Homemade Potato Chips

We all love them right? Those delicious, fried pieces of thinly cut potatoes. Whether we want to admit it or not, we all love them or crave them at some time. Because of this I had a thought "Why not try to make some at home"? Well that is exactly what I did this week. I found a great deal on potatoes at Costco. I snagged a 20 lb for under $6. I was pretty excited. I now have 20 lbs of potatoes to use up over the next month or so. That being said, I decided to try my hand at making homemade chips. These were simple to make, but quite a bit time consuming. Thank you Percy Jackson and the hubby for entertaining the red heads, while I made these. Plan for about an hour, since the time consuming part is frying each batch of potatoes.

You need enough oil to fill a large frying pan with about 3 inches of oil. Heat to 375'. Slice your potatoes 1/8 inch thick. As you slice your potatoes, put them into a bowl of cold water. The cold water helps to remove the starch from the potatoes. Allow your potatoes to soak for about 1hour. Remove from the water and pat dry before frying.

Working in batches, fry your potatoes slices for 3 minutes on each side. You want them to be golden brown on each side. Use a slotted, metal spoon to remove potatoes from oil. Transfer to a plate, lined with paper towels, to drain. Allow the oil to reheat in between batches. Lightly sprinkle with salt. Enjoy!

Make it a meal! Serve it with Sloppy Joes!

Xo Danielle

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New York Style Bagels

A few weeks back I posted this picture on instagram. Many of you lovelies thought I had caved and bought some store bought bagels. Nope just homemade...with love I might add. Libby always tells me about my "secrete" ingredient of love. She says it is her favorite :) Now that you know my "secrete" ingredient, which I put in all my recipes, let me tell you about some delicious bagels. I made these a week or so ago and they were Delish..... with a capital D. They had a perfect crust, with a chewy inside. They were exactly how a bagel should be.Want to make some for your sweet family today?

Here's how.....

Basic Chewy New York – Style Bagels


1 1/2 cups water
1 tsp salt
1 tbl dark brown sugar
4 cups white flour
2 1/4 tsp dry yeast


- place all ingredients in your bread machine in the order specified in your bread machine owner's manual. Select manual dough and allow the cycle to run. Allow dough to rest for 5 minutes, once dough cycle is completed.
- Lightly dust work surface with flour. Shape dough into a 12-inch long cylinder. Cut into 12 1-inch pieces. Roll each piece into a 10-inch long rope.
-Form each rope into a circle, overlapping ends slightly. Fold right end over left end. Tuck under and pinch gently to hold together. Place bagels on baking pans, sprinkled with cornmeal. Cover and let rise 30 minutes.






-Preheat oven to 375'
-Brush top and bottom of bagels with egg wash. Sprinkle top and bottom with toppings, if desired. Let dry on a wire rack for about 10 minutes.




-Bake in the center of oven, 15 minutes. Turn over and bake 10 minutes longer, or until golden brown.
-Cool to room temperature on a wire rack.







 
Enjoy your bagels lovelies! I love mine with cream cheese and tomato slices. Too Yummy!

Print recipe HERE 

P.S.
The winner to the Usborne Book Place giveaway is Kristen. I sent you an email:)

XO Danielle

Corndog Muffins

 I love corn dogs! I mean I really, really like them. In fact there was a time when I use to buy the huge, jumbo box of corn dogs from Costco. Know which ones I am talking about? We seriously could eat those up in no time. When I think back to the money I spent and how unhealthy those corn dogs were for us, I cringe. I can't change the fact we use to eat them, but I can do something about what we eat now. That is why I came up with a healthier alternative to those store bought, preservative filled imposter's. We used turkey hot dogs, which I made sure had no High Fructose Corn Syrup in them. I purchased a package consisting of 6 packs of turkey hot dogs from Costco. I snagged it for just $5.99. These will last us for about 2 months, which makes their price tag even more stellar.

These were simple to make and were a crowd favorite. Even hubby got in on the munching. Definitely try these healthy alternatives this week. :) Make these ahead of time and send them in your littles lunch boxes. We paired ours with kiwi slices and applesauce.

Mini Corn dog Muffins

3 hot dogs

 1 cup flour

3/4 cup cornmeal

1/4 cup sugar  

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup sour cream*

1 egg, lightly beaten*

1/4 cup milk

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1/2 tablespoon ground flax seed

Preheat oven to 400'. In a bowl, combine dry ingredients. Add sour cream, egg, milk, and melted butter, stir until moistened. Pour into prepared 12 muffin tins. Cut your hot dogs into fourths. Place one hot dog piece into each muffin tin and push down lightly. The hot dog will not be covered by the batter, as they bake the cornbread will cover the hot dogs.

Bake for 15 minutes, or until cornbread is cooked. Serve hot.

* I used water instead of sour cream. You can also use plain yogurt as well.

*To give these an extra nutritional boost, replace the 1 egg with some fruit/veggie puree. I like to use some sweet potato puree or applesauce.

XO Danielle

Creamy Avocado Dip

 

I am hoping I am not the only mama out there who has a hard time getting their littles to eat their veggies. Generally my littles are awesome and rarely turn down a fruit or vegetable....well that is until avocados come into play. They definitely make some serious stink faces at these sweet fruits or are they veggies? Whatever they are...my kids have some serious disdain for them. I am always trying to think of ways to sneak avocados into their diet. It may be in a smoothie, a brownie, or in their sandwiches. Whatever I can do. One cup of avocado has 23% of the recommended daily value of folate. They are also high in vitamin E, monounsaturated fats, and glutathione, which are all great for your heart (source here). That being said, I definitely want to get my littles and my husband eating these gems.

This past week we had nachos for dinner. I had some avocados to use up, which I received last week from BB. We love to do our nachos with pico de gallo, homemade refried beans, and tortilla chips. This week I decided to add in a bit of creamy avocado dip. Guess what? It was a hit!..... somehow combining vanilla yogurt and avocados created a yummy dip that both my hubby and the red heads enjoyed. Who knew? So if you are looking for a new yummy dip, try this out. It is perfect for tacos, nachos, veggie sticks, chips, you name it! We have also used this as a spread on sandwiches. It is a healthy alternative to using mayo on a sandwich :)

Creamy Avocado Dip

1 avocado
1/3 cup vanilla yogurt
juice of 1 lime
2 tbl taco seasoning

Blend together in food processor or blender. Chill in fridge and serve.

Make it today and enjoy lovelies!

 

XO Danielle

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Bread

 

Good morning lovelies! Before I share today's yummy recipe, I have to start with a story. Remember last week when I made the sweet potato bread? Well I have made it a few times since then. My hubby can't get enough. On one occasion I asked him to take it out of the oven for me. He took it out and proceeded to immediately try to cut it out of the pan. I said "Dude what are you doing?...you have to wait till it cools down. You can't eat it right out of the oven. It will crumble". I then left the kitchen and went to fold some clothes, thinking my warning would be heeded. When I came back into the kitchen I found my hubby, standing over a cutting board, with crumbled bread in his hands. Literally the whole loaf had fallen apart and was piled high on the cutting board. He looked at me, with that cute smile he does, and said "I couldn't wait any longer". Seriously this funny man is like a 5 year old in a grown mans body. It just cracks me up. The bread may have been crumbled, but we still enjoyed it. I decided to take his actions as a compliment, so everyone make some sweet potato bread or try this oatmeal chocolate chip bread. Either way they are yummy and are bound to bring the 5 year old out in your hubby. I know it did for mine.:)

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Bread

1-1/3 cup flour
2/3 oats, rolled or old fashion
1/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup chocolate chips
1 egg
3 TBSP, melted butter
1 cup buttermilk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9 x 5 loaf pan. In a mixing bowl, whisk together, flour, oats, sugars, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and chocolate chips. In a separate bowl, mix egg, butter and buttermilk. Stir wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until knife inserted comes out clean.

Print recipe out HERE

XO Danielle

Sweet Potato Quick Bread

 

Saturday morning I found myself washing dishes, mentally planning what I would be baking that morning. I did a mental check list of what needed to be used in my fridge and pantry. I had just gotten my basket and knew I had a few things that needed to be used up before we dug into our new basket of fruit and veggies. I had quite a few sweet potatoes to use. Usually I do mashed sweet potatoes, but a mama can only make that so many times. I needed something new to help me use up those orange potatoes in my pantry. Then it dawned on me....Why not make sweet potato bread. I thought I was coming up with something pretty original, until I googled it and realized many other mamas had already had my great idea. I checked out a few of their recipes and then came up with the recipe below. It is a super moist bread, which was a crowd favorite in my home. In fact it only lasted about 2 days here. We all gobbled it up as soon as we could. Yep it is that good. So make some quick bread for your family tonight. Serve it for breakfast, a snack, or a yummy dessert. We were finding any excuse to have it.... I seriously need to make some more....yum:)


Sweet Potato Bread
1 ½ cups sugar
1 stick butter
2 eggs
1 ¾ cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground nutmeg
1/3 cup water
1 cup cooked sweet potato puree (I did mine in the pressurecooker)
½ cup white chocolate chips (optional)
1 tbl flax seed (optional)
1 tbl bran (optional)

Combine sugar and butter in a mixing bowl, beat until creamy. Add water, eggs and puree. Beat until smooth. Add dry ingredients and beat. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour batter into a greased 9x5 loaf pan. Bake at 350' for about 1 hour.

This recipe is included in this weeks meal plan.

XO Danielle

Yummy Fall Trail Mix

Here is a simple recipe for a Fall Trail Mix. My children and I love this recipe. We actually made this for the first time last year and my littles remembered it. They got so excited when I told them we were making it again. I hope you have some time to make this one with your littles this week. I promise you will not be sorry.

 Here is what you need:

Candy corn

Chex Cereal or Cherrios 

(I've done both and they both are good)

pumpkin seeds

raisins (optional)

Here is What You Do:

I sprayed my pumpkin seeds with Pam cooking spray and then generously sprinkled them with pumpkin pie spice and cinnamon and sugar

I then baked them at 350 for about 15-20 minutes 

(you want them to be dry)

Let cool down

Once cooled, mix them in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients and enjoy with your littles :>

 

Have a Blessed Day!