Homemade Mac and Cheese

TEST #18

Homemade Mac and Cheese

Carlee and I decided to throw together some homemade mac and cheese. I usually don't cook with noodles, not a big pasta lover, or cheese, not a big cheese lover. But! I am trying to get myself to try new things.. so it began. 
We decided to double the recipe. Then we realized we didn't have 4 cups of the same pasta.. So we mixed shells with another kind of noodle... (FIRST PROBLEM). Then we added the milk and simmered the ingredients. We took 11 minutes off the time from this recipe and the noodles were STILL over cooked. Kinda bummed. Who likes squishy noodles? Gross! For those texture freaks, you know what I'm talkin' about. *Cough Carlee*
Then we shredded the cheese and added the the salt and Dijon mustard. At this point, it was gross tasting. I Mean, besides the noodles being over cooked, it was still gross! So we decided to spice it up with some cayenne pepper.. It definitely helped. But it was still missing something. It just didn't have a FLAVOR! We also added nutmeg and pepper and it just wasn't cuttin' it. I ate about four bites and was done with that soggy, flavorless mushy mac and cheese. Definitely a learning experience.

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FAIL!

Soft Caramel Popcorn

TEST #17

Soft Caramel Popcorn

1 C. Brown Sugar
1 Cube Butter
1 C. Light Karo Syrup
1 Can Sweetened Condensed Milk

Melt all ingredients in a sauce pan over medium-low heat. Once caramel is boiling, cook for approximately two minutes stirring constantly.  Pour over popcorn immediately. (This recipe will cover about three bags of popcorn.)

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SUCCESS!

Homemade Egg Rolls

TEST #16

Homemade Egg Rolls!

This recipe is from one of my old friends Kianna who is currently serving a mission!
She invited me over one night when she made these egg rolls and, let me tell you... They are DELICIOUS!

This is one of those "throw it together" recipes. So for the sake of this being a blog, I made these again and measured out how much of what ingredients I used so that you could know the measurements.

But for now.....
Cube chicken 

Cook in a sauce pan with 1 1/2 c teriyaki sauce, 1 TBSP Soy sauce, 2 large cloves of garlic, 1 1/2 tsp fresh ginger root, and 1 c. brown sugar.

I used this Kikkoman Teriyaki Marinade & Sauce but I recommend an actual teriyaki sauce, not anything like a Marinade. If you do use a sauce, you only need to add about 1/4 c. of the brown sugar. But if you are using a marinade, it usually is more salty so you will need more sugar!

Mix and let the chicken cook in the yummy sauce!

Cut up broccoli. 

Put in garlic, soy sauce, and ginger.

Steam it until soft.

(I also cut up baby carrots and steamed them as well! )

Take them both and wrap them in the egg roll wrappers.
(I made homemade egg roll wrappers, so my wrappers are more circle shaped, but usually they are square if you buy them from the store.)

Take your egg roll wrapper and add a scoop of chicken to the center. (about 2 TBSP's of chicken) 

Then add a little spoonful of steamed broccoli

Then add a few pieces of steamed carrots

Roll wrapper and deep fry in 3/4" of oil. Drain on paper towel!

Enjoy!

(my own) SUCCESS!

Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting

TEST #15

Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting

This is my favorite cream cheese frosting recipe! It turns out perfect each time I make it. This recipe will definitely make it into my cook book :)

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SUCCESS!

Easy "Calzone Rolls" also known as Pizza Rolls!

TEST #14

Easy "Calzone Rolls" also known as Pizza Rolls!

I was excited when I saw this recipe because I used to work at Papa Johns and for a period of time they advertised "Pizza Rolls" and they were so fun to make! So when I came across this recipe I was very excited!  This calls for only few ingredients and tastes delicious! You take 2 loaves of frozen bread dough, thawed. (My favorite to use is Rhodes Bread Loaves.) Once you have the bread thawed, just roll it out until its about 1/3 inch thick.  Top with cheese and other favorite toppings. (Keep it limited to about two or else they will be harder to roll.) And then roll from top to bottom. Cut. (I like to cut dough with dental floss.) And place in sprayed pan and cook! Delicious! We used to sneak these into the library during finals week so that we could eat while we studied! Wonderful dinner idea!

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SUCCESS!

Homemade Sweet and Sour Sauce

TEST #13

Homemade Sweet and Sour Sauce

This sweet and sour sauce turned out a little differently than I expected but it is very delicious! It adds just the perfect touch to chicken, pork, or egg rolls! Would definitely make this recipe again! 

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SUCCESS!

Tater Tot Casserole

TEST #12

Tater Tot Casserole!

This meal is something that I've grown up having quite often. 
This is a super quick and easy meal to make and throw in the oven. All of the family loves it and it always gets eaten up! Yum!

Picture from here

SUCCESS!

Easy Homemade Bread Sticks

TEST #11

Easy Homemade Bread sticks

This recipe is just as it sounds...EASY! I was excited to make pasta for dinner one night.. and what goes better with pasta than bread sticks? So I went to Pinterest to begin my search for the easiest, fastest, tastiest bread sticks. No super long rising times, or long waiting. Only rising for 15 minutes and cooking for another 15 minutes and they turned out great! :) Will definitely make these again!!

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SUCCESS!

Chicken, Potato and Carrot Crock Pot Dinner

POST #10

Chicken, Potato and Carrot Crock Pot!

My sister was asking me if I'd post a recipe for a crock pot meal. So here it is! My favorite Sunday dinner meal. Quick, easy and delicious!

2 cans of Cream of Chicken Soup
3 cups of water
Whisk together in bottom of crock pot.
Add 3 chicken breasts, cut in halfs.
Salt Chicken
Peel 10 potatoes.
Cut potatoes into half's and add to crock pot.
Add 1/4-1/2 bag of baby carrots on top.
Cook on low for 6-7 hours.


Definitely a SUCCESS

Double Crunchy Honey Garlic Chicken

TEST #5

Double Crunchy Honey Garlic Chicken

DELICIOUS! This meal was so great! One thing that I would make sure to do next time is just flatten the chicken a little more so that the chicken would cook at the same rate as the crunchy outside. This chicken was full of flavor and had many different tastes in it! My younger siblings didn't enjoy is as much because it had too many tastes, but I enjoyed it a lot! 

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SUCCESS!

Crispy Baked French Toast

TEST #4

Crispy Baked French Toast

This was a hit! I made it one morning for my family and I really enjoyed this breakfast!  It was extra crunchy, yet still soft in the middle. We added butter and powdered sugar and gobbled this right up! 
On the downside, it is faster to just make normal french toast, but it worth every extra minute of cooking!

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SUCCESS!

Quick and Easy Blender Salsa!

TEST #3

Quick and Easy Blender Salsa!

This recipe was exactly as the title describes.. Quick...and...Easy... And that's exactly how it tasted...
This is a great recipe to whip up to add a nice touch to top off a meal. Enchiladas, beans, taco, or nachos perhaps? This recipe was great, but its not a recipe that I would make to JUST eat with chips, but nonetheless, I'd say it was tasty!

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SUCCESS!

Disneyland Dole Whips!

TEST #2

Dole Whips!

I was so excited to make this recipe! I've been to Disneyland many, many times, and I can only remember 2 times that I left without treating myself to a dole whip...AND I still regret it!   I found this recipe and decided to give it a try! It took a while, because you have to time it out perfectly to get the desired results, but it turned out alright. I'd rate this recipe a 3.9/5. I used the can pineapple, just as listed, except I didn't really like how in the end you could feel the pineapple slivers. That's the one thing about pineapple that I don't like, so I had a hard time enjoying it 100% knowing that I could have just gone to Disneyland and purchased another one.....nah, just kidding. My homemade whip was good and gave me the same taste as Disneyland, just with the little annoying pineapple slivers. But it was sure yummyyy!!

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SUCCESS!

Watermelon and Strawberry Lemonade

TEST #1

Watermelon and Strawberry Lemonade

I was very excited to make this. It's summer, and who doesn't want a mouth watering, fresh fruit, homemade lemonade! This lemonade was good. I don't think the watermelon that I used was sweet enough because my lemonade wasn't TOO sweet, I probably couldn't have adjusted the recipe and added more sugar, but I wanted to try the recipe just as it was written. I decided to also use the left overs and put them into mini ice molds so that I could just pop them in my mouth whenever I wanted a sweet treat. Unfortunately that was a fail. I don't recommend doing that with this recipe. The watermelon definitely adds a different texture to your lemonade, but nonetheless, I would make this again.

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SUCCESS!