The boy and I are having a disagreement about what to make for dessert for Super Bowl Sunday. My idea is to do two or three small bite-sized options for more variety and because it’s much easier to eat in the living room when it’s just a bite of something. I don’t really want the five year old trying to eat apple pie on the sofa.

His idea is cake with sprinkles. His idea is ALWAYS cake with sprinkles.

So I’m using my mommy override option and doing it my way. We did Football Brownies last year, and I’m not a big fan of Chocolate Covered Strawberries that look like footballs…I think I’m going to got the mini cookie/cheesecake route.

First on the list is the most loved cookie I think of all time. Seriously, I’ve never made these when a single one wasn’t eaten.

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

I usually make them the easy way…

(Put the entire bag of peanut butter cups in the freezer for 20 minutes before you have to place into cookie)

)ne pack of sugar cookie mix made to package directions – (or peanut butter cookie mix)

Form into balls and press each ball into a mini muffin tin – press indention with your thumb in each one

Bake at 375 for 10 minutes – press peanut butter cup into indention immediately

Let cool and then remove from pan

Then be on guard because they will all come running and try to sneak them off before the game starts!

If you prefer to do it old school and time consuming…you can find the home made recipe here.

More Super Bowl Bite Sized Desserts Coming Soon…..

My big boy five year old son doesn’t really watch Max and Ruby anymore…but he still remembers that episode when Grandma Bunny made clock cookies for New Year’s Eve.

In fact, he thinks he is so big this year that he will definitely be able to stay awake until midnight to see what all the hub-bub is about. Readers note: this child has never been able to stay awake past 11pm…tops. But he is sure that this year he can make it.

Since he is such a big boy this year I promised him we would make the New Year’s Eve Max and Ruby Clock Cookies..and of course a special fizzy drink to go along with it.

We already have some sugar mix in the cabinet that we didn’t use for Christmas so I”m going to attempt to make home-made frosting from this recipe:

Basic Butter Frosting

I think my sister said it best when she described this desert as ‘created in hell by the devil himself’.

It’s unbelievably easy and that’s what’s so dangerous. You can throw this together in about five minutes. Or, do what I did and use it as a busy project for kids. We just got back from a double-family vacation that included a 7 year-old, a 6 year-old and a 5 year-old. We had games and toys and even a hot tub, but after three or four days on a mountain with no internet access ..kids start getting punchy.

So we spent a while in the kitchen whipping this up for after dinner. Since there are three layers, there was one for each kid so it worked out perfectly.

No matter that all three kids completely ignored this desert after dinner in favor of Smore’s around the fire pit. The mommies and daddies chomped the **** out of this after the kids went to bed. Seriously..it was gone by noon the next day!

For a Chocolate Chip Oreo Brown Bake You need:

One package of chocolate chip cookie mix and the ingredients listed on the back of the package

One pack of Oreos

One box of brownie mix and the ingredients listed on the back of the package.

Then you:

Mix up cookie mix in one bowl and the brownie mix in another bowl.

Spray the bottom of a large casserole dish with spray oil and layer the cookie dough mix, the oreos then the brownie mix.

I cooked it at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes. But you time may vary..check it after 30 minutes.

You know you’ve eaten too much over the weekend when your child pats your belly and says, “Mommy, there might be another baby in your belly. No? What’s in there then?”

True story.

I ate way too much this weekend, mostly fat and carbs and that means major bloat. But boy, was is FUN. We had a fantastic Easter holiday but today I am getting myself (and my family) back on track and sugar detoxed.

While I suffer for the next few days on no carbs and tons of water please enjoy this SICK (and by sick I mean wonderfully decadent and delicious) Key Lime Desert. It was soo freakin’ good. Even my baby girl loved it. Really. She is eight months old and she was inhaling the pudding-like filling.

You Need:

1 pouch oatmeal cookie mix

1/2 cup firm butter

2 cans condensed milk (14 oz each)

2 containers cool whip (8 oz each)

2 containers of fat free Key Lime yogurt (6 oz each)

Few drops of green food coloring if desired

And then you:

Heat oven to 350°F. Spray bottom and sides of 13×9-inch pan with cooking spray.

Put cookie mix in large bowl and cut in butter until its crumbly. Press crumbs in bottom of pan.

Bake 10-12 minutes until golden brown then cool completely

In another (or the same if you feel like washing it right away) beat condensed milk and lime juice, yogurt with electric mixer on medium until smooth and thick.

Remove 1 cup of the cool whip and set aside. Fold remaining whipped topping into yogurt, add food coloring here if you want.

Spoon onto cooled crust and refrigerate for an hour.

Before serving place a big ol’ dollop of remaining cool whip on each piece. If you want to get real fancy you can serve with berries or lime peel..but we don’t roll like that at my house.

I have the cutest little cookbook that the boy and I found at Barnes and Nobles a few years ago. It’s called Cookie Dough Fun and it’s got tons of cute cookie dough recipe ideas that look so cute in the book, but never turn out right in real life. At least in my kitchen.

That’s sort of the family joke around here. I can make things that taste good but they NEVER look like the cookbook picture.

Case in point. Here is the cookbook picture for the Edible Easter Basket Recipe.

And here is how mine turned out. I haven’t been able to find licorice that thin so my baskets may not have handles but that’s what’s this blog all is about. Doing the best with you have at the time.

Ingredients:

1 package refrigerated sugar cookie dough

1 cup M&M mini baking chips

1 tsp water

1-2 drops of green food dye

3/4 cup sweetened shredded coconut

3/4 cup any flavor cake frosting

Red licorice whips cut into 3 inch lengths

Directions

Grease 36 mini-muffin tins, cut dough into 36 pieces and roll into balls

Put one ball in each muffin tin and press into bottom of pan..chill for 15 minutes

Press 1/3 cup of the M&Ms into the bottoms of the cookie dough and bake for 8  minutes at 350.

Cookies will come out puffy. Gently press them back down into the tin.

Return to oven for 1 more minute

Cool cookies in the muffin tins for 5 minutes

Remove from pan and cool completely.

In a medium bowl combine food coloring and water, add coconut and stir until evenly tinted. You can also do this a ziplock bag.

In each cookie cup layer 1 tsp frosting, 1 tsp tinted coconut and 1 tsp M&Ms.

Push both licorice ends into frosting to make basket handle.

I had fun telling the boy about St. Patrick’s Day this week. He was absolutely overjoyed to find out that there was another holiday that he didn’t know about. His excitement dwindle a bit when he found out there were no presents involved, but then when I got out the fortune cookies he got happy again.

My little monster LOVES fortune cookies. Even before he could read he would take mommy and daddy’s fortunes at restaurants and make up stuff. It was cute and we laughed. And then he would eat everyone’s cookies. Which is cute too..but I really love them too so it kind of sucks. But you sacrifice for your kids.

Here is how we spent the afternoon yesterday. I omitted the entire-hand-in-the-chocolate-bowl-meltdown-pictures so you would all think it was a peaceful and memory making Saturday.

We used:

1 box of store bought fortune cookies

1 package of semi-sweet chocolate chips

8 graham crackers

green spinkles

And then we:

Melted the chips in a microwave safe bowl ..bout one minute and stir well

Put the sprinkles on a plate

Ideally you would have parchment paper, but that’s not something I keep in my house all the time so we used aluminum foil sprayed with cooking oil

Dip half of the fortune cookie in the chocolate and then sprinkles. Put on the foil to harden.

Repeat with graham crackers

:notes: Now that I see that the green sprinkles don’t show so well on the chocolate, if I make  this again I’ll use white chocolate

That’s right brothers and sisters. I said two ingredients.

Someone (thanks Mom!)  forwarded me this link today and I am so excited to try these that I can’t even wait to post them until I bake them. Will be making them tomorrow …..this is what Real Mom cooking is all about. Making great things for your family in the limited time that moms have to actually cook.

Jenny at the PickyPalate.com posted this recipe with step by step instructions (along with great pictures – note to self: learn how to use your big fancy camera) proving that these delicious looking cookies were made with just an egg and a bag of Reeses Peanut Butter Cups. Nice.

I was sure I was going to file this one under Recipe Fail. But turns out while they didn’t look anything like they were supposed to, they were really good.

According to the hubs these were the best tasting cookies I have ev-ah made. Note he only said best tasting....not best looking. My man is nothing if not honest. They were supposed to look like the pic on the left but they ended up looking like the pic on the right. I had a problem with the rolling… but as long as they taste great and I’ve made my family happy it’s all good. I’ll definitely try this one again and hope I’m not mommy-drained that day and they will turn out prettier.

Stained Glass Cookie Recipe

12 oz semi sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup butter

1 cup chopped walnuts

10 1/2 oz colored mini marshmallows

16 oz flaked coconut

Melt chocolate chips and butter in a small saucepan and let cool

Add nuts and marshmallows – mix gently

Spoon mixture into log form across wax paper

Coat roll in coconut

Bring paper up around roll and pinch ends of paper together to cover roll

Put in fridge for 3-4 hours

Slice into 1/2 inch slices and serve

:side note: I am an idiot. I did not read the directions correctly. Instead of forming chocolate/marshmallow mix in a log roll before coating in coconut I spread mixture out flat on paper and then added coconut layer and tried to roll. Ugh. I even had the hubs trying to help me figure out how to roll it. I should have known this was not right!

:side note 2: could not find colored marshmallows in store so the boy and I used food color to make beautiful marshies.

Big thanks to my mom for sending me the original recipe last Christmas. See momma…I do read your emails.

Are you ready? It’s only two days away.  Super Bowl XLV Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Greenbay Packers. Go Steelers!

The super bowl is a much anticipated family event in my house every year. Hubs is a huge football fan, I grew up in the South so football is just kind of a given and even though the boy is only 4, he has a decent understanding of the game already. The boy and the hubs have a great time whooping and hollering when our team scores and the boy likes to point to the helmets of our team through the entire game. It’s great fun.

Along with great fun goes..you guessed it..great food. But since we now have the girl too, I have precious little time to make a fancy football spread. So here’s what I have planned for this year:

French Bread Pizzas

Rotel Cheese Dip and Tortilla Chips

Football Shaped Iced Sugar Cookies per request by the boy

Here are the recipes I’ll use.

French Bread Pizza

1/2 loaf fresh french bread for each pizza

14 oz can diced tomato, garlic flavored

2 tbsp tomato sauce

Lots of shredded mozzerella and cheddar

Sliced pepperoni

Heat oven to 450 degrees

Heat up diced tomatoes and tomato sauce in a saucepan and add any other Italian spices you prefer

Sprinkle cheddar cheese on bread – thinly and toast for a few min in oven

Remove from oven and spread tomato sauce mixture on top of cheese

Top with mozzerella and pepperoni

Return to oven for 5-6 minutes or until cheese melts

Mom Calorie saving tip: Dig out all the bread from the crust before making your pizza for yourself. You’ll save about 100 -200 calories plus have a crunchier crust. You could also make yours on a low cal tortilla or flatbread. Using half the amount of cheese you use on the hubs is a major calorie saver too.  I’ll be loading my personal pizza up with whatever veggies I have around the house and leaving off the pepperoni too. And of course the boy will only eat cheese pizza.

Rotel Cheese Dip and Tortilla Chips

My mom used to make this when I was a kid and I thought she was a genius. She used to add cooked crumbled ground beef to it and pour the entire cheese/meat mixture over a plate of tortilla chips to make the most delicious nachos. I loved it when the chips would get all bendy and soft with cheese. Mmmmm. Comfort food.

I don’t make this for my family too often because honestly, using Velveeta cheese isn’t healthy…but it’s the super bowl so that fake cheese doesn’t count.

1 large box of Velveeta cheese

1 can Rotel – I use the original flavor but if you prefer spice it up with hotter stuff

1 bag of tortilla chips

You can either do this in a double broiler on the stove or throw it in a crockpot.

I’ll be doing mine crock style. Just throw cubed velveeta and Rotel in the pot..cook on high for two hours. Stirring occasionally.

Not only does it mess less pans, now I’ll have time to bake the cookies with the boy…and while making cookies doesn’t take that long..cleaning up the mess after baking with a 4 year old does. Precious memories right?

**You can do this in the microwave too if you need it sooner or don’t want to drag out any pans or the crock. I just don’t like that method..the cooking…the stopping…the stirring…over and over over..the cheese popping all over the microwave. Then once it gets cold its cold. In the crock it will stay warm through the entire game.

Mom Calorie Saving Tip: Instead of pouring yours over a huge plate of chips like the boys do..just put a tiny bit in a cup and dip your chips. Even better if you have time to toast your own low fat/low cal/ low carb tortillas to use. La Tortilla’s low carb brand has only 50 calories per tortilla.  Or if you wanna go really low cal and healthy…..skip the chips all together and dip some raw veggies!

Football Shaped Iced Cookies

1 box/bag sugar cookie mix made to directions for making cut out cookies

1 container chocolate frosting

2-3 tubes of white icing – the thinner the tube spout the better. If you are baking with a child like me..you may need more. They tend to squeeze out way too much icing.

Make your cookie batter following directions on pack….(I told ya’ll this is simple recipe website!)

I’m not a master baker and I don’t even have a rolling pin so I have to do it freestyle.

Roll out dough on floured surface with ideally a rolling pin. If you are a busy mom with a kitchen too tiny for extra things like giant rolling pins  like me..just run a tall drinking glass under warm water and use it as a rolling pin. Keeping the glass warm and floured through the process makes it a breeze.

Once you have dough rolled out nice and thin…let your kids use a football shaped cookie cutter and put each one two inches apart on a cookie sheet. Once your dough is all football-holey just roll it all up again and start over. By now your kids will be bored and you will most likely be alone in the kitchen. :side note – if you don’t have a football cutter just cute out oval shapes using sharp knife:

Bake cookies according to directions..cool and let the frosting madness begin. You should come out with something that looks something like this!