I have been looking for the perfect recipe for a beef pot roast for a while. Any time we’ve made them in the past, the meat always comes out really dry. We had recently bought a roast though because it’s a great meal and lasts for a day or two as leftovers.

But I found a recipe that works! I found it on this site and modified it some to add more flavor. I added Worcestershire Sauce, Garlic Powder, Salt, Pepper, Carrots and potatoes.

This roast was delicious. It wasn’t dried out. The Veggies were tender and full of flavor. The meat did come out looking a tad pink. But from what I found, this is normal in a slow cooker with liquid. Sitting out for the half hour made it look normal so it wasn’t anything to worry about. Chris said he thought I put too many onions but I really liked it so your taste is what should really guide you on your onion usage. Just be sure to layer so the beef roast isn’t sitting on the bottom of your slow cooker.

How often do you make pot roast? Would you try this recipe?

With winter time, usually comes the winter blues. In the Midwest, it’s cold and you can’t really go out to do anything that isn’t super expensive. When we get into a rut, I like to make a favorite comfort food. We usually go for more dessert foods but every once in a while I like to mix it up with a dinner food.

One of my favorite comfort foods for the winter is Beef Stew. I love the way it tastes and everything about it. It was one of the first dinners I ever really made, starting at the age of 15. I found a recipe card one day and the rest is history. Over the years though, I’ve found it to be slightly bland. I don’t really know what I’m doing wrong so in the last couple of years I’ve used seasoning packets and they’ve helped a ton.

Before I could make the stew though, I headed to Mariano’s Fresh Food Market.

It was my first time going but I can tell you it won’t be my last. I loved everything about the store. They had a Gelato area, full salad bar, plus a place to buy hot foods. While I was there, I grabbed their rewards card because I know I would be back again and again. They also have a doubles day which you can check out on their website.

Everything I needed for the beef stew was very easy to find. I didn’t have a single problem while looking about the store.

As you can see, Emmie really enjoyed it to!

I had so much fun with this #MyMarianos shop because I feel like it got us out of a little bit of a rut in our dinner routines. If you would like to see some pictures of the Mariano’s you can check out my google plus story. Also stay up to date with the happening of Mariano’s on their twitter and facebook!

“I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias® and Mariano’s #cbias #SocialFabric” All opinions are true and my own!”

Recently, I made my first pie ever. I used this recipe to make a chocolate pie since I had crust I needed to use. It was pretty good but my husband wasn’t a fan of the bland crust. He asked if next time I would use a sweeter crust.

While I was shopping I saw Graham cracker crumbs and grabbed a box. I was going to use the same recipe from above to make a S’mores pie but decided to try something else entirely. I’ve seen people combine brownies and cookie dough so I thought ‘why not with pie’!

The end result was this beauty.

The crust was simple as it was the recipe from the box.

Crust Recipe per crust

1¼ Cup Graham Cracker Crumbs
¼ Sugar
6 TBSP Butter, Melted

Directions

• Melt Butter, heat oven to 350°
• Mix Crumbs, Sugar and butter until crumbs are thoroughly moist
• Dump into pie pan
• Spread so pan is evenly covered
• Place in oven for 6-8 minutes
• Let cool while making brownie filling.

Next it was time to make the brownie filling. I didn’t have my own recipe for brownies. When I was searching, I was worried the one I picked would rise a little to much based on the pictures. I ended up using a variation for this brownie from Hershey’s.

Brownie Recipe(Double Batch)

2 Sticks of Butter, Melted
4 Eggs
4 TSP Vanilla
1 Cup All-Purpose Flour
1 TSP Baking Powder
1 TSP Salt
⅔ Cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
½ Cup Milk Chocolate Chips

Directions

• Pre-Heat oven to 350° and melt butter
• Mix Sugar, Butter, Vanilla and eggs until mixed well.
• In a separate, smaller bowl, mix flour, salt, baking powder and cocoa powder.
• Slowly add flour/cocoa mix to the ‘wet’ ingredients bowl.
• Once mixed well, fold in Chocolate Chips
• Fill pie crusts with brownie mix, you may have a little extra.
• Put in oven. Cook at 350º for 30 minutes

I baked them for only 22 minutes before I added the marshmallows but I wish I would have waited a little longer. I think the brownies would have been a little bit more done and been so good. So after the thirty minutes, you need to pull out your pies and add the Marshmallows on top. I cut a bunch of big marshmallows in half and placed them all over.

After adding the marshmallows, I put the pies back in until they had that golden/brown color. I would say to let cool for about two hours. Cut up and serve. Another way to make this would be to make some Marshmellow fluff whipped cream but that’s a recipe for another time!

Will you try this? Do you have any special pie recipes you love?

Yesterday morning, I decided to make real breakfast. Real breakfast means anything I need to cook on the stove. I had made pumpkin puree over the weekend and wanted to use it. So anyway, I decide to make real food. I wanted to make the monsters some pumpkin pancakes.

I was just going to add pumpkin to the pancakes but thought it was also be fun to make pumpkin shaped, pumpkin pancakes. I had bought a pumpkin cookie cutter a week or so earlier so I could make mini pumpkin pies. I thought this would be the perfect time to use it.

My first attempt was a gigantic fail. I tried to pull the the cookie cutter off and my pancake when into three pieces. The second attempt took the stump off the pumpkin. But third time was a charm!

The secret so they don’t stick and fall apart is butter. You have to butter inside and outside on the metal. Once I figured it out, all my pancakes came out perfect with a little jiggling.

It was also a mater if waiting for the pancake to bubble like the above picture. For a while I didn’t know that that was how you had to do it. My pancakes came out broken and undercooked a lot.

The final result: Kids loved them. They thought that the shapes were fun and loved how they tasted. It was a big win.

I will say its a tad time consuming but since the kids had fun with it, totally worth it. I can’t wait to make them again. Maybe I’ll need to get a Christmas tree on for the upcoming holidays!

With the colder weather and Emmie’s birthday that just passed, I’ve gotten into the baking mood. Having to bake most of our sweet treats from scratch can be difficult sometimes. I mean I’ve tried a number of different cake recipes and most of them just weren’t for us.

And then I found this one. The cupcakes came out perfect and delish. Everyone loved them but I wanted to play with it a bit and add something both of the monsters adore: Bananas. I didn’t know if just doubling it and adding the banana’s would add too much moisture to them or dry them out. I slightly modified the recipe from above and came up with these delicious treats.