Cream Cheese Mints

8 oz Cream Cheese Softened

8 cups Powdered Sugar

1 T. Peppermint Extract

1 tsp. Red Food Coloring

1/2 cup White Sugar

1 tsp. Green Food Coloring

2/3 Pkg Chocolate Almond Bark

2/3 Pkg White Almond Bark

Mix Cream Cheese and sugar together one cup of sugar at a time. Add Red Coloring and Peppermint a little at a time till you get the color and flavor you want. Transfer to a new bowl and put in the fridge for about an hour or more. Mean while, take your sugar and green food coloring and make your green colored sugar and set aside. When the Cream cheese mixture is cold and more solid, take out of fridge and start to form into balls onto foil on a plate. As soon as you have that done, you will need to put back in the fridge again. Let set again until they are cold and solid again. When they are ready, Melt the Chocolate Almond Bark in the microwave 30 seconds at a time until melted, then dip the cream cheese balls into melted chocolate and once again, stick back in fridge to set. When set, which only takes a few minutes this time... Bring out and dip in White Almond Bark this time and as soon as you pull them out of the white bark and have them all on the plates, sprinkle the green sugar on them. This seems like a lot of work, but just plan that you can do it over the course of your day when you have 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there.

Pizza

Mini 7" Premade Pizza crusts

Pizza Sauce

Cheese

Any Additional Toppings your family likes

We put ours in the oven without a pan for 10 minutes at 450*. I just put out the ingredients and let the kids all make there own. .. And, I know there is no finished picture, but it accidentaly went in all the tummies before the picture was taken. Sorry..

White Hot Chocolate

Tonight Jordan and I decided to try to make a "Christmas Hot Chocolate". He grabbed the camera while we were making it so I would post it on here, so he is the photographer, minus the picture of him :)

2 Cups Half and Half

1 Cup Milk

2/3 cup White Almond Bark, chopped

Dash Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Nutmeg

1 tsp White Vanilla

Peppermint Sticks

Combine 1/4 cup of the half and half, white almond bark, cinnamon and nutmeg in a medium saucepan. Whisk over low heat till Almond Bark is melted. Add the remaining half and half and milk. Whisk until heated through. Remove from heat and stir in Vanilla. Serve warm in mugs. Garnish with Peppermint sticks. Makes 3 cups.

Colorful Pasta with Ham

I know what you are thinking right now~ Oh Gross, who's recipe is this????

But it really is a good one! It is a true blue Casserolle. It's got your vegetable, meat and pasta all in one....and don't you need a recipe that you can use your leftover ham in? HMM? Go ahead and try this....it is delicious! It has french fried onions in it!

Ingredients:

16 oz. tricolor spiral pasta (cooked & drained)

1 1/2 c. ham (cubed)

15 1/4 oz. corn(drained)

1 1/2 c. cheddar cheese(shredded)

2.8 oz french fried onions (I actually buy the bigger can and use about 3/4 of the can)

1/2 c. milk (I splash a bit more in)

14 1/2 oz. chicken broth

10 3/4 oz. cream of chicken soup

1/2 t. celery salt

1/2 t. garlic powder

1/2 t. pepper

Preheat oven to 35o degrees.

Combine broth, soup, milk & seasonings (mix well!)

Grease a shallow 9x13 pan, and then combine pasta, ham, corn, 1 c. shredded cheese and french fried onions (save some for the end) put in pan

Pour liquid mixture over the top of pasta.

Bake 30 min.

Sprinkle 1/2 c. cheese and french fried onions on top and cook 5 more minutes.

Trust me it's good, my kids love it too.

Food Storage

Janae and I have been working to perfect our food storage spread sheets. A friend of mine just told me about this website that has a great 10 step program for building your food storage as well as a fabulous spread she that is everything that I have wanted mine to be and then some. I am so excited to get this filled out and customized to my family. I hope that it will help you all too.