TIO Tuesday - No-Bake Cookies

I swear I used to make these when I was growing up. Or maybe my mom did? Or maybe a combination? I don't know, but I do know I loved them, loved them, really loved them! I think everyone my age probably had them as well. No comment on my age...

Recently I came across this recipe and thought it sounded pretty close to what I remember. I whipped them up in no time and it didn't heat up the house. Even better than that, my kids loved them too.

No Bake Cookies

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup milk
4 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups quick-cooking oats

1. Add the first four ingredients (through the cocoa powder) to a 4-quart saucepan.
2. Bring to a rolling boil and let boil for 1 minute.
3. Remove from heat.
4. Stir in the peanut butter and vanilla until smooth, then stir in the oats.
5. Drop by heaping tablespoons onto wax paper-lined baking sheets.
6. Let cool until set.
(Recipe adapted from Ezra Pound Cake)


Enjoy!!!

TIO Tuesday - Delish Pesto Pasta with Chicken Marsala

My friend, Jen, gave me her latest copy of Taste of Home. I flipped through quick as I was sitting at Jack's baseball game and this recipe caught my eye. It's labeled as a "fast fix" which always works for me! It did take a little longer than the 30 minutes quoted, but not much. I liked that the sauce wasn't heavy, making it a perfect pasta for summer. I've always wanted to make a Chicken Marsala and now I have the wine to do it. I'll be looking for a good recipe for that soon, so if you have one, please let me know!

(I am retyping this from the magazine, but it's in the current issue of Taste of Home - August/September 2012.)
Delish Pesto Pasta with Chicken Marsala

4 cups uncooked penne pasta
2 tbsp. olive oil, divided
2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into thin strips and divided
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp. grated lemon peel
1 cup Marsala wine
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup 2% milk
1 envelope creamy pesto sauce mix
1 tbsp. minced fresh basil
1 tbsp. minced fresh parsley

1. Cook pasta according to package directions. In a Dutch oven, heat 1 tbsp. oil over medium-high heat. Add half of the chicken cook and stir until no longer pink.; remove from pan. Repeat with remaining oil and chicken. Remove chicken from pan.
2. Add garlic and lemon peel to the same pan; cook and stir for 30 seconds.  Add wine and lemon juice, stirring to loosen browned bits from pan. Bring to a boil; cook until liquid is reduced by half. Stir in the cheese, milk and sauce mix. Add chicken; cook until sauce is slightly thickened.
3. Drain pasta; add to chicken mixture and toss to combine. Sprinkle with herbs.

Enjoy!!!

TIO Tuesday - Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

My sister's baby shower is coming up this weekend. I am in the midst of getting everything ready and figured it might be a good idea to try out this recipe before I serve it on Saturday. You just never know if something will turn out like you think, so these are my trial run. I'm glad I made them, they definitely are a keeper. The kids all tried them and thought they tasted better than the Lemon Drop cupcake from Scratch. I'll take that compliment!

There's a lot of lemon flavor to these, you can even see the lemon zest. I will make them look a little prettier on Saturday. And I'm not quite sure how I will frost them, I was thinking of making them look more like flowers? I have the cupcake toppers all ready to go for them, so the coloring will all match. I will also add the coloring to the frosting, which I didn't do on these.
Pink Lemonade Cupcakes
Cake:

• 1 (16.25 oz) package white cake mix
• 1 small package (3.4 oz) vanilla instant pudding
• 3 Tbsp sweetened pink lemonade drink mix (like Country Time Pink Lemonade mix)
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 tsp lemon zest
• 3/4 cup water
• 3/4 cup oil
• 4 whites eggs
• 6 drops of pink food coloring

Frosting:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup frozen pink lemonade concentrate, thawed
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• Zest from 1 lemon
• 2 pound package or 7 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
• 3 drops of pink food coloring

Decorations:

• 24 lemon slice candies or grapefruit slice candies
• 12 colored flexible drinking straws

1. In a large bowl, whisk cake mix, pudding mix, and drink mix together. Add sour cream, lemon zest, water, oil, and egg whites to the dry mix. Beat with electric mixer on medium speed for about two minutes. Use a strong mixer, this batter is thick.
2. Scoop batter into 24 lined muffin tins. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes until cupcakes don’t look wet and a toothpick inserted in one comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before frosting the cupcakes.
3. Prepare the frosting by creaming butter, shortening, and lemon zest together. Then add lemonade concentrate, milk and vanilla with a mixer. Beat until smooth. Then gradually add the sugar, mixing well until light and fluffy. Beat in the food coloring.
4. Pipe frosting onto the cupcakes. (You will have plenty to pile it on. I had over 1 cup leftover. Leftover frosting is good sandwiched between two graham crackers). Place a lemon candy wedge on top of each cupcakes. With the straws cut the top 1/3 of the straw off just below the flexible part. Discard the tops. Then cut the remaining straw pieces in half. Place one straw piece in each cupcake to resemble a drink.

****My notes: I substituted one cup of butter for the shortening, so a total of 2 cups of butter. I had a lot left over! Everything else was as noted in the recipe.

Enjoy!

TIO Tuesday - Jalapeno Lime Butter

This is my first post written without a current picture. In a very grievous error, I didn't complete the picture download and deleted the pictures from my SD card before I realized it. I'm screaming on the inside for multiple reasons, not the least of which is that I now have no pictures for this post!!!!
I do have left-overs, so the pictures are of that, not the pretty ones I had taken while/after I made it. ARGHHH!!!!!
That being said, let's get on with it. We are heavy into Sweet Corn season in Iowa. It's a glorious time of year for fresh fruit and vegetables! I stopped by the side of the road and purchased a dozen ears of Hesse Sweet Corn on Sunday. I remembered seeing some things on pinterest and a quick search led me to this recipe. I didn't grill our corn, I did it on the stove, other than that, the rest was the same. I will say it would be better with the smokiness of the grill, so I'm looking forward to using my leftovers for that this weekend.

Jalapeno Lime Butter

Ingredients

8  ears fresh corn, husks removed

Vegetable cooking spray

• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1/2 cup butter, softened $
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• 1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced
• 1 small garlic clove, pressed
• 1 tablespoon lime zest
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh cilantro
• Garnish: lime zest

Preparation

1. 1. Preheat grill to 350° to 400° (medium-high) heat. Coat corn lightly with cooking spray. Sprinkle with desired amount of salt and pepper. Grill corn, covered with grill lid, 15 minutes or until golden brown, turning occasionally.
2. 2. Meanwhile, stir together butter and next 5 ingredients. Remove corn from grill, and cut into thirds. Serve corn with butter mixture. Garnish, if desired.

 ****
I had a bunch of cilantro left over, so I made one of my favorite Pioneer Woman recipes, Pico de Gallo. I've made this before, so it doesn't get headlined as a TIO, but it's a flattering compliment to the grilled corn and jalapeno lime butter. As a matter of fact, that was my entire dinner - corn with jalapeno lime butter and pico de gallo - fantastic!

Pico de Gallo

Ingredients

• 5 whole Plum (roma) Tomatoes
• ½ whole Large (or 1 Small) Onion
• 3 whole Jalapeno Peppers
• Cilantro
• Lime Juice
• Salt To Taste

Preparation Instructions
Chop jalapenos, tomatoes and onions into a very small dice. (Leave seeds in your jalapenos for a hotter pico). Adjust amount of jalapenos to your preferred temperature. Next, chop up a nice-sized bunch of cilantro. Just remove and discard the long leafless stems before chopping. No need to remove the leaves from the stems completely. Place all of these ingredients together in a bowl and give it a good stir.

Squeeze the juice of half of one lime into the bowl. Add salt to taste and stir again.
*** My only change was using a red onion.

Enjoy!

TIO Tuesday - Chicken Ranch Tacos

Many of my good friends know how much I love my original Chicken Taco recipe. You might wonder why I would mess with a good thing, but I'm so glad I did! Not that I don't still love the original, but it's nice to change things up once in a while. I have no idea how I came about finding this recipe, I'm sure it goes back to Pinterest somehow. (Is Pinterest the Internet version of Kevin Bacon?)
Two of the five kiddos don't really care for the original recipe, they think it's too spicy. I thought this would be a great way to serve something I already love and have all of us be able to enjoy it. Sure enough, they did and I do. Best of all, it's still in the crockpot, a life saver with 100 degree temps right now.

It looks a little scary here, but this is what it looks like before it's all shredded. The flavors all come together perfect. After shredding, I let it cook for another 30 minutes or so on low. 

Chicken Ranch Tacos
3 cups cooked chicken, cut up
1 pkt. taco seasoning (chicken or beef)
1/2 cup Ranch dressing
------------------
taco shells
lettuce
cheese
Ranch dressing
tomatoes
etc...

Heat a skillet over med-high heat. Add chicken & warm it for a few minutes. Sprinkle on the dry taco seasoning. Do not add any water! Heat for 5-7 minuted until all heated through & powder is stuck to the chicken.

Add Ranch dressing, heat an additional 2-3 minutes to warm through.

Serve in taco shells with all the fixings you love - plus an extra squirt of Ranch!

**** I did mine in the crockpot. Slight adjustment to ingredients: place uncooked or frozen chicken in crockpot, cover with 1 can chicken stock/broth, sprinkle taco seasoning and ranch seasoning on top.  Cook on low 4-6 hours. Shred chicken and stir in Ranch dressing or use as a condiment.
Enjoy!

Introduction!

This is my first post on my new blog! I plan on using this blog for all of my food and entertaining related posts. I noticed that I wasn't getting much done on the family side, so this move is long overdue.
A huge shout-out to Tara Sagers for designing the forth coming logo. I've seen the rough draft, trust me, it fits! My good friend Tammy came up with the title of Block Party and Tara added the "My" portion. I'm excited to get rolling on this, I've got a couple projects planned, in addition to the TIO.
I hope to soon have it be more asthetically pleasing, the blog that is...
Thanks for reading - It's a great day to party on the Block!