Ham and Potato Hotdish

Talk about comfort food! This delicious mixture of potatoes, veggies, ham and cheese will fill your tummy with mad love.

8-10 potatoes, diced
1 small onion, sliced
1 cup carrots, sliced
Handful of mushrooms, sliced
1 cup (or more!) of diced ham
Salt and pepper
1/2 stick butter

1/2 cup green onion, chopped
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 375. Prepare a baking dish by rubbing down the bottom and sides with olive oil.

Combine veggies and ham into the prepared baking dish. Dash with salt and pepper. Slice butter into about 4 pieces and scatter them on top of the potatoes.

Bake the potatoes for about 45 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Add mozzarella cheese to the potatoes and return dish to the oven. Bake for another 5-10 minutes or until cheese is melted.

 Top with green onions and serve.

PS... this dish is great for grilling too. Grill it in single serving sizes in aluminum foil.

Croissant Surprises

Here is a very kid-friendly treat. These croissant rolled candy bars are fun, easy and quick to make. The kids loved rolling their own candy bars, clean-up is easy and the treats are really good.

Croissant rolled Milky Way Simply Caramel

Croissant Surprises

Tube of Pillsbury croissants
Assorted Mini Candy Bars

Preheat oven as suggested on instructions. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper or baking mat.

Peel/unroll croissant and place one candy bar on the wider side of the croissant and begin rolling it.

Tuck up or squeeze together any openings.

Bake croissants per the instructions on the tube or until they begin to brown.

We used colored toothpicks to keep track of what candy bar was inside

Warm, gooey goodness!

Reese's Peanut Butter Cheesecake Bars

Last week Cara shared Hugs and Cookies xoxo's cheesecake bars on our Facebook page.

I knew I had to have them. ASAP. I didn't want to be a total copycat so I changed it up a little. Check it out:

Cookie Crust (original recipe calls for Oreo cookies, which I'm sure would be awesome)

1 row Fudge Stripes Original (6 cookies)

1 row Fudge Stripes Dark Chocolate (8 cookies)

6 tbsp butter, melted

1/3 cup sugar

Dash of salt

Prepare an 8x8 pan with nonstick foil. Crush the cookies, add sugar and salt. Pour in melted butter and stir. 

Pour into prepared pan.

Bake at 350 for 8 minutes. Let cool.

Cheesecake with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

8oz cream cheese, softened

½ cup sugar

1 egg

2 tbsp flour

8 oz bag of mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup

Mix cream cheese until smooth. Add sugar and mix until smooth. Add egg and flour. Mix well. Pour in the bag of Reese’s. Gently stir them into the cheesecake.  

Pour cheesecake over cooled cookie crust.

Bake for 30-35 minutes. Remove from oven once the cheesecake begins to slightly turn brown. Cool to room temperature. I sped up the cooling process, just as Hugs and Cookies xoxo did, in the freezer.

Chocolate glaze

6 oz milk chocolate

8 tbsp butter (next time I will use 6 tbsp, my glaze came out thinner than I would have liked)

1 tbsp light corn syrup

Melt together the butter and milk chocolate. Once smooth stir in corn syrup. Pour over cheesecake. Smooth the top to disperse evenly. Let cheesecake sit on counter until the chocolate glaze has cooled then chill the bars for a couple of hours. Use a sharp knife to cut these delicious bars into squares.

Peanut Butter Drizzle

½ cup peanut butter baking chips

1 tbsp shortening

Melt ingredients together in microwave for 45 seconds or so. Careful not to burn. Stir well and drizzle over bars.

Refrigerate leftovers.

Banana Jam

I was introduced to banana jam by the mom of my daycare kids, Jackie. She knocked this one out of the park. I begged her to share the recipe and she said YES! So here it is:

This, my friends, is ooey gooey toasty warm flavorful goodness!

Banana Jam

3 bananas, sliced very thin
1/3 cup water
1 cup sugar

Cook sugar (yes, sugar only) over medium heat until the sugar mostly melts and turns light brown. Add water. Adding the water may make the sugar hard, but don't panic. It will gradually dissolve. Add bananas and cook over low heat until there are little to no banana chunks.

Put jam in canning jars. If you don't have any canning jars, don't stress. Just put the jam in some tupperware containers and refrigerate. No worries on expiration dates... you'll go through it fast!

Jackie also brought us Thomas English Muffins. A limited edition... banana bread. Oh, I'm telling you these little delights are amazing. I topped my toasted english muffin with peanut butter and banana jam. Because of the banana bread english muffin and the banana jam, you might think the banana flavor would be overpowering, but it really isn't. It was a perfect blend of peanut butter, banana and english muffin.

Thousand Island Burger

I'm not a huge fan of Thousand Island Dressing, but I do enjoy it on sandwiches and burgers. If it makes the sandwich messy, I'm sold! I'm still not able to fully understand my obsession with messy food, but I see it as a positive thing and I'm always assured by others that I am not alone when it comes to this obsession.

Today I have a delicious Thousand Island Burger made with a beef patty, fried onions, Swiss cheese, homemade dressing and sourdough bread. Much like a Patty Melt.

Thousand Island Dressing is made a few different ways. Some people add chopped eggs or Worcestershire Sauce. I went a little more bland with mine. I will definitely add Worcestershire sauce next time. The dressing was good as is, but the Worcestershire sauce would add a nice flavor.

Thousand Island Dressing (makes  1 cup):

½ cup mayo

¼ cup ketchup

¼ cup sweet relish (a little more, a little less, depending on your relish preference)

Dash of salt and pepper

Now to construct your burger:

Grill or fry up some beef patties. Fry some onions. Cut the sourdough into nice thick slices. Spread butter on one side of each slice of bread. Place one slice butter side down in a frying pan. Spread a generous amount of dressing on the bread. Place a slice of cheese on top of the dressing, add the grilled/fried patty, then the fried onions and then another slice of cheese. Finally, add more dressing to the second slice of bread. Place the slice, dressing side down & butter side up, to the burger. Cook the sandwich at a med-low heat for about 7 minutes, carefully flip it and cook for another 7 minutes.

Enjoy!

Oven Roasted Rosemary Chicken

Husband and I celebrated our 8th anniversary awhile back. It was on a Tuesday. Tuesdays aren't great for "date night". We had plans to go out on Saturday evening so it wasn't a huge deal to stick to our normal routine on our actual anniversary. On a normal Tuesday evening I would be headed to my kickboxing class and Husband would be hanging with the kids. This was the plan all day until about 3:00pm.

At 3:00pm, I thought "nope, I'm skipping class and making a nice meal for the fam". Because of the kickboxing class, I have missed out on many family dinners. I love having dinner with my family. Everyone sits at the table and complete chaos erupts... but I still love it. So I put my foot down and decided to play hooky.

Now it's 3:00pm and I want to prepare a special dinner for everyone. I run a daycare so I don't have a lot of time to spend prepping a meal. Oven Roasted Rosemary Chicken would be perfect!

What you'll need:

Chicken (breasts, legs, thighs, etc.)
Veggies (potatoes, green onions, carrots, etc)
rosemary (fresh or dried)
salt and pepper
Olive oil

I had chicken legs (Husband's favorite) and chicken breasts in the freezer. I thawed them in water for about 45 minutes. While they thawed I cut up potatoes and onions.

I prepared a baking pan with olive oil and preheated oven to 375. You don't want to cook the chicken too fast, it will dry out.

In the baking pan, I added legs to one side and the breasts to the other side. In the middle, I added the veggies. Then I sprinkled on dried rosemary and salt (I used sea salt) & pepper.

I covered it with foil and placed it in the oven at 4:00pm. At 6:00pm, I removed the foil and added about 2/3 cup of water. The chicken is done when it reaches 165 degrees.

This meal doesn't require a lot of maintenance and it is delicious! That's a win win, my friends.

We shared this at: Who Needs A Cape?