Cherry Dump Cake

I forgot all about this "cobbler" until I saw it on Three on Food's Favorite Dessert of 2009! Reason number #128 to have a food blog... you'll never forget and lose your recipes again! I can't tell you how many recipe treasures I have lost along the years that I wish I could get back from previous co-workers and deceased relatives. I wish I would have kept better track of recipes... and of my boys' achievements (I hope Abbott never asks "how old was I when"... because my poor 2nd child's baby book is practically blank)!
This is one recipe I am SO glad to have back! Abbott's kindergarten teacher used to make this dessert for us. Justin said "Wow, this is extremely easy and extraordinarily good", my thoughts exactly! I want to make this again with apple pie filling, OR peach pie filling, OR blueberry pie filling... so many possibilities, I can't decide!

Ingredients
2 cans cherry pie filling
1 package yellow cake mix
1 cup butter (2 sticks)Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish. In the prepared dish, layer the cherry pie filling. Then sprinkle the dry cake mix over the top, covering evenly. Slice the butter up and lay it onto the cake mix. Bake 45 to 50 minutes in the preheated oven, until browned and bubbly. Store in the fridge. We love to eat this cold the next day - the crust stays good and crunchy! If you eat it warm it must be served with vanilla ice cream, yummmmmmm!

Cookie Dough Pie

When I saw this recipe on the Big Red Kitchen blog I knew I had to try it! It's just an interesting concept, frozen Chips Ahoy cookies?! Well, this was the easiest dessert I've ever made, it only takes a couple minutes to put together and it really does taste like cookie dough! My first grade niece was able to make this pie all by herself! I think it would be fun to try different cookies like Nutter Butter or Oreo. My sister-in-law tried an Oreo version, she said it was yummy but difficult to cut.

Ingredients
15.25 ounce package Chips Ahoy Cookies- original kind
8 ounces Cool Whip
1-2 cups milk

Directions
Quickly dip cookies in milk, shake off excess liquid, and layer in 9 inch pie plate, breaking cookies to fill any gaps. Once the first layer is complete, top with a thin layer of Cool Whip. Repeat twice more making last layer of Cool Whip a bit thicker. Garnish with chocolate syrup if desired. Place in freezer 2-3 hours before serving and serve frozen. Note- You must dip quickly or your pie will be soggy. Make sure to shake off excess milk as well so that you do not have a puddle of milk in your pie. The final product will be like a soft cookie dough-like consistency. Oh, I almost forgot! We made an addition to our family on Monday... we finally gave in and let Abbott adopt a cat. Abbott named her "Abby" but also calls her "Abby Cat", I think he named her that because it resembles his name. If I would have known cats were this easy I would have adopted one years ago! She fits perfectly in our family, red hair and all!

Pudding Ice Cream

Summer is here, finally! It got up to 92 degrees this week and we spent today at the pool! There's nothing better on a hot summer night than ice cream! This is easy and it is healthier than the usual cream based ice cream. You can use any pudding flavor... cheesecake, pistachio, strawberry, lemon... the possibilities are endless! It tastes like a Pudding Pop Popsicle that you would buy at the supermarket! Ingredients
2 (3.9 ounce) boxes of instant pudding (any flavor you want)
3 cups milk (we used non-dairy soy milk)

Directions
Whisk together pudding mix and milk. Pour into ice cream maker and freeze according to machine directions.

Marshmallow Fruit Dip

I got an email from an old friend who found my blog. She gave me some great tips to sneak fruits/veggies into my family's meals (which you will soon notice me doing) ... is it really that obvious that my family doesn't eat many fruits or vegetables? I LOVE all fruits and vegetables but my husband HATES most fruits and vegetables, so it makes it difficult. It was easy to get everyone to eat fruit with this delicious dip though! My goodness, this is the best fruit dip I've ever had! It was sticky so it clung to the fruit (I hate when you have to chase the fruit dip around your plate trying to scoop it onto your strawberry). It was so easy to make and so easy to gobble up, I could have eaten the whole bowl myself!

Ingredients
8 oz marshmallow cream
8 oz cream cheese
1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions
Soften cream cheese to about room temperature. Mix the cream cheese, marshmallow fluff, and vanilla in a medium mixing bowl. That's it... now try not to eat it all by yourself ;-)

Abbott’s Ice Cream Sandwiches

Abbott’s been bringing home cookbooks from his school library the last couple weeks. He has really gotten into my blog and wants to help pick out recipes to make… usually the recipes consist of various condiments he sees in the fridge, yikes! So when he asked to make these ice cream sandwiches from the Betty Crocker Kid’s Cookbook I was thrilled (something edible, hooray)!

Ingredients
Sugar cookies
Ice cream
Sprinkles

Directions
Put a scoop of ice cream between two sugar cookies and roll the edges of the ice cream sandwich in sprinkles.

Immediately feed ice cream sandwiches to your children who lick the sprinkles off and ask to roll it in sprinkles again… or wrap in plastic wrap to store in the freezer (only to be removed by your children 5 minutes later).

Fluffernutter

I hadn’t heard of a Fluffernutter before I met Justin. It’s one of his favorite snacks but I wouldn’t ever try it and I have to say, it never sounded appetizing to me! However, on our 10 year anniversary we went to one of our favorite hangouts in Kansas City, The Brick. They serve a grilled Fluffernutter that sounded delicious. It was funny because the chef brought it out himself because he had to meet the customer that ordered it. He said he hadn’t had anyone ever order it before, lol! Well, I have been hooked on Fluffernutter ever since! I can’t believe I’ve been missing out all these years!

Ingredients
Bread
Butter
Peanut butter
Marshmallow fluff

Directions
Spread peanut butter on one slice of bread and marshmallow fluff on the other slice of bread. In a hot skillet, melt a tablespoon of butter and lay each piece of bread in the skillet (bread side down with the fluff and peanut butter facing up like an open face sandwich). When the bread is toasted remove the slices from the skillet and put them together creating the Fluffernutter sandwich! Let the sandwich cool-down for a couple of minutes before eating or all of the peanut butter and marshmallow will squish out. Enjoy!!

Chocolate Chip Pudding Cake

This simple cake is one of our favorite desserts. No icing is needed because they are full of milk chocolate chips! This is first on our list of holiday foods and snacks to take on vacations. It’s our comfort dessert that we make just for us and devour immediately. We made cupcakes this week because this was the first week in a longtime that we were all home together (aside from the evening we had to go buy a new dishwasher). We watched The Dark Knight and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian while snacking on these cupcakes; Abbott’s commentary about The Joker was hilarious!

Ingredients
A box of yellow cake mix (and the eggs, oil, etc. to make it)
1 package of instant pudding (vanilla if you want the cake yellow or chocolate if you want the cake brown, you don’t really notice a flavor difference)
1 package of milk chocolate chips

Directions
Mix the cake according to the directions on the box and stir in the instant pudding powder. Fold in the chocolate chips and cook according to the cake box!

Trish’s Cornflake Chicken

Trish is my mother-in-law and cornflake chicken was Justin’s favorite type of chicken when I met him. So much so that he requested it as the meal for our rehearsal dinner at our wedding (his last dinner as a free man, dom dom dom). Justin and the boys eat it with ketchup; I like it plain or with white pepper gravy.

Ingredients
Chicken Breasts (however many you need for your family)
2-3 cups cornflakes
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup melted butter

Directions
In a large ziploc bag combine the cornflakes, salt, and pepper and seal. With a rolling pin or cup, crunch the cornflakes (or let your all too willing children smash the bag in their fingers). Dip the chicken in the melted butter and then put it in the ziploc bag. Shake the bag until the chicken is coated with the cornflakes. Put the chicken in an uncovered baking dish and cook at 375 for 45 minutes.

White Hot Chocolate

We've wanted to try white hot chocolate for awhile but when I went looking for recipes they all called for half and half or heavy whipping cream (or both, yikes) and if I am going to make this irresistible drink for my family so close to bedtime I needed it to be less fattening (yes, this coming for the woman who made an entire cake for her family yesterday). I decided I was just going to wing it and try a white hot chocolate recipe using our non-fat skim milk and white chocolate chips. It actually turned out fantastic! It was absolutely delicious! Try it!











Ingredients
1 3/4 cups milk
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
whipped topping
blue sprinkles (because it makes me think of snowflakes, lol)

Directions
In a small sauce pan combine 1/4 cup milk and white chocolate chips. Heat over medium heat, whisking until chocolate melts. Stir in remaining milk and heat to warm. Pour into glasses and garnish with whipped topping and sprinkles.

Strawberry Shortcakes

As a family we seem to go through these dessert phases… Smore’s, homemade ice cream, funnel cakes (yes, this is as pathetic as it sounds)! We just all seem to crave the same thing at once and we get hooked on it for months. Lately it’s been Strawberry Shortcakes; notice not “shortcake” but “shortcakes”. It’s a short stake of blueberry pancakes layered with strawberry compote and topped with creamy whipped topping.

Ingredients
Pancakes (we prefer Blueberry)
Strawberries (the sliced strawberries with sugar found in the freezer section)
Whipped Topping

Directions
There’s nothing to it! Cook the pancakes according to the directions on the package. Layer each of the pancakes with strawberries and top with the whipped cream!

Although strawberry shortcake -- the quintessential version of this sweet dish-- is an American classic, the origins of the treat date back to 16th century England. Traditional shortcake is, in fact, not really cake at all but is actually a sweet biscuit with a fruit filling and topping. It is believed that early Americans preferred their shortcake with blueberries, but today it is served with a variety of fruit fillings. It was not until the 1850s that strawberry shortcake became particularly popular in the United States and evolved into a cookbook staple shortly thereafter.

3 Ingredient Macaroni and Cheese

The school that I teach at has great macaroni and cheese! At first glance it looked a little unappealing the way the cheese sauce dripped through your fork but the flavor was delicious! I asked the cafeteria what their recipe was and was told “5 lbs of Velveeta and 1 gallon of milk”. Since my conversation skills are lacking I took my best guess. It turned out just as yummy as the school cafeteria’s and even Justin who is anti-Velveeta liked it!

Ingredients
16 oz. Elbow Macaroni
2 lb. Velveeta (cubed)
2 c. Skim Milk

Directions
Cook the elbow macaroni in boiling water for around 12 minutes or until your desired tenderness and strain. Return pan to low heat and add the Velveeta and milk. Stir until all the Velveeta is melted and then season with salt and pepper.