Banana Muffins

Last week and this week I am working with the afterschool program at my school. I decided to teach "Cooking healthy snacks" with the third and fourth graders. We made all sorts of snacks, I will try to take pictures this week and post the kid friendly recipes! Well, because of this I had three leftover rotten bananas. And as I always say, when life hands you rotten bananas, make banana muffins! I went to Allrecipes.com and found a recipe with a strussel topping, what a winner!

Banana Muffins
From Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

3 bananas, mashed
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg, slightly beaten
1/3 cup butter, melted (I used veg. oil)

1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tbsp flour
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

Instructions
Preheat oven to 375* F
Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners

In a large bowl mix 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.(I also added a sprinkle of cinnamon into the batter)
In another bowl mix bananas, sugar, egg, and oil.
Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture until just moistened.
Spoon into muffin cups.

In a small bowl mix brown sugar, 2 tbsp flour, and cinnamon. Cut in butter until it is the texture of cornmeal. Sprinkle on top of muffins.

Bake 18-20 minutes

Sketty and Meatballs

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. My freaking classes are kicking my butt! I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone this week along with the papers I had to write about it and it took me all week!
Let me just say that my dinners this week haven't been all that exciting. I did try some new recipes out, it is just sad to admit that I had never made meatballs before. Chad has said that he doesn't like meatloaf so I just lumped meatballs in with that and never gave it a try. I do add meat to our spaghetti but I usually just brown it in a pan before adding the jarred tomato sauce. This time was different.
Every time we have spaghetti at school I laugh at how the students tell me their choice for lunch. I hear everything from ketty to pasketti. When I was a child I think I got as far as calling it sketty. I guess I wasn't an Italian scholar. Here is my version of Spaghetti and Baked Meatballs.

Baked Meatballs (enough for two)
1/2 lb. ground beef (we use 97% X-tra lean)
a hefty sprinkle of dry breadcrumbs
a squirt of ketchup
1/2 an egg slightly beaten (I just dumped some down the drain before I added it)
Other people may add onions or peppers etc. but we are FAR too picky for that! :)

Preheat oven to 400* F
Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray
(I say this here because I forgot to do this and I was up to my wrists in raw meat before I remembered. My loving husband got to help with dinner by getting the sheet ready for me!)
Mix all ingredients with your hands
form into balls and place on baking sheet
Bake for 25 - 30 minutes until done
Put on top of your favorite pasta and top with tomato sauce and parm cheese. YUMMY!
Chad and I both really liked our Sketty and Meatballs, they were meaty and delicious.

Ultimate Fall Snack

Around the Lansing area it is a known fact that the most delicious fall snack out there is Cider and Donuts from Quality Dairy. Oh MAN are they good. We bought some on Sunday night and tonight Chad bought even more. We like the sour cream glazed donuts. I think they are the best slightly heated, same with the cider. Oh yeah. Tomorrow I am going to the pumpkin patch with my Kindergarteners and we always get cider and donuts there too. It makes the whole trip better. Oh wait, I mean I love going to the pumpkin patch with 22 Kindergarteners. It is not hectic or stressful at all! :) Honestly, it is a fun trip, it is just exhausting. I love field trips though, they take a lot of prep but are always worth it in the end! The weather should be beautiful tomorrow so I am happy about that!

Pizza Party!

After reading various cooking blogs I was inspired to make homemade pizza. Now my husband eats pizza about twice a week and after buying the ingredients it is actually cheaper to get a hot and ready Little Caesar's pizza, but I suppose that isn't true as I have cheese, pepperoni, and sauce for another day. In fact, I bought Meijer brand crust and sauce and they were very inexpensive. I like homemade pizza because then I don't have to have pepperoni, because I don't like it, and I can have a very minimal amount of sauce and a LOT of cheese. So, this is our version of homemade pizza.

Amy and Chad's Yummy Pizza

Ingredients:
1 tube of pizza crust
1 jar pizza sauce
1 1/2 cups Mozzerella cheese
a bit of Romano cheese
a generous sprinkle of parmesan cheese
Pepperoni or other toppings of your choice
A tall glass of coke zero to wash it all down


Directions:
Spread the pizza dough on a rectangular pizza pan. I used my Pampered Chef pizza stone.
Spread on the desired amount of sauce.

Sprinkle on some delicious cheeses and top with whatever toppings you desire. I was thinking about doing green peppers but it was too rainy to get out to the garden.
Bake at 400*F for 15-17 minutes.
Enjoy your delicious pizza with a nice tall glass of Coke Zero.

Apple Crisp and Killing Time

In a further attempt to avoid writing my paper (see below) I decided to also make an apple crisp. While shopping at Meijer today I bought a ¼ peck of apples. I thought that there would be no way I would finish all of the apples but after my yummy apple with peanut butter snack after work I had a hankering for more!
So, I was reading the various cooking blogs I frequent and I found a yummy (and easy) recipe for an apple crisp courtesy of Kayte’s Kitchen. Her blog always features some delicious recipes that I feel I can tackle even as a novice cook.

Apple Crisp courtesy of Kayte’s Kitchen

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
dash of salt
1 egg, slightly beaten
8 tbsp butter, melted
4 apples, peeled and sliced
2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375. Mix flour, sugar , baking powder and salt. Gradually add egg until crumbly. Layer apples in and 8x8 cake pan. Cover apples with flour mixture and drizzle with melted butter. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Bake in preheated oven for 30-35 minutes until golden brown and bubbly.
Of course my janky oven took 45 minutes. Does anyone know how to get an oven fixed. I don’t even know who to call for that. Anyway, the crisp is delicious and definitely makes me feel like Fall is in the air! This recipe was much, much easier than apple pie but with the same effect and less fat and calories. The apple goodness is present but there is crisp in every bite! YUM!!

Chicken and Potatoes to put off my paper

So I am taking two master's classes this semester along with working full time so I have been quite busy. One of my classes is online so there are some pretty big papers to write. This week I had a 5-7 page single spaced paper to write as a midterm reflection on the class so far. I have been putting it off for as long as I could and I wrote 4 1/2 pages last night but then I was totally burned out so I stopped. I knew it wouldn't take me long to finish up today but I still really didn't want to so I put it off by cooking a big dinner and baking an apple crisp.
For dinner I made parm chicken with roasted potatoes.

Parm Chicken
Ingredients:
2 Chicken breasts
1/2 cup of breadcrumbs
1/2 cup of parm cheese
1 egg slightly beaten
A big swirl of EVOO

Directions:
Mix together the breadcrumbs and parm on a plate
Butterfly the chicken breasts and put the chicken breasts between two pieces of wax paper and pound thin with a rolling pin.
Dip the chicken in egg and then into the breadcrumb mixture
Put in pan with EVOO over med-high heat
Cook for a few minutes on each side until golden brown
Enjoy the deliciousness


Roasted Potatoes
Ingredients:
4-5 red skin potatoes
a few tablespoons EVOO
Salt

Directions:
Cut up the potatoes
toss them into the EVOO
put on a tin-foil lined baking sheet
Bake at 425*F for 30 minutes, then turn and cook an additional 15-20 minutes

All new in blue

Well, a couple of weeks ago we changed some of the art work in our dining room and we patched and painted some old holes the old homeowners had in the walls. Well, as ambitious as I am I decided to patch and paint some old nail holes in the kitchen and downstairs half bath as well. Well, I thought that the kitchen, dining room, and half bath were all the same color. WRONG! So then I had four huge spots of darker paint in the half bath and it looked ridiculous. So we had to repaint the half bath.
We went to Home Depot and I picked out a VERY light blue color that I thought would be very calming in that little room. Well, Chad had other ideas. He was inspired by a brightly colored bathroom my sister had at her beautiful home in South Carolina so he chose a bright blue color that is exactly like my favorite blue moon ice cream.
We decided to get a new mirror, towel holder, bath mat, soap dispenser and pictures as well to complete the room. It has always been our "mexican bathroom" as we decorated it with some pieces we bought on our honeymoon on Mexico. The colors we chose came from the Mayan mask we bought down there. The pictures we hung up had a Mexican theme and tie in the colors in the room.

Pumpkin Cake!

So, awhile back I made those pumpkin muffins that were so yummy. Well, I opened a big can of pumpkin when I made them so I have had two cups of pumpkin calling to my from my fridge ever since. With just Chad and I at home it is difficult to justify making regular sized baked goods because it takes us about 2 weeks to finish. Besides the fact that as a Weight Watchers member and a self proclaimed food addict, it isn't a good idea for me to keep delicious baked goods around the house. Well, my friend Kacey turned 28 today so I thought I would make a pumpkin cake for her birthday and bring it into work. I figured between all the teachers one 9x13 cake would disappear. Oh, was I right! It was delicious!

Pumpkin Sheet Cake Borrowed (or stolen) from Delish: A Food Blog
Cake:
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup applesauce
2 cups pumpkin
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Cream Cheese Frosting
8-ounce package cream cheese, softened (I used 1/3 less fat. I DO NOT recommend it though, it totally tasted reduced fat. I would have much preferred regular. In fact, I would have thrown my frosting away if I had any regular cream cheese to use)
1 cup sifted confectioners’ sugar (U put in about another cup to counteract the yuckiness of the reduced fat cream cheese)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the eggs, sugar, oil, apple sauce and pumpkin until light and fluffy. Stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix at low speed until thoroughly combined and the batter is smooth. Spread the batter into a greased 13×10″ baking pan. Bake for 30 minutes.(It took mine 35 minutes because my oven has been janky lately)
Let cool completely before frosting.

To make the icing: Using an electric mixer in a medium bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar and mix at low speed until combined. Stir in the vanilla and mix again. Spread on cooled cake.

The teachers at my school LOVED it and I was proud to have a cake made from scratch. So fall-ish, even thought it was 90* today! Oh well, it will be in the 50s by midweek. Gotta love Michigan!

Cheesy Stuffed Shells

When I was at the grocery store the other day I bought some ricotta cheese because I wanted something good and cheesy. Of course, as the good Weight Watchers girl that I am, I bought the low-fat ricotta and then looked for a yummy recipe that would add about 10 lbs to my girlish figure. I found a cooking light recipe and changed it a bit to fit my needs. I am going to submit this to Ruth's Presto Pasta Night! Enjoy!

Cheesy Stuffed Shells

Ingredients:
3 cups shredded mozzerella cheese, divided
1/2 cup parmesaen cheese
healthy sprinkle of Italian seasoning
2 cloves garlic minced
2 eggs
1 10oz box frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed through a kitchen towel
24 large pasta shells
1 large jar (26 oz) marinara sauce

Cook pasta shells according to directions, drain
Preheat oven to 350* F

Mix 2 cups mozzerella and next 5 ingredients.
Spoon into the cooked and drained shells

Place shells in a 9x13 pan sprayed with cooking spray
cover with 1 cup mozzerella cheese

bake at 350* F for 30 minutes

Spur of the moment cookies!

When I went grocery shopping last week I decided to stock up on some of the ingredients I see in everyone's food blogs because I was sick of seeing delicious recipes just to say, "I wish I had ____."
So tonight I saw an easy recipe for cake cookies that is weight watchers friendly so I stood right up and got to work! The last thing I needed was a cookie but I had all of the ingredients and honestly, I was going to eat something sugary anyway, I might as well make it interesting.

One Point Cake Cookies
Courtesy of One Tiny Pink Kitchen

Ingredients:
1 cake mix (I used Devil's Food my all time fav)
1/2 cup egg beaters
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

Directions:
Mix the ingredients
Bake for 12 minutes at 350*F
This makes 36 cookies (allegedly for one point each)

Oh I almost forgot the most important direcion - Eat as much batter as possible. I am sure it doesn't count for points if it isn't baked, right?
Trisha's husband had a pretty good idea of what to do with these cookies. I got my Fat Free Cool Whip out of the freezer and made a little sandwich of deliciousness! YUMMY! I have been on Weight Watchers since January of 2006. I have been a lifetime member since June 2006! It is recipes like this that keep me going!

Yummy Pumpkin Muffins!

Okay, so let me start by saying that this recipe was DELICIOUS and let me admit that I didn't follow the directions exactly. The biggest "mistake" I made was that I read the directions to say a 12 cup muffin pan instead of TWO 12 cup muffin pans. As I was filling them I thought, wow these are awfully full, but they were GOOD. It really just saved me some time. I would have had two at a time because they were so yummy!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
Courtesy of Culinary Infatuation

Ingredients:
8 oz cream cheese (I used 1/3 less fat)
3 eggs (I used Egg Beaters, or "Great Eggspectations" which is Meijer's brand isn't that name hillarious?)
2 1/2 cups sugar - divided
2 1/2 cups flour - divided
1/4 cup pecans roughly chopped (I used some leftover sliced almonds)
3 tbls butter melted
2 1/2 tsp cinnamon - divided
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 cups solid packed canned pumpkin
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tsp vanilla (I have some really yummy vanilla from our honeymoon in Mexico!)

Directions: I will admit that this recipe was a lot harder than I thought it would be. It uses a lot of bowls!
Heat oven to 375*F
Bowl #1 - Mix cream cheese, 1 egg, and 3 tbsp sugar in a small bowl and set aside.
Bowl #2 - Melt your butter and add 5 tbsp sugar, 1/2 cup flour, nuts, 1/2 tsp cinnamon in a small bowl (this will be your topping) and set aside
Bowl #3 - Combine the rest of the sugar (I found it to be one tbsp less than two cups), flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and remaining cinnamon in a bowl.
Bowl #4 - Beat together pumpkin, remaining eggs, oil, and vanilla in bowl.

Make a well in bowl #3 and add the mixture from bowl #4. Mix with a fork until moistened (I hate the word moist)

Divide half of this mixture into the muffin cups (12 or 24 its your choice)
Then distribute the cream cheese mixture (bowl #1) into each muffin cup
Put remaining muffin mixture on top of cream cheese mixture
Put the topping (bowl #2) on each muffin.
Bake 20-25 minutes. Take out of oven and enjoy the yumminess.