Crock Pot Chicken & Dumpling Soup

This is a definite crowd pleaser. Super easy to put together, you can even make this into a freezer bag meal that you thaw out the day before you cook it. I love using the crock pot when it's too hot to be in the kitchen. It's been in the high 80's here, and just last night cooking pancakes for dinner I was sweating bullets. This was a total fuss free meal and it's so delicious, give it a try when you're in need of some hearty comfort food!

Quick and Easy Mashed Potato Pancakes

Last year Isla was a newborn for St. Patrick's Day, so I didn't cook and we didn't celebrate. Now that she's a toddler I wanted to have some fun and cook the traditional Irish-American corned beef and cabbage with a couple sides. This resulted in too many mashed potatoes for a family of three. I like to make leftovers a little different the next day, and these potato pancakes were a fun way of changing up the meal from the previous night. Best part is you can fry a bunch up, then reheat the leftovers the next morning with scrambled eggs. Yum!

No Fuss Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

There are 1,700,000 results online for chocolate chip peanut butter cookie recipes, but just humor me for a few minutes. I like these because they aren't as fussy as the traditional cookie. No rolling into balls, stamping with a crosshatch on top, or refrigerating for hours. The other night I wanted cookies; like a needed them five minutes ago type of craving. I went ahead and whipped these up. The dough sat in the fridge for 30 minutes while I cleaned up the kitchen after dinner, and the cookies turned out fine. They didn't spread into flat crispy cookies. They were fluffy and tender with a nice crust on the bottom. Truly delicious, super easy, and the best part is freezing half of the dough to microwave an individual cookie for yourself whenever you need a sweet treat! Give these a try the next time you're craving peanut butter and chocolate.

Cauliflower Chicken Fried Rice

Chicken fried rice has always been an indulgence for my husband and me, we probably get it 3-4 times a year whenever we're in the mood for Chinese or Thai food. We have Benihana restaurants here in CA and they make really delicious chicken fried rice. I did a search and found a few recipes that were inspired by Benihana's rice, but instead of white rice I used cauliflower rice. If you're unfamiliar with cauliflower rice, it's just cauliflower you run through the food processor to chop it up into "rice." It's yummy, quick, and saves on the carbohydrates. The best thing about this recipe is you can use whatever you have on hand; in my case, whatever I had in the freezer.