Fun Friday:Crock Pot Cream Cheese Chicken Chili

Life has been so crazy that I am simply going to share the recipe we are having tonight when another family comes over in a bit.

Crock Pot Cream Cheese Chicken Chili

4 chicken breasts

2 cans Rotel tomatoes

1 large can corn undrained

1 can black beans drained and rinsed

1 can red kidney beans drained and rinsed

2 envelopes ranch dressing mix

1 tsp chili powder

2 8 oz pkg cream cheese

Place the uncooked chicken in the bottom of the crock pot. Top with the Rotel, corn, beans, dressing mix, cumin and chili powder. Stir to mix. Top with cream cheese. Cook on low for 4-5 hours stirring occasionally. Shred the chicken before serving. Can serve over rice or baked potato or use as a dip.

Fun Friday: Easy Rolo Treats

We were looking for something to make using what we already had, and we ended up doing a variation of the idea on the back of the Rolo's bag. It listed pretzels, Rolos and pecans. We didn't have pecans, but we had crushed walnuts.

So this is what we did:
Place pretzels on a cookie sheet. We used the square butter snap pretzels.
Put one rolo on top of each pretzel.
Bake at 350F for 3-4 minutes.
Remove from oven and push nuts down on top of soft rolo.

Answer to last week's Brain teaser: All three comments on that post are correct.
1. They are pronounced differently depending on whether they are capitalized or not.
2. They are both common and proper nouns.
3. They have two very different meanings.

Fun Friday: Making Butter Beer (and Keeping it Real!)

Whether or not you are a Harry Potter fan, you can try these two recipes for butter beer (it's not really beer!) for a fun fall drink. One is a hot drink and one is a cold drink. Try both and see which you prefer. And if you figure out how to make the topping for the cold one so it's not lumpy, let me know!



Hot Butter Beer

You need:

• 2 cups milk
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons hot butterscotch topping
• 1 cup cream soda (or you can substitute rootbeer if you prefer)
• large bowl
• whisk

Do this:

1. Combine milk, butter, and brown sugar in a microwaveable bowl. Use a whisk to stir them.
2. Microwave for three minutes.
3. Remove and stir.
4. Microwave again until milk is foaming. About 3-4 minutes.
5. Remove from microwave and add the butter using the whisk. Make sure all the sugar is dissolved and mixed in. 
6. Heat the butterscotch topping for 30 seconds. Add to mixture and use whip to combine.
7. Whisk in one cup of cream soda.
8. You can add sprinkles, ginger, canned whipped cream to your taste.

Even River got in on the hot butter beer

Cold Butter Beer

You Need:
48 ounces Cream Soda
1/4 cup butterscotch syrup
1 cup heavy cream
2 Tbs sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup melted butter
Two bowls
whisk
beater

To Do:
1. Combine cream soda and butterscotch syrup using the whisk in one bowl
2. In the other bowl, use the mixer to beat the heavy cream until peaks appear
3. Fold in the sugar and vanilla.
4. Add the butter and mix.
5. Serve the butter beer with the cream mixture on top.

Just keeping it real --Our cream mixture came out lumpy, and I think we either didn't beat it long enough or it went lumpy when we added the butter. I sprinkled cinnamon on top to hide it :)

We will just  pretend it's supposed to be a lumpy mountain of goo

What is your favorite fall or winter drink? Or soup? Or something festive? Leave me a recipe to try!!

The Real Way to Make Brownie smores

Sometimes something will go around and around on face book. One of those things this week is a video on how to make brownie smores. Our only problem was using a too small of pan so the brownie mix was totally runny at the end of the baking time. We couldn't bake it a lot longer or the marshmallows would have been black. But the kids loved it runny. So here is the real way to make brownie smores--because they left out some important steps :)

Spray the baking pan with cooking spray. We used an 8x8  pan. It was too small. The next size bigger we have is a 9x13 so that's what we'll try next time.

Mix a boxed brownie mix according to the instructions. We used Betty Crocker milk chocolate brownie mix.
*Don't forget to have someone lick the whisk, fork, spoon, bowl or other utensils.

Pour the brownie mix on top the graham crackers.

Top with marshmallows

*Eat all the extra marshmallows so they don't get stale.

Bake at 350F for 25 minutes. Ours was still very runny at 25 minutes, so we baked it another 5. The marshmallows were getting too brown, so we pulled it out. It was still runny, but it was like having chocolate syrup and the kids loved it. All of them together wiped it out. It happened so fast I didn't get pictures! Next time.

Check out my parenting blog for way to make Christmas more stress free HERE. And leave your own suggestions in the comment section. 

What's Cooking?

This month I pulled out an old Campbell Soup cookbook to try new (and easy) recipes with the kids. I started at the beginning of the book, and most of the recipes involved tuna. I don't like tuna, but the rest of the family does.

Jasmine cook several times and Kaleb a couple. Kayla was mostly, well, being Kayla. Sigh.

We also discovered this, which is amazing on graham crackers.

We also had lot of easy food this summer, like mac and cheese and corn dog nuggets.

Jasmine loves all sorts of pasta, so any recipe with noodles stands a chance with her. She is our pickiest eater. She doesn't really like beef. But she does like tuna.

Diet soda cake. You only need these two ingredients. Don't use the water, eggs, oil or anything it says on the box. Simply mix a cake mix with twelve ounces of soda/diet soda. Bake according to the directions. It is more moist than normal cake, so I recommend making a 9x13 cake. Don't frost it. 

Tuna Casserole
1 can (10 ½ oz) condensed cream of celery or chicken soup
½ cup milk
2 cups cooked noodles
1 can (7 oz) tuna, drained and flaked
2 T diced pimiento
2 T chopped parsley
2 T buttered bread crumbs

Blend soup and milk. Add noodles, tuna, pimiento and parsley. Pour into 1 ½ quart casserole. Top with crumbs. Baked at 350F for 30 minutes or until hot and bubbling.

This didn't last long at our house. Good cake/ soda combinations are strawberry mix/cream soda, chocolate mix/sprite, lemon mix/sprite or ginger ale, vanilla or white mix/grape, orange or strawberry, spice or carrot mix/ginger ale, sprite or mountain dew. Some people like chocolate/coke or root beer. I don't think we've tried  that combination.

Kaleb's recipe had noodles. cream of chicken soup, tomatoes and hot dogs. No one really liked it but him, so we didn't add the recipe to our collection.

This recipe was good, but it needs either noodles in it, or it need to be served over some kind of pasta.

Jasmine made ribs in the crock pot using McCormick's slow cookers seasoning pack. Rick pulled the meat off the bones so the kids could put it over rice.

Chicken Pot Pie

1 2/3 cups frozen mixed vegetables, cooked

1 cup cut-up cooked chicken

1 can (10 3/4 oz) condensed cream of chicken soup

1 cup Original Bisquick mix

1/2 cup milk

1 egg

     Heat oven to 400°F. In ungreased 9-inch pie plate, stir vegetables, chicken and soup.

     In medium bowl, stir remaining ingredients until blended. Pour into pie plate.

     Bake uncovered about 30 minutes or until crust golden brown.

Makes 6 servings 

 This is a favorite recipe. Everyone makes his/her own with as much of each ingredient as desired.

Foil Wrapped Taco Chicken

Boneless chicken breast per person

Taco seasoning

Potatoes peeled and thinly sliced (a half of large or whole small per person)

Salsa

Shredded Mexican cheese

Sour cream

Preheat oven 400F. Place serving of potato slices on a large piece of foil for each person. Cut the chicken into strips and put one portion on each foil on top of the potatoes. Sprinkle with taco seasoning. (Per individual taste) Add one tablespoon of salsa and shredded cheese to each. Wrap the foil over the chicken mixture. Place on cookie sheet and bake 30-35 minutes or until the chicken is thoroughly cooked. Release steam and let stand five minutes. Serve with sour cream.

 Jasmine saw coconuts last time we went grocery shopping and wanted to get one. But how to get it open. Love these faces!! This was 5:30 a.m.

relief!

He didn't like it. The girls did. I'm not a coconut fan, although this had little taste. But I do not like artificial coconut at all.

Whew. I think we are caught up on cooking! I  know there were several months I didn't post, but this is what we've made recently.