No Bake Peanut Drop Cookies

I needed a lot of help getting ready for school this year. So I invited a lot of friends over to help me cut out some laminated things for my classroom. I bribed them with desserts. I needed something fast to make, but still tasty and unique. I found this great recipe after doing some searching on no-bake cookies. I love no-bake cookies but wanted to find another one besides the traditional no-bake oatmeal cookies. These turned out great - especially if you are a peanut butter lover. 

I have these awesome tool that is perfect for measuring peanut butter. You pull the tube out and set it to the amount you need. Fill with peanut butter then use it as a push tube to push out the peanut butter.

Ingredients:
2 packages of 16 oz. chocolate wafer melts
1 cup creamy peanut butter
2 cups unsalted peanuts
2 cups mini marshmallows
3 cups of crispy rice cereal
2 bags of 7 oz. peanut m&m's


Directions:
Melt chocolate wafers in a double boiler, microwave, or if you have a chocolate melter like me. (I use it for cake pops)
Quickly transfer to a large bowl.
Mix in peanut butter until completely stirred together.
Mix in peanuts, cereal, and marshmallows.
Scoop about 2 tablespoons of the mixture onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper.
Top each one with a peanut M&M.
Place in fridge until they set. 

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

4th of July Cake Pops

Well, it's August & I'm blogging about July. (Kind of like the time I blogged about Pi Day in July) I'm alway behind on my holidays. Oops! But that doesn't make these any less cute!!! My husband's family is quickly growing and this past 4th of July marks the first time we've all been together in over a year. Between the birth of my nieces and my youngest sibling in-laws being away at college, we weren't able to all be together on Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter of this past year. 

So July 4th marked a reunion of sorts. It was a great day. My sister-in-law & I ran the Ephrata 5 Mile Fire Cracker. It was her first post-triplets race. I especially enjoyed it because I got to push 2 of my nieces in a stroller. Annabelle & Grace were quite the hit and I felt like a rock star for running all 5 miles while pushing a double-wide stroller. We squeezed in a family photo, some dutch blitiz, and had a great dinner. I put myself in charge of dessert where I made a vanilla pudding trifle dish dessert and these awesome mint oreo ball American flag. I make these oreo balls, just like I would cake pop balls, but instead of cake & frosting I use oreo (or mint oreo) and cream cheese. I had to melt 3 different colors to dip these into. You have to use a spoon to scoop them out of the chocolate, then place them on wax paper to dry. I also had special colored sprinkles & paper liners to match. It was a lot of work to make, but worth it. Did I mention I LOVE mint oreo???

 If you are not up for making 42 cake balls, here is a simpler design you can do.

What a good looking group!

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread

I usually reek havoc in the kitchen. My poor husband. I whip up a delicious meal, but then I leave behind chaotic mess for him to clean up. So I've been trying to turn over a new strategy in the kitchen. Pre-layout ingredients as much as I can, then clean up as I go. It went very well when I made this chocolate chip zucchini bread. (see picture above). 


Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose unbleached bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1& 1/8 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 large egg, beaten
2 tbsp butter, melted
1 cup apple sauce
1.5 cups zucchini, shredded


Directions:
Preheat oven to 325.
Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. 
Mix well.
Add chocolate chips and mix some more.
In a separate bowl, mix egg, vanilla, butter, apple sauce, & zucchini.
Add to flour mixture and stir until blended. 
Pour into a loaf pan. 
Bake for 45 to 55 minutes. 
Use toothpick to check to see if it's done. 
Cool for 10 minutes before slicing. 

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Cupcakes

I just love dessert! I found a great recipe for Cookie Dough Cupcakes. 


Ideally you would make cookie dough from scratch, the cupcake batter from scratch, and the frosting from scratch. But I pride myself on taking the easy way out if I think the results will be just as good. So I bought a tube of cookie dough and used a box of cake mix to make the cup cakes as well as a can of chocolate frosting. I thought the results were fantastic! You can judge me, but I'm ok with it.


Check out this awesome old-school mixer we have at the beach house. Works just as good as my one at home!



Ingredients:
1 tube of cookie dough (you probably won't use the whole package)
1 box yellow cake mix
1 1/3 cups water
1/3 cup canola oil
3 eggs
1 can of chocolate frosting








Directions:
Roll the cookie dough into 1 inch balls and place in freezer for 2 hours. 
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Using a mixer, beat eggs.
Add cake mix, water, & oil and mix on medium speed for a couple minutes until smooth.
Place cupcake liners in a cupcake tin and fill most of the way (but not all of the way) with the cupcake batter.
Place cookie dough ball in center of each cupcake. 
Don't worry about the ball being completely covered, it will be covered when it bakes. 
Bake in oven for about 20 minutes. Check with toothpick to make sure that the cupcake is cooked through, don't worry about the cookie part.
Remove and let cool for 10 minutes before covering with frosting.
Serve with sprinkles if you so desire!






I had some leftover batter and cookie dough so I poured the rest of the batter in a square cake pan and placed 9 cookie dough balls in the middle then baked it the same way, but a little bit longer because it was cake. It was equally awesome.

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

More Peanut Butter Oatmeal

I had posted months ago about Peanut Butter Baked Oatmeal. I made some again, last week at the beach for my family. 

I wanted to make it fun so I put mini chocolate chips on 1/3 of it and rainbow sprinkles on another 1/3 of it. It was mostly just for the enjoyment of my niece Maddie. And it worked because she thought it was dessert for breakfast. She loves sprinkles (and cake pops!) See the picture below, she is attempting to give me a thumbs up. 

Wanted to show off this breakfast/dessert & all it's glory. We had a great time at the beach and I enjoyed my day to cook. 

MMMMMMMmmmmmmm! This was an amazing breakfast.  Oatmeal & Sunflower Seed Pancakes with honey & bananas, Bacon, Onion, & Hashbrown Medley, & Ramen Noodle Quiche. 

And you can't forget mimosas....Perfect start to the day!

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Watermelon Smoothie

I had a lot of watermelon chunks in the leftover from my parents at our beach house so I quickly froze them before they went bad. So glad I did! When I came back with my in-laws I made delicious & refreshing watermelon smoothies to go with dinner the night I served sweet potato pizza & cheeseburger soup.


Ingredients:
3 cups watermelon cubes, frozen
1 cup fat free plain yogurt
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
(may need to add additional yogurt or ice as needed)


Directions:
Place all ingredients in a blender and mix until smooth. 


What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Pi Day Cake Pops

I feel incredibly guilty that I'm waiting until now to post about these awesome cake pops I made back in March! Every good math teacher should know what March 14th is. Pi Day! Get it? 3.14? When I ask my students what pi is they automatically answer 3.14. That's not actually the truth. Pi is the ratio of circumference to diameter of all circles. 3.14 isn't what pi is, it's an approximation of what pi is. It's an irrational number that goes on forever and blah blah blah. (It's summer, I don't want to talk about school anymore). To make pi day fun us math teachers do are part. Here are the awesome pi-inspired cake pops that I made. YUMMY!!!

My co-worker, Nicole, who helped me make all the cake pops also made these awesome pi  shaped cookies. I have a nice pi cookie cutter. So fun! Our students loved all the treats!

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Strawberry Pie

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Strawberry pie. It's my favorite non-chocolate dessert. One of my best memories from college is being at my friend Stevie's house and sneaking into the kitchen with 3 friends and devouring the strawberry pie that his mom, Sue, made. [SHE MAKES THE BEST STRAWBERRY PIE!]. It was for everyone else to share but we weren't going to let anyone else get a piece. It was heaven.


This was a time in my life when I was trying to impress my husband (before he was my husband, before he was even my boyfriend) so I knew the quickest way to his heart was through his stomach. Therefore, I was on my mission to to make an equally awesome strawberry pie. The secret = graham cracker crust. 


Ingredients:
graham cracker pie crust
1 tbsp powdered sugar
3 oz. cream cheese, softened
1.5 quarts of strawberries, cut & sliced.
1 cup sugar
2 tbsp karo white corn syrup
1 cup water
3 oz. strawberry jell-0
1 tsp of salt
3 tbsp cornstarch
cool-whip or whip cream


 Directions:
Mix the cream cheese & sugar into a medium bowl. 
Spread into the bottom of a baked pie shell.
Place berries on top of the cream cheese spread.
Meanwhile, mix sugar, corn syrup, water, salt, & cornstarch in a pot over medium heat.
When it thickens and the jello mix and stir.
Remove from heat and let cool before pouring over berries.
Place in fridge for at least an hour.
Serve with whip cream.

It was a hit!

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Fruit Kabobs

For my sister-in-law's belated baby shower we made fruit kabobs. They were a big hit! Very easy to do and you can style them any way you want. After slicing up the pineapple we used the top as decoration. The possibilities and combinations are endless. ENJOY! 

I helped another baby shower recently, and I took no part in the assembly of these, but we also made fruit kabobs. Here are some more ideas. Instead of doing grapes & blueberries, these have watermelon. Then we used the rest of the watermelon to display the kabobs. So cute!

I also saw the coolest Rainbow Fruit Kabobs on GreenLiteBites. There is a video up on how to make them and really cool pictures. 


What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)