Best EVER Chocolate Chip Cookies!

I used to work with a lady that made THE BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES EVER!!  She had given me her recipe after the first time I tried them and for the life of me I could not get them to turn out like hers!  I would ask her every time I made them if she added something, or used more of something and she would never give me a direct answer.  She would always say you have to watch the texture, and the time that you bake them. Well today I figured it out!  And it was just what she said, you have to really watch the texture (not too thick, not too thin) and the baking time has to be PERFECT!!!

Here's the recipe:
1 cup butter flavored shortening
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs
1 tsp baking soda
2 1/4-2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 a bag of chocolate chips (this is a huge key!! only use half of a bag, not the full two cups any other recipe calls for!!)

--Preheat oven to 375
--Cream together shortening & sugars.
--Add vanilla & eggs and mix until well combined.
--Stir in baking soda & flour (start with 2 cups of flour and add a little more as you stir to get just the perfect texture.  Today my texture was pretty sticky and they turned out PERFECTLY)
--Then stir in the chocolate chips.
--Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto an ungreased baking sheet. (ROUND IS THE KEY WORD)
--Bake at 375 for 7 minutes 30 seconds.  I know it sounds crazy but those last 30 seconds are crucial and will make or break your perfect cookie!!!  I experimented today with just 7 minutes, they were too gooey, and 8 minutes browned them too much and they were crunchy.  7 minutes 30 seconds will do the trick!!!

ENJOY!!!

Delicious Pasta Salad

This was super easy to make and we really enjoyed it :)

1 lb wacky mac noodles, cooked & chilled
1/2 head broccoli
1/2 head cauliflower
2-3 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 cucumber, peeled & sliced
2 roma tomatoes, chopped
1 bottle Zesty Italian Salad Dressing

Combine all ingredients in large bowl, mix until well coated with dressing.  Serve with corn bread or muffins!  Yum! 

Fruit Salsa with Baked Cinnamon Chips

This has become a summer favorite!  It's pretty easy to make, and you can really tweak it to your liking :)

1/2 fresh pineapple
1/2 pound fresh strawberries
1/2 small carton raspberries
1 medium apple (I've used delicious red, and gala. They are both good)

--Chop up all fruit into smaller than bite sized pieces and refrigerate.

Cinnamon Chips:
6-8 Whole Wheat Tortillas
1 cup white sugar
1 TBS ground cinnamon

--Mix together sugar and cinnamon
--Spray tortillas with cooking spray (I've even just spread some olive oil on them) and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar on them.  Cut into tortilla chip shapes using a pizza cutter.
--Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes or until the edges start to brown

Serve with the fruit salsa!  Yum!

Squash & Potato Bake

This was a fairly simple recipe and it was very tasty!  All the men in my house gobbled it up! 
4-5 red potatoes, sliced
1 yellow squash, peeled, sliced
1 zucchini squash, peeled, sliced
minced garlic and onion
Thyme, Salt & Pepper
--Spray baking dish with cooking spray, put some minced garlic and onion on the bottom of the pan and then put in the peeled veggies.  Top with seasonings
--Bake at 400 for 50-60 minutes.
(if desired after about 30 minutes, sprinkle some shredded cheese on top and continue baking until cheese is melted)

Best Ever Veggie Stir Fry

My husband and I watched a documentary called "Forks Over Knives" about 3 weeks ago.  Since then we've eaten meat, once.  It has been such a good change for our family!  I recommend to everyone to watch it!  Given our new eating habits, I've had to tweak a lot of my favorite recipes, and find new ones.  I wanted to find a really good veggie stir fry, I hunted online for days and I just couldn't find one that appealed to me.  So I threw this one together myself and it has been our favorite meal EVER!  It's so good!

1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
1/2 yellow onion
1/2 head of broccoli
1 bunch green onion
1/2 of a fresh pineapple
1 jar Kikkoman sweet and sour sauce
2 TBS ketchup
1 tsp garlic powder (or 2-3 cloves garlic)
1 TBS ground ginger

--Chop up all the peppers. onions, broccoli, and pineapple.  Throw it all in a large frying pan or wok, add sweet and sour sauce, ketchup, garlic, and ginger.  Cook on medium/high heat for 15-20 minutes depending on how you like the texture of your veggies.  We like ours crunchy.  Serve over brown rice!  YUM!!!

Crock Pot BBQ Chicken

This is one of my husbands favorite meals, I'm surprised I haven't posted it sooner. 

2-4 boneless, skinless, chicken breasts
1 bottle of your choice BBQ sauce (I love Sweet Baby Raye's. Tonight I used the Sweet Onion flavor)

--Usually I just put the chicken and half the bottle of BBQ sauce in the crock pot, and let it cook for 6-8 hours on low.  After reading the grocery budget guide (posted below) I will no longer be doing that.  It's a better idea to cook the chicken (probably just with some water in the bottom) and add the BBQ sauce as you serve up the chicken so if you have left over chicken you can put in the fridge and use it in another recipe later in the week.

This is a really simple and quick to throw together "go to" recipe for me!  Tonight I served it with some left over funeral potatoes, green beans and corn!

Family Guide To Groceries on a Budget

I found this guide on pinterest and thought I'd give it a shot.  It wasn't quite what I was expecting, but it did have some good tips and some good recipes for budget friendly meals, spices, snacks, baked goods, etc.. It was worth my $3.49 to download on my Kindle and took me about 20 minutes to read the whole thing.  I will be incorporating some of the tips and trying some of the recipes to see if I can at least downsize my grocery budget from about $75-$100 a week to anything smaller!  This guide says on average the American family of 4 spends over $700 a month just on groceries!  I'm willing to try just about anything to save a few dollars and some of these tips will be quite helpful.

Sausage Lasagna Roll-Ups

This recipe was really yummy, both my boys and my hubby loved it and I was surprised at how filling it was!  The hubby and I both took leftovers to work the next day!

8-10 whole wheat Lasagna noodles (I used 9 for our family of 4)
1 lb ground Italian Sausage
1 jar alfredo sauce
8 oz cream cheese
salt & pepper

--Boil Noodles according to package directions.  Meanwhile brown sausage.
--In a small bowl combine Alfredo sauce, cream cheese and a dash of salt and pepper.  I warmed my cream cheese in the microwave for about a minute (stirring half way through) just to soften it up a little.
--When the noodles are cooked rinse them in cool water until they are cool enough to handle.
--Add the cooked sausage to the Alfredo/Cream cheese mixture.
--Spoon a few tablespoons of the sausage mixture onto the lasagna noodles and roll them up jelly roll style and place them seam side down in a 9x13 inch baking dish. (I put some alfredo sauce in the bottom of the pan to prevent the noodles from sticking)
--I sprinkled the top of mine with some mozzerella cheese, a little parmesan cheese, and some parsley flakes
--Bake at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until it's heated through and the cheese on top is melted.

I think next time I will add some diced tomatoes and maybe some sliced olives for color, but other than that this dish was delicious!  I'll definitely be making it again!

Orange Chicken

This recipe was fairly simple.  I think next time I'll try it without the breading though for the sake of time.  Here's the recipe I used, the only thing I would change is not breading it or pan frying it before it goes in the crock pot.

3-4 boneless, skinless, chicken breasts, cut into small chunks (I used 3)
1/3 cup flour
olive oil
1/2 TBS salt
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
3 TBS ketchup
6 oz. frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
4 TBS brown sugar

In a bowl, mix the vinegar, ketchup, orange juice, salt, and brown sugar.  Pour the flour in a small bowl (I used a zip lock bag) and coat the chicken with the flour

Pour a small amount of olive oil in a skillet and brown the flour covered chicken.  (It doesn't need to be fully cooked since it's going in the crock pot)

After you've browned the chicken, put it in the crock pot and pour the sauce over top.  Give it a stir to coat the chicken and let it cook on low for 5-6 hours or high for 2-3 hours.

Serve over rice.

I added some minced garlic and red peppers to mine to bulk it up a little.  I think next time I'll add even a few more veggies than I did this time. 

Love Day Fun Foods

I know I should have posted this BEFORE Valentines day, but you can use them next year!

Use a cookie cutter to cut out bread and make sandwiches!

Make heart shaped pancakes!  Pour the batter onto the griddle in a V shape and the batter melts together into a heart shape.  Lots of fun, my 5 year old loved it!

Pretzel Buttons.  See recipe below :)

Pretzel Buttons:

6 dozen square pretzels

1 bag of Hershey's Hugs

1 bag of plain M&M's

--Spread pretzels on baking sheet.  Top with hershey hugs and bake in the oven at 200 degrees for about 5 minutes.  Then press an M&M into the middle of each.  Chill in the fridge until set :)  Super yummy and really fun treat!  

*You could do this for any holiday :)  This Christmas I'll be doing this instead of dipping pretzel rods.  So much easier!  And a little bit tastier!