Getting Ready for School & Relying on Family Favorites for Dinner

Admittedly, I've been a bad blogger for a while now. For that, I'm sorry. I have missed blogging every day terribly. But because I chose to step back and focus on the things at home that needed to be done before school starts this coming Wednesday, I was able to attend my daughter's orientation day today more relaxed than I have ever been at those meetings. I went in knowing that I would not have to spend a cent and that I would'nt look like a lunatic at WalMart tonight with all of the other parents who put school shopping off until the last minute.

We have new clothes and shoes ready for wear. New back packs are stuffed with school supplies and signed forms ready to walk out the door. Bedtime routines have be put into action. Soccer practices are going well and we've worked out routines on how we will handle practices that are on school nights - I've even written down some menus for those crazy nights.

At the end of last school year, I was asked to join our PTA School Board. I gladly accepted because I love being involved in my children's schools. I wear the new hat of "hospitality leader" for the teachers and staff. Everyone seems to work well together. They've been so nice to welcome me into their group. I will be busy running around doing school "things" for the next couple of days.

On top of all of this, my husband has decided that he's looking for a change in his line of work - not changing companies, just jobs within the company - this will mean that once he gets the bid, he will be in for weeks of training - and taking this 3rd shift man and putting him on a daylight schedule means loads of fun for me. (not!) But, I'll deal with that when the time comes. He loves his job so if this makes him happy, we will make it work. Now we wait to hear something....it might be a week or it might be a year... let's just hope it's sooner than later.

I'm not complaining, really! I'm just happy to see school roll around this year. I'm ready to get back into a regular routine. Maybe I'm getting old. I've never been a "routine" type of person. I even miss menu planning. I plan on starting that again this week. And with all of this planning, I'm going to pencil in some definite blogging time for me!

Speaking of blogging, I always wonder if other bloggers are like me and go back to actually cook the recipes they've blogged about again and again or if you just cook your recipes one time and move on?  If you're reading this, I'd appreciate it if you would post a comment and let me know how you feel/what you do with your recipes.

Here's some of the recipes from my blog that we've enjoyed for the past couple of weeks:

Oven Fried Chicken

Cinnamon Raisin French Toast and Hash Brown Casserole

Picnic Pasta Salad

Stuffed Pepper Soup

Red Pepper & Parmesan Talapia

Turkey Sloppy Joes


My kids and I have plans to make rice krispy treats, chocolate covered pretzel stacks, granola bars and August's Cookie Carnival cookies this week.

I'll see ya soon!

Happy Cooking!
Tami

Brown Sugar Apple Topped Cinnamon Cupcakes

My husband loves apples in any form. I'm always searching for quick and easy apple recipes that I can whip up after dinner so that he can enjoy a sweet treat before leaving for work. (Yep, we're one of those non-traditional 3rd shift families.)

When I found a recipe for cooked apples, I knew right away that he would like it. It didn't disappoint, either.

Quite simple, too..... apples, butter and brown sugar. Comfort food at its best.

Cooked Brown Sugar Apples
by ewriggs

3 medium apples, peeled & sliced into 8 sections
3/4 C. brown sugar
1/2 stick butter or margarine

Melt butter in a non-stick pan. Set aside.

Peel apples. Slice each apple into 8 sections and then slice each section into thin strips. Cut all apple strips in half and drop into a bowl. Stir in 3/4 C. brown sugar. Mix apples and brown sugar until the apples are well coated.

Warm butter again. Stir in apples and brown sugar. Cook over medium heat until the apples are soft and the sugar and butter start to get thick. Remove from heat and spoon into dishes. Serve immediately.

**My notes**  My apples were really juicy and ended up making the butter and brown sugar mixture a little too thin. I stirred in an extra 1/4 brown sugar while the apples were still cooking. That was all that was needed to thicken the syrup perfectly.

I served this apple topping over cinnamon cupcakes, which are simply a boxed white cupcake mix prepared accordingly with 3 TBSP of cinnamon + 1 tsp nutmeg added to the batter.

Delicious!

Cookie Carnival - July Round Up!

Can you believe that it's August already? I have no idea where the last couple of months have gone.

July's cookie recipes were Pillsbury's Oatmeal Raisin Cookies for our kids' baking recipe and Rosemary-Cheese Spritz Cookies from the Food Network for our regular monthly cookie.

Take a look at these beauties:

Tiffany@The Bake-Off Flunkie made the cheese spritz cookies. She said "My first reaction was, "Ewwww!". But when I looked at the picture and recipe I decided it actually looked and sounded promising. Maybe even tasty. And tasty they were; delicious, rich, buttery, and irresistible are other words I'd use. As they cooled I popped one after another in my mouth--you know, just. one. more. Gracious they were good. I absolutely couldn't leave them alone."

Michelle@Something New is Cooking made the oatmeal raisin cookies. She said "The cookies were so delicious! Hard to stay out of them!"

Katrina@Baking and Boys made both cookies!

For the oatmeal raisin cookies, she said "These were the perfect thickness, crispiness, chewiness and had great taste.  I will for sure make this recipe again—over and over."

For the cheese spritz cookies, she renamed hers "Thyme-Cheese Crackers". Be sure to check out her blog to read about the changes that she made and why she calls them addictive.

Rebecca@beurrista made the oatmeal raisin cookies. She switched out the raisins for toffee bits in her oatmeal toffee cookies.

Juliana@horneAndo Algo made the cheese spritz crackers. She said "Perfect for a snack or just a few mates in the morning, they saw their fate on two occasions ... simply delicious!"

Krista@TheSwans made the oatmeal raisin cookies..in fact, lots of times! Check out her blog to read why she didn't have a picture of her cookies to submit this month. (**wink**)

Vivian@Let's Try These made oatmeal craisin cookies. She's a newbie with the Cookie Carnival and says "I like challenges as they tend to motivate me!" - welcome, Vivian! 

and I made chocolate covered raisins and oatmeal cookies. These cookies didn't last long in our house! Everyone loved the added chocolate on the raisins.  

Thanks for a beautiful round up, ladies! 

I love to hearing from everyone so if you're checking everything out, I'd really appreciate it if you would take a couple of minutes to stop by and post a comment!  

If you would like to join the Cookie Carnival, click on the tab at the top of the page that's titled "Join the Cookie Carnival!" 

I'll see ya at the end of August, if not sooner! 

Happy Baking!
Tami  

Rainbows and Pancakes

Seems like a funny title for a post, huh? Let me explain....

It has been SO hot here in our area of NC. I'm talking high 90's and extreme humidity. When it does rain, it's intermittent and then only for a few minutes. During one of our short stints outside so that the kids could release some of their pent up energy, we could see it raining in the distance. What started out as very dark gray skies, turned quickly into rain and then just a few minutes later we saw this....

Mother Nature's art work sure is pretty sometimes, isn't it?

Now on to the pancakes....

I admit it, I hate to sweat and who in their right mind wants to go grocery shopping when it's like this? Not me.

(Feeling sorry for me yet?  Didn't think so. Moving on....)

It's days like this that I fall back on the tried and true "breakfast for dinner" plan. Since it was going to be just the kids and me eating dinner, I decided that it was a good time to make pancakes.

Should be easy since it only takes the basic staples to make pancakes, right? Nope, out of milk. What?!? Yep, no milk in the frig and no powdered milk as a back up.

I started thinking... can you make pancakes with water instead of milk? I remember a favorite recipe that I had long ago that called for bubbly water. I wish that I hadn't lost it. It was a great recipe. But can you use regular tap water? I sat down in front of my favorite box and started searching to find out. I found that you can indeed make pancakes with water.

Here's what I came up with....

Fluffy Pancakes

2 C. flour
2 TBSP sugar
1 1/2 TBSP baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg, beaten
2 TBSP oil
2 TBSP vanilla
1 3/4 C water - more if thinner batter is desired

Stir dry ingredients together in a bowl. Whisk in egg, oil and vanilla, just until combined. Mix in 1 3/4 cups of water and stir until combined. If a thinner batter is desired, stir in one extra tablespoon of water at a time until you reach the desired consistency.

Pour 1/3 c. batter onto a hot griddle or lightly greased frying pan. Cook until bubbles have formed and covered the top of the pancake. Carefully flip and brown other side.

Keep warm in a 200* oven until the whole batch of pancakes have been cooked.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

We enjoyed our pancakes and then headed back outside just long enough to enjoy the sunset.

For a minute everything was perfect....not too hot....perfect. The sky was so beautiful.

Then the bugs started biting......  Ok, back into the A.C. for me!

Cinnamon Streusel Zucchini Muffins

Trying to find a way to get your kids (or husband) to eat more veggies? These muffins are an excellent way to sneak in some zucchini without anyone ever knowing about it.

Trust me, I did it. {smirk}

Starting with a box mix, this recipe takes literally 5 minutes to whip up.

Cinnamon Streusel Zucchini Muffins

1 box of Duncan Heinz Cinnamon Streusel Muffin Mix
+ ingredients listed on the box to make the muffins
1 C. peeled, finely shredded zucchini
3/4 C. raisins
cinnamon

Preheat oven as noted on muffin mix. Grease or use paper liners in muffin pans. This recipe made 22 muffins. 

Open the muffin mix. Add the dry muffin mix to a bowl; laying the streusel mix to the side for later use.

Stir the extra ingredients listed on the box into the dry muffin mix. Mix as directed.

Stir in zucchini and raisins.

Fill each muffin cup 3/4 full. Sprinkle the streusel topping evenly over all muffins. Lightly sprinkle cinnamon on top of the streusel topping.

My muffins baked for 17 minutes. Keep an eye on them and do not over bake.

Serve immediately. Store extra muffins in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

Very tasty for breakfast or dessert!