I have been trying to cook from ingredients I already have in my cabinets as much as possible. I had a couple of bananas that were overripe, and was out of chocolate chips and raisins for the cookies I’d normally make with them. I also had a cake mix that needed used, and a craving for chocolate and peanut butter. From that jumping point, I brainstormed and cooked up the Chocolate Banana Cake with Peanut Butter Glaze. Wanna try it? Here is what I did…
Chocolate Banana Cake
1 Duncan Hines chocolate cake mix
1 cup water
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
2 mashed overripe bananas
Grease a 13×9 pan. Bake at 350 for 32-34 minutes, or until toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean.
Frost it with peanut butter glaze.
Peanut Butter Honey Glaze
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup water
Mix well.
This would work great as a simple topping for cake, muffins, or brownies. It would also make a healthy sweet fruit dip.
Pretty simple, huh? My family loves this easy peasy cake! It’s moist and sweet without being sickeningly sweet. It’s also very inexpensive, especially if you’re like me and only buy cake mixes with awesome sales and coupons.
If you want another way to use up overripe bananas (or peanut butter, my couponing comrades!), try these recipes below…
Princess Peach and I love our s’mores, but there isn’t always a bonfire and roasting stick available, so I’ve come up with some creative ways to get that ooey-gooey yummy fix. One of my s’more inspired concoctions is S’more Cupcakes. Lemme tell ya, we gobbled these right up! Not to brag, but they were so moist, just gooey enough and the flavors were the bomb diggety. They were also alot of fun for Princess and I to make together, which helped make this a recipe to keep in the “make again” file. Want to make these yourself? You know that you do! Who doesn’t love s’mores?? They’re basically a symbol of summer, and they include chocolate! Oh, and don’t get me started on cupcakes! They just make me happy! They’re a pre-portioned piece of cake and they bring back fond memories of childhood with every bite. Put those together, and you’ve got Heaven in your mouth! 🙂 On to the directions…
S’more Cupcakes
1 Devil’s Food Cake mix, following directions on box for mixing
12 large marshmallows (we used the ones made for s’mores, since they were flat)
1 cup mini marshmallows
1/2 cup of chocolate chips
Dropping in Marshmallows
Mix the cake batter according to directions, adding the chocolate chips. Fill each cup about 1/3 of the way with the cake batter. Drop three mini marshmallows in each cup. Finish filling the cups with the remaining batter to about 2/3 full. Bake in the oven according to the directions for cupcakes on your Devil’s Food Cake mix.
Before the marshmallow topping
When you remove them from the oven, flip the oven to broil. Place your large marshmallows on top of each cupcake, then pop them back into the oven. Broil until they puff up and are very lightly browned, watching closely, since they will burn very quickly. Remove, cool, and enjoy!
My kiddos absolutely drooled over these, gobbling them right up. They had a blast with the process of making them together, as well. My daughter loved adding the chocolate chips to the batter and dropping in the marshmallows. Both of my munchkins were mesmerized by watching the marshmallows puff up in the oven. They were so excited to finally get to chomp into these scrumptious bites of gooey goodness! You’ve got to try them, too! There are even coupons available to go with this yummy recipe! See below…
Sharing their cupcakes
What is your favorite kind of cupcake? Do you enjoy s’mores, or are you allergic to melty chocolate gooey scrumpdeliciousness? 😉For more recipes, please click the Chef’s hat!
You love food, I love food, we all love food! I mean, who can help it? We’ve all gotta eat! October 24th is an extra special day in the world of food. It’s not only the official celebration of Food Day, but also the birthday of one of my all-time favorite food lovers- my dear ol’ Dad! It’s only fitting that he was born on the day we celebrate one of his most beloved things (other than his darling children, of course! 😉 ). He sure loves himself some good vittles! Love you and a big happy birthday holler, Daddy!
Food Day isn’t just about any food. It’s about making an effort to eat real, healthy food and about the people who work hard to make sure these choices are readily available. It’s about encouraging families to choose more natural and less processed. According to http://www.foodday.org : In 2014, Food Day will have a special focus on food access and justice for food and farm workers.
Jalapeno Poppers
I just finally got my late autumn garden of kale, broccoli and butter lettuce planted a couple of days ago to give us a continued supply of some fresh healthy green veggies for a couple more months while produce is getting more and more expensive. I wanted to plant spinach, too, but I waited too long to start the seeds and couldn’t find the plants anywhere locally. I’d love to have more in, but life interfered with my larger plans for this year. The only thing still producing well from my summer garden is the jalapenos you see pictured. They are doing amazingly well! 🙂 If you want to know how I made those yummy unfried poppers in the picture, just click the photo for instructions.
What are you doing to make healthy food choices for your family? How knowledgeable do you think you are about things related to the growth and production of the food we eat? Take this quiz, and let me know how you did! http://www.foodday.org/food_literacy_quiz I took it, and got 12 out of 15 right. A couple of my wrong answers surprised me! Can you outdo me?
The friendly face of Food Day. Happy birthday, Dad! 🙂
“Dinner for a dollar?!?” they exclaim, “It can’t be done!!”.
Let me tell ya, honey, it most certainly can! Tonight I made this delicious pasta dish for less than a dollar. It fed my five year old, two year old and me with leftovers…and we all ate seconds!
I am challenging myself to stretch our grocery money as far as possible, and cook from the pantry as much as I can to help with a money crunch while my husband is taking a career furthering class for several weeks and missing a lot of work to do so. I haven’t been shopping in about a week and a half, so I am doing pretty well with it thus far.
I found some pasta with no crazy ingredients, just semolina and durum flour, marked down for 25 cents each when I was shopping a couple of weeks ago, so I grabbed several packages. I used half a pack of those noodles for this dish, plus a can of Italian diced tomatoes (66 cents), a sprinkling of parmesan, a handful of mozzarella cheese and the last few slices of ham lunchmeat we had in the pack before we go grocery shopping tomorrow.
Dinner For a Dollar? It’s Doable!!
I mixed the cooked pasta with the tomatoes, let my oldest sprinkle on the cheese and the shredded lunchmeat and warmed it in the oven for about five minutes. TADA!!!!A super cheap and yummy supper created in less than 10 minutes! 🙂
While this cost me less than a dollar, with more average prices it might cost closer to two dollars. Even still, it’s a budget friendly and speedily prepared meal for the penny pinching parent who is crunched for time.
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This is a treasured family recipe, dating back at least to my great-grandma. My mom told stories of going every Sunday to her grandma’s house for this Ritz cracker chicken and a good time with her huge, close-knit clan of kinfolks. This was one of her stand-by meals for our family growing up, and one we looked forward to every time. When I was dating my now-husband, I fixed this chicken for him. He had a fit over it, and insisted on taking me to his parents’ house and having me fix it for him. Maybe it brought on a proposal? 😉 He requests it from time to time, and my little Princess Peach and her baby brother are already in love with what she also calls Grandma’s Special Ritz Cracker Chicken. She thinks it is a “recipe from Heaven”, though, because it is so yummy and she knows it is a recipe I learned from her Grandma, whom she never met ’cause she went to live in Heaven before Princess Peach was born. This recipe has so many good memories attached to it for me, in addition to being delicious! I’m happy to share it with you, and hope you can make memories with your own family while feeding them this scrumptious chicken treat.
We don’t always make this with chicken breast, for the record. You can use any pieces you want. We just like breast meat better in our house, so I buy huge packs when we find it on sale. I also frequently add chicken liver, made the same way, in with our chicken breast. It stretches the budget, and the hubby and I love liver. I usually serve this chicken with mashed taters and either green beans, corn, baked beans or mac & cheese, but it would go well with just about anything. It is truly that good! 🙂
With no further ado…
Grandma’s Sunday Special Ritz Cracker Chicken
♥Grandma’s Sunday Special Ritz Cracker Chicken♥
1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into large strips
1 sleeve Ritz crackers, crushed
1 stick butter, melted
1/4 tsp. black pepper
Preheat oven to 400 F.
Mix crushed Ritz crackers, melted butter and black pepper until all is moistened.
Coat each piece of chicken well with the Ritz cracker mixture, and place in medium sized baking pan.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until cooked through and lightly browned.
Enjoy!
She was enjoying her chicken and wouldn’t stop to pose. 🙂
This recipe doubles well, and I usually do at least double the recipe so we can eat it
Chewing his chicken with a cheesy grin
multiple times. You just have to cook it a few minutes longer for the extra chicken. The pan shown is about double the recipe, for reference. We love it so much that we’re always happy to eat the leftovers the next day!
No coupons this week, but this is a super frugal main dish.
So, now that I’ve shared one of my favorite family recipes with you, what’s a dish your family has long term ties with? If you don’t have a recipe like that, what dish do you fix that appears to have the potential to become “Grandma’s special recipe” for your own future generations?
This week I thought I’d go for a recipe that is both quick & simple, all while being light on the tummy and the pockets.
Refreshing Rice Pudding
1 cup cooked (Uncle Ben’s) white rice (approximately 1/3 cup uncooked)
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/3 cup (Dixie Crystals or Imperial Sugars) white sugar
1 cup (Dole) crushed pineapple, drained
1/4 cup shredded coconut
*Be sure to rinse, drain, and chill the cooked rice.
*In a small glass or metal mixing bowl, whip the cream, adding sugar gradually until cream becomes fluffy.
*Next, fold the whipped cream, drained pineapple and coconut into the chilled, cooked rice.
*Spoon the mixture into dessert dishes, serve and yum it up! 🙂
, as low as free!
Penny Pinching Peach 