Homemade Donuts

First step is to get this nifty pan from your sister Jill for your birthday:
(It is dirty, I know. The picture came between round one and two.)

Then follow the directions on the box to get YUMMY donuts. Helpful recipe, huh? But I figure without the pan you wouldn't need the recipe anyways. But I highly recommend getting the fun pan if you want yummy donuts. We went for powdered sugar this time, but you can do cinnamon sugar, or glazed with sprinkles, or chocolate, or ......

Cheerios Bears

Melt 3 tbl butter and 3 cups of mini marshmallows in the microwave. (Mine was done after 1 minute.) Stir until smooth.

Stir in 5 cups of cheerios. We used honey nut.

Form 4 balls for the hands and feet, and one for the head. Make the rest into the body. If you spray your hands with Pam it will work easier. Compact pretty hard to get it to retain shape. Put the balls onto wax paper until you are ready to assemble.

Decorate with jelly beans, fruit rolls, etc.

Creamy Angel Hair with Chicken

My friends Tori and Taylor were sharing this recipe with Victoria on facebook, and I spotted it and thought it looked yummy. And it was! It makes enough to feed a small army. And while my family may eat breakfast like a small army, dinner usually doesn't go down as well. So I'll probably half it next time. Nathanael and I really liked it, though, and the kids did pick at it as well as with any other dinner.

Stir together:
1 box of angel hair pasta - prepared as directed on box
3 chicken breasts - cooked and chopped up
2 cans of cream of whatever. (I had two chicken on hand. Tori mentioned using one chicken and then one celery or mushroom.)
1 cup of sour cream

Sprinkle cheese on top.
Bake at 350 for 15 or 20 minutes.

Easy (er) Mannicotti

I give credit of this recipe most to America's Test Kitchen. But I also improvised a little bit. It's much easier than stuffing mannicotti noodles!

Easy(er) mannicotti

For cheesey middle:
3 cups ricotta cheese
2 cups grated mozzarella
1 cup Parmesan (I used the green can, though I'm sure fresh might be better)
2 eggs
salt
pepper
one bag spinach, sauteed and squeezed dry (optional, but a great way to add a little bit of folate to your diet)
Basil
Parsley

Mix all ingredients together, set aside

One box oven ready/no boil lasagna noodles. (this is the secret to the easy part)

Boil water in a teapot, pour into 9x13 pan, and one by one, layer noodles in hot water. Leave for 5 minutes, or until plyable. (I got sidetracked today and waited longer than 5 minutes, and they stuck together... this had never happened before... so 5 minutes or less is the key)
Take noodles out, lay on clean towel, spread some cheese mixture onto noodle and roll up. voila! Mannicotti.

Lay into pan (I fit 13 in) and cover with your favorite red sauce. (I used Lucas' famous red sauce). Cover with cheese. Bake until bubbly

The final product (minus my dinner serving).

Apricot coffee cake

Batter:

4 cups bisquick

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup melted butter

1/2 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

Mix well. Spread 2/3 in the bottom of a 9x13. Top with fruit filling. The recipe called for a can of pie filling, but I used about 2 1/2 cups of pureed apricots. (We are working our way through the last of our ripe tree fruit.) Add the rest of the batter to the top in heaping spoonfuls.

Icing:

1 cup powdered sugar

1-2 Tbl milk

Stir together and drizzle on top while it is still warm.

Bake at 350 for 20 - 25, or until the batter on top is golden.