Spaghetti Sauce

I love to make "semi-homeade" pasta sauces.  I take a jar of basic red tomato sauce (Hunts Four Cheese) and add my own stuff to it.  You can add chicken broth or wine for depth of flavor.  You can add crushed red pepper for heat.  I like to add veggies too- garlic, onions and red peppers are good.  If you add fresh herbs, it tastes really fresh- basil and parsley are great!  You can even puree vegetables- carrots, red peppers, carrots, squash, or anything- and add that in for extra flavor (and to sneak in some extra veggies for the kids!).

Orange Sauce

This is a sauce I heard about on The Barefoot Contessa yesterday. She did it for ham, as a glaze, but I thought I could tweak it a little bit and use it to make orange chicken with rice. BJ loved it, but I thought it was a little too sweet, so when I make it again, I will use less marmalade. You could really use it for anything- stir fry, vegetables, green bean sauce, noodles, etc.

Ingredients:

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  1 jar (or less) of orange marmalade
  
  
  
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  1/2 cup brown sugar
  
  
  
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  6 cloves garlic
  
  
  
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  1/4 cup orange juice
  
  
  
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  a squeeze of lemon juice, along with a little lemon zest
  
  
  
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  crushed red pepper, depending on how hot you like it
  
  
  
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  dash of salt and pepper
  
  Directions:
  
  
  
  
  

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  Mix all the ingredients in a food processor.
  
  
  
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  Pour sauce into saucepan/pot and bring to a boil, then simmer.
  
  
  
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  Enjoy!
  
  
  

(You could also just pour the sauce directly over the meat once mixed and use as a glaze or marinade.)

No-Bake Peanut Butter Chocolate Cups

This recipe is from a Nestle Tollhouse dessert cookbook I have (it has such yummy stuff in it!). I love it cuz it's "no-bake" and pretty simple. I used a mini-cheesecake springfoam pan to do these last night, but you can do them in a square/rectangle pan and just cut bars.

Ingredients:

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  2 cups peanut butter, divided
  
  
  
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  3/4 cup (1 and 1/2 sticks) butter, softened
  
  
  
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  2 cups powdered sugar, divided
  
  
  
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  3 cups graham cracker crumbs
  
  
  
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  2 cups (1 package) Nestle Tollhouse semi-sweet choc. chips
  
  
  
  
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  Directions:
  
  
  
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  GREASE 13 x 9-inch baking pan.
  
  
  
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  BEAT 1 1/4 cups peanut butter and butter in large mixer bowl until creamy.
  
  
  
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  Gradually beat in 1 cup powdered sugar.
  
  
  
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  With hands or wooden spoon, work in remaining 1 cup powdered sugar, graham cracker crumbs and 1/2 cup morsels.
  
  
  
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  Press evenly into prepared baking pan.
  
  
  
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  Smooth top with spatula.
  
  
  
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  MELT remaining 3/4 cup peanut butter and remaining 1 1/2 cups morsels in medium, heavy-duty saucepan over lowest possible heat, stirring constantly, until smooth.
  
  
  
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  Spread over graham cracker crust in pan.
  
  
  
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  Refrigerate for at least 1 hour or until chocolate is firm.
  
  
  
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  Cut into bars.
  
  
  
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  Store in covered container in refrigerator.
  
  
  

Smoothie Pops

I love to make smoothies and smoothie pops for my kids because it's such a great way to get them to eat fruit and yogurt. They are full of all kinds of great stuff and the kids love them! I can give them a smoothie pop instead of a popsicle and not feel guilty! There are so many different ways to make them- just throw whatever you like in the blender and there you are! This is how I like to do it:

-1 can of peach yogurt

1 can of strawberry yogurt

(sometimes I will sub. blueberry for one of the other flavors)

-1 banana (this is important to make it creamy and smooth)

-a big andful of frozen fruit- I use strawberries, blueberries and peaches (fresh fruit is great too!)

-orange juice

-apple juice

Just put all the fruit and yogurt in the blender, then fill to the top with juice. Blend away. I pour each of the kids a cup to drink right away, then I freeze the rest in popsicle containers for smoothie pops that the kids love! They make a great snack or dessert, and they taste so much better than regular popsicles. :)

*Halloween Cake*

This is the cake I made for Halloween. Kate helped me decorate it with the sugar candies. What would be more appropriate for Halloween than a delicious Devil's Food Cake?!?! I added orange extract to the mix to give it a little special flavor. Then I used orange food coloring to make the frosting, and used the Betty Crocker Cupcake Icing to trim it.

*Tips and Tricks*

*If you don't have a pastry bag, you can do a quick and easy make-shift one by using a ziplock bag and snipping a hole in the top. You can use scrapbooking scissors with the designed blades to snip a design too. Just fold the edges of the opening down (to avoid a mess!), fill the bag with the frosting, and then snip the top and ice away!

*Also, I just found a new product (well, new to me) at the grocery store last week and I LOVE it!!! It is Betty Crocker's Cupcake Icing and it is so great! Makes decorating cakes, cookies and all sorts of treats so easy and fun!

*Lemon Coconut Cake*

I made this cake last night. It is so yummy! You can do it as homeade, or semi-homeade, as you like! I didn't have coconut (which I realized after I had started!), so I just decorated the top with sprinkles.

What you need:

-1 box lemon cake mix (or you can use yellow or white, and add lemon curd, lemon extract and other stuff to make it lemony) (or you could do it all from scratch!)

-3 eggs

-1/3 cup veg. oil

-1 and 1/4 cup water

-about 1 tsp. coconut extract

-the zest of 1 lemon

-lemon curd (optional)

-lemon extract (optional)

-frosting of your choice (I used plain white)

-coconut shreds for decoration

1. Preheat oven to 350

2. Mix cake mix, eggs, oil, water, coconut extract, and lemon zest (you could add lemon curd/lemon zest if you like, for extra flavor)

3. Pour into cake pan (I used a bundt cake pan) and bake according to directions
4. Let cool completely

5. You can make any kind of frosting/icing you want. To make it extra special, you can add either lemon or coconut extract to it for flavor. Frost cake.

6. Decorate with coconut shreds (or any other topping)

Enjoy!