My 2 Recipes – Now it’s Your Turn!
I am always curious about what other people cook for their families. Mostly just because it gives me really good ideas. I love to try new recipes, too.
So I want to play a little game… and I hope you’ll play along!
I want to hear about-
(1) the dinner that you cook most often for your family (and if you have a recipe, please share it!), and
(2) the “new” recipe you tried most recently (this can be anything – not just a meal).
So here are my two:
The dinner I make most often is “Cheesy Chicken and Rice Bake”. I make it because it is super-simple to prepare and everyone in my family likes it. I LOVE a night with no complaints!
Cheesy Chicken and Rice Bake
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
1 cup uncooked minute rice
1 cup condensed cream of chicken soup
1 cup water
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
black pepper
paprika
Mix the rice, soup, water and cheese in a casserole dish. Place the chicken on top. Sprinkle with black pepper and paprika to taste. Bake at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes or until chicken is done. Mix rice before serving.
The most recent “new” recipe I tried was yesterday for our MOPS meeting – it’s a recipe I got recently from a friend from grad school. I already got a couple of requests to share the recipe, so I guess it’s a winner!
Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Butter Frosting
Cookie Ingredients:
2/3 c granulated sugar
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 c butter or margarine, softened
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c canned pumpkin
2 eggs
2 1/4 c all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
Frosting Ingredients:
3 c powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 to 4 T milk
1/3 c butter (do not use margarine)
Heat oven to 375 degrees. In large bowl beat granulated sugar, brown sugar, 3/4 c butter (or margarine) and 1 tsp vanilla with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Beat in pumpkin and eggs until well mixed. On low speed, beat in flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Drop dough onto ungreased cookie sheet in heaping tablespoonfuls. Bake 10 to 12 min until almost no indentation remains when touched in the center. Immediate remove cookies from sheet and place on cooling rack. Cool completely (about 45 min). In medium bowl, place powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and 3 tablespoons of milk. In 1-quart saucepan, heat 1/3 cup butter over medium heat, stirring constantly until light brown. Pour butter over the powder sugar mixture and beat on low speed about 1 min. Add remaining milk if necessary to make frosting creamy and spreadable. Generously frost cookies.
Hope you enjoy these recipes! And I can’t wait to hear yours! You can either put them in your comment or put them on your own blog and leave me a link! Thanks!
Back to School Treats
Back to School this week… and we pretty much celebrate everything around here with food. Check it out…
Sugar cookie pencils! This might become a tradition…
Introducing…
Sammy!
A sweet and lovable 5 year old cocker spaniel, adopted recently from a MOPS friend. The kids love him and he (seems to) enjoy them. He’s adjusting really well!
TTAH Tuesday – Three Random Kitchen Tips
Hi everyone! The sun is shining and God is good!
Here are three random kitchen tips for you today. You may already know them, but if at least one is new to you, I promise you’ll be happy to have heard it!
- I was always frustrated by the fact that we could never eat all the bananas before they got too ripe. (I despise brownish bananas – I’d prefer to eat them slightly green!) But then my boss at the time told me that when they get too ripe, to just throw them in the freezer and then they can be used later for banana bread. I was so psyched – no more wasting bananas, and if I need to bake something for a meeting or a friend, I almost always have some frozen bananas to use! When they thaw, they are perfect for recipes that call for mashed bananas!
- Use a plastic knife to cut brownies. (I will admit I just learned this one last week). The knife just slides through the brownies cleanly without messing them up! So cool!
- Kids want to make cookies but you don’t really feel like standing in the kitchen for an hour plopping dough on cookie sheets and waiting for them to bake?? This is perfect for you, then. Make bar cookies. Use the same recipe, but instead of making individual cookies, put the dough in a 13 x 9 greased baking pan. Cook at the same temperature but cook longer… up to twice or even possibly three times the duration of the normal recipe (depends on the recipe – you’ll have to watch them closely the first time to make sure you don’t burn them). I love doing this because I don’t mind mixing up the cookies but baking all of them can sometimes be a drag! This way the kids are happy and so am I!
Got any busy mom kitchen tips you’d like to share?? Leave ‘em in the comments section!
Why are we moms always wishing the time away??
I was talking to some friends yesterday about kid’s milestones – and how we look forward to the next step so much. You know – crawling, walking, feeding themselves, talking, etcetera and etcetera.
It occurred to me that I spend a lot of time waiting for that next milestone… for my youngest right now it’s talking.
But I also realized, from being through this with two other kids, that once it happens, there will be times that I look back on “now” and wish we were here again.
I’ll give you an example… when my firstborn was about two months old, someone at church told me “these are the best times – enjoy them!” I thought this woman was crazy. I wasn’t getting any sleep! (and I likes me some sleep!) I was desperately wishing for my baby to sleep through the night!! But now I know exactly what that woman meant. When I look back on that time, it is so precious.
So why is it so hard to live in the present? To fully enjoy each day without wishing for the next?
I like to think I’m a little better at it with my third child than I was with the first. That perspective of knowing how fast 0 – 8 goes is priceless. But I still want to be better at living in the moment. Lord, help me!!
I’m going to try to use this verse – John 10:10 – to remind myself that Jesus intends us to live fully. Which I take to mean living fully in the “present” that He gives us.
John 10:10
“…I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
What about you… do you have any tips to help me live fully in the present?
TTAH Tuesday – Some Yummy Recipes
Just found this website and I’m loving it.
My sister made the Layered Strawberry Cheesecake last week and it was delicious. She’s the one who told me about the Kraft Food & Family magazine. I didn’t want to subscribe to it, but fortunately for me, they have an on-line version.
Here’s the link…
http://www.kraftfoods.com/foodandfamily/home?cm_sp=CRM-_-DigiMag-_-Homepage#/home
The website is really slick and it has lots of beautiful photos of the prepared recipes. From perusing the recipes for a little while, they seem to be pretty family-friendly and not too complicated. (yay for me! and you!)
Hope you enjoy it!
TTAH Tuesday – Road Trip Tips
Easter Break and summer are coming up soon – which means many families will be headed out on long car trips. Here are some tips for keeping kids occupied and happy…
- Plan, plan, and plan some more. Know ahead of time where you can and will stop for potty breaks and to stretch legs. (How often will depend on the ages of your children and their bladder control!) Be sure to build time into the trip to run & play a little bit … rest stops with park-like areas are great. Pack a soccer ball, frisbee, or other playthings to encourage kids.
- Expect the unexpected. When it happens, go with the flow and then move on. (think a two-year-old with diarrhea and a huge diaper blowout… on the driver’s seat and all over mom’s shorts. ask me how bad that stunk – literally and figuratively. but we cleaned up as best we could and moved on.)
- Bring low sugar snacks (fruits, granola, etc.) and drinks for the trip. Portion them out at certain times that you’ve planned ahead. We like to avoid fast food (and save $$) by bringing our own breakfast / lunch items and just eating them at rest stops (see #1).
- Bring fun-to-do playthings in the car for each child. A couple of ideas… a cookie sheet, alphabet magnets, playdoh (to be used with the cookie sheet), coloring books & crayons, etc.
- Bring surprises. Before your trip, go to the dollar store and buy a few fun items for each child (preferably things that will keep them busy in the car or something they can use once you reach your destination). Put them separately in a paper lunch bag and staple it up. Mark it with the child’s name. These surprises can be given out at certain intervals during the trip. Use the excitement over the surprise (build it up!) to keep kids from getting bored.
- Before leaving, print out a map (easy to get on the internet) for each child and mark your route with a highlighter. You can keep kids interested and involved in the traveling by letting them mark “milestones” as you travel. For example, they can color each state as you leave it during a multi-state trip.
- Bring CDs with fun music that your kids’ like to sing along with.
- Familiarize yourself before leaving with road trip games (many can be easily simplified for smaller children). Try “I spy”, “who can spot a red car first” and go through the rainbow, looking for letters of the alphabet, etc.
- Don’t forget pillows and blankets so kids can get comfy for naps!
- And last, but not least, bring a portable DVD player. We always used this as a last resort… when we’d tried everything else and nothing else would cure the boredom.
If you have any more tips that have worked for your family, please share!!
Happy Traveling!
TTAH Tuesday – Preparing for Easter
What a glorious day Easter is! To think that God himself became a man… and then died a horrible death to pay for my sin. But Easter is that glorious day to celebrate the fact that Jesus, although He died, was raised from the dead. The Living God.
This tip is for those of you who, like me, want to give their children a better perspective on Easter – the truth – rather than just visions of baskets, bunnies, eggs, and candy.
Try these “Resurrection Rolls”…
1 package crescent rolls
8 large marshmallows
melted butter
sugar and cinnamon mix
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Give each child a triangle of crescent roll dough. This represents the cloth that Jesus was wrapped in. Give each child a marshmallow. This represents Jesus. Dip the marshmallow in the melted butter, which represents the embalming oil. Next, dip the marshmallow into the sugar and cinnamon mixture. This represents the spices used to anoint Jesus’ body. Tightly wrap the marshmallow inside the roll and be sure to seal it shut so that there are no openings. This represents the wrapping of Jesus’ body for burial after His death. Place rolls on an ungreased cookie sheet and put into the oven. The oven represents the tomb. Bake for approximately 10-12 minutes (pretend it’s been three days!).
Remove the rolls from the oven and allow them to cool slightly. Let the children open their rolls (the burial cloth) and discover that Jesus is no longer there! He is risen! You can let the children know that the sweet taste is a reminder of His sweet sacrifice for us!
Happy Easter!
TTAH Tuesday – steppin’ out (or in)
OK, I’m going to seriously deviate from my usual tips that involve food, and instead give you a tip about exercising. (Hey, it is Valentine’s Day this weekend… and we need a way to work off all the chocolate, right??)
If you want to exercise, but have a hard time fitting it in with all your other responsibilities, and the outrageous YMCA membership prices are too high, then this tip is for you.
I have found the perfect exercise video that your kids can actually do WITH you.
Someone gave me a Leslie Sansone “Walk at Home” DVD last year and I love it. So do the kids. The result? I can get some exercise in, they can get some exercise, and I don’t have to worry about them beating each other up in the other room while I get a workout. Bonus.
Here’s a link to the website:
http://www.walkathome.com/walk/
There are a whole bunch of DVDs available – at all different levels so if you’re a couch potato and walking to the mailbox gets you sweating there’s one for you. And if you are used to exercising, but just need something indoors for these gray winter days, there’s more difficult ones for you. I’ve seen them sold at all the local stores – WalMart, Target, and K-Mart.
Another tip – I just saw a bunch of the DVDs for $5 each in a sale bin at K-Mart this morning! That’s a great deal!
Have a happy Tuesday!
TTAH Tuesday – Winter Picnic
About this time of year in western NY, I begin to tire of the snow. We’ve had snow, snow, and more snow this winter. And it keeps coming.
In order to brighten up a particularly drab week, last Friday we had a picnic dinner. Inside, of course. But I made hot dogs, macaroni salad, and deviled eggs. We got out a table runner that reminds us of summer. I was kind of amazed at how excited the kids got about our “winter picnic”.
It definitely brought thoughts of summer… even in the midst of a cold and snowy day outside.
So if you’ve had enough winter and want to spark things up a bit at your house, have a “winter picnic”. Make whatever yummy picnic food your family likes, and enjoy. Now that I think about it, you really could go all out – let your kids wear shorts & t-shirts, make lemonade, have ice cream cones, use paper plates – whatever gets everyone in a good mood!
Try it and let me know how it goes!
