WW Crusted Honey Mustard Chicken

This recipe is Weight Watchers approved!! Wohoo!! We modified the recipe a bit to our taste and left off the dill and scallions but I have included the entire recipe as posted on the WW website below.

PointsPlus® Value: 16

Ingredients
1 spray(s) cooking spray
2/3 cup(s) lite honey mustard dressing
1/8 tsp table salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
2 tsp dill, freshly chopped
1 medium uncooked scallion(s), finely sliced
1 cup(s) cornflake crumbs
1 pound(s) uncooked boneless skinless chicken breast(s), four 4 oz pieces

Instructions
· Preheat oven to 425°F. Coat a shallow pan with cooking spray.
· In a small bowl, combine honey mustard dressing, salt, pepper, dill and scallions; remove 1/3 cup and set aside.
· Place cornflake crumbs in a shallow bowl. Dip chicken into dressing mixture and then cornflake crumbs; place in prepared pan.
· Bake until chicken is golden and no longer pink in center, about 15 minutes.Drizzle remaining dressing mixture (the 1/3 cup that was set aside) over chicken breasts and serve. Yields 1 piece of chicken and about 1 1/3 tablespoons of dressing per serving.

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Ziti Bake

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and if you are like my family you have been celebrating for a few nights with everyone so the last thing you want for dinner is more leftovers!!
This Ziti Bake is one of my children's favorite meals and changes up the regular spaghetti menu a bit!

What you need:

1 package of Ziti Noodles

1lb of ground hamburger or turkey

1 Can of Spaghetti Sauce

1/2 cup Parmasean Cheese

1/2 cup of mozerella

1 cup of shredded cheese or mozerella

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Brown meat on stove while cooking noodles following directions on packaging

After cooked mix- meat, noodles and sauce in large pot

Add parmasean cheese (more or less to taste) and mix together

Add 1/2 cup of Mozerella and mix together



Pour into 9X13 casserole dish

Add 1 cup of shredded cheese to top



Cook for 15-20 minutes or until cheese is melted on top.



Enjoy!

~Elizabeth

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Reindeer Cookies

There are tons of reindeer cookie ideas floating around the web and pinterest. Some use peanut butter cookies, some with nutter butter cookies, some using m&m's or chocolate covered pretzels. But I needed something I could take to my daughter's class party and we have a peanut allergy in her class so I knew that I was going to have to modify these so all could enjoy.

My daughter did not want to use m&m's and so we looked at what we had in the pantry and came up with mini chocolate chips and red icing for the nose. These were very easy to make and she enjoyed helping! Have you started to notice a theme for most of my recipes...simple ingredients and easy to make with children!

What you need;
1 package of rolled sugar cookie dough (or peanut butter cookie dough)
mini pretzels
chocolate chips or m&m's for the eyes
red icing, red hots, or red m&m's for the nose

Preheat oven based on cookie dough directions
Cut rolled dough into slices- mold on pan into an oval or diamond shape
Place mini pretzels into each corner at top
Place chocolate chips/m&m's in dough for eyes & nose (if using)

Cook per directions, let cool completely then add red icing for the nose!!

Enjoy!
~Elizabeth

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Smores Cups

It was time for our Holiday Potluck at work this week so I whipped up some yummy desserts for the affair! I was a little nervous about making these Smores Cups because I typically do not have good luck getting things out of my muffin pans without them breaking apart but YEAH!! I sprayed these down heavily with Pam w/ Flour and they came right up!
What you need:
Mini Muffin Pan
Pam w/Flour
7 whole graham crackers (1 cup finely crushed)
1/4 cup powdered sugar
6 tablespoons butter, melted
4 bars (1.55 oz each) milk chocolate candy, divided or 1/2 package of mini chocolate chips
12 large marshmallows

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Place graham crackers in zip loc bag and crush finely- I used a rolling pin to roll mine into a fine mixture- but I have used plenty of other things in the past to crush graham crackers- just open your utensil drawer and be creative!!

After crushed mix in bowl with butter & powder sugar.
Place about a tablespoon of the mixture into each spot (you want them about 2/3 cup full)
Press Crumbs to create a shallow cup- a tart press would work- or if you are like me and don't have all that- I found the tablespoon measuring spoon worked perfectly!!
Bake in oven for 5-6 minutes in oven

While that is cooking break apart the chocolate bar into the little squares. Take each marshmallow and cut in half- it helps if you run your knife thru cold water or freeze before using.

Once done, remove from oven and place 1 square or 8-9 chocolate chips into each cup. As you are working you will notice the chips change to a lighter brown- they are melting! For the most part by the time you get done filling each cup with chips they will all be melted.

Place marshmallow cut side down into each cup. Bake for 2-3 minutes or until marshmallows are slightly softened.

Let cool for 15 minutes in the pan, then gently remove from pan and place on a cooling rack. I used a knife to gently separate from the pan. Then they just popped right out.

Let cool completely- you need the marshmallows to set otherwise when you dip them it will pull out of the cup. (Trust me it will happen if you rush it!) While you were waiting put a handful of chips or the rest of the chocolate bar in a microwave safe dish and cook for 1-2 minutes or until melted completely - stirring throughout the heating process(about every 20 seconds).

Dip the smores cups into the melted chocolate to form the tops! Let set for 30-40 minutes to harden the chocolate.

Original recipe from The Pampered Chef.

Enjoy!
~Elizabeth

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Mini Sausage Wreath

My son's church small group had their Christmas Party at our house this past weekend and I made this mini sausage wreath for them! It was a huge hit and so easy to make. However because at the last minute I decided to make the wreath even bigger to feed more I did not have a platter big enough to hold it, so the pan would have to do(once it cooled down of course)!! LOL
What you need:
package of mini sausage
1-2 cans of crescent rolls
butter

To make:
Preheat oven according to crescent roll directions
Roll out the crescent roll and split into 4 squares - pinch the perforated triangles together to form the 4 squares.
Cut lengthwise 6-8 strips of dough using a pizza cutter
Wrap dough around mini sausage and place in circular pattern on ungreased cookie sheet.
Form dough bow using left over strips- I just placed 2 fatter pieces of dough together then pinched middle to make it smaller- then placed 2 smaller strips underneath for the ribbon.
Cook according to the crescent directions
About 2 minutes before completed take out and rub butter on top of wreath- then finish cooking.

Enjoy
~Elizabeth

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Crescent Chicken Rolls

I have been really lucky lately with my recipes that I have found online lately- my family has really liked these and they have been simple to make- plus the kids can help!

I made these Crescent Chicken rolls after seeing them posted on another blog- a quick check of the ingredients and it passed!! So I decided to give it a try!

What you need:
1 (8 or 6 jumbo count) package refrigerator crescent rolls
2 cups chopped cooked chicken ( I boiled mine)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can of milk (using soup can)
Salt & Pepper


Preheat oven to 350
Prepare soup using milk and set aside
Lay out one crescent roll at a time and place 3-4 bite sized pieces of chicken and 1Tbsp of cheese in the center of each triangle.
Gently roll up
Seal edges by pinching the dough to make sure the filling cannot leak out.
Place all of your rolls in a 9×13 dish and pour soup mixture over top.
Salt and pepper as desired.
Cook uncovered for 30 minutes

Enjoy!!

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Homemade Cheesy Potato Soup

This soup is absolutely delicious and perfect for the winter weather coming up. After making it the first time to try it out, I quickly made 2 more batches to freeze. That was only a couple of weekends ago and we are down to just 2 more servings frozen! My son loves to have this as an afterschool snack!
You can top it with bacon and green onions or just cheddar!

Original Recipe:

2 tbsp. butter

1/4 of a large onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

4 baking potatoes

1/3 cup flour

4 1/2 cups milk

1 1/4 cups shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 cup reduced fat sour cream

1/4 cup chopped green onions

1/2 cup bacon bits

I modified our recipe at bit to meet our families tastes so we used 1/8 of an onion, 1% milk, and since I did not have a real clove of garlic I used some garlic powder! Oh and no chopped green onions at the end either!!

* Bake your potatoes by piercing with a fork, wrapping in paper towels and cooking in microwave for 6-9 minutes, depending on size. After the potatoes came out I peeled most of the skin off but you could keep it if you like.

* Remove potatoes and coarsely mash, set aside.

* In a large pot melt the butter over medium/low heat. Add the onions and garlic and saute until soft, 5-8 minutes

* Add flour and mix and stir, then add milk stirring with a wisk until blended. Cook over medium heat until thick and bubbly, about 10 minutes.

* Add mashed potatoes, 1 cup cheese, salt & pepper stirring until cheese melts. Remove from heat.

* Stir in sour cream and 1/2 cup onions(if like). Cook over low heat 10 minutes or until heated.

*Pour soup in bowls and add toppings as preferred.

If freezing pour soup into 4 medium size tupperware containers, label tops with date and soup. Set out on counter @ 30 minutes or until room temperature, then freeze.

Serves 8

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Pecan Pie Muffins/Cupcakes

These were so yummy...I am so glad that my office loves to have potlucks because it gives me the opportunity to try out new things!! Not that my family does not like to try new things but sometimes we have a hard time eating all of the sweets that I want to bake!! These mini pecan pies were perfect for taking to potlucks or your holiday party- one suggestion though is to double the recipe and make them in full size muffin pans instead of the mini's...to me the full sized ones were just the right size- I found myself eating a few to many of the mini ones!!

What you need:
1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup butter, melted
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine all ingredients in a medium bow and mix well.
Spray muffin tin with Pam with flour cooking spray -trust me you want the kind with flour in it.
Fill each 3/4 of the way full.
Bake in preheated oven for approx 18 minutes.

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Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread

Another family friendly recipe~Cinnamon Pull Apart Bread. I made this the night before then put in fridge. Saturday morning I threw it in the oven and it was ready in just 30 minutes!
What you will need:
For Bread:
1 unsliced round loaf sourdough bread,
1/2 cup butter, softened,
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Cinnamon Mix:
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon

Icing:
1 cup powdered sugar
1-2 Tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and cook for 30 minutes

Cut the bread lengthwise without cutting thru the bottom, then rotate and cut lengthwise again. This should give you the squares for pulling apart!
Whip butter and sugar together, then add vanilla and honey. Pour over bread making sure to get down into each cut.

Don't worry if you take too long (taking photos of every step) and your butter mix does this.. Luckily a few seconds in the microwave returns it to liquid form!

Bread with mixture poured over top. Next sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mix over all the cuts making sure some gets down in between the bread.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes! When done pour the icing mix over the bread.

The yummy aroma coming out of your oven will surely wake up those in your house and they will rush to your kitchen..trust me! Serve on a large plate (or in our house directly from the pan) and let your family pull apart their cinnamonny pieces!

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Pizza Balls

Another great family friendly recipe that the whole family can get involved in cooking and these are oh so yummy....

What you need:
1 can of biscuits
Pepperonni or sausage
Shredded Mozzarella
Muffin Tin
Cooking Spray

1.Spray your muffin pan with cooking spray or Pam.

2.Use a knife or kitchen scissors to cut each biscuit into 4 sections- I used the generic kroger biscuits and they were a bit small I would suggest purchasing name brand biscuits if possible.
3. Cut up pepperonni or sausage to small pieces.
4.Then put 3-4 sections in your hand, add cheese and filling(pepperonni) and squish together like a snowball. This is where your little ones can help- they love squishing it all together! Place each ball into a section of the muffin pan.

5. Bake according to biscuit instructions or at 350 for around 15-17 minutes or until golden brown.

These were heavenly- however we had a bit of trouble getting them out of the muffin pan- guess I added a bit too much cheese. Other friends have made these with no problems. But no worries the boys in my house made sure to scrape out as much as they could of the leftovers in the pans!!

Enjoy!

~Elizabeth

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Chocolate Dipped Smores

I needed to come up with something quick and yummy to take to my office Halloween Potluck. I had seen a recipe for chocolate dipped smores and thought since we had most of the ingredients already around that I would give these a try.

I love to make things with my kids- it's no problem to have my oldest help me but I often struggle to find things my 5 year old can do with me beyond just dumping the ingredients in the bowl- so I get real excited to try even the simplest of recipes if she can help. This was one of those so round up your kiddos so you all can create smores tonight!

What you will need:
Graham Crackers
Mini Marshmallows
Chocolate chips (also used to make the dip)
sprinkles for the top


Preheat oven to 350
To start break apart your graham crackers and place on aluminum foil lined pan
Place mini marshmallows on one side and chocolate chips on the other
Place in oven for just a few minutes until chocolate chips are soft and marshmallows have started to poof up - if you use big marshmallows they will poof alot faster!
Once melted to your liking, place one side with marshmallows and one side with chocolate chips together and squish them together! (This is a great time to taste your smore to make sure they are perfect before you make the next batch!)

I put mine in the freezer for a few minutes to help set the chocolate while I melted the chocolate chips for the dip. Place some chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl (I used a drinking glass or mug) for about 30 seconds or until melted. Stir the chocolate until smooth- and dip your smore in until you have covered the bottom half of them. Sprinkle with any toppings you would like
I have also seen some variations with different chips or melted toppings. To turn these into smore pops just use half of a graham cracker, larger marshmallows & chips. When you take out of the oven insert a lolipop stick on top of the marshmallow before you put the chocolate side on top. Allow some extra time in the freezer to set the stick and chocolate.

Linked up at

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Candy Corn Marshmallow Treats

Yep you guessed it - another pinterest inspired treat to make with my kids...Are you starting to figure out why I named this blog "A Sprinkle of Inspiration!"

This time I wanted to make something with my daughter and send it to school for her kindergarten class as a treat for after fall break.

These were so fun to make- and the chocolate melts were so yummy I had a hard time keeping myself from eating the leftover melted chocolate!!

What you will need:
Wilton Candy Melts in Orange and Yellow
Marshmallows
Lolipop Sticks
Lolipop Bags for wrapping later on

I could not find yellow so I purchased white candy melts and added candy coloring- not food coloring. Insert a lolipop stick into each marshmallow then stand upright on wax paper tray. After melting chocolate in microwave for about 20 seconds or until melted dip marshmallows about 2/3 of the way in the orange chocolate. Then put finished marshmallows in freezer for a few minutes to let chocolate harden. Once harden and dried- dip marshmallow into yellow chocolate 1/3 of the way up and set on wax paper tray- again you can put them in the freezer to speed up the hardening process.

Ours were not perfect- to be honest nothing is ever perfect or straight if I am involved in it. My daughter helped me dip and it was more fun for us to do these together then to make sure that the dipping was perfectly lined up! Afterwards we placed them in the lolipop treat bags and tied an orange or yellow ribbon around the bottom to seal it.

I have seen these where they are then stuck into a small hay bale but I never got around to the store to buy one- so ours were just neatly placed in a bag for school.

That afternoon when my daughter got home- we all could not wait to check her bag and see if there were any extras leftover- and to our excitement there were a few still left in her bag! Yippee!!

You can find the original inspiration Here

Happy Baking!
~Elizabeth

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Halloween Treats - that didn't make the party!

Another pinterest inspired treat- meringue ghosts! Original recipe can be found Here

We gathered all the ingredients and started out to make our ghosts- we did these about 3 days before the party as the recipe said they last a couple of days afterwards! And so we started beating the egg whites.
After beating for about 30 minutes we decided they HAD to be stiff enough..right..I mean it did not say it would take an hour to beat..so we decided to start the process of piping the ghosts.

I did not have a real pastry bag so I just used a zip loc bag and then cut off the corner. The recipe said these would make around 36- but we made 60+ so obviously I did not make big enough ghosts- this became very apparent half way thru when they started to look more like blobs then ghosts! I attempted to put 2 mini choc chips on them and they barely fit...so what did we do...we created eyeballs or cyclops instead! Yep nothing like having a creative family to come up with something out of this mess! We cooked them for the 1 1/2 hours then waited....the recipe said they would melt in your mouth- nope no melting at our house! So I left my 2 pans of cyclops on the stovetop and walked away disappointed- only to catch my husband later sneaking some and commenting about how good they were!

Needless to say these did not make it on the party table and we are classifying it as an epic fail! But hey sometimes that happens- and just to keep this blog real I thought I would show you that sometimes the recipes don't always turn out! I should comment later as I was telling a coworker about how they turned out she asked me had it been a rainy day- which it had so maybe that's what the problem was!!

~Elizabeth

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Teen Halloween Party Food

Here is part 2 of my son's Halloween Party. Part 1 was all about Mummy food but here are some of the other items we made for his party! Let me just say 2 things!
1. Over buy decorations as it does not go nearly as far as you think it will.
2. Teenage girls will not eat much if there are teenage boys around!! Although they did eat up the pretzel rods and mummy smokies!!
I saw this great drink dispenser at a friend's birthday party and rushed out to Sam's to get one for myself and even better it was on clearance. It was perfect for our Halloween Party as it had a center part made for the ice however I put mini skulls in there- then as the kids drank the blood (I mean hawaiian punch) the skulls were revealed. Just as a side note this dispenser holds 2 jugs of Hawaiian punch!

Bones Breadsticks- I found the recipe
Here

These again were so much easier then I thought they would be- you just take the breadsticks and roll them until they are thin enough to tie the ends up. I used spaghetti sauce instead of dip to give it more of a bones and blood look. One thing to note was I made these in advance and then reheated them right before the party- they were ok but no where near as good as the ones we tried the night before right out of the oven. So if you can I would suggest having these be the last things you cook before your party.

Cheese Fingers served on a Silver Platter!
Again super easy to make but a bit time consuming. Take String Cheese and cut in half- then cut a sliver off the end to make the fingernail- the original version I saw had almonds as the fingernails but my son came up with Pepperoni to use instead- so we had red fingernail polish!! Cut the pepperoni to fit the sliver and push lightly into cheese- you could add a small amount of cream cheese here if you need to- we didn't. The take the back of your knife and make 3 knuckle marks in the middle of the cheese- you could also do these towards the other end if you wanted more knuckles on your fingers.

Witches Hats:
These are great for your younger children to help make. They are simply fudge stripe cookies turned upside down with a hershey kiss attached to the top with orange wilton icing!

Pretzel Rods:
We had leftover chocolate melts from a treat I had made for my daughter's kindergarten class so we used those to make chocolate covered pretzel rods. I will tell you we used the Kroger Pretzel Rods because they appeared to have the fewest broken in the bag- and none of them broke during the process. Just dip in your favorite melted chocolate, sprinkle with holiday sprinkles and lay on wax paper and put in freezer to dry for at least 20 minutes. I then added them to a bowl of candy corn so they would stand up and be easy to grab!

Happy Partying!
~Elizabeth

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