Apricot Blueberry Banana Smoothie

My neighbor always brings me his extras from his garden. Right before we left on a trip he brought me a big bowl of apricots. I knew we would get them eaten and that they wouldn't last until we got home. So I pitted,sliced them and threw them in a ziploc in the freezer. Let me tell you, they make a fantastic smoothie!

Here's what you need:

Apricot Blueberry Banana Smoothie

• 1/2 C frozen apricots


• 1/4 C frozen blueberries


• 1 fresh or frozen banana


• a splash of OJ


• a few cubes of ice

Blend it all up and it tastes like you just went to Jamba Juice! So good!

Crockpot Applesauce

A good friend happened to have an excess of apples and I was happy to take some off her hands. I knew I wanted to make applesauce with them.

Here's what I needed:

Crockpot Applesauce:

• 12 apples peels, cored and in chunks (I can't remember what kind of apples they were!! But they were sweet and crisp reminding me of a honeycrisp)


• 1/2 C water


• 1 TBSP lemon juice


• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon


• 3/4 C brown sugar

Put your apple chunks in your crock and pour everything else on top. Cook on low for 5-6 hours. They are down when you can break up the apples with a wooden spoon. I prefer a chunky applesauce and used a potato smasher to smash the apples once they were done. Store in the refrigerator. Make approximately 4 cups.

Peanut Chocolate Caramel Chex Mix

I was looking for a quick, easy and fun snack to make my kids that did not involve the oven. It's HOT here and I didn't want to add to the temperature. I came across a recipe for PAYDAY Chex Mix and thought I would give it a go, with a few adjustments for my family.

A very Simple recipe:
Peanut Chocolate Caramel Chex Mix

• 8 Cups Rice Chex


• 14 oz bag of Caramels, unwrapped


• 1 TBSP Milk


• 1 1/2 C Roasted Peanuts


• 1/2-3/4 C Chocolate Chips

In a large bowl place Rice Chex and peanuts. Line a baking sheet with wax paper. In a microwave safe bowl place unwrapped caramels and milk. Microwave for 1 minute and stir. Continue in 30 second increments, stirring after each 30 seconds until caramel is smooth. Once smoothly quickly pour over Chex/peanut mixture and stir until coated. Pour in chocolate chips and mix. Spread onto wax paper lined baking sheet and let set up. Enjoy & Eat!

Homemade Pizza Lunchable

My kids love taking luchables to school for lunch. So, usually once a week or so I let them. Their favorite is the pizza lunchable. On Pinterest recently I saw an idea to make your own and decided to give it a try!!

For the pizza crust I made a homemade whole wheat pizza dough:

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust:

• 1 teaspoon white sugar


• 1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)


• 1 tablespoon active dry yeast


• 1 tablespoon olive oil


• 1 teaspoon salt


• 2 cups whole wheat flour


• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Then I portioned them out into small crusts and baked at 425 degrees for about 18 minutes. I had doubled the recipe since my family was having pizza for dinner. A doubled recipe made 1 large pizza, 1 large batch of bread-sticks and 10 mini crusts.

Once they were room temperature I bagged them all up with 1 crust, a small bag of cheese & pepperoni and a small bag of sauce. Then stored them in the fridge until we packed up lunches.


A perfect healthier option to a pizza lunchable!!

Naming food must not be my strong point. Grilled Lemony Caesar Turkey Patties accurately describes this tasty dinner that is a constant crowd-pleaser at my house. It was originally inspired by Chicken Caesar Kabob from Taste and Tell but a few modifications had to be made to accommodate my family, cooking style and personal taste. When I first made this dish I did make it as a kabob, but found it much easier to just cook and serve as individual patties.

Grilled Lemony Caesar Turkey Patties

• 2 lbs Lean Ground Turkey


• 3/4 C Italian Seasoned Breadcrumbs


• 1/2 C Parmesan Cheese


• 1/2 C Caesar Salad Dressing


• Zest of 1 lemon


• Juice of 1 lemon

Other ingredients:

• Salad (spinach, romaine, whatever your family eats)


• Salad dressing (more of the caesar you used in the patties works, but we love Ken's Honey Mustard!)


• Tomatoes


• Avocado Slices


• Croutons

Mix all of your patty ingredients in a large bowl until incorporated. Form small patties (about 1/3 C of mixture) and place in a pan. Once all patties are formed stick in freezer until firm. This helps hold the patties together on the grill. Once slightly frozen (but not frozen solid) grill until cooked through and serve over a bed of salad, tomatoes and avocado.

I usually freeze 1/2 and cook up 1/2 of this recipe and then I have 2 meals out of this. 2 of my kids eat the patties without the salad and 1 eats the salad with it. The fresh lemon and zest really give the patties a fresh light flavor.

Whole Wheat Banana Oatmeal Pancakes

My kids love having breakfast for dinner and while I don't mind, I like to have something a little more exciting than Krustez Pancake mix. In my searching I came across Cookie and Kate, which is a healthy, gluten-free blog and a recipe for Gluten-Free Banana Pancakes . While we wanted something healthy we didn't necessarily need gluten-free. I made some changes that made them work better for our family.

Whole Wheat Banana Oatmeal Pancakes

• 6 small bananas mashed


• 4 tablespoons butter, melted


• 2 tablespoon lemon juice


• 2 teaspoon honey


• 4 eggs


• 1 cup Wheat Flour


• 1 cup White Flour


• 1/2 cup Oatmeal


• 1 teaspoon baking soda


• 1 teaspoon salt


• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon


• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Mix your mashed banana, melted butter, eggs, lemon juice and honey in a small bowl.  In a large bowl mix all dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and mix until just incorporated.  Let batter sit for 10 to 15 minutes. Cook on a oiled griddle for 2-3 minutes on first side and 1-2 minutes on second side. This makes 12-15 healthy sized pancakes.

These are a very hardy pancake. We served them with butter, syrup, whipped cream and homemade jam.

Recipe: Oatmeal Whole Wheat Buttermilk Bread

My husband is currently training to run the St George marathon. We nearing the finish line of training (only about 4 more weeks) and each week he seems to get hungrier and hungrier with all of the calories he's burning running! So he asked if I could make some whole wheat bread. In my searches I came across Tracey's Culinary Adventures: Whole Wheat Oatmeal Buttermilk Bread.

I loved that it had a combo of white and whole wheat flour as well as oatmeal. It was easy to put together and turned out to be a wonderful bread. Here is my take on the recipe!

Oatmeal Whole Wheat Buttermilk Bread

1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 cup boiling water
1/4 cup room temperature water
2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon honey
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 1/2 cups buttermilk, at room temperature (or 1 TBSP lemon juice + milk to = 1 1/2 C)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt

Place 1 C water in a heat glass bowl and microwave 2 minutes or until boiling. Then add 1 1/2 C oats. Stir together and let soak for 5 minutes stirring occasionally. Meanwhile make "buttermilk" by pouring 1 TBSP lemon juice + milk to equal 1 1/2 C and let sit for 2 minutes or until milk begins to curdle. Add everything into mixer with paddle attachment and knead for 10 minutes. Dough should be smooth and not sticky.

Put into a well oiled bowl and let rise in a warm place (a warm oven works well) for 30 to 45 minutes.

Once doubled in size punch down and split in half and form loaves.

Place each loaf in a prepared loaf pan. Let rise for 20 to 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375. Mix 1 TBSP warm water with 1 TBSP honey. Brush tops of loaves and sprinkle with oats. Bake at 375 for 50 minutes. YUM!!

Recipe: Slushy Root beer Float

Did you know that Aug 6th was National Root beer Float day? Well you're too late to celebrate on that day, but really any day can warrant a root beer float! My kids love them and I love slushies and decided to combine the two.

You need:

• Root beer


• Vanilla Ice Cream


• Ice cream maker


• Cups, spoons, straws

It's pretty simple, pour your already chilled root beer into your already frozen ice cream maker and let it go. I could have let mine go longer, but my kids were very impatient and wanted their root beer floats!

Put some ice cream in the bottom of the cup and then pour some slushy on to and top with another scoop.



I love the shushy with ice cream, yum!

Recipe: Asian Honey Mustard Kabobs

I love trying out and experimenting with dinner. For me it's fun to try new things and see if we like them. My kids aren't so sure, but generally put up with it. My husband it pretty adventuresome and it game for whatever I want to try, which is awesome.

I've done kabobs in the past, but usually only meat and usually only chicken. This night I stepped out of the box and used sausage and it was delish!

Asian Honey Mustard Kabobs:

Sauce:

• 1/4 C Honey


• 1/2 C Dijon Mustard


• 1 TBSP Simply Asia Sweet Ginger Garlic Seasoning (found at Costco)

Mix these 3 ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

For the kabob:

• 1 package of Sweet Italian Sasauge or 5 links cut into 1 inch pieces


• 1 Red bell pepper cut into chunks


• 1 white onion cut into chunks


• 4 waxy potatoes cut into large chunks, microwaved for 7-8 minutes to partially cook


• wooden skewers

Assemble kabobs with an even mixture of sausage, pepper, onion and potato.

Heat your grill to a medium (about 350 to 375 temp). Place kabobs on grill and brush the tops with the sauce. Turn every 3 to 4 minutes brushing the tops each time. Cook until sausage is cooked through (about 15 minutes) and enjoy!

Recipe Review: Monster Magic Cookie Bars

Another Pinterest find today that I wanted to try. I have a meeting this evening and I thought this would be a good opportunity to not have the whole pan for us! The original recipe was found at Something Swanky!It was super easy and I only made 1 adjustment (peanut butter chips, in addition to chocolate chips!).

Monster Magic Cookie Bars

• 1 sleeve graham crackers crushed in a quart size ziploc baggie


• 4 TBSP butter


• 1 Can Sweetened Condensed Milk


• 3/4 C Oats


• 3/4 C M&Ms


• 1/2 C Chocolate Chips


• 1/2 C Peanut Butter Chips

Place crushed graham crackers and butter in ziploc and microwave 30 seconds. Mix graham cracker and butter mixture until all of the butter is incorporated. Press into the bottom of a greased 9x13 pan. Pour the sweetened condensed milk over the crackers and carefully spread out evenly. Sprinkle oats then M&Ms, Chocolate and PB chips over oats. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or edges are turning brown.

Before Baking:

Mine are not as pretty as the ones I found on Pinterest, but they're still pretty tasty and it was super easy to put together.

After Baking:


I think this would be a good bar to take to a potluck and it would be fun to use seasonal M&Ms.

Recipe: PB & Honey Granola

We ran out of granola! My hubby eats it with his plain yogurt and frozen berries for breakfast and I eat it like cereal with milk for breakfast. We've found that you can beat the price from the bulk bins at Winco Grocery store for granola. The problem- Winco is 90 miles away! So I searched on Pinterest and came across this blog" The Granola Chronicles. This isn't a blog dedicated to granola, but rather a "granola" lifestyle-simple, healthy and outdoors.  Her recipe for Peanut butter honey granola sounded right up my alley, I love peanut butter and honey!

I made a minor modification to suit our needs (and pantry) here you go:

PB & Honey Granola:

• 4 cups Oats


• 1/2 C Honey


• 1/2 C Peanut butter (I used creamy, but I think crunchy would work fine)


• 1/2 tsp Vanilla


• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

In a microwave safe dish place everything but the oats and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir until smooth. In a large bowl place oats and pour PB mixture over and mix. Pour onto a prepared baking sheet and put into the oven. Turn oven on to 300 degrees for 25 minutes (do not preheat). Stir every 10 minutes or so. At 25 minutes turn oven off and leave granola in for 15 more minutes. (That's a total of 35 minutes in the oven and about 3 stirs). Pull out of the oven and let cool. Store in an airtight container.

It's pretty darn tasty and now I'm going to have to try some other granola recipes! A great way to use the oats we have in our food storage!

Preschool Science Slushie Drinks

For snack time we made homemade slushies today. Super yummy and super easy. Only a few ingredients needed and a few minutes squishing a bag! Here's what you need:

• 2 cups Ice


• 1/2 cup rock salt (found near homemade ice cream makers)


• 3/4 to 1 Cup Soda or juice already cold (this just makes the process quicker if it has already been in the refrigerator)


• Quart ziploc


• Sandwich ziploc


• straws or spoons

Place the ice & rock salt in the quart ziploc bag. Pour soda or juice in the sandwich ziploc and seal the bag. Place the sandwich bag in the quart bag and seal. Start squishing! It only took the kids about 5 minutes before they were enjoying a homemade slushie!!



We drank right out of the bag with a straw or used a spoon to eat it!