I made a batch of fudge pops, we started with one base and changed it up twice to get 3 flavors in one batch. And out of all three types this our #1 choice for Homemade Fudge Pops-  

Our Base was- 

1c. Homemade Vanilla Yogurt

2T. Cocoa Powder 

3T. Honey

 These are using the base and adding a little bit of non-fat milk, everyone thought they were ok. They ranked 3rd in our family taste test. 

These we used the base mix, 1/2c. frozen cherries and about 1/4c. nonfat milk, these ranked 2nd. 

These ranked #1 and everyone LOVED them- to the base we added 2T. Peanut Butter, 3T. Almond Joy Creamer and an extra T. of Cocoa powder. 

As I sit here typing this my girls are in the kitchen mixing up another batch of these :) 

Protein Bites Galore

      I wanted to share some new recipes that have become a fav go to snack at our house. Because of my Husbands health and just in general benefit of our family we have been trying to eat only unprocessed foods, or foods with-out preservatives. Which means that any prepackaged snacks are out. Gone are the granola bars, goldfish, and to my Katy-Kat's dismay her beloved cheez-its.
   I have found a fun recipe and made homemade cheez-its, they were tasty. But our new fav snack around here seems to be protein/cookie bites. I found and altered one recipe and then because my oldest has decided he doesn't like pb I looked for and found several others. So here are all of the ones we have tried so far, they are all awesome, kid approved, picky husband approved, and chock full of good for you stuff.

  First we have our basic protein bites recipe, the original recipe before I altered it is found here at Gimme Some Oven.

 Protein Bites

Ingred;
3c. old fashioned rolled oats
1c. unsweetened finely shredded coconut
1/2c. ground flax seed
1/2c. oat or wheat bran
1/2c. mini choc. chips
1/2t. salt
                                   1/4c. choc. protein powder
                                     1/4c. chia seeds
                                     1/2c. agave
                                     2-1/4c. peanut butter
                                     1/4c. coconut butter

        I mix all of the dry ingred. in a large bowl, then heat the agave, pb and coconut butter in a glass bowl in the microwave for 30 seconds to 1min. until it's warm and easily mixes together. Mix well. Pour it over the dry ingred. and mix together, I find after a bit of mixing that it works best to use your hands, they are going to get messy anyways :)
Form into balls and store in an airtight container. These are ready to eat right away but after a day in the fridge are AMAZING  :)
This recipe makes approximately 50-60 bites.

Second up are the ones I make for my oldest, my sweet son, who will eat whatever I give him with a smile but then later informs me that it was fine but he didn't care for it. His list of likes are getting shorter and shorter, it is really hard to find snacks that he likes so these next 3 recipes are ones I like to have on hand so that I know there is a snack around here that he will eat. The original recipe that I altered is here- A Dash of Compassion,  Natural Vegan baking with Love. 

Kegan's Cookie Bites 

Ingred:
2/3c. almonds, blanched or unblanched raw unsalted
2/3c. walnuts
2/3c. old fashioned raw oats
1/4c. ground flax
1/4t. salt
1/2t. cinnamon
1/4c. chia seeds
1/4c. agave
1/4c. coconut butter (here is a link to make your own if you can't find it), melted. 
1/3c. mini choc. chips

In a food processor blend the almonds, walnuts, and oats until it looks like flour. Add in the flax, salt, cinnamon, agave and coconut butter.  Blend until well mixed, dump into a bowl and with your hands mix in the chia seeds and the choc chips.  Form into balls and store in an airtight in the fridge.


This recipe makes aprox. 40 bites.









        


      This next recipe is in honor of my Grampa, his favorite cake was German Chocolate Cake. So this one makes me think of him. I found the original recipe on Chocolate Covered Katies Blog, if you haven't been over there boy howdy are you missing out. The pictures alone are worth the trip :)

                         Grampa's German Chocolate Bites

Ingred;
1/2c. pitted prunes
1/2t. vanilla
1/16t. salt
1/2c. pecans
2T. unsweetened finely shredded coconut
2T. choc. protein powder
2T. cocoa powder
1T. chia seeds
1/4c. mini choc. chips

In a food processor blend together the prunes, vanilla and salt, when that has become sort of a paste add into your food processor the pecans, coconut, protein powder and cocoa powder. Blend until it all comes together as a dough, dump into a bowl and with your hands work in the chia seeds and choc chips. Form into balls and store in the fridge.

This recipe makes approx 20 bites
(better double it :) 






         This next recipe is so good, just like eating choc chip cookie dough, love it. The first time I made it I followed the recipe to a T, it's found here at- Averie Cooks. It was a little sweet for us so I did a little bit of revising and here is what I came up with.

Raw Vegan Cookie Dough Bites

Ingred;
 1c. raw unsalted cashews 
1/3c. old fashioned rolled oats
2T. agave (going to try only 1 next time)
1t. vanilla extract
1T, vanilla protein powder (or could use powdered milk)
1/8c. mini choc chips

Place the cashews into the food processor and blend until like flour, then add in the oats and blend until it's powdery again. Add in the agave, vanilla, and protein powder. Blend until it forms a dough, dump into a bowl and work in the choc chips. Form into balls and store in the fridge.

This recipe makes aprox 10-12 bites, and I have to tell you my first batch never made it to the fridge. They were snatched up by children and spouse before they even made it into a container :)

All of these taste even better after they have been refrigerated for awhile, like overnight,  it lets everything mesh together better.


        There are a couple more recipes for protein bars that I am working on turning into bites, one with quinoa for my dad. I will be doing those later this summer. A quick shout out to my Sister-in-Law Kristy, I found out recently that she is a fan of my blog. She is super sweet and it was awesome to see her at the reunion a couple weeks ago, hugs girl.

Happy 4th All, I hope you have a Wonderful Independence Day!!!

B is for Banana

On my counter this morning sat a pile of ripe banana's, once they start to age a bit nobody in my house will touch them. So I found myself browsing some online recipes for bananas, usually I just make banana bread but that takes an hour to bake and I didn't want to be heating up the house for that long. I found a recipe on AR for Banana chocolate chip cookies that had pretty good reviews, people had made some various changes to it though. The link for the original recipe is there, I changed the ingredients up a bit and this is what I ended up with-

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingred;
3c. whole wheat flour
1t. b powder
1/2t. salt
1/4t. b. soda
1/4c. sugar
1/4c. brown sugar
1/2c. butter
2 eggs
1t. vanilla
2 mashed bananas
1c. chocolate chips

Oven 375
Beat together the butter and sugars, add in the eggs, mix well.
Then beat in the bananas and vanilla. With the mixer running, add in the b.powder, b. soda, and salt, mix well. Add in the flour, mix until well combine and then add in the chocolate chips.
Scoop out by spoonful onto a greased cookie sheet, bake for 5-10 minutes.
This got 4 thumbs up from the Kiddos and is going to be made again at my house :)

I used 2 of the remaining bananas to let the Kiddos make an afternoon snack-
I melted some chocolate chips for them to dip them in, then they rolled them in graham cracker crumbs and froze them for about 2 hours. It's a semi-healthy snack, I suppose there are worse things :)

Who doesn't LOVE Bread Pudding?

Make that Chocolate Bread Pudding.

Now I personally would have thought it impossible for someone to not like chocolate, but my very own Brother-in-Law is an anti-chocolate man. How that very strange phenomenon happened I do not know.

I have had this recipe for bread pudding bookmarked for quite some time, last week I made Challah bread and decided that it would be the perfect way to use it up. I changed it a little, I didn't add the chocolate chips, instead I added about 1/2c. cocoa powder to the custard batter. I baked it in a 8x8 pan and it turned out PERFECTLY.

The kiddos and the Hubby who are all, thankfully, chocolate people, thought so too :)

And the Krafting continues

I am hopping on quick to put up a picture of Miss M's latest T-shirt dress.
I used the top of a cute t-shirt that she had out grown, I added a couple pieces to make it longer and trimmed off the sleeves and added a ruffle- and Wahla!


She has been dancing around in it all day :)

I am also adding a picture of Miss K's robot

and robot's friends Momma Bird and Baby Bird


and my favorite- Mr. Turtle

I have been crafting and sewing like crazy, it's awesome.
I did find some time to do a bit of cooking also, here is a picture of my go-to rolls-

This recipe can be found here- at AR. It calls for a bread machine to make the dough but I just use my Kitchen Aid. This is my favorite roll recipe, I have used this one a lot.

Last week I tried my hand at making Pretzel Baguettes-
Aren't they pretty?!? They were so much fun, they tasted and smelled fabulous, there are a lot of steps but they are really simple to make I got the recipe from HERE.

And onto Dessert, I saved the best for last-

Flourless Chocolate Cake with ganache and raspberry whipped cream.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Ingred;
4oz good chocolate broken into pieces (I used an extra dark chocolate)
1/2c. butter
3/4c. sugar
1/2c. powdered cocoa
3 eggs beaten
1t. extract of your choice (I used raspberry, but vanilla would be fine)

Heat oven to 300.
Prepare an 8 inch spring form pan, cut a wax paper circle for the bottom and grease the bottom and sides.
In a med. sized glass bowl melt together the chocolate and the butter.
Whisk in the sugar, cocoa and vanilla, when it has cooled a bit whisk in your eggs.
Pour into your prepared spring form pan.
Bake for exactly 30 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes then remove the pans sides and cool completely .

Ganache-
1c. dark chocolate chips
1/2c. half n half (or cream)
1/2t. vanilla

Put the chocolate in a glass bowl.
Heat the cream in the microwave just to the point of boiling.
Pour the half n half over your chocolate.
Let set for 3-5 minutes, whisk together, whisk in the vanilla.

I let this cool in the fridge until barely warm then spread over the top of my cake.

Raspberry Whipped Cream-
1c. whipping cream
4T. sugar
1t. raspberry extract
1/4c. raspberrries

Whip together the cream, sugar and extract until solid peaks form. Stir in the raspberries and serve over your cake.

This is the first time I have ever had flourless chocolate cake, it was wonderful. When I was looking for recipes there seemed to be 2 ways to make it. This recipe follows the quicker method. I am going to try the longer more involved method next time to see how they compare.

Minestrone Soup, Festive Herb Spirals and the Perfect Bribe

Hi all!
Sorry I haven't been reading and commenting lately.
The weather here has been gorgeous this week and Miss M and I have been taking advantage of it by spending our days outside. I haven't driven my car once this week we have just been walking everywhere, it's been pretty awesome.

For dinner last night I made a beautiful Minestrone Soup-
I use half V-8 juice, half water and add in whatever vegies I can find, this time we had a great mixture-

carrots, yellow pepper, onion, kidney beans, cilantro, parsley, spinach, corn, green beans and ditalini noodles. Yummy.

To go with the soup I made some Festive Herb Spirals, these would also make great appetizers-

Festive Herb Spirals
Ingred;
1 pkg crescent roll dough
1 8 oz pkg cream cheese, softened
1/4c. minced fresh herbs- I used cilantro and parsley
1/2t. greek seasoning
1t. onion powder
3 minced green onions

I ran everything except for the dough through my food processor.
Unroll the crescent roll dough and seal the edges.
Spread with the herbed cream cheese and roll up.
Slice in 1 inch slices and place on a greased cookie sheet.
Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.

Now if you kids are like mine and you tried the usual pleading, or threats to get them to eat their dinner and that hasn't worked I have the perfect Bribe, er um reward. I am totally not above bribing, um rewarding my kiddos to get them to do what I ask. Everyone loves a reward right?

This was the one I offered my little ones for dessert after they finished their dinner-

That is my kind of reward, yum.

Chocolate Mousse Bars
Ingred;
1 pkg Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix + the ingred it calls for
1 8oz pkg cream cheese, softened
1c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1c. whipping cream, whipped
1c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2c. cream

Oven 350.
Prepare cookie mix and spread into the bottom of a greased 9x13 pan.
Bake for 15 minutes. Cool completely.
Beat the cream cheese, melt 1c. of the chocolate chips in the microwave, beat into the cream cheese. Fold in the whipped cream.
Spread over the cookie layer.
Melt the remaining 1c. of chocolate chips, whisk together with the 1/2c. cream.
Spread over the mousse layer and refridgerate for a couple hours.

I was told by the kiddos that they wanted me to make this everyday, because it was the BEST thing they have ever had, and that I am the BEST cook ever.
Anyone else think they were trying to butter me up for something????
A second piece maybe?????

Bananas may be edible after all

Well as long as there is chocolate involved.
We had some Black Bottom Banana Cream Pie at a friends house last week and I was wanting to make it for Hubby, because he missed out. OK and because it was really really yummy. My friend gave me some basic instructions for it that seemed pretty simple.
She had told me to use vanilla wafers, instant vanilla pudding, banana's and chocolate, easy peasy right?
Well, I had a box of vanilla wafers stashed away and all the other required ingred, or so I thought. So this morning I went to get the goods out to make it and what did I find???
No Vanilla Wafers!!! Somebody ate my cookies, and no it wasn't me I don't eat those things, they have no chocolate in them.
So I had to settle for some chocolate chip cookies instead. I also couldn't find Instant Vanilla pudding mix in my cupboard, I had 3 others odd flavors, go figure.
So I was slowed down temporarily but it didn't stop me, I had just to be a little inventive-

This is why I don't these shots, someone is always missing!
Pretend you see some bananas,and butter in there, k :)
And I don't know why my vanilla pudding- that is what is in the red bowl-looks so odd.
Very Strange.

I missed a step, I am a bad camera person, bad, bad slacker.
Here is after I melted the chocolate chips in the microwave.
The whole pan goes in so you need to use glass, or do it in the oven :)

Look! There are my bananas!

They were MIA for a short time, now they're back and perfect- just barely ripe.

Here I am spreading the cool whip mixture over my perfect bananas :)

Does anyone know how to fix my picture?? I tried everything, then gave up, oh well.

Here are my cookies pre-crumb, it looks fine- just tilt your head to the right :)

Sprinkle the yummy crumbs over top, and make 'er pretty

Black-Bottomed Banana Cream Pie My Way


Ingred;
1 pkg chocolate chip cookies
1 reg sized container cool whip
1 small pkg cook and serve vanilla pudding mix
1c. milk
3T. butter, melted
1c. mini chocolate chips
2 bananas

Prepare the pudding as the box instructs but only use 1c. of milk instead of the 2 it calls for. Chill in the fridge until cooled, fold together with the cool whip, save a little cool whip to decorate with. Place half of the cookies in the food processor and turn into fine crumbs. Spread in the bottom of a 8x8 glass pan. Mix with the melted butter and pat down to make crust. Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the crust, place in microwave and heat for 30 sec. to 1 minute. Until the chocolate starts to melt. Slice bananas and place over the chocolate layer, save a few slices. Spread you cool whip mixture over that. Saving out half a cookie, make the rest into fine crumbs and sprinkle over the top. Decorate with the reserved cool whip, banana and crumbled cookie, a few chocolate chips won't hurt either. Chill for at least an hour.

Layered Italian Spread

I needed an appetizer to take to a gathering the other night, so I shuffled through some recipes I had saved trying to find something I could make with what I already had because I didn't want to go to the store. I found this one at the Pillsbury site. I changed this up quite a bit and can't really tell you how the original one would be, it was very inspirational though.

Layered Italian Spread
Ingred;
1 can white beans, drained and rinsed
1pkt of Italian dressing mix
1c. chopped marinated artichoke hearts
1c. Parmesan cheese
1c. chopped Genoa salami
2c. shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4c. sliced green olives
1/4c. sliced black olives

Heat oven to 375

Process the beans, 1/4c. parm cheese, and 1T. of the dressing mix in food processor until smooth.
Spread in the bottom of a 4c. baking dish.
Sprinkle 1/4c. parm cheese over that.
Layer on the artichokes, then the salami.
Sprinkle with the remaining parm cheese, then the mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle 1T. of the dressing mix over the top.
Bake uncovered for 25 min. turn oven down to 350 and continue baking for 10 more minutes.
Remove from oven and sprinkle the 2 kinds of olives on top. Serve hot with baguette slices.

This was pretty thick so I don't think the wonton chips would have cut it. But it was TASTY, everyone loved it and I know I will be making it again.


Now for a good dose of chocolate, I got the recipe for these brownies over on My Tasty Treasures. These quick easy from scratch brownies, were so GOOD, I will never use a box mix again, EVER. I changed them up by adding mint flavoring instead of vanilla then drizzled with a green mint glaze. If you want the recipe you need to go over the Donna's Blog, she has it. And trust me when I tell you that you really need to make these, they are the perfect brownie.

It just wouldn't be Christmas without....

Cookies (lots and lots of cookies)-

Fudge (Hubby's favorite)-

And Gingerbread (my favorite)-

With the kiddos on break I thought we better make some fun cookies, these Melt-Away Peppermint Wreaths are great, especially if you have little ones who want to help you bake. The recipe is from AR and definitely needs to be doubled. A very yummy cookie, it tastes just like you would assume from the name. And as you can see my girls had a great time helping me roll balls, and snowmen and flowers and stick people. What can I say they ARE girls, it was a little hard to keep them on task but it was fun.






The Layered Mint Chocolate Fudge recipe is also from AR, I didn't change it but am wishing I had. It needs a little change, I didn't have time to check the review for it or I suppose I would have known that. It was a bit dry, and didn't quite fill the pan size it called for, but still pretty tasty, it's chocolate right? ;)

The Gingerbread, ahhhh the gingerbread, it makes things smell like Christmas :) Once again the recipe is from AR Favorite Old Fashioned Gingerbread, I got all 3 of these from my recipe box where they have been saving for some time. Sadly this was not the perfect gingerbread recipe, I have had better. It was pretty good topped with some whip cream but the search for the perfect gingerbread recipe will go on.

So, of all these goodies the cookies were my favorite, which was completely unexpected.

Do you have enough Christmas Goodies at your house yet?

I do, I finished my Christmas goodie baking and such this morning.

And I ask you, what is cuter than a button sized cookie?

Maybe a bowl of button size cookies, what do ya think :)


Peanut Butter Buttons
Ingred;
3/4c. creamy pb
1/2c. shortening
1/3c. sugar
1/3c. packed brown sugar
1 egg
3T. milk
1t. vanilla
1-1/2c. flour
1/2t. baking soda
1/2t. salt

sugar for rolling
chocolate chips

Oven 350
Beat PB and shortening, beat in the 2 sugars. Add the milk, egg and vanilla, beat until fluffy. Mix in the flour, baking soda and salt, let dough chill for 10 minutes, or overnight.
using a 1/4 t. scoop and roll balls of dough, roll into reg. sugar then place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 5-7 minutes, remove from oven and immediately press a chocolate chip into each cookie.

I also made a few of these-

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles
Ingred;
1/2c. butter, softened
3/4c. packed brown sugar
1t. vanilla
2c. flour
1-14oz can sweetened condensed milk
1/2c. mini chocolate chips
1 bag semi sweet chocolate chips

In a large bowl beat together the butter and brown sugar, beat in the vanilla. Gradually add in the milk then the flour, stir in the mini chips. Form dough into 1 in balls and chill until your chocolate is melted.
Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave in a glass bowl stir after each 30 second interval until melted. Dip each ball into the chocolate and place on wax paper to dry. Store in the fridge.

And for Teacher gifts, along with a shopping gift card I gave them Cinnamon Pancake mixes. Which I have no picture of, sorry, but here is the recipe-

Cinnamon Pancake Mix

Ingred;
3c. flour
2T. sugar
2T. baking powder
4t. cinnamon
1-1/2t. salt

Mix all together and store in an airtight container.
To use the mix you-
Combine in a Medium bowl- 3/4c. milk, 1 egg, 2 T. oil and 1-1/3c, mix.
Mix until moistened and cook on a hot lightly greased griddle.

I need to bag up and give out a few more bags of these goodies and I am done with that. I hope you are all having a Wonderful Holiday Season.