How cute is mini pie?

 Well I have officially turned another year older today, or 29 again right?!  Either way I had a great day and celebrated with my family.  And to end the night I thought I'd share another great recipe that I whipped up this week.  (I have lots on my camera.... I realized looking for these pictures I have quite a few posts I'm behind on! So you'll be hearing lots from me!)

Mr. Bacon is working some crazy hours lately and needs some yummy cooking to help him get though his shifts.  What better comfort food than Chicken pot pie!  And everything tastes better when it's mini right?  So I made up some mini chicken pot pies for his lunches.  I can't guarantee how many he'll get right now though, Bacon Jr. found them and started gobbling them up too!  Yes they are a hit around here, I'm so glad I made a double batch!

So what do we need to get started?

Chicken pot pie:

1 lb chicken breast - cubed

1/4 cup Italian dressing

4 oz cream cheese

2 tbsp flour

1/2 cup chicken broth

1 package or about 2 cups frozen mixed veggies

pie crust 

 

Heat your oven to 375*.  Place cubed chicken in pan with 1 tbsp oil and season it with your favorite seasoning. I used Mrs. Dash Garlic & Herb again.  While that is starting to cook, I make sure my veggies are thawed by running them under some warm water and letting them drain.  I also got my broth going. This time all I had in the house was the cube kind in the cupboard. Hey whatever works right?! 

Now go check on that chicken.  After it's been cooking for about 5 minutes, it's time to add in the cream cheese (remember in my pics I was making a double batch.  If you follow the recipe above you won't use as much as I do in my pictures!)  I do cube up the cream cheese before I add it in. It will help it melt faster. 

 Stir the cream cheese in until it's all melted.  It will look nice and creamy- see!

 Now it's time to add in the flour.  Mix it around well. It will make the chicken mix thick. 

 Once the flour is mixed in, add in the veggies and the broth.  Let this simmer for about 10 minutes now. That was a simmer, so make sure you turned down the dial on the stove!  Yea, you learn from mistakes right?

 

 Now it's time to get the dough prepared.  I had started to use refrigerator dough. I had a package left in the freezer and knew it would work well for this.  It didn't go far.  I had to make up a batch of homemade dough using Grandma bacon's recipe above.  And I'm glad I did- homemade tastes so much better!  Take the dough and roll it out to about 1/4 inch thick.  Then I just kinda tore off chunks of it and mushed it into my well greased (YES WELL GREASED! There I put it big enough so hopefully every one's potpie comes out when it's done baking!) muffin tin.  It's ok if some over lap and  it' doesn't look pretty. It will still taste good. I trimmed off the excess around the top. In hind sight, I wish I would have left a bit overhang so I could press it together when I put on the tops.  Hey you have to learn from the mistakes you make, thankfully for you, I've already make them! Once you get your dough pressed into all the cups, take a fork and poke a few holes in the bottom.  This will help the dough stay put. 

 

Now it's time to fill the cups!

So now for the tops.  I had wondered how I would make cute little circular tops for the potpie.  So I started to measure round things around my kitchen. See no need for fancy gadgets!  The cups I tried were all too big, the donut cutter was too small, then I happened to find a caning jar ring and it was just right. (I promise there will be no bears looking for their porridge in this story!)  I rolled out more dough and cut circles from it. Then I smooshed them on the top. I tried to squish it to the bottom crust dough as much as I could. This is where it would have been nice if I had left a bit extra overhang.  Oh well, learned for next time.   Now that the tops are on, you need to poke vent holes in them, I take a sharp knife and slit in 2 holes on each top. 

 

 And now they are ready for the oven.  I baked mine at 375* for 18-20 minutes until the tops are golden brown.  

 Here they are out of the oven, yes you notice the mess I made.  They cooked over and out everywhere.  It's ok they still are fine!  But again if I had left some overhang from the bottom crust to secure the tops better I could have prevented this. 

Once they are out of the pan, they look cute and delicious and no one will ever know the difference!  I placed them on a baking sheet and put them right into the freezer. Well the one's that haven't been eaten anyway.  Once they were frozen I packaged them by two's in food saver bags so they will stay fresh, you can place them in ziplocs type baggies or wrap in foil or freezer paper too. 

Don't they look delicious!  Now you see why they are not lasting around here!

 

I had thought about making pies in a jar, but I didn't have enough energy left in the day, or pie filling in the house! So I decided to make homemade pop tarts!

  Again using my caning jar ring I cut out circles and placed them on a cookie sheet. 

 

 Added a spoonful of my homemade strawberry jam to each one, and topped them off with another circle of dough.  

 Then crimped the edges with a fork. Press hard enough to seal them, not just make cute designs around the edges. 

 All ready for the oven. I baked these in the 375* oven for about 8-10 minutes until golden brown.

 Cooled them on wire racks.

  

 I made up a quick powder sugar, milk and almond extract frosting to drizzle over the top.  Add some food coloring for fun colors... and

 

 TADA! Pop tarts made with love!  The kids were so excited for these.  They didn't last until breakfast, every last one was gone by dinner time! 

S'more's and Sushi

What a combination huh?!  That is what we cooked up at the bacon house for lunch today.  Now before you think my kids are real adventurous with their foods, read on!  It's a colder damp day around here, and lots of rambunctious kids running around so I needed something to stop them in their tracks for lunch today.  I was searching the other day on my newly founded favorite site Pinterest.  Anyone else on there?  I have to say it's addictive but I love that I can see all the great ideas I find on the Internet and organize them in one spot.  If you've never been to the site, it's a great!  In the past I would find an idea I wanted to try out and book mark the site.  But then my mommy brain would kick in I'd forget what I book marked!  Now I can save all the great ideas in one spot, have them by category and find them easy again by pictures.  The other great thing is you can browse other people's boards too and see what great ideas they've found and 'pin' them onto your board.  Now lets see if I can actually find time make all the things I've found!

So while searching that wonderful and addictive website I found PB&J sushi rolls.  Perfect for lunch today!  I used both tortillas and bread for our rolls.  For the bread I rolled them flat using my handy pastry roller, but you can also use a cup!  Cut them into strips about 1.5- 2 inches, spread some PB & J and roll up!   I earned extra points by adding some chopsticks to eat them with!  They are so cute, and yummy!

For dessert we needed a sweet treat too.  Again from that fun site I was able to find these s'more's on a stick.  Another great idea that even the kids can help with.  

Here's what you need:

 Graham crackers

Marshmallows

Chocolate chips

sticks- I had these fancy sucker one's leftover from an attempt to make cake balls, but popsicle sticks would work too.

First crush your graham crackers in a baggie and then dump them in a bowl.

 Place your chocolate chips in a microwave safe dish. As for how many I used, I just guessed.  I wasn't making a ton of these so I think it was about 1/3 of a cup of chips.  Microwave until they are melted and stir. 

Prepare your marshmallows by inserting a stick into them.

Then start dipping them into your chocolate.  Roll them in the crushed graham crackers and place on wax paper.  Tada -  S'mores on a stick!  Now you can eat them just this way.  The warm chocolate reminded me of how they are around the campfire.  Or you can stick them in the freezer to let them firm up a little.  Once you pull them out of the freezer, stick them in the microwave for a few seconds- 5 was long enough for mine.  You want to watch the marshmallow start to puff up.  Then pull them out.  The marshmallow will be soft inside but the chocolate outside is still hard- delicious! Either way they are really good! Enjoy!

'

Ok I know  I'm late at adding this, but I thought I'd show off what else I did today.  Yes I've been busy! I had found this cute lovie on pinterest too!  I knew I had to make one so I broke out some paper to make a pattern and my sewing machine and about a half hour later 'Tilly' was born!  Bacon Bit LOVES it!

 

Bored Bacon

I'm SOOOO BOOORED. Oh do you hear the echos all the way to your house? And schools only been out for a week and a half! (in their defense it was raining out all day) So what do you do with a bunch of bored kids? Give them cookbooks of course! Yes I did, I gave each of my adorable kids a cookbook and a pack of post-it notes with one instruction. Find ONE recipe that they would like to make special with just mom. Well this is what Little Miss Bacon found.

And the bottom of the book has just as many notes on it too! She started with a full pink pad, and then ran out about 2/3's of the way though so she had to finish off with Bacon Jr's green ones. Needless to say she found some yummy recipes, and I will remember not to give her the 'bake goods only' cook book again! But she did have fun. I did tell her to narrow it down to which one she'd like to make first. Let's just say she's still deciding!

Here is Little Boy Bacon's book. He found quite a few also. He wants to start with a lemon cheesecake he told me so that will have to wait until we go shopping for all the supplies. But he's so excited to try it.

As for Bacon Jr. well, he looked though an entire cookbook and only found two recipes he really wanted to make. At least he was trying to follow the rules! It just so happened that one of the recipes we had everything on hand for, Vanilla popcorn. (the other is a chocolate Carmel cheesecake!)

All the kids were very excited to get to make something and try something new.
Here are the ingredients you need.

Vanilla Popcorn
3 quarts popped popcorn (it's 12 cups, I had Bacon Jr. help figure it out! Yes a math lesson too!)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, cubed
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Place all your air popped popcorn into a large bowl and set aside.

In sauce pan combine sugar, butter and corn syrup.

Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Bring to a boil. Once it's boiling you want to boil it for 2 minutes stirring constantly. After 2 minutes remove the pan from heat.

Stir in baking soda and vanilla and mix well. It will turn thicker. See!

Pour the mix over your popcorn and mix well.

Let it cool for a few minutes in the bowl. Now it's time to spread it out on wax paper and let it cool.

The recipe says to break it up, I kinda dropped it by clumps on the paper and broke up any remaining clumps. Let it cool all the way and then it's time to enjoy!

So how did they like it? Bacon Jr. LOVES it. Little Boy Bacon didn't think it was too bad, and Little Miss Bacon said she didn't care for it. You can't win them all. Honestly I didn't think it was bad at all. It's not as dry as carmel corn, kind sticky too so make sure you keep some wash cloths around. A handful of M&M's make it a great special snack too.

In all it was a fun time with the kids. And they liked baking a treat they picked out. We will be back baking more together and I will share them here too. I have a few other tricks up my sleeve to keep them busy this summer too and I can't wait to share them also! I'll be tagging them as summer fun so it will be easy to find if you happen to hear the 'I'm bored's" at your house too!

A readers Muffins from my mix

I had an awesome reader let me know she used my pancake mix to make some amazing muffins! They look so good. Even the Bacon kids asked if we could make them for breakfast! And indeed we will. But I wanted to post the recipe here so all my readers could enjoy, and thankfully she agreed I could share it!

So here it is! First you need to start out with the pancake/muffin/biscuit mix I posted about Here!

Wyldcat's Muffins:

2 cups pancake mix
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup vegetable oil

Preheat your oven to 425*. Combine pancake mix and sugar in bowl. Add in milk, egg and oil. Mix only until everything is moist, and make sure not to beat the mix. Just like the rule in the Bacon house, there is no beating, hitting, kicking or throwing things- this applies to muffins too! In order to get nice fluffy muffins you need to gently mix them!

Fill a well greased 12 cup muffin pan about 2/3 way full with batter. Now the fun part comes- adding the flavor! My reader added her homemade blueberry jam (YUM! I think I need that recipe too!) to her muffins. I was thinking some of my triple berry would be delicious too. I already know what Little Miss Bacon wants, chocolate chips! Or how about some peanut butter and jelly for a different lunch treat? Some fresh strawberries from the garden would make these wonderful too. The possibilities are endless when it comes to muffins!

Here are her muffins all ready for the oven!

photos by wyldcat

Bake 17-20 minutes or until golden brown. You can also make mini muffins but cut back the baking time to 12-15 minutes.

photo by wyldcat

Waiting to be eaten! Don't they look delicious! Thanks so much wyldcat for sharing these with me! I'd love to hear from my other readers too, what's your favorite recipe? Have you altered any for your family's liking?

Meal planning

Sorry I've been MIA, I decided to try to make some more bacon by selling off some unused stuff! I love garage sales, but sometimes I wonder if it's worth it. Thankfully we've made quite a nice return on all the work and still have a day to go. I thought since I had a free minute tonight I'd talk about meal planning, I had been asked a while ago by a wonderful reader if I'd add my meal plans to my blog, so I'm working on it! Honestly if you want an amazing grocery budget, you can't afford to NOT meal plan. Even if it's just a little. This way you will know what you need to buy when you go to the store.

We don't plan out each meal, usually just dinner. But we always do the planning as a family. The kids love to help out with this and think of their favorite meals. Of course, it's usually the same thing- Bacon Jr. wants tacos, Little miss Bacon wants Grilled chicken and wild rice and Little boy bacon- well usually it's pizza! We do try to aim to please around here and let them plan one of their favorite meals, but we do like them to think beyond their favorites and pick other meals too. there's only so many tacos you can eat before going crazy!

Once we get our two week meal plan made, I sit down with my grocery list. I scour my cupboards to find what we have to make the meals, and what we still need. Anything missing goes on the grocery list. That way I know there are no unexpected "oh I forgot this" trips to the store, another budget saver. I also try to think about what we will be having for breakfasts and lunches. Someday I might actually plan those out, but right now I have too many other things to remember, like where Little boy Bacon's Yoshi toy went, or all the names of Little miss Bacon's animals she sleeps with (and their birthdays too- oh the fun stuff you get to remember as a mom!)

So are you wondering what two weeks of the Bacon's meal plan looks like yet? Here it is, in no particular order. When we meal plan we just list the meals we want, and then we will pick what nights they fit into our life.

Homemade pizza- salad
Grilled chicken, wild rice, peas
Grilled apple wood smoked bacon pork loin, grilled potatoes, salad (oh this was AMAZING on the grill thanks to Mr.Bacon's great grilling skills!)
Chicken wraps (tortillas, sauteed chicken, lettuce, bacon, tomato, ranch dressing) Fruit
tinfoil dinner
Crunchy fish, rice, veggies
Grilled steak & Shrimp, grilled potatoes, peas & carrots, grilled garlic toast
Cheesy ham and hash brown bake & veggies
Garlic chicken scampi & bread sticks
Tacos/nacho night
Chicken N rice, broccoli
Chicken & broccoli Alfredo & bread sticks
Spaghetti, salad & cheesy bread
BBQ Grilled pork chops, baked potato, corn on cob
hamburgers & hot dogs, fruit salad, chips

So there is two yummy weeks worth of dinner, now this was the meal plan from June 1st - 15th. Of course there have been days Mr. Bacon and I didn't want to make dinner, but we've done a pretty good job of sticking to the list. This way we know what we have on hand, and since we have everything to make a meal, we're not tempted to head out to eat. Actually eating out is very rare around the Bacon house, it gets a bit insane when you take four kids to a restaurant too! So what are your thoughts? Would you like to see more of our meal planning? Are there recipes you'd love to see from them? I love to hear back from my awesome readers!

Grills, great food and gardens - Oh My!

Ahhh... Can you smell that? Yeah it's the grill going again. We love to grill in the summer. Actually all year long, but there's something about grilling in three feet of snow and 20 degree weather that takes some of the joy out of it! Around this place Mr. Bacon is the grill master, perhaps one day I'll venture into grilling more. I mean I could grill if I had to, I prefer to leave that alone for now though! I'm happy to do the prep work and keep the mess outside.


Last night we broke out the charcoal grill. The gas grill makes great food, but the taste is so much better when it's cooked over the charcoal. And it was one of those perfect nights for grilling too, sunny, a light breeze, the kids running around the back yard, one of these waiting to be enjoyed! Your beverage of choice can vary.

So what did we toss on the grill? A summer favorite around the bacon house, tinfoil dinner. I know you have no clue what that is right? Don't worry there are pictures to follow. I have to say I love this meal though, not only do I not hear any complaining from the kids on why they have to eat it, there isn't much mess left over when dinner is done.

Tinfoil dinner:
*I have been told after explaining this meal to some that they also call it hobo dinner*

1.5lbs ground beef or turkey
5-6 med potatoes
4-5 carrots depending on size or about 1 cup chopped
4-5 mushrooms thick cut
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp favorite seasoning- I use Weber smoky mesquite
1 tsp season salt
1 tsp McCormick's Montreal steak seasoning
1 tsp liquid smoke
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce

* All seasonings are optional and feel free to change them to your own taste. Also toss in any other favorite veggies!

First start out with a large chunk of tinfoil. I think mine is about 2 ft long (it was a bit too long) but use your best judgement according to how much you are going to make.

Next wash the potatoes, and dice them with the skins on. Place them in a large bowl and add 2 tbsp olive and 2 tsp of your favorite seasoning. Mix them up a bit to coat everything.

Then chop up some carrots and mushrooms, add them to the bowl and lightly mix.

Now it's time to mix up that burger. I like to season my burger. This is the same mix I put in my hamburgers when I make them too. Place your burger in a bowl. Add the worcestershire, liquid smoke, season salt and steak seasoning to it. You can adjust any of those to your taste or add in your own favorites. Nows the dirty part. You can mix this with a spoon, but it will take you awhile. I like to just dig in and get messy and mix it with my hands. I think it all gets worked into the burger better this way.

Once the burger is all mixed up, it's time to add everything to the tinfoil. First I spread out the veggie mix we made up already down the middle of the tinfoil (length wise). Then I take the burger and start making mini meatballs. These are small, about 1 inch in size if I were guessing at a measurement. Really it's all guess around here! The 1.5 pounds of burger I used made 45 mini meatballs. Place them on top of the veggie mix.

Now it's time to wrap it up! Bring in the two long sides first and roll them down. This can be kinda tricky when there is as much food to wrap up as I have, but I just squish it all in. Then roll up the sides. I like to have a bit extra on the sides to help create handles to lift it on and off the grill with.

Now it's ready for the grill.

Time to sit back and enjoy the sunshine. This needs to cook on a nice hot grill for about 30 minutes or so. I think Mr. Bacon left this one on for 40 minutes since it was rather large. The more food, the longer cook times. If you'd only used 1 pound of meat, you don't need it on as long. Oh the other nice thing about this meal, you can change it up to what ever you like, different spices? No problem! Prefer chicken? Toss it in! I love that about this dinner. You can even make up smaller individual packets for each family member and let the kids pick and choose what they'd like in their packet. That way they can't tell you they don't like it!

While this was cooking and the kids were off playing, I decided to check in on my garden. Last week we planted our garden and I am like a kid waiting for Christmas, always checking to see what's peeking out of the ground now! Here it is when we planted it. It doesn't look like much yet.

We are lucky to have a large enough yard to have a good size garden, we even have a section for just strawberries! Which are loaded this year. I even found this little guy flying around!

And when I peeked in on the garden, I was happy to find these peeking back at me too! My peas and zucchini are starting to grow!

Now how about checking in on that dinner. The 40 minutes are up and it's smelling SO good out here. Really I wish I could do a scratch and sniff picture of the grill. Sniff, sniff... Ahhhh! Well you will just have to make it for yourself and enjoy the yummy grill smell.

Once it's on the table, open it up and you're ready to go. An all in one meal ready to go!

Even Bacon bit gets some after a quick run though the kidco food mill!

The kids enjoyed it so much each of them had thirds! I hope you enjoy it just as much.