Mini Cinnamon Rolls!

I've got a handful of recipes to post and it won't be surprising that most of them are desserts!

We had these for breakfast today and there were no leftovers.  I didn't have maple flavoring so I used a bit of vanilla.  YUM!

Makes 16 mini cinnamon rolls

Ingredients:
1-8oz tube crescent roll dough
2 Tablespoons butter
cinnamon
brown sugar

For the maple icing:
1 teaspoon maple syrup
1 Tablespoon skim milk
3/4 cup powdered sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven according to crescent roll dough package directions. Layout half the dough (4 triangles) and pinch all the seams together. Flip over and pinch the seams on the back side together too.
2. Using a rolling pin, smooth the seams and roll the dough into a square about 1/4″ thick. Brush with half the butter, and sprinkle with as much cinnamon and brown sugar as you want. Roll into a log and cut into 8 pieces.
3. Place mini cinnamon rolls into a non-stick sprayed mini muffin tin. Repeat steps 1 and 2 with the other half of the crescent roll dough. Bake according to package directions.
4. Meanwhile whisk together maple syrup and milk in a bowl. Add in powdered sugar until desired consistency is reached. Drizzle over warm cinnamon rolls

Recipe found here

Cheesy Veggie "Pasta" Bake

Cheesy Veggie "Pasta" Bake

This was dinner tonight.  Let me first say, I was talking on the phone when I was putting it together.  I ALWAYS mess up cooking when I am talking.  Seriously.  Always.  Like cinnamon instead of chili powder, salt instead of sugar.... you get the picture.  So about 25 minutes into the 30 required I realized I left out the tomato sauce.  Sweet.  So I mixed it in and added more cheese (which was nice!) and finished baking it.

And...  the kids hated it.  Sorry everyone.  Not a good endorsement eh?  They are exposed to many things but spaghetti squash apparently isn't one that they will even attempt to take a bite of, never mind the zucchini and tomatoes in it.  The cheese didn't even tempt them nor did the promise of Easter candy after dinner.  Shane wasn't home for dinner and I bet that he would be in the same category above.  Ha!

I, on the other hand, loved it!  It was very filling and a portion is 1/6th of the pan.  YUM!  I'm hoping leftovers will be just as good (since there are lots!)

If you try this, please let me know!!  Original recipe found here.  She also lists the nutritional information for you.  Woohoo!

Gluten-Free Cheesy Veggie "Pasta" Bake

Ingredients

1 whole spaghetti squash
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 red pepper, diced
1 zucchini, diced
1 carrot, shredded
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tomato, diced
16 ounces tomato sauce
4 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Poke spaghetti squash all over with a knife and cook in the microwave for eight to 12 minutes until soft. If you don't have a microwave, place the poked squash on a baking pan and bake at 375 degrees for 45 to 60 minutes. While that's cooking, add the oil, garlic, pepper, zucchini, and carrots to a pan, cooking over medium heat.
3. 1. Cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and with a fork, scrape the flesh from the peel. It should flake off easily in strings, resembling spaghetti. Place the spaghetti squash flesh in a casserole dish. Add the cooked veggies, diced tomato, sauce, and most of the cheese and mix well. Sprinkle leftover cheese on top and bake for 30 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly.
   2. Allow to cool for five minutes, serve, and enjoy!

Muffins, Oatmeal, and Ice Cream!

I have lots of recipes to put on here.  Here are few to catch up on!  

 Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins

I got the recipe for these muffins here.   The kids and I liked these.  They definitely are not too sweet and the chocolate chips give it just the right amount.  They were a make again in my book too!

 Crockpot Steel Cut Oatmeal

This was fantastic!  I used a different recipe for this one, but then tried the following and LOVED it!
1 1/2 cup milk (I used skim)
1 1/2 cup water
1 cup steel oats
2 Tbs brown sugar, or maple syrup or other sweetener
1 1/2 Tbs butter, cut into 5 or 6 pieces (optional, I added it though!)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbs ground flax seed
1/4 tsp salt
(you can add nuts, maple syrup, raisins, or more milk or butter)

Spray large crock well with cooking spray (or grease) add ingredients and cook on low for 10 hours or so.  YUM!!!!

 Banana Ice Cream

This one is SO SO easy and so good!  I sliced some bananas and froze them on wax paper and then put them in my blender until they were creamy!  I added some milk to it because it was very thick.  Graham and I love this!  It would also be good with some peanut butter or chocolate syrup on top.  Seriously... Try it.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

I found this recipe... oh... I really have no idea how I found it because I read too many blogs and one click leads to another and before I know it I'm on a new blog looking at a great recipe!  Here is the link to the recipe I found.  I started making these last fall and love them!  Gracie helped me make these last week and funny thing.. she didn't like them yet wanted to try them over and over.  Each time she still said "nope, don't like em!" ha!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

2 eggs
1 cup sugar
8 oz. canned pumpkin
3/4 cup oil
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. 

In large bowl, beat eggs, sugar, pumpkin and oil until smooth. In separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Add to pumpkin mixture and mix well. Fold in chocolate chips. Fill greased or paper-line muffin cips 3/4 full. Bake for 16-20 minutes or until muffins test done.

Serves: 1-1/2 dozen.

I have been feeding my family...

 So it's been a year since I've posted.  My family has been eating in that time. Ha! My hubby isn't home tonight and I'm doing some blog clean up. Thought I'd share a few pics of food I have.  I'll do better about sharing recipes since I love to get new ones from other people!

Homemade freezer jam. If you think that this is too hard.. you are WRONG! I bought some fresh strawberries at the beginning of the summer.  Get some sure jell, some jars (even plastic containers will be ok if you'll use them up in a month or two) or some plastic jelly jars, sugar and follow the directions. It is not hard at all. I like mine smoother so I chop my berries on a food processor but you could use a masher.  Seriously..  homemade goodness all year.  I made some last week with Aldi strawberries too- just as good and they were only $.99 a quart!

 When my friend Gretch was over her son Owen helped me make some.  He loved eating "his" jam!

My mom had given me her bread machine and I just couldn't get a good loaf out of it, so I gave it away.  Then my friend gave me one and I tried this recipe. and it worked great!  I used wheat flour and baked it in the oven.  So basically the bread machine does the kneading and rising.  I don't want to brag (ha ha) but I was pretty proud of my loaf of bread!   I tried rolls in it too, but they were just ok. Need to keep trying.

There you go!  An updated recipe, or semi recipe post from me.

Ice Cream Cake!

Ready for the easiest but tastiest ice cream dessert ever? I've made this a handful of times and it always gets rave reviews. My mom found it somewhere and I was skeptical but I love it!

Ingredients

2 boxes ice cream sandwiches

2 reg. sized tubs of cool whip

choc. syrup caramel syrup

in a 9x13 pan open and lay out 1 box of ice cream sandwiches. I cut up 1 to fit the sides. Then put 1 tub of cool whip on top, spreading around. You don't have to use the whole tub if you don't want to. Drizzle choc on top of cool whip (or caramel, or both, whatever)

Lay second box of ice cream sandwiches on top of cool whip. Smooth cool whip on top and then top with caramel and choc. You can also add crushed candy bar (any flavor) on top. Put in fridge and serve frozen. YUM!

No bake energy bites (there must be a better name?!)

Energy Bites

makes approximately 2 dozen depending on size NOTE-This is the recipe copied from the website. I'll put my changes in blue. LOVED these!

• 1/2 C nut butter(almond butter, peanut butter, sunflower seed butter or any other nut or seed butter. Anything will work here) I used natural PB once, and regular once. Both were great.
• 1/3 C honey(I believe brown rice syrup would also work. I’m not sure of thinner sweeteners such as maple syrup and agave though as they may not hold together as well) used honey
• 1 C old fashioned rolled oats(you can toast for a nuttier flavor at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes)
• 1 C shredded unsweetened coconut(you can substitute any dry ingredients for this, wheat bran or germ, oat bran, some ground flax seed(I wouldn’t recommending using an entire cup!), any kind of ground nuts or seeds. For a cookie dough type bite try adding a few tablespoon of your favorite whole grain flour) used 1/2 cup coconut (we only have sweetened, but oh well) and 1/4 cup ground flax seed, and 1/4 cup wheat germ
• 1-2 tsp vanilla
• pinch of sea salt if using a natural nut butter with no added salt
• 1-2 tsp your favorite spices or spice combinations(optional) cinnamon
• 1/2 C other addins(any kind of whole or roughly chopped nuts or seeds, dried fruit, good quality chocolate chips, etc) choc. chips (mini, or I also chopped a few dove dark choc. pieces) and poppy seeds. :)

In a large bowl add the nut butter, honey or other sweetener, vanilla and salt if needed. Use less vanilla if yours is very strong or more if you really enjoy the vanilla flavor and don’t buy an alcohol based kind. If all your ingredients are room temperature you should be able to stir to combine. If this is difficult you can warm in the microwave for a few seconds or even place the bowl in an inch or two hot water for a few minutes to soften everything. Once this is combined add the remaining ingredients.

In this case I used almond butter and for my addins I used equal parts sesame seeds, poppy seeds and mini chocolate chips. Mix well. Once it’s all combined place in the fridge for about 30 minutes. Then remove from the fridge, scoop out some dough and roll into a ball. I find it’s much easier, and works better to squeeze the handful together to compact it and then roll it into a ball.

If yours are too sticky you can considering adding more dry ingredients into them or rolling them in something like ground nuts, coconut, etc so they aren’t as sticky. Place the balls in an airtight container either in the fridge or freezer for quick and easy snacks.