Crock Pot Lemon Chicken...

This is a delicious and easy chicken meal - and it only takes FOUR ingredients that you put in a crock pot or slow coocker.  What makes it an especially great recipe is I can get the chicken started cooking before I go to pre-school (or it can be done before you go to work) and it is ready to eat by dinner time.

Ingredients:

• 2 Tbsp butter or margarine
• 1 packet Good Seasons Italian dressing
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 2 lbs. boneless, skinless, chicken breasts

Directions:

1. Put butter or margarine in bottom of slow cooker.
2. Place chicken in pot.
3. Sprinkle Italian dressing packet over chicken.  Drizzle with lemon juice.  Put on lid.
4. Cook on high for 4-5 hours or Low for 6-8 hours.

Put 2 tablespoons of butter in the slow cooker.  (Sometimes a recipe will say to use a cube of butter .  When you cut 2 tablespoons from a stick of butter it is the shape of a cube).

Place the chicken in the the slow cooker.  Be careful, after melting the butter the slow cooker is hot.

Sprinkle the Italian dressing packet over the chicken.  You want to get some of the seasoning on each piece of chicken.

Measure 1/2 cup of lemon juice and gently pour that over the chicken.

Put the lid on your slow cooker and you are done.  Let it cook on High for 4-5 hours or Low for 6-8 hours.

At suppertime, here is what the chicken looks like.  It makes one delicious, easy meal for the family

Easy Peasy Mini Pizzas...

For an easy, different lunchtime meal, for just a snack, or for a party treat, mini pizzas are just perfect.  They take very few ingredients and are VERY easy and fun to make.


Ingredients:

• English muffins
• Marinara sauce
• Grated parmesan cheese
• Grated mozzarella cheese
• Optional: meats like diced ham, pepperoni, sausage, hamburger or vegetables like chopped peppers, sliced mushrooms, chopped onions.

Directions:

1. Split an English muffin with a  knife or fork and toast it.
2. Spread 2 - 3 Tbsp marinara sauce on a muffin half.
3. Put parmesan cheese on top of the marina sauce and mozzerella on to of that.  Optional: you can add meat and/or vegetables on top.
4. Cook in microwave oven for 20 seconds or until cheese starts to melt.

Here are the ingredients to make the mini pizzas: English muffins, marinara sauce, parmesan and mozzarella cheeses.

Have a grown-up cut, or use a fork, to split an English muffin in half.  Put the English muffin in the toaster.

Spread 2 - 3 tablespoons of marinara sauce on the English muffin.

Sprinkle parmesan cheese on the marinara sauce.

Add grated mozzarrella cheese on top.  If you have other ingredients like meats and vegetables, put those on top.

Put the mini pizza in the microwave oven for 20 seconds or until the cheese starts to melt.

There you have it.  A delicious home made mini pizza, just right for a lunch or snack.

No Cook Refrigerator Pickles...

Here is how you can make your own pickles just in time for summer picnics or anytime snacks.  Making them is really easy and requires no cooking!  You can get cucumbers for making these pickles at the grocery store or make the pickles with your own home grown cucumbers. 

Ingredients:

• 1 - 1 1/2 lbs. pickling cucumbers
• 2 cups water
• 1 cups vinegar
• 1 Tbsp sea salt 
• Fresh dill
• Optional seasonings (mustard seeds, celery seeds, garlic, sugar, onion, etc.)

Directions:

1. Wash and cut the cucumbers.  You can cut them in 'chips' by cutting across the cucumbers about every 1/4 inch or in 'spears' by cutting them from end to end.  Also, cut off each end of the cucumbers.  That helps them to stay crisper.
2. Put the cut cucumbers, fresh dill, and any seasonings in wide mouth pint jars.
3. Make your brine by mixing the water, vinegar, and sea salt in a pitcher until the salt is dissolved.
4. Pour the brine mixture in the jars until the cucumbers are completely covered.
5. Screw the lids on the jars and put the jars in the refrigerator for four days.

Since these are refrigerator pickles they are not pickles you can leave out.  Always keep the pickles in the refrigerator.  They will be good for a couple of months and they get better as each day goes by.

When picking cucumbers, I use 'pickling cucumbers.'  They are much more crisp than salad cucumbers.  Good pickling cucumbers are dark green, firm, and have lots of bumps.

To make the pickles, the first thing I do is wash off all of the cucumbers.

Have a grown-up cut off the ends of the cucumbers so they are just a little smaller than your jar and then cut them into long spears.  They will fit perfectly in pint size jars.  Put as many cucumber spears in each jar as you can.  A pound of cucumbers fills about two jars.

Add 5 or 6 sprigs of fresh dill to the jars.  You can also add optional seasonings for different tasting pickles.

Next is making the brine.  Measure 2 cups of water and pour it in a bigger pitcher.

Pour 1 cup of vinegar and add that to the bigger pitcher.

Measure 1 tablespoon of sea salt and add that to the water and vinegar mixture.

Stir the water, vinegar, and salt until the salt is completely mixed.

Pour the water, vinegar, and salt mixture into the jars until it covers all of the pickles.

Screw the tops to the jars on tight and then put the jars in the refrigerator.  Here is the hard part - you now have to wait four days for the cucumbers to become pickles (although I usually eat some before the four days).  Don't forget, these are refrigerator pickles and need to stay in the refrigerator.

Ice Cream Bread!...

Yes, Ice Cream Bread.  Let me say that again, bread made with ice cream! This has to be the best idea for bread ever. AND, as if that isn't enough, to make it you only need TWO ingredients - ice cream and self-rising flour.  You can use any flavor ice cream you want so the bread flavors are endless.  This makes one 4" by 8" loaf.

Ingredients:

•  2 cups full fat ice cream (the bolder the flavor the tastier the bread)
•  1 1/2 cups self-rising flour

Directions:

1. Let your ice cream sit out until it is fully softened or put it into the refrigerator over night to soften.
2. Completely mix the softened ice cream with the self-rising flour.
3. Put the mixture on a greased loaf pan.
4. Have a grown-up put the pan into a preheated 350 degree oven for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick in the bread comes out clean.

Even though the bread tastes delicious as it is, you can top your bread with sprinkles or chocolate chips before you bake it to make it fancier and give it extra taste.

The bread tastes great with a little butter spread on it especially when the bread is still warm.

NOTE:  Kroger sometimes has 16 ounce (2 cup) ice cream containers on sale for $1.00.  This can make it a pretty inexpensive treat.

These are the only ingredients needed to make ice cream bread.  This time I decided to make strawberry ice cream bread.

Measure 2 1/2 cups self rising flour...

...and pour it into a mixing bowl.

Measure 2 cups of ice cream...

...and put the ice cream in the mixing bowl with the self rising flour.

Then mix the ingredients together real well.  The dough mix will get very thick so you might need some help getting it all mixed together.

Put the dough mix into the greased 8" by 4" bread pan and bake it for 35 - 40 minutes.

And the best part of baking the ice cream bread is eating it.  A special fun thing of eating ice cream bread is that while other people have to eat their ice cream with a spoon, I get to eat my ice cream with my hands!  You can even spread butter or jelly or other topping for fun - remember, it is a bread.

Coloring Eggs...

In the past, when it was time to color Easter eggs, I used the standard egg dye and dipping.  That was fun and made nicely colored eggs, but this year I did something different.  I actually painted eggs.  After having an adult boil the eggs and letting them cool, I painted them with water colors.  They turned out beautiful with all of the swirling colors.

Here is my recipe for no mess up, getting perfect hard-boiled eggs every time:

First, if you want eggs that are easy to peel, buy eggs that are several days older than the freshest eggs ( but make sure they are still not beyond the expiration date).  Eggs that are a little older seem to peel better.  At Easter time when everyone is buying eggs, you may have to actually buy the eggs about five days earlier.

1. Put the eggs in a single layer in a sauce pan and cover by an inch or two of cold water.  Starting with cold water and gently bringing the eggs to a boil helps keep them from cracking.  Have an adult put the burner on high until the water boils.  With a lid on the pan, remove the eggs from the burner and let the eggs sit in the hot water for 12 minutes.  
2. Cool the eggs.  Strain the water from the pan and refill it with cold water.  Do this several times until the eggs are cool.  When the eggs are cool I put them back in the egg carton and into the refrigerator to decorate and eat.  The eggs should be eaten within five days.

Here's a tip - Ever have both hard-boiled and not hard-boiled eggs in the refrigerator and don't know which ones are which?  You don't have to crack the egg to find out which is the hard-boiled or not boiled egg.  All you have to do is spin the egg!  If the egg spins evenly, it is a hard-boiled egg.  If the egg wobbles when you spin it, it is not a hard-boiled egg!

I used my kid water color paints to color the eggs.  I used different colors on each egg.

Here's what the egg looks like after I had painted it the different colors.

You can see how beautiful the eggs turned out.  These eggs are so much more fun than just dunking them in a color and so much more interesting.  Maybe next time I'll wrap the eggs with rubber bands and then paint them to see how they turn out.

Peanut Butter And Jelly Sandwich Flower...

No, this is not a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with flowers.  It is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich made into a fun shape of a flower.

The first thing is to make your sandwich. (Here's a secret - if you want get compliments on how good you make a sandwich, make sure the peanut butter and jelly go all the way to the edges of the bread).

Put your top piece of bread evenly on the bottom piece.

Here is the most important part.  Using an apple corer, put it in the middle of your sandwich and press down until it cuts all the way through.  I had to press on it back and forth to make it cut all the way through.

With the pieces cut, you now need to arrange them into the shape of a flower.

Ta da!  A peanut butter and jelly sandwich Flower!

The sandwich is not just to look at, its for eating.  And, it really does taste better shaped like a flower.

Pumpkin Spice Soft Cookies...

This is probably the easiest home made cookies to make EVER!  It only takes two ingredients (plus optional icing) for cookies that people will be raving about.  This recipe makes about 36 cookies.

Ingredients:

     1 (18.25 ounce) package spice cake mix
     1 (15 ounce) can solid pack pumpkin
     1 can cream cheese icing (optional)

Directions:

1. Have a grown-up preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Grease cookie sheets, or spray sheets lightly with vegetable spray (Pam), or, for easy clean-up, use parchment paper on the cookie sheets.
3. In a large bowl, use a fork (or your hands) to mix together the cake mix and pumpkin until well blended.  Drop spoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets.
4. Have a grown-up put it in the preheated oven for 12 to 18 minutes.  Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

The cookies taste delicious just as they are.  But, for an added touch, top the cookies with cream cheese icing.
 

These are the only ingredients needed to make these cookies - spice cake mix and canned pumpkin.

Pour the entire cake mix package into a bowl.

Put the entire can of pumpkin in the bowl.

Completely mix the pumpkin and cake mix.

After you've completely mixed the pumpkin and cake mix, use a spoon to make balls of dough on a greased or parchment covered cookie sheet.

When all of the cookies are on the cookie sheet, have a grown-up put the cookies in a preheated 350° oven for 12 to 18 minutes until they just start to turn brown at the edges.

After the cookies are taken out of the oven, let them cool for five minutes on the cookie sheet and then you can move them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

You  now have a batch of easy and delicious pumpkin spice soft cookies.  Topping the cookies with cream cheese icing adds an extra finishing touch.