They thought that tye-die cupcakes were soooo cool!  I love making these for the kiddos and they really aren’t that hard to make either!

You need…

-white cake mix that has been mixed to the directions on the box

-food coloring (4-5 colors)

Divide your cake batter into four or five bowls.  Add a different color of food coloring to each bowl of batter and mix.  Add spoonfuls of each color of batter to cupcake liners until you have each color added.  Bake for 18-20 minutes according to the directions on the box of cake!

You end up with pretty cupcakes like this!

And they just make the little ones so darn happy!

I hope you have had a wonderful start to your week!

I’m off to go and drink green tea, take some vitamin C, and relax….I’m not feeling too hot today.  I need to get better because I have a very busy end of the week this week!  Yikes!

Have a wonderful night!

I was excited to come home from work today because I was breaking this baby out.

I got this dutch oven from my mother-in-law for Christmas and have been waiting to use it!  I love kitchen gadgets as gifts!  So fun!

I have been planning a chicken chili for a while and finally decided that I had my ingredients correct, so I figured it was time to make it!

Chicken Chili

-1 Tablespoon olive oil

-1/2 onion diced

-2 pieces celery diced

-2 teaspoons cumin

-2 teaspoons chili powder

-1 teaspoon garlic powder

-1/4-1/2 teaspoon cayenne (you decide how spicy you want it!)

-1 can Ro-Tel

-4 chicken boullion cubes

-4 cups water

-1 can tomato sauce

-4 cans of beans of your choice (I used pinto, black, and kidney)

-3 cups shredded, cooked chicken

Heat the olive oil in dutch oven or soup pan.  Saute onion and celery until translucent.  Add cumin, chili powder, cayenne pepper, and garlic powder.  Then add boullion cubes and water.  Stir until spices are combined.  Add tomato sauce, Ro-Tel, beans and chicken.  Bring soup to a boil.  When boiling, reduce heat to simmer.  Simmer for 45 minutes!

Enjoy!

We topped with shredded cheese and plain greek yogurt!

This soup had a great taste and the perfect amount of spiciness!   I was so glad that it turned out!

EDIT—The Good Eats Guy just told me that I need to tell you that “We grilled the chicken which gave the chili an extra dimension that made the chili even better.”

I’m off to go and read The Book Thief.

(source)

Has anyone read this?  I’ve heard great things, and hopefully I won’t be disappointed!

As we were watching the movie, the hubby got a message from a friend containing this picture.

This is a picture from a wedding a few years ago and we were striking our prom photo pose. We got a good laugh out of it!

Tonight’s dinner was something that I’ve been dreaming up for a while, we just haven’t gotten around to make them.  I love all things with buffalo sauce and I love most things with shrimp, so I thought that I’d marry the two things together in a taco shell.

Buffalo Shrimp Tacos 

-1 lb. shrimp, peeled and deveined

-1/2 teaspoon Old Bay

-1/2 teaspoon chili powder

-1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

-1/4 cup buffalo wing sauce

-tortillas

-lettuce

-celery

-carrots

Mix Old Bay, chili powder, and garlic powder together.  Season shrimp with mixture.

Place olive oil in a pan and allow to warm.  Add shrimp to the pan.  Cook until shrimp curl up and get pink.  This will take about 1.5 minutes per side for the shrimp to get cooked.

Remove shrimp from pan and toss in buffalo sauce.

Add to tortillas with lettuce, carrots, celery, and ranch!

Devour!

These were awesome!  This is one of those meals where you need to have everything chopped and prepared before you put the shrimp in the pan to cook because they don’t take very long to cook at all!

I could eat these every day.  I served these with Trader Joe’s refried black beans with jalapenos.  There just is no way to make them pretty as they sit along side of my tacos!

I hope you had a great weekend!  We spent the day lounging and preparing a few things for the week.  I also whipped up a few different things in the kitchen that I will share with you this week!  I also decided that this was the week that I am going to try planning out all of my outfits for the week in an effort to save me some time this week.  We’ll see how it works.

Do you pre-plan your outfits?

I am off to watch the finale of Guy Vs. Rachel Celebrity Cook-Off!

Anyone else watching this?

I was so sad when Cheech Marin got kicked off!  I hope that Lou Diamond Philips wins though!  He’s awesome in the kitchen!

Have a wonderful night!

I’m so glad that I did because these cookies seriously rock.

Blueberry Muffin Top Cookies Slightly adapted from Iowa Girl Eats 

You’ll Need….

-2 cups flour

-2 teaspoons baking powder

-1/2 teaspoon salt

-1/2 cup salted butter, softened

-1 cup sugar

-1 egg

-1/3 cup milk

-1 teaspoon vanilla extract

-zest of one lemon

-1 1/2 cup fresh blueberries, rinsed

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl, set aside.

In the bowl of your mixer, cream together butter and sugar until well combined. Add in egg and beat until combined. Add milk, almond extract and lemon zest then beat until combined.

Slowly add dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, and mix until combined. Gently fold in blueberries. This will seem kind of tough, but keep folding until the blueberries are in the dough!

Refrigerate the dough for at least one hour, then shape into large balls. Bake for about 15 minutes and let cool on a wire rack.

These were awesome!  And they were kid approved!

I sent the extras to work with my hubby this week and my four year old was sad that she didn’t get to eat any more of them.  I’m going to have to make another batch this weekend….I’m wondering how they would taste with strawberries and blueberries?!?!  We’ll see what creation I am able to come up with this weekend!

We got the movie The Change Up tonight.

(source)

Has anyone seen it?  Is it any good??

I hope you have a fabulous weekend!

My boots were as tall as her legs are long.  She only fell over a few times before giving up on wearing the boots.  She did, however, stand still long enough for me to snap a picture!

All the time she was doing this, she was asking for the granola that we had for breakfast as a snack tonight.  Since this recipe is kid approved, I figured that you guys should be the recipients of it!  I love finding recipes that my kiddos love!

Granola

-3 cups oats

-1 teaspoon cinnamon

-1/4 cup brown sugar

-3 Tablespoons vegetable oil (or canola oil)

-3 Tablespoons Agave nectar (or honey or maple syrup)

-1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Mix oats and cinnamon in a bowl.

In a separate bowl, mix brown sugar,  oil, agave nectar, and vanilla until combined.

Add the wet ingredients to the white ingredients.  Make sure that your oats get coated with the mixture.

Spread out on a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake for 20 minutes.  Rotate pan halfway through cooking.

Remove from oven and put in a bowl to let finish cooling.

What you are left with is some really, really, really good granola.  This was like eating an oatmeal cookie.  SO good.  I can hardly keep my hands out of it!

And the best part is that if you want to add things to this, you can totally do that.  Add in nuts, raisins, dried fruit, chocolate chips..whatever your heart decides.

This stuff is just full of clusters of goodness!

And it’s kid approved!

Do you make your own granola?  What is your favorite granola add in??

I hope you had a great Monday!  Today was a busy day, but was a great day!  I had one of those days that flew by and when it was over I was in a great mood!

We have had a pretty low key weekend so far.  We went to lunch yesterday at Old Chicago where I ordered the Chicago Beef sandwich with fries!!!

Very tasty!

We ran errands and got groceries after lunch and then we headed home to relax in front of the fire and catch up with our DVR for the evening!

It has been so nice to not have to rush around like crazy people all weekend long!

What did you do this weekend?

This morning it was time to make baked eggs for breakfast!

I have never made these before, but I was ready for something different besides just omelets, scrambled eggs, or over easy eggs.

Baked Eggs

-ramekins

-eggs

-spinach

-green peppers

-olive oil

-cheese

-hot sauce

-whatever other veggies, meats, etc. that you would like to add!

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

While the oven is preheating, add peppers and a small amount of olive oil to a small frying pan and saute until cooked through.

Chop spinach into small pieces and add to ramekin.

Add other veggies and cheese on top of spinach base.

I then added a few splashes of Frank’s hot sauce on top of this.

Crack eggs on top of this mixture.

Break the yolks with something sharp.  I just used a small knife.

Bake for 15 minutes.

And then you have baked eggs!

These were delicious!  I will definitely be adding these into our weekend breakfast rotation.  And I’ll be adding some bacon to them.  :)  We didn’t have any, so I couldn’t do it today!

Have you ever made baked eggs?

The little people in our house decided they wanted to have cereal, toast and yogurt smoothies for breakfast.

As you can see they are having a very relaxing breakfast sitting around in their robes and being waited on by their parents as they kept asking for additions to their breakfast!

Today is all about writing lesson plans, doing laundry, baking, and mopping the floors.  I’m looking forward to the lesson plans and baking, but am not excited about the laundry and mopping.  Yuck!

What is the chore that you dislike the most?

Mopping and laundry are two of my least favorite things to have to do around the house.  I’d rather clean the bathrooms.  :)

I hope you have a wonderful Sunday!

After all of the cauliflower pizza crust we have made, we had some riced cauliflower left over, so I figured I needed to do something with it to use it up!

I decided that I was going to make fried rice out of my riced cauliflower!

Chicken Fried ‘Rice’

-2 chicken breasts cubed

-1 bag frozen broccoli florets (I screwed up and just bought cut broccoli.  I’m not a fan of the stems.:()

-1 cup carrots, chopped up

-2-3 cloves diced garlic

-4 eggs

-2 cups riced cauliflower

-1 Tablespoon olive oil

-2 teaspoons rice vinegar

-low sodium soy sauce

Set stove burner to medium heat.  Heat olive oil in a pan and add chicken chunks.  Cook until chicken is cooked through.  Take chicken out of pan and set aside.  Add broccoli, carrots, and garlic to pan with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Cook until vegetables are cooked through.  While veggies are cooking in the pan, crack your eggs in a bowl and mix up well.

When vegetables are done, add riced cauliflower to the pan.  Add chicken back to the pan and stir.

Add rice vinegar and soy sauce to pan.  Use enough soy sauce to make you happy.  I tend to add more soy sauce than people like to dishes because I LOVE the stuff. Start with two tablespoons and add more as you like.

After everything is added, you have your eggs left.  Make a well in the middle of your pan.  Dump eggs into the well.  Wait a minute or until they start bubbling and then mix them into everything that is sitting in the pan.  Your ingredients will end up covered in egg!  Cook until there is no runniness to your eggs anymore!

Eat!

This was good.  Like, really good.  I’ll be making this again soon.

The reason I really liked this dish is because I got the great flavors of fried rice, but I didn’t have the heavy feeling afterwards!  We’ll be making this quick, easy meal again soon!

Now, I’ll hop off of my cauliflower rant.

In other news….I have finally created a facebook page for Good Eats Girl!

Click here and like Good Eats Girl and you’ll be able to see new recipes pop up in your facebook feed!

I hope you had a wonderful Wednesday!  What’s on tv tonight???

So we made it again…but changed it up a bit!

I used the same crust as I used on Saturday night.  I just changed up the toppings a bit! We made a Southwestern inspired pizza.

Southwestern Cauliflower Crust Pizza

You’ll need…

-1/2 onion diced

-1/2 green bell pepper diced

-1 tablespoon olive oil

-1 lb. ground turkey

-1 tablespoon chili powder

-1 teaspoon cumin

-1/2 teaspoon salt

-1 can diced tomatoes with jalapenos…you could use any diced tomatoes of your choice.

-Cauliflower Pizza Crust

-Taco blend of cheese

-Banana Peppers

-Pizza sauce

-Spinach

-plain Greek yogurt or sour cream

-Salsa

Put onions, green peppers and olive oil in a frying pan.  Cook until onions become translucent.  Add chili powder, cumin, salt, and turkey and cook until turkey is done. Add diced tomatoes and bring to a boil.  Turn down heat at the boiling point and then simmer while your crust cooks!

Top crust with pizza sauce, meat mixture, banana peppers, and cheese.  Broil until cheese is browned.

I topped mine with spinach and had salsa and plain greek yogurt on the side!

This was amazing….I think that the meat mixture would be awesome on a regular crust also!  We are just a sucker for this cauliflower crust at the moment!  I’m currently mourning the fact that we don’t have leftovers for my lunch!

And after our pizza was devoured, it was time to watch the Golden Globes.  I’m a sucker for an awards show.

Let’s talk dresses….

Can Kate Beckinsale get any prettier?  Seriously.

(source)

And Charlize Theron looked amazing….

Kate Winslet’s dress was a simple black and white, but so gorgeous!!

Michelle Williams was cute as a button as always…

If I could pull off hair like that, I totally would.

I loved Sophia Vergara’s dress…

(source)

She’s so pretty!

And aside from the dresses, what about the guys?!?

Bradley Cooper was gorgeous as always….

Adam Levine and Jimmy Fallon were great together on stage…

(source)

And after the pretty dresses there were of course the speeches that were heartfelt and sweet.

Like Christopher Plummer who thanked his wife that he had been married to for 43 years!!

And Morgan Freeman who is so humble and such a wonderful actor!

(source)

Did you watch the Golden Globes?

I hope you had a wonderful weekend!

I came up with pizza crust made from cauliflower.  I was leery.  Like plan another meal in the back of your head leery because you were sure that this was going to turn out badly.  I was wrong.  Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!

Cauliflower Pizza Crust  Adapted from Eat. Drink. Smile.

-2 cups cooked, riced cauliflower

-1.5 cups reduced fat mozzarella cheese

-3 egg whites

-2 teaspoons garlic powder

-1 teaspoon dried oregano

-olive oil

To “rice” the cauliflower…cut off the stem and leaves from the head and chop florets up into manageable chunks.  Using a cheese grater, grate the cauliflower into small pieces.

You can also use a food processor for this…I don’t have one…I really need to get one.  If you use a food processor, be careful, you don’t want to end up with mush.  After the grating is done, cook the cauliflower in the microwave for 8 minutes.

To make the crust…Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Mix the 2 cups of cauliflower, cheese, egg whites, garlic powder and oregano together.  

After mixed, pat mixture out on a pizza pan covered in parchment paper.  Brush a small amount of olive oil on top.

Cook for 15-18 minutes until crust has browned.

Remove immediately from oven and put sauce and toppings on pizza.I topped the crust with my go to sauce.  And then with some shredded grilled chicken, banana peppers, spinach and low-fat mozzarella cheese.

Put this under the broiler until the cheese has melted and browned a little bit.

Enjoy with a good movie and a glass of red!

This was a hit.  The Good Eats Guy has asked if he can go and buy more cauliflower so I will make this for dinner again tonight.  I need to brainstorm some new toppings for the pizza this evening!

Just beware….this isn’t a pick up a piece of pizza and eat it with your hands kind of pizza.  It’s a cut with your fork awesome kind of pizza.   I was in shock the entire time that we were eating it because it was good.  We both kept talking about how we couldn’t believe how well it turned out!

While enjoying our pizza we watched Moneyball.

If you haven’t seen this yet, watch it!  It was a really good movie!

Today we are going to watch a little football and clean the house.  I’m also going to figure out what else I can do with cauliflower…the options seem endless!

Have you made anything out of cauliflower that I should try??

Have a wonderful Sunday!

It’s a little bit of a soup and a little bit of a stew, so I am deeming this a stoup!

Turkey Vegetable Stoup 

-1 1/4 pounds ground turkey

-1/2 medium onion

-1 Tablespoon olive oil

-1/2 of a cabbage shredded

-1 pound of fresh green beans

-2 cups broccoli

-29 ounce can tomato sauce

-2 cans chicken broth

-2 Tablespoons chili powder

-Salt and Pepper to taste

Brown the onion and ground turkey with olive oil. After the meat is browned, add the rest of the ingredients.  Bring to a boil.  Let simmer for 30 minutes.

It may not be very pretty picture, but oh my goodness was it tasty!

Do you ever have meals that turn out better than expected?!?

I love it when meals turn out better than expected!  It’s such a treat!

Now, I am off to watch a little Grey’s and catch up on some blogging!

I hope you had a wonderful Thursday!