The recipe, PINTEREST inspired, and adapted from Fine Cooking, is meant as a pasta sauce. We aren’t eating a lot of pasta meals these days, so I served it over a bed of mixed baby greens. I added a small amount of bow-tie pasta to make it a meal substantially filling for my husband. It was delicious, light and quick to make!

I know it looks like a huge plate of food, but versus a plate full of spaghetti, I think I did a good job lightening it up.

If you like shrimp I really urge you to try this recipe!

What the heck? As I was about to enter the recipe into my printable ZipList recipe card, I couldn’t find it. It has somehow disappeared from my blog’s control panel. Oh well, at least I have these cute little cards to type my recipes onto.

Here’s her recipe, straight from her email to me.

“I made Hamburger cookies for a Super Bowl party and they were a hit! And very easy to make. I pretty much just assembled the below ingredients.

Bun = sugar cookies. Add sesame seeds to half of cookies before baking to act as the top bun.
Meat= brownie. I took the super easy way out and bought a tub of the brownie bites. Since the are already circular, I just kind of smushed them down to fit between the cookies.
Ketchup = red frosting
Cheese = yellow frosting
Lettuce = sweetened shredded coconut with green food coloring.

Great for veggie-tarians who still want to eat a burger! enjoy…..”

And her photos. She wanted me to make my own batch of cookies so I’d have better quality photos, but I think these look quite yummy!!!

Both my hubby and I loved it (as did my sister-in-law, her husband and their daughter). They stopped by to catch the end of the 49′er game with us and although they’d already eaten, they each helped them self to a small bowl. This recipe (especially the way I made it) made a huge amount, we’ll all be enjoying some this week.

Do you like Triscuits? Have you ever tried this type? Super Yummy!!

I received a MOMOFUKU cookbook for Christmas from my youngest daughter. Momofuku is a Milk Bar Bakery in NYC  and is known for it’s unique approach to baking and desserts. We’ll be visiting NYC in March and I’m so excited to go to this bakery with my daughter.

I rarely follow recipes (but I love cookbooks) and honestly I rarely bake. I certainly do not need to eat baked goods and even when our girls were young, they weren’t huge sweet eaters and dessert was not a daily indulgence. I’d say that given the choice, ice cream or baked item, my family would have chosen ice cream. Don’t get me wrong, I love sweets and bakery items, I just know that making them at home and having them around is not good for the waistline (or hips or butt).

However, once in a while, I’m in the mood to bake, and that day was yesterday………

Knowing my love of corn, I went straight for the CORN COOKIES!

YUMMY! Buttery with a slight corn flavor! I know it sounds weird, but it works, trust me! The look and texture of them reminded me slightly of a Snickerdoodle, without the cinnamon sugar of course.

The recipe called to use a large cookie scoop, but since mine was smaller I knew it would mean adjusting the baking time. I wish I had reduced the time by another minute for a softer chewier cookie. Oh well, next time.

The nutritional values are not listed in the cookbook, so I found a website (www.sparkrecipes.com) and it will calculate the nutritional value for you. I don’t know if this is completely accurate, but I’m sure it’s close. Sadly, I won’t be eating many of these cookies

I’ve linked up over at Faith, Trust and Pixie Dust. Make sure and check out Michelle’s blog, I guarantee you’ll love it!

This Sweet Potato Chili is the perfect meal. Simple, healthy and yummy!! The first time I made it, we had company over and by the time we dished up and sat down to eat, I forgot to take a picture. Today, fortunately, I remembered.

Adapting Char’s recipe into my own made for a great meal! Don’t you just love crock pot meals? A little prep in the morning and dinner is ready at the end of the day.

Here’s my simple version:

Slice the sausage and saute (in a little olive oil) until just carmelized. When done, scoop out w/slotted spoon and put in crock pot.

Chop lots of veggies (I used 2 carrots, 3 celery stalks, 5-6 garlic cloves, 1/2 large red onion, and 1/2 each red, yellow and orange bell pepper). Saute in same pan you cooked the sausage in. Add salt & pepper and saute until just tender. Scoop into crock pot.

Add 2-3 cans of beans to crock pot and “just a little” of the Crab & Shrimp Boil.

Cook on low all day.

Serve over rice (I used brown), a caesar salad and cornbread. YUMMY!!

It was so good, that last night my husband said to me (and remember we’ve been married 30+ years), “I didn’t marry you because you’re a good cook, but I sure am glad you’re a good cook. You’ve done it again, dinner is delicious!”

Crock pot applesauce.

Easy.

Simple.

Healthy.

Between my trip out to Gizdich ranch and a bag full of apples from a client, I had plenty of apples. I really wanted to do some baking, but knew that I didn’t need to be consuming pies, strudels, tarts or cakes, so I decided on applesauce. Plus my middle daughter request me make some and well, they usually get what they want

I had a variety of apple types: pinova, mutsu and pippins and maybe one more, but I don’t remember which type. After washing and preparing the apples with the handy dandy peeler/corer/slicer I loaded them into the crock pot. It was so full I had to weigh down the lid at the beginning until they cooked down a bit. I added 1 cup of Gizdich Apple Juice (made only from apples), 2 cinnamon sticks and 1/4 cup sugar. I cooked on high until the apples were mushy, then using a large wooden spoon mashed them to the desired consistency. I like chunky applesauce. I froze a couple of containers for us, then canned 6 pints. Since I’d never done canning, I listened carefully for the “pop” of the lid to make sure they sealed.

We had some with dinner and it was delicious!

I have another batch cooking today.

I’m going to add some fresh cranberries to this batch.

And, I still have enough apples for either one more batch, but I’m thinking a cran-apple strudel. Who wants to come over for dessert??

I love crock pot meals this time of year.

These are the basic ingredients, although I usually use a dark beer in place of the Dr. Pepper. I didn’t have any and I’ve used Root Beer before, so why not Dr. Pepper.

I season the meat (I used a boneless pork butt)  liberally with salt, pepper and garlic, them place the meat and sliced onions into the crock pot. Pour a bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce and about 12 oz of dark beer or soda over top. Cook on high till it easily falls apart.

How about this fancy crock pot of mine?!? I keep thinking I should get a new one, but this one is big and works great! It’s just looking a little sad and dated.

When the meat is done, remove from crock pot and “pull” or shred it. Don’t forget to scoop out some of the onions and sauce too!!

Traditionally I’d made pulled pork sandwiches on toasted buttered Hoagie Rolls. But since we had some left over cornbread muffins, I just served it plain with a little simple side of slaw. I realized when I took this picture that it really wasn’t a very pretty plate of food, but it was tasty and I have a full tummy!

Give it a try this holiday season and worry about the calories later.

This recipe was so good, I thought I’d share it over on 30 Handmade Days and play along in her weekly Pity Party.