Quesadilla Wrap "Hack"

I don't look at TikTok very often unless one of my nieces shares something with me - so I'm not sure how I saw this idea but it's a TikTok 'hack' for an easy way to make quesadillas.  I tried it the other day for lunch and it does indeed work, although I'm not sure why it's any easier other than maybe when flipping it - and even with the folding hack I had stuff falling out! What I did like is eating it - hahaha, I mean I always like eating a quesadilla but folded up this way it was very easy to eat and I could get more ingredients in every bite. 

You make a quarter cut in one side of the tortilla, put fillings in the 4 quadrants, fold each section over the previous one and heat on the stovetop over medium heat until golden brown and heated thru. 

Obviously you can fill it with whatever things you like - I did Greek yogurt (in place of sour cream) and multigrain chips in the first section (lower left quadrant), tomatoes and onions in the second (upper left), no-fat refried beans in the third (top right), and queso cheese sauce and chopped spinach in the fourth (lower right).  Start by folding the first section (lower left) up over the second section (upper left), then keep folding over the third section (top right) and lastly over the fourth section (bottom right). 

Check out the photos below to see how to fold it:

10.2.20: popsicle stick frankenstein

10.2.19: spinach salad with dates and pita croutons

10.2.18: baggie wreath

10.2.17: caramel apple pudding shots

10.2.16: vegetable soup

10.2.15: bloody candles

Stuffed Eggplant

I've posted before about my not loving eggplant and then making a recipe with it, declaring that I now like it, and then forget how much I enjoy it - and here's another one. I intended to get bigger zucchini to stuff  but when I saw eggplants the other day at the store I decided to stuff them instead. This is sort of another one of my 'non-recipe' recipes, I just winged it with ground meat and spaghetti sauce - Dave and I both thought it turned out great so I'll share what I did:

• 2 medium eggplants
• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 1/2 jar spaghetti sauce
• Italian seasoning blend 
• salt and pepper
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan 

Cut the eggplants in half lengthwise, scrape out most of the inner flesh leaving about 1/2" border so the eggplant holds its shape. Chop the eggplant that you scooped out, put in a pan and cover with water, boil until soft 10-12 minutes. 

Meanwhile, season ground beef with salt and pepper and brown it in a pan over medium heat, chopping it into small crumbles. 

In a big bowl, mix together the cooked eggplant and cooked meat with spaghetti sauce, season with Italian seasoning blend. Adjust salt and pepper to taste. Add the egg, bread crumbs and 1/4 cup grated parmesan. Stuff the mixture evenly into the eggplant shells. Place in a baking dish sprayed with non-stick cooking spray; top with additional parmesan, bake at 350' for 50 minutes. 

other eggplant recipes I like:

breaded baked eggplant

roasted eggplant parmesan

eggplant lasagna

10.1.20: MSIH: italian meatball soup

10.1.19: TT: dividing batter

10.1.18: peeping tom pumpkin

10.1.16: coffee treat

10.1.15: mossy halloween wreath

TBT: Ham Butter (and Ham and Egg salad)

Here's my duh move for the day - I was flipping thru my old cookbook (remember some of the other 'throwback Thursday' recipes I've made from the cookbook? One was for 'alligator pears' - I'll put some links at the bottom so you can check them out again) looking for more recipes that I want to make. I came across one for 'ham butter' and since I have a package of ham cubes and boiled eggs I thought I'd give it a go. Here's where the duhhhh comes in - which part of 'ham butter' made me not realize there is actually butter in this until I already had the ham, eggs, and pepper in the food processor? 

The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of butter mixed together with ground ham and egg yolks! What the...

I could not bring myself to put the whole 1/2 cup of butter in cuz that just sounds gross. I did however add 1/4 cup of soft butter and olive oil spread (Costco, it's the best); not sure how much the extra butter would have changed the outcome but I did not particularly like this recipe and I'm pretty sure it's because I couldn't stop thinking about eating straight butter. 

I decided to turn this into more of a ham and egg salad by adding extra hard boiled eggs, ham, mayo and mustard, and chopped celery. That tasted much better (I just accidentally typed 'tasted much butter' LOL); I gave it to Dave for lunch and told him it was a little experiment - shhhhh I did not tell him about the butter hahahha - and he liked it. So there you go - maybe if you didn't know it has butter in it then it tastes good hahahahah.

Here's the recipe from 'The American Woman's Cook Book' from 1938 if you want to know what ham and butter combined tastes like:

• 1/2 cup cooked ham
• 1/2 cup butter
• yolks of 2 hard-cooked eggs
• pepper

Grind the ham and pound smooth with the butter and the yolks of the eggs and season with pepper. 

other 'Throwback Thursday' posts - I'm not sure why I quit doing these posts, they're fun:

alligator pears

cardinal salad

french dressing

orange cranberry ice

peanut butter stuffed potatoes (yep you read that right)

pear salad (the first of the TBT posts)

potted ham

southern spoon bread

9.30.20: german chocolate bars

9.30.19: confetti gift wrap

9.30.18: 🔥
9.30.17: drying herbs
9.30.16: cauliflower pizza
9.30.15: photo vase

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Here's my super secret recipe for the cookies I left as a bribe for my neighbors (read yesterday's post about how lame I am). I've been making these for years, the original recipe calls for raisins but that's just wrong (in my book LOL) so I substitute with chocolate chips. 

• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 t. vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 t. baking soda
• 1 t. cinnamon
• 1/2 t. salt (I use coarse)
• 3 cups oats (quick or old fashioned, uncooked - I use old fashioned)
• 1 cup chocolate chips

1. heat oven to 350'
2. beat together butter and sugars until creamy.
3. add eggs and vanilla; mix well.
4. add flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; mix well.
5. stir in oats and raisins; mix well.
6. drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet (I line with parchment paper).
7. bake 10-12 minutes or until golden brown (I measure the dough using my small cookie scoop and they bake for approx 8 minutes).
8. cool 1 minute on cookie sheet; remove to a wire rack.

Makes about 4 dozen. (using my small cookie scoop I get about 56) 

PS: ok, ok, this is not a super secret recipe - it's straight from the canister of Quaker Oats! 

Tip-sy Tuesday: make a paper plate bowl (and a story about my neighbors!)

Quick little small world story and a gift hack for today -  my sister and b-i-l moved to new seats for MSU football, got chatting with the people sitting next to them and figured out they live right across the street from us. Random, right? What are the chances? And then get how lame I am - they've lived there for over a year and even though we wave I've never talked to them. So when Jen was telling me all about my nice neighbors I'm feeling like an idiot for not welcoming them to the neighborhood!

Although side note - in my defense they did move in around the start of Covid and then they put in a pool so I felt like if I went over and introduced myself at that point it was going to look like I just wanted to swim at their house LOL. 

Yesterday I made some cookies and a note saying 'how bad I feel for being so lame and here's some cookies so you'll forgive me' hahahha. I wanted to just leave them in their mailbox as a little surprise, and made a bowl out of a paper plate for the cookie container instead of just putting a baggie of cookies in the mailbox. 

This takes just a minute to do. Think of the plate as having 4 sides and fold the 4 edges into a square. Make 2 cuts on the edges across from each other, creating 2 flaps. Fold the flaps in, then fold the sides of the plate over the flaps and tape to hold in place (I tried using a stapler but that didn't work very good). Check out the pics for a visual of what I'm trying to say:

This is actually cuter in person then in the above pics - the cookies weren't bulging out of the bowl like they appear to be doing here hahahah. I thought about tying a ribbon around it but decided this was enough. 

Kyle's Charcuterie Board/Centerpiece

Kyle made me this board and it's so cool I had to share - it's meant to be a charcuterie board (you know, loaded up with meat/cheese/fruit/etc) but it's so pretty I didn't want to store it out of sight and turned it into a centerpiece for my dining room table. 

He cut out 2 circle wells to hold small glass jars for sauces or whatever - for the centerpiece I put small votive candles in the jars instead. I love this SO much - it's decor for most of the year, then a practical serving piece when I make an appetizer plate. 

🔥 Around the Campfire (week 39)

 Dear Campers ~

Here's a quick recap of what happened at camp last week in case you missed anything:

Posts ~

9/19: 🔥week 38

9/20: 30 minute tomato sauce

9/21: tip-sy tuesday: microwaving couscous

9/22: crockpot london broil stroganoff

9/23: necktie pillow

9/24: sprinkle sandwich cookies

9/25: chocolate sandwich cookies

What's Cooking ~

• tuna noodle casserole, roasted green beans
• grilled marinated chicken, chopped kale salad, steamed broccoli
• pasta with 30 minute tomato sauce (see above), green salad
• grilled pork chops, roasted baby potatoes, roasted green beans
• chicken pot pie
• lobster ravioli (Costco) with alfredo sauce, caesar salad

Note: it was a 'comfort' food kind of week! Fall is here and brought a couple chilly, rainy days - we don't usually eat pasta 3 times in a week...

That's it for this week - hope you'll stop back often to see more recipes, crafts, whatever I can think of and have time to make! Have a great week!

Sincerely ~

Jill

camp counselor

Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

In addition to yesterday's sprinkle sandwich cookies I also made this chocolate version for LeDonna's b-day. It's just double chocolate cookies (I used a mix) filled with chocolate buttercream, rolled in toasted coconut and chopped pecans.  

I forgot to take a picture before packaging them up for her, I opened the bag before she left and snapped a    quick one so you can see the final product! 

Toasting the coconut and pecans really brings out their flavor and only takes a couple minutes. You can toast them in the oven on a sheet pan,  but since I didn't need a large amount I toasted them in a pan on the stovetop, low heat, stir often and watch closely so they don't burn. 

Sprinkle Sandwich Cookies

I usually make something German chocolate-y for LeDonna's birthday but this year asked her if there's something else she'd like since another good friend made her a German chocolate cake and I kinda figured there's only so much German chocolate cake one person can eat for their birthday hahahha. She requested cookies, and left what kind up to me. 

I was inspired to make these sandwich cookies after visiting a local bakery while cake testing for Mickey's wedding and spotting something similar in the counter - their's were huge tho and even tho I know LeDonna likes sweets I can't imagine how many servings one of the bakery cookies would be hahahah, so I scaled these down!

Make sugar cookies using whatever recipe you like (or cheat and buy a mix like I did LOL) and add sprinkles to the dough. I used my medium cookie scoop and dropped the dough onto parchment lined baking sheets, bake and cool. Match the cookies up as best you can, frost the bottom of one cookie and top with another cookie making a sandwich. Roll the edges in sprinkles. In the above picture I experimented with how much frosting to use, I ended up going with more frosting like the cookie on the left.

Good thing L likes sweets cuz as I'm assembling them I'm thinking 'here, let's put some sugar on the sugar and roll in more sugar' LOL!! Super sweet!

Necktie Pillow

Here's a fun thing I made a long time ago - even tho it's not new it's still a fun project to make use of old ties. Dave has SO many ties from corporate life that he no longer wears, I wonder if he'll give me a few so I can make more of these tie pillows?! 

These are pretty, colorful, interesting, and unique items to decorate with, but also make a nice memory gift if someone you know retires or no longer needs all their old ties - wouldn't this be a cool retirement gift? Sort of like a memory quilt, only with neckties (and much quicker to make than a quilt hahaha).

Depending on the width of the ties you are working with, cut them into lengths and piece together. These ties were quite wide so I alternated wide part at top with wide part at bottom to make the pillow top as square as possible. Sew together however many you need to make the desired size of the pillow leaving a a couple extra inches on all sides; once sewn together take a straight edge and trim all 4 sides to make a square leaving a seam allowance so you can attach the tie pillow top to the backing of your choice. I cut the same size backing out of fleecy material, sew front and back with right sides together leaving a gap so you can turn the pillowcase right side out. After turning it right sides out, stuff with the filling of your choice and hand sew the gap shut.