Yummy Potato Soup

I love potato soup, but I never make it because I think it is hard to make and it's really not all that healthy with the heavy cream and all. But I found a yummy and easy recipe for potato soup. The best part is that you make it in your crockpot.

Potato Soup
2-3 lbs potatoes
small onion (around 1/3 cup chopped)
2 cloves of garlic (I used about teaspoon of the pre-crushed kind I have in my fridge)
2 cans chicken broth
1/2 teas. black pepper
1/2 teas. red pepper
8 oz lite cream cheese

Peel and dice the potatoes and dice the onions. Place potatoes, onions, garlic, broth, black pepper, and red pepper in your crockpot (you can add seasoning salt if you like, but with the salt in the chicken broth I didn't feel like it needed any.) Cook on low for 8 hours. NOTE: ***Because I work full-time, I knew there was no way I would get all this done in the morning. I did all the prep work the night before and covered it with plastic wrap. Make sure you press the plastic wrap down on the top of the food. This helps get all the air out and helps keep your potatoes from getting brown. In the morning I just put it all in the crockpot and turned it on and left.***

Once the potatoes are tender, smash with your potato smasher. (I wish I had a hand held immersible blender because I think it would have made the soup creamier) Once the potatoes are smashed, add the cream cheese in 1 inch pieces. Cook until the cream cheese is melted. Serve!

It's serves about 6 people. Only around 350 calories per serving. Serve with a yummy salad and you have dinner. We topped ours with a little shredded cheese, but bacon bits sounded good to. If any of you try this, let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions.

All-Purpose Spice Rub

About a year ago I found a recipe for an all-purpose spice rub on MarthaStewart.com. We love it! I use it on chicken and veggies all the time. By making so much ahead of time, it makes it easy to spice up your dinner (pardon the pun). I store it in my old baby food jars. The kids can help you make it too. I put all the ingredients in a large Ziploc bag and let the kiddos shake it up to mix everything together.

• 1/3 cup coarse salt
• 1/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1/4 cup paprika
• 2 tablespoons ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons dried oregano
• 2 tablespoons dried thyme leaves
• 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper (optional if you want a little spice)

This is a very versatile recipe. Feel free to try different spices. We have used rosemary and red pepper flakes instead of thyme and cayenne.

One of our favorite ways to use this rub is to make roasted cauliflower. Place the cauliflower florets in a baggy. Pour in a tablespoon of oil (I use olive or canola because they are the healthiest for your heart). Then our in some of your spice. Shake the bag till all of the cauliflower is coated. Bake at 450 degrees for 20-25 minutes, turning once. Yummy! Yummy!

Toothpicks With Lunch

Just wanted to share an idea I discovered. My 18 month old has become a lousy eater. After two bits, he wants out of the highchair. He would rather play than eat. I have found an easy solution to this. Use toothpicks! I now cut up food into bit size pieces and stick a toothpick in every piece. He loves it! He thinks it is s fun to eat the food off the toothpick. For lunch we had cheese and ham and fruit. He ate it all and asked for more. I'm thrilled! I'm sure I will be going through a lot if boxes of toothpicks, but that is a small price to pay.

If anyone else has a great idea on how to make food more fun so baby D will eat better, I would love to hear about it. Thanks!

One Cookin' Mama

When reading one of the many blogs I am subscribed to, I came across a link to an amazing blog. That is if you love to crockpot like I do. (I suppose crockpot isn't a real verb, is it?)

A Year of Crockpotting

She has a tons of great crockpot recipes. I can't wait to try some of them! I think using your crockpot is such a time save. Throw everything in in the morning and come home to a great diner.

Plus, if you or any of your family members have celiac, all her recipes are gluten free. This is wonderful! I was diagnosed with celiac (Lucky for me it was a misdiagnosis and we dicovered the realy problem a year later) and it is tough to find good gluten free food that your whole family wants to eat. (Note: If you are eating gluten free, she reminds you to check all your labels because manufacturer change ingredients without warning.)

Christmas Breakfast

These are such cute ideas!!!
Go check out some fun Christmas Breakfast ideas from Ramblings of a Crazy Woman. They are all so cute. I think the French toast tree is my favorite, even though she didn't think it was one of her best. If any of you have some fun family traditions, please share.

Microwave Fudge

I love fudge, but have always been to scared to make it. Now I make microwave fudge! It's easy and not too bad either.

The basic ingredients are :
one bag of chips (chocolate, peanut butter, white chocolate...)
14 oz can of sweeten condensed milk
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
Extras (nuts, marshmallows, craisins, etc)

First, line a 9x9 pan with aluminum foil. Spray the foil lightly with PAM.
Place chips and sweetened condensed milk in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave until melted, stirring ever 30 secs or so. Add butter cut up in small bits. Stir in till melted. Add salt and vanilla (NOTE: if you don't have unsalted butter, try using your regular butter and not add salt) Now you add whatever extras you want. Pour into you pan and sprayed smooth. Place in your refrigerator for 3 hours. Once the fudge has set up, flip the pan upside down on a cutting board, peel off foil, and slice into bit size pieces. Enjoy!

I made chocolate walnut, pistachio craisin, and peanut butter. The peanut butter is way yummy!

Neighbor gifts are now done!

If you have any questions or if you try different "extra" that turn out great, email us. We would love to hear from you.

Edible Christmas Wreaths

You need:
1/2 cup of butter
3 cups of miniature marshmallows
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon of almond extract
green food coloring
4 cups of corn flakes
red hot candies (or another red candy)

I made it in the microwave, but I am sure you can do it on the stove too, just like rice krispie treats. First, in a microwave safe bowl, microwave your butter until it is melted. Then add the marshmallows. Cook in increments of 45 seconds stirring every time until they are melted. Then add the extracts. You can use all vanilla if you want, but J and I are big fans of almond extract, so we add it to a lot of stuff. Then add the food coloring. Make sure you make it a deep green because once you add the cornflakes, the color will lighten a lot. Then add the cornflakes. Make sure to just coat them so that they don't get crushed. Cover a cookie sheet with foil and then spray with Pam. Then just plop the mix by the spoonful onto the cookie sheet and shape into wreaths. This recipe doesn't make very much, so I did 6 medium sized wreaths. Cover with red hots and let stand until set. I hope you could follow that. I am obviously not cut out for writing recipes.

Tex-Mex Turkey Tacos

I got this yummy recipe for turkey leftovers from familyfun.com. Enjoy!

	1 tbsp. vegetable oil
	1/2 cup chopped onion
	1 8-oz. can tomato sauce
	1/2 cup water
	2 tbsp. chili powder
	1 tsp. ground cumin
	1/2 tsp. salt
	3 cups shredded cooked turkey meat (use a fork to shred the turkey, pulling it apart against the grain)
	12 taco shells
	3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
	Chopped lettuce
	Chopped tomatoes
	Chopped avocado
	Sliced olives

1. Heat the oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add the onion and cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Add the tomato sauce, water, chili powder, cumin and salt.

2. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the turkey and cook until heated through.

3. Place 1/4 cup of the taco filling in each taco shell. Top with 1 tablespoon of shredded cheddar, lettuce, tomato, avocado and olives. Serves 6.

Candied Popcorn

This is an easy treat. My mom received as a neighbor one year for Christmas. It is easy and cheap. All you need is popcorn and candy melts. You can purchase candy melts at most craft and/or baking store. I always get mine from Michaels because it's close to my house.
1. You pop your popcorn. If you don't have an air popper, you can use the butterless microwave popcorn. It works too.
2. Melt your candy melts according to the instructions. I use about half a bag of candy melts to one batch of popcorn.
3. Pour the melted candy over your popcorn and gently stir until all the popcorn is coated. It is better to not add enough candy melt at first. You can always add more, but if you put in too much, your popcorn may get soggy and shrivel up. NOTE: I always pick out all the un-popped kernels before pouring on the candy. No one like to break a tooth when eating a snack.
4. Spread the popcorn out on wax paper to dry.
It doesn't take long to dry. Once it is dry, break it up and store in Ziploc bags. You can use any color of candy melts you want (they are all vanilla flavored). I have not tried the brown chocolate candy melts. If anyone tried it, let me know how it tastes. When I first had it, it was white and I thought for sure it was white chocolate. It was Yummy! For neighbor gifts, place it in plastic cellophane bags (I saw them at my dollar store - 12 for $1), tie with ribbon, and place a tag on it....something like "We hope you have a 'poppin' good [insert holiday]"

Here I made it for my cousin's non-farwell lunch. He's going to Italy. Good Luck J.

Frozen Pizza and Month Of Meals

So, I have been working on two things lately, trying to save money and trying to save time. I know the cheapest way to cook is from scratch and to plan meals in order to avoid going out to eat on a whim, but it is so time consuming. With me and my husband working full time and with church callings, it seems like there is always a meeting to be to or someone to pick up.... Who has the time? This is way I was very intrigued by the women who do that month of meals in their freezer. I'm sure you have all heard of this idea, but, in case you haven't, I'll tell you how it works. At the beginning of the month you set aside one whole day to do nothing but cook. You make enough meals (that can be placed in your freezer) to last you the whole month. Of course you need a big freezer, which I don't have as of yet. So my plan is to try different recipes and make a few things to keep in my freezer on the days that I don't feel like cooking. As I find ones that I like, I will share them with you. If any of you have any that you have tried before, please email the recipes to fun4mommies@gmail.com

First up...Frozen Pizza

We like pizza at out house, but the order it is expensive and most of the good frozen kind are not too cheap either (Unless you get them on sale). So we decided to try and make our own. They turned out good.

You make your pizza dough recipe like you normally would. When you get to the part where you roll it out, you have a choice to make. You can either freeze it without toppings, just as a plain pizza crust, or you can place all your toppings on it before freezing. We tried it both ways. The first time I tried this I didn't have any good toppings at home, so I just froze the crust. The nexy time I planned ahead and got all my toppings ready. Both way turn out fine. But if you freeze it with the toppings, that is one less thing you need to do on the night you bake it.

Once your dough is ready, instead of placing it in your oven like you normally would, it goes in your freezer for later :) I placed mine on a cook sheet covered with wax paper. In a few hours, when it is completely frozen, take the pizza out and place it in a freezer bag. Try to get all the air out of the bag. You can now store your pizza in the freezer for up to a month. Any longer and you might get freezer burn.

When you are ready to cook it, preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Place your pizza on a cookie sheet or pizza stone. I would suggest spreading a small amount of corn meal under your pizza. The dough tends to get very sticky after it has been frozen. Bake for about 25 minute or until your cheese is bubbly and you dough is golden brown. Enjoy!

I'm sure almost any pizza dough recipe will work, but this is the recipe we use and it works great.

Herb Pizza Crust
makes 3 10-14 inch pizzas

2 tablespoons sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
4 cups flour (I used part whole wheat and part all purpose to make it a bit healthier.)
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon basil
1 tablespoon oregano
1 tablespoon thyme
3 tablespoon oil (Olive oil is the healthiest to use. It's good for your heart.)

Dissolve sugar and yeast in warm water and let stand for about 5 minute. Combined dry ingredient in a large bowl. Kneed in yeast mixture and oil into the dry ingredients. (I used my Kitchen Aid with the dough hook attachment.) Once a dough as formed, shape in into a ball and place it in a greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise till it doubles in size, about 45 minute. Punch dough down. Place dough on a floured surface and divide into three balls. Brush the balls with oil and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for 30-45 minute. Shape dough into your pizza crust by working from the center of the ball outwards. 1/4 inch for crispy crust. 1/2 inch for soft crust. Now you freeze it, with or without toppings.

NOTE: You can omit the herbs in the recipe and it would still turn out great.

Halloween Dinner Ideas

Here are some great ideas for Halloween food. Some of these I have tried, some I have yet to try, but all of them look fun.

First, we love Goumet Mom on-the-go! And she has some great posts you need to check out. She is full of fun and spooky diner ideas. And make sure to check out a lot of her other ideas while you are there.
Ghostly Shepard's Pie
Ghostly Pancakes
Spooky Snake Pizza
Not Your Mummy's Meatloaf
Mom?! There's Something In My Dinner

I got a copy of Woman's Day Magazine from a friend of mine. It had some fun dinner ideas as well.
Spider Web Pizzas
Pumpkin Patch Bites (I like it better with Crescent roll dough instead of pie crust.)
Serpent Sandwich
Bloody Soup Shots (goes great with the Pumpkin Patch Bites)
Spiderweb Nacho Spread

I also love a lot of the name brand food sites, like Kraft.com and Jello.com. These recipes came from Pillsbury.com.
Crescent Mummy Dogs
Jack-O'-Lantern Chicken Taco Cups
Witches Finger Sandwiches
Cauldron of Chili With Spider Bread
Toad's Eye Soup With Witches Broom Breadsticks

If anyone tries any other these recipes, please let us know how they are. If you have any ideas to share, please email us at Fun4Mommies@gmail.com. One thing I have learned is green olives make great eyes for any meal.

Happy Halloween!

Fruit Sorbet

For my birthday, my mom and dad bought me a lot of canning stuff. One thing they bought me was Ball's Blue Book Of Preserving. The whole book is about different ways to preserve foods.
In the "Freezing" section there is a great recipe for Fruit Sorbet. It's a great dairy-free alternative to ice cream. It's like sherbet, but more tart. I thought it would be a good way to use those baby food jars I have piled up. You can freeze individual servings. Plus, it's a good way to get some extra fruit into your kiddos.

Fruit Sorbet

4 cups sliced fruit (I used peaches)
2 cups of sugar
1 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Puree your fruit in a blender. (You could use a food processor of you don't have a blender.)
Combine sugar, OJ, and lemon juice and cook over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and add fruit puree. Pour on a 9x13 pan and freeze. (I let mine freeze over night, but if you want to do it all in one day then you need to keep in mind it will take over 4 hours to completely freeze.) Working in small batches, blend your frozen puree in your blender (or food processor) until creamy. Scoop into the jars you will be freezing your sorbet in, leaving 1/2 inch of space on the top for freezing expansion.

Mine made about 3 pints, with a little left for tasting. It was yummy. I thought next time I would try it with less sugar and see if it is as good. Never hurts to try and make it a little more healthy.

NOTE: the book says to store in your freezer up to a month. Also, any soft fruit such as peaches, strawberries, raspberries, or melons can be used.

Hello, Cupcake

So I've seen a book that has been talked about on many of the cooking blogs I read. Hello, Cupcake. I have been interested to check it out. Luck for me, it was available at my local library. Yea!! So of course I had to go get it. It is a great book!!! There are tons of great ideas and the best part, you don't need any special cake decorating tools.


There are tons of different ideas I want to try out before my book is due back at the library. I decided to try a very simple and fast design, so I did the pumpkins. What do you think?




I'll post pictures of my other attempts later. If anyone tries out the book, let me know how it goes. And if anyone has any ideas of other great books, please share! Have fun baking.

You Can Cook Scholarship

Gourmet Mom on-the-go shared a $25,000 scholarship opportunity for your children related to making a PB&J sandwich. It's for kids between 6 and 12 years of age. Go to Jif.com to get all the info. And make sure to check out Gourmet Mom on-the-go's post for some ideas she is willing to share. Or use them to inspire your ideas. I would have D enter if he was old enough. Too bad. And check out all the fun posts at GourmetMomOnTheGo.blogspot.com. She is full of tons of ideas. I plan on trying some of them in the future.

Contest Dates: August 4, 2008 and November 14, 2008

German Pancakes....Sort Of

At MakeandTakes.com, she calls the Pop Up Pancakes. They are basically German pancakes, baked in cupcake tin instead of a casserole dish. I suppose you could use any German pancake recipe, but I used the recipe from Makeandtake.com. All I changed was I used 1/2 cup all purpose flour and 1/2 cup of ground wheat that my father-in-law ground up for us. They still turned out wonderful!

We also made some mini-cakes in my mini-cupcake pan. Those were fun. I baked them for 7-8 minutes instead of 15. We tried all sorts of topping on your pop-ups. My favorite was syrup. My husband's favorite was butter and jam. We didn't have any fresh fruit/berries. I think that might have been the best, maybe with a little whip cream. Yum, yum! Just a note: if you've never had German pancakes before, they don't taste like regular pancakes. They are a little more egg-y but still really good.

To my Sis: You should try making them for B. And if she is still stuck on round pancakes, let her know I'll make her some next time you guys come down. My mother-in-law has the pan.

NOTE: If you've never checked out Makeandtakes.com, you should. She is way creative and has tons of fun ideas to try out.

Flower Pot Cake

*Note: I know I'm a lousy photographer, so please forgive me. Maybe one day I'll get a better camera. Right now I'm poor, so this will have to do. :)

A friend of mine baked some cakes inside of terracotta pots she got at Wal-Mart for a quarter a piece. They turn really cute and tasted great. I'll share with you what she shared with me on how to do it. It's better to learn from other people's mistakes.

She placed a small piece of greased parchment paper on the bottom of each pot, to keep the batter from leaking out the bottom holes. You want o fill the pot about 2/3 fill, just to the "cuff" of the pot. She placed the pots in her muffin tin, for extra support when put them in and pulling them out of the oven, but she said a cookie sheet should work fine too. Just make sure you only put pots along the outside (of either the cookie sheet or muffin tin). The ones in the middle never seemed to cook all the way through. Cook them for about 45- 50 minutes. After about 30-35 minutes, turn the pots so that whatever side was facing outwards is now facing towards the center. When checking them to see if they are done, use a long skewer. Toothpick can be deceiving. You need to make sure they are cooked all the way to the bottom.

If anyone gives it a try, let me know how it goes. We frosted ours and put cookie crumbs on the top. Good, but next time I'm leaving the crumbs out. They made them hard to eat without making a huge mess.

Kids Can Cook

Kraftfoods.com has been a favorite of mine to find easy recipes, but did you know that have a whole kids section? The have lots of fun things that are easy for kids to make (such as the links below) Also kids-approved recipes and nutritional facts. Check them out. You'll fins something fun.

Cheesy Pizza “Fundue”

Cheesy Volcano Meatballs

Buried Treasure Cupcakes

Pudding Paint

M from work told me that when her kids were little, her mother-in-law let them paint with pudding. She would make some pudding for the kids, sat them at the table, and let them finger paint all over the table. It is easy to clean up after and you don't have to worry if they put it in their mouths.

I'm sure there are other ways (maybe less messy ways) of using pudding to finger paint. I remember being little in Joy School, and we finger painted with pudding on butcher paper or large construction paper. I can't remember which. Plus, once they are done, they can eat the extra pudding for a snack.

Have fun painting!

Food for the Fourth

With the 4th of July coming close, FamilyFun.com give some creative ideas on how to bring the celebration to your food. One recipe that I like is

Independence Day PopsINGREDIENTS:
3 cups vanilla yogurt
Red food coloring
Blue food coloring
Waxed paper
Sugar cones
Popsicle sticks
1. To make a half dozen pops, tint 1/2 cup of the yogurt with red food coloring and 1 1/2 cups with blue food coloring. Leave the rest plain. 2. Make waxed paper cone liners by folding six 12-inch square sheets into triangles, wrapping each around a sugar cone, and using tape to hold the shape. Then place the paper cones inside the sugar cones. 3. Fill each cone with 1 tablespoon red yogurt, followed by 2 tablespoons white yogurt, then 3 tablespoons blue yogurt. Insert a Popsicle stick and freeze the pops until firm, about 4 hours, using the cone box to keep them upright .

Click HERE for more fun recipes from FamilyFun.com.

Aunt Annies Soft Pretzel Recipe

Aunt Annies Soft Pretzel Recipe

**(The web site recommends cutting the recipe in half unless you want to feed an army)

1 1/2 tsp live active yeast

1 1/2 cups 110 degree water

1/2 teaspoon brown sugar

dash of salt

4 cups flour

1/4 cup warm water

1 tablespoon baking soda

In a large bowl combine live active yeast with 1 1/2 cups 110 degree water, brown sugar and dash of salt. Let sit 5 minutes

Add 4 cups flour mix well and knead for 5 minutes

Put in greased bowl and cover with damp towel and let sit 1 hour in a warm place.

Divide into 8 to 12 pieces -we divided into 16 pieces-and they were still pretty thick.

Roll into rope and shape , dip into 1/4 cup warm water that has baking soda mixed in.

Bake at 500 degrees for 8 minutes

Brush liberally with melted butter and sprinkle with kosher salt or 2 tablespoons mixed with melted butter and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar or parmesan cheese and garlic salt and serve with marinara sauce.

(pepperpaints.com)