Sunday, October 28, 2012

Franken Crispies

Aka: Rice crispy treats that look like Franken Stine. (Or they are supposed to)

The next few recipes I post will be fit for a Halloween dinner. I will hopefully have them all posted before Halloween just in case you are in need of help for a dinner for your kiddos. Every year my family has a "spooky dinner" where we eat lots of spooky and sometimes gross Halloween food. We also play fun games and watch fun movies like The Witches. (An old classic I guess you could say. We had never seen it until last night...but it was old and classic. haha)

It is fun and....gross. I'll save those recipes for tomorrow though.  Lucky for you these little guys are just pure cute and very delicious too. Even better they are Dairy and Soy free for me! Which means. I can eat them. 10 of them if I want. And nothing will happen to my little guy :) Oh joyous day.

Essentially these are your typical rice crispy treats. You just use Canola oil instead of butter.

Ingredients:

Green Food Coloring
6 Cups Rice Crispies
3 tablespoons Canola Oil
1 small bag mini marshmallows (If trying to go soy free make sure you check the ingredients!)

Glaze:

2/3 Powdered Sugar
1 Tablespoon Milk (I used Rice Milk)
Orange and Purple Food coloring

In a large saucepan heat up the canola oil on medium heat. Add your marshmallows and about 6 drops green food coloring. Or a nice squeeze of gel food coloring. Stir constantly until the marshmallows are melted. Then add your rice crispies and stir until coated with the marshmallows. The will be nice and green and ready to monsterize. Well almost.

Coat a pan with canola oil. (I use the spray from Costco) Press your lovely green bites of goodness into the pan and let them cool. Choose your ban based on the thickness of treats you want. I used an 8x8 pan. I wanted them to be thick!

Once cool, cut into rectangles.

In a separate bowl mix together the powdered sugar and the milk. You should get a nice glaze not too runny but runny enough you can squeeze it out of your frosting applicator. (A zip lock bag with the corner cut off. ha.)

Separate that into two portions in two zip lock bags and add your purple and orange coloring. Squeeze to mix. Then cut off the corner and go to work drawing your cute little frankie faces on your treats. Be creative. I sure am not an artist and wish I was. I am sure some of you could come up with even more awesome treats than this. They were a hit with the kids though so that is what counts. And they were also a hit with me...because I am a highly dessert deprived lady right now. I practically licked the pan clean of the crispy and marshmallow mixture before you could blink. :)

Happy Halloween!


Tips from Kj;

If you wanted to leave the Frankenstein route and make these into more monsterish treats you could make them in all sorts of shapes and colors using different colors of the glaze to add all sorts of scary features!

When my kiddos are old I want to make this a tradition. Of course they will get their own bags of glaze to go crazy and make big messes with :) Pin It

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Yams...Sweet Potatoes... two words that are absolutely confusing. From what I understand what we call Yams are really actually sweet potatoes? These are not orange that is for sure so just to clairfy we made these with the yams/sweet potatoes that have lighter skin and flesh. Not brown skin and orange flesh. But happy day! You can make these with either one and they will be delicious I cross my heart and hope to die.

Just as a disclaimer. I know, don't worry I promise I know, that fries are so delicious fried. Hence the name. My husband thinks they are delicious fried. And so do a lot of other people in my immediate family, extended family, apartment complex, county, state...um... the world? I like them fried but...I love them BAKED! I like thicker potato pieces and I like them to get a little crunchy from the oven but then they don't have grease all over them. Yuck. I feel like when I fry my own fries at home they are always a lot more greasy than fries you get from fast food. I need to invest in a high quality fryer and then maybe we'll talk about frying fries at my home.  Until then the oven is my friend.

The great thing about these is that sweet potatoes are good for you! Using cooking spray helps keep them pretty low in fat :)


Ingredients:

3-4 Sweet Potatoes washed and sliced into strips
Season Salt
Cooking Spray

Pre-Heat your oven to 350

Take your sweet potatoes and lay them on a cookie sheet. Do a spray with the cooking spray over the whole sheet and toss the potatoes around to make sure they are coated. Then sprinkle season salt over the potatoes and toss again to make sure all of the potatoes are covered in the salt. (Not covered completely of course but that they all have some salt on them) I am one who likes a lot of the season salt so I am not very good at using sparingly....maybe taking the nutrition level down a notch. haha

Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until they are the softness you desire.

Tips from Kj:

If you put the sweet potatoes in the microwave for 3 minutes before you slice them they are a lot easier to cut and they cook a little faster!

I love the salty sweet combination that the season salt gives. But I love to experiment with different seasonings that we have. Steak seasoning, Mrs. Dash...you name it we try it on potatoes and it is often times really good! Pin It

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Salmon and Asparagus Packet

I LOVE tinfoil dinners. They are one of my top favorite parts of camping. Unfortunately my family does not always share my enthusiasm for them and we rarely have them. I think I might be able to convince them they are a good idea once they see this recipe.



I baked this in the oven but I am sure you could make it tinfoil style in the campfire if you wanted. And even better you could make smore's while you waited for it to be done....can you tell I like having dessert while dinner is cooking? I am going to have to get better at that when my kiddos are older! haha

This recipe is amazingly quick and easy. It practically makes itself. If you never have time to make dinner this is for you.

All you need is:

Salmon (I think we had a little less than 1 pound)
Asparagus (About 14 Spears)
1 Lemon
1 Tsp Rosemary
1 Tsp Lemon Pepper
1/2 Tsp Dill
2 Tablespoons Butter
Lay your asparagus on the bottom of the tinfoil. Slice your lemon and place on top of asparagus.


Place your Salmon on top and give it a nice butter back rub. (Really try to rub the butter in onto both sides of the fish) Then sprinkle on the 3 spices on each side of the fish.


Take pictures of your cutie sitting on the table making faces at you....lol 


Wrap the tinfoil closed and bake at 400 for about 25-30 minutes. Check it around 25 minutes to see if it is flaky if it is take it out! You don't want to overcook it. 


Oh my! I wanted to eat it right out of the foil all by myself. 


This was honestly some of the best salmon I have had. Ever. And with how easy it was I'd say that is a big deal! I loved it and I want to try it with other kinds of fish too. I don't think you can go wrong with lemon, lemon pepper and rosemary. They are just so yummy together! The dill was an experiment but we really liked it in the mix and I think I'll be using it more in recipes! 

Tips from Kj: 

Spice Quantities were a rough estimate because I was just sprinkling the spices on. So if you want to put more on...I say go for it! 


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Thursday, October 4, 2012

Root Beer Pot Roast (It's Amazing!)

I am not necessarily a pot roast queen. On most occasions I have made the pot roast and it hasn't been bloggable...my husband didn't even have to tell me that because our mouths were so dry after eating it that we could not speak. haha



This pot roast however was extremely moist and tasty enough that my husband requested that we have it again, and again :) In fact it may be the only pot roast I ever make again in my life. Ok, not true...with pinterest and all of the roasts I've "pinned' I will have to venture out of my comfort zone and try some new recipes.

This roast is SO EASY you will love me forever and your family will love you forever because it is so juicy and delicious. And I promise it doesn't taste like root beer.

All you need is:

A Beef Pot Roast
An Onion (And any other veggies you want but we just did an onion)
2 Liters of Root Beer

Ice Cream (I'll explain this later...it is NOT for the roast but it will be useful I promise)

Turn your crock pot on high.

Season your roast with salt and pepper and brown edges in a skillet.

Put roast in the crock pot.

Slice your onion into wedges and put around the roast.

Add enough of the root beer that the roast is covered.



Cook on High for 5 hours.

While cooking use the left over root beer and the ice cream to have a root beer float! :)

We took the roast out of the crock pot so we could cut it, and just reserved some of the yummy juices!


 Tips from Kj:

If you have the time...cook this on low for 8 hours!

You can add any other veggies you want like potatoes or carrots.

We put mushrooms on top sauteed in butter with garlic Mrs. Dash and season salt. YUM!!!!



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