Turtle Cake

We tried a new cake recipe from the ever-wonderful Kraft Foods website. It’s a turtle cake that was surprisingly easy to make. And let me tell you, It.Was.Amazing! I snapped a shot so I could show y’all…

Yum!!

The cheesecake & caramel filling was absolutely to die for! Honestly, I was a little sad I had to put it on the cake…I was sorely tempted to just eat it all out of the mixing bowl! But I didn’t…much. ;)

Check out the link below & give her a whirl sometime. You won’t be disappointed!

Turtle Cake recipe

Mandy

 

Child-Friendly Leftovers

"Beggar's Purses" are a great way to get your kids to eat leftovers through simple repackaging. They are finger food and relatively bite-sized which automatically makes them more fun to eat.


Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:
1-2 packages of Pillsbury crescent rolls
or
12 pre-thawed Rhoades Rolls
2-3 cups of your leftovers
butter

Preheat oven to 375.
Stretch one roll (1 roll = 2 crescent rolls) into hand-sized round. Fill with 2-3 Tbsp of cold leftover mixture (honey mustard chicken, fajitas, meatloaf, spagetti sauce, etc). Fold dough around mixture and pinch together at the top. It should look similar to a teardrop. Place "purses" onto greased baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Once cooked, brush with butter and serve warm.

Best Queso Dip EVER

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:
2 lb package Velveeta, cubed
1 lb Jimmy Dean Hot Sausage
1 8-oz. package of cream cheese, cubed
1 can of Ro-Tel (either regular or extra hot)

Brown sausage, drain any excess fat and reduce to medium-low heat. Add velveeta cubes to skillet. When cheese is almost melted, add cream cheese cubes. Once cheeses are thoroughly melted, add Ro-Tel and stir together over low heat until mixture is creamy. Remove from heat and serve with tortilla chips.

*Keep queso warm during serving (crock pot or fondue pot works well).

German Pancakes

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes

3 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup milk
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
3 Tbsp butter
*optional - 1/4 tsp nutmeg (or cinnamon/allspice)

Preheat oven to 400.
Whisk eggs. Add flour and whisk again.
Place butter in a round cake pan and allow to melt in the oven.
Add milk, salt, vanilla and nutmeg.
Once butter is melted, pour batter over butter and bake for 15-17 minutes.

Serve with powdered sugar, fresh berries, jam, or syrup.

Sausage-Stuffed Mushroom Caps

Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes

1 package Jimmy Dean Sage or Hot Sausage
8 oz. package cream cheese
20-30 small white or brown mushrooms
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs and/or parmesan cheese

Start by washing and de-stemming mushrooms. Keep 1/2 the stems. Set caps and stems aside to dry. Cook sausage over medium heat until cooked. Drain sausage well. Preheat oven to 350.

In a separate bowl, mix cream cheese into sausage. Mince mushroom stems and mix into sausage/cheese mixture. Place bread crumbs or parmesan in a small bowl. Fill each mushroom cap with the sausage mixture and then dip mushroom upside-down into bread crumbs.

Bake on a cookie sheet for 10 minutes at 350.

Weeknight Lasagna Toss

I found a fantastic new recipe in my food & family magazine that came in the mail today. It's a lasagna recipe that you make in the skillet and it only takes 40 minutes! You can find the recipe for Weeknight Lasagna Toss here or you can look it up, along with tons of other recipes, at www.kraftfoods.com (I can't post it because it doesn't belong to me).

This recipe is amazing. It's pretty versatile. I substituted frozen chopped spinach for half of the green peppers they called for. The thing I loved best was that my kids actually ate it. Alex asked for seconds and thirds!

You don't have to sign up (it's free) to look at recipes, but I would recommend it. By joining you can create your own recipe box to store the cool recipes you want to try.

Anyway, I thought I would share since I loved this recipe so much. Hope you like it too!

Paprika Chicken

Total cook time: 30-40 minutes

1/2 cup flour

2 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. ground black pepper

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts halves

1/4 cup butter

1 can Cream of Chicken Soup

1/4 cup diced onions

3/4 cup sour cream
1 tsp. ground red pepper (optional)

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Mix the flour, paprika, garlic powder, and pepper(s) on a plate or large bowl. Thoroughly coat chicken with the dry mixture. Cook chicken uncovered for 10-15 minutes or until browned on both sides. Set chicken aside.

Stir in onions and soup, bring to a boil (will only take a minute or two.) Return the chicken to the skillet. Reduce to low heat, cover and simmer for 5 minutes or until the chicken is no longer pink in the middle. Plate chicken and stir sour cream into soup/onion/butter sauce.

It should look like this:

This is spicy, but not too much so that the little ones can't eat it. It goes great with corn on the cob or green beans.

Super Quick BBQ Pork Chops

Ingredients:
4 bone-in or boneless pork chops, about 1 lb, ½" thick
2 tsp oil
½ cup BBQ sauce

Cook chops in hot oil in large skillet on med-high heat 4-5 minutes on each side. Pour BBQ sauce over chops; cover. Reduce heat to low. Cook 10 minutes or until cooked through.

Homemade Mac n Cheese

Cook time: 20 mins

This recipe actually comes from my mother-in-law's grandmother (but it's too tasty not to share!)

Ingredients:

2 cups uncooked elbow (macaroni)
noodle
1 can tomato soup
1 cup medium or sharp cheddar cheese (cubed)

In a large sauce pan cook noodles as directed on the package. Drain. Replace on burner set to low-med heat. Pour tomato soup over noodles and stir. Mix in cubed cheese and stir until melted.

Serves 4