Baking and Breaking Bread

Hello, friends! Happy Monday! I’ve been visiting my fiancé in Oklahoma this week, and decided to treat him to a special dinner with his grandparents. I have a fantastic recipe to share today from that dinner, given to me by his mother- Potato Casserole! Perhaps not the most glamorous name, but there you have it. I’ll tell you now, this recipe isn’t low-fat, low-sodium, or really low-anything. However! It is high-delicious, high-crowd-pleaser, and high-easy-to-make.

Ingredients:

2 lb. frozen hashbrowns, thawed
1 stick melted butter or margarine
1 cup cream of chicken soup (you can use low-sodium)
8 oz sour cream (you can use low-fat)
1/2 cup chopped yellow onion
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 tsp salt (I didn’t put this in)
1 tsp pepper (I didn’t put this in either)
2 cups crushed corn flakes
1/2 stick melted butter or margarine

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Combine all but the last two ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

Spoon the mixture into a large glass casserole dish. The one I used was pretty huge, like 15″x10″. If you have a 9×13″, that will definitely work- you just may have to cook it for a few minutes longer!

Sauté the corn flakes in the 1/4 cup butter, just until they’re darker brown but still crunchy.

Sprinkle the corn flakes over the top of the casserole so that it’s evenly coated.

Bake the casserole, covered with aluminum foil, for 40 minutes to 1 hour. I baked mine for 45 minutes and it was absolutely perfect. I’m talking bubbly cheese, crunchy topping, creamy potatoes… it seriously doesn’t get better than that. I have a picture of a yummy cheesy corner of the casserole, just so you can get an idea for how good this looks.

And there you have it! I served this with marinated chicken breast (olive oil, salt, pepper, minced garlic, chopped onion, lemon juice, cilantro- put it all in a Ziploc bag with the chicken and leave it in the fridge for about 2 hours, then grill it), steamed broccoli, and crescent rolls. We had quite the spread!

We were quite full afterwards, and were also quite happy. I hope you enjoy this fantastic recipe, and give it a try! Happy cooking!

Hi friends! Happy 4th of July weekend! I was flipping through my Cupcake Bible this past week and came across a great recipe for S’mores Cupcakes. Since my last S’mores Dip recipe was so popular, I decided to go round two for the s’mores! This recipe is really simple and cute, and was a huge favorite among my family and my dad’s coworkers. Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick softened butter or margarine
1 and 1/4 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
7 whole graham crackers (14 squares)
1 and 1/2 cup marshmallow fluff
Chocolate candies of your choosing (I chose Kit-Kats, but Hershey milk chocolate bars are more traditional. You’ll need as much as you want to top each cupcake.)

Preheat the oven to 350ºF, and line 14 cupcake cups with the paper baking cups. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a mixing bowl, and set it aside.

Combine the milk and vanilla, and set those aside.

Beat the butter in a large bowl with a stand mixer at medium speed until the butter is creamed. Add the sugar, and beat for three minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Now, put the mixer to medium speed and add the milk mixture and flour mixture alternately, starting and ending with the flour mix.

Pour the batter into the cupcake cups, so that they’re about 3/4 full. I got 14 out of the mix, but you may get more or less. According to the book, I was only supposed to get 12. It happens!

Bake the cupcakes for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean. Cool them in the pan for 10 minutes, and then take them out and finish cooling them on a cooling rack.

When the cupcakes are completely cooled, put a small dollop of fluff on the top of each one. This will act as the glue for the graham crackers.

Now, break each graham cracker in half so that you have about 14 squares. Put one square on each cupcake.

Now, put a larger dollop of fluff on each graham cracker.

And now, put the candy on top of the fluff like you would on a s’more!

You can either eat the cupcakes like this, or take it up a notch by toasting the fluff. If you want to do that, put all the cupcakes on a baking sheet. Put them in the freezer for about 15 minutes (this prevents the cupcakes from cooking more when they’re under the broiler). When they come out of the freezer, broil them on high heat just until the fluff gets toasted. The chocolate may melt and the cracker may toast- added bonuses!