I love Hollandaise Sauce.  It tastes so rich and lovely drizzled over everything from lightly steamed vegetables to my favorite Old Fashioned Salmon Loaf.

Of course part of the reason it tastes so rich is because the typical recipe calls for 4 egg yolks and a full stick of butter.  And you’ve got to use a double boiler–a piece of kitchen equipment in this day of microwaves that many home makers don’t even own.

So over the years I’ve resorted to using those little powdered packets of Hollandaise mix. . . but they have been steadily creeping up in cost over the last few years.

In my quest to replace them I found this interesting Mock Hollandaise recipe.  I’ll be honest-it really doesn’t hold a candle to real Hollandaise.  It’s thicker-more of a thin sour cream texture than a drizzle-y Hollandaise.  You aren’t going to fool anyone into thinking that it is the original.  However if you enjoy it for what it is-a thick, rich sauce that you can whip up in just a few moments from ingredients that you always have on hand–then you’ll be able to enjoy it.

These “Light and Tasty Cornmeal Biscuits” are a wonderful drop biscuit to pair with a bowl of soup or a salad. They are much lighter than a typical cornbread but have a little more “tooth” than a typical biscuit. I love the fact that they are drop biscuits-which eliminates the entire messy “rolling and cutting” step.

Even if you have folks in your family who are not fond of cornbread I urge you to give these biscuits a try-they are a much more delicate flavor!

If you are looking for a more standard cornbread recipe, be sure to try my Sweet Northern Cornbread.  Of course both my Pizza Hut Crust Clone recipe and my Apple Bread both use a bit of cornmeal to give more texture and flavor as well!

Want a quick, easy, elegant and “oh by the way” inexpensive way to jazz up your Easter Brunch?  Or any brunch, breakfast or get together for that matter?

Why not try Fruit Butters!

I thought this was the perfect idea up to try for this month’s Walmart Mom Easter Brunch challenge!  The ingredients are uber simple:

All you need is unsalted butter and the jam of your choice.  I’m try to eat as little processed food as possible, so decided to go with the “simply fruit” versions of the jams to keep mine as natural as possible!  Of course you can use salted butter instead in a pinch-but remember to take the salt into consideration for your flavorings.

Now this recipe is so simple you almost can’t call it a recipe.  You are making what a chef would call a “compound butter”.  In layman’s terms that is just adding a flavoring to a butter.  Here’s how you do it:

First I brought the butter to room temperature so it was soft and mixable.  If you have hard butter and are in a rush you can microwave it in 5-10 second bursts, flipping the butter as you go.  But be careful-you are likely to wind up with melted butter instead of softened butter if you are not careful.  Not the same thing at all.

Then I simply added a huge dollop of the fruit jam and mixed well.

Viola!  Fruit butter!  I made mine in apricot and raspberry.  Then for fun I took some maple syrup out of the fridge and made maple butter as well.

You’ve got something tasty and elegant in no time flat.  The kids really liked the maple best, with the raspberry second.  I love the raspberry-but I’m a raspberry fiend. . .it’s my favorite fruit ever.  I liked the apricot second best-I guess the kids just don’t have a taste for that.

This butter can be made up ahead of time and stored in the fridge for a long time-pretty much as long as you’d feel comfortable storing either butter or jam.  Which for most people is darn near indefinitely.

If you don’t use it all, or want it to last even longer-no problem.  It freezes really well!  Just take your softened fruit butter, put it on a rectangle of wax paper, roll it up and twist the ends.  You’ve got a nice little tube of fruit butter-just remember to label it.

To use it you can either defrost it and put it back into a nice bowl-or you can just slice it frozen.

Have you ever made fruit butter? What’s your favorite flavor?

****This is a sponsored post****

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post I am participating in with the Walmart Moms. Walmart has provided me with compensation for this post. My participation is voluntary and opinions, as always are my own.

Rainbow jello is one of my Mother-in-law’s signature deserts that frequently is requested for family gatherings and pot luck type situations.  I remember when my sister in law graduated from massage therapy school almost 10 years ago her one request was to have this made for her graduation party!

So when Walmart challenged me this month to make a special meal or desert for St. Patrick’s Day I couldn’t resist!  I knew it would be hard to find something as impressive as my Rainbow Cake last year–so I just had to try Rainb0w Jello!

Rainbow jello is very simple to make-it only takes a few ingredients and I promise that all of you can do this! What you really need much more than skill is time-each layer (and there are 12) needs a minimum of 15 minutes to set in your fridge-and 20 is even better!

Ingredients:

Water
Sour Cream
Jello in rainbow colors:

 Red-Strawberry
Orange-Orange
Yellow-Pineapple
Green-Lime
Blue-Red Raspberry
Violet-Grape

For this project you are going to need to clear out a nice level spot in your fridge that you can fit a 9X13 pan in without tilting!

To start off go ahead and either lightly grease the pan with baking spray or else be prepared to remove the jello when done by setting your entire pan into a pan of hot water for a couple of seconds which is my preferred method.

Place your prepared pan into the fridge to get nice and cold.

Method:

1.  Dissolve 1 small package of jello in 1 cup of hot water, stirring for 2 minutes.
2.  Pour 2/3C of the jello into the pan and put it in the fridge.

3.  Mix remaining 1/3 cup with 2/3 cup sour cream

4. After the 1st layer of jello has set for 15 minutes (20 is even better) pour the sour cream/jello layer on top.
5.  Chill for another 15-20 minutes.
6.  Repeat with next color.

Be very careful pouring your additional layers on-the hot jello will start to pit and melt the layer underneath–the longer it’s chilled in between the easier it is to work with.

As you can see, if you have 6 colors this process while very very easy will take you 1 1/2 hours to get all the layers done using the minimum time of 15 minutes. Of course if you leave MORE time in between layers it won’t hurt anything.

7.  Once all the layers are poured chill for a minimum of 2 hours.
8. Cut into squares and serve, or un-mold entire pan of Rainbow Jello

Variations:
Instead of sour cream you can use whipped topping or yogurt.
You can skip the pastel sour cream layer all together.
You can use whatever color combinations you like-how about red and green for Christmas, Purple and Orange for Halloween, or you school’s colors for a graduation or homecoming party!

****This is a sponsored post****

Disclosure: This is a sponsored review I am participating in with the Walmart Moms. Walmart has provided me with compensation for this post. My participation is voluntary and opinions, as always are my own.

I am a good 1/4 Italian.  My maternal great grandmother Louisa was straight off the boat from Italy-she supported herself as a dressmaker when she first arrived in this country until she married Oscar Guilliamoni, who was a cordon bleu trained chef.  You would think all that fantastic cooking heritage would be genetic, but apparently their daughter, my maternal grandmother Ethel, could burn canned peas.  My mom learned to cook in self defense and is an excellent cook-although she learned more from her German grandmother.

Yeah, that’s right, I’m a regular America Heinz 57 mix when it comes to ethnicity!

Anyway, I didn’t get to grow up watching anyone make “authentic” Italian food.  As a matter of fact I never even had gnocchi until I was an adult.  I taught myself how to make these little potato pasta/dumplings out of a book!

Gnocchi are a bit labor intensive, but sometimes that can be fun!  I know Buddy really enjoys helping out with this recipe–it’s sort of like playing with plah-doh except you can eat the result.

Winter squash are tasty, long storing, easy to grow and full of vitamins and minerals! My two Butternut Squash plants gave me over 12 squash this year which I have been enjoying incorporating into our meals with a variety of new recipes.

My kiddos in particular prefer savory recipes-no mashed squash with maple syrup for them. This Winter Squash Bake is an easy and tasty casserole that has been enjoyed by us all on several occasions-the kiddos even eat seconds!

Valentines Day is right around the corner and Walmart Challenged me to come up with some great Valentines cupcakes to share!

Lately on Pinterest I’ve seen a bunch of cool “oreo” desserts and I was just itching to try one in particular-Oreo cookies baked into cupcakes!

The ingredients are simple!  You just need a package of Oreos, a box of cake mix (with whatever oil, water & eggs necessary to mix them up), some frosting (I made my favorite no boil homemade icing) and some cute cupcake wrappers & picks!  All these ingredients & decorations cost me under $10 at my local Walmart.

To make your Hidden Oreo Cupcakes, just mix up your cake batter according to the directions on the package.  I chose to make strawberry supreme in honor of Valentines Day-but this would work with whatever cake flavor was your favorite.

Next get your cupcake tins ready.  Just pop your liner in and then set an Oreo cookie in the bottom of each one.

Pour your batter over each cookie filling the tins 2/3 full and pop them in your oven–again, just follow the directions on the back of the box for how long and what temperature.

The cake bakes right around the Oreo!  How cool is that?

Now there are many ways to decorate you cupcakes.  Let’s start with the basics.  You can go with what I like to call your basic “mom” frosting–ie just use a knife or spreader to get the icing on there.  The cupcake liners came with cute Valentines Day picks you can stick in-viola! Decorated!  Or you can buy some candy to stick on top-I bought these large conversation hearts at Walmart.  Simple, cute, festive and even the least talented decorator out there can make them.

Now lets move on to a slightly more advanced technique.  I promise you, this is one of those things that looks fabulous and difficult but really isn’t!  All you have to do is the basic 1M Swirl (click through to my Easy Elegant Cupcake Tutorial post to see how really super easy it is using the 1M start tip)

The 1M swirl looks fantastic on it’s own, but if you paint nice lines of food coloring on the inside of the bag before you put the icing in you get a really awesome variegated effect that will have your friends and family swearing you bought these cupcakes at a bakery!

As you pipe the food coloring gets used up and less vibrant, which is why the on the left looks different than the one in the back.  Of course you can dress them up even more with the picks or candy as well.

Another super easy but impressive technique is to use that huge 1M star tip and just to cover the top of the cupcakes with stars.

There you have it-gorgeous and easy.  And if you spring for this cute cupcake tree (I found it in the Valentines Day aisle at my Walmart) you’ll be able to display your creations in style!

So what do you think?  Have I inspired any of you to make cupcakes for Valentines day?  Want some other great Valentines Day treats?  Then check out my White Chocolate Covered Oreos!

****This is a sponsored post****

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post I am participating in as one of the Walmart Moms. Walmart has provided me with compensation for this post. My participation is voluntary and opinions, as always are my own.

Do you like fish?  I do!  Fish is a great healthy addition to any family’s menu plan.  Why not try this healthier (and far less odoriferous) take on fried fish.  While no one is going to mistake it for something that has been deep fat fried–you will get a nice crunchy coating.

Served up with some homemade tartar sauce (that’s just mayo and relish mixed together with a dash of salt or pepper thrown in folks-really, that’s all it is) you’ve got a tasty meal!

Who doesn’t love pizza?  Or Monkey Bread?  Put them together and you’ve got a sure fire, pull apart hit on your hands!This is more of a technique than an actual recipe.  It takes a little bit of hands on time to do, but the kiddos can help and everyone will enjoy eating the final product.

Basically you make your favorite pizza dough recipe (or buy a tube of pizza dough or a ball of frozen pizza dough-whatever floats your boat is fine.  Me-I make my Pizza Hut Crust Clone recipe)

Then you assemble your ingredients. The sauce will be on the side for dipping, so at this point you just need whatever you want to be inside the monkey bread-in my case pepperoni & mozzarella cheese.  (note:  I bought a block because it was less per pound-but shredded would work fine)

Assembly is easy.  Pinch off a ball of dough, pull, spread, roll or whatever technique works for you to make a flat shape-then put your toppings in the middle and roll, pinch, shape the dough around it.

Place them in a greased bread pan (or to be more monkey-bread like use a bundt pan).  I did a layer, then brushed it all with a mix of butter and garlic, added another layer and brushed with more garlic/butter.

My dough recipe that usually gives me 2 thin crust pizzas filled up a single bread pan.  I gave mine a 20 min or so rise in a warm oven-then I baked for about 30 minutes.

Mmm.  Doesn’t that look good?  Just serve with pizza or spaghetti sauce for dipping!

This got gobbled up faster than you can imagine-next time I’ll do a double batch of dough and do two bread pans full!

Enjoy!

This tasty, filling soup is a sure-fire hit on a cold winter day! The fact that’s it’s made in the crockpot is an added bonus-get it going in the morning and have dinner ready and waiting for you when you (and the hungry hordes) get home.

This recipe highlights potato,an inexpensive and filling ingredient, and sausage, which gives you a big punch of flavor.