Frozen Banana Bites

If it is hot and almost unbareably muggy where you are, you wont want to miss this treat!
      Okay okay... there are much more humid climates. But you see, Utah is supposed to be dessert.  And for the last few weeks the humidity levels have been abnormal to say the least.  Example: I walk outside turn the hose on, stand there holding the hose watering my hopeless veggie plants that I transplanted from the old house to the new house drinking my Diet Pepsi and before I know it I've got what seems to be a river running down my back, my hair is almost instantly wavy from the sweat on my neck, and now I need yet another pointless shower for the day.
Anyways... Here is a super simple treat for you to make that may just help you through those rivers.

You will need:

• 4 large bananas
• 3/4 cup milk or dark chocolate chips depending on your preferance
• 3/4 cup peanut butter
• Optional- course sea salt, coconut flakes, Oreo baking crubms

Melt chocolate and peanut butter together stirring freaquently to avoid burning the chocolate.
Lay a piece of parchment paper on a plate that will fit somewhere in your freezer.
Peel and cut the bananas into bite sized pieces or about a 1/2 inch.
Using your fingers dunk each banana piece into the melted goodness and set on the parchment paper.  When all of the pieces are covered lick your fingers! Don't burn yourself like I did though!.

Spoon the remaining chocolate over the top of the bananas, you wouldn't want to waste in now would you.
 If you have any optional ingiedients to sprinkle over the top now is the time to do that. 
Now place in the freezer.  You will want to let them freeze for 2-3 hours.

I will love having these babies in my freezer from now on!  I get a serious sweet tooth just before bedtime and a couple of these will be perfect.

...

I think this crazy chapter in my life is slowing down (((KNOCK ON WOOD))) and I hope to get back to some of the things I enjoy. 

I have accutally been making my family decent meals!  This is something that truely makes me happy.  A local grocery store had a killer deal on chicken wings, thighs, and drumbsticks so I got 5 packages.  Which means I had to do some recipe searching because I have never cooked with any of these cuts before.  I made the obvious Fried Chicken on Tuesday night.  I used the recipe out of  The Pionee Woman's cookbook. I also made these delicious Popovers they were so easy and good.  They are like my Hoot-N-Nanny Pancakes but a dinner roll vergan.  YUM

For those of you Utahians I am thinking about hosting a few Food Canning/Preseving classes. Leave me a comment if you might be interested or know someone that would be.

I have so many things I need to sew and so many things I want to make for my new home but so little time.  My list is getting longer and longer.  Here are some ideas that are on my list...

Knot So Hard Flip Flops

Drunken Gummie Bears

I am also going to be making very easy shmeazy citronella oil out door lanterns for my new patio... My next tutorial.  COMING VERY SOON!!!

Peach Raspberry Berry Good Cobbler

This is by far the easiest dessert ever! But I'm also thinking it just may be one of the best as well. Is all you need is 4 ingredients and a dish to bake it in... yummm!

1 quart peaches, undrained
1 quart rasperries, drained. Fresh berries should work too
1 white or yellow cake mix
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter cut into tablespoons

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Mix peaches and raspberries into a deep baking dish. Sprinkle cake mix evenly over the fruit. Do NOT mix! Now place butter pats on top of the mix and bake for about 20 minutes but be sure to watch it. You just want it golden.

This would be great with ice cream!

Now I know this picture is not pretty or nice looking but I didn't take a picture until after everyone dug into it. I really hate posting recipes without a picture so here you have it. A very unpretty unprofessional photo I took with my camera phone. I hope is isn't unappetizing!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway that is going right now! http://mealmakinmomma.blogspot.com/2011/05/celebrate101-facebook-followers.html

Cheerio Chocolate Maddness

If you like Rice Krispies Treats and you like Cheerios and you have leftover Easter chocolate candy you will like no love this here treat... and it's so quick and simple to make.

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You will need:
6 tablespoons butter
2 (10.5 oz) packages mini marshmallows
12 cups Cheerios
Remaining chocolate Easter candy
*Optional Milk Chocolate Chips


First of all gather up the kids' Easter treats.  If they haven't eaten them yet, they got entirely too much candy during the Easter egg hunt and they must have a grandmother like my wonderful mother in law.  No joke my kiddos had GALLON buckets FULL to the brim of candy and there were ten kids doing the hunt that got the same amount...
So anyway, steal no borrow all or some of the chocolate treats...  Oooo now that I am looking at this picture all those Sixlets would have been great to use.

 We had lots of Reese's Eggs and Mini Milky Ways.  If you have Reese's eggs cut them up into bite sized pieces. 

Now in a large pot on low heat let the butter melt and add the mallows.  Be sure to stir often and don't leave the room if you burn these mallows it will be gross.  Once the marshmallows are melted and mixed well with the butter remove from heat and stir in the Cheerios. 



 Doncha just wanna eat these right now?  This looks sooooo good.

Now that the mixture has cooled some and wont burn you if you were to touch it --not that you should touch it or anything, it's completely up to you.  I don't want to see any comments blaming me for a burn! -- Gently stir in the chocolate candy.

Yes, it will more than likely still melt a bit but it will be okay ;-)

Spread it out into a greased baking sheet.  For a thicker treat press into a 9x13 for a thinner treat use a larger rectangle baking sheet.  And now if your feeling the need for a bit more chocolate to the madness sprinkle some chocolate chips on top and softly press them down.

Peanut Butter Nutella Cookies

I've officially gotten on the Nutella band wagon.  I had never had Nutella until this past weekend I finally decided to buy some and hope it would be as good as all the hype makes it out to be.  And... IT IS!!!  I LOVE the stuff.  I first tried it on a fresh strawberry. Oh, I fell in love at that very first moment it touched my deprived taste buds. I then searched one of my favorite recipe sites Tasty Kitchen for a cookie recipe.  And found this one from The Goddess of Baking, which eventually led me to this perfect recipe.  Okay they are both the same recipe but I wanted to give credit where credit is due and I really like how she created this recipe and used "3 giant spoon fulls" of Nutella.

If you look at the original recipe you will notice that I have doubled the recipe here.  With it doubled it probably made about 36 or so cookies.  I also used less flour and more Nutella on baked it for 2 minutes less in hope of a really soft cookie.  They weren't quite as soft as I was hoping for but they are chewy so I'm happy with my modifications.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup flour

2 cups old-fashioned or quick-cooking oats

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup peanut butter creamy or chunky

2 egg

2 tsp vanilla

4 giant spoonfuls of Nutella (My guess is about 1 1/2 cups?)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Set aside. Mix butter, sugars and peanut butter. Add egg and vanilla and mix well. Add flour mixture and stir. Slowly stir Nutella into the mixture.  Place large tablespoon sized balls on lined cookie sheet, smash down a bit, and bake for 8 minutes.

So... you really need try Nutella if you've never had it.  Try it with a strawberry or a banana or toast or a Ritz cracker or a cookie or ANYTHING.  And then make these amazingly incredible cookies.

Ummm Ummm Chewy Granola Bars

I LOVE THESE BABIES!

I have tried a few different granola bar recipes and this is by far the tastiest and easiest I have come up with.  I love that you can add just about anything your imagination can come up with too... So much fun and pretty healthy snack.

I used white chocolate in these.  I must say I like milk chocolate much more.

You will need:

4 1/2 cups rolled oats

1 cup all-purpose flour or whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2/3 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup honey

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

2 cups your favorite chocolate chips

1 cup your favorite peanut butter

Preheat oven to 325.

Mix together all ingredients except chocolate chips.  I've found that a large metal spoon works great to work the honey and peanut butter into the dry ingredients.  Once it is well incorporated stir in the chocolate morsels.

Generously spray a 9x13 pan and firmly press mixture into the pan. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until light brown.  It must begin to brown.

Let cool for about ten minutes or so and cut into bars. 

ENJOY!

"Comfort Basket"

My dear sister in law's mom passed away this last week.  My husbands family wanted to do something for her, my bro in law, and the little hooligans and also her dad, but didn't really want to do the flower thing... So we came up with this idea.

This first basket is for her dad that is a diabetic.  We tried to find "good" individually wrapped snacks for him.

All of the hard candy on the bottom is sugar free.

And this one is for the not so diabetic... As you will see

So here is how we decided to put it all together:

First decide on you basket and buy all of your "comfort" food and snacks.  You will also need green floral foam, shredded paper you know the kind you fill baskets with, wooden skewers,  & a hot glue gun with plenty of extra sticks.  You can't see but both of these baskets have a 2 liter bottle of soda in the back. 

Place the foam in the bottom of the basket.  You may need to cut it with a kitchen knife to get it to fit properly with the shredded paper over the top then glue some of your larger items to a skewer and stick them in the foam.  You can then fill in any holes with smaller items.  We then dropped our small hard candies on top of the shredded paper, which really put the finishing touch to the basket.

We also decided something like this would be such a cute Center Piece for any party!!!



Chocolate Chip Panic Attack Cookie

I wanted to make a different kind of Chocolate Chip Cookie and came up with this.
Preheat oven to 325°

Make your favorite traditional Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. I actually like the recipe on the back of a Nestle chocolate chip bag. I make one change to it. I use 1 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of granulated sugar.

Lightly spray cookie sheet with cooking spray.  With a small spoon, scoop out a tablespoon of dough onto a cookie sheet.  Only scoop two rows of 4 (8) balls onto your sheet.  These are twice the size of ordinary cookies.

Now, pretend this picture is rotated the right way!!!  And unwrap some fun sized or miniature candy bars.  I really like the Krackle in these cookies!

 Place one candy bar on top of each dough ball and press so it is safe and secure with no chances of falling off the dough bed.

 Now scoop another tablespoon of dough into a ball and press down on top of the candy bar.

 There is my special helpers hands again with his very own spatula his Granny gave him for his "Un-Birthday".  An "un-birthday" is always a great excuse to get a child something they will love right?

 Repeat the last step until every candy bar is covered.  Press the sides down a little like you are sealing the candy into the dough.  But you don't actually have to seal them.

Now place in your oven and bake for 10 minutes... NO LONGER!  Unless you feel the need for yucky crunchy cookies.  Mine are on the verge of being yucky crunchy cookies.

MUFF NUTZ or French Breakfast Puff

The name Muff Nutz you ask? Simple... Its a Doughnut & a Muffin mixed, but not fried.

I found this recipe on The Pioneer Woman's blog.  When I find something I like or want to make I normally find a few other similar recipes and take a little something from each and put it together how I want it... Well I just couldn't see anything I wanted to change with this one, it is pe pretty much perfect in every way. REALLY! Okay except I do like to add more Nutmeg, but you can be the judge of that.
Please take my advice though and double or triple the recipe while you're making it now because these babies are good and they freeze wonderfully after they are cooled completly.  When you're ready for one just nuke it for 30 seconds or so.

Ingredients:
3 cups Flour
3 teaspoons Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Ground Nutmeg
1 cup Sugar
⅔ cups Shortening (Crisco)
2 whole Eggs
1 cup Milk
Coating:
1-½ cup Sugar
3 teaspoons Cinnamon
2 sticks Butter

Preparation Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°. Grease 12 muffin cups.
In a large bowl stir together flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Set aside.
In a different bowl, cream together 1 cup sugar and shortening. Then add eggs and mix again.
Add flour mixture and milk alternately to creamed mixture, beating well after each addition.
Fill prepared muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until golden.
In a bowl, melt 2 sticks butter. In a separate bowl combine remaining sugar and cinnamon. Dip baked muffins in butter, coating thoroughly, then coat with cinnamon-sugar mixture.


Goes great with Hot Cocoa or Coffee!