Friday, September 22, 2017

Lasagna with Oven-Ready Noodles (Back of the Box)




Hot Mama Notes: This is a simple and easy recipe that I found on the back of the Fry's brand (Kroger) oven-bake Lasagna noodle box.  I like it because it doesn't require much, and yet the result is fantastic.  Everyone loves it, and it doesn't require a ton of chopping or many different cans of tomatoes, paste, sauce, etc.

Hot Mama Grade: A

Monday, September 18, 2017

Double Chocolate Mini Muffins




Originally from:

INGREDIENTS:

1 medium/large ripe banana, peeled
1 large egg
heaping 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (I recommend using classic storebought peanut butter, and not natural or homemade because it can be oily or separate)
1/3 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder
3 tablespoons honey (agave, brown rice syrup, or maple syrup may be substituted)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
pinch salt, optional and to taste
heaping 1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips + more for sprinkling muffin tops

Flourless Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Mini Blender Muffins
updated on OCTOBER 1, 2014 by Averie Sunshine.

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 400F. Prepare mini muffin pans by spraying very well with cooking spray or grease the pans; set aside.To the canister of a blender, add first 8 ingredients, through optional salt, and blend on high speed until smooth and creamy, about 1 minute.
Add heaping 1/2 cup chocolate chips and stir in by hand; don’t use the blender because it will pulverize them.

Using a tablespoon or small cookie scoop, drop rounded 1 tablespoon mounds into prepared pans. Each cavity should be filled to a solid 3/4 full.

Sprinkle each muffin with a generous pinch of chocolate chips.

Bake for 8 to 12 minutes, or until the tops are set, domed, springy to the touch, and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, or with a few moist crumbs, but no batter. That’s a large range with baking time and I find with medium bananas, there’s less batter, the cavities are less full, and 8-9 minutes is about right. With a larger banana or slightly more batter in each muffin cavity, 11-12 minutes is right. For these, I used a large banana and baked 11:30. Due to the mini size and oven variance, watch your muffins closely, and bake until done.

Allow muffins to cool in pans for about 10 to 15 minutes, or until they’ve firmed up and are cool enough to handle. It’s normal for muffin tops to be quite domed in oven but flatten as they cool. Muffins will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 5 days, or in the freezer for up to 6 months. I find the muffins get softer over time and taste better on days 2-3 after the flavors have married.

Hot Mama Grade: A-

Hot Mama Notes: I used 2 small ripe bananas. 1 seemed too small. I used 1T agave syrup and 2T honey. These mini muffins turned out great, and I don't even like bananas much. They are definitely super moist. You can that they are flourless, but not in a bad way. A great recipe to take to a potluck, especially where people are gluten free. I used baking cups. I needed to bake the muffins the full 12 minutes. The cups were at least 75% fun, if not a little more.

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Granola Bars





Homemade Chewy Granola Bars (without corn syrup!)

Ingredients

1/2 cup peanut butter or sunbutter
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup coconut oil (or another oil of your choice)
1 cup oats
1 cup total of any combination of: sesame seeds, coconut flakes, sunflower seeds, dried fruit, mini chocolate chips

Instructions

In a medium sized saucepan, melt together peanut butter, honey and coconut oil.Remove from heat and add one cup of oats.Choose your favorite combination of coconut flakes, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, dried fruit and mini chocolate chips, to equal a total of ONE CUP. (I just got out my one cup measuring cup and poured in the ingredients until the cup was full.)Pour in and stir well.Spread mixture into a 8×8 or 9×4 pan.Chill for two hours, then cut into bars.

Hot Mama Notes - Mine are currently chilling in the frig, so I don't know cohesiveness yet, but they taste delicious. For my 1 cup of add-ins, I used approximately 1/2 c milk chocolate chips, and 1/2 c slivered Almonds. There are also a few heath bits thrown in. YUM! No wonder my taste test was so good!! All the chocolate chips melted, though.  Update: These could never be used in hot weather (which we live in!!) as a bar.  They are too melty, even just our of the Frig.  But they do taste good, we just need to eat them with a spoon!

Hot Mama Grade: B+