Cheesy BBQ Chicken Rollups

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I don't want to let the cat out of the bag in the first line, but I have to say, the kids gave this one 10 thumbs up.  (I'm pretty sure that's a pretty impressive child rating)  lol!  :)

This recipe is low on ingredients and high on taste!  It easily makes my Top 5 tested recipes to date (if not higher).  

I feel like I should tell you more, but seriously that's it.  You just have to try it.  I know you won't be disappointed.  :)

Hope you enjoy!  Let us know if you try it!  :)

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Hawaiian Crockpot Chicken

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I love a good Crockpot recipe.  I have tried many and I'm very picky on which ones I'm willing to try a 2nd time and eventually add to the regular meal rotation.  Crockpot recipes tend to look like mush and sadly sometimes even look like it.  I am a sucker for pineapple so this recipe caught my attention.  

Prep Review:

There is quite a bit of chopping involved in this one, which is okay just keep it in mind.  Other than that nothing real special about prep.  

Taste Review:

I chose to do a red, yellow, green, and orange peppers to give it good color.  Zoey (our 3 year old) ate the red pepper before I had a chance to use it so it did not make it into this dish.  Mr. Daddy Hill thought the pepper flavor was a little overpowering and suggested using red and yellow peppers only since they tend to be sweeter.  Also reduce the pepper a little and add a little more pineapple.  I, personally, thought it worked out fine, so try what sounds good to you and go from there.  ;)

Hope you enjoy!  Let us know if you give it a try!  :)

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Fast and Easy Cheesy Broccoli Pasta

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This recipe is about as easy as they come.  You don't have to trade in flavor for simplicity either.   We actually tried this one years ago while I was staying home with a new baby and at least had good intentions about trying to cook.  :)  We liked it back then so I went ahead and through it in the meal line up.  It is great for a quick after work throw together meal.

Prep Review:
3 Ingredients!  That's it folks!  Easy, you can do it!  :) If you have been thinking about trying one of these recipes, but weren't sure the whole food swap/healthy eating was for you, this is the recipe to try. 

 I have trouble getting my broccoli the size she recommends.  I just buy a couple bags to make it as close as possible, but don't split hairs over it. I will also note that Mr. Daddy Hill discovered that Kroger carries Light Swiss Laughing Cow cheese wedges, so he picked that up to save a few calories.  

Taste Review:
This went over well with the kids.  They do like veges, so kids that have a thing against green veges probably won't applaud when they are served this meal, but it is really tasty.  

Hope you enjoy!  Let us know if you give it a try!  :)

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Amazing Growing Oatmeal

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I like oatmeal, but I am terrible at making it!  I know, how can you mess up oatmeal?  No idea, but I do it nearly every time.  Even instant is hit or miss, but I would prefer to buy the big containers of oatmeal and make it from that.  WAY more cost effective.  

I Love the concept of growing oatmeal.  Like Hungry Girls says, one serving just isn't enough.  So this is her solution.  She explains that she doubles the liquid and the cooking time (with old fashion oats) to make them plump up more.  Well, I like the idea, but since I can't make "normal" oatmeal I followed the recipe pictured above.  

Prep Review:

Only change I made to the ingredients was I doubled the vanilla and left out the creamer because I didn't have any.  Very easy to put together.  Obviously, takes longer than in the microwave, but well worth it. Seemed to have worked out well.  PLEASE NOTE: this is only one (big) serving, so plan accordingly.

Taste Review:
I was VERY impressed with this.  I feared it would taste water downed or blah, but the almond and vanilla were amazing!  I actually forgot the blueberries. It was just fine without them, but they would just add to the yummy taste medley if you have them handy.

Hope you enjoy!  Let us know if you give this one a try.  :)
  

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Dehydrated Kale *Guest Blogger!*

We just recently ordered a Dehydrator online from Target.  This is something that I (MrDaddyHill) have been wanting for a long time and we finally decided to get one!  I mainly wanted one to make jerky, but I figured I would try other things too!  In my traversing of the interwebs, I came across a Kale Chips review on YouTube.  I thought it would be a cool thing to try so I would check it out if the price was right when we were at the grocery...  Well, I was surprised to see the sign say 1.29 in front of the kale, and it was a bunch of leaves the size of my head!  So we put them in the cart and low and behold they were half off when we went through the line!  I could only hope they tasted good once made...

The main thing about preparing them is to rinse them thoroughly before cutting.  I shook them vigorously over the sink after their rinse.  Once you feel they are dry you will then need to cute the stem out of the leaves, I started out using a knife and folding the leaf in half to cut, but I then found it was easier to pull chip size pieces (think huge chips) off of the stems then putting them into a bowl.  The next step is to again dry them as well as you can before seasoning...  I did this by putting them on kitchen towels laid out in one layer then gently pressing them until I felt they were dry.  To season them I spritzed them with Pam (I would have prefered olive oil spray but Pam worked in a pinch) then sprinkled Kosher salt on them liberally making sure every leaf had salt.  They are now prepped!

The entire batch filled all four trays of my dehydrator, lay them out in a single layer filling the entire tray minus the middle.  Mine is the "cheapo" dehydrator so it only has an on off option.  I turned it on then let them stay in there for 3 hours.  Your kale chips are ready to taste!

Our thoughts?  They are great!  Not potato chips, but something tasty to eat!  Experiment with the flavorings, I want to try some with cyan pepper and maybe some lemon pepper...  I think these are a great option to have as a quick snack without the guilt!  MrsMommyHill wanted to point out that the initial "taste" might make you think they aren't good, but keep eating them and you will like them more!  We did find that the chips without any seasoning were not as good as those with.  Stay tuned for more guest spots as I dehydrate our way to a healthier us!

-MrDaddyHill

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Pepperoni Pizza Wrap

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This recipe was so easy and so last minute that I almost forgot to tell you about it.

Prep Review:

Like I said, this was a super last minute, throw it together, kind of meal; so we just used what we had on hand.  We left out the stewed tomatoes and spinach.  I'm not sure I have much interest in adding them to be honest though. 

For the seasoning we used Krazy Mix Up Salt. We bought ours at Kroger in the spice section.  We just did a few shakes on each roll up and that worked nicely.  It was just a time saver really.  Nothing against the recipe. 

In the name of saving time we also didn't food process the string cheese.  It worked in a pinch but in the future we will put it in the food processor, so that the whole string cheese doesn't try to slide out with each bite. 

I have no idea if the pepperoni we used was "turkey".  It was something I bought from Dollar Tree, so who knows.  lol  It was enough for 4 wraps for $1, so that's a winner in my book.  They were small and the calorie count was not terrible.  We did 6 per wrap. I did take the time to pat the grease off and chop them.  

Taste Review:

We enjoyed the wraps and so did the kids.  I'm not sure how our opinion would change by adding the tomato and spinach, but I'm sure it would still be good plus more filling.  :) 

Hope you enjoy!  Let us know if you give it a try.  :)

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Simple Pot Pie Done Right

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This Hungry Girl Pot Pie Recipe looked so easy that I couldn't help but give it a try!  

Prep Review and Tips:

This was a very simple recipe to throw together in a short time.  It's nice to have a handful of quick go to recipes to help avoid the dreaded drive thru.  

I did a couple little changes because of preferences.  I used 2 cans of cream of celery soup because I feared otherwise it would be all vege and nothing else.  I thought the 2 cans worked out nicely. (remember to use the 98% fat free and look up high on the store shelves, it could be hiding.)

Out of laziness I used a can of chicken.  This made the prep time extra fast.

 I just used whatever frozen mixed veges I had in the freezer, but I picked all the green beans out.  I like green beans, jut not a huge fan of the frozen kind and they seem so BIG in pot pie.  (I actually ate them, so they didn't go to waste. lol)

I think we ended up using more like 4 servings if the crescent because I didn't work real hard to roll them out to make it extra thin.  (by the way, I used a cup to roll it out.  just in case you don't have a rolling pin handy)

Taste Review:

We were very happy with the taste of this dish, but it was not filling.  I am not sure if subbing the canned chicken had anything to do with that.  Although, I did use the same amount of ounces.  I might add more chicken next time to see if that helps.  But seriously, we all snacked (on good stuff) ALL Evening!  It was terrible!  Maybe we needed to just eat more at dinner and we got tired of the veges...not sure.  So all and all good tasting recipe, but left us hungry (which is rare for these recipes).

Hope you enjoy! Let us know if you give it a try!  :)

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Comforting Meal With A Comforting Calorie Count Part 4

Here is the 4th of 4 comfort recipes that you are sure to love!

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Sometimes you just need a Moist Brownie but no need for the guilt of standard brownies.  It a close contest, but this might be my all time favorite Hungry Girl recipe.  It is 2 ingredientes, easy for kids to help, and nicely portioned.  (although, I tend to make mine huge!  lol)

Prep Review:
SUPER EASY! Just keep mixing.  DON'T add water!  It will mix together.  

Taste Review:
INCREDIBLE! Quite possibly better than a traditional brownie.  I promise you will not regret giving this a try.  

Hope you enjoy!  Let us know if you give it a try.  :)


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Comfort Meal with a Comforting Calorie Count Part 3

 Here is the 3rd of 4 comfort recipes that you are sure to love!

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Green Bean Casserole is one of my favorites.  I have fond memories of making the simple dish with my Mom.  This recipe is not that much more complicated but leaves out some of calories.  

Prep Review and notes:
One of the only problems I have with prepping these wonderful swap recipes is hunting the ingredients in the store.  So I will give you a couple clues to make your shopping trip go smoother than mine. ;)

I nearly gave up on the 98% fat free cream of celery soup.  When I went by for a second time (to show Mr Daddy Hill that they didn't have it.) of course I found it. lol  At Kroger it was on the TOP shelf.  I'm guessing it is not a top seller so look up to see if it is hiding.

I had NO CLUE where to find water chestnuts.  I've never used them before.  Luckily Mr. Daddy Hill met me at the store after work and was able to go right to them, in the oriental cooking area.

Onion flavored soy chips- I read what I thought was every bag of chips in Kroger's "Healthy living" area.  I was ready to use sour cream and onion Popchips (which now rereading the recipe, is what she suggests) when Mr. Daddy Hill ran across some soy chips with onion flavor.  (I think they were in a white bag if that helps you, but I would suggest going with the sour cream and onion Popchips because you can enjoy those on their own to use up the left overs.  These onion chips....not so much.)

Nothing terribly notable about prep. Pretty easy to put together.  I will mention, just in case you overlook it.  This is 8 SERVINGS!  Much different than most of her recipes.  It would be no problem to cut it in half and maybe cook in a bread pan.

Taste Review:
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised.  I'll be honest I was a little sceptical.  Surprisingly I prefer canned green beans vs frozen green beans.  So that flavor kind of threw me off.  I would guess using 2 cans of green beans and 1 can of 98% fat free cream of celery would be just fine to get 4 servings.  

The questions was posed to me why cream of celery vs cream of mushroom 98% fat free.  Hungry Girl if very tast conscious as well as calorie conscious.  I would GUESS that she is not as impressed with the mushroom version or possibly the celery has more nutritional value.  Either way, it worked just fine with this recipe.

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Comfort Meal with a Comforting Calorie Count Part 2

Here is the 2nd of 4 comfort recipes that you are sure to love!

I feel like meatloaf and mashed potatoes go hand and hand so I had to try Hungry Girl's Better for you Mashed Potato Swap.  I have heard the girls at work talk about using cauliflower in mashed potatoes and thought it sounded pretty interesting.  After using cauliflower in Hungry Girl's Baked Mac and Cheese and LOVED it, I knew this was a safe bet.

Prep Review:

I'm use to mashed potatoes made like they do in Oklahoma.....or at least how my Mom who is from that area makes them.  ;)  They have to be creamy and buttery and just when you think you have just about enough butter and milk......you should probably add just a little more for good measure.  SOOOO I ended up adding an extra tablespoon of the half and half and an extra tablespoon of margarine.  I figured we're eating mashed cauliflower an extra bit of these things was not going to kill our calorie count.  :) 

I did not end up using pepper but was pretty generous with the salt, or at least it felt that way as I'm not much of a salt person.  I would do a few shake, shake shakes, and then a taste.  I did that about 4 times and then was shocked at the amazing flavor that was produced.  (before the salt it was pretty bland)  (I think the adults added a little extra salt on our plates too.  The kids were happy with theirs.)

Taste Review:

Well, pretty much gave that away.  lol  We all loved it!  The kids (picky eater 1 and picky eater 2) had seconds and I think even thirds!  I will say though, make it how the recipe says, and then add extra ingredients as your tastes prefer.  I think mashed potatoes are very subjective.

Hope you enjoy!  Let us know what you think!  :)

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Comfort Meal with a Comforting Calorie Count Part 1

Welcome to the first of 4 Comfort Meal Recipes that I know you will love!

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Let's start with the most amazing meatloaf I have ever made.  I have tried several meatloaf recipes and they all have good enough, but didn't have the Wow factor.  This recipe does and BONUS it's healthier than traditional recipes.  

Prep review:

SO EASY!  I did use ground beef because that is just my preference.   Loved the use of coleslaw mix in this recipe. Nice vege filler.  Prep was a matter of mixing and popping into cupcake tins.  I used my cookie baller (is that the official name?  not sure....) to put the mix into the tins.  I didn't have to use my hands to mix the meat mixture or put in the tins.  Major bonus. lol  :)

Taste review:

AMAZING! I was worried about the amount of garlic powder, but it was not overpowering at all.  The only possible drawback is the periodic coleslaw piece that sticks out.  It does not taste bad or different, but kind of weirded out the kids.  Although, they did still seem to like it.  The cupcake portioned sizes were a good kid friendly sell.

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Make Your 4th Meal Healthier

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Wow!  Where has the time gone?  I have so many recipes to share with you as I have gotten behind in blogging.  Tomorrow I have an exam on the Lymphatic System (A&P II), so I have spent some quality time reading about B cells, T cell, and antibodies.   :)

ANYWAY, we still have been cooking up some great healthy recipes and I'm excited to share this Taco Bell swap.  We love Taco Bell.....maybe a little too much.  The fourth meal was a real thing in our house since I get off work at 10pm and passing Taco Bell on the way home.....

Prep Review:

I have to give Mr. Daddy Hill credit on this one.  He put this together after I worked this past weekend.  We stayed very true to the recipe other than I picked up the wrong cheese, so we did a reduced fat shredded cheese instead.  (purely by accident but I think I would prefer how I shredded cheese works anyway.)

He did mention that the cook time needs to be reduced.  The first griller came out very black.  It says to do 2 minutes per side.  He felt like 1 minute per side would have been plenty.  So just kind of watch it close as it cooks.

We used regular flour tortillas for the kids.  Partially because I want to use them up and partially because I know that they are weird about how their food looks.

Taste Review:

We thought this was a very good Taco Bell substitute. Again, we are very impressed with the use of soy crumbles.  They work great in taco seasoned dishes.  We categorize this was as "A Winner!" and will certainly do it again.  :)

Hope you enjoy!  Let us know if you give this one a try.  :)

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Crock Pot French Toast

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I love Crock Pot Recipes!  They give you something to look forward to after a long day when you are too tired to even think about making dinner.  The concept is awesome!  So when I wanted to have something waiting for my family when I had to go to class this Crock Pot French Toast Recipe seemed perfect.

Prep Review:

Nothing really exciting to report here.  I went exactly by the recipe as it was using a different combination of ingredients than I'm familiar with, so I figured I would give her the benefit of the doubt.  She hasn't steered me wrong yet.  (PS if you have never bought ricotta....(I never had), it is in the same neighborhood as the cottage cheese in similar containers.)  

Prep was not bad at all.  I used an apple slicer to do the apples then cut the slices in half.  The OCD in me couldn't tear the bread. lol  The pieces I got tearing the first piece where a mess. SO I just stacked four pieces on top of each other (the amount used for each layer) and cut them. Way faster and way cuter. lol

Final Product Review:

If you have tried many crock pot recipes you will know that they aren't always very pretty...I mean, can you blame them?  You throw all the ingredients in one pot and poof you have dinner when you get home.  This recipe is no exception to this.  

The kids were turned off by the look and texture (I think created by the ricotta).  They both gave it a try with much hesitation.  Zoey said she liked it, but didn't each much.  Ethan wanted nothing to do with it.

I personally thought it tasted pretty okay, it wasn't terrible.  But unfortunately, it doesn't hold a candle to my usual go to french toast recipe.  Certainly, not half as healthy...Maybe I will see if I can do some swaps on this original and see what I come up with.  

All and all it wasn't bad and a light dusting of powdered sugar helped beautify and slightly sweeten it up.  I would not make this for company.  It just does not have that company appeal presentation.  But it is easy to throw together, so in a pinch it's would be okay, but honestly this will be the first tested recipe that I won't put in the regular rotation.  

Hey, can't win them all.  ;)

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Super Filling Super Full Omelette

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Mr. Daddy Hill is very good at preparing breakfast foods, so I picked this Hungry Girl dish out with him in mind.  :)

Prep Review:

This recipe calls for A LOT of mushrooms.  I don't mind mushrooms, but I didn't want my whole bite to be mushroom so I chopped them up.  (I'm glad I did this.)  

We skipped the slice of bacon.  It sounded like a recipe for disaster. Put one piece in the omelette and eat the rest of the package while the omelette cooks....Yeah, that would defeat the healthy recipe.  

Again, because canned diced tomatoes are a household staple, we used these.  I did however do a little extra chopping just to get them down to a more reasonable size.

Taste Review:

We did try the sausage patty substitute.  If this is not something you are already into, let me save you some time and money.  DON'T BOTHER.  YUCK!  It tasted more Earthy than the mushrooms and nearly ruined the goodness of the recipe.  Skip the sausage substitute and add a little cheese to your veges instead.

Other than that one easy fix we liked this recipe.  It was VERY filling and packed full of veges.  (in fact I'm not sure either one of us got all the way through one.)

Hope you enjoy!  If you this one a try, let us know! :)

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Big Mac Attack Done Right

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I was very excited to try this Hungry Girl Big Mac swap.  Since we are moving away from a bad fast food habit this obviously was very attractive to us.  Aldi's happened to have 2-3 packs of portabella mushrooms for $1.99 so I bought them up and got ready to take the plunge.

The only thing we changed is we didn't add the extra chopped onions.  We aren't huge onions fans so we saw no reason to add them.

If we were to make any changes we might try grilling the mushrooms instead of cooking over the stove.  We wondered if that might add to the culinary experience.  lol

SO what did we think?  Are you dying to know?  A burger with mushrooms?  It's a kind of unheard of, right?  Wellll.....We LOVED it!  The first bite was a perfect surprise.  The sauce was spot on and the lettuce and cheese were nice compliments to the mushroom.  It only got weird toward the end when I had ran out of sauce and lettuce and my mushroom/sauce/lettuce/cheese ratio was messed up.  By then my bun was a little saturated from the mushroom.  This is why we would try grilling and possibly eliminate extra moisture.  

My only caution is, if you hate mushrooms this is not for you.  But if you like fried mushrooms or mushrooms on pizza I think  you should definitely give this a try.  

Hope you enjoy!  Let us know if you give this one a try.  :)

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Pita Pizza Please

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Pizza is a kid favorite, and culinarily nonthreatening so I thought I would give this Hungry Girl recipe a try.

I could not find "high fiber" pitas at Kroger, so I found what looked like the healthiest option available.

I've said it before but it is worth saying again, soy crumbles are worth trying.  They are not scarey.  When adding seasoning to it we have thought it works out quite well.  

 I used diced tomatoes instead of crushed and passed on the 2nd round of tomatoes on the top.  In the future I would pop the diced tomatoes in the food processor just to help cover the pita a little better, but it still worked just fine.  (diced tomatoes is a staple at my house, crushed....not so much)

The cilantro didn't do a whole lot for me.  It paired nicely with the sour cream mixture, but I'm not sure I would buy it solely for this recipe (in the name of saving money).  

I LOVED the concept of using string cheese that had been food processed as the cheese.  We used the Weight Watchers 1 point string cheese that Kroger carries, but Aldi's also has a Fit and Active version that tends to be lower in price and comparable. 

I made individual dishes of the sour cream mixture for everyone.  1. It seemed easier since the recipe is written for one serving.  2. This allowed everyone to dip their pizza which I thought 

worked nicely.

Hope you enjoy!  Let me know if you give this one a try.  :)

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