Chocolate Revel Bars

If you love chocolate and oatmeal then this is the bar for you. My only gripe about this recipe is that I find the Better Homes and Garden cookbook - not so easy to scan.

Ingredients:

Oatmeal base:

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
3 cups quick cooking rolled oats

Chocolate topping:

1 1/2 cups of semisweet chocolate pieces
1 14 ounce can of sweet condensed milk
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons of butter

Preparations:

1. Mix oatmeal, butter, brown sugar, vanilla, flour, eggs and baking soda.
2. Take 2/3 of that mixture and pack it into a 9 x 13 pan.
3. Melt chocolate with butter over medium to low heat, add milk and nuts.
4. Pour chocolate topping over oatmeal base.
5. Drop remaining oatmeal mixture over chocolate.
6. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

Slow Cooker Cook books

Just like you can never have too many pairs of shoes - you can never have too many cookbooks. While not every cookbook is worth the money, here's a couple that I've bought recently. These books have recipes that are easy to make, good tasting and worth buying.

Tamale Pie

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef
1 package (10 ounces) frozen corn thawed
1 can (14 ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained
1 can (4 ounces) sliced black olives, drained
1 package taco seasoning mix
1 package (6 ounces) corn muffin or cornbread mix, plus ingredients to prepare mix
1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1 green onion, thinly sliced

Preparations:

1. Brown meat and drain. Add corn, tomatoes with juice, olives and seasoning mix.


2. Bring to boil over medium heat, stirring often.


3. Pour into casserole dish.


4. Prepare corn muffin mix according to directions.


5. Spread evenly over beef mixture. Bake approximately 15 minutes or until golden brown. Sprinkle with cheese and onion.


6. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Campbell's Hearty Beef & Bean Chili

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs ground beef
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can (10 3/4 ounces) Campbell's tomato soup
1 can (14 1/2 ounces) diced tomatoes
1/2 cup water
2 cans (15 ounces each) red kidney beans
1/4 cup chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin

Preparations:

1. Cook beef until browned. Pour off fat.
2. Mix beef, onion, garlic, soup, tomatoes, water, beans, chili powder and cumin in crock pot slow cooker.
3. Cover and cook on low for 8 to 10 hours or on high for 4 to 5 hours or until done.

Cafe Rio Cilantro Lime Rice

How about some rice to go with the enchilada casserole! Here's a recipe from Paige at Recipezaar.

Ingredients:

4 cups water
2 cups white rice
4 teaspoons chicken bouillon
2 garlic cloves
1/2 onion, chopped
1 large lime
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped fine

Paige's Directions:

1. Chop onion and garlic small. In a food processor, chop cilantro (I remove stems). Set aside.
2. In a 4 cup measuring cup, squeeze lime so that all of the juice is extracted. Fill the container with water until it equals 4 cups. (you only want 4 cups liquid total). Place liquid in a sauce pan, add bullion and bring to a boil.
   
3. When liquid comes to a boil, add onion, garlic, cilantro and rice. Cover and cook 25 minutes, or as long as instructed on the rice package.

Where I went wrong:

Mr. "I said I'd clean the shower so my best friend can visit for a week" (not that I'm passive aggressive or anything) didn't try this recipe so you're left with just my feedback. I used a big lime and it was overpowering. I also used Japanese sticky rice and then dumped extra bullion on it in order to make it less sticky and less lime flavored neither of which actually worked. Don't repeat my mistakes! Stick the recipe and enjoy!

Easy Green Chile Enchilada Casserole

Whenever I go to a Mexican restaurant I almost always order enchiladas. At the same time it gets expensive to eat out so I'm trying to make some of my favorite dishes at home because it's cheaper and contrary to what a lot of people think - it's not hard!




This is a recipe for an easy casserole version of chicken enchiladas that's on the fattening and spicy side. We tried to take a picture of it on the plate but it was too gooey for that! Yummy but very gooey!

Ingredients:

4 cups shredded cooked chicken
1 1/2 cups green enchilada sauce
1 can (10 3/4 ounces) condensed cream of chicken soup, undiluted
1 container (8 ounces) of sour cream
1 can (4 ounces) diced mild green chiles
1/2 cup vegetable oil
12 (6-inch) corn tortillas (or you can use three large flour tortillas)
1 1/2 cups of shredded Colby-Jack cheese, divided

Preparations:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease 13x9 inch casserole dish.
2. Combine chicken, enchilada sauce, soup, sour cream and chiles in large pot. Cook on medium until the mixture is warm.
3. If you use corn tortillas, heat skillet with oil and fry tortillas until their soft.
4. Layer casserole dish - 3 tortillas, 1/3 of the chicken mixture and 1/2 cup of cheese.
5. Repeat layer process so there are three layers with cheese on top.
6. Bake casserole for 15-20 minutes or until cheese is melted and the casserole is warm all the way through.

Double Chocolate Cookies

If Cookie Monster were a real person, I would so want his job!!! I love cookies and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Given the opportunity (and the inability to gain weight which I do NOT have), I'd eat cookies or cookie dough every single day. But since that's not good for me (at least Jillian Michaels and my dentist say it's not) I've learned to make homemade cookies a once week treat where I also get to try out a new recipe. Then I do my best not to think about how long I'll have to spend at the gym to burn off my cookie madness. :)

Note: I don't like white chocolate so I used semi-sweet and milk chocolate morsels for this.

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter (at room temperature)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup of light brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cups of self rising flour
1 cup of rolled oats
4 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
4 ounces of white chocolate, coarsely chopped

Preparations:

1. Mix butter, vanilla, sugar and egg.


2. Separately, mix flour and oats.


3. Combine both sets of ingredients and add chocolate.


4. Bake at 375 for 15 to 20 minutes.

Banana Nut Muffins

Hi, my name's Chris and I'm a compulsive baker. No matter how stressful life gets, baking is one of the few things that actually makes me feel better. I blame my mother for this trait. No matter how choatic things were when I was young that woman could be found baking a bundt cake or brownies. She wasn't much for cooking though and I can't ever recall her actually making a meal. My dad used to say "your mother's idea of cooking was to turn everything on high and then get on the phone".

Gotta love a woman who tries to multitask. :)

Along those lines, here's a muffin recipe for those mornings when you need something to go with your morning beverage.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup of butter (melted)
3 mashed bananas
1 cup of sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
5 tablespoons of milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 1/4 cup of flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Preparations:

1. Mix baking powder and flour. Set aside.


2. Combine bananas, sugar, egg, vanilla, milk and butter.


3. Add flour mixture to banana mixture and mix well. Add nuts.


4. Spoon into greased cupcake pan or into cupcake pan with liners.

Bake at 375 for approximately 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Bush's Best 3 Bean Slow Cooker Chili

Ah, the joys of the crockpot. Summer is fast approaching which means there's soon to be three little girls tromping around here and asking the age old question - "What's for dinner?" What they don't know is that Daddy has been drafted to cook dinner two nights a week. In order alleviate the frustration that's sure to hit me as soon as I walk in the door on Friday evenings, I've started prepping Mr. Socks with the idea of using crockpot recipes on those days.

What could be easier than throwing all the ingredients in a crockpot and then forgetting about it? Alright, ordering a pizza would be easier but let's not tell him that. :)

Ingredients:

2 lbs of lean ground beef
3 teaspoons chili powder
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 small green pepper, seeded and chopped
2 cans (16 ounces) Red kidney beans
2 cans (15 ounces) Pinto beans
2 can (15 ounces) Black beans
1 can (14.5 ounces) diced tomatoes
1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspon ground cinnamon

Preparations:

Dump everything in the crockpot and stir really well. Cook on low for 3-4 hours.

Note: I used chuck pot roast instead of ground beef because it's extremely cheap. If you use that, be sure to cook the chili until the meat is very tender.

Italian Meatball Hoagies

Ever have the middle of the week - can't eat real food - traffic sucked - will someone please clean up my kitchen - blues? I've got a case of those right now. My teeth are still torturing me and while I can't eat bread to save my life (or spare it), I did make this tasty meal for that guy leaves his socks lying around and never seems to want to do the dishes.

While I couldn't partake of the hoagie roll, I had a meatball and it was really good. This came as quite a shock seeing as how I generally don't like meat much. This recipe comes from the dear souls who put together easy meals for those of us with mid-week blues. The book is called "Super Suppers Cookbook" and I bought it for $5 on Barnes and Noble online.

Meatballs:

1/2 cup soft white bread crumbs

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup finely chopped onions

2 lbs lean ground beef

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon dried Italian mixed herbs crushed

1 teaspoon salt

The rest of it:

6 hoagie rolls split

1 jar of Marinara sauce

6 slices of Provolone cheese (or 1 cup of Monterey Jack cheese shredded)

It says to let the bread crumbs and milk soak for 5 minutes. I just threw everything into my Kitchen Aid, blended well and then rolled the mixture into meatballs. The great thing about this recipe (besides being easy) is that you can freeze whatever meatballs you don't need for up to two months.

Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes.

Once the meatballs are done, lightly toast buns. Bring sauce to boil and add meatballs. Mix. Top buns with meatballs and marinara then add cheese and return to broiler until cheese is melted.

Crunchy Jumble Cookies

Tired of the same old boring chocolate chip cookies? Yeah, I'm not either but I decided to try something new and kind of crunchy anyway.

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter

1 cup of sugar

1 egg

1 tsp of vanilla

1 1/4 cups of flour

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

2 cups of Rice Krispies

1 cup of milk chocolate chips

Preparations:

1. Combine butter, sugar, egg and vanilla. Mix well.


2. Separately, mix flour and baking soda. Add to butter mixture.


3. Add cereal and chocolate chips


4. Bake at 375 for 10 minutes.

Baked Ziti with Ricotta and Meat Sauce

This recipe is based on one from Cooks.com and I made some substitutions because I don't drink (and didn't have wine) and I was out of mushrooms. It's always such a bummer when you find yourself short one ingredient and you've already made one trip to the store.

Ingredients:
1 (16 oz.) box baked ziti
1 lb. spicy Jimmy Dean sausage
1 med. onion, chopped
15 oz. Ricotta cheese
2 cups of shredded Mozzarella
1 egg
1/4 cup cooking sherry
1 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
16 oz. jar sauce
1 c. sliced mushrooms

Preparations:

1. Cook pasta according to directions on the box.
   
2. While pasta is boiling, cook sausage and onions until meat is cooked.
   
3. Drain pasta. Add cooked sausage and onions.


4. Separately, mix Ricotta cheese, Oregano and egg


5. Add sherry, garlic powder, sauce and mushrooms to Ricotta mix.


6. Combine pasta/meat mixture with sauce mixture.


7. Pour mixture into casserole dish or 9x13 pan. Top with Mozzarella.


8. Bake for 60 minutes at 350.

Servings: 6

Cilantro in the banana bread

Like I mentioned previously, I watched "Julie and Julia" recently and while Julie was having meltdown after meltdown in the kitchen I thought to myself - I've never had a meltdown over cooking. Ah, famous last words....

I spent 3 1/2 hours at the dentist getting 11 cavities filled today. During the first hour, they gave me laughing gas but that combined with the constant music of the Eagles, Eric Clapton and Fleetwood Mac, made me feel like I was on some psychedelic trip backwards in time. So I had the very nice dentist turn it off and instead I got 7 painful shots of Novocain which did nothing to ease the pain of having cavities that hit nerves. (Seriously kids, brush and floss when your parents tell you to.)

So here I am, baking banana bread (because I can barely open my mouth since those lovely drugs have worn off) and having a meltdown. Why you ask? Because my overcrowded spice cupboard is located directly above my prized Kitchen Aid and I just knocked a bottle of Cilantro into the batter. (My husband is right - I never put the darn lids on!) On top of it all, I knocked a couple of boxes off the top shelf in the pantry thus leading heavy cans of tomatoes to fall on me. Which is so going to leave bruises...

I'd eat chocolate but I think that's what got me in this mess in the first place. :)

Coconut Rice Pudding in a Crockpot

Lately, I've discovered the joys of the crock pot (thanks to my $5 cookbooks from B&N) recently. You gotta love the idea of throwing ingredients into a pot and letting it cook for hours with little assistance from the actual cook. I find that feeding the family is considerably less maddening with easy recipes like this one.

Ingredients:
2 cups of water
1 cup uncooked converted long grain rice
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups evaporated milk
1 can (14 ounces) cream of coconut
1/2 cup raisins (golden raisins if you prefer)
3 egg yolks, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
toasted coconut

Preparations:

1. Combine water, rice, butter and salt in medium saucepan. Bring to boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to low and cover. Cook 10 to 12 minutes. Let stand, covered for 5 minutes.


2. Coat Crock Pot with cooking spray or crisco. Add milk, cream of coconut raisings, egg yolks, lime peel, vanilla and cinnamon. Mix well.
   
3. Add rice mixture to crock pot.


4. Cook on high for 1 hour and 15 minutes stirring every half an hour.

Cooking and Coupons

Once upon a time, I was a single gal with tons of free time, disposal income and a four pack (thanks to all the free time I could spend at the gym). And then I got married and everything changed literally. In the course of the time it took me to say "I do"; I went from being all of the aforementioned to being a wife and mother of three and surrendering my abs to Oreo binges.

It used to be that I never ate dinner let alone cooked it. But thanks to my newly acquired responsibilities, I found myself constantly trying to answer the same questions - "What's for dinner? And do I really have to eat tater tot casserole again?"

In order to appease the family I joined, I decided to branch out and try new recipes hence this cooking blog. While I'm probably not as entertaining as Julie Powell, I hope that the recipes and coupon tips prove to be helpful to whoever stumbles upon my humble little blog.

I've learned alot (since I jumped fully clothed into the deep end of the pool) about cooking and saving money. I've also found that acquiring new skills really takes the edge off the moments when I feel like giving up on trying to keep the house clean, the kids fed and my husband from leaving his dirty socks in odd places around the house. (Who does that anyway?) I've also learned that baking with children is a really good way to get them to focus on something other than hitting each other and that you should never take more than ONE kid with you to the grocery store while some kids should NEVER be taken to Walmart - period.

If you have recipes, tips for saving money on groceries or know a great way to motivate your husband to pick up after himself then feel free to post a comment here!

Decadent Chocolate Delight

Who knew you can make dessert in a crockpot? Not me!

Ingredients:

1 cake mix (18 ounces)
1 container of sour cream (8 ounces)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup water
4 eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 package (the kind that serves 4) chocolate pudding

Preparations:

1. Grease crockpot
2. Mix all ingredients well.
3. Pour mixture into crockpot and cook on LOW for 6-8 hours or on HIGH for 3-4 hours.

Peanut Crunch Cookies

Here's an easy recipe for some tasty cookies.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cups self-rising flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
Confectioner's sugar

Preparations:

1. Mix butter, brown sugar, egg and peanut butter.


2. Separately mix baking powder and flour.


3. Combine both sets of ingredients.


4. Bake at 375 for approximately 12 minutes.


5. Let cool and dust with confectioner's sugar.