Caramel Apple Cheesecake

If you know me at all, you know I LOVE Cheesecake, and I've mentioned that a few times on here already.  For Christmas I decided I wanted to make a cheesecake, but not cheesecake bars like I've always done, an actual cheesecake.  So! I found a couple of Caramel Apple Cheesecake bar recipes and decided to combine them and try them out, but made it in a cheesecake pan instead.  You know what? It turned out amazing! It tastes just like an apple pie with a cream filling.  I was told by some people I shared with that it looked and tasted like restaurant quality, so I guess that's saying something! Oh, and you know what? It was a lot easier to make than I expected! Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of steps, but easy!

Baked French Toast

Finally, the long awaited recipe for Baked French Toast.  I don't know if ya'll have noticed, but I loved baked french toast recipes.  And, honestly, this is one of the best I've tried! I mean, it's not enough that the french toast itself is so amazing, add the buttermilk syrup and MAN! IT'S AMAZING! If you ever want to make a breakfast to impress, but you don't want to get up super early and mess up several pots and pans, then this is the way to go for sure! Another great thing about this is you can use whatever berry you feel in the mood for! I've used raspberries and blueberries, both were great!  My friend Ryan...who am I kidding...everyone who matters calls him Morty ;), made this for my sister and I when we visited him and his family a while back.  I've made it twice since, which is not near enough haha.  Anyways, give it a try, let me know what you think, I know it won't disappoint. Please don't be intimidated by the long recipe, it's actually very simple and is very quick to make!

Apple Crumb Pie

My friend Kristy made me this pie a while back, I loved it so much, that a week later I attempted to make it myself! It is seriously my favorite apple pie! I love that it's creamy and has a crispy crumb top. You know how most pies you have to eat ice cream w/ it to off set how sweet it is? Well, at least I do.  This pie, I didn't have to do that! It was perfect alone! It even tastes great cold for breakfast, not saying I did that...ok, I did...only once or twice ;) This is great teamed up w/ my Pie Pastry recipe I added yesterday as well.  Give it a shot, it was super easy to make!

Southern Style Strawberry Shortcake

Have you ever heard of eating strawberry shortcake w/ a biscuit?  Well I remember the first time I heard of it, I thought it was so weird!  And of course had to taste awful.  It was when I worked at Steak 'n Shake and they served this as one of their desserts.  I put off trying it for the longest time until one of my managers talked me into trying it.  All of a sudden my world was turned upside down, what?!?  How could a biscuit taste so good w/ ice cream and strawberries?!  Well, whatever the answer is, just believe me, it's pretty amazing!  A few years ago I decided to go ahead and come up w/ my own version of Southern Style Strawberry Shortcake, and this is what I came up w/.  Go ahead and give it a try.  It's a very simple, quick dessert.

Day 23 - Frozen Fruit Slush

Welcome to Day 23 of 25 Days of Recipes!!  I know this is VERY late, but today has been very busy...and I didn't have anyone's recipe to add.  So, here's one of my own, or one of my Hubby's Family's recipes, I should say.  This is one of their Christmas Breakfast Traditions to be served along side the Egg Strata, I've yet to make it though.  They actually call it Frozen Fruit Compote, but I like the word Slush better.  This will be the first year I make it, and I'll add my own picture after I do ;)  I only wish I could take pretty pictures like this!  Oh!  It's very tart, but my hubby loves it, so you might too.

Right after it was all mixed together, before freezing.

Fresh Cranberry Muffins

Last year I did Bountiful Baskets all the time!  I haven't done it in a while, due to the time slots filling up too fast or being too early of a pick-up time.  But, this reminds me, I should sign up today so I can stock up on all the fresh fruits and veggies for Thanksgiving next week!  Anyways, last year I got a bag of fresh cranberries, I've never made anything w/ cranberries before, so I thought I'd search for something to make w/ them.  I came up w/ making these yummy Fresh Cranberry Muffins.  I probably won't go out and buy cranberries just for this reason, but if you have some and want a good recipe to use them in, then here's one to try!

I also served them w/ my Pumpkin Bread.

Frozen Fruit Salad

Once again, not the best picture, but seriously, it's soo good! I love the cream cheese and all the variety of fruit, yum!  This was my Great-Grandmother's recipe.  Seems like it'd be old, but I knew her very well, you can call her Nanny, b/c everybody did.  Nanny was very close to my family, she was closer to us than my normal grandparents.  She died when I was a senior in high school, totally unexpected.  I believe we were at the mall, just a few days prior to that, shopping for clothes, weird.  She was great!  So, in memory of Nanny, here's her famous Frozen Fruit Salad (famous in my family anyways).

I always make this the day before Thanksgiving, that way it's done and out of the way.

Buttermilk-Blueberry Breakfast Cake

I know I've mentioned before, but I'll say it again, I hardly ever make breakfast, unless it's a special occasion.  It's usually always cereal around here.  But one Saturday, for some reason, I woke up feeling like making something special.  I've had my eye on this recipe for a while now, or should I say pinned to Pinterest, and finally made it.  It didn't fail to impress.  It was yummy!  And very easy to make ;)

It was filled w/ blueberry goodness and so moist and yummy.

Hawaiian Chicken

I was first introduced to this wonderful recipe for Hawaiian Chicken from my good friend Janel.  I've made it once before last night, but I changed it up a bit this time!  I prefer to have more sauce to cover my rice, and this recipe did not make enough.  So, this 2nd go around I made more!  I'll give you the recipe I made, if you like less sauce, then click on the link above and follow that recipe.  I also replaced the pineapple tidbits with crushed pineapples, I was all out.  I think it tasted great!  But, I do like the taste of the tidbits because you get larger bites of the pineapple, you can never have too much of that flavor right?!  One thing I think that I'm going to try next time is to bread the chicken and brown it in a little oil before cooking in the oven.  It's good with plain chicken, but would be amazing breaded!  I rate this recipe a 3.5. 

The sauce!

Fresh out of the oven.

Serve on top of rice and it's all ready to eat! yum!

Hawaiian Chicken

Ingredients:

12 or so chicken tenderloins (I used 10)
20 oz can of un-drained pineapple tidbits (or crushed)
1/3 C brown sugar
3 Tbs. cornstarch (add slowly to prevent clumping)
2/3 tsp Worcestershire sauce
3 Tbs Tai chili sauce (a red sauce in a bottle with Tai or Latin foods)
1/2 C of ketchup
1 1/2 tsp of soy sauce

1/3 C vinegar

Place chicken in a 9x13 pan with a little melted butter or non-stick spray.  Combine all other ingredients, except pineapple, in a saucepan.  Cook the sauce on med-low until thickened.  Add pineapple to sauce, stir, and remove from heat.  Pour half over chicken, cover with foil, and bake for 30 min at 350 degrees.  Remove foil, add the rest of the sauce, and cook for 15-20 minutes more.  Serve over rice.  Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Banana Muffins

One of my favorite type of sandwiches is a peanut butter banana sandwich!  And for the last little while I have really liked it with Nutella as well.  So good!  So when I saw this Presley Peanut Butter Banana Muffin I knew I had to try it.  A friend that I knew from back home in TN shared this recipe, click on her link and see what inspired her to come up with the recipe, it's a cute story.  So I wanted to make these as soon as I saw her recipe!  They sounded so good, and I actually had all the ingredients!  I ended up making them Monday and I still have a couple left over today!  They are definitely better warm, so microwave them if they get cold, it brings out the banana taste better.  And as suggested serve with Nutella, or I was thinking it'd probably be really good w/ mini chocolate chips added!  I rate these a 3.8.

Fill muffin tins with 1/4 c. of batter in each, I was able to make 17 this way.  Make sure to spray the pan a lot, so they don't stick.  Top with sugar and cinnamon mix! Yum!

Easy Banana Pancakes

I thought I'd share these wonderful banana pancakes that I made last night for dinner (or should I say brinner?)  We love breakfast for dinner, we should definitely do it more often!  I thought this would be perfect for this weekend.  If I ever make an actual breakfast, besides cereal, more than likely it's going to be on a Saturday.  Mostly everyone has boxed pancake mix right?  These aren't completely from scratch, but I do make a few changes.  I tend to like buttermilk pancakes the best, and have found that the off brand, such as Wal-Mart or Kroger, is very good.  Better than some of the name-brands I have tried!  You've probably tried banana pancakes w/ slices of banana right?  Well this one is much better, my friend Gennaveeve taught me this trick of actually mashing the bananas, that way there's banana in every bite! (Not too much, not too little, just right!!)  I would rate this recipe a 5!!

Pineapple-Mango Salsa

My husband won't be home for another hour so I decided to go ahead and post another recent find!  This one I just made Sunday and it turned out so good!  I get lots of fruit and veggies from Bountiful Baskets (a food co-op) so I decided to make something w/ the mangos and veggies I had.  My husband encouraged me to find a good Mango salsa recipe, one for chips, not as a meat topping.  I actually really didn't want to b/c I've had Mango salsa from Costco, and to be honest, I'm not a big fan, at all!  But, he insisted so, when I found this recipe that had Pineapples, called Pineapple-Mango Salsa I thought, why not try it out?!  It sounded good!  And let me tell you, it was sooo good, it has the sweetness along w/ the perfect amount of spice!  I'm a big fan of this recipe!  If you've never cut a mango, like I hadn't, then check out this website for help.  I rate this recipe a 5!!