Hamburger Cookies - A "No Bake" Recipe

It's been a busy summer, and for the most part on our down times we're ready to just unwind with some swimming, playing, and and other summer activities. But occasionally we get inspired to tackle some new projects. 

In the last few weeks we've been invited to several barbecues. I used to make these fun and easy "no bake" cookies with my mom as a kid, and they are the perfect treats to bring to a barbecue! 

Even better, while they are super cute they are also a "No Bake" recipe which means you don't have to run your oven in order to enjoy them. Perfect for hot summer days. 

Chocolate Dipped Fortune Cookies

This fun treat is something we've made a few times before - and even though it doesn't take a lot to make them, they look fantastic and special when they are done.

The other great thing about these treats is that even little hands can help with some of the steps so kids can feel involved. We recently made a batch for Teacher Appreciation Week and the boys loved helping make these sweet treats for their teachers. 

Everybody's Favorite One Bowl Brownies

This is one of our family's all time favorite recipes, and luckily it's one the easiest dessert recipes I know. If we're asked to bring a dessert to a potluck, but we don't have a whole lot of time to be in the kitchen, this is usually my go-to recipe. I used to think of them as my "Book-Club Brownies" as they were perfect to make on a week night and have ready to go the next night when my book club would meet. (Or sometimes I would even make them up the afternoon of the meeting.)

But I should warn you, they are still very much a TREAT recipe. There is nothing low-fat/low calorie/low-sugar about this recipe . . .

20+ Rainbow Recipes For All Times of the Day

A few years ago we discovered Rainbow Pudding Cups, and somehow they have become a St. Patrick's Day tradition for our family, even though they are not at all traditional to the holiday. But we also enjoy making them at other times of the year, because they are just so fun and colorful.

This inspired to search around the web and find even more creative, fun, and colorful Rainbow Recipes. In fact, we've found over 20 of them for you to enjoy and spread across the day!

Basic Cooked Playdough

We do a lot of playdough play here, in fact we usually try to vary up our playdough play every month or so. Although there are a lot of different non-cook playdough recipes out there, we're still a big fan of a basic cooked playdough.

All of our playdough recipes stem from this basic recipe, which we've finally decided to share!

Chai Spiced Cookies with Egg Nog Glaze

It's that time of the Holiday Season where we focus on baking. We like making treats to share with neighbors, friends, and others. We're always looking for easy and yummy recipes to create with. I'm a big fan of chai teas and I love getting a hot one as a treat while wrapping up holiday shopping.

With that in mind, I tweaked one of our favorite rolled sugar cookie recipes to create these Chai Spiced Cookies with Egg Nog Glaze.

30+ "Go-To" Recipes From Moms for Moms

If your family is like our family, you're finding yourself pretty busy these days with the holidays approaching. Every weekend is pretty full with different celebrations, and the weekdays are blend of trying to stick to routine but balancing interruptions.

It's during busy times like these that I feel like I resort to those tried and true recipes that I love and know pretty well. I know my kids will enjoy them and they won't take too long to put together.

So with that in mind I asked some of my favorite mom bloggers out there what are their everyday "go-to" recipes.

Apple Nutella Blossom Snack

Now that Big Brother is an official kindergartner, it means I need to start thinking about real after school snacks. His busy and long day mean that he arrives home pretty hungry. On the first day of school I treated all of us to this yummy snack: Apple Nutella Blossoms.

For quite a while now this has been an easy weekday dessert, 

but it also makes a great afternoon snack!

Maple Cinnamon Cream Cheese Spread

A few months ago we participated in the Tour the World by Flower blog hop with our Red Clover Painting Exploration. This time again be participating in A Tour the World blog series, this time focusing on food!

Bloggers from around the world are sharing recipes and project ideas which focus on a key food from their state or country in this Tour the World by Food blog series.

For our post we focused not only on an ingredient our state is commonly known for, but also an all time favorite in our house: maple syrup.

I grew up in a family that made maple syrup, and used it often in almost everything and anything, (moving way beyond pancakes of course!): coffee, fruit salad, oatmeal, cookies, etc. 

One Bowl Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

As we've shared before, the boys love muffins. Banana muffins are usually our go-to recipe as we almost always wind up with overripe bananas in the house. I'm always looking for ways to make them a little quicker and easier, which is why I've come up with this one bowl banana chocolate chip muffin recipe. Fast to make and easy to clean up.

When I make these, I always make them in our KitchenAid mixer, which makes the mixing fast and smooth. It had actually been a while since I made some, but we were pretty excited to enjoy a fresh batch this week.

Homemade Strawberry Shortcake

It's strawberry season here in our neck of the woods, which means it's Strawberry Shortcake time. And to me, nothing says summer quite like strawberries.

I've been playing with our recipe a little bit and tweaked our favorite biscuit recipe to make it a sweeter version for shortcake. 

Pirate Pinwheels

I had to laugh the other day when I asked Big Brother what he wanted to bring to his preschool end of year potluck, and he wanted to bring a whole bunch of "Pirate Pinwheel" sandwiches.

I laughed, because there are some parts of parenthood that you think out and plan for, but there is a whole lot of parenthood that you do on the fly. And because often, planning or no planning, it can all depend on how you spin it.

Pirate pinwheels is one of those moments for us.

Chicken Sausage Kebabs

As soon as the snow melts we pretty much start grilling, it's definitely our go-to cooking method in the summer. We love to our keep our dinners simple, so we can have even more time to play during the warmer weather. This recipe is easy to put together, cooks in very little time, and can be enjoyed by everyone in the family!

I've always enjoyed making kebabs, and love mixing up the ingredients we use. And although I enjoy using other meats, recently we discovered how easy using sausages on kebabs can be. 

Rainbow Pudding Cups

We love making this yummy treat around this time of year. Somehow it's become a family tradition on St. Patrick's Day (although don't worry, we still make the traditional Corned Beef and Cabbage and Irish Soda Bread too.) But every year it's Rainbow Pudding Cups that Big Brother asks for!

What's great about this fun treat is it's easy enough for kids to make almost totally on their own! 

Maple Pumpkin Pancakes

A few weeks ago we shared on Facebook how much we've been enjoying pumpkin pancakes. A quirky thing about me is I don't really enjoy pumpkin pie. But I do LOVE all other pumpkin baked goods, and that love definitely extends to pumpkin pancakes.

Maple Pumpkin Pancakes

We shared a recipe we've always enjoyed from allrecipes for pumpkin pancakes. Over the last few weeks we've tweaked the recipe to be our own version with a special ingredient within the batter: maple syrup.

Grilled Kielbasa Dinner

Even though summer is officially "over" we still love to grill as much as we can. In fact, you'll probably find us grilling until there's at least an inch of snow on our deck. 

And although we still enjoy some of the basics, we also like to make some recipes that remind us more of fall. This grilled kielbasa dinner is perfect with all the yummy veggies coming from our fall CSA. 

Easy Blueberry Cobbler

There are a lot of different recipes and opinions out there for how to make a cobbler. Do you put the fruit on the bottom and add the batter on top? Or do you make the batter for the bottom and put the fruit on top? And although we've tried many of them, this quickly became our new favorite go to recipe this summer when we have fresh berries (or cherries) in the house and we want a warm, cobbler treat.

It's fresh blueberry season, which is one of our favorite times of year! We love baking with blueberries,freezing  them for the winter, and of course eat them just in their natural, yummy state.