Homemade Bagel Bites Recipe

This was the biggest 'duh' moment in money saving, recipe making I've had in a long time. If you are like me you will do anything to save a buck. And that means making as many meals homemade instead of buying the expensive store brand. Case in point bagel bites. Yum, I remember these scrumptious little bites of cheese/pepperoni/bagel heaven from my teen years. Only recently I started to crave them again and was appalled at how expensive they were. So instead I went the homemade route. And boy did the yummy memories come back! These things are so good, easy to make and super cheap! DUH! Why didn't I think to just make them myself sooner!

It's pretty easy to figure out how to make these. But here is a step by step guide anyway! 

You'll need:

Bagels (I used the mini ones for this).
Pizza sauce, feel free to make your own but I used pre-made.

Mozzarella cheese, but get creative! Try out some different recipes!
Toppings, I used pepperoni.

I started out by preheating the oven to 400. Then I lined a baking sheet with some foil and sprayed a little nonstick cooking spray. 

Lay out the bagels and spread a little pizza sauce on each one. Then sprinkle your cheese on top.

Then place your toppings on the bagels.

Then pop them in the oven. It only took about 10 minutes until the cheese was nice and bubbly, but ovens differ so keep a close eye on yours!

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Pizza on a bagel. And kid approved, my recently turned 4 year old LOVES these! This would also be awesome for little ones to make themselves (up until the oven portion of course). Let them spread the sauce, sprinkle the cheese and put on the toppings. Kids love being able to cook for themselves! 

Happy Cookin' y'all! ~ Miranda 

Pantry raid- Honey Mustard Chicken Fingers

More often than not, I begin to run out of groceries before I have a chance to get to the store again. I'm left having to do a pantry raid to scramble something up for dinner. My little guy has been asking for "Chik-fil-a" for days and I haven't been able to take him lately. So I came up with the next best thing. Chicken fingers. 

But I had no flour or eggs on hand to make the usual. So I had to get creative. I decided to try a honey mustard dredge in place of the egg, and use bread crumbs instead of flour. 

After rinsing the chicken I cut it up into the usual chicken finger size. I poured some honey mustard onto one plate and the bread crumbs onto another. 

*I used panko because it was all I had on hand, feel free to use whatever breadcrumbs you want- this is where you can get creative with your flavors*. 

I dredged the chicken in the honey mustard then tossed them into the bread crumbs. I then placed them into a baking dish and I had sprayed with a little bit of non stick cooking spray. They should look like this:

I then put them in a 425 degree oven. I would love to tell you how long I cooked these for, but since my oven acts up occasionally and for some reason it takes decades longer to make stuff in my oven than it should, just cook them for however long you would normally cook chicken.

After checking my chicken with a meat thermometer to ensure they were done, they were nice and golden brown.  

I will admit, I was worried about how they would come out. This is not something I've made before, and I've never used a honey mustard base for baking. I had PB&J on standby just in case. 

But my little guy took one bite and said "yummm- "Chik-fil-a!", I knew this recipe was a keeper. 

And after seeing this as my husband's Facebook status this morning I was beaming. 

 It's not every day I get kudos for my cooking!

~ Miranda