Bake Sale Donation

My daughter (kindergartener) attends a charter school that we just love. Last month they had a bake sale to raise money for new sports and PE equipment and I signed up to donate a cookie platter.

Using this recipe I chose 3 flavors and made up this platter. I was so pleased with the way it turned out that I just had to share.

The bake sale ended up being cancelled, but the elementary director bought it from me and donated the money to the school and just used it for a staff meeting instead. She said the cookies were a delicious hit and to feel free to donate another platter anytime!

In my it's-almost-valentine's-day mood I chose Strawberry, Lemon, and Cherry Chip. (which were all delicious)

I put all the cookies in rows on a clear platter from Dollar Tree, added a package of little plates and napkins...

and tied a big tulle bow around the whole thing.

Turned out great, right? Love it :)

CopyCat Recipe - McDonald's Caramel Apple Parfait

I was on a play date at McDonald's the other day with my girls, and some of my girlfriends from the gym and their kiddos. We go there for the play place when it's too cold to visit the park.

I decided that I would act healthy in front of my friends and I ordered a sort-of-healthy-but-not-really-that-healthy Caramel Apple Parfait for my snack. I'd never had it before and thought it sounded good.

HOLY EXPLOSION OF YUMMINESS IN MY MOUTH!

Can we say "New favorite snack?"

So I looked it up on McDonald's.com for the nutritional info and what was in it... turns out it's just low fat vanilla yogurt with diced red apples and caramel sauce. So simple. So I took home the cup it was in for measurement purposes and bought all the ingredients to make my own at home.

And here it is, incase you need to know how. Simple, easy, yummy, and slightly healthy. At least it only has 180 calories ;-)

You just need low fat vanilla yogurt, any brand, a red apple, any kind, and caramel sauce. Hershey's made that part convenient!

Slice the apple as you normally would and leave out one slice. Cut it into small chunks. Put the apple together and put a rubber band around it. This keeps it from getting brown in the fridge. Learned that little trick on Pinterest. Who knew?

Sprinkle your diced apples on top of the yogurt in your cup. (about 8 oz of yogurt) Drizzle a small amount of caramel sauce on top of it all. (I got a little excited so I put too much. Won't happen again! lol

And there ya have it! One caramel apple parfait, comin' right up!

Bob's Fried Rice

My dad is a pretty good cook, and he is one of those cooks who LOVE to share their recipes and abundant meals with others, which makes him the best kind of cook there is. He also cooks meals for an ARMY so this is a great recipe for a gathering of lots of people, or for a smaller family if you want to freeze a couple bags and have some to pull out and thaw for a later mean without all the fuss of making it. This is one of my husband's favorites of his recipes, as my hubby loves oriental food. So here is my dad's yummy fried rice recipe :)

You will need:

6 green onions diced cross wise in 1/4 in pieces

1/2 cup teriyaki sauce

1 tbsp minced garlic (equaling about 4-5 cloves)

1 tsp black pepper

1 1/2 cups shredded carrots

1/2 small head f cabbage

3 tbsp olive oil

1-2 tbsp sesame seeds

1-2 cups frozen green peas (thawed)

1 tsp powdered ginger

1 sm bag real bacon bits

3-4 eggs

4-6 cups freshly cooked rice (still hot)

Make sure you have all your vegetables chopped and/or prepared before you start cooking.

The cabbage head needs to be cut in half, lain cut side down, and sliced in long strips from top to bottom about 14 inch wide maximum. Cut those in half cross wise.

Scramble up the eggs.

Cook the rice in another pan or rice cooker.

Put the olive oil in your wok and bring it up to high heat. Add in your rice and your teriyaki sauce, and let those simmer together in the wok for a few minutes. Add in your eggs and all veggies, spices and seeds. Fry these up, stirring constantly for several minutes.

Your fried rice is ready to be served! It's that simple. Chopping all the veggies is the hard part.

Herbed Biscuits

Get ready to be excited! This is a healthy biscuit recipe and at the bottom I will be including the nutritional information!

Assuming you follow the sizing directions, you may feel free to enjoy more than one of these yummy dinner biscuits, guilt-free.

You will need:

2 cups white flour

1 tbsp white flour (for your work surface, not to mix with)

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp dried thyme

1/4 tsp dried basil

1/4 tsp crushed, dried rosemary

1/4 cup margarine

3/4 cup + 2 tbsp original or unsweetened soymilk

Combine all dry ingredients (except 1 tbsp flour) in medium mixing bowl. Mix in margarine with blender till crumbly. If you grab a hand full with your hand, you want it to hold its shape while still, but fall apart when you move your hand a bit.

Add milk, mixing with a fork until moistened. Sprinkle 1 tbsp of flour onto your kneading surface to prepare to roll out your dough. Knead 4-5 minutes and then into a large round 1 inch think sheet.

Cut into 2 in rounds. I used the end of a sippy cup because it's all I had that was round and 2 inches across. You can use whatever, it doesn't really matter, just cover the tip in flour so your dough doesn't stick to it.

Place the dough rounds, sides touching, on a ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. This whole recipe makes about 1 1/2 dozen biscuits.

Serve with your favorite soup or as a side for your favorite dinner dish. These may even add a kick to your Saturday morning breakfast meal as the spices add great flavor, but are not over-powering.

Either way, enjoy!

Nutrition facts:

(per biscuit)

83 calories

2.7 g fat

1 mg cholesterol

122 mg sodium

12 g carbohydrates

.4 g fiber

2.3 g protein

Yes, it's Another Non-Dairy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe :)

I got the idea for this non-dairy recipe from Apple A Day Blog. They have a TON of yummy recipes over there.

These cookies are chewy, and delightfully tasty, the only difference between the two recipes is that on has dairy, one does not. I basically just used different ingredients for the same exact recipe. They turned out delicious, of course :)

You will need:

3/4 cup Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread

(or you favorite non-dairy butter alternative)

3/4 cup Brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp real vanilla extract

1 egg (or 2 tbsp corn starch + 1 tbsp water, for vegans)

2 tsp corn starch

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup non-dairy chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350.

Mix your sugars together with your softened butter sub, till smooth.

Add in your egg and vanilla and mix well.

Slowly add in your flour, corn starch, baking soda, and salt.

^Your dough should look like this. It's very fluffy and tasty.
^I use these chocolate chipos because they don't cost an arm and a leg, they taste delicious, melt well, and are both dairy and gluten free.

Drop dough by the half tablespoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 8-10 minutes or until the edges start to brown. Do not bake longer than 10 minutes.

When using a butter substitute, or even plain margarine for that matter, your cooked cookies will come out looking different than normal cookies that were cooked using butter (dairy) or shortening (gag)

So don't freak and think you did something wrong or left something out when your cookies don't look right. You made them perfectly :)

This recipe makes about 3-3.5 dozen cookies, depending on how much of the dough you eat...

(guilty conscience)

Enjoy your yummy cookies!!!

Soy Ice Cream in a Bag

Tonight I made a very yummy dinner and afterwards I really wanted a bowl of ice cream, but as it turns out, we have no ice cream. Sad face :(

So I was playing around on Pinterest (as I usually do at night while my husband gets his zombie fill from Call of Duty) and I suddenly remembered a blog entry I'd repinned a few ago. Light bulb!!

Let's have a look, shall we? If you would so kindly click here? Thanks :)

Amazing right? I mean, who's the genius who invented ice cream in a friggin' bag?!

Are you being flooded with memories of science experiments from your freshman or sophomore year of high school? Because I totally remember doing this. Please don't say I'm the only one...

Anywho, I decided that, for my sweet husband's sake, I would try out a non-dairy version of this recipe, using what I had in my fridge. (We don't buy regular milk products (except cheese, can't live without my cheese!) because everyone but me is allergic to dairy.)

So I made up my own version of this recipe and IT IS DELICIOUS!! Seriously, I'm sitting here taking bites right now in between sentences. Hehe ;-)

So here's my version of this recipe. I hope you enjoy the late night snack you're about to go make. (Once you figure out how easy this is and realize you already have all the stuff to do it, you're totally going to get up and make yourself a bag of ice cream!)

P.S. It got a big thumbs up from my man so that means it really is as good as I'm saying it is.

You'll need:

3/4 cup Silk French Vanilla Non-dairy creamer

1/2 cup Original Soymilk (or you could use vanilla soymilk)

1 to 1-1/2 Tbsp Sugar, depending on your sweet tooth

1/3 cup table salt (yes I said CUP)

real vanilla extract

some ice cubes

1 gallon size ziplock bag

1 sandwhich size ziplock bag

a kitchen towel

1 bowl, 1 spoon, and your happy face :)

First, pour the creamer, soymilk, and sugar into your bowl and stir till mixed. Add in a small splash of vanilla extract and stir again. (You don't need much because of the creamer)

Pour the entire mixture in to your sandwhich bag and zip it tight. Fill half your gallon size bag with ice and pour all the salt over the ice. Close and shake to coat the ice. Open the gallon bag and put the sandwhich bag in. Zip tight again.

Wrap the bag in the towel (so you don't get frost bite, haha) and continuously shake the bag for 7 minutes. Open the bag to check and make sure your cream bag is frozen. If you want a thicker consistency, close and shake an additional 1-2 minutes. Do not take the cream filled bag out before you are ready to eat it.

If you're feeling really naughty you can always make you husband shake the bag while you chop up some non-dairy chocolate chips to top your bowl off with! (I like Ghirardelli Semi-sweet and Guittard Semi-sweet, both of which are dairy and gluten free.)

You could also chop peanuts or almonds, or top it with whatever candy you happen to have lurking in your kitchen.

When you take your bag out you can eat it strait from the bag. No shame in that! Or you can push it out of the bag into your (rinsed out) bowl, top it with your chopped chocolate chips, and get ready for your happy face to appear!

Ah, the sweet taste of homemade icecream without the expensive icecream maker. Music to my ... taste buds :)

!!!Enjoy!!!

Pineapple Brown Sugar Christmas Ham

This is my recipe for the best Christmas ham ever! This year we weren't going anywhere so I only needed a 5 pound ham. It cost $17 at Walmart. I already had everything else at the house except the pineapple which was about $1.38 for the 20 oz can also at Walmart. You will also need whole cloves, 1 cup of brown sugar, 3 heaping tablespoons of cinnamon, and a few squirts of pure clover honey. (and tin foil and a pan of course :)

^Ham :)

^Mix up your brown sugar and cinnamon together and rub it all over the entire ham, heaping extra up on top after you've done the bottom, and pressing it into the ham lightly.

^Time for the cloves and pineapple!

^Put a small rack in a casserole dish (or whatever you're going to cook your ham in) so it sits up out of the juice just a little bit. You want the steam to circulate around the entire ham when it's covered and in the oven.

^This is why you piled extra of your brown sugar mixture on top. With one of these meat spearing thingy's (not sure what it's actually called...) poke holes in your ham all over the top about every inch or so. This pushes some of the brown sugar down in and allows the flavors and steam to get down inside the ham.

^After you're done poking your ham, take a large knife and score the top in a criss cross pattern. Put a whole clove in each section. You don't have to score very deep.

^Heap your pineapple on top, and pour the juices and the rest of the pineapple around the bottom of the pan. sprinkle the rest of your brown sugar mixture around the entire pan and on top of the pineapple topped ham. Squirt some honey around in the bottom of the pan. Cover your pan with tin foil. Your ham is now ready to cook. For this 5 pound ham I cooked it at 350 for 1 hour and 15 minutes. The directions said an hour and a half, but that was just too long and it was done before that.

^When your ham comes out of the oven, take a meat baster and use the juices from the bottom of the pan as a glaze, and put it all over the ham. Serve immediately. Enjoy :)