Pudding Pancakes

These are something that i've come up with randomly one day when i was still in high school. I'm sure somewhere someone has maybe tried this or even perfected it(which i haven't yet). But i like to think of these as my special pancakes.

I don't even remember really why it came to mind to try and put pudding in pancakes. I just get random ideas of trying to see how they work together. Biggest thing that is hard about this is, how much pudding do you put in? if you put the whole pack in them then you have to add a lot of milk to thin it out enough to even make the pancakes...but then you also need to have enough pancake mix to make it not completely pudding.

With this batch, i put about half or less than half of the packet of pudding and i felt that there wasn't a lot of flavor to it. Though maybe it was just because of what pudding i used. It was a jello one like i normally use, though really any pudding should work. But the flavor was chocolate fudge, maybe it's just not a bold flavor.

I would of used my banana cream one, but i've been wanting to use it for a little banana cream pie things.

One day i will try and perfect this, but with not really having pancake eaters in my house besides me, i don't want to make pancakes too much. Maybe after my daughter gets older she will eat them more and i can make them more.

If you wanted to try and attempt these:
-mix pancake mix as it needs to be prepared
-add pudding mix, as much as you want, and mix
-add milk as needed to keep the batter thin enough.

You cook them just like normal pancakes. Over all it's simple, i just don't have the right ratios yet for making them perfect.

My Heart Shaped Mug

I have a thing for mugs....i don't know why, just do. Well one mug that i've seen online that i've always wanted was a heart shaped one. I was at goodwill and just happened upon this mug and felt like i just needed it and then seeing the price tag of $.99 just made me need it even more.

It comes with a little spoon that sits in the handle when not using it. It's also dishwasher and microwave safe, plus plus :)

This drink i started with for first pictures was just my coffee. Did black coffee for the first picture and took pictures after adding creamer because i like my coffee with creamer.

Philly Cheesesteak in a Pepper

This was actually my mom's dinner, i had the same filling but on bread instead. Here's a link to one of the types of pepper phillies: http://www.quickneasyrecipes.net/philly-cheesesteak-stuffed-bell-peppers/

I wasn't really watching my mom make these but i do know that my mom added this cooking sauce stuff to help give it more flavor. This is what she used.

My mom loves how she makes it. She's also a pepper person. I don't really like peppers enough to eat it like her's, so this is how mine was.

Mine is in the top of hoagies with the breading scooped out some.

The sides were zucchinis and beets.

I don't mind this...but i'm not a huge fan of these. Though the only Phillies i've really had were at a place in the mall, those are pretty good, but i like other things than phillies better.

Idaho Baked Potato Soup

My mom is a big potato fan. She found a postcard with a potato soup recipe on it and wanted to try it. My mom was the one who mostly made this, i just helped get her things and such. Recipe for this will be posted at the bottom, since it was on a postcard, i just took pictures of it, i can write it out if anyone requests it.

The soup was good. We also had grilled cheese with soup, so i got full pretty fast from the soup being thick. Only thing i'd probably change about it would be making the potato chunks alittle smaller. But i just like things being smaller and bite size.

Would of been nice if a little more bacon in it. I just love bacon. Maybe i should make some sort of bacon soup lol.

While my mom was getting the potatoes for this soup, she found this fun little potato that looks like a heart. I thought it would be perfect for pictures with the soup, this was the best one i got.

Now for the recipe: (i wish i knew if we had an Idaho magnet...might of, but my daughter likes the magnets and loses them. So i picked our Oregon one because that's where i'm from)

Easy Peanut Butter Cookies

Not sure where they got the recipe, but i got this recipe from a group on facebook that i'm in. This is the recipe:
"Thinking of easy cookies... 1 egg + 1 c. Sugar + 1 c. Peanut butter. Bake @ 350 for 7-12 mins depending on how firm you like them.

I like to use creamy p. butter + 1 Tbs. crunchy. Some times we add chocolate chips too. Its an easy quick sugar fix!"

I wanted to make these because it looked so simple, and it is!

Also because i just happened to actually have everything for this.

I find it a little crazy how just peanut butter, sugar, and an egg can give you a similar to cookie texture. I wouldn't say it's exactly like a cookie, but close enough to call it a cookie. It does seem to taste more peanut buttery than other cookies...but it's been awhile since i've had a normal one.

2 Ingredient Cookies

i followed the recipe somewhere else but here's one of the recipe: http://www.theburlapbag.com/2012/07/2-ingredient-cookies-plus-the-mix-ins-of-your-choice/

I kept hearing bad about this, so i didn't have high hopes for these. Still wanted to try them though. Just to see how bad they were.

So i didn't have just normal oats they say to use. I had instant oatmeal that i used instead. Which turned out to be pretty good. I used some flavored ones, these ones..

I'd say the flavoring really helped. There was a nice banana taste and the cinnamon and spice flavor wasn't too strong. The texture was nothing like a cookie, but wasn't bad. Kinda chewy, not sure what to compare it to but over all was decent.

Some that i've been seeing talk about this said they couldn't go beyond one bite. The way these turned out, i ate all that i made :)

I did one large ripe banana and the 2 packs of instant oatmeal.

Zucchini "Noodles"

Didn't really follow a recipe for this. I did see this online and just followed what i remembered.

Used my julienne slicer to make the "noddles" and then just put it in a steamer bag and steamed it. then just added a little of pasta sauce to give it a little more flavor.

I found this to actually be really good. i did actually get a bit of a feeling of eating noodles. Of course didn't actually taste like noodles, but was a good substitute. My mom really likes zucchini and i've come to realize that i like it too. She usually just would slice and steam them. So i'll have to try this sometime with her able to try it. She doesn't like red sauce, but she'd probably be fine eating it sauce-less.

I also just love the picture i snapped of this :)

Gresham Farmers Market

I live in Gresham Oregon, so this is my local farmers market. I didn't take too many pictures while there, but wanted to share the few i have and just my experience there.

I've been to the market plenty of times before. It's always exciting yet a little boring for me to go. If actually planning on buying produce, then it's a bit more fun. Most of what is there is produce and hand crafted things. I either don't like or don't have the money for most of the handmade things. And unless planning to buy produce, not much worth checking those out. There is also the food section, but i wasn't really interested in wanting to try most of the stuff, and now with my daughter at the age of not wanting to sit still too long, makes it hard to try them now.

On this trip, I went with my mom and daughter, we bought one zucchini for me to try something with, a bag of kettle corn, a small thing of strawberries, a bag of cherries, italian ice, pulled pork sliders, sweet potato pasta, and some cookies. I believe that was all that we bought.

The first picture in this post, there's a stand that sets these jams out for you to taste before buying, didn't actually buy any this time, but i love trying this. That picture was also the best one i took of the ones i took. I liked some of the pear ones they had.

 Just a small part of the market.

 My pina colada Italian ice i had. It was soooo good. The people who make it use real fruit for their flavoring.

 The place i got it. Only thought about getting it because we saw a coupon for getting one half off. So i got mine for $2. Should of been $2.50 but the lady said she didn't have enough quarters for the chance, so she gave it to me for $2 instead. I had $.50 on me and offered, but she said it was fine.

 Some black flowers we saw.

 My daughter riding in the wagon we brought with us.

and Last picture, a very large dog i saw there.

All in all, it was a good trip this go around. Will be going again next Saturday. Other than that, not sure how much i'll go. I would need to be walking into town to be able to go and with how my daughter has been sleeping, being able to get up and into town before they close down is a slight challenge.

Carrot "Noodles"

Don't remember where i first saw how to do this, might of been something on pinterest, but it's been some time since the first time i tried this, that not sure if i'd find the original post i read about this in. A good bit of the time i don't follow measurements on oil when making things like this.

To make this is really simple, julienne some carrots, cook them in a pan with some oil until they are soft like noodles. Then you can add pasta sauce if you want. I like to just add some of the dried minced garlic that i have while it's cooking and just pretty much have a garlic olive oil sauce.

Here's some of my pictures of my making this

I used my julienne peeler for this. If you don't have one then you can use a normal peeler to make slices then just slice those to get it noodle like. You can sorta do the same thing with the match stick carrots, just you won't be able to twirl them like my first picture.

Before cooking

After cooking.

I didn't time how long i cooked it, i just cooked them on medium until they got noodle like.

Even if you don't eat this like pasta, it can make for a decent side dish when you want a carrots but not just raw or steamed. I do find making large amounts annoying as getting the slices isn't super easy. Maybe if you have a really large carrot then maybe it would be fine.

By large carrot, i mean this...

That's my daughter with a large carrot my mom bought.

Pink Pasta

Didn't really follow a recipe on this, just something i've been wanting to do and just saw a small thing on how to do it.

The pasta used in this was some angel hair pasta i got at a store of locally made/grown products. I think it was just slightly thinner than normal boxed angel hair, so cooked a little faster than i expected.

To color the pasta is easier than it seems, when you aren't really thinking about how it's done. All you do is just add the food coloring to the boiling water and cook the pasta as normal.

(best i could get for picture)

Since my pasta seemed to cook faster, might of had a slightly bolder color if cooked longer, or maybe if the pasta was thicker. Hard to say until i test it more. I also didn't count how many drops i used. i did some and then my daughter was trying to help me and got mad i didn't let her add the color so i ended up letting her put some more in too. Over all i think it worked well enough. will be fun to try with different colors and styles of pasta. For my pink color, i used the pink from the neon color set of food coloring.

Speaking of colors, the pink was fun on it's own, but since i mix the sauce and pasta together instead of just spooning some on the top, the pink pasta just didn't stand out that much lol. For my first try i should of done a different color to make it stand out more lol. Here's how the final turned out.

Bacon Egg Cups

Followed this recipe: http://www.fatgirltrappedinaskinnybody.com/2011/04/bacon-egg-cups/

For the love of bacon and all that is yummy!!
I've seen the pictures for this for some time and finally decided to make it because we had bacon left over. I didn't have enough to make to the full recipe, i had 11 half slices of bacon and 3 eggs. There was enough for making 4 cups and i had 3 half slices of bacon left.

It was actually really good. Sure it's just eggs and bacon(and cheese), but cooking it in the oven just seems to give it a completely yummier taste. I maybe could of cooked it for a tiny bit longer, it wasn't raw, but some of the bacon seemed like it could of been cooked more to be crispier. The eggs were fluffy. I will make these again when i have more bacon and eggs again. Maybe not even the full 12 but making the 4 again or just 2 of them. I pretty much was full after 2 of these(and the extra slices of bacon i cooked lol).

Didn't hear from my brother on what he thought of it, but my mom liked it.

Blogging

I've tried blogging bunch of times, about my life mostly. Just after a bit of time, i just get bored or something with it. Or i just don't want to take the time each day and write something. I don't do that much, so makes for boring writing.

Anyways, what brought up wanting to write this is how i took some days of writing anything because of my mom taking her laptop with her and because of how my daughter was being, i didn't get much time in my room to write anything. Without those days to write, i knew i was going to be backed up on what i wanted to write about...and now i don't even really remember what i was going to write about. The memories of the stuff aren't that fresh anymore, so i feel like i'd miss something.

I am at least wanting to keep writing more things, i like sharing my experiences and even if people aren't really reading this blog, i like feeling like people are. I pin my posts to pinterest to try and help get people to see the stuff. Some of my things have been repinned, which i love. Whether they actually read my posts or not, i love that they noticed my pictures.

cauliflower crust pizza

I followed this: http://www.eat-drink-smile.com/2011/04/cauliflower-crust-pizza.html

With the whole "health kick"(that i'm not completely following), when i see something that is suppose to be healthy, or just different than the usual, it catches my eye. Seeing that the crust is made with cauliflower, it made me curious on how it'd taste, or just how it worked.

The crust is just made of "riced" cauliflower, cheese, and an egg. I did a little garlic salt for taste like the recipe said, but i didn't feel like adding the actual garlic and i couldn't find our oregano to add to it, so i skipped it. My mom doesn't like red sauce, so we went with just white sauce for the pizzas. Turned out that the size the recipe makes is like a personal pizza, but since we only had the one sauce, i went with white sauce. My mom's pizza had more toppings than mine, but i don't like too many topping.

Over all this was easy to make. I did get a little frustrated making it though. Not because of the recipe, but from that our kitchen was a mess because my brother was too lazy to start the dish washer after loading it and i didn't realize it could of been started until after i was getting frustrated with the mess.

For taste, eating it all together, you don't really feel like you are eating cauliflower. It's not bread like for texture though. I do think that if you eat just the crust without most of the toppings, it does have a cauliflower taste to it. It is thick enough that you can actually pick up the slices like pizza.

I wasn't super impressed, it was good, but maybe if it was red sauce instead. I'll eat white sauce, but i prefer red. My parents loved it though. Almost every bite my mom took she made a comment on how good she thought it was. My dad wasn't sure on it when i told him what the crust was, but after he tried a slice, he was pleasantly surprised that he liked it. He liked it more than it thought he would and my mom said she'd rank it as number 1 out of everything i've made. Since i live with my parents, my parents(and brother if he is willing to try it) are my taste testers....partly so that there's less left overs if i was just making the stuff for myself.

Lastly, this is the pizza my mom made. Well the crust is what i made, she did the toppings herself.

Carrot "Fries"

I tried following this: http://claireshealthyhome.com/easy-healthy-carrot-friesyes-carrot/

I think i might of put a little too much olive oil on the carrots, i didn't measure or use the whole bag of matchstick carrots.I also used our George Foreman grill to cook them, this one

(stock photo)

 Even with that, these turned out alright. I will probably try again but actually in the oven. Using the Foreman i used(with the "oven" style), that might of been why they didn't get too crispy.

It was interesting as these were cooking, they started to smell like sweet potatoes. Even more interesting....They tasted like it too once they were done. Only a few were what would probably be "fry" like, but i still ate all of it. Fry like or not, i thought it was yummy.

I guess i don't really have too much to write about this one. I will probably have more to say when i try it again in the actual oven.

Hot Dog Slic'R

Found the brand's webpage about this, just has a short thing about it: http://www.evriholder.com/Hot-Dog-Slic-R.asp

Walking through walmart, this caught my eye. First i thought it was weird, then i started thinking that my daughter might like it. Well she did, more so for the fact of it looking like a dog. She wants to be able to play with it. Might be the biggest downfall for me for getting it for my 3 year old lol. Before slicing.
 After slicing.
 The hot dog was getting caught in the slicer so this is now it looked after i pushed them back through.
 Reformed together, probably pieces not in the right spot. Then the little doggie dish is there you put your dip.


Whether it was just my daughter was hungry or eating from this helped, but she ate most of the hot dog.

I think the biggest flaw for me on this is that it's not super easy for the hot dog to come back out. But if it's really the tray that actually got my daughter to eat the hot dog, then i can deal with that if it means she eats. Will just need to test it again.

two ingredient lemon bars (cake)

These two ingredient cake things are just awesome and easy to make. I did one that was pineapple based, i think i forgot to write about that one.

Anyways, this is what i followed: http://rachelschultz.com/2012/09/23/two-ingredient-lemon-bars/

The sounds of just using 2 things to make some sort of flavored cake is great. For those who aren't that great at baking can make these, or if you just want something simple and fairly quick to make. I also love angel food cake so having different flavors of it is really nice. I like to think of angel food cake as magical, so i don't really feel like looking up as to why mixing the mix with pie filling turns into cake lol.

Now this recipe calls them lemon bars, then state they have a cake texture. I call this more of a lemon cake, or just lemon angel food cake. I also think the picture they have looks a little different than how mine turned out. Maybe it really does maybe it doesn't, i don't really know, hard to tell just judging from the pictures. I just think theirs looks fluffier than mine. Since there's no picture of it in the pan, hard to judge.

With not comparing it to trying to be a lemon bar but just how it is with the end result, I could eat this whole thing. It still has an angel food cake taste to it, with a not super strong lemon taste to it.

Here's some pictures of it being made...

Here's all it took to make.

In the process of mixing.

after being in the pan

After it came out of the oven. I read some people said that it puffed up a lot while cooking, i didn't check while it was cooking, so i don't really know on that.

This is with the powder sugar on it and with my piece taken out for my first picture.

Some one said that they tried it with a berry pie filling and it worked also. So possibly a lot of pie filling will work like this. I want to see what other pie fillings i can find to see if anything intrigues me to try it myself.

Creamy Tomato Soup

This is the soup i made: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/creamy-tomato-soup-10000001892157/

Tomato soup is probably one of my biggest comfort foods. Along with grilled cheese, i can eat either of them  probably close to every day, on own or together lol. Though for all these other foods i want to try, i wouldn't have time for all of them if i had grilled cheese and/or tomato soup lol.

I've been liking the idea of making soups myself just for the sake of saying i made soup. I'm perfectly fine with canned soup for the convenience. Someday i want to try a vegetable soup.

As for this soup, it was pretty good, i feel was little less tomato taste than others. I also didn't use a blender, i used my little ninja processor. If i used the blender, might of made it just a little smoother than it was. The texture mine came out was fine for me, but was nothing like campbell's tomato soup, though makes sense because it's not campbell's.

It did make more soup that i could eat in one sitting, a downfall to making myself food with no one to share with. Just left overs i guess.

Skinny Coffee Frappuccino

I had randomly thought last night that since my coffee drink is already mixed and flavored, if i just added ice to it in a blender, i could make a frappuccino. It for the most part worked.

This is the coffee drink i used: http://mendsexperiences.blogspot.com/2013/05/genesis-today-skinny-coffee-vanilla.html

Taste wise, it was good. pretty much was just the drink with ice in it lol. I used my ninja rather than using a blender, so it had biggish ice pieces. Small enough to drink with a straw(not the small kind), but wasn't super smooth like you'd get by using a blender.

I did about a cups worth of the drink, and maybe 2 cups of ice. Here's the picture before i ran it.

With those amounts, it pretty much made two of them. Next time i will either try less ice or less ice and less drink. The processing also fluffed up the coffee drink to where the while thing became full of the drink.

i had to take alittle out just to be able to grab the blades to take out easier lol.

I will also try another idea i had for a frappuccino that i saw on pinterest(i think that's where i saw it) once i get a ice cube tray.

Lastly i wanted to share my deal i figured out on the skinny coffee.

I went to go get more of the little ones i bought before because that is what i was pretty sure i only saw. Once i was at walmart and about to go grab some, i saw these large ones. Checking them out, these large ones were a better deal. You lose the easy on the go the little ones give you, but i don't need them on the go really, and i have to go cups at home i could use.
Anyways. The little ones are like around 11 ounces and cost over $3 each. These large ones are about 33 ounces and cost under $6. So you get close to 3 times the amount for under double the cost the little ones. talk about a deal!
Even the cashier was pleasantly surprised on the deal of the large ones. I don't think she's tried the drinks before but she did notice the price and size of them. I had also a different flavor of one of the little ones so she saw the difference that way.