Tag: foodie

Rice Krispie Treat Monsters

by kaella, posted in Food and Recipes, Uncategorized

Fun Halloween Rice Krispies Treatsfor Kids

For my brother’s memorial BBQ, my mom is always looking for something that Danyella and the couple of other girls her age can do to keep them busy while the adult talk and watch the football game. This year we found some fun Halloween games at Target. At Walmart, we came across Rice Krispies Treat Monsters that I figured the kids could decorate them and it would add to the dessert table.

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Looking at the box, everything was basically included but to make it easier on the kids and less mess for the parents, we opted to get the bottles of pre-made, pre-colored frosting instead of making the frosting from scratch with the stuff from the box. Also, we decided to get 2 boxes to make sure there was enough for all the kids to participate in the decorating fun.

Inside the box, there is Rice Krispies, marshmallows, a mold for the monsters, mix for the frosting, coloring for the frosting, bags for the frosting and brown sprinkles. The mold that is included in the box could make a mummy, Frankenstein or a vampire. I had Halloween cookie cutters in a coffin and pumpkin so it added to the variety. ‘

Making Rice Krispies Treats are pretty simple with the cereal, marshmallows and butter. I made those and molded them the morning of the BBQ so they had time to harden as the mold for the kids to decorate. Between the molds and cutters, the 2 boxes made 20 different Halloween figures. One tip is to make sure you spray the molds with PAM spray before you put the Rice Krispies in them so they come out with ease.

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Time for decorating….

The girls had a blast decorating their monsters, pumpkins and coffins! The only downfall was that we were in a heat wave (90+ degrees at the end of September), so the frosting was a little to liquid-y for stay on the monsters. The frosting was basically running off and into the nooks and crannies of the treats. Despite the frosting downfall, they came out super cute and we have to admire the creativity of a few 9 and 10-year-old girls.

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**This is not a paid or sponsored post but just my purchase and opinion of the item I feature in this post.

 

Crockpot Buffalo and BBQ Wings for Sunday Games #feedmefriday

by kaella, posted in Food and Recipes, Uncategorized

Crockpot Buffalo and BBQ Wing RecipeThis past Sunday was my brother’s annual memorial cookout and the big Eagles/Giants game! Since most of us were going to be inside watching the game and yelling at the tv like the players can hear us from an hour away… yes I am one of those crazy Eagles fans that think they can hear me from my couch, I decided to contribute wings to the food lineup of the day. I am not one to eat hot wings so I had to consult my boyfriend on what kinda hot sauce to get and was told ONLY FRANKS!  So it was buffalo wings and barbeque wings for the win!

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The way I make my wings is a step process but worth it because the meat just falls off the bone, super moist and just delicious. I received rave reviews for my wings and the hot wings were gone very fast! I start off by frying the wings in just a little oil, enough to crisp the skin. Then, I bake them for 10 minutes before setting them in my crockpot for 3 hours or an hour until I am ready to serve them up. At the hour to go mark, I take the wings out, place them on a pan, brush them with butter and bake for another 10-15 minutes. This is the key part to create the delicious skin. Then back into the crockpot they go to soak up the sauce and become the wings everyone wants!

Can I just say thank goodness for my toaster convection oven! Again my stove decided to stop working part way through this process so there I was baking the wings in my little toaster convection oven but an oven is oven and worked amazingly!

Crockpot Buffalo and BBQ Wings

  • Servings: 4-6
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print


Credit: mogulmomartisan.com

Ingredients

    Buffalo Wings
  • 4 pound bag of wings
  • 1 bottle of Frank’s Buffalo Sauce
  • 1 teaspoon Garlic Powder
  • 1 teaspoon Onion Powder
  • 2 tablespoons of melted butter
  • oil for frying
    • Barbecue Wings
  • 4 pound bag of wings
  • 1 bottle of barbecue sauce (18 oz or larger)
  • 2 tablespoons of melted butter
  • oil for frying

Directions

    Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
  1. In the crockpot add the sauce. (For the Buffalo wings add the teaspoons of garlic and onion powders and mix well.) Set the crockpot on high and stir occasionally while you work on the wings.
  2. Fry the wing pieces in the oil until just browned.
  3. Bake the wing pieces for 10 minutes.
  4. Add the wings to the crockpot and mix until the pieces are coated with the sauce.
  5. Cook for 3 hours or until an hour before you are ready to serve.
  6. At the hour to go mark, take the wings out of the crockpot, place them on baking sheets, brush with the melted butter and bake for 10-15 minutes or until skin is crispy.
  7. Place the wings back into the crockpot, place the crockpot on low and get ready to serve! You can garnish with celery, blue cheese dressing or ranch dressing.

Filled French Toast Roll Ups #feedmefriday

by kaella, posted in Food and Recipes, Uncategorized

Filled French Toast Roll Up

In our family, breakfast can be eaten anytime of the day… or night. We love our breakfast foods but right now I cannot eat eggs ie omeletes, over easy etc so we opted to find a different recipe to make for Feed Me Friday and I found French Toast Roll Ups by This Grandma is Fun

This recipe seemed easy, fun and most of all YUMMY! I checked what we had and what we needed. Danyella doesn’t like Nutella but I love Nutella so I grabbed cool little to go packs so I can use the rest of them for my lunches for school. I bought bananas and bread since we had jelly in the fridge.

So here we go…. I got everything out that we needed. For Danyella it was 2 Raspberry with banana chunks and 2 Strawberry with banana chunks. For me it was 4 Nutella with banana chunks (wish I bought strawberries).

I cut the crust off and rolled out the slices of bread to flatten them…

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Then I put a layer of jelly or nutella (my tip here is that the recipe says to just do a strip in the middle but I did 3/4 of the bread so when I rolled them the one end sealed to the roll using the spread)….

Then it was time to cook these yummy things up….

Now it was time to roll them in the cinnamon/sugar mix and they were ready to eat. Boy are they yummy! We could have used healthier bread or gone without the cinnamon/sugar mix but sometimes you need to be a little bad! I highly recommend these especially if you have kids because they can help make the roll ups and have some fun too!Photo Sep 08, 9 21 21 AM

Find the recipe here… French Toast Roll Ups 

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Feed Me Friday

by kaella, posted in Food and Recipes, Uncategorized

8fdc36a50f3d37fbbf9dd7e4aab10df8 Now that I am limited duty bed rest, I seem to have a lot of time on my hands which makes wanting to eat after 4 months of horrible morning sickness, something I want to do all day long. One of my weaknesses has been eating out because when I crave something, it has been a salad from this place, a smoothie from that place, fried chicken, hamburger, fries or anything else that I usually never make at home.

Ok, let me be honest here…. I never make much of anything at home. Even before my pregnancy, if I would make something at home I would be so tired so the smell or look that I wouldn’t want to eat it after that. So, most times I would eat out or get the prepared meals from Shoprite or Walmart so all I had to do was pop it in the oven or microwave for a few minutes and dinner was done. My mother was the cook that made meals from scratch, I was the one who would just eat them and then have a happy belly.

Well, I think I have begun my nesting stages since being out of work because I have been cleaning and cooking…. from scratch! Danyella’s obsession with cooking shows hasn’t helped the feeling like I NEED to cook from scratch. We watch every Master Chef episode whether it is adults or kids version (that is where she found her first crush Riley) so she is always wanting to try to cook but I am that scared mother of letting her do anything in the kitchen. She is 10 and now is allowed to use the microwave and toaster which even then I am lecturing her on being safe. (Don’t tell her I said that she is as clumsy as I am when she isn’t dancing lol)

The latest show we started binge watching is Worst Cooks in America from Food Network on Hulu. First, we were not to happy that we could only watch 3 of 9 seasons and that whole thing doesn’t make sense as to why streaming apps do this. Second, it is so funny to see some of the food these people make and actually eat. Third, as much as I don’t want to cook I definitely not a Worst Cook! This inspired me to make 3 of the 4 dishes I am going to feature today.

First dish was homemade mashed potatoes! Yes, most people give me that weird ass look like I have 3 heads because I am 36 and have never made mashed potatoes from scratch. In my defense, they tasted so good when someone else would make them or if I bought the Bob Evans or whatever brand of pre-made ones from Walmart. Off to Pinterest I went to get an easy recipe and here is the one I found: Restaurant-Style Garlic Mashed Potatoes which seemed pretty simple and easy. I used the potatoes that I got from the local farm stand (buy local and support your farmers people!) and followed the instructions. It was pretty damn easy! I paired it with ham steaks and peas and yummy!! My food critics (Danyella and Doug) were even impressed and one went back from seconds.

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With one dish down, I thought hey I could make for from scratch so let’s make a plan for another meal but then I got the request to make Peach upside-down Cake because the one finalist on Worst Cooks lost the whole competition because he screwed that dessert up. So I pulled out the peaches from the farm stand and found this recipe on Pinteret: Peach Upside-Down Cupcakes The recipe was pretty easy to follow and all but one cupcakes came out the pan without an issue. Danyella absolutely loved helping to make these cupcakes and was so happy to share them with her grandparents when she went to their house for a sleepover that night.

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Since Danyella was going to be away for the evening, I could make something that Doug and I would eat but she wouldn’t…. seafood! I had a bag of frozen shrimp in the freezer that I needed to find a recipe for and found this one: 10-Minute Honey Garlic Shrimp I will admit that I did alter this recipe a bit because with pregnancy induced heartburn there was no way I could do chili flakes without breathing flames afterwards. Plus instead of fresh garlic, I used Tastefully Simple’s Garlic Garlic blend. It was really good and someone else must have liked it because he finished it off! 3 successful dishes…. 1 more to go!

 

Last one to go came from just scrolling through Facebook and an ad was on my Newsfeed for mac and cheese…. the baked, homemade version. Well the picture looked amazing and I wanted it at 9 in the morning. I found this recipe on Pinterest: Baked Mac and Cheese So I had ran to the store to grab what I needed and later the day started to make it. The gooey-ness that made me so hungry before all of a sudden turned me off. Yes that good ole pregnancy nausea was back with a vengeance. I made it, ate it and then decided that when we ran to get dog food that Doug had to go to McDonalds for a Crispy Chicken Bacon Ranch salad. He was not happy about it but I didn’t care because I wanted my salad not the mac and cheese. He ate 2 dishes of the mac and cheese and loved it. The leftovers are in the fridge for him to eat before he goes to work overnights this week. So this one is a win/lose because he loved it but I did not but I blame the pregnacy nausua on that.

 

I haven’t made anything in a few days but I have plans for this weekend! Stay tuned to see what I make in next Friday’s Feed Me post!