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Banana and Candied Walnut Ice Cream
Before you start, if you don’t like nuts, or you have an allergy, just ditch them! The banana ice cream is delicious all on it’s own! I LOVE making ice cream. I use to have an ice cream machine that you packed with salt and ice, but then I did the math and realized if I was constantly making ice cream then I was better off investing in a machine that I didn’t have to buy ice and salt for (we didn’t have an ice maker at the time..). Plus it saved me time! HERE is a link to the ice cream maker I have, and it’s amazing! My ice…
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Caramel Sauce
I absolutely LOVE this caramel sauce! It’s the perfect consistency to keep in the fridge and take big spoonfuls out of the snack on…or dip your apples in…. and if you warm it up for just a few seconds it’s a great ice cream topper! We even poured it on top of our pecan pie this past Thanksgiving and it was wonderful! Ingredients 1 Cup of Sugar 1/4 Cup of Water 2/3 Cup of Heavy Cream 3 TBL of Unsalted Butter 1 tsp of Vanilla Instructions Get a saucepan that seems way bigger than necessary. (At some point the caramel will bubble up and you will be thankful you used…
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Sprinkle Shortbread Rounds
One of my favorite things in the world is cooking for my kids. I absolutely love it! And there is one question I get repeatedly for people, “How do you have the time???” I get it, that’s a very fair question. My secret is early preparation. I’ll mention this a little more in some future blog posts, but I am well known for taking the day to cook large batches of a food item and then freezing it to cut down on my meal prep time. The other day I was finishing up school registration and started think about school lunches. I had this idea that I wanted to make…
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Homemade Yogurt
For a long time I’ve always wanted to stop buying premade and prepackaged foods from the store and just make everything fresh in my own home. I would take small steps every now and then towards that goal. Making my own baby food, once my kids were born seemed like a simple first step. After that I really pushed ahead. The past couple of years I’ve really dived head first into my goal. I spent several months making bread daily just to learn the technique and develop my own recipes. (My neighbors and friends received lots of fresh bread). At one point I started on ice cream. After months and…
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Quick Blueberry Compote
I usually have a jar of this Blueberry Compote in my fridge for our yogurt, oatmeal, or on an English muffin. It’s usually a treat though because it tends to be on the sweet side. Ingredients: 2 Cups Blueberries 1/2 Cup Water 1/4 Cup Sugar A Squeeze of Lemon (if you need it) Instructions: Stir together the Blueberries, Water, and Sugar in a small saucepan. Simmer over medium heat until reduced (by almost half). Taste, if it’s overly sweet add a squeeze of lemon, but if you had tart berries it might be fine how it is It will thicken up once it has cooled. If it’s not as thick…
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Simple Granola
My kids and I made Yogurt the other day (Link HERE) and I wanted some granola to throw on top. I felt like so many of them had at least one ingredient and I didn’t have so we did a couple trial runs and came up with this simple granola, perfect for on top of our yogurt! Ingredients: 1 1/2 Cups Old Fashioned Oats 1/2 Cup Chopped Nuts (I used a combo of Pecans and Walnuts) 1 TBL Olive Oil 1/4 Cup Honey 1/2 tsp Cinnamon 1/4 tsp Vanilla Instructions: Preheat oven to 300° Whisk together the oil, honey, cinnamon, and vanilla. Fold in nuts and oats. Line a baking…
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Vegetable Alphabet Soup
I will be honest and say that most of the time my kids willingly eat vegetables, so please don’t think that this is some magic soup that will get your veggie hating kiddo to start eating vegetables. There were those that picked out some random vegetables, and others who ate the entire thing and asked for seconds! But as an adult who loves to eat my vegetables I enjoyed it! Vegetable soup is my easy go-to soup when I forget to thaw meat and my vegetable drawer is looking sad. It’s a great way to clear out veggies right before your next grocery run. I’ll post how I made mine,…
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Chunky Brownies
All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt. Charles M. Schulz Happy April Fool’s Day! I woke up the kids this morning and told them there was a big pan of brownies in the kitchen. They ran in to find this: They loved it and then had fun Facetiming our family and telling them they got to eat brownies (Brown E’s) for breakfast! But after all of that I promised them that we could make real brownies! Now I will admit, this recipe has a couple weird ingredients that probably aren’t a staple in many houses, but I totally recommend giving them a try.…
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Chocolate Chip Cookies
A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand. Barbara Johnson Chocolate Chip Cookies are a staple in my house. If you don’t see a jar of them on my countertop then just go look for my hidden stash in the freezer. nothing is better than a frozen chocolate chip cookie in summer! This recipe came from my grandma and will make about 60 cookies. They are the perfect mix of chewy and just a little crispy. Not too thin and not too thick. Obviously I think they are simply the best! Now, before I give you the recipe, I have a tip I want to talk about. Be very…