Sweet & Sour Meatballs

Ingredients:
Green Peppers
Red Peppers
Pineapple
Meatballs - fresh or frozen

Ingredients for the Sauce:
1/2 cup Pineapple Juice
1/2 cup Vinegar
5 Tbsp. Brown Sugar
3 Tbsp. Ketchup
1/2 Tbsp. Salt

Mix well and add to either a crock pot or a sauce pan with other ingredients. Be sure not to overcook meatballs and veggies as they will become mushy. If you're using a crock pot, cook on low for about 3 hours.

Prepare Minute Rice as directed on box.

Hawaiian Haystacks

Usually when people make these, they have tons of different toppings to choose from. Which is fine.  I however, like mine very simple. Mainly because I'm really picky.

Ingredients:
2-4 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
2 Cans of Cream of Chicken Soup
1 Cup of Chicken Broth
1/2 Cup Sour Cream (optional)
3 Cups of Minute Rice
Salt & Pepper to taste

Toppings:
Chow Mein Noodles
Green Onions
Pineapple
Coconut
Celery
Bell Peppers
Cheddar Cheese
Tomatoes
Lettuce

Directions for Crock Pot:
There are several ways this can be done. If I've planned ahead, my choice way of cooking would be in the crock pot.
Put Chicken, Cream of Chicken Soup, Chicken Broth, and Sour Cream in crock pot and cook on low for 4-6 hours. Shred chicken.

Directions for Oven:
Place chicken and chicken broth in baking dish. Bake at 350 until cooked. Cube or shred and add cream of chicken soup and sour cream. Bake for an additional 10 minutes or until hot.

Directions for Stove:
Place chicken and chicken broth in pan and boil until fully cooked. Add cream of chicken soup and sour cream and cook until hot.

Prepare and serve over Minute Rice.

The reason for my long absence

Meet Duncan.
Now that he's here and I'm recovering really well, hopefully I'll be able to start cooking and blogging again!

Light Saber Cake & Yoda Soda

My son, Carson, wanted a Star Wars Birthday Party.  This is the easiest cake we could come up with.

The Cake: (try to ignore the seams in the fondant)

Make a regular 9 x 13 cake.  Cut into 3 strips and lay end to end.  Frost the "light" part of the light saber and cover with Marshmallow Fondant.  Then frost the handle with gray frosting (vanilla frosting with a little black food coloring) and pipe black frosting for details. 

This was a team effort with my husband.  He is awesome!

Yoda Soda is this... green Kool Aid.  And if you can't find green Kool Aid like I couldn't last night at Walmart, buy the invisible Kool Aid and add green food coloring.  It was really cool (and simple) and the kids loved it.

Pumpkin Pancakes

I was going to do this for our Halloween breakfast, but we were dragging in the morning and let's be honest, it was just easier to have cereal.  But for lunch, I made Pumpkin Pancakes.  The idea had actually just come to me early early that morning and I didn't have a recipe.  But I figured, how hard could it be?  It was super easy and they were actually really good.  I was scared they would be awful but everybody loved them!

 If I had been better prepared, I would have tried to actually make them look like pumpkins.  My kids thought that was more of the idea vs. taste.  So after this first batch, I added red and yellow food coloring to make theirs orange.  Sorry, no pics of that.

Ingredients:

2 Cups Bisquick

1 Cup Milk

2 Eggs

1/4 Cup canned Pumpkin

1/2 tsp. Cinnamon

1/4 tsp. Cloves

1/4 tsp. Ginger

1/4 tsp. Nutmeg

And a couple drops of Vanilla

Mix it all together and cook on your greased griddle.  Serve with Maple Syrup. 

Chocolate and Caramel Rice Krispey Treats

 I got this awesome recipe from my sister, Suzie. 

  Rice Krispey Treats:

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp. Margarine or Butter

1 10 oz package of Marshmallows

6 Cups of Rice Krispies

Directions:  

Melt butter in a saucepan over low heat.  Add marshmallows and stir until almost completely melted.  If you let them cook for too long, your Rice Krispey Treats will be hard.  Remove from heat.  Fold in cereal until completely coated.  Spray a baking sheet with Pam and press mixture into the pan.

Caramel:

Ingredients:

1 Cup Butter - 2 Cubes

2 Cups Brown Sugar

1 Cup Corn Syurp

1 Can Sweetened Condensed Milk

1 tsp. Vanilla

Directions:

Add all ingredients in a sauce pan.  Bring to a rolling boil for about 4 minutes stirring almost constantly.  Remove from heat.  

You have to watch it very carefully so it doesn't burn.  I have an electric stove (that I despise) and I turned my back for 2 seconds and mine was well on its way to burning.  So be very careful!

This makes a lot of caramel so you can use about half for this and use the rest for Caramel Popcorn, Caramel Apples, whatever. Or just cut the recipe in half!

Additional Ingredients:

1 bag of White Chocolate Chips

1/2 Bag of Milk Chocolate Chips

Melt white chocolate chips in microwave for 30 second intervals stirring after each time.  Spread over Rice Krispey Treats.  Drizzle caramel over the white chocolate.  Melt half a bag of milk chocolate chips also in 30 second intervals and drizzle over the caramel.  Let set, cut, and serve!

Chicken & Stuffing Casserole

I know this is a very basic and common recipe which you may already have, but I'm posting it anyway, even if it is just for my own use.

1-2 Boxes of Stove Top - depends on how much you like

2 Chicken Breasts

1 can Cream of Chicken Soup

1/3 Cup Mayo

Cook and cube chicken.  

Make Stove Top Stuffing.

Mix together the Cream of Chicken Soup and Mayo.  Add the cubed chicken.  

Layer in baking dish half of the stuffing, then the chicken mixture, then top with the rest of the stuffing.

 Cook at 350 for a half hour or until warmed through.