Jello Cookies

 

Ooooooh! They're so pretty!

What a great idea, yes? Adding Jello powder to a sugar cookie recipe to get these fantabulously bright yet soft and delicious cookies. 

I'm guessing that kids will love these. You can taste the flavor of whichever Jello flavor you use but you still know it's a sugar cookie.

These would also be great for a baby shower or St. Patrick's Day or Valentine's Day or whenever you need a specific color to dress up a plate.

 

Jello Cookies

 (From I Heart Naptime)

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

3 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

4 (3 oz) pkg Jello You can use any flavors you want

(Sue used Cherry, Lime, and Grape X2)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. Line cookie tray with parchment paper.

Beat butter in large bowl with mixer until creamy. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Blend in egg and vanilla.

Mix flour and baking powder in a separate bowl. Gradually beat in flour mixture.
Divide dough into 4 sections.

Sprinkle 3 Tbsp of Jello onto each section. Knead together with dough. (You may want to add a few drops of food coloring to make the dough more vibrant.) Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in the extra jello from the packets. Place, 2 inches apart, on baking sheets. Flatten with bottom of bowl.
Bake 8 to 10 min at 350 on lined baking sheets. Cool on baking sheets 2 min. Remove to wire racks and cool completely.

These are so bright and cheerful!

FYI ladies - I found these helpful to calm those pesky homicidal PMS symptoms. The bright colors make you happy and the cookie keeps you distracted long enough to forget about why you want to kill everyone. Especially if you eat a lot of them.

Maybe that's just me....

Anyway, these are super cute and if you visit the I Heart Naptime blog you can see that, yes, kids really love these too!

3 Fillings for Eggrolls or Wontons

Sue and I had a few packages of egg roll wrapper and wonton wrappers to use up and decided to try out some not-so-traditional eggroll snacks and wonton snacks.

We made Chicken Cordon Bleu, Spicy Mexican, and Corned Beef and Cabbage. We both agreed (I know, weird!) that the Corned Beef and Cabbage filling was our favorite. What’s funny about that is Sue almost destroyed the filling while she was making it. We were at my house for the preparation of these and she isn’t used to how I have my spice containers. (I remove the little plastic lid with the holes in it that you can use for sprinkling spices because I find it annoying.) So she grabbed the black pepper to sprinkle into the filling and *boom* about ½ cup of pepper shot into the mixture. We managed to scoop out most of it…and then we doubled the other ingredients in the hopes of thinning the pepper even more….but we were still worried it would be waaaay too peppery to eat.

Nope.

Turns out the extra pepper made it extra tasty. (No, I am not recommending you try it this way. I’m just saying we managed to avert disaster.)

Anyway, if you are looking for some great after school snack ideas then these might be just what you are looking for. You can freeze them and reheat them in the microwave or, if you want them to stay a bit crunchier, in the toaster oven. Of course, you can deep fry these if you want to but we have found that spraying them with a bit of cooking spray and baking them at the high temperature yields just as crunchy and tasty results as deep frying without all that extra added fat. Plus, deep frying freaks me out. I don’t like the thought of that superheated oil catching on fire or spilling or…well… it just makes me nervous!

Chicken Cordon Bleu EGGROLLS

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups cooked chicken, diced very small

4 ounces black forest ham, sliced deli thin and then chopped into 1/4" pieces

1/2 cup Swiss cheese, shredded

egg roll wrappers

1 egg, beaten

Directions

Preheat oven to 400. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium size bowl, combine the chicken, ham and cheese pieces and stir to mix thoroughly.

Separate the spring roll wrappers and set aside. Beat the egg in a small bowl and set aside as well.

To assemble egg rolls, lay one egg roll wrapper with the corner pointed toward you. Brush a bit of beaten egg around the edges of the wrapper. Place about 1/3 cup of the chicken mixture on egg roll wrapper.

Fold corner up over the mixture. Fold left and right corners toward the center and continue to roll. Dip a finger in the beaten egg and seal the edge with egg. Set onto prepared baking sheet. Repeat until all of the eggrolls have been made. Lightly spray tops of eggrolls with cooking spray.

Bake at 400 until golden brown, about 10 - 15 minutes. (We like to wait until one side is brown and then gently flip them over to brown the other side as well.)

Spicy Mexican Wontons

Ingredients

2 tsp oil

½ lb ground beef (lean)
3/4 cup cheese, shredded (either Tex Mex or Jalepeno blend)

2 Tbsp chopped green chillies (We used canned)

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp cumin

Wonton wrappers

Directions

Preheat oven to 400. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Heat oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat. Add beef and cook until meat is browned, breaking up meat as it cooks, about 5 minutes; drain meat. Add cheese, chilies, chili powder and cumin; cook until cheese melts, stirring frequently, about 1 minute.

Place wonton wrappers on a flat surface; drop meat mixture by teaspoonfuls onto center of each wrapper. Moisten edges of wrapper with wet fingers, fold over to cover filling, press down firmly to seal.

Transfer filled wrappers to prepared baking sheet and lightly spray with cooking spray.

ALTERNATIVELY – you can press 2 wonton wrappers together into a muffin tin (sprayed with cooking spray) and fill the wrapper with filling and then bake like this for a little “taco” cup.

Bake at 400 until golden brown, about 10 - 15 minutes. (We like to wait until one side is brown and then gently flip them over to brown the other side as well.)

Corned Beef and Cabbage Rolls

Ingredients

2 cups coleslaw

1 Tbsp water

1/2 cup thinly sliced onion

1 cup corned beef, finely diced

Salt & pepper to taste

1 cup diced cooked potato

1 cup Monterey Jack cheese, divided

egg roll wrappers

1 egg beaten

 Directions

In a medium skillet over medium heat, saute coleslaw, water and onions until tender. Add the chopped corned beef, salt & pepper, and saute 1-2 minutes.

Transfer to a large bowl and let cool about 10 minutes. Mix in cooked potatoes and cheese.

To assemble egg rolls, lay one egg roll wrapper with the corner pointed toward you. Brush a bit of beaten egg around the edges of the wrapper. Place about 1/3 cup of the cabbage mixture on egg roll wrapper. Fold corner up over the mixture. Fold left and right corners toward the center and continue to roll.

Dip a finger in the beaten egg and seal the edge with egg. Set onto prepared baking sheet. Repeat until all of the eggrolls have been made. Lightly spray tops of eggrolls with cooking spray.

Bake at 400 until golden brown, about 10 - 15 minutes. (We like to wait until one side is brown and then gently flip them over to brown the other side as well.)

 Now I have to print a disclaimer here – the measurements are estimated in the above recipes. Sue and I just kind of threw things in there (especially trying to save the Corned Beef and Cabbage mix). You can pretty much put whatever filling that you want into a wrapper, just remember that you do NOT want to over fill it. If it is too full your wrapper will split and the filling will come out.

And, as for how many egg rolls/wontons we ended up with....hmmmmm…….we had a lot to use up and we made all three recipes at once so I really couldn’t tell you how many we got out of each recipe. I would say about 2 packs of egg roll wrappers and 1 pack of wonton wrappers were used.

Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Loaf AND Monkey Bread

So today I am blogging two different bread treats made with one bread recipe.

It is my Portuguese sweet bread recipe (or Pao Doce) that I perfected a few years back. I use it anytime I want a sugary bread treat...ie: cinnamon buns.

Sue made it into the most delicious monkey bread and I made it into the cinnamony sugary pull apart loaf that was also delicious.

Basically, once you have made the dough you can shape it or create whatever you like with it.

Well...within reason....

I'm not sure you could make a lifesize dinosaur out of it.

Portuguese Sweet Bread (Pao Doce)

Ingredients

2 pkgs active dry yeast (4 1/2 tsp)

1/4 cup very warm water (110 - 120 degrees)

1 cup very warm milk (Scalded, then cooled a bit)

1 cup sugar

1 tsp salt

3 eggs

1/2 cup butter, softened

3 - 6 cups of flour

1 tbsp oil

Directions

Dissolve yeast in warm water ina large bowl. Stir in milk, sugar, salt, eggs, butter, and 3 cups of flour. Beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to make a soft dough. Turn dough onto floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic (about 5 minutes).

Grease a large bowl with the Tbsp of oil.

Put dough into the bowl and turn over to coat with oil. Let rise until doubled, about 2 hours.

At this point you can shape it however you would like. When you are done - cover and let rise for another hour.

Preheat oven to 350 and bake until golden brown, depending on size and shape, usually between 30 - 45 minutes.

To make the MONKEY BREAD

Additional Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 cup brown sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup chopped nuts (I believe Sue used salted peanuts)

Directions

Grease a pundt pan generously with butter. Set aside.

Place melted butter in a small bowl. Set aside.

Place brown sugar and cinnamon in another small bowl. Set aside. 

After the dough has finished its first rise, punch it down to deflate it. Pull off ping pong sized balls of dough. Roll each ball in the melted butter and then in the brown sugar and cinnamon. Place the balls in the bottom of a well greased bundt pan. When the bottom of the pan is covered, sprinkle with half of the chopped nuts. 

Repeat this again for a second layer.  Top with remaining chopped nuts. If you have a bit of brown sugar leftover in your bowl you can throw that on there too!

Note - Sue has also made this with a handfull of homemade granola thrown in there instead of the nuts. You can pretty much throw in whatever topping you like.

Cover bundt pan with a tea towel and let rise for about an hour (until doubled in size).

Preheat oven to 350. Bake until dark golden brown (about 30 - 45 minutes). 

Looks delicious, right? I think the best way to enjoy this is warm but I can choke it back cold. You know...it's tough but someone has to do it.

To make the Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread

Additional Ingredients

1 cup sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1/3 cup butter, melted

Directions

Mix the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and set aside.

Melt butter in a small bowl. Set aside.

Spray a loaf pan with cooking spray. I won't give you sizes here because you can use basically whatever size you want to. Just make sure when you cut the strips they are the same width as the pan.

After the dough has finished its first rise, roll it out to about a 20 X 12 size rectangle. Using a pastry or basting brush, generously spread the butter over the dough.

Evenly distribute the sugar mixture over the butter. (Yup, use it all!) Cut into 6 strips, trying to make them as even as possible. (Total conformity is not necessary)

Next - carefully stack the 6 strips on top of one another.

Now - cut this stack into equal portions. (This is where you cut them to the width of your pan)

Carefully place into your prepared pan until full. There should be a little wiggle room for the dough to rise.

Cover and let rise until doubled (about an hour).

Preheat oven to 350. Bake until golden brown (about 30 - 45 minutes).

Now, in case you didn't notice, both of these are pull-apart breads. This means they are perfect for when you don't want a whole big piece of bread. (Does that actually ever happen to people?)

This way you can just pull off as big a piece as you want with either the monkey bread or the cinnamon sugar bread.

I can't wait to try this with my other go-to bread recipe for savory breads. (See HERE for that recipe)

Can you imagine a monkey bread with bacon and cheese and green onions?

FYI - If you want to have the Pao Doce as it is traditionally served you simply let it finish its first rise, punch the dough down and divide in half. Shape each half into a round, slightly flat loaf. Place each loaf in a greased, round 9 inch cake pan. Cover and let rise until doubled.

Heat oven to 350. Beat an egg slightly and brush it over the loaves. Sprinkle with a tsp of sugar. Bake until the loaves are golden brown, 30 - 45 minutes.

It is really, really good warm with just a little honey or jam spread on it.

Be sure to check out Kitchen Fun With My 3 Sons for some great links!

Zucchini "Pasta"

I admit it.

I am anti-vegetable.

I'm trying to come over to the healthy side. Eat more veggies. Eat more salad. Eat less pasta and rice. Blah blah blah.

If I was in charge then chocolate and cookies and cake and pie would be what made you skinny and healthy.

Unfortunately, I am not in charge, and vegetables are what we have.

*Sigh*

That being said, I have been trying to be a bit more adventurous and find things that fool me into thinking I'm eating food I really want to be eating. For example - This Cauliflower Crust Pizza actually almost fooled me into thinking I was having real pizza.

Then, I was on Pinterest (Yup, again...) and saw some interesting ideas for zucchini and other squash recipes. This particular "recipe" sounded particularly intriguing.

I say "recipe" in the quotation marks because  it only has 1 ingredient. That's right. 1 ingredient.

Okay.....technically.....2 or 3.... but why split hairs.

Zucchini Pasta

Ingredients

1 medium zucchini

1/4 tsp salt

Pasta Sauce or topping of your choice

Directions

Using a vegetable peeler, peel strips off zucchini, working your way around the squash.

The strips can be as wide or narrow as you like. Keep going until you reach the seeds. (A few seeds won't matter but you don't want it to be too seedy.)

Put the zucchini in colander (or strainer), sprinkle with salt and toss to coat. Put the colander in the sink (or over a bowl) and place a bowl full of water on top of the zucchini to help press the water out (or you can use a plate and put some weight on top, ie: a can of food).

Leave it like this for at least an hour (and up to 24 hours.) (It gets more solid over time but the first hour is the most important.) I like to toss the zucchini about half way to make sure it  drains properly.

After an hour, rinse the salt off and either press out the excess water or spread the "noodles" out on a a few paper towels and pat dry.

Heat a medim fry pan over medium heat. If desired you can use a little olive oil - but I just sprayed the pan with cooking spray. Toss the zucchini "pasta" into the hot pan and stir fry until zucchini is heated through. Don't cook it too long or it will stick together and/or become mushy. It is quite delicate. You basically just want to heat it up.

NOTE - I didn't have pasta sauce the first time I made this so I simply added about 2 cloves of minced garlic and a tsp of olive oil to the pan when I stir fried it.

My verdict?

It was delicious!

With the pasta sauce on it I could actually almost fool my brain into thinking I was having pasta.

Seriously.

It was really good. Even with the olive oil and garlic it was tasty. Not as pasta-like as with the pasta sauce on it, but still delicious in it's own right.

Okay...let's be honest....you aren't going to fool the kids into thinking it's pasta BUT if you need to cut back on the calories and eat more veggies then try this.

My anti-vegetable days may be numbered. A few more dishes like this and I may become a convert.

Yes, I enjoyed it THAT much.

Just look at that pasta-like deliciousness!

Be sure to check out A Rosie Sweet Home for some great links. 

Spinach Dip in Mini Bread Bowls

So...yeeeeeeeeeah...if you are trying to lose weight you may want to turn away from your screen right about now.

Really.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

These little bad boys are about to be your downfall.

Ooey gooey cream cheesy spinach dip baked in a tiny bread bowl. No more having to dip into a communal bread bowl! No more trying to get just the right dip to bread ratio!

Now you can pick up this little piece of perfection and enjoy.

Spinach Dip in Mini Bread Bowls

(Adapted from Picky Palate )

Ingredients

13.3 oz roll of refrigerated bread dough (I used whole wheat)

2 cups baby spinach, chopped

3 cloves fresh garlic, minced

4 oz cream cheese, room temp

1/2 cup light sour cream

2 Tbsp Parmesan cheese, freshly shredded

1/8 tsp garlic salt

salt & pepper

1/3 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray 12 muffin cups with non stick cooking spray.

Unroll package of bread dough and slice into 12 equal size slices. Press each slice into about a 3 inch round. (I did this by pressing in between my hands.) Press into the bottom and up sides of the muffin cup. Set aside.

Bread bowls waiting to be filled.

Spray a medium skillet with cooking spray, heat over medium heat. Cook and stir spinach until wilted, about 3 - 5 minutes then add garlic, cook and stir for another minute then turn heat off.  Place cream cheese, sour cream, cooked spinach and garlic, Parmesan cheese, garlic salt, salt and pepper into a medium bowl. Mix until well combined.  Scoop a Tbsp or 2 of dip into each of the centers of bread bowls.

Waiting to go in the oven.

Top evenly with shredded cheese and bake for 15-20 minutes until just turning brown on edges. Remove and let cool for 3-5 minutes before removing from tin. Best served warm.

See what I mean?

Not exactly conducive to weight loss. Of course, it's not so bad if you only eat one.

Good luck with that.

Cauliflower Pizza Bites

When I am trying to eat better (ie: more veggies less chocolate) then I find it really helpful to have healthy snacks available for when I get the munchies. When I want something to snack on, I want it NOW. 

Let me start off by saying, these tasted very good.

And...they were fairly simple to make.

And....they are a great, healthy alternative for a snack.

And... they freeze well so can be on hand for those cravings.

Now...that being said....I probably won't be making them again anytime soon.

Why?

 Well...let me show you a photo...

This is my mini muffin tin in the aftermath of these pizza bites.

I had to scrub out 24 tiny little circles and 12 tiny little squares.

I mean...S-C-R-U-B...

Not cool.

The cauliflower mixture really cooked right onto the pans.

Oddly enough, the pizza bites popped right out the pan (after I ran a butter knife around the edge of each one) and held their shape great. Still...I'm not big on having to scrub out 36 little muffin tins. If I can figure out how to make these WITHOUT having to clean the pans...then I will definitely make them again.

I don't know that paper liners would work.... I think the cauliflower mixture would stick to the paper.

Hmmm....any ideas?
(UPDATE: Sue and I did some experimenting with the ideas that our blog readers suggested to help with clean up. Click HERE!!! to see what worked!)

Cauliflower Pizza Bites

(From Healthy DAMY )

UPDATE -  I just wanted to let everyone know that Amy, from the Healthy Damy website has asked that we don't share the recipe from her site with our readers but, rather, we provide the link to her site so that you can visit her to see the recipe.

Click HERE to get the recipe.
 I just wanted to add that if you would like to make the recipe as we did you simply have to add 36 slices of turkey pepperoni to the list of ingredients.

 

(Just waiting for the pepperoni and then into the oven...)

Place a slice of the turkey pepperoni on top of the "dough" in the muffin tin.

Bake at 450 for 25 - 30 minutes, until golden brown.

Remove from the oven and let sit in the pan for about 5 - 10 minutes before removing. If you take them out while they are too hot they will fall apart.

Now, at this point I went off point from the original recipe. I found when I removed the bites they were still really pale on the bottom. I left them on the cooling racks, placed the cooling racks onto a cookie tray, and placed the cookie tray under the broiler for a few minutes to crisp/brown up the bottom of them.

These are great served with a pizza or pasta sauce for dipping.

See..they look really cute, and they tasted great, and they are healthy, and..well...there are lots of reasons to make these and eat them.

I (or someone...) just needs to come up with a solution to the clean up mess.

I just really do not like having to scrub out pans.

Nutritional info, according to Fitday, is 297 calories, 21 carbs, 45 protein - for the entire recipe. If you divide that by 36 servings - 8.2 calories, 0.5 carbs, 1.25 protein per bite.

If you would like to see the original recipe and some really great photos of this recipe then check out Healthy DAMY . My attempt looks pretty sad compared to hers but...the still tasted great!

Sue and I have made a different yet similar concept of this with our Cauliflower Crust Pizza. You can click the link to see that version for something a little different.
You can see what worked for us, after some experimenting, to avoid the dreaded clean up issues by clicking - HERE!