"California" Veggie Medley

"California" Veggie Medley

I've been trying to incorporate more healthy foods into my diet, and found a variation of this yummy recipe online. I subbed some things out, added other healthier items in, and it turned out DELICIOUS!

Serves: 2-4 servings

Ingredients:

2 cloves of garlic (minced)

5 oz package of baby spinach

½ lemon

3 tbsp coconut oil

1 cup halved grape tomatoes

1 yellow pepper

1 small yellow zucchini

½ red onion

¼ cup shredded red cabbage

red wine vinegar

balsamic vinegar

crushed red pepper flakes: for heat (optional)

1 avocado (optional)

salt and pepper: for taste (optional…I didn't use any)

Directions:

1. Chop up two cloves of garlic as fine as you can. Heat up a large skillet, and add approximately 2 tbsp of coconut oil (enough to coat the bottom of the pan). Lightly saute the garlic for about 1 minute. Add the spinach about half the lemon juice, and let the spinach wilt. When it is wilted, remove it from the skillet in a serving dish. 

2. With the same skillet, add the other tbsp of coconut oil, and saute the tomatoes, yellow pepper, zucchini, onion and red cabbage. Let it cook for a few minutes. When it starts to cook away the moisture, add in the rest of the lemon juice, a splash of red wine vinegar, and the red pepper flakes (you can add as much or as little as you like, depending on how much heat you like). You can also season with a little salt (I didn't use any). 

3. When everything is nicely cooked down, you can either serve it on top of the bed of spinach, or throw the spinach back in for a few seconds to heat up and incorporate with the rest of the vegetables. 

4. Serve with a splash of balsamic vinegar, and some avocado chunks (optional). I also ate this with a slice of Ezekiel bread.
You can enjoy this as a side dish, or as the main course.

Enjoy :)

Funfetti Cookies

Ingredients:

1 package of Funfetti cake mix

2 large eggs

¼ cup oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. 

Mix all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl. I like to mix the dough with a spoon until it starts getting sticky, and then kneed the rest with my hands. 

On an ungreased baking pan, lined with parchment paper, drop 2" balls of dough. The cookies don't spread out much, so you can keep them closer together than I did. 

 Bake for about 15 minutes, or until cookies are golden on the bottom. 

Let cool. 

Enjoy :)

Oatmeal Craisin Chocolate Chip Cookies

I baked these little treats thanks to the Ocean Spray website for my family for Easter and they were a hit!

Ingredients:

2/3 cup unsalted butter (or margarine), softened

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats

1 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 5-ounce package Ocean Spray® Craisins® Original Dried Cranberries

2/3 cup white chocolate chips 

(I used ⅓ cup white chocolate chips in half the batter and 

⅓ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips in the other half to try and please everyone)

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 375ºF. Using an electric mixer, beat butter or margarine and brown sugar together in a medium mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs, mixing well. In a separate mixing bowl, combine oats, flour, baking soda and salt. Add dry mix to butter mixture in several additions, mixing well after each addition. Stir in dried cranberries. At this point, I separated the mixture into two halves. I left one half in the electric mixer, and added the white chocolate chips, mixing well to incorporate them into the mixture.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets (I greased my cookie sheet). 

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. 

While those were baking, I put the other half of the cookie dough into the mixer again, this time mixing in the semi-sweet chocolate chips. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets (again...I greased my cookie sheet). Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. The recipe calls for approximately 2 1/2 dozen cookies. I think I made less, making my cookies a little bigger than a teaspoon full of cookie dough.

Enjoy! :)

Adapted from: http://www.oceanspray.com/Recipes/Corporate/Desserts-Snacks/Oatmeal-Cranberry-White-Chocolate-Chunk-Cookies.aspx

Nutella Crescent Rolls

So I LOVE Nutella. I decided I wanted to try and make Nutella crescent rolls. Here is how I made them, thanks to a little inspiration from my favorite website to lose time on, Pinterest!

Nutella Crescent Rolls

Ingredients:

1 can Pillsbury crescent rolls

Cinnamon

Sugar

Nutella

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Open up can of crescent rolls and carefully roll out the dough and separate each triangle. Take some Nutella and spread it across each triangle. Or, you can also drop a dollop of Nutella at the wide end of the triangle. Roll each crescent roll from the wide end of the triangle down to the narrow end. Dust the top with a mix of cinnamon and sugar and bake according to the instructions on the crescent roll can.

Enjoy! :)

Simple, Easy, Banana Oatmeal Cookies

Simple, Easy, Banana Oatmeal Cookies

My cousin made these and posted a picture of them on Instagram and I just had to try them. I'm trying to eat a little healthier and I always make such delicious, probably not so healthy treats. So when my cousin told me how easy this recipe was that only uses 2 ingredients, I got excited to try it.

Ingredients:

4 medium (7" to 7-7/8" long) Bananas 

2 cup Oats

dark chocolate chips (optional)

You can also use Craisins, raisins, milk chocolate chips, semi-sweet chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, walnuts, almonds, etc.

My cousin also used honey in her recipe to add to the sweetness. This is of course optional.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix bananas, oats, and dark chocolate chips together. Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

Enjoy! :)

S'mores Cookie Squares

S'mores...who doesn't like them? Found a recipe that inspired me to create these little treats.

Ingredients:
11 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt (I used a little less)
1 tsp cinnamon
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips (or whatever type of chocolate chips you prefer)
1 cup mini marshmallows
3 regular sized Hershey's bars, broken into pieces
1-2 packages of graham crackers, broken into squares

Directions:

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, sea salt and cinnamon to combine. Set aside.

In the bowl of a standing electric mixer (I used a hand electric mixer), cream butter with white and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until combined.

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixer and combine on low speed. Fold in the chocolate chips and marshmallows. Chill dough in refrigerator for 1 hour to overnight. 

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line baking pans with parchment paper. Lay out graham crackers side by side on the pans as close as possible, almost touching. Place tablespoons of dough on graham crackers about 1 – 1 ½ inches apart. I averaged about 1 ½ tablespoons of dough per graham cracker square as seen in the picture above. Press down slightly with fingertips.

Bake for 5 minutes then remove from oven to press Hershey’s bar pieces on to the top. You can place as many pieces or as little as you want depending how much chocolate flavor you want.

Bake for an additional 5 – 7 minutes or more if your cookies are thicker. They will be done when the edges begin to turn golden brown. Remove to a wire rack to cool. For clean cutting make sure cookies are completely cool and cut with a sharp knife.

Enjoy! :)

from http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2011/06/smores-cookies.html

Mint Oreo Cupcakes

For those of you who love mint, chocolate, and Oreos as much as I do, you will enjoy this treat!
I modified my Oreo Cupcake recipe, to create this Mint Oreo recipe. I just replaced regular Oreos with mint Oreos. I also didn't place a whole Oreo in the bottom of the cupcake liners this time. And finally, I used pure mint extract in the frosting.

Ingredients:

1 package Mint Oreo Cookies, regular size

1 package chocolate cake mix (and ingredients to make according to box)
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick), room temperature
3 3/4 cups powdered sugar
cupcake liners
Pure mint extract (I used about 1/2 tsp)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Mix the packaged chocolate cake mix according to the instructions given on the box. Take two sleeves (rows) of the package of regular sized Mint Oreos, chop them up coarsely, and add to cake batter. Line cupcake tins with cupcake liners. Fill the cupcake tins with Oreo cake batter mix. Bake for according to boxed cake directions or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean. When cupcakes are finished, take them out and let them completely cool! If they are not completely cooled off before frosting them, they will melt the frosting.

For the frosting:

Cream together the butter and cream cheese. I did this using a hand electric mixer. Add powdered sugar slowly until blended well. Chop remaining regular-sized Mint Oreos very fine. I put the remaining Oreos in the food processor until finely crushed. Making sure they are finely crushed is important so that no Oreo chunks get stuck in the tip of your piping bag. Add finely crushed Oreos to cream cheese, butter and powdered sugar mix. When I tasted the frosting, it didn't taste as minty as I like it so I kept adding pure mint extract a few drops at a time, and mixing it up until it tasted minty enough for me. I use gallon Ziploc bags as piping bags. Put all the frosting in the Ziploc or piping bag, and cut a little bit off a corner of the bag. Push all the frosting in the bag towards that corner. After cupcakes have cooled off completely, frost them with your piping bag, starting on the outside of the cupcake, working your way in.

Keep cupcakes refrigerate. Let them thaw out before eating them out of the fridge so that the frosting is creamy.

Enjoy! :)