Wild Berry Muffin Cookies

My mom and younger brother are coming from MA to visit us on Friday and I have been baking up a storm in preparation for their visit! Today I made Wild Berry Muffin Cookies. I wasn’t sure how these would come out because I pretty much made them up. I wanted to make cake mix cookies but had no cake mix but I did have muffin mix so I used that instead. 

I am relieved to say that these babies came out great! Better than great they are amazing! My mom is going to love them. I can’t wait for them to get here we haven’t seen them since April. I know that doesn’t seem like a long time but my family is very close. I am also happy to report that my hubby is on his way home from field training! I have really missed being able to talk to him. I am one happy wife right now!

 

 

Ingredients

~ 2 Wild Berry Muffin packages (7oz I used the Martha White brand they were only $1)

~ 1/2 cup butter, softened

~ 2 eggs

~ 1 tsp vanilla extract

Pre heat oven to 350

1. Add all ingredients to a mixing bowl and beat together.

2. Chill in fridge 1 hour.

3. Place rounded tablespoons of dough onto an ungreased  cookie sheet.

4. Bake at 350 for 7-10 mins. Mine were always done before ten mins but everyone’s ovens are different. Let cool on cookie sheet for a few mins before moving to a wire rack.

Maple Dijon Chicken

The great thing about chicken is that you can prepare it in so many different and delicious ways. Last night was a little tricky. I really need to go grocery shopping but have been too lazy to go. I had chicken thighs and had no idea what to do with them. I wanted to make honey mustard chicken but had no honey. I did have maple syrup though which got me thinking that I could use that in place of the honey. So that’s what I did and it came out amazing!

 

Ingredients

~ 4 chicken thighs

~ 1/2 cup dijon mustard

~ 1/4 cup maple syrup

~ salt and pepper

~ parsley

~ 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar

 

Pre heat oven to 450

1. Season chicken thighs with salt and pepper. Line a baking dish with tin foil and place chicken on foil.

2. In a medium bowl combine maple syrup, mustard and vinegar. Stir well.

3. Pour over chicken and using a brush make sure chicken is completely coated. 

4. Cook for 40 mins or until chicken is no longer pink. 

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. I wish my hubby had been here to try it! 

My Mecipe Binder

We decided taking all of our recipe books to Korea would be a waste of space. We have a weight allowance that we can take with us and recipes books are heavy. I have a lot of recipe books! I came up with the idea to make a recipe binder. My husband and I sat down and went through all of our books (I have a bunch!) and typed out our favorite recipes from the books. I am sure that we missed some but we can always looks up a recipe on the internet if we had forgotten to add it to the binder.

Making a recipe binder is very simple and an easy way to organize favorite recipes. It’s nice having them all in one spot!

Materials:

1 binder (I got mine at Target)

Assorted scrap book paper

plastic inserts (Target)

My awesome binder I found at Target for $6

1. Determine the categories that you want your binder to have.

These are my categories:

Appetizers

Breads and Sauces

Breakfast

Lunch

Dinner

Side Dishes

Slow Cooker

BBQ

Desserts

Holidays

2. Print the title of the categories on to your scrap book paper.

Example of my scrap book paper with category names

3. Type out all of your favorite recipes and put all of your recipes and categories into your plastic inserts.

Typed out recipe

As you can see I have a lot more room to add more recipes!

The great thing about a recipe binder is you can keep adding more recipes to it. The more recipes you try and like add it to your binder! I have seen other recipe binders online that people have also made that a are more elaborate than mine. However, I am into simple and keeping the cost down. My recipe binder cost me about $10 to make. I already had scrap book paper so i did not need to buy any but you can find some cheap at Walmart or even Michaels has some.

I hope you enjoy this project! I had fun making it!

Crock Pot Honey Chicken

My husband wasn’t able to come home on pass this weekend because he has field training all week so my son and I spent Friday night, Saturday and Sunday afternoons vising him on base. We had a great time! My son made some friends! He got four soldiers playing ball with him it was one of the cutest things to see. It also benefited me because they wore him out and he slept great those nights! On Saturday he slept in until 8 and he never sleep past 6! It was amazing!

Playing ball with Daddy.

Isn’t this adorable?

He had such a great time! I think they all did!

Spending the days on base all weekend made me not want to cook. I decided to use my good old crock pot! This is by far my favorite kitchen appliance! Being able to throw something in it and have it cook all day while you go about your business is like magic! Not to mention it makes your entire home smell heavenly!

This recipe was extremely easy and one I will be making again! It had just enough kick to it with the hot pepper flakes and sweetness from the honey. It was a great contrast. You should go make this right now. Seriously it was that good!

Crock Pot Honey Chicken

Ingredients

~1lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs
~1/2 cup soy sauce
~1 cup honey
~1/4 cup ketchup
~1 tbsp red pepper flakes
~2 cloves of garlic
~salt and pepper to season
~2tbsp olive oil or you can use veg oil

1. Season both sides of chicken thighs with salt and pepper and place in your crock pot.
2. In a medium bowl combine the remaining ingredients and stir well.
3. Pour over chicken thighs. Cook on low for 4 – 4 1/2 hours.
4. last 15 mins remove chicken thighs from crock pot and cut into pieces. Add pieces of chicken back in to crock pot and cook in sauce for another 1

Zucchini Pizza Logs

Lately I have really been craving pizza and as you all know on a diet that is a big no,no! It wasn’t so much the crust that I wanted (I am not a crust lover anyways) what I really wanted was the sauce and cheese. However, I needed to find a healthy alternative for the crust. When I was surfing the web I found numerous cauliflower crust recipes, which one day I really want to make but I didn’t have any one hand and was already y in my pj’s so running to the store wasn’t an option. Then I came across a recipe using zucchini as the crust on newtritionblog.com. I made a few changes to make it my own and I was really surprised with how tasty it turned out. It also completely satisfied my pizza craving!

Ingredients

*1 medium to large size zucchini

*1 cup of your favorite pizza sauce (depending on the size of your zucchini you may not use the full cup)

*1/2 cup of your favorite cheese (I used skim milk shredded mozzarella)

*optional: top with your favorite meat. I used left over ground beef I used for taco salad the previous night.

Pre Heat 400

1. Slice zucchini in half length wise. Scoop out seeds using a spoon. Top with pizza sauce and sprinkle with your favorite cheese. Add meat on top of cheese.

2. Cook in oven for 20-25mins

This is a simple, fast recipe. It’s perfect for when you are in a hurry or if you are on a diet and are craving pizza. I will definitely be making this recipe again.

Healthier Peanut Butter Cookies

Today online I was searching for a healthy peanut butter cookie recipe but could not find one. All the recipes I searched called for lots of sugar and shortening. I did not want to add either. So I came up with my own healthier version. They came out great! My 2 two year old ate 3 of them and he is a very picky eater!

 

My hubby sent me this while I was baking the cookies. He is getting ready for 3 days in the field for training.

Ingredients

~ 1/4 cup plus 1/2 tbs of honey (in place of 1/2 cup sugar)

~ 1/2 cup brown sugar

~ 1/4 cup non fat vanilla yogurt (in place of 1/4 cup shortening) 

~ 1/4 cup margarine (softened)

~ 1 egg

~ 1 1/4 cups flour

~ 3/4 tsp baking soda

~ 1/2 tsp baking powder

~ 1/2 cup natural peanut butter

~ 1/4 tsp salt

~ 1 tsp vanilla extract

1. In a large bowl mix together margarine, sugar, egg, honey,yogurt, and vanilla. Mix in peanut butter.

2. Add in flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Make sure it is all combined and smooth. 

3. Refridgerate for 2 hours until it firms up. 

4. Pre Heat oven 350.

5. Add tablespoon mound on to cookie sheet and flatten in a criss cross pattern with a fork.

6. Bake for 7-10 mins.

 

Remember these are a healthier version. The yogurt makes them a bit more fluffy than bad for you cookies. But they are still delicious! My son thought so!

 

He is my adorable son enjoying his cookies! 

Super Easy Peanut Butter Granola

I love granola but have you ever noticed how expensive it is? I found this really easy recipe off of google and it is so much cheaper to make! Now I will share it with you and you can save money just like I did!

~ 6 tbsp oil

~ 1 cup peanut butter

~ 1 1/2 cups brown sugar

~ 7 cups oats

1. In a sauce pan cook oil and peanut butter over low heat until it is smooth.

2. Remove from heat and add sugar. Mix well.

3.  Add oats and stir until oats are completely coated.

4. Spread on to a cookie sheet and bake at 18-20 mins stirring after 8 mins.

5. Cool and serve with yogurt, milk, fruit or just eat it plain!