May 6, 2014 by Stephanie

Putting More Eggs Into My Life

I love eggs. When I had a free meal plan they were part of my every day life by just going into the dining hall and saying, “I want this in my omelet please.” Thank you ISU dining!

Now that I have to make my own breakfast, I find I don’t have a lot of time to make my eggs in the morning. (I know first world grown up problems.)

Being pregnant reinforced the fact that I need to have these little nutrition packed items back in my diet.

I tried doing the hard boiled eggs, but Tom wasn’t so happy about me stinking up the house each week. And I generally don’t like to have eggs for dinner. (I am all for breakfast for dinner, except when it comes to eggs.)

Enter the casserole idea.

I could make one once a week and then package them as left overs for each day of the week. And one of my goals is try a new recipe once a month, so double whammy.

Here is my first casserole via a Pinterest find. I used this recipe. I did change some of the ingredients.

Spinach and Egg Casserole

Ingredients

4 cups of spinach
1 cup of mozzarella cheese
1 cup of colby jack cheese
2 tsp of olive oil
8 eggs
salt and pepper

First, you will use the olive oil and saute for the spinach. This will only take a few minutes. You will stop when the spinach is a little wilted and shrinks up.

Put the sauteed spinach in the bottom of your casserole dish.

Cover with the cheese.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and add a pinch of salt and pepper. Then cover the cheese and spinach with beaten eggs. Stir up the entire mixture lightly with a fork.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Cook the casserole for 35 minutes or until the edges are slightly browning.

Let it cool for a few minutes before serving. It will sink a little bit as it settles.

Here is my review of this recipe.

It was a little bland to be honest. I added salsa to the finished product, which helped. I didn’t have the onions or seasoning that she recommended in the original recipe, so that could be part of the problem. I also couldn’t taste the cheese, even with adding more. This is an important part of my egg experience, so I would probably want to add more. I also think you could add other things like mushrooms to make it even tastier. It also didn’t make as much as I thought so I would probably try to up all the ingredients so I can get through the whole week on leftovers.

Do you have any good casserole recipes for me to keep up with my egg intake?

February 4, 2014 by Stephanie

Crockpot Apple Butter

I love my crockpot, so when I saw this recipe I knew it was going to be on the Christmas giving list.

So are you ready to set it and forget it?

Crockpot Apple Butter

Ingredients

1 dozen apples, peeled, cored, cubed
1/2 Cup Water
1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon All Spice

Step 1:

Core and peel apples. Once you cube them put them in the crockpot.

Step 2:

Stir in water, sugar, and spices with apples.

Step 3:

Set it on low and leave overnight. I left it around 16 hours on low. You can shorten this time on high, but I would watch the apples more closely. Even on low, I periodically stirred the apples to break them up faster into the mush.

Step 4:

Once the apples are a mush, stir it to further smooth the mixture. You can put it in a blender to smooth out further. I left it fairly chunky, almost like applesauce.

Step 5:

Put butter into storing containers. This recipe allowed for 6 smaller canning jars.
(I also took this step to taste test it. Yummeeeee. I would eat it by the spoonful.)

You could jazz up the jars with ribbon and labels, but I didn’t quite go that far. These would make a good spread for toast or bagels.

cubed apples

all ingredients

final product

December 29, 2013 by Stephanie

Cranberry Cinnamon Honey Butter

My family is really hard to shop for. Most of us, when we want or need something we are in a position where we can just go get it. So Christmas and birthdays become increasingly more difficult as the years go by.

However, one truth remains.

We love to eat.

So when I came across this recipe, I knew I had found at least one gift. I did adjust the recipe a smidge on the measurements.

Cranberry Cinnamon Honey Butter

Ingredients

3 sticks of butter
3/4 cup of dried cranberries
3 tsp of ground cinnamon
3-4 tbs of honey

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a mixer. I tried a blender first, and it just wasn’t cooperating, so I put it in my Kitchenaid. Worked like a charm
You may need to scrape the sides a few times and mix again just to make sure all the cinnamon is incorporated.
Store in container of choice.
Best when used at room temperature, but will need to be refrigerated between uses.

Somewhat homemade butter in the making

Excuse the mess behind this. We were overlapping several different projects at one time. Our kitchen looked like something exploded.

The recipe doesn’t not yield an exorbitant amount, so just note that if you are hoping to make it for several people. This is how much we got out of the recipe listed above.

I tasted some along the way, and it tastes so good! It would be great on toast and bagels. I kind of want to go out and get raisin bread just for this butter!

It took me about 15 minutes to make this, so it is super easy to whip up.

Do you have any homemade butter recipes?

November 19, 2013 by Stephanie

Bubble Pizza

I saw this recipe on Pinterest and a fellow blogger highly recommended it. We love pizza so we figured why not give it a try.

This recipe is super duper easy, and it makes so much.

Bubble Pizza (Casserole)

2 cans of frozen ready made biscuits
2 jars of pizza/marina sauce
shredded cheese of your choice (we had mozzarella and colby jack)
toppings of your choice (we just had pepperoni-Tom has boring taste buds)

I accidentally bought two kinds of biscuits-buttered and original. Worked out though!

1. First, pull apart the biscuit into balls and layer the bottom of your casserole dish. 2. Follow the biscuit cooking directions. Cook the biscuits by themselves for about 2/3 of the cooking time. If you do not do this, the dough will not fully cook with all the toppings.

3. After letting the dough pre-cook, add all the marina sauce.

4. Add your specific toppings. You will need more than you think so you may want to layer a couple times with the toppings and cheese. We didn’t have enough to the dough ratio, so that is my advice to those who attempt this recipe.

5. Add cheese.

6. Cook for the rest of the time, and then add some. Again you want to make sure that the dough is cooked. We doubled the time on the biscuit mix.

7. Eat to your heart’s content.

Total time to prepare and cook was about 30 minutes.

This recipe makes a lot, but I am all about left overs. This would be great for a family. Plus you could get kids involved really easy with pulling apart the dough and adding their favorite toppings. I know I always loved helping with the cooking when I was a kid.

This is definitely a recipe we will keep in our back pocket for the cost and ease.

I joined up on the Kitchenspiration today with Chelsea and Stephanie.

Our Little Nest

October 3, 2013 by Stephanie

Autumn on My Mind-Fall Food Must

We have a few more episodes of Autumn on My Mind! We hope that you enjoy!

Today is about the yummies in the tummies!

“A Fall Food Must”

We love fall foods! Let’s expand our recipe books by sharing go to foods that we have at fall get-togethers or tailgates!

Rules of the Link-up:

1. Do one entry or all! It’s up to you!

2. Add your entry’s link below, and be sure to put the button in your post!

3. If you do link up, check out a couple fellow bloggers to see something new.

4. Your hosts (Elizabeth and Stephanie) would love a following on Bloglovin, but it is not required! We are just glad you stopped by for “Autumn on My Mind!”

So here we go.

I think most people associate pies with fall.

I am going to let you in on a little secret. I am not a big fan of pie. Actually, I am not a fan at all. The texture of pie crusts is just icky to me, and I just can’t get over it enough to eat it. I know most of you are probably shaking your head.

But.

I do love pie filling.

So whether it is pie or cheesecake, I usually scrape all the guts out and leave the crust.

I was in search of finding a recipe that I could make a “pie” without the gross crust part.

Enter “apple pie sugar cookie cake.” Or what I am calling Everything It’s Not cake.

I saw something similar to this on Pinterest and made some adjustments to make it my own recipe.

Everything It Is Not Cake

Ingredients:

4 packages of pre-made sugar cookies

2 cans of apple pie filling

4 tsp of cinnamon

1/4 cup of sugar

a whole lot of sugar

You will mix the Cinnamon and sugar together to “dust” the layers you are about to make.

you may not use all of this

I couldn’t find my cake pan, so I used a bundt cake pan. I think my rectangle pan may have disappeared in the move…

The cookies in my package looked like this but you can use the ones that come in rolls too.

I may have eaten a few of these raw…

You will take approximately one package of cookies and knead it into one layer on the bottom of the pan.

Smooshed cookies

Then you take the cinnamon/sugar mix and sprinkle it over the dough.

Take one can of apple pie filling and layer it on top.

Then dust another layer of cin/sugar mix on top of the apples.

pie filling

Then you put another layer off the sugar cookie dough on top of this. You will have to flatten out the dough and lightly smoosh or just lay it on top. It doesn’t need to be perfectly covered.

second dough layer

Then you repeat with the “dusting” and apple pie filling.

Once you have two layers of the dough and apples, then you put on your remaining layer of sugar cookies.

On this one, I just sort of flattened the cookies. This made for a thicker layer of sugar cookie. Then you add a final layer of the cinnamon/sugar mix.

ready for the oven.

You will keep this in the oven for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees. Your oven may vary so check it at 35 minutes.

The top layer will harden faster than the rest of the layers. I also don’t recommend using the bundt pan if you have a regular pan.

This is definitely not a healthy recipe, but it will satisfy any sweet tooth.

The middle layers will be gooey so just be aware of that. I like it because there are a variety of textures, and not one that resembles pie crust.

This is a treat that would be great with ice cream.

This is a yummy recipe and super easy to do. You can only do one layer if you want, which will change the consistency of the middle layers. You would just need to cut the recipe in half.

As I said, you shouldn’t do this is a bundt pan. The filling will seep through. Just so you know our fire alarm does work in our house. Whoops.

Do you have a go to fall recipe or something you were itching to try? Link it up here!