Recipe: Blueberry Sauce

As I prepared batter for pancakes yesterday morning, I remembered a childhood memory about my grandpa that I had long forgotten about. When we would go visit my grandparents in Pennsylvania growing up, my grandpa Fred would make us silver dollar pancakes. I think I thought it was cool to see how many of the cute, mini pancakes I could shovel in my mouth in one sitting (usually 10 or so, if memory serves me correctly). I look forward to carrying on that tradition with my kids some day, but for now, Natalie couldn't care less about the size and shape of her pancakes as much as how quickly I can feed them to her! I am semi-crazy when it comes to feeding my child healthy food (we do eat processed stuff, but I try to give her fresh, wholesome food as much as possible), so instead of feeding her maple-flavored corn syrup with pancakes, I whip up some of my mom's blueberry sauce. It's just sweet enough and is a big hit with the toddler crowd, I assure you!

Blueberry Sauce

Makes enough for 6-8 pancakes

1 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp sugar
1/4 c water
1 c blueberries (I always use frozen since they're always on hand)

In a small saucepan, mix cornstarch and sugar. Add water and stir. Add blueberries.

Cook mixture over medium heat, stirring occasionally until mixture thickens into a sauce. I use a potato masher to mash some of the berries during the cooking process. Enjoy over pancakes, waffles, and biscuits!

We even ate leftover pancakes with a fresh batch of blueberry sauce for breakfast again this morning, but this time I fed Natalie myself instead of letting her smear blueberries all over her body feed herself since I didn't have time to give her another bath. Yesterday, she was literally covered from head to toe because she smeared it all over her high chair tray and then stood up in the chair and put her bare foot on the tray. My child does not have a short supply of personality! Haha! 

Chicken, Rice & Veggie Soup Recipe

In my continued efforts to overcome my dinner-cooking rut, I created a new soup recipe that was inspired by a recipe I saw on The Cottage Home blog. Alex seemed to enjoy it and Natalie chowed down on some after I put it in the food processor. Actually, it looked like her bib ate more than she did, but that's what happens when Daddy tries to feed her. Hehehe!

Chicken, Rice and Veggie Soup

Whole fryer (or 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts)
6 carrots
1 med onion
4 stalks of celery
2 cups long-grain brown rice
6 chicken bouillon cubes
salt & pepper to taste

Boil whole fryer for 2 hours. Let cool and remove meat from the bone. You could save time and cook chicken breasts in a pan and then cube or shred it if you preferred. Saute carrots, onion and celery in a pan with olive oil until carrots are soft. While vegetables are cooking, cook rice according to package directions (mine took about an hour to cook). I strained the chicken broth and then used it as a base to my soup, but you could use a few boxes of broth from the store. I added bouillon, salt and pepper for flavor. Once rice and veggies are cooked, throw them and the chicken into the broth and heat to a simmer. I pureed several cups of soup to freeze for Natalie, Alex and I each ate a bowl and there were 4 quarts of soup left over.

Pinterest Recipe Success

Like millions of other people around the world, I caught the Pinterest bug and can all too easily spend way too much time pinning diy project ideas and recipes and such that catch my eye. Unfortunately, I've had little success cooking most of said recipes - especially dinners. We just end up not liking the things that every other pinner supposedly declares to be "the best meal you've ever eaten!" Desserts have turned out great, thankfully! On top of that, I've been in this recipe funk for a while and just can't come up with meal ideas that a)sound appetizing and b)are quick and easy. So, as many a housewife have started to do, I turned to Pinterest for inspiration.

A few weeks ago, I made chicken that claimed to be coated in the exact KFC original recipe spices and was baked instead of fried. It was good, Alex claimed that he liked it better than the chicken fingers that I spend way too much on at the grocery store, but I wouldn't agree with the recipe creator who claimed to have figured out KFC's secret formula. I made a TON, so I froze the leftovers for a night when I just don't feel like cooking. All in all, I'd probably make the dish again, but because of the mess, it won't become part of a regular rotation. If you'd like to try it, here's the link to the recipe.

I also tried out these baked meatballs to accompany some homemade spaghetti sauce. Alex has been asking for homemade meatballs since forever, and I just hadn't gotten around it making some. These were ok, but my dad's are better. Maybe I'm biased, but I plan on asking for his recipe next time. (And, I know I should have just asked for his recipe in the first place, but I kept forgetting!) I also made a ton of these (like 50 or 60!) and froze the extras.

Earlier this week, I tried out these cheesy chicken, bacon, ranch foil meals. Now THIS is a recipe that I will make again and again (as long as my dearest husband doesn't change his mind as he is apt to do and decide that he's not crazy about this dish!). It was fast and easy and only dirtied 2 dishes (the cookie sheet that I baked the bacon on and a mixing bowl). My only "complaint" is that it turned out a little too salty, but I had improvised when making my ranch dressing, so I think it would have been less salty if I had had all the ingredients on hand to make it like usual.

So, that's it! Have you tried any recipes that you've found on Pinterest that were worth putting into your regular dinner rotation? If so, I'd love to try them, too!

A Homemade Recipe Book

This past week I was busy working on a lot of craft projects. I sewed a shirt and skirt for our niece's 6th birthday, embroidered a jacket for a friend to wear on her honeymoon and made two wedding gifts. One of the gifts was a recipe book because every time we hang out with this couple, the guy asks me for recipes to help his fiance out in the kitchen. I hadn't actually ever given them anything, so I thought they'd appreciate this idea.





I bought the photo album from Walmart and the Retro Aprons recipe cards from Christian Book Distributors. The cards are actually double-sided, so there's plenty of room for lengthy recipes. I cut out the frames around each section label "appetizers", "desserts", "main courses", etc using my Cricut and found a cut out for the tab dividers, too. I forgot that they make laminated tabs, which would hold up a lot longer than the ones I cut out of card stock. I hope that some of our favorite family recipes become the happy couple's favorites, too.

Now that I've finished these projects, I have to start on some burp cloths for a baby shower. I'd like to get around to making some for Natalie, too! Add that to my ever-growing to-do list....at least one items is going to get checked off the list later this week though, because our crib came in!!! We're going to pick it up on Thursday after our 30-week doctor appointment. I can't wait! I'm also going to have to add another little project to my list, because I thought this was too cute:

The bride bought this on Etsy and they put their cards in it on the gift table. Our current mailbox is the shape of a barn and is looking a little sun-baked. it's time for a modern makeover.

Well, Alex has started a movie for us to watch, so I'll leave you with a picture of us from the wedding today:

Yummy Sausage Bread

Growing up, my mom often made her own whole wheat pizza crust for our traditional Friday night pizza dinners. Somewhere along the way, she started making sausage bread to change things up a bit. This stuff is so good! We even took it on long road trips to snack on in the car. Since Alex isn't sentimentally attached to the recipe like I am (read: he's picky!), I decided to make it for myself while he's out of town.

Sausage Bread - total prep & bake time: 30-45 minutes

1 pkg refrigerated pizza dough
1/2 lb ground sausage (or turkey sausage)
2 cups Mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup frozen chopped spinach (optional)
1 tsp garlic powder
Marinara sauce

Personally, making homemade dough without a bread machine (like mom did) sounds too complicated, so I opted for Pillsbury thin crust refrigerated dough. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cook sausage, drain grease from pan. Roll the dough out onto a rectangular cookie sheet. Sprinkle half the cheese longways down the center of the dough. Sprinkle sausage on top of the cheese, then add spinach and remaining cheese. Sprinkle the top with garlic powder.


Fold the dough over the filling and seal up the ends of the dough, forming a long roll. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Cut into slices, dip in marinara and enjoy! It looks like this baked a little too long, but once it cooled down, it wasn't even crispy. My mom's dough was chewy, which I liked better than the refrigerated dough.



Aren't my photography skills amazing?! It's almost embarrassing how sorry these pictures are...Anyway, there are so many different ways to change this recipe up. You could leave out the spinach and add peppers and onions, or use pepperoni instead of sausage. My mom always made a plain sausage and cheese one for me and my brother and one with veggies for her and my dad. A co-worker used Steak-ums and made a philly cheese steak version and dipped it in A1 sauce. There are endless possibilities! I hope you enjoy it like I do!

Apple Dumplins a.k.a. My New Food Addiction

Before Thanksgiving, I bought four Granny Smith apples to bake with. I originally intended to just fry them up as a side dish for dinner, but that never happened, so a lady at work suggested that I make "dumplins" instead (as a former New Yorker, I really want to call them "dumplings", but I will go with the flow here). At first, I thought the Mountain Dew/Pillsbury crescent roll combo sounded gross compared to from-scratch home-cooking, but I was wrong. Oh, how I was wrong! I LOVED them!!! I loved them so much that I had THREE helpings. And tomorrow I will finally break in my eyesore of a stationary bicycle to burn off all the extra calories. Here's the recipe:

Apple Dumplins

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup butter
2 packages of crescent rolls
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 granny smith apples
1 12 oz can Mountain Dew

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter with sugar and cinnamon on stovetop. Peel apples and cut each into 8 slices. Put one slice inside of an individual crescent "triangle" and roll up, pressing edges together to seal the apple inside. Roll all apples up inside the crescent rolls and place in a greased 9x13 inch pan. Pour butter/sugar/cinnamon mixture over the top of the dumplins and then pour Mountain Dew on top of that. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until golden brown. Pig out!



I improvised a little because I had 4 apples and didn't want to use two whole sticks of butter (it's a precious commodity in our house at the moment. Long story.). I also had one package of jumbo crescents and one package of regular, so I wrapped 2-3 apple slices in each crescent. There was alot of juice in the pan in the end, but, since it was just for the two of us and not for company, I really didn't care. This is such a tasty treat for a cold Fall night. Or a Winter night. Or any night. They're just so good I'm going to have to go eat another one.

Autumn Baking Has Begun!

It seems like everyone around me has been anticipating the arrival of Fall for months now. I've never gotten that excited about decorating for the season, but perhaps that because orange and yellow are two of my least favorite colors and I couldn't care less about Halloween decorations. Now, my perspective has changed and I'm excited to make some Fall decorations for my house and have even enjoyed wearing Fall colors (usually I'm big into Spring and Summer colors). My favorite thing about Fall is making different foods. I'm branching out and trying new soup recipes and can't wait for holiday baking. I got my last issue of Taste of Home magazine in the mail the other day and found a few yummy cookie recipes that I'd love to try. One was a cross between a cinnamon roll and a snickerdoodle, both of which I absolutely adore! Oh I can feel the extra pounds around my waistline now! Ugh!

Alex had asked me to bake a carrot cake the other day, so I bought carrots and cream cheese and then ended up using the latter to make a cheese ball. Oops! A week later, I did bake him a cake from scratch. Thank you, Betty Crocker! I told Alex that I was Betty Crocker and he thought I'd said "Betty Crockett" as in "Davy Crockett". Hilarious! Anyway, for my first from-scratch cake, it turned out delish! I followed the recipe but instead of using 1 cup of oil, I used 1/2 a cup of sour cream and 1/2 a cup of oil to make it moist. I could have used a whole cup of sour cream, but then I wouldn't have had any for my taco salad later that night!



I probably added a little too much milk to the icing because it was ooey-gooey, but still oh so yummy! Making carrot cake wasn't as hard as some people make it out to be. I mean, they complain about shredding carrots, but that's what a food processor is for! We live in the 21st century and don't have to do everything by hand anymore! My mother-in-law bought me a big Black and Decker food processor for Christmas a few years ago and I've only used it a handful of times, but it's worth it. What kinds of things do you bake during the holidays?

Blueberry Bliss

So, after another long case of writer's block (or maybe I just lead a boring life?!), I'm back to try this again. Yesterday, my mom, mother-in-law and I went blueberry picking. It brought back memories of trips to a blueberry patch in Pennsylvania with my grandmother as a kid. After two hours in the hot sun, I only managed to pick 3 pounds of berries (and I only ate one single berry in the process!), but that was enough to freeze a quart and have some left for cereal and Blueberry Boy Bait. My mom used to make this coffee-cake type recipe when I was a kid as well, and she brought along the recipe so I could make it after we were done picking berries. It's super easy:

Blueberry Boy Bait

2 tsp baking powder
2 c flour
1 tsp salt
2/3 c shortening
1 1/2 c sugar

Mix ingredients together and set 1/2 cup aside. Add 2 eggs to 1 cup milk and 1 tsp vanilla. Mix well and add to flour mixture. Pour into a well-greased 9x13 pan and sprinkle 1 to 2 cups fresh blueberries on top. You can push the blueberries down into the batter if you want. Sprinkle crumbly mixture on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-50 mins or until toothpick comes out clean. You can also use other berries or peaches instead of blueberries if you prefer. The recipe states that wheat germ or bran can be added for more nutrients, but it used to drive me crazy when my mom did that when I was a kid! She tried to sneak it into everything!



I've now had three helpings of this treat and need to burn off some calories prepping the family room for new paint. I sense another blog entry in the making...