Homemade Cheesy Au Gratin Potatoes

Because we don't indulge in carby potatoes often, I'm THRILLED when we do and they are sooooo good that it's worth every. single. carb.

These are that.

I used my vegetable spiralizer instead of using a food processor or grater to simply slice them.  You absolutely can slice your potatoes thin for traditional au gratin potatoes - but to get the look of the ones in my photos, just use a spiral slicer of whatever brand you like.  

 

Cheesy Au Gratin Potatoes

4-6 large potatoes (I used Klondike Rose potatoes in these photos)
1/4 c green onions, sliced
1/4 c butter (1/2 stick)
1 T flour
1 t salt and pepper to taste
1 1/2 c heavy cream
1/2 c unflavored, unsweetened almond milk or regular milk
2 c grated cheese - cheddar

Spiralize or slice your potatoes thin into a greased or sprayed casserole dish that is safe for the oven.
In a saucepan on the stove, melt the butter, add the green onions and cook briefly to soften them.
Add the flour and whisk and cook for a minute or two.
Add the salt and pepper, and the cream.  Whisk and bring to a simmer.
Add the cheese, continue to stir or whisk to melt the cheese.
Pour over the potatoes.
Bake in a 375 (or 350) oven for about an hour. The potatoes should be tender, and most of the liquid sauce absorbed and thickened with just a bit of liquid left.  Remove the potatoes and let them set 10 minutes before serving to set up.  They will absorb a little more of the sauce and thicken as they cool a bit.

If you don't spiralize them and you simple slice them, you might need to add another 15 minutes for baking.  If they are getting darker than you like, just put foil over them for the last 10-15 minutes.  Don't bake them covered the whole time though or they will be too runny.

Butter and onions with the flour added - whisk and cook for a minute or two

After adding the cream and cheese...

Pour over the potatoes and bake for about an hour for spiralized - about an hour and 20 minutes might be needed for regular sliced potatoes.

Cinnamon Breakfast Muffins - Coffee Cake Style! Two Versions, including sugar free and low carb

Sugar Free and Low Carb Version - literally as I was eating it for breakfast with coffee

If you don't have to worry about carbs or cook sugar free, I love a recipe I posted back in 2007 for a copy cat Entenmann's recipe - make it into a loaf pan or into muffins.  I LOVE that coffee cake but because we more often than not are eating low carb and sugar free by choice, I use the one I posted just after this one.  More on that in a minute.

FIRST:

A regular, full flour and full sugar version I posted in 2007

Entenmann's Style Coffee Cake Loaf

3 3/4 c flour
1 3/4 c sugar
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt

Mix in a large mixing bowl and then remove 2 cups of the dry mix to reserve for later.

Now to the rest of the flour in the mixing bowl add;

1 stick butter (not margarine)
2 eggs
2/3 milk

The batter will be thick, spread this into a greased and floured pan (I use a little of the reserved flour topping mix to flour the pan). Now, you are wondering what size aren't you? Any size you want. If you use a 9X13 pan, you will have a thin cake, a 14 inch square would be nice, a 9X9" square will be a thick cake. I personally like to use a bread loaf pan. I like mine as a 'pound cake'. Spread the batter into your pan.

To the reserved flour mixture add;

1 stick butter
1/4 c brown sugar
2 t cinnamon
dash of salt

Mix this together with your finger tips until it forms pea sized crumbles. Cover the entire cake with this topping. If you chose to use a loaf pan you will only use half the topping. Freeze the rest in a baggy to use on muffins at a later date!

Bake at 350 degrees - a 9X13" pan approximately 30 minutes or a loaf pan it will have to bake at least 60 minutes. I bake mine about 1 hour and 15 minutes until a sharp knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

 __________________________________________

Low Carb and Sugar Free Coffee Cake Muffins

2 T real butter
2 oz. cream cheese
4 eggs
1/2 c sweetener of choice (I use a mixture of granulated Ideal and Truvia with a few drops of a liquid sweetener)
2 t vanilla
1/2 c unsweetened vanilla almond milk
1 c almond flour
1/2 c coconut flour
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt

Topping:
1 c almond flour
1/4 c coconut flour
1/3 c sweetener of choice (granulated 'sugar' style)
1/2 t molasses
3 T butter
1 t cinnamon

(If you can find a good 'brown sugar' version of a natural sweetener, you can use that in place of the sweetener and molasses.  I have used two brands in the past that I loved but they both stopped making the brown sugar versions - grrr - and the splenda and Truvia versions you see in the stores now have real sugar in them so they are NOT sugar free.  I had an order for Just Like Sugar Brown that was canceled last week for lack of availability so I don't know if they are stopping production as well.  Honestly, over the past two years, I usually just make my own 'brown' sweetener by mixing a dab of molasses into regular white sweeteners.  This gives the flavor that goes so well in cookies and muffins.)

I use the 'large' muffin tins that have 6 spaces, lined with the large muffin liners.  Spray your liners with a Pam style spray.  Mix your muffin batter together either in an electric mixing bowl or your food processor until blended smooth.  Divide into your muffin cups.  Now mix the topping ingredients either by hand or with a fork until it resembles pea like crumbs or just put it into your food processor and pulse it a couple times.

Cover your muffins with the crumb topping.  Bake at 350 about 25-30 minutes for smaller regular sized muffins (12) or about 45 minutes for the large size.  Because I find baking with almond flour always takes longer to get 'done' in the middle, I cover my baked goods with a piece of foil after about 30 minutes to keep them from getting too dark, and then around 40-45 minutes I turn the oven OFF but leave the muffins IN.  I check on them about every 5 minutes by lightly pressing on the top to see if they are set up and firm - not jiggly anymore.  Then let them cool completely out on a cookie rack.  These are best the next day and stay very moist inside.


Crumb Topping:

Pile it on...

Literally took a photo of my breakfast muffin and coffee as I was enjoying it!

Homemade Banana Bread

I have a really yummy banana bread recipe I posted back in 2014 that I made up one night before bed by looking at 3 or 4 old 'grandma' recipes and doing what feel right with those as the basis for my brainstorm.  (http://www.housewifebarbie.com/2014/09/)  This post is really just a "oh yeah" post for anyone who has bananas to use up - just make banana bread!  If you don't want to eat it now, just wrap it in plastic wrap and then foil and toss it into your freeze until you want to defrost and serve it.

Banana Bread

4 ripe bananas
1 c sugar or equivalent sweetener
1/2 c applesauce of choice
2 eggs
1 t baking soda
1 T baking powder
1 t salt
1 t vanilla
2 c flour
*optional:  chopped walnuts or pecans

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees while you mash the bananas in a bowl with a mixer.  Stir in the sugar and let it stand for 15 minutes.  Add the applesauce and eggs.  Beat. Add the rest of the ingredients and pour into a 9X5" greased loaf pan.  Bake 45-55 minutes until the toothpick or sharp knife test into the center comes out clean.  Let it stand for 10 minutes in the pan before you remove and let cool completely.

OPTIONAL:  Nuts.  I love adding chopped walnuts in my banana bread - I have family members who hate nuts in theirs.  I make both.  If you add 1/2 cup or so of chopped nuts, be sure to sprinkle extra on top so you can tell which loaves have nuts and which don't.

Homemade Pudding Pops - Chocolate and Vanilla

I happen to be the very proud owner of vintage Tupperware popcicle molds - the exact ones my Mother owned back in the early 1970's.  But when I was shopping at my local Walmart a few weeks ago I came across these primary colored ice pop molds that were on clearance.  For a quarter (yes, a quarter!) I picked up 4 of them.

I wasn't in the mood for popcicles so I decided to make pudding pops!  

 
Pudding Pops

1 package cook and serve chocolate pudding
1 cup unsweetened almond milk (unflavored or vanilla)
1 cup evaporated milk, half and half or heavy cream
1 teaspoons vanilla (freezing the pops mellows the vanilla flavoring so I like to add a bit extra)
1 pkg. unflavored gelatin with a couple tablespoons of cold water to soften it

Sprinkle the dry unflavored gelatin over a couple tablespoons cold water.  Let it set to soften a couple minutes.  Mix the pudding mix according to directions but use a mixture of almond milk and heavy cream or half and half.  You can also use evaporated milk (this is the the kind without water in it; NOT the same as sweetened condensed milk). Whisk in the gelatin mixture and cook over medium heat according to directions on the pudding package.  Let it cool for 5-10 minutes while you get the molds ready.  Pour into the molds and freeze for 10-12 hours as the pudding mixture is so warm it will take longer to cool then freeze.  If you opt to use instant, it should freeze in 3-4 hours instead.

For the Vanilla versions I simply made homemade vanilla pudding, added the gelatin and repeated the instructions above by pouring and freezing.

1 c half and half or cream
1 c unsweetened almond milk
1/2 c natural granulated sweetener
2 t unflavored gelatin
3 egg yolks
3 T butter - real
4 t vanilla extract

Sprinkle the dry gelatin over a couple tablespoons of water or half and half.  Let it set. Combine the sweetener and milk(s) of choice in a pan on the stove.  Cook over medium heat until the sweetener is dissolved.  Beat the egg yolks in a bowl and slowly drizzle in about a cup of the hot milk(s) mixture in while whisking.  As soon as it's incorporated, pour this back into the pan with the milk/sweeteners.  Whisk in the gelatin and the vanilla.  After a couple minutes of cooking and whisking; Turn off the heat, add the butter.  Let this cool for 5-10 minutes while you get the molds ready.  When it's cooled a bit, pour and deep freeze for 10-12 hours.

Run hot water over the pop-ice molds for a minute to loosen the pudding pop from the mold so it slides out easily.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Stuffed Oreo Cookies - Two Cookies in One

  

I decided to make Mr. Husband homemade chocolate chip cookies sandwiched between an Oreo using the similar version of a sugar free chocolate sandwich cookies and natural sweeteners instead of the full sugar versions.

Guess what?  The two companies that used to make sugar free versions of an Oreo (chocolate sandwich cookies), no longer make them!  

My plans of making these with natural non-sugar sweeteners and sugar free versions of the Oreos; all those plans went out the window so in the end, regular Oreos were used. 

I bought two packages; the lowest sugar count with a flavor I thought would go with chocolate chip cookies was the Oreo Peanut Butter flavor with 10 grams of sugar.  I went ahead and bought a package of regular as well (because it was a 2 for deal) had 13 grams of sugar.  Ouch!  But because I only buy Oreos about every 7 years, it was a splurge I don't have to feel too bad about.

I used my favorite homemade chocolate chip cookie dough, added a couple tablespoons peanut butter powder since I was going to use peanut butter Oreos.  In the end I used both flavors of Oreos.  If you don't want to use my chocolate chip cookie recipe, use whichever you wish but keep in mind it has to be a recipe that doesn't flatten out to a skinny, flat cookie.  You want one that has the correct amounts of brown sugar and flour or calls for a package of dry pudding mix in it (the starches help it stay thick and cake like).

Because I want to share any helpful hints I can I want to tell you that after I added peanut butter powder to my dough, I worried I needed just a touch more brown sugar to make up for the dry/unsweetened addition.  I added about 1/4 cup more brown sugar and that addition completely threw my tried-and-true chocolate chip cookie dough 'off' and the first batch flattened out like they never, ever do.  I added more flour to the rest of the dough in the bowl which helped.  Lesson learned; don't have too much sugar or the cookies will spread out and flatten too much and the Oreo sandwiching them is useless and looks silly. 

The peanut butter powder was NOT necessary or important; it's just an addition I made as I was planning to use Peanut Butter Oreos.

Chocolate Chip Stuffed Oreo Cookies

1/2 c butter
1 c packed brown sugar
3 T white sugar
1 large egg
2 t vanilla
1 3/4 c a/p flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
8 oz chocolate chips
1 package Oreos of your choice

In a bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter and sugars until well blended. Beat in eggs and vanilla until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. In another bowl, mix flour, baking soda, powder, and salt. Stir or beat into butter mixture until well incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips.

Carefully twist the sandwich cookies apart.  Use a scoop or spoon to scoop a mound of dough out and place it between the 2 cookies.  Gently place the two cookies back together, sandwiching in the dough and press to hold it in place.  I found the Oreos made today are oddly fragile.  Just gently twisting them and pulling them apart was enough to crack or break almost half of them.  Try NOT to crack them because it will ruin your final cookie.  See the notes below on what your cookies will look like if you accidentally crack or break them while pulling them apart. Only use whole cookies if you need them to look 'pretty'.

Bake 3 inches apart at 375° until cookies are lightly browned, about 12 minutes.  Bake them about 1-2 minutes longer if you think they may still be too soft in the center.  Let cook 2-3 minutes on the baking sheet before moving them to finish cooling on racks.


Sandwich chocolate chip cookie dough between an Oreo.

Ready for the oven.  Note I baked some on parchment first, but the rest were baked on the cookie sheet without parchment - which I liked better as it made the bottoms just a little more crisp.  Both worked.  Use what you wish.

In hindsight, I wish I had not added the extra brown sugar as it changed the final cookie. The ones I added more flour to make up for my sugar addition to turned out thicker and held together nicer.

 

WHY YOU PROBABLY WANT TO EAT THE ONES THAT CRACK....

Just gently twisting the cookie apart often caused it to crack.  I assumed it should be 'fine' and used many of them anyway.  I want to add these two photos to show you what happens to the finished cookie!  They still taste perfect, but if you want them to be 'pretty', don't use the cookies that break or crack. 

A cracked cookie......                                                                                 Bakes 'apart' and looks a bit goofy.