Cream Cheese Carmel Apple Dip

 This is such an easy, fast dip that is SO good! I got this from a friend of mine from Indian, Rena Redmon. The brown sugar in this recipe makes it taste caramelly. Add those toffee bits, caramel chips or a little bit of both! Want something to dress up apple slices? This will do it in a jif! 

8 oz Cream Cheese

1/2-3/4 cup Brown Sugar

1 tsp. Vanilla

Carmel Chips or Toffee bits

mix all together with a hand mixer. Put in a bowl, and DIP!

Want it a little bit healthier? This is how I usually make it. It still tastes really good (never got any complaints!) and doesn't feel like you are ruining your apples with a ton of sugar. I love the spices with it.

8 oz Cream Cheese

1/4 cup Brown Sugar

1/4 Cup Honey (or maple syrup, or any sweetener that you want.)

1 tsp. Vanilla

Cinnamon and Allspice to taste! (I usually skip the toffee or caramel)

mix all together with a hand mixer. Put in a bowl, and DIP!

Greek Salad (Traditional Horiatiki Recipe)

This is from Rob's sister who got it from her mother-in-law. I don't usually like these salads. The vegetables are too big, the dressing is too bitter. It's just an all around not that pleasant salad.... I got this when she made it at Thanksgiving. I got it as a vegetable requirement (and you always need to try stuff to make sure you don't like it!). I was so surprised! It was really good! It wasn't bitter! It was actually good and the vegetables were yummy and I was so happy to be able enjoyably meet my veggie requirement :D Really easy to make, just a lot of chopping like every other salad :p 

2 cloves of garlic minced

1 teaspoon oregano

1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/2 cup olive oil

Mix together well

Mix together:

1 sliced cucumber, cut slices in half

1 cubed red pepper

1 cubed yellow pepper

Grape or cherry tomatoes cut in half or a couple of chopped tomatoes (I use one or two cups of tomatoes)

1/2 red onion, slice and then cut up the slices

1/2 lb. feta cheese, cubed (I have also used mozzarella balls)

Olives

When I finished mixing everything together, I wanted more salt and pepper. I also added some garlic parmesan seasoning that I have. it helped a ton. 

This is not my specialty recipe. I found this site with great tips and information (especially shocking the onion cause I hate eating raw onions)!

https://www.themediterraneandish.com/traditional-greek-salad-recipe/

Way Better Orange Julius

I would like to begin this next post by apologizing. Because if you make this recipe correctly, it will forever ruin Orange Julius for you. I am sorry. Every time I walk past Orange Julius I think, "Mmm! I should get one of those!" But then I remember the last time I purchased a cup of disappointment from there. Right about now you might be thinking, "WHAT?! This chick is outta line!!!" I know it sounds harsh. But once you taste excellence... good doesn't taste quite so good anymore.

So what makes this Julius so special? To quote Papa Johns- "Better ingredients, better... Julius!" Fresh oranges! That's why Orange Julius just can't compete with this homemade recipe with real oranges. It would be way too costly for them to add fresh oranges to each Julius. But not too costly for you! So enjoy! Even though you will never be able to go back to that once delicious Julius Stand (at least I know I can't).  And you can even play with this! I wonder how orange zest would taste in it...

1-2 Whole oranges, peeled

1/2 C milk

Vanilla to taste (start with 1 tsp.)

1T instant vanilla pudding powder (or more to taste)

Ice to consistency. About 1-2 cups

Orange Juice Concentrate (just in case)

Add all except pudding mix to the blender and begin to blend. While the blender is on add the pudding mix. I make this recipe mostly to taste. A lot of times on the first taste I notice that the orange flavor is a bit insipid. (haha! Insipid! My new vocabulary word! ;p It means lacking flavor or zest! ;) If you find it to be insipid, you can add another orange and/or a bit of the orange juice concentrate to taste. Add ice if you feel it's too thin.

Peanut Butter Brownies

These are sooooo easy and can be addicting! For a while there it became a little tradition night after night we would make these while we played games with family! These can be made dessert style(sugar baby!) or can be made a little bit healthier for a snack(honey). If you are looking for a really decadent, awesome PB brownie.... I would say, look somewhere else. I love these for the Simplicity (4 ingredients that I ALWAYS have on hand, takes about 5 min to make) and relatively healthy aspects of them. Just so you're not disappointed! ;)

1 cup Peanut Butter

½ cup Honey or Brown Sugar

1 Egg

½ tsp. Baking Powder

Mix ingredients, put into a smaller baking pan 8x8(I believe it is). Bake @ 350 for 25-30 minutes. You can also add in Banana's, squash, or things of the sort to make these even healthier!

Betty’s Corn Pudding

Corn pudding. Well it was good enough to insist on getting the recipe! It has a good flavor and turns out creamy and delicious! I made this just the other night and my children LOVED it! I hardly even got any!!! Another great thing to love about this is that it is incredibly easy to make and takes almost no time at all except for baking! It would be great for a pot luck!

1 (14oz.) can creamed corn

1 (14oz.) can corn, drained

1 box jiffy corn muffin mix

1 cube butter

1 cup sour cream

2 eggs

½ cup sugar or honey

Melt butter in casserole dish in microwave. Mix rest of ingredients in the casserole dish and bake @ 350 for 1 hour. SOOOOO EASY!!! ;)

Hedgehog's Yellow Cake

This cake isn’t anything AMAZING per se (I just wanted to put it on here so I could throw the dumb paper away! But you will notice, I did think it was worth keeping! ;). It’s a recipe, supposedly from "back in the day" (makes it a little more fun) that my Brenna brought home from school and she MADE me make it!! It’s a very simple, not too sweet yellow cake. Extremely EASY to make and hey! Not bad. Would be good with a glaze on top. Last time I made it for a little treat for the children while we went out, and I put blueberries in it which we enjoyed. Bottom line: probably wouldn’t have this recipe if I didn’t have kids, easy, not too sweet and they like it.

3/4 C. Sugar

1/2 C. Butter

3 Eggs

1&1/4 C. Self-rising Flour

1tsp. Vanilla (or any other flavor you would like this to have :)

Pre-heat: 350

Butter 9 in. round pan. Whip butter and sugar, add eggs one by one and vanilla. Mix in flour, put in pan, bake for a half hour or until done. Serve with a warm glass of milk :)