Chocolate & Peanut Butter Chip Pretzel Cookies

It is Summertime and I officially don't have to get up early, drive to work and come home so tired I don't even want to make dinner, YAY! What does that mean? It means, it's time to do all the things that I have no time or energy for during the school year like crafting and baking! I had made my neighbors some cookies as a "Welcome to the neighborhood" treat, and when I told them I'm going to be baking a lot this summer they seemed very happy about that. Ha.

My first recipe of the summer is a sweet treat. 

 Chocolate and Peanut Butter Chip Pretzel Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. of salt
• 1/4 tsp. of baking soda
• 1/2 cup of butter at room temperature
• 1/2 cup of tightly packed light brown sugar
• 1/3 cup of granulated sugar
• 1 egg (beaten)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup milk chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup peanut butter chips
• 1/2 cup broken up pretzel pieces
• Pretzel Salt or Sea Salt or Kosher salt 

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, stir the  flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
   
2. In the bowl of your stand mixer (or if you don't have one in a large bowl and a hand mixer), beat the butter and sugars together on medium speed until light and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes). 
   
   
   
3. Beat your egg
4. On low speed, slowly add the beaten egg and vanilla extract and combine.                                *Tip: make sure you scrape down the sides of the bowl.            
   
                                                        
5. Add the flour mixture and beat just until there are no more streaks of flour.      
6. Add the chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and pretzels.      
   
7. Cover and refrigerate for an hour.
8. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
9.  Scoop out  tablespoonfuls of the dough and sprinkle with pretzel salt.                                        *Tip: These cookies don't spread out that much so shape them how you'd like them to look when they come out of the oven. 
   
10.  Leave about 2 inches between each ball and bake for 10 minutes.                                                   Like crunchier cookies, leave them in for a minute or two longer. 
11.  If you prefer crispier cookies increase the baking time by 1-2 minutes.
    

This makes about 2 dozen cookies. 

Enjoy

                     

I am not sure where this recipe came from as I just have it in a binder from a word document that was typed out. I know there are quite a few recipes out there like this one though. 

Million Dollar Pasta

Another Pinterest success! This is really easy and is a great base recipe. You can add anything you want to this to make it your own.

Here is the orignal recipe including how I tweaked it.

Ingredients:
1 lb. of Ground Beef **I didn't use any meat at all
1 can of Spaghetti Sauce **10 oz.
8 oz of Cream Cheese **used low fat cream cheese
1/4 cup of Sour Cream **used low fat Sour Cream
1/2 lb. of Cottage Cheese **used low fat Cottage Cheese
Whole Stick of Butter *You don't need this much butter. I cut a few small pieces to put
on the bottom of the pan and on the second layer of pasta.
8 oz. of Noodles
Bag of Sharp Chedder Cheese **used fat free cheese


**Other things I added:
Italian seasoning to the cheese mixture
chopped up mushrooms and mixed it in the sauce
~You can totally add any other veggies or meats you like or even substitute Ricotta cheese for the cottage cheese (which I almost did because I can not eat cottage cheese. The texture just makes me gag, but when mixed here... YUMO, so glad I used it).



What ya do:
*Put your over on 350
*Boil your noodles
*While they are boiling go ahead and mix up the cream cheese, sour cream and cottage cheese
*Mix it well- they used their stand mixer... but a bowl and spatula work just as well.~I also added my italian seasoning here.


***If you are going to use meat cook it now and add the spaghetti sauce to it***

*Since I didn't use meat, I took my spaghetti sauce ~Chopped up my mushrooms and added them to the sauce, put it in a bowl and warmed it in the microwave -cover the bowl with a paper towel-
*Put a few slices of butter on the bottom of your 9X13 pan.
*Place half of the noodles on the butter
*Dump your cheese mixture on top of the noodles and spread it out.
*Put just a small amount of butter on top of those noodles and then pour the sauce (Whether it's the meat sauce or not) on top of the noodles.
*Pop it in the oven for 30 min.
*Pull out and add some cheddar cheese to the top and put it back in for (the recipe said 20 but I did) 10 minutes or until the cheese is nice and melted and maybe get a little crunch on the top noodles. ;)

That's it... Super easy right? If you try it let me know how you liked it or what you tweaked to make it your own!



Enjoy~

Zucchini Bites

Zucchini Bites
Recipe: From Pinterest
yields: 12 mini muffins

Ingredients:
1 cups zucchini, grated
1 egg
1/4 yellow onion, diced *I chopped mine pretty fine since I'm not a fan of onion
chunks in my food.
1/4 cup cheese )*I used low fat cheddar and added a bit more after the 1/4c.)
1/4 cup bread crumbs - I used Italian style
Salt and Pepper (to taste)

Direction:
1. Preheat oven to 400F. Spray a mini-muffin tin with non-stick spray.
2. Grate the zucchini and place in a dish towel to squeeze out the excess water REALLY get all that water out because if you skip this part, the middle of the zucchini tots will be really soggy, YUCK!
3. In a bowl combine, the egg, onion, cheese, bread crumbs, zucchini, salt and pepper.
4.Fill the muffin cups to the top.
5.Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until the top is browned and set. I put mine in for 16 min. and then check them and left them in for another 4 (watching to make sure the tops didn't burn.


My thoughts:
LOVED THEM. They were so good, and I think would be great for kids because the flavor is amazing. I suggest letting them help you make it so they'll be more likely to eat the greenish food. HA!

I served them with Baked Chicken Strips and Corn.

Quinoa Yumminess

Ok, so I'm not sure what to call this but it's amazing, healthy and I LOVE IT! You can wrap it in a tortilla and add toppings, you can scoop it up with tortilla chips, eat it on it's own, toss it with some lettuce and make a salad, etc. It's easy to adapt the recipe and make it your own too!

Ingredients:
*2 Limes
*1/2 jalapeno
*Cilantro- as much as you care for
*2-4 cloves of garlic, chopped
*3-4 tomatoes chopped
*1/2 small yellow onion, chopped
*1 can of corn, drained
*1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
*1/4-1/2 green pepper, chopped
*1 tsp salt
*1 tbsp Cummin
*1/4c. olive oil
*1c. quinoa

-Rinse the quinoa in a strainer
-put in sauce pan with 2 cups of water, let it come to a boil.
-After it comes to a boil, reduce heat and let it simmer 20 min.
- chop up the jalapeno, garlic and onions in small pieces put in large bowl
- Chop up the rest of the veggies (green pepper, tomatoes and cilantro) and put in the
bowl
-dump in the corn and beans after they have been drained (remember to rinse the beans)
- stir everything together.
-mix in the quinoa

Now for the sauce:

combine olive oil, cumin, salt and the juice of 2 limes.
Mix together and dump in the big bowl of yumminess!

Serve with tortilla chips, tortillas, lettuce for a salad, or whatever else you can think of...

Y.U.M. and healthy too!

Green Monster Spinach Smoothie

So, ok my friends, I've made a goal for myself this summer. What's the goal? To live a healthier life style, eating healthier and being more active.

I eat pretty healthy as it is, it's the being more active part I really need to work on. Since this is Texas and it's HOT, I've looked for things to do indoors to be active. Enter the Wii and AE Active and Just Dance 3. I've been playing both of these "games" and burning all kinds of calories jumping around the room.

Now from what I've been told after you work out, that's the time to stock up on protein. Looking for a tasty, and healthy way to do this, I found a GREAT smoothie on Pinterest, called the Green Monster Spinach Smoothie. This is great to drink after a workout, for lunch or breakfast!

Here's the recipe:

Serves 1

Ingredients:

1 frozen sliced banana

1 Tablespoon peanut butter

1/2 cup 0% Vanilla Chobani Greek yogurt

1 cup Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze (or other kind of milk)

4 cups baby spinach (or more, or less) **I used 2 cups since this was my first time**

**I also added a handful of blue berries


Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend on "Hight Blend" to mix it all up

Then use "liquify" to make the smoothie... well... nice and smooth.

***I put mine in the fridge to make it nice and cold before drinking.***

Nutritional stats:

350 calories, 10g fiber, 21g protein


The verdict:

YUM! I loved it. You seriously can not taste the spinach at all (which is what I was nervous about). The sweetness from the vanilla yogurt mixed with the peanut butter is so great! YUM!

Hard Boiled Eggs (with out the boil)

Another successful recipe from Pinterest. I've never hard boiled eggs before, but I remember my mom doing it and having it take forever (or maybe i was just impatient HA).

Here's what you do.

Set oven to 325
Put your eggs in a mini muffin pan.
Into the oven they go for 30 minutes.

Use tongs to take the eggs out of the muffin pan and into a ice bath for 10 minutes.
There may be some brown spotting on the shells but it will come off in the ice bath.

I didn't get the white shelled eggs because if there was any browning of the shell,like other people were saying, I didn't want it to show.




That's it! Done. Enjoy!

Crockpot Chicken with Oven Baked Crispy Shells

For dinner tonight I made Crockpot Chicken with Oven Baked Crispy Shells. I had never tried it before and I was very nervous that the hubs wouldn't like it, but you know what, he loved it and ate 6 tacos! HOORAY!

So here's the recipe for both the Crockpot Chicken and the Oven Baked Crispy Shells (both recipes found on Pinterest).

Crockpot Chicken Tacos

1 envelope Taco Seasoning
6 pieces Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts *I used 4*
1 jar Salsa (16 oz)

Dump everything into a crock pot and give it a little stir to blend the seasoning with the salsa. Cook on high for 4 to 6 hours or on low for 6 to 8 hours. When done, the chicken should shred easily when stirred with a fork. *I cooked mine on high for 5 hours and it was perfect*





The Hubs likes his chicken dry, so I put some in a strainer and let it sit for a bit to dry it out a little.



Crispy Taco Shells

12 6-inch corn tortillas *or as many as you and yours can eat*
Canola oil cooking spray *make sure it's the spray*

Optional
3/4 teaspoon chili powder, divided
1/4 teaspoon salt, divided
Any other seasoning you'd like to use.

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.

2 .Wrap 4 tortillas in a barely damp paper towel and microwave on High until steamed, about 30 seconds.


3. Coat both sides with cooking spray; sprinkle your seasonings. *I didn't use any seasoning and it was great*

4.Drape each tortilla over a panel on a baked-taco rack and bake until crispy and brown, 7 to 10 minutes. *7 min. worked for me*


5. Remove the shells from the rack and repeat Steps 2 and 3 with the remaining tortillas.


**Get your toppings ready and it's TACO TIME!




Enjoy!

What's on the Menu Tonight?

Tonight we'll be having Crockpot Chicken Tacos. I've got the chicken in the pot now and it's making my mouth water. I'll be making baked crispy corn taco shells when the chicken gets closer being done. These are both new recipes so I hope they turn out well. The hubs is very picky so my fingers are crossed, especially for the taco shells. Hubby loves the fried crunchy shells and this is a MUCH healthier way to have the crunch he loves.

Recipes and photos to come if all turns out well and I like it! HA!

World's Easiest Banana Bread

Ok, so Pinterest, you all know how much I love my Pinterest. I found a great recipe for the World's Easiest Banana Bread! I was iffy about it but it turned out great and tastes really good too!

Here's the info:

Ingredients:


1 box of yellow cake mix
2 Eggs
3/4 ripe to over ripe bananas
Pam for Baking (to spray in the loaf pan)
Flour (to sprinkle in the pan after the Pam)
*and any toppings you'd like to add- I added walnuts
Loaf pan- 2 small ones or 1 large *I used 1 large pan because it's what I had in the kitchen*

Directions:

*Set oven to 350
*Mash bananas in a large bowl. I used my stand mixer for this (WAY EASIER)
*Add in all of the other ingredients (including your toppings)
*Spray the loaf pan(s) with with Pam
*Sprinkle flour in the loaf pan(s) - I just dumped some flour in the center of the pan and tilted the pan around until it was lightly covered.

*Pop it in the oven.
*If you are using two smaller loaf pans: 35-40 minutes.
*If you are using 1 large loaf pan (I did): 50 minutes


The loaf: (minus a slice.... quality control)



Here's the piece I sampled:

mini pumpkin pie croissants

I split this recipe because I only had one tube of crescent rolls, but here is the full recipe I got from Pinterest.

Yeilds: 32

Ingredients:



2 tubes of refrigerated crescent rolls

Filling:
1/2 block of cream cheese
1 cup of canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
3 T sugar

Dipping:
4 T sugar
1 T pumpkin pie spice


Directions:

Roll out the rolls pull apart and cut each triangle in half length wise.


Mix filling ingredients together until smooth and fluffy.


Place filling on each triangle


Roll em up

Mix together dipping ingredients.
Roll each crescent in the dipping mix.


Place on cookie sheet and bake at 375* for 15-18 minutes.

and that's it. SIMPLE and good. These are not meant to be super sweet.

ENJOY!

Something Yummy this way comes

On the recipe roll for today: mini pumpkin pie croissants.

This will be my first time making them (like most things I post) so we shall see how they turn out. Official blog post and recipe to follow. Here's a photo I snagged from Pinterest as a little teaser for you.

OH SO GOOD Chicken Salad and Asian Slaw

Asian Slaw

INGREDIENTS
1 bag (16 oz ) coleslaw mix (shredded cabbage and carrots)
1/2 cup sweet-spicy French dressing
1/4 cup chopped red bell pepper (1/4 medium)
1/4 cup loosely packed fresh cilantro leaves, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup coarsely chopped salted dry-roasted peanuts



DIRECTIONS
1. In 2-quart bowl, mix coleslaw mix and dressing.




Top with bell pepper, cilantro and peanuts.


2. Just before serving, toss salad.


****


OH SO GOOD Chicken Salad



INGREDIENTS

* 4 cups cubed, cooked chicken meat
* 1 cup mayonnaise (I am not a mayo fan so I didn't use this much)
* 1 teaspoon paprika
* 1 1/2 cups dried cranberries
* 1 cup chopped celery
* 2 green onions, chopped
* 1/2 cup minced green bell pepper
* 1 cup chopped pecans
* 1 teaspoon seasoning salt
* ground black pepper to taste
(I also added Greek Seasoning)

DIRECTIONS

1. In a medium bowl, mix together mayonnaise with paprika and seasoned salt.




Blend in dried cranberries, celery, bell pepper, onion, and nuts.




Add chopped chicken, and mix well.






Season with black pepper to taste. Chill 1 hour.







Enjoy!

More Cookie Goodness

Another cookie recipe I made to give to the hubb's boss as a thank you were (chocolate Chip Cookies- but we all have a recipe for that) are these YUMMY...

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies

Ingredients:

12 oz. strawberries, hulled and cut into ¼ inch dice (2 cups)

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

½ c. plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

2c. all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon coarse salt

3oz. (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

2/3c. heavy cream

Standing Sugar for sprinkling (crystal sprinkles)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375. Hull strawberries and cut into 1/4 pieces.

Combine strawberries, lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons of sugar.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and remaining 7 tablespoons of sugar in a large bowl. Cut the butter into small pieces and dump in bowl. Mix with hands until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Stir in cream until dough starts to come together, then stir in strawberry mixture.

2. Using a 1 ½ ice cream scoop or a tablespoon, drop dough onto a parchment papered baking sheet. Be sure to evenly space apart the dough balls.

Sprinkle with sanding sugar and bake until golden brown (24-25 minutes).

Transfer to a cooling rack and let them cool.

Serve after cooled or store covered for a few days only (fresh strawberries remember) at room temp.