Fun Fridays: Chocolate Chewies

Happy Halloween Eve! This past week for our family night we had a pumpkin night: carved jack-o-lanterns, drew pumpkins, and frosted pumpkin-shaped cookies. I have always had a hard time with making rolled sugar cookies during the holidays. The kids love to cut out and decorate the cookies, but for some crazy reason no one else in my family will actually EAT the darn things. And to be honest, I don't really like them, either. I'll usually eat them since I have an unhealthy sugar addiction, but that doesn't mean I enjoy them.

So in contemplating our pumpkin night, I was also thinking about our cookie problem. I have had some success in the past making a chocolate sugar cookie, so I starting gathering the ingredients together to bake them. Then it happened. As I was reaching for my baking cocoa, I saw the instant pudding on the shelf.

I happen to have 4 large (and I do mean large!) cans of instant pudding mix that are getting ready to expire. They were given to me by a friend who hoped I would use them more quickly than her family could. So since they needed to be used anyway... I may as well use them in cookies, right?

The end result was a delicious, chewy, rolled cookie. Heavenly. So far I have made them twice - both with the chocolate pudding. We'll try the vanilla next time! (I'm thinking we may need to make turkey shapes for Thanksgiving...)

Chocolate Chewies

1/2 c real butter, softened (1 stick)
1/4 margarine
1 c. chocolate instant pudding mix
(I think this is the equivalent of 2 large boxes)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 to 1 3/4 c. flour

Beat together softened butter and margarine.
Tip:If you are pulling your butter straight out of the fridge and don't have time to let it soften to room temperature on the counter, microwave the stick for about 10 seconds and then add it to the bowl. This isn't necessary to do with the margarine.

Add chocolate instant pudding, egg, and vanilla. Beat on low until most of the pudding is mixed in, or you'll have a fine chocolate powder all over your kitchen.

Once the powder is mostly mixed in, beat an additional 30-60 seconds on medium to high speed to mix well. Add sugar and baking powder and mix well.

Finally, add the flour. Because I now have a Kitchen Aid counter top mixer (yes, I know JUST how lucky I am!) I don't have to do any of my mixing by hand. However, I still add my flour in stages as if I were using a standard mixer. So when I add the flour, I start by adding 1 cup and mixing it in really well. Then I add the last 1/2 cup or so and mix that in. If you are using a regular mixer, you may have to do this last step by hand.

How do you know when you have enough flour? When your dough looks something like this:

If it's still a little too soft to handle, you can refrigerate it for about an hour before rolling out. However, the second time I made it I added a little too much flour and I could roll it out immediately. The down side of this is that you have to work harder to keep the dough from breaking apart as you are rolling out and cutting the cookies. I had to use a fork to transfer the cut cookies to the cookie sheet, but once they were baked they were just as chewy and delicious as the last batch.

So now that you have your cookie dough, place it on a lightly floured surface.

Roll dough about 1/4-inch thick and cut into desired shapes. These pumpkins were for our pumpkin night this past Monday.

Place on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper or sprayed with cooking spray.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 375 degrees for about 8 minutes. Remove from cookie sheet and let cool before decorating.

Decorate as desired. These pumpkins were iced and my kids made jack-0-lantern faces with chocolate chips. I found that was too sweet for my taste and prefer them just plain. You can also take ghost shapes and coat with a fine layer of powdered sugar (see picture at top of post) using a sifter for a decorated yet not-as-overloaded-with-sugar-and-butter option.

Stuffed Mushrooms

For a girl who grew up hating mushrooms, it is amazing how much I love them now. I can remember going on a campout for my older brother's birthday when I was younger. My dad was grilling hamburgers or steaks or something and sauteed some mushrooms to go with it. Being the ever-so-graceful 10-year old that I was, I knocked the frying pan of cooked mushrooms off of the picnic table onto the ground, spilling them everywhere. As a "punishment" I was forbidden to eat mushrooms for a year. I'm sure now that my dad was joking, but when I heard those words at the time, I thought I'd hit the jackpot. I hated mushrooms.

No longer. As my taste buds matured, so did my love for things like mushrooms, peppers, and onions. Good thing, too. Pizza would be plain without them! And I would never have come to love one of my favorite appetizers of all time - stuffed mushrooms. Mmm...

Although I've never eaten a stuffed mushroom I didn't like, I've seen a lot of recipes that have things like ground sausage in it. That's not really up my alley to make at home. I just don't keep a lot of that stuff on hand, and besides - I'm trying to NOT gain back 100+ pounds, remember? So I picked the things I liked best from several of the recipes I saw and came up with these little bites of heaven.


Stuffed Mushrooms
(25 calories each)

12 white mushrooms
1/4 c. bread crumbs
2 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
2 Tbsp water
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
dash Worcestershire sauce
2 Tbsp whipped cream cheese
2 Tbsp. shredded Parmesan cheese

Wash and gently remove stems from mushrooms.

Mince half the stems. Discard the rest.

In a small bowl, combine minced stems, bread crumbs, grated Parmesan, water, vinegar, and and Worcestershire sauce. Stir until evenly moistened. Add whipped cream cheese.

Microwave bowl for about 20 seconds to further soften the cream cheese. Stir until well combined.

Gently spoon filling into each mushroom cap, pressing it in gently. Filling should also be nicely rounded on top. Place filled mushrooms in a foil-covered casserole dish. Top with shredded Parmesan cheese.

Broil about 6 inches from heat for about 5 to 7 minutes, or until tops are nicely browned.

Chicken-less Noodle Soup

This winter I have decided that my family is having a soup night every week. I love, love, love soup. For many reasons - not the least of which is because it can be inexpensive to make. Soup can also be low in calories yet extremely tasty. This is good, because 9 times out of 10 we're having rolls with our soup and breads are not so low-calorie.

Another reason I love soup is because I can hide things in it that my kids (and husband!) won't normally eat. For example: cauliflower. No one in this house besides me and Handsome Man will touch the stuff. Or so they think (insert evil laugh here).

This past week we had all been oh-so-sick and I was just starting to feel better. It was cold and rainy and the perfect day for soup. When I announced this to Horse Lover and The Monkey, they started to complain. Being the sweet, tender-loving mother than I am, I informed them that we were going to have soup often throughout the winter and they had better learn to like it or plan on going hungry. However, I did let them choose what kind of soup I would make. They voted for just plain old chicken noodle. You know, the kind with no actual chicken or vegetables in it. So I agreed with one condition: all chicken noodle soups must have celery in it, but I told them that they could pick it out. Little did they know the celery was just a cover-up for my real plan... cauliflower.

The secret to hiding cauliflower in soup is to steam it and then puree it before adding it to the broth. I just so happened to have a head of cauliflower on hand that I got in my produce co-op about a month ago. It really needed be used. And the end result? No one - not even The Honey - realized there was any vegetables in the soup at all other than celery. The kids loved it - especially Handsome Man. And yes, he went straight from the high chair to the bathtub after this meal...


Chicken-less Noodle Soup
(Makes approximately five 1-1/2 c. servings. 115 calories per serving.)

4 c. chicken broth
2 stalks celery
1 large clove of garlic, minced or pressed
1 Tbsp. dehydrated onion flakes
1/3 head of cauliflower
1/2 c. water (or more if needed)
2 c. dry egg noodles

In a medium or large saucepan combine chicken broth, celery, garlic, and onion flakes. Simmer over medium heat till the celery is tender.

While the celery is cooking, cut up 1/3 of a head of cauliflower into florets. Steam in the microwave for about 4-5 minutes or until very tender. This should make about 2 cups of cooked cauliflower.

Puree the cauliflower in a food processor or blender until smooth. Add the water if necessary. I have a Sunbeam food processor (kind of like a Magic Bullet) that I used to make baby food for Handsome Man. I do most of my purees in this, and I always need to add extra water. I had to do the cauliflower two batches and I added about 1/4 c. of extra water to each batch. If you need to add more or less, it doesn't really matter. This is soup, remember. The important thing is to make sure there are no chunks of cauliflower left in recognizable condition. Kids rarely taste anything in their food that they can't see. But let them see a tiny speck of something they don't like and you'd think it was the only ingredient in there!

By now your celery should be pretty tender, so add the pureed cauliflower to the pot of soup.

See how nicely it mixes in? And it's a great thickener, too! No cornstarch needed for this recipe.

About 20 minutes prior to serving, add 2 cups of dry egg noodles to the pot of broth. Continue cooking until noodles are tender.

Baked Chicken Taquitos

Imagine it. You want to make something different than usual for dinner. You come across a yummy-looking recipe online - but alas! You don't have all the necessary ingredients. So what do you do? Lie down in shame? Heck, no! You improvise. Which brings us to the recipe for this post.

I actually saw this great-looking recipe on Our Best Bites for Baked Creamy Chicken Taquitos. And it looked really, really good. But there were a few problems. For starters, I'm not exactly sure what green salsa even is, so you can bet that's not in my fridge. Pepperjack? Love it, but not on hand. Corn tortillas? There would be a mutiny among the natives if I ever tried to sneak by corn tortillas instead of flour. So I went with the idea and what I had on hand. Some day I'm going to try Sara's recipe, but that day didn't happen this week. However, the results that I got with what I had were Y-U-M-M-Y so I'm sharing them here.

Baked Chicken Taquitos
(Makes 12 taquitos of 180 calories each)

2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 c. salsa + 1/4 c. salsa
1 tsp. cumin
8 oz. container whipped cream cheese spread
12 small flour tortillas (taco size)

Place chicken in a crock pot and cover with 1 c. salsa. I freeze my chicken breasts after I buy them, so place them in the crock frozen and cook them on low for about 4-5 hours. If your chicken is not frozen, you'll need to shorten that to probably 2-3 hours. You want to make sure your chicken doesn't get too dried out.

Remove chicken from crock pot - don't scrape off any salsa that has cooked onto the top of the chicken, but don't worry about spooning any extra stuff out of the crock either. That salsa is mixed in with the grease and juices from the chicken breasts. Chop or shred chicken.

In a medium bowl, combine shredded chicken, 1/4 c. salsa, 1 tsp. cumin and 8-oz. container of whipped cream cheese. I like using the whipped because it's easier to mix in. If you are going to use regular cream cheese, be sure to reduce the amount to no more than 6 oz. of cream cheese.

Spoon some of the filling mixture onto the center of a small flour tortilla. Roll as tightly as possible. Repeat until filling is gone. I like my taquitos a little on the fat side, so I only used 12 tortillas.

Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Spray generously with cooking spray. Place taquitos on the cookie sheet and spray the tops with cooking spray as well.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake about 8-10 minutes or until edges are starting to brown. Bottoms will also be nice and crunchy.

Let cool for a few minutes before sampling. Trust me. I learned this the hard way...

Bacon Ranch Wraps

I uploaded pictures from my camera today and realized that I have gotten more cooking done lately that I realized. Kudos to me! I guess I have been feeding my family lately and not just making them eat sandwiches. This is a greater achievement than you may realize since it seems like I've been sick with either cold or stomach bug for last 10 days.

This particular meal would not be a big hit with my lettuce-haters, but I needed something quick and easy before Cantata practice one Tuesday night. So The Honey and I ate these, and the kiddos had cheese quesadillas with veggies on the side. Judge me if you want, but it's better for them than McDonalds!

Also, if you want to try these but don't want to go through the trouble or expense of getting what you need to make the Ranch dressing used in the recipe, you can use whatever Ranch dressing you have on hand.


Bacon Ranch Wraps
(Makes enough filling for 3 adult-size wraps. Each serving of filling is about 160 calories when I make it, but may vary slightly based on what kind of bacon you use and whether you substitute commercial ranch dressing for what's listed in the recipe.)

Ranch dressing for filling
1/3 c. light sour cream
3 Tbsp plain non-fat yogurt
1 tsp dried ranch dressing mix

Combine ingredients together in a small bowl. Set aside and prepare filling. If you don't want to make this, you can use 1/2 c. of your favorite ranch dressing instead.


Filling
4 c. chopped leaf lettuce
1 tomato, diced
6 slices cooked bacon, crumbled
1/2 c. shredded Parmesan cheese

Chop lettuce and tomato and place in a mixing bowl.

Add bacon and shredded Parmesan. (I know, it's kind of like rocket science, iAdd ranch dressing and toss until thoroughly coated.

Place about 1/3 of mixture on a flour tortilla. Fold like a burrito and serve!

Note: If you don't want to eat this as a wrap, add some grilled chicken and make a dinner salad out of it.

Fun Fridays: The 3-Ingredient Cookie

It's been a slow blogging week for me, but not without cause. Handsome Man, The Monkey, and yours truly got attacked by the stomach bug! Not fun. After two days, most of us have emerged triumphant. Handsome Man, however, is still fighting the battle (poor little fella!) so although I'm still too distracted to try anything fancy in the kitchen, I do have some recipes in my picture archives that are on my "to do" list for posting that I can share with you.

For years I have looked at this recipe and wondered if it was "for real". I've heard about it: peanut butter cookies made with nothing but sugar, eggs, and peanut butter. That's it. What, no flour? Nope. No butter? Nope. No salt, vanilla, or baking soda? Nope, nope, and nope. Just three things. (Or four things if you decide to put in some chocolate chips like we did.)

If it had been up to me, I probably still wouldn't have tried it by now, but Horse Lover was in charge of the treat for our weekly Family Night several weeks ago. She had recently had one of these cookies at someone's house (who, by the way is allergic to gluten) and fell in love with them. This meant that as soon as it was her turn to choose the treat again, this was what she wanted.

As for me, I still prefer the good old regular-style of peanut butter cookie to these. I can't help it - I like flour in my cookies! But there may be some of you out there somewhere in cyberspace wondering if these gluten-free cookies are worth the effort. For Horse Lover, the answer will always be yes. For anyone eating a gluten-free diet, the answer would again be yes. But for me? Probably not my first choice, but a decent alternative. Just keep in mind that they are sweeter than your typical peanut butter cookie. At least I won't be in danger of blowing my diet over these. Not like my chewy molasses cookies... Now there is a recipe I need to post on here sometime. But that's for another day.


Peanut-Butter Cookies

1 cup peanut butter (creamy or chunky)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
(Optional: 1/2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips)

Gather your ingredients.

In a medium bowl, combine peanut butter, egg, and and sugar.

Add chocolate chips (if desired) and mix well.

Roll dough into 1-inch balls and place on cookie sheet covered in parchment paper or sprayed with cooking spray.

Flatten slightly with a fork.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Bake about 6-7 minutes until bottom edges are lightly browned. Remove from oven and let set an additional 2 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Garden Spagetti Sauce

I don't know why I didn't get a picture of this spaghetti sauce actually ON the pasta. It's not really all that appetizing looking at a glop of spaghetti sauce in the pot. Oh well! I guess when I make it again I'll just have to snag one.

One of my main purposes in making this spaghetti sauce is to hide as many veggies as possible in the sauce without actually letting the sauce taste like anything but the tomatoes. Who wants "carrot-sauce" on their noodles? Not me! But The Honey and I are lovers of mushrooms, so I will confess we didn't try to hide those. Otherwise they would have been pureed as well. The kidlets can pick them out if they want. I'd hate for them to think we spoil them...

This is also a great meatless spaghetti sauce for those of you who don't like chunks of ground beef or turkey in your sauce but want something hearty and slightly chunky. And if you like meat in your spaghetti? Just throw in a few meatballs and you're good to go!

One other note: it may seem like we do spaghetti a lot at our house. And it's true, we probably have it about every 2-3 weeks. Part of the reason for this is because you can throw it in the crock pot before church and it's ready when you get home. Great reason, don't you think? But it's also because it's an inexpensive meal that will feed our family and a guest family. So those of you who have had the opportunity to come over and eat my spaghetti... now you know my little secret. We're feeding you cheap food. But we're trying to live on a budget and love having company over. It's a win-win situation when you cook up a pot of spaghetti!


Garden Spaghetti Sauce
(I've never measured it out of the pot, but it makes about 8 servings of 3/4 c. each. Each serving of sauce is about 110 calories. 1 cup cooked spaghetti noodles is about 220 calories.)

1 28-oz can diced tomatoes
2 c. sliced, steamed veggies
12 oz. tomato paste
4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
8 oz. fresh mushrooms, sliced
Salt/pepper to taste
3 Tbsp sugar
3 Tbsp vinegar
2 tsp pizza seasoning

Pour can of diced tomatoes into blender and puree. Pour half the puree into the pot and keep the other half in the blender to puree with the other veggies. (If you like your sauce with tomato chunks, only puree half the can.)

Slice about 2 cups of desired veggies and steam in the microwave. I used zucchini and carrots this time, but I have also done yellow squash. I'm sure you could use just about anything, though I wouldn't recommend corn for what (I would hope) are obvious reasons...

Add steamed veggies to the blender.

Puree for about a minute, or until there are no longer any recognizable chunks if you're trying to hide veggies from your kids. If you just want a chunky garden sauce, just pulse the blender until you get the veggies down to the desired consistency. Pour into pot with the tomato puree and add tomato paste.

Preheat the olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add diced onion and cook until almost translucent.

Add fresh mushrooms and sprinkle a layer of salt/pepper or Nature's Seasons over the mushrooms.

Cook until mushrooms are done. You'll know the mushrooms are done when they start making "juice" in the pan rather than absorbing it. If you don't know what I mean, try it and you'll see.

Finally, add mushroom mixture and all remaining ingredients to the pot. Stir well and let simmer as long as you can. If making it in the crock pot, generally 4-5 hours on low heat is plenty of time.