Brownie cut outs

Kaylee asked to make cut out cookies using different shapes.   I almost groaned out loud.   Cut out cookies are so much work!    I make them at Christmas time, but it’s a 3 day event.

Day one:  Make the dough

Day two:  Cut them out and bake

Day three:  Decorate cookies

Maybe I could toughen up and pull it off in two days….but today I used a brownie mix.  Sprayed a large cookie tray and baked a thin layer of brownies for 20 minutes.

We tried to maximize the placement and got about 12 cut outs.  The poor gingerbread man lost a leg and an arm.

The best part just may be all the “leftover” parts that must be eaten. 

They will be decorated on day 2….if any survive that long before we eat them up.  

 

Cucumber rolls

This is the yummiest, healthiest appetizer that I know how to make!!!

What do you need to make this amazing treat?

One English cucumber, (or 5 for a big party)

Hummus

a couple of Carrots cut up really really tiny.

Chop up the cucumbers into one inch thick slices.

Scoop out the yucky seeds with a melon baller. (if you don’t have one, get yourself over to Bed Bath and Beyond)

Fill in the hole with hummus and top with some carrot “sprinkles”

They look really fancy, almost like sushi rolls.

I wish I could say I came up with this idea, but it came from the wonderful and fabulous Family Fun magazine.

Mini treats

One of my girlfriend is getting married this fall. If you want to read all about her plans for an AMAZING wedding, check out her blog: First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage.

I was in charge of desserts for the shower...shocker, I know. Cupcakes are so popular right now, but personally I think they are a little awkward to eat. Sometimes they are top heavy, it’s hard to get the yummy icing in every bite. And really, the icing is what’s important.

I decided on mini cupcakes as the perfect little finger food treat. The cake is just from a box, although I substituted applesauce for oil. The applesauce hardly changes the taste, but it saves on calories so I used butter cream frosting. Gotta balance out the calories and fat, you know.

One cake box makes 75 minis and I wanted vanilla and chocolate. I enlisted a friend to help me frost 150 mini cupcakes while I made 60 mini cheesecakes. Let’s just say there were loads left over and my kids were delighted that I came home with some to share.

I absolutely adore the petiteness of these little cuties. I’ll definitely be making these again for parties.

Do you make your own frosting or use tubs? To be honest, I have a couple tubs in my pantry for “emergency frostings”, but homemade butter cream frosting is super easy to make and the taste is worth the extra 5 minutes!

2 pounds of confectionery sugar

2 sticks of butter

1/2 cup of milk

1 or 2 Tbs of vanilla.

Yes, I know that’s like 4 pounds of frosting. Even worse, we ran out and I had to borrow 2 sticks of butter from my neighbor to make 4 MORE POUNDS OF BUTTER CREAM. I'm not going to be stepping on my scale anytime soon!

Krustbuster

When I saw Beckie's post on uncrustable sandwiches, I had a moment. DUH. Why wasn't I making my own freezer sandwiches for the kids instead of buying from Smuckers. I mean, I love Smuckers uncrustables. They are so yummy, super easy to grab for picnics and the kid's lunches on days that I work. But they are not cheap. $.50 a pop to be exact.


I bought a Krustbuster sandwich maker, purchased through Amazon.
I like that there is very minimal crust waste.
I like that I can use whole wheat bread.
I like that it removed the crust pretty darn good.
I like it!


I plan on making an entire loaf or two up at a time and throwing them into the freezer so I can grab them just like Smuckers.




Got any other tips for making summertime lunches easier?

A Pot of Brownies

I have dozens of these cute little flower pots left over from my wedding favors.....9 years ago and I absolutely love finding new uses for them.

When I saw Beth's flower pot brownies, I knew I could duplicate it. Of course, she's got chocolate "rocks", mint leaves, and frosting. Basically, hers are awesome, and mine are just ok. But they tasted AWESOME, and that's really all that matters.

I put parchment paper inside of 7 pots and baked them at 350 for 40 minutes. There must be a better way to add a flower, but I stuck a toothpick in between a daisy sticker and passed a couple along to friends.

UGLY egg

Eggs are yummy.

2 Weight Watcher points each (as if I'm doing WW. ha. I'm a wanna-be WW girl)

Full of protien, hard boiled eggs have to be the easiest thing to make. Hot water + egg = hard boiled egg. Right?


But for the life of me, I can never remember the directions. This is the messy egg I cooked this week. Surprisingly, it was cooked perfectly and tasted great. It was just U.G.L.Y.

A quick google brings up literally dozens of methods of hard boiling an egg.

What's your method, and how do you remember it?

Blue food

We've read this book a hundred times. For some reason, Daddy has never read it. Strange, huh?
This was Joshua's face when I showed him breakfast this morning. It was hilarious!
Even better that he's now able to re-enact faces for the camera.

Yum. Yum.

Big Red Tea

I like to drink ice tea especially when I'm pregnant, and especially when it's summer time.

So, basically I've been drinking a LOT of ice tea. Lipton is always a winner, but I've been mixing it up with blueberry, peach, or green ice tea. Last week I made some with Good Earth Tea bags and oh baby, it's INTERESTING!



It's like drinking a big cold glass of BIG RED gum.

Bye Bye Bread Machine

I was so inspired by Beckie's love for her bread machine "Susie" that I asked to borrow my dad's bread machine. It had been sitting in his basement for a few years and I had grandeous plans of making bread, rolls, pizza dough, and *maybe* even homemade pretzels.

The first bread attempt was an Italian seasoned bread with a very thick crust. The inside was great! My second attempt went even better with a classic white bread. I ate most of it myself, and then went to the OBGYN for a check up the next day.

My weight was WAY, WAY up! More than any pregnant woman should gain in a month. The doctor gently reminded me to watch my carbs, and then laughed her way out of the room when I mentioned that I had borrowed my dad's bread machine. "Get that thing out of your house", she told me.

I suppose the Amish Friendship bread that I did TWICE this month didn't help. And the many brownies and chocolate chip cookies this month are showing up too. I'm going to chill out and start eating strawberries instead of carbs. I've started buying extra every week since they are in season and cheap, and freezing them so I'll have them available during the winter too. (I just wash them, chop them up and freeze on a tray for a couple hours before throwing them in a baggie)

Isn't blueberry season coming up soon?

Snickerdoddle Cookies

These cookies are amazing. I'm totally hooked on them. I swear it's because of the tiny bit of corn syrup added to the batter. There is no chocolate involved, but these are seriously addicting, yummy and wonderful. Let me know if you try them!

I generally bake about half the dough into cookies. I roll the other half into balls and freeze them for another day. It's better to spread the butter and sugar consumption over a span of a week or two.

Check out Julia at Hooked on Houses to see what other people are hooked on today!

Snickerdoodles

3 1/2 cups of flour
1 tbs. baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup of butter
2 cups of sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Stir together dry ingredients.
In separate bowl, cream butter. Add sugar, then eggs, corn syrup and vanilla.
Add in dry ingredients.
Chill one hour to make easier to handle.
Roll into balls, then roll into cinnamon sugar mixture.
Bake 375 for 10-12 minute until cookies are puffed up and the surface is slightly cracked.

cookie exchange

I'm going to a cookie exchange tonight. We are all bringing 5 dozen cookies and I'll come home with a variety of 4 dozen cookies. I guess the plan is for us to eat that extra dozen that we all bring. I better not eat anything the rest of today...

My general rule of thumb for life is to do things the easiest way possible that still gets good results. So what in the world am I doing measuring my cookie dough? 3 1/2 inches long by 1/2 inch wide. TIMES 5 DOZEN!!!

They do look pretty cute, but I'm never making these again.

Ants on a log

Is celery in season now? It was super cheap at the store this week. Where in the world do they grow celery? I know it's not New York because we've been covered in snow all week.

I had a great idea to make "ants on a log" with Joshua. Great little food project, right? I figured it would keep us occupied for 4 minutes and maybe, just maybe he'd eat a vegetable.

I told him to get his step stool because we were going to make a TREAT!

Generally, the word TREAT includes some form of chocolate, so the poor kid was was perplexed when I pulled out celery, peanut butter and raisins. He stood and watched me spread the peanut butter and cried. "No, I don't want it! Mommy no!" He was distraught. Actual tears were shed.

So I ate them myself. Yum!

Spinach popsicles

I've started making smoothies and freezing whatever is left into a Popsicle mold. This is my sneaky way of getting my family to eat a serving of vegetables. It's gone over WAY better than the cauliflower scrambled eggs. Joshua loves to eat these, and some days I even let him eat 2. He thinks he's getting such a treat, when it's probably the healthiest thing he's eaten all day.

The one below was made with vanilla yogurt, banana and spinach. Healthy, Healthy, Healthy. Not my favorite, but he ate all of them. Isn't the color gross?

This morning I made a smoothie with cherries, vanilla yogurt, spinach and a banana and it was the best one by far. (pretty pink color too!)

raspberry yummies

A friend from work brought this in to share a couple times. It's kinda like a sugar cookie with jam and it's AMAZING. I made it this week, even though Brian muttered, "Jerk...you know I don't like that kind of stuff". Yes, he is that picky. A dessert that consists of mostly butter and sugar, and he wouldn't even taste a little bit!
Whatever.
It was delicious warm out of the oven, and I wished my mom was visiting so we could eat it out of the dish with spoons and exclaim over how fantastic and fattening it tastes.

Here's the recipe if you dare to make it yourself:

Old World Raspberry Bars

2 1/2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1 cup pecans

1 cup butter, softened

1 large egg

1 (10 oz.) jar raspberry preserves

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 C)

2. For crumb mixture, combine everything except the preserves. With an electric mixer, beat at low speed, scraping bowl often until mixture is crumbly, 2 to 3 min.

3. Reserve 1.5 cups crumb mixture; press remaining crumb mixture on the bottom of greased 8 inch square baking pan.

4. Spread raspberry preserves to within 1/2 inch from edge of unbaked crumb mixture.

5. Crumble reserved crumb mixture over preserves.

6. Bake for 35 min. or until lightly browned. Cool completely. Cut into bars. Makes 2 dozen bars.

You'll like them! Unless you don't like raspberries....

My favorite summer dish

I should have posted this picture for the 4th of July! Look at that perfect combination of red, white and blue colors. We eat this beautiful dish of vanilla yogurt and fruit almost every day. I'll never get tired of it and I can't think of anything else I'd rather eat to start off my day!

Do you have anything that you eat more of during the summer months?

Rice crusted quiche

Over the weekend, some friends hosted dinner at my house. That's right! They brought the quiche, salad and dessert. All I did was clean a little and pick up toys. Now, there's an idea that I'd love to see catch on. You bring the food over to my house and we'll have a great time!


The quiche was so good that I asked for the recipe. Here it is! She swears it's easy to make...


CRUST
10 minute success brown rice(two bags)
1 egg
a handful of cheese(Swiss or mozzarella work best)

when the rice is still warm (not too hot to touch) mix everything together in greased pie plate to form a crust

FILLING
3 eggs
3/4 container of cottage cheese (normal size)
bag of sauteed spinach or other ingredients
little bit of Tabasco
Parmesan cheese
3 tbs butter- melted
some cheese for the topping
3 tbs of milk

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes until it is brown and beautiful!