Cream Cheese-Stuffed, Streusel-Topped, Cranberry Orange Mini Muffins

A few years ago, I started hosting a Christmas brunch for my family every Christmas. It's always so much fun, and I try to keep the menu very simple so it doesn't become stressful. I make a Crock pot breakfast casserole and some muffins, and my sister brings her French toast casserole. I serve things I can make ahead of time, and never have I been more glad about that than last year.

I can't remember if I mentioned it here, but last Christmas Eve, I was struck with a horrible, terrible, no-good stomach bug. It was so awful. I was stuck at home in bed, feeling miserable, while my family was celebrating without me. Thankfully, I'd prepared everything for our brunch the next morning earlier in the day before I got sick, so I didn't have to cancel it. I didn't feel like eating much on Christmas morning, but I was so happy to just be with my family at that point!

Sorry for talking about sickness in a post about food, but all of that was to say: I made these muffins for Christmas brunch last year, and they were ah-mazing. Like seriously, seriously delicious. As I mentioned, I like to keep things easy for this particular celebration, so these muffins start with boxed mix that is jazzed up with the additions of a sweetened cream cheese filling and a delectable orange-pecan streusel. I don't typically bake muffins from a box, but I was so surprised by how well these came out and how fresh they tasted. They're the perfect balance of sweet and tart and such a festive way to start Christmas morning...or any morning, really.

Cream Cheese-Stuffed, Streusel-Topped, Cranberry Orange Mini Muffins

slightly adapted from StoneGable

For the muffins:

 

1 box cranberry-orange muffin mix (I used Krusteaz Light)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon orange zest

For the filling:

 

8 ounces cream cheese

3 tablespoons confectioners sugar

1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon orange zest

For the streusel:

1 cup flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans
6 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon orange zest 

1. Preheat oven according to muffin mix recipe. Spray two 24-cup mini muffin pans with nonstick cooking spray. Mix muffin recipe as directed, adding vanilla and orange zest. 

2. In a seperate bowl, add all filling ingredients and beat on high with a mixer for 1 minute. 

3. In a third bowl, mix all topping ingredients with a pastry cutter or fork. The butter should be well-incorporated and the topping should be crumbly. 

4. Add a tablespoon of the muffin batter to each mini muffin cup (about half full). Add 1 teaspoon of the filling to the center of the muffin batter in the cups. Top with another tablespoon of the muffin batter. Top each muffin with crumb topping. 

5. Bake according to box directions, minus about 5 minutes for mini muffins. When done, cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Take muffins out of pan and let cool completely.

 

November Re-Make Recap

I hope you all had a very Happy Thanksgiving with your friends and family! Sorry for the lack of posts last week, but I took a little break so I could focus on the holiday. 

I'm one of those people who waits until after Thanksgiving to switch to Christmas mode, since Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. However, as of today, we are in the Christmas state of mind. We put up and decorated our tree today, our Elf on the Shelf arrives tomorrow morning, and the boys are busy coming up with a variety of random things for their Christmas lists (right now, Andrew's list consists of a snow globe, a magic wand that does real magic, and a hamster. Good luck, Santa!). Someone posted on Facebook last night that there are only three weekends left until Christmas, which gave me heart palpitations. I feel like that's very not much time at all to squeeze in all of the my favorite Christmastime activities, but I'm sure we'll manage.

The recap this month is a bit light, since I found myself turning to really simple dinners (spaghetti, pancakes, sausage and potato hash, and yes, frozen pizza) quite a bit. My-kids-are-guaranteed-to-eat-it sorts of dinners. And frankly, those are some of my favorites too.

These shredded pork po' boys are one of my absolute favorite sandwiches. The pork is so flavorful and succulent, and the sauce is so creamy and spicy. Those two elements come together to make one messy, delicious sandwich. I can't wait to show you what I did with the pork leftovers this time around.

 

Every year, the facility where Will has preschool and Andrew has before- and after-kindergarten enrichment hosts a Thanksgiving feast for all of the kids 3 and up. This was Will's first year participating, and since I had to supply something for two kids' classes, I wanted to make the same thing for both boys to take. I immediately thought of these pumpkin cinnamon chip drop cookies, since the recipe makes a ton of cookies. I used white chocolate chips instead of cinnamon chips, since I can only find cinnamon chips at one store around here (ridiculously...) and I didn't want to make a special trip. They were good with the white chocolate chips, but a bit too sweet for my tastes. I definitely prefer them with the cinnamon chips.

I made this spicy sausage dip twice this month, which is about average. We just love this stuff. One night, when my mother-in-law had the boys, we ate this for dinner (because we go a little wild when we're kid-free). I also made it earlier today for the OSU/Michigan game, and ate a ton of it. And then I ended up regretting that, because I felt a little queasy throughout that entire game because the score was so close. The dip was delicious though, and so was the (very narrow) victory for the Buckeyes!

 

My family can't get enough of this chicken parmesan pasta and honestly, I really can't either. I love that this tastes exactly like chicken parm, but takes a fraction of the time to prepare. This is always a favorite in our house.

Speaking of favorites, it had been way too long since I'd made one of my childhood favorites: my mom's shredded chicken sandwiches. In fact, it had been so long since I'd made them, that I don't think either of the boys had ever tried them. We at these sandwiches two nights in a row (at their request!) because they loved them so much. These sandwiches are comfort food at its finest, plain and simple.

 

I turned this classic fried rice into a meal by upping the amount of eggs and adding about half a pound of chicken that I chopped, sauteed, and let finish cooking in soy sauce and honey. What I love the most about this recipe is that it uses up odds and ends I always have lying around: a little bit of rice, a couple of eggs, a handful of peas, a carrot, etc. 

I don't host Thanksgiving, so it's always a very relaxing holiday for me. Now that I think about it, that may partly be why it's my favorite holiday! I always make a couple of contributions to the meal, and they really never change: Mom's sweet potato casserole and the ever-popular broccoli salad. I think the sweet potato casserole just gets better and better every year, and I know you've heard me rave enough about the broccoli salad. I added honey-roasted almonds and dried cranberries to it this time to make it a little bit more festive (I just bought one of those salad packets in the produce section), and those were both delicious additions. 

Five-Ingredient Caramel Tassies

I posit that there are no cookies cuter than tassies. What could possibly be more adorable than a little cookie cup filled with sweet ingredients? I mean, even the name is too precious for words.

Not only are these cookies adorable and delicious; they're also incredibly simple. Those sweet cookies, in that picture up there? They're made with only five ingredients. Butter, cream cheese, flour, caramel sauce, and mini chocolate chips -- that's it. This fact alone makes them worth adding to your Christmas cookie trays. When you make as many types of cookies as I do (and believe me, I make a lot, as you'll see over the course of the next month or so), you really start to appreciate the super-simple-but-still-yummy-and-impressive-looking cookies. That's exactly what these caramel tassies are. They're just the best.

Five-Ingredient Caramel Tassies
adapted from Taste of Home

1 cup butter, softened
6 ounces cream cheese, softened
3 cups flour
Prepared caramel sauce
Miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. In a large bowl, cream butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy. Gradually add flour and mix well. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour or until easy to handle.

2. Roll dough into 1-inch balls; press onto the bottom and up the sides of ungreased miniature muffin cups. Prick bottoms with a fork. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 to 17 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.

3. Fill each cup with caramel sauce and sprinkle with chocolate chips. Store in the refrigerator. Makes 4 dozen tassies.

Leftover Pot Roast Patty Melts

Inevitably, one of the first things people say to me when they discover that I have two sons is, "Just wait until the teenage years! Your grocery bill is going to skyrocket!" What I want to tell people when they say this is, Going to skyrocket? What is this going to you speak of? Since my older son turned five, my grocery bill has already skyrocketed. 

I don't know what is with Andrew lately, but it's like he has a hollow leg. It's the growth spurt that seems unending. He can eat and eat and eat and then ten minutes later, he's ready to eat again. It's like I already live with a teenager. You wouldn't believe the amount of food we go through in a week.

Since we're on a budget, it's been important for me to continue with my "make it once, use it a bunch of times" food philosophy so there is more room in the grocery column for Andrew's voracious appetite. 'Tis the season for pot roast, so when I made one in the Crock pot recently, I decided to use the leftovers in a couple of different ways. These patty melts were the first use, and in my mind, they may just be the best use of leftovers ever. I mean, come on. Look at all that gooey cheese.

You can use your favorite pot roast recipe for these sandwiches; this is ours. You can also use whatever type of cheese you like. The one thing I wouldn't skip is the special sauce (a combination of mayonnaise, steak sauce, and Worcestershire); it totally makes these sandwiches.

Give these a try, and I guarantee you that before you know it, you'll be making pot roast just so you can use the leftovers for patty melts.

Leftover Pot Roast Patty Melts

For the sandwiches:

2 cups leftover pot roast
8 slices sturdy bread
3 tablespoons butter, plus more for the bread
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
8 ounces sliced button mushrooms
2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
8 slices Colby cheese (or Swiss, or provolone, etc.)

For the sauce:

1/2 cup mayonnaise
3 tablespoons steak sauce (like A1)
Dash Worcestershire sauce

1. Re-heat the pot roast in the microwave. Butter one side of all 8 slices of bread.

2. Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a large skillet. Add onions and mushrooms and cook over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until onion is softened and mushrooms are browned. Add garlic; season with salt and pepper and cook and stir for 30 seconds. Remove from heat.

3. Heat a griddle over medium-high heat. Place a slice of cheese on the unbuttered side of 4 slices of bread. Top each slice with 1/2 cup of the pot roast, a generous portion of the onion and mushroom mixture, and the other slice of cheese. Repeat with all four sandwiches and top with the other slice of bread, buttered side out. Grill, flipping once, until both sides are browned and crispy.

4. Combine all sauce ingredients. Serve the sauce with the patty melts.

Brown Sugar Ranch Carrots

My boys are both pretty good eaters and generally aren't very picky. However, like all kids, they definitely go through phases. Out of the blue, Will will turn up his nose at broccoli, insisting that he has never liked it, when he was gobbling it up the week before. Andrew will pick every single onion out of whatever he's eating with the most distasteful expression on his face, or inform me that he will no longer eat spaghetti because the sauce is made of tomatoes, and tomatoes are not yummy, Mommy. I know all of you moms out there understand exactly how this feels.

Thankfully, there is one vegetable they will eat at all times, in any way, shape, or form: carrots. They will eat them raw, steamed, roasted, or pureed. In fact, Andrew just walked in here at this very moment, looked at the photo on the computer screen, and said, "Oh, YUM." Carrots, man. They're a guaranteed hit around here.

This particular carrot dish couldn't be any simpler or more delicious. Carrots are steamed until tender, then tossed in a mixture of melted butter, ranch seasoning mix, and brown sugar. I think this is probably the best way to eat carrots, ever.

Brown Sugar Ranch Carrots
slightly adapted from Chef in Training

16 ounces baby carrots
5 tablespoons butter, melted
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 packet of ranch seasoning mix

1. Steam the carrots until fork-tender. Place in a serving dish.

2. In a small bowl, combine the melted butter, brown sugar, and ranch seasoning. Pour the mixture over the carrots and stir to coat evenly. Serve warm.