Pinterest Recipes!

Okay, I know I'm not the only one out here who is in love with Pinterest. Go on, admit it. Most of you have probably been sucked into the wonderfulness that is Pinterest, as I have. I'm not going to tell you how much time I have spent on there... let's just say, I've been lightly teased for having it pulled up on my laptop in the kitchen while I cook... because I just can't stop! Ha!

I thought it might be fun to share some of the recipes that I have tried that I've found on Pinterest. Seriously I wish I had all the time in the world to make all the stuff I pin... but I don't. They're still fun to collect! I guess it's okay to collect "pins" instead of ... junk in my house. Speaking of which, we have been seriously going through stuff after Christmas and will continue to now that Ben's birthday is just around the corner... so much work!!

Anyway, maybe I'll do this periodically and hopefully you'll post some of the things you've tried out as well! I love getting those "Friend Approved" recipes.

{Lime-Infused Honey-Crusted Chicken}

{Crock Pot Baked Potato Soup}

-- this is what we're eating monday night!

{Crock Pot Chicken, and Rice}

-- we had this last night and it was sooo good.

{Pizza Wraps}

-- I did this for a fellowship meal, and took only one home.

{Crock Pot BBQ Chicken}

-- I have made this several times because it is sooo good!

And that's all I'll do for now! I'll post more another time! Have you tried anything lately?

On The Menu This Week

Thank you, Lisa, for inspiring me with your menu plans! Since making my own menu plans, I have been able to keep more organized with my life and not having to wonder at 5:00 what we’re going to have for dinner. Menu planning also really helps with grocery shopping and keeping that bill as low as possible! So here we go. On the menu this week…

• Chili Dogs. We have some buns we need to use up, and who doesn’t love a good chili dog anyway?
• Porkchops, baked potatoes, and corn. I’m not sure how I’m going to fix the porkchops yet. I will have to figure that out sometime today… one of my favorite websites for recipes is Tablespoon. You can type in your main ingredient and find all sorts of recipes for it!
• Chicken sammiches. We always have something simple on Wednesdays since Wednesday night is Bible Study night.
• Burgers – either just regular burgers or if it sounds good to Hubby, we can do Burger Burritos. If we end up doing this, I’ll be sure to post a recipe on my recipe blog.
• And Friday is Game night at our house, so we asked everyone to bring something we could all share.

That’s the menu for Monday-Friday! I am certainly no chef, but I really have enjoyed being able to be in my own kitchen amongst my own familiar appliances and utensils and all that good stuff. You never realize all you take for granted until you are in a position where you don’t have all that!

Whatcha got cookin'?

So, what did you have for dinner last night? Want to know what I had? I had this:



Want to know how to make it? Well you're in luck! Head on over to my brand spankin' new recipe blog: Hey Good Lookin'! It's shiny and still has that new-blog smell, so head on over and show it some love!

Do you have a recipe blog? I'd love to see it and add it to my blog roll over there! Or, if you don't have one of your own, do you have any that you really love?

I hope you all have a fantastic Friday! I am about to head into the kitchen to make a cake for our dinner party tomorrow night! Keep an eye on that recipe blog! My cake will surely be seen over there!

Nun's Puffs

I got bored yesterday and decided that I would bake something. This is possibly a bad habit to get into. Baking when bored. Especially as most of what I bake probably aren't the best things to eat when you're trying to lose weight or shape up. Anyway, I pulled out my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and found a really simple and easy recipe. Would you like to know how to make this?:



yum. It's called "Nun's Puffs".

And here's what you'll need:

1/2 Cup Butter
1 Cup milk
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
4 eggs
1 tablespoon sugar
Honey (optional)

And here's what you do:

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Generously grease twelve 2 1/2-in muffin cups, including the edge and around the top of each cup (I used Baking Pam); set aside. In a medium saucepan, melt butter; add milk. Bring to boiling. Add flour all at once, stirring vigorously. Cook and stir until mixture forms a ball that does not separate. Remove from heat; cool for 5 minutes.



2. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for 1 minute with a wooden spoon after each addition or until smooth. Divide dough evenly among prepared muffin cups, filling cups about two-thirds full; sprinkle with sugar.



3. Bake about 30 minutes or until golden brown and puffy. Remove from pan. Serve immediately. If desired, serve with honey.



And you bet that honey was desired. Well, for Hubby's. We ran out of honey so I put syrup on mine and it was fantastic. You can just see the honey dripping off of that puff... oh yes, I went there.

Mine turned out tasting rather eggy, so I think these would be absolutely glorious for breakfast.



Mmmmm....

_______________

Oh, and just so you know. I'm absolutely PUMPED because sometime next week we will be getting new floors in our kitchen and so no more getting down and scrubbing nasty linoleum. I'm so excited!!

Happy Weekend!

Benjamin's Waffles

I am taking a [well-deserved] break from my laundry endeavors to ask you if you like waffles.

So? Do you like waffles?! I love waffles! I used to eat the Eggo Waffles nearly every day! And for Christmas I received a waffle iron of my own, so not too long ago, we decided we'd give it a go. One of our favorite things to have for dinner is breakfast. So easy and inexpensive, and who doesn't love stuff drenched in syrup?! Yeah, that's what I thought!

Of course, Benjamin can't eat regular waffles as he is allergic to eggs. We like to make things that he can eat with us, since we all eat at the same time and Benjamin likes to do that little number where he reaches and oops! His hand just so happens to land in your plate, and he may as well go ahead and grab what he's touched. It always reminds me of the typical guy in the movie theater with his girlfriend, the yawn and stretch and oops! My arm's around your shoulders!

Anyway. I tried to do waffles from my eggless baking book, but that didn't end so pretty. Instead, I just took a regular waffle recipe and switched it up a bit so Benjamin could eat it.

We can call these "Benjamin's Waffles".

This is what you'll need:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup applesauce (substituting the eggs)
1 3/4 cups milk
1/2 cup oil or butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Mix it all together.
2. Pour it onto your waffle grids. I used I think a cup of batter for each grid. Don't forget to use Pam on there, or your waffles may stick and be a real pain to get up.
3. Close the lid, and wait. I suppose it depends on what sort of waffle iron you use, but ours were done with the steam stopped coming out of the sides.
4. Take 'em off.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 until you've used up your batter...
6. Serve warm with butter and syrup if you'd like! You can even toss some fruit on there!




Of course, Ben's did not have syrup or anything on it. He ate his plain. But he still liked it! They tasted sort of like vanilla wafers.

Ta-da!

And, this is what Benjamin did while we cooked up brinner/deakfast!







Looks like we've got a future Neil Peart on our hands! :)

Good food, good fun! Happy Friday!

Mexican Fiesta Soup!

Despite the fact that I am an absolute terror in the kitchen, I have really felt the desire to cook lately. Usually hubby is the cook in our family, which is wonderful because he enjoys it and usually I don't. However, last night I asked if I could make the spaghetti and today I took it upon myself to cook the mexican fiesta soup that we will be having at our Lost party! I wanted to go ahead and share the recipe with you because it is so easy and so inexpensive and SO yummy!

This is what you'll need:



Your crock pot!



One can each of the following:
Pinto Beans
Black Beans
White Corn
Golden Corn
Rotel

Fritos
Sour cream (optional)
Cheese (optional)
And 1lb of ground beef, though we used ground turkey this time (for the first time)

Start off by browning your turkey or beef, whichever you prefer, in a pan. Make sure it's good and brown. I added a little bit of homemade taco seasoning just for a bit of taste, but you can leave that out. After all that is done, drain it, and open up your cans and dump it all in your crock pot. You can leave out the fifteen to thirty minutes I spent wrestling with two can openers, dumping corn juice on the floor, splashing myself with the juice... ahem... like I said, I am a total wreck in the kitchen.



Let it heat up for a while in your crock pot. We like to serve ours on top of Fritos. I put cheese on mine and Hubby puts cheese and sour cream.

Voila! Enjoy! And let me know what you think if you decide to try it out!

Perfect Chocolate Cupcakes, without the eggs!

When we found out that Benjamin had egg allergies, I was very concerned about how I was going to let him have a typical birthday party and allow him to have his own cake (cupcake) to enjoy. I knew that people did have recipes without eggs in them and with substitutes such as applesauce or bananas. But I really didn't want to use those ingredients, and I didn't know where to start. That is, until a good friend sent me a cookbook for my birthday: Bakin' Without Eggs. The perfect cupcake recipe was therein, and now I am going to share it with you! Aren't you excited?!



Perfect Chocolate Cupcakes

Cake Batter Ingredients
1 2/3 Cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 cup sour cream or no-fat sour cream (I just used regular)
1/2 cup oil or apple juice (I used oil)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup club soda

Frosting Ingredients
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup margarine, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk



1. Preheat oven to 350*F. Lightly butter 12-cup (4-ounce) muffin pan. (I used cupcake cups)
2. To prepare cake: In a large bowl, with a handheld electric mixer set on medium speed, beat flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, sour cream, oil or apple juice, vanilla, and club soda for 3 minutes or until completely mixed.
3. In prepared pan, fill 12 muffin cups 3/4 full. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Cool on wire rack approximately 20 minutes before removing from pan.
4. To prepare frosting: Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, beat together confectioners' sugar, cocoa, margarine, vanilla, and milk with a handheld electric mixer set on medium speed for 3 minutes or until creamy. Frost cupcakes.



Notes: Extra frosting will keep in refrigerator up to 2 weeks; This cupcake will also freeze well, and the frosting is perfect!

The book says that it will make up to 12 cupcakes, but we were able to get 23 out of this recipe! And they were very, very good!



Enjoy!

a [few] word[s] of advice!

When life gives you
12 lemons
10-12 tbs of sugar
and 12 cups of water:


prepare to make an amazing beverage! (but you don't have to drink it out of a baby bottle!)



squeeze those lemons!



forget about your unwashed, post-nap hair and let your hubby take pictures - how often do you make homemade lemonade anyway?!



put elbow grease into it!



mix everything together in a beautiful pitcher/sun tea jar (this one was $5 at Walmart)...



Then blog about it!


Happy 4th of July!

Millions of Peaches...

Today was THE day. We went to the Georgia Peach Festival (which had been going on for a week already) in the town that we live in, Fort Valley, Georgia. We were there for one reason, and one reason alone: The World's Largest Peach Cobbler. We are in the book of records, no kidding.

Anyway, we walked around because we got there an hour before it was served. It was so hot. I almost called it quits. I'm not a huge cobbler-eater, anyway (I know, I know, what kind of Southern Girl am I? Would you believe that I have never eaten Apple Pie?). So I'm thinking what cobbler is worth standing in the heat for? We got in line 20 minutes before they served it. This is what we stood behind:



It was hot. There was barely any shade. Oh man.

The line got moving once they started serving. We finally got a glimpse of the legendary dessert:







Huge, I know. And is it supposed to look like that? I don't know. Like I said, I am not a huge cobbler fan. Haha. "Huge" Cobbler. I didn't do that on purpose.

Moving on.

So here's what it looked like in the bowls:



It didn't taste bad, really. I mean I didn't eat my bowl completely. But it wasn't bad.

Here are some more pictures from the festival.


Benjamin. Waaay too hot for the baby carrier.


We didn't have cash on us, so we bought nothing (ugh!).



And sadly that is all we took (besides at the birthday party we went to.... I will share those pictures later on. I don't want to break the Peach Festival mood just yet).

I know you are wondering how in the world you can make a giant peach cobbler! Don't worry your minds too much about googling this gigantic recipe! I have it right here!

WORLD'S LARGEST PEACH COBBLER
75 Gallons slice fresh Georgia Peaches
150 pounds of self-rising flour
150 pounds of sugar
32 gallons of milk
90 pounds of butter
Divide self-rising flour, sugar and milk into six equal parts and pour into six clean trashcans. Mix thoroughly with clean boat paddle. Sizzle 90 pounds of butter in a 5 ft. x 11 ft. baking pan six inches deep. Pour in batter then add 75 gallons of sliced peaches. Bake at 350 degrees for about four hours until golden brown. If you can't get fresh or fresh frozen peaches, you better be prepared to open a lot of giant cans of peaches.


Seriously folks, that is the recipe. Yes, you saw correctly. Trashcans. Boat paddle. Yes.

But, if you're not entertaining quite that large a crowd, or if you don't plan on eating peach cobbler for the next five years, try this recipe:

QUICK AND EASY PEACH COBBLER
2 cups sliced fresh Georgia peaches
1 cup self-rising flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1 stick of butter
Mix together 1 cup self-rising flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Melt butter in microwave oven and pour into empty disposable baking pan. Be sure butter is sizzling and then add batter mixture and top with fresh peaches. Bake at 350 until golden brown. If you can't get fresh or frozen peaches, use one large can of Georgia peaches.


There you have it. If you need more peach recipes, visit www.GAPeachFestival.com.

Hope you all had a blessed Saturday!

Oh, and the title is for my husband. He keeps up with this. :)