Joanne Fluke's Vanilla Crack

So recently we made this chocolate crack, which was delicious, but we had a recipe for vanilla crack as well, so we tried it.  While not as wonderful as chocolate crack, this was still pretty darn delicious.  The calories for 1/48 are around 91, again each piece of candy is varied in size, so that is just an approximation.  We gave this a 9, and it was super yummo, and easy again.  Here's the recipe adapted from Joanne Fluke.

Vanilla Crack 

Preheat oven to 350.

1 box salted soda crackers 

1 c salted butter 

1 c white sugar 

2 t vanilla 

½ c salted nut pieces 

white chocolate, about 10 oz 

Line a cookie sheet with heavy duty foil.  Spray foil with cooking spray.  Cover the pan completely with a single layer of soda crackers, salt side up.  Set aside.

Combine the butter with the sugar and vanilla in a saucepan.  Bring it to a full boil over medium high heat, stirring constantly.  Boil it for exactly 5 minutes, stirring it constantly.  Pour the mixture over the soda crackers as evenly as you can.  Sprinkle the salted nut pieces over the top.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Remove from the oven, and spread the white chocolate over the top.  Let cool, chill, then break it into random sized pieces.

Joanne Fluke's Chocolate Crack

Sooo...this might be the most delicious, addictive, amazing candy ever, and it takes all of 15 minutes. The calories are random because of the way you crack the candy up, but it is about 100 calories for 1/48 of the total.  This is easy and fun, Noah helped me make it, and we all gave it a perfect 10.  I found this recipe in one of Joanne Fluke's books, and there is a vanilla version which I will be trying soon.

Chocolate Crack 

Preheat oven to 350.

1 sleeve (more or less) graham crackers 

1 c salted butter 

1 c brown sugar 

12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips 

Line a cookie sheet with heavy duty foil.  Spray the foil with cooking spray.  Cover the pan completely with a single layer of graham crackers.  Set aside.  Combine butter and brown sugar in a saucepan and bring it to a boil over medium high heat, stirring constantly.  Boil it for exactly 5 minutes, stirring it constantly.  Pour the mixture over the graham crackers as evenly as you can.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the top.  Give the chips a minute or two to melt and then spread them out as evenly as you can.  Cool and then chill completely.  Peel the foil off and break into random-sized pieces.

JoAnn Fluke's Cranberry Muffins

These are a great fall muffin, and my kids loved these.  I found them in one of JoAnne Fluke's books, and these are simple and quick to throw together.  Noah helped me.  I made 23 muffins, and each muffin was 213 calories.  Owen and Noah gave them a perfect 10, and I gave them a 9, I would've like a little almond or vanilla flavor in these.  

Cranberry Muffins 

Preheat oven to 375.

¾ c melted butter 

1 c white sugar 

2 beaten eggs 

2 t baking powder 

½ t salt

1 c dried cranberries 

2 ¼ c flour 

½ c milk 

½ c whole berry cranberry sauce 

Crumb Topping:

½ c sugar 

1/3 c flour 

¼ c butter softened 

Line muffin tins.  Put cranberries in the melted butter and set aside to cool.  Mix together sugar, baking powder, eggs, and salt.  Stir in the butter and cranberries.  Add ½ the flour mixture, then ½ the milk.  Add the rest of the flour mixture then the rest of the milk.  Stir in the cranberry sauce.  Fill tins ¾ of the way full then add the crumb topping.  To make crumb topping mix together sugar and flour, then cut in the butter.  Bake for 20-30 minutes, cool for 30 minutes, then remove from pans.

Joanne Fluke's Candy Bar Bar Cookies

Happy Halloween!  Sorry about the terrible picture, that's what happens late at night :).  Anyway, here is a great way to get rid of that Halloween candy, easy and fast cookie bars.  I used Mr. Goodbars, my favorites, and KitKats, but you could use any candy bars you wanted.  I cut these into 16 bars, and each bar was 350 calories.  The boys gave these a 9, and Aaron and I gave them an 8.  Super easy, and this recipe was found in Joanne Fluke's books.

Candy Bar Bar Cookies

Preheat oven to 350.

1 c softened butter 

¾ c white sugar 

1 beaten egg 

2 t vanilla 

½ t salt

2 ½ c flour, packed

15 oz chocolate bars (I used about 28 snack size candy bars)

¼ c sugar 

Foil line and spray a 9x13 pan.  Mix butter and sugar together until light and creamy.  Add the egg and stir thoroughly, then add vanilla and salt.  Add the flour in ½ c increments, mixing after each addition.  Pat and smooth ½ the dough into a prepared pan.  Top with candy bars.  Top with remaining dough, smoothing as well as possible.  Take the back of the fork and make cross-hatch patterns on the top of the dough, then sprinkle remaining sugar on top.  Bake for 25 minutes, then cool most of the way.  Cut into bars and serve.

Joanne Fluke's Easy Fruit Pie

Noah and I tried this the other day, it is such a simple recipe, and really tasty, however the name is misleading.  This is nothing like pie, more like a cookie bar or a cobbler maybe, but it isn't pie :).  So rename it, then this will go over a lot better.  Aaron and I both were hoping for pie, and it definitely wasn't.  Anyway, this took all of five minutes to throw together, so it's a quick, easy way to make a yummy dessert.  We cut this into 12 servings, and each serving was 208 calories.  Here's what to do:

Easy Fruit Pie 

1/4 c salted butter 

1 c whole milk 

1 c sugar 

1 c flour packed down 

1 1/2 t baking powder 

1/2 t salt

1 21oz can fruit pie filling 

Preheat oven to 375.  Place the butter in the oven in a 9x13 pan to melt.  Mix the milk, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl.  Don't overmix.  Remove butter pan from the oven and pour batter into the pan.  Tip the pan to cover the whole bottom.  Spoon the pie filling over the top of the batter, don't mix in.  Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour until golden brown and bubbly.

Joann Fluke's Chocolate Highlander Bars

So this was one of the recipes from the Joanne Fluke books, and we enjoyed these quite a bit.  I was actually surprised by how they turned out, I expected them to be a shortbread base with kind of a creamy chocolate topping, but these were brownies with a shortbread base.  I enjoyed how well these stayed together, and how moist they are.  We all would've appreciated more chocolate flavor, but over all these were great. The calories, for 1/24 of the total, were 320 calories, so high, but still yummy :).

Chocolate Highlander Cookie Bars

Preheat oven to 350.

1 c softened butter

½ c powdered sugar

¼ t salt

2 c flour

4 beaten eggs

1 c melted butter, cooled

1 c sugar

1 t baking powder

¼ t salt

½ c flour

2 ½ c chocolate chips, melted

1.      Cream butter and powdered sugar and salt.  Add flour and mix well.  Pat it out in a greased 9x13 pan.  Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.  Remove from oven.

2.      Mix eggs with melted butter and sugar.  Add dry ingredients and mix well.  Add melted chocolate chips to the dough.

3.      Pour over shortbread dough and cook for at least 30 more minutes, then remove from oven.   Let cool completely then cut into bars.

JoAnn Fluke's Cherry Winks

These cookies are surprisingly delicious.  They sound a little weird, with the corn flakes on the outside, and the cherry juice, but they are pretty, and have a great texture, and I love the light cherry flavor with the almond and vanilla.  I found this recipe in one of JoAnn Fluke's books, and while I had to make some changes to make the recipe work for me, this was still a great addition.  Noah gave this an 8, and Owen and I gave it a 9.

Cherry Winks

Makes 24 cookies, 172 calories per cookie

Preheat oven to 375.

1 c butter, melted 

1 c white sugar 

2 beaten eggs

1/2  t vanilla 

1/2 t almond extract 

3 T maraschino cherry juice

1 t baking powder 

½ t baking soda

½ t salt

2 3/4 c flour

2 1/4  c corn flakes, crushed

1 small jar maraschino cherries for garnish 

Mix together sugar and butter.  Then add the eggs.  Stir in the vanilla, cherry juice, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Add the flour and mix well.  Crush the corn flakes and put them in a small bowl.

Roll the dough into balls and put them in the corn flakes and place on a greased cookie sheet. Quarter the cherries and put them into the top of the cookies. 

Bake for 10-12 minutes, cool for 2 minutes on cookie sheet, then finish cooling.

I had to use more flour and corn flakes than the recipe called for, these are my amounts, but be prepared to use less, start with 2 c of both and see what happens :).  Also, if you prefer no almond extract, just use the vanilla.

After letting these set covered overnight, they became quite a bit less delicious.  The cornflakes weren't great after the first day, they were no longer crispy.  So, if you are going to make these, be sure to serve them the day of making them.

JoAnne Fluke's Green Chili Cheddar Biscuits

I found this recipe in one of JoAnne Fluke's books, and it sounded good and was easy.  Unfortunately, I didn't have any green chilies, but I didn't realize that until I had already started this, so we had an interesting experiment, which the boys and I loved, and Aaron definitely didn't.  He gave them a 4, and the boys and I gave them a perfect 10.  Each biscuit was 355 calories, and I made 11 biscuits.  I posted the original recipe here, but I didn't add the green chilies, I added a little salsa, a little more sour cream, and some chili powder.  We thought they were delicious.

Cheese and Green Chiles Biscuits

Preheat oven to 425

3 ½ c flour packed down 

1 t salt

2 t cream of tartar 

1 t baking powder 

1 t baking soda

½ c butter softened

1 c shredded sharp cheddar cheese 

4 oz jalapenos 

2 large eggs, beaten 

1 c sour cream 

½ c whole milk

½ c cheddar cheese, shredded 

Mix flour, salt, cream of tartar, baking powder, and baking soda.  Cut in the salted butter (or do this in the food processor.)

Stir in the shredded cheese and the jalapenos.  Then add eggs and sour cream.  Lastly add the milk.

Drop biscuits onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Sprinkle the tops with cheddar cheese.  Bake for 12-14 minutes, until golden brown.

Oatmeal Apple Pancakes

These were some good pancakes, but the boys didn't love having the apples in it.  I found this recipe in a book where the high point is the recipes.  The author is JoAnn Fluke, and she has lots and lots of recipes.  I have lots of them I want to try, but most of them are cookies.

 

Oatmeal Apple Pancakes

1 small apple

1 T lemon juice

1/2 c flour

2 T sugar

1 t baking powder

1/2 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

1 t cinnamon

1/2 t nutmeg

1 t vanilla

3/4 c buttermilk or regular whole milk

2 t vegetable oil

1 egg

 

Peel and core the apple.  Cut it into very thin slices, place them in a bowl, and sprinkle them with lemon juice.  If using a sour apple, sprinkle with sugar.

Place flour, oatmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a food processor.  Process together.  Add the vanilla extract, buttermilk, vegetable oil, and egg to the dry mixture in the food processor.  Scoop out 1/4 c for each pancake on griddle.  Place 5-6 apple slices on top of each pancake, then press in lightly.  Flip pancakes to continue cooking.

 

If you notice, I forgot to put the amount of oatmeal in when I wrote down the recipe, so I just put in 1/2 c oats, and the recipe worked well.  We made 9 pancakes for this and the calories per pancake were 113 per pancake.  Owen gave them an 8, Noah and I gave them a 9, and they really were good, and pretty healthy.  We enjoyed them.

Fake Orange Julius and Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread

Tonight we had Pumpkin & Cheese Spice Bread with eggs for dinner, some of the left over fruit pizza, and orange julius.  Fast Sundays are great, because we don't have to worry so much about our calories :).  Another reason to love fasting, right?  The recipe for Orange Julius is almost not a recipe it's so easy, but the boys loved it.

Fake Orange Julius 6 servings, 177/serving

6 c orange juice, divided 720

1 envelope dry Dream Whip 160

1 package (2 c) vanilla pudding mix 180

Pour 3 c of orange juice into blender, then add in dream whip and vanilla pudding.  Blend on low for 1 minute then turn to medium for another minute.  Pour into serving container, add in remainder of orange juice and serve over ice.

I found this recipe in a book by Joanne Fluke. I added some ice to the blender, and just blended everything up then served it over ice, and like I said, the boys just thought it was the best thing ever.  They gave it 10's, but Aaron didn't like it as well so it only scored a 9 over all.  The bread we gave an 8, and we really enjoyed it as well.  166 calories for a 1 inch slice.  I put the bread into 2 regular pans, so the loaves are shorter.
Tomorrow we're trying a pork chop recipe and potato skins.