Slow Cooker Smothered Pork Chops

Good morning, everyone!  I hope you all had a great weekend!  With the exception of our lunch date Saturday and our grocery shopping trip, Troy and I spent the weekend at home relaxing and catching up on a variety of shows on our DVR.  It was nice to finally have some time together without a ton of things to do!

Saturday night we opted for a slow cooker meal of Smothered Pork Chops.  This was by far one of the easiest things to make.  But easy doesn't mean not tasty!

Ingredients:
5-6 Boneless Pork Chops, thawed
1 Can Cream of Mushroom
1 Cup Water
White Rice

Directions:
Lay pork chops into bottom of slow cooker.  Mix cream of mushroom with water and pour over pork chops.  Cook on high for 3-4 hours until meat is tender.  Prepare rice according to package directions and serve with pork chops. 

Scalloped Corn

Happy Saturday!  I hope everyone had a great week!  What's everyone got planned this weekend?  We're settling in for a relaxing weekend of catching up on items on our DVR.  And maybe trying a few new recipes to share with you later!

For now, enjoy a Scalloped Corn recipe I found through All Recipes.  Yum!

Ingredients:
1 15-oz can creamed corn
1 15-oz whole kernel corn, drained
1 8-oz container sour cream
2 eggs
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 tablespoon splenda
1 package corn muffin mix

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix together corn, sour cream, eggs, butter, and sugar.  Add muffin mix.  Pour into a grease cake pan.  Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

Enjoy!

Homemade Creamed Corn

Hi, everyone! Hope all is well! We've had a busy week picking up tuxes, having our dog groomed, cleaning the house, packing, visiting the salon, etc. This will be my last post for a couple of weeks as we're just days from the wedding and our honeymoon! I'm super excited!

 

As promised, here's the recipe for Homemade Creamed Corn.

 

Ingredients:

2 packages frozen corn

1 package cream cheese, low fat

1 stick unsalted butter

Salt and Pepper to taste

 

Directions:

Turn slow cooker onto high and pour in corn.  In a microwave safe bowl, soften the cream cheese and butter.  Add this mixture to the corn and mix.  Season with salt and pepper.  Once cream cheese and butter are melted, you're ready to serve delicious homemade creamed corn!  Yum!

 

 



Sauteed Bananas

Hello, hello!  So glad the weekend is finally here!  Troy and I spent the evening cleaning the house since tonight was our last free night before we head to San Francisco.  So excited!

After cleaning, I was craving something sweet.  Solution?  Sauteed Bananas.  Yum!

Ingredients:
Bananas, sliced
Cinnamon-Sugar Mixture
Reddi-Whip
Chocolate Chips
Olive Oil

Directions:
Lightly spritz olive oil into heated sautee pan.  Place sliced bananas in pan and sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar mixture.  Sautee for 2-3 minutes.  Transfer to bowl and top with chocolate chips and Reddi-Whip.  Simple, yet delicious!

Coming soon: Slow Cooker Cream-Style Corn

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Chocolate Chip Doughnut Muffins

This weekend, I ran across an amazing doughnut recipe at Janie's Kitchen and knew I had to make them!  Here's the recipe with a few minor changes.

Ingredients:
3 cup flour
2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup milk
1 cup buttermilk - click here for buttermilk substitute
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup splenda
2 eggs
food coloring, optional
1 cup chocolate chips

For the glaze:
1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup splenda
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In one bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and baking soda.  In a separate bowl, mix milk and buttermilk.  If using food coloring, add to milk mixture.

In an electric mixer with paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.  Add eggs and beat.  On low speed, mix in small parts of flour mixture and milk mixture until all combined.  Add chocolate chips.

Grease a muffin tin.  Fill each cup to the brim with dough.  Bake 18-20 minutes.

While baking, melt 1/2 stick butter for glaze.  Add splenda and cinnamon.  Once muffins are done baking, brush cinnamon-sugar mixture on top of each generously.  Serve warm.

A couple of things:
I added the food coloring to mimic the original recipe.  Janie's Kitchen made beautiful pink Valentine's Doughnut Muffins.  Unfortunately, the 5 drops of red I put in were not near enough to alter the color of the muffins. 

Secondly, I baked our muffins for 18 minutes.  The larger muffins were still slightly doughy on the inside.  In most cases, I would say bake for an additional 2-3 minutes, but Troy likes the slighty doughy texture so the cook time was perfect for us.

I'm looking forward to trying this recipes in the future with other ingredients such as bananas, blueberries, cherries, etc.  They were super tasty!

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Banana "Ice Cream"

As I'm sure you've figured out, I love sweets!  But eating ice cream every.single.night is definitely not a healthy option.  How about this: frozen banana?  Ooooh yum!

Ingredients:
Bananas - that's it!

Directions:
Slice bananas into 1/2 inch to inch slices.  Freeze overnight.  Once frozen, put banana into a food processor to puree.  Serve in your favorite ice cream bowl.  For an extra special treat, top with Reddi-whip.  The texture reminds me a little of Dippin' Dots.  Love it!

Buttermilk Substitute

I don't know about you, but I NEVER have Buttermilk on hand.  But guess what?  There's no need to buy it.  Here's a great substitute!

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon lemon juice
milk, just under a cup

Directions:
Measure 1 tablespoon lemon juice into a liquid measuring cup.  Pour milk in to cup to make 1 full cup liquid.  Let stand for 5 minutes.  Easy, easy!