The Perfect Brownies (super easy too!) aka "Hershey's Best Brownies"

We LOVE these brownies at our house and it's kind of dangerous how easy they are to whip up.  Takes only 1 bowl and a few minutes and you're on your way to fudgey, chocolatey brownie heaven...

Ingredients:
-1 cup (2 cubes) of  Butter (Olive Oil & Coconut Oil both work too!)
-2 cups of Sugar
-2 tsp Vanilla
-4 Eggs
-3/4 cup Cocoa
-1 cup Flour
-1/2 tsp Baking Powder
-1/4 tsp Salt

Directions:
1-Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2- Grease a 9x13" pan and set aside.
3-Melt the butter in a large microwave safe bowl.
4- Stir in each of the rest of the ingredients by hand until everything is well mixed.
5-Pour into the greased pan and spread it out evenly.  The batter will be thick.

6-Bake for 28 to 30 minutes, until the brownies begin to pull away from the sides of the pan.)

7-Let them cool for about 10 minutes (if you can wait that long and enjoy!)

**There are a lot of awesome things you can do with these brownies.  One of our favorites is to sprinkle chocolate chips over the top right after the come out of the oven and leave them for 5 minutes or so and then when they are melted spread them over the brownies like a lovely ganache or frosting.  Super easy and delicious.

My Mom’s Whole Wheat Pancakes

2 cups whole wheat flour (or half white, half wheat)

1 Tbs Baking Powder

½ tsp Salt

1 egg

1 cup Milk

1 cup Water

1 Tbs Oil

1-In a big bowl combine all of the dry ingredients, mix well and set aside.

2-In another bowl mix the egg, milk, water and oil.

3-Combine the 2 bowls and mix only until combined (it will still be lumpy.)

4-Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat (about 350 degrees.) Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. (A soup ladle works great for this!)

6-cook until bubbles appear on the surface like this...


7-Flip with a spatula, and cook until browned on the other side.

-This recipe makes 10 to 12 pancakes so I cook up all of the batter and freeze or refrigerate the extra pancakes to eat later.  To reheat just microwave the pancake for 30 seconds to a minute.

-I love these pancakes with almond butter and or applesauce.

Bacon cooked in the oven

My favorite way to cook bacon is to bake it in the oven.  So much easier, turns out perfect and easy to clean up. (from http://culinaryarts.about.com/od/breakfastcookery/ht/bacon.htm)

1-Line a baking sheet with foil. This will make cleanup easier later.

2-Arrange the bacon slices on the foil and place the baking sheet on the center rack of a cold oven. (Try not to stretch the slices out. Just gently drape the bacon across the pan.) Close the oven door. Turn the oven on to 400°F. Walk away.

3- Come back 17 to 20 minutes later. As soon as the bacon is golden brown, but not excessively crisp, it's done. The exact time will depend on the thickness of the bacon slices, and also on how quickly your oven reaches the target temperature.

4- Remove the pan from the oven. Transfer the bacon to another sheet pan lined with paper towels to absorb any excess fat.

Perfect to use on BLT's!

BLT (or BLTA) Sandwiches

10 strips of Bacon (2 per person)

10 slices of bread per person (2 per person)

1 head of Lettuce (I like Romaine)

2 Tomatoes, sliced

1 Avocado (optional)

Mayo, mustard and anything else you like on your sandwich

My favorite way to cook bacon is to bake it in the oven.  So much easier, turns out perfect and easy to clean up. (from http://culinaryarts.about.com/od/breakfastcookery/ht/bacon.htm)

1-Line a baking sheet with foil. This will make cleanup easier later.

2-Arrange the bacon slices on the foil and place the baking sheet on the center rack of a cold oven. (Try not to stretch the slices out. Just gently drape the bacon across the pan.) Close the oven door. Turn the oven on to 400°F. Walk away.

3- Come back 17 to 20 minutes later. As soon as the bacon is golden brown, but not excessively crisp, it's done. The exact time will depend on the thickness of the bacon slices, and also on how quickly your oven reaches the target temperature.

4- Remove the pan from the oven. Transfer the bacon to another sheet pan lined with paper towels to absorb any excess fat.

Have everyone build their sandwich however they like it.  I serve this with salad.

Beef Stroganoff (in the crock pot)

Ingredients:

1 lb of beef stew meat, cubed, frozen or not (usually package at the store all cut up like this)

1 can of cream of mushroom soup (10.75 oz)

1/2 medium onion, chopped

1/4 cup water

1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

4 oz. (1/2 a bar) of cream cheese or ½ cup sour cream

Egg noodles, or any kind of pasta noodles or rice

1-Put everything BUT the cream cheese or sour cream  and egg noodles into the Crock Pot.  You do not even have to brown the stew meat!

2-Mix together.  

3-Cook on High for 5 hours or on Low for 8 hours.

4-When you are close to serving dinner, prepare about a half bag of noodles according to the package directions.  Mix in the cream cheese or sour cream about 20 minutes before serving.

5-Top the noodles with the beef stroganoff and enjoy.  We love this with peas or broccoli on the side.

Adapted from: http://www.thefrugalfoodiemama.com/2013/01/slow-cooker-beer-stroganoff.html#.U4ZI9PldUSF

BBQ Chicken and Potatoes

This one is so easy and basic it doesn't really require a recipe but I've been requested to put it on the blog so readers can keep track of the groceries needed for this meal for their monthly meal plan.

5 chicken thighs, boneless skinless (can be frozen or not, can use any chicken)

½ cup Bottled BBQ sauce (I like Sweet Baby Ray’s)

5 potatoes

1-Wash the potatoes, poke them with a fork and set them on the middle rack in the oven.  Turn the oven to 350 degrees.

2-Place the chicken in a 9x13” pan and pour the BBQ sauce over the top.  Place the pan next to the potatoes in the oven.

3-Bake for 30 minutes if chicken is not frozen and potatoes are smaller, or up to 60 minutes if chicken is frozen and potatoes are larger. (If you’re doing larger potatoes with non frozen chicken you can microwave the potatoes for 3-6 minutes and then put them in the oven to finish baking.)

Sweet and Sour Apricot Chicken-SO easy!

1 cup Apricot or Apricot-Pineapple Jam (Peach works too)

1 cup Catalina Salad Dressing (or Russian or  French)

1 envelope dry onion soup mix (like Lipton)

3-5 lbs chicken (breasts, bone-in/boneless, thighs, tenders etc. frozen or not)

*The amount of chicken you use is very flexible.  If you use less, you’ll just have lots of sauce, and if you use more- you’ll have less sauce to spoon over rice, but there’s plenty to cook that much chicken.

1-Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  

2-Place the chicken in a 9x13”  pan.

3-Put the jam, Catalina dressing, cider vinegar, and  the onion soup packet in a bowl and stir to combine and pour over the chicken.

4-Bake for 45 minutes (if not frozen and 60 minutes if frozen.) Eat over rice.

This is a great, super easy, yummy recipe. I'm working on a "real food"/unprocessed version that I'll be posting on the website soon.