Good Morning, Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Pancakes!

Good Morning, Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Pancakes!

My boys love chocolate chip pancakes. I make them almost every morning because it's so simple to make and since I don't have to rush off to work, I have time to make them. My kids are really great and they deserve something special in the mornings.

Today, I added some cocoa powder to make them extra special this Thanksgiving Day morning. Here's what I did!

Ingredients:

Pancake mix

1Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

Directions:

Follow your instructions on your pancake box and add 1Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder. I added a little bit more water to the mix so that it wouldn't be too thick.



Cook your pancakes, or waffles, like you normally would. I added chocolate chips to the tops of mine when I placed them on the griddle. If you'd like, you can add them to your batter before scooping onto your griddle or pan.

I think I had my first chocolate chip pancake at my step-sister's house in 2004 after Hurricane Ivan ripped through our city. With 3 kids between my sister and myself and 7 days of no power and cold showers, we decided to take a road trip to Stephanie's house in GA where they had power and no hurricanes! Thanks for introducing chocolate chip pancakes to me, Steph. Ayden's tummy thanks you!

Cook your pancakes all the way through and add some butter and powdered sugar. It only makes it taste that much better!



My main pancake eater, Ayden, was my hand model today. Say hello to Ayden's hand, everyone :) He thoroughly enjoyed these and so did my other little guy.

These are so easy to make and the cocoa powder just gives it a little something extra. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day. Find something to be thankful for and dwell on that all day!

Eat and Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Blossoms

Peanut Butter Blossoms

Need a quick cookie recipe? Do you like peanut butter cookies? If so, this is the cookie for you. I found it in a magazine and made the dough and had cookies to eat in 15 minutes. Beat that, Martha Stewart!

P.s. ... yes, I know, they look like boobs :)

Ingredients:

1 egg

3Tbsp vegetable oil

1Tbsp water

1/2cup creamy peanut butter

1/2cup granulated sugar

1.5cups all purpose flour

1/2cup packed brown sugar

3/4tsp baking soda

1 bag of Hershey kisses or Reese's peanut butter cups

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix everything (minus the chocolate) in a bowl. Scoop 1Tbsp cookie dough and roll it into a ball and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake 8-10 minutes then immediately place the chocolate you chose in the middle of the cookie.

Eat and Enjoy!

Juicy Chicken for Thanksgiving!

Juicy Chicken for Thanksgiving!

I make chicken in the crock pot all the time and since we celebrated Thanksgiving early since my husband is working on Thanksgiving Day, I decided I'd make it special and put it in the oven instead. If you're prepared, you can make a delicious and juicy bird with hardly any effort. Here's how I did it.

Ingredients:

Whole chicken or turkey, giblets removed

1/2 stick room temperature butter

about 1/2 cup parsley

salt

pepper

3 cups chicken broth/stock

1 celery bunch

1 large white onion

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325. Mix the chopped parsley and butter together and put to the side. In a large broiler pan, add chicken broth, celery and onion. Lift the skin of your bird on the breast and add the butter/parsley mixture. Don't remove the skin, lay the skin back down on the breast.

Place our chicken breast side down. For the first hour in the oven, cover with tin foil. Once it's cooked for 1 hour, flip it over to breast side up and raise the temperature to 350 degrees, uncovered. Baste and bake for additional 1/5-2 hours.

Let your bird rest for 10-15 minutes covered with tin foil before slicing and serving. This will give it ample time to redistribute the juicyness.

Eat and Enjoy!!

P.s. I did place 1/2 of a white onion in the cavity of the bird. You can never have enough onion!

P.s.s. Save the juice in the bottom of the pan for gravy or strain it and freeze it for another recipe!

Mom's Sweet Potato Souffle

Mom's Sweet Potato Souffle

There is nothing better to me during the holiday's besides my mom's sweet potato souffle and cornbread stuffing. I'm so excited to share both recipes with you. If neither one of these are on the table for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I'd be really upset. Thankfully, that won't happen since I have the recipes now and I'm sharing them with you.

P.s. Another one-bowl-stop recipe!

Ingredients:
3 cups mashed sweet potatoes
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup room temperature butter
2 beaten eggs
1tsp vanilla
1/3 cup milk (hey, how about some buttermilk instead!)
1/8tsp cinnamon

Topping:
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup white flour (I used wheat flour and it rocked all the same)
1 cup chopped pecans

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a 9x13 baking dish with cooking/baking spray.
Mix all ingredients together with a mixer. Add to greased baking dish.
HOW EASY WAS THAT? haha

For the topping, stir all ingredients together and all to the top of the sweet potato mixture that's already in your baking dish. Add the nuts now if everyone likes nuts. Sprinkle on top.

Someone in my family doesn't like them so I added half of the nuts to my side of the dish after I sprinkled the topping mixture.

Now, if you like nuts, add them here.

Bake for approximately 30 minutes and let cool at least 10 minutes before serving. This is also a great recipe that tastes good cold the second day right out of the fridge.

You can make ahead and freeze this or bake it then freeze it. Pull it out and place in the fridge the night before serving. If you need to bake it, set the pan out (defrosted) for at least 30 minutes before baking. If you pre-baked it, you can bake it again to warm it up in the oven about 15 minutes or until bubbly.

I like this as a side or a dessert. It's sweet and tasty! Thanks for the recipe, mom. I love you!

Eat and Enjoy!

Easy Homemade Gravy

Easy Homemade Gravy

I never knew how easy it was to make gravy until a few weeks ago. I've tried and tried and tried but always have to strain it because it had lumps. It tasted good and had great flavor, but it was lumpy. Guess what my secret is to a lump-free gravy? Warm Liquid!!!! Man, I tell you.. when I discovered this (really on accident I suppose), it changed my life. I made gravy three times the past two days and it's been spot on every time. WOO HOO!

Ingredients:

3Tbsp butter (not that fake butter.. I'm talking about butter in stick form)

3Tbsp white flour

1tsp corn starch

1 3/4 - 2 cups WARM liquid (water, chicken broth, beef broth, veggie broth) 

Directions:

Melt your butter over medium heat. Believe me, turning it up on high isn't going to do anything but burn your butter and waste your time. This is a patient gravy, so be patient and wait. It'll happen, I promise. (I watch pots all the time and guess what? They boil!)
After your butter is melted, add the flour and corn starch. The flour and corn starch are thickeners but please measure this or you'll have too much in there or not enough and you'll wonder why you messed it up. MEASURE, PEOPLE!

Stir this around with a wooden spoon. Make sure your heat is on low to medium-low. It needs to bubble up. If you want a light gravy, you can add your warm broth in now but if you want a brown gravy, you need to stir with a wooden spoon every 20 seconds or so for 5-7 minutes. It'll get brown on the underside of the flour/butter mixture and looks light on top first so this is why you have to stir it.. keep your eye on it, browned and burned are two different things!

Once you have your gravy the color you want it, put your wooden spoon away and get your warm liquid out and a whisk. Add 1/2 cup, roughly, at a time while whisking quickly. The cornstarch will make your gravy pretty fluffy and bubbly. Don't worry, it's just a cool reaction. Science project!
Keep whisking and adding your warm liquid and once all of your liquid is whisked in, you can use a spoon to stir and make sure all of the lumps are out.

If you still have lumps, just strain it.. It's going to taste good either way.

Serve and enjoy!

Buttermilk Coconut Pie

Buttermilk Coconut Pie

Everything tastes better baked with buttermilk. I love how rich and creamy it makes desserts and cornbread. It helps it maintain it's moisture even under a hot oven. Buttermilk is really the way to go if the ingredients suggest adding regular old milk.

(Tip: If you don't use all of your buttermilk, pour it into ice cube trays and freeze it. Once they're frozen, you can pop them out and put them in a freezer bag and pull out buttermilk cubes next time you need it. Less waste and saves money!)

 

Ingredients for 2 pies:

6 beaten eggs

2.5 cups white sugar

2Tbsp flour

1 stick melted butter

1cup buttermilk

1tsp vanilla

1 cup coconut

1 cup chopped pecans (This recipe really needs nuts in it. I'm not a fan of nuts in my dessert, but this is delicious!)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix all ingredients together. Tip: I mixed the sugar and flour together first then added everything else to the bowl. Another one of those one-bowl-stops!

If you have a frozen crust, let it thaw out almost completely before filling the pies. Bake 40-45 minutes. It will be custard-like so if the middle has set while still in the oven, you're good to go. It'll have a nice golden color and shouldn't be jiggly at all.

The pie is tasty when it's warm so let it cool at least 20 minutes before slicing. I like this pie cold, right out of the fridge on the second day.

I made this pie already and have it in my freezer for Thanksgiving. I will pull it out of the freezer the night before and place it in my fridge. The day I plan on eating it, I'll set it out on the counter a few hours beforehand, just to make sure it's thawed out completely.

This is a good idea to make ahead since it can be frozen after baking. If you make two, eat one now and freeze the other for later. Never know when someone is going to have an impromptu dinner/dessert date!

Eat and Enjoy!

*Thank you, Miss Hella, for the recipe!*