Butternut Squash Apple Sauce

Its still 90 degrees out.  But its after Labor Day.  When Labor day is over you're not supposed to wear white and you can start making Autumn butternut squash recipes.   I will also wait anxiously for Starbucks to start their "Pumpkin Spice Latte" season.

I have a 10 month old son.  I have been making homemade baby food for him since the spring.  Making my own baby food has given me a whole new appreciation for mixing vegetable and fruit flavors.  In our house, we mix zucchini with pears,  peas with pineapple, and cauliflower with apples.

Since I love butternut squash, and so does my son,  I decided to make a dessert we would both love!!

NO! I usually don't eat baby food!  My son is at the point in his development where he wants to eat
"Adult Human food"

I had heard of making applesauce in the crock pot before.  I decided to make my own crackpot applesauce, but to add my own twist, that being butternut squash.

Butternut Squash Applesauce 
Ingredients:
6 apples.  Use any kind of apple.  Its best to mix flavors.  I used 4 Gala and 2 Honey Crisp
1 small Butternut Squash.  This generates about 2 cups of 1/2 inch cubes 
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 dash nutmeg 
1 tablespoon brown sugar 
1 cup water.  optional.  I used water to get my sauce the constancy I wanted.  

1) Peel and cut apples
2) Place in Crock pot along with cinnamon, lemon juice, nutmeg and sugar.
3) Peel and cube your butternut squash.

4) Steam your butternut squash cubes.  I used a microwavable vegetable steamer.  I wanted to make sure that the squash broke down enough.

5) After the squash is steamed. Use a spatula to mush it down before placing it in the crock pot.

6) Let your mixture cook on low for 6 hours

7) Puree your mixture to your desired consistency.  I wanted my applesauce to be chunky.

This applesauce was a big hit with my family.  My son and I are in Chicago visiting my folks this week while my husband is out of the country on business.  My parents and son all Loved this dessert.  It reminded me of fall ( with the air conditioning on it kind of feels like Fall inside).

My mom thinks that we need to use the leftover Butternut squash applesauce with pork chops later on in the week.

Kiwi Frozen Yogurt Sandwiches

I had two kiwi in my fridge to use up.  I thought about making a Kiwi vinaigrette.  Unfortunately, I don't have any ( non wilted)  lettuce in the house.

I decided to make some dessert.  We rarely eat desserts in our house. Unless Greg can convince me to get a McFlurry with him. He tries to convince me to eat McFlurries with him more then he would admit.   I finally had to put my foot down and tell him that I will never get into the shape I want if we keep doing that.

We just happened to have Mango-Peach frozen yogurt. Has been in the freezer for a while.  I decided to make a Kiwi Frozen yogurt sandwich.  A nice mini dessert!

I used a cookie scoop to scoop the frozen yogurt onto the kiwi. You only need a little bit to make this mini sandwich.

After these were done, I popped them into the freezer.  I took them out about 10 minutes before It was time for dessert.

This was a great way to celebrate our Monday evening:) 

Sprinkle Stencils

This is a tutorial on how I repurposed a cookie cutter into a sprinkle stencil for cake decorating.  

Last weekend I made my husband a birthday cake.  Our family doesn't make big fancy cakes. We usually try to eat healthy, so we don't want lots of extra cake lying around. ( This might change, as our only child has not celebrated his first birthday yet)  I don't have many fancy cake decorating tools, so I made some up with what I had!

I made my husband a Zebra cake with white icing.  A plain white cake would be just a little too boring.  I happened to have a star sandwich cutter.  I used it as a stencil on the cake.

I sprinkled my sprinkles into the inside of the cutter.  ( When I removed the cutter, I then also sprinkled over the line in the middle)

And that is how you repurpose a cookie cutter ( or a sandwich cutter) into a sprinkle stencil!

I like my husbands simple birthday cake!  It looks cute and I didn't have to spend extra money on decorations.

Nonfat sugar- free pie cups

Yes.  This little pie cup has NO sugar.  NO fat added.  and is an AMAZING little treat!  This is literally just a few calories!

I happened to have blueberries from Costco that I had to use pronto !  ( What?  we didn't eat all the blueberries from Costco?) I know right?

I placed the blueberries in a saucepan and added just 1 other ingredient.  Lemon Juice.

NO sugar was needed!! Blueberries have a wonderful flavor already, they DON"T need extra sugar!  and NO splenda needed either!

I watched these blueberries turn beautiful colors. 

THEN. I pulled out leftover egg roll wrappers from my Egg roll wrapper calzones.  I cut them with kitchen sheers into fourths.

(  One Egg roll wrapper is 80 calories. Which means that each one of my blueberry cups will be 20 calories, plus the calories that are in the blueberries) 

I arranged the wrappers into a mini muffin tin.  and added the blueberries.  I added NO oil or butter to the egg roll wrapper.

I baked them at 350 F for 13 minutes.

Look at all this goodness for just a few calories!! ( I think I am starting to sound like the Hungary girl. My new obsession on the food network)

But Really, these were an amazing dessert ( and breakfast)

Cereal box cupcake holder

I made some cupcakes for the girls who work in the day care at my local YMCA.  They watch my 6 month old son almost every day of the week while I work out,  and do an amazing job!  One morning before heading to the Y.  I woke up early and baked them some cupcakes.

After the cupcakes were done, cooled and frosted, I scrambled around the house to find a box to bring them in.  I did not want to bring them on something I would need back.  I could not find a gift box anywhere!

I used my resourceful instincts and turned a cereal box into my cupcake box!

I just happened to have one of those cereal boxes with almost no cereal left in my pantry.

I cut out the center of the cereal box and used packing tape to shut the top of the cereal box.  I then covered the box with tin foil.

Easy. This was a 5 minute project.  I literally did this while my baby was in his carrier as we ran out the door.

I covered this with plastic wrap.  Maybe I will work on making this concept cute in a later post.

S'mores!

I feel like it has been S'mores season for a while now.  This spring/summer season we have had in Southeast Iowa this year has been AMAZING!  We have been grilling, spending a large amount of time outside and of course making S'mores!

A few weeks ago ( when it was mid March) we went to a cookout and I made these cute S'more brownie bites. 

These were easy to make and a big hit!  I just used box brownie mix and baked them in mini cupcake holders.  When the brownie bites were almost done I topped them with some mini marshmallows and graham crackers and continued to bake them for about 5 more minutes.

While I was looking for S'mores recipes on the web. I came across some REALLY beautiful and creative S'mores recipes that I would like to share with you!

Sweet Pea Events made these totally AMAZING looking s'mores push pops.  I mean really, these are ridiculously cute! Check them out HERE

Tessa at Handle the heat made these s'mores Pop Tarts that look fantastic! Check them out HERE

I can do that made S'mores pizza.  Seriously? Smore's Pizza? what a great idea! And look how amazing this looks!  View S'mores pizza.  Here

Kevin and Amanda made these S'mores mini dippers, which might be the cutest things I have ever seen! I cannot wait to try these! Check out the recipe on how to make these HERE

I hope these tasty and pretty s'mores recipes inspire you. Please visit these sites and check out all these great recipes!

Grilled Baby Cuties!

Last winter I made Roasted Grapes. Roasting the grapes made the sweetness really come out in the grape. 

Well, I had some baby cuties sitting around, so I decided to try grilling them, I was planning on serving them over Gelato for a Sunday dessert. 

I love baby cuties! they are so small and cute!

I cut 6 baby cuties in half.

Grilled them face down for 4-5 minutes.

I served them over vanilla Gelato.

I expected them to be sweet.  The taste of these turned out to be much better.  The cuties had a smokey flavor. Just like summer.

When served over the vanilla gelato, it sort of tasted like an orange creamsicle.  A sophisticated orange creamsicle.

I can't wait to do some more experimenting over the grill this summer.

We will be making these again this grilling season.

Like?  Check out my Kiwi Frozen Yogurt Sandwiches!

Tips on dipping cake pops!

Below is a photo of the cake pops that ALMOST failed! 

I have no fancy decorations on these. I was happy just to get them done.  My husband was having a Halloween lunch at work, so I took this as a chance to attempt cake pops.  I looked online for some recipes, and decided to make pumpkin cake pops!

As the instructions said. I made a spiced cake and mixed the cake with pumpkin puree.

I rolled the cake balls and froze them overnight.

Successful so far......not so fast!  It was time to melt the chocolate so I could dip them.

First. I attempted to melt wilton orange chocolate morsels.  FAIL. those burned in no time.

Then. I attempted to melt the dark chocolate in the house.  FAIL. It was WAY too thin to actually coat the cake pop. .

Here are some lovely pictures of my kitchen sink after melting all the chocolate in my house didn't work!.  I used up all the chocolate in my house.  I ALMOST gave up on these!!

Solution:

I hopped online and found a forum on melting chocolate for dipping. The secret is adding Shortening to the chocolate! This thins out the chocolate enough to dip things. AND unlike oil or butter, It dries thick with the chocolate!!

( I really could have used this tip during my chocolate covered pretzel disaster last Christmas)

and THATS the secret of successful cake pop dipping! ( or any kind of chocolate dipping!)

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Like?   Check out my Dark Chocolate Apple Pops