Quick Homemade Green Tea Soy Latte from Teabags

Hello all. I just got back from our Florida/Disney Vacation, so there has been a lack of blogs. Let's just jump right into blogging with a great morning pick-me-up!

Green Tea Latte!
I made mine a soy latte, but you can use regular milk if you'd prefer.

Ingredients:
-Green tea bag
-1/2 cup boiling water
-1 cup vanilla soy milk
- whip cream
-blender

1. Fill a small pot up with 1/2cup water and with the teabag in the water, bring to a boil for about five minutes. You may need to add a little more water in case of rapid evaporation.

2. Heat the milk in another pot but don't boil.

3. Once the tea has finished brewing, pour into a blender, along with the heated milk. I use vanilla soy milk, the vanilla add a nice sweetness to the tea.

4. While still hot, blend together until frothy. You can also add honey, sugar, or vanilla extract. Since I used vanilla soy milk I didn't add anything else. It also is good with melon flavoring.

5. pour into a glass or mug and top with whip cream.

This is a lovely treat, and after spending so much money on vacation, I didn't want to run out to Starbucks. Making this at home is great and so simple!

Enjoy<3

Marinara Spaghetti Squash

Hello blog, it's been awhile.

Today let's take a look at this mysterious squash that seems to have gained a lot of fame lately. Which is awesome because it's delicious.

 You may or may not have seen this in the store, but most people don't even know that it exists. Which is very sad because you can make all kinds of amazing meals from it. The simplest of course, is in it's name. The spaghetti squash is a delicious way to make...Spaghetti! For new SS people, it may not seem so simple as to how to use it, so let's take the easy way shall we? And if you're anything like me, it might just blow your mind. I rarely make noodle spaghetti, and it's my favorite food! I'm just addicted to this squash.

`
 First, pick out a nice plump squash from the store. It shouldn't feel mushy or soft or have any smell really. Actually if you put your nose up to it, it should smell like pumpkin. One moderately sized one feeds my daughter, my fiance, and I for a good dinner and left over night with my recipe. If you want to eat just the inside without adding sauce and meat and other veggies (like we do) then one half of the squash feeds one person well. So make sure you pick one or two squashes that will do for your meal preference.

 Take that nice squash home and wash  the outside of it. You want to do this with just about every produce you get anyway. Now you want to cut the SS in half long ways, or horizontally. This does take some effort and muscle so be careful and use a big sharp knife.

Now that you have it opened, scoop out the seeds like you would a pumpkin.

Be careful not to scoop the actual flesh of the SS, that's the part you need! I find a regular kitchen spoon does the job just fine.

 Now that the middle seeds are all scooped out, you can either toss them or pick them out and roast the seeds. Just like you could any other large squash or pumpkin seeds. add a little seasoning to a cookie sheet and broil them in olive oil until golden brown. They are a delicious before dinner snack!

 Place your two halves of your squash FACE DOWN. Trust me, I've made that mistake before and although some people say it's nice to roast the squash on both sides, if you're baking it. This time we are broiling it and you want the inside of the SS to be nice and toasted and soft. Broil your squash for about 45-50 minutes on a cookie sheet, or until a butter knife can go through the squash without effort.

In the meantime, start cooking up what you're making with the squash. Here I am browning some lean beef, with onions and tomatoes and garlic.

When the SS is done roasting, it will be extremely hot, so let it cool off a bit until you are able to handle it without burning yourself. It doesn't have to be cold, just able to handle it.

While mine is cooling, I drain my meat and add my marinara sauce to the meat/onion/tomato/garlic mix. Add some fresh basil, rosemary, oregano, and sage and let it all simmer together.

 When it has cooled some and can handle your squash, take a fork and start scraping the inside of the inside. The flesh pulls away in strands easily and looks like dun dun dun.. spaghetti noodles! Now that's why this is spaghetti squash! I had a hard time not eating it all right there, it's good just fresh out of the broil and is already packed with flavor. But again, not what I'm doing for this recipe.

You should have lots of "noodles" in one half. sometimes if I'm not using the meat-sauce mixture, I just use the halves as bowels and top them off with chopped tomatoes and seasonings and fresh mozzarella cheese. It's delicious that way too.

Now continuing the recipe, I keep keep getting side tract because of how many amazing way there are to eat this squash!

 Scrape out all of the "noodles" an add them to the sauce and mix it up. You can let it simmer a bit to let the squash absorb the flavor or just start serving.

 And now you're done! Serve with some garlic bread and top with your favorite pasta cheese and enjoy!
Trust me, with as many ways to east this squash, and the dozen of recipes you can make with it, you will not be disappointed!

Easy Mini Frozen Yogurt Pops Made From Recycled Creamer Cups

These little yogurt pops were very easy and great for little kids who like to make a mess with the larger popsicles. I had a bunch of old creamer cups laying around and I didn't want to throw them away because I knew I would want them for something because of how many I had. Using them for these yogurt pops made them the perfect size for little almost-two-year-old mouths, and they're really no bigger than a lollipop, and are much healthier (and cheaper!) than buying the artificially flavored popsicles.

So let's get started!

What you need: 

Real fruit yogurt, you can use fruity store bought or use a big tub of plain yogurt and blend up your favorite fruits for a smoothie flavored pop

Creamer cups

Popsicle sticks, lollipop sticks, skewer sticks.. here I used what little bit of toothpicks I had left and just cut off the pointed edges.

A spoon

What to do:

 First make sure you clean/rinse out the creamer cups pretty well

 Fill up your cups as much as you can, without going overboard

Tap the cups on a hard surface a couple times to flatten out the yogurt and release any air bubbles. This insures the yogurt is packed nice and tight and will freeze solid.

 Repeat those steps for every cup you are using.

 Next, take your sticks and insert them into the centers

 If you packed them down well enough their sticks should stand up straight without falling over or being lopsided.

Then freeze 'em! A good hour or so should get the job done.

With them being creamer cups, they should pop out quite easily, you might have to give the bottoms a little push, but they all popped out fairly easily for me.

Please don't mind my one speck of nail polish left.

My daughter loved them soo much she kept running away from me because she didn't want to share!
This is also right after she had fallen down and was crying, so I thought it was the perfect time to make her feel better with some yo-pops. =]

 Enjoy!

Pudding Filled "Funfetti" Cupcakes

Oh hello delicious.

Okay...So my phone decided to go on the fritz while I was making these, so all of the picture I took of how to actually MAKE them...kinda didn't save. I will still post the recipes but other than that, just enjoy the delicious looking finished pictures.

For the cake - 
Ingredients:

3 cups flour
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup butter (softened)
4 egg whites
1 1/4 cups milk
2 tsp vanilla
multicolored sprinkles 

-Preheat the oven to 350 and line your cupcake pan with liners.
-Sift all the dry ingredients together into a large bowl.
-Add half the butter and mix with a mixer on low. Add the other half and mix well until it resembles a sandy texture.
-Beat in the egg whites on medium
-Add milk and vanilla and beat on medium for about two minutes.
-Add Sprinkles 
-Pour batter into cupcake liners a bit more than half way full.
-Bake for about 18-20 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
-Let cool

Adding The Pudding
1 package Instant 5 minute pudding

Follow the directions on your package for your pudding.

-cut a hole in the center of your cupcakes. I used the bottom of a large cake decorating tip. Don't cut all the way through the cupcake. remove the cake that you punched out.
-fill a baggie with the pudding and pipe the pudding into the cupcakes until completely filled.
-Instantly top with frosting (I used a store bought butter cream with food coloring to save time)
-Let chill in the fridge until the pudding and frosting are set

Enjoy!

 

Quick Cooking: Stuffed french toast

If you can make a sandwich, you can make this. It is delicious, and you can opt the fruit for any thing else you like: chocolate chips, nuts, candies, anything.

Ingredients:
-egg
-bread
-pudding/custard mix
-fruit
-vanilla
-cinnamon (optional)

First you want to make your custard to get it out of the way. Since I made this early morning, I used a package of instant custard. It's different than pudding, it's thicker and not as sweet while being very sweet at the same time. I personally think the custard goes better.

Once you have your custard, go ahead and whip up some french toast.. take about 2 eggs and beat them in a bowl, add a little milk, vanilla, and cinnamon for a sweet delicious flavored french toast. The key to a good french toast is 1. the type of bread. and 2. how much you soak the bread. You want a sturdy bread, like sour dough or sliced Italian bread could even work. Simple store bought white bread normally doesn't hold very well. The other key part is you don't want your bread to completely soak. There is a fine line between french toast and bread pudding. Especially if you use a softer bread.

Now every sandwich has two pieces of bread, so make sure you have at least two pieces per person. You can continue to stack your "french toast sandwich" with as many layers as you like, I just used two.

Immediately after your breads are cooked, add you're custard/pudding to one slice of bread. A good spoonful or two covers it well. Add your fillings, I used strawberries because they are the fiance's favorite and I also had homemade strawberry syrup in the fridge I needed to use. Add another spoonful of custard to the top and put on the top layer. 

Add some syrup or powdered sugar and enjoy!

In my opinion it was quite delicious, we also had cheesy eggs and hashbrowns. With as sweet as the toast was, the salty sides made a perfect dish.

Enjoy =]

Quick Cooking: Tofu Pasta

I've been writing this "cook book" for a couple years now, but I'm probably never going to get it published. Procrastination and all that. But I think I can post some of the recipes here to get them out. They are fabulous for a SAHM who needs to cook for herself and little ones, or even just for a two person meal. They are quick, simple, and can be done even with minimal cooking skills.  So let's try this one first..

Tofu Pasta:

Ingredients:
- Thin spaghetti noodles
- Extra firm tofu
- Spinach
- Mushrooms
- 1 tsp diced garlic
- 1 tsp fresh Basil
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- Shredded cheese

1. Bring a pot of water to boil and cook pasta according to package.

Meanwhile:

2. Slice mushrooms, dice up garlic, and cube your tofu - get all of your ingredients cut and ready.

3. Heat a saucepan on medium heat with 1 tbsp olive oil

4. Sautee garlic for 30sec before adding mushrooms

5. Sautee until lightly golden

6. Add tofu and continue to sautee for about two minutes - don't let your tofu get crunchy, just firm and gold

7. Turn down heat and add spinach

8. Add half a cup of the hot noodle water and steam your spinach

9. turn off heat and your noodles should be done.

10. Do Not Drain Noodles. Add your noodles (using tongs) straight from the pot to the sauce pan.

11. Mix together the noodles with the tofu and veggie combo

12. Sprinkle with remaining olive oil and the fresh basil

13. add to serving dish and top with whatever shredded cheese you like. I use a mixed Italian  which includes mozzarella and it is lovely having melted cheese mixed in.

delicious - happy eats!