Cookies and Cream Muddy Buddies are a quick and super easy addition to holiday gifts and snack trays. It takes about 10 minutes to measure, melt and mix the ingredients. Ready to eat! Packaging takes a little longer depending on your degree of fanciness! This recipe can easily be made by older children. Younger children might need some supervision for stirring melted chocolate into the cereal, but they will be stellar at shaking the bag to coat the chocolate covered cereal with Oreo crumbs and powdered sugar! These are not low carb by any means. However, if you add them to a party table, the servings will be generally small--about 1/4 cup with 18 carbs. A nibble of just a few will be considerably fewer carbs than that and will satisfy your sweet tooth just as well as a ... [Read More]
Christmas
Almond Cheesecake Squares
Almond Cheesecake Squares are a rich and delicious dessert that makes an elegant addition to a cookie tray or a flavorful end to a holiday dinner. It is a New York style cheesecake because it includes sour cream among the ingredients -- another notch up on the flavor scale! The toasted and ground almonds give the crust a nice flavor and texture. The filling is quick and easy. The hardest part is waiting for it to bake -- and then cool before slicing! Can be made ahead and frozen. Don't worry about freezing leftovers because there won't be any. :-) Almond Cheesecake Squares Print Prep time 15 mins Cook time 47 mins Total time 1 hour 2 mins Light and creamy cheesecake on a nutty graham cracker base and topped with toasted almonds. Author: A Pinch of ... [Read More]
White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies
White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies are a pretty addition to the table, with the contrast between the deep red berries and the white chocolate. They are deliciously just right sweet. I was afraid they would be on the tart side – not true. Cut each cranberry, though. I cheated and put a little hand full of very small ones in whole. THEY were tart -- if you are a tart avoider like me. Bytes said, when he bit into a little whole cranberry, "that had a burst of zing!" Those that were cut without regard to size of the berry, just blended nicely into the overall flavor of the cookie. Use a cookie scoop to make uniform cookies that will bake evenly. The cookies won't spread a lot as they bake so you can space them about an inch apart. The added drizzle is a nice touch. Use the candy ... [Read More]
Cranberry Pear Sauce
Colorful and delicious Cranberry Pear Sauce will be a hit this holiday season! It is super quick and easy to make with no refined sugar. Its sweetness comes naturally from ripe pears and a touch of real maple syrup. It is a superb accompaniment to turkey and other poultry as well, as pork tenderloin or pork roast. Once you try this recipe, you’ll never look at store-bought cranberry sauce the same. What kind of pear to use? Bartletts hold their flavor but break down and become "saucy" when heated so they are a good choice for this recipe. They have a true “pear shape” with a large, rounded bottom half that tapers to a smaller curved neck with slender stem. Bartletts come in two colors, red and yellow, that are unique in the pear world in that they darken as they ripen. Bartletts ... [Read More]
Savory Sweet Potatoes
Rich, creamy mashed sweet potatoes are the perfect side dish for any holiday meal. They are so quick and easy , you’ll want to enjoy them throughout the year. Sweet potatoes are as nutritious as they are delicious. They contain fewer calories and are higher in fiber, Vitamin A, and Vitamin C than their white counterparts. See the infographic from Cleveland Clinic below for a quick comparison. You can peel and cut the sweet potatoes in small, uniform cubes before adding to water for boiling. Cook until sweet potatoes are soft enough to pierce with a fork. Remove from heat and drain. OR you can put whole, and thoroughly washed, sweet potatoes in a medium to large pot, cover with water and bring to a boil. Cook until sweet potatoes are soft enough to pierce with a fork. Remove from ... [Read More]
DIY Gift Bag
Can you help by making a dozen Fabric Gift Bags for foster children? The plea came at a Kiwanis meeting. And I volunteered. They were so easy to make that I finished all of them in one sitting -- less than half a day. The recipient would have a bagful of gifts, thanks to Kiwanis, and a bag that could be used to keep the gifts or any other possessions together. Quick and easy to make, reusable so no piles of wrapping paper to throw away, functional for other uses or easy to store , washable if necessary and, best of all, colorful and fun. I thought it was such a good idea that I have made them for gifts given to other children, who were thrilled to get them -- with gifts inside, of course :-) -- and to use afterwards. The ones I made for foster children were already cut with ... [Read More]
