Smoothies

For your sakes, I hope it’s cooling off where you live. But we’re in the desert, and it’s still 115* here most days. Because of this, I’ve been making smoothies a lot lately! This week at my local grocery store they had strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries on sale, so I grabbed some of each. Yesterday’s smoothie was strawberry banana, and today’s was a little bit of everything.

These are SO super easy, VERY healthy, and refreshing. You can go spend a couple bucks to get a smoothie at Jamba Juice, or you can make one yourself for a fraction of the cost that tastes just as great. This is one of those “method more than recipe” type recipes. You can add anything you like to customize. This is just the way I’ve been doing it. You could even add yogurt to yours if you have it on hand to make it more creamy. Or use orange juice (or any other kind of juice) or even just water to thin yours out a bit if you don’t want to use milk. You could even add protein powder or Slim Fast type powder if you’re into that sort of thing.

I think smoothies are a great idea to serve at a breakfast or brunch function. It would be super easy, and you could even have your guests customize their own before you blend them up.

I just saw a breakfast smoothie today on Pinterest that I’m super excited to try out (it has oatmeal in it!), so I’ll post that as soon as I do!

Smoothies
Printable recipe

Ingredients:
fruit
ice
splash of milk

Just put everything except milk into the blender…

…and blend away!

Add a splash of milk, if desired, to thin the consistency. This is because we like straws at our house.

Look at those pretty colors!

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Cream Cheese Carrot Muffins

This is another recipe that I got from Full Bellies, Happy Kids. My kids LOVED these! I think her recipe is actually missing an ingredient, because when I mixed up the ingredients as written on her site, the batter wasn't batter-y at all. It was totally crumbly, and there was no way it would have worked. So I just added a bit of milk, and it was perfect.

Another change I made was that I used fresh carrots instead of canned. I don't use canned carrots at all, so I just sliced and steamed my own. I ended up using 4 carrots, and I just used my steamer basket and steamed them for around 10-15 minutes until they were soft.

After I mixed up the batter and went to pour it into my muffin tin, I couldn't find my muffin tin. I have NO idea where it got off to, and my kids were all conveniently clueless as well. So I just poured it into a baking dish, topped it with the filling, and cooked it for an extra 20 minutes or so.

This could easily be served for breakfast, brunch, or even as dessert. It's super yummy!

Ingredients:
1 15-ounce can sliced carrots, drained
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cloves
2 eggs
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened

In a food processor, blend the carrots until they are smooth. After carrots are smooth, add in 1 egg, the oil, and the milk. Then, in a large bowl combine the flour, 1 cup of the sugar, salt, and spices. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until combined.

Once batter is prepared, combine cream cheese, 1/4 cup of sugar, and 1 egg. Mix until smooth. Fill 12 greased muffin tins 1/3 of the way full with the batter. Then put a large spoonful of the cream cheese mixture into the center of each muffin. Top with remaining batter.

Like I said, I improvised. So here's what mine looked like this morning:

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes (or if you did it like I did, then around 45 minutes), or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Where is the strangest place you've found something you've lost?

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Breakfast Sandwiches

My semester is over! I finished all my finals last week and have 2 weeks of school-free bliss before summer semester starts. I know it's going to go by way too fast!

Today's post isn't a recipe, it's a method. Since going back to school, I've been so busy that I've had to come up with a larger repertoire of quick and easy meals. My kids aren't lovers of cereal for breakfast. I've spoiled them with hot breakfast too much, I guess. The other morning, my oldest asked if we could go to McDonald's for breakfast since I had a busy day ahead of me with finals. That's when I got the idea to just make McD's at home instead -- healthier, cheaper, and faster.

These would also be a great thing to have on hand in the freezer for even quicker breakfasts.

You can do these sandwiches tons of ways. Poach or scramble the eggs instead of frying them. Add sausage or bacon instead of ham. Serve on biscuits instead of English muffins.

Ingredients:
English muffins
eggs
cheese
ham or Canadian bacon

Cook eggs however you want. This particular morning, I fried them in a little butter. Meanwhile, toast English muffins in the toaster. When eggs are done, assemble sandwiches.

I popped mine in the oven for a couple of minutes just to melt the cheese.

How often do you make a hot breakfast?

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Cream Biscuits

Christmas is coming! I can't believe it's this Friday. Crazy how fast this year has gone! In honor of Christmas being this week, I thought I'd post recipes that will make your holiday entertaining easier. There's almost nothing worse than having a house full of guests and not knowing what to feed them that is quick, easy and cheap!

These cream biscuits are quick, easy AND cheap. They come together in a flash and are really tasty. I love biscuits but never thought I could make them. My mom always told me it's tricky to make biscuits, so now I'm wondering what recipe she uses because this is seriously easy!

There are only 2 things to remember when making biscuits. First, don't over-knead the dough. Knead it as little as possible, otherwise the biscuits will be tough. And secondly, if you use a biscuit cutter, DO NOT (I repeat DO NOT!) twist the cutter. Just push it straight down, then pull it straight up. If you twist it, your biscuits will rise all wonky and will look really lopsided.

If you want to make these ahead, you can. But they'll only be good in the fridge for up to 2 hours. Just prepare the dough, cut out the biscuits, put them on the parchment-lined baking sheet and then cover with plastic wrap before refrigerating.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

**This recipe will make about 10 biscuits.**

Adjust an oven rack to the upper-middle position and preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. Stir in the cream with a wooden spoon until the dough forms, about 30 seconds. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and gather into a ball. Knead until the dough becomes smooth, about 30 seconds.

Roll the dough into a 3/4 inch circle. Cut the biscuits into rounds using a biscuit cutter or into wedges using a knife.

Place the biscuits on the parchment-lined baking sheet.

Then bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes.

Serve with butter, jam, honey butter or sausage gravy!

Do you have company coming for Christmas?
Any special holiday meals you like to make?

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Eggs Benedict

The other morning, I decided to treat myself to a yummy breakfast. Eggs Benedict is something I very rarely get the pleasure of eating. I mean, it's almost the furthest thing from figure-friendly that you can possibly eat. All that butter. That yummy, yummy butter. Anywho, I deserved a treat, if I did say so myself, so I made up a batch. Just for me. And I ate almost the entire batch of hollandaise. By myself. Haven't stepped on a scale since. ;)

This meal really is pretty easy, if you follow the steps correctly. It comes together in minutes and is a really fun breakfast to change things up a bit from the everyday bowl of cereal. Yes, I just confessed that I rarely actually make breakfast. See, by serving such a gourmet breakfast (cereal) most mornings, it doesn't take much to actually impress the fam when I do want to make breakfast. Totally works in my favor! And when I do want to impress with a nice breakfast, I love meals like this that come together so fast but are still showing off more than a bowl of Corn Flakes would.

The sauce is going to be the tricky part. But it's really not that tricky. You have to use a double boiler to make this sauce. You'll need 2 pots (or one pot and a metal bowl). Fill the bottom pot with a couple inches of water, making sure that the water level DOES NOT TOUCH the upper pot. That is EXTREMELY important. If the water does touch the upper pot, your eggs will scramble, which will ruin your sauce. So just do 2-3 inches of water at the very most.

Then place your other pot (or metal bowl) on top to make sure the water level will not end up touching the bottom of the upper pot (or metal bowl). Then take it off the top BEFORE you turn your burner on to bring the water to a boil. That is the second VERY important part. You need to add the sauce ingredients to a COLD pot (or bowl), otherwise, again, the eggs will scramble.

Ready?? ;) On we go!


Hollandaise ingredients:
3 egg yolks
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon water
1/2 cup butter, brought to room temperature and cut into thirds
1 teaspoon salt**

Bring water to a boil. Meanwhile, crack eggs, discarding the whites (or save them for a more waistline-friendly breakfast later in the week, since you'll need it after this dish!). Place yolks into your COLD upper pot (or metal bowl). Then add lemon juice, water and salt.

**NOTE: If your butter is salted, OMIT the salt**

Now place on top of the other pot. Whisk CONSTANTLY. When eggs start to slightly thicken, add first 1/3 of the butter. Once that is melted, add the next 1/3. Repeat with the remaining 1/3. Whisk another minute or two, until sauce is very smooth and thickens slightly. Remove from heat IMMEDIATELY.

To assemble Eggs Benedict: Toast English muffins. Top each half with a slice of Canadian bacon (or thinly sliced deli ham works fine, too, if you have that on hand!), then a poached egg (I like my yolks to be runny still for this dish, so I only poach the eggs for about 3 minutes), then smother with sauce. Face it, you're gonna gain like 2 pounds just by looking at it, so be generous with the sauce!! Enjoy. Then go for a run. 10 miles should do it.

What's your favorite I-don't-care-if-I-gain-10-pounds breakfast?

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Blueberry Muffins

I got a pretty good deal for blueberries at the store last week, so we've been eating lots of them the past few days. After a few days of blueberry buttermilk pancakes, the fam was getting a bit tired of them, so I decided to make some into muffins. You know, to change things up a bit. I'm daring like that.

Making muffins is super easy! Okay, not quite as easy as opening a box of Jiffy, but it's definitely easy. And it tastes way better. And you can actually tell there are blueberries in these muffins, and not just some weird, tiny blue dots that are supposedly blueberries.

STEP AWAY FROM THE JIFFY BOXES!!!!!

I got this recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. There are all kinds of variations to this basic recipe listed in here. You can do banana muffins, cheese muffins, cranberry muffins, oatmeal muffins, poppy seed muffins......just to give you a few ideas. ;)

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup cooking oil
3/4 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Grease your muffin tins with butter or cooking spray, or line with baking cups. Set aside. In a medium mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the center of the mixture. In another mixing bowl, combine egg, milk and oil. Add egg mixture all at once to the flour mixture. Stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy and very thick).

Gently fold in blueberries.

Pour batter into muffin tins, filling each one about 2/3 of the way full (makes 10-12 muffins).

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool in muffin tin on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove from pan and serve. With honey butter is best.

Do you tend to use pre-measured box mixes, like Jiffy? Or are you a cook-it-from-scratch kind of person?

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Cinnamon Raisin Bites

It's spring break this week and next, so I've had to come up with some activities to keep my 7 year old busy during the day. She loves to help me in the kitchen, so I was really excited to find this recipe because it was perfect for us to do together. And all these ingredients are things we always have on hand, so I wasn't rushing out to buy forgotten ingredients.

She did the whole thing almost entirely by herself. The only tricky thing was that the dough for this recipe is super sticky, so she had some trouble spooning it onto the baking sheets. Some of them ended up without any raisins and they pretty much look like little gerbils after being baked, but hey, she had a great time, and I had a great time watching her. :)

This is another one from Taste of Home. I don't think I've ever come across an easier recipe than this one. These are really tasty. They're like a cross between a scone and a muffin in texture, I'd say. My kids have been eating them by the handful. I keep finding crumbs all over the house. :)

I didn't really change anything this time. Surprise, surprise. All I did was to use parchment paper on my baking sheets to avoid using extra oil for greasing the pans. Next time I make them, I think I'll throw in some chopped nuts, though -- walnuts, peanuts or pecans.

These are perfect to make for quick breakfasts throughout the week, and they make wonderful, healthy snacks throughout the day, too.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup raisins

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.

In a small bowl, combine the milk, oil and honey. Then add to the dry ingredients, stirring just until moistened. Gently fold in raisins. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray (or parchment lined).

Bake at 425 for 8-10 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Place on wire racks to completely cool. Or don't. They're really yummy when they're warm, so you may not have any left over.
See, I told you they look like gerbils (or some type of rodent). :)

What are your favorite things to make with your kids?

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Sausage Egg Casserole

My mother-in-law makes this casserole on Christmas morning. It's so simple and yet very tasty. It does take a little while to cook, but it's perfect for making on Christmas because you throw it in the oven when you wake up, and it's ready about the time you're done opening presents. If I make it on any other day, I'll start it on the stove top and then finish it in the oven to cut down on the cooking time. How I love one-pot-wonders!

You can change it up easily, too. Add some diced onion to the sausage while it cooks. Use a different flavor sausage. Add potatoes. You really can do lots with it. I love it how it is, though, so I haven't strayed from the original recipe. I'm a sucker for tradition.

Ingredients:
12 eggs
1 package bulk maple sausage
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 soup can milk
cheddar cheese, shredded

Skillet Method

Brown sausage in a large skillet. While sausage cooks, beat eggs, seasoning with salt and pepper. In a separate bowl, whisk together the soup and milk . When sausage is cooked through, pour eggs into skillet, stirring to evenly distribute sausage.

Stream soup into skillet and do NOT stir! You want to leave large pockets of the soup throughout this casserole -- it will NOT taste as good if the soup is fully incorporated.

Top with shredded cheese.

Now you just cook it the same way you'd cook an omelet. Run your spatula around the edge and tilt the pan to let the runny egg underneath. Once it's more solid looking on top, pop it in the oven at 350 to cook the rest of the way, which takes around 15-20 minutes.

Oven Method

Do it the exact same way, only transfer sausage to a 9x13 pan instead of leaving it in the skillet. Then top with eggs, soup and cheese. Bake at 350 for about an hour. You may need to cover it with foil to prevent over-browning.

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Buttermilk Pancakes

I know we've done several breakfast-for-dinner posts in the past, but I have to post this recipe. When I announced the other night that we were doing breakfast for dinner, you'd think my kids had just been told they could go to the toy store and pick out any toy they wanted. They were ridiculously excited.

I've never had pancakes that were so moist and fluffy. Thank you, Better Homes and Gardens! I made a double batch, and my family gobbled them up like they were going out of style. My kids, who are 6, 3 and 22 months, each had 4 pancakes. I couldn't believe they could eat that much.

Also, the electric griddle is my new best friend. I've had mine for about 4 months now, and it's times like these, when I'm making pancakes, that I fall in love with it all over again. I never, ever made pancakes before we bought the griddle because it was almost an hour long process! But now, NOW I can make 6 pancakes at a time. Love it.

Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
1 cup buttermilk, plus a little extra
2 tablespoons cooking oil

In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Make a well in the center of the dry mixture; set aside. In another mixing bowl, combine the beaten egg, buttermilk and cooking oil. Add liquid mixture all at once to dry mixture, stirring just until moistened. Use extra buttermilk if batter is too thick.

I assume you all know how to cook pancakes, so I'll skip that part. I served mine simply with honey butter. But you could easily use berries, like the recipe April posted a while ago. Or chocolate chips. Or bananas. Sometimes I love to just top mine with regular butter and then whipped cream. As a kid, I loved to top them with peanut butter. I've never been much of a syrup lover, so I tend to get a bit more creative with my toppings. However, I've recently come across a syrup recipe that I'm definitely going to try, and I'll be sure to post it when I do!

So how do YOU top your pancakes?
What's your favorite thing to add to the batter?

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Baking Powder Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

Continuing on with the breakfast for dinner theme, today we're making biscuits and gravy. Yum. This is all my husband orders when we go out for breakfast. Well, sometimes he'll branch out and get an omelet, but that's pretty rare. I'm more of an eggs benedict girl myself, but that's another post (we have plenty more breakfast for dinner ideas up our sleeves, so stay tuned - we'll visit this topic again!).

Let's start with the gravy. I normally make this first to give it a chance to thicken while I'm making the biscuits. This is the same gravy I use for crepes.

For the gravy--
1 pound regular bulk sausage
2 tablespoons flour
3-4 cups milk
salt and pepper, to taste

Brown the sausage in a large skillet. After sausage is browned, mix in the flour, cooking for 2-3 minutes. You may have to add in a little more fat (a drizzle of olive oil works well) to combine the flour. Then stir in the milk.

Season with salt and pepper. Reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until thickened, stirring occasionally.

If your gravy gets too thick, just add in some more milk to thin it out. No big deal.


On to the biscuits.

Biscuits can be a bit tricky. The key to making great biscuits is to handle the dough as little as possible. When the recipe says to mix just until combined or to knead just until smooth, those "justs" are extremely important. Over-handling the dough makes tough biscuits, so really, less is more here. Don't let that scare you away, though. They really are easy to make and take very little time (about 20 minutes from start to finish).

Plus, your family will be very grateful. And then you'll feel like a kitchen goddess. And that will inspire you to create more wonderful dishes. Your family will then be even more grateful. See where this is going? And it all boils down to homemade biscuits. You can thank me later.

Before making biscuits (or pastries), you'll want to invest in a pastry blender. If you don't have one, you can just use 2 knives or even a large fork, but the pastry blender works a lot better. It's like $5, so it's not a large investment. You can even get them at Wal*Mart. They really help incorporate the fat into the flour mixture and get it evenly distributed, so I'd highly recommend you get one. They look like this:

Also, you'll need something to cut your biscuits out with. You can use a regular, round cookie cutter. If you don't have one, you can just use a glass cup. Just dust the top with flour so it doesn't stick, and you have an instant biscuit cutter.

For the biscuits--
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup shortening
3/4 cup milk

Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl until well combined. Cut in shortening with pastry blender until flour mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture.

Pour milk into the well. Mix just until combined.

Put dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead just until smooth, about 10-12 strokes. Roll dough out to 1/2 inch thick. Then cut out your biscuits. You'll end up with about 10 biscuits.

Place biscuits onto an ungreased baking sheet about an inch apart. Bake at 450 degrees for about 10 minutes, or until golden brown. Top biscuits with sausage gravy or honey butter.

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Berry Pancakes

I have to give the credit for this recipe to my mother. (Well, everything but the berries. That's my own personal addition.) And she got the recipe from her mother... or at least I think she did :)

This recipe makes a large batch of pancakes. I like to make a lot and freeze what we don't eat for quick breakfasts later on.

Mom’s Pancakes (with berries, by me)

4 c. flour (I like to use half white/half whole wheat)
8 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. salt
4 T sugar
2 eggs
3 c. milk
2/3 c. oil
Berries of your choice




Mix dry ingredients together in large bowl. Set aside.

Beat eggs and add to milk.



Stir milk mixture and oil into dry ingredients. Stir until just mixed.



Stir in berries.



Cook on heated, greased pan until covered with bubbles. Turn and brown other side.



Serve




And Enjoy

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