Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff

You know those meals from your childhood that you will always remember? You know how some of them are good memories and some of them are bad memories (tater tot casserole, I am talking to about you).

Well beef stroganoff is one of the beloved meals, right up there with won tons and taco casserole. There is something about beef and sauce over noodles. Double YUM.

A few weeks ago, I had realized I had never made stroganoff for my kids. Hang my head in shame now. I was kind of baffled how I had yet to make one of my favorite childhood dishes for my own kids. I mean I do like them and all.

Thinking on it, I realized that sometimes I am so focused on making all the new Pinterest recipes that I forget about the tried and true, time-tested ones.

Do you ever find yourself doing that same thing?

So in order to rectify my cooking atrocity, I put beef stroganoff right on the menu. I did change it up a bit from my childhood version. Don't worry, it is just as good. I used beef strips instead of ground hamburger and I popped it in a slow cooker to let it simmer all day long.

My house smelled grand all day. The kids LOVED it. Plus for a second I was transported to  my 12 year old self. A few demanding, "MOM!"s and I was right back.

I didn't mind because I still had my beef stroganoff.

The hungry people at your dinner table will love every last bite of this meal.

**add the Worcestershire sauce in with the beef broth**

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Marshmallow Fruit Salad

I don't always make fruit salad, but when I do I make it with marshmallows.

Okay. Kidding. I always make fruit salad, and up until last week I hadn't put even one itty bitty marshmallow into my fruit salad. I seem to remember as a kid having something similar to this Marshmallow Fruit Salad. However, it was a distant, fuzzy memory. A memory that I didn't even realize I was missing.

When The Hubs came to me and wanted to put a new fruit salad on the Easter menu and that marshmallows were involved, I was hesitant. I mean let's be honest people, putting little fluffy bits of sugar into a fruit salad kind of defeats the whole fruit and salad thing.

He convinced me quite charmingly, so the Marshmallow Fruit Salad made it onto the menu. With a little army of reservation setting up camp in my noggin, the salad was made. I tweaked the recipe just a bit, but no worries I kept in the mallows.

You put the mallow on the graham....

Sorry I digress. Name the movie. We haven't played this game for a bit.

Okay back to the fruit salad.

The salad was a hit. We owe it all to that handsome husband of mine.

My fear of the salad being too sugary was completely ill founded, due in part to the "cream" used. It not being of the whipped or aerosol variety. Intrigued? You should be. This salad was practically perfect and was a great addition to a yummy Easter meal.

Point to you Husband. Point goes to you. I will even give him a bonus point because I ate the leftovers the next day. For those of you who might be new around here, that is a big deal because I tend to hate leftovers.

So go ahead and put this on your weekly menu. It is a crowd pleaser.

 

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Cereal Glazed Donuts

Years ago I had something that changed my life. I had a raised donut that was glazed and then covered in cereal. CEREAL. I knew I just had to come up with my own version of a cereal covered donut.

I recently had the perfect opportunity to recreate these donuts of my dreams when I worked with General Mills and received a few of our family's favorite cereals. The bonus is not only did we get these yummy boxes of cereal, but because General Mills is also teaming up with Skylanders with a free exclusive Skystones game the boys got a fun card game that gives them tons of entertainment.

Bonus-they LOVE anything Skylanders.

Hidden inside specially marked Big G cereals, you will find Skystones cards playable on the game board found on the back of the cereal box. Participating Big G brands include Honey Nut Cheerios, Frosted Cheerios, Fruity Cheerios, Reese's Puffs, Cookie Crisp, Lucky Charms, Trix and Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Waiting to open these boxes of cereal was torture for my boys. They were so excited to not only eat the cereal, but to play the Skystones game.

Once I told them they would get to play the Skystones game over a breakfast of Skylanders Cereal Glazed Donuts, well they were so excited I am pretty sure I locked in the Mom of the Year award.

Before I would let them play, we opened up our favorite Big G cereals and got ready to make Skylanders donuts.

You too can make your own Cereal Glazed Donuts.

You just need to open up a few of your favorite boxes of Big G cereals.

My favorite are Fruity Cheerios. The boys love Cookie Crisp.

Making the donuts is easy. All you need is--

-refrigerator biscuits
-oil for frying
-powdered sugar
-milk
-vanilla

Heat the oil up over medium high heat. Cut a whole in the center of each refrigerator biscuits. Fry each donut for 1 1/2 minutes per side or until each side is golden and the donut is cooked through. Drain the donut on a paper towel.

Mix 2 cups of powdered sugar with 2-3 Tablespoons of milk and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Mix until it is the consistency of a thick glaze.

Dip the donut in the glaze. Then dip the glazed side of the donut into the cereal of your choice.

Now you have a seriously yummy donut for breakfast.

A Cereal Glazed Donut any kid would enjoy.

With donuts in hand, it was time to play the Skystones game. There are four different Skystones card sets, and you can collect all four to make the game as fun as it can be. The boys laid out the cards and each chose five cards. The back of each cereal box has a Skystones game board on it.

One player is Team Blue and the other one is Team Red. They lay cards down, flip opponents cards and ultimately try to get all the cards to be their color.

They might just love to play the game so much that they get distracted from finishing a very delicious Cereal Glazed Donut. Little even declared it one of his new favorite games.

The fun just keeps coming with the free Skylanders Collection Vault app that is available on your phone or tablet. Each set of Skystones cards has a downloadable code to unlock characters in the popular mobile Skylanders game.

Run and go grab yourself a few boxes of General Mills participating cereals, make your kiddos some cereal glazed donuts, and collect all 4 Skystone card sets.

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Inside Out Philly Cheesesteak

This week started an Eat-More-Veggies regiment at our house. The introduction of our healthy eating campaign was pretty funny. We have a weekly family counsel where we spend time together learning and growing. This week I decided we needed to talk about making healthier choices.

Without giving away the topic of the conversation for the night I simply told the boys that the whole lesson centered around a Berenstain Bears book. There was eye rolling from Oldest. What? Are you too cool for the Bears now? Geez.

Any guesses which Berenstain Bears book I read to them?

If you guessed Too Much Junk Food, you would be correct. While the boys (besides Oldest of course) appreciated a bit of story time, they did not appreciate when I told them we would be having no sweets during the week and that there would be more vegetables in their meals.

Insert a collective groan here (except from Bean because boy howdy does that kid love his veggies). They tried to barter to have more fruits and less veggies. After all, they like fruit. Ha! Silly children.

So more veggies it is.

I was really excited for these Inside Out Philly Cheesesteak peppers. I was so excited that I kept dinner a secret the whole time I was making them. I didn't want to hear no pepper-haters up in here.

My house smelled amazing the whole time these were baking. That alone got the boys all hungry and excited. I sat the boys down and served up my Inside Out Philly Cheesesteak peppers with a flare. There were some very silent groans.

Then they started to eat. Then they kept eating. Then before I knew it, their plates were clean. As was mine. I was wishing for more immediately.

They were SO good. They were also really easy to make. So a win-win.

Yum. I want another one right now.

Here are to more veggies!

Print HERE

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Carrot Cake Cookies

Whenever a cookie and a cake marry and make a cake cookie, well I am all on board with that. Yes I a sure am. When it involves carrot cake, then I am HECK YEAH on board. I have always loved carrot cake. When I was younger, I used to take seconds and thirds. And fourths. Okay so not really, but I may or may not have had a really decent sized first piece and then a regular sized second. Especially if it was my best friend's mom's cake. Goosh that was good cake AND really good cream cheese frosting.

Enough already with my love of carrot cake.

So how did these cookies come about? Well aside from the a fore mentioned love of carrot cake, it all comes down to the fact that I found these insanely adorable gummy carrots. I knew I had to get them and I knew they needed to top some kind of carroty cake goodness. I got these gummy carrots at Winco Foods. If you don't live by a Winco, then you can find some similiar HERE

Welcome in these Carrot Cake Cookies.

I made them to give to some new neighbors that just moved in. I also made sure I made some for us to eat, because if I didn't I am not sure I would have had any to give to the neighbors. These cookies are so dang good.

I think you should make yourself some. You and the arrival of Spring deserve it.

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Black Bean Salsa

If I had to pick one food that I had to eat for the rest of my life, it would probably be chips and salsa. I love most kinds of salsa as well as most kind of tortilla chips. Well except baked. Sorry, but if you are gonna eat them you might as well just put in the caloric effort.

This black bean salsa is insanely easy to make and will rock your salsa eating world. My sister was over when I was making it and to be honest she was more than a little skeptical as I was making it. You think by now she would just trust my salsa wisdom. But sadly, she still lacks a little faith. Since she too is a lover of all things salsa and chips, she took a leap and took a giant scoop and popped it in her cute little doubting me mouth.

Well of course she loved it. DUH. She should have just known. After all there is bacon in this salsa. Yup I said it BACON. What isn't made better with some bacon? Ever had bacon in your salsa? No. Well here is your chance.

This black bean salsa only has four ingredients. FOUR. I feel like I have exuberantly "yelled" (aka the ALL CAPS) a lot in this post. I am pretty much still really excited about this salsa.

This salsa is pretty healthy with the black beans and all the veggies from the salsa and the jalapeno. There is a little bit of bacon in it, but let's face it bacon gets a health pass because it's deliciousness trumps all that healthy mumbo jumbo.

We paired our black bean salsa with toasted black bean tortilla chips, but I would wager that any kind of tortilla chip would be good with this salsa. So whip yourself up some. Open a bag of chips. Dig on in. And smile.

It is that good.

Black Bean Salsa

Ingredients:
2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup salsa
1 jalapeno, seeded and finely diced
5-6 pieces of bacon, cooked and chopped

Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl.

Eat right away or refrigerate until ready to serve (up to a few hours).

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Slow Cooker Chicken Pot Pie

Life has been crazy busy around here. Okay, so it is always crazy. However, it just seems to have an extra dose of crazy around here. Things especially get hairy around the time the kids get home from school. Most days it feels a little like a snowball rolling down a massive mountain picking up speed as it goes, taking out trees, moose, rocks, and humans in it way. By trees I mean me. By moose, I mean me. Basically, all of the above, I mean me.

Charming story Larissa, why are you sharing? Good and valid question.

The answer comes down to this: most days if dinner isn't quick and easy and/or already pulled together that means we are having breakfast for dinner.

AKA if it isn't in a slow cooker, then eggs and toast it is. I exaggerate a tad. Sometimes we have tacos.

Since the good old slow cooker has been getting some use, I decided it was time I share a slow cooker recipe here and there. Remember when I would share a slow cooker recipe every Saturday. Remember when it was called Slow Cooker Saturday. 

We had this Slow Cooker Chicken Pot Pie a few weeks ago. Traditional chicken pot pie is delightful. However, it can also be time intensive to make. I refer back to that whole no time thing I was previously talking about.

Ain't nobody got no time for that. Any one tired of that line yet? Obviously I am not.

This Slow Cooker Chicken Pot Pie is packed with flavor and it is so simple to throw together.

The filling is made in the slow cooker. Just before the filling is done you pop refrigerator biscuits in the oven. When the filling is done you top with one or two biscuits. You can even sprinkle some shredded cheddar cheese on top if you are feeling wild and crazy.

Brownie M&M Cookies

My brownie obsession has now crossed over to the Brownie M&M cookies. If someone were to ask I probably would only admit to eating one or two, not the seven I have eaten in two days. These cookies are chocolatey, obviously. They are chewy. They are brownies in cookie form. Then of course there are the M&M's. What I am trying to convey is that these cookies are good. Like really good.

I do not make cookies often. Heck I actually do not bake often. However, when I do most likely it will involve brownies and milk chocolate. Heavens I love milk chocolate. My poor Hubs is inflicted with Dark Chocolateitis. Poor, poor husband.

These cookies also make great holiday, party, or everyday cookies because you can switch out the M&M's for the specific event.

Man, don't they look yummy?

I hope you didn't just lick your screen. That can't be good for your computer. So try to avoid the licking of technology and go ahead and just make yourself some Brownie M&M Cookies. Your computer will thank you.

printable recipe HERE

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Strawberry Jello Glazed Donuts

Oh how I love donuts. Which would reason that I love heart-shaped donuts even more. You know what I love even more than heart-shaped donuts? Strawberry glazed ones.

These Strawberry Jello Glazed donuts are so easy to make and they are ridiculously delicious. Like RIDICULOUS I tell you. They are also kind of perfect for a Valentine's breakfast.

Here is how easy they are to make--

First heat up some oil in a large pan. Then grab yourself a package or two of refrigerated Grands biscuits. Next cut them into heart shapes, or just cut a hole out of the middle. Save the holes for, well you know, donut holes.

To make Jello glaze, mix 1 1/2 cups of powder sugar and half a package of 3 oz strawberry Jello.

Whisk in 4 Tablespoons of milk. Mix until it has a smooth consistency.

Now just fry up the biscuits, aka donuts. Fry them for about 60 seconds on one side then flip. Donuts should be golden brown and cooked through. Drain the donuts on a paper towel.

Put the donuts on a cookie rack with parchment paper beneath. Dip one side of the donut in the glaze. You can then dip the donuts into sprinkles. Plain or with sprinkles they are glorious.

Plus, they are so lovely. Can donuts be lovely? I think so.

There ya have it. Not only are these the easiest, but they also might just be the tastiest donuts. Everything is better in donut form.

Now you can check off your list what you are going to make Valentine's Day for breakfast. Your welcome.

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Slow Cooker Banana Walnut Oatmeal

Welcome to Slow Cooker Saturday! Today I am sharing a recipe for this Slow Cooker Banana Walnut Oatmeal.

I am trying to get better at eating breakfast. By eating breakfast, I mean eating an actual meal instead of eating part of a banana or a small cup of yogurt. I have never been a huge breakfast eater. Part of that is time, but the majority of the reason is that I have had the mind set that starting off my day with SO much food is a calorie nightmare.

As I have gotten older, I have tried really hard to break this train of thought. After all, it isn't the quantity as much as the quality of what I start my day off with. I have tried to realize that breakfast is actually really, really necessary. Especially if I am fueling my body with good foods.

There is a growing list of breakfast foods that I am starting to really love.

Oatmeal is one of them. Oatmeal is hardy and filling. Plus it is also really versatile. This Slow Cooker Banana Walnut Oatmeal I am particularly fond of because it includes two of my favorite healthy ingredients--bananas and walnuts. Yum. The steel cut oats add a nuttiness that I love. This is a warm and wonderful way to start off the day.

This particular recipe is a slow cooker recipe. You can throw everything in the night before and set the automatic timer to have it all ready for the morning. Or you can make it the day before and store it in the fridge. This Slow Cooker Banana Walnut Oatmeal last for up to four days in the fridge and is easily reheated. Just add a little milk if necessary.

Once the oatmeal is ready, I scoop it into a bowl and I add some fresh slices of bananas, a handful of walnuts, and a sprinkling of brown sugar. Man was this yummy.

Here is to healthy, hardy, and yummy breakfasts. Do you have healthy breakfasts that you make all the time? Please share. Add this Banana Walnut Oatmeal into your rotation. Your family will love it.

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Slow Cooker Macaroni and Cheese

Welcome to another Slow Cooker Saturday. Today I am sharing our most favoritest kid friendly comfort food--Slow Cooker Macaroni and Cheese.

My Little Men love, love, LOVE macaroni and cheese. In a pinch, we go for the every familiar blue box. While that little blue box is just fine, homemade macaroni and cheese is WAY better. My boys are always amazed with how much bigger the macaroni noodles are in homemade versus the box. They kind of think I am magical.

Who am I kidding? I am. Ha. Okay maybe I am not the magical one, this Slow Cooker Macaroni and Cheese is the magical one.

This recipe is cheesy, creamy, and full of traditional flavor. This mac and cheese is great right as is it done and it is glorious reheated. That is a full on stamp of approval from me, since I am not a left over fan.

All my kids loved it. They did keep asking me why it wasn't bright orange like boxed versions. I didn't have the heart to explain chemical coloring and all that jazz. I just told them the box had color added, but we had flavor.

I am pretty sure they didn't understand. That didn't keep them from scarfing it all down though.

So win for me. Win for them. Win for everyone.

This Macaroni and Cheese is perfect for a chilly day, a busy school day, or really any day you are hungry and want something yummy. In my case, that is any day. Ha.

Happy blustery day to you all. Enjoy yourself some ooey gooey Slow Cooker Macaroni and Cheese.

Love ya!

 

printable recipe HERE

*cook on low*

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Spicy Cashew: Slow Cooker Saturday

I cannot take credit for these delightfully yummy cashews. This recipe comes to you thanks to The Hubs. Over a month ago The Hubs came home with a bag full of cashews from the bulk section of our favorite grocery store. He declared he was making Slow Cooker Spicy Cashews.

Okay husband. That sounds great. Scratch that. That sounds delicious.

This guy I am married to often introduces me to the yummiest food. However, not matter how hard he tries, I am never going to willing eat peas. Sorry dude.

Back to the cashews. These cashews has just the right amount of kick. The spices work together for this great smoky heat. And even though I know it shouldn't matter, the spices also give the cashews the prettiest color.

These cashews are done and ready to eat in under an hour and a half. They also store great. These cashews also make a great gift. Put them in a mason jar. Add a label. Write a note. You know something like, "We are nuts about you." You know how I like a gift with a cheesy saying.

Get Printable Recipe HERE

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