Zucchini Boats

Made these yummy zucchini boats for part of our dinner tonight. Found the recipe on prouditaliancook.blogspot.com

Just cut a zucchini in half lengthwise and trim a little off the bottom so it sit still in a baking dish*** Scoop out the center where the seeds are with a spoon*** Brush the surface with a mixture of crushed garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper*** Arrange halved grape tomatoes into the grooves, sprinkle with bread crumbs and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes*** Remove and place diced fontina or mozzarella in between the tomatoes, place them back in, but now under the broiler til golden and bubbling***Remove and drizzle with olive oil and a sprinkling of grated parmesan. You will love this as a side dish!

No-bake Energy Bites

I found this yummy recipe on Pinterest from http://gimmesomeoven.com/no-bake-energy-bites/ I only made two changes from the original recipe I added dark chocolate chips instead of regular and I didn't toast the coconut flakes. Super easy and so good!

No-Bake Energy Bites Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (dry) oatmeal (I used old-fashioned oats)
• 1 cup coconut flakes
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup ground flaxseed
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Method:

Stir all ingredients together in a medium bowl until thoroughly mixed. Let chill in the refrigerator for half an hour. Once chilled, roll into balls of whatever size you would like. (Mine were about 1″ in diameter.) Store in an airtight container and keep refrigerated for up to 1 week.

Makes about 20-25 balls.

Margherita Pizza

Pizza Dough - Makes 2-12 inch pizzas

1 cup warm water

1 small packet instant dry yeast

1 Tbsp. honey (or sugar if you prefer)

2 tsp. salt

2 Tbsp. olive oil

3 cups flour

Toppings (split toppings between the two pizzas)

Cornmeal for dusting pizza stone

1 Tbsp. olive oil

14 oz. jar pizza sauce

16 oz. ball fresh mozzarella ( sliced 1/8 of an inch thick)

3 fresh basil leaves chopped

oregano

Directions: First off if you don't have a pizza stone get one! Pizzas turn out SO much better with them. I bought mine at Ross for only $8.99! Dust pizza stone with cornmeal. Place stone in oven and heat stone at 500 degrees for about 15 to 20 minutes. While pizza stone is heating up roll out dough. Lightly brush pizza with olive oil. Top with pizza sauce, mozzarella slices, and chopped basil. Sprinkle with oregano. Transfer pizza to pizza stone. Bake for about 8 to 10 minutes or until crust is golden brown and top is bubbling.

Chicken Enchiladas

Ingredients:

2 Chicken breasts

1 packet taco seasoning (I only used half the packet)

4 oz. can chopped green chilies (I only used about half the can)

6 medium sized flour tortillas

3 Tbsp. chopped cilantro

10 oz. can Enchilada Sauce

About 1 cup shredded cheese

1/2 cup chopped green onions

1/2 cup diced tomatoes

Directions:

Bake the chicken breasts at 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes until cooked through. While chicken is cooking chop up cilantro and stir into enchilada sauce. Shred the chicken and place in skillet on med. high heat. Add taco seasoning and water. Add chopped green chilies. Heat for about 3-5 minutes. Remove chicken from heat. Place shredded chicken in tortilla and roll up. Place in oven safe dish seam side down. Pour 3/4 of the sauce over enchiladas, top with shredded cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for about 5 minutes until cheese is mostly melted. Take the leftover sauce and pour the rest over enchiladas. Place back in oven for about another 10 min. Once done baking top enchiladas with green onions and diced tomatoes.

Chicken Roll-Ups

(I add more gravy to the rolls.. This just looks prettier)

1 Lbs chicken cubed

3 individual green onions

Small carton of Mushrooms ( about six mushrooms)

8 oz cream cheese, softened

2 pkg. crescent rolls

Saltine Crackers

Salt, pepper

Gravy:

1 can cream of chicken soup

3/4 cup of milk

Saute mushrooms, chicken and onion in oil (salt and pepper.) When chicken is cooked, add to large bowl with cream cheese. Stir until mixed. Unroll the dough on a slightly flowered surface and flatten center slightly (leaving the edges alone.) Fill the dough with cream cheese mixture. Grab top corners and fold over mixture, and then roll up, sealing the edges. Brush each roll with butter and then roll top into crushed Saltines.
Bake the Roll-ups for 15- 20 minutes at 350

Serve with soup gravy.

Don't over cook chicken. It will make it really dry.

Place the mixture near the top and have the top corners fold over.

Cook till lightly golden brown

Crock Pot Pulled Pork Sandwiches

-I ran out of buns and so this picture is just on normal bread...lame-

I love pulled pork sandwiches and I have been experimenting with them more and more each time. I think I found the winner.

(I don't have Exact measurements but these are guesstimates)

3 ish lbs Pork Roast

2 T Garlic (I like the garlic paste from a jar or fresh)

Salt

Pepper

1 cup Water

1/4 c Vinegar

1 Sweet Apple

1- 1 1/2 Bottles BBQ Sauce (depends on how big your roast is, and how saucy you want your sandwich)

1/4 head shredded Cabbage (red)
10 Rolls (I used dinner size but you could use larger buns)

Sweet Sauce - this is all to taste and look. Adjust as you will.
1 c Mayo

1/4 c Mustard

1/4 c Brown Sugar

Pepper

Chili Powder

Rub pepper salt and garlic on roast, and place in the bottom of crock pot. Pour vinegar and water around roast and add cut up apple (apple makes the pork sweet.)

Cook on high for 5 hours

Drain juices, remove apples from pot.

Take two forks to Roast and shred. Add BBQ - I like lots of sauce so add to your liking.

Stir all ingredients for sweet sauce and stir till smooth.

Shred cabbage. (you are supposed to mix the cabbage and the sweet sauce together like a slaw, but I like to keep them separate)

Assemble sandwich!

Rolo Cupcakes with Caramel Frosting and Chocolate Ganache

I found this amazing recipe on Pinterest of all places :) and I knew i had to make them. It just so happened to be a friend's birthday and I figured this would be the perfect treat!

*The recipe for the cupcake batter and chocolate ganache came from myopenfridge.com*

Rolo Cupcakes
makes about 18 cupcakes
1 box Devil's food chocolate cake mix
1/2 cup warm water
4 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sour cream
1 small package instant chocolate pudding
unwrapped Rolos candies, 2 per cupcake (one for inside, one for garnish on top)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners and set aside. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients except Rolos. With an electric mixer on low speed, mix to combine. Raise speed to medium and blend for about 2 minutes, stopping to scrape down the bowl. Scoop batter into prepared cupcake pans, filling almost to the top of the liner. Press one Rolo into each cup of batter. Bake at 350 degrees for 18-23 minutes or until cupcakes spring back when lightly touched. Remove from oven and allow to cool 5 minutes. Remove from pans and allow to fully cool on wire racks.

Chocolate Ganache:
1/4 cup Heavy Cream
1 cup chocolate chips
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

In a microwave safe dish, heat cream just until simmering (likely 30 seconds or less on high power, watch it closely!). Stir in chocolate chips. Allow to sit a couple minutes to allow chocolate to fully melt. Stir mixture until smooth. Stir in honey and vanilla. Allow to cool until almost room temperature.

Now for the frosting...uh can I say how much I HATE making frosting. There was a frosting recipe to go along with these cupcakes and it didn't turn out for me at all. Maybe it was me or maybe the recipe, but thats besides the point. So I found a different recipe and it also didn't work..at this point figured It was definitely me that was screwing things up. So because I had used all my ingredients for the TWO previous frostings I headed to the store to buy some more ingredients for a whole different recipe. By this time tears were shed and my sweet husband called up our sister in law in hopes that she could help me figure out how to get that dang frosting to the consistency I needed. So back from the store and onto my THIRD frosting, and what do ya know..I failed again. I started to clean up my gigantic mess I had made in the kitchen and figured our friend would just have to go with some cookies I had previously made. Then my crazy self decided to try just ONE more time. So I did. I didn't have a recipe, but made one up in hopes that I could finally make one that worked. Seriously how can frosting be this hard!! So at 12:30 a.m my frosting finally WORKED! Yay! I had never been so excited about frosting before. So without further ado here is the frosting that saved my cupcakes.

Frosting:

4 oz. Cream Cheese

3/4 Cup Powdered Sugar

6 oz. Cool Whip

1/2 Cup Caramel Syrup (add more or less totally just depends on how strong you want the caramel flavor)

Directions:

Whip the cream cheese. (Do this to avoid clumps, learned this in one of my many attempts) Then add powdered sugar, cool whip, and caramel syrup. Whip until well combined.