more grizzly bear treats

I have been looking for a recipe for dog biscuits for Grizzly, so I decided to try this one.

Peanut Butter Dog Biscuits

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup peanut butter
1 1/4 cups hot water

- Preheat oven to 350
- Mix dry ingredients together
- Mix in peanut butter and hot water, adding more flour if the dough is too sticky
- Knead the dough well and roll out to 1/4"
- Cut into shapes (I used a small circle so they'd be bite size)
- Bake on a lightly greased cookie sheet for 40 min
- Let them cool completely before letting your dog taste test

They turned out really well, and Grizzly loves them!

Source: http://www.dogtreatkitchen.com/peanut-butter-dog-biscuit-recipe.html

chocolate zucchini muffins

My aunt gave me a zucchini out of her garden, so I had to find a way to use it! My aunt makes a lot of chocolate zucchini bread, so I decided to try muffins. I found this recipe online, here.


Ingredients:

1/3 C boiling water
2 C shredded zucchini
1 1/2 C flour
1/2 C cocoa
3/4 C sugar
1 1/4 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1/2 C vegetable oil (canola is good!)
3 eggs
1 t vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In large bowl, pour boiling water over zucchini. Add all other ingredients and stir just until well combined. Line muffin pans with paper muffin cups, and use a 1/4 cup measure to pour batter into cups. Bake for 30 minutes. Yields 18 muffins.

Number of Servings: 18

Shredding zucchini - it was very moist and little gloopy, don't worry about that.

Mixed up batter

 I also added about 1/3 Cup of dark chocolate chips, because I had them (I highly recommend this!!)

 Muffins in the pan

Finished zucchini muffins!! Deliciousness!

sea salt caramels - again :)

I posted about making sea salt caramels before, and they did turn out well that time. While my mom was here, we decided to experiment a little bit with the recipe.

We tried added 1 Tablespoon of molasses to the recipe, to give it a little bit more of a caramel-y flavor.

The first batch we made got too hot, too fast, and ended up like hard candy. It tasted great, but was just too hard, and was not the chewy caramels I wanted!

This is what it looked liked - after Alex smashed it into pieces with a hammer. (A cutting board was the only casualty here!)

salted caramels

I found this recipe on Pinterest, and decided that I had to try it. (You can find the recipe here.)

These were a success, after trying a few times. The website explains how to get the consistency of the caramels just right, but it still took me a few tries.

 

The first time, the caramels were hard candy instead of soft chewy caramels. I broke these up like hard candy and took them to work. They were a big hit, even though they weren't what I was going for.

The second time, I didn't let the caramels cook enough and they didn't have as much flavor as I'd like, even though they were very soft.

Somewhere in there I got the right consistency! I went on to cover them in dark chocolate, and they were heavenly!
 

bbq pineapple chicken

I found this recipe on Pinterest (of course) and thought it looked really good, and super simple. You basically just put chicken, bbq sauce, and pineapple in the crockpot. Then you shred the chicken and serve it over rice!

Super easy, and really good. :)

4th of July cookies

While I was visiting family in Illinois, my mom and I made these festive cookies! This frosting technique is one that my mom has been using for awhile. 

It's basically a simple cutout cookie, frosted with very thin powdered sugar frosting. Then we food color the frosting, and drizzle it over the already frosted (still wet) cookie.

We always end up with beautiful cookies, and they taste wonderful!

diy breakfast sandwiches

Every once in awhile, when I'm leaving for work, I get this craving for a fast food bacon egg and cheese biscuit. I always skip it, because it kills me to spend so much on so little! 

So, I decided to make my own batch of bacon egg and cheese biscuits and freeze them, so that I can pull one out of the freezer on days that I crave them!

They were super easy to make. 

Ingredients: eggs, bacon, cheese, and biscuits

Cook bacon.

Bake biscuits.

Bake eggs in oven (I scrambled mine first, but you could do them whole)
Assemble sandwiches, wrap, and freeze!

sunday dinner

On Sunday, I was faced with the dilemma of not having a dinner plan. Since it was pretty warm outside and I didn't want to use the oven, but still wanted to make enough of something that I'd have leftovers for lunch at work, I decided to use my crockpot.

I found this recipe in one of my cookbooks and decided to make it. I had all the ingredients on hand except the piece of meat. The recipe says to use beef, but I used pork. I also halved the recipe, since my pork roast was only 2.5 lbs.

Halfway through cooking:

Cooked and shredded:

The nice thing about this recipe is that you can eat the meat multiple ways. I ate it on noodles the first night, on sandwiches, and made wraps out of it as well.

Barbecued Beef Roast
500 Heart-Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes
Dick Logue

4 lb beef round roast
1 cup low-sodium ketchup
1 cup chopped onion
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
3/4 cup brown sugar

Place roast in slow cooker. Combine remaining ingredients and pur over. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 10 hours.

Makes 8 servings.

baked potato soup

This is one of my favorite recipes. It's a bit of work to make, but makes a lot of soup, and is very filling! I love taking leftovers to work for lunch!

Baked Potato Soup

1 c. sour cream

4 large baked potatoes, cubed

12 slices of bacon, cooked

2/3 c. margarine

2/3 c. flour

7 c. milk

4 green onions, chopped

1 1/4 c. shredded cheddar cheese

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1.) Melt margarine over medium heat and whisk in flour til smooth. 

2.) Gradually stir in milk, whisking constantly til thick.

3.) Stir in potatoes and onions and bring to a boil. Stir.

4.) Reduce heat and simmer 10 min. Mix in bacon, sour cream, cheese, and salt and pepper.