Apple Orange Cranberry Oatmeal Muffins

With all of this amazing springtime weather, I was instantly pulled to make some yummy and healthy breakfast muffins for the kids. Something about this warm weather makes me think of apples, oranges, and fresh fruit. So why not throw a bunch of fruits into a muffin?

I used this recipe as a base and made some changes.... These were so good that there is no pretty shot at the end because we ate me ALL before I could take one!

• 1-1/2 cups quick-cooking oats
• 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
• Zest of one orange
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1 Granny smith apple (peeled and diced)
• 1/2 cup fat-free milk
• 2 flax eggs (2tbsp flax seed + 4tbsp water)
• 1/4 cup quick-cooking oats
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted

Directions

• In a large bowl, combine the first seven ingredients. In another bowl, combine the applesauce, orange zest, apple, cranberries, milk, and flax egg. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fill muffin cups coated with cooking spray three-fourths full.
• Combine topping ingredients ( last 4 on the above list); sprinkle over batter. Bake at 400° for 16-18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack. Yield: 10 muffins.

Chicken & Bean Enchilada Casserole

 I love Mexican food! I could eat it 5 nights a week! I often wonder if that's because I never even tried it until college or if it's because of my love for any meal that I can eat with avocado? Either way, this meal is stupid easy and a real crowd pleaser! I have made it several different ways and no matter what you choose to throw in, it always turns out great.

Ingredients:
3 cups of shredded chicken (I chose 2 cans of organic chicken breast)
1 can of pinto beans (rinsed and drained) - could sub with black beans, refried beans..... etc
1 can of corn
8 flour tortillas
3 cups of medium salsa (I had no salsa so I made my own! See below!)
3 cups of mexican cheese
1 cup of crushed tortilla chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl combine the chicken, beans, salsa, and corn.
3. Add a third of the chicken mixture to the bottom of your casserole dish and top with a quarter of the cheese. Cover with a layer of the tortillas.
4. Continue to layer on the chicken, cheese, and tortillas until you have 3 layers.
5. Top with your crumbled tortillas chips and sprinkling of cheese.
6. Bake for 20 minutes or until the cheese is bubbling.

My toddler is Egg-static for meal times!

HappyEaster Monday! We had a very nice relaxing weekend and got ready for the Easter holiday. My kids love going to the dollar store (the Little Man calls it the balloon store - because I always let him get a $1 mylar balloon). So they were thrilled to be getting some Easter goodies from there!

We have an Easter egg hunt on Friday so we grabbed about 1,000 alot of the plastic eggs to fill with treats. I grabbed a few extra bags to use around the house too. Little Man had so much fun helping to fill the eggs with treats to get ready for our Easter hunt... So when I saw this adorable idea on the web I knew that it would be a winner at our house.

Source

And here is our take on it!

3 very excited mealtimes later, I say with conviction that this was one of my best 'food finds' of all times! Oh yeah and I got to use my adorable ceramic egg holder more than just to hold eggs in the frig! I am thinking about using the egg holder for his meals even after the eggs are retired this weekend. He seems to love the fun presentation of it all!

Linking up at The Better Mom & The Inspiration Gallery Link Party

Meatloaf is great... Coach's Stack is out of this world!

One of the most loved recipes in our house is my Chicken & Bacon Meatloaf. I often mix it up by using ground turkey and adding various veggies that you can never even notice. The hubby hates broccoli and I got an entire cup into it the most recent time I made them.... he had no idea! Little Man is a huge fan too and I have no doubt that Fia will love it as well.

So when I saw this amazing recipe at Mix and Match Mama for the Coach's Stack, I knew that it would be a huge hit for our anniversary dinner! I had never even heard of a coach's stack before but I sure am glad that I gave it a try.

I opted for Jiffy cornbread as the base, followed by boxed Mashed Potatoes, topped with my bacon wrapped meat balls and french fried onions on top. My presentation wasn't quite as nice as Shay's but it was 8pm on a school night and we were starving!

The verdict? Amazing! This went over even better than the original meat loaf and both the hubs and I went back for a second stack!

Marinated Flank Steak & Scalloped Potatoes

We had a pretty quiet Valentine's Day this year (with no grandparents to watch the kiddos while we have a night out). So we decided to have a nice dinner at home once the kids went to sleep. It was a great night with yummy food and even yummier dessert! The hubby surprised me with Twist cupcakes and I surprised him with chocolate covered strawberries. I would say that was a major win-win!

I prepared a favorite meal that we haven't had in quite a while. It's a great meal for dinner parties because 98% of it is prepared in advance. Oh yeah... and it's amazing! So here is the scoop for our Marinated Flank Steak and Scalloped Potatoes.

Marinated Flank Steak Ingredients:

2 TBSP Garlic Powder

1 TSP Paprika

1 TSP Cumin

1 TSP Oregano

1 TBSP Montreal Steak Seasoning

2 splashes Hot Sauce

2 TBSP Worcestershire sauce

2 TBSP Red Wine Vinegar

1 TBSP Soy Sauce

1/2 cup Olive Oil

2LB Flank or Skirt Steak

Mix all ingredients into a large plastic bag.

Place Flank Steak into bag.

Shake well to coat.

Allow to marinate at least 30 minutes, shaking occasionally to re-coat.

Heat grill pan or grill to high heat.

Grill steak about 5-7 minutes per side.

Remove steak from grill and place on a plate. Allow to sit a few minutes prior to cutting.

Waiting to get on the grill! 

Scalloped Potatoes Ingredients:

2 cans Sliced White Potatoes, drained

4 TBSP Butter

3 TBSP Flour

1 1/2 cups milk

1/8 TSP Cayenne Pepper

1 TSP Paprika

1 1/2 cups Cheddar Cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat and blend in flour once melted.

Add the milk and stir with a whisk. Add seasonings and whisk till blended.

Cook sauce on low until smooth stirring as it cooks.

Remove pan from heat and add 1 cup of cheese.

Pour potatoes into lightly greased casserole dish ( you want mostly one layer of potatoes)

Pour cheese sauce over potatoes. Sprinkle with remaining cheese.

Bake uncovered for one hour.

Potatoes smothered and covered and heading into the oven!

Potatoes are cooked and it's almost time to eat! 

And here is the finished product.... It's not a "pretty" shot because it was not on our plates for very long! Seriously, my man is a real meat and potato guy and I was not about to get in the way of his dinner. But if you are looking for a no fail impress meal this is it! We have also used this marinade on other cuts of cheaper meat. It knocks those out of the park too since the vinegar acts a tenderizer and the flavor combo is out of this world!

Almost Healthy Sugar Cookies

Being that it's Valentine's week, I could not resist another yummy Vday treat post. And it is a seasonal favorite around our house... meaning that we make these for every season! Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter.... no joke Little Man adores these cookies! The best news? In the grand scheme of cookies, these are not horrible for you (but the taste will never give you away!)

Cookies:

1 1/4 cup Earth Balance Buttery Spread

1 cup sugar

1 TBSP Flax seeds

3 TBSP warm water

2 TSP Vanilla

4 cups flour

1 TSP Baking Powder

Frosting:

2 cups powdered sugar

1 TBSP Earth Balance Buttery Spread

1 TBSP Soy or Almond Milk

1/2 TSP Vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 F

Mix flax seed and water together to make flax egg.  Let sit 3-5 minutes.

Cream together butter and sugar using electric mixer. Mix in flax egg and vanilla.

Add in flour and baking powder a cup at a time. 

You will need to hand hand mix the last cup!

When fully mixed, cover and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Once chilled, roll the dough onto floured surface and cut out shapes. 

Bake on lightly greased cookie sheet for 8-10 minutes. (cookies expand so leave some space!)

Allow to cool completely prior to frosting.

Mix together powdered sugar and Earth Balance spread. 

Add in vanilla, then milk.

Stir until there are no lumps. 

For best results, use gel food coloring!

Paint your cookies and garnish with chocolate chips, sprinkles, red hots..... whatever works!

And since no real eggs are used in this recipe - the kids (and ME!) love to taste the dough!

Now, gather your ingredients and start baking!

Little Man decorating Mickey Mouse cookies

His skills have improved with lots of practice painting cookies!

Broken Heart Jello Cookies

I spent some great time with Little Man working on a Valentine's Day treat and craft for the Dog Days of Winter Love It Challenge. Going along with my earlier post about foods that remind me of my childhood, I decided to make Jello cookies. These were often made using Lime and Strawberry Jello around Christmas time and I loved them! This is the Original Recipe that I made some changes to.

Jello Cookies

1 3 oz box of Strawberry Jello

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup applesauce

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp Vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

2 eggs (I used flax eggs - so 2 tbsp flax seed and 6 tbsp water)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Cream the butter, applesauce, sugar, and Jello. Add the eggs and vanilla on medium speed. Sift remaining dry ingredients and add a little at a time till fully mixed. Roll dough into 1 inch balls and place on cookie sheet. Fill a shallow plate with sugar. Dip a glass into a bit of water, then into the sugar plate. Press the dough down to 3/8 inch thickness. You can add chunkier granulated sugar also. Bake 6-8 minutes.

the ingredients...

Little Man trying the batter! This is the reason I use flax instead of eggs! 

And yes - he refuses to let the Christmas jammies be taken out of the rotation!

The mixed Jello cookie dough

We opted to make bigger cookies, so these are 2 inch balls

Flattened down dough balls

We then used a heart shaped cookie cutter.... and then we ate the extra dough we trimmed off!

While the cookies baked, we got to work on the canister for the cookies. I was planning to use an empty Oatmeal canister but this little baby one seemed perfect with the red lid and all! I grabbed a polka dot gift bag and we got to work recovering it. We trimmed the paper to size and attached it using double sided tape. Then we played around with some felt to decorate it up a bit more! You can just barely see it but I took the handles from the gift bag and hot glued them around the middle of the canister to hold the heart shaped tag.

Perfect little canister! Love that I was able to reuse it!

Cutting the paper to size

Since our cookies were so big, we wanted to cut them in half but this seemed much more appropriate!

Our finished canister! Thought the saying was cute.... I love you without a dot (doubt!)

Filled with cookies and ready to surprise Daddy!

Banana Oat Breakfast Cookies

What would we do without Pinterest? I recently came across this AMAZING recipe and I have made 2 batches of this super delicious cookies in less than 4 days! So I decided to link this up at the Dog Days of Winter Make It Linky Party. Did I mention that they are actually healthy??? Oh yeah... and I had to make 2 batches because I devoured them before I got to take any pictures of the finished product! Trust me and make these ASAP!

Of course, I like to mix it up a bit but here is the original recipe that I pinned.

Ingredients:
2 cups of Oatmeal (uncooked)
3 ripe bananas (mashed with fork)
1 1/2 cups of applesauce
1 small package of raisins
1 splash of vanilla
Cinnamon to taste

Optional:
1 spoonful of Peanut Butter
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup nuts or dried fruit of choice

Yes! This is really all that you need!

Preheat heat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together vanilla, cinnamon, applesauce and bananas. 

Blend applesauce mixture with all other ingredients & let sit for 10 minutes.

Scoop 'dough' onto lightly greased cookie sheet. I opted to scoop it into muffin tins for better portion control on batch number 2!

Bake for about 25 minutes.

Remove from oven. Store in a covered container when completely cool.

Bananas all mashed

Let the mixture sit for 10 minutes 

All scooped into our muffin tins

All cooked and ready to eat! 

 Grab them quick before they are gone!

 I love that it tastes like a yummy bowl of oatmeal that I can eat on the go!

Cinnamon Rolls from Scratch!

In episode 2 of Mange` Mondays, we decided to tackle a family favorite.... Cinnamon Rolls! We typically use the refrigerated cans that you just pop into the oven, bake, and then ice. But the extra 10 minutes to make these are so worth it once you try them! Plus, Little Man loved getting in on the action and got to really help!

I happened to find this amazing yeast free recipe on Iowa Girl Eats and thought that it was a worth a shot. As usual, I made some changes but here is the Original Recipe.

Cinnamon Filling:

3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons Earth Balance non dairy butter, melted

For the Dough:
2-1/2 cups all purpose flour, plus more for rolling out dough
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup lowfat buttermilk
4 Tablespoons Earth Balance non dairy butter melted
For the Icing:
3 ounces cream cheese softened
4 tablespoons lowfat buttermilk
1 cup powdered sugar


1. Preheat oven to 425. Combine filling ingredients in a small bowl, then mix with a fork until well blended.

2. In a another, larger bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk together buttermilk and melted butter in a separate bowl, then pour into the middle of the dry ingredients. Stir together until dough just comes together (do not overmix.) Kneed slightly with your hands until the dough forms into a ball, then slice it in half.

3. On a lightly floured surface, roll each half into a 12×8″ rectangle (think slightly longer than a sheet of paper.) Press half the filling mixture into the center, leaving 1/4″ of the dough clear on all 4 sides, then roll like a sausage. Pinch together seam, trim ends and cut into 8 slices. Repeat with the other dough half, then place rolls in a non-stick sprayed 11×8″ pan. Bake for 15 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, to make the icing, mash together softened cream cheese and powdered sugar with a fork until smooth. Whisk in buttermilk, 1 Tablespoon at a time, until creamy. Drizzle onto hot cinnamon rolls and spread evenly.

Little Man stirring the filling

Making the dough 

Dough rolled out and filling added. Now rolling it up!

Cutting it into slices

The four rolls that I put in the pan...

I will let you guess who placed the rest of the rolls...

Iced and they all taste amazing.... even the odd shaped ones!

Pure heaven!!!!

Linking up at Serenity Now!

Banana PBJ Muffins

As I was thinking about my blog posts for the week, I looked at my list of blog ideas and noticed a trend. Every weekend I end up trying out at least one recipe! While the hubs is home to keep an eye on the rug rats its a nice break for me to try out something new and I have decided that Monday is now going to be Mange` Monday where I break down a new recipe that we love! And here is the first installment:

Banana PBJ Muffins

2 cups of flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 large scoop Natural Peanut Butter
1 large scoop Grape Jelly
2 tablespoons apple sauce
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk (could sub almond milk for dairy free)
3 ripe bananas mashed

1. Preheat oven to 375F

2. Mix together flour, brown sugar, baking powder

3. In separate bowl, beat peanut butter, jelly, applesauce, eggs, milk, and bananas

4. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients just till moistened.

5. Spoon batter into muffin cups. We use those awesome silicone ones! Bake for 25 minutes. Makes 2 down muffins.

6. Serve with peanut butter dipping sauce or honey for those picky eaters!

Here is the Original Recipe that I made changes to for those super yummy muffins. I popped half of them into the freezer and they make great on the go breakfasts for those crazy mornings when you don't have time to cook! I actually like them better when they are still a touch frozen!

And that nifty little gadget above? Its a PBJ spreader from Williams Sonoma!

PS. If you are looking for any furniture today is the last day of World Market's 50% off furniture sale. There are some crazy deals! The deals were so good that something new found its way home with us this weekend.... tune in tomorrow to see what it is!

Linking up at Serenity Now!

Spook-tacular Pumpkin Bars

No this is not turning into a food blog... but it seems the only bit of DIYing I have done lately has been in the kitchen! Man, its rough keeping the house clean and ready for showings with 2 kids and a dog (and thankfully we have had lots of activity!) I do have about 5 projects in the works but at the end of the day all its all I can do to drag myself to bed!

I have been itching to bake something pumpkiny but also wanted something dairy free so that I could enjoy it too! I came across this yummy recipe and without the icing it is totally dairy free! I have a go to dairy free icing that I was going to make but these bars were perfect without any icing for my taste.

Ingredients:
4 eggs 
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar 
1 cup vegetable oil 
15-ounce can pumpkin 
2 cups sifted all purpose flour 
2 teaspoons baking powder 
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 
Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until light and fluffy. 
Stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda.Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix at low speed until thoroughly combined and the batter is smooth. 
Spread the batter into a greased 13x10 inch baking pan.  Bake for 30 minutes. 

Cut into bars.

Chicken + Bacon Mini Meatloaves

It's been a bit since I have gotten into the kitchen and really cooked a meal! In an effort to try and keep the kitchen clean, we have been eating grilled chicken or super easy to prepare meals lately. We had our 6pm showing move up to 4:30 so I was excited to get my hands (and kitchen) dirty!

We had been at the grocery store and I grabbed the key ingredients for this yummy meal, ground chicken breast and bacon! Now how can you go wrong with a recipe that includes bacon? 

I used this Unbelieveable Chicken Meatloaf as a base and switched things up a bit!

1 LB Ground Chicken Breast
1/2 cup Italian Breadcrumbs
1 Egg White
1 large Carrot (lightly steamed)
1/2 Red Onion
1/4 cup ketchup
1 TBSP Garlic Powder
1 TBSP Worchestire  Sauce
1 TSP Steak Spices
1 splash hot sauce
6 slices bacon

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.
Dice the onion and the carrot.
Mix all ingredients (except bacon) in a large bowl.
Form the meat mixture into 6 football shaped balls.
Wrap each ball with a slice of bacon.
Place bacon wrapped balls onto a foil lined cookie sheet.
Bake for 20-25 minutes.

This was a huge hit at our house and I was shocked that Little Man even tried his little mini meatloaf and liked the first bite until it got too "spicy"!