Mummy Dogs

Happy Halloween!! I hope that your kids aren't all hopped up on sugar and that you still have some sanity left! And for those of you who don't have kids yet...I hope you enjoy passing out candy to other people's kids so they can get all hopped up! If you need a tasty and non sugary filler for your tummies, then here is a tasty and mummy-tastic (don't hate me for my bad attempts at humor!) treat!

Ingredients...

No Picture, sorry!

Like you need a picture anyways...there's only three ingredients!

...Hot Dogs
...one tube Crescent Rolls
...Ketchup, Mustard, Relish, etc.

Directions...

Wrap hot dogs in crescent rolls to create a mummy "head wrap" and mummy "body" on the hot dog. Bake at 375 for 12-14 minutes. Decorate with condiments. Eat. Follow up with candy in the true spirit of Halloween.

Caramel Corn

Mmmm! Caramel corn! I've never homemade it before, but I ate it homemade as a kid and loved it! So when I stumbled upon a recipe this week I knew I just had to try it in celebration of Halloween week! It just seems to be a fall food to me for some reason! So, if you think that your kids aren't going to get enough candy and sugar tomorrow night, you should whip up a warm batch of this for them to munch on before they go out trick or treating!

Ingredients...

...5 quarts popped, plain popcorn (this equals to about 3 bags of microwave or 1/2 cup unpopped kernels)
...1/2 cup butter
...2 cups brown sugar
...1/2 cup corn syrup
...1 tsp. salt
...1/2 tsp. baking soda
...1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions...

Pop popcorn and place in two 9x13 inch pans. In a medium saucepan, melt butter. Once melted, stir in brown sugar, corn syrup and salt. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Once the mixture starts boiling, let boil for 4 minutes, without stirring. Remove from heat and stir in baking soda and vanilla. Pour in a steady, thin stream over the popcorn. Stir to coat popcorn. Place in preheated oven at 250 for 30-45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Let cool and then break up and store in an airtight container.

Healthy Pumpkin Pie Muffins

One of the things I love about this time of year is getting to do so much baking with pumpkin. It's just so warm and inviting! And it makes my house smell a.maz.ing. which means I don't have to buy any special fall scented air fresheners. Soooo...I decided instead of filling up on calorific pumpkin pie and other such deliciousness, I would give my ever growing baby belly a healthier, less caloried up, option. So I found a basic healthy pumpkin muffin recipe, made some tweaks here and there and came up with this! Besides...I'll have enough calorie and fat watching with being pregnant through the holiday season (oh Lord, help me...), I figured I wouldn't need to start worrying about that now. Plus...I wanted something kind of healthy to make up for Halloween this coming weekend....*looks nervously around*

Ingredients...

...1 1/2 cups plus 1 T. flour
...1 1/3 cups white sugar
...1/2 tsp. baking powder
...1/2 tsp. baking soda
...1/2 tsp. salt
...1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
...1/2 tsp. cinnamon
...1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
...2 eggs
...1/2 (of a 15 oz.) can of pumpkin puree
...1/3 cup vanilla yogurt (plain will work as well. or unsweetened applesauce.)

Directions...

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice. In a seperate, smaller bowl, combine eggs, pumpkin puree and yogurt until smooth. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until well combined and a batter is formed. Grease 12 muffin cups and fill each cup halfway with muffin batter. Bake in preheated oven at 350 for 20 minutes or until golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

This recipe makes 18 muffins

To see other great breakfast recipe ideas to kick start your day, check out the Ultimate Recipe Swap over at Life as Mom.

Garlic-y Roasted Potatoes

I like to make my own potato something to go with our meals rather than purchasing bagged french fries from the grocery store. I've tried many recipes, sometimes getting frustrated because they don't turn out right and sometimes rejoicing in how tasty the recipe comes out. I really enjoy making roasted potoates. I have only really made them a time or two before, this is my first "real" roasted potato recipe. Don't judge. The only thing that I always worry about when making potato something's in the oven is how the potatoes cook. Slice them too thin and you'll have burnt potatoes. Slice them too thick and you'll be eating potatoes that are crunchy and cold in the middle. But, this recipe came out perfect! The potatoes were cooked perfectly through, the spices were right on and they went great with my burgers that I made that same night for supper.

Ingredients...

...4 large potatoes (not peeled. ignore the peeled potato. it was a blonde moment on my part.) washed.
...2 T. olive oil
...1 tsp. salt
...1/2 tsp. pepper
...1/2 tsp. garlic powder

Directions...

Cut potatoes into 1 inch chunks. Toss in a large bowl with remaining ingredients until potato chunks are evenly coated in oil and seasonings. Place on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake at 450 for 20 minutes.

Sour Cream Burgers

This only looks like your typical ham(cheese?)burger. The taste...is out of this world. My usual burger recipe is similar to this. Only sort of though. So I guess that makes it not really similar at all....anyways, I digress. This burger is so moist, flavorful and just delish! Hubs gave his stamp of approval, but I think he just wants me to go back to my "regular" recipe. I'll have to share that with you all the next time I make it. And then you can decide. Because that's just how cool I think you all are :)

Ingredients...

...1 lb. ground meat
...1/2 cup sour cream
...1 (1 oz.) packet dry onion soup mix
...1/2 cup bread crumbs

Directions...

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients until mixture is well combined. Form patties and cook in skillet, or your grill, until burger is no longer pink. If cheese is desired, add in the last few minutes of cooking to enable melting.

Grandma's BBQ Biscuits

My grandma frequently made this recipe. It's simple and sooo kid friendly! There are two ways to go about making this dish. You can either use bottled barbecue sauce or you can make your own barbecue sauce of sorts. I am going to include both variations, but in this case, I used bottle barbecue sauce. Mostly because I have about 20 bottles in my stockpile. So it just made sense to use that. But seriously? The homemade version is waaayy better. Also. Sorry about the excess of main dish recipes lately. While I was on my blogging hiatus, I only photographed the main dishes that I made (and just so you know, I made more than 3 or 4 main dishes while I was away, these were just the ones that I remembered to whip out my camera for). I did bake up a lot of deliciousness while I was on my break as well, I just didn't get photos. So now that I'm feeling better on a day by day basis I will hopefully be baking and cooking more and be getting more photos!

Ingredients...

...1 lb ground beef
...1/4 cup chopped onion
...1 tube refrigerator biscuits
...Shredded cheese
...BBQ Sauce OR...

(ingredients for homemade version of BBQ sauce)
...1 cup tomato sauce or ketchup
...1 T. brown sugar
...1 tsp. prepared yellow mustard
...1/2 tsp. salt
...1/8 tsp. pepper

Directions...

In a skillet, brown ground meat with onion. Stir in BBQ Sauce, or ingredients for the homemade version. Simmer for 5 minutes. In an ungreased muffin tin, place one unbaked refrigerated biscuit in each muffin cup, pressing dough up the sides of the muffin cup. Spoon meat mixture into the cups. Bake at 400 for 10-15 minutes. Sprinkle each cup with cheese and bake until cheese melts.

Spiral Pepperoni Pizza Bake

This. is. amazing. Not even kidding you, I loooovvveeeedddd it! This was a big 'ol serving of pizza in a dish. Minus the crust. You just must simply try it. Tonight. Eh, why wait. Try it right. now. This was a Taste of Home recipe from one of the 2007 issues, and I made just a few of my own tweaks, as I do with every recipe I make.

Ingredients...

...1 pkg. (16 oz.) Rotini (or spiral) pasta

...1 lb. ground meat

...1 onion, chopped

...1 tsp. salt

...1/2 tsp. pepper

...1 jar pasta or pizza sauce (about 15/16 oz.)

...1/2 tsp. garlic salt

...1/2 tsp. italian seasoning

...2 eggs

...2 cups milk

...1/2 cup parmesan cheese (not pictured)

...16 oz. shredded cheese

...sliced pepperoni

Directions...

Cook pasta according to package directions. Meanwhile, brown ground meat and onion in a skillet. When meat is no longer pink, drain. In a medium bowl, stir together eggs, milk and parmesan cheese. Add in pizza sauce, garlic salt, salt, pepper, italian seasoning, cooked pasta and ground meat/onion mixture. Spread into a 3 quart oven safe casserole dish. Cover top of casserole with pepperoni, overlapping each pepperoni slightly. Top pepperoni with shredded cheese. Cover casserole dish with aluminum foil and bake at 350 for 25 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 20 minutes.

Tator Tot Casserole

Hubs decided at our most recent Aldi trip that he wanted tator tots in the worst way. So I gave in and got some for him (not that they cost all that much there anyways...). Well, I soon decided that tator tot casserole was my true hearts desire, so I used hubs' tator tots to make casserole. And by the way, he is still bugging me to replace that bag so he has tator tots to eat! Anyways, it was delicious! Just as delicious as I was hoping!

Ingredients...

...1 bag tator tots
...1 lb. ground meat
...1 can carrots
...1 can green beans
...1 can cream of mushroom soup
...1 can cream of chicken soup
...3 T. minced onion

Directions...

Brown ground beef with onion. In a large bowl, stir together carrots, green beans, mushroom soup, chicken soup and browned meat. Spread into a well greased 9x13 pan. Top with tator tots. Bake at 350 for 1 1/2 hours .

To see more delicious recipes, check out Ultimate Recipe Swap over at Life as Mom!

An Explanation...

Hellllooooo alll!! Oh how I have missed you! And sharing my yummy recipes! But if you would all like an explanation as to my unexplained and unplanned for absence, head on over to my other blog for the whole explanation! And just keep your eyes peeled, tomorrow starts a countdown of some of the main dishes I've made and remembered to get photo's of while I was on break!