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.