Rich Frosted Chocolate Mug Cake

Lately I've really been enjoying making various mug cakes.  They are ready in just a couple minutes and make less dirty dishes than making a whole cake, not to mention that a whole cake would go to waste for us because there aren't enough people to eat it!

I think I've finally perfected the chocolate one the last time I made them so I'm going to present my recipe on the blog. Sorry, no pictures of the process since I made them quickly and late at night when the baby (oops, toddler now!) was resisting going to sleep. They were so rich and yummy!

Here's what you need to make 2. Just half the recipe if you are alone and have a chocolate craving. Or make the whole thing and devour it and feel sorry for yourself when you get the biggest stomach ache you've ever had in you life!

For the cake:

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• a handful of random melt-able chocolate (we had these truffle things that we were given for Christmas so I used 6 of them) use whatever you have around, chocolate chips, half a mars bar, whatever, as long as you can microwave it!

I defeated the purpose of making cake in a mug by mixing my stuff in bowls, if I was only making one I would have mixed it in the mug, it's just easier to do it this way if you're making multiples!

Mix all of the dry ingredients together in one bowl and whisk the milk, oil, egg, and vanilla in another. Pour the wet into the dry and combine.  Now microwave whatever chocolate you are using until it's just melted and stir it into your batter. Pour half into each mug and microwave for 1 minute 45 seconds. You may have to play around with the time depending on your microwave, start with 1 minute and then add 30 seconds, it might be done after that long.

The cake and mugs are going to be very hot so they will have to sit for a bit, this gives you time to mix up the frosting. For this you need:

• 1/2 cup icing sugar
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon soft butter or margarine
• 1/2 teaspoon milk or cream

Just mix everything together with a fork, easy as that! You can spread the frosting right onto the hot cake before serving or you can do what we did, our cakes were really deep so we just spooned on a dollop of frosting for every inch of cake we ate!

*A quick change for if you want brownies in a mug instead of cake, omit the baking powder and use 2 eggs instead of one

*Other yummy add-ins: sprinkle of cinnamon, teaspoon of instant coffee, caramel, a peppermint patty pushed halfway down into the batter, etc!

21 Fast cheap and healthy snacks for you and your kids

I'm going to start off by saying that we've always been horrible when it comes to organizing meals other than dinner. We used to have our morning coffee/tea at 9 or 10, then maybe some cereal around 11 or 12 and then stare blankly at the cupboards and fridge around 2 or 3 when we were really hungry. This usually resulted in grabbing takeout, eating too much and then not having dinner until very late at night when the lunch food coma wore off. Not to mention that you really don't feel like doing much when you're very full so a lot of lazing around was going on.

We've drastically changed our eating habits now that Alice is with us, she's tiny and needs to eat small amounts more often since she's constantly on the go and growing. Everything needs to be healthy as well to fuel her little body and brain when she's playing hard. She also doesn't like to sit in her chair for extended periods of time and gets restless and throws her food when she gets bored.

Snacking also works a lot better for me than sitting down and eating a midday meal, snacks are faster to prepare, you can eat them on the go or while you work on things around the house and they keep my blood sugar even as I'm one of those people that gets dizzy and cranky between meals.

So here's a list of some of the things we have throughout the day between meals or as a small lunch.

1. Veggies and dip - Celery, carrots, broccoli, cherry tomatoes and cauliflower with salad dressing. Ranch dressing is our favorite, caesar is tasty as well.
2. Sliced fruit with dip - Apples, oranges, nectarines, peaches, strawberries, mangoes, etc. Try almond butter for apples and yogurt with a bit of honey for the softer fruit.
3. Dry cereal - Cheerios, Honeycomb, Vector, Captain Crunch, etc. Not the healthiest option but pretty tasty.
4. Granola - An even healthier alternative to the cereal, but costs a bit more. Eat it dry or microwave some with water or soymilk for a yummy hot cereal.
5. Yogurt and berry parfait - Vanilla yogurt + fresh berries + sprinkle of granola
6. Popcorn - Air popped or DIY in the microwave preferably. Go easy on the butter! Give it a shake of cinnamon sugar, parmesan cheese or chili powder for a bit of a kick
7. Toast - 12 grain bread with peanut butter or almond butter, add sliced banana or strawberries with a drizzle of honey
8. Pita chips - These easy to make chips are great on their own or with hummus
9. Crackers & cheese - Not the cheapest option on the list since cheese is a bit pricy but better for you than french fries
10. Mixed Nuts - Kids love to break things. Food + safe fun is a great combo. Don't feel like cracking them open and dealing with the mess? Buy a big bag of mixed dry roasted nuts or trail mix.
11. Dry soy beans - Super healthy and fairly inexpensive. We got a big jar from Costco that lasted over a month.
12. Ants on a log- Celery sticks filled with peanut butter or Cheez Whiz, use raisins or dried cranberries as the "ants"
13. Edamame and rice-We always have a bag of frozen, peeled edamame in our freezer. Fry some up in olive oil, garlic and onion, scoop them on top of your rice and give them a salt and pepper or sprinkle of parmesan
14. Smoothies-Make these any way you like! Milk or fruit juice blended with fruit and ice, both kinds are tasty, filling and good for you.
15. Nachos- Throw the chips topped with cheese into the oven for a couple minutes while you chop up some tomatoes and avocado to go on top. Garnish with sour cream or squeeze half a lime over the entire thing!
16. Quesadillas- I like to make a quick version using just 1 tortilla and whatever leftover meat, cheese and veggies are in the fridge. Bake or fry.
17. Grilled cheese with ham. We usually do this when there isn't enough deli meat left to make a sandwich, just 1 slice is enough. Grilled cheese is great with tomato soup.
18. Mini pizzas on a bagel, tortilla or whatever bread you have handy. Toast the bread, spread with a tablespoon of pasta sauce, add some pepperoni or ham, some cheese and then pop it into the oven just until the cheese melts. "Pizza toast" is still one of my favorite snacks.
19. Quick mac and cheese. Cook and drain a half package of pasta. Don't rinse it, just dump it back into the pot, add a teaspoon of margarine, a splash of milk and a handful of grated cheese. Put it back on the warm burner and stir until everything is combined, salt and pepper to taste.
20. PB and jam. A classic for a reason, it's quick, filling and tasty.
21. Sandwich rollup- Basically a sandwich made from a tortilla. PB+jam, veggie cream cheese+deli turkey, fruit cream cheese+sliced strawberries. Make it any way you like!

If you're at home, most of these should be on hand already. Planning a day out? Bring some snacks, save a LOT of cash. Don't forget to bring your own water or Iced tea.

More of a full lunch person? Combine a few of the items to make a full meal: have a fruit, veggie and cheese plate or a smoothie with your sandwich.

What kind of snacks do you rely on?

Coconut Macaroons (of failure)

I'll start out by saying that this recipe was a semi fail, the resulting macaroons more closely resembled meringues than macaroons. Is it because my bag of coconut only had 2 3/4 cups instead of the 3 cups the recipe called for? Maybe my eggs were too big and there was therefore too much liquid added? Whatever happened the cookies still tasted really good even though they looked weird and spread out. The cookies on the the recipe I found looked just fine.

I would try it again since my normal recipe calls for sweetened condensed milk which costs about $4 a can here and I wouldn't use for anything else. I normally have all the other ingredients around, I'll have to tweak it a bit and see how it turns out.

• 3 cups coconut
• 2 egg whites
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Preheat your oven to 325. Whisk together the sugar, egg whites and vanilla. Stir in the coconut. Scoop out teaspoon sized balls and heap onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet.

Bake for 20 minutes.

 

10 minute lunch - Tomato Basil Pasta

This is a really quick and fresh tasting meal that's perfect for when you're short on time, low on ingredients and it's hot outside. It's light and contains no meat. It's also a great way to use up my overabundance of basil and the single ripe tomato from my plant. My tomato plant is only producing one tiny tomato at a time while my basil has become a veritable shrub.

Make Your Own Reusable Baby Wipes

I had a large square of flannelet that I got for 25 cents from the scrap bin when I went to Dressew. It was a good size at about 12x13 inches but not good enough fabric to make into a headband like my other scraps. It's been sitting there for about 2 weeks because I didn't know what to use it for.

I finally decided that I would make some cloth wipes for Alice's cute little bum. We usually use a washcloth in a recycled refillable wipes container full of water for pee diapers but they are terrycloth and a bit rough. This flannelet is nice and soft and it made 6 wipes. It was really easy to do, I didn't even bother measuring anything.

I just folded my fabric in half and ironed it and then folded that into 3 and ironed it again. When I unfolded it I just cut along the lines. You can round off the corners if you like but I didn't bother, I might next time because then I won't have to stop and lift the foot on the sewing machine to turn the wipes when I stitch them.

You can just leave them like this if you like but they will fray around the edges when they go through the washer. You can use pinking shears on all of them or you can sew the edges. I don't have pinking shears so I sewed the edges using a zigzag stitch. I sewed them upside down because I like the look of the bottom of the stitch better.

Then I ironed them again (top picture) just so they would be a neat little stack. There we go, 6 reusable wipes for just 25 cents!

Almost Instant Oatmeal

It's the same price to buy an 8 ( or 10, I forget how many) box of instant oatmeal packets as it is to buy an entire bag of quick oats, which is $3.99 where we live. They don't even make the only flavor I like anymore, cinnamon sugar, in it's own package. You have to buy the multi-flavor box which contains 2 of the cinnamon packets and the rest are all gross flavors. So I took matters into my own hands after seeing this post on Halfassedkitchen.

You can make this up each morning or you make up a bunch of baggies to take with you to school or the office. All you need is half a cup of quick oats and whatever you want to add. You can also make hot granola cereal the same way.

So easy:

• 1/2 cup quick oats (or granola)
• Whatever add ins you like (I'm using 1 tablespoon cinnamon sugar)
• 1 cup water

Cover and microwave for 2 minutes. Sometimes this happens so I put a plate underneath but this time it didn't stand a chance. I just scraped it up and put it back in the bowl.

Now let it sit for a minute so the rest of the water can soak up and then you can add a splash of milk and it's ready to eat.

Quick Stovetop Ribs

This is a quick recipe as far as ribs go, it takes about an hour and a half with prep and cooking time and only uses 1 pot. Usually you have to slow cook ribs nearly all day or boil and then barbecue them for them to be tender. I don't have the time to do that, I also don't have a barbecue or slowcooker AND I don't want the oven going all day.

I kind of just made this recipe up last night, I had never cooked ribs before even though I've eaten them tons of times!

Here's what I did.

Oatmeal Cookies all week

This is my go to oatmeal cookie recipe, you can add anything you like to it and it's quick and easy.  Sometimes I like it with chocolate chips, sometimes with walnuts and dried cranberries, and sometimes just oatmeal.

Today I'm making it with cinnamon, dried cranberries and walnuts.

Apple Pie Bundles

Remember that bit of pie dough that I had you save? It probably ended up being a ball about the size of your fist right? We're going to use that to make these apple pie bundles that we're having for breakfast.

You need:

• Pie dough
• An apple
• 1 Tablespoon Cornstarch
• 1 Tablespoon Brown Sugar
• 1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon

Optional: Raisins, nuts, a sprinkle of ginger powder