Frozen Hot Chocolate:

Happy Thanksgiving!!

 

"Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name."

Psalm 100:4

 

I love Thanksgiving, and I hope everyone has a wonderful day!

In honor of Thanksgiving, here is a bonus recipe this week. I hope you enjoy it!

It might sound kind of strange, but it's really good!! Cold, yes, but good!!!

I loved it and if you like hot chocolate, I think you will enjoy it too!

It has such an unexpected taste and it's just so yummy!

I hope you give it a try!

 

 

For approximately 3 servings:

3 cups ice cubes

1/2 cup hot chocolate mix

1 & 1/2 tblsp. sugar

1 & 1/2 cups milk

Whipped topping, optional

 

For a single serving:

1 cup ice cubes

3 tblsp. hot chocolate mix

1 & 1/2 tsp. sugar

1/2 cup milk

Whipped topping, optional

 

Place all ingredients, except whipped topping, in a blender and blend until smooth.

Pour into serving glasses and top with whipped topping, if desired.

Serve!

 

Cranberry Jello Salad:

With Thanksgiving coming up this week, I wanted to share a "festive" recipe with you!

One of my #1 favorite foods is cranberries - particularly cranberry sauce! I could easily eat a whole can by myself and be perfectly fine with that. And pretty much the rest of my family is fine with that too, because there's only a couple of us who like cranberry things. A friend gave me this recipe a few years ago and I just loved it! I couldn't believe how easy it was and how pretty it looked! I hope you give it a try! Even if you don't like cranberries, because the people in my family who HATE cranberries, love this dish!!!

1 can cranberry sauce, can be smooth or whole berry sauce

2 pks. strawberry gelatin

2 cups boiling water

In a blender or with an emersion blender, dissolve gelatin in boiling water. Add cranberry sauce and blend until smooth. Pour into a serving dish or bowl. Chill for at least 8 hours - the longer the better. There will be a foamy pink layer on top of the gelatin, as you can tell from the picture; it just does this on it's own some how, but it's very yummy and it looks pretty!!

Note:

-You could use raspberry or cranberry gelatin, if you prefer....they are just harder to find sometimes!
-This bad part about this, is it really does take forever to chill. I try to allow 8 hours at the very least.  

Pecan Pie Muffins:

I love Pecan Pie and I love muffins, so having them together is awesome!!

I was actually a little worried about trying them, because it seemed to good to be true!!

I mean, something so easy, couldn't possibly turn out good.

Thankfully, I was very wrong and my whole family loved them!

Wouldn't they be perfect for a quick and easy breakfast on Thanksgiving morning?

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup applesauce (preferably unsweetened)

1 & 1/2 cups brown sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 tsp. salt

1 cup flour

1 tsp. xanthan gum

1 & 1/2 cups chopped pecans

In a medium bowl, cream together butter, applesauce and sugar with a hand mixer until well combined. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Stir in salt, flour and xanthan gum. Mix just until combined and add pecans. Fill paper-lined muffin tins 2/3 full (I use an ice cream scoop). Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until light golden brown and toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in muffin tins for 5 minutes before removing. Serve!!!

Note:

-This made approximately 16 muffins

Baked Tacos:

When I was little, there were very few things that I didn't like to eat. I can actually only think of two things - sweet potatoes and tacos. I have no clue why!! My older sister was my idol, and if she liked it, I ate it! I even ate things I didn't like, just because she ate them! Really, it was a good thing, because it made me try new things and not be a picky eater. But tacos, that just wasn't happening, no matter how much I wanted to be like my sister!! Fast forward a few years, and I have no clue what changed or how, but tacos are one of my favorite foods ever! I could eat taco salad every single day and be fine with that! However, some members of my family (who all like tacos), get tired of taco salad! Like, REALLY tired! I don't understand, but they tell me it's possible!! So when I saw this recipe, I knew I had to give it a try and I'm so glad I did! They turned out so good and were a really fun change of pace and my whole family loved them! The melted cheese helped the meat stay in, and baking the shells for a few minutes, made them slightly soft so they didn't crumble to pieces! 

I hope you try them out!

 

           

2 lbs. ground beef

2 packages taco seasoning + water called for  (see note)

18 hard taco shells (see note)

Shredded Cheddar Cheese

Shredded lettuce

Diced onion

Diced tomato

Salsa

Sour Cream

Ranch Dressing

(Whatever you like to put on a taco)

 

In a large skillet, brown beef until no longer pink; drain. Stir in taco seasoning and water and bring to a boil. Cook and stir until most of the liquid is evaporated.

Fill taco shells with a couple tablespoons of the meat mixture (not too full, because you want to have room for other toppings). Sprinkle with cheddar cheese and place on a cookie sheet, kind of overlapping, if you can tell from the picture above. Bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until cheese is melted and meat is hot through.

Serve with your favorite taco toppings!!

 

Note:

-This makes 18 tacos, which is what I made for my family, so you may what to adjust the recipe if you are cooking for a smaller or larger group.

-Make sure to check your taco seasoning, if you want it to be gluten-free! Lots of mixes have wheat/gluten in them. Our favorite is McCormick's taco seasoning. We buy it in a huge container at Sam's Club.

 

-Check your taco shells for hidden wheat/gluten as well. Here's the ones we liked:

 

-Recipe adapted from: SixSistersStuff.com

-For the record, I still don't like Sweet Potatoes! Unless it's sweet potato casserole, and with all the other stuff in there, I'm pretty sure it doesn't count!!

 

Another Pasta:

 

We tried yet another pasta! You might get tired of hearing about all the pasta we try, but I always like to share about things that we really enjoyed! You know, gluten-free things are kind of hard to find in ordinary stores, at ordinary prices that taste extraordinary! Anyways!

We actually found this at Walmart! We were pretty excited, because our Walmart doesn't tend to carry gluten-free items.

We hadn't tried this brand before, so we were of course a little nervous, because we have had some not so great tasting things!!

But, I think it actually might be my new favorite! We tried the Elbow Macaroni for Mac 'n cheese, and it was fabulous! Not too thin, not too thick and it kept it's shape really well. Plus it was perfectly cooked in exactly 7 minutes, so that was pretty cool in it self!

You can probably find this at other grocery stores too, but Walmart is the only place I have noticed it so far.  

So I hope if you are still looking for that perfect gluten-free pasta, you will give this a try!

I'd love to hear what you think about it!!

 

Muffles:

 

I have seen a lot of things on Pinterest lately,

that are made in a waffle iron, and muffins is one of them. 

I love waffles. I love muffins.

So naturally, I LOVED this Muffle (muffin + waffle = Muffle)!!!!

My favorite part of a muffin, is the top. On a good muffin, the top is soft and fluffy inside, and slightly crisp on the outside.

The whole entire Muffle tastes like one big muffin top!!! So yummy!

I hope you give them a try!! I bet you'll be pleasantly surprised!

 

 

 

Start, by mixing up your favorite muffin batter,

just like you would if you were making regular muffins.

Preheat your waffle iron.

Spray with cooking spray, and use the muffin batter just as you would waffle batter. Cook as long as you do your waffles (takes mine about 5 minutes, but it varies from one waffle maker to another) or until dark, golden brown and slightly crisp.

Serve with butter!

 

Notes:

-I used my Blueberry Yogurt Muffin recipe for the Muffles in the photo.

-Play around with different muffin recipes!

-Mix up your muffin batter the night before. Then it's ready the next morning and all you have to do is wait the 3-5 minutes it takes in the waffle iron for a nice, hot muffle!!! Way faster than baking in the oven!!