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!!

caramel mix

Yummy note:
So this recipe is one of those snack mixes that can be thrown together quick and easy, as it doesn't have a lot of prep time. The real investment in it is the baking time. Every fall, I really see this snack mix in and around a lot of places. I think just about every pumpkin or apple orchard farm, I've been to, has this mix for sale for a little too much money than I'd like to spend. Really it doesn't cost that much to make a whole batch of these sweet and salty treats! Plus, you can then add whatever type of additional add-ins you'd like to the puffed corn for an additional treat ;)
















Ingredients:

1 (8 oz.) bag "Old Dutch Puff Corn Curls" or Cheetos makes a buttered puffs version too
1/2 pound butter (can use margarine, but doesn't taste as good :)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon baking soda

Additional add-ins: may also add in regular popcorn, cereal, pretzels, or other nuts to this mix. Note, if you do add in a great amount of add-ins, you might want to make more caramel mixture to cover your treats well.


Directions:

Place butter sugar and corn syrup in a 2-quart saucepan and cook together for about 2 minutes.















Bring to a slight bubble/boil. Next, add 1 teaspoon baking soda to mixture. This will cause mixture to foam, so using that bigger saucepan is helpful.















Place corn curls/puffs in large roaster pan. Pour caramel mixture over corn curls and stir until mixed.















Place in 250 degree oven for 45 minutes. Stir at least every 15 minutes. Remove from oven and pour on wax paper and break apart. Enjoy!!

mojo de ajo (aka delicious garlic olive oil)

Yummy note:
I was watching Mexico-One Plate at a Time show by Rick Bayless the other day and he was making this golden-colored garlic infused olive oil and it looked so easy to make and versatile, I had to try and make it. Surprisingly it was very simple to make, I just needed some time to bake it. It definitely made my kitchen smell garlicky and delicious. This garlic olive oil, Bayless called Mojo de Ajo, was worth the time to make ahead of time, as it has helped me save some time in a few other dishes later on when I've used the mojo de ajo. It has helped me get a meal thrown together very quickly, such as using it in place of anywhere it suggests using olive oil or a marinade. I've added it to pasta, chicken, breadsticks, and I'm sure you could use it in a few more of your favorite dishes too. It really gives you an added nice roasted garlic flavor without spending the time in the meal you are trying to get thrown together quickly.

Mojo de Ajo

Ingredients:

4 heads garlic (about 1 3/4 cups), peeled
2 cups extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup fresh lime juice

Directions:
Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Prepare and peel garlic (can be done by smashing the garlic against side of a knife to release the clove from the skin lightly). Stir together the garlic, olive oil, and salt in an 8x8-inch baking pan. Place into oven and bake for about 45 minutes, or until the garlic is soft and light brown. Next, add the lime juice and stir. Put back into the oven and bake for an additional 20 minutes to continue baking. Next, remove mixture from oven, and mash the garlic into pieces, until broken apart. Pour the mixture into a covered storage container and refrigerate it until ready to use. The mojo will last for up to three months when refrigerated. This makes about 2-3 cups of mojo de ajo. Note, original recipe here: http://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/view?recipeID=244

Quick Muffins

Yummy note: Lately, I have been loving breakfast breads. Anything in a loaf or a muffin is good in my eyes. So I found a quick easy homemade muffin recipe that really didn't take that long at all to throw together. I think I found it on cooks.com website, and then tweaked it a little. Honestly, I am a little harsh on myself and I think I need to add a bit more flavoring to the batter at the end, but all in all it was a nice simple and easy recipe to execute.

Quick Muffins

Ingredients:
2 c. self-rising flour, sifted
(Note: If you don't have the self-rising flour, you need to substitute it with these ingredients instead: 1 c. all purpose flour, 1 1/2 tsp. of baking powder, plus 1/4 tsp. of salt)
3 tbsp. vegetable oil
1/2 c. sugar
3/4 c. milk
1/4 c. orange juice
1 beaten egg
2 - 2 1/2 c. berries (I used a frozen berry mix, but you could add fresh ones if available.)

Directions:
Combine egg, oil, milk, orange juice, and sugar. Add the sifted flour and stir until smooth. Next, stir in fruit and mix well. If using the frozen fruit, let the berries thaw a bit before adding them into the batter. At this point, I wish I would have added some more maybe like lemon or orange zest into the batter to make the flavor pop a little more, so I would suggest that in yours.

Next, pour muffin batter into paper liners in a muffin/cupcake pan and fill about 2/3 full.

Bake for 25 minutes at 400 degrees. Makes roughly 18 or so muffins, depending on the size of your muffins.

s'more fudge

Yummy note:
Summer evenings and warm weather makes you think of what other than s'mores. So going with that theme, I wanted to make s'mores, but inside where it was nice and cool :) Speaking of staying nice and cool, I really didn't want to do anything crazy or turn on my oven again, so I needed a recipe to either on the stove or in the microwave. Next dilemma I had was I had no big marshmallows or any chocolate bars! what?! I know, insane. So what I did have was graham crackers, mini marshmallows, and chocolate chips. So the start of s'mores fudge begins.

Ingredients:
18-oz semisweet chocolate chips (or about 3 cups)
14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup mini marshmallows
1 cup chopped graham crackers

Directions:
Line an 8-inch square pan with aluminum foil and then spray with a cooking spray or grease foil with little bit of butter. Melt the the chocolate chips and the condensed milk together in a heavy saucepan (or in a double boiler) over low heat, stirring constantly, until melted and smooth.



Remove from heat; let cool 1-2 minutes, then stir in vanilla. Cool for about another minute and then add in the cups of the marshmallows and graham cracker pieces.



Stir until incorporated together and spread into your prepared pan. Refrigerate about 3 hours or until firm. To cut pieces of fudge easily, invert pan and peel off foil from fudge, and cut in 1-inch pieces.