Upside-Down Personal Key Lime Pies

This recipe is from a "Hungry Girl" newsletter. It was really good and tasted sinful even though it wasn't!

Ingredients:

One 4-serving package Jell-O Sugar Free Lime Gelatin dessert mix
2 cups Cool Whip Free, thawed
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 no-calorie sweetener packet
8 low-fat honey graham crackers (2 sheets)

Directions:

In a medium bowl, combine 1 cup boiling water with gelatin mix and sweetener. Stir for at least 2 minutes (until completely dissolved). Then add 1/2 cup cold water, the lemon juice, and the vanilla extract. Refrigerate for about 45 minutes, until slightly thickened but still mixable.

Next, stir in the Cool Whip. Mix until thoroughly blended (a wire whisk works best). Divide mixture among 5 dessert dishes. Refrigerate until firm (at least 3 hours).

Once ready to serve, crush graham crackers, and evenly distribute the crumbs over the top of the dishes.

Per Serving: 82 calories, 1 g fat

Twice Baked Potatoes

I didn't really measure out any ingredients for this! My computer has been down so I threw some stuff in that sounded good.

I baked the potatoes and while still warm scooped out the insides. I combined the insides with sour cream, milk, pepper and salt and mixed to a desired consistency. I then scooped the inards back into thier shells. I put some of the potatoes into a piping bag to make a border around the edges. I filled in the middle with shredded cheddar cheese and baked in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. The results were very appetizing!

Pantry Mexican Casserole

My family always has Mexican staples in our cupboards and fridge so I threw together some ingredients I had on hand and the result was delicious!

My Ingredients:

1 can corn (about 16 oz)

2 cups cooked chicken cut into cubes

1/2 cup salsa

1 can drained diced tomatoes (about 15 oz)

1 packet taco seasoning (1.25 oz)

1 can kidney beans (about 15 oz)

1 cup crushed tortilla chips

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Preparation:

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cube chicken and cook over medium-high heat with 1 tbsp butter until cooked through. In medium bowl combine chicken, corn, salsa, diced tomatoes, taco seasoning, and kidney beans. Place crushed chips on bottom of casserole dish and cover with combined ingredients. Top with shredded cheese and bake in oven for 30 minutes. This was very good served on more tortilla chips with a dollop of sour cream. Also excellent for dipping!

Boston Cream Cupcakes

These were soooo good. This recipe is from a Cake Mix Magic cookbook and I only changed two things. Instead of filling pudding from bottom, I filled from the top. I also recommend cooling down the icing a bit before frosting. I literally had 5 minutes to frost these so they were a gooey mess. At least they were a hit at the party!

Ingredients:

1 package (about 18 oz) yellow cake mix plus ingredients to make mix

1/4 cup French vanilla instant pudding and pie filling mix

1 cup cold milk

1 container (16 oz) dark chocolate frosting

Instructions:

1. Prepare and bake cake mix according to package directions for cupcakes. Cool in pan on wire rack 10 minutes. Remove from pan to wire rack; cool completely.


2. Meanwhile, whisk together pudding mix and milk until well blended; cover and refrigerate.


3. Use tip of sharp knife to gently poke small hole into bottom of each cupcake. Place pudding in pastry bag fitted with small round pastry tip.


4. Place tip inside hole at bottom of cupcake; gently squeeze bag to fill cupcake with pudding. Repeat with remaining cupcakes.


5. Place frosting in medium microwavable bowl. Microwave on HIGH 30 seconds; stir. Frost tops of cupcakes.
   
   
   
   

Wall E Cookies!

This weekend is my son's 5th birthday. He wants the whole Wall E theme so I decided to make cookies for the kids party. I thought these turned out pretty cute! I bought the icing decorations at Michael's and used my mom's favorite cookie glaze. I hope he likes them. (He wants to wait for his party to see them so he'll be suprised!)

They were a big hit!

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 pkg. white cake mix plus ingredients to prepare mix

2 tbsp. nonpareils

24 flat-bottomed ice cream cones

Prepared vanilla frosting

Additional nonpareils and decors

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Prepare cake mix according to package directions. Stir in nonpareils.
3. Pour 1/4 cup batter into each ice cream cone.
4. Stand cones in 13x9-inch baking pan or in muffin pan cups. Bake about 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted into centers comes out clean. Cool completely on wire racks.
5. Frost cupcakes and decorate as desired.

Note: I suggest using a little less than 1/4 cup because most of mine spilled over the side! I only had three that didn't spill over. That's why I only took pictures of the three good ones in the middle of some regular cupcakes.

These were a big hit with the kids!

No food for us!

Sorry we haven't posted anything for a long time. We've been on vacation, planting over 650 trees, and busy with lots of other things so we have been living on pizza and mac and cheese. I'm hoping to find some time to get back in the kitchen! Check back soon...