Banana Heath Bar Crunch Ice Cream

Another recipe that requires overly ripe bananas! I know! Two in one day! I had a bunch of bananas that were beyond the point of no return. It had to be done. This one is easy. With the above ingredients and an ice cream maker, it will be done and ready to chill in the freezer in just a little over half an hour.

**Recipe adapted from Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book

Ingredients for 1 quart:

• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 1 cup milk
• 2 large overly ripe bananas
• 1 tbls. lemon juice
• 1/2 cup chocolate coated Heath bits

Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until fluffy, about 1-2 minutes. Whisk in the sugar a little at a time, then after it is all added, whisk for another minute. Add the cream and milk and whisk to blend. Pour the cream mixture into your ice cream maker and freeze following the manufacturer’s instructions.

Mash the bananas and lemon juice together and whisk until smooth.

Once the ice cream is stiff and almost finished, add the banana mixture. After a minute or so, add the Heath bits.  When it is finished, put it in the freezer to harden up for about 4 hours. Or if you are really impatient like my kids, you can eat it when it is super soft!

Voila! Wasn’t that easy?! It is just sweet enough and just crunchy enough. My boys all approved!

Enjoy!

Candi

Banana Walnut Mounds Muffins with Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Glaze

 

 

So I’ve had these bananas that were turning ever browner (is that a word?) by the day, and I had to do something yummy with them. I remembered seeing a great ‘Mix & Match Quick Bread’ piece in a recent copy of Food Network Magazine. I went searching through all my old copies and finally found it in the May 2011 edition. Am I the only one who can’t bear to throw away any of my cooking magazines? I get SO many, but I just can’t seem to get rid of them. One of my many vices, I guess. Luckily, my hubby just deals with it and only rolls his eyes at me here and there. If our house starts looking like something from “Hoarders” then maybe he’ll actually start worrying about my cookbook and magazine obsession. Anyway, if you get Food Network Magazine and you keep them, it is on page 85 of the May ‘11 edition or you can find the link here. I love these kinds of recipes, because the possibilities are endless!  You can make them your own simply by mixing and matching ingredients that appeal to you and your family.

* Recipe adapted from Food Network

Banana Walnut Mounds Muffins with Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Glaze

Basic Batter

• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) cooled melted butter
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 cup mashed banana (I used 2 large)

Mix-ins

• 3/4 cup frosted walnuts (I get these at Wal-Mart in the baking section)
• about 18 Miniature Mounds bars (these are the 1-bite kind, not the snack-size)

Glaze

• 1 cup confectioner’s sugar
• 3 ozs. softened cream cheese
• 2 tbls. milk
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla bean paste

Preheat oven to 350F. Place paper muffin liners in your muffin pan. I got 18 muffins out of the recipe.

Mix flour, sugar, and next 5 ingredients together. Add walnuts and stir to combine.

In a medium bowl, whisk eggs, butter, sour cream and vanilla, together. Stir in the banana, then fold in the dry mixture until just combined.

Fill muffin cups about 2/3 full and then place a Mounds Miniature on top of the batter and push the candy down into the batter.

Bake 15-20 minutes or until they spring back when touched and are slightly brown on top.

To make the glaze, whisk all the ingredients together and spoon over the warm muffins after you have removed them from the muffin pan. You can wait until they are cool if you prefer. Then, not so much will run off. I like them to be good and gooey-messy, though. My kids will become that way anyway, so why not?

 

I hope you enjoy these! My kids and I did! Hopefully, hubby will be home in time to have his share. :-)

Thanks for stopping by, y’all!

Candi

 

 

 

 

 

Easy Slow Cooker Chicken and Dumplings

I promised to post this recipe the other day, so I figured I better get to it! People are waiting on their dumplings! This recipe is very good and very easy. I adapted a recipe from allrecipes.com  adding a few steps and a few ingredients, but the extra time and effort is totally worth it! You can decide for yourself.
You will need:

• 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, 6-7 boneless skinless thighs or 9-10 tenderloins, preferably thawed
  
• salt
  
• pepper
  
• 2 cans cream of chicken soup, lower sodium
  
• 1 32 oz. carton of lower sodium, fat free chicken broth
  
• 1 medium onion, diced
  
• 2 stalks celery, diced
  
• 2 carrots, diced
  
• 2 tsps. dried parsley
  
• 1 bay leaf
  
• 1 can buttermilk biscuits (from the refrigerated section)

Directions:

Trim chicken, removing excess fat and membranes, and wash and dry with paper towels. Season the chicken generously with salt and pepper (and even some onion and garlic powder if you are so inclined). It is possible to skip this step and put the chicken into the slow cooker when it is still frozen! I’ve tried this, and it turns out just as good!

Pour both cans of soup over chicken, then add the entire carton of chicken broth.

Place the top on the slow cooker at this point and turn to low. As the chicken begins to cook, you can prepare the veggie mixture that we will add to the pot. You can have the veggies done before you put everything in the slow cooker, but this is the order I always do it for whatever reason. Here, you have a choice, actually. You can put your veggies and the rest of the ingredients into the pot now, or you can do what I do and brown the onions, celery and carrots for about nine minutes. I like mine to be nice and soft and browned for extra flavor. I have texture issues with onions, hence this step. :-)

Add the parsley and bay leaf and cook for approximately 5 hours on low (if your chicken was thawed) and 7-8 hours on low for frozen.

After 5 hours (or 7 hours for frozen chicken), remove the top and go ahead and shred the chicken using two forks. This should be effortless. If it isn’t, put the top back on and cook at least another hour. Unwrap the biscuits and cut them into quarters. Add the biscuit pieces to the slow cooker and stir a bit, then replace the top and turn to high for one hour.

The biscuit pieces will ‘rise’ on the top, and that is ok. Just wait the hour and then stir them into the chicken stew.

It is now ready to serve, although it will be extremely hot! (Do I need to tell you this?) My kids ask me every time. Some day, I look forward to a meal where I don’t have to blow on someone else’s food before I can eat. :-)

Enjoy y’all!! At least one of my kids will eat this willingly (the sushi one, not the mac-n-cheese one). ;-) My husband loves it!

Have a great day!

Candi

Patriotic Pudding Pops

Happy Saturday everyone! We are having a lazy weekend around here. After being away for our annual family reunion last weekend and a busy week of shuttling kids back and forth across town for summer camp, and another kid back and forth to meet my parents for a drop-off and pick-up, a lazy weekend with NO plans is exactly what we need. 

Wait a second, did I say lazy? That's not what I meant at all! Well, I AM still in my pajamas. Maybe lazy is the right word, after all? I really meant a weekend with no plans away from home. In fact, what it means is a weekend of taking care of things around here. All that other stuff seems to get in the way of us keeping this place presentable. Does anyone else have that problem? Pssshhh... I can't wait to see what kind of adjustment it will be when I finally get a real paying job again! Hopefully, that will be sooner than later. 

Speaking of that, do you realize how much has changed in six years since I last got up every morning to go to an actual 'place' of employment? Windows has had at least two upgrades since then! Facebook anyone? Smart phones, texting, iPads and tablet computers... need I go on? My work history is completely obsolete! Scary! There are also these two little people that have to get places and be fed and stuff. There will be changes around here, but, hopefully, good changes. Double income? Yes, please! Where do we sign up?

Sorry, got distracted...

So Monday is the day we celebrate our nation's independence from British rule. It is the day that the Declaration of Independence was published for the first time in 1776... our national day. (historical note: The Declaration of Independence was actually voted in by a closed session of Congress on July 2nd, but we have always celebrated on the day that it was first published, the 4th of July.)  As Americans, as in most (all?) other cultures, we like to celebrate with food. Red, white and blue food makes it all the more fun! And food that cools us off in the dead heat of summer? Even better!

Today, I have a very easy and fun recipe for red, white and blue pudding pops. Why did they ever get rid of pudding pops? Bill Cosby stopped advertising, and then they just fell off the face of the earth. What's up with that? Please report back if you find out!

*Recipe adapted from the June/July 2011 issue of Family Fun Magazine

You will need:

1 pkg of instant cheesecake-flavored pudding

2 cups milk

1/2 cup cream

1/2 cup sugar

red and blue food coloring

popsicle molds OR

             small plastic cups, foil & wooden craft sticks

3 zipper bags (not necessary, but makes it easier)

Directions:

Whisk together pudding (I have used regular instant and sugar-free instant and both work), milk, cream and sugar. I know I'm adding sugar, so why use sugar-free pudding? Well, it's what I had on hand. Separate the mixture evenly into three separate containers (preferably ones with a pour spout). One bowl of pudding will be your white stripe, so leave it alone. In another bowl, add enough red food coloring to your pudding mixture until you reach your desired shade of red. Repeat with the blue food coloring in the third bowl. You can use either liquid or gel food coloring. 

 Put each color of pudding into a separate zipper bag.

Cut about 1/4 inch of the tip of the bag with the red
pudding and pipe enough to fill about 1/4 of the cup being
careful not to get it on the sides of the cup.

Cover the cups with two layers of aluminum foil and
press down over the top until you can see the outline
of the top of each cup. Poke holes in the foil in the
center of each cup and insert the sticks. The foil
will hold the sticks steady until the pudding is frozen
enough to hold the sticks upright. Place in freezer
for at least 45 minutes.

Cut the tip off the bag with the white pudding and neatly pipe the white
stripe into each cup. Place in freezer for another 30-45 minutes.

Remove the red and white pops and pipe the blue layer.

I added edible star-shaped silver glitter after adding the blue layer,
but this is completely optional. The glitter was on the bottom of the
pops, so no one really sees it anyway.  It is kinda fun, though. And sparkly!
I didn't add it before putting the red layer, because I wasn't sure if
it would bleed or not. You could try this though. What could it hurt?

Happy 4th of July everyone!!



Enjoy your long weekend and be safe!
What are you doing to celebrate?

Candi