Homemade Chicken Nugget Recipe

What kid doesn't love chicken nuggets, right? 

With back to school in a few days for my boys, I'm trying to get a jump start on prepping all those early morning lunch boxes. These chicken nuggets are not only delicious and easy to make, but they don't contain loads of sugar or need any weird chemical soak and dyes.

Ingredients:

1 lb of Chicken, cooked

2 Eggs

Bread crumbs

Wheat germ

Parmesan cheese

Salt

First shred your chicken, either in a food processor or mixer.

I over cooked my chicken a little, I've been watching the latest season of Downton Abbey and was distracted. Don't do that.

Add the eggs and salt. 

Not a great picture, but you get the idea - it's chicken.

Mix together breadcrumbs, wheat germ, and parmesan for the coating. I didn't measure, I just mixed it up until it looked good. I think crushed corn flakes would be equally as good.

I used my rice mold to press and form the chicken mix into small even shapes. And then, I just made patties because the shapes were taking too long. 

Roll your nuggets in the crumbs a few times and press for good coverage. 

I spread my baking sheet with butter to make them a little extra crispy, but that's totally optional. 

I was able to make 20 nuggets from this recipe.

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes on each side. Or until they're golden and crispy.

Now you can eat them!

They're so easy and quick to make, you don't have to feel guilty eating a whole batch. If you want, you can freeze them and take a few out as you need.

Dip them in some homemade ranch - it's the best!

Peach-Apricot Fruit Leather

So the other day, a friend and I went to a local farm.

First of all, if you've never been to a peach orchard - go. Now.

The smell alone is worth the trip.

I planned on picking a few pounds - enough to eat and make a pie or two.

The kids had other ideas.

Guess how many peaches I came home with.

Just guess.

20 POUNDS.

So now, along with freezing 10 lbs of peaches, I'm making fruit leather!

I bought a dehydrator a few weeks ago, and I might be a little obsessed with using it.

If you don't have fresh peaches, frozen will work.

But, trust me, fresh from the tree is best!

Peach-Apricot Fruit Leather

Ingredients:

4 - 5 Large peaches

3 Tbsp. Apricot preserves

1/3 cup Honey

2 Tbsp. Vanilla

3 Tbsp Cinnamon sugar 

First, you need to peel and pit your peaches. The easiest way to do this is to blanch them and peel the skin off. Start by making a small X in the skin.

Dunk the peaches in boiling water for 30 secs or so, and then immediately put them in a bowl of ice water.

The skin should peel off pretty easily after that. 

Then cut them in half and take the pit out.

Don't eat them yet! (Ok, eat one. JUST ONE.)

Put them in a medium saucepan and add the rest of the ingredients.

I had some sugar that I had stored with some vanilla beans in it - so good! I added some cinnamon to it and put it on toast for breakfast, so I just used the rest in this recipe. Extra sugar is definitely not needed, so if you just want to add a pinch of cinnamon, it would still be great.

Simmer over medium until the peaches are very soft. It only takes a few minutes.

Put your fruit mix in a blender and blend until smooth.

Now you're ready for the dehydrator.

I should have taken a picture, but I lined my dehydrator with parchment paper. 

I laid down my paper, traced the dehydrator tray, and then cut it out. 

Pretend there's a picture here.

Alternatively, you can bake these in your oven - just set the temp as low as you can.

These are beyond delicious. They're even better than the kind you buy at Trader Joe's!

I *might* even like them better than a fresh peach.

Make Your Own Yogurt!

The first thing I started making from scratch was yogurt. We go through tons of the stuff, in smoothies, lunchboxes, and frozen into popsicles. It makes an easy breakfast before school too!

Making your own yogurt is not only easy, it's made from ingredients you probably already have and has no impossible to pronounce additives and dyes. 

My kids haven't missed Trix yogurt at all! (I might, though - seriously, cotton candy flavor? Yum.)

So to make yogurt, you need:

A crockpot

8 cups of whole milk (half a gallon)

1/2 cup dry nonfat milk (optional)

1 cup honey or sugar (optional)

1 Tbsp. vanilla (optional)

1/3 cup plain yogurt (to use as a starter)

Mix the milk and dry milk in your crockpot. I add the dry milk because I have found it helps to thicken the yogurt, but you could strain it through cheese cloth to thicken. I have used both ways, but I prefer the dry milk addition because it's easier and less messy! The advantage of cheese cloth is that you can strain is until it is as thick as you like, even like Greek yogurt. 

Put the lid on, set your crockpot on low, and let it go for 2 1/2 hours.

Yeah, another picture of milk in a crockpot. 

Not super exciting, but it is delicious!

Now, if you want to make vanilla yogurt, here is where you add your sweetener and flavoring.

I use honey, but sugar would work too.

If you want plain yogurt, do nothing!

Put the lid back on, but turn the heat off. Leave it for 3 hours.

After 3 hours, it's time to whisk in our starter.

You want to use a plain yogurt with live cultures. After your first time making yogurt, just set aside 1/3 cup of your own yogurt to use as a starter next time! 

Get ready, the next step is a doozy: wrap a towel around your crockpot and leave it.

Yup.

I leave mine overnight, about 12 hours.

And... it's done! Doesn't look like much, but it's thick and delicious! It will thicken up even more after being refrigerated for a few hours, but we didn't wait, it was breakfast time!

There is nothing better to wake up to!

Unless, of course, you have a mimosa or something.

I always make plain or vanilla, because I use it in so many different ways, but I imagine there would be a lot of different ways to flavor this yogurt! Let me know if you try it!

Homemade Coffee Creamer (and Sweetened Condensed Milk) Recipe

Oh coffee.

How I love thee.

Totes the best part of my morning.

But, I can't drink it black. Bleck. I like it sweet and creamy!

Store bought creamer, is delicious. And full of chemicals. 

And holy kachow, it's expensive!

Making your own creamer is so easy. Literally two ingredients.

Sweetened condensed milk and milk. 

Let's start first with the sweet con milk. (I'm not sure why I always say it like that, but I do, so there you go.)

You need: 

1 cup dry milk

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 - 3/4 cup hot water

1/4 cup melted butter

Mix 1/2 cup water with the rest of the ingredients in a blender. If it's too thick, add the rest of the water until it is pour-able.

This makes roughly 1 cup of sweetened condensed milk. 

Now on to the creamer!

My creamer is one part sweet con milk to one part milk. 

I used whole milk, because that's what I had. I think it would be good with 2% or even skim.

I added a scoop of caramel (which is also made with sweet con milk!),

2 tsp. of vanilla and a pinch of cinnamon.

Blend it up and you're done!

For real you guys, this stuff tastes just as good as the kind that originally came in this bottle!

I can't wait to try other add-ins! I'm already planning on adding some pumpkin puree in the next batch - fall is coming!

If you end up making this, please let me know what you added and how it turned out!

Easy Carrot Cracker Recipe

Crackers are one of the things we always have in our house, and so they became one of the first things I started making from scratch. And you know what? They are soooo simple! There are only six ingredients in my crackers, all of which you most likely already have and can pronounce. No more paying $3 for a cardboard box!

Another thing I always have in my pantry are canned carrots. They are constantly on sale, and David's grandfather is always giving me boxes of canned goods, always including a few cans of carrots. And since I don't like eating canned carrots, and my kids don't care for cooked carrots at all, they mostly just sit in the back gathering dust.

I've been sneaking them in all different places, like pasta sauce (and the pasta itself), but once I made carrot crackers, it was all over. (I have also made this recipe with sweet potatoes and it's excellent that way too!)

Carrot Crackers

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups flour

2 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

5 Tbsp. unsalted butter

14.5 oz can of cooked carrots, drained

1 Tbsp. honey

Mix  2 cups of the flour, baking powder, salt together. Boring first step.

Mix the butter in until it has a course meal texture. I, of course, used my mixer, but if you don't have one, you can do this step with your hands. But, seriously, get a mixer already.

Now you add your carrots and honey. Boy, do I wish you could smell stuff on the internet - but trust me when I say, these smell fantastic!  When I made these with sweet potatoes, I ran the potatoes through  food processor  first to make puree. This time, I wanted less work/dishes, so I skipped this step and just put the carrots in there and let them break apart while blending. Both ways work fine, one has flecks, one doesn't. 

I added a rosemary garlic seasoning blend to my crackers which turned out delicious. You can use whatever seasoning you like here, or none,as I usually do. Gotta get fancy for the blog, ya know.

So now, break out the dough hook. Oh yeah. Just look at it. It's awesome.

If you don't have one, oh well, get to kneading. 

If your dough is too sticky, add that extra half a cup of flour. In the end you should end up with a smooth elastic dough that bounces back when you push on it. Roll it into a ball and stick it in the fridge for about half an hour. 

Use your time wisely. Give your baby that "a-poo" she's been pestering you for. And maybe brush her hair too... sheesh.

I divided my dough into fourths before I rolled it out. Don't know if that's important, but I thought I should be specific. Just roll it thin. Real thin. Like, cracker thin. 

Now you can cut it! Typically, I just cut them into squares because it's fast and it doesn't waste any dough, but like I said, I'm trying to be fancy for my blog so I used a cookie cutter!

I've made squares and shapes and have learned that my kids don't give a care what it looks like as long as it tastes good! I'm pretty sure they don't even look at it before shoveling it into their little mouths.

Preheat the oven to 350. Put your crackers on a baking sheet with either a non stick liner or parchment paper. Save yourself the headache of sticky crackers - get a Silpat.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until they are brown on the edges. I suppose they might cook better if you flip them, but who cares, I never do it and they're great.  

(This is just one of 4 pans this recipe made, be ready to eat!)

Aren't they pretty? 

This recipe makes about a box worth of crackers. I'm estimating, because there's no way I'm going to count crackers right now.

Hope you enjoy these as much as my family does (I'm eating them now with some hummus - yum!).

And now that I've written and said the word carrot so many times it looks/sounds wrong. It's a total weird word. Right?