Ranch Potato Salad

Ingredients:
2 pounds small red potatoes, cooked
1/2 cup sliced green onions
1 cup Hidden Valley Original Ranch Dressing (I’ve made it with other brands and it is not the same.)
Black pepper
8 slices bacon, crisp-cooked and crumbled

Directions:
Cut slightly cooled small red potatoes into 1 inch cubes. In large bowl combine potatoes, green onions and ranch dressing. Toss gently and dust with pepper. Garnish with bacon. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Just a few simple ingredients.

Yummy Potato Salad

Cobre Valley Casserole:

INGREDIENTS
1 pound ground beef
1 celery rib, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 (1.25 ounce) package taco seasoning mix
1/4 cup water
2 (16 ounce) cans refried beans
1 (4 ounce) can chopped green chilies
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
2 green onions, sliced
1 large tomato – peeled, seeded and chopped
1/3 cup pitted ripe olives, chopped
1 1/2 cups crushed tortilla chips

DIRECTIONS
In a large skillet, cook beef, celery and onion until meat is browned; drain. Stir in taco mix, water, beans and green chilies if desired; mix well. Pour into a 2-1/2-qt. baking dish. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes or until heated through. Top with cheese, green onions, tomato, olives and chips.

Get all of your ingredients together.

Mix everything together.

We made the cookies in the evening but Hailey was very hyper so we waited until the next day to decorate them.  She didn’t need anymore sugar!

 Add some frosting.

Decorate your snowman.

This is the snowman cookie that we decorated together.

And here is the snowman cookie Hailey decorated all by herself.

In case you want the recipe we used, here it is:

Sugar Cookies

6 cups of flour
2 cups of sugar
3 tablespoons of baking powder
1 pound soft butter

Take these four items and blend together using a pasty knife.

In a separate bowl combine:

3 large eggs
3 tsp vanilla

Beat them together and then add to the above ingredients. Roll out on a flour surface and cut into shapes. (I have used powdered sugar instead of flour to add some extra flavor and it makes them extra yummy.)
Bake at 375 for 6 minutes or until golden brown.

Ingredients:
2 sticks of softened butter
 3/4 cup superfine sugar
1 egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt

Directions:
Mix butter, sugar, egg and vanilla extract in a large bowl until well mixed.
Add flour and salt and mix together.
Roll our the dough and cut out shapes using cookie cutters.
Bake at 350 for about 14 minutes.  Makes about 30 cookies.

Get everything you need.

You’ll need one of these too- a happy toddler who loves to bake!

Hailey mixing the ingredients together.

Hailey crying while she had to wait for the freshly baked cookies to cool.

Happily enjoying the yummy cookies she made.

Anyhoo- Hailey wanted to make the Mini Banana Muffins and we had all of the ingredients on hand.  So- we made some yummy banana muffins this morning.

Ingredients:

1 medium egg
1/3 cup packed soft light brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large, very ripe banana (we didn’t have a large banana, so we used 2 small ones)
1/4 cup sunflower or vegetable oil
2/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F
2. Mix egg, sugar and vanilla.  Whisk together until thick.
3. Mash the banana in a small bowl then add to egg mixture.  Add oil.
4. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in separate bowl.  Then stir in until just combined.
5. Fill muffin liners (or greased muffin pan) about two-thirds full.
6. Bake for 12-14 minutes until risen and firm.  Makes 18 mini-muffins.

Note- we don’t have a mini-muffin pan.  So, we made 9 regular sized muffins.  I increased the cooking time to 20 minutes and they were perfect.

The ingredients

Hailey mixing the egg and brown sugar together.  (Isn’t she cute in her adorable little apron??)

Trying a bite of the bananas while mashing them together.

The finished banana muffins.  Yummy!

Also, now that Hailey is feeling better we should be back next week with some fun winter crafts!

Here are this week’s four questions.

#1. What’s your favorite crunchy food?
For some reason the only crunchy food I can think of is Chips Ahoy Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I love the crunchy ones.

#2. How often do you try new recipes?
I try to do it a couple of times each month- to keep things from getting boring.  That doesn’t always happen, but it is my goal.

#3. Name a food that you almost always have in the house.
Definitely cereal.  We love cereal so we always have some of it.

#4. What kind of food do you leave out for Santa on Christmas Eve?
We leave decorated sugar cookies with eggnog if we have it, or milk.  This year Santa told Hailey to leave some carrots for the reindeer- and she’s insisting that we need to do that too.

Stop by Fun, Crafts and Recipes if you’d like to play along.

Baked Corn Pudding Ingredients:

Directions: In a large bowl, combine sugar and flour. Whisk in the eggs, milk, butter, salt and pepper. Stir in the corn and cream-style corn. Pour into a greased 1-1/2-qt. baking dish. Bake, uncovered, at 350° for 45-50 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Yield: 10 servings.

(Picture taken from Taste of Home.)

#1. Name a food you like that uses a red sauce or anything red in it.
I love pizza- and since I guess pizza sauce is kind of red, I’ll go with pizza.

#2. Name a food you like with whipped cream in it or on it.
I love to have whipped cream on my hot chocolate.

#3. Name a food you like with blueberry in it.
My mom makes this amazing blueberry salad that I love.

#4. Share a recipe for pasta or dessert or a beverage.
I’m going to use this as a chance to post about my recipe that is a part of the Velveeta Casserole Challenge.  It’s called Meat Lovers Pizza Casserole (there are ziti noodles in it, so I think it qualifies as pasta, right?)

Meat Lovers Pizza Casserole

The ingredients

Cook about 10 oz of the Ziti noodles

Chop up 1 cup of green pepper

Chop up 1 small onion.

Cook 1/2 pound of ground beef, green pepper and onion until meat is no longer pink. Drain it and then set it aside in a medium bowl (which will be called the “meat bowl” for the rest of this post).

Brown 1/2 pound of sausage and add it to the “meat bowl.”

Cook 8oz of bacon, drain and add to the “meat bowl.”

Cut up 1 cup of fully cooked ham- and you guessed it- add it to the “meat bowl.” Stir everything in the “meat bowl” until it is well mixed.

Add 12 oz of Spaghetti sauce to the meat mixture and mix well.

By now your Ziti noodles should be done cooking so you will need to drain them.

Cut 4 oz of Velveeta Cheese into little cubes and mix it with the ziti noodles. Be sure to do this while the noodles are nice and warm and the cheese will melt very easily.

Now add the other 12 oz of Spaghetti sauce to the noodles and cheese. Spread that mixture into a greased 9 x 13 pan. Then spread the meat mixture on top of that.

Then grate 8 oz of Velveeta cheese (I didn’t know you could grate Velveeta cheese, but I tried it and it actually grated pretty easily). Sprinkle that on top of your casserole.

Then add pepperoni to the top of your casserole. Add as much or as little as you like. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until cooked through.

Yummy Meat Lovers Pizza Casserole.

And again from a different angle.

And now in case you just want the recipe in regular format:

Meat Lovers Pizza Casserole

Ingredients:
½ pound ground beef
½ pound sausage
8 oz bacon
1 cup fully cooked ham
Sliced pepperoni (use as much or as little as you prefer)
10 oz Ziti noodles, cooked and drained
1 (24 ounce) jar Spaghetti sauce, divided
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup chopped green pepper
12 oz Velveeta Cheese, divided

Directions:

In a skillet cook ground beef, onion and green pepper until meat is no longer pink, drain and set aside in a medium sized bowl.
In a skillet cook sausage until meat is no longer pink, drain and add to bowl with beef in it.
In a skillet cook bacon, drain and add to bowl with other meats.
Add 1 cup of fully cooked ham cut into bite size pieces to the other meats and stir everything until well mixed. Then add half of the jar of Spaghetti sauce to the meat mixture, mix well.
After you have cooked and drained your ziti noodles- add 4 oz of Velveeta cheese that has been cut into small cubes. Be sure to add the Velveeta cheese while the noodles are warm so that the cheese will melt. Then add the other half of the jar of Spaghetti sauce to the noodles and cheese. Spread the noodles into a greased 9×13 inch dish.
Add the meat mixture on top of the noodles. Cover with 8oz of grated Velveeta Cheese and top with pepperoni slices.
Cook at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until cooked through.

If that looks yummy to you (and I PROMISE, it is YUMMY!) then please stop by and vote for me at the Velveeta Casserole Challenge.  I’m the one all the way on the right- Livin’ With Me and Meat Lovers Pizza Casserole.

You can also check out some fun giveaways I have going on at my Livin’ With Me blog- if you vote for me you can have a chance to win some great prizes.

Peppermint Bark

2 (1 lb) White Chocolate Mint bags
1 1/2 rows of Oreo cookies.

(And that is all the ingredients!)

Now, put the chocolate in the microwave:
Microwave for 1 minute, then stir
Microwave for 1 minute, then stir
Microwave for 1 minute, then stir (or, if your microwave is like mine- you may not need to do a full minute for this last one)

While the chocolate is melting- break up Oreos into little pieces.

Once the chocolate is melted- put the broken Oreos into the chocolate and mix quickly.

Spread onto a cookie sheet and put in the freezer for 15-20 minutes.

Take out of freezer and break into small pieces.

Pass it out to your friends and neighbors, but don’t tell them that it only has 2 ingredients!

Each day we did one of these to review a letter.  I saved the letters from a project we did during the week when Hailey first learned the letter.  And I printed out pictures and words that started with that particular letter.

Hailey working on her letter A page.

The finished letter A page.

Hailey working on her letter B page.

Running out of glue working on the letter C page.

Hailey working on the letter D page.

My mom bought these fun letter shaped cookie cutters for Hailey.  So, we used them for several projects.  For this one- we used the letters, paint and paper.

Hailey dipped the letters into the paint and then stamped them onto the paper.  (And also ate some, as you can see from the green around her mouth.)

We used the cookie cutters to cut out playdough.

And then, of course, we made cookies.  Hailey is dumping the sugar into our bowl.

And sampling some of the cookie dough (I only let her do this BEFORE I added the eggs.  Do not let your child sample cookie dough with raw eggs in it.)

The finished A, B, C, D cookies.

Be sure to come back everyday when I will post our activities about our theme this month (fall), our color, shape and number (orange, triangles and 3) and our Bible theme (Noah).

Check out 1+1+1=1 for more Tot School ideas.