French Dip Sandwiches with Au Jus

1. This was very cost effective
2. This was extremely easy
3. Every single person in my family ate and loved all of this

There really isn't much "gourmet" about this. It's kind of a dump recipe. Somehow it made incredible results with amazing flavor. With how easy and cheap it was (aside from the meat..heh heh..) and the fact that no one could stop eating it, it's going back on the menu often.

Definitely fill your sandwiches more than I filled this one :). 4 kids and 4 dogs running around ya know, I was not being incredibly attentive here haha!

What you will need:

• 2 cans french onion soup
• 1 can beef consmme (you can just use beef broth like me)
• 2-2 1/2 lbs. chuck roast
• Provolone cheese slices
• Salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

• Sear the outsides of your meat (you can cut it into chunks to sear and cook it)
• Pour cans of soup and consomme (or broth) into crock pot.
• Add the meat into the crock pot
• Cook on high for 6 hours
• Shred the meat and set aside
• Slice your preferred sandwich bread in half and place on a cookie sheet.
• Spread softened butter on each of the slice
• Pre-toast the bread at 400* for about 4 minutes. You don't need it darkened, but when you touch it, it's rough and a bit crispy
• While your bread is pre-toasting, place a strainer over a bowl and pour the broth into the strainer. It will catch all the extras, allowing just the jus to pass through into the bowl

• Pull out your pre-toasted bread and add the shredded meat and provolone cheese to the bottom slices
• Put them back into the oven until the cheese is nice and melted
• Serve with the au jus !

Sesame Noodles

First let me just apologize for this picture. It was just sitting on the counter waiting to be eaten and I remembered I needed a picture. So I didn't try to make it look fancy. It's just as is. Also, I just had angel hair pasta on hand, so it looks a little "off," but I promise you it's good!

I have no idea where my head was at, but as I was preparing meals for our "health week," I looked at my plans for buffalo chicken lettuce wraps and thought an Asian noodle side dish would pair well. They were both great on their own, but together I have no idea why I put them together! It's not even really like they're super healthy, but hey, I had already drowned chicken in hot sauce so.... we'll just go with it.

These had really good flavor, most likely due to the sesame oil used! My husband loooooves sesame oil so I had zero reservations about the whole thing. They were deeeelicious! Of course. Pioneer Woman, right? Not to mention, this whips up FAST. You're using thin noodles so they don't take long at all and everything is just kind of dump and mix and go. Loved it!

What you will need:

• 12 oz. thin noodles, cooked and drained
• 1/4 C soy sauce
• 2 T sugar
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 T rice vinegar
• 3 T pure sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp. hot chili oil
• 4 T canola oil
• Green onions, thinly sliced (optional)

Directions:

• Mix all ingredients (minus the noodles) together in a bowl
• Toss the cooked and drained noodles with the oil
• Top with green onions (optional)

Cake Mix Peanut Butter Bars

So yesterday happened, which was a Sunday, and my husband was craving a dessert with peanut butter in it. Specifically, peanut butter bars. The catch? We only had 1 stick of butter. Since we don't go shopping on Sundays I was up for a bit of a challenge in finding something that would satisfy his craving!

But you guys, I did it! And, of course, it's a Six Sisters Stuff recipe. I swear between them and Pioneer Woman they are always saving the day.

I was a little skeptical at the whole cake mix idea of it. I was sure the texture would be way too off to be considered a "bar." The recipe was so dang easy though it was worth it to just go for it and see what happened.

Well, here you have it! Freakin' YUM! I love these things. My husband says that the cake flavor mixed with the peanut butter isn't quite up to his standards, but it satisfied what he was after. I, on the other hand, had zero issue with the cake flavor mixed with the peanut butter! I thought the whole thing was great and we both agreed that the texture was definitely that of a bar!

What you will need:

Bars-

• 1 box vanilla cake mix
• 1 egg
• 1/2 C water
• 1 C peanut butter

Frosting-

• 1 stick (1/2 c) butter, softened
• 1/4 C milk
• 3 T cocoa powder
• 1-2 tsp. vanilla (I used 2)
• 2-3 C powdered sugar (I ended up using 2 1/2)

Directions:

Bars-

• Preheat oven to 350*
• Spray a 13x9 baking dish with non stick spray
• Mix cake mix, egg, water and peanut butter together until mixed well
• Pour and spread mixture into the 13x9 dish
• Bake about 20-25 minutes
• When completely cooled, spread frosting on top

Frosting-

• Mix all ingredients together until a smooth frosting forms. Add powdered sugar as needed for desired consistency
• Spread over the top of the peanut butter bars

Chocolate Chip Mug Cookie

This happened because I was scrolling through Pinterest and happened to have chocolate chips on hand. Also, I'm pregnant. As if I could have said no!

A chocolate chip mug cookie? As far as mug desserts go, this one I am sure I will go ahead and make again in the future. I wouldn't say that the cookie part itself offers much flavor, but it sure offered some great substance to eat some melted gooey chocolate chips with. So, when the craving hits, this will be a good one for me.

What you will need:

• 1 tsp. oil
• 3 T milk
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla
• 3 heaping T brown sugar (not packed)
• 4 T flour
• 2 T chocolate chips to mix in
• 1 T chocolate chips to drop on the top

Directions:

• Mix together the wet ingredients (oil, milk and vanilla)
• Add in the brown sugar and mix well
• Mix in the flour 
• Mix in the chocolate chips
• Microwave for 1 minute if you want it nice and gooey, 1 minute and 30 seconds if you'd like it somewhere in the middle and 2 minutes if you want the dough to not be gooey but still a little gooey around the melty chocolate chips.

Easy Baked Chicken Taco's

I can't believe I don't already have these on here! This is seriously a family favorite, and considering that it's a sneaky way to make my kids eat tomatoes and onions, it's a big time personal favorite, too! It calls for a diced onion and a can of diced tomatoes. What I do is toss them in a blender until they make a sauce together and toss the shredded chicken with it. You can do it however you want, though!

What you will need:

• 1 pkg. taco seasoning of your choice
• 3-4 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded
• Mexican shredded cheese blend
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• Hard taco shells
• Topics of your choice

Directions:

• When your chicken is cooked and shredded, add the taco seasoning in and mix well
• Preheat oven to 350*
• Either add the diced tomatoes and onion to the chicken and mix, or blend them in a blender until it makes a sauce or chunky texture to mix in with the chicken
• Fill the taco shells with the chicken
• Top with the shredded cheese
• Bake at 350* for about 10 minutes or until cheese is melted
• Top with favorite taco topics

Slow Cooker Teriyaki Chicken

Our family was so lucky to get to spend the holidays with all my family this year! It's pretty rare these days so I'm glad we got to make a lot of memories!

One of the things we did was doing a Chinese food potluck for New Years Eve. Best. Idea. EVER! I feel like it might have to be tradition now no matter who is around! Everyone made such delicious food, and lucky me I was able to find a crockpot teriyaki chicken recipe from the Flavorite. It made things so easy with how crazy my New Years Eve day was. I knew I wouldn't have the time to cook something later in the day or spend much time on it.

This was perfect, although my chicken got really tender and it kind of turned into shredded teriyaki chicken. Woops! This picture was taken a couple days later with leftovers so it's not as juicy looking. But you get the idea! I actually doubled the sauce recipe and I think it turned out great that way!


What you will need:

• 2 lbs. boneless chicken
• 1/4 C brown sugar
• 1/2 C soy sauce
• 2 T cider vinegar
• 1 tsp. ground ginger
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 tsp water
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• Sesame seeds

Directions:

• Mix the brown sugar, soy sauce, ginger and garlic in a bowl
• Pour the sauce over the chicken in a slow cooker
• Cook on low for 4-6 hours
• Remove chicken from slow cooker
• Pour sauce into a pan and bring to a boil
• Mix cornstarch and water together in a small bowl
• Slowly pour cornstarch mix into the sauce and mix together
• Turn heat to medium and stir until sauce thickens (about 2-3 minutes)
• Add sesame seeds if desired
• Cut up chicken and place back into slow cooker with sauce until ready to serve

Pretzel Bites

Okay these pretzels from The Slow Roasted Italian are the BOMB! They were unbelievably easy to make but have the quality of "mall pretzel bites.......but BETTER!" (as said by my kids) They don't feel or taste like you just cut up some dough and put them in the oven. They are amazing! My only regret is that I only made one batch. It was enough for our family of 4 ( and a half if you count the little guy who hate maybe 3 and then focused on his chips), but we all were kind of sad that they were gone so I would have loved to have some leftovers! Oh, the best part? You don't need to wait for the dough to rise.

I read a few recipes for pretzel bites and read through comments. I saw a lot of people complaining of their second or third batches coming out with a really bitter taste to them. Everyone seemed to conclude that it must have been because they put their pretzel bites into the baking soda bath, baked them in the oven, and then put the next round of pretzel bites into the baking soda bath (rather than having all of the bites in the baking soda bath without long waiting times between more being added into the bath).

So, in my directions I have you getting all of your pretzel bites in and out of the baking soda bath before you bake any of the them. They all turned out great, so who knows if waiting to put in other batches later on causes a bitter taste.

What you will need:

• 2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
• 1 1/4 C warm milk (110*-120*)
• 2 T honey or sugar
• 3 1/4 C flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 C baking soda
• 8 quart pot of water
• 1 egg, beaten with 2 tsp. cold water

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 450*
• Warm your milk up and pour into the bowl of a stand mixer
• Sprinkle the yeast into the milk
• Add the sugar to feed the yeast
• Let the yeast get nice and foamy, about ten minutes
• Once the yeast is ready, add in the salt and mix together with the paddle attachment
• Add in the flour, one cup at a time. You want the dough to be tacky but not sticky. (I ended up with 3 cups and 3 tablespoons)
• Once your dough is ready, replace the paddle attachment with a dough hook and knead for about 3 minutes
• While that's kneading, spray your counter top lightly with some non stick spray. Using flour will make the dough too difficult to work with
• Turn your dough out onto the counter and divide (I just used a pizza cutter) into quarters. 
• Start boiling your 8 quart pot of water
• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with non stick spray, set aside.
• Beat one egg with 2 tsp cold water, set aside
• Grab one of the dough quarters and divide that piece into 4 more pieces
• Roll out each of those 4 pieces gently until you can cut at least 4 pretzel bite size pieces from it
• Continue on with the rest of the dough, you should end up with at least 64 pretzel bites
• Carefully add the baking soda into the boiling water
• Dump a bunch of the pretzel bites into the boiling water and let it sit for about 20 seconds
• Remove with a spatula or slotted spoon of some kind and place onto the baking sheet
• Do this with all of the pretzel bites until they have all been in the baking soda bath 
• Brush pretzel bites with egg wash and add kosher salt
• Bake for about 15 minutes (mine were done after 10)