Friday, February 25, 2011

Cream Cheese Delights

I haven't actually made these but I have eaten them and they are yummy.

2 8 oz. packages of crescent rolls
2 8 oz. packages of cream cheese
1 1/2 cup sugar, divided
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg yolk and white divided
1-2 cups chopped nuts (I had it with sliced almonds)
1 tsp. cinnamon

Grease 9x13 pan and line with one package of crescent rolls. Mix together the cream cheese, 1 cup of the sugar, vanilla and egg yolk and spread it on top of the rolls. Spread the second package of rolls over the cream cheese mixture. Mix together the egg white, 1/2 cup sugar, nuts and cinnamon and spread it on top of the crescent rolls. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes. Cool adn refrigerate overnight. Cut into squares.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Popcorn Party

Dominic came up with a great idea for popcorn - add different seasonings. So we made a lot of plain popcorn and went to town. The seasonings listed are the ones we used. Feel free to try different ones, then tell me in the comments how they turn out.

Flavorful Popcorn

quart-sized, resealable baggies
Butter Buds
Parmesan Herb seasoning, by McCormick
Ranch salad dressing mix
Cheesy Taco seasoning mix, by McCormick
hot chocolate powder
plain popcorn, lots
kettle corn, microwaveable

1. Prepare the baggies by putting 1 - 2 tablespoons of each seasoning in its own bag. Label the bags.

2. Pop the popcorn in an amount that's reasonable for your family. Air-popped corn with butter and no salt works great. I imagine that a low-sodium microwave popcorn would also work well.

3. Fill the bags about half full with popcorn. Seal them up and shake the bags. Kids really like doing this part. Enjoy your popcorn!

Our verdicts:
Butter Buds - tastes like regular buttery popcorn, but less greasy
Parmesan Herb - subtle; good for a little extra flavor
Ranch - much bolder; reminds me of ranch Doritoes
Cheesy taco - very bold
Ranch + cheesy taco - yummy combination
Hot chocolate - used with kettlecorn, it's a delicious dessert popcorn

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Man-cakes

We were watching Man vs. Food the other day. The third season is on Netflix, if anyone wants to watch it. Adam was in Boulder, Colorado, when he went to this restaurant that served pancakes with bacon and sausage inside and egg on top. My kids all said they wanted to try it. So the following Saturday we made gigantic pancakes (1/2 c. batter instead of the usual 1/4 c.) We cooked up some bacon and sausage, cut them into bite sized pieces and sprinkled them into the cooking pancakes. We made them to order, of course, sausage in one, bacon in another, some wanted both. Then I made some eggs. Aaron and I had over easy, like the restaurant; my brother and kids had scrambled. Then we stacked them all up and poured syrup on top. I was surprised at how good they were. All the kids liked them. My brother declared it the best breakfast ever. The salty from the meat and the eggs was the perfect foil to the sweet syrup. The pancake stack was called something else at the restaurant, saddlebags I think, but I'm calling them man-cakes. Hooray for breakfast!