White Chocolate Cake Batter Cups

I don't like white chocolate. There...I put it out there. It's just too sweet, too creamy, harder to work with, etc. I don't mind it mixed into things like batters and frostings and cheesecakes, but straight up white chocolate? PASS.

So why did I make these, you ask? They looked fun, and easy, and everyone else seems to like white chocolate. Can't be selfish all the time!

I threw the green sprinkles on top as a little nod to the fact that it's St. Patrick's Day. I had about 3 other recipes planned this week in honor of the Irish holiday, but life got in the way, as usual. For dinner, I wanted to make my Shepherd's Pie with Stout Gravy (best ever...promise!), but instead I got busy catching up on work stuff and ate frozen pork dumplings instead. Although, last night's dinner was phenomenal, and I will share that recipe with you all soon!

These are so simple to make, I already had everything I needed other than 2 more bars of white chocolate. If you decide to make these, get good quality white chocolate, baker's chocolate works well. Ghiradelli bars just happened to be on sale last week, so I grabbed 3 (already had 1!). You can use white chocolate chips, but they just don't melt and mix the same. You won't be sorry by going higher quality with this. Also, when it says heat the chocolate in 30 second increments, do just that! White chocolate burns and dries out much faster, so shorter heating increments and a good mixing is key.

White Chocolate Cake Batter Cups
from House of Yum

1 cup white or yellow boxed cake mix
5 tbsp. butter (salted or unsalted), softened
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup white sugar
2 tbsp. brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
2 tbsp. rainbow (or any color) non-pareil sprinkles
16 oz. white chocolate
1 tsp. vegetable or coconut oil

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix cake mix, butter, vanilla sugars, and flour together on low until a crumbly dough forms. Add the sprinkles and mix a little more. If the dough doesn't fully come together, continue mixing it with your hands.
2. Shape the dough into small discs (using about 1/2 tablespoon of dough). I rolled them into a ball and squished them a bit. Place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment or wax paper and chill in the refrigerator for 10 minutes.
3. Break the chocolate into pieces and melt for 30 seconds in the microwave. Stir, heat for another 30 seconds. Stir and heat for another 15 seconds or so until mostly melted. Add oil and continue stirring until all is melted and smooth.
4. Using mini cupcake liners, spoon a small amount into the bottom of about 26-28 cups and spread so it's even. Place a dough disc on top and cover each with more white chocolate, smoothing over to cover the disc.
5. Place more sprinkles on top or leave them plain. Chill in the refrigerator and enjoy!

Cream Cheese Stuffed Banana Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake

This might be the longest recipe name I have. It's worth typing it out, though...promise!

Before I get to posting about the coffee cake, I'd like to take a moment and be thankful that we survived another bout of the stomach bug. December 2014 (Christmas Eve to be exact), I was hit with the bug for the first time since seventh grade. Dan had it two days prior. Well this time around, we both got it at the same time. Luckily, it only lasted a bit over a day, and we have now recovered, disinfected, and would like to put it behind us. Thankfully, our family did a full day of babysitting yesterday while we wasted away on the couch. But really though, I escape it for 18 years and now I feel like I'm going to get hit with it once a year.

Anyways, this recipe is from a week ago, pre-sickness. I'm feeling better, but not enough to start baking away. This recipe is easy and super yummy. I brought most of it to work to share and it was eaten right up. Other than bananas and cream cheese, I always have everything I need to make this, so this recipe is a keeper. Basic ingredients and it's pretty simple, you can't ask for more in a baked good.

Can I make a confession?

I started this post 4 days ago.... Then I got distracted/busy, maybe a little lazy after that, and then tired after that and never finished it. It's been a long week of recovering from the aforementioned stomach bug, and then P ended up with a cold. So now, she's hacking away, all super congested and throws an absolute nutty when we try to suction her nose. I can't blame her, I would too, but she wasn't a fan of the doctor trying to clean wax out of her ear this morning either. Poor babe.

I guess I can get to posting the recipe now, since I made this almost two week ago. The original recipe includes walnuts in the cake and streusel, as well as a vanilla glaze for the top. I omitted both.

Cream Cheese Stuffed Banana Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake
From Carlsbad Cravings

Cinnamon Streusel

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tablespoon cinnamon

4 tablespoons cold butter, cubed

Banana Cake

2 and 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 and 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1 and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup butter, softened

1.5 cups sugar

2 large eggs

1 cup mashed bananas (about 2 large ripe bananas)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 and 1/4 cups sour cream

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cream Cheese Filling

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup Reserved Batter (see instructions)

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a tube pan on all inside surfaces with a non-stick spray that contains flour, or butter and flour your pan. Don't just use cooking spray, it will stick. Set aside.
2. For the streusel, add flour, brown sugar and cinnamon to a food processor and pulse a few times to combine. Sprinkle cold butter over top and pulse until the mixture resembles small pebbles. (You may also combine in a bowl and cut butter in by hand). Set aside in the refrigerator.
3. For the cake, in a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.
4. Using a stand or hand mixer, beat butter and sugar until fluffy on medium high speed, about 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating just until the yellow disappears after each egg. Mix in vanilla and bananas until just until combined.
5. Gradually add flour mixture to banana mixture, alternating with sour cream (flour, cream, flour, cream, flour). Beat until just combined. Measure out 1/4 cup batter and set aside for cream cheese filling. Stir chocolate chips into remaining batter until just until combined.
6. Measure out 1 cup batter (to top cream cheese layer) and spoon the rest of the batter into the prepared pan.
7. To your now empty mixing bowl, add 1/4 cup reserved batter, cream cheese, 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1/4 cup sugar. Beat on medium high speed until smooth and creamy, about 1 minute. Spoon cream cheese filling over batter and gently smooth, but do not touch the sides of the pan. Spread reserved 1 cup batter evenly over filling (it will be very thin).
8. Tap pan on counter a few times to get rid of any air bubbles then sprinkle evenly with streusel.
9. Bake for 55-60 minutes at 350 degrees F or until toothpick inserted comes out clean (without inserting in cream cheese). Let baked cake cool on wire rack for 1 hour. Gently invert cake onto a baking sheet, remove pan, and invert back onto cooling rack streusel side up. Let cool to room temperature.
10. Store in the refrigerator for up to 7 days.

 

Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies

This is a first for me. I'm blogging from my phone! I was tuckered out and went to lay in bed, and as I was pinning recipes I remembered I haven't updated the blog with a few that I've made. So far, my typo rate has sky-rocketed, thanks autocorrect. I don't know about any of you, but I use the swipe feature to type on my phone, which comes up with all sorts of words sometimes. I don't think I'll do much blogging from the mobile end any time soon. But, for tonight I'll test it out.

My mom makes these really great chocolate chip cookies. When we asked her what her secret was, she said "vanilla pitching". And there's that autocorrect...she actually said "vanilla pudding". I remembered seeing these pudding cookies somewhere, so I began to investigate (Google). I found a recipe on AllRecipes.Com and it featured butterscotch pudding in the cookies. Then I came to this realization:

You can use any pudding flavor to change up the cookie flavor. Ummm, heck yeah! I immediately rummaged through my bin of chocolate chips, yes, a bin, and needed to choose one kind. But which kind?  You see I have chocolate chips,  mini chips, dark chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, chocolate mint chips, Andes peppermint chips, butterscotch chips, and caramel bits. So, yeah, I need a bin.  I chose mint chocolate chips and a sugar free chocolate pudding. I also had vanilla, butterscotch, white chocolate, and pistachio puddings.

I have A LOT of baking supplies, okay?!?!

These came out great, and I can't wait to try them with different flavor combinations.

At this point I am highly annoyed with mobile blogging, so I am going to leave the link to the recipe and not type it all out.  Sorry folks, next time I'll stick to the good old-fashioned (err old-modern?) way of typing it on my tablet.

Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/11182/chocolate-chip-pudding-cookies/

Cheesy Chicken Rollups

I don't know why I don't follow my gut more. Like when I start making a recipe and think of a way that might be better, but then choose not to make it that way. This recipe is perfectly delicious as is, but I found that working with the chopped chicken was tougher. Next time I make this, I will cook chicken tenderloins and cut them to fit the crescent rolls. That way there's more substance than the chopped chicken that fell out everywhere. Other than that, I would keep this recipe the same. I doubled this so we could have leftovers, below is the recipe for 1 batch.

Cheesy Chicken Rollups
From Plain Chicken

1 can crescent rolls
1 large chicken breast, cooked and chopped
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup shredded cheese

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9x13 baking dish.
2. Combine the cream of chicken soup, milk and cheese. Pour 1/3 of the mixture into the bottom of the dish.
3. Place some chopped chicken on an unrolled crescent roll and top with 1 teaspoon of soup mixture. Roll up and put into the dish.
4. Repeat with remaining rolls and cover with remaining soup mixture.
5. Sprinkle some extra cheese on top is desired (I did!).
6. Bake for 30 minutes.

Meatball Stew

On cold winter days you need warm, hearty meals. This past weekend it was around -16 degrees here, and yesterday it rained and was 50 degrees. Get your act together New England! Anyways, we didn't have the ingredients for pot roast this weekend, but I did have ingredients for something pretty similar. I just replaced the roast with meatballs, and it also takes less time to cook. I omitted the onions and celery, but if no one in your family opposes them I would keep them in.

The one thing I would change is cooking the veggies for the full 4-5 hours alone, then adding the cooked meatballs in and cooking another couple of hours. After 5 hours, My potatoes and carrots were not cooked through and I ended up removing them and heating them in the microwave and putting them back into the crockpot. Way more work for a meal that I wanted to set and forget. Other than that, I knew it may not be filling enough for Dan as is, so I made mashed potatoes to serve it over. I don't recommend doubling up on the starches here. You can eat it as is, like a stew, or leave out the potatoes, and keep the carrots, onions and celery and serve over egg noodles. You can use this recipe a few different ways.

Also, don't mind my picture. I forgot to take one at my first serving, so I took one of my messy plate during my second serving. The below recipe is how I made it, not including my suggestion of cooking the veggies first.

Meatball Stew
From Pocket Change Gourmet

1 pkg. frozen meatballs or homemade, cooked (about 20 meatballs)
4 large carrots, peeled and chopped
3 potatoes, peeled and chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
4 stalks celery, sliced
1 can tomato soup
1 can beef gravy
1 envelope onion soup mix
2 tsp. or 2 cubes of beef bouillon
1 cup water

1. Place chopped veggies in a crockpot.
2. Pour remaining ingredients (other than meatballs) in and combine.
3. Add meatballs, mix, and cook on low 4-5 hours until veggies are tender.

** To prepare on stove top, combine all ingredients in a stockpot. Bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to low and simmer for an hour or until veggies are tender.

Garlic Bread Pizzas

Ever need a recipe that will come together in minutes? And not those, "dinner in under 30 minutes" recipes, I mean minutes, like, 8-10 minutes. Here's one.

Okay, so these alone aren't really a meal unless you eat all of them, but pair them with a salad and you can have any easy meal in no time at all.

I have to give credit to my cousin's girlfriend for this recipe. She brought it to one of our family potlucks and everyone loved it. When we were invited to watch the Superbowl at my in-law's (yes, and I'm just now getting around to posting it), we had little time to prepare anything. We grabbed the ingredients for these and made them at their house right before the game started. They really do take a matter of minutes if you want cheese or pepperoni pizzas. If you want sausage (which we used some) then you need to brown the sausage first. If you want veggies, you'll want to sauté them a bit first. But, if everything is prepared in advance, then you still have dinner in a matter of minutes.

Garlic Bread Pizzas
from Jen

1 package frozen garlic bread slices
Pizza sauce
Shredded cheese
prepared desired toppings

1. Cook garlic bread according to package directions. Leave oven on.
2. Top slices with pizza sauce, cheese, and toppings. Bake for a few minutes until cheese is melted and all is heated through.

Honey-Garlic Skillet Shrimp

Tonight was a first in our kitchen. After Dan ate, he went to the store and bought ingredients for a SECOND ROUND of dinner. I didn't try to stop him, and I can't blame him, because these shrimp really were that good. And they are the easiest shrimp to make. Shrimp and 4 ingredients most people always have on hand. While I was making round 1, I wasn't sure how they would come out. I've made a few marinated shrimp recipes where they came out kind of bland. Not this one. They were full of flavor eve after being marinated for only 15-20 minutes and they are pre-frozen shrimp. And the shrimp was on sale! If you marinate these for even longer they would have an even more intense flavor. Next time around I want to try these with fresh shrimp and marinate them longer.

Seriously, this recipe was just bonus after bonus. Not to mention that I made a batch of brownies and Dan also brought home some ice cream, so round 2 even gets a brownie sundae dessert. Happy Monday!

Honey-Garlic Skillet Shrimp
from The Cooking Jar

1 lb. shrimp, de-veined and tails on
2 tbsp. soy sauce
4 tbsp. honey
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. minced garlic
canola oil for cooking

White rice for serving if you'd like. I suggest adding veggies to make it a really full meal.

1. Combine the soy sauce, honey, ginger and garlic. Pour half into a large plastic bag with the shrimp and let marinate for 15-30 minutes.
2. In a large skillet, heat a small bit of oil over medium-high heat.
3. Add the shrimp and cook on each side for a few minutes. Turn the heat down and let the sauce thicken up a bit as the shrimp continue to cook.
4. Serve the shrimp over rice and drizzle with remaining sauce.