Easy Cheesy Chicken Muffins

These are so yummy and even great eaten cold!

Ingredients:

• 1 can Pillsbury dough (I used the kind that you have to cut- you can use Crescent Rolls or Puff Pastry as well)
• 1-2 cups Shredded Chicken (I used an already cooked rotisserie chicken)
• 3/4 cup Cream Cheese
• 1 tablespoon Dried or Fresh Chopped Onion (optional)
• 1/2 Finely Diced Red Pepper
• 2 Tablespoons Milk
• 1/4 tsp Dried Thyme
• Salt & Pepper to Taste
• 1 Tablespoon Parmesan Cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl.
3. Cut dough into squares and place in muffin tin that has been covered with cooking spray.
4. Put a large spoonful of mixture inside and seal by twisting the top shut.
5. Spray or brush with butter sprinkle parmesan cheese and thyme on top.
6. Bake for 20 minutes.

Homemade Butter

Cold and rainy days mean staying indoors. Unfortunately, that makes some of us a little stir crazy. So I’m always on the lookout for fun activities for my little ones that might just happen to also provide a little teaching along the way. Recently we made homemade butter. Stuart looked at me funny when I told him this. “You did what?” Yep, homemade butter.

I talked to Nicholas a little bit about how butter is made. I explained that basically you start with heavy cream and mix it up until it becomes butter. The cream is full of little fat globules but they are all separate and lonely. Once the mixing starts, fat globule Bob bumps into fat globule Joe and they become friends so they stick together. As more mixing happens, they bump into fat globule Mike and fat globule Tom and they all decide to stick together. The little group of friends keep bumping into more fat globules until everyone is stuck together and they have a big party. And then you have butter. Nicholas loved the story and couldn’t wait to start mixing up some cream.

We do have this cool antique churn that we could have used.

But it just sits on top of our kitchen cabinets. It’s gotten a bit dirty and dusty over the years and I don’t really know if I could ever clean those wooden paddles enough to feel good about eating anything made with them. However, it was neat to be able to show this to Nicholas and explain how it was used in olden days.

Our project was a bit different. All we used were some clean baby food jars, a few glass marbles, heavy whipping cream, music, and manpower.

Nicholas started with filling the jars about 3/4 full of cream.

He added two marbles to help with mixing and put the lid on. I double checked to make sure that the lid was on REALLY tight. Then we put on some fun music and we danced around while we shaking the jars. It doesn’t really matter how you shake them or how hard you shake them but you need to keep them moving.

It’s best to do this with two people so you can trade off and let your arm rest. After 5 minutes, he had a nice whipped topping.

Then around 10 minutes, we could hear a more distinct “thud” sound as a ball of butter was now shaking around in the jar. There was still a lot of liquid that we drained off but in the end we had real butter. It tasted fine right out of the jar but we added a pinch of salt just to make it better.

It was yummy on crackers for an after school snack. Nicholas suggested that we should have repeated our homemade cracker project so we could have had homemade butter AND homemade crackers. Great idea but I recall that I wasn’t too impressed with our homemade crackers. I think I’ll stick with store bought crackers but the homemade butter is a winner.

Snails Cute Enough To Eat

Today was my day to bring snacks for Nicholas’ class. I always have fun making special snacks for the class. This time I made little breadstick snails.

I used a package of refrigerated breadstick dough and unrolled them as usual. I brushed them with melted butter then rolled up one end so that it made the spiral of the shell then I tucked the other end under to make the head. Then I took some slivers from a carrot to use for antennae. I also included some marinara sauce for dipping.

The kids loved it.

They had fun playing with their snails. Did you know that snails can talk? Apparently these can! What I like best is that they all got a healthy dose of vegetables from the marinara sauce and they didn’t even know it was good for them!

The Cost of Convenience

I love the idea of making my own baby food for Rachel. It doesn’t sound like a lot of work. Just cook some foods, blend them up into a puree, and freeze them until I need them. I can control what goes into them (and what doesn’t) and I can be sure to use organic produce on those few items that I feel it’s important to spend the extra money. It all sounds wonderful.

Except for the fact that I’m already stressed to a breaking point trying to do more than I have time for each day.

Not only am I doing well to just get both kids fed some mornings, I rarely have time to eat breakfast myself because I’m juggling too many other things and putting out fires here and there. So the idea of adding one more thing on my “to do” list like making my own baby food just doesn’t sound like a good idea at this time. So Gerber baby food it is…

I go to the grocery store every few days for something. Not big shopping trips but we always run out of something like milk or bread or baby food between the big shopping trips so I end up going several times a week. I always try to buy a few more jars of baby food each time I go since we go through about 6-8 jars a day. It’s not always easy taking two little children shopping though. As a matter of fact, it can really make the trip rather exhausting. So I’ve avoided going for a few days knowing we would be fine without this or that for another day or two. But this weekend completely ran out of baby food. I didn’t need anything else so I decided to stock up on it so I wouldn’t have to go back in a few days to buy more.

I came home with a nice stock of baby food. But instead of working a few jars here and there into my grocery budget, I saw just how much baby food by itself really costs. Can you believe this trip for just baby food cost me $43.00?! Wow, that’s a lot of money for about a gallon of pureed food. With all that I manage to get done each day, I really like having a few conveniences that I don’t have to worry about like little baby food jars that are already prepared, that I can just pop open and feed to Rachel as needed.

But as I take a look at how much this convenience is costing us, maybe I need to reconsider pureeing my own food for her. Now if only I could find a way to add an extra hour to every day…

Spaghetti and Eyeballs…Oops, I Mean Meatballs

I made spaghetti and eyeballs for dinner. Take your basic meatball recipe and add pimento-stuffed olives for eyeballs before baking.

Arrange on a plate and add a sliver of carrot for a tongue. Shriek!!

Spaghetti and meatballs has always been one of Nicholas’ most favorite foods so he had lots of fun eating this

Fee Fi Fo Fum!

They said it couldn’t be done. They said they were perfect as they were. How can you improve upon perfection? But Frito-Lay did it. They have created a giant and he’s on the loose. Fee Fi Fo Fum! I smell some cheesiness and I want some!

What am I talking about?? GIANT CHEETOS!!

We love our “salty snacks”. Yes, that’s the politically correct term in the snack food world, not Junk Food as I’ve always called them. Either way, we love them. And it’s super neat when Stuart brings home surprises like this from the company store because they often get these goodies before they are readily available in grocery stores. Go out and get ya some!

Reindeer Food

Sprinkle on the lawn at night

The moon will make it sparkle bright

Santa’s reindeer fly and roam

This will guide them to your home.

Last year one of Ryan’s friends sent home reindeer food as a gift to classmates.  I thought it was a really creative and fun gift.

The reindeer food was packaged in little baggies tied with ribbon.  Each bag had this little poem, and a mixture of raw rolled oats and glitter.

When Christmas eve arrived we chose what we thought to be the best place to land reindeer in our yard.  It turned out to be below the boys’ bedroom window.  The boys vowed to stay up all night and watch for Santa’s landing…

What I Crave: Avocado-Banana Salad

I’ve always said that I’d try any food once, which is how I’ve managed to eat things like pig intestine (gross), duck blood soup (gross) and fried chicken feet (surprisingly good). Then there are other foods that I just think are weird, like tomato-flavored Jello (why!?), and peanut butter, tomato and bacon sandwiches (in all fairness, I’ve managed to evade this so far – I like my peanut butter with fruit (plum jam, please), and my bacon with lettuce and tomato – though I’m guessing I’ll try one soon enough).

When my in-laws visited last month, Roger asked his mom to make one of his favorite childhood dishes: Avocado-Banana Salad. I wrinkled my nose at the pairing, but agreed to give it a try. Then I took a second spoonful. And now I’ve spent the past month making this salad, because neither Roger nor I can get enough.

If you’re searching for a unique side dish to serve at a holiday meal or to bring to a friend’s potluck, look no further. This dish uses only five ingredients and there’s no cooking involved, so it’s perfect if you’re short on time but want to deliver high on expectations. Avocado-Banana Salad is beyond creamy, a favorite among children and adults (in our family, anyway!), and is deliciously tangy and sweet. And maybe that’s my favorite part about this side dish – it could also pass as a dessert.

Avocado-Banana Salad

Ingredients
1 avocado, diced
1 banana, diced
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp cream (you can also use half-and-half, or probably even milk, but I use cream)

Instructions
1. Add diced avocado and banana to a bowl.
2. Measure lime juice, sugar and cream into the bowl.
3. Mix ingredients together gently.
4. Serve immediately.

Serves 2

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Jes loves to cook, though that’s been happening less frequently since she gave birth [to the most adorable little girl ever, ahem]. That’s why she likes this recipe: It only requires her to dice and stir. See what else is cooking at her blog, Chirky.com.

Amy’s Grandma Chunkie’s Chocolate Pie

My favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner is homemade pies. YUM! My all time favorite is my Great-Grandma Chunkie’s Chocolate Pie. Grandma Chunkie (real name Lilly Maybell) was a little spitfire. She had purplish pink (sometimes blue!) hair and always made you laugh. She also made THE best pies! Usually for our Thanksgiving dinners, we would have about 3 pumpkin pies along with banana, lemon and chocolate. She made me my own mini chocolate pie. A tradition, I have started with my kids, because we all know pumpkin pie is totally gross when you’re a kid!

For all you chocoholics, this pie is a must! Here’s the recipe that she wrote on a small piece of paper:

Grandma Chunkie’s Easy to Make Rich & Creamy Chocolate Pie

• One large Hershey Candy Bar (milk chocolate) 8 oz (now I get 2 large chocolate bars)

• 18 large marshmallows cut up

• 1/2 cup sweet milk (I just use regular milk)

• 18 oz. Cool Whip

• Melt Candy bar and marshmallows in milk over low fire until smooth. Cool.

• Add 1-9 oz Cool Whip into chocolate mixture

• Pour into baked pie shell and keep cool until ready to serve.

Don’t forget to spoon a large helping of Cool Whip on your slice of pie! (I like to add chocolate sprinkles too)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Spicing up the leftovers

Leftover turkey casseroles can be such a drag.  Why not take that dark meat that you know you don’t really want to eat– and spice it up with a little help from your neighbors to the east?

That’s right.  Leftover turkey makes a fantastic base for good ol’ southern jambalaya.  It disguises that old-turkey taste and makes a nice change from the same old recipes you pull out every year.  Better still, it tastes wonderful!  In fact, I’ve been known to buy turkeys off-season partly so I’d have leftovers to use in jambalaya.  (Total truth.)

Here’s a version which is much healthier than the “authentic” thing (yeah, I know it’s supposed to clog your arteries, but I’m too much of  a health nut to go completely traditional), but tastes just as good.  I can’t promise your mouth won’t be on fire, but I can promise you one thing: you’ll love it.

Step 1: Make the Cajun spice mix. Mix spices together and set aside.

• 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
• 1 1/2 tsp. white pepper (trust me, it makes a difference)
• 1 tsp. ground black pepper
• 2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. thyme
• 1 tsp. sage
• 1/2 tsp. basil

Step 2: Cook the sausage and vegetables. Starting with the sausage, saute sausage and vegetables until vegetables tender.

• 1/2 Tbsp melted butter
• 1 c. diced andouille sausage (if you can’t find it locally, substitute another smoked sausage)
• 1 c. diced onion
• 1 c. diced green pepper
• 1 c. diced celery

Step 3: Add the tomatoes. Stir in, cooking for 2 minutes.

• 2 c. drained diced canned tomatoes

Step 4: Add the rice. Add and cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

• 1 c. raw (uncooked) rice

Step 5: Add the turkey and a bunch more ingredients. Stir in, and cook 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

• 2 1/2 c. chicken stock
• 2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 3-4 Tbsp.  minced garlic
• 1 – 5 tsp.  Cajun spice mix (see above).  Start out small, adding more if you need it– it can get spicy pretty fast!
• 2 c. chopped cooked chicken or turkey

Step 6: Add the last few ingredients. Stir in and continue cooking, stirring frequently, until rice is tender.  You may need to add more liquid if it starts getting dry.

• 2 c. small shrimp (raw or cooked, and you can leave them out if you hate seafood, but it’s much better with them in!)
• 1/4 c. finely chopped parsley
• 1/4 c. finely chopped green onions

Serve in bowls with fresh French bread and a green salad…and let the good times roll!

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