Artichoke French Bread

Friday on MOMS CRAZY COOKING - Recipe Only!

Here is our favorite recipe for Pioneer Woman's Hot Artichoke Dip

ULTIMATE CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE RECIPE: Spaghetti w/Red Sauce

WOW, what an amazing challenge! Spaghetti with Red Sauce! I made my challenge recipe and I've already pinned and made a few of the other bloggers link-ups and it's only been a week! YUM! I am excited today to annouce the winner, voted on by you the readers and bloggers. This is our seventh month of the CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE; and it just keeps getting better and better! If you missed the post or if you are new here make sure you go back and check them out... we have 84 AMAZING Spaghetti Recipes from the challenge last week!

We had 84 bloggers search and blog about SPAGHETTI and since this is a favorite of my family, you know that I pinned a ton of recipes and have already begun making them (yep, in just one short week, we've ate spaghetti twice! LOVE IT!). If you missed the linky party, what are you waiting for? Go check it out CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE - Spaghetti with Red Sauce.

The Ultimate recipe is chosen from the blog that received the most traffic/most clicks from the linky party. Did you know that our little challenge received over 34,000 hits in one week? That's wonderful and many bloggers who participate say that their challenge recipes are there most popular posts. If you want more details about this challenge or joining this challenge for next month read all about it here. Next month we will be baking and blogging about the ULTIMATE BLUEBERRY MUFFIN. Please come join us!

Now, let's announce the March WINNER of the CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE.

The Ultimate SPAGHETTI W/RED SAUCE Recipe

Cheese Curd in Paradise

Spaghetti Pie

Thank you, Cheese Curd in Paradise for finding this recipe over at Edesia's Notebook. We'd like to thank you for sharing your recipe with the CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE. You deserve a big round of applause and you are entitled to the ULTIMATE CRAZY COOKING CHALLENGE BUTTON, please feel free to grab it below if you wish and post it proudly on your blog.

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Also a BIG THANK YOU to the bloggers who participated in the challenge!

Chocolate Orange Brownies with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

As I was looking at the pile of oranges in my basket wondering what in the world am I going to make with them, in my email box I found this; Chocolate Orange Brownies! YAHOOO! If you like orange flavor, you will LOVE these orange brownies.

FREEZER TIPS: Here are a few freezer tips too for all the left-over oranges. With an entire basket still full of oranges, I decided to zest all the oranges and then squeeze them all for some fresh orange juice. I love to have both in the freezer to use in later recipes. I can tell you this it's worked out wonderful. First zest all of the oranges with your zester and store in a small ziploc container. The zest does not stick together in the freezer and you can use a teaspoon here and there or whenever you need it. Then with the fresh squeezed orange juice, I used an ice cube tray to freeze all the fresh juice. Then later remove the cubes from the tray and store into a ziploc bag. These thaw out very quickly and so when you need a tablespoon of fresh orange juice, it's always on hand.

Chocolate Orange Brownies
recipe found at Gingerbread Bagels

3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp kosher salt
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 tbsp orange zest
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Sift the flour, unsweetened cocoa powder and kosher salt. Set aside.

In a bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, mix together the brown sugar, sugar and melted unsalted butter on medium speed for about 3 minutes. Add in the orange zest and mix. Then add in the vanilla extract and mix. Add in the eggs, one at a time. Mix until the eggs are completely incorporated.

Slowly add in the dry ingredients and mix until almost combined. Take a spatula and fold the ingredients together. Add in the chocolate chips and fold them in. Spread the batter into a lightly greased 8 by 8 inch baking pan. Bake for 30 minutes at 350.

Cool the brownies in the pan on a cooling rack. Do not frost them until the brownies have completely cooled. Frosting will melt.

Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
4 oz cream cheese, softened
1 tsp freshly squeezed orange juice
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp orange zest

Sift the powdered sugar and set it aside. In a bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, mix together the butter and cream cheese for 3 minutes on medium low speed. Add in the orange juice and vanilla extract. Mix. Add in the orange zest and mix again. Slowly add in the powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at a time on low speed. Once the powdered sugar is all added, increase the speed to medium low and mix for about 2-3 minutes until the frosting is smooth.

If the frosting is too thin, place it in an airtight container in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes until somewhat firm. Frost the cooled brownies with orange cream cheese frosting and decorate with orange sprinkles.

Lucky Charm Yogurt Cups

The Luck of the Irish.... St. Patty's Day is coming... and this will make any kid smile (even adult kids). My 18-year old daughters this morning thought this was the best breakfast ever (and not too bad on calories either). I love this combo of 50/50 yogurt and cool whip, I will be using this again soon. We did this as a quick breakfast, but the original web site glammed these cute things up for a fun festive party dessert. Either way, they are cute, adorable and taste good too!

Lucky Charm Yogurt Cups
recipe found via Pinterest at Rock UR Party

2 Yogurt Cups (any flavor, any color)
2 (yogurt) cup fulls of Cool Whip
Food Coloring
Lucky Charm Cereal

Mix the yogurt and whipped topping, 50/50. I used the yogurt cup that the yogurt came out of to measure the cool whip. We used Strawberry Yogurt with extra red food coloring and Coconut Yogurt with yellow food coloring. Two yogurt cups makes about 4 to 6 parfait size servings.

Layer in cups, starting with the yogurt or cereal, no preference – about 2 heaping tablespoons for each layer. Make sure to add enough cereal to cover the yogurt, so they don't bleed together.

Serve immediately, the yogurt will get warm and the cereal soggy if you don't eat right away.

THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS #72 (EVERYTHING GREEN) and Mint M&M Pretzel Bites

THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS Linky Party #72

(St. Patricks Day... and EVERYTHING GREEN)

Mint M&M Pretzel Bites

These cute little Pretzel Bites are so creative and I suppose the four little white chocolates and the green M&M in the middle could represent a four leaf clover... kinda, I guess. But, anyway they are cute and they are delicious. It's one of those things you set on the counter and everytime you walk by you pop one into your mouth and then all of a suddent they are ALL gone! Uh-Oh!

And did everyone know they sold MINT M&M's? I did not. I went searching for green M&M's and my grocery store only had Easter color M&M's and then I thought, well I could buy a bag of regular M&M's and pick out all the green ones and I still wasn't sold so I ran over the the regular candy isle and behold look what I found. An entire bag of ALL green M&M's (but mint flavor), which I think made these even better. So, score one for me! :-)

Mint M&M Pretzel Bites

idea found at My Little Gems

Butter Snap Pretzels (the square ones work best)
White Chocolate Chips (4 for each pretzel)
Mint Green M&M's (or green or whatever color you wish)

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Lay out your pretzels on the cookie sheet and 4 chocolate chips on each pretzel (make sure your white chocolate chips are very close together). When the chocolate is soft- after about 5 minutes in the oven, take out of oven and swirl the chocolate chips a bit to make them look like a clover, then place the mint M&M in the center and lightly press down. Let them set and they are ready to serve.

This week's theme is: EVERYTHING Green (all links must be green food)

Please only link recipes with our theme!

If you are a regular to THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS Linky party, then link-up we're excited to see what you made this week. If you are new, please just follow our simple rules, so that everyone can enjoy the linky party! If you forget to follow the theme, your post will be deleted. Please don't feel hurt, just come back and link up a recipe that follows the theme. Thanks a million, we look forward to blogging with you!

Please Grab Our Button!!!

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This Week's Cravings Upcoming Linky "THEMES"

Here is a complete list of the past and what's coming up next on THIS WEEK'S CRAVINGS!

March 19 - Chocolate, Chocolate and More Chocolate

March 26 - Freezer Meals (fix and freeze for later)

April 2 - Easter Cookies & Treats

April 9 - Show Us Your ULTIMATE SANDWICH

Your hostess for this party are: Tina from MOMS CRAZY COOKING, Angela from Big Bear's Wife, Nicole from The Daily Dish and Kristi from Veggie Converter. We host this theme linky party every Monday (and the party stays open all week long)! We hope to inspire you to make something with our theme or get an old post notice by linking it up to the linky party below. 

The LINKY PARTY is opened ALL Week!

PLEASE do not link more then 3 recipes per week.
This week's theme is: EVERYTHING Green (all links must be green food)
Please only link recipes with our theme!

This week's theme is: EVERYTHING Green (all links must be green food)
Please only link recipes with our theme!