I made some for the first time yesterday! So yummy! If you missed the recipe, you can find it here! We have been trying to find ways to have it for every meal. So I thought… why not share some recipes for your homemade bread? This way you too can have some recipes ready to go when you make your own bread.
As a side…
Yesterday, I also made tuna casserole, and had it with a side of a slice of warm bread, fresh out of the oven, with butter! My son wanted some garlic bread, so I toasted it added butter, then sprinkled some garlic spread on top, we love Johnny’s!
As a snack…
Bobby wanted more bread, but this time with crunchy peanut butter. He’s a big pb&j fan. That’s kinda the reason I decided to try to bake bread in the first place, so when I make him uncrustables at home, I can use it with bread where I know every ingredient that is in it. I also recently started making mini pizzas in our Air Fryer. Since we are running low on english muffins, I decided to try it with our bread today… OMG, it’s like a french bread pizza!
For a sandwich!
I saw that my sister posted a recipe for a BLT Deluxe Melt (Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato) Sandwich on her blog. Since we had turkey bacon, and avocados, and now yummy bread too…. I decided I should give it a go! So tonight’s creation is brought to you by my little sister!
The whole family enjoyed it! My hubby’s bread got grilled a bit too long on one slice, so I put it on the bottom. He’ll eat anything, which is great since I have burned things on occasion and we usually didn’t have to toss them. Human Garbage Disposal is his alter ego.
We used our homemade bread and Dave’s Killer Bread rather than sourdough. I baked the turkey bacon on a cookie sheet in the oven. I recommend chopping up extra lettuce, tomato, and avocado and saving them into storage containers so we’ll be ready for later. I’m sure the girls will ask for more turkey and cheese sandwiches later this week. They have been on a major turkey and cheese sandwich kick lately. We used Tillamook Medium Cheddar and Arla Havarti instead of Mozzarella. And we skipped the egg. But… it was sooo delicious! You can try out her recipe and jazz it up to make it your own, or copy it to a T if you have all the ingredients. I am all about subbing when I don’t have the exact ingredients, but something close enough. Ha!
More to come…
The bread is almost gone, but when I make a new batch and try out new recipes, I’ll come back here and add to the list!
We’ve been having my mom’s Tuna Casserole Recipe for as long as I can remember. Sometimes she would jazz it up with bread crumbs on top and put it into the oven to make it super fancy. But… I am all about fast and easy, so you are getting the stove top version from me today! This has always been a family favorite in our family, and I am hoping that I can carry on the tradition of it being a family favorite now that I have a family of my own.
Fair warning… these are all pretty much estimates
My mom probably gave the the recipe over the phone when I was living on my own in Ventura County. She doesn’t measure, just like her mom doesn’t measure so… I tried to eyeball my estimates as I typed this up today.
I used my 6 quart Calphalon Stock Pot and filled it a little more than half way full. Add in the 1 tsp of butter, 1/2 tsp of celery salt, and 1/2 tsp of salt and bring your water to a boil. Once your water is boiling you can add in your entire 12 ounce package of Extra Wide Egg Noodles. Stir occasionally and let boil for 9 minutes.
Drain your noodles in a strainer, and do not rinse.
While your noodles are sitting in the strainer in the sink, add 1 can of cream of mushroom soup, 1/2 a can of milk, 2 Tbsp of mayonaise, 1 can of tuna (drained), and salt, pepper, and celery salt to taste to your warmed stock pot. Turn the heat to medium to get your soup mixture bubbly. Once you see bubbles, add a handful of shredded cheese and stir together until melted. Turn off the flame.
Add your warm noodles back into the mixture and stir until well coated.
Once it’s all coated, sprinkle with more cheese, cover with the lid, and let the cheese melt on top for about 2 minutes.
Dinner is served!
My mom would usually make a can of corn, and we’d have a piece of white bread, not toasted, with butter on the side. I am actually making bread for the first time, but I think the kids are going to devour their tuna casserole before the bread has time to bake. Maybe they can have it together for leftovers.
I ended up waiting to eat dinner until the bread was done… I took my Balance about 30 minutes before the bread would be ready so I would be ready to go! It was sooo good! I’ll post that next.
And I think I have a video of my mom making Tuna Casserole. She and my mother in love came to our house in Camarillo after our first was born 4 weeks early due to HELLP Syndrome. They both made some recipes, and we recorded them, so that we could share them with the kids when they got older. Thankfully we did, because we lost my mother in love to Pancreatic Cancer just 4 months later. When I find the video of my mom, I’ll add it to this post!
If you’ve been on the lookout for a really yummy tuna casserole recipe that the whole family will enjoy, you should try my mom’s tuna casserole recipe! I think you’ll enjoy it!
Bagel Bites are another thing that’s super convenient… But maybe not the healthiest. I love that an entire pack fits into my Power Air Fryer XL. I’m all about my Air Fryer, and we are all for pizza. 🍕 We are part Italian 🇮🇹, so it kinda makes sense. In trying to make room in our freezer before my Costco run, I found a pack of English muffins… I also saw an almost empty bottle bottle of Marinara in the fridge and a pack of pepperoni… And we always have shredded cheese. So… Mini Air Fryer Pizzas was invented… This morning. 😂
Super easy, the kids can even help!
They could have helped… Except I did it before they caught me. I was trying to get to Costco early, but that didn’t end up happening. First, I made a batch of Boiled Eggs in my Instant Pot because I wanted to make room for fresh eggs. Then I made these mini pizzas and by the time I got to Costco, I had missed the Clorox Wipes 😕. I saw a guy walking out with the prized possessions and when I got to the back corner there were none to be found. We don’t even use Clorox wipes at home, but it’s on the school supply list for second grade, so I’m on the hunt now.
Cut your English muffin in half to make 2 mini pizzas. Top with marinara, or your favorite sauce, add some shredded cheese, and some toppings, then a little more cheese. I would add more cheese on top to help with the casualty we had…
4 mini pizzas ready for the Air Fryer!
Gently place them into your basket.
Set the timer for 5 minutes.
And voila! We only had one major casualty… One pepperoni flew off and landed in the middle. I just put it back on top of the one pizza with only 2 pepperoni. Nobody knew. 🤷🏽♀️ But I would use more cheese next time to try to keep the pepperoni from flying. One did curl, I’m assuming the heavier cheese would have kept that one flat as well. I didn’t get to taste them since they were gone before I got home, so I’ll take that as a good sign that the kids approved!
I used whole grain English muffins since that’s what we had on hand. Next time I may try to make our own. 🤔 I did finally buy yeast for the first time ever, so watch out… This Mama is going to get to baking!
I’ve always been not so keen on the fact that I can’t actually see inside the store bough ones. 👀 Do you use reusable apple sauce pouches?
So I bought the little green pouch ones that I could fill up at home when my oldest was 1. I used those for a bit, until my kids chewed up the spouts. 🤦🏽♀️ And lost the caps. 🤷🏽♀️ It was always a little awkward trying to clean the bottom of the pouch, too. You would fill it from the top, next to the odd placed spout, and good luck cleaning all the crevices. Plus they weren’t see through. I knew what I put in though, so… I did have a little more peace of mind than the store bought ones.
Then, I went back to the prefilled ones…
For no other reason than because it’s just easier. Plus… there were organic options… So they have to be better than the ones that people have found mold inside, right?
But then… Amazon…
Totally popped these up as something I might be interested in. These pouches have a mostly clear backside! And the spout is on the top, like the kids are used to!
So you fill it from the bottom, it even has a line to tell you where to stop filling so it won’t spill over when you zip it closed!
And I found these super cool soft spouts you can attach over the hard spout. They come with a built in cover! These totally help you to avoid spills if your little ones are anything like mine were. Do your kids squeeze the pouch as soon as your hand it to them? Mine would make a mess at the most inopportune times. They will have to get used to the extra suction required. But, you won’t have to worry about a big mess if they squeeze the pouch a little too hard. I’m sure it’s totally possible that they could grab a full pouch and squeeze it just to test it… You can even attach these spouts onto the store bought pouches too! So, if you are just looking for a little bit of safety while handing prefilled pouches to your kids, get you some!
The kids are getting older now…
Hopefully my kids won’t bite the spouts again, because they are older now. But since we are hoping to grow our family through foster to adoption, these may come in handy for our newest youngest.
I filled these with apple sauce today. You can buy the big container of apple sauce for less cost per serving and fill your own containers at home. Did you know that you can often find out the cost per serving right on the price labels at the grocery stores? Plus, I find that my kids eat so much more fruit when it’s already ready for them to grab and eat! You can even make your own apple sauce at home, but I haven’t been that brave just yet.
I plan on making a big batch of yogurt too in my Instant Pot, and filling up more pouches so those can be grab and go as well.
These can be great for school too!
These can even be grab and toss into the lunchboxes when the kids do get to have lunch at school again. We found out yesterday that our kids do get to go back to school in person. It will be day camp style, almost 3 hours a day, with half their class, and with their real teacher in person! I’m super excited too, because our middle child will be starting kindergarten. I was not looking forward to having to try to teach him fully at home through distance learning. Many are having to do this, and I don’t envy them at all. I know everyone is doing the best that they can, and that’s all that you really can do. Do your best, let God handle the rest!
So if you’ve got young kids who like their snacks in pouches, you have got to check out the reusable apple sauce pouches for your kids!
If you want to check out more of our super favorite things, you can find them here!
My son would have Uncrustables for every meal if we let him.
And he eats them frozen…
I’m a little worried about how he’s going to react when he opens his lunchbox at school and finds a thawed out Uncrustable 😱.
Not going to lie, they are super convenient too… He can grab a bag out of the freezer and have his meal ready to go.
But… Then there’s the ingredients. 🙄 And the high fructose corn syrup is a deal breaker for me.
So… I started making my own at home with these cool sandwich cutters!
I know exactly what is going into them, and I can freeze them and store them in one big zip lock bag for less trash waste too! Plus, it saves money since we buy the peanut butter and jelly in bulk!
I put peanut butter on both pieces of bread then drop a spoonful of jelly on top of the peanut butter to try to keep it from squirting out of the bread as I use the cutter and sealer.
Next thing on the to do list… Find a good recipe to making my own bread at home so I can stop having to read all the bread labels… 🤔
I had been wanting to try making a cheesecake in my Instant Pot, but I didn’t have a small enough Springform Pan, but I did have a big one I bought years ago, and had never used, so I figured I should try the one I already had before I spent more money on one for my Instant Pot.
Except… We are low on Graham Crackers and I didn’t want to make a trip to a store in my coronavirus mask just for Graham Crackers… So I got creative with what I had…
Ritz Cracker Crust…
1.5 Cups crushed Ritz (that’s about 45 crackers)
3 Tablespoons of sugar
1/3 Cup Melted Butter (that’s about 5 1/3 Tablespoons)
Mix your crackers and sugar together first, then slowly pour in the melted butter while stirring. After mixed, press into bottom and slightly the sides of your springform pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, then let it cool while you work on the filling.
The rest was easy…
3 cups (24 ounces) of room temperature cream cheese
1 cup of peanut butter, I used crunchy
1 1/4 cups of powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups of heavy whipping cream
First whip together the cream cheese and peanut butter until it’s no longer lumpy, then I added in 1/4 cups of powdered sugar at a time while whipping it all together, finally I added the vanilla extract. Once it was all ready, I added in the cold heavy whipping cream and blended until peaks formed.
Scoop it all into your cooled down crust, spread it as smooth as possible, and chill it for an hour.
I also made a chocolate mousse to add a little decorative border…
I used my immersion blender for this step.
1 cup of heavy whipping cream
1 Tablespoon Cocoa powder
2 Tablespoons powdered sugar
1 teaspoon Almond Extract
First I whipped the heavy whipping cream until it started to get thick, then I added in the cocoa powder, powdered sugar, and almond extract and kept whipping until it was thick and fluffy.
I put it in a piping bag and chilled along with the cheesecake then added the decorations after I removed the cheesecake from the springform pan.
Voila! ❤️
I also tried to save this as a draft after I wrote the crust recipe and… It published 🙈so my apologies for getting only part of the recipe in your inbox 📬. I hope you enjoy it!
I had never tried meringue cookies until a few years ago when we were visiting our friends that live in Las Vegas and they had a container of them in their pantry.
It’s not something I had ever seen in the grocery store, but I did find them at Whole Foods and bought myself a container… Once after trying them in Vegas. 😂
So that was the only two times… In my LIFE… that I had meringue cookies, until… I saw them on Pinterest recently. I don’t know how Pinterest knows just the right things to show me 🤷🏽♀️. I think I was actually looking up royal icing and since you make that with meringue powder it noticed the connection and had to throw it out to see if I’d bite… And I totally did.
But, I didn’t see any recipes that used the Wilton Meringue Powder, only recipes that say how important it is so make sure you only have egg white and nothing else… AT ALL. Sorry, but I don’t have time for all that madness, I just wanted an easy recipe using my cheater meringue powder… Which was also not easy to find.
I was trying to order from Amazon but they won’t ship to California… They’ll ship to every other state… But California 🤦🏽♀️. So I asked my trusty Facebook friends and they said I could find it at Wal-Mart. I went on my search for all things baking and there was no meringue powder to be found 🙄. But… I thought I remembered seeing baking things in the craft area as well on a previous visit, so I made the trek across the store and found it! 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼 If you are looking for meringue powder make sure you check by the baking pans in the craft area… Baking is an art after all! 😘
Since Pinterest wasn’t much help for a recipe using meringue powder, I had to try to navigate my way through the Wilton site… I did find a recipe but I wouldn’t say it was the most descriptive… So I’m going to write it in easier to understand (for me anyway) terms and hopefully you’ll me able to follow along.
A mixer (I used my mother-in-love’s old Kitchenaid mixer and am loving it, but this one looks like it has all the same attachments and is much more affordable)
Piping bags with tips (I bought this set and these bags are amazing! The tips are pretty cool too)
Baking mats… you could use parchment paper, but I didn’t have any so I ordered both parchment paper and these baking mats from Amazon at the same time and I don’t know how I lived without these mats before… LOVE them!
Before you get started, you should know that these need to cool in the oven for several hours, so they are best made at night so they can stay in the oven overnight and be ready in the morning.
Step 1
Preheat oven to 250°F. Place your baking mats into your baking pans.
Step 2
In large bowl, whip Meringue Powder and water with electric mixer on high speed until soft peaks form, do you even know what soft peaks are? If you don’t, I took a picture, essentially it’s when you see little lines forming and it isn’t a runny texture anymore. With mixer running, gradually add sugar. Whip until stiff peaks. Add vanilla extract and icing color and whip until well combined, scraping down bottom and sides of bowl as necessary.
Step 3
Fill your piping bag with the meringue and squeeze out 2 inch circles onto your baking mat about 1 inch apart from each other. I also did smaller little stars between my bigger circles and they turned out super cute as well.
Step 4
Bake 50 minutes or until outsides of meringues feel firm and crisp, turn off the over and let them cool for several hours on the pan. If you make these at night they can stay in the oven overnight. Once cooled, peel cooled meringues off of baking mat. Keep them in an airtight container at room temp for up 2 weeks.
Tips:
Use granulated sugar, I felt that it kept the consistency better for piping. I tried the second batch with powdered sugar and it seemed way too soft.
You can experiment with different flavors, but…. after trying 4 additional flavors, I think vanilla is still my favorite, even thought I love almond and coconut flavors, they just didn’t taste as great as the vanilla.
You can double the recipe. This is actually half of the recipe that Wilton has posted and it made so many cookies that I was glad I only did half because my oven wouldn’t have had the space for 4 pans.
I also bought these spatulas with my other baking goodies and they make it much easier to load your meringue into your piping bags towards the tip and not have to squeeze it down from the top.
Please let me know what you think and if you have any other fun ideas for me me to try!
So I got the Costco sized Honey Maid Graham Crackers and then realized they are best when used by December 31, 2019. And normally I would be ok with using things after the best by date… except we had an unopened box of Honey Maid Graham crackers… that were like a year past the best by date and they both smelled… and tasted foul. So… I won’t be making that mistake again… at least with Graham Crackers, I’m totally willing to try something past the best by date if it is another product.
Anyway, I had a cookie exchange party with my cousins on Sunday and I was trying to think of an easy, fast, recipe that I could make between church and the party and I came upon these… and I could use more of our Graham Crackers these before they go bad. I made the recipe and didn’t think about the cooling time needed, so they came out not so pretty when I tried to cut them and pack up up to leave the house quickly… so I did not take a picture of the final project… But I am making more today for our neighbors and for my hubby to take to his Rotary Club cookie exchange tomorrow, so… I’ll get a picture today!
Here’s what you’ll need:
½ cup unsalted butter (that’s 1 stick)
1½ cups graham cracker crumbs (that’s about 15 full crackers with all 4 pieces)
14 oz sweetened condensed milk (that’s 1 can)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup peanut butter chips (the bag comes with 1 2/3 cups of chips so if you are going to double the recipe, make sure you get 2 bags)
13 x 9 pan
This is all you need!
I never knew making a graham cracker crust was this easy… Ha!
I tried smoothing this… I would definitely use my tilting method instead.
I would also mix up the chocolate and peanut butter chips to have it more evenly blended.
Step 1: Making the crust
First, set your oven to 350 degrees on Bake before you make the crust so it will be ready when you are. And also… Grease your 13 x 9 pan… I forgot… And got a workout trying to get the bars off the sides.
You’ll need 15 sheets of the graham crackers, I broke mine into smaller sizes to fit into my food processor so they would get ground up easier.
I used my Kitchenaid Food Processor on Sunday and that thing is a beast. I can never figure out how to get it to start, then I remember that it has to line up correctly, and I still, for the life of me, can’t figure out how to put it all together. I think, if I remember correctly, I had to have the base using with the handle locked into place before I locked the lid into place, but I feel like I’m going to break it every time I use it. It was my late mother-in-loves, but she’s not here to show me how to use it, so… I keep it, but don’t use it very often. I should probably watch a YouTube video, because you can learn to do pretty much anything on YouTube. But… today I decided to try my immersion blender food processor attachment instead, because that thing is sooooooooo much easier for me, and wouldn’t ya know…. it chopped just as well, and it was a lot lighter, and fewer pieces to wash after. If you don’t have one… it’s pretty amazing!
Next up, I took a cold stick of unsalted butter straight from the fridge into my glass 2 cup Pyrex Measuring cup and cooked it for 1 minute and 15 seconds. Yours may take more or less time, so do what works best for you to get your butter melted. I linked you to a 3 size measuring cup set because it’s only 5 cents more to get all 3 sizes (1 cup, 2 cup, and 4 cup) than it is for you to get just the 2 cup size right now….
Mix the melted butter into the graham cracker crumbs, after combined, press your mixture into the bottom of your greased 13 x 9 pan.
Step 2: Adding the toppings!
Open your can of condensed milk and pour it over the pressed crust. I tried smoothing it out with a spatula on Sunday, but found that I had better luck by just picking up my pan and tilting it from front to back and side to side to get the condensed milk spread over all the crust without flipping some crust on top of the condensed milk.
Next I added the cup of chocolate chips, just sprinkle it all over, then the peanut butter chips, just sprinkle them all over… Now that I have done this twice with chocolate chips first, and peanut butter chips second, I realize all the peanut butter is on the top… so you may get a better mixture swapping back and forth from chocolate to peanut butter, then back to chocolate and back to peanut butter. But… it all tastes the same… so that’s up to you.
Step 3: Bake it!
Bake it uncovered in preheated over for 25 minutes. Then… here’s the part when I messed up… you have to let it cool before you cut it. So… I waited about 5 minutes, but you should probably wait more like 30-45 minutes. I’ll wait that long today and let you know how it works out for me.
Step 4: Share and bring some happiness to those you love
We will be sharing these with our neighbors and my hubby will be doing a cookie exchange with them too. They were a hit at the cousin cookie exchange, so I’ll definitely be adding these to my holiday baking list.
Just some tips…
These are the measuring cups and spoons I use… and while they are affordable, and lightweight, they also melt in the dishwasher… so I have a couple deformed measuring spoons. If I were to buy myself some new measuring cups and spoons, this is what I would choose next time.
I hope you enjoy these! They can stay fresh if you keep them covered at room temp.
You can double the recipe for a thicker bar.
You can make this recipe your own by adding your favorite flavor of chips, or nuts, candy, or even coconut.
I’m a total chocolate chip cookie fan… I’ll almost always choose that over sugar cookies… until I found a recipe that uses Almond Extract… What??? How have I lived my whole life without Almond Extract?
So I made the cookies, with the Almond Extract, and they were a hit! So much so that I made them a few times in a row… that was dangerous.
I was actually supposed to roll them into balls 🤷🏽♀️… so they don’t look so pretty.
The kids have been asking for Chocolate Chip Cookies, so I used my old faithful Bisquick recipe… super easy…
And today Bobby started asking for muffins when he saw them on the Bisquick box that I pulled out to make the Chocolate Chip cookies… so I made those next.
And finally… I made the Almond Sugar Cookies… then Hot Chocolate from a can since it was already running late and we still wanted to get the Christmas Tree up and let the kid start decorating it.
I only had one extra stick of softened butter when I went to make the Almond Sugar Cookie recipe… so I tried to halve it… and I am horrible at measuring things, mostly because I don’t like to have to wash my measuring cups between ingredients, so I try to make do with other clean cups and do the math in my head… good thing I’m pretty good at math and fractions. Ha! So I may have used the 1/8th of a cup 10 times to measure out 1 1/4 cups of flour…
Anyway, here’s the recipe that you should follow and not try to do my halved one.
Chewy Almond Sugar Cookies
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract,optional, but it adds an extra layer of flavor
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
Topping
1/4 cup granulated sugar, for dipping
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and coat a baking sheet with baking spray.
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about a minute. Add in the egg, vanilla extract, and almond extract and beat until combined.
Next, add in the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix until just combined, making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl every now and then.
Roll dough into 1″ balls, and roll in sugar.
Place on baking sheet, about 2″ apart. Bake for 10-11 minutes, or until cookies have set.
Allow to cool.
Enjoy!
You can frost them or cover them with a glaze, if you like… I like them just the way they are.
We got the tree started, maybe we’ll finish going through the boxes tomorrow to finish decorating the house, or maybe…. just maybe… it’ll take us a few days… or weeks until we are ready for Christmas.
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