Homemade Marshmallows

For one of our Easter Treats I made homemade marshmallows!  I know Easter has come and gone, but these are something you can do for any holiday.  You can add different flavored extracts to them, or food coloring, or use themed cookie cutters.

Not a very good picture.  This was all that was left of them!

I chose to do mine in the traditional vanilla flavoring and used mini Easter themed cookie cutters to cut out the shapes.  I then dipped them into milk chocolate. 

Ingredients: Gelatin, vanilla, light corn syrup, sugar, nonstick spray, chocolate (optional)



You can get the full recipe here.  Please read it for instructions.  I just wanted to share my tips while making these.

1. The Marshmallows set very fast.  Be prepared to work very quickly.  I felt like I was going at a fairly fast pace and mine were still bumpy. 

2.  Use a smaller pan.  When spreading your marshmallows onto the cookie sheet, I'd use a smaller size than recommended.  I didn't even get my marshmallows all spread out on the pan (because they dried too fast) and I felt they were too thin.  I'm almost wondering if two 8x8 pan would work best. 


3.  They need to dry 24 hours.  The recipe says you can cut them starting at about 3 hours, but I really feel they need to stay out overnight. 

4.  I didn't have any problems with coating them in chocolate.  I let mine sit in the pan for 24 hours before I cut them.  This probably helped them stand up to the hot chocolate. 

5.  Easy with the cooking spray.  This mostly applies to spraying your cookie cutters.  I felt like I kept putting too much spray on them (gross!). I finally ditched the cooking spray and just wiggled the cookie cutter back and forth and it worked just fine.


I really look forward to making these again.  This was the first time I have really done any candy making.  I definitely plan on making some peppermint flavored marshmallows for Christmas! 

If you like Marshmallows you might like these!

Jillian Michael's Fudge Brownies

I'm a sucker for anything chocolate and I love me some brownies!  I decided to try Jillian Michael's Fudge Brownies. 

You can find her recipe here if you'd like to try it, too. 

These brownies were good, but not the best "healthy" brownies out there.  My favorite "healthy" brownies are the Double Chocolate Walnut Brownies from Elana's Pantry. 

While Jillian Micheal's brownies are good, the honey flavor in it is definitely very noticeable in the finished brownie.  I even used a clover honey like she recommend in her recipe.  I like really chocolatey brownies, and these didn't quite hit that mark. 

A couple of positives: they were really moist (which I love) and the ingredients call for items you probably have on hand.  For these reasons I would make them again, but probably not for company. 


Do you have any "healthy" brownie recipes that are yummy?  Share them in the comment section below!

Related posts:
Chocolate Avocado Mousse

Overnight Oats

I've been having a great time preparing make-ahead breakfasts!  It's sooo nice to have something already made for those busy mornings!

My recipe for Overnight Oats is really easy to make before we go to bed at night.  There are soo many ways to prepare it, you can really use whatever you have on hand.

Overnight Oats

1/2 C Old Fashioned Oats

1/2 C, plus 2 Tbsp  Milk, or Almond Milk (I found, for me, 1/2 was too dry, so an added two Tbsp made it perfect.  Play around with it until you find your desired consistency.)

1/2 tsp Agave

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Put all of your ingredients into a bowl, stir, cover.  Refrigerate overnight.  Enjoy the next morning!  You can add fresh fruit and berries to it, or probably even dried fruit.  I add protein powder to The Hub's and mine if I'm going to the gym right after.  You can, of course, add more or less sweetener and easily double this recipe. 

Aww cute...I make the oats for the three of us!

Do you have any favorite make ahead breakfast recipes?  I'd love to hear them! Share them in the comments!

For some other great make ahead breakfasts, check these out:
Breakfast Sammies
Pumpkin Steel-Cut Oats

Baileys Shamrock Cookies

Happy Sunday!

I usually like to post healthier desserts on my blog.  I love me some sweets, but I usually don't want to completely blow my diet while The Hubs and I are just hanging out watching movies. 

But......there are special occasions where you don't mind making something a little less healthy.  St. Patties Day is just that kind of special occasion.  You've got your corned beef, green beer and....Bailey's Shamrock Cookies!

 

 
I volunteered to make cookies for The Hubs work.  Last year I made Stout Cupcakes for all the guys, and this year I decided to make the Bailey's Shamrock Cookies.


The Recipe:
You can get the cookie recipe here.  The recipe turned out super yummy:  they came out very soft and moist.  I was really very pleased with the cookie itself. 

A couple notes about the cookie dough:  before I put it in the refrigerator it was really sticky and didn't hold up together.  I refrigerated mine overnight and it was very workable the next day.  You could, of course, add green food coloring to the cookies, but I left mine plain. 

Icing:  
I created my own Bailey's Powdered Sugar Icing because I felt the cookies could handle the extra Bailey's flavor. 

-  2 Cups Powered Sugar, sifted
-  3 Tablespoons Bailey's Irish Cream
-  3 Tablespoons Milk *
-  1/2 teaspoon Vanilla
-  Green Food Coloring

*  Add the Bailey's Irish Cream to the powered sugar first and mix well.  Add milk one tablespoon at a time while mixing until you get the desired consistency.   Mix in the rest of ingredients.

Decorating:
I am by no means the best decorator on earth, but I learned a few new tricks thanks to my good friend Tabitha from Simply My Kitchen who showed me how to decorate cookies. 

1.  Start by outlining all of your cookies.  Use half of your icing to fill a pastry bag or ziplock bag.  (Reserve the rest to fill your cookies)
2.  Outline all of your your cookies.  You want the outline of your cookie to dry before you flood it with the rest of the icing.

3.  Water down the reserved icing.  Water it down by adding more milk until the consistency is pretty runny.  Test the consistency by picking up some icing with a spoon and letting it drizzle back into the bowl.  You'll want to see the drizzle disappear back into the bowl within 10 seconds. 

4.  You can fill another ziplock bag, pastry bag, or a squeeze bottle with the runny icing.  I ended up finding a spoon worked the best.  It was soo runny that anytime i dumped the pastry bag or the ziplock back over it would run out too fast and make a mess. 

5.  Spoon some of the runny frosting onto the cookie and use a toothpick to help spread the frosting around on the cookie.

Ta-da! Here is your final cookie:

I'm going to try to wrap them up before I send them to work with The Hubs.  There are a lot of cookies, though: about 70 (I made two batches) so I may not.  That's a lot of cookies! 


Have you found any fun Saint Patrick's day food?  If so, share them with me!  I'm always looking for something new to add to our Saint Patrick's Day Celebration!  

disclosure:  People usually say you "bake off" the alcohol when you're using it in baked good.  There is "unbaked" Bailey's Irish Cream in the frosting.  I believe these cookies are more appropriate for adults.  If you wish to make these alcohol free you might be able to substitute the Bailey's Irish Cream for liquid coffeemate, or just make regular  sugar cookies with regular green frosting for children. 

Fast Breakfast: Pumpkin Steel Cut Oats

Good morning!  I wanted to share a recipe I sometimes make for our family:  Pumpkin Steel Cut Oats.  I found this recipe from Biochemestia (she's studying to become a PA and posts a lot of healthy recipes)

This is definitely a recipe I would make the night before going to the gym or if we had a busy day planned.  Not much mess to clean up, and breakfast is served as soon as you wake up!

I altered her recipe just slightly:

1 1/4 cup steal cut oats

1 can pumpkin (pure pumpkin, not canned pie filling)

3 cups water

2 cups Milk (I've even used Almond Milk)

1 t cinnamon

1/2 t nutmeg

2 pinches sea salt

Sweetener (Use maple syrup, or Sucanat, or brown sugar) 

Instructions:  Mix all your wet ingredients together.  Then add your Steel Cut Oats and mix until combined.  I usually add my sucanat in the morning to my own bowl. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.  If it's too dry in the morning, mix in a cup of water. (I've never had a problem with it being to dry)

I love this recipe because it's super easy.  You basically dump all the ingredients into your crockpot the night before, set it on low for 6-8 hours and wa-la!  A warm, healthy breakfast in the morning!  Plus, there are some great health benefits to eating steel cut oats and pumpkin!

This is what Steel Cut Oats look like

Steel Cut Oats:  Are considered a "power food" because of their excellent source of protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals such as iron and calcium.   (read more at livestrong.com)

Pumpkin:  Helps with Diabetes prevention (it increases insulin, which lowers your blood sugar) as well as heart and cancer protection.  It also contains fiber, antioxidant vitamins A, C and E, B-vitamins and minerals such as calcium, potassium and phosphorous.  (read more at livestrong.com)

Her recipe makes a lot of oatmeal.  You can reheat the leftovers the next day, or throw it in a smoothie. 

Chocolate Souffles

Happy Sunday!

I apologize for getting these Sunday dessert posts out so late. I need to get it together!

Anyhow....our Sunday dessert for this week: Mini Chocolate Souffles.  The recipe comes from Oxygen Magazine. 

The recipe calls for: unsweetened cocoa, white wheat flour, low-fat milk, honey, vanilla extract, egg whites and cream of tarter.

I had to slightly alter the recipe because I didn't buy low-fat milk last week.  My options were Little Man's whole milk, or almond milk.  Since using the whole milk kind of defeats the purpose of a healthy dessert, I opted for the almond milk.  I also didn't have white wheat flour on hand, and I didn't want to buy any since the recipe called for a tablespoon and a half.  I used regular whole wheat flour instead. 

This recipe was really easy to make (see the recipe for full details)

Unfortunately ours really didn't come out very well.  They had a very nice rise to them, but they were really under cooked.  I even cooked the second batch at a higher temperature and for longer.  It still tasted yummy, but it was definatly under done.  I'm wondering if this has to do with the almond milk instead of the regular milk.  I've never cooked with almond milk before, so I have no idea.  The Hubs and I still devoured them :D

The recipe got really good reviews on the website , so it might just be the way I made them.  

I guess the lesson of the day is that sometimes it's okay to swap ingredients, and sometimes you just shouldn't. 

If anyone else tries this recipe and it comes out right, let me know.  I'll probably try it again with regular milk just to see if that makes the difference.  I'll let you all know when I try it again. 

Sweet Sunday: Balsamic Strawberries with Ricotta Cream

Happy Sunday!

Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!  This weekend's Sweet Stuff Sunday's desert is Balsamic Strawberries with Ricotta Cream from Ellie Krieger. I love most everything I've tried of Ellie Krieger's recipes.  She does a great job creating her recipes: she keeps them pretty healthy and pretty yummy :D She was on the Cooking Channel, although I'm not sure if she is currently (we don't have cable).  She also has a few cookbooks, I believe. 



Click on the link for the full instructions, but the recipe calls for:  Part-skim Ricotta cheese, honey, strawberries, balsamic vinegar, and sugar.  It's super easy to make. 

I've made this recipe a few times for The Hubs and me and some of our guests.  We've gotten pretty positive response from it, but if you are a person who is weird on textures, I'd skip it.  Because it's made with ricotta, it's a little on the gritty side. The Balsamic Strawberries, are very yummy, though.  I could eat a whole bowl of them!  My Mother-In-Law made a great suggestion that the strawberries might be good over marscapone in place of the riccotta.  That was a great idea and would definitely give this dish a smoother texture. 


Hope you enjoyed!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend! 

Breakfast Smoothie

I know on Sundays I usually do a dessert....but I forgot to purchase one of the ingredients for the dessert I was going to do.  hehe  So today I'll share my breakfast smoothie.  I have a really difficult time wanting to eat anything solid in the morning but I usually wake up thirsty - so this works for me. 

My Green Smoothie

I really thrown anything and everything into a blender.  When I say anything, I mean anything: spinach, olive oil, avocado, oatmeal, pumpkin, you name it!  It really depends on what I have in the house.  

Here is the recipe I typically use for my Green Smoothie
-  8 oz milk (you can also use soy, coconut milk, or almond milk.  I have used water in a pinch)
-  1 Scoop Protein Powder (or a 1/2 C plain, nonfat yogurt)
-  1 Banana
-  Heaping handful of raw green spinach (Sounds really icky - but you can't taste it at all)
-  2 tbsp Flaxseed meal (optional) *
-  2 tbsp wheatgerm (optional)
-  1-2 Tbsp olive oil, or coconut oil, or peanut butter (the oils sound really gross, but you can't taste them, I promise.  The oil is really good for absorbing nutrients) 
-  Ice.  However much you like: I usually add a pretty big cupful

Pour your liquid in first and pile everything else in.  Blend until it's a smooth consistency.  If you need it thicker, add more spinach or more banana.  If you need it thinner add more liquid.

*Flax seed is an awesome additive to put in your smoothie...it's very fibrous and will make you have to go to the bathroom.  If you're new to flax seed, start with a teaspoon and work your way up.

Hope you enjoy this recipe.  I'll try to post a few of my other recipes up here since I usually have a least one smoothie a day. 

Enjoy your Sunday!

English Muffin Recipe

The Hubs works soo hard to provide for our family that I decided it would be nice to make him some homemade Breakfast Sammies that he can pull out of the freezer each morning before he goes to work.

I started out first by making the English Muffins from scratch.  This worked well for me because I had all the ingredients on hand and didn't have to go out and buy anything.  I haven't worked out the price per muffin yet, but they're super inexpensive to make.  I slightly altered both the ingredients and the directions from the original recipe which can be found here.  

Ingredients

1 cup milk, 2 tablespoons white sugar, 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast (=2.5 teaspoons), 1 cup warm water, 1/4 cup melted butter, 5 1/2 c all purpose flour, 1 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1.  Warm milk on the stovetop until it starts to bubble.  Remove from heat.

2.  Mix warm water, yeast and sugar together.  Let stand for 10 minutes.

3.  In a large bowl combine 3 cups of flour, warm milk, butter, and yeast mixture until combined.  I used my KitchenAid with the dough hook for this.

4.  Add remaining flour and continue to combine until it is well blended.

5.  Put dough into a greased bowl and cover with a towel.  Allow to sit for about an hour. 

This is what mine looked like after it sat for an hour.  It's kind of hard to tell but it did rise quite a bit.

6.  Punch dough and roll out to about a half inch thick.

7.  Use biscuit cutter or glass jar to cut out into circles

8.  Original recipe says to coat with corn meal and allow to sit on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper for 30 minutes.  I didn't have corn meal, so I just let them sit there. They will puff up while they're sitting there.

9.  Heat a greased griddle.  Cook on low until they're cooked through and slightly browned on the outside.  

The first batch I may have slightly undercooked while on the stove top because I had the stovetop set to medium and the outsides cooked a lot faster than the insides.  This caused there to be less nooks and cranny.  The second time I made them I let them cook slower on medium and they came out better. 

To make the egg mixture and for the breakfast sammie, I pretty much used the recipe located here.  Check it out!  It's a genius way to make the eggs a perfect size to put on your breakfast sammie.  My good friend Tabitha told me how she scrambles up the eggs and adds breakfast meats and other veggies to the eggs before baking in the muffin tins.  This is an awesome idea as The Hubs is a huge fan of bacon or sausage in his breakfast sammies.  Thanks for sharing your great idea, Tabitha!

I hope you all enjoy!

Sweet Sunday!

Happy Sunday to everyone!

For this weeks Sweet Stuff Sunday, I'm doing a review on a Coconut Cupcake with Key Lime Frosting.   Both of these recipes came from Elana's Pantry.  She has created a lot of gluten free recipes that are very, very yummy.  Check out her recipe for all the specific details and full list ingredients.

This recipe calls for unsweetened coconut, coconut flour, coconut oil, agave, eggs, baking soda and sea salt. 

The cupcakes were a little bit more dense than your "typical" cupcake.  I would say they were somewhere between a muffin and a cupcake.  This may have been because there was actual coconut in the muffin.  Here's a picture before they went into the oven:

As you can see, they don't really look like your typical "cupcake" batter.  They were really thick and drier than you'd expect.  I even read through the recipe a couple of times to make sure I didn't goof up the ingredients. 

This is what they looked like right out of the oven:

They're a very pretty golden brown color.

Since I mentioned the batter was a lot different than I usually make, I was worried the cupcakes would come out dry.  They seemed to get better with age.  I think they tasted even better the day after I made them than they did the day I made them.  This is awesome if you're baking a head!

The icing:  

The icing is really lime flavored whipped cream.  I was worried because I thought there was too much agave nectar for the amount of whipping cream.  I thought it would be runny, but decided to follow the recipe as written anyhow.  Sure enough, it took a LONG time to whip that whipped cream because of all the extra liquid.  I found that it didn't set up as pretty as hers did in the picture.  I did use mine a couple hours after making it and definitely should have whipped it up again.  I just forgot.  I think next time I'll just use the confectioner's sugar the way you make most whipped cream.

That being said:  I would definitely make these cupcakes again!  Since they are a little healthier than regular cupcakes I'd feel a lot better about giving them to Little Man.  The Hubs said he liked them, too but feels that I "should make them if people come over, but not necessarily for a pot-luck".   He seemed to think people might not "get" them without an explanation since the texture is different than what they'd expect.


Hope you try them and enjoy!

Chocolate Avocado Mousse - Sweet Stuff Sunday!

Welcome to Sweet Stuff Sunday!  In case you missed it, I've decided to launch a few series to help get my blog rolling.  

Sweet Stuff Sunday will mostly feature "healthy" recipes I've seen and want to try.  It might just be a review of the recipe, or I might alter an existing recipe to make it a little more healthy.  

This week I made Dr. Oz's Chocolate Avocado Mousse.

You can find his full recipe on his website.  But basically the recipe is made with an avocado, bittersweet chocolate, light brown sugar, egg whites, cinnamon, and chili powder in it.  

I initially tried this recipe last year.  I don't remember where I heard about it, but I was obviously shocked by the avocado and chocolate combination.  Kinda sounded weird.  But, because I pride myself on being a risk taker when it comes to eating new foods,  I decided to try it.

Here's the breakdown of what I did.  Again, please click here to view the whole recipe.  

1.  Use a double boiler to melt the chocolate and spices together.

2.  Use a foodprocessor to combine the avocado and brownsugar until it's smooth.

3.  Whip eggwhites until they hold soft peaks.

4.  Add melted chocolate to the avocado and brown sugar mixture and mix until well combined.

5.  Fold the chocolate mixture into the egg whites until combined. 

The finished product was very good.  The Hubs and I liked it a lot.  It was a lot more dense than your typical mousse.  It wasn't as light and fluffy as I thought it would be.  This is probably because of the avocado.  

Speaking of avocado, you couldn't tell there was anything "weird" about this recipe.  If you have picky guests, or someone who is not into trying new things, you could definately "forget" to tell them this has avocado in it until they're done eating.  They would never suspect anything odd or unusual.

As far as taste goes:  this dessert is very rich.  Very. Rich. The Hubs and I split one of these today and we were definitely satisfied.  I'm a chocolate addict.....and I'm telling ya....It was rich. 

Unfortunately, I didn't have any chili powder on hand.  So I omitted it. That being said, it still turned out great. The cinnamon was a great addition to the recipe and I'm sure the chili powder would have only made it that much better. 

All in all, this is a recipe worth trying.  The Hubs and I really enjoyed it.  It's definitely something we would serve to guests.  

All in all, this dessert is still high in calories totaling to 471 per serving.  (I wrote "healthy" in quotations for a reason) This is more than I thought it would be until I considered the fact that it is made with avocados.  Avocados are high in healthy fats that are good for you as opposed to the non healthy fats in other mousses.  That being said...this is not a low calorie dessert...so diner beware. 

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Although I love the holidays, it can be undoubtedly busy.  For me, the Christmas Season begins the day after Thanksgiving.  That's when I officially start worrying planning for the holiday.  It's usually about two weeks after my official kick-off date that I start kicking myself for (once again) neglecting to make anything homemade for Christmas.  Not this year, my friend!  This year I actually planned a little bit ahead and tried my hand at canning!

My friend/partner in Crime, Tabitha, and I got together and made two batches of Sweet Apple Cider Butter.  I'll do a tutorial on what did in the future.  Today I just wanted to share the "gift" portion of making these.

Here is the finished product:

Sweet Apple Cider Butter

I hope everyone likes them.  We're planning on giving them out to our neighbors and other people we may not usually buy for, but would like to give a little gift to.

We put together a little gift basket for the Grandparents and as Hostess gifts.

For the bags.

The gift bags contain an Apple Butter, Trader Joe's Spiced Apple Bread Mix, Trader Joe's Chocolates, and a Cinnamon Mocha Hot Chocolate mix.

Usually I would have baked something to go with the Apple Butter, however, since we'll be traveling, I wanted to give something that would hold up - which is why we went with a boxed mix.  Had I had though of it in time, I probably would have made a mix in a jar for some kind of baked good.  I didn't think of it in time, so we just bought something.  ha ha

The chocolates look really amazing and fancy: some have cranberry and pistachio on them while others have sea salt and almonds!  The Hubs was trying to convince me his Grandpa doesn't like sweet stuff and that we should just open one of the boxes now. I'm kicking myself for not buying more for the Hub's Stocking.  

As for the Cinnamon Mocha Hot Chocolate: I got the recipe from Tabitha who gave them out as gifts for her Ugly Sweater Party.  I don't know where she got the recipe, but it was delicious, so I copied her! :D  I don't think she'd mind if I gave out the recipe:

Cinnamon Mocha Hot Chocolate
3/4 C  Hot Chocolate Mix (I used Trader Joe's Brand)
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 Packet Instant Coffee (I bought a jar and used one HEAPING teaspoon.  Not sure if that's the correct measurement, but I did measure one of Starbucks Tia packets and that's what was in there.)

Mix all the dry ingredients together.  Makes one 8 ounce jar worth of mix.  Use 2 Tablespoons of Chocolate Mix to 8 oz of hot water or milk.

Happy Holidays!