easy one cup smoothie

My kids are constantly asking me to make them smoothies - we love them in our house! Soon I'll try a green smoothie and will let you know how they are. I just can't imagine that you can't taste the spinach, but I digress. I've come up with a super easy way to make a smoothie using just one cup and a smoothie. Yum-o, here we go!

fill your cup with berries, almost to the top.
I used strawberries, blueberries & raspberries.

fill it in halfway with juice and top it off with vanilla yogurt

throw it all in the blender...if you want it more frozen
throw in some ice cubes or use frozen fruit

enjoy! yum!

Do you have any fun smoothie recipes to share with us?

Recipe: Chicken & Black Bean Nachos

Last night I made up a recipe and it's become my new favorite. I took 4 ingredients, threw them in the slow cooker and *POOF* dinner is served! I have no pictures because, honestly, there's no way to get a good picture of this meal. It's shredded chicken, beans and tomatoes - how pretty can that be? Nonetheless, it's yummy! Here's what you need:

3 frozen chicken breasts
1 small can black beans (drained & rinsed)
1 can Rotel diced tomatoes w/ chile's
1 c chicken broth

Put those 4 ingredients in your slow cooker on low all day. I served mine with rice and tortilla chips. Use whatever rice you like (mexican, white, etc). When the rice was done cooking I took everything out of the slow cooker and shredded the chicken. I layered rice, the chicken mixture, shredded cheese and fresh salsa over the nachos and enjoyed the deliciousness.

My mom came to watch Big E complete her last swim lesson and caught the tail end of our dinner so she had a bowl. She even loved it and thought that my dad would like it as well. Thanks to her for the idea of posting the seriously easy recipe on the site. I hope you enjoy it!

Seriously Good Doughnut Muffins

I printed out this recipe yesterday and last night I was inspired to try them. The recipe used ingredients that I already had here at home so I knew they would be an easy recipe. Plus, just the name is enough to make my mouth water! The kids LOVED them, I LOVED them, and I think even Hubby liked them. This will definitely be a good Saturday breakfast fresh out of the oven.

There are many different doughnut muffin recipes out there, but this one tastes pretty good. Head over to Our Family Treat or check out the recipe below. The other recipes I saw online said to just dip the tops in the butter and cinnamon sugar, but I went all out and dipped the WHOLE MUFFIN in the mixture. Definitely worth the extra calories. You want to stick to just one of these muffins at a time, they are definitely not good for you.

Mix the first 4 ingredients together:

1/3 cup oil
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup milk

Add these dry ingredients to the wet mixture:
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 3/4 cups flour

Grease muffin pan (makes 10 muffins) and bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until done.

As they're baking, melt a stick of butter in one bowl and in another bowl combine 1/2 cup sugar and 1 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon. When muffins are done baking, remove from tin. Coat each muffin in butter and then in cinnamon/sugar mixture. Eat while warm for the yummiest muffins you've ever had.

This has nothing to do with muffins, I just think it's funny she posed this way.

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Don't forget about Bracelets for Goats!

bbq pulled pork & queso

One of our favorite easy dinners is pulled pork. It's great to throw in the crock pot in the morning and then it can be served on a bun, on a baked potato or on nachos. You will be amazed how easy this is!

Ingredients:
pork roast (thawed, not frozen)
water to cover
jar bbq sauce

Put the pork roast in the crock pot and cover about 3/4 of the way with water. Cook on low all day. When you're ready to eat, take the pork out of the crock pot and shred (discard fat and bone). Place the shredded pork in a saucepan and add as much barbecue sauce as you want. Heat just until hot. Serve with a bun, baked potato, nachos, etc.

When we serve it with nachos I make queso dip to go over it. For the queso simply cube a 16oz package of Velveeta cheese into a saucepan and add a can of Rotel (drained). Cook on medium for a few minutes until melted, stirring frequently.

ready to melt

the best nacho's ever...so bad for you!
yes, I put shredded cheese on top of the melted cheese. i like cheese.

 The queso is great for nachos or simply to dip tortillas in. The kids LOVE the queso. Enjoy!

also great...tortillas dipped in queso

even though it's spicy, Little E loves the queso dip

4th of July Mallows

A few days before we left for the cottage to celebrate the 4th of July I saw this post. Can you say adorable? Her displays and everything is so cute. She used Martha Stewart's 4th of July templates. I decided to make my own white chocolate covered marshmallows for our festivities and used Martha's flags for my skewers.

Big E helped me dip some of the marshmallows and sprinkle on the different colors. She was VERY excited to eat the ones she set aside. These are so simple. Melt the chocolate according to the package directions and while it's still wet, shake on the sprinkles. Then lay them dry side down on a cookie sheet to harden.

After the chocolate had time to harden, I put the skewers through the bottom of the marshmallows and put them in a jar I had decoupaged. This is the perfect project for any holiday...green/red for Christmas, red/pink for Valentine's Day, green for St. Patty's Day. Make some matching pretzels and you'll be all set!

Apple Strudel Muffins

I still have a bunch of apples from my organic co-op (I got double my order of granny smith) and even though I made apple bars with 5 of them a few nights ago, I still have 10 left! We needed some breakfast food so I decided to google "apple muffins". I went with the first one that popped up on allrecipes.com. It was really easy and I had all of the ingredients.

As I was getting ready to put them in the muffin tins, I thought, wow - these are more like apple sugar cookies instead of apple muffins. I sat and thought through my steps for a minute and realized I used 2 cups of sugar instead of 1. oops. I'm all about sugar, but I didn't want to totally mess up a possibly good batch of muffins.

My next dilemma was the fact that I only had 1 egg left (the recipe calls for 2) so doubling it wasn't really an option. In the end, I decided to just double the recipe and end up using 3 of the 4 eggs for the recipe. I didn't really have another option so I went for it.

They looked great coming out of the oven, but of course in the end it's not whether or not they look good, it's whether they taste good.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were delicious, moist and super good. These could be dangerous. I'm almost tempted to do the recipe again how I did it tonight instead of the correct way, but I guess next time I'll do it right and pay attention to my measurements. Try them out, I highly recommend them.