Favorite Recipes | Cupcakes and Commentary

Avocado hummus

April 12, 2017 No Comments

I made this as our side dip for dinner on Saturday night. It’s not easy to find a dip that my whole family can and will eat. I served it with pita chips and the boys ate it up! It has a guacamole quality to it, but without the salsa. Here’s the recipe!

Ingredients

2 avocados

1 can white beans, drained and rinsed

1 lime

1 tsp kosher salt (more to taste)

1 small bunch cilantro

1/4 cup olive oil

Directions

Place all ingredients in a food processor, pulse until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary!

Favorite Recipes

Using our herbs…

April 4, 2017 No Comments

So the boys’ favorite new spaghetti sauce is…

Herb filled! A requested spaghetti on Friday night and I obliged with this quick recipe. A couple springs of fresh rosemary, basil, thyme, oregano, parsley, a can of tomato sauce, a can of diced tomatoes, tbs of tomato paste, a sprinkle of garlic powder, pepper, and kosher salt.

Blend it all up:

And of course I forgot to take a picture of anything else. I cooked it over low to medium heat for a good thirty minutes while we prepped everything else. And it was awesome! Definitely on our rotation.

Favorite Recipes, Mini Cupcakes

Smoothie madness

March 22, 2017 No Comments

Over Spring Break the boys and I made a smoothie. Then they asked for one the next day. And the next day. And then we were headed to the store to buy kefir, and frozen fruit, nuts, and such. Most of my ideas come from Weelicious’ awesome chart.

And I’ve found that I can put in pretty much any kind of tasty goodness in a smoothie and they’ll drink up!

Our favorite combinations right now are:

Oranges-Peaches-Hemp Seed-Vanilla Honey Kefir-Walnut-Unsweetned Coconut Milk

Raspberries-Blueberries-Strawberries-Vanilla Honey Kefir-Unsweetened Cocoa Powder-Chia Seeds-Unsweetned Coconut Milk

Peaches-Flax Seed-Cashews-Strawberry Honey Kefir-Milk

I’m planning on expanding their palate by adding veggies and other yogurt flavors soon!

Favorite Recipes

Funfetti cookies

March 15, 2017 No Comments

This is literally the easiest cookie recipe you’ll ever make. The boys absolutely loved them and they still have a cake like quality after a few days. If they last that long!

The boys took turns mixing…

And scooping…

?

And eating!

Here’s the recipe!

Funfetti Cookies

1 box funfetti cake mix

2 eggs

1/3 cup canola oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir all ingredients until combined. Scoop out tablespoon size portions and place on cookie sheet an inch apart. Bake for 6 minutes then rotate the pan and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes until edges are slightly golden. Cool for 2 minutes on pan and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

And if you want to make cookie sandwiches, after the cookies are cooled put a layer of funfetti frosting in between two cookies and roll in the accompanied sprinkles.

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Boozy rocky road milkshake

March 2, 2017 No Comments

This is the perfect weekend treat. Simple, quick, and so tasty!

Boozy Rocky Road Milkshake

Ingredients

1 shot kahlua

1 shot irish cream

1/2 shot vodka

1 shot half and half

2 large scoops of rocky road ice cream

8 ice cubes

Directions

Blend ice cubes in a blender until thoroughly crushed. Add all other ingredients and blend until almost smooth.

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Energy bars

February 22, 2017 No Comments

The little morsel represents why I love my boot camp instructors so much! Our instructor brought these as a treat for us and I may have left with the Tupperware of the leftovers. I had to share so I don’t lose the recipe, and can make them for the boys…because I ate the rest before I shared them. Ha!

Energy Bars

2 tablespoons whole flaxseeds (or approximately 3 tablespoons ground)
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons water
2 cups old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry or white whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup organic sugar
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup chocolate chips
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup sunbutter or a nut butter (peanut, almond, etc.)

1. Preheat oven to 375. Gind flaxseeds and combine with water (or just combine already ground flaxseeds with water). Set aside.
2. Combine oats, flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a mixing bowl. Stir in raisins and chocolate chips.
3. In a separate bowl, combine maple syrup and nut/sunbutter and mix until smooth. Combine nut butter mixture with flaxseed-water mixture.
4. Add we mixture to dry and stir well. The mixture will seem dry, but keep stirring until fully integrated.
5. Press the mixture into an 8X8 inch pan that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Bake for 15 minutes. Allow pan to cool slightly, then cut into bars and transfer to a cooling rack.

Favorite Recipes

Chicken tacos-food saver style

February 15, 2017 No Comments

Can I just pause for a second? J is getting way too independent on me at age 5. He is brushing his teeth well by himself, can buckle his own seat belt, and announced that he’ll be starting a job soon. What?? I’m not ready!!

The other day I was making lunch and I was super glad that B is on a food saver kick and I can quickly open the fridge and find the following:

To make the chicken, we sprinkled the chicken with taco seasoning, drizzled them with canola oil and then baked them oven at 350 for 25 minutes. B food-savered the chicken after we chopped it and then separated it out in the fridge with cheese and lettuce packets.

Boom…lunch!

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Christmas day salad

February 8, 2017 No Comments

This is one of my Mom’s go to side dishes. Typically we make it on Christmas day, but i made it for J’s birthday and it was a hit! It’s really simple, but super delicious!

Ingredients

6 large oranges peeled, and sliced

6 cups of spinach or mixed greens

1/4 cup canola oil

1/4 rice wine vinegar

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon grated ginger

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 cup crumbled feta (or gorgonzola)

1 1/2 cups sugar roasted pecan pieces

Directions

Assemble the spinach and oranges on a platter. Whisk together the oil, vinegar, sugar, ginger, and salt until combined. Pour over the greens and oranges and toss. Top with the crumbled feta and pecans.

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White chocolate popcorn through an Instagram story

February 2, 2017 No Comments

I made candy popcorn for a treat for J and I this past weekend. Here are our steps!

Once cooled and the chocolate is pretty set, I scoop it all into a air tight container. I’d love to show that to you, but the boys already ate it all!

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Cooking with J

January 31, 2017 No Comments

J has been clamoring to help in the kitchen lately, so I figured this weekend was a good opportunity to let him help make dinner. We made biscuit pizzas which are super easy (can of biscuits, pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese), and he did a great job! Let J take you through the steps…

First, you roll out the biscuits a bit…

Then spoon and smooth the sauce onto your flattened biscuits: Add your cheese:Bake for minimum time limit on biscuit can (but I typically do 375 instead of 350), and play Connect 4 while you wait: And then eat dinner while you binge watch Chopped with your Mama (the boys are obsessed with Chopped!): And then it’s super easy clean up and soon you’re ready for snuggles and finishing the episode of Chopped you started at dinner:

Then the next morning we got up and made a dutch baby pancake. We used Meyer lemons and boy was it delicious!

We also just blended everything in the blender (eggs first, then add your other ingredients):

And then after twenty minutes it goes from this:

To this:

This is such a great dish to make with kids (obviously you have to do all of the dutch oven work because it is so crazy hot), but the effect of seeing it go from a liquid to this huge puffy pancake is a wonderment to watch!