Vanilla Crescent Cookies

I was lucky enough to be in the Czech Republic during Christmas time. I got to experience the wonderful Christmas markets, Christmas traditions, Christmas carols and of course, the Christmas cookies. When I think of Czech Christmas Cookies these vanilkové rohlíčky (vanilla crescent cookies) are the first thing that come to mind.  I love these crispy little cookies so naturally I had to try and make my own and they are just as good as I remember.

Vanilla Crescent Cookies

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup powdered sugar, divided
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg yolk
• 2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup finely chopped walnuts, pecans, or almonds (I prefer pecans)

In a large bowl, cream butter, 1/2 cup powdered sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla and egg. Combine flour and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well. Stir in chopped nuts. Shape tablespoonfuls of dough into crescent shapes. Place 2" apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 375° for 10-12 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Gently toss warm cookies in remaining powdered sugar. Let cool completely on wire racks.

Chocolate Dipped Coconut Macaroons

So making this recipe I discovered that coconut macaroons are really easy. Also, they don't use a lot of ingredients, I basically made these cookies from left over ingredients.  I had bought some shredded coconut to make a pie crust for a key lime pie, and didn't use the whole bag.  Turns out I still had another opened bag of cocunt hiding in my cupboard left over from something else. Anyway, Hubby wanted creme brulee for dessert on Father's day. That used a bunch of egg yolks, leaving me with egg whites that I just couldn't bare to throw away.  So I did a search for recipes that used egg whites and saw coconut macaroons. This reminded me that I still had that coconut in the cupboard. That also reminded me that my mom had made some chocolate dipped macaroons a while back and that I had some chocolate almond bark in the cupboard that was left over from making chocolate covered strawberries.  See, cookies made from left over ingredients.  Anyway, the macaroons my mom made we're pretty tastey so I went to her pinterest board to see if I could find the recipe. She had a few different recipes pinned.  This one was the only one that was chocolate dipped. It was also one of the only ones that used eggs whites so I decided to give it a try.  Now, I didn't use semi-sweet chocolate like the recipe called for, since I had the almond bark, but I'm a big dark chocolate fan so I think I'd be willing to try the semi-sweet chocolate in the future.

Chocolate Dipped Coconut Macaroons

• 1 14-ounce package sweetened shredded coconut (about 5 cups)
• 4 large egg whites
• 2/3 cups sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 6 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled to room temperature

Heat oven to 325° F. In a medium bowl, combine the coconut, egg whites, sugar, flour, salt, and vanilla. Drop packed tablespoonfuls of the mixture onto parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing them 1 inch apart. Bake, rotating the baking sheets halfway through, until lightly golden, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool slightly on the baking sheets, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. When cool, dip the bottom of each macaroon in the chocolate and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Refrigerate until firm, 20 to 30 minutes. Store the macaroons in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 7 days.

Watermelon Jam

Okay maybe it's just me put I've pinned thousands of things onto Pinterest, most of which I will never try. But everyonce in a while I come across a pin that I have to try as soon as possible. The other day I was browsing pinterest and saw a pin for watermelon jam.  Mind blown. I've never heard of watermelon jam and I certainly never would of though putting watermelon in jam.  Well, I had a big watermelon on my counter that my 4 year old convinced me to buy. It had been sitting there a while and needed used up, so I decided to give the watermelon jam a try. It's delicious. It's like summer in a jar.  Now, here's the thing. I looked up recipes online and came across a few different ones.  It seemed like most recipes called for 1 package of pectin and a ton of watermelon, but people noticed it didn't always set up well.  Other recipes used special brands of pectin, some used liquid and some used 2 packages of pectin.  It was all a little confusing and not very consistent.  Basically I decided to consult the little jar of Ball Classic Pectin. The kind that lets you just use the pectin by the tablespoonful and came up with my own recipe.  The first batch I made, I doubled. Bad idea. It boiled over so bad eventhough I used  my largest pot. I was also a little short on sugar.  The next batch I made pretty much used up the rest of my pectin leaving just a tiny bit in the jar so I just dumped the rest of the pectin in making it a little bit more than 5 tablespoons..  While both batches set up, it seemes as though the second batch set up much better. I don't know if that litle extra bit of pectin did the trick or if it was actually using the right amount of sugar or if it was because it wasn't double, but it worked much better the second time around.  I should probably note that 5 tablespoons of pectin from the jar is a little bit less than 1 box of powered pectin. I believe it's supposed to be 6tablespoons to equal one box. I figure using a little extra pectin wont hurt the recipe, but  may actually increase your success. Also good to note, between the two batches I canned 17 half pints and I didn't even use an entire watermelon!

Watermelon Jam

• 4 cups Watermelon puree
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 5 tablespoons Ball Classic Pectin (or 1 box powdered pectin)
• 3 cups sugar

Start by preparing you boiling water canner and jars. 

Remove rind from watermelon and discard rind. Chop watermelon into smaller pieces and puree in blender until you have 4 cups watermelon puree.  Remove seeds (I didn't take the time to remove evey single one of the little white seeds that are still edible because it was a pain, but I did remove any seeds that seems larger or black).

Mix watermelon puree and lemon juice together in a large pot. Gradually stir in pectin. Bring mixture to a full rolling boil that can not be stirred down, over high heat, stirring constantly. Add entire measure of sugar, stirring to dissolve. Return mixture to a full rolling boil. Boil hard 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skim foam (I don't usually skim foam off of my jam, but this recipe definitely needs it.)

Ladle hot jam into prepared hot jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Apply band until fit is fingertip tight.

Process in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes, adjusting for altitude*. Remove jars and cool. Check lids for seal after 24 hours.

*1,000-3,000 ft add 5 minutes
3,000-6,000 ft add 10 minutes
6,000-8,000 ft add 15 minutes
8,000-10,000 ft add 20 minutes

No Yeast Cinnamon Rolls

A few weeks ago we had a grumpy 4 year old with a double infection. When I asked him what he wanted for dinner, he said he wanted cinnamon rolls.  Since he seemed so miserable I was happy to comply especially since I had my eye on this no yeast cinnamon roll recipe from Recipe Girl.   THey were really delicous and they were quick. We're they as good as fluffy yeast cinnamon rolls that take hours to prepare. Not quite, but they were still yummy and perfect for cinnimon rolls that need to make a little faster.

No Yeast Cinnamon Rolls
Filling:

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons cinnamon

Dough:

• 2all-purpose flour plus more for rolling
• 2 tablespoons granulated white sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 large egg, beaten

Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 2 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup powdered sugar
• 3 tablespoons milk or buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Spray a muffin tin with nonstick spray.
Prepare the filling: In a small bowl, combine the filling ingredients with a fork until a crumbly mixture is formed.
Prepare the dough: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Use a stand mixer with the cookie paddle or use a pastry blender to work the butter into the dry ingredients. Add the milk and the egg and stir to combine. Roll the dough out on a floured surface into roughly shaped large rectangle (about 1/4-inch thick). Sprinkle the filling evenly over the surface of the dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border all the way around. Carefully roll up the rectangle (the dough will be soft). Use a sharp knife to cut 12 rolls. Carefully place the rolls in the prepared muffin tin.

Bake 20 to 25 minutes. While the cinnamon rolls are baking, prepare the frosting: Combine the cream cheese, powdered sugar and milk/buttermilk in a medium bowl will an electric mixer to combine. Add a little more milk if you wish to have a thinner frosting. Spread the frosting on top of warm rolls or drizzle on top. Serve warm.

Cinnamon Carrot Cake

This Easter we had a  nice dinner with my family. I volunteered to bring a carrot cake. The past couple of years I made this carrot cake cheesecake,  It's wonderfully delicious, but for some reason a regular carrot cake so much better (and a bit easier too)  This recipe came from my mother in law and was meant for a 9 x 13 pan, but  I decided to bake it in a bundt pan and just drizzle the frosting on.


Cinnamon Carrot Cake

• 1 1/2 C. oil
• 2 C. sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 C. plus 1 T. unsifted flour
• 1 1/4 t. baking powder
• 1 1/4 t. baking soda
• 2 t. cinnamon
• 1 t. salt
• 3 C. grated carrot
• 3/4 C. chopped pecans

Cream oil and sugar. Add eggs. Sift dry ingredients. Add to wet mixture and mix well. Add carrots and nuts. Bake in greased and floured cake pan--375 for 45 minutes. Cool and frost with cream cheese icing.

Icing

• 1 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese
• 2 t. vanilla
• 1/4 cup margarine
• 1 lb. powdered sugar

Mix till smooth.

Lemon Shortbread Cookies

So I needed to make some cookies for a church event.  So I set out to find something on pinterest. It's spring so was in the mood for something with lemon. I came a cross this recipe for lemon short bread cookies.  So good. I've already made them a couple of times and I'm sure this will be made many more times in the house hold.

• 2/3 cup (150g) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon (55g) powdered sugar
• ¼ cup (60ml) lemon juice
• finely grated zest of 2 lemons
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 ¾ cups + 1 tablespoon (255g) all purpose flour, sifted
• 2 tablespoons corn starch, sifted

• 2/3 cup (94g) powdered sugar

Place the butter and 1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 8 minutes or until pale and creamy. Add the lemon juice, zest and vanilla; beat until combined. Add the flour and corn starch and beat just until a smooth dough forms. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide in half. Place each half onto a large piece of baking paper form into a 20cm (8in) long log. Wrap well in the paper and refrigerate for 1 ½ hours or until firm.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two large baking sheets with baking paper.

Unwrap one of the dough logs (keep the other in the fridge) and slice it into 1cm-thick rounds. Place onto the prepared baking sheets 5cm (2in) apart and bake for 15-18 minutes or until light golden. Remove from the oven and cool on the sheets for 5 minutes.

Gently toss the warm shortbreads in the 2/3 cup sugar and allow to cool completely on wire racks.

Veggie Sushi Rolls

Sushi is not something we eat very often. But the hubby has been craving sushi lately. Since we don't have the opportunity to  leave all 3 kids home and go somewhere nice whenever we want, I decided search the internet for information on making easy sushi rolls. I discovered making sushi rolls is pretty easy. You just need some seeweed, fermented rice, and veggies.  The fermented  rice is pretty simple to make and just needs sugar and some rice wine vinegar.  I'll let you in on a secret. I forgot to buy the rice wine vinegar when I was at the store so I used apple cider vinegar instead. That's what I had in my cupboard and I think it worked just fine.  We've already made sushi rolls a couple of times and I forsee making them a lot over the summer. The first time I used cucumber, bell peper, and carrot for my veggies. I wanted to use avocado, but my avacado was rock hard and not edible. The second time around, I had a much riper avocado, so we did cucumber, bell pepper, and avocado.  Both combinations tasted great, but I liked the second combination better.

If you need help figuring out how to construct and roll the sushi I found this video on youtube and thought it was pretty helpful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phBFVm0gNaI

Veggie Sushi Rolls

• 2 cup cooked rice
• 2 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Veggies cut into long strips: 
• Cucumber, carrot, avacado, bell pepper, streamed asparagus, etc.
• Seaweed

Mix vinegar, sugar, and salt in small saucepan. Cook over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Pour vinegar mixture over rice and a mix.  

Place one sheet of seawead on a towel. Spead a thin layer of rice over seaweed, leaving about one inch of top edge uncovered. Place veggie strips at bottom edge of seaweed. Tightly roll seaweed around veggies, using water to help seal edge of seaweed closed. If needed use the towel to help roll tightly and evenly. Cut itno 1" pieces. If desired serve with soy sauce and wasabi.

Mini Cheesecakes for Two {Classic and Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip}

This post  is pinterest inspired.  I was browsing pinterest and saw this posts for a mini cheesecake for two. Then I saw that mini spring form pans were on sale on Amazon so I caved and a set of 3. Since I bought them I, of course, had to use them.

Something I discovered about this recipe, It deems on the original website she only made one 4" cheesecake. I'm not sure how she fit the whole recipe in one pan, though, because I got two 4" cheesecakes out of this recipe. I'm not complaining, that means huby and I each get our own cheesecakes, except we are nice and shared with the kids too.

Because there was enough filling to make 2 cheesecakes I got creative. I dumped half the batter in one pan and made a classic cheesecake. I topped it with cherry pie filling before serving. Then, for the second cheesecake, I mixed a scoop of peanut butter and some chocolate chips into the remaining batter and made a peanut butter chocolate chip cheesecake.  They both turned out rather yummy. I'm definitely hanging on to this recipe, because we love cheesecake in this house. We can never finish a whole cheesecake in this house by ourselves, but this recipe was just right.

Classic Mini Cheesecakes

• 3/4 cup oreo cookie crumbs
• 1 1/2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tsp flour
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg, room temperature

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Combine oreo crumbs and melted butter. Press crumb mixure in bottom and up sides of two 4" springform pans.

Beat the brick of cream cheese until it is smooth. Scrape down the sides, and beat for another 30 seconds. Beat in the sugar, flour and the vanilla. Add egg, mixing until just combined.

Pour filling into prepared springform pans. Bake for 22 minutes until the edges are lightly golden and the middle still has a wiggle to it. Turn the oven off and leave the cheesecake in with the door closed for a half hour. Take the cheesecake out and leave it on the counter 10 minutes.Cover and refrigerate for at least four hours before serving.

Top with cherry pie filling before serving, if desired.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Mini Cheesecakes

• 3/4 cup oreo cookie crumbs
• 1 1/2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tsp flour
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg, room temperature
• 3 Tablepoons peanut butter
• 2-3 Tablespoons mini chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Combine oreo crumbs and melted butter. Press crumb mixure in bottom and up sides of two 4" springform pans.

Beat the brick of cream cheese until it is smooth. Scrape down the sides, and beat for another 30 seconds. Beat in the sugar, flour and the vanilla. Add egg, mixing until just combined. Stir in peanut butter and mini chocolate chips until just combined.

Pour filling into prepared springform pans. Bake for 22 minutes until the edges are lightly golden and the middle still has a wiggle to it. Turn the oven off and leave the cheesecake in with the door closed for a half hour. Take the cheesecake out and leave it on the counter 10 minutes.Cover and refrigerate for at least four hours before serving.

Top with cherry pie filling before serving, if desired.

Note: you want to make one of each type cheesecake fill one pan with about half of the classic filling and then mix in only 1 1/2 TBSP peanut butter  and 1-2 tbsp mini chocolate chip to remaining batter.

Homemade Yeast Donuts

Well, it's been a few months since I've posted hasn't it? But, with the arrival of baby number 3 a couple of weeks ago I decided I need to start doing something I enjoy to help save my sanity, even if that something is still at home with 3 kids begging for my attention. So, hopefully I'll start cooking and baking and trying new recipes again. I hope that means I start posting more here too.

I actually made these donuts a long time ago, sort of. Back in November when little boy was celebrating his 4th birthday I was suffering from pregnancy insomnia. I was wide awake at 5 AM and decided I should do something to make little boy's birthday more special. I knew he liked donuts and I knew hubby had a donut recipe from his grandma. I had heard really good things about this recipe, so I decided to give it a  try. Now, I dont have a donut cutter so I just used a round cookie cutter to cut out myt donuts and a really small diamond shaped cookie cutter to make my donuts. My donuts ended up being smaller than donuts from a bakery. It turns out this recipe makes a lot of donuts, like twice as many as my family needs at once. So after I cut out all of my donuts I put half of the donuts on some parchment paperand decided to try and freeze them. I fried up the other half that day and they were yummy. Well fast forwad to this weekend, I finally took the remaining donuts out of the freezer and to my delight they freeze really well. I took them out of the freezer friday night and let them thaw in the fridge. I pulled them out Saturday morning, let them rise a bit, then fried them and they were fantastic. You just have to forgive me for using an instagram photo. It didn't occur to me to share this recipe on my blog until after I shared the instragram photo with my friends and a few people asked me for the recipe. At that point we had already eaten the donuts, so I couldn't get better pictures.

Oh, and as for the frosting, I just warmed up some canned frosting and dipped the donuts in it.

Doughnuts 

• 2 C. warm water
• 3 T. yeast
• 1/2 C. sugar
• 1/2 C. shortening
• 1/2 C. dry instant potato flakes
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 t. salt
• 1 t. nutmeg (optional)
• 1 t. lemon extract (optional)
• 5 1/2 - 6 C. flour

Mix and knead to make a soft dough.  Let rise once.  Roll out dough and cut out doughnuts. Let rise again. Fry in hot oil until golden brown, flipping over once. (375F)  Drain and glaze. 

Uncooked donuts freeze well. Let thaw in fridge over night and then let rise in warm place before frying.

Note: the temperature of the oil is important. If the oil isn't hot enough they will cook too slowly and soak up too much oil.

Zucchini Pie {aka imposter apple pie}

First off, I really haven't forgotten about this blog, but life is busy! It also just doesn't help that with the big move last fall I sort of got out of the routine of posting. But seriously, life is busy. We're in the middle of finishing our basement and have been doing all sorts of home improvement stuff through out the house and fixing up our backyard. This means I haven't been doing a lot of cooking or crocheting and haven't had much to post on this blog.

With all this being busy I didn't have a chance to grown my own garden this year. However I have had a few people make me take zucchini from them since zucchini always grows more than any one person could ever use.  Saturday, we went did the Peach Festival 5K in Ft. Collins with some of hubby's family.  Afterwards his aunt was feeling inspired to make a peach pie. We didn't hang around for pie, but she did send us home with zucchini. Well, pie was sounding good when we got home so I decided to make a zucchini pie. Last year I made some delicious zucchini cobbler bars, which I just discovered I can't find on this blog anywhere, so I'm guessing I never posted them. I took them over to a friends house and her hubby started eating them. He had no idea what they were. Eventually we said something about how they were zucchini and he had to go back and eat more because he didn't believe they weren't apple. So, eating zucchini pie is pretty much like eating apple pie.

Zucchini Pie

• 1 - 2 large zucchini peeled and sliced. (Large zucchinis work better as they are firmer than smaller)
• 2 uncooked pie crusts
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 3 tablespoons cornstartch
• 1 teaspoon almond extract

Place zucchini in a large bowl with some paper towel. Try and squeeze out a little liquid and let the zucchini sit in the bowl with the paper towel while you prepare your pie crust. Roll our one pie crust and press in pie plate.  In  small bowl mix together sugars, cinnamon and cornstarch. Remove paper towel from zucchini. Pour sugar mixture over zucchini and add almond extract. Toss until zucchini is evenly coated. Pour zucchini mixture into pie plate. Roll out second pie crust and place over top of zucchini. Seal edges of pie and cut slits in the top. Bake pie at 375F for 45-55 minutes, until mixture is bubbly.

Filling before baking

Creamy Red Potatoes and Asparagus

I bought a ham to make for a nice Sunday dinner.  Usually we make cheesy potatoes, but that's not what I had in mind. Anybody who's served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints knows that the food at the MTC was pretty fantastic. I was there for 9 weeks before I left for the Czech Republic and I got to know the menu pretty well. One of my favorite days was when they had ham (they also had delicious raviolis that same day.) They served the ham with creamy red potatoes and peas.  That was my inspiration for these potatoes.

Creamy Red Potatoes and Asparagus

• 4-5 red potatoes
• 1/2 bunch of asparagus
• 1-2 green onions 
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 cup milk'
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• salt, pepper, garlic powder, dried thyme, to taste

Chop potatoes, asparagus, and green onions and place in a casserole dish.
Start by making a white sauce: Melt butter in a sauce pan over medium heat. Add flour to melted butter and mix until smooth. Add milk, chicken broth, and seasonings. Blend together with whisk so flour mixtures incorporates well. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring frequently. If mixture becomes to thick add extra milk. Remove from heat and poor white sauce over vegetables and toss vegetables until evenly coated. Bake vegetables at 375F for 30-40 minutes or until vegetables are cooked through.

Crochet Shark Hat and some other hats too

So, we'll just pretend that I've been posting more than once a  month on this blog.

I wanted to share some of the fun crochet projects I've made this summer.

One of my friends adopted an adorable little baby boy.  I figured he would need a nice warm hat once winter comes around, especially since they live near Salt Lake. I tried my hand at a little shark hat and I think it turned out great.

My friend Michelle at Michelle Carlson Photography has been keeping me busy this summer too. She's had me make a few adorable hats for newborn shoots.  She had me start out with a bonnet and an apple hat. I made her another pink bonnet with teddy bear ears, but I forgot to take a picture.

Raspberry White Chocolate Pudding Mix Ice Cream

Summer has started. The weather is warm and that means it's ice cream season.  I decided I needed to pull out my little ice cream maker. I just have a little one. It only makes about 2 cups of ice cream at a time. It's the kind that you put the bowl in the freezer all day. Then you pour in your ice cream mix and let it run for about 10 minutes and get soft serve ice cream.  So I put the bowl in the freezer and started to search for ice cream recipes and then I got to thinking. I wonder if I can use pudding mix for ice cream and found a really easy recipe that didn't even require a machine. So, my ice cream machine bowl is still sitting in the freezer waiting to be used.  The nice thing about using the pudding mix is that it held the mixture together, so when the kiddlets were eating there ice cream cones and the ice cream started to melt, it didn't drip all over the place.

Raspberry White Chocolate Ice Cream

• 1 small box white chocolate flavor pudding mix
• 1 can (14oz) sweetened condensed milk
• 2 1/2 cups milk
• 1 cup fresh raspberries

Mix all ingredients together and still until smooth. Pour into a shallow dish and place in the freezer, stirring every ten to fifteen minutes until frozen.

Notes: This ice cream was delicious and great just the way it was. It was a little hard once it completely frozen. Maybe it was because it was taking a long time to freeze (I didn't put it in a shallow dish) and I eventually gave up on the stirring and went to bed.  Maybe it needed a liquid with a higher fat content than the 2% milk I used. I really am not an ice cream expert but get the impression that this recipe could be played with, but I would still highly recommend this recipe as is.

This icecream would probably also be fantastic with cheesecake flavor pudding mix and some graham cracker bits mixed in. Yumm.

Easy Bacon Cheddar Mac and Cheese

The other day I asked my hubby what he wanted for lunch. He mentioned some variation of Mac and Cheese. I wasn't feeling very inspired to make the stuff in the box with hot dogs added in and remembered some one mentioning using bacon fat to make the white sauce for mac and cheese. So I decided to make some bacon mac and cheese.  One note I should make is that I cooked the bacon and made the sauce in my cast iron skillet, because I knew I could stick the skillet in the oven and wouldn't have to transfer everything to a casserole dish and make one more dirty dish, but if you don't have a skillet you can obviously use a frying pan and a casserole dish.

Bacon Cheddar Mac and Cheese

• 8 ounces uncooked pasta, (elbow macaroni, small shells, wheels, etc. what ever you like best)
• 1/2 pound bacon, chopped into small pieces
• 1/4 cup flour
• 3 cups milk
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
• 2 cups cheddar cheese, divided (i used medium)
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs
• 1 tablespoon, dried parsley flakes

Prepare pasta according to package directions. While pasta is cooking.  Fry bacon in skillet over medium heat until crispy. Drain 1 tablespoon of bacon grease and set aside in a small bowl.  Add 1/4 cup of flour to bacon and stir until bacon is coated with flour and dry. Add milk, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper. Bring to a boil, stirring so that flour and bacon grease becomes incorporated into milk and milk thickens. Once milk thickens, turn temperature to low. Stir in 1 1/2 cups cheese. Remove from heat. Drain pasta and add pasta to skillet. Toss until pasta is evenly coated with cheese sauce. In your small bowl, mix together bread crumbs parsley and 1 tablespoon bacon grease. Sprinkle top of pasta with remaining half cup of cheese and then bread crumb mixture. Place skillet in the oven and bake at 400F for 5-10 minutes, until cheese is melted and bread crumbs are golden brown.

Cake Mix Devil's Food Pound Cake with Peanut Butter Glaze

This post was brought to you by my husband, since this is was my birthday cake. You don't think I would actually make my own cake now, do you? Last year my hubby did a fabulous job on my cake, making this chocolate cherry cake roll completely from scratch. This year I went easy on him and told him I wanted a chocolate pound cake with peanut butter frosting and since it's really easy to make a pound cake from cake mix and pudding mix he didn't have to slave in the kitchen like he did last year.  I found the recipe for the cake online at the Duncan Hine's website. When I pulled the cake mix out the cupboard we had by some perfect accident actually bought the Duncan Hine's cake mix and the recipe actually turned out to be right on the box.  I got the idea for the peanut butter glaze Pixelated Crumb.

Devil's Food Pound Cake

• package Devil's Food Cake Mix
• 1 (3.4 oz.) package chocolate instant pudding and pie filling
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/4 cups water
• ½ cup vegetable oil

Do not follow directions on cake mix box. 

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 10" bundt pan or tube pan.
Combine cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, water and oil in a large bowl. Beat at medium speed with electric mixer for 2 minutes. Pour into pan.
Bake at 350°F for 50 to 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 25 minutes. Invert onto heat resistant serving plate. Cool completely.

Peanut Butter Glaze

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 3 tablespoons peanut butter
• 2-3 tablespoons of milk
• 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla

Mix powdered sugar, peanut butter and vanilla together, mixing in a 1 tablespoon of milk at a time, until glaze reaches desired consistency. 

Cranberry Pecan Salad with Lemon Mustard Dressing

So, I realize that my posts have really been non existent lately. I hope to fix that, but I can't make any promises.  Between moving, little boy starting preschool at the beginning of the year and me training for my 1st 10K I haven't gotten my routine all worked out yet and blog posts have been pushed lower on my priority list.  But, I'm putting up this post and hope you can forgive me for now.

So a couple of weeks ago we had an activity for the women at church. The did little mini work shops on organizing, couponing, cooking, stuff like that. I stopped by the cooking workshop and the lady who taught gave us a couple of recipes for some delicious salads. One of there recipes had candied spiced almonds. I'm not a big fan of almonds, but I have to admit the candied almonds were delicious. I can home and though, I really like pecans. If the the almonds were delicious candied, pecans would probably be amazing! I decided to make the pecans and make up my own little salad to go with them, since I didn't have most of the ingredients the lady called for in her salad.  I even made my own dressing!

Cranberry Pecan Salad with Lemon Mustard Dressing

• 6 oz Green leaf lettuce broken into small pieces
• 6 oz Spinach
• 1 green onion, chopped
• 3-4 tablespoons fresh grated parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1/2 cup Candied Spiced Pecans (see recipe below)
• Lemon Mustard Dressing (see recipe below)
• Grilled Chicken, sliced (optional)

Mix lettuce, spinach, and green onions together in a large bowl. Pour dressing over greens and toss until evenly coated. Top with cheese, cranberries and pecans. If desired add grilled chicken.

Tip- Adding the grilled chicken is a great option to add if you are using the salad your main course, but the salad is still fantastic with out chicken if you are using the salad as a side dish.

Candied Spiced Pecans

• 5 cups pecans, slightly crushed (so some pieces are broken up but some remain whole)
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1-1 ½ teaspoons paprika
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• sea salt, to taste

Place a large sheet of foil on a work surface. Spray with cooking spray or rub a teaspoon of oil over foil with a paper towel.

 Place sugar in a large non-stick sauté pan and heat over medium heat , occasionally tipping and swirling the sugar until it is all melted into a pale golden syrup.

Lower heat immediately and add butter, cinnamon, smoked paprika, cumin, and vanilla. Stir until well combined and all butter is incorporated into the sugar syrup.

Add the pecans and stir gently to coat. Don’t worry if you have some clumps of caramelized sugar – they will melt as you continute to sauté the pecans. Continue to cook on low, stirring every minute or so until pecans begin to darken. Watch very carefully as they can go from beautiful to burned very quickly! Turn out onto prepared foil and sprinkle liberally with sea salt. Spread out and let cool. Store pecans in an airtight container.

Tip: Walnuts and almonds would also work great in this recipe

Lemon Mustard Dressing

• 1 lemon
• 1 tablespoon spicy brown mustard
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 clove garlic,minced or pressed
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons oil

Juice your lemon and pour lemon juice into a small jar or container that can be sealed.. Add the zest from about 1/2 of the lemon peel. Add remaining ingredient and place lid on container. Make sure container is well sealed and shake until ingredients and well mixed.  Makes about 1/2 cup of dressing.

Tip: I use the small individual portion container on my Ninja Kitchen System Pulse to mix the dressing. If I do this I don't have to mince the garlic before I add it. 

Cookies and Cream Popcorn ~ Chocolate Chip Cookie Popcorn

I have an entire board on Pinterest dedicated to popcorn; well, popcorn and chex mix.  I, like most things on pinterest, haven't tried most of them.  You can't go wrong with buttered popcorn, but I have an air popper, so I don't use microwave popcorn very often. Air popped popcorn drizzled with real butter, just isn't the same as the buttery microwave packs.  Normally I make caramel corn, but I am always looking up ways to flavor my popcorn and expand my horizons. Well, we had an activity at out church the other day and one of the ladies put together a popcorn bar. She made 7 or 8 different kinds of popcorn. Holy moly, they were all delicious. My favorite was the cookies and cream popcorn. I remembered I had a recipe for the cookies and cream popcorn pinned to pinterest and decided I needed to try and make it myself. It was just that good. While I was looking that up I also discovered I had a chocolate chip cookie popcorn pinned too.   They were both really simple and used almond bark so I figured I'd pop up a big bowl of popcorn and mix Oreos into half of it and chocolate chip cookies in the other half. I'm very glad I made a ton of it (like 8 cups of popcorn or so), because both flavors are delicious and it might last me a couple days.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Popcorn

• 4 cups popped popcorn
• 12 Crispy chocolate chip cookies (like Chips Ahoy)
• 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips
• 6 oz vanilla almond bark

Place cookies in a large ziplock bag and crush with a rolling pin or heavy cup.  Melt almond bark according to package directions. Add melted almond bark to popcorn. Mix until evenly coated. Gently stir in cookies crumbs and chocolate chips.

Cookies and Cream Popcorn

• 4 cups popped popcorn
• 12 Oreo Cookies
• 6 oz vanilla almond bark

Place cookies in a large ziplock bag and crush with a rolling pin or heavy cup.  Melt almond bark according to package directions. Add melted almond bark to popcorn. Mix until evenly coated. Gently stir in cookies crumbs.

Svíčková na Smetaně with Bread Dumplings

If you already haven't figured it out, I served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Czech Republic. Sometimes, I really miss the Czech Republic, but the Czech Republic is 8 time zones away and that's not a quick or cheap trip so I have to settle with missing the Czech republic and reading my Czech friends status updates, which just makes me miss the Czech republic more. Someday, I'll take the hubby to the Czech Republic for a fantastic vacation, but until then the best I can do when I miss CR is cook Czech food. The only thing I've ever really know how to make is fruit dumplings, and they are fantastic, but lately I've really been craving Svíčková na Smetaně, or as know in english, Beef in Sour Cream Sauce. Well, I'd never made Svickova before, not from scratch anyway. I made it from mixes once, but I was willing to try to make it for real this time. I searched the internet for a recipe and found two at the top of the list that had the same exact ingredients list. I figured this would be the recipe to try. Well, there was one difference in two recipes. One called for red wine vinegar and the other had balsamic vinegar. This is a big difference. I'm telling you right now, Do not use balsamic vinegar! That's what I did. I had balsamic vinegar in my cupboard and figured I could save my self the trouble of buying red wine vinegar. WRONG! It tasted good, but the balsamic vinegar was a bit strong (I even used less than the amount called for) so the flavor of my Svickova was a little off, still delicious, but off. So, I'm telling you to learn from my mistakes. Balsamic vinegar is not a proper substitute for red wine vinegar, at least not in this recipe. Although, I should have realized something was off when I was reading the recipe that called for balsamic, and in the instruction it said red wine.  Anyway,  I kind of simplified my Svickova, by cooking it in the slow cook. So there was no searing and a lot less butter and it was still fantastic......Use red wine vinegar.

Svíčková na Smetaně

• 2-3 pounds beef roast
• 1 slice of bacon, sliced into thin strips
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 medium carrots, chopped
• 2 medium parsnips, chopped
• 1/2 small celery root, diced (I didn't find this at the local supermarket, but the nearby Sprouts Farmers Market carried it)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley or 2 tablespoons fresh parsley
• 1 cup / 8 fluid ounces red wine vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• The juice of 1 lemon
• 1/2 cup sour cream

24 hours before cooking time, cut small slits into beef and stuff with slices of bacon, rub meat with softened butter and season with salt and pepper. If the ceramic bowl of you slow cooker is removable, place meat in the ceramic bowl of your slow cooker, if not use a glass bowl. Surround meat with chopped onion, carrots, parsnip, and celery root. Sprinkle on thyme, allspice and parsley. Season with salt and more pepper: add bay leaves. Pour in the vinegar. Add a little more water or vinegar if you need to in order to cover the meat, but remember that the vegetables will let off a little liquid in the marinade. Cover the bowl and refrigerate. Turn the meat in the marinade occasionally.

After letting meat marinade for 24 hours, transfer everything to slow cooker and cook on low for 8 hours. After meat is done cooking, Remove meat from crockpot and place on plate. Cover with foil to keep warm. 

Puree the vegetables and juices marinade with blender or food processor. Pour the vegetable puree into a medium-sized saucepan and heat to a low boil. Season with salt and pepper. Add the lemon juice and sugar. If the sauce needs thinning, add some water or beef broth. Finally, just before serving, stir the sour cream into the sauce and heat it through. Don't let it boil, or you risk the sour cream curdling.

Slice meat and serve with sauce and bread dumplings (see recipe below). If desired,  Garish with a lemon slice and a little bit of cranberry sauce

Bread Dumplings

• 4 cups of flour (500 g)
• 1 package of yeast (I used 1 tablesoon)
• 2 eggs
• A pinch of salt
• 1/4 teaspoon of sugar
• 1 1/4 cup of warm milk
• 2 stale hot dog buns, cubed

Combine the 1 cup wark milk, yeast, and sugar in a bowl, until yeast is disolved. Combine the salt and flour in another. Add the flour to the liquid bowl once the yeast has dissolved, and add the rest of the milk and eggs. Knead the dough very thoroughly, and let it sit in a covered bowl for 1 hour.

Once the dough has risen, knead the hot dog buns tear it into three pieces and knead the dough into loaves about 2 inches wide and 6-8 inches long . Let them rise again for 20-30 under a towel. In the mean time, start a large pot of salted water to boil. After the loves have risen, place them in the boiling water. (you'll only be able to cook one or two loves at a time, the poof up quite a bit.) Boil for 15-20 minutes flipping over once to make sure dumplings cook evenly. Remove from water and let cool. Cut into 3/4 inch slices.

This is me at Helfstyn castle ruins. This was one of my favorite castles/mansions I got to see.

And this is me and my friend, using her crutches to sword fight on a draw bridge at Karlstejn Castle.

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork with Kansas City Style Pork Rub

The hubby and I wanted pulled pork, so we search the internet for some good recipes and came across this recipe for a rib rub. We decide to give it a try as seasoning for the pulled pork. I made a couple minor changes and it's definitely a keeper. We've made pulled pork a few times now and will continue to make a regular appearance on our menu. We usually eat it as sandwiches and eat the leftover on baked potatos with a little bit of cheese and barbecue sauce. So good.

Kansas City Style Dry Rub

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons cup paprika
• 1 tablespoon black pepper
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon cayenne
• 1 teaspoon chipotle chile powder (optional to add a little bit of smokey flavor)

Mix all ingredients together and store in an air tight jar.

Slow cooker puller pork

• 3 pound pork roast
• Kansas City Style Dry Rub (see above)

Generously rub pork roast with dry rub. Place in slowcooker, fat side up.  Cook on low 8 hours until pork is tender. Remove roast from slow cooker and shred. (Tip: iYou can easily shred your meat by cutting your roast into quarters and place it in your kitchen aid with the cookie beater attachment.)  After pork is shredded, mix in the juices remaining in your slower cooker to keep the pork nice and moist. Serve on a bun or a baked potato, with a little cheese and barbecue sauce. 

Stash-Busting for Stashaholics - Unicorn Hat

Well, I said I was going to make a Unicorn Hat for little girl and I did.  We went out of town to visit family and I had plenty of time to crochet in the cars so I whipped this one out pretty quickly.

Next up, a monster hat for little boy.