Healthier Enchiladas

So my dad makes amazing enchiladas. I always ask for them for my birthday dinner meal. Gary's mom makes great enchiladas as well and he always asked for them on his birthday too. So seeing as how we both love enchiladas I couldn't wait to try and make them myself. Especially because the recipe I was using was from "Cook Your Self Thin" so it would be quick and healthy. This recipe says it is 456 calories per serving for 4 servings. Gary and I can usually squeeze out 6 or so servings. 2 initial and about 3-4 lunch size leftover servings.

Bruschetta

I made this Bruschetta Recipe for our family as an appetizer for our New Years day party. I forgot to take pictures but I still wanted to share my recipe so it can be repeated.

Italian Runza's

My husband Gary is from the  midwest and they have a restaurant there called Runza. They have this hot pocket type of thing there that he absolutely loves. His mom has made Runza's at home before and I wanted to make the italian version at home. I also wanted to make it as healthy as I could. Make this Challah Bread recipe using better for bread flour. I then originally used this Runza Recipe and have adapted it to match what we think would be a good remake of a seasonal italian Runza.

Family Christmas (3/3) - Blueberry Crumble

This year I was trying to be really adventurous with the different things I spent time baking/making. My family told me that they were tired of pumpkin pie because they had it every year and if I could come up with something else that would be great. My sister suggested a fruit tart but Nina had made one a few years ago and I really didn't want to compete. It was amazing. I saw in the Sprouts advertisement that blueberries were on sale and I really wanted to use them. So I scoured and found this recipe and I am so glad I did because it turned out great. I am really upset though because it turns out we forgot to take pictures. At the next chance I get I will make another and be sure to update with pictures.

Family Christmas (2/3) - Traditional Apple Pie

For the last several Christmas' I have spent in CA with my family I have been in charge of making the dessert. I usually make an Apple pie and a pumpkin pie and I have been known to swap out the apple for a pecan some years. One Christmas my cousin Laura just raved at how much she loved the cross hatch design on the top of the apple pie so I really try hard to make enough time to cross hatch it up. This year Gary helped me muster up the courage to use the Pampered Chef apple peeler corer slicer that my mom had bought me back in 2005. I had always been a little afraid of it because from the outside it seems like a lot of work to set up. I AM SO SO glad Gary convinced me and I am never going back. I think it would be a little too much work to peel, core and slice 1 apple using it but whenever I am going to need more then 1 I am for sure going to use the PCAPCS!! It peeled, cored and sliced 6 large granny smith apples in 10 min, with about 5 min set up time. It was wonderful. This is the recipe that was my inspiration this year.

Family Christmas (1/3) - Vodka Pie Dough

I didn't remember to buy dough for the apple pie I wanted to make for our family Christmas so I found this recipe. It worked out great! It says that it does enough dough for 1 double crusted pie but I am positive that I could have made 2 double crusted pies.

Holiday Cookies (8/8) -- Snowflake Butter Mints

I'm not sure why I originally picked out this recipe. Maybe because it was so different. Maybe because its pure sugar. On my first attempt I tried to use cookie cutters to shape the mints. This was very unsuccessful. When I could pry them off of the cutter they came out looking like stretched out blobs. I then put the mixture in the fridge for a few days until I could get over to Michaels or Jo-Anns to get a candy mold. When I brought it back out to use it was much easier. Also before you decide to take this on keep in mind it's very time consuming if you choose a small candy mold like I did.