I know, I know. It’s not spring yet and I could possibly have curbed my craving for something luscious and lemony until the flowers were blooming, like a good girl. Perhaps that would have been more seasonally appropriate. But then I thought…

seasonally appropriate?  What does that even mean? And then a better question would be–and do I care? Hmmm….

Apparently not.

:}

Ingredients:

1 box lemon cake mix

1/3 cup butter-  softened

1 egg

8 oz cream cheese – softened

1 cup powdered sugar

peel from 1/2 lemon – grated

2 Tbsps lemon juice

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, blend dry cake mix, butter, and 1 egg. Press into an ungreased 9 x 13 pan. Beat cream cheese until smooth. Blend in the powdered sugar. Stir in lemon peel and lemon juice until smooth. Set aside 1/2 cup of mixture. Into remaining cream cheese mixture, beat 2 eggs, and vanilla until well blended.  Spread over the cake mixture.
Bake at 350° until set, approximately 25 to 30 minutes. Cool completely. Spread the reserved cream cheese mixture onto the bars. Refrigerate until firm; then cut into squares and serve.

I found this scrumptious bit of loveliness on a pass through Recipe Tips and sincerely couldn’t resist.

Yeah…like I tried.

Yesterday, with a few moments all to myself, I had some of my favorite words in all the universe come chanting through my head…

“What shall I make?”

With a million possibilities swirling through my mind, finally, finally–it landed on “Pepperoni Pizza Puffs,” tweaked a tad from Lick the Bowl Good. Ah, yes. The perfect thing.

Took a whole 20 minutes to whip up, and may I just say…Holy. Cow.

Soft, cheesy biscuits with tons of pepperoni and mozzarella layered through and through. But the magic doesn’t end there. Oh, no. Next you dip them in warm pizza sauce, and trust me–this one will quite likely make your eyes roll back in your head.

Dude. I’m not kidding.

Make them.

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups flour

1-1/2 tsp baking powder

2 Tbsp Italian seasoning

1/2 tsp salt

1-1/2 cups milk

2 eggs

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

2 cups cut up pepperoni slices

1 cup pizza sauce

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease two 12 cup regular muffin tins. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, Italian seasoning and salt. Next whisk in milk and egg–mix well. Stir in cheeses and pepperoni. Allow to sit for about 10 minutes.

Stir the batter then drop by 2 tablespoons into muffin cups. Bake until golden brown–about 20-25 minutes.

Warm the pizza sauce and serve with puffs.

See if you have any better luck than I did at getting them to last more than 5 minutes!

Just…like…

that.

:}

Now, I ask you…

who doesn’t positively LOVE smoothies? Nobody–that’s who!

Around here, it’s getting to where every time I sit down, one of my little sweeties says, “Hey mom–wanna make us some smoothies?” Of course, I don’t mind one little bit–but here’s the thing…it’s kind of a pain to lug all the frozen fruit bags and the yogurt and the juice and whatever else we want in them out all the time. What to do…what to do…

Then, after a quick trip around the Pinterest page I found several clever ways to solve the problem. With a quick little tweak, we came up with this hit.

Load a muffin tin with yogurt–I used peach and strawberry and  put about 4 Tablespoons in each cup. Next freeze them overnight–or until they are frozen solid.

Choose your conglomeration of frozen fruit. You really can make any combination you want–it’s all fabulous. We had raspberries, strawberries, cranberries, blueberries and peaches. Yum-mo.

If you have fresh fruit that you’d like to freeze–like bananas* or canned pineapple, cut it up and spread it, single layer on a cookie sheet, then pop it in the freezer.

*If you dip the banana slices in orange, lemon or pineapple juice–they won’t turn brown.

Scoop 2 cups of frozen fruit into a Ziploc bag.

After the yogurt is frozen, just poke a spoon or table knife in one side and pop them out.

Drop one big or two half sized yogurt “pucks” in each bag and seal them up.

Label the the bags if you like, but we didn’t feel the need. Seriously, any of them are heavenly and you can pretty much see what is in each pack. So it seemed silly to worry about it.

Store in the freezer until someone says, “Hey, wanna make a smoothie?” Then all you have to do is pour a pack in the blender, add 1-2 cups juice or milk and whirl them up.

Best of all, nothing to clean…

except all the empty cups.

Heh.

I’ve loved the buttery, melty taste of Spritz cookies since I was a little girl. I used to watch my dad shoot cookie dough from a pastry bag into fancy shapes that turned magically into stripes and flowers and stars–each with a different flavor too.

Now, I’m not so hot with a pastry bag, but even so, I’m happy to tell you that I made these little sweeties…

all by myself—no chef skills required.

What it takes is this lovely little Cookie Press from Wilton. I’ve always wanted to try one so today, I got really brave and to my surprise, it was easy! You simply make the dough, fill the press and click the dough onto the cookie sheet in any of a dozen different shapes. Sim-ple.

Ingredients:

3-1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1-1/2 cups butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

2 Tbsps milk

1-1/2 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour and baking powder and set aside.

In a mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg, milk and vanilla. Slowly add flour mixture and mix well.

Fill cookie press with dough and fit with whichever disc you want.

Press cookies onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Add sprinkles or sanding sugar or whatever floats your boat.

Bake 10 minutes. Cool 2 minutes on the pan,

then transfer to cooling rack.

Won’t Santa just LOVE these? Of course he will!

:}

Perfect munchie for an evening of “Miracle On 34th Street,” or “One Magic Christmas,” or “Muppet Christmas Carol.” I could go on and on here. Sooo many incredible Holiday movies that we haven’t seen– in, well…a year.

Funny how that works.

If you love peppermint, and popcorn–but don’t like all the old maid surprises that come with real kernal-ly popcorn–then you are about to be saved! No, I mean it. This lovely stuff is crunchy and buttery and salty and then–you add creamy peppermint to it and…

well, all I can say is…

Oh. My. Word.

Here’s how to do it.

First, you pour corn puffs into a big bowl–I used about half the bag.

Then, crush about 20 candy canes–I used the blender so it was nearly a powder.

Melt one package of white chocolate–gently in a double boiler–or however you do it.

Now, mix the candy canes and the white chocolate. Add 1 tsp. of peppermint oil.

Pour over corn puffs and mix until pieces are coated. Allow to set on wax paper covered cookie sheet. If you’re in a real hurry–set it in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes. Store in airtight container or large Ziploc bag.

If I could share a piece of this with you–you’d go right out and buy all the stuff to make it–this very minute. But since I can’t…you’ll have to just trust me on this.

Happy Birthday April!!

~ Oh, and if you’re inclined to do the “Twelve Days of Christmas” for someone special–here’s a lovely Nativity style– sure to warm a few hearts.

In my never ending quest to find all the incredible pumpkin recipes on the face of the earth, that are NOT called pie–we’ve talked about this before– I came upon this recipe innocently enough on a blog called Family Bites. This amazing fudge is smooth, creamy and —I shutter to say—has all the positive traits of pumpkin pie without…you know…being…pumpkin pie. All the right spices and flavors in a little, bitty scrumptious pumpkiny morsel—that I dare you to leave alone for 10 minutes at a time. I know I couldn’t–and I’m incredibly brave.

It’s magic I tell you.

Beware…be-WARE!!

Ingredients:

3 cups sugar

3/4 cup butter

2/3 cup evaporated milk

1/2 cup canned pumpkin

2 T. corn syrup

1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

12 oz. white chocolate chips

7 oz. jar marshmallow cream

1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

Melt butter in a 3-1/2 quart saucepan. Add milk, pumpkin, and sugar. Stir over medium heat till sugar begins to dissolve, then add corn syrup and spice. Cook, stirring constantly until mixture comes to a full boil. Allow the candy to boil for 10 minutes–stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, in the bowl of your mixer, blend marshmallow cream and vanilla for about a minute. Let sit.

Remove candy from heat and slowly add the white chocolate chips, a handful at a time. Stir until melted, then add the rest a bit at a time. Pour candy into marshmallow mixture and blend on medium speed for about 2 minutes. Immediately pour into a lightly buttered 9 x 13 Pyrex baking dish. Allow to set for about 30 minutes. Cut in squares and cover with foil.

Move over pie–you’ve met your match!!

:}

“If you concentrate on finding what is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.”

— Rabbi Harold Kushner

on the face of the earth.

And I should know–I ate about 37 of them…by myself–

when no one was looking.  Seriously, I’ve had whole wheat pancakes before and well, let’s just say, I didn’t go back for seconds.

But these ones…oh my. I would never have believed they were 100% whole wheat if I hadn’t made them myself–from my very own wheat that I personally ground that very morning…with a rock. Ok, not the rock part. But the rest is true. I expected to hate them, or tolerate them–at the most. But never in my wildest dreams did I expect to LOVE them–and here’s the crazy part–more than the packaged kind.

Whoa. Believe me…that’s big. Perhaps bigger still is the fact that they come together real fast and real easy. I’m all about easy.

The Fluffiest Whole Wheat Pancakes

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp. olive oil

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 tsp. salt

1-1/4 cups whole wheat flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 Tbsp honey (optional)

Pour ingredients into the blender in the order listed. Whirl until there are no lumps. You may have to scrape the sides. Pour about two Tbsp of batter onto hot griddle and cook until light brown.

I’ve doubled this recipe every time we’ve made it and we get a nice huge plateful. My thought is always to freeze half the batch to warm in the toaster the next morning. Alas, it hasn’t happened yet because they disappear too soon. Yeah, they’re that good.

Perhaps tripling is in order.

On Thanksgiving morning, from the dawn of time–our family has had a special breakfast–fit, as-they-say, for the pilgrims themselves. It usually involves three very important things.

1) Gingerbread and whipped cream

2) Blueberry muffins and butter

and the star of the show—

3) CORNBREAD and honey butter!!

Now, typically–in the past, we’ve let Marie Calendar do most of the work in the cornbread department, but this year, we’ve stumbled upon a lovely recipe and tweaked it just a bit to suite our no yeast, no sugar adventure. It’s incredible and liable to give Miss Calendar quite a run for her money. Perfectly perfect!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter

1/3 cup honey

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 cup cornmeal

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 8 inch square pan or round pie pan. Stir together dry ingredients and set aside. Beat butter and honey until creamy. Add eggs and mix well. Add buttermilk and dry ingredients and beat until no lumps remain. Pour batter into pan. Bake for 25 minutes or until slightly golden on top.

Happy Birthday Sue!!

I admit–there are some really crazy things going on around here. Wheat grinding, label reading, brown rice boiling, sugar shunning—I tell you, it’s frightening. I mean, it’s almost like, everyone in the house is trying to focus on becoming more healthy…all at the same time. I know, when does that happen? Creepy, right?

Well, it’s not only true, but we’re actually having an ok time with it besides. Oh, there’s a bit more work than just ripping open a box, certainly. But with all of us on the same page, it’s actually…fun. And I believe that the reason it’s fun is that anything hard to do becomes easier when you don’t have to do it alone.

Those are either incredibly wise words or my new codependent motto. Either way.

Now, please don’t be afraid when you see this really healthy, actually good for your recipe. I swear, it tastes great too. You must trust me on this. In fact, I bet your kids will even eat these yummy things–and have no earthly idea that it’s…kind of…like…you know…health food.

Joke’s on them.

:}

Apple Oatmeal Muffins

Ingredients:

1-1/4 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup oatmeal

2 tsp. baking powder

1-1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2 eggs

1/4 cup olive oil

2-3 Tbsp. honey

1/2 cup milk

2 cups peeled apples–diced

Instructions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine dry ingredients and set aside. In a separate bowl, beat eggs, then add oil, honey, and milk; mix well.

Slowly add dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Stir in apples. Fill muffin cup 2/3 full and bake for 18 minutes. Remove from muffin tin and allow to cool.