Chicken Broccoli Casserole

This is one of Aaron's favorites and I knew I had to make it when he told me he forgot his lunch and would be starving when he got home from work. Needless to say he had thirds, which is a big deal because he normally can't finish his firsts.

1 cooked chicken breast
4 C cooked broccoli
1 C cooked rice
Homemade cream of chicken soup (2 servings)
Cheese

I cooked my chicken breast in the oven at 350 for 45 minutes, made up some brown minute rice (enough for 2 people), and boiled the broccoli. I have a big canister full of the dry homemade cream of chicken soup. I made 2 servings of it (2/3 C dry mix and 2 1/2 C water) and cooked it on the stove until thick. I cut up the chicken breast and mixed it in a bowl with the soup. I layered a 8X8 pan with rice, then broccoli, then chicken and soup mixture and then sprinkled it with cheese and baked at 350 for 30 mins.
The key is to not cook it a few extra mins while you get distracted watching Ever After, "Stay aloft madame, there are games afoot."

Lemon raspberry cream cheese cupcakes

These have been my absolute favorite cupcakes to date! They are so fresh and beautiful. The frosting was so divine I was piping it into my mouth! I never eat frosting! I had the most fun making them! Thank you to the Pastry Affair for such a delicious recipe. I love the fresh ingredients that are used and I loved that I had most of the ingredients in my cupboards. I loved that I got to use them for my roomie get together and at a family party the next day.

Raspberry Lemon Cupcakes

¾ cup sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
¼ cup butter softened
2 large eggs
1/3 cup sour cream
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 ¾ cups cake flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
Juice from ½ lemon
2/3 cup milk
1 ½ cups fresh raspberries

Preheat oven to 350 and line a cupcake pan with baking cups.

In a large mixing bowl, mix together the sugar and lemon zest with your fingers until fragrant (about 1-2 minutes). Add the butter and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the sour cream, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract. Gradually add in the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix in the milk and lemon juice, stirring until batter is uniform and smooth. Gently stir in the raspberries.
Fill baking cups about with a ¼ C measuring cup and bake for 16-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven, transfer cupcakes to a cooling rack, and allow to cool to room temperature before frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

8 ounces cream cheese softened
¼ cup butter softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ teaspoon salt
4 cups powdered sugar
Heavy whipping cream

In a large mixing bowl, beat together the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Beat in the salt and vanilla. Add a little bit of heavy whipping cream. Gradually beat in the powdered sugar. If frosting is too soft, add more powdered sugar until it reaches a spreadable consistency.

Before serving, pipe frosting on top of cooled cupcakes and decorate with a few fresh raspberries. Keep refrigerated to help preserve them. Serve at room temperature.
Recipe from: Pastry Affair

Sparkling Dole Juice Party Punch

I didn't get a picture of it until it was half gone! 

Here is how I made my party punch:

2 liter bottle of Sprite
2 liter bottle of ginger ale
1 bottle Sparkling Cider
1 can frozen Dole juice (I used pineapple orange banana)

Mix it all together and serve. Garnish with sliced oranges.

Recipe adapted from: The Frugal Girls

Chicken Salad

I did not like chicken salad when I was a kid. I always swore that I would serve deli sandwiches instead of chicken salad at parties because I love a good deli sandwich and chicken salad was "delicate" food. However my best friend Kellie Jo made some chicken salad for her daughter Averie's baby blessing and I loved it! I got her recipe and have been making it ever since. My in laws also have a really good recipe and I decided to experiment and combine both of them. It turned out good minus me adding too much sauce, next time we'll go for less. The hardest thing that I have had with starting to food blog is writing down recipes. I am a here's a dash, a sprinkle, a dab, and a dollop kind of person. I think you can do a lot of that with cooking. Baking is different. So on some of my recipes I am guesstimating. I've been trying to measure but sometimes the creative side takes over.

5 thawed chicken breasts
Onera seasoning (found at Harmon's)
1 bunch of green onions
1 yellow onion
Dill
1 can of water chestnuts
2 bunches of celery
Apples
Juice from half a lemon
Miracle Whip and Mayo

Line a baking sheet with tin foil and preheat oven to 300. Rub Onera seasoning onto chicken breasts and cook until done. Let the chicken cool and then you can either shred, cut, or put you chicken in your food processor. Let the chicken chill in the refrigerator. Next take the onion, dill, water chestnuts, and celery and pulse in your food processor until minced. In a bowl combine everything: chicken, lemon juice, and everything you minced. Here is where I went wrong this time. It looked like quite a bit so I started out with 2 cups of each Miracle Whip and Mayo. It could have used a lot less. I would start out with 1 cup of each and go from there. You can serve them on apples like I did or cut up the apples and put them in the chicken salad.

Also great life lesson: all the extra things you can cut off, i.e. bottom of the celery, lemon peels, onion core etc don't throw them all into your garbage disposal or you'll have my problem of turning on the disposal and having food spewing out several feet in the air all over your spotless kitchen and clean dishes right before you're supposed to have company over ;) Which resulted in Kenna try to plunge the sink, which didn't work and finally calling emergency maintenance over and having him pulling out stalks of celery stuck in the pipes.

Roomie Get Together

Many moons ago, I went down to a little town in the middle of nowhere called Ephraim and went to Snow College. It ended up being a great life learning experience. I shared an apartment with 5 other girls. We somehow not only all got along but became fast friends. We took turns cooking for each other on Sundays, we would watch entire seasons of America's Next Top Model on Saturdays, we shared rooms, bathrooms, and boys. We were young and loving life. Now we are all married still living in Utah and each of us are going in different directions, but we still love to catch up and reminisce about the good ole stress-free times.

clear balloons filled with sparkly gold confetti

chicken salad on apples sprinkled with nuts

lemon raspberry cream cheese cupcakes

sparkling dole juice

Tutorial found at: Linen, Lace, and Love

Chocolate cupcakes with strawberry buttercream

I kept seeing two toned frosting on cupcakes and wanted to try, and a perfect opportunity presented itself. Melanie's Birthday. So before we left on Saturday, to Idaho, to visit Melanie and her family I ran to get some strawberry extract and whipped these up. We had fun playing games with the kiddos and visiting with Melanie and Kyle. Katelyn and I played endless hours of Clue, and we all played lots of Phase 10, Skip Bo, and Apples to Apples, mixed in with Zelda. It was my kinda weekend! Jessyca was the star of the show. She was the entertainment for every meal with her crinkle nose head shakin, she put on many a dance routines with her stompin dances moves, and her 'muahs' to everyone. She also was showered with love and spoiled by Aaron, with suckers, cream soda, and cuddles.

Cake:
1 box devils food cake mix
4 eggs
1 C melted butter (cooled to room temp)
1 C milk

Mix together and pour 1/4 C mix into lined cupcake tins. Bake for 19 mins at 350.

Frosting:
2 pints marshmallow creme
3 sticks of softened butter
1 tsp strawberry extract
3/4 C powdered sugar

Whip marshmallow creme and add butter 1 stick at a time. Add strawberry extract and mix in powdered sugar.
Adapted from: The Girl Inspired

Crepes

I don't know how it started but when I was a teenager I found a recipe for crepes in an old cookbook. (I must have liked the picture?) Not really knowing anything about them I decided to make them and my family loved them. Still to this day Kenna asks me to make crepes. Now I wish this was that same recipe I found all those years ago but alas it is lost. I decided to experiment and come up with my own recipe and this is what I came up with and they turned out delicious! Now keep in mind I'm no expert on crepes, I just taught myself.

Crepes:

(makes 8 crepes)

1 C flour sifted

1 T sugar

dash of salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 T butter melted

¾ C milk

¼ C heavy whipping cream

Heat frying pan to medium heat. Using a 1/3 C measuring cup, scoop up your batter and pour into pan, rolling the batter around the pan. Cook for a minute or two on each side. Now the great part is you can have crepes with whatever you want! Fresh fruit, whipped cream, yogurt, powdered sugar, and even chicken or bacon etc. The sky's the limit! Enjoy!

S'mores Pudding Cookies

Favorite. Cookie. Ever. Yep! In case you didn't know already I LOVE cookies! #cookieholic I love the cookie part of a cookie. Chocolate chips are great too but the deliciousness that is a cookie...mmm...sigh. These have a delicious cookie part that is crisp on the bottom but oh so soft and then you add chocolate and marshmallows and you can't go wrong. I make these way too often. They also freeze really well too. I made two dozen a couple weeks ago and froze the last little bit of dough and these ones I made were just as delicious. So Aaron and I ate one all six cookies while watching Leverage.

INGREDIENTS:

¾ C butter softened
¼ C sugar
¾ C brown sugar
1 (3.4 oz) box instant vanilla pudding dry
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3 sheets graham crackers finely crushed
1 tsp baking soda
2 C flour
1 C milk chocolate chips
½ C mini marshmallows 

INSTRUCTIONS:

Cream butter and sugars together. Add in pudding mix and beat until well incorporated. Beat in eggs and vanilla until well blended. In a small bowl, stir graham cracker crumbs, baking soda and flour until evenly mixed. Add the dry ingredient mixture to the wet ingredients and beat until well incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips. Roll your cookies and to prevent the marshmallows from running off the side I stuff some marshmallows in the middle of my cookie and some on the very top. Placing your marshmallows helps so that you get to eat the marshmallow on the cookie instead of having it melted on your pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 8-10 minutes. You want these cookies to be slightly under-cooked. It helps make them extra soft :)

Recipe from: Chef in Training

Salted Caramel frosted Chocolate Cupcakes

Did you know I use to hate cake? Hated it. Birthdays would come around and I would say, "Cheesecake, brownies anyone?" I did not like cake at all. Well apparently that can change when you make these chocolate cupcakes. They are little bites of Chocolate. Caramel. Heaven. Chocolate and caramel, caramel and chocolate are like best friends! And yes these are from scratch and they are 110% worth all the effort. 

Cupcakes:
½ C unsweetened cocoa (sifted)

1 C hot water

1 C buttermilk

2 C sugar

2 eggs

½ C vegetable oil

1 ½ tsp vanilla 

2 ½ C flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

½ C whipping cream

Salted Caramel Buttercream Frosting:

¾ C softened butter

½ tsp sea salt

1 package dream whip (dry)

3 C powdered sugar

½ C Mrs. Richardson's butterscotch caramel sauce 

CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES:

Add the sifted cocoa powder to a bowl and pour in the cup of hot water. Whisk until completely dissolved. Next add the buttermilk and sugar to the mixture and whisk until incorporated. Add the eggs, oil and vanilla and mix again.

In a small bowl, stir flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix this into the wet mixture until you no longer see any lumps. Stir in heavy cream until mixed in.

¼ C will fill a cupcake, pour into cupcake tins and bake at 350 degrees F for 17 minutes or until done. Let cool and chill in fridge for at least 30 minutes.

FROSTING:

Beat butter and salt together until lightened and fluffy. Reduce speed to low and add dry Dream Whip until combined. Next beat in powdered sugar. Mix until thoroughly combined. Scrape down the side of the bowl. Warm caramel slightly in microwave (40 secs) so you're able to pour it, but not be runny and add the caramel. Beat on medium high speed until light and airy, and completely mixed. Mixture should be ready to use without refrigeration. If your caramel was too hot when added, it will cause your icing to be runny. If this happens refrigerate for 15-20 minutes. Once cupcakes have cooled, frost onto cupcakes.

Adapted from: Chef in Training

Taco Salad

What does Kenna always want for dinner? Taco Salad. And she can't be wrong, mixing Mexican with healthy right? I love this taco meat recipe! I use this same recipe for my oven tacos. Using homemade taco seasoning and adding all the extras really gives it some umph!

2lbs lean ground beef
1 small onion diced
1 can tomato sauce
1 can diced green chilies
Homemade taco seasoning:
1 T Chili Powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp pepper

Brown the hamburger and onion and drain off all the excess grease/water. Add the chilies, tomato sauce, and taco seasoning and mix until incorporated. Make your salad, add taco meat, cheese, dressing (V8 is good), tomatoes, cilantro, olives, lime juice etc.

Adapted from:

Homemade Alfredo Sauce

MMM...I love Olive Garden. You can't resist it, especially their Alfredo sauce. I found this copycat Alfredo recipe on Pinterest. I decided to try it and it did not disappoint! We also found these all natural delicious raviolis to have it with. 

1 stick of butter

3 cloves of minced garlic

1 pint of heavy whipping cream

1 cup of fresh Parmesan cheese

2 tbsp cream cheese

dash of salt

dash of pepper

In a saucepan over medium heat melt butter and add garlic. Cook a couple minutes until fragrant. Then add cream cheese and whipping cream, heat only until bubbly and add parmesan cheese and salt and pepper. Serve with these yummy ravilois or any kind of pasta. We also enjoyed salad and garlic bread with ours. 

Adapted from:

Chicken Enchiladas

I always come back to these. I've tried a couple different recipes and this is my favorite so far. It's part family recipe + part my own additions. And who can resist when it's so easy to throw together?

1 chicken breast (bake it, boil it etc)
1 can cream of chicken soup
3/4 C sour cream
1 tsp Chili Powder
1/2 tsp Cumin
Enchilada sauce
cheese
tortillas

Garnishes/Add Ins:
Olives
Green Chilies
Cilantro
Lettuce

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 8X8 or 9X13 pan. Cut/shred up your cooked chicken. In a bowl combine chicken, cream of chicken soup, sour cream, chili powder, cumin, and a handful of cheese. Take a tortilla and put a couple scoops the mixture you just made and roll up the tortilla and place in your greased pan. This is a half recipe and makes about 4 enchiladas. Pour enchilada sauce over the rolled up tortillas, sprinkle some cheese on top and bake for 30 mins. Voila! Delicious and easy!