Irish Braid Bread

February 5, 2021 Amanda Plott

With one of my favorite holidays coming up (St. Patrick’s Day) I thought it was about time to start rolling in a few fun takes on Irish dishes. One of our family favorite Irish bites has to be corned beef. It was actually one of the first meats that my picky-eater of a daughter would eat!

This Irish Braid Bread is sort of a take on an Irish infused Stromboli. It’s a croissant dough that’s wrapped (or braided) around corned beef, cooked spinach, red potatoes, and irish cheddar. Irish cheddar is another family favorite. It’s pretty freaking delicious and if you’ve never tried it, I highly recommend that you do so with this Irish Braid Bread…

Giant Chocolate Chip Unicorn Cookies

January 28, 2021 Amanda Plott

Immediately after I made my last batch of GIANT cookies, my kid was already asking me to make some more. Of course, I didn’t want to do them exactly the same, so today I decided to go with just colorful sprinkles and a variety of chocolate chips. That’s right, a variety. Big, regular, small. Some dark, some semi-sweet.

The end result was some more amazingly delicious GIANT cookies that had something different in every bite. Some bites were full of chocolate, others of sweet candy sprinkles, and then others were a delicious cookie.

Triple Chocolate Cheesecake (Instant Pot)

January 22, 2021 Amanda Plott

So, here’s the thing. Sometimes when you’re trying to eat better, feel better, and be better… you need to indulge a little bit. One of the many mantras that I try to keep in my own mind is that you can ‘eat whatever you want so long as you cook/make it yourself.’ I think the idea behind it is that you would burn off as many calories in making your food as you would eating it, or at least enough to counter balance it.

That means, today we’re having a Triple Chocolate Cheesecake and I’m not going to feel guilty about eating it. Why? Because I made it from scratch and I did my very best to make it better-for-you while still tickling that chocolate craving itch with all the richness and decadence that comes along with it….

Lazy Valentine Cookie Bars

January 14, 2021 Amanda Plott

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We all reserve the right to be a little lazy every so often, and with a quick trip planned for the weekend (followed by two weeks of self-quarantine) I’m feeling the laze take over. Either way, my daughter asked for some more cookies after all the GIANT Valentine Cookies from last week disappeared. Gee… I wonder how that happened…

Being as I was out of special Valentine sprinkles, and again… I’m being lazy, I thought I’d try my hand at a ‘lazy cookie bar’ recipe that was passed off to me. I did make one small change to lower the calorie count just slightly, but other than that it’s pretty much the same-same…

Giant Valentine Cookies

January 8, 2021 Amanda Plott

Nothing says ‘I love you’ quite like a GIANT cookie. these big cookies are about 4-5 regular sized cookies in ONE. BIG. COOKIE. And do you want to know a secret? They’re made with HALF the amount of sugar as the originals. That’s right, I was able to shave off half the sugar by making a couple of simple swaps.

The first swap that I made was subbing in a brown sugar/stevia blend for the regular brown sugar. I also swapped half of the original sugar for a granulated stevia. the important part here is the granulated part. While you could use any other natural sweetener that measures cup for cup like sugar, I prefer the granulated one since it doesn’t have the usual fake sweetener taste…

Vegetarian Biscuits & Gravy Breakfast Casserole

January 6, 2021 Amanda Plott

As is with most New Years, I don’t tend to change my diet up a whole hell of a lot. Though one thing that I do try and do is eat less meat. Especially less red meat. Thankfully these days there are a lot of meatless and meat free options out there. Even when it comes to sausage! That’s why I was able to make this casserole vegetarian with one simple swap.

This Vegetarian Biscuits & Gravy Breakfast Casserole is an absolutely delicious way to serve biscuits and gravy, or even have it on hand as a meal prep for breakfast through the week. (Which is what I did!) Really you could use any sausage you want, vegetarian or otherwise…