Mini Cherry Pie: Becuase Mini Is Always Better, Right?

So I love cherry pie.  However, I just recently made one myself for the first time.  Holy shit, why didn't somebody tell me it would be so easy?  You can buy the cherry pie filling and some frozen crusts and ta-da you've got a cherry pie!

Well, feeling a sweet craving assault coming on, I decided to make another cherry pie.  After searching all over the kitchen, I couldn't find my pie pan.  NOW WHAT!  Now, I must have cherry pie because I'd already decided I was making one so I had to have one.

By now my crust had sat out and thawed and I was all pouty, but managed to still be creative (ha!).  I grabbed my cupcake pan and started tearing my pie crusts to pieces.  I smooshed the crust into the cupcake pans and spooned in cherry pie filling.  Then I tore apart more crust and smooshed it into the already-there crust and made these teensy little cherry pies.  Needless to say, I was very proud of myself.

I cooked them for the same amount of time as was listed on the pie crust box (which I think was around 12 minutes?) and they turned out to be this beautiful, delicious, masterpiece.  Even my husband was impressed!  They popped out easily and always kept their shape.

I can't say I'd advise eating them simply with your hands, even though my husband and brother didn't use a plate between them.  They may crumble/fall apart or whatever while holding them and taking bites, like you would a cupcake.  So, a plate might be worthwhile.  If you're careful though, you should be fine.

I'd say, this was a majorly delicious success!

Fast Mini Pizzas

 

When creating my Letter P Lesson Plan, I really wanted to make pizza with the kids.  However, I wanted something a little simpler, personal, and relatively quick.  I discovered similar recipes online whole searching for personal pizzas.  We created a class sign up sheet and put it on the door to the classroom.  The response was amazing and I think most of our 13 kids brought in something; whether it was pizza sauce or cheese or toppings.

Each child was allowed to make their own personalized pizza, which was later cooked and served to them.  All the kids were very excited to eat the pizza they made.  The response was so good at school, and I liked the pizzas myself, so I decided to try it at home too.

I do think the pizzas are a little sweet, but I'm not sure if its the sauce I'm buying or the sandwich thins.  The pizzas were a hit at home too.  Gabriel was only interested in helping with one or two and then he left the rest for Talon and I. To be honest, Talon did all the work on the second batch.  Now he's asks me almost every day if there's something he can do to help with supper.  It's too cute!
 

Ingredients

• 8oz Shredded Cheese
• 1 package Pepperoni
• 1 package Sandwich Thins
• 1 jar Pizza Sauce

Instructions 

1. Preheat over to 375 degrees.
2. Use 1/2 a sandwich thin and add pizza sauce, cheese, pepperoni and any other desired toppings.
3. Repeat step 2 for all sandwich thin halves.
4. Bake for approximately 10 minutes or until desire crispiness.

Notes

Each bag makes 16 mini pizzas. You may choose not to use 1/2, but use the whole sandwich thin for a thicker crust. This makes 8 per bag, and serves approximately 2 people.

Find this recipe and more on my ZipList.

Homemade Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes

I love, love, love me some au gratin or scalloped potatoes. Seriously, what is the difference between the two? I need to do some research on that. Anyway, the other night when making steak, I really wasn't sure what I was going to make with it. Mashed potatoes again? No way! But I really wanted potatoes and I really did not want to fry them.

Then BAM, it hit me. Duh! Why not make cheesy potatoes? I had Velveeta cheese, which we all know is amazing...right? What more did I need? I'll admit I cheated and googled them to get approximated cook times. However, I really just kind of winged it, which is what generally happens. I think I just lie the reassurance of seeing someone else's recipe and knowing it really is possible.

The turned out amazing. Even my six year-old commented on how good they were, while insisting us father eat them. I had the hubby's approval, too. He ate what little leftovers we had before I got home from work the next day. Talon cutely announced that he knew my secret ingredient. "What is it?" I asked him. "Cheese!" He declared, and I could only laugh. He surely knows my "secret" ingredient.

Ingredients

• 6 to 8 potatoes (depends on size)
• 8 oz Velveeta cheese (about 1/2 a block & you can afford some give/take on this, depending on preference)
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 to 2 cups shredded cheese (optional)
• Salt
• Pepper

Recipe

Cut potatoes about this thin.

1. Place pot of water on stove to start heating up.
2. Slice potatoes into desired thickness & add to boiling water.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees while potatoes cook
4. Boil for 8 minutes and check every 1 to 2 minutes after until fork tender (not tender enough for mashed potatoes, remember)
5. Cube velveeta cheese for easy melting.
6. Strain potatoes and put on baking dish.
7. Put in milk, velveeta cheese, salt and pepper.
8. Cover and bake for 20 minutes.
9. Stir in 1/2 cup shredded cheese. Add the other 1/2 cup on top.



My Velveeta cheese blocks/slices.

10. Uncover and bake until cheese is melted and potatoes are desired tenderness.

What my taters looked like before the cheese topping!

~ 3 adult servings

Baked Chicken or Turkey Legs

(Pictured:  Turkey Legs)

For once, I left work on time (early even) and came waltzing in the door at 5:58PM. My mood was a little deflated when no one was there to greet me. I can honestly say, that loving, excited "Mom!"--usually followed by a big hug--when I walk through the door makes my heart melt...every time.

Nonetheless, this gave me a little time to get stuff done before the boys came home and demanded my attention. Thankfully, the hubby remembered to pull out meat to thaw. Chicken. I, for one, love fried chicken. However, I hate cooking it. It's time consuming and messy and you just might get grease splattered in your face or start a fire (yeah, I did that once).

Thanks to a little guessing and, possibly, a few random recipes via the Internet, I found an alternative way to cook chicken that I like almost as much; bake it.

Now I don't remember how I used to do it. I only remember that I didn't like it so I didn't really bake chicken unless it was drowning in barbecue. This way is sans barbecue (and the time/mess that comes with it). You can also cook turkey legs like this and probably other stuff I haven't tried. Either way, meat should be falling off the bone by the end.

Ingredients:

Chicken or turkey
Spices of choice

Recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. (You can choose a higher temp if you are impatient like me. I wouldn't go over 400.)
2.  Place chicken in baking dish with about 1 inch of water.
3.  Season the crap out of one side with desired seasonings. (See my favorite seasonings in a later post.)
4.  Either cover dish with lid or, if no lid, use aluminum foil. Place in oven.
5.  When I looks pretty done on the one side, flip it over and season the other side.
6.  I don't like my skin on my chicken all flabby/soft, so I like to remove the aluminum foil (and, if necessary, all/most of the water) and brown each side.
7.  Remove when cooked thoroughly. Chicken falls off the bone.

I hope you enjoyed it! How do you like to cook your chicken?

Holy Hotness Chili

For some reason, I didn't take any pictures of the chili?

For a brief period of time, my sister and now-brother-in-law lived with my husband and I.  Eli, my brother-in-law, likes to walk on the wild side eat on the spicy side.  Therefore, during their stay here, I challenged myself a time or two to make spicier dishes, including spicy (delicious) chicken tacos.  I only remember making chili once, maybe twice, while they lived here and it never was quite up to par with Eli's spicy requirements.

Fate would have it, the eve of their departure, I was tempted to make chili.  Ironically, jalapenos are extremely cheap at my local grocery store.  Unfortunately, everything else is outrageously high.  Tempted by the low price tag, I purchased four jalapenos.  Thus begins the story of the Holy Hotness Chili.

Estimated Prep & Cook Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients & Supplies

• 1lb Hamburger
• 15 oz Hormel Chili
• 4 Jalapenos
• Canned Mushrooms
• 64oz Tomato Juice
• Light and Dark Kidney Beans
• Canned Diced Tomatoes
• Skillet, spatula, soup ladle, pot

How To

1. Brown hamburger in skillet.
2. While browning hamburger, remove the stems from jalapenos and puree in blender.  Adding a little bit of tomato juice to the blender helped this process, for me.
3. In pot, combine all ingredients.  This can be done before, during, and/or after browning hamburger.  The only purpose is to heat all the other ingredients.

I served mine with cornbread, as chili is about the only meal I make cornbread with.

Too Hot for You?

 Turns out, this chili was much different than I anticipated.  This was a learning experience.  I realized, while I loved the hot spiciness all the jalapenos added, I very much dislike the actual flavor of the jalapenos.  Solution?  Sour cream!  It was, actually, very delicious.  I added between 2 and 3 tablespoons of sour cream to my chili and it was the perfect dish!  This is great to know if your family has some that like it very hot and some that prefer a more mild dish.  Thanks to my google research,  I also learned that adding sugar, lemon juice, lime juice, dairy products, and several other ingredients can have the same effect.  Of course, taste will vary depending on which ingredient you decide to add.  For me, sour cream was the perfect choice!

This left lots of leftovers which I have been slowly consuming over the past few days, along with my sour cream.  It's just as good, if not better, the second (or third, or fourth) time around.

Peanut Butter Fudge

 This was only my second time making peanut butter fudge.  Let me tell you, it was a much better experience than the first time I made it.  That might be due to the fact that, this time, I had an actual recipe.  Last time, my husband's grandmother gave me her verbal, vague version.  "Some peanut butter", I pretty sure was one of the things she told me.  Well, unfortunately for me, I wasn't able to figure out how much was "some" and my it ended up tasting more like straight peanut butter than fudge.  BUT now I can successfully make peanut butter fudge. 

I'm usually reluctant to try recipes I've had bad experiences with.  I tend to avoid them until I just have to make them.  In this case, I was dying for something sweet and quick.  I ended up making peanut butter fudge and no bake cookies. 

Estimated Prep & Cook Time:  15 minutes

Cool for an hour or so.

Ingredients & Supplies

•  Pot
• 3/4 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla (optional/replaceable)
• Baking pan or a plate to cool fudge

How To

1. Combine sugar and milk in a pan and bring to a boil.
2. Hold boil for 2.5 minutes.
3. Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter.
4. Pour mix into greased pan and wait for it to cool.

It turned out great!  I'm going to try and reduce the sugar by about a 1/2 cup the next time I make it because it was just a tad sweeter than I'd like it.  Also, I used about a 1/4 cup crunchy peanut butter and 1/2 cup creamy.  I'm very proud of the results and will continue to make fudge as a quick, sweet craving quencher!

Biscuit Pizza

Please excuse the poor quality.  Taken with my iPad.

Today I made what I have dubbed as the Biscuit Pizza.  I saw the recipe over at Mom Spotted, and knew I had to try it!  I wanted to try and combine her recipe and this Spooky Ghost Pizza I found.  However, I didn't have any fresh, sliced Mozzarella for the ghosts.  So, no spooky pizza for us.

I turned down dining out tonight because I was really looking forward to trying the recipe (don't worry, my hubby and I just rescheduled our dinner out for tomorrow evening).  I have tried, in the past, to make homemade pizza, and even homemade pizza rolls.  Neither were very good.  They took so much time and then there was little to no payoff.  Needless to say, my experience making homemade pizza-anything has been a disaster and not very encouraging for future endeavors.

I am so glad I decided to go for it and try this recipe!  My only regret was that I should have used the second can of pizza sauce I purchased.  I like my pizza extra saucy, but I honestly wasn't expecting the biscuit crust to be so successful.  I really hope that this pizza can help to save many more pizza-deficient cooks, like myself!

 Estimated Prep & Cook Time: ~1 hour

Ingredients & Supplies

• Baking pan of choice
• Skillet
• 1 to 2 Cans Pizza Sauce
• 1lb Hamburger
• Refrigerated biscuits (not the flaky kind!)
• 8oz shredded cheese, any kind
• Pepperonis
• Fresh Mushrooms
• Other pizza toppings of choice

How To

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Brown hamburger in skillet
3. While hamburger is browning, open biscuits and place into baking pan
4. When hamburger has finished browning, mix with pizza sauce
5. You can mix in your pepperonis now or add them later.  It doesn't matter.
6. Spread mixture over biscuits.
7. Add cheese on top of that and pop into the oven.
8. Cook in the oven for about 30 minutes.  I set my time for 28 minutes.  You don't want to pull early and have soggy, biscuit crust.  Leave in for this long to ensure your biscuits don't become soggy.
9. Take out, cut, eat.  Enjoy!