[Recipe] Blueberry Muffins

I've been wanting blueberry muffins, but not boxed, they didn't sound appealing. So I started the Pinterest search to find the perfect muffin, 5 pins later I picked one that I had all the ingredients for and went for it. And they were great, hubby liked them, little bro liked them & my mom liked them. So we'll flag it as a success.

Here's the recipe.

Ingredients
2/3 cup white sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sour cream (or greek yogurt)
1 cup blueberries (or as many as you feel you need to put in)
White sugar to sprinkle on the top

Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
2. Combine the sugar, egg, oil, milk & vanilla. Mix well.
3. Add the flour, baking powder & salt. Once mixed well with the liquid ingredients, add in the sour cream. Mix and then add the blueberries.
4. Fill in the muffin tins, should make about 8-12 regular sized muffins. Sprinkle sugar over the top if you want it.
5. Bake for 25 mins.

Pressure Cooker Teriyaki Chicken

Okay, one of our wedding gifts was a pressure cooker. Never in my life had I used a pressure cooker or seen one used. But this was one of Greg's requests for our registry so we did it. It's not used much at this point, but I have tried to figure it out, but everytime I do so Greg reminds me how high pressure can explode if not done right. Okay, so I've managed to find 1 recipe that I can do in it & it tastes great. Pretty much 20 minutes & it's ready!

Ingredients:
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup cider vinegar
2 tablespoons ground ginger
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 (20 oz) can crushed pineapple
1 cup chicken stock
2-3 pounds boneless, chicken breast (or thighs)

Directions:

1. Combine brown sugar, soy sauce, cider vinegar, ginger, garlic powder, pepper, crushed pineapple and juice, and chicken stock in a bowl and stir until the brown sugar is dissolved.
2. Place chicken thighs in the pressure cooker and pour in the sauce. Stir gently to coat. Bring the pressure cooker up to high pressure over high heat, then reduce the heat to low, maintaining high pressure. Cook for 20 minutes.
3. Reduce the pressure using the rapid-release method. Let cool and serve the chicken over rice.

Craving Granola

In undergrad I always loved throwing granola on my yogurt, but now it's not conveniently located in the cafeteria or my kitchen. However, I figured I could find a quick recipe to make & have it conveniently located in my kitchen. Thanks for Google, I was able to do that and the first recipe I tried was simple & tasty. Here you go:

Simple Granola
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup canola oil
4 cups old fashioned oats
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees.
2. Combine brown sugar, honey and canola oil in a small sauce pan over medium heat.
3. Cook, stirring often until sugar is dissolved.
4. Pour brown sugar mixture over oats and add cinnamon and salt. Stir until oats are evenly coated.
5. Spread granola mixture over a cookie sheet (sprayed with pam) and press mixture down.
6. Place in oven and bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15-20 minutes.
7. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before breaking apart and into pieces.
8. Store in a ziplock bag or other air tight container.

Iced Coffee

Yep, another recipe. This is for you, but maybe it's more just so I have a quick place to look for recipes I like. Either way, this is worth trying if you like coffee.

When it's warm outside, I'm not a big fan of drinking hot coffee. I'd rather have something cold, but still need my coffee. So I went out searching and found this recipe. It has been approved by my co-workers on the eMarketing team and also by my mom, yes my mom who doesn't like coffee!

Ingredients:
2/3 cups of course ground coffee
3 cups cold water
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:
Place all ingredients in a jar or pitcher, stir, cover & place in the fridge and let set overnight. In the morning, you'll need to strain out the grounds, I typically put the filter in the regular coffee pot and dump it straight into the filter and let it go through (note: don't turn on the coffee pot), it's a slow process but not that bad. You could use a french press if you have it as well.

After straining it, I usually put in back into a pitcher and add milk, add as much milk or cream as you desire for taste. Enjoy!

Recipe: Simple Andes Mint Cookies

Finals are over, so I can bake! I have pinning recipes I have wanted to try on Pinterest for the past couple weeks and final got to try one. I love Andes Mints, so of course this recipe had to be the first I tried, but it called for the mints to be melted on the top, which was a bit annoying and messy so I modified it, here it is:

Ingredients:1 Devil's Food cake mix
1/2 cup of oil
2 eggs
1 package of Andes Mints

Mix the cake mix, oil and eggs. Roll into walnut size ball with half an Andes Mint in the middle. Cook at 350 degrees for 6-9 minutes.

Recipe: Banana Oatmeal Cookies

I decided to make dinner for the family before the last basketball game and had a nice little menu planned. Once I told grandma, it was changed. She preferred banana cookies to banana bread. I had to get her recipe and hoped they turned out well, but fear not they were good so thought I would share it.

Ingredients:1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1 3/4 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup pecans
3/4 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup mashed banana

Instructions:Cream shortening and sugar; add egg and banana. Blend together dry ingredients and add to shortening mixture. Add chopped nuts. Drop by teaspoonful onto cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

Let cool and frost cookies.

Frosting Ingredients:Powder Sugar
Water
Crisco
Maple Flavoring
Vanilla Flavoring
Pinch of Salt

Instructions:Mix all together until is tastes good...no measuring required!

Recipe: Southwest Chicken Wraps & Homemade Oreos

So we had a snow day, which left us all a bit bored because it wasn't a typical snow day like in the states of Iowa, North Dakota and Colorado. However, more to come on that later. But in our boredom Chantel and I went through the recipe book made by Natalie's sisters to make dinner and dessert.

Southwest Chicken Wrap
Ingredients
1 cup rice, cooked
1 cup cooked, shredded chicken (just boil the chicken until it's done & then shred it with a fork)
1 can black beans, rinsed & drained
1 green onion, chopped
1/2 red or green bell peppers
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped
Juice of 1 lime
1/2 T. chili powder
1 t. ground cumin
1/2 t. garlic salt
2 cups shredded cheese
Sour Cream (optional)
6 burrito-sized flour tortillas

Directions
In a large bowl, mix together rice, chili powder, cumin and garlic salt. Add chicken, beans, onion, bell pepper, cilantro and lime juice.

Preheat skillet or griddle to medium heat. Assemble wraps by sprinkling cheese on a tortilla leaving a one-inch margin (it's important to spread the cheese out because as it melts, the cheese holds it all together).

Place generous amount of rice/chicken mixture in the middle. If desired, dot the mixture with sour cream. Tuck in edges and roll up tortilla.Spray the outside of the tortilla with cooking spray and place seam-side down on heated skillet or griddle. Cook until golden brown and crisp, about 2-3 minutes per side.

It was delicious! We didn't add the chicken, so it was vegetarian style. Chantel also cooked the onions and green peppers before mixing them in, it was great!


Homemade Oreos
Ingredients
Cookie
1 Devil's food cake mix
1 stick of butter, melted
1 egg

Cream Cheese Frosting
4 oz. cream cheese
1/4 cup butter
4 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Directions for Cookies
Combine all of the above ingredients into a bowl and mix well. Form into one inch balls and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 8-10 minutes. Cool and frost.

Directions for Frosting
Cream the butter and cream cheese together. Beat in the powdered sugar until smooth. Add vanilla and cream well.

***Special note: Make sure you check the cream cheese box and see how many ounces it is. I didn't check and it turns out a typical cream cheese box is 8 oz., so we have double the amount of frosting sitting in the fridge...ooops!

Recipe: Fudge Puddles

Instead of a weekend of adventures, we stayed in and baked and cooked full meals. And by full I mean they also had dessert. The recipes we used were out of a recipe book Natalie's sisters had put together for her. The fudge puddles were so good I must share. They are very similar to peanut butter cup cookies, but the fudge is so enjoyable with ice cream.

Ingredients:For cookie part:1/2 cup butter softened
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Fudge:1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Stir together flour, baking soda & salt. Cream butter, peanut butter, white & brown sugars. Mix in egg and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla. Stir the flour mixture into creamed mixture. Shape the dough into 48 balls, 1 inch each. Place in mini muffin tin (only about half way up).

Bake dough for 12 to 14 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven & immediately make wells in center of each with a small spoon. Cool in pan for 5 minutes. Then carefully remove to wire racks. Fill each shell with chocolate fudge mixture.

For filling, put chocolate chips in a pan and heat on low until the chocolate melts & thins out. Stir in milk & vanilla as heating, mix well.

***You can also use a large muffin tin, but it will make less and it is almost too much to eat at once! We did some of each and added Tillamook ice cream, it was great!

Peach Dessert

Ashley M. Feldman this is for you and your enjoyment of cooking blogs.

Peach dessert is something my grandma has always made and one of Jodee's favorite desserts. So this this week I got bored (with job searching) and got fresh peaches to make it and then visited Allison for lunch with Jodee and a delivery of dessert to her mom at work. It is very simple to make (Ashley, you should make it) and very tasty.

Crust
1 cup flour
5 Tbsp Powdered Sugar
1/2 cup margarine
Mix above and pat into bottom of 7x13 cake pan
Bake 15 min at 350 degrees

Let crust cool and slice fresh peaches onto the crust

Custard
2 Tbsp Corn Starch
3/4 cup Sugar
1 1/2 cup Water
Boil above 3 ingredients.
Add 1 package peach jello to above and cool.
Pour custard mixture on top of peaches.

Refrigerate until custard is solid

Top with cool whip

**Can use strawberries and strawberry jello instead.