Healthy Summer Treat

I love summer. I should really live somewhere with summer temperatures all year round. Unfortunately that wont happen any time soon.  Something to look forward to in retirement maybe?

With summer comes my love for summer treats!  Fortunately I'm not an ice-cream lover. Whaaaatttt??! Yep, it's true, I only like ice cream on a rare occasion. While I was pregnant with Colton ice cream was my craving here and there.  Since he was born, I could care less about ice cream.  This works out well while I hope to shed a few "baby" pounds yet this summer.

This frozen graham cracker sandwhich recipe is both easy AND healthy.  I learned this one from my aunt Julie a few years back and just started making them again.  You can use all low-fat ingredients and it's just the right amount of sweet to cure your craving.

Here is what you need:

Graham Crackers

Whipped Topping

Fruit (optional)

What you do:

Break graham crackers in half.  Add whipped topping and fruit to one half of graham cracker. Place the other half of the graham cracker on top and stick in the freezer for a couple hours!

You can spice up this recipe by using chocolate or cinnamon graham crackers or a different berry!

Remember, you can choose low fat ingredients too!

Yum!

Texas Caviar Fresh Bean Salsa

This fresh bean salsa called Texas Caviar is de-lish!  My friend, Jill, shared this recipe with me when I was living in Cincinnati.  In fact, she first introduced it to me when we had a little Super Bowl Sunday party of our own the first year we were living there.  Honestly I hadn't made it since but as I was going through my recipes in search of something fresh and easy to bring to this year's Super Bowl party I found this recipe and said "This is it!"

Besides being super tasty, I love how pretty and fresh-looking it is with all of the colors!

Be prepared... it's really tough.  NOT!

Here is what you need:

1 can pinto beans

1 can black-eyed peas

1-2 cans white shoepeg corn

1 can black beans

1 small jar pimento

1 can diced green chiles

1 medium onion - chopped

1 green pepper - chopped

fresh cilantro - chopped

Drain and rinse everything that comes from a can and mix all of the above ingredients in a large bowl. 

Tip: You can find pretty much all of the beans and corn in the aisle with the canned goods.  

The pimentos are by the pickles in case you are like me and have never purchased them before and aren't exactly sure what they are. :)

Dressing:

1 C sugar

3/4 C cider vinegar

1/2 C oil

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

Whisk all of the ingredients in a small bowl then add the dressing to the bean mixture.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.  When ready to serve, pour off the extra liquid and serve with tortilla chips or crackers.

This recipe makes a lot so it's perfect for a large crowd.  You might also want to consider bringing some take-home containers... if there is any left!

Enjoy!

Mexi-Corn Party Dip

Every once-in-awhile we like to treat ourselves to the deliciousness of this mexi-corn party dip - even if we aren't having a party!! :)  My dear friend, Sue, introduced me to this recipe and it soon became our favorite pre-dinner snack!  This is a totally healthy dip, no need to consume in moderation.  Kidding, it's really not that healthy but it is good for the spirit!

Step 1| Gather your ingredients: Mayo, mild cheddar, mexi-corn, sour cream, cayenne pepper, cumin

Step 2| Mix together the following:

1/2 c. mayo

1 c. sour cream

1 can mexi-corn

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp cumin

Step 3| Mix in 1 to 1 1/2 cups of mild cheddar shredded cheese.

Step 4| Serve it up with Fritos scoops!  You're gonna want the family-sized bag or you will run out of scoops before you run out of dip!

Enjoy! 

Top Rated Pinterest Recipes

When I originally joined Pinterest I thought I would pin mostly DIY ideas, home decor and women's fashion.  To my surprise, I find myself pinning recipes more than anything! Here are the top rated Pinterest recipes (as decided by Adam and I)...

Click on the recipe title to get to the actual recipe.

Crispy Cheddar Chicken

This is the very first recipe I made from Pinterest.  It is SO good! If you don't have Ritz crackers, don't sweat it, you can use any cracker that is similar.  

Mini Meatloafs

Sometimes, we crave a good meatloaf (maybe it's because we are farm kids that love a hearty meal) but this takes meatloaf to the next level!  The mini meatloafs don't seem to get dried out and the best part is, if you have a favorite meatloaf recipe, just put it into a muffin tin!

Lasagna Rollups

I haven't had lasagna in a long time so I made this recipe last week.  It is just as good as regular lasagna it just seems to bake better in the pan (no crunch edges) and easier to get out of the pan rather than cut squares.  Just be prepared for your kitchen to be a disaster when your done! :)  

Banana Bread With Greek Yogurt

If you are looking for a good, easy banana bread recipe this is it!  It is so tasty, moist and flavorful!

Coconut Pineapple Cake

I made this cake and then found out that Adam doesn't like coconut.  However, I thought it was great and apparently my co-workers did too.  Someone left me a note on the cake pan in our company break room saying how good it was!

Hawaiian Baked Ham and Swiss Sandwiches

And finally, our favorite recipe!  These sound hard to make, but they are super simple and so yummy.  They definitely stayed on our "must keep" list!

I have so many more recipes to make that are sitting on my pinterest board titled, "yum"- follow along if you like!  And if you have recipes that you love, leave a link in the comments section below! :)

Have a great Monday!

Simple Supper Recipe - Mini Meat Loafs

If you are from the rural midwest you call your evening meal "supper", not dinner!  Last night Adam was helping out a neighbor so I was on my own to make supper.  Summer meals are usually a tough decision since we eat lighter and cook more on the grill.  Unfortunately I am not a grilling expert, in fact grilling kind of scares me, (grilling is Adam's specialty) so I had to come up with an alternative plan.  I found this simple supper recipe for mini meat loafs on Pinterest.

This is a super simple recipe and only takes 30-40 minutes max!  Click here for the original recipe from the food network by Rachel Ray.

I made a few modifications to the ingredients but followed the same overall instructions.  Here are the ingredients I used:

Meat Loaf

2 lbs ground beef

Small onion

Half green pepper

1/2 - 3/4 cup Instant Oatmeal

1 egg

Lawry's salt to taste

Pepper to taste

Grilling season of your choice to taste

Mix all of these ingredients together and divide into a muffin pan.  Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes.  After 15 minutes I took the mini-meat loafs from the oven and put the sauce on top of them (ingredients listed below) and put them back in the oven for 5 more minutes.

Sauce

Ketchup

brown sugar

pepper

Mix these ingredients together in whatever proportion you want.

I kind of wondered what Adam would think about this new recipe but he loved them.  We agreed they are better than a single meat loaf because they don't get dried out.  Plus, for those of you that have kids I think this is a great idea!  If my  mom made meat loaf like this when I was a kid, I probably would have liked it better.  Haha! :)

For other recipes I like, check out my Pinterest board titled 'Yum'! Enjoy!

Fall Bread Recipes

Hello friends and followers!  Sorry for the blogging hiatus over the past week.  I have been traveling quite a bit for my real job as a training manager and actually just got back from Orlando, Florida last night.  I would love to be writing a post about the "Magical Kingdom" and sharing pictures of me with Mickey and Minnie Mouse but the work conference I was at kept me indoors.  :(

However, I did get a chance to do a little fall baking last weekend. I found two awesome recipes for bread that I thought I would try out before Thanksgiving rolled around (just in case I was asked to bring something.) 

Here they are:  Cranberry-Hazelnut Bread and Milk Chocolate Marble Loaf Cake.



Cranberry-Hazelnut Bread and Marble Loaf Cake

 Both of these bread recipes are very easy, but a little time consuming because of how long they take to bake.  Below are links to the recipes.  (Sorry I didn't type them out for you, but it's a lot to type in a blog post)

I found the cranberry-hazelnut bread recipe in the November 2011 edition of  Real Simple.  Click here for the recipe.

A quick note for the hazelnut bread.  If you haven't toasted nuts before, watch them closely.  10-12 minutes was entirely too long for the hazelnuts in my oven so the bread actually turned into cranberry-walnut bread.  Haha - oops! :)  Also - fresh cranberries work better than frozen cranberries. 

The recipe for the Marble Loaf Cake cake came from the November 2011 edition of Better Homes & Gardens.  Click here for the recipe.

Last night when I came home there was still some bread left so I took some for breakfast.  It was still moist and tasted fresh so the good news is they keep at least 5 days in case you wanted to make these ahead of time. 

NEXT WEEK I will introduce you to Blue Ribbon Fudge made by my co-worker!  This post will include a fudge give-away!  Ummmm.... :)

Happy Baking - BETH

DIY Vanilla Extract

I am proud to say that I have officially started my Christmas gift-making for 2011!  This is way ahead of schedule for me, but in order to get this done and wrapped by Christmas I needed to start now.  A couple of weeks ago I came across a recipe for Homemade Vanilla Extract on one of the blogs I follow, Whipperberry.  It looked fun and easy to make so I thought I would give it a whirl!  I think this will make a great gift for our mom's, grandmas and the just-in-case I need a gift, gift.

All you need is vodka (anything cheap) and whole vanilla beans.  I took the recommendation from the Whipperberry blog and ordered my vanilla beans from Beanilla Trading Company. 

Who knew that vanilla extract was made out of vodka and vanilla beans?! Out of curiosity I checked the ingredients on the vanilla extract in my cupboard and sure enough - alcohol and vanilla beans and of course a few preservatives.
As for packaging, the mini wine bottles from either Barefoot or Sutter Home wine work great!

DIY Vanilla Extract

Directions:

1 cup of Vodka for 2 Vanilla Beans

Let it sit in a cool, dark place for 1 1/2 to 2 months, shaking it every couple of days

Remove the vanilla beans and strain the liquid thru cheese cloth

Package it up with a cute label! 

(Go to the Whipperberry Blog for packaging ideas- great ideas!)

So this weekend I picked up my supplies from our local HyVee grocery store so I could start my homemade vanilla extract project.  I didn't think of it until I left the grocery store but, I must have looked like an absolute "soak" when I was pushing my cart through the store.  I had a huge bottle of cheap vodka and eight mini bottles of Barefoot brand wine.... and a six-pack of Shocktop... Haha! 

I'm pretty excited for this DIY project!  I just need to empty out all of my mini wine bottles (1 down, 7 to go) so I can keep this project moving. Guess that means I will be drinking wine! :)

Let me know if you take on this project!

Have a great week and enjoy!