Bacon Quiche Biscuit Cups

Ever wanted to know how to use your Pillsbury refrigerated products for more than their basic use? Yesterday morning, I made these biscuit cups before we headed off to the beach. These biscuit cups are great because they are easy to make and have an easy cleanup process. I changed the original recipe up slightly but not by much.

INGREDIENTS
Real Bacon Crumbles (I used about half of a 2.5 ounce bag. You can always cook bacon you have at home. If you do, I'd cook about 6 slices.)

1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons milk

2 eggs
1/2 cup shredded Swiss cheese (2 oz)
2 tablespoons chopped green onions (2 medium)
2 cans Pillsbury® Grands! Reduced Fat Buttermilk refrigerated biscuits

Extra bacon crubles for topping

Extra Swiss cheese for topping

Heat oven to 375°F. Spray regular-size muffin pan with cooking spray. Meanwhile, in small bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Gradually add milk and eggs, beating at low speed until smooth.

Stir in Swiss cheese and onions. Set aside.

Open biscuit cans, and press or roll each to form 5-inch rounds. Place 1 biscuit round in each muffin cup; firmly press in bottom and up sides, forming 1/4-inch rim. Place half of bacon in bottom of dough-lined muffin cups. Spoon cheese mixture evenly into cups.
Bake 21 to 26 minutes or until filling is set and edges of biscuit cups are golden brown. Everyone's oven varies, so keep an eye on these.

Sprinkle each with bacon and more shredded Swiss chese; lightly press into filling. For garnishing, cut some additional 1" slanted green onions and top them on the biscuit cups. Remove biscuit cups from pan.

These are delicious! Here's the original recipe from the Pillsbury website for the Bacon Quiche Biscuit Cups. I'm off to eat the leftovers because they are so yummy!

Sugar Cookies

Don't these look delicious?!

My cousin graduated from college this past weekend, and we were planning an outdoor party. Now, usually I would get really creative and make a fondant covered cake, but, as I said, this was an outdoor party. I didn't think a cake...outdoors...in Houston would be all that ideal. So, I decided to resort to something more weather friendly and still fun and creative.

I've always wanted to make sugar cookies that were cute and had great icing with the perfect consistency. I've finally found it! I got a little inspiration from Bakerella's Sugar Cookie post from last September. I found a recipe online that I thought would be best and fairly easy. Click here for the Sugar Cookies recipe that I used.

I loved that I learned how much easier it is to roll out sugar cookie dough if you do the following:

1. Lay out parchment paper or wax paper and sprinkle flour across the paper.
2. Place sugar cookie dough on the paper.
3. Sprinkle more flour across the top of the sugar cookie dough.
4. Lay down a second piece of parchment paper or wax paper on top of the sugar cookie dough.
5. Use a rolling pin to spread out the cookie dough.

Once the cookie dough is 1/8" thick, you can cut out the shapes that you want. As you can tell, I was using numbers, letters, and flowers! I used my container of 100 cookie cutters to choose from in deciding what shapes I wanted to make.

When I was ready to make the white icing, I turned to my Cooking Light Dessert Cookbook. There was a cookie recipe in there that has the following icing recipe, and I love the flavor of this icing because it has lemon juice in it! It makes a great refreshing flavor for summer.

Lemon Icing:
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon fat-free milk
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Food coloring (optional)
Assorted sugar sprinkles (optional)

Combine powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon milk, lemon juice, and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla. Stir in food coloring, if desired. Spread about 2 teaspoons of the icing over each cookie, or place icing in a small zip-top plastic bag. Snip a tiny hole in one corner, and drizzle icing over cookies. Sprinkle with assorted sugar sprinkles, if desired.

As you can tell, I also had some black icing. I bought some Wilton Ready-To-Use Icing Tubes to decorate with black icing. That icing actually tastes really good! I also bought some sprinkles and used those on various cookies as I decorated.

Clearly the graduate loves them!

Texas Sheet Cake

One of my great aunts makes a chocolate sheet cake every Thanksgiving, and it's gone before the Turkey hits the table! Yes, that means the dessert is gone before the main course :)

Now, many have tried to replicate her recipe and do as well as she can, but no one ever thinks those cakes are as good as my great aunt's. That said, I wasn't going to try to replicate her cake; I didn't even try to ask for the recipe! I do have a Dessert cookbook from Cooking Light that has this Texas Sheet Cake recipe. It looked really tasty, so I decided to make it. I mean just look at the batter!

Yum!

Now, in the recipe, you'll notice that it says you can use a 13x9 if you don't have a jelly roll pan. Obviously you can see that I did that as I don't have a jelly roll pan that is big enough.

I took this cake to my cousin's graduation party on Sunday, and I think it was gone in 15 minutes! I did eat a small slice, and I was very impressed by how moist it was. You really should make this cake and make sure you put the icing on while the cake is hot!

Pampered Chef Hold 'N Slice

Source: The Pampered Chef

This awesome product is only $4.00! I know it doesn't seem like much, but I absolutely love this product when I'm trying to slice a tomato, onion, lemon, etc. It makes the perfect sized slices. It spans the size of most Roma tomatoes, small onions, and similar sized fruits and vegetables! I'm not a kiwi person, but I'm sure it'd be great for those, too! Your knife just slides right through each of the slots while holding the the item you are cutting in place. It's a neat little gadget to add to your cookware items! Click on the picture to see the Hold N' Slice on the Pampered Chef Website.

Broccoli and Swiss Bake

So sorry for the long time between the last post now, but I think I have something quick, easy, and tasty for you! We really are trying to use up some stuff that we have in our refrigerator/freezer and pantry. Thus, I did one of my usuals and went to Recipe Land to type in some stuff that I wanted to use. This is the recipe I ended up with: Broccoli and Swiss Bake.

Refreshing, filling, and very tasty!