Blueberry Oatmeal Coffee Cake

For those of you that don't know me personally, I looooove breakfast foods. Like, L.O.V.E. I could eat breakfast for lunch, supper and snacks. There is something ohhhh so comforting about eating a hot breakfast. Don't get me wrong, cereal and I have quite the love affair too, but bring on the soft, warm, doughy, dense, caramely anything, and I melt. Along with my favorite cup of joe, breakfast is my favorite time of the day.

So naturally I am always on the lookout for yummy breakfast recipes. This one I found on allrecipes.com and it definitely gets my stamp of approval!

Blueberry Oatmeal Coffee Cake

1 1/3 C. all-purpose flour
3/4 C. quick cooking oats
1/3 C. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg
1/2 C. fat free milk
1/4 C. Canola oil
1/4 C. reduced fat sour cream
1 C. fresh or frozen blueberries

Streusal Topping
1/4 C. quick cooking oats
3 Tbl. all purpose flour
3 Tbl. brown sugar
2 Tbl butter

In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients, stir; In separate bowl, combine egg, milk, sour cream. Add to dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in blueberries. Pour into a greased 9 inch round baking pan. For the topping, mix oats, flour and sugar. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle on top of batter, bake at 400 degrees 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clear.

Sunbutter Pancakes

Every Tuesday morning is pancake morning for breakfast (remember I do daycare and must.have.schedules.), so I am always on the lookout for new pancake recipes. I found this one on (ta-da!) allrecipes.com. These pancakes go down on my list of fave cakes. They are light, fluffy and the kind that melt-in-your-mouth.

These were supposed to be peanut butter, but being that we have a nut allergy in the family, I improvised with sunbutter. We give these two thumbs up!

Sunbutter Pancakes

1 C. flour
2 Tbl. sugar
1 1/2 Tbl. baking powder
1 large egg
1/3 C. sunbutter
1 C. milk
2 Tbl canola oil

Whisk together dry ingredients. In a separate bowl whisk egg and sunbutter, add milk and oil and add to dry ingredients.

Linking up to:

Tasty Tuesday

Tempt My Tummy Tuesday

Crockpot Overnight Oatmeal

My girls love oatmeal, but it's usually the instant packet kind, not that there is anything horrible about it, but I would prefer it to be the homemade kind. I found this recipe on allrecipes.com and decided to try it out and oh.my.gracious. It is SO delicious and full of flavor! I put it in the crockpot around 9:30 the night before and it was perfect at 6:00 in the morning. If you've never tried steel cut outs, now is the time, it has a different texture than the traditional oatmeal and mixed with the apples and cranberries makes it all that much better. Now, I modified this to our liking, I used whole milk and eliminated the nuts (my girls aren't big nut fans).

Overnight Oatmeal
2 cups steel cut oats
2 cups diced apples
1 cup dried cranberries
3 cups water
1 cup milk
1 Tbl cinnamon
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 tsp butter

Combine ingredients in your slow cooker, set on low and let cook overnight!

Verdict? Delicious! Alayna and Emma loved it, Rachel didn't think there was much flavor. I will absolutely be making this again:)

White Chocolate Raspberry Scones

I had an amazing time this past weekend scrapbooking with 16 other ladies. I can't remember eating and laughing as much as we did! We all pair up and take turns preparing meals, which is a great way to try some new recipes. One of the best ones were these White Chocolate Raspberry Scones, these were unbelievably delicious! So of course I came home and made these right away for breakfast, and they were just as good as I remember. I plan on making a big batch of these to freeze for the girls' breakfasts during the week.

White Chocolate Raspberry Scones

2 1/2 C flour
1/2 C sugar
1 Tbl baking powder
1/2 C softened butter
1/3 C milk
1/3 C non-fat vanilla yogurt (I only had strawberry yogurt which I used)
1 egg
1 Tbl vanilla extract
2 C frozen raspberries
1 C white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix dry ingredients together; add softened butter to dry mix and combine until mixture is the size of small peas. Combine milk, yogurt, egg and vanilla and add to dry ingredients just until moistened. Stir in remaining ingredients, and spoon 1/3 cup of batter onto cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes, or until lightly brown.

Linking up to:
Tasty Tuesday
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday

Oatmeal Pancakes

I am linking over to Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam and Lisa at Blessed With Grace today. Tuesdays in daycare is pancakes day, so today I made oatmeal pancakes. I love these, as they really are good for you, I've made it without the buttermilk, and it still tastes wonderful. I have also added chopped apples, and bananas for something a little different. I love the fact that the kids gobble them up, but don't know that they are healthy, tee-hee!

Oatmeal Pancakes

1 C regular or quick cooking rolled oats

1 C whole wheat flour

1/4 C wheat germ

1/4 C non-fat dry milk powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 Tbl brown sugar

1/4 tsp salt

2 eggs, lightly beaten

2 cups buttermilk

In a bowl, combine the first 7 ingredients. In another bowl combine the remaining ingredients. All at once, add to the moist ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until well blended. Preheat griddle and grease lightly. Add batter, 1/4 cup full at a time, cook until tops are bubbly and flip. Enjoy!!

Banana Apple Pancakes

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Whole-Wheat-Oatmeal-and-Banana-Pancakes/Detail.aspx?prop31=2

These pancakes were AWESOME!! The only thing I did differently was added chopped apples. They smelled like something fresh out of the bakery and the kids gobbled them up!

Last night I made Garlic Chicken from allrecipes.com http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Garlic-Chicken/Detail.aspx?prop31=5 . It was good, but the coating wasn't very crispy, like I had hoped. We also had red potatoes from the garden and fresh asparagus, YUM! Tonight my Step Sister and her family along with Mom and Bob are coming over for supper. We are having burgers on the grill, homemade potato salad, corn and black bean salsa. For dessert I found a recipe for No Bake Raspberry Cheesecake. It looks awfully good!

I have decided that I am ready to start *really* decorating our home. I don't mean like remove everything and start over, but I'm ready for some changes. However, whatever I find either has to be from a yard sale/thrift store or on major clearance. I'm excited to see what things I can find to change up the looks of the house. I'm going to take pics of the rooms I want to change so I can have a before and after pic. One of these weekends that I have available (ya right), I want to dig out all the accessories that I have to see how I can rearrange things to, before I go looking for different things.

If anyone has ideas, blogs, etc for repurposing, let me know!

A perfect, perfect day!

Brad and I took today off, as it is MEA so no school for the kids. This morning I made caramel rolls for the girls, I asked them last night what special breakfast they want, and caramel rolls it was! After breakfast, we went to the Stearns History Museum in St.Cloud. We have a membership there, but haven't gone yet. It was such a fun time! They had a big playroom for the kids, it was my dream playroom too, all wooden toys/foods, etc. They had a kitchen/grocery store area, puppet theater area, train set area, and a reading corner. The girls were in heaven! After that we toured the museum. Brad thought the girls would be bored, but they were really into it. There was a nature preserve area that talked about different animals, a big old barn to tour, that showed how cows were milked 100 years ago. But their favorite part was an "eye-spy" type area. They had different themed rooms and then would have you find different items in those rooms. They also had a theater room where you could watch mini documentaries on four different subjects, we watched the one on the granite quarries, and how they came about, and how they are used. Very interesting! Even Alayna sat and watched!

We were at the museum for about an hour and a half, and then went to Lake George and had a picnic. They have a fantastic playground area so the girls were able to burn off some steam:) From there we went to the doctor, as Miss A has been sooooooo crabby, whiny, and crabby. She also has a cold, and we wondered if maybe she doesn't have an ear infection. She doesn't, which is great, but that just means she's crabby for no reason. They did do a throat culture to rule out strep, and I haven't heard back form that yet.

After the doctor we hit a couple garage sales, (mainly junk) and then went to the farmers market in town. My first stop there was the Collegeville Artisan Breads stand. The have the most incredible apple croissants, so we got two of those, and two chocolate ones (yay me!!). I also bought a loaf of their sourdough bread, which is to die for. I keep telling Brad that once I perfect my Artisan breads, I am going to sell them, haha!! I also bought more maple syrup, as I was out, and the girls got their face painted, of course!

Our final stop of the day was to go out to St.John's University in Collegeville. The colors out there are spectacular, and we wanted to walk on the trails next to the lake that take you out to the small chapel. It's about a two mile walk out to the church, and the girls did awesome! Emma was very busy finding stuff to bring home, I now have a piece of birch bark, some moss, acorns and rocks on my counter! The walk was incredible the colors amazing, and it was so QUIET out there! And of course, I forgot to bring my camera:(

It was such a wonderful, perfect day. The kids were all in a good mood, and Brad and I were just reveling in the relaxed mood we were all in!! Tomorrow I am going to head down to southern Mn to visit the grandparents. I am leaving around 1:00, and will head down to see Grandma Trellis for a couple hours, then over to stay with Jim and Lori. Sunday morning I am going to head over to Waseca and visit with Grandma and Grandpa. I am going solo this time. I feel a bit guilty for not bringing the girls, but I feel like I need a short break too. I am looking forward to seeing everyone.

Here's the recipe for the caramel rolls, they are super easy!

Caramel Rolls

1 tube crescent rolls- slice into 8-10 slices, lay in a greased pan
melt 2 Tbl butter, add 3 Tbl orange juice, and 1/2 C brown sugar, heat to boiling, pour over crescent rolls, bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes, or until tops are brown. Take out of oven and immediately flip pan upside down onto a plate. Delish!!

Tie-dye Party!

Forgive me for not posting pics, I'll do that tomorrow, but being that everyone in my house is sleeping and I can actually be on here, I'm posting now!

Our tie-dye party went great! This:http://jas.familyfun.go.com/crafts?page=CraftDisplay&craftid=12054 is what we did. We had four adults and nine kids in the house! While we (the adults) tie-dyed, my SIL had the kids doing a Halloween door hanger craft. I've never tie dyed before, so this was new for me. We still have to put the faces on, and then I'll have the girls pose for a pic with their pumpkin shirts on. After that, we went to the Kids Expo in town, which was fun. They had a couple big inflatables for the kids to play on, and lots of vendors to check out. It was fun, although Alayna wasn't. Grrrrr. She didn't have a nap and was very cranky. She decided it would be fun to try and do somersaults on the concrete floor, right in front of everyone. And of course when I said no, she flung herself onto the floor and screamed. We were there for maybe five minutes when that happened. Double grrrrrrr.

I'll post the recipe for the Cinnamon Ripple muffins, they were fantastic! I *think* the recipe is from Family Fun magazine, but not positive. I also made two big homemade pizza's for lunch. I was up at 6:30 making muffins, frying sausage and making pizza sauce. I'm tarrred. (tired for those of you who don't speak Kentucky. And I'm not making fun of KY, it's a funny little story of when we first moved there, I was 8. We stayed a couple nights at the pastor's house, and they were watching the show 60 Minutes. It was about a little girl who got run over by a car, but when I asked their teenage daughter what happened she said the girl got run over by a tar. I was confuzzled. There was no TAR on the child. So I asked again what happened she says, "She got run over by a TAR." I think either mom or dad finally whispered to me that she was saying TIRE. Sheesh.)

Tonight we went over to the inlaws to get some pumpkins, they had a large patch this year and got a ton of beautiful pumpkins. They are the best looking ones I've seen in awhile. We got 4 of them, and I also raided her tomato plants, I got a plastic bag full, plus another smaller bag full of grape tomatoes. Those grape tomatoes are the BEST tasting ones I have ever had! Between Rachel and I we almost ate them all! My plan is to can the tomatoes tomorrow, we'll see if that happens.

Tomorrow I teach Sunday School, and Rachel is going duck hunting with Brad, as long as it doesn't rain. (Which it's supposed to) In the afternoon I'm going to take off to Barnes and Noble for a much needed break:) I have a book waiting for me that I ordered, it's called "Seasons Under Heaven". My girlfriend Jona asked me if I wanted to join her book club as they were just starting up again. Umm, YEAH!!! I'm so excited to be in a book club! I also want to pick up another one of those Fairy books for Rachel. She started a chapter book on the first day of school, and already finished it! It's one of those Fairy animal books.

Well, now that I have written a novel, I am going to sign off, here is the recipe for the muffins and the Broccoli hotdish!

P.S. Dad, I ran into Mike Ness?? the manager at LKAG at the Kids Expo. I introduced myself and we chatted for a bit, nice guy. I didn't know he has been there for so long?

Cinnamon Ripple Muffins

Cinnamon Ripple

1/2 c packed light brown sugar
4 Tbl butter cut up into small pieces
1/4 c flour
2 tsp. cinnamon

Muffin Batter

2 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c butter, room temp
1/2 c sugar
2 eggs
1/2 buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine all cinnamon ripple ingredients in a mixing bowl and use an electric mixer to blend them. Heat oven to 400 and grease muffin tins

In medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, soda and salt. In large bowl beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until mixture is pale and fluffy, then beat in the eggs and buttermilk and vanilla. Stir in dry ingredients just until batter is blended. Then sprinkle the cinnamon ripple over the batter and use a flexible spatula to fold into it a couple times.

Bake muffins for about 13 minutes.

Broccoli Rice Casserole

Fry up 1lb of hamburger with onions and green pepper.
Make a cream sauce with 4Tbl butter and 4 Tbl flour, add a clove of minced garlic, and some fresh mushrooms. then add milk to the right consistency.
I had about 1.5 cups of rice in the fridge which I added, and then cut up some fresh broccoli and shredded carrots (which you could certainly eliminate if you prefer) Add some cheese, and voila! Very easy, and the kids actually ate it!

Oatmeal Muffins

This recipe I got from one of my daycare moms, and it is soooo good! The only thing I did differently was that being I did not have buttermilk, I used a cup of whole milk, and added 1Tbl of lemon juice to sour it. I let that sit for about 20 minutes or so. And, I like to soak my grains, so I mixed up the batter the night before I baked them. Soaking grains makes it easier for your body to digest them, and it brings out more nutrients. Ok, here's the recipe...

Oatmeal Muffins

1 c. oats
1 c. buttermilk
1/3 c. shortening (I use lard for everything) or butter
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 egg
1 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda

Soak oats in buttermilk for 1 hour. Cream shortening/butter, brown sugar and egg in bowl. Mix dry ingredients together. Stir into shortening mixture alternately with oats/buttermilk until just moistened. Fill sprayed or lined muffin cups 2/3 full. bake at 400 for 20 minutes.

I have an apple pie in the oven right now, a co-worker of Brad's sent home a huge bag of apples from their apple tree. Hope it's good!!