This is a sponsored post by Challenge Butter, but the text and opinions are all mine. Thank you for supporting brands that make Kylee's Kitchen possible!
I know you're not supposed to play with your food, but sometimes that's the best part of baking. It's my favorite way to be creative, and it's truly a form of art, in my opinion. Fruit pizza has always been one of my favorite things to make for that reason. Laying the fruit out to create designs and patterns was always so much fun.
I shared two unique versions of fruit pizza last year (granola version here, pizza dough version here), but I've never posted a recipe for the classic sugar cookie version because I always try to post unique recipes, and I figured everyone knows how to make it already. But when I got this idea to create a watermelon out of the fruit pizza, it was too cute for me not to share (thanks to Hungry Happenings for the inspiration).
The "frosting" for the cookie is so simple--just cream cheese and marshmallow creme. I made sure to use Challenge cream cheese because they only use real cream, and there are no hormones, additives, or fillers. It's really important to use good quality ingredients, especially when there are so few ingredients because the flavors really stand out.
Important note: This cookie is best when it is made the day you plan to serve it. The fruit will start to get mushy after being in the refrigerator for a few days.
Watermelon fruit pizza Ingredients
16.5 ounces Sugar cookie dough (I used store bought, but you can use your favorite recipe)
I'm a big proponent of getting kids in the kitchen at an early age. I think it cuts down on picky eating, and also, it gives them a better appreciation of food. I was thinking about when the last time I even cooked for a child was, and I don't think it's been since when I was in high school when I used to babysit a family of five kids that lived down the street from me.
The extent of the cooking I did for them wasn't even close to "gourmet." All they wanted to eat was hot dogs and sauerkraut (yes, they were German). I started cutting their hot dogs to look like octopus, and they thought it was the coolest thing ever.
But I feel like today's era of children would roll their eyes at my octopus hot dogs. They grew up with Pinterest moms, and they expect their food to be exciting. That's why I wanted to come up with a dish that was not only easy to make, but also colorful and pretty too.
I think I really nailed it with this granola fruit pizza.
The crust requires just a few ingredients, and you don't need to bake it. The ingredient measurements don't need to be extremely precise, so your kids can get practice measuring and patting the crust down into the cake pan.
As you can see, I made a rainbow design with fruit on the pizza, but you can use anything to decorate it. I suggest setting out a variety of ingredients in bowls (like chocolate chips, shredded coconut, sprinkles, nuts, fruit) and let the kids express their creativity by deciding what to put on top.
I served this Granola Fruit Pizza for my FOX59 segment on National Kids Take Over the Kitchen Day. I also shared two other kid-friendly treats: Banana Sushi and Apple Slice Doughnuts.
The Banana Sushi is just a banana wrapped in a tortilla that's covered with peanut butter. Slice it up so it looks like sushi. I drizzled melted peanut butter and sprinkled Fruity Pebbles on top for decoration.
Apple Slice Doughnuts start with apples sliced about 1-inch thick on their side. Just cut right through the core. Then use a melon baller to scoop out the center so it looks like a doughnut. Cover each apple slice with either cream cheese, nut butter, or chocolate then decorate with sprinkles or chocolate chips so they look like doughnuts!
Granola Fruit Pizza Yield: Makes about 8 servings Ingredients
3 cups granola
2/3 cups peanut butter
1/3 cup honey
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup Greek Yogurt
1/2 cup fruit, other toppings
Directions
Combine granola, peanut butter, honey, cinnamon, and vanilla
Line 9-inch cake pan with parchment paper
Dump granola mixture into pan and spread until top is even
Refrigerate for 1 hour or freeze for 20 minutes
Remove granola pizza crust from cake pan and move to plate
Spread Greek yogurt evenly onto granola pizza
Top with fruit, chocolate, nuts, shredded coconut, or whatever you please
This is a sponsored post by Challenge butter, but the text and opinions are all mine. Thank you for supporting brands that make Kylee's Kitchen possible! There are few people who love a backyard BBQ quite like Kylee Wierks loves a BBQ. First of all, I love eating outside. In fact, I think we should all eat every meal outside. The ambiance significantly effects how much I enjoy the food, and there's just something about the fresh air that makes food taste better.
Secondly, BBQ food is probably my favorite food. I loved grilled meat, I love grilled sides, and I love grilled desserts! Yes, you read that correctly. I said I love GRILLED DESSERTS! Believe it or not, the grill is not just for burgers, steaks, and corn. You can (and you should) make desserts on the grill!
Using the grill does wonderful things for the texture and flavor of your desserts. Bonus: you don't need to turn on the oven, so you won't heat up your home!
Fruit desserts in particular are just magical, hot and sugary but not completely terrible for you. You can grill just about any fruit your heart desires. So I decided to grill all of my favorite fruits and make a fruit pizza!
Fruit pizza was always one of my favorite summer desserts when I was growing up. You know the kind with a sugar cookie crust and cream cheese frosting? My mom would always make it for the Fourth of July and other summer holiday parties.
I wanted to make a more savory version with actual pizza dough. Just use your favorite homemade or store-bought pizza dough or flat bread, it's completely up to you. Then top it with a sweet cream cheese spread and your favorite grilled fruit.
Grilling fruit is easy peasy, I promise! Just make sure to coat the grates or the grill pan well with oil or no-stick spray because the fruit is prone to sticking. Also, I recommend using fruit that is just barely ripe because you don't want it to get too mushy on the grill. One thing to keep in mind is sturdier fruits like pineapples and peaches take more time to grill (about 3 minutes each side) than something like strawberries or kiwis (2 minutes or less each side). My suggestion is to grill just a few pieces at a time until you get a feel for how long it will take.
The pizza is best served warm, and it still tastes great the second day!
Grilled Fruit Pizza Yield: Serves about 10 people Ingredients
Variety of sliced fresh fruits (I used 1 peach, 1 pineapple, 6 strawberries, handful of blackberries)
Pizza dough (I used Wewalka bistro dough, but you can use any pizza dough or flat bread you like)
Optional: Mint leaves for garnish
Directions
Use mixer to cream together cream cheese, brown sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy or about 1 minutes. Set aside.
Preheat grill or grill pan to medium heat. Lightly coat grill grates with non-stick spray or oil so fruit doesn't stick.
Add sliced fruit to grill and grill for about 2 to 3 minutes per side. More delicate fruits like strawberries will take less time than peaches and pineapple. Set grilled fruit on plate.
Place pizza dough on grill and cook for about 4 minutes or until bottom is browned. Flip and cook for an additional 4 minutes.
Spread grilled pizza dough with cream cheese mixtures and arrange fruit on top.
Garnish with mint leaves if desired and serve warm.
Food is a big part of my life. For me, it’s almost like art. I love looking at it, learning about it, and of course consuming it. I follow a lot of food blogs and restaurants because I love looking at everyone’s creations.
That being said, it can be so easy for me to forget that food is a painful topic for some people because it’s not always available and they have to worry about when they’ll get their next meal.
The amount of people that suffer from food insecurity in Indiana alone is heartbreaking. According to Midwest and Gleaners Food Banks, more than 1 million people in Indiana suffer from food insecurity, and one out of every six Hoosiers don’t know where their next meal will come from.
When I was in elementary school, my mom would pack me big lunches everyday. I remember in the fifth grade, one of my classmates would ask me for my leftovers. I never thought anything of it, and I gave them to her. One day when we were at computer class, she left to “go to the bathroom.” But in actuality she went back to the classroom to get in my lunchbox, and my teacher caught her eating my food.
We had a private meeting with the teacher about it. Our teacher asked her why she stole my food. She said she stole it because she was hungry. It made me so so sad for her. That’s why the recipes in this blog post are a little different. This week FOX59 teamed up with Midwest and Gleaners Food Banks to raise money to fight hunger. They asked me to create a few recipes using items at the food pantry to give patrons an idea of what they can make. So I visited Old Bethel & Partners Food Pantry, and these are the recipes I came up with! I really wanted to focus on filling recipes that can be stretched out to feed a lot of people.
When I visited the food pantry, I learned that yogurt and frozen fruit are most always available for patrons. There's also usually a fresh fruit option and granola. That's what inspired me to makes these yogurt parfaits. Use any frozen or fresh fruit you want, and if granola isn't available, use dry cereal!
Fruit & Yogurt Parfaits
Ingredients
1/4 cup granola, plus 1 Tablespoon for sprinkling on top*
1/4 cup frozen blueberries, plus 1 Tablespoon for sprinkling on top*
1 cup yogurt, any flavor
1 strawberry*
Directions
Add 1/4 cup granola to bowl or mason jar. Layer 1/4 cup frozen blueberries and yogurt on top.
Finish off by adding another Tablespoon of granola and frozen blueberries. Finish with a strawberry on top.
Can be made up to three days in advance.
*You can substitute dry cereal for granola, and you can use any frozen or fresh fruit.
Eggs are obviously a good breakfast choice and a good source of protein, and they're available at the food pantry. However, patrons are generally limited to only taking one dozen. On the other hand, they had an abundance of English muffins, in fact, you could take as many as you needed. That's why I decided to make Egg "McMuffin" Style Sandwiches. It's more filling than just one egg, and you can make your egg supply last longer. Egg Breakfast Sandwich Ingredients
1 English muffin
1 large egg
1 Tablespoon cheese, if available
Directions
Split your English muffin with a fork and toast it by laying both sides face down on a skillet for about 1.5 minutes. Add cheese to 1 muffin half and set aside.
Lay the ring of a mason jar lid onto the skillet crack an egg, and pour it into the ring. Use a fork to break the yolk so it flows into the white but it's not completely scrambled. Cook the egg for about 2.5 minutes or until the white firms up.
Remove the mason jar ring and carefully flip the egg. Cook for an additional minute and remove from skillet. Place egg on the muffin half with the cheese.
Eat immediately or make ahead up to 3 days in advance.
The pantry always has a meat option available. Sometimes it's canned chicken, sometimes it's beef. But lately the pantry has been getting in whole frozen chickens. Some patrons may be overwhelmed by a whole chicken, but they're very easy to cook.
Also, canned vegetables and rice are generally available, and this is a good way to use them up! I even added eggs for added protein to make it more filling.
And they most always have lettuce which can be used with the chicken fried rice to make chicken lettuce wraps. This is great for leftovers. It's also a good idea because anytime you add a leafy vegetable it's going to be more filling.
Chicken Fried Rice
Ingredients
2 Tablespoons oil
3 green onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves
3 eggs
4 cups rice
1 pound chicken, cooked
1 can mixed vegetables
5 Tablespoons soy sauce
Directions
Prepare rice according to package instructions and cook chicken ahead of time.*
Heat oil in large skillet on low and add green onions and garlic and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring intermittently.
Push onion and garlic to one side of pan with spatula, and add eggs to empty side. Scramble eggs and cook until no longer runny. Stir everything back together so it's evenly distributed throughout pan.
Add rice, chicken, and mixed vegetables, and drizzle soy sauce evenly on top. Stir until everything is combined and heated through, about 2 minutes.
Serve immediately or keep in airtight container in refrigerator for up to 5 days.
*If using a whole, frozen chicken let thaw before cooking and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 1.5 to 2 hours. Remove chicken meat from bones and dice into bite-size pieces.
This is a sponsored post by Challenge Butter, but the text and opinions are all mine. Thank you for supporting brands that make Kylee's Kitchen possible! I think each New Year it’s a good idea to look at how we spend our time and where we place our priorities. I feel like we, as Americans, are always going going going.
For example, this is my average daily routine: wake up hours before the sun rises, check my email, work out, check my email, go to work for 9+ hours, go to class*, check my email (I get around 500 work emails a day), eat a quick dinner before starting on homework, fall asleep on the couch while working on something for my blog.
And I don’t have children, so I can’t even imagine how parents must feel!
The point I’m trying to make is we never seem to take enough time for ourselves. I think some of us even feel guilty when we do.
As we enter the New Year, I think it would do us all good to treat ourselves for at least 10 to 20 minutes every day. Use that time to read a chapter in a book, flip through a magazine, do a crossword puzzle, or even pray.
I think the way we treat ourselves has a direct impact on the way we treat others
Just start by thinking about when would be a good time to fit this in.
Personally, I think the best time for me is before going to work out in the morning. My emails are still going to be there when I return. I can wait to check them.
So I’m going to make it my goal to start the first 20 minutes of each day with a cup of coffee and my Bible.
The biscotti recipe I’m sharing today will hopefully provide some encouragement to treat yourself.
Originating from Italy, biscotti is a crunchy biscuit that can be sweet like a cookie and typically dunked in coffee or tea. For that reason, in my mind it’s a reminder to relax and enjoy the morning.
Biscotti comes in a wide variety of flavors, and there are especially a lot of seasonal flavors. Today I am sharing a recipe for fruitcake biscotti. Yes, you read that correctly. So why the fruitcake flavor?
Fruitcake actually combines a variety of spices like nutmeg and cinnamon and cloves that work really well for the winter months. Additionally, since fruitcake is generally considered to be a “Christmas” dessert, candied and dried fruit typically goes on sale big time after the holidays. In fact, the candied fruit that I bought for this recipe was 50% off!
I got the idea for this biscotti from some family friends who gifted us with it for Christmas. This was actually my first time making biscotti, so I wanted to share some tips that I discovered while making several batches.
1. Definitely separate the dough into two parts before baking. If you try to bake it in one big blog, it won’t bake right.
2. The biscotti dough will be very sticky, so before you work with it, lightly moisten your hands with a splash of water or a little bit of vegetable oil.
3. Form the dough into two long, skinny logs no more than 3 inches wide.You want the logs to be skinny because they will expand significantly. I can’t stress that enough!
4. After baking the first time, allow the dough to cool for approximately 20 minutes before cutting. If you cut it too soon, the dough will still be soft, and you won’t get clean-cut pieces. If you wait too long to cut it, the dough will harden too much and it will be difficult to cut.
5. Use a serrated knife to cut the biscotti into 1/2-inch slices. Don’t cut them any thicker than that.
I probably should have put these tips at the very beginning of the post since they are the most important part, but hopefully you’ve made it through this novel. As always, thanks for reading, and Happy New Year!
I’ve had peaches on my mind since a recent trip to Washington where I had the best peaches of my life.
At Pike Place Market in Seattle there are hundreds of vendors that sell fresh produce from all over the state. One particular vendor would offer samples of the “best peach you’ll ever eat.” He served the sample by cutting a chunk off the peach with a pairing knife and putting the juicy fruit right in the hands of eager passersby.
And he was not lying. It was the best peach I’ve ever eaten. And despite the fact that my hands were a juicy mess due to his unorthodox sampling style, I went back for a second sample. And then I went back for a third and a fourth sample because free samples are the best thing this world has to offer.
(Okay I’m kidding about that last part. I only took one sample, and we actually bought the peaches.)
I think more than anything, peaches taste like summer. So when I was thinking about a refreshing summer drink, I knew it should include peaches! And I wanted it to be extremely easy. So I decided on Peach Lemonade.
There are only a couple of ingredients, and I love that you can stick the drink in the freezer and make a slushy. I added mint leaves to the side of my drink to make it even more refreshing. Delicious!
Peach lemonade
Servings: Makes about 48 ounces
Ingredients
3 peaches, chopped
12 ounces frozen lemonade concentrate
2 cups water
1 cup ice
Directions
Add peaches and frozen lemonade concentrate to blender and blend until smooth.
Add water and ice and blend. If it is too sweet for you, add another cup of ice.
Serve with mint leaves (if you want) for a refreshing drink!
