Giveaway: Pampered Chef Mini Measure-All Cup

Near to Nothing would like to announce its first ever giveaway!!!!  That's right, we're giving away a Pampered Chef Mini Measure-All Cup!!!  While these definitely aren't a kitchen necessity, they do come in quite handy.  They can be used to measure peanut butter for Tagalongs or Peanut Butter Bars.  You can also use them to measure honey when you're making granola bars.  Trust me, it's much easier to use than scraping sticky ingredients out of a normal measuring cup.  Plus you can measure liquids!

To enter, follow these simple steps:

1. If you haven't already done so, "Like" Near to Nothing on Facebook.
2. Post a link to this post on your Facebook page, telling all your friends how great Near to Nothing is and that they can enter too (this is a shameless plug).
3. Go to the Discussion page on Near to Nothing's Facebook page and leave us a comment in the Pampered Chef Giveaway thread.  

Next Thursday we will randomly select one winner whom we will notify via Facebook. 

And now for the nitty gritty rules:

• Only one entry per person.
• Open only to residents of the United States.  (Our apologies to our international readers...it just costs too much to ship internationally.)
• No family members of Near to Nothing authors may enter (sorry!).
• You must have an active Facebook account to enter.

Tagalongs and Teasers

It's that time of year.  You cookie lovers know what I'm talking about.  The time of year when the Girl Scouts are out selling those yummy cookies.  I do enjoy Girl Scout cookies, but there's really no room in our budget for them.  My favorites are the thin mints and tagalongs, so I was super excited when I came across a recipe to make Tagalongs at home!  These are a bit time-consuming, but to me it's worth it for a special treat (especially since I find baking to be really relaxing and fun).

Just as a disclaimer, I'm not in any way posting this recipe to discourage people from buying Girl Scout cookies.  I'm just posting it because it's a delicious recipe and not all of us can afford to buy boxes of cookies....and Girl Scout cookies are only available once a year, so these can help get you through from one year to the next!

Tagalongs
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
Scant 1/2 tsp salt (that means slightly less than 1/2 tsp)
3 cups flour
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup powdered sugar
4 cups chocolate chips
1/2 - 1 Tbsp shortening

In the bowl of a mixer, cream butter until smooth; add sugar and cream well.  Add vanilla and egg; mix until smooth.  With the mixer on low, add the flour and salt, mixing until all the flour is incorporated and the dough is uniform.

Shape the dough into a long roll, about 2-3 inches in diameter and wrap in wax paper.  Freeze for 30 minutes or refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

I put it in the wax paper and just worked it until I got a long cylinder (see below).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Remove dough from freezer or refrigerator.  Slice the dough into 1/8-inch-thick discs.

Place about 1/2-inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 8 to 12 minutes, or until cookies are baked through.  Place on a cooling rack until completely cool.

Mix peanut butter and powdered sugar.

I found that the best way to mix it was to use my hands.  I started out with a spoon, then used my hands once it wasn't so sticky.

Press a small amount of the peanut butter mixture onto each baked and cooled cookie.  I found that the easiest way to do this was to roll the peanut butter mixture into a ball, place it on the cookie, and carefully work it out to the edges with my fingers.

Melt chocolate and shortening; adjusting shortening to reach desired consistency (more shortening=thin chocolate; less shortening=thick chocolate).  Carefully dip each cookie into the chocolate.  Allow excess chocolate to drip off, then place on wax paper to harden.  You can speed up this process by putting them in the refrigerator or freezer.

That takes care of the Tagalongs part.  Now for the teaser.  Come back tomorrow for a special Thursday post regarding some exciting news!!!  You won't want to miss it!

Emily's Tea Party Fruit Punch

We don’t drink juice or soda in our house on a regular or even semi-regular basis.  That’ll have to be an entirely separate post.  I only buy juice or soda for special occasions, and only some special occasions at that.  A few weekends ago it was Robbie’s birthday, so I decide to make punch to go with our special birthday dinner.  I decided to go with Emily's tea party fruit punch.

A few weeks before Christmas, my friend Emily hosted a Christmas tea party.  While we did have a wide selection of teas from which to choose, she also had a delicious fruit punch.  I liked it and knew Robbie would love it so I asked her for the recipe.  The problem was, I only wrote it down mentally.  Ha!  I don’t know what I was thinking.  I’m still high on nursing hormones and am still experiencing pregnancy brain.  So of course I forgot the ingredients.  I did remember that she had mixed two types of juice concentrates and something fizzy.

Last month when I was hosting my Near to Nothing Pampered Chef party, I wanted to make her punch.  I sent her a message via the internet to get the exact ingredients.  Unfortunately, her response to me got lost in cyberspace.  So without her recipe, I guessed, using the parts of the recipe I did remember.  I ended up with a completely different punch, but still very good.

I will give both recipes here, starting with Emily’s original.  Both juices she used were Old Orchard 100% juice frozen concentrates (12 oz. each).  She served it in a pretty dispensing jar with ice and pomegranate seeds mixed in—it looked great!

Note:  when I bought the ingredients to take the photos for this post, they didn’t have apple cranberry so I substituted apple raspberry.  Take home lesson:  just mix two juices and add something fizzy.

Emily’s Fruit Punch

1 can apple cranberry juice concentrate

1 can apple cherry juice concentrate

6 cans club soda

Mix all ingredients in large pitcher.  Yield:  3 quarts  Cost:  about $3

If you don’t have a pitcher or beverage container for a full batch, just halve it.  All the photos here are of a half recipe.  And don’t worry about measuring to get exactly half a can of each—just eyeball it.  I poured roughly half of one juice in the pitcher, then filled the bottle full with the other juice.  Now I have one pre-mixed, ready to go in the fridge.  I then poured the remainder of the second juice into the pitcher and used that bottle to measure the soda.

I used Langer’s frozen juice concentrates (11.5 oz. each) and diet lemon lime soda.  I chose to use diet because the juice already has a lot of sugar.

Sumiko’s Fruit Punch

1 can apple juice concentrate

1 can kiwi strawberry juice concentrate

6 cans diet lemon lime soda

Mix all ingredients in large pitcher.  Yield:  3 quarts  Cost:  about $3

Baby Food: Yams, Green Beans, and Kangaroo Kisses

This week’s baby food adventures:  green beans and yams!!  Or were they sweet potatoes?  It all depends on who you ask.  A botanist would say I fed her sweet potatoes; the produce manager at the grocery store would say I fed her yams.  Regardless of what you call them, April loved them!  And I will henceforth refer to them as yams.  (If you’re really interested in the confusion over nomenclature, see the Wikipedia articles on yams and sweet potatoes.)

When choosing yams in the produce department, I pick fatter ones rather than more slender ones.  They have a higher flesh to skin ratio which means less work for more edible flesh.

Yams

Yams

Preheat oven to 400°.  Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil.  Pierce yams with fork and place on baking sheet.

Bake 45 to 60 minutes or until easily pierced with fork.

Don't skip the foil!!  The sugary ooze from the yams is hard
to clean off the baking sheet if it cools.

Remove from oven and let cool slightly.  Peel skin off flesh.

Place flesh in bowl and mash with fork or potato masher.

The stringiness of mashed yams is not Boon-friendly.

For a smoother consistency, purée in a food processor.

Pureed yams are Boon-friendly.

When feeding your baby orange foods such as yams, always be sure to include a variety of non-orange foods in his/her diet.  Too many orange foods can cause your baby’s skin to turn orange.  This completely harmless and temporary condition is called carotenemia and is caused by a build-up of beta-carotene.  If your baby’s skin does start to turn orange, simply withhold orange foods until normal skin color returns.

Not wanting April to turn into an oompa loompa, I also made green beans this week.  Because green beans aren’t very sweet, they are more likely to be rejected than other veggies.  April liked them after a few bites, but if your baby does not like them, you can mix them in with veggies she does like.

Green Beans

Frozen green beans

Cook green beans until very tender.  Transfer to food processor, reserving cooking liquid.  Process until fine enough for baby to eat, adding reserved cooking water as needed.

So what’s with kangaroo kisses?  You’ll have to watch this video of my adorable kids to find out.

Chicken Spaghetti Casserole

Last week, I made Pioneer Woman's Chicken Spaghetti.  It wasn't on my meal plan and I didn't decide to make it until about 4:00 in the afternoon.  Talk about last minute planning.  Anyway, it ended up working out great, because I was able to use up some of the ingredients I had on hand that may have not otherwise found a use.  Granted, it's not the healthiest meal out there, but it can be made inexpensively and it feeds a lot.  And the bonus: my husband LOVED it!

It does call for two cans of condensed cream soups, which can be pricey.  I wrote a while back about stocking up on these when they're at a good price.  I still had some of these in my pantry, so just whipped them out.

The original recipe calls for a whole cut-up fryer.  Since the chicken's just going to be boiled and picked off the bone anyway, it would be much cheaper to use a whole chicken or any chicken pieces you happen to have in your freezer.  I altered her recipe a bit, so here's my version.

Chicken Spaghetti Casserole
Chicken pieces or whole chicken (enough to get 2 cups chopped chicken)
1 lb uncooked spaghetti, broken into 2-inch pieces
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/4 cup each green bell pepper and red bell pepper, chopped small
1/2 cup onion, chopped
2 cups grated cheddar, divided
2 cups broth from cooking chicken
1 tsp seasoned salt
1/8 - 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper to taste

Place chicken in a large stock pot; cover with water and boil until chicken is cooked through.  If you're using boneless, skinless chicken, add a little chicken bouillon to the water.  Place chicken on a plate and set aside.  Once the chicken is cool enough to handle, remove it from the bone and cut into bite-size pieces.

These chicken legs had been in my freezer for a couple months.  I'm not sure that they would've gotten used had it not been for this recipe!

Cooked and ready to shred!

Remove two cups of broth from the stock pot; set aside.  Bring the remaining broth from the chicken to a boil.  Add the spaghetti and cook until al dente, being careful not to overcook the noodles as they will continue to cook a little while longer in the oven.  Place drained noodles in a large mixing bowl.  Add soups, chicken, peppers, onion, seasoned salt, black pepper, 1 1/2 cup cheese, and cayenne to the noodles; mix well.  Add up to two cups of the reserved broth.  Taste and adjust seasonings accordingly.

The bell peppers were leftover from something else I made.  Again, this recipe was great for helping me use up some extra ingredients I had on hand!

At this point, you'll want to taste it and adjust your seasonings accordingly.

 Put the mixture into a 9 x 13 baking pan and top with remaining 1/2 cup cheddar.  Cover and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30-40 minutes.  Remove foil and bake for additional 5-10 minutes, or until bubbly.

To make ahead of time, you can assemble the casserole and refrigerate until ready to bake.  You will need to make some adjustments to your baking time if you're putting it into the oven cold.