Microwave Caramel Popcorn

This should be a hit in a popcorn-eating family like ours. (That's you Katie and Dana. If you get tired of peanut butter and regular, you could try this out!) It takes under 10 minutes, and I think the kids would have fun helping shake the bag.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter (comments said you can reduce this by about half and it's still good)
  
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 cup corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 5 quarts popped popcorn

Directions:

• Pop the popcorn in a regular popper. For five quarts, it's about a cup.
• Put popcorn in a paper grocery bag.
• Microwave butter, sugar, corn syrup, and vanilla until it boils one minute.
• Stir the baking soda into the caramel mixture.
• Pour it over the popcorn in the bag, and shake it up.
• Put the whole bag into the microwave for another 30 seconds, and shake again.
• Spread out popcorn on wax paper to cool.

Yummy! And cheap. I was looking for a movie treat that used stuff I had around. I think this is one that I will use again and again. I forgot to take a picture. I'll take one next time and add it to this post.

Healthy Banana Muffins

These muffins have become my new favorites, especially for breakfast. Since cereal is expensive (at least for us), I freeze them and can eat one or two for breakfast instead.

Ingredients:

• 1 ¼ cup rolled oats
• 1 ½ cup oat flour (refer to #3)
• 1/2 cup plain, low fat yogurt
• 1/2 cup low fat milk or soy milk
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup sunflower oil
• 2 large, really ripe bananas mashed
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 lightly beaten egg
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 cup raisins, walnuts or both
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°
2. Mix rolled oats, yogurt and milk together in a bowl. Let stand for 10 minutes.
3. It will require about 2 cups of rolled oats to make the 1 1/2 cups or oat flour you need. Just pulse the 2 cups rolled oats in the food processor until they turn to a powdery consistency (like dry grits).
4. Now, combine oat flour, salt, sugar, spices, baking powder and baking soda in a separate bowl.
5. Add mashed banana, egg and oil to the rolled oat mixture and mix well.
6. Now add dry oat flour mixture to rolled oat mixture and mix together well. Add in nuts and/or raisins if desired and incorporate evenly. Chocolate chips are great too!
7. Fill greased or lined muffin cups 2/3 of the way. Bake for approximately 16-20 minutes.

*I don't have a fancy food processor so I just use some wheat and some white flour in place of making my own oat flour. I also have used Greek yogurt in place of the regular yogurt, but I don't think it really matters.

Zebra Cake

A few weeks ago, I was looking for cool new desserts to make for our girls camp baked goods auction fundraiser. I came across this and have since made it twice. It's super cool, on the inside. The first time I frosted it chocolate (bc that's what I had) and put strawberries on the top to make it look sleek. Today I made it again and frosted it white, then drizzled melted chocolate chips like stripes across the top so it is zebra-like, inside and out. Then I did add a small pile of raspberries into the middle for a pop of color.

I didn't use almond extract: 1) I didn't have it, and 2) I don't really like it.

It's pretty easy for the cool striped inside effect!

Zebra Cake

Ingredients:

4 large eggs

1 cup sugar

1 cup milk

1 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/8 tsp. almond extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tbsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

2 ½ tbsp. cocoa powder

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a 9-inch round cake pan with a circle of parchment paper. Lightly grease the bottom and sides of the pan.

In a large bowl, mix together the eggs and sugar until mixture is light and creamy and the sugar has been mostly dissolved. Stir in milk, vegetable oil, vanilla and almond extracts. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Pour into wet ingredients and whisk to combine. Measure out just over two cups of vanilla batter and put it back into the medium bowl. Sift cocoa powder over the bowl and whisk until fully incorporated.

Put 3 tablespoons of vanilla batter into the center of the pan and let it spread slightly on its own. Put 3 tablespoons of chocolate batter in the center of the vanilla. It will push out the other and, as it sits for a moment, will also spread itself. Alternating spoonfuls of the two batters, repeat the technique until all the batter has been used up.

Bake for 38-42 minutes, until the cake is light gold and a tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Let the cake cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes, then turn out the cake and remove the parchment paper. Reinvert onto a wire rack and let cool completely. Frost if desired.

Before baking:

After baking:

Zebra frosted:


I should have waited a little longer for it to cool. The frosting started to melt, as well as the chocolate. But the young women were getting restless. I also let them do the chocolate stripes, so I would have done them a little more neatly. But, we had fun. We took it to a less active girl who had a birthday yesterday. Sometimes all you can do is show you love them.

Tuna Casserole

For some reason Mom can't post and I can, even though she set it up. So, she asked me to post this for Miranda. I'm sure it would take all of us down memory lane. Straight from Mom's email:

Tuna Casserole

1 c dry macaroni
1/2 c. chopped onion
1/4c chopped green pepper
3 Tb fat (I always used marg, but I'll write it as it was given to me:)
2 Tb flour
1 1/4 c. milk
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/4 c. chopped pimiento
1 7oz can tuna, flaked

Cook macaroni and drain. Cook onions and green pepper in hot fat until tender.
Add flour and blend. Add milk and cook over low heat until thick, stirring constantly.
Stir in chicken soup. Add remaining ingredients. Pour into greased 1 1/2 quart
casserole. Bake at 350 for 30 min.

I think it was supposed to have chopped almonds or bread crumbs or something on top,
but I never wrote it down.

There you go! Mmmm. Bet you can't wait!

BBQ Chicken Pizza Calzones

I've been cooking a lot more consistently since we've been married, (and unfortunately starting to see those results on the scale. eh hem.) And I thought I'd try to resurrect or maybe surrect(?)--you know what I mean, get this going for the first time--this recipe blog.

We had some friends over, and these were a big hit!

BBQ Chicken Calzones

Ingredients

• 4 slices bacon
• 1/2 small onion, chopped
• 3 cups shredded, cooked chicken breast meat
• 2/3 cup barbeque sauce
• 1 (10 ounce) can refrigerated pizza crust dough
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. Fry bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat until crisp. Remove from the pan to drain on paper towels; crumble. Add the onion and shredded chicken to the hot bacon grease in the pan. Fry over medium heat until onion is tender. Stir in 1/3 cup of barbeque sauce, and remove from the heat. Mix in the cooked bacon.
3. Roll the pizza crust dough out onto a greased cookie sheet. Press out to an even thickness, and then cut in half. Divide the chicken mixture between the two pieces of dough, spreading on only half of each piece to within 1/2 inch of the edge. Drizzle the remaining sauce over the filling. Sprinkle the cheese and cilantro over the top. Fold the uncovered portion of dough over the filling, and press the edges together with a fork to seal.
4. Bake for 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until browned to your liking. Cool for a few minutes, then cut each calzone in half. Each serving is half of a calzone. These can be served with additional barbeque sauce if you like.

Here's how they turned out:


This was the whole meal. It was fun to have our own little place and be kind of fancy. :)

OK, who's next?