Recipe

Frazzled this Christmas but still need to bake some cookies? Well, for those last minute folks like me, here is one of the simplest cookie recipes on the planet. The cookies look impressive, taste delicious, and can help round out your holiday festivities without taking too much time out of your super-busy schedule.

(This recipe is so easy and such a hit that I even have it memorized!)

Four Ingredient Peanut Butter Blossoms

1 cup sugar
1 cup peanut butter
1 egg
12 chocolate stars

With Independence Day just around the corner, you may be wondering what you can bring to a potluck cookout. And of course, with our busy lives, we all want to prepare something that is quick, simple and patriotic. Enter the flag-themed dessert pizza! It's quick, easy, somewhat frugal and impressively themed. Oh, and it tastes pretty darned good. With all it's got going for it, this dessert is sure to be a hit. So here's all you need to know to make and decorate a patriotic dessert pizza:

Ingredients:

2 (18 ounce) package refrigerated sugar cookie dough

My husband and I enjoy a near-gourmet meal once in a great while. Yes, I said near-gourmet; in our part of the Midwest, the closest five-star restaurant is three hours away. This leaves us with the option of either dining at the three- to four-star restaurants in our area or making the long three hour trek to Chicago. For us, staying home makes much more sense...and it's so much easier on the pocketbook.

I may have mentioned in an earlier post that my twin girls turned six this year. To mark the occasion, we had not one but two parties: a friends’ party and a party for the family. And because I’m crazy, I made (yes, made, not bought) two separate cakes. Now, I’m not much of a baker, and I’m not known in my social circle as a crafty-type individual. But even I have to say both cakes turned out pretty good. So, without further adieu, here’s a post about creating your own chocolate barrel cake so that you, too, can win friends and influence people.

When the pantry’s low and you need a kid-friendly meal fast, here’s a surefire recipe that can get you by for a night, direct from a kid chef. It may not be the healthiest option, but it is surprisingly tasty (even a hot dog hater like me enjoys this meal once in a great while!). So here we go: HDMPC, aka hot-dogs-mashed-potatoes-and-cheese.

Ingredients:

• 1 package of hot dogs (I like lower fat options like turkey dogs)
• Mashed potatoes
• American cheese

“Mom, what’s for dinner?”

Good question. You’ve already hit up the pizza joint this week and drove through Cluck-in-a-Bucket (a nod to Stephanie Plum there) another night – and your purse is lighter for it. What you really want is to throw together something yummy and quick.

These days, it can be a challenge to come up with meals to bring to the dinner table that are quick, healthy and don’t cost a ton of money. Well, cyber friends, here is one such dish that should fit the bill and please your crowd without costing an arm and a leg.

Cake baking can get boring. There are usually only a few options for the actual baking: making a traditional cake, whipping up some cupcakes or baking an everyday cake batter in a cake mold. Beyond that, creativity in the cake world has been assigned to the decorating…until now.

I've never been a big fruit fan, even as a child. I'll never know why. Fruit is just one of those things that I have to force myself to fit into my diet. Veggies? No issues. In fact, even as a kid, I loved big salads. Loved 'em. My favorite place to eat was Bonanza (do you remember those?!) because I could pick all of the toppings that I wanted off the salad bar, eat my veggies, then go back for more. Yes: I. Was. Strange.

The other day, I decided to make a kid-friendly meal that was healthy, fun and low-cost. (Yes, no kids yet, but with one on the way, it's time to think up some great kid-friendly recipes!).

Since kids love chicken tenders and cheese sticks, I thought that combining the two would be a surefire family-friendly meal perfect for everyone once baby makes three. And they were a hit with my husband, a man with "kid taste," so I thought I'd share the recipe here.

Chicken Cheese Sticks

What New Year's party is complete without at least one decadent dessert? If you're throwing a party or have been asked to bring a side dish, you might want to consider lemon bars. These sugary yet tart pieces of heaven can serve a few purposes: one, they're a sweet completion to almost any meal; and two, they can be used as a palate cleanser, with the lemon helping diners ease their way from the flavorful meal to the piles of desserts.