Mini Lemon Meringue Pies
Really mini. Not 4″ pie pans.
Smaller.
Not cupcake pans.
Smaller.
These were made in mini muffin pans.
These are perfect for a bring-a-salad-or-dessert church gathering. You know, there are 20 desserts to choose from and you have a hard time narrowing it down to 5 and one of the desserts calling to you is pie cut into 8 pieces. A piece of pie is a complete dessert, so there goes the rest of the selections. I decided to try making little individual pies instead of a couple big lemon meringue pies to take to the Fall Praise Social picnic this past Sunday evening. And it worked! With these little things, you can have a taste of lemon meringue pie without passing up the pecan bars, eclair dessert, monster cookies, and fresh peach delight.
Use your regular lemon meringue pie recipe or use my favorite recipe featured here. Roll the crust a bit thinner than usual, then cut out circles. The tube of my Pampered Chef Measure-All Cup was the perfect size for circle-cutting. Then, press them into the mini muffin pan and bake at 375 for about 10 minutes. Make the filling and spoon into crusts. Make the meringue and spoon on top of filling. Bake at 375 for about 10 minutes. Should be easy to remember… everything to bake gets baked at 375 for about 10 minutes. 
Here’s the process in pictures:
They tasted exactly like lemon meringue pie. I guess that would make sense, what with using that recipe and all. They’re long gone, and I just feel like snitching one off the picture and inhaling it in 2 bites.
—————————————————————————————-
In other news, you may want to stay tuned. I think I might blog live this evening for a couple hours. Lexi is planning to make supper. She’s 6. She feels quite capable and wants me to leave her alone in the kitchen with her cookbooks. Tiffany and I are allowed to help her by setting the table and we also may carry things to the table like bbq sauce and salt & pepper. I think she’s in for a bit of surprise and will end up needing more help than she thinks she will. Here is the menu she picked out (going by pictures in cookbooks): Easy Mac n Cheese, Crunchy Chicken Tenders, Trees with Cheese, and Puddin’ Cones. She gets home from school around 4:15. Supper is scheduled for 6:30.
Oh, and did I mention that she doesn’t know the difference between a teaspoon and a Tablespoon?
After School Snack Ideas… and Biscuit Donuts
Well, it’s that time of the year again. School has started, or is starting soon (unless you’re in Peru, where I just found out that ’summer vacation’ is in the winter).
The kids come home from school,
…and they are STARVING!!!!! Or so they think.
I remember that when I was a schoolgirl too. I NEEDED a snack. I was starving. We lived 1/2 mile from school and half of that distance was our 1/4 mile long lane. We’d often walk to school and sometimes Mom would put the snack on a platter and walk out to meet us, disperse the snacks, and we’d all walk together to the house, munching away. Good memories. My favorite snack of all is when she’d mix peanuts, chocolate chips, and marshmallows and put them in little cups.
Renita was telling me about an after school snack that she makes sometimes for her boys. So, yesterday I stole her idea and made it too. Here it is.
Biscuit Donuts
1 can refrigerated biscuits
Oil or shortening for frying
Powdered sugar
I put about a cup of shortning in a small pan and heated it to about 375 degrees. Take each biscuit and make a hole in the middle with something round.
If you use the Grands biscuits with flaky layers, split them in half (where 2 of the layers meet)… makes so they aren’t doughy in the middle when the outside is done. And it also makes twice as many donuts that way. 
Is donuts spelled ‘donuts’ or ‘doughnuts’? I’ve seen it both ways, not sure what the difference is except that one way is shorter, so I’ll stick with that one. Fry the donuts in oil for 45 seconds - 1 minute per side.
Drain on paper towel.
Coat with powdered sugar.
Easy.
Yummy.
Only 3 ingredients.
Other after school snack ideas:
— Apples with peanut butter
— Cookies and milk
— Their leftover lunch
— Nachos with salsa (serving of tortilla chips spread out on plate and sprinkled with shredded cheese and microwaved for about 20 seconds to melt the cheese)
— Fruit
— Pudding
— Graham crackers with milk
— Reeses Puffs
— Popsicles
— Salties (chips, pretzels, Cheetos, party mix, etc.)
That’s all that came to my mind right now. What do you give your kids for an after school snack? Or do you say, “Go look in the kitchen, see what you can find.”? Today, I was in the middle of doing laundry, so I said that and they found goldfish crackers and drank chocolate milk.
Stuffed Mushrooms
I just realized I don’t have an ‘Appetizers’ category on here! What’s up with that?! Shows how often I serve an appetizer before a meal. Actually, I think I did it only one time so far this year. It was a couple Sundays ago. I called everyone to the table and set the appetizer down for them to eat while I dished up the meal. The appetizer was…
these Stuffed Mushrooms.
I love stuffed mushrooms, but have never made them before. Seems like every time I see a recipe, they always have crabmeat or are tomato-y or something. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just not my favorite kind.
Then, one day, as I was browsing Tasty Kitchen, I found a cheesy, cream cheesy, bacon bits recipe. Perfect! Here it is.
Stuffed Mushroom Caps
25 whole mushrooms
½ of a small sweet onion
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
½ of a bell pepper
5 Tbsp. grated parmesan
1 tsp. fresh or dried sage
4 oz. cream cheese
3 Tbsp. seasoned bread crumbs (I used cracker crumbs with some Italian seasoning mixed in)
2 Tbsp. shredded mozzarella
¾ cup hamburger or sausage or bacon (I used bacon)
Clean and stem the mushrooms. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease a foiled cookie sheet.
Dice the bell pepper, mushroom stems and onion and toss in a food processor with the garlic and sage. Process until all is mixed together well and remove. Heat a pan or skillet with a little bit of olive oil and cook the meat (of your choice) with the bell pepper and onion and garlic mix. When the meat is browned, remove and pour into a mixing bowl. To the bowl with the meat mixture, add three tablespoons of the parmesan, the mozzarella, and cream cheese. Season with salt and pepper to taste. With a melon scooper, fill each mushroom cap with the mix.
Mix the remaining parmesan and bread crumbs and sprinkle on top of stuffed mushrooms.
Drizzle a little olive oil on each one and bake for 15 minutes in the oven.
Mmmmm! These were rated ‘Definitely make again’. I was afraid they’d be too garlicky because I could smell the garlic while they were baking. But… they weren’t.
No-Drip Popsicles
So… how many moms perked up at the ‘no drip’ part?
I was just going to freeze Koolaid into popsicles, but then I saw this recipe and had to try it. Really, how can there be a no-drip popsicle?!
These are my friend Carrie’s twins, Chloe and Jasmine. Aren’t they just adorable? They are 2 1/2. You oughta hear them talk.
When I started thinking of how to make these popsicles, there was one problem… how to get the white part. The red is cherry, the blue is blueberry; both kinds are in the Koolaid dept and the jello dept. Well, what about white? The lightest thing I saw in the Koolaid was lemonaide, so I got that. And the lightest thing I saw in the jello section was pineapple, so I got that. When I mixed them together, it was yellow. Way too yellow. I still hadn’t put all the water in, so I thought of evaporated milk and replaced some of the water with that. Worked great! And that layer actually tastes good too. That’s always a plus.
No-drip Popsicles …recipe comes from here
1 3oz pkg jello, any flavor
1 pkg kool-aid, (same flavor as jello)
1 cup sugar
2 cups boiling water
2 cups cold water
Popsicle molds (I used 9 oz. plastic cups and popsicle/craft sticks)
Pour boiling water over jello, kool-aid and sugar. Stir till completely dissolved. Pour into molds; freeze. I did this recipe 3 times (once in red, once in white, and once in blue) and it made 16 popsicles. Freeze between each layer. When the middle white layer gets thick enough, put popsicles sticks in. Making these took all day (poured the first layer in around 9 am, and the popsicles were ready to eat by 7:30 pm).
And here is our test crew to see if the popsicles are actually no-drip or not.
They, of course, did drip some, but I was pretty impressed. I’ve seen popsicles make alot bigger messes! I think the jello in there made it thicker… the juice didn’t run too much. They’re easy and quick to make (especially if you make them all the same color instead of layered).
What a great summertime treat! Send your kids outside with some!
Fried Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich
Have you ever tried that? Yesterday, while we were making fry pies, Renita and I were talking about quick lunches or something (I forget exactly how we got on the subject) and she said that her son likes his pb&j sandwiches fried, like a grilled cheese sandwich. I had never heard of it, so I decided I’d have to try it.
Fast-forward to a couple hours later… I got home around 1:00 p.m. and hadn’t had lunch yet, so I was staring in the fridge when suddenly I remembered the fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So, I made 2, one for me and one for Tiffany (Lexi was at school). Then, after eating that one, I made another one for me. They are good! The peanut butter gets all warm and melty and gooey and the sandwich is crispy to bite into. It just kinda bumps plain ol’ peanut butter and jelly sandwiches up a level.
So, here you go, no recipe, just the process in pictures…
Peanut butter & Jelly…
Grilled cheese and tomato soup…
Yup, I don’t use a frying pan for this type of thing, mostly which is grilled cheese sandwiches. And that reminds me of this post, which was written on my old blog before I started Kitchen Scrapbook. And when the posts were transferred to Kitchen Scrapbook, the comments didn’t come with them, so here are a couple other ideas that people had for doing right on a smooth top burner and skipping the frying pan: warm tortillas up, make quesadillas, and someone knew of someone who fries onions and sausage right on the burner! I haven’t tried that one! Someone also said this, “Something to try next time you have tomato soup. Hard-boil 3 or 4 eggs, then grate or shred into soup just before serving. Yummy!”
I LOVE my smooth top stove! Not just for this, but because it’s easier to clean too.
About Me
Hi! Welcome to my kitchen! My name is Kay. I'm from central Ohio. I love cooking and baking. Especially baking. It's thereapeudic for me. I'm not a professional or gourmet cook by any means. I'm a Christian homemaker who happens to take pictures of some of the food I make. I have 2 little 'helpers'... Lexi (7) and Tiffany (3), who are young cooks in training. I don't do anything on the grill... that's where my husband Shannon comes in! He grills quite a bit, especially in the summer. So, sit back and enjoy browsing thro' the recipes. If you try some of them, I'd love to hear feedback on how you liked them! If you want to contact me, my email address is kaylouann@gmail.com
Blogroll
- Cookie Madness - Great recipes and pictures of cookies that leave you with a helpless craving.
- Mama’s Southern Cooking - Comfy site with good cookin’ and lots of tips.
- The Pioneer Woman Cooks! - Home-cooking, lots of pictures and fun reading
Her Blog Directory