Garlic Roasted Asparagus

 

I first used this recipe to make Penne with Roasted Asparagus.  The kids liked it so much (and asparagus is pretty cheap right now) that I've made it a few times as a side dish. Yummy!

Ingredients:
4 bundle of Asparagus
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
olive oil
sea salt
black pepper

Preheat the oven to 425°F (220°C).

Wash the asparagus. I usually buy four bundles of Asparagus for my family of four, but the bundles over here are small.  You can adjust accordingly.  Hold each stalk near the end and break off the "woody" part. It should snap off naturally. Spread the asparagus on a cookie sheet. I covered my cookie sheet in foil for easy clean up. Drizzle olive oil over the asparagus. Move the asparagus around a bit so it coats evenly.  Add the minced garlic and (again) move the asparagus around so it's evenly covered in garlic. Sprinkle with plenty of sea salt and pepper. Bake for about 7 minutes.  Serve immediately and watch that asparagus disappear!

Penne with Roasted Asparagus

I found this recipe by The Newfangled Housewife a few months ago.  I've been waiting until I wasn't so overwhelmed with the move to try it out.  We made it tonight and it's pretty yummy.

Ingredients:

1 bundle of Asparagus
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
olive oil
sea salt
black pepper
1 box penne
1/4c butter
1/3c Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp brown sugar
1/2c plus 2Tsp balsamic vinaigrette

Preheat the oven to 425°F (220°C). Boil the pasta following the directions on the box, drain, and return it to the original pot. 

While the water is boiling, Wash the asparagus.  Hold each stalk near the end and break off the "woody" part.  It should snap off naturally. Cut the asparagus into roughly 1 inch bite sizes and spread them out on a cookie sheet.  I covered mine in foil for easy clean up.  Drizzle olive oil over the asparagus. Move the asparagus around a bit so it coats evenly.  I used this lovely olive oil because it was inexpensive at the local grocery store and I was feeling adventurous.

Add the minced garlic and (again) move the asparagus around so it's evenly covered in garlic.  Sprinkle with plenty of sea salt and pepper.  Bake for about 7 minutes.
In a small pot, bring the balsamic vinaigrette to a boil and let it reduce to about three or four tablespoons. Remove from heat and add the brown sugar.  Add the asparagus, and vinaigrette to the pasta.  Toss together with butter, sauce and cheese.  Sprinkle with more Parmesan if desired.  Serve immediately.

 

4th of July Jello Cups

1 package (3 oz) of berry blue gelatin
1 package (3 oz) of strawberry gelatin
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1 c fresh blueberries
1 c fresh strawberries
6 Tsp sugar
1 c heavy whipping cream
2 c (16 oz) sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a bowl, dissolve the berry blue gelatin in 1 cup boiling water.  Stir in 1 cup cold water.  Divide into clear plastic cups.  (I used 4 oz Tupperware cups)  Carefully add blueberries.  Refrigerate for about 1 hour until firm.

After the blue gelatin is firm start this step.  In a saucepan, sprinkle the unflavored gelatin over 1/2 cup of cold water.  Let it stand for 1 minute.  Mix in the cream and sugar.  Cook and stir over a low heat until the gelatin and sugar are completely dissolved.  Allow to cool to room temperature.  Whisk in sour cream and vanilla.  Spoon over the blue layer.  Refrigerate until firm (about one hour).

After the white layer in firm, start this step.  Slice up the strawberries and place them on the white layer.  In a bowl, dissolve the strawberry gelatin in 1 cup of boiling water.  Stir in one cup cold water.  Pour OVER A SPOON over the cream layer.  Pouring the gelatin over a spoon prevents it from making a hole in the white layer.  Refrigerate until firm (about one hour). 

Garnish with whipped cream and additional berries if desired.

Unicorn Poop Cookies

My sister sent me a link to this recipe. Gross? Not really, we used to make cow patty cookies (better known as no bake cookies) when we were kids. Unicorn poop...why not? They're only kids once.

Ingredients:

1/2c butter, softened
1/4c shortening
1c sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Food coloring
disco dust  (It turns out that disco dust is just for decoration and not meant to be eaten.  I substituted Wiltons Cake Sparkles)
sparkle gel
star sprinkles
Wiltons sugar pearls (The original recipe calls for rainbow, but my girls picked pink)



The unlabeled bottle is Wiltons Cake Sparkles. I was substituting this for the Disco Dust. I bought all these (except the food coloring) at Micheals.

In a mixing bowl, cream butter, shortening and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Slowly add flour, baking powder and salt. Divide the dough into smaller bowls and add food coloring. We used neon colors in blue, green, purple, red and yellow. Well, because unicorns poop rainbows, right? Chill for an hour.



On a floured counter, roll out the dough into "snakes". When you've got five snakes, combine them and roll into one "snake". This is probably the most labor intensive portion of the project. Form your poop and put them on a greased cookie sheet.



Bake the cookies in a preheated oven at 400°F for 8 minutes. When you take them out of the oven, immediately press in the sugar pearls. You want to push them halfway down into the cookie or else they will just roll off the cookie. Allow the cookies to cool. Then squirt a little sparkle gel on the cookies and "paint" them on with an unused paintbrush. Add star sprinkles and disco dust. (I substituted Cake Sparkles for disco dust.)



Look at those kids, working hard.



Voila! Unicorn poop cookies!

Note: The sparkle gel will always remain a bit tacky. Do not stack these cookies.



Source: http://makingmemorieswithyourkids.blogspot.com/2012/03/unicorn-poop-cookies.html

Bubba's Beer Biscuits

This is a recipe that I got from a southern lady sitting in the waiting room of a gymnastics studio when M was a two years old. When she said "Bubba's Beer Biscuits" it sounded like an invitation to tea. Believe me, they sound way cooler with her light southern draw than with my harsh northern cackle.

4c Bisquik
1/4-1/2c sugar
12 oz beer (Honey, could you go buy some more beer? Please and thank you.)
2 Tbsp butter


Preheat oven at 400°F. Mix the ingredients well. Spray a muffin tin with PAM. Spoon batter into muffin tin. Serve with honey butter.

I make honey butter by adding honey to soft butter. I don't really measure it, but it's about a 1:2 ratio of honey to butter. Feel free to add more (or less) honey depending on your taste.

Three Leaf Clover Dinner Rolls

Three Leaf Clover Dinner Rolls is not their official name. I actually have no idea what they are really called. My mother made these rolls every Thanksgiving when I was growing up and my sisters and I LOVED eating the "Three Leaf Clovers". We actually fought over the rolls with four "Leaves".

Ingredients:
Pillsbury Hot Roll Mix
2 Tbsp Butter, melted
1 egg, beat
water
Crisco


Dissolve the yeast packet in 1 cup of hot water. Do not use boiling water. The water should be about 130°F. If it is boiling, it will kill the yeast and your rolls will not rise. In a large bowl, add the roll mix, 2 Tbsp melted butter, and one egg (beaten). Mix the ingredients and knead the dough until it is elastic. Spray the inside of your bowl with PAM (or grease with Crisco) and put the dough back in the bowl.



Cover with a towel. Allow dough to double in size.



Punch down dough and knead for a few minutes. Then halve the dough with your fingers until you have about 42 little bits of dough.




On a clean counter, smear a little Crisco on a circle. This will be the circle that you use to work your dough.




With the tips of your two pointer fingers, fold the dough over on itself a few times.




Then place the little ball of dough in a greased muffin pan.



Repeat about 42 more times, placing three balls in each muffin cup. If your dough balls are larger, you may only be able to fit two per cup. Sometimes I make the ball smaller, so that I can fit four balls in each cup...you know, you give my kids something to fight about.



Fork each ball with a kitchen fork. This allows the air to escape so you don't have pockets of air in your dinner rolls. (At this point, you can put your rolls in the refrigerator until later in the afternoon. They will not rise while in there.) Otherwise, allow the dinner rolls to rise a second time. They should be about a 1/2 inch above the muffin pan. The roll on the left is about right. The roll on the right rose a little too high.



Bake in a preheated oven, at 375°F for 15-20 minutes.



If they begin to brown too quickly on the top, you can place a sheet of aluminum foil (shiny side up) across the top of your rolls. You only need to worry about this last step if your oven runs "hot".

Pinkalicious Popcorn

I was going to make the girls green popcorn tonight just because it's so close to St. Patrick's Day, but Kaitlyn requested PINK!! This is a fun recipe for movie popcorn, or for the holidays...you can use any combination of food coloring depending on the occasion.

Ingredients:
2/3 cup popcorn kernels, popped
2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cup half and half
1 Tbsp light corn syrup
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
6 drops red food coloring (or any other color you'd like)
wax paper


Directions:
Pour popped popcorn into two very large mixing bowls, set aside. In a large saucepan whisk together sugar, half and half, corn syrup and salt. Cook over medium high heat, stirring constantly until sugar has dissolved. Heat mixture to 232 degrees, stirring occasionally. Immediately remove from heat and pour in vanilla and food coloring. Drizzle mixture over popped popcorn. Gently stir popcorn until mixture is evenly coated and coating begins to dry (you'll notice the popcorn kernels separating). Pour mixture onto wax paper and allow to dry about 20 minutes. Store in an airtight container.