Blueberry Squares

Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday Dear Megan, Happy Birthday to Me! I want cake and luckily I found this recipe in my Weight Watchers points tracker.

I love this cake, it is light and sticky and sweet. You can’t beat it.


Blueberry Squares

1 package angel food cake mix
22 ounce light blueberry pie filling

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Combine cake mix with blueberry filling (do not add any other ingredients). Pour batter into an ungreased 9 x 13 inch baking dish, bake for 30 minutes.

Cool and cut into 24 pieces.

Serving size: 1 piece
Weight Watchers Points Plus Points: 2


I ate 3 of them. Bad girl.

XOXO,

Crock Pot Apple Pork Loin

I know that this in not really the time of year for roast, or for apples even. Yes, this would make a great fall recipe but I am getting an ache for the fall season and decided that I don’t want to wait any longer. I want what I want and it’s my birthday so na-na-nana-na.

This was super easy to pull together and all day I have been looking forward to eating it tonight…


Crock Pot Apple Pork Loin

1 lb. pork loin, mesquite flavor
¼ cup apple juice
¼ sugar
4 apples, cored and sliced

Place the pork tenderloin in the crock pot.

In a small saucepan stir to combine the sugar and juice, stir over low heat until the sugar dissolves. You do not want to cook the juice, just dissolve the sugar.

Pour the mixture over the pork loin.

Cover and cook on High heat for 1 hour.

Add the apples and continue cooking on Low heat for 3 more hours.

Serving size: ½ cup apples and 1/8 of the pork loin
Weight Watchers Points Plus Points: 4


I am going to be completely honest with you, the pork loin is fantastic the apples however not so much. I will make this again but leave out the apples. The juice and sugar mixture made for a super moist roast. I dig it. Yum.

XOXO,

Pineapple and Barbeque Shredded Chicken

I cheated last night; I did a very bad but very good thing. I spent money on a rotisserie chicken. I did. It was worth every penny though! It kept the house cool yesterday and will manage to do the same tonight as well. We intentionally kept half of the chicken to use for tonight’s supper.

Yesterday I ran a search for chicken sandwich recipes and came across this recipe, only not exactly this recipe, the one I found was for the crockpot, which will one day be making its way onto this very blog. But the idea is the same. I wanted to try it and knew I was going to pick up a chicken on my way home from work so while I was at the store I picked up a jar of pineapple preserves as well.

If or should I say when you make this you will be so happy. It was great! Baby Cakes had his on a hawaiian bun and I had mine on a 100 calorie bun. Guess who’s tasted better? Lol.


Pineapple and Barbeque Shredded Chicken

3-4 cups boneless, skinless roasted chicken breast, warmed and shredded
1/3 cup brown sugar barbeque sauce
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/8 cup pineapple preserves

In a large bowl mix all the ingredients until well combined.

Serve on buns or use as a salad topper.

Serving size: 1 cup
Weight Watchers Points Plus Points: 7 (not including bread or bun)


Now I will admit that I didn't think of this recipe all on my own, the problem is that I held on to it so long before posting that I somehow lost the link and researching it has proved unfruitful.

XOXO,

Greek Yogurt Ranch Dip

We all know it’s hot outside, how many times am I going to point that out you ask? Well, until it’s no longer in the 100’s. I once again want cool and creamy for lunch. I found cool and creamy.

Have you ever had Greek Yogurt? From what I can tell a lot of people don’t care for it but I have always liked it. It’s tart like sour cream and thicker than normal yogurt. In the past I’ve always bought the full fat version and with fruit mixed in but for this recipe I bought the low fat plain version. After tasting it I realize that it could easy sub in for sour cream.


Greek Yogurt Ranch Dip
courtesy of my MIL's WW Coach

½ cup low fat greek yogurt
1 tbs. dry ranch dressing mix
pinch of pepper

In a small bowl mix the above ingredients until well combined.

Serve cold with fresh vegetables or chips.

Serving Size: 1/4 cup
Weight Watchers Points Plus Points: 2


Cool and creamy with a ton of kick to it. I plan on playing around with this to see what else I can create in the near future. Yum.

XOXO,

Weight Watchers

I want to apologize for my shortness of posts lately and although I have every intention of cooking more henceforth posting more I wanted to let you, my reader or readers, know that the blog is changing a bit. You see I have some personal things going on in my life that merit a change and that change is my weight and although I won’t be making this a weight loss blog per say I will be posting recipes with their Weight Watchers points value. I will continue cooking regular foods only with some healthy stuff tucked in there too, because Baby Cakes doesn’t need a diet. I have just found it too hard to separate my blog life from my personal life especially since they both concern food. This is probably the first and last thing I will say about Weight Watchers as I am not being paid to advertise, no it's more like I’m paying them to advertise.

See you soon, real soon,

Glazed Carrots

Have you ever walked past or through a candy store making fresh pralines? If you have then you know the scent I am about to describe. And yes I am in reference to carrots.

You might know from a recent post that Baby Cakes claims to only like glazed carrots and I might or might not have shared the fact that I am a carrot junky, every time I go out to eat I always get carrots as a side dish, sometimes carrots for both side dishes. My co-worker Sherry always teases me about it. What can I say, I love carrots. I wonder if it’s true what my Mom used to tell me, carrots make your eye sight better.

With is being so hot right now I am having to force myself to cook dinner, the most Baby Cakes is getting is grilled meats and some side dishes, although I must admit it makes my job easy peasy.

So like I hinted at above when you’re cooking these carrots the scent is amazing, buttery and caramelized. I loved them!


Glazed Carrots

2 pounds baby carrots
1 stick butter
1/3 cup of brown sugar
2 tablespoons honey
½ teaspoons salt
3 cups water

In a large saucepan bring the water to a boil and add the carrots. Boil for 10 minutes, drain and set aside.

Over medium heat melt the butter, sugar, honey and salt. Stir in the carrots and cook for 25-30 minutes, occasionally stirring, until the butter and sugar mixture is cooked down.

Serve warm.


These are amazing, sweet and buttery. A new favorite!

Love me some carrots,

Caesar Shrimp and Pasta

Do you guys have a subscription to Simple & Delicious magazine?

I do but so far I’ve only made and shared one recipe from the February/March 2011 issue; that recipe being the Squash & Carrot Sauté from a week ago. Sometimes it takes me a while to jump on the wagon but once I do I’m taking the reins. The reason for the curiosity is because these magazines are just full of amazingly simple, namesake I suppose, recipes. I just made another one tonight.

Baby Cakes is a caesar dressing kind of guy. Every time we eat at Red Lobster he could make a meal out of the salad alone and as you might know it’s a steady simmer, scratch that, boil outdoors just about in every state right now. I want a cold satisfying meal. I found one. Amen.

The recipe calls for you to serve this pasta warm and although I did try it I have to say that it is even better cold.


Caesar Shrimp and Pasta
adapted from Simple & Delicious, Feb/March pg. 29

4 cups pasta
3 cups frozen peas
1 lb. frozen shrimp, and size
2 tablespoons plus ½ cup caesar salad dressing
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

In a large saucepan, cook the pasta according to the package directions, adding the peas during the last 3 minutes of cooking.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet, cook the shrimp in 2 tablespoons dressing over medium heat until cooked through.

Drain the pasta and peas and transfer to a large bowl. Add the shrimp, cheese and remaining caesar dressing and toss to coat.

Either serve immediately or refrigerate overnight and serve cold.


We love it! Love, love, love it. In fact I am eating leftovers for lunch right now.

XOXO,

Pork and Peach Bake

I had another post last week but somehow I deleted all the pictures off my camera, perhaps I thought I had already uploaded them I just don't know. But it's kind of a blessing because the recipe wasn't very good anyway so really no harm done other than I am a post short for last week. I try to do two posts a week. But you know what, let's just keep on truckin'.

I have been cooking a lot lately but for some reason I haven't been posting very well. Last weekend my parents came to supper, they are very busy people with work and my siblings, grandchildren and their friends so occasionally I like to pin them down and get some one on one with them. I served recipes that I’ve posted here before Turkey Day Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans and for dessert the Peach Cobbler that my Daddy didn’t get a bite of on father’s day, only this time I used fresh peaches. Namely stewed peaches, the recipe is coming up in this post. The reason I share this information? Well the leftover stewed peaches were used in the making of this dish.

Okay, I am going to keep this simple. The way I make stewed peaches is by pitting, slicing and peeling about 20 peaches. I half them, and then divide each half into three slices. Put them into a saucepan with ½ cup sugar and 2 tablespoons water. Cook down over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved and it begins to thicken a bit. That’s it. I store this in the refrigerator and use it as a topping to ice cream, in my peach cobbler and now in this recipe.


Pork and Peach Bake
adapted from Cook.com

4 cups chicken stuffing mix
1 3/4 cups water
2 tablespoons butter
½ cup stewed peaches
4 pork chops
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup stewed peaches

Preheat the oven to 350.

In a saucepan bring the water and butter to a boil, turn off heat and stir in the stuffing mix until all of the mix is moist. Stir in ½ cup of the stewed peaches and spread the stuffing mixture evenly into a baking dish.

Now in a large skillet heat the oil over medium/low heat, seasoning the chops to your liking and brown on both sides, once done transfer to the top of the stuffing mix.

Spoon the 1 cup of stewed peaches over the pork chops.

Bake for 45 minutes to an hour.


My pictures do not look good, I will be the first one to admit it. But please don't judge this dish by my poor photog skills.

I love this dish y’all. Baby Cakes told me practically after every bite how good it was and I am inclined to agree. There is something about the peach and pork together, it just goes. Almost as well as apple goes with pork. You know you have got to love pork it work with so many flavors. This will be adorning my table again and again and I’m sure again in the near future.

XOXO,