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Strawberry Oreo Truffles
The thermometer went above 90 degrees today, but I had to get in the kitchen to make something for my book club. I opted for oreo truffles for a few reasons. No oven required, for one. Also, I saw the strawberry milkshake flavor. Maybe I was hearing voices, but I could swear I heard a choir of tiny voices singing. I bought them, of course.
I love oreo truffles. They’re so very easy to make, require 3 ingredients, and anyone who tastes one just looks like they’re going to melt on the spot. They make you weak in the knees. They make a soft sigh escape from your lips. Mmmm. I’m not kidding here. I’ve seen it happen. If you haven’t made these yet, you have to try them. Maybe not on a 90 degree day with a broken air conditioner, but soon.
Recipe: Strawberry Oreo Truffles
1 pkg. strawberry milkshake Oreos
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 pkg. dark chocolate candy melts
Crush all the Oreos in the food processor until they are small crumbs. Transfer to a bowl and stir in cream cheese until no white remains. (I find this is really a squishing sort of activity. The back of a big wooden spoon works great.) Roll mixture into small balls and place on a cookie sheet lined with waxed paper. Chill in refrigerator to allow them to firm up slightly.
When you are ready to dip the truffles, melt the candy melts according to package directions. Using a fork, dip each ball into the chocolate, tap off excess, and return to waxed paper. After all truffles have been dipped, return to refrigerator to allow chocolate to set up and harden.
Strawberry Sorbet
We seem to have enjoyed 3 days of Spring around here and headed straight into Summer. The past two days have hit high 80s and it’s definitely Summer weather. And right along with the high temps, I needed a cold Summer treat. This is perfect for a hot day. 4 ingredients. That’s it. And one of them is water, so I don’t even know if you can count that as an ingredient. Very easy to do and you won’t be disappointed. This is amazing. So cold and light and completely refreshing. And the color! Wow. It is the most vibrant red you can imagine. It isn’t strawberry season yet in PA, so I used frozen strawberries. I don’t think you would ever guess though. This tastes like Summer. I will be making this all summer long and I can’t wait to try other flavors. I’ll let you know how they turn out.
Recipe: Strawberry Sorbet
(from Joy of Baking)
2/3 c. water
2/3 c. granulated sugar
5 c. or 2 lbs. fresh or frozen, unsweetened strawberries (thawed if frozen)
2 Tbsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice
Place the sugar and water in a small saucepan, over low heat, and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved, about 3-5 minutes. Boil the mixture for 1 minute, then remove from heat. Pour the sugar syrup into a heatproof container and place in the refrigerator until completely chilled.
Place the strawberries in a food processor and pulse until strawberries are pureed. If using frozen berries, be sure they are thawed prior to this step. Transfer to a large bowl and add lemon juice. Refrigerate until the berries are thoroughly chilled.
Once the simple syrup and pureed strawberries are chilled, combine the mixtures. Pour into a stainless steel bowl or pan and place in freezer. When sorbet is completely frozen (in 3-4 hours), remove from freezer and let stand at room temperature until partially thawed. Transfer sorbet to food processor and process to break up the large ice crystals that have formed in the sorbet. This will give sorbet a fluffy texture. Place sorbet back in container and refreeze.
Carrot Pineapple Muffin
This is really a pretty healthy muffin recipe – carrots, pineapple, applesauce and wheat flour. And it tastes really good too. I found the original recipe at Sugar Duchess. She made two loaves of bread with it, but I wanted single servings that could be frozen too, so I made muffins instead. I made a few changes to the original recipe, but the basics are the same. I’m happy with how the muffins turned out. I admit I ate two of them while I was trying to get a picture. Sugar Duchess says she loved the bread even more on day 2, so I’m looking forward to having one for breakfast tomorrow.
Recipe: Carrot Pineapple Bread
(muffins adapted from Sugar Duchess)
3 cups all-purpose flour (I used 1 c. whole wheat flour, 2 Tbsp. soy flour, and remaining was all-purpose flour)
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
2 cups shredded carrots
1 cup vegetable oil (I used 1 c. unsweetened applesauce)
1 can (8 oz) crushed pineapple, drained
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)
(I sprinkled a little cane sugar on top of my muffins before baking them.)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease two loaf pans (or two muffin pans). In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. In another bowl, beat the eggs; add carrots, oil (or applesauce), pineapple, and vanilla. Stir into the dry ingredients just until moistened. The batter will be quite thick. Fold in nuts, if desired.
Spoon into loaf pans (or muffin tins). Bake bread for 50-70 minutes (and muffins for 16-18 minutes) or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from baking pans and cool completely on wire racks.
One of the many little green changes I’ve made in our household is that I’ve stopped buying plastic straws. I’ve also tried to stop using them when we go out, which isn’t really so hard since we rarely go out to eat. The kids do miss them when they have chocolate milk and I like to have a straw when I make smoothies or iced coffees, but I just can’t justify buying them just to toss them in the garbage after a few minutes.
So I have made a happy discovery. There’s a company who is in the business of making glass straws and I am almost giddy over the fact that they have sent me a free straw! This is a limited offer for the month of April so I wanted to spread the word. If you visit Glass Dharma and click on “free straw” you can get in on the action. I ended up actually spending $3 when it was all said and done, but that’s okay with me. I really want to try this and if I like it, we are definitely going to be investing in more.
Here are a few reasons why Dharma Glass recommends using a glass straw instead of a plastic one:
- Glass straws don’t leach toxins into your food as you drink.
- Each time you use your glass straw equals one less plastic straw ending up in your landfill.
- One glass straw replaces thousands of plastic straws. (How many times will you use a straw the rest of your life?)
- Using your glass drinking straw adds a feeling of beauty to your day. (I love that one!)
These straws are super strong, dishwasher safe, are good for hot and cold beverages, come with a lifetime guarantee against breakage, and a 100% satisfaction guarantee. How can you possibly go wrong with all that? It’s worth a try, in my opinion. So I hope you check it out.
I think I’ve had monkeys on the brain lately. Yes. Monkeys. Let me share a conversation Claudia and I had the other night while she was getting ready for bed.
Me – You know who I haven’t seen in a while?
Claudia – Who?
Me – Curious George.
Claudia – You mean the movie or the tv show?
Me – No, I mean your Curious George.
Claudia – I’m Curious George?
Me – No, your Curious George.
Claudia – I’m Curious George?
Me – No. Your Curious George.
Claudia – You mean you think I’m curious?
Me – No. I mean your Curious George doll!
Claudia – Oh.
Me and Claudia – hysterical laughter.
She is such a goof ball. I felt like I was in the middle of a comedy sketch. I wouldn’t have even blinked if she’d asked me “Who’s on first?” Anyway. Monkeys. See the connection?
So I had my head full of chocolate and bananas and looked around for a recipe that would use both. I toyed with making monkey bread, but since we don’t have extra time to enjoy breakfast together during the week, I moved on to a dessert. Though, oddly enough, Ingrid over at 3 B’s just posted about her monkey bread muffins and they look really good. Great minds.
I found this very, very easy no-bake recipe at Group Recipes. One of my favorite cookies growing up was Nutter Butters and, lo and behold, this recipe has a Nutter Butter crust. I whipped it up in no time and it was in the fridge waiting to be eaten when everyone got home. I even told the kids we were calling it Monkey Pie.
Would you believe that neither of them would eat it?? Oh my gosh, there were bananas in the bottom of it! Now both of my kids eat bananas. They really do. I buy them on every grocery trip and they complain if I forget. But put a banana into a baked good and forget it. They won’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. I get Sam’s weirdness. He has banana aroma issues that go way back to getting into Bea’s van once when a banana had been left inside and gotten ripe. He’s been freakish about the smell ever since and it took him a good two years to want to ride in her car again. I am not exaggerating. But Claudia? I can’t figure out why she refuses to eat anything that has bananas in it. My kids are so weird. I guess next time I’ll have to leave the bananas out.
Chocolate Nutter Butter Pie (aka Monkey Pie)
Recipe: Chocolate Nutter Butter Pie
18 Nutter Butter sandwich cookies, crushed
3 Tbsp. butter, melted
2 medium bananas, thinly sliced
2 c. cold milk
2 pkg. (4-serving size) instant chocolate pudding
1 1/2 c. thawed Cool Whip, divided
Put cookies into your food processor and pulse until crumbed. Mix with butter. Press firmly onto bottom and up sides of a 9″ pie plate. Place sliced bananas on the bottom of crust to cover.
Add milk to dry pudding mixes and whisk for 2 minutes until thickened. Gently stir in 1 c. of Cool Whip until no white streaks remain. Spoon over banana slices. Top with remaining Cool Whip. You can also crush up 2 more cookies to sprinkle over the top.
Refrigerate at least 4 hours before serving. Store leftover pie in the refrigerator.
I found this fun idea at Creative Kids at Home and thought it’d be a fun project for Claudia and me to work on while Sam was at school. I saved two days worth of used coffee grounds and we collected little things from around the house to use as treasures. We had some army men, marbles, rocks, and various small toys that have somehow shown up in their toy boxes. When we had everything ready, we went out to the deck to create. Claudia had a blast. She definitely enjoyed mixing the concoction up the most, and she continued to find other “ingredients” that needed mixed with water long after the treasure balls were finished.
While she continued to mix and measure, I popped a cookie sheet full of treasure balls into the oven to dry. They didn’t dry throughout, but the original instructions say that they’ll become rock-hard if allowed to dry for too long, so we only kept them in the oven for 30 minutes at 170 degrees. (The original post called for a shorter time at a lower temperature, but I found that this worked well for us.)
By the time Sam and his friends got home from school, they all had treasure balls to crack open in the sand box. I think the boys enjoyed that more than Claudia did. She had her fun in the mixing and creating part, but wasn’t terribly interested in the finished product.
“Recipe:” Treasure Balls
1 c. used coffee grounds
1 c. flour
1/2 c. salt
1/4 c. sand
3/4 c. water
Put the dry ingredients in a large bowl and stir until blended. Slowly add water until the mixture can be kneaded. It should be the consistency of bread dough. If mixture is too wet, add more flour. Break off a piece and shape into a ball. Press your thumb into the center to make a dent; put your treasure in and cover it with the dough.
Treasure balls can air dry for 2-3 days. Rotate occasionally. You can also place treasure balls on a cookie sheet and bake in a 170 degree oven for 20-30 minutes or until dried evenly.
Chocolate Frozen Yogurt
After discovering that it’s possible to make ice cream without an ice cream maker, I’ve been seeing all these great recipes for ice cream all over the place. I figured if I could do it with ice cream, why not frozen yogurt? Chocolate is a good place to start around here. None of us is going to say no to something chocolaty, so I found this recipe and went to town.
Truly, it is so easy to do this. Why did I not know it before? I keep imagining all the flavor combinations I can create. I think this one would be great with candy pieces or some chopped cherries. Or what about a swirl of marshmallow fluff? Or banana pieces and chopped walnuts? See what I mean?
If you don’t have an ice cream machine, head to David Lebovitz’s blog to get excellent instructions on how to make it using your hand mixer instead.
Recipe: Chocolate Frozen Yogurt
3/4 c. granulated sugar
2 tsp. cornstarch
1 can (12 oz.) fat-free evaporated milk
1/2 c. semisweet chocolate chips
1 c. plain lowfat yogurt (I used lowfat vanilla yogurt.)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Stir together cornstarch and sugar in a saucepan. Stir in evaporated milk and chocolate chips. Cook over medium heat until chocolate is melted and mixture has thickened slightly. Stir constantly to prevent burning.
Remove from heat and add yogurt and vanilla. Refrigerate until chilled.
Pour mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s directions. (Or follow the link above to make it without an ice cream maker, like I did.)
We had a couple of gorgeous days here and it was finally the perfect time to get our hands dirty. The kids helped choose some of the things we planted. They each got a strawberry plant and Claudia wanted to grow a bean stalk, so we planted some green bean seeds. Also in there is sweet basil, marigolds (just because they remind me of our grandpa), sugar snap peas, and garden onions. The kitchen window is right above the peas and beans, so when they need to climb we can attach a string from the window for them. Three kinds of tomato plants are on the other side of the deck. We only planted a bit of seed in each container, so they’d have enough room, but we’re happy with how it turned out. It looks bright and fun from the sunroom and the bunnies can’t get to it on the deck, so we should be the only ones eating our little harvest. I just hope it all grows!
Yes, I know I used plastic containers for this, even after I went through all that about cutting down on the plastic. But I thought that at the very least, all of these containers would or could be reused and enjoyed in the sandbox or on the beach if the garden didn’t work out.
Here are a couple other fun gardening ideas:
- Check out this adorable idea for tipsy pots.
- You’ve seen those infomercials for a watering system for your plants? Here is a quick way to make your own drip irrigation system by recycling your soda and water bottles.
- I love this creative herb garden!
- Finally, if you can’t grow your own food, visit Local Harvest to find out where to buy fresh produce locally.
Mini Tie-Dyed Cheesecake
Apparently, there’s a resort at Disney that makes a mean tie-dyed cheesecake. I found a knock-off recipe for it at Slashfood, but this is my version. Same basic cheesecake filling, but with a vanilla wafer crust and sour cream topping. And in miniature. Not too mini though. You still feel fully happy that you’ve had a real piece of cheesecake when you’re done.
But look at those colors! Every cheesecake is different. Different swirls and layers. But all bright and colorful and fun, fun, fun. I used Betty Crocker neon food gels for coloring the cheesecake. This particular one looks more layered than tie-dyed, but I still like it. Wouldn’t it be great to show up at a party with a tie-dyed cheesecake? People would go crazy. Or a red and green one for Christmas? Just too many possibilities. I love it.
Recipe: Tie Dyed Cheesecake
(adapted from Slashfood)
Cookie Crust:
3/4 c. vanilla wafers, crushed into fine crumbs in food processor
2 Tbsp. granulated sugar
2 – 2 1/2 Tbsp. melted butter (enough to bring cookie crumbs and sugar together)
Cheesecake Filling:
16 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. almond extract
2 large eggs
1/4 c. sour cream
food coloring
Sour Cream Topping:
1/2 c. sour cream
4 tsp. granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
Line muffin tin with paper liners. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine cookie crumbs and sugar and add enough melted butter to bring mixture together. Press a spoonful into the bottom of each muffin liner. Bake for 5-6 minutes or until just golden. Remove from oven to cool while you make the filling.
Beat cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and almond extract until smooth. Add eggs one at a time. Add sour cream. Divide filling into 4 bowls and add desired amount of food coloring to each bowl to give you 4 different colors of batter. Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie crust in muffin liners. You can use a toothpick to swirl the colors together or just leave them in dollops. Do not overswirl or the colors will combine. Tap the tin on the countertop to make sure the filling spreads to the sides. Return to 350 degree oven and bake until center is almost set but still jiggling a little. Start checking at 15 minutes. They will bake between 15-20 minutes, depending on the size of your muffin tin and varying oven temps.
Combine sour cream, sugar, and vanilla extract in a small bowl. Spread over surface of warm cheesecakes and return to oven for about 5-6 minutes. Cool on wire rack. Chill.
