Chocolate milk

Although it's a rarity in our house, my kiddos love them some chocolate milk. I hate all of the 'extras' in the syrup though, so we made some instead.

We mixed 1/2 cup of cocoa with 1 cup (we reduced it) of sugar and 1 cup of water. 

Stir constantly and bring to boil. Boil hard for one minute and remove from heat. Add 1 tsp. of vanilla.

The kids loved helping stir until the boiling began, at which point they all stepped WAY back. Boiling sugar can really climb up the walls of a sauce pan!

I poured the syrup into a measuring cup to cool. Once it cooled, I poured it into my Hershey's bottle and refrigerated it.

I love that it's HFCS-free and I can control the amount of sugar that goes into it. best of all it tastes really good :) 

No bake Reese's mini Cheesecakes

My girl and I love to bake. And because our small group is becoming rather large, it gives us reason to bake... a lot :)

So Miss Meg and I got to baking this treat before my camera promptly died :(

So those are the only two pictures I got... but I do have the recipe and pics I found on Pinterest to show how yummy they are. That's all that matters, right?

Ingredients:
1 box of JELLO instant NO-bake Cheesecake Mix
Reese's Peanut Butter cups (one per each cheesecake)
1 cup of mini chocolate chips
1 cup of graham cracker crumbs
Cupcake liners

Directions: Make cheesecake according to directions of box. Drop a Reese's candy in each cupcake liner. Pour in cheesecake mix. Set in the fridge for at least an hour. Sprinkle chocolate chips and graham cracker crumbs on top.

Enjoy! :)

Red Velvet Puppy Chow

For a special Valentines treat, my kiddos and I whipped something up in the kitchen. Some of us worse clothes (ahem, Jake and me), one of us wore jammies (Lauren), and one in particular wore her monster costume because really, why not?!?

Anyway, we got to pouring and mixing and stirring...

and before long, our Red Velvet puppy chow was ready to go!

And just to give credit where due here's the link to this yummy recipe.

Ingredients:

5 C. Rice Chex cereal

3/4 C. white chocolate melts or chips

1/4 C. chocolate melts or chips

2 oz cream cheese, room temp

1 1/2 Tbsp. milk

1 C. Red Velvet Cake mix

1/2 C. powdered sugar

Valentines colored M&M's or other candies

Heart sprinkles for extra decoration and cute-ness

Directions:

1. Measure out Rice Chex cereal and place into a large bowl.

2. Place cake mix and powdered sugar into a large plastic bag or tupperware.

3. Melt chocolates together in the mircowave or stovetop. careful not to burn and stir until smooth.

4. Stir in cream cheese and milk (the chocolate will get thicker, but it's okay)

5. Pour chocolate over Rice Chex cereal and stir until coated.

6. Dump cereal into the bag or tupperware with powdered sugar and cake mix. Shake, shake, shake until coated.

7. Dump onto a cookie sheet and let cool.

8. Mix with extra colorful candies and serve!

NOTE: Because of the cream cheese, keep in the fridge if you won't be eating them that day. You can also omit the cream cheese all together if you wish...if you do that, you don't need the milk either!

Enjoy! We sure did :)

Fall Fun; Baking a Fall treat with my girls

Justin and I like to do special 'dates' with each of our kiddos. When we have special one-on-one time with jake, he prefers John's Incredible Pizza to play the arcades, mini golf or asks to play some sport with us. So while he and his daddy did the arcades, me and the girls did our favorite thing... baking!

 

Just another activity to cross off on our Fall Fun list :)

 

We made these super easy, super yummy Pumpkin Spice cookies again. And they only have two indredients... YES!

 

Seriously, click on the link above... like us, you will have eaten them all before I even managed to snap a picture of them :)

Frankenstein pudding cups

This is a Halloween favorite and because my kids love it so much, I thought I'd offer up the VERY simple recipe here :)

 

 

Grab a clear plastic cup and add some silly facial expressions, Add green-tinted vanilla pudding. Crush some Oreos and layer on top. 

 

They are a HIT! Enjoy :)

Summer fun; recipe fun in the kitchen!

One of Justin's business contacts grows avocados and gave him a TON of them last week. After making lots of guacamole, I decided to enlist my little girl's help and make some creamy avocado pudding. We made this recipe last year and since we had more avocado's than I knew what to do with, we made it again :)

 

Using my best littlest helper, we:

• added 1/3 cup cocoa powder to blender

• added 1/4 cup honey or raw agave nectar (or other sweetener of choice):

• added 1/2 cup milk (regular or almond milk, coconut, etc.)

• added 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• And lastly, added  2 ripe avocados, peeled and chopped (its always best to taste test first though :))

• We blended all ingredients in a blender, until smooth:

 

And after chilling for about 10 minutes, my little helper DEVOURED it... hence no after pics. Tasted delish!

Summer Fun; making homemade orange creamsicles (yum!)

 

Growing up, I was never a fan of those Orange Julius' drinks (remember those little kiosks?) My mom LOVED those things and I remember stopping to get one whenever we went to the mall; she always got an Orange Julius while I opted for the cooler, more mature Root Beer Float :)

 

Oh, but times have changed and now I love them!

 

So when my friend posted a recipe from this website, I knew we had to steal it because not only would I love them, but the kids would love them as well.

 

First thing first, we went to the Farmers Market and got a bunch of fresh juicing oranges. I cut them up and let the kids go to town, juicing their little hearts out:

 

(We had so much that there was enough for two full cups as well- crazy!)

 

Then I filled them in my little popsicle molds, froze them for a few hours, and voila!

 

 

Like I said, I was never a fan of orange flavored anything... but with just the right amount of vanilla ice cream, these pops were a little slice of citrus-y heaven on a hot summer day!

(PS- follow the link at the top for recipe directions). Enjoy :)

Healthy cookie bites

I love me some cookies but unfortunately my hips aren't a fan of the calories. Sooo, I opted for the next best thing which still gave me that sweet cookie texture... Three Ingredient Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies!

 

Seriously, they are delicious, quick and simple, AND healthy!

 

Ingredients

• 2 Large, Old Bananas
• 1 Cup of Quick Oats
• 1 Handful of Chocolate Chips (I used milk chocolate)
• One helpful mixer/taste taster :)

 

Instructions

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F  

2. Smash the bananas and mix in the oats well.

 

3. Add chocolate chips and mix well.

 

 

4. Spoon them on to a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes.

Seriously, so stinkin good that they somehow managed to disappear as we transferred them from the cookie sheet to the plate :)

Enjoy!