Showing posts with label recipes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recipes. Show all posts

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Raspberry Creamsicles Recipe



All Things Popsicle Week has been so exciting! I think it's the nostalgia in eating popsicles that makes me feel like a kid all over again! I've had popsicle molds sitting in the back of my pantry for years and finally I found a reason to wash the dust off of them. And let's just say...I'm obsessed :)

So today I'm bringing you my new favorite popsicle recipe (even though fudgesicles are pretty close), Raspberry Creamsicles! I adapted this recipe that I saw the other day! We have been on a berry kick in this house the last couple of months so I brought home four raspberry containers the other day. This recipe is super easy and it's such a yummy treat! 

Here's what you'll need:

25-30 raspberries or 1/2 cup of raspberry purée 

1 1/4 cup of vanilla ice cream 

1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream



1. Start off by puréeing the rasberries in the food processor or blender until smooth. 

2. Then I poured the purée through a strainer into a measuring cup to remove the seeds. This is optional, but Sienna is such a texture person I thought it would be best to leave them out. It should amount to 1/2 cup. If not just purée more raspberries. (Feel free to add in juice or water to liquify it a bit- I added a splash of Cran-raspberry juice.

3. Next mix the purée with 1 1/4 cups of vanilla ice cream until smooth. Pour or scoop this mixture into the molds  leaving space at the top for the cream.

4. In a separate bowl pour in 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream and whisk by hand or with your whisk attachment of your mixer until soft peaks forms. Top off each popsicle mold with the cream and freeze for 6 hours or so!

This recipe filled six small popsicle molds! Feel free to double or manipulate this recipe as needed!


These pops are DE-licious! The perfect summer treat! If you are eating healthy you could even sub in some frozen yogurt for the icecream and I'm sure they'd be great!

What's your favorite popsicle recipe I can add to my lineup?

Thanks for following along for All Things Popsicle Week, we had such a great time! You can click here, here, and here to catch up on all the festivities you may have missed!!



* This recipe was adapted from A Beautiful Mess

Monday, May 13, 2013

Dried Mango Chips

I couldn't be more excited that mango season is finally here!! I love the juicy fruit and they always remind me of when we went on vacation to South Florida as a child because the family friends we visited always had huge mango trees in their back yard.
For Christmas I decided to get Danny a food dehydrator as one of his gifts because he really takes pride in cooking and I knew he would love to make his own beef jerky. Now this gift really was meant for him, but I thought I would test it out with the mangoes I picked up from the local grocer the other day. 
Mangoes are such a difficult fruit to slice because of the awkward shaped pit, but after figuring out a great method, I threw them in the dehydrator and turned it on to 115 degrees. Now, initially I was following this recipe and it stated that it needed to dehydrate for 24 hours. When I went to check on it about 6-7 hours later the mango slices we dry, thin, and crispy! I think (well now I know) I sliced them too thin, but they were great for mango chips! 
Either way they were amazing! They were crispy when you bit into them, but melted in your mouth after! They were the perfect healthy snack to grab and were just like potato chips where you can't just have one :)
Check out this recipe here for a complete guide on dehydrating mangoes!
Do you know of any other fruits that are great in the dehydrator?

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Simple Spinach & Sausage Stuffed Shells




It's been awhile since I've posted a recipe so today I thought I would my share my simple stuffed shells recipe! I've always grown up around Italian food and I have come to realize that most Italian dishes contain similar ingredients, only prepared differently. So for my perfect stuffed shells I don't really follow a recipe, I just go with the flow of cooking Italian and it usually works! Like I have mentioned I love semi-homemade cooking with the kiddos so I will not be making homemade sauce in this recipe either (I'm such a rebel)...ha!

Here's what you'll need:

1 small onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 box of jumbo pasta shells
1 lb ground Italian sausage
1 16 oz container of Ricotta cheese
1 frozen package of spinach (thawed & drained)
1 egg, beaten
1-2 jars of marinara sauce heated in a saucepan (2 if you would like extra sauce)
2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese
Grated Parmesan cheese
Garlic powder
Herbs de Provence or Italian Seasoning
Salt
Pepper

Ok now here's the run down...

First preheat your oven to 350°. Then drizzle olive oil in a pan and once hot, sauté the onions and garlic until tender. After, add in the Italian sausage and break it up with a spatula until it is in crumbles. While doing this go ahead and season it with the garlic powder, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper to your liking. Once the meat has browned, drain the excess drippings and put it aside to cool.

Next you can boil the shells by following the instructions on the box. I always remove them from the water a couple of minutes early so they are al dente and easier to work with so they don't break. Ten minutes seems to be a magic number in my book. Once done, drain and put aside as well.

Then grab a medium sized bowl and combine the ricotta cheese, spinach, egg, 1.5 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese, and the crumbled sausage. Gently fold the mixture until everything is thoroughly combined.



After, you can grab a 9x13 inch lasagna pan and lightly spray the bottom with cooking spray. You can also substitute a little sauce to grease the bottom if you'd like. Next begin stuffing the shells with the mixture. How much you stuff them is really a personal preference, I put about two tablespoons of the mixture in or until the shell is full. Line them faced up until the pan is full or you run out of shells. I can usually fit all of the filled shells in so I don't have any leftover.



Once that step is done I spread spaghetti sauce all over the shells. It's important to completely cover any parts of the shell with sauce so you don't have any pieces that get to crispy while baking.



Next I sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese and parmesean cheese on top of the shells, cover with foil, and bake for 45 minutes in the oven.


You can serve the shells with extra sauce and a yummy piece of garlic bread to top off the goodness! This is a great recipe to play around with and alternate ingredients or even make ahead and freeze. It should make anywhere from 25-30 shells so I hope you're hungry!



Friday, February 22, 2013

Easy Picadillo Recipe

 
I've come to the conclusion that I love...love...LOVE making comfort foods! I could probably eat stews, soups, rice, and pasta every night if my hips would allow it ;-) I've ways been a big fan of Picadillo growing up because it was a meal my grandmother made regularly. I know the kids like rice and thought it would be a great meal for them since the meat is so small in size that Daniel would have no problem chewing it! He is now 100 percent on table foods too! 
  
I could have easily called my grandmother, but I have wanted to try out a new cookbook I recently purchased called Sabor! A Passion for Cuban Cuisine. Let me preface this by telling you that one of my biggest guilty pleasures is the Real Housewives franchise...there’s nothing better than some mindless TV once the kids are in bed. So when Ana from The Real Housewives of Miami tweeted about her cookbook I thought why not...so I bought it and it actually reminds me of a lot of the recipes my grandmother always makes.
I decided to try the Picadillo recipe and it was great! Not only did it have such an authentic flavor, it was sooo quick and easy to make! The only thing I changed was omitting the raisins, potatoes, and capers because I have never been fond of raisins in my Picadillo and I didn’t have potatoes or capers on hand. 
Here's the recipe from Ana’s book and the changes I made:
Ingredients: 
  • Olive oil 
  • 2 minced garlic cloves
  • 1 small to medium chopped onion
  • 1 minced green bell pepper
  • 1 pound of ground sirloin or any ground beef
  • ½ cup of dry white cooking wine (I only used ¼ cup)
  • 8 ounce can of tomato sauce
  • Salt and pepper
  • ¼ cup of raisins (optional)
  • ¼ cup of pimento-stuffed olives chopped or whole
  • 2 tablespoons of capers (optional)
  • 2 medium red potatoes chopped and fried (optional)

First, I drizzled a little olive oil in a medium pot (or large skillet) over medium-high heat. Once it was hot I sautéed the onions, garlic, and peppers until tender. Making sure the oil is still very hot I put the ground beef into the pot breaking it up into small chunks until browned and no longer pink. Then you can drain any liquid in the pot.

Next I added the wine, tomato sauce, salt and pepper then reduced the heat to low. This is where I changed the recipe a smidge and rather than simmering it for 20 minutes, I let it sit on my stove’s lowest setting for about 2 hours. My grandmother once told me that all dishes must cook low and slow in order for the flavors to combine. I served it over a bed of white rice and it was even better the next day!

It’s Picadeasy :)


                        


*This recipe was adapted from Ana Quincoces Rodriguez’s cookbook, Sabor! A Passion for Cuban Cuisine: Picadillo, pg. 144

Monday, February 11, 2013

Strawberry Cake Mix Chocolate Chip Cookies



For quite some time now I've been sitting on a box of strawberry cake mix waiting to find the perfect recipe to use it for. I love baking from scratch, but these days anything semi-homemade makes me really happy! I have this new found fascination with using a box of cake mix to create other delectable treats besides the traditional cake or cupcake.

Anywho, I recently stumbled across this fabulous recipe on one of my new favorite blogs called Sally's Baking Addiction. As soon as I saw the recipe I knew it was love at first bite :-) This was the recipe I had been waiting for and what better time than Valentine's Day to try out these scrumptious pink cookies!

I followed her recipe up until the end where I split the batter in half and used mini semisweet chocolate chips in one half and white chocolate chips in the other! You can use whatever kind of morsels you prefer and even add more or less to your liking. These cookies are rather large so I only put 8 on each baking sheet!! The recipe calls for 10 minutes at 350°, but I kept them in for almost 14 minutes because they looked extremely gooey to me after 10 minutes-everyone's oven is different though.

These are some of the easiest and most amazing cookies you will ever put in your mouth!

You can find the original recipe here, but below I've put together my version that I adapted from it:

Ingredients:

• 1 box of Duncan Hines Strawberry Supreme Cake Mix (or any other Strawberry cake mix)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 large eggs
• 1/3 cup vegetable/canola oil
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup of mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/3 cup white chocolate chips


Instructions:

Go ahead and preheat your oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and place them aside.

Next you will want to combine the entire box of cake mix with the baking powder in a medium to large bowl and put aside.

In a smaller bowl, combine the eggs, oil, and vanilla extract and whisk them all together.

Mix the cake mix mixture with the wet ingredients until fully incorporated.

Next place half of the batter in a separate bowl (I just eye-balled this) and gently fold the white chocolate chips into one bowl and the semi-sweet chocolate chips into the other bowl.

Roll the batter into balls equivalent to about two teaspoons making them more tall than wide.

Bake them anywhere from 10 to 14 minutes. You can insert a toothpick or fork and see if it comes out clean to test them.

You can let them cool on the pan or move them to a cooling rack after a couple of minutes.

                   
                                      I think they taste best a little warm! Enjoy!