fruit juice knox blox

Yummy note: I had received a super cute butterfly and bug silicon mold pan for my birthday this year from a friend and I really wanted to try it out on something. Instead of trying the standard baked treat in it, I wanted to experiment with it differently. So we decided to make some wiggly jigglers, aka fruit juice knox blox. I think it worked pretty good, my only thing I need some advice on is perfecting the removal technique a little better. I think potentially I need to lightly spray cooking oil or something on the mold before or maybe let them sit in a warm water bath a bit before removing them?? any ideas? Other than that my kiddo loved them, and well, so did I. :) Using the fruit juice with the knox blox for this gives you a nice fruity flavor without having to have jello on hand, plus it is a little cheaper to make this way, too.

Fruit Juice Knox Blox

Ingredients:
4 envelopes Knox Unflavored Gelatine
1 cup cold fruit juice
3 cups fruit juice, heated to boiling
2 tablespoons sugar or honey, optional
Note: this is the same recipe you'll usually find on the back or inside of your Knox gelatine box.

Directions:
Open the packets of Knox unflavored gelatin and sprinkle the gelatin over the 1 cup of cold fruit juice in a bowl. Let gelatin stand for 1 minute or so to start absorbing the juice. Next, add your boiling juice to the gelatin bowl and stir together until gelatin is completely dissolved. This make take several minutes. Next stir in the sugar or honey if you want.

At this point pour your mixture in a pan or mold that you'd like to use. If using a pan, you can use either a 9x13 pan for a thinner jiggler or use a 9x9 pan for a thicker jiggler. Refrigerate gelatin until firm. Depending on your pan size, it might be about 3 hours or so until set. Next cut and serve jigglers or unmold your creepy crawly jigglers!

All the ingredients you'll need - 4 cups of juice and Knox gelatine

Letting the gelatin sit for a minute or so in the fruit juice starts making a gel like substance in your bowl.

Mold I used for my jigglers, but feel free to use whatever you wish!

3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies

Yummy note:

Yes, you read it right, this recipe is a 3 ingredient peanut butter cookie. No flour or butter, shocking, right? I was very skeptical of this recipe at first, then I tried it, and liked it. Really it does work well and it tastes pretty good, or else I wouldn't be sharing it here! :) This recipe is great for beginner bakers too as there are not many ingredients to be scared of and most likely you already have these ingredients in your kitchen without having to do a separate shopping trip just to find that one ingredient you don't have for the recipe. These flourless 3 ingredient cookies are more of a dense cookie, rather than a big puffy type of cookie, but it is tasty. Super nice to have on hand when you are in a pinch and need to throw something together super fast to take somewhere. My additional add-in to these cookies is that I usually like it jazz it up a little bit by adding a handful or so of chocolate chips or candy in the cookies, or add it to the top of the cookies when done baking.

3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup peanut butter (chunky or creamy)

1 egg

1 cup white sugar

*Can add in chocolate chips or candy pieces if you'd like

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together. Drop by teaspoonful on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for anywhere between 6-8 minutes, depending on the size of cookies you make and if you want them more softer/chewy vs a harder cookie. Makes about 1 dozen or so cookies.

crockpot applesauce

Yummy note: This fall, we ended up going apple picking a couple of times cause it was so fun. We went to some orchards in Michigan and Illinois. We got some delicious honeycrisp, gala, red delicious, and or course, who can forget the macintosh apples. I think we got a few other miscellaneous kinds too that the kids happened to pick up from a random tree or two from the orchards, too! So what to do with all those apples, well we made our share of apple crisp, apple pie, and now it's time to make one of my favorites with the leftover apples, applesauce! This is a pretty simple and easy recipe, really you just set the crockpot and forget about it for awhile to make some flavorful homemade applesauce! I like to double this recipe often to fill my crockpot full, so that I have a small package or so to put in my freezer for later.

Crockpot Applesauce

Ingredients:
4 medium apples, (the cooking variety of apples work best) peeled and cut into pieces
1/4 cup water to 1/2 cup water (may want to add more water later in the cooking process if you want a smoother or thinner applesauce)
1/4 cup brown sugar or 3-4 tbps granulated sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
*if you don't have these spices on hand, I've also substituted those b using the pumpkin pie spices, that has a combination of several nice spices to use.

Directions:
Peel, core, and cut apples into fourths or smaller pieces if you'd like. Stir all ingredients (apples, water, sugar, and spices) above in a large crockpot. Cover and set slow cooker to 1 hour and 30 minutes on high. At this point, stir the apples and check on their consistency. At this point, if you think you need more water, add it in, or else you can wait more towards the end if you desire. After stirring apples and breaking them up a bit with a fork or masher, continue cooking them on high for another 30 minutes to an hour, depending on what type of apples you used. Depending on the apple variety, some cook up faster and softer than others, so be sure to keep that in mind. After apples have cooked for about 2 hours, mash and stir until consistency of the applesauce you like. I kept some of the applesauce on the chunkier side, while another batch, I pureed more in a blender to make it really smooth. Enjoy!!