Spring is coming! Celebrate with these beyond adorable Carrot Patch Cupcakes…no carrots required!

Carrot Patch Cupcakes

Ingredients

12 cupcakes from your favorite recipe or boxed mix
2 to 3 cups chocolate frosting from your favorite recipe or store bought
1 cup ground Oreo Cookies
12 strawberries, washed and dried
1 (12 ounce) package orange candy melt wafers

Instructions

1. Melt the candy wafers according to package directions giving special care not to overheat the candy. If the candy coating is overheated, it will be too thick. You can add 2 teaspoons of vegetable shortening or coconut oil to help thin the candy but do not add any other type of liquid as the candy will seize and harden.
2. Dip strawberries into the melted candy and then place on waxed paper. Once the candy has set, pour remaining melted candy into a zip-top freezer bag or piping bag with the tip snipped. Drizzle over the strawberries. Allow to set completely before decorating the cupcakes.
3. Using a 1A round piping tip, add a border of frosting around the cupcake. Place a small amount in the middle.
4. Flip each cupcake and dip the frosted top into ground Oreo cookies.
5. Top each cupcake with a dipped strawberry.

I LOVE a warm pretzel dipped in marinara sauce and today I had a craving. I grabbed a bag of store bought pizza dough and created pretzel bites and they were AH-Mazing.

You could serve these with cheese sauce if you prefer- but marinara is my personal favorite!

I feel like my lasagna never measures up to my grandmother’s or my mothers….so I’ve given up. But I’ve been making lasagna rolls and LOVE them.  They are easy and fast and if someone wants meat and another person doesn’t- they are easy to customize!

We’re not a green bean casserole family – normally we slow cook it all day long with a ham hock, but when my mother in law brought me a ten pound bag of fresh pecans….I wanted to try something different.

Being obsessed with brown butter (y’all seriously it’s the BEST), I decided to mix things up and make brown-butter green beans with pecans!  They were a hit!

Oh YUM.  I LOVE good fried chicken. Usually I do panko encrusted chicken but I had a deep craving for the thick crusty fried chicken like KFC does.

But I didn’t want to pay $2 for a single piece of chicken so I grabbed some Zacyon Fresh Chicken breast  and cut it into strips.  Then I triple dipped it and YUM it came out PERECT.

I used a mix of House Autry Chicken Breader and some regular flour.

You can use a deep pan with oil to fry but a deep fryer makes it SO much easier!  I like these with the baskets.

Isabella (my 4 year old) made apple nachos for a snack today and they were so good I had to pretty them up and share it with you!

Nachos in our house is anything chip like topped with things so we call these apple nachos!  You could top with almost anything you want but here is what I used. Other ideas could be marshmallows, chocolate syrup, marshmallow creme, pretzels, pecans, peanut butter, raisins, sprinkles, cinnamon, coconut, honey…the options are endless!

Search for apple sales here. 

We also have this great Marzetti coupon to print!

Ok YUMMO.  Seriously the best pulled pork ever cooked inside (because you can’t beat slow smoked pulled pork) but I didn’t want to spend hours stoking the smoker and smelling like applewood all day. I used my trusty Instant Pot Multi Use Crock.

Use your favorite rub – I made my own by mixing 2 tbsp paprika, 1 tbsp black pepper, 1 tbsp garlic salt, 1 tsp cumin.  You may not use it all and some of it will come off when cooking.  Rub it in on all sides.

My favorite part of pulled pork is the crunchy outside so searing it is really important. If you don’t care too much about the crunchy parts, skip it…but you may regret it!

I use the saute on my InstantPot with a little oil and sear about 5 minutes on each side.  Remove from the pan and drain out any leftover oil.

Place the meat back in the pressure cooker- fat side up.  Put 1 cup of water and 1 cup of apple juice in the pressure cooker.  Cook on high pressure for 60 minutes (larger roasts may require 75 minutes)

Allow to release the pressure naturally.  If you’d rather do this in a slow cooker- cook on low 8 hours.

Remove from the liquid and allow to rest for a few minutes. Use Meat Claws to shred the meat.  Top with BBQ sauce of choice and cole slaw on buns and enjoy!

Ok this turned out AH-Mazing.  The biggest compliment I get on my dinners is when I hear “Can you make this again????:” And I heard that tonight so YEP going on the make again list!

The best part? This was SOO easy. It was almost just dumping a few things together.  Most Chicken Casseroles call for canned soups but I wanted to make one without any canned ingredients. I was just in the mood for a non-canned meal- so this is a few extra steps- but it has so little hands on time that I think the extra steps are SO worth it! If you’d rather skip making your own cheese sauce just use a can of chicken soup and a can of mushroom soup 1 cup of milk and all the rest of the ingredients.

Tip: If possible- cook the chicken in an InstantPot or Slow Cooker the night before. Makes it SO much faster to pull this together.

Tip: You can crush or not-crush the Ritz as much or as little as you like. We like them chunkier but you could finely crush them if you’d rather.

I made this serving into a single dish because I had extra from the large pan I made for the freezer – plus it looks so much prettier than my tin pan I was putting up. (p.s. Dollar Tree tin pans are AWESOME for making freezer casseroles!)

To freeze- wrap well in foil and then over wrap in plastic wrap. To cook- allow to thaw in the fridge and bake at 350 for 30 -35 minutes.

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