I love to cook and bake (especially bake!). I enjoy browsing other blogs for their favorite recipes, so I thought I would share some of mine. I get a lot of them from Myrecipes.com, Cooking Light, Kraft and Southern Living. (No, I am not sponsored or compensated by any of these companies for these recipe reviews.)
Recently I've started meal planning and it has been a huge success. I take about 20-30 minutes and plan out our meals for the following three weeks. I include one night for leftovers and one night for eating out (even if we don't eat out, this gives us some flexibility). One of the biggest hits by far lately has been Chocolate Oreo Surprise Cupcakes. I've already given the recipe to several people and every one of these tasty little things was eaten up this weekend at the two parties we were at. One of the best things about them is that they are incredibly easy to make!
Chocolate Oreo Surprise Cupcakes
Courtesy of: Kraft
Ingredients:
1 pkg. chocolate cake mix
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 egg
2 Tbsp. sugar
16 mini Oreos OR 8 regular size Oreos
1 tub Cool Whip, thawed
1. Heat oven to 350ยบ.
2. Prepare cake batter as directed on package; set aside.
3. Mix cream cheese, egg and sugar until well blended. (This will not look appetizing, but that's ok.)
4. Spoon cake batter into lightly greased, paper lined muffin cups. (About 1-1.5 Tbsp.)
5. Top with 1 mini Oreo or half of one regular Oreo and 1-1.5 tsp. cream cheese mixture.
6. Cover with remaining cake batter.
7. Bake 15-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted into middle comes out clean.
8. Cool 5 mins. Remove from pans and place on wire racks. Cool completely.
9. Frost with cool whip.
10. ENJOY!
5 comments:
I know what I'm baking this weekend. Thanks! TLS started drooling when he saw your facebook post and wanted me to get your recipe. BTW, when do you want to do our bowling date?
This looks awesome! I love baking too. In fact, I love a site called America's Test Kitchen for recipes.
So, 3 week meal planning. That sounds so good and efficient. How do you do it? I can manage 1 week usually.
Mary-
I sit down once every three weeks and take about 20-30 mins to create a meal plan for the following three weeks. I leave one day for leftovers and one for eating out, regardless of whether we really do or not. This gives us two flexible days. I also try to cut recipes in half when cooking to decease on the amt of leftovers.
We usually have two nights of chicken, one of beef, one of fish or shrimp, and one vegetarian, but that isnt a set thing. I just plan it so we dont have the same protein two nights in a row.
I then write out all the ingredients that I will need to buy for the week and shop once weekly. I sit down once a week for the following two weeks to review the plan and write out that week's ingredients. If I can buy all the non perishables in one trip, I do it.
When I start the initial planning, I look at my sources (those listed above) and start choosing recipes. I read them all the way through and make sure they dont require a ton of time or ingredients. Then I choose 15 to try. I will also work old favorites into the mix too, but right now, we are trying out tons of new recipes so I can create a database of all the ones we like.
And that's about it! =)
Wonderful idea! You had me at "oreo". I always start out with the best of intentions in my meal planning, but even if it doesn't always get executed as planned, it still saves a ton of money and calories just in the mere attempt.
As a preggo living vicariously, I am putting in my request that you also do either a beer or wine of the week as well :) (JK)
Thanks for the meal planning advice. I love how you work variety into it and it's a great tip to half recipes in order not to have too many leftovers. So, even if you plan for 3 weeks, you still shop once a week, right? I though maybe you shopped once every 3 weeks, which sounds like an amazing feat! Very inspiring. I'll be looking forward to next week's blog recipe!
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