Easy chocolate walnut brownies

Easy Chocolate Walnut Brownies

1 stick butter melted
2 C sugar
2 C All-purpose flour
1/4 C cocoa powder
4 Eggs
4 Tsp vanilla extract
1-2 Tbsp water
1 C chopped walnuts(optional)

Preheat oven to 350°. Mix the flour, sugar, cocoa, eggs, butter, vanilla and 1 tbsp water. Stir the mixture with a wooden spoon and add 1 more tbsp water if too thick to stir. Fold in walnuts and reserve some to top with if desired. Mixture should be thick and you'll need to spread it evenly in a 13x9 pan sprayed with cooking spray. You may want to spray the spatula as well to keep the mix from sticking when spreading it out. Be sure its even because it won't even out when baking. Then cook 20-30 minutes checking at 20 by inserting a tooth pick and seeing if it comes out clean. Mine took 30 minutes to cook through. *If you want to leave out the nuts just skip those steps and do everything else the same you can also substitute for any other nuts (pecans ect).*

Basic chocolate icing

1/4 C canned condensed milk or regular milk works too
1/4 C melted butter
1/4 C cocoa
3 C powdered sugar
Dash salt

Put all in bowl and mix with hand mixer on medium low speed until all combined, scraping down the sides with a spatula as needed.While the brownies are still in the pan ice when still warm for a nice smooth icing and sprinkle with chopped walnuts if desired.
Enjoy!

Red Roast Pepper Marinara Rotini with Sausage

Alright guys now tonight for dinner I'm gona recreate a dish i saw the other night while watching a show on demand for lack of anything else being on. I thought I'd just go back and watch the show and make it but nope! The shows gone from on demand and the recipe is nowhere to be found so we are just gona wing this. Ok guys? I know I have the basics anyway.

Roasted red pepper rotini with suasage

4-6 Italian suasages
4 Jarred roasted red peppers
1 Red onion
4 Fresh rosemary sprigs
1 Heaping tsp fennel seeds
2 Garlic cloves
Half a jar of tomato pasta suace
1 Box rotini pasta 2 Tsp balsamic viniagrette
1/4 C reserved water from cooked pasta

So first you want to butterfly your sausage so it will cook faster. Take a sharp knife and cut vertically down the sausage but not all the way through then open the sausage up (like butterfly wings) and take the back side of your knife and smooth the meat in the casing flat. Heat a grill pan to medium heat and rub the sausage with a little oil (olive,canola) and place on pan. Cook about 3 minutes on each side. Then fill a large pot with salted water (around a tsp) and bring to a boil. Cook pasta as directed. In a food processor or blender put peppers, fennel,red onion roughly chopped, 2 sprigs of rosemary (you only want the leaves not the hard stick) pinch salt and pepper blend till well chopped scraping down sides if necessary. Then heat a little oil in a large suate pan and add 2 cloves crushed garlic and suate a few seconds until color changes on medium heat. Then add the pepper paste you made and cook 3 minutes. Then add half jar pasta suace, cooked drained pasta and 1/4 cup reserved pasta water and 2 tsp balsamic if desired. Stir until well coated and top with chopped sausage and remaining rosemary and sprinkle with balsamic.
I used 5 sausage links.
*Tip*
Do not use sausage with cheese inside because when you butterfly it the cheese will burn during cooking. If your sausage curls on the side use a large pot lid to press them down and leave on them to finish cooking.

Ok so while dinners cooking let me tell you a little story. The other night while I was making dinner my oldest son who's just now really getting the hang of bein potty trained says he needs to go to the bathroom. I was in the middle of making ravioli from scratch with sausage and I'd been working on it most the day so I told him to go and bring me his pants when he was done and I'd help him get them back on. Now this isn't unusual for him to go to the bathroom alone if I'm in the middle of something and usually its no problem. But after a little bit I realized he was still gone and his brother was too. Soooo I go to the hall bathroom to check on them and ooohhh my god they had an inch or more of water covering our bathroom floor! :0 So your wondering where all this water came from?? The sink you may ask; oh no not the sink. They had gotten my little bucket that holds our craft pens I had left downstairs the week before when we were making Valentine cards and used the bottom of it to oh so perfectly clog the toilet and then my little angels flushed the toilet over and over and over until the entire bathroom was flooded They were soaked as well after yelling a few choice words and hanging up on my grandmother in a panick I pulled all their clothes off and sat them in time out while I cleaned this mess up where they sat laughing hysterically.
                    :|
So 2 mops and 3 towels later I had a semi-dry bathroom and 2 boys in need of a bath. Now by them time i had got them out of the tub dressed and back in the kitchen to my made from SCRATCH ravioli that i had already poured creamy suace all over it was unedible and thrown in the trash!! :'(  So we had leftovers for dinner and I learned i should keep my kids in a cage while I'm cooking.

104 calories and 4.3 grams of fat in 1/8th of the recipe made with 5 sausage links.

Leftover crock pot turkey croissant

Leftover Crock Pot Turkey Croissant

We didn't have much of this yummy turkey left but we did have enough for a few sandwiches and they wer quite good.

Heres what we used.. 

Leftover turkey breast
Croissant
Light provolone cheese
Mayo
Onion
Lettuce
Tomato
Bacon
Or any sandwich topping you like

I cut my croissant down the middle horizontally and then microwaved it a few seconds just to get the croissant buttery and a little moist. Its easier to cut it open before warming since its slightly stiffer. Then i put just a small amount of mayo on the bottom part of the croissant but you can use as much or as little if you like. You can mix some garlic powder and chilli powder into the mayo too for a more complex taste... just a dash of each. Place your cheese on top of the mayo. Then chop your turkey, pull it apart with your hands or thinly slice it. We only had some bits and pieces of our turkey left so i just pulled it apart with my hands.
Then just top with whatever you may like red onion, lettuce, tomato, bacon, anything you like. Cut down the middle and serve! We had some peaches and pita crackers on the side.

Here's one of the boys sandwiches so it doesn't have any toppings.

Do you like our finest china??? Yes, its Styrofoam plates today for us haha.

Orange Julius Protein Smoothie

Orange Julius Protein Smoothie

Very tasty and an excellent meal replacement or snack.

1/2 C orange juice or orange juice concentrate
1/2 C skim milk
1/4 C fat free plain greek yogurt
1 Scoop french vanilla protein powder
1 Packet sweet and low
10 Ice cubes or more or less depending on how thick you would like your shake

Combine all the ingredients in the blender and blend on high until ice is all chopped. Enjoy!

249 Calories and 0.4g fat and 36.5g protein in the entire shake if made with orange juice. If made with concentrate it has 248 cals, 0.3g fat, and 36.6g protein.

3 Ingredient peanut butter cookies

Three Ingredient Peanut butter Cookies

These cookies could not be easier! They are delicious and a great recipes to have kids help with.

1 C granulated sugar
1 C peanut butter
1 Egg

Preheat oven to 350°
Put all 3 ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix with a wooden spoon until combined.
Spoon into 8 mounds on a cookie sheet lined with parchment or aluminum foil sprayed with nonstick spray.
Cook 6-8 minutes watching closely.
The top should be paler when done and bottom browned slightly.
Let cool and enjoy.

*Tip*
Spray nonstick spray in your measuring cup before putting in the peanutbutter so it slides out easily with no mess.

One cookie has 8.8 g of protein, 16.8 g fat, and 291 calories.
If you get reduced fat peanutbutter it would be less but i didn't have any on hand.

Garlic sugar snap peas

Garlic Sugar Snap Peas

These cook up in about 5 minutes and are crunchy and delicious! They go well with about any meat or to add into some asain dishes. They are quick easy and yummy!

2 lb sugar snap peas
1/2 Tsp salt
dash pepper
2 Tsp canola oil

Heat a skillet over medium high heat and add oil. Once the oil is heated up you can add the peas if they came prewashed and ready to go otherwise you will need to wash them cut the ends and remove the strings from them. Add the salt and pepper then you want to cook them 3-5 minutes until they get some black spots on them. Its best if you use a large skillet that they all fit in without overlapping but if they do its fine just stir more often. In the last 10 seconds of cooking add in the garlic and stir it around then quickly remove from heat. The garlic will get bitter if over cooked or burned. If your a salt lover like me top with more salt.
They will be crispy but tender.

Light sweet potato casserole!

Light Sweet Potato Casserole

This is a pretty quick and easy but delicious recipe! Goes great with the crock pot turkey.

2lb sweet potato
3/4 C packed brown sugar
1 1/2 Tsp salt
1/4 C Regular I can't believe its not butter
1/2 Tsp vanilla extract
1/2 C finely chopped pecans
2 C mini marshmallows

Preheat your oven to 375° and peel and cut sweet potatoes into chunks (i used 3 medium sweet potatoes) and put them in a pot with cold water. Bring them to a simmer and let them simmer for 15 minutes. Then drain the water and place them in a large bowl or back in the pot. Let them cool slightly but make sure they are still warm so the butter melts.
Add in sugar, butter, salt and vanilla then mash it all up with a potato masher. After its all good and mashed up fold in 1/4 c pecans you have chopped finely. You can use a chopper or food processor but you don't wana turn your nuts to dust. Then you want to put them in a 7x11 pan or casserole dish sprayed with nonstick spray and top with remaining nuts and all the marshmallows. Cook for 25 minutes or until good and browned.
3/4 C has 115 calories and 2.1 g of fat!!