4th of July: Food

As July 4th is rapidly approaching us Five Times the Funners decided to give y'all a little taste of everything! We will show you some great foods to serve at your 4th of July party, red white and blue themed clothing for the festivities, and some awesome crafts to make all this come together perfectly! So lets goooooo:

Food

Here are some super easy quick ways to give your 4th of July BBQ or party the little red, white and blue spirit it needs!

This first treat is an adaption of our previous post "Pretzel Buttons". For those of you who haven't seen that post we attached a link to it and we will also show you quickly{and very briefly} what to do :)

When you are at the store shopping for ingredients be sure to pick up 4th of July themed M&Ms and Hershey Hugs! The more themed the betterrrrrrr :) Do the recipe just like normal. Preheat the oven 200F. Line a cookie sheet with pretzels. Place the Hershey Hugs onto the pretzels. Bake 4-5 mins then remove from the oven. Take your M&Ms and smush them down onto the pretzels. Place the Pretzel Buttons into the freezer to cool. Tada yummy little treats!

The second treat is chocolate covered strawberries. Who doesn't love some sweet strawberries with chocolately goodness? Take your strawberries and wash and clean them. Melt your chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and use the "chocolate" setting on your microwave {if you don't have that setting just watch the chocolate so it doesn't burn} Hold the strawberries by their stems and dip them into the chocolate. Now here is where you can get creative. Either dip your still warm chocolate strawberries in blue sprinkles or you can let the chocolate cool and then apply zigzags and stripes to it with red or blue chocolate/icing.

And of course, you can't celebrate a totally American holiday without Apple Pie! We made a post called "Mini Apple Pies" which explain exactly what you would need for this yummy American treat! 

If you are looking for an even easier way to get the red white and blue theme, serve licorice, yogurt covered pretzels and blueberries. Or any other colored treats! Those were just some quick and easy ways to make your BBQ or 4th party a little more 4th themed :) Hope this helped you get in the spirit!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Balls

While us SoFlo girls were off exploring the Mediterranean, my boyfriend Charlie rolled his ankle during a basketball game and possibly broke it :o Obviously, he was pretty upset after so I decided to make him smile by making a "broken ankle blues" kit with some of his favorite treats, which includes some of my freshly baked gooooods! So, with the help of one of my bestest friends Janie, we found the perfect recipe for some Chocolate Chip Cookie Balls from Sally's Baking Addiction. Just a little moment to chit-chat about the amazing Sally: her website is a little piece of sprinkled "fun and adventure" and her recipes are tooo dieee forrrr! She even has a cookbook, one of my dreamssss! So before I go all girl-crush on Ms. Sally and take up this whole post talking about her... Check out her website! Right Here :) I couldn't not share this yummy recipe with you! So without further adeau here is the worlds most delicious chocolate chip cookie ballllssss.

Ingredients

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg, at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 and 1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Beat the butter in a large mixing bowl for 1 minute on medium speed until completely smooth and creamy. Add in the brown sugar and granulated sugar and mix on medium speed. Next mix in the egg and vanilla, making sure to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. In a separate bowl combine the rest of the dry ingredients and then on a low speed mix into the wet ingredients. The dough should be pretty thick! Add in the chocolate chips and continue mixing the dough {I went overboard on the chocolate chips. True Life Im A Choco-holic}. Cover the dough for with tin foil and allow to chill. 

2. Remove the cookie dough from the fridge and allow to cool to room temperature. Pre-heat the oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside

3. The dough, once chilled, will be a little crumbly but once you work the dough it will come together. Roll the dough into little individual balls and set onto the baking sheet {if you want cookies don't make the balls so high and allow room to spread, if you want little balls make the balls higher and you can fit more on a baking sheet} Bake for 6-9 minutes depending on how doughy you want them.

4. EAT THEM ALL!

and there ya go some delicious little chocolate chip cookie balls! so delicious :)

Macaroons

Happy Sunday! 

If any of y'all saw our instagram post this is what we told you to stay tuned for! While in Paris during Christmas, I was impressed by all the little french pastry shops and I prommmmised myself I would look into attempting to bake some of the things I saw! 

So here is one of my attempts: Macaroons.

 I have been working on the recipe awhile to perfect it and I think I have finally done it {all my friends have loved getting the macaroons for lunch!}.

 So here is my recipe for yummy yummmy macaroons!

Ingredients:

Icing Sugar 1/2 Cup

Almond Flour 6 tbsp + 2 2/3 tsp

Egg White 1

Granulated Sugar 4 1/4 tsp

Frosting {your choice!}

Method:

1. Beat the egg white stiff. A stiff egg white means that when you hold the bowl upside down, the egg while will not fall out. {pretty cool! it almost looks like icing}

2. Add granulated sugar and beat again until stiff and glossy. {basically till the sugar is all the way mixed in}

3. Add almond flour and icing sugar and beat again

4. Preheat the oven to 280 degrees F.

5. Pipe small circles of the dough onto parchment paper and let sit for 30 minutes {the tops will be crusted slightly} {sometimes I just skip the sitting, it doesn't really matter that much!}

6. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until the tops of the macaroons bounce up when touched lightly with a fork

7. Let the cookies cool for 10 minutes before pealing off the parchment paper

8. Once cooled, frost with frosting. Fill each cookie with frosting and then sandwich with other cookie.

Some people like to add food coloring to the dough and it always adds a nice touch in my opinion. 

SO go get your French on and go make some delicious macaroons! :) mmmmmmmm so yummy.

Spaghetti Squash

Im sure most of you have noticed the increasing number of recipes being added to FiveTimesFun! Cooking and baking are definitely two of my favorite activities and to make sure I don't blow up from all this cooking, I've started looking into healthy eating alternatives. One of my favorite favorite foods to eat is spaghetti. Pasta of any kind is my guilty pleasure. I LOVE PASTA! sooo as bikini season rapidly approaches it is time to avoid white breads and pastas! So sad. 

I have found a super yummy and delicious alternative to eating pasta... Spaghetti Squash!

Spaghetti Squash is a yellow fruit and it can be baked, boiled, steamed or microwaved. It contains many nutrietnts, including folic acid, potassium, Vitamin A, and beta carotene. This squash is low in calories-- about 42 calories per cup! The flesh is similar to most other squash but once cooked the flesh falls away from the fruit in ribbons similar to spaghetti.

Spaghetti Squash is super easy to cook and can be substituted in any pasta dish as the pasta! Here is our favorite spaghetti squash recipe...

Ingredients:

1 small spaghetti squash

extra-virgin olive oil

salt and peper

1 pound thin asparagus, steamed tender

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary

1/2 cup part-skim ricott cheese

1 tablespoon toasted pine nuts

Preparation:

Halve the squash. 

Microwave on high for 20-30 minutes {I always do 25 minutes! but microwave for as long as you want, until it is fork-tender} Discard the seeds. Scape the squash out with fork {it should come out easily and look like spaghetti ribbons}

Place the squash into a bowl. Drizzle with oil and season with salt and pepper. 
Keep It Warm!

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large nonstick pan over medium heat. Slice asparagus into small pieces and sauté with garlic and rosemary until tender {around 1-2 minutes} 

 

Stir ricotta into the squash. Then, sauté until hot and creamy and top with pine nuts {and maybe a little parmesan cheese if you wish!}

 

There is your delicious creamy spaghetti squash with asparagus and rosemary. I've changed this recipe up a little bit by adding tomatoes {sun dried or cherry} or by adding a rosemary chicken. All alternatives are great!

Let us know what you think :) and submit any recipes you have! We would love to feature some recipes right here on Five Times the Fun!