Cheese-Its!

It seems like everywhere we go we see someone eating Goldfish or Cheez-It crackers (we see a lot of kids the places we go to, clearly!).  The issue, I don't buy them for the girls but they LOVE them when someone is willing to share.  Goldfish actually have a hidden form of MSG in them and since cleaning up our diets about 2 years ago I stopped buying them completely.  I don't mind if someone shares with them but I just won't purchase them for us.

When I saw a pin on Pinterest for homemade Cheez-Its I knew it would be a hit at our house!

I wish I could find the original link to this recipe.  We did make a few adjustments from the original, I did replace the shortening with coconut oil and switched up the cheeses by using sharp white cheddar and regular sharp cheddar.

Cheese-Its

Ingredients:
2 ounces of sharp white cheddar
6 ounces of sharp cheddar
3 tablespoons of butter
1 tablespoon of coconut oil
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of white whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons of cold water

Directions:
Put cheese into food processor (we cut ours up into large chunks) and pulse a few times to break up the cheese.
Add butter, oil and salt and pulse again to incorporate.
Add flour and water and mix until smooth.
Divide the dough into 2 discs and wrap each in plastic wrap.
Chill in fridge for 30 minutes.
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Roll the dough so it's about 1/8th an inch thick.
Cut into squares or you can use a cookie cutter to make fun shapes.
Sprinkle lightly with salt.
Bake between 10-15 minutes, for us 12 minutes was perfect!

Weekday Lemon Pepper Tilapia

This recipe is so easy I almost didn't even want to put it on here. This is our go-to tilapia recipe when we're home late on a weekday, which seems to happen a lot between dance class and soccer practice!

 

Lemon Pepper Tilapia 

Serves 2 (but you can double for 4) 

2 fillets of tilapia, thawed 

1/2 teaspoon of lemon pepper seasonings 

non-stick cooking spray

 Directions: 

Heat oven to 350 degrees. 

Line pan with foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray 

Place tilapia in pan. 

Sprinkle with lemon pepper.

 Bake for 13 minutes.

Raisin Cinnamon Date Balls

So we're kind of obsessed with dates.

 This is already my 2nd date recipe and this is our 3rd month blogging our recipes!  Last time we used pistachios and chocolate and this time for something different we used raisins with cinnamon and almonds!

 Raisin Cinnamon Date Balls



Ingredients:

2 cups of dates-pitted
1/3 cup of almonds
1/4 cup of raisins
2 teaspoons of cinnamon

Directions:
Process almonds until they are a fine powder.
Remove from food processer and set aside.
Process raisins, cinnamon and dates until a ball of "dough" forms in food processer.
In a small bowl combine with your hands the date "dough" and almonds.
Roll into 1-2 inch balls.
Store in airtight container in fridge.

These are the perfect on the go snack for the girls since they aren't messy and fill them up for a while!

Chocolate Coconut Donuts

I've made this donuts before as just plain old chocolate donuts. They're really good normally but I wanted to kick up the flavor some. We had some leftover coconut milk from another recipe so I decided to throw it in. 

These donuts made it a whole 24 hours on our counter top before they were gone.  There's not a single crumb left and I'm already getting requests to make them again!

I was able to find a donut pan at our local Goodwill store.  It makes 6 donuts and that's what the recipe will make.  I might have to invest in a larger donut pan so that I can make more of these at a time without spending my entire afternoon in the kitchen!

Chocolate Coconut Donuts



Ingredients for donuts:

1 cup of all purpose flour
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of cocoa powder
1/4 cup of chocolate chips
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
1 egg
1/2 cup of coconut milk
1/4 cup of melted coconut oil

glaze:
1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar
1/4 cup of coconut milk
2 tablespoons of flaked coconut

Directions:

Heat oven to 375 degrees
Mix flour, sugar, cocoa powder and baking soda in bowl
In second bowl beat vanilla, egg, coconut milk and oil
Combine both bowls into one and mix until well combined
Spray donut pan with non-stick cooking spray
Spoon into donut pan, will make 6 donuts
Bake 9 minutes, use a toothpick to test to be sure they are done at this point

While donuts are baking beat sugar and coconut milk together in bowl.
Glaze will be think.
Once you remove donuts from pan spread glaze over warm donuts and sprinkle with flaked coconut.

Enjoy!

Sweet Soy Pancakes

I know soy is not the best for you and that a lot of people don't eat it at all.  This soy flour was marked down at our local Wal-Mart for $1.50 and I thought it wouldn't hurt to see what it's like to bake with it.

Since I wasn't in the mood for baking I thought that pancakes might be fun to try with the soy flour.  The soy flour has a semi-sweet flavor all on it's own so it's up to you to add the sugar or not, or you could add a little less than I did.

Soy Pancakes



Ingredients:
2 eggs
1/4 cup of soy flour
1/3 cup of plain yogurt
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 tablespoon of melted coconut oil
1/8th teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of sugar

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in bowl and whisk until fully combined.
Heat pan and spray with coconut oil spray.
Add about 3-4 tablespoons of batter to make each pancake.
After each pancake is done spray the pan again with coconut oil spray so that they don't stick.
We were able to make about 8 pancakes with this batter.

Orange Chinese Chicken

We LOVED this recipe.  Not only did we love it but the girls loved it too.  Annika is our pickiest eater and she was eating the green onions off of it telling us she liked the "green things".

We followed this recipe exact and didn't make any adjustments at all.  While it could be spicy if you add more Sriracha we felt the 1 teaspoon was plenty of spice for the girls.  We each added a tiny bit more to our bowls.  The flavor of the Sriracha is perfect with the sweetness from the orange zest and juice!

Please click here for the recipe.  It's really delicious!

Shrimp Scampi with Roasted Peppers and Spinach

This is by far our favorite Publix Apron dish. Not only did we love it but both of the girls loved it and ate their entire helping without fighting at all!

 For the Publix Apron version please click here, I did make a few slight adjustments.

Shrimp Scampi with Roasted Peppers and Spinch


Ingredients:
12 ounces of peeled/deveined shrimp
2 cups of spinach leaves
4 cloves of garlic
1 ounce of shredded parmesan cheese
1 ounce of shredded asigo cheese
1 cup roasted red peppers
1/2 cup of chicken stock
8 ounces of linguine pasta
1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes (we each added more to our own plates)
3 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of olive oil
salt to taste

Directions:
1. Cook pasta per package directions
2. Heat a large frying pan on medium with olive oil.  Slice garlic into thin pieces and cook in oil until edges turn golden
3. Add peppers, shrimp, pepper flakes and salt to olive oil.  Cook about a minute.
4. Add chicken stock and cook until shrimp have turned pink.
5. Reduce heat to low and stir in butter and spinach.  Allow spinach to wilt.
6. Add in cheese and pasta.  Toss until cheese melts.

Beef Stew

One of the first cookbooks I ever received as a gift was Betty Crocker's Cooking Basics.  I must have been around 18 year olds and I was lucky that I was even able to boil water!  I couldn't make anything.

Fast forward 12 or so years and I love cooking and baking just about anything.  This cookbook was collecting dust and I had only made 1 other recipe out of it in the 12 years I owned it.

Josh wanted beef stew so I made the recipe a few times for him.  Since then we've adjusted the recipe and improved it.

Beef Stew


Ingredients:
1 pound of boneless beef tip or round roast cut up into slightly larger than bite sized pieces
1 tablespoon of olive oil
3 cups of water plus an additional 1 1/2 cups of water
salt and pepper to taste
3 medium carrots cut into 1 inch pieces
4 medium red potatoes cut into large bite sized pieces
1 green pepper cut in strips with seeds and membrane removed
3 stalks of celery cut into 1 inch pieces
1 small white onion cut into strips
1 dried bay leaf
1/2 cup of cold water
2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour

1. In a large pot heat the olive oil over medium heat 1 minute, add the beef and cook about 10 minutes.  Stir a few times during cooking make sure that beef is evenly browned on all sides.

2. Add 3 cups of water to pot and salt and pepper to taste.  Heat until boiling and then reduce heat so that mixture is boiling gently.  Cover with lid and cook for 1 1/2 hours.  Beef will be tender.

3. Add carrots, potatoes, green pepper, celery, onion and bay leaf to beef mixture.  Stir well and add the additional 1 1/2 cups of water.  Cover and cook an additional 45 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.

4. Make sure to remove the bay leaf.

5. In a small mason jar shake the cold water and flour until combined.  Stir into stew and heat over high heat.  Continue stirring and boiling until the stew is thick.

Orange Cinnamon Rolls

I wanted to make something different for breakfast one morning and decided to replace the milk in this recipe with orange juice!

They turned out great, the frosting was a bit runny but other than that they were perfect!

Orange Cinnamon Rolls


Ingredients:

dough:
1 1/4 cups of all purpose flour
1 cup of white whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons of melted butter
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of orange juice
2 tablespoons of sugar

filling:
1/3 cup of dark brown sugar
1/4 cup of sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon
2 tablespoons of melted butter-set aside

frosting:
1 stick of butter, softened
3 cups of powdered sugar
6 tablespoons of orange juice

1. In a small bowl mix the filling ingredients (except butter) and set aside
2. In a medium bowl mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt with fork.
3. Pour melted butter and orange juice over flour mixture and mix well to form a dough.
4. Knead dough and press into a 10 X 5 rectangle that is about 1/8th of an inch think.
5. Spread dough with melted butter (that was set aside for the filling) and sprinkle filling on top.  Do not get too close to the edges.
6. Roll dough up and cut into 8 pieces.  To do this evenly I cut the roll in half, then cut each of those halves into half again and then cut each of those halves into half again!
7. Spray a pan with non-stick cooking spray and place rolls in pan.  It is okay if they touch, we used an 8 X 8 pan.
8. Bake at 400 degrees for about 18 minutes.
9. While baking beat together frosting ingredients and spread on warm rolls.

Ginger-Tomato Salmon with Coconut Rice

We sometimes grocery shop at Publix. It's actually the only grocery store in our area.

They always have really good samples and recipes and this was one that Josh got to try that he loved. It's ginger-tomato salmon with coconut jasmine rice and if you want to see the original recipe click the link.

 I made a change and didn't buy the ginger spice paste. We are not at all a fan of ginger and I was afraid the taste would be overwhelming. I only added some ground ginger instead. I also just used normal white rice since we didn't have any jasmine rice. We were surprised that the girls actually really enjoyed this dish too! They both love salmon but I was afraid the coconut rice would be a little "weird" for them but they both ate it!

 Ginger-Tomato Salmon with Coconut Rice


 Ingredients for fish: 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon of ground ginger
1 cup of chicken stock 1 cup of coconut milk
4 medium sized fillets of salmon (our salmon had the skin still on one side)
salt and pepper to taste
1 (14.5 ounce) can of petite diced tomatoes (we didn't drain our can)

 For rice: 1 cup of white rice
1 1/4 cups of chicken stock
3/4 cup of coconut milk
1 teaspoon of olive oil
1/4 cup of diced green onion
salt to taste

 1. Start cooking rice first since it takes longer than the fish to cook. Add chicken stock, coconut milk, and olive oil to a medium saucepan.
 2. Bring to boil and add rice, stir, reduce heat to low and cover pot. Let simmer for 18-20 minutes until liquid is absorbed.
3. Once rice is simmering add the garlic, ground ginger, chicken stock, and coconut milk to a large saute pan and heat over medium-high heat for 3 minutes.
4. Sprinkle salt and pepper over salmon and then add fish to saute pan along with the can of diced tomatoes. 5. Cook fish 8-10 minutes, during this time we decided to turn our fish over in the pan once to make sure it was cooking evenly. Keep checking the salmon to be sure you are not overcooking it.
6. Once rice is done fluff with fork and add 1/4 cup of green onions and stir.
7. Serve rice on a plate with salmon on top, use some of the sauce from the salmon to cover the rice too.

After I took a picture of my plate the girls told me to take pictures of their plates too.  They ate their meal with a side of watermelon.

For both of them I chopped up their salmon and served it over their rice.

Healthier Brownies

I found this recipe on Pinterest for 65 Calorie Whole Wheat Pumpkin Brownies and thought I make a few changes to it. We don't use Stevia and the original recipes does. I'm always trying to find a good "treat" for us especially if it involves chocoalte and the word "healthy"!

 It was a huge success, both girls loved these brownies!  You can serve them straight out of the oven or store them in the fridge and eat them cold.  They actually seem to be better out of the fridge cold!  I also couldn't taste any hint of pumpkin in these at all.

Healthier Brownies


Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons of maple syrup (I only used this because I ran out of vanilla)
1/2 cup of cocoa powder
1/3 cup of hot water
1 cup of whole wheat flour
6 ounces of plain greek yogurt
1 cup of pumpkin puree
3/4 cup of honey
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1/4 cup of dark chocolate chips (if you leave these out the brownies will be sugar free!)

Directions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. With mixer beat eggs, syrup, yogurt and pumpkin until well combined.
3. Add in honey and mix, set aside.
4. In a small seperate bowl mix cocoa and water together until they look like frosting.  If the mixature is too dry add a little more water.
5. Add the cocoa mixture, baking soad and flour together with everything else you set aside.
6. Stir in chocolate chips, save a few to sprinkle over top the brownies.
7. Grease a 8 X 8 pan (we used coconut oil spray).
8. Pour in batter and sprinkle a few chocolate chips on top.
9. Bake 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of brownies.

Enjoy!!

As you can see these are very thick, cake-like brownies!  

Alfredo Whole Wheat Pasta with Mushrooms

In an effort to clean up our diet a little I usually serve whole wheat pasta.  I usually get some sort of complaint that it tastes "healthy" but not this time!

Well, using heavy cream isn't exactly "healthy" but at least it's whole wheat pasta, right?

I adapted the Alfredo Sauce Recipe from Allrecipes.com

These are the cheeses I used.  I bought aged asiago cheese and parmesan cheese.  In order to shred them I cut both cheeses into cubes and tossed them into my food processor.  I used the "pulse" function on the food processor until there were no more chunks of cheese left, only small shredded pieces.

Alfredo Whole Wheat Pasta with Mushrooms


Ingredients:
13 ounces of whole wheat pasta
1/4 cup of butter
1 cup of heavy cream
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/2 cup of shredded asiago cheese
1 cup of shredded parmesan cheese
1 1/2 cups of slices baby bella mushrooms
1 tablespoon of olive oil

Directions:
1. Cook pasta per packaged directions.
2. In separate pan heat the 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 1 clove of garlic over medium-high heat for about 2-3 minutes.
3. Add in mushrooms and sauteed until cooked, about 5 minutes.
4. In a small pot melt butter over medium-low heat.
5. Add cream and simmer 5 minutes.
6. Add garlic and cheeses and whisk until cheese is melted and alfredo sauce is smooth.
7. Combine cooked pasta, mushrooms and alfredo sauce and stir well to evenly coat.

Lemon Butter Cookies

We made this cookies right after Christmas.  I was tired of plain shortbread and especially tired of anything rich, like our Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies, which we had a ton of!

These are very similar to shortbread but with the added lemon extract it gives them a different taste!

Everything you need, super simple:

Processing the flour and butter:

Adding sugar and extract:

The girls trying to help me wrap up the dough:

Roll dough and chill:

Ready for the oven:

Lemon Butter Cookies


Ingredients:

 2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup of butter, room temperature
1 cup of powder sugar
2 teaspoons of lemon extract

 Directions:

1. In a food processer mix flour and butter until it looks like large crumbs
2. Add sugar and lemon extract to food process and continue to process until a dough forms
3. Remove dough from food processer and knead by hand a few times
4. Roll dough into a log and wrap in plastic wrap
5. Chill 1 hour in fridge
6. Remove from fridge and slice dough into 1/4 inch slices
7. Place cookies on parchment lined cookie sheet (we had to use 2 cookie sheets)
8. Bake at 400 degrees for 12 minutes

Fire Roasted Black Bean Chili

I like to prepare easy things for my husband to take to lunch for work.  We put together this chili on a Sunday morning, let it cook during the day and then divided it into containers for him to take for lunch.  Easy and simple!

Fire Roasted Black Bean Chili



Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef
1 15 ounce can of black beans
1 15 ounce can of tomato sauce
1 15 ounce can of dark red kidney beans
1 15 ounce can of diced tomatoes fire roasted
1 can of corn 2 teaspoons garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoons chili powder
salt and pepper to taste

1. Brown ground beef over medium heat in frying pan over medium heat.  Drain off any excess oil

2. Add ground beef, black beans, corn, tomato sauce, kidney beans and fire roasted diced tomatoes to crock pot and stir well.

3. Set crock pot to low heat for 4 hours.

4. Add seasonings and stir well.

Question, do you prefer seeing step by step pictures and a picture of all ingredients or is a picture of just the "end product" better?

Chocolate Pistachio Date Balls

The girls used to love to eat LaraBars. The only problem was that I didn't like having to pay sometimes close to $1.50 per bar, especially when the girls would each want their own! We've played around a lot with different combinations but this one is one of our new favorites. Instead of making the date mixture into a "bar" shape we just roll into balls which makes them perfect for little hands to hold and eat up!

Everything you need:

Pistachios and chocolate chips:

Make sure you can form a ball out of the dates:

Chocolate Pitaschio Date Balls

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups of dates, pitted
1/2 cup of pistachios, with shells removed
1/4 cup of chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Put pistachios and chocolate chips in food processor and mixed about 30 seconds until crushed
2. Add dates to food processor and mix until crumbly and well mixed.  Test to be sure dates can be rolled into a ball before removing mix.
3. Roll into balls, we were able to make 18 total out of these measurements.
4. Store tightly covered in fridge.  The date balls will last longer if you wrap them individually in plastic wrap but if you plan on eating the bunch within 3 days a container will be fine.

Secret Chocolate Cupcakes

The girls have been requesting cupcakes for a while now. While I love to bake I didn't want to make them a batch of sugary chocolate cupcakes. They would want to eat one every single evening and then I'd end up with 2 very hyper girls!

I made substitutions in both the cupcakes and the frosting so that neither one contains actual sugar. Honey and maple syrup are excellent substitutes and the girls had no clue!

Everything I used for the cake (minus the eggs, I guess I forgot to photograph those!).

I lined our muffin pan and sprayed each liner with a little coconut spray oil.

Everything I used for our frosting, notice there is no sugar!!

The avocado in the food process, make sure it is very smooth.

The frosting mixing away! 

I put the frosting in a container to store in the fridge while waiting for the cupcakes to bake and cool.  It reminded me of pudding but went on the cupcakes perfectly!

Secret Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients for cupcakes:

1/3 cup of cocoa powder

1 1/3 cups of all purpose flour

2 teaspoons of baking powder

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1/2 teaspoon of salt

3/4 cup of honey

2 eggs

1 cup of sour cream

1/3 cup of applesauce

2 teaspoons of vanilla

Directions for cupcakes:

1. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl together.

2. With a mixer blend honey, eggs, sour cream, applesauce and vanilla in a separate bowl.

3. Slowly mix in dry ingredients until combined.

4. Line muffin pan or use non-stick cooking spray (we did both).

5. Fill muffin cups until almost full, we were able to make 12 cupcakes.

6. Bake 25 minutes.  

Ingredients for frosting:

1 small avocado

1/4 cup of cocoa powder

1/4 cup of maple syrup

1 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla

1/2 cup of sour cream

Directions for frosting:

1. Using a food processor mix avocado alone until completely smooth and free of all chunks.

2. Add cocoa powder, maple syrup, vanilla and sour cream and process until smooth.

3. Store covered in fridge until read to use on cooled cupcakes.

I was worried someone would notice these are free of sugar, nope, the secret is safe!