Philly Cheesesteak Cups

This recipe has gone around the internet quite a bit, and is something that Derek and I both like, so I thought I'd try it out! I had lots of websites to choose from, but here's where I got my recipe. And, yes, I know I'm just adding to that pile of websites, but that's what blogs are for, right? You can pick and choose! No hard feelings if you pick another website, either. I do the same thing all the time.

This is a rather easy recipe to put together and doesn't require a ton of prep.

The recipe said to slice the meat thin, but how thin is thin? I thought mine would have been thin and small enough, but when I was ready to combine the meat with the veggies, I realized these pieces might not fit nicely in the cups. So I cut them up in the pan after they were cooked. 

I also added some left-over chicken!

One mistake I made in prepping for this meal was forgetting the heavy cream. I make about 4 meals a year that require heavy cream so rarely do I have some in the fridge, and just passed over it for my grocery list. So I quickly googled substitutions and found a helpful substitution with things I already have. I am big about prepping as much before I need it as possible. So I got the heavy cream substitution ready while the meat and veggies were cooking, but discovered something I didn't read about online for this substitution.

I cut the pastry to approximately 3x3 squares and they fit perfectly in my muffin tin. I had quite a few extra squares left over, so I decided to add a bit of crust onto a few just for fun.

These were delicious cups that were also quite filling! 

*Update: Because it is just the two of us, we had leftovers for the next few nights. I will say I am not a big fan of deflated pastry puff. So this meal might be best when you will have guests and can show off your creativity, and not have leftovers!

I still had 3 squares left over, so I decided to get creative and made a small and easy dessert. I just took some candy and stuffed it in the squares and baked it for about 10 minutes, just enough to melt the chocolate and make the pastry golden. It was a delicious dessert!

I hope you can enjoy these Philly Cheesesteak cups just as much as we did! And treat yourself to a delicious dessert, too!

Philly Cheesecake Cups

• 1 lb rib eye steak, thinly sliced (if you want to save a little money, use flank steak EXTREMELY thinly sliced, or use ground beef)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• ½ medium onion, chopped
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• 1 cup mushroom, chopped
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
• ¼ teaspoon pepper
• ⅓ cup heavy cream
• ⅓ cup milk
• 1 package puff pastry, thawed
• ½ cup provolone cheese, grated

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Preheat skillet and oil. Add chopped onion and peppers and sauté for approximately 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and sauté for another 5 minutes. Set aside.

3. Cook beef in the same skillet until no longer pink. Add the veggie mixture back to the pan.

4. Add seasonings, cream and milk. Bring to a boil and stir until thickened. Remove from heat.

5. Spray a muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray. Cut pastry to 3-4 inch squares and place each one in muffin cup. Add about 1/4 cup cheesesteak mix to each cup. 

6. Bake for about 10 minutes. Place a small bunch of provolone cheese on each cheesesteak cup and continue to bake for another 3 minutes or so. 

Cookbooks of Meaning

I don't know about you, but the holidays did me in when it came to meal prep and cooking. With all the family meals between Christmas and New Years, I've been struggling to keep up and have food in the house since then! While I doubt that I'm still in a food coma, I am still struggling to get back into the swing of things. So I thought I'd share a special project that I did for the holiday that is near and dear to my heart.

Like many people, my grandmother was a huge influence in the kitchen to my mother, and also to me. She is the one that always made an incredible Christmas dinner. I will never forget the days of applesauce-making, corn-peeling, ice-cream making, pie-baking, and hours and hours in the kitchen. My mother inherited her skills, passion for cooking and the ability to feed an army when it's just our small family (literally!), and I'd like to think I inherited most of these qualities from my mom. My mom has made so many of her recipes over the years that we've loved and I brought with me and am now sharing with my husband and his family.

Now that my grandma is gone, my mom had her recipe boxes and access to the Mennonite Community Cookbook she often used. For Christmas, which my mom was hosting this year, she wanted to honor my grandma by compiling some of her best known recipes and distribute to the family for their keeping. 

It started out as a word document, just typing up all the recipe cards that my mom picked out. I also typed out the recipes from the Mennonite Community Cookbook and labeled the source. But I didn't want this to just be a binder of paper. I wanted it to be durable and special to last generations. So I took it upon myself to surprise my mom and get the recipes made into a cookbook.


I searched online for how to make your own cookbook and came across the website Heritage Cookbook. From the research I did, it had some of the cheapest prices per page, and the ones displayed on their website looked amazing! The only downside to deciding to do this so late was that I had to copy and paste all the recipes from the Word document into the website 1 by 1. If I knew I was doing this from the beginning, I would have avoided the copy-and-paste step completely. 

There were many covers to choose from, but none that caught my eye to represent my grandma. So a great aspect of this website is that you can make your own on this website. So I googled some cookbook covers and found a fun, but symbolic cover and was able to edit it in Word and on their website. I'd say the cover was the hardest part to do, but was worth it.

The last step I did to make it more personable was to scan some pictures of grandma, grandpa and the family to add throughout the cookbook. To me, this made it something to be passed down to my kids so they can see their grandparents (my mother) with the family.    

My mom didn't know I was doing this special cookbook until she opened them on Christmas. She only knew I'd have them ready to hand out to the family. This was not only a gift from my mom to the family, but from me to myself so that I will have a special book to continue the traditional family food for generations. And it's already got some grease stains on the cookie pages from my big cookie extravaganza! 

My prayer is that I can bless my family with the food God continues to provide just as my grandma showed her love by providing for her family. I hope if this is something you can do with recipes from a loved one, that you enjoy it and can honor a family or friend by doing this for them, too.   

Cookie Dough: Chilled and Drop vs. Roll-out

Tis the season for christmas cookies! My family has a long history of my grandma in the kitchen baking hundreds of cookies for our family christmas, and then to freeze for year-round goodness. Our family favorites aren't the typical oatmeal raisin, peanut butter blossoms and candy canes. The family favorites include Pineapple Cookies, Carrot Cookies, Sand Tarts (roll out cookies you can decorate, but not sugar cookies) and Grandpa's Cookies. These are all recipes from the Mennonite Community Cookbook that my grandma used heavily. While I never baked cookies with my grandma (that I know of), I love the feeling that we are carrying on her legacy each year and I am proud to be able to bring a piece of her to our family christmas each year.

This year, I wanted to take on the responsibility to make the cookies for our family christmas. I have made all of the cookies before at my mom's house in past years, but this was the first year to do it on my own. In the first and last batch of cookies, I ran into a question and was encouraged to experiment! 

My first question: Do I let chilled dough come to room temperature before baking?
Answer: No, but it's okay if I do for this cookie.

For this experiment, I made Grandpa's Cookies. The dough of my first batch that I chilled was soft enough to scoop right away after being in the refrigerator for over 12 hours. But I wanted to do some research into whether it would make a big difference. 



To make a long story short, it only made a difference in how fast it browned, but this may have been an operator's error (I never said I was a perfect cook!). The only other difference was noticed in the presentation of the flattened vs. not flattened pan where the flattened cookies looked more uniform and smooth. Take a look for yourself:

First batch (cold)- Left side: natural; Right side: flattened

Last batch (room temp)- Left side: natural; Right side: flattened

I also found this explanation (from King Arthur Flour) of why it is a good idea to chill cookie dough in the first place. In the comments section, a viewer asks a vary similar question, and the author notes that it is better to cook the dough right away so the fat stays cold. 
"Chilling cookie dough before baking solidifies the fat in the cookies. As the cookies bake, the fat in the chilled cookie dough takes longer to melt than room-temperature fat. And the longer the fat remains solid, the less cookies spread." 

In other words, if you don't want your cookies to spread, it's best to cook them right out of the fridge or freezer.

My second question: Can I use a roll-out recipe to make drop cookies instead?
My answer: Yes.

For this experiment, I made Sand Tart cookies. While I am a big fan of decorating cookies, I didn't have any decorating items such as sprinkles or icing. I was hesitant to buy some because I don't have any space to store it. I have a great cookie recipe for roll-outs, but would it still work if I didn't want to decorate them and make them a drop cookie instead? So I took a small bit of dough and instead of rolling them out, used an ice cream scoop to make some drop cookies.

Finished drop cookies

They took over double the amount of time to cook than the rolled-out ones. I actually forgot about them so they got more brown than I wanted. Because they aren't a sugar cookie, they did taste a little bland. They also expanded and ended up mega-cookie size! 
Moral of the experiment: Maybe test them by making a few as the recipe calls for first to see how much they expand and how long they truly take to bake. Then adjust by making smaller than usual drop cookies if they expand and prepare for them to cook longer because they are thicker. 

Finished roll-out cookies

I did end up buying some sprinkles and icing. I used up both tubes of icing which was perfect so I don't have to store them. Here are the delicious final product of the rolled-out cookies just for show.

If you are making cookies for the holidays, have fun with it! Let your creativity show. I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 
    

Hot Cocoa Gift Bags

I absolutely love the holidays and sharing the holiday spirit with others. While I believe we should be kind and loving every day, it seems extra easy during the holidays because it's everywhere. 
Last year, our first Christmas season together as a married couple, I wanted to show my appreciation to some people who may not hear it a lot, or should hear it more. I wanted to give to people in the apartment office and maintenance, mailman, work managers and our neighbor.

Last year's gift bags before I added ribbon and a tag

I also love hot chocolate during the winter. I have tried many different flavors such as white hot chocolate, peppermint, dark chocolate, marshmallows and no marshmallows. I had run across a Cinnamon Hot Chocolate Mix on the Taste of Home website and had the idea to create little bags to hand out. I had so much fun with this and loved blessing others with the bags. Plus I made some extra for myself and thought it was just as good, if not better than the store bought packets, but way cheaper per serving!

This was such a simple and quick gift to put together. You can get as creative as your heart desires, and make it your own.

It's as simple as mixing the ingredients together. I mixed the marshmallows right in the cocoa mixture, but if you wanted to present it differently, you could leave them out and place them on top of the mixture in the bag as in the picture on the Taste of Home page linked above.

I bought adorable bags and used some ribbon to tie it together. This year I decided to include a candy cane as well.  I also wanted to put a little tag on it to let them know it's a thank you/appreciation for all they do. Last year I made a tag, but lost it when my computer crashed. So this year I had to recreate it. I looked online for ideas of what to write, as I couldn't remember in the least what I wrote last year. I could not find any Christmas/thank you sayings or tags that were appropriate, so I want to give you a FREE downloadable tag in case you are in the same boat.

This year's finished gift bags

I hope you have fun blessing others with this fun and easy gift!
I'd love to hear if you come up with variations of this gift.





Cinnamon Hot Chocolate Mix 
1 3/4 cups nonfat dry milk powder
1 cup confectioner's sugar
1/2 cup powdered nondairy creamer
1/2 cup baking cocoa
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup miniature marshmallows
Additional Ingredients: 3/4 cup hot milk

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients and mix well. Store in an airtight container in a cool dry place for up to 3 months. 

To prepare 1 serving: Dissolve 3 tablespoons of hot chocolate mix in hot milk. 

Yield: about 3 1/2 cups mix (18 servings)

Christmas Wall Tree

Our first year in the apartment, I realized the small apartment was not good for one thing. Christmas decorations. We already had every surface space covered with picture frames, coasters, books, or plants. We had all the decorations up that we wanted, and did not want to drill more holes just for Christmas that would be vacant the rest of the year. 

I've always loved the Christmas tree at my mom's house, because it was something I put thought into while decorating. I even made a ribbon bow (instead of a star or angel on top) in high school that had strips of ribbon cascading down the sides of the tree, making it elegant, but still very home-y. 

In determination to make our place feel at home and in the Christmas spirit, I found a solution to our 'no room for a tree' problem. I saw this website on pinterest, specifically the light tree, and attempted to replicate it. 

This is now our second year using the light tree, and while a 3-D tree is preferable, I couldn't ask for a better alternative. 

I didn't even think about making this a tutorial until after it was already up, but found a creative way to share how I did it for those who don't want to spend the time figuring out how to do it.

For a reference, My tree is 5 feet tall and 3 feet, 5 inches at its widest. 

Christmas Tree Wall tutorial

The hardest part is honestly my perfectionism to make it look not too fat, have straight lines, and fill empty spaces. But that's just a personal problem! 

When I posted my completed project on Facebook, I also heard an idea for families with children. A mother drew a tree outline on a large piece of paper and had the children color in the ornaments! 

So I hope this helps anyone who loves Christmas decorations, but doesn't have the floor space for a tree. 
Note: I can still pull out the drawers to the drawers you see in the picture, I just have to be careful. And presents fit underneath it! 

Cinnamon-Apple Pork Chops

I have only ever cooked with apples 1 other time, and I wasn't thrilled with it, so when my mom wanted to try this recipe (from Taste of Home), I jumped at it. I have to say, I became a fan! The cinnamon and brown sugar combination created a syrup that coated the apples and tasted excellent on the pork chops!

Tip about meat: Something that I have learned in the kitchen is that I don't always have to use the exact type of meat that the recipe calls for. For example, the recipe calls for boneless pork chops. If you prefer bone-in because it has more flavor, or it's more fun or messy, you can use a bone-in pork chop, and vice versa.  This also works with chicken, such as chicken breasts/thighs. Time of cooking the meat might have to be adjusted, but always cook meat until no longer pink. My mom had bone-in pork chops (and a lot of them), so that's what we used.
Personally, I am not a fan of bones. I'm the girl that gets weird about touching a raw turkey or hate to take the meat off a rotisserie chicken. I'm better now, by force I think.

I fully cooked the pork chops, and once I pulled them out, I turned the heat down because grease was spatting everywhere, even on medium heat. I was afraid the apples would burn because no additional liquid was to be added. I kept it at the low heat until the apples released their own juices. Then I turned it back up to medium heat.

One thing the recipe did not mention was how long it took to cook the apples. I cooked them for at least 10 minutes before they were my preferred softness. At this point, I also felt I had to pull it off the heat, because the brown sugar mixture had created a syrup that continued to thicken the longer it was on the heat, and I didn't want it to get any thicker.

If you make a lot of pork chops to have for left-over meals, I would suggest peeling the apples, as the skin on the apples became rubbery after a few days in the fridge. The syrup and pork chops tasted just as delicious, though.

The apples and its saucy-syrup tasted amazing on the pork chops, however I learned for this recipe, boneless is really the best choice. I had to cut the meat off the bone, which meant I had to take off the apples. I think it would have been a lot easier without having to deal with the bone. Perfect example of living and learning!

Cinnamon-Apple Pork Chops
2 Tbsp butter, divided
4 boneless pork loin chops (4 oz. each)
3 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
4 medium tart apples, thinly sliced
2 Tbsp chopped pecans (I did not use)

1. In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon butter over medium heat. Add pork chops; cook 4-5 minutes on each side or until a thermometer reads 145°. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.

2. Remove chops; keep warm. Add apples, pecans, brown sugar mixture and remaining butter to pan; cook and stir until apples are tender. Serve with chops. 

Yield: 4 servings.

Strawberry Pretzel Dessert

My husband and I first had this dessert at college, and thought it was fantastic. So when I started seeing recipes on Pinterest, I had to make it. I didn't try more than one recipe, just because the one that I did find (Strawberry Pretzel Salad) was, in my tastebud's opinion, perfect, so why take that chance? But that's not to say there isn't another recipe that is similar that doesn't taste just as good! The main reason I decided to write about this recipe is because I've already had someone ask me about it who attempted to make it and it did not go so well. I have also made it 2 times within a month, and made some slight alterations. It really is a simple recipe, but has a few steps that could make it go wrong. 

The first step is the most fun, because you get to smash things! The first time I made it, I personally thought I kept the pretzel pieces too big, so this time I smashed them up into smaller pieces. I also added over 2 cups of crushed pretzels (I used a 2 c. glass measuring cup and filled it up just over the top of the cup) because 2 cups did not cover the bottom of the pan very well. 

Tip for smashing things: Don't dirty another dish or clutter your already-tiny counters with more utensils. I used the measuring cup that I was measuring the pretzels with to smash the pretzels in the bag! It's also a great way to release some stress :) 

I stuck the crust into the fridge for a bit to cool off faster while I whipped together the filling. One lesson learned from a friend who made it was to make sure the filling goes all the way to the sides so there is no way the liquid topping can seep down to the pretzels. Guaranteed it will make those pretzels soggy and will not turn out right. 

Both times I made this recipe, I did not have time to wait for the filling to set for 2 hours and do the topping right after. So I let the filling in the fridge overnight or during the entire day, so it was, no question, set. 

For the topping, I loved the idea of a bit of pineapple in this to add liquid juice and a different flavor. 
I did have to spread the strawberries out once it was poured on the filling, because they all clumped together. It really does fill up a 9x13 pan almost to the top. I also made sure it was level while setting in the fridge. The first time, I also tried to put saran wrap on top instead of the plastic lid, thinking the lid would hinder the gelling process. This did not work out well, because the saran wrap immediately was suctioned to the liquid. The second time, I stuck to the plastic lid :)

One lesson I learned the hard way, and luckily it was with the left-overs for my husband and I, was that the topping is not stuck to the filling. So when traveling, I had to tip it for a period of time to fit in my cooler, and all the topping slid off! It was easy to spread back over, but I would be very careful when traveling with it. 

All the topping slid to one side!

FYI: the crust does start to get soggy after 2 or so days, but not a mushy-soggy. I still thought it was absolutely delicious to the very end, 5 days later!

Delicious!

Strawberry Pretzel Salad

2 cups crushed pretzels (you want small pieces, but don't pulverize them in a food processor)

3/4 cup melted butter

3 Tbsp + 3/4 cup sugar

1 8-oz pkg cream cheese

1 8-oz container whipped topping

2 3-oz pkg strawberry gelatin dessert mix

2 cups boiling water

2 10-oz pkg frozen strawberries

1 8-oz can crushed pineapple

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. For the crust: Grab a medium bowl, add the pretzels, butter and 3 Tbsp sugar, and mix together. Press this mixture into a 9x13 inch pan. Bake for 7 minutes. Set aside to cool.

3. For the Filling: In a mixing bowl, beat together cream cheese and 3/4 cup sugar. Fold in the whipped topping, and spread over the cooled crust. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, until well chilled.

4. For the Topping: In a small bowl, dissolve the gelatin in boiling water, and allow to cool slightly. Add the strawberries and pineapple, and pour over the cream cheese mixture. Refrigerate until serving time.