Snowman Cookies

A picture of these cookies is one of the first things I “repinned” on Pinterest when I first joined back in August. I knew they would make the perfect preschool snack this winter.  The recipe originally came from the blog My Pretty Purse.

Snowman Cookies


Ingredients:
2 (4 oz.) bars Nestle Premier White chocolate
1 tbsp shortening
12 Nutter Butter cookies
12 orange Tic Tacs, ⅓ cut off
36 mini M&Ms
Black decorator gel icing


Directions:
Break the white chocolate into small pieces and place in a medium-sized microwave-safe bowl with the shortening.  Microwave on 70% power for 45 seconds.  Stir.  Microwave an additional 45 minutes if necessary.  Stir until smooth.


Dip cookies individually in melted chocolate using two forks to roll them around.  Use the forks to lift them out and place them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.


Once all the cookies have been dipped, place a cut-off Tic Tac on each one where the nose should be.  Then place 3 mini M&Ms on each one to make buttons.  Using a very light hand, draw eyes and a mouth on each cookie with the decorator icing.


Allow a couple of hours for them to set completely.  Even after setting, be careful with the eyes and mouth as the black icing may smudge.


Makes a dozen cookies.

Aren’t they just the cutest things ever?  And they are incredibly easy to make.  I didn’t have enough of the Nestle white chocolate to cover all the cookies I wanted to make, so I used some white melting candies for the remainder, but it didn’t work as well.  It didn’t coat it as smoothly, and I had trouble getting the black icing to stick to it.

I didn’t change very much about the original recipe, except to specify quantities.  I used three mini M&Ms instead of two regular ones.  My snowmen only had brown, yellow, and blue buttons because I used the red and green M&Ms to make my candy covered chocolate dipped pretzel rods at Christmastime.

Apparently, there was a discussion in my daughter’s class as they were eating these, whether they were cookies or candy.  Lena said, “I said they were cookies, but this other girl said they were candies.”  I told her that they were both right, because they were cookies with candies on them.  She thought this was a genius answer and told me that she would be sure to relay this information to the other girl the next time she saw her.  I’m going to treasure these times she thinks my answers to her questions are genius, because I know it won’t last forever!

Pin It
Shared at:

• Recipe Linky at Newlyweds
• Sweets for a Saturday at Sweet As Sugar Cookies

Roasted Carrot and Parsnip Soup

I know it’s not really soup season, but we had soup for dinner last night.  It was our meatless meal of the week, so I made a spinach and cheese quiche and had this soup with it.  I got the inspiration from a recipe I saw on Food.com, but made mine completely differently.  Here’s how I made mine.

Roasted Carrot and Parsnip Soup


Ingredients:
1 lb. carrots, peeled and cut into ½” slices
1 lb. parsnips, peeled and cut into ½” slices
Olive oil
Salt
½ large onion, diced
3-4 cups vegetable or chicken stock
¼ tsp dried thyme


Directions:
Preheat oven to 400°.  Place carrots and parsnips on a baking sheet in a single layer.  Drizzle with oil and sprinkle with salt.  Roast in oven 30-40 minutes or until veggies are soft but not too brown.


Heat 1 tbsp oil in a soup pot.  Saute onion in oil until beginning to get soft.  Add roasted veggies, 3 cups stock, and thyme.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for a few minutes.  Turn heat off and puree using a stick blender or in batches using a regular blender, adding more stock if necessary to reach desired consistency.  


Makes 4 servings.

Pretty simple really.  And it’s really tasty.  The carrots give it a nice sweetness while the parsnips give a hint of spicyness.  The recipe I saw used only half a pound of parsnips, but I decided to give the parsnips and carrots equal billing.  They are really good together.

Roasting the veggies gives the soup an added dimension of flavor.  Just make sure they don’t get dark brown; it will give your soup a “burned” flavor and will make it an unappealing brown color.  (I know this from the last time I tried making soup out of roasted carrots.  That one didn’t turn out so well!)

I really like pureed vegetable soups and am happy to add this one to my repertoire. 

Slow Cooker Chipotle Chicken & Sweet Potato Stew

I created a new recipe yesterday. I certainly didn’t intend to, but the recipe I was trying out just wasn’t working and didn’t look anything like what I had in mind. So I gave it some thought (it was a slow cooker recipe so I had some time to ponder!) and started making changes here and there throughout the day. In the end, I either changed or omitted 10 out of the 12 ingredients, and changed the nature of it as something to serve over rice into a stew, so I think it qualifies as a new creation!

Slow Cooker Chipotle Chicken & Sweet Potato Stew

Ingredients:

4 chicken breast cutlets, cubed

2 small sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 (15 oz.) can black beans, drained and rinsed

½ onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, grated

2 chipotle peppers, minced, plus 3 tbsp adobo sauce

3 tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp paprika

½ tsp salt

2 tsp cornstarch

1½ cups chicken broth

Directions:

Place chicken, sweet potatoes, beans, onion, garlic, chipotles, tomato paste, paprika, and salt into the slow cooker. Stir cornstarch into chicken broth and add to slow cooker. Stir well to evenly distribute seasonings.

Cook on low for 6 hours.

Makes 4 servings.

I made so many changes from the recipe I started with that I am not going to detail them all. You can read that recipe here. If you read the comments, you will see that I was not the only one who had problems with it. I got the recipe from this blogger’s cookbook, and it did not occur to me to look it up online to read comments until I realized it wasn’t working out too well, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have made it in the first place.

But, I am glad that I did because this stew turned out really well. Combining chicken, sweet potatoes, and chipotle in a stew had been in the back of my mind all winter, but I never got around to experimenting with it. Then when the original recipe from yesterday wasn’t working out, I thought it would be really easy to turn it into something like what I had been thinking about during the winter. I think it would be really good with beef too.

As a little peek inside my recipe process, I have taken a picture of the recipe print-out I was making notes on throughout the day yesterday.

The only ingredients I kept without change are the chopped onion and paprika.

Although it seems kind of out-of-season now, this will be a great meal for next winter!

Slow Cooker Chipotle Chili

This is my basic chili recipe. Nothing fancy or unique about it; just good chili. When I started making chili I didn’t have a slow cooker, so I used this stovetop recipe. But now that I have one, I have been making it in that. Since I adapted it for the slow cooker and also changed the seasonings, I decided to post this one as well.

Slow Cooker Chipotle Chili

Ingredients:

½ large onion, diced

1 lb. ground beef

2 (14 oz.) cans diced tomatoes

1 (15 oz.) can tomato sauce

1 (15 oz.) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1 tbsp Northwoods Fire seasoning

2 tsp chili powder

½ tsp cumin

½ cup water, optional

Cheddar cheese

Sour cream

Directions:

Saute onion and ground beef in skillet until ground beef is cooked through. Drain off any grease. Put in slow cooker. Add diced tomatoes (with their juice), tomato sauce, beans, and seasonings. Add water if desired.

Cook on low for 4-6 hours.

Serve with cheddar cheese and sour cream if desired.

Makes 6 servings.

I know that everybody likes their chili a different way, but this is how I like mine. I like it a little bit saucy, not super thick. That’s why I put the part about the water in there. I add a little bit of water to mine. Whether or not you add water will depend on how much juice is in your diced tomatoes and what consistency you like your chili. Remember that the water won’t evaporate from the slow cooker like it does on the stovetop, so if you like your chili really thick, don’t add water, and maybe even drain the tomatoes.

If you are not familiar with it, Northwoods Fire is a seasoning blend from my favorite spice place, Penzey’s. It’s a spice blend containing paprika, chipotle pepper, black pepper, cayenne pepper, thyme, rosemary and garlic. The chipotle is the dominant flavor here; that’s why I love it. It adds a really great smoky flavor to the chili. If you are not fortunate enough to live near a Penzey’s, you can either order online, or you can use a combination of more chili powder and a little ground chipotle powder. While this chili has a nice heat to it, if you like chili to be super hot, add more Northwoods Fire or ground chipotle.

I like to serve chili with sweet cornbread.

*I tagged this recipe as dairy-free; it’s dairy-free without the cheese and sour cream.

Curried Chicken and Rice Soup

This recipe comes from Allrecipes.

Curried Chicken and Rice Soup

Ingredients:
½ cup matchstick carrots
½ small onion, chopped
4 tbsp butter 
4 tbsp flour
¼ tsp salt
1¼ tsp sweet curry powder
¼ tsp hot curry powder
2 cups whole milk
2 cups chicken broth (regular; use more salt if using red.sod.)
1-2 cups cooked chicken, cubed
2 cups long-grain rice, cooked


Directions:
In a large saucepan, saute carrots and onion in butter for 2 minutes. Stir in flour, salt, and curry powders until smooth. Gradually add milk. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Gradually add broth. Stir in chicken and rice. Return to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 5-10 minutes or until vegetables are tender.


Makes 5 servings.

I made a few changes from the original. I increased the curry powder quite a bit. It called for ½ tsp for 10 servings. That didn’t seem like very much, especially considering that “curry” is in the title of the recipe. Reviewers on Allrecipes agreed that it needed more, so I took their advice and increased that. You can use all sweet curry if you like; I add just a tiny bit of hot just for fun.  If you like things spicy, then use even more.  It also called for 1 stalk of celery, but we don’t like celery that much and I didn’t want to buy a whole package just for one stalk. The only other thing I changed was that I increased the rice. It called for one cup, and after I put one cup in, it didn’t seem like very much and I had another cup cooked, so I added that too. I think it was good that way.

The original recipe called for using condensed milk instead of regular, but it turned out really super thick.  I tried it with 2% milk and it was better, but still thick, so I decreased the butter and flour to make the roux less thick.

We really like this soup.  The yellow color is pretty.

The greatest thing about this soup is that it is a cinch to throw together. It’s a great use for leftovers (chicken and rice). I think it would be good with leftover turkey from Thanksgiving too. Even without leftovers it is pretty simple. I keep canned chicken in my pantry for recipes like this.

It’s only early November and I’m already feeling like I want to eat soup every day! I’m sure I’ll be making this one again in the coming months.

*Updated 04.18.12 to reflect changes I have made to the recipe since first posting it.

Spicy Cranberry Glazed Chicken

This is a recipe I got from the magazine Cuisine at Home. It was in the April issue, but it felt like a fall/winter dish to me so I saved it until now.

Spicy Cranberry Glazed Chicken

Ingredients:

⅓ cup frozen cranberry juice cocktail concentrate, thawed

3 tbsp brown mustard

2 tbsp brown sugar

1½ tsp hot sauce

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

Salt

Directions:

Preheat broiler with oven rack 5-6” from the heating element. Line a baking sheet with foil and coat with nonstick spray.

Combine juice concentrate, mustard, brown sugar, hot sauce, and Worcestershire sauce in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat to medium, and simmer until mixture becomes syrupy, about 8 minutes.

Season chicken breasts with salt and place on prepared baking sheet. Broil for 6 minutes. Flip chicken and baste with the cranberry glaze. Broil for 4 minutes, flip again and baste. Broil until chicken begins to brown, about 5 minutes. Chicken is done when an instant-read thermometer reads 160°.

Makes 4 servings.

This is so yummy! I make a cranberry glaze for my Easter ham and we love that, so I figured this would be good too.

The original recipe called for 2-3 tsp of hot sauce, but we are not big hot sauce people, so I started with 1 tsp. After the glaze reduced, I tasted it and thought it could use a little bit more, so I added the extra ½ tsp. So if you like things really spicy, you will need to add more.

I served this with stuffing for a Thanksgiving-type feel. StoveTop makes a good lower sodium version now.

Slow Cooker Loaded Baked Potato Soup

This is a recipe adapted from one I read in a new cookbook, The Everything Healthy Slow Cooker Cookbook. The author has a food blog, Coconut and Lime, where she posts her original recipes. The book is great, because it’s an entire cookbook of slow cooker recipes and not one of them includes cream of mushroom soup as an ingredient! The recipes are all healthy and very creative.

Slow Cooker Loaded Baked Potato Soup

Ingredients:

½ large onion, diced

4 russet potatoes, peeled and cubed

5 cups water

1 tsp salt

1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

½ cup sour cream

4 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled

½ cup green onion, sliced

Directions:

Place the onions, potatoes, water, and salt into a 4-6 quart slow cooker. Cook on low for 7 hours, or high for 4 ½ hours.

With a ladle, remove some of the cooking liquid and set aside. Either mash potatoes using a potato masher (for a chunkier soup), or puree using a stick blender (for a smoother soup). Add more cooking liquid until soup is desired consistency. Stir in the cheese, sour cream, bacon crumbles, and green onion.

Garnish with more cheese, bacon, and green onion, if desired.

Makes 6 servings.

Okay, so my version isn’t quite as healthy as the one in the book. I increased the sour cream (reduced-fat is fine), cheese, and bacon. I know, I know, but it’s cold outside and I need comfort food! 🙂 The other thing I changed is the amount of salt. The recipe in the book called for ¼ tsp. ¼ tsp for 4 large potatoes? Who could eat that and not find it bland?

Overall, I loved this soup. Mashing it with a potato masher was my idea; I like a few chunks of potato in my soup and I didn’t really feel like digging out the stick blender. Taking the cooking liquid out was my idea too; it just looked so watery before I mashed the potatoes that I was worried it would be too runny. So I took about two cups out and saved it. Then after mashing, I started adding it back, and actually ended up adding all of it back. But it’s a good way to customize the consistency. I loved the raw green onions in it; it really made it taste like a loaded baked potato to me. But Jim doesn’t like raw onions, so I only put them in my serving. Then I chopped up a few more and put them in a container in the fridge for when I had leftovers.

I’m sure I’ll be making this again throughout the fall and winter. I had planned to serve this soup with sandwiches, but when it was done, it looked so good that we had no interest in sandwiches and ate the soup all by itself.

Again, I highly recommend this cookbook if you are a slow cooker user. I found about 30 recipes in there that I want to try eventually!