BTS Cake (Better than S)

 BTS Cake

This cake is so delicious, devilish, decadent, put you in a diabetic coma delicious! You might be wondering why I (a diabetic) would post this picture and this recipe. Well, I never said I was perfect at keeping a healthy life style, plus if you don't indulge every once in a while, you won't be able to keep up the healthy eating, you'll feel like it's not worth it. So I had a small piece of my son's birthday cake. This is only made about once or twice a year. It is so delicious that dreams and the eye roll back in your head feelings exist! 

My eldest son has an affection for chocolate. A strong one. Maybe it dates back to when I was pregnant with him and I had extreme cravings for chocolate brownie sundae's from Baskin' Robins, with chocolate peanut butter ice-cream with hot fudge sauce, whipped cream and a cherry on top. That was several times a week, while pregnant with him. He loves peanut butter and chocolate... what can I say, he still does. :)

We make this and we all go in a slight coma... not really, but it definitely gets really quiet when everyone is eating their slice of this heavenly cake.

 Ingredients:

1 box chocolate cake mix
1 box chocolate pudding mix
4 eggs
1 1/4 c water
1/2 c oil
2 cans sweetened condensed milk
1 bottle chocolate syrup
1 bottle caramel sauce
1 bag Heath bar pieces
1 can praline almonds
1 large tub of non dairy whipped topping

Directions:

Make the cake mix with the pudding, eggs, water and oil listed... Do NOT follow ingredient list on back of the box mix. Bake 30-35 min in a 13X9 pan. Once it's baked and hot out of the oven, poke holes on top of the hot cake with the small end of a wooden spoon. placing holes all over the top of the cake. Once you have a "holey" cake, pour the sweetened condensed milk on top of the hot cake. Then set in the refrigerator to cool. Once it's about halfway cooled off, add the chocolate sauce and caramel sauce to the top of the cake, Leaving some of each for the top of the cake later. Place back in the refrigerator to complete cooling. Once completely cooled off, add the whipped topping, sprinkle with the almonds and Heath bar pieces and drizzle with chocolate and caramel sauce.  Dig in and enjoy...

This cake is so decadent and rich. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do. Enjoy!

Banana Pancakes or 3 Ingredient Pancakes

Banana Pancakes

Aka  3-ingredient pancakes

These pancakes are my second favorite pancakes thus far, in my quest to find the best low carb pancake solution. I know it's crazy that I'm searching for the best pancakes. But it could be worse. :)

These pancakes are moist, and very banana nut bread flavored. I'm thinking a more browned banana would have tasted better. My banana wasn't too soft, these will be great with a bit of walnuts or pecans mixed in or coconut flakes for added texture. I also found this recipe on Pinterest. (are you noticing a pattern here?) These are super fast and easy to make. Great for if your in a rush and don't want to pull out the blender or mixer. These can be quickly made with a fork and a bowl. The flavor is very banana, and it has a kind of spongy texture. I kept thinking while I was eating them that they needed a little something different, maybe I wanted the nut crunch like banana nut bread but these were good and quick. I ate these with just a little butter on each pancake. No syrup or added any thing else.

Ingredients:

1 banana

2 eggs

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

Mash the banana with a fork, add the eggs and mix together. Add the cinnamon, mix together. Cook on heated griddle until browned, flip, brown and enjoy! :)

Super easy and fast. Enjoy!

Please let me know if you add any other ingredients to this and how you feel they turned out.

Cottage Cheese Pancakes

Cottage Cheese Pancakes

I have been trying a bunch of low carb or no carb breakfast pancakes, to help me keep a lower blood sugar during this pregnancy. We love, I mean LOVE pancakes for breakfast here at my house. I can't have the regular pancakes because there are too many carbs, plus the sugar from the syrup. Therefore I've been scouring Pinterest for low carb or no carb pancakes and trying each one, to see which one I like the best. I found this recipe on Pinterest, and I halved it, since I was only feeding myself. These are the most "Pancakey" (I'm saying it's a real word) like pancakes. They are fluffy, and don't run when you pour the batter on the griddle. They make a thick batter. However, I thought the consistency was odd. Not bad, just odd. Very spongy. I don't know if I will make these again, but they were definitely interesting to make. I enjoyed the option to make these out of cottage cheese, and eggs. I generally love cottage cheese, and eggs of course. However, if you want pancakes that look like pancakes, but don't really taste like pancakes... These are for you. They will work for me in a pinch in the future.

Ingredients:

3/4 c cottage cheese

3 eggs

a pinch of kosher salt

1/8 tsp baking soda

1/4 c flour

1-2 dash cinnamon

1/4 tsp double strength vanilla

Directions:

Mix the eggs together until light in color. Separately blend cottage cheese until smooth in appearance. (I used an attachment to my submersible blender that acts like a food processor.) Once done, mix together with whisk the egg and cottage cheese, add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Once all those are incorporated together add the vanilla and cinnamon. Heat griddle, spray with non-stick spray, and pour on griddle. Cooking @ 350 for about 1-2 min each side, then flip. Both sides should be browned. 

Serve with fresh fruit topping, or agave nectar.

Pumpkin Crunch Cake and Homemade Yellow Cake Mix

Pumpkin Crunch Cake

I originally found this recipe on Pinterest. This recipe is super easy, just make sure you break your eggs one at a time in a separate dish before adding to your main dish... why would I say that you might ask... well, we have fresh eggs, laid by our awesome chickens. I however didn't do that with this batch of cake because I was in a hurry, I broke open a couple eggs and they were fine, then I got to the last egg, and it was rotten... YUCKY! It broke right over the bowl, that I had the evaporated milk, other eggs, and pumpkin. All of that needed thrown out and started over, not to mention the smell! yuck. I had to scrub the sink, the bowl, the disposal drain everything and then spray air freshener (fabreeze). Yes, not a pleasant experience. I recommend even if from the grocery store... you should always break your eggs separately one at a time adding each individually before adding to the dish your making.  I digress... 

I have made this recipe a few times in the last couple of months, It is so good that one of my son's asked for it to be his birthday cake this year. I'd say that's huge! I hope you enjoy it! :) The original recipe does not call for brown sugar to be sprinkled on the top but I believe it makes for a better topping. More of a praline topping, so delicious. Next time I may even do some cinnamon and sugar on top with the brown sugar. Who knows, so many possibilities :) Enjoy!

I also, did not use a store bought cake mix. I found another recipe on line for homemade yellow cake mix. I used that in place of the store bought cake mix. Can I just say, it was WAY better then when I've made it in the past with the store bought mix, plus it didn't have all those other additives. To me that's a double win!

Ingredients:

1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon salt
1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix (made mine homemade)
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup margarine, melted

1 cup brown sugar
1 (8 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease one 9x13 inch baking pan.
In a large bowl, combine pumpkin, evaporated milk, eggs, sugar, pumpkin pie spice, and salt. Mix well, and spread into the prepared pan.
Sprinkle cake mix over the top of the pumpkin mixture, and pat down. Sprinkle chopped pecans evenly over the cake mix, then drizzle with melted margarine, and sprinkle with brown sugar.
Bake for 60 to 80 minutes, or until done. Top with whipped topping when ready to serve.

Note: My oven cooked it in 60 min. Every oven differs in temperature. Monitor closely after 60 min. You do not want to over cook this. 

Homemade Dry Yellow Cake Mix

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour 

1 1/2 cups sugar 

1 tablespoon baking powder 

1/2 cup non-fat dry milk

Directions:

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and non-fat dry milk. Stir with wire whisk until blended together.  Use dry ingredients in place of store bought dry mix for any dump cake.

Note:  I did not add any other ingredients to the mix, and only used this. The original recipe has what should be added if making a straight yellow cake. 

Enjoy! :)

Award Winning Chili

 Award Winning Chili (WON Spiciest)

This weekend we had a chili cook-off and trunk or treat. I wasn't going to make a chili, but decided what the heck. Here is the recipe I made for the cook-off. It's a sweet/spicy chili. Not too spicy, but since a white chicken chili won the top prize mine is more traditional chili, hence the winning category of SPICIEST it was the winner. To me, (no offense intended for the winners) but chili is supposed to be a bit spicy and red. Not white, and with chicken. Just saying. Well that is my two cents. What ever they are worth. Many who tried the chili were kind of shocked it won spiciest since it wasn't very spicy, definitely not a triple alarm chili. It has a great flavor and not just sweet or spicy. I had many compliments on the chili, I only had a small amount left to bring home. It was great Sunday on chili cheese hotdogs. :) This recipe is fairly easy and tastes delicious! Makes a large crockpot full, so freeze half for later or feed a crowd :)

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef, browned and drained
1 med onion diced
2 tsp diced garlic
2 cans chili beans
1 can tomatoes with green chili's
1 can green chili's
3 small cans Rotel (R) tomato sauce (mild)
1 1/2 cup pace picante sauce
2 heaping Tbsp chili seasoning
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp cinnamon
1 can tomato paste
1/4 c cocoa powder
4 tsp liquid smoke (use 1/2 when cooking the ground beef and onions together)
8 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 pkg bacon bits
1 cup brown sugar
S & P to taste

Directions:

Put ground beef, onions, garlic, Worcestershire, S & P,  and 2 tsp liquid smoke in pot for chili. Brown beef, and cook onions until translucent. Cook down until most liquid has cooked off. Add all of the other ingredients stirring occasionally to blend together. Place on simmer and let simmer anywhere between 30 min or later. Great to transfer to a crock pot on low or keep warm once it's all heated through.  The longer it simmers the more the flavors marry each other and meld together better.

Me and my "Spiciest" award! 

A red wooden spoon and a box of Hot Tamales.

It looks like my son Mikey was photo bombing with his hand :)