Shifting focus

I know that quite a few of you follow this blog. However, my focus as shifted and instead of a strictly cooking blog I have moved on to a hodge podge of life type of blog. I have created A Heart for More and am only posting there at this time. I plan on moving the recipes from here over to the new blog as time goes on.

Please join me over at the new blog. :)

Honey Glazed Dump Chicken

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE dump chicken recipes? I think I might have mentioned it here. This is the recipe that made me totally fall in love with them. This is my all time favorite chicken recipe, hands down. However, it’s not one my hubby enjoys. He’s not big on sweet in general. I can get by making it twice a month. Anymore than that and he’s not happy.

Honey Glazed Dump Chicken

1/4 c butter, melted

1/8 c soy sauce

1/2 c honey

4-8 pieces of chicken



Place chicken pieces in a freezer zip top bag. Mix remaining ingredients and pour over chicken. Freeze.

To cook: Take zip top bag out of the freezer the night before you want to cook it and let it thaw in the fridge. Pour thawed contents of the bag into a baking dish big enough to contain the chicken and sauce. Bake at 350 until chicken is done. It will depend on the type of chicken you use. Boneless skinless breasts will take 20-30 min, bone in pieces will take longer.

I serve this with rice and ladel the sauce over the rice. It is YUMMY!

Banana Oatmeal Buttermilk Waffles

So, I finally got a waffle iron. I LOVE it. My kids have eaten waffles every day for the past 2 weeks. EVERY DAY. I’ve made a few different types and these were very well recieved. I doubled the recipe and it made enough for the whole family for breakfast and enough for about a weeks worth of breakfasts for the small and medium boy.

Banana Oatmeal Buttermilk Waffles

1 cup old fashioned oats

1 cup all purpose flour

3 tbsp brown sugar

1tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 & 1/2 cup buttermilk

2 large eggs

1 ripe banana, mashed

4 tbsp butter

2 tsp vanilla

In a blender or food processor pulse 1/2 the oats until they are a fine powder. Put processed oats and remaining dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a seperate bowl, mix remaining liquid ingredients until well blended. Slowly add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients and stir just until moistened.

Cook according to your waffle maker’s instructions. Serve warm with syrup, or not.

If you make extras and want to freeze them, spread out your waffles on a parchment paper lined baking sheet so they are not touching. Put in the freezer for a couple hours until they are frozen hard. Transfer into a labeled freezer bag. To re-heat just pop in the toaster.

I bet these would make great pancakes, as well. I did have to cook these a little longer than other recipes and they turned out light and fluffier than any other recipe I have tried.

Buffalo Chicken Mini Quiches

I have been looking for some recipes I can cook ahead and grab for a quick lunch during the week. If I don't plan ahead, I eat whatever I can find and way too much of it. :)



As a post WLS (weight loss surgery) person, I have to watch what I eat, how much I eat, how often I eat, blah blah blah. Anyway, I frequently peruse Eggface's blog. She has some fabulous 'bites' recipes. I decided to try my hand at a couple different ones using up some leftovers in the fridge. Here's what I came up with.

Buffalo Chicken Mini-Quiches

5 eggs

2 cups finely minced broccoli ( mince it first, then measure)

2 chicken tenders, cooked & finely minced ( you could add more, but this is all I had on hand)

1-2 TBSP Frank's Red Hot hot sauce

6 cherry size fresh mozzarella balles cut in quarters

Preheat oven to 350.Beat eggs and hot sauce in a bowl. Mix in chicken and broccoli. Spray mini muffin pans with cooking spray. Put a piece of cheese in each muffin cup. Evenly scoop egg mixture into muffin pan and back 25-30 minutes.

You can serve these warm or cold. You can flash freeze these and they are great to re-heat a couple in the microwave for a quick lunch.

Yummy Carrot Bread

I baked a super yummy snack cake this past week. I had been wanting to bake it for quite a while, but I just couldn’t seem to find the time between my school work, family stuff, house stuff, church stuff…ya know how it is. Anyway, I finally got around to it on Saturday.

I found the original recipe here. Of course, I tweaked it a bit. Here’s my version.

Yummy Carrot Bread

3 eggs

2c sugar

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup apple butter

1/1/2 cups finely shredded carrots

8oz can pineapple tidbits

2 tsp vanilla

3 c flour

1 cup shredded coconut

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt



Beat eggs and sugar about 2 min until fluffy. Add in oil and apple butter. Beat another min or so. Stir in carrots, pineapple and vanilla and stir until well combined. In a sperate bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients. Slow add to the wet ingredients while stirring. Mix until completely combined. Divide the batter between 2 greased loaf pans. Bake at 325 for 45-60 min or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.



This was a really nice snack bread. Not too sweet, moist and just yummy. This would make a great dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a drizzle of a simple powdered sugar glaze. I think I will add more pineapple next time. I didn’t have the tidbits, so I whizzed up some chunks, but I think I whizzed them up a bit too much. I would have liked to have had bigger pieces of pineapple in my bread. I think you would get that with the tidbits. I also used the last bit of the homemade apple butter I canned. The original recipe calls for apple sauce and some other spices. Because the apple butter has spiced in it, I omitted them from the recipe.

I will be making this again. We ate 1/2 a loaf right away and put the remaining 1 1/2 loaves in the freezer for later.

Hello out there....

I know it's been a while since I've posted. Life has been busy. I have been posting my weekly Wednesday posts over at Our Seven Sisters, but I have been seriously neglecting this blog.One of the reasons is I just don't know what to post here. So,here's what I want to know. What kind of recipes are you looking for? Family favorites, classic comfort food, vegetarian, freezer recipes, low fat, low carb, high fat, high carb, a recipe share day, menu plans?? Let me know what you want out of this blog and I'll try my best to get what you want posted here.

Leave a comment telling me what you are looking for and I'll get to working on it.

Freezer Berry French Toast Casserole

I was on vacation the past couple of weeks and totally forgot to schedule posts. Bad me. But I’m back now and ready to post.
About a month ago out huge upright garage freezer got left open and everything thawed. I was able to salavage a few things and I made quite a few freezer meals. But, that left the freezer pretty empty, so I went on the search for some more freezer recipes. I found this recipe in my search. I decided to give it a go and adadpted it for the freezer. Here’s my version.

Freezer Berry French Toast Casserole

1 loaf french bread, cut in cubes
6 eggs
1 3/4 c milk
1 tbsp sugar
1tsp cinnamon
1tbsp vanilla
12 oz frozen berries of your choice
Spray a 9×13 freezer safe pan with cooking spray. (I use the metal buffet server pans from Sam’s. Super cheap and they stand up great in the freezer. Sam’s also sells lids for them, but foil works too. ) Put the cubed bread in your prepared pan. In a large bowl, combine eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. Beat well and pour over the bread. Sprinkle berries over the top.
Cover well, label and place in the freezer.

To cook: Take casserole out of the freezer the day before you want to cook it. It needs a full day in the fridge to thaw completely. WHenready to bake, turn the oven to 350 degrees. Place thawed covered casserole dish in the oven and bake for 45 minutes. If you want the top to be crunchy, remove the cover and bake an additional 15 minutes, or until top is lightly browned and crunchy.

My family loved this. I didn’t take it out in time to thaw completely so we didn’t have it for breakfast. I started it for breakfast, but we had somewhere to be and ran out of time to finish baking it. So, I put it in the fridge partially baked and then finished it up later in the day. We ended up eating it with ice cream for dessert. It was SUPER yummy. The leftovers we ate for breakfast the next day, and they got good reviews as well. I doubled this recipe and made one with blueberries and one with mixed berries. I still have the blueberry one in the freezer, but I am sure it will be just as well recieved as the mixed berry one was.