Scrumptious Sunday....HEALTHY -tastes like pumpkin pie- muffins!

It's been FOREVER since I've posted a yummy recipe, mostly do to the fact that we lived in a hotel for 70+ days this summer and I didn't have a kitchen, but now that I have a kitchen again, I've started cooking AND am using all of our new kitchen gadgets we got for our wedding!
 
Yesterday, I made these super delish, HEALTHY, taste like pumpkin pie muffins. They have no refined sugars in them and use all natural and organic ingredients. I wish I could say all of my creations were that healthy! Ha!

 

I found this recipe on Tenley Molzahn's Sweet and Free page. Tenley was a former Bachelor contestant and lives a gluten-free lifestyle. While I don't do gluten-free, I do try to watch my sugars and refined carbs as much as possible. I'll admit, I was a little hesitant to make these as I thought they might be a tad gross, but they weren't- they seriously taste like pumpkin pie-hence the reason I'm sharing the recipe!

 

 

Here's what you need:

 

1 cup pumpkin puree

1 cup almond meal

2 eggs

1/4 cup organic applesauce

1/4 cup organic honey

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

1 Tbls. Chia seeds (I had no clue what these were until reading her blog. They are super good for you and don't change the flavor. I got mine at Trader Joe's for about $5 a bag.

 

I put everything in the Kitchen-Aid and mixed it for 15-20 seconds until it looked like it was mixed well.

 

It was my first time using the new mixer and I am in L-O-V-E! It mixes SO much better than my $10 Wal-Mart hand mixer! Ha!

 

I knew they wouldn't rise much, so I filled about 8 muffin cups pretty full-I sprayed mine with Pam spray and they came out just fine.

 

 

The batter was so yummy that even Gonzaga couldn't get enough! Ha!

 

Don't worry, the bowl went through the dishwasher to kill any dog germs :)
 

 

The muffins baked on 350 for about 30 minutes and then they were ready to eat! I ate one right away-it was just like warm, pumpkin, pie!

 

 

I figured the calories to run about 150 per muffin, but remember, it's all good calories and much better than all of the sugary pumpkin muffins you could make :)

 

 

Happy Muffin Making,

 

Ash

 

 

 

 

 

Scrumptious Sunday....Quck, Easy, Dips

We decided yesterday to host a last minute cook out/UK game party. Being we live in the basketball mecca of the world, getting into a place on game day is tough. You must either A) get someplace super early or B) Go to a hole in the wall joint. We've been out for several games this year and decided that since we had church until noon and the game was at 2, to simply have people over and grill out hot dogs!
Of course, you cant just have hot dogs, so I decided to make 2 quick dips that I LOVE and that go great with veggies and chips. There's nothing magical to these dips, but after trying different mix-ins and different brands, I have found these to taste the best and are SO quick and easy to make-perfect for last minute shin-digs :)

Ranch Dip
1 Packet Hidden Valley Ranch Dips (I've tried the generic of this and it was gross)
1 16 oz Reduced Fat Sour Cream (Either Daisy or Kroger Brand are best)

Mix the dry ranch into sour cream and serve up with chips and veggies! I like this dip much better than pre-made dips you can buy. You can also buy the Fiesta Flavor of the dry dip mix and use in place of the dry mix. It's great and pairs great with tortilla chips. Again, use the Hidden Valley brand- it's best

 


French Onion Dip
1 Packet Kroger Brand French Onion Soup Mix
1 16 oz Reduced Fat Sour Cream (Again, Daisy or Kroger Brand are best)

Mix the two together and serve! Pairs great with chips!! Lipton brand is also good, but I like to save some $$ and go with the generic on this one!

Happy Dip Making
Ash

Scrumptious Sunday....Crock Pot Beer Brisket

Awhile ago, while at the grocery, I accidentally bought a corned beef brisket instead of a regular beef brisket. One of my co-workers made some uh-mazing beef BBQ using a regular beef brisket and I was planning on making it; however, when I got home I realized I bought the wrong piece of meat. Drats. So, I stuck it in my freezer and decided I'd figure out how to use it somehow.....Last week, I decided it was time to cook that big ol hunk of meat. I searched online for different recipes and found that most called for cooked cabbage. Gross. Then, I found one that used orange juice and Worcestershire sauce, and others called for beer. Since I didn't have all of the ingredients for any of the recipes, I decided I'd combine a few. It came out pretty tasty, so here it is:

Ingredients:
1 Corned Beef Brisket (I used Kroger brand that was about 3.5 lbs)
1 spice pack that came with the brisket
1 1/2 cups of beer. (I used Bud Light b/c that's all I had. Ha! High class! Most recipes I saw called for Sam Adams type beers)
1/4 cup of Worcestershire sauce
1 can sliced carrots (I used Del Monte)
1 can diced potatoes ( Again, used Del Monte)

Directions:
In base of crock pot, combine carrots and potatoes. Take thawed meat and place it on top of the veggies, pouring all juices from the meat in with it (the package said when cooking to use all the juices). Pour the beer into the crock pot, then add the Worcestershire sauce. Sprinkle the spice packet on top of the meat that's exposed. This is what my crock pot looked like right before putting the lid on it:

Set the Crock Pot to "Lo" and let cook about 9 hours.  Be careful when removing the meat because it's very juicy and can fall apart easily! The beer added great flavor without the bitter beer taste!

Finished product!

It made a TON of meat, so I'm going to use our left-overs to make Italian Beef Hoggies later this week. I plan to simply pull the meat apart and marinate in some Italian dressing, then heat and serve! Hopefully it will be good?!


                                                       Happy Beef Brisket-ing,
                                                 Ash

Scrumptious Sunday...Oreo Truffle Cake

We had a big family dinner last Sunday and I was in charge of dessert. I originally thought about making the beloved "Better Than Sex" cake, but wanted to try something new. My nephew, dad, and hubs to be are all lovers of Oreos so I thought I would try an Oreo Ice Cream Cake that I found on Pinterest. However, after looking at the recipe and seeing it was going to be a lot of work, I decided I would just attempt to create my first cake without following a recipe. I knew that Oreo Balls were amazing, so I thought I could work off of that recipe and try to turn it into a cake. It actually came out really well; so well in fact, that my loving fiance, who likes to make fun of  blogs, said "Oh baby, you've gotta put this on the blog!" So, here it is and remember, I just thought this up, so I'm sure you can adapt it to your needs/wants.

Ingredients:
1 Box Devils Food Cake Mix
1 package of Cream Cheese ( I used Kroger Brand Neufchatel Cheese to help save on calories)
Approx. 15-20 Oreos (I used Aldi brand)
1 tub of Cool Whip (I used Kroger brand Lite Whipped Topping)
1 can of white frosting (I used Pillsbury Whipped)

Directions:
-Bake cake in 2 round cake pans according to directions on box
-In bowl, mix oreos, cream cheese, and about half of the the whipped topping. I mashed up the Oreos with a spoon, then used the blender to mix everything.
-After the cakes have cooled, spread the cream cheese mixture onto the bottom cake.

Top the second round cake onto the first and let cool. In fact, I would recommend placing in the freezer for a bit to harden up. I didnt have time to do that and when I went to ice the cake, it became quite the mess.

I mixed the white icing and remainder of the whipped topping to ice the cake. The combo had sort of a marshmallow fluff taste, so I would imagine a  real marshmallow icing would be excellent as well.

It looks like a hot mess here because the cake was NOT cooled enough when I went to ice it. Be sure yours is cool or else you'll get a mess like this too :)

I crushed up a few more Oreos for the topping and thats it! So simple, yet super delish!

Happy Oreo Cake Making

Ash

Scrumptious Sunday...Pinterest Crockpot Chicken

Let's face it. We pin tons of yummy looking recipes to our Pinterest boards and what do they do? They sit there. On our boards, and we never do anything with them. I am SO guilty of doing this, so I've been making an effort to begin cooking some of these tasty looking recipes to see if they live up to their hype ;)

For our Mexican Monday a few weeks ago (we are super cheesy and eat Mexican on Mondays then watch the Bachelor), I decided to make my first recipe, Crock Pot Chicken Tacos. One of the reasons I like this is that it has the word Crock Pot in it. ha! During the school year I am all about ease of cooking when it comes to dinner. It's usually just the two of us and and we both find it silly to spend hours in the kitchen cooking after we've spent hours during the day educating the youth of America. From time to time I will make a big ol' meal, but most of the time, it's something that can be cooked in 30 min or less. This recipe didn't disappoint and it literally took me 5 min in the morning to prepare. Double love.

Ingredients
-Boneless skinless chicken breast (I used Harvestland Organic Chicken)
-fresh salsa- not the kind you find in the chip section but the cold deli type (used Aldi brand and it was delish..we had already eaten 1/4 of it with chips in the week prior, so I dumped in what was left)
-1 packet of taco seasoning  (used Aldi brand)

Directions:
-Dump frozen chicken breast into crock pot (I added 3 or 4 big pieces, and had sauce enough for at least 2 more)
-Dump container of salsa into crock pot
-Pour one packet of taco powder on top

Set on low and let cook for 7-9 hours. Ours cooked for 9 hours simply because of working all day, but I'd imagine it was done before that?!

-Remove chicken from crock pot and pull apart with a fork
If desired, pour remaining salsa mix from crock pot on the chicken as the sauce.
-We paired ours with Gorditia shells (again, from Aldi) and I really liked using them vs simple tortillas. They're a tad higher in calories, but have a great flavor!

The chicken was SO juicy and FULL of flavor! I ate on it for lunch for  several days after we ate dinner. At work, I simply ate the chicken straight and paired it with a cheese stick. Ha! Talk about a protein packed meal, but again it was super delish simply eating it alone! The best part is, its low fat AND the tomatoes from the salsa add lots of healthy vitamins and such! We are thinking of doing the same thing with buffalo sauce and dry ranch for wrappers on day; if it works well, I'll let you know!

Happy Crock-pot Chickening,
Ash

Scrumptious Sunday....Oreo "Snowballs"

If you've never been exposed to the greatness of these.....prepare yourself. They are SO stinkin' good and always a hit wherever you take them!! I recently made them for a cookie exchange and for some co-workers. No, they arent healthy, but they're about 125-150 calories per ball so they aren't too bad for you... if you can limit yourself to just one or two ;)

Ingredients:
Package of Oreo cookies. (I used Great Value brand ones for these)

one package of  1/3 reduced fat cream cheese

Almond bark vanilla

1) In a food processor, add the cookies about 1/2 a package at a time
2) Once the cookies have been ground into a fine crumble, break up the cream cheese and add it to the processor.
3) Mix cookies and cream cheese in processor until it becomes doughy-about 10 seconds
4) Form the cookies into balls and set on a cookie sheet covered in wax paper. I make mine between a grape and a golf ball size.

using double the ingredients

5) After letting them firm up (I left these in the fridge overnight, but thats not necessary), melt the white chocolate. I recently purchased the Wilton melting pot and LOVE it!! It worked great and was worth every penny. You can use the 40% Hobby Lobby coupon and get it for under $20! I highly recommend if you melt lots of things for candies!

6. Place a toothpick in each ball and dip in the white chocolate, then place on wax paper to harden.

7. Remove the toothpicks after the chocolate has hardened and voila! You have some Oreo amazement!

I ran out of chocolate so I simply drizzled some on a few

To present these to my collab teachers and assistants at school, I found these super cute Martha Stewart bags at TJ Maxx

I then added a $1 scratch off ticket to each box and wrote "Here's some "snowballs" for Christmas and some luck for the New Year on the gift tags. It was a simple way to make the gifts a little more special and hopefully provide someone with some winnings ;)

Co-worker gifts :)

Happy Cookie Making,

Ash