FREE eBook 26 Kid Friendly Recipes

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My Special No Bake Cookie Recipe

These are absolutely delicious!! They have always been a favorite of mine, and the fact that you don't have to bake them, makes them much better!! Especially for summertime cookies!

2 Cups of sugar
3 Tbsp of Cocoa powder
1/2 cup of butter
1/2 cup of milk
3 cups of old fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup of Jif creamy peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla


In a large saucepan, bring sugar, cocoa powder, butter, milk and salt, to a boil for 1 minute.
Add oats, peanut butter, and vanilla. Mix well and remove from heat.
Drop by teaspoonfuls onto wax paper and let cool.

I promise, if you are a chocolate and peanut butter fan, you will think these are super dreamy;)

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$10 Discover Card Pasta Salad Recipe Giveaway Winner!!

Leslie Davis caster won with her # being 37, she was closest to 39:)
I really appreciate all of the recipes and ideas!!
We are more then likely going to have them all!! Lol!
Thank you so much for entering and sharing!!
Leslie, will you please email me your shipping info at busymommylist@yahoo.com??
Thank you!!

Free Slow Cooker Recipe eBook

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30 cents off 2 Pilsbury Refrigerated Grands Biscuits and Donut Recipe for Kids!

This is another one of those products that can usually be found on sale for at least 2/$4.
This is also a fun product for my kids favorite donut recipe!!
Click here for the 30 cent off 2 Pilsbury Grands Biscuit coupon

Recipe for Aaron, Bethany, Genevive, and Deegan's Easy Sugar Donuts
2 packs of Grands Biscuits
Wesson oil (This is my pick, your favorite will do)
Frying pan, adult, tongs
Granulated sugar
Powdered sugar
Cinnamon sugar
Sprinkles, and any other toppings you choose
Kids
Lots of paper towels!!
A container or a few containers with lids! (My choice is Rubbermaid and Ziploc containers)


Heat oil in frying pan
Cut the biscuits into 4's, and shape into balls.
drop in hot oil, (this is where the adult comes in!), for a few minutes, pull out and place on plates covered in paper towels to catch the extra oil!
Let cool
Gather a few bowls, and dump the sugars in each, 1 for cinnamon sugar, 1 for powdered, and 1 for granulated sugar.
Place lots of paper towels around the kids sugar area!
When the donut holes are cooled enough, divide these up for the kids to dip and roll into sugar bowls, and place in containers.
Aaron's favorite recipe for his sugar coated donuts, is to place each donut hole, in all 3 sugars, and if I was nuts enough to also add a bowl of sprinles, he would also add those as well.

This is a fun recipe, and a neat way to hang out with your kids for a while.
We love to cook and bake together, and I am always trying to find recipes that are kid friendly! If you have any to share, please feel free to comment with your recipe idea, or blog link!!

Sausage with Peppers, Onions, and Tomatoes

Here is a bit healthier of a favorite dinner of ours.

Sausage is usually a bit cheaper and more often found on sale at my local store, Boyers. If I am lucky enough, and I get to Boyers on the right evenings throughout the week, I can pick up a few pounds of italian sausage, or peppers and onion sausage for a few dollars!

If the meat is has a date on it, within a day or even 3, most stores will put a store coupon on them, and a $3.49 pack of italian sausage, will end up being $1.49! So, this is when I will stock up our freezers like crazy!

Ingredients:

1-2 lbs Italian sausage (cut into 1" pieces)

1 large red pepper (chopped)

1 large green pepper (chopped)

1 large yellow pepper (chopped)

1 large orange pepper (chopped)

1 medium red or yellow onion (chopped)

1 can Del Monte Italian Diced Tomatoes

1 box Barilla pasta

Spray a large frying pan with nonstick cooking spray, over med high heat, fry sausage until no longer pink.

Cook and drain pasta as per instructions on box.

Add peppers and onions, cook for 5 minutes, stirring often

Add diced tomatoes and cook for about 5 more minutes.

Serve over pasta!

This is a very yummy dinner, and the vegetables add so much flavor! You may end up having to make this a weekly dinner at your house!

Peppers can tend to be expensive! So, if green peppers are cheaper where you shop, you can always switch the peppers up a bit, and maybe add 1 extra green pepper and omit a colored pepper, or buy from your local farmers market, or what my family does, is grow our own!

I am anxious to soon learn the art of canning and freezing our vegetables and fruit, so for now, we only have these eppers through gardening season. When I do learn canning and freezing, I hope to have a much bigger garden by next season, and we will be able to save a lot more through the colder months!

Another tasty recipe you can make with these ingredients, would be sausage with peppers and onions, as sandwiches!

Just omit the pasta of course, and add rolls!

If you don't have diced tomatoes, you can always substitute V8 for the tomato taste! This taste wonderful for the sandwiches!

Ham and Cheese Pasta

This is just another of our favorite dinners. It taste fabulous! Plus, it's not a very time consuming, homestyle meal.
I don't know the calories and things like that, I am sure I could figure that info out, I choose not to, lol, because I don't think I want to know.
We do also eat healthy meals, even if I am a fan of homestyle type dinners and casseroles, I do serve well balanced meals and the children will eat healthy snacks and breakfasts. Besides, who doesn't love macaroni and cheese?
I do have a killer homemade macaroni and cheese recipe, that I should be posting with pictures soon. (I may be making that this weekend). But this macaroni and cheese is a little different, and of course, you could always change the recipe around a little to your liking.
Ingredients;
2 or 3 Hatfield Ham Steaks (cubed)
1 - 1 and a half lbs Cooper Sharp cheese (sliced or cubed)
1 tbsp minced garlic
2 cups of milk
1 box Barilla Penne or Ziti pasta
2 tbsp butter

Preheat oven to 350. Butter a 13x9 baking dish.
Cook and drain pasta per instructions on box.
In a medium sized pot, melt butter over low heat.
Add minced garlic, (or fresh garlic), stir 2-3 minutes, add milk.
Stir over med high heat until the milk starts to boil, add cheese, a little at a time, stirring often.
When cheese sauce becomes thick and smooth, remove from heat.
Add ham and pasta in baking dish, pour cheese mixture over top.
Bake for about 30 minutes, or until top starts to get brown.

You could make this with any types of cheese, and even change the meat if you desire. I do make a similar dinner, with sausage and cheese.

Pepper Steak Recipe

I remember when I as a kid, my mom always bought these real yummy pepper steaks for dinner. They were already made with the peppers right in them, and i haven't seen these for a very long time.
So, I was real happy to have found a similar recipe a few years ago, and this dinner makes it on our menu sometimes twice per month!
Deegan loves the peppers the best, and the same with Genevive. Although, she really loves the steak parts too! Our 8 year old, Aaron, is super picky the last few years, (it is literally driving me crazy!!), but he will eat the steak and rice.
My husband was recently diagnosed with Celiac Disease, which is very hard to accommodate, but he insists on eating regular foods, and he needs to stop that. I am looking for some sort of gluten free rice and pastas that taste good, so if any of you know of any, please comment or contact me!! Anyway, he loves this recipe too.
I am not a big "exact measured person", lol, so I apologize for my menus and recipes, not having exact cups, tsps, tbsps, etc. But I do cook this way most of the time, and I think a lot of us do.

Pepper Steak with Brown Rice

2 1 - 2 lb sirloin tip steaks (cut into 1" cubes)
1 red pepper (chopped)
1 yellow pepper (chopped)
1 orange pepper (chopped)
1 medium sweet onion (chopped)
A couple tsps of minced garlic
Soy sauce
1 box Minute Brown Rice (follow directions on box)
Cooking spray

Spray large frying pan with cooking spray, add steak cubes. Cook for about 6 minutes over med-high heat, stir often.
Add garlic, stir and cook for 2 minutes.
Add peppers and onions, and reduce heat to medium, add soy sauce, and stir occasionally for about 5 minutes.
Serve over brown rice.

This recipe is also excellent when you are out of time! It is quick, and is a very filling dinner.
I choose sirloin steaks, but you can use whatever cut of meat your family likes best. There are times I also add green pepper, the peppers are also fine to mix up a bit to your liking.
Bbq sauce was in the original recipe for this meal, and I did use it, and I was the only one who liked it, so I have since omitted it. (I do sometimes add it to my own)

Genevive's Favorite Dinner to Help With in the Kitchen

This is another of our favorite meals, it has been so long since we started making this, I think it may have come from a Kraft magazine.
This is also a very easy and quick dinner to prepare, and is great for when you have little ones who like to help in the kitchen.
Genevive is 4, and she loves to cook and is actually a big helper with cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry!
Her favorite part is to help add the ingredients and stir. This specific recipe, needs 8 large eggs, beaten. So, Genevive always likes to do the eggs part!
She takes a Pyrex measuring cup and a fork, and mom breaks all the eggs for her, lol, and she stabs at the yolks and mushes them up with her fork. This also gives me time to cut the ham and gather the rest of the ingredients!
The ingredients needed are as follows;
2 Hatfield Ham Steaks (chopped) (we prefer maple flavor, but you can use 2 cups worth of your favorite ham)
8 large eggs, beaten
1 cup of Breakstone's sour cream
1 bag of Kraft shredded cheddar cheese
1 box of Stove Top Stuffing (right from the pkg! No need to make ahead!)
1 bag of frozen broccoli (strain frozen veggies in a strainer and run cool water on them! This helps a lot with keeping extra water out of your dishes!)

Preheat oven to 375
Spray baking dish with nonstick cooking spray (We found that Pyrex glass round bakeware works best for us!)
After the eggs are beaten, add the sour cream and stir (a good job for your little one!)
Add the broccoli and stove top and stir until mixed.
Add ham cubes, and some of the shredded cheddar and stir!
Bake uncovered for 45 minutes
Make sure the eggs are fully cooked!
Top with remaining cheddar cheese and cook 5 minutes or until cheese is melted.

I am sure there are a lot of variations you could use in this recipe!
We love this dish a lot and this is another that I can not expect to have leftovers from.
It's also a fairly cheap dish to make, and allows for more time to spend time with the kids, or cut out some coupons, since it only takes a few minutes to prepare!
I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as my family does.
Please leave comments or suggestions or share your variations you try!

Frying Pan Lasagna

This is one of my favorite dinners to make, and one of the kid friendly recipes I actually found! I serve this with salad and bread, and it's one of the few dinners when I can honestly say that, " The kids cleaned their plates!" I will do my best here with measurements, (as I mentioned before, I'm not good with that, as I just eye stuff up and go by taste and with how much more it looks like it needs, lol)

The ingrediants I list are the brands we use and love!

1 jar of Barilla pasta sauce

1 lb of hamburger

1 green pepper chopped

1 box of Ronzoni Garden Delight rotini, or 1 bag of Wacky Mac

1 cup of Wishbone Italian dressing

1 bag of Kraft shredded mozzarella  cheese

1 cup of water

brown hamburger in frying pan over medium high heat until brown, drain,

add Italian dressing and green peppers,

stir and cook for 5 minutes.

Add 1 cup of water, pasta sauce, pasta

cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add mozzarella cheese, cover, let simmer until cheese is melted.

See? It's simple, quick, and doesn't take a lot of ingrediants! Not to mention that the price per serving can easily be under $2 per person! (If you have the right coupons!!) The hamburger will normally be the most expensive, and the rest of the items, when bought on sale, and with coupons, can cost next to nothing! Making this a great weeknight meal!!

We do grab the veggies from our garden for the salad, and the green peppers for the lasagna come from there too!