Candy Bar Apple Dip

This is great appetizer to bring to a party. I like to bring it over for Thanksgiving or Christmas Day gatherings. This year it’s on our New Year’s Eve menu. I like this dip best on sliced apples. Somehow serving it with a fruit makes it feel a little bit healthy. It’s also delicious with pretzels or graham crackers. But stick with the apples if you’re looking for a gluten free treat.

I first had a dip like this in California at a book club. We were a bunch of moms that would get together once a month, and hopefully at least one or two of us would read the book. Although we all enjoyed reading, the reason to get together was really a chance for us to get away for an evening from our exhausting responsibilities. We made wonderful friendships. Of the ten or so of us that used to attend, I think only one or two still live in that little city where we used to live. I miss all those ladies. They will always have a special place in my heart. So every time I make this dip, I think about my sweet friend who would bring it for us to drown our sorrows in, and celebrate the little details of our lives together. I have since lost her recipe, so this is my version of it:

16 oz Cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup Butter, softened
1/2 cup Brown sugar
1/2 tsp Vanilla
1 cup candy: Chocolate covered Heath bits, Snickers or Receeses peanut butter cups
Mini chocolate chips or mini M&M’s. Oreos would be tasty, too.
(Just make sure you don't add oreos if you're making this gluten free!)

I like to use a food processor, but a mixer would be fine too. Whip together cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add sugar and vanilla until nice and smooth. Add your choice of candy (or an assortment). Mix until combined
.

For best results, stick in the fridge for the flavors to rest and blend for several hours or overnight.

Eat with sliced apples. I like Granny Smith’s the best so the tart balances out the sweet. My family is very happy eating it with fuji, pink lady or honeycrisp apples as well.

Even my kids who are missing half their teeth find a way to eat this apple dip.

I love the flavor of the peanut butter cups, but the heath bits give the perfect crunch. These two combined with the mini chocolate chips is my favorite combination.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Homemade chicken noodle soup is one of my comfort foods when I get sick. I love whipping this up on a cold wintery day. It's super fast and easy.

Ingredients:

1 cup Grilled chicken (or canned chicken in a pinch)
1 cup chopped carrots* and celery
1 1/2 cups frozen peas
1 1/2 cups frozen corn
1 can of great northern beans
1 can of light kidney beans
1 TBSP ground sage
1/2 TBSP dehydrated onions
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 TBSP corn starch
1/4 cup cold water
10 cups chicken broth (you could also use bouillon)
1/2 a bag of whole wheat egg noodles (regular are fine too, I just like to add in the whole wheat noodles where they are the least detected)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Put chopped carrots and celery into a pot along with chicken broth. Boil for about 10-15 minutes until veggies are starting to get soft.

2. Add beans, sage, onions, garlic and chicken. Bring back to a boil.

3. Add noodles, check label for al dente cooking time (usually about 7 minutes). Mix cornstarch with 1/4 cup cold water. Add to pot. Stir a few times to incorporate.

4. Take off heat. Add frozen veggies. This helps cool down the soup. My family likes their soup as cool as possible. I usually add some ice to their bowls when I dish it up. I like my soup steaming hot, so I generally leave the ice out of my bowl.

5. Eat up and enjoy!!

The beans and the whole wheat egg noodles bring just a bit more protein and nutrition to your typical version of chicken noodle soup.

*Also, if you want to make the soup even faster, use a bag of "mixed frozen vegetables" in place of the chopped carrots, corn and peas.

Greek Steak Salad with Olive Garden Dressing

My body is officially on sweets overload and is ready for some real food to fuel it. I had some left over prime rib in the fridge (I roasted my first one ever for Christmas Eve!! It was a bit underdone, but once I get it down, I'll post the recipe). I thought this would be a great way to use it up.
Grilled chicken would be a great substitute for the beef. It's really simple to toss together. Here are the ingredients:

Romaine lettuce
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Garbanzo Beans (Chick peas)
Feta Cheese
Olive Garden Salad Dressing (or any favorite vinegarette)
Pepperoncinis
Leftover Prime Rib
Whole Wheat Pita

I think next time I'd even add some red or green onions and olives.

Caroling, Cocoa and Cookies

Growing up as a singer and a musician, I always had great dreams of my family caroling together at Christmastime. Our voices would blend in perfect harmony as we graced the neighbors with our angelic serenades. But reality is much different. Yes, there is some musical talent in our family, but there are also several members of our family that cannot carry a tune to save their lives, nor have any desire to. So this means in our 18 years of marriage, caroling hasn’t been a part of our Christmas traditions. I’d given up hope that we’d ever be like the Von Trapp family, and embraced our other interests during the season instead. Then the other day I was listening to a podcast, from The Mom Hour about Holiday Entertaining, and decided to steal their idea about Christmas caroling. Instead of relying solely on our family singing together, we invited several other families to join us. It was very casual. I grabbed some cookies I’d made, and threw them on to plates with some Christmas cards for our neighbors along with some for our fellow carolers.  We met our friends in the driveway and paraded house to house down the street. We sang about one song per house, to keep it short. The kids were as hyped up as they are on Halloween, running wildly down the street with excitement. But instead of being on the receiving end, it felt good to have them on the giving end for a change. It was perfect having all the additional voices, you hardly noticed the few that were out of tune because they were drowned out in the large group. Afterwards we headed back to my house for some hot cocoa. The whole activity only lasted about an hour, which was perfect for the kids' attention span. With all the other activities in December, it was great to keep it short and sweet. I’m excited we finally worked in this new family tradition, and found a way to also check off an activity on our service advent calendar to #LightTheWorld with kindness this Christmas season.

Snickerdoodle Cookie Bars

The thing I love the most about this recipe- is that it is so much less labor intensive than rolling all the individual balls in the sugar to make the individual cookies. Same flavor, less work- that's my kind of cookie!! This saved me the other night when I was throwing together plates for our neighbors, and felt like we needed one more thing to fill the plate up. We quickly whipped up a batch of these.

Snickerdoodle Cookie Bars

1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup margarine or butter (softened)
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs

2 1/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
a couple dashes of ground ginger
a few dashes of ground nutmeg

3 TBSP sugar
3 teaspoons cinnamon

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix 1 1/2 cups sugar, margarine or butter, shortening, and eggs. Next, stir in flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt.

In a separate bowl, combine 3 TBSP sugar with the cinnamon. Grab your jelly roll pan (cookie sheet with edges), or large pizza pan, and sprinkle half of the mixture over the entire pan.

Press the dough into the pan, and then sprinkle the rest of the mixture on top.

I like to press the sugar and cinnamon into the dough on top just a little bit.

Bake for about 10 minutes.

Not only do you have a tasty treat- but your house now smells amazing!!

Andes Mint Brookies

When our family was still in its young beginnings and living in California, I felt like we were trying out every pet that was out there. We had 2 kids and one on the way, 2 rabbits, a dog, and fish (here and there- those fish never lasted very long and I realized I am not a tank cleaning person). So naturally, when my friend offered us her desert tortoise- why not?? She had two of them at the time, and the one tortoise kept flipping the other one over to leave sprawling on it's back before someone would kindly come to the rescue and flip it back. My friend, tiring of the constant aggression, offered for us to come meet the damsel in distress and if we liked her, take her home with us. 

While we were meeting our new family member, my friend brought out the most amazing cookies. Andes Mint Cookies. This friend is the kind of hostess that always seems to have delicious things ready to go for instant company. These cookies she pulled straight out of her freezer (because you never know when you'll have company, right?  I still need to learn from her example and be this organized!!), and she maybe microwaved them for a couple seconds, but they were chewy and delightful! I couldn't believe they could be so amazing when they hadn't been freshly baked that day. The cookies became a new family favorite, especially around the holidays. 

Of late (if you can't tell from all my other posts lately), my kids have been into those huge pizza style cookies. I though this would be a great one to try that way- and oh my!! They are even more soft and chewy and nice when they are made brownie style in a large pan. 

Anyway- back to the turtle. That lovely desert tortoise ended up being the best pet we ever had. It would just peruse the back yard and chomp on the grass, or some things in the garden. We never had to feed it!! Every so often she would come knocking on the back door and we'd give her some lettuce or strawberries, but she was pretty self sufficient. The other amazing thing, is she would hibernate all winter! We'd have to keep an eye on her, or she'd dig a huge hole in the back yard and creep in there where we couldn't get her and stay put for months. When she would do this we always worried she'd emerge on the other side of our fence or something in the spring. So we learned we needed to snatch her up before she disappeared. We'd put her in a box and she'd sleep in our garage for months. 

I was ready to will this lovely tortoise to my kids after I die, and have her in our family forever. Until one sad day she must have gotten into the ant bait. I found her dead in the backyard and all our hearts were broken. We have never had another tortoise since, but we dream of the day it might happen again. So every time I make these cookies, I think of my wonderful friend who introduced me to the Andes mint and chocolate deliciousness, and how sweet she was to give us our favorite pet. 

So in honor or our fabulous friend and terrific turtle- let's cheer up and drown our sorrows in chocolate and mint, shall we??

Andes Mint Brookies (baked like a brownie tastes like a cookie!!)

2 cups chocolate chips (semi sweet or milk are fine)
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup butter
2  TBSP water

2 eggs
2 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda

1/3 cup Andes Mint baking chips
1/3 cup white chocolate chips
1 candy cane (optional)

First step is to melt the butter. You can use a saucepan on low heat- or if you're lazy like me- the microwave. Then you add the sugar, water and chocolate chips. Heat up again (in the saucepan or) in 30 second increments stirring in between, just until chocolate is melted.

Cool for about 10 minutes (if you're using a saucepan, put in a large mixing bowl at this point). Add eggs and dry ingredients. Chill for at least 1 hour.

Grab a jelly roll pan (a cookie sheet with edges) or a large pizza pan. Press dough evenly into the pan.

Bake at 350 for about 12 minutes.

After removing from oven, sprinkle all but about half of a tablespoon of Andes mints over the top. Let them melt for a just a few minutes. While these are melting, grab your white chocolate chips and melt them in a saucepan or microwave (about two 30 second increments in my microwave is perfect, stirring in between).
 With a butter knife or rubber spatula, go back to your brookies and spread the melty, minty goodness all over the surface. Then drizzle with melted white chocolate. Finish off by sprinkling with remaining Andes Mint chips.

You can also crush up a candy cane and sprinkle on top if desired. If I'm craving this recipe and I'm out of Andes Mint Chips, sometimes I just do the white chocolate and candy cane together- but I really think the Andes Mint is the best. There are also Andes Mint Peppermint chips. They are great, but I like the smoothness of the spearmint better than the peppermint.

This one I made half and half in a pizza cookie pan

Anyway you serve them- it's the taste that really matters...

Because they freeze so well, this is a great cookie to make ahead when you know you won't have a lot of time leading up to an event, but want a tasty dessert to bring or serve. 

Golden Graham S’more Snacks

S'mores have always been a favorite treat of mine. I can be a bit of a s'more snob. Roasted over the fire is the best, but roasted in the oven is a close second. I like my marshmallows melted through, but golden on top. Not burned or melty with out that nice crunch. My sisters always told me if I found a guy who would stick with me after watching me eat a s'more (I always seem to end up with chocolate all over my face), that I was to hold on to him and never let go. 

This recipe first came about when our neighbors invited us over last minute for some games and dessert on Christmas evening one year.  We love these neighbors. Like us, they don't have family nearby to celebrate the holidays with. They also have a bunch of kids, so our standard of fanciness is right on the same level. They're the kind of neighbors who take my little kids when I'm running another sick kid to get x-rays. Or bring me popsicles for my fevered kids who aren't cooling down when my husband is out of town. We borrow ingredients from each other in a pinch, and they laugh with me when I've unknowingly lent them a bottle of worchestershire sauce that's 5 years expired. We've seen each other through long soccer seasons, and brutal pregnancies. I truly don't know what Id' do with out them! They can never move. 

Even though we are super casual, I didn't want to go over there empty handed. Their children have severe dairy allergies, and as I looked around the house, I couldn't spot anything suitable to bring over. So I ran to my pantry and got a little creative.

 I didn't have more than a few minutes to get ready. I grabbed a box of golden grahams cereal, marshmallows and some chocolate chips. All dairy free. I threw them on a tray with some parchment paper underneath.

Cranked the oven up to 400 degrees, and popped the tray in for about 4 minutes.

 It was magical. Crunchy, gooey, chocolatey. So easy, and so tasty. They didn't last long at the game night. So if you need a great snack to bring to a party, and you don't have any time to throw something fancy together, but you want to bring a snack or dessert everyone one will enjoy- this recipe is for you!!! It would also be easy to make a gluten free version- just use Corn Chex, or another gluten free cereal instead of Golden Grahams. 

*Allergy note: the chocolate chips pictured are not dairy free. Make sure your read your labels if you're cooking for someone with a food allergy

Caramel Kiss Cookie Bars

This is a great cookie to make if you're doing some holiday baking and want something a little more showy than the norm. The base of this recipe is chocolate chip cookie dough. To cut down on time, you could use refrigerated cookie dough, but I always use the recipe my mom made when we were kids. I just tweak the flour a bit.

Hillary's Basic Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe:

1 2/3 cup flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup butter

1/3 cup shortening

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 cups chocolate chips

Cream together butter, shortening and both sugars. The temperature of the butter is very important for texture. As close to room temperature as you can get it. If it is too hot and melted, your chocolate chip cookies will have a really flat, droopy appearance. Too cold, and it just won't mix well.

Add eggs and vanilla. Mix together until smooth.

Add flour, salt and baking soda. Mix until just blended. You don't want to over mix or your cookies will be tough. You want the dough to be a bit sticky. If there is too much flour, your cookies will end up dry and hard. You may have to adjust your flour for humidity.

Stir in chocolate chips.
Roll into balls. don't handle too much with your hands or you will melt the butter in the dough and your cookies will be too flat. Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

Now when we are making cookie bars, instead of rolling into balls, I press them into either a deep dish pizza pan or a jelly roll pan. Bake for 13-16 minutes, until golden on top.

Just a little tangent here.....I didn't even know what a jelly roll pan was until I  had 4 kids. It's a cookie sheet with a lip around the edges. I have this dear friend that introduced me to the wonderful world of cookie bars, and blessed me with one of her jelly roll pans, just so I could make her famous Oatmeal Fudgie bars.
 (I'll have to see if I can get her permission to share that recipe with you.)
I met her when I had just moved to Texas and was about to have baby #4. I didn't have any family around, and the one person that I knew was in the throws of pink eye with her kids when I went into labor. Well, my dear jelly roll pan friend (this was before she gave me the pan), that I barely knew, had offered to "help with whatever" when I had the baby. This could have been a very casual offer to be polite. But I was desperate and had no other options, so I took her up on it. She ended up with my 3 kids. Plus her SIX children- which included triplet 1 year olds, and an adopted child. On top of that she was pregnant with her 7th. This lady truly is a saint!!  (I still can't believe I would do this to her!!) She ended up with them for a couple days while I was in the hospital laboring and recovering. One of my kids ended up throwing up at her house- I don't know if it was nerves or illness. But she kept them all anyway. Through this experience we became very fast friends and helped each other for years until she moved away. I still miss her like crazy (though it's been years since she abandoned me for Colorado). She has taught me so much and it warms my heart to think of her every time I use the jelly roll pan.

Anyway- back to our recipe!! Our oven timer is going off and our sheet pan cookies are done by now.

(*Just another note: instead of regular chocolate chips, I used the Reeces peanut butter chips for this recipe.)

Now the fun part!! You can use whatever toppings you love in a chocolate chip cookie. This time I melted some caramel that was left over from our "How to NOT make Caramel Apples" post. (You can click there or the pretty version of caramel apples here. )

Drizzle the top with the caramel. Then melt some white chocolate, and drizzle that over the caramel. Top with Hershey kisses, along with some pretzels. Last, I sprinkled just a touch of kosher salt over the top to help balance out all the sweet.
These would be amazing with heath bits or butterfinger bits or peanut butter cups pressed on top or m&m's or snickers...........

You can serve them cut up in pie slices:

Or in squares:

But my favorite way would be to cook them pizookie style (just a bit under done- and usually I bake them in individual ramekin dishes when I make them that way), and throw some Blue Bell ice cream on top. And of course a tall glass of milk.

Just a recap of the toppings I used in this recipe:
Melted Caramel
Melted White Chocolate Chips
Hershey Kisses
Pretzels
Kosher Salt

Now put one aside, and go give the rest to some friends!! Merry Christmas!!

Fashion Date

One of the most vivid memories I have of my little sister from when we were kids, was her sense of style. That girl always knew what she wanted to wear and it didn't matter what anyone else had to say about it (and nothing has changed there!). She wore flip flops in the snow and moon boots in the blazing summer heat. It's one of the things I love the most about her. She knows who she is, and she's confident being herself.

One of my girls loves to show off her sense of style as well, but the morning is almost always a terrible time for her to make fashion decisions. She is not a natural morning person, and finding the perfect outfit right when she wakes up to get ready for school is stressful for everyone in the house.  

A couple months ago, my daughter got a bag of cute hand-me-downs from a friend, and was thrilled to put together some new combinations. She was coming up with some pretty wild ensembles, and was having a hard time figuring out when she could wear all her outfits. So, I suggested we have a Sunday night fashion date to figure out her clothes for the week.

She really got into it. She had me open my weather app to check out what would be seasonably appropriate, and picked shoes and outfits according to her PE schedule at school (only tennis shoes on PE days). I got to do a little suggesting on how outfits would go together a little better (with out the morning throw down fight). It made me more aware of what shirt or dress she would want ready to go (meaning washed or ironed, etc). It went so well, we decided to keep it up.

Getting dressed in the morning is drama free, and we don't have to think about it for a week. I actually really enjoy the one on one time we have together as well. It's provided a great opportunity for me to talk with her about how to pick out clothes that are functional for what she's doing (comfortable and sensible for PE, dresses for church, boots when it's colder, sandals when it's warmer, etc). It's also been a great time to talk about modesty and how we want to show our bodies respect and protection by covering them appropriately. She can still wear the things she wants, we sometimes just add a sweater on top, a shirt underneath or maybe some bloomers to keep things G rated.

The accessories still get a bit wild, but that's just the fun part about being a spunky kid.

Thanksgiving Tablecloth

This is one of my favorite family traditions. One year for an early Christmas present, I bought my mom this boring tablecloth. Just a bland muslin type material. We didn't have a lot of money and I was trying to be creative. I must've seen the idea in a magazine (this was a dozen years or so ago before Pinterest). What she was supposed to do, was to put it out on Thanksgiving before the feast, and while the food is finishing up, everyone was supposed to write what they are thankful for. It seemed a bit silly at first, but as the years have gone on, it has become such a family treasure.

The same table cloth comes out every year, and it's fun to see how much the kids have grown up. My daughter was only 5 years old when she drew this picture. She's now 16, and it's crazy to see how time flies.

 You can see who was the most impatient for dinner...not much has changed over the years... (ha ha!!)

 And you can remember your friends or family that have now passed on. A little piece of them is saved  to be with you year by year. This is the most special part for me.

 Wonderful memories with family and friends.

Grab some fabric markers. My mom always puts a marker proof cloth underneath, and then covers it with vinyl during the meal.

If you see me at the store in a few minutes, it's because I'm long overdue starting this tradition at my own house, and I'm buying my own table cloth! Happy Thanksgiving!!

Cranberry Orange Muffins

This is a great way to use up any extra cranberry orange sauce you may have left over. Maybe make a double batch of sauce, just so you can make these wonderful muffins...

Hillary's Cranberry Orange Muffins
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 large egg
2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 TBSP baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup cranberry orange sauce (click to go to our recipe)

(*if you don't have any buttermilk on hand, you can substitute with regular milk and 1 tsp of lemon juice)

Streusel Topping (optional)
2 TBSP cold butter
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
4 dashes of cinnamon

Cut butter into other ingredients until you have little pea sized bits of butter.

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Grease 12 muffin cups. (I use cooking spray)

2. Mix up your streusel topping. Push it off to the side for later.

3. Get your mixer and beat the wet ingredients: milk, oil, vanilla, and egg. Stir in dry ingredients and cranberry orange sauce. Just until combined, you don't want to over mix.

4. Pour into muffin tins. Spoon about a tablespoon of streusel topping onto each.

5. Bake around 20 minutes, until golden on top and toothpick comes out clean.

6. Loosen up muffins, pull out of the tins and cool on a rack.

Sweet Potatoes- and some Marshmallow Mischief

So we've covered green beans and cranberry sauce, now we get to talk about sweet potatoes. I love sweet potatoes!! I've always enjoyed them, but it wasn't until my Uncle Todd made sweet potatoes with pumpkin pie spices when I was a teenager, that they became my favorite side at Thanksgiving. Here is my version:

2 large sweet potatoes (yams- whatever- the orange ones)

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 dashes grown nutmeg

1 dash ground ginger

1 dash ground cloves

1/4 tsp salt

(splash of vanilla- optional)

(mini marshmallows- optional- but so yummy!!)

If you don't have all these individual spices- use about a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice.

Peel and slice the sweet potatoes. Put in a pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil for 20-25 minutes. They are done when they are very tender when poked with a fork.

(Look at all these colors together- isn't cooking exciting!! Okay, back to our sweet potatoes.)

Drain the water and add the other ingredients. Get out your hand mixer and whip it all together. Now don't go too crazy with the mixing. Just until the major lumps are out is just fine. We don't want it getting soupy from the starch.

You can serve them as is, or you can put a layer of mini marshmallows on top (my preferred method), and toast in the oven at 425 degrees. Keep an eye on them until they are golden brown on top. 

It doesn't take long.

As I was taking pictures of the food for this post, my 2 youngest were jumping right in the mix. It was post naps, and the bed head and sweaty faces were in full force. I had them playing with oranges while I tried to sneak in a couple more shots. 

As you know, I take all my pictures on my porch (and was again, back in my pajamas- it was nap time!!), and the baby kept tossing the oranges down my driveway. My daughter would scream and worry about the oranges, so I had to go running quickly to rescue the entertainment in between photo shoots. Well, the baby must've had this planned from the beginning, because as soon as I was out of the way, he crawled over at super speed and dug his little fist smack into my bowl of sweet potatoes. Sticky marshmallows all over his hands.

When I tried to pull him away, he put both hands in my hair  (which of course had just been washed that morning). Such a sticky mess!

But who could be mad at that little face?? I just had to laugh out loud as they both started in on the green beans next. They were thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Maybe I should start a series on how to get your kids to eat their vegetables?? 

A little reverse psychology goes a long way, apparently.