Jolene's Recipe Journal

When I asked my guys what they wanted for this Muffin Monday my son requested cinnamon and my husband wanted apple.  I searched the Taste of Home site and found Michelle O's Apple Cinnamon Streusel Muffins.    I did not have sour cream on hand but I did have Apple Pie Greek yogurt so I used that instead. I also added 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract to the batter.  I peeled the apples but did not chop them because I wanted them to blend more into the muffin so I used a large hole grater. If you chop them be sure to keep them uniform in size and toss them with some of the flour from the recipe to keep them from sinking. I was probably a little heavier handed with the butter for the topping so my streusel was a bit clunkier.  It still tastes delicious so no big deal. As always, I overfilled my tin so I got 12 muffins instead of 16. Thanks so much to Stacy for hosting #MuffinMonday and to all the other awesome bloggers who shared recipes today, be sure to go check out what they made usin

I'm going to be honest, I had zero intention of blogging this recipe.  Puff pancakes have been a culinary bucket list thing for me and I had time on a rainy fall morning so I went for it. First up you melt butter in an ovenproof skillet.  I had just treated myself to a brand new Swiss Diamond skillet so that's what I used. I used my blender to combine all of the ingredients. It was fast and also made it easy to pour into the skillet.  It came out beautifully browned and puffy so I snapped a few quick pics.    I added caramel apple pie filling, topped it with some toasted pecans and took a few more pictures but I really just wanted to eat it while it was warm. It deflated as it cooled but it was still absolutely delicious.  ************* Apple Pie Puff Pancake Print With Image Without Image Author: Jolene's Recipe Journal Ingredients 1/3 cup butter 1 cup all-purpose flour 4 large eggs, room temperature 1 cup milk Dash salt 1 can (21 ounces) caramel apple pie filling Toast

October is Chili Cook-Off Month! We have delicious recipes from across the country to get your chili making to the next level of deliciousness!   It was an incredibly hot summer and I've been not so patiently waiting to make some fall comfort food and one of my favorites is chili! I picked up some butternut squash at the local farm and I found Joy P's Sweet Potato Black Bean Chili on the Taste of Home website.   I made a few adjustments to the recipe, starting with swapping out the regular honey for some of my favorite Spicy Shark hot honey.  I also used "chili style" diced tomatoes, which are seasoned and low sodium black beans. For the coffee I went with another of my favorites, Door County Coffee &Tea Co . Pumpkin Spice because I thought that it would compliment the squash and other flavors nicely. I served it up with shredded cheese, sliced jalapenos, sour cream and some Jalapeno Cheddar Cornbread donuts. It would also be great with buttery crackers or tor

I'm in full on comfort food mode now that the temps have dropped. Soup, chili and stew are being added back to the menu and I'm excited to give some new sides a try.   This recipe comes from Sara Mellas' The Easy Baked Donut Cookbook. I'd already had two other successes from it, the Apple Cider Donuts and the S'mores Donuts , but this was my first try at a savory one.   I made a few minor changes, the first being that I used my stand mixer instead of a hand mixer.  12 minutes is a long time to hand blend something. I substituted hot honey for the regular, and The Spicy Shark is my go to brand.   I had an overload of Fiesta blend cheese, so I used that instead of cheddar. I also did not measure the cheese, which lead to the donuts being slightly larger than they should have been and so they lost a little of the donut shape.    The texture was absolutely amazing and the heat level was just right for me. You can definitely dial it up by using a different pepper or jus

I picked up some beautiful delicata squash at a local farm and I knew that I wanted to roast and stuff it. I started out by trimming the ends off the squash which gives it a nice flat base.  I sliced them in half longways and removed the seeds. I laid them out on a sheet pan, drizzled them with olive oil and then sprinkled them with salt and pepper. I popped them in a 450 degree oven for 25 minutes, then started searching the fridge for something to stuff them with.  I found half a bag of Ben's Ready Rice brown rice and quinoa blend.  I also had some leftover taco meat.  I grabbed salsa, sour cream, fiesta cheese and a fresh jalapeno.  I spooned in some salsa, added the brown rice/quinoa, topped that with the meat and then popped it back into the oven for 10 more minutes.  When the taco meat was heated through I sprinkled on some fiesta blend cheese and some jalapeno slices.  I served it with some sour cream and some additional salsa, but you could do guacamole if you're a fan.