Thumbprint Cookies

Pin It

I had a recipe exchange party last night.  I tried out a new recipe, and people seemed to like it, so I thought I'd share it with you!  The one nice thing about them is that they aren't a super sweet cookie, though that could also be a negative because you can trick yourself into eating too many of them haha.


Ingredients (will make about 12 - 18 cookies)

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 egg, separated

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts

2/3 cup any flavor fruit jam

1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Grease cookie sheets. Separate egg, reserving egg white. Cream butter or margarine, sugar, and egg yolk. Add vanilla, flour and salt, mix well. Shape dough into balls. Roll in slightly whipped (I whipped them for about 30 seconds with a fork) egg white, then walnuts. Place on cookie sheets about 2 inches apart. Bake for 5 minutes. Remove cookies from oven. With thumb or spoon, dent each cookie. Put jelly or preserves in each thumbprint. Bake for another 10-12 minutes.

Copycat Jamba Juice Caribbean Passion Recipe

Pin It

Sorry I haven't been so great about posting lately.  I've been busy with photography, being a mom, traveling and getting wrapped up in the holidays.  BUT I hope this recipe will make up for my lack of posts.

I found a recipe for a copycat Caribbean Passion Jamba Juice.  I've been on the lookout for this recipe for some time now because it's my absolute favorite flavor. 

1 Cup Passion fruit mango juice blend

1 Cup Frozen strawberries

1/2 Cup Frozen peaches

1/2 Cup Orange sherbet

1/2 Cup ice

Put all of the ingredients in a blender and blend on high until it's "smoothie" consistency.

SO easy right?  I will admit, I couldn't find the right fruit juice so I ended up using Doles Orange Peach Mango juice and it was simply delicious!  I had to add a little more juice to get it to the right consistency.  You should definitely try this recipe out!

Better Than Takeout Orange Chicken

Pin It

I found a recipe for "Better Than Takeout Orange Chicken" on Pinterest a while back and have made it two times now.  It really is delicious and I highly recommend you try it out!  The biggest pain is frying up the chicken just cause it takes so long.

The sauce is super easy and really yummy!  If I were you, I'd double the sauce.  I'm a sauce kinda gal.   The first time I made it was was left wanting more.

Just so you know, 3 chicken breasts was enough to feed 6 people and we still had left overs.  So the chicken goes a loooong way when you fry it up.

Also, when frying my chicken I used about 5-6 eggs, a whole box of panko and probably 2 - 2 1/2 cups of cornstarch.  So make sure you have extra of those ingredients.

Orange Chicken (adapted from Blogchef.net) serves 6

Chicken

• 2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs, cut into 1-1/2” cubes
• 1 ½ cups corn starch
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs
• 2 eggs, beaten
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon pepper
• Oil (for frying)

Orange Sauce

• 1 ½ cups water
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1/3 cup rice vinegar
• 2 ½ tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon orange zest, grated
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• ½ teaspoon ginger root, minced
• ½ teaspoon garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons green onion, chopped
• ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons water

Combine corn starch, salt, and pepper.  Prepare a bowl with beaten eggs, another with panko bread crumbs and another with corn starch. Dip chicken in egg mixture, dredge in cornstarch, then again in the eggs and finally in the panko bread crumbs, set aside.  Heat pan with vegetable oil to 375 degrees, fry chicken in batches until completely cooked.

In a large saucepan combine 1 ½ cups water, orange juice, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. Blend well over medium heat for a few minutes. Stir in brown sugar, orange zest, ginger, garlic and red pepper flakes. Bring to a boil.

Combine 3 tablespoons of cornstarch with 1/4 cup of water and mix thoroughly. Slowly stir cornstarch mixture into sauce until it thickens. Pour sauce over breaded chicken, and if desired garnish with green onions.

Chicken Pot Puffs

Pin It

 I have a recipe that we call "Chicken Puffs" in our house.  It's one of my grandma's recipes and has been one of my all time favorite foods since I was a kid.  I decided to do a spin off that recipe and do a chicken pot pieish filling.  I'd love for you to try them out and let me know what you think!

Ingredients
Filling
-  1 Large Chicken Breast
-  1/2 Can Cream of Chicken Soup
-  4 Oz Cream Cheese, slightly softened  
-  1 Large Carrot, or several baby carrots, chopped/sliced  
-  1/4 Cup Frozen Peas
-  Salt
-  Pepper 

Outside
-  1 - 2 Packages Crescent Roll Dough
-  1 Stick Butter, melted
-  1 1/2 Cups Italian Breadcrumbs

Sauce
- 1 Can Cream of Chicken Soup
- 2 - 4 Oz. Cream Cheese
- 1 Can Chicken Broth
 

Directions 

Boil your chicken breast until cooked through.  Chop or shred your chicken breast, set aside.  Par boil your carrot slices for about 5 minutes, so they start to get soft, but aren't completely cooked through.  In a large mixing bowl, mix together the cream of chicken soup and cream cheese.  Then add in the chicken, carrots, peas, salt and pepper.  Stir together with a spoon until well combined.

Take your crescent roll dough triangles.  They them out and gently push them outwards to make them a bit wider.  Put a dollop of your filling in the center of each triangle.  You will be able to get 8-12 crescent rolls filled depending on how much filling you put inside.  Wrap the dough around the filling and make sure all the sides are closed up (this takes a bit of practice, and in reality if you have a couple of holes it's not the end of the world, your filling will just seep a bit when you bake them).  

Dip your dough in melted butter and then in seasoned breadcrumbs until it's covered everywhere.  Place on a non-greased pan and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

To make the sauce simply put the cream of chicken soup, cream cheese and chicken broth in a medium sauce pan.  Bring it to a simmer.  Stir or whisk until all of the chunks are gone.  Let it reduce until it's a good sauce consistency, not runny like it starts out.

I hope you enjoy this little twist on a chicken pot pie!

Broccoli Potato Cheese Soup

Pin It

 

Well it's starting to be that time of year where you look outside and just want to stay in and eat some nice warm soup.  This is one of my favorite soups.  This recipe makes a fair amount of soup, but it makes for good leftovers. It is pretty easy to half. I had a recipe that is similar, but I revamped it to my liking and added potatoes enjoy!

Ingredients

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 tsp salt
• Freshly ground pepper
• 2 Pinches nutmeg
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• 1 tsp chopped fresh thyme leaves – or 1/4 - 1/3 tsp dried thyme leaves
• 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 6 cups chicken broth (or 6 cups of water with 3 bouillon cubes)
• 1 - 2, 12 oz packages frozen broccoli, thawed
• 3 medium potatoes quartered then sliced - boiled until tender
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 8 oz sharp cheddar cheese – grated

Directions 

In a medium pot, melt the 6 tablespoons butter over medium-high heat. Add onions, salt, pepper, and nutmeg and cook, stirring, until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and thyme cook, stirring, until fragrant, for 20 seconds. Add the flour and cook, stirring until the mixture is well blended and smells fragrant, 1-2 minutes. Slowly add the broths, whisking constantly, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 5 minutes, or until it begins to thicken. Add one package of broccoli and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes.  

Remove the pot from the heat and puree with a hand-held immersion blender or normal blender. 

Add the cream and bring to a simmer add the remaining ½ - 1 package of broccoli depending on how chunky you want your soup and simmer for 7 minutes (if you don't want chunks of broccoli, don't add the extra package, it is still very delicious!). Add cooked potatoes and once the broccoli is tender, add the cheese and cook over low heat, stirring, until melted.

Serve and top with grated cheese.

Eyeball Cake Pops

Pin It

Looking for a fun treat to serve at your Halloween Party?  Well, these eyeball cake pops are perfect for you.  The best part is that you don't necessarily have to cover them with chocolate absolutely perfectly.  I left a bit of white chocolate in the back to look like the optic nerve.

To make the pupil and iris part, I simply melted some milk chocolate and then piped out little circles on some wax paper.  After the chocolate had cooled, I pipped some colored white chocolate around the outside if the milk chocolate dot.  After that cooled I was able to peel them off the wax paper.  Right after dipping the cake pop in the white chocolate, I placed the pupil/iris circles on the eyeballs.  Then I piped some pink colored white chocolate (you could definitely do red...I just didn't want to go through the pain of dying the chocolate red).

Jack-O-Lantern Veggie Tray

Pin It I made this for a little get together we had last Halloween.  However, I didn't really do any Halloween themed posts because my husband had blown out his knee a few days before the 31st and I was busy taking care of him.  SO I thought I'd post it for you this year :)  It's super easy to do and fun for a Halloween party.

Deliciously Easy Banana Bread

Pin It

I love banana bread and when I found that our bananas had gotten a little to ripe to just eat, I knew exactly what I was going to do with them.  I looked up a few banana bread recipes and then came up with my own version.  Here's the recipe!

Banana Bread

1/2 Cup Butter, softened
1 Cup Sugar
2 Eggs
3/4 Cup Ripened Mashed Bananas (approx. 2 bananas)
1/2 tsp. Vanilla
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 1/4 Cup Flour
Pinch of Cinnamon

Directions

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar. With the mixer running on medium speed, add the eggs one at a time. Add the vanilla and bananas and mix well. In a separate bowl add baking soda, salt, flour, and cinnamon.  Using a fork or whisk, stir the dry ingredients together.  Add the flour mixture to the mixing bowl.  Mix thoroughly, but do not over mix.  Pour the dough into a greased loaf pan and bake at 350 for 45 - 60 minutes.

Watermelon Shark

Pin It I saw a watermelon shark on Sun Scholars a while back and thought it was so cool!  I just had to make one, but I didn't really have any reason to make one for just me and my husband.  Yesterday we had a big family gathering so I finally had my chance!  I was a bit disappointed that the store didn't really have any long watermelons, they only had ones that were more round.  It still turned out alright, though I think it probably looks more like a whale since the watermelon was so round.  It was still a big hit.  You should definitely try it out sometime.  And in case you didn't know, it's actually shark week on the Discovery Channel this week - SO go make yourself a watermelon shark to celebrate :)

Freezing Basil

Pin It Earlier this year, I had a basil plant in my house.  It was fantastic to have fresh basil for spaghetti sauces and whatnot and it only cost me $3.  Well on a short trip to Idaho I kind of forgot about the plant.  When I got back he was looking rather sad and I didn't think he would make it.  Well I watered him and he came back!  Yay!  We were only gone for 3 days, but on our trip to California we were going to be gone for over a week so I knew the basil wouldn't make it.  I did some research about how to store fresh basil.  There were several techniques, and I'm not sure if one is better than the other, but I ended up doing a freezing technique.

How to freeze basil cubes

1. Harvest the basil leaves
2. Wash, pick the leaves off the stalk and then use the salad spinner to spin out most of the water
3. Pat dry with kitchen towels
4. Stuff the herbs in ice cube trays
5. Fill the tray with water. Use your fingers to push the leaves down into the water as much as possible as they tend to float. 
6. Place the ice cube tray in the freezer
7. Once the ice cubes are frozen, remove them from the tray and transfer to zip-lock bags
8. These cubes are now ready for use

You can simply add the ice cube to your spaghetti sauce or whatever else you are cooking.  It's wonderful!!!

Cookie Monster Cupcakes

Pin It I went to a baby shower on Saturday for a couple of my friends.  They are both having boys - how fun!  I was in charge of the cupcakes for the shower and was trying to come up with a fun idea.  I saw some cupcakes that people had made that looked like cookie monster so I went with that.  Most of the cookie monster cupcakes I saw used colored coconut to look like the fur/hair, but I wasn't sure how many people actually like coconut, so I decided to use frosting with a tip that looked like this:

 I used a canned frosting because I wasn't going to have the time to make my own.  I think if I had made a frosting though, it would have been a bit more stiff and probably would have worked better.  I might have to try it again sometime.  The rest of the cookie monster was really easy.  I got some white chocolate melting chocolate circles.  I then melted a little bit of chocolate and used it to "glue" some chocolate chips onto the white chocolate.  Then I simply placed the eyes on the frosted cupcake in crazy directions and then put half of a chips ahoy cookie where the mouth would be.  And they were done!

Chicken Salad Sandwiches

Pin It Last night I did a taste testing session with my husband and sister-in-law to try and figure out the best chicken salad sandwich recipe.  This is the recipe we came up with.

- 1/4 Cup Mayo
- 1/2 tsp (or a bit less) Curry Powder
- 1 Tbs or so lemon juice

Whisk together  those ingredients.  Then add:

- 12.5 ounces of canned chicken - break up into small pieces
- halved red grapes
- handful of craisins
- 1 granny smith apple chopped up
- Cashews
- Salt & Pepper to taste

You should try it out and let me know what you think.  Obviously if you used freshly cooked chicken breasts, it'd probably be even better.   Oh and don't forget to have it on a delicious croissant :)

I refrigerated the mayo mixture with the chicken, grapes and craisins so it would get cold and then just before serving I added the apples and cashews so they would stay crunchy.

This makes 3-4 sandwiches.

No Bake Cookie Nests

Pin It I've seem many different versions of cookie/dessert nests out there.  Last night I had a craving for no bake cookies and decided to make some nests of my own.  All I did was use a spoon to form the nest shape and once they were cooled, I added some jelly beans.  Pretty darn simple - and yummy!

 

I hope you all have a Happy Easter!

Globe Oreo Truffles and Missionary Cupcakes

Pin It

Yesterday was a fun day for our family.  My little brother, Mitch received his mission call.  19 Year old boys who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints go out and share the gospel for 2 years.  Mitch has been extremely anxious/excited to get his call.  He sat up by the mail box 3 days in a row waiting for the mail lady to come and yesterday if finally arrived!

He had a bunch of friends and family at my parents' house for a party.  My sister and I made some missionary themed treats for the occasion.  More specifically, Globe Oreo Truffles and Missionary Cupcakes.

For the Oreo truffles, we put whole Oreos into my food processor to make a nice little Oreo powder.  The we combined the powder with cream cheese frosting.  We used 2/3s of the package of Oreos and about 1/2 the container of frosting.  My sister is showing off her messy hand

 Roll the Oreo mixture into balls.  I found that by squeezing the mixture together really well before rolling them helped them to not fall apart.  I then dipped my little skewers into some melted white chocolate.  The white chocolate helps the skewer stay in the truffle when you are dipping it chocolate later.

 Put the truffles in the freezer for about 30 minutes or so.

 I colored some white chocolate with blue food coloring.  I have noticed that if I don't wait for a minute or so before dying the chocolate it seems to seize up and becomes hard.  So wait a little bit!

 After the blue chocolate hardened, I put on some white chocolate that I colored green to finish of the globes.

I put stuck the globes into a box that said, "Where in the world is Mitch going?"

 For the Missionary Cupcakes, I started off making the ties.  I used white chocolate that had been dyed blue.  I used a plastic bag with a little hole in the corner to draw them onto wax paper.

 After the ties had hardened, I flipped them over and added stripes.  I'll be honest....I considered buying fruit rollups and I would cut them out into ties, but then didn't end up doing it.  I actually think I should have done that instead of the white chocolate ties.  I think it would have been easier and would have been tasty too!

 To make the missionary tags, I added black food coloring to normal chocolate.  I then spread it out onto wax paper.  After it had hardened, I used a ruler to cut lines in the chocolate.

 I used white frosting and then placed the ties and name tags on them.  Here's the finished product:

Here's another picture of them.  Notice my mom made the cake we did for her birthday again - she loved it!

I thought I'd post a couple pictures of my brother opening his call.  This was his reaction when he read where he is going to be living and sharing the gospel for 2 years.

 So excited!

 My Mom's reaction to his call.

 Where is he going you ask????  The Scotland/Ireland mission!  How cool is that?!?!?!

Mom's Birthday Cake

Pin It My sister and I made my mom's birthday cake this year.  We brain stormed several different ideas until we came up with the PERFECT cake for her.  We made a yellow cake mix and used a white chocolate frosting - it was basically a cream cheese frosting with melted white chocolate added to it.  The best part of the cake is the raspberry filling.  After putting frosting on top of the first layer, simply spread seedless raspberry jam over the top (don't get too close to the edge - you don't want the frosting on the outside to get messed up by the red).  Put the next layer of the cake on top of the jam and then frost the entire outside of the cake.  Put fresh raspberries on the top of the cake to make it pretty :)

Jello Eggs

Pin It I remember my 5th grade teacher giving us Jell-o in the shape of eggs and I thought it was sooooo cool.  I decided to try and make some of my own.  Now, let me say - they are not perfect and they are not very good to take pictures of, BUT they are fun and I'm sure kids would love them!

Here's what I did:

I made the Jello according to the "mold" instructions.

 Since the plastic eggs have two holes in them, I covered those with hot glue. You will also want to pull apart the eggs completely (don't have then connected at the side - that's how mine came) I then dipped the eggs under the jello and fill them all the way.  While they are still submerged, snap them shut.

 Rinse them under water to clean them off then store in an egg carton upside down.  You do it upside down so that if there are air bubbles, they will be at the bottom of the egg rather than the top.

 Warning: Your hands will get stained!

 Leave the Jello in the fridge for a few hours.  When it is done setting, take the eggs out and put them in warm/hot water for 30 seconds.  This helps you get them out of the mold

 I rinsed them under cold water and they were done.  Like I said - not super pretty to take pictures of (maybe it's just the colors I did) but they are fun!

April Fool's Recipes

Pin It Family Fun has some really fun ideas for April Fools recipes.  Like this dessert that is actually made of meatloaf and mashed potatoes.  Go check them out!

BYU Cougar Game

Pin It We had some people over to watch the BYU vs. Florida game yesterday.  I don't want to talk about the game - what a sad loss!  But, I wanted to post a couple of the things I made for our party for you.  We had the normal chips and salsa and whatnot, but I also made a "Cougar Blue Punch" and some Basketball/BYU themed cupcakes.  Here they are:

The punch is 1/2 blue Powerade and 1/2 Sprite

Basketballs, Cougar paws and BYU cupcakes yummm!

Dr. Seuss Cookies

Pin It I have been craving sugar cookies lately....so I decided since today is Dr. Seuss day, that I should make some Dr. Seuss themed sugar cookies :)  I didn't have a ton of time to make them, so they aren't the prettiest, but here they are - a green egg, Gat in the hat's hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2.

The green yolk on the cookies is colored white chocolate.  Here's the recipe for the cookies and frosting.

Sour Cream Sugar Cookies
2 cups sugar
1 cup butter or margarine
1 cup sour cream
3 eggs

1 tsp. Vanilla
1 TBSP soda
4 tsp. Baking powder
6 -7 cups flour

Cream together sugar, butter, and sour cream.  Beat in eggs.  Add vanilla.  Mix in soda, baking
powder, and flour until dough is just able to be rolled out.  Roll dough out to 1/4 inch thickness.
Use desired cookie cutter shapes.  Bake at 350 for 7 minutes.

Frosting
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup margarine, softened
2 or so tsp milk

Mix well.  Add less milk for thicker frosting.  Add more milk for a thinner glaze.

Easy Potato Cheese Soup

Pin It

This is a fast, easy and delicious soup.  I hope you enjoy it :)

Ingredients:
4-5 medium potatoes, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
2 cans of chicken broth
8 0z Velveeta cheese, chopped
salt
pepper

Directions:
Bring potatoes, onion, chicken broth and a pinch of salt and pepper to a boil. Cover and cook until potatoes are tender (about 10 minutes). Put most of the potato mixture in the blender - leaving about 1/3 of the potatoes in the pot if you want some chunks in your soup. Blend the potato mixture until smooth (I add all of the liquid to the blender). Return mixture to the pot. Add the Velveeta cheese to the soup. Stir until completely melted. You may need to add a little bit of water or milk to the soup to make it the consistency you would like it.  I prefer it on the thicker side.  Top soup with a bit of grated cheddar cheese and bacon bits.