Easter Treats-Pretzel M&M Hershey Kiss Things

I'm not sure what they are called but they are delicious and easy.

You should make these for your boyfriend, secret crush or co-worker for Easter.  He/she will love them.  They could also be fun to make with kids.  (I personally could have used someone to unwrap all the Kisses for me.)

HOW TO-Buy square pretzels, M&M's (peanut or regular), and Hershey kisses.  Place pretzels on a cookie sheet and put Hershey Kisses on top.  Preheat oven to 350 and bake for 2 minutes.  Kiss will be slightly melted so you can press an M&M into it.  Then put them in the fridge to harden them.  They are so simple but the combo is soo good.  The hardest part is unwrapping all the kisses. 

And they are pretty.

Are you making any Easter treats?

The Weirdest Thing I've Ever Pintered-Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough??

Have you ever seen something on Pinterest (or the Internet) that just seemed too good to be true or just plain crazy?  Well that's what I thought when I saw this pin for "healthy" chocolate chip cookie dough dip.  It wasn't that I didn't believe it could be healthy.  It was that I thought it would taste disgusting since one of the main ingredients was chickpeas.  But I was curious.   So I decided to give it a shot.

I did as the recipe said and mixed together the chickpeas, peanut butter, vanilla, etc in my food processor and then added in the chocolate chips.

So the big question.....How was it?  It's hard to say.  It tasted pretty good.  There was a slight hint of chickpea taste and texture and I honestly just kept thinking about the chickpeas the whole time I was eating it.  It definitely wasn't disgusting.  I felt healthier eating it than I do when I "taste" raw cookie dough.  I really wish I could have had a blind taste test without knowing about the chickpeas.  I think that would have made me like it more.  My husband seemed to like it ok but I didn't catch him running back in for extra servings.

But yes I would maybe make this again.  It would be fun to take it somewhere and see if people like it before telling them there were chickpeas in it.  Someone do this and let me know.

In other news, I also pintered these really easy pretzel and peanut butter truffles.  I thought these were really good and I'm definitely going to make them again.  You just food process some pretzels and mix a little peanut butter in until you can form balls.  After freezing the balls, dip them in chocolate and let them set.  Good stuff.  Make some for your boyfriend for Valentine's Day.  Or maybe your Dad if he really likes peanut butter.

So those are my recent Pinterest projects.

Has anyone else made the "healthy" cookie dough?  It was a really popular pin on the site.

What have you been pintering?

Should I stop using the word 'pinter' as a verb?  Yeah probably.

Faux Baklava aka Honey Pie

I went to a local Greek Festival a few weeks ago and since then I've had baklava on my mind.  Then my latest issues of Taste Of Home came in the mail with a picture of what appeared to be a baklava pie on the cover.  I knew I had to make this.  It was actually a Greek Honey Pie but it seems pretty baklava-ish to me and I'm assuming much easier.

So I made it.  I halved the recipe though so it was a mini Greek Honey Pie...

Mini Greek Honey Pie (based on Taste of Home's Recipe)-Makes 4 servings

1.5 cups of walnut pieces
1/8 cup brown sugar
a couple sprinkles of cinnamon
1/2 package of phyllo dough (from freezer section) thawed
3/4 of a stick of butter (I cut this down some from the original recipe)

Syrup-
a little more than 1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract


I used a mini deep dish pizza pan to make this.  You  need something that's about half the size of a regular pie pan (like a small casserole dish).

-mix walnuts, brown sugar and cinnamon and set aside
-brush pan with some melted butter
-layer 8 1/2 sheets (I cut the sheets in half since I was using a smaller dish) of phyllo dough (slightly larger than the pan so it hangs over the sides) and brush each one with butter
-then add 1/3 of the nut mixture
-then four more sheets of butter/phyllo dough
-then 1/3 of nuts
-4 sheets butter/phyllo
-the rest of the nuts
-8 sheets butter/phyllo
-then fold the hanging edges of phyllo into the center of the pan and put one last layer of butter
-cook at 350 for about 35-40 minutes
-to make syrup, mix the remaining ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat until it boils, then let it simmer for 10 minutes
-pour the syrup over the warm pie and serve

This was delightful, although probably not the healthiest thing ever.

Do you have a Greek Festival in your city?
What's your favorite Greek food item?

My Homemade Birthday Present Streak Continues...

Curly J was back from her honeymoon just in time to celebrate her 30th birthday this weekend.  Of course I had to attempt to make her present since I made that goal of making all birthday presents this year.  Plus I wrote about that goal on my blog and she reads my blog. 

I kind of took the easy way out and made some earrings.  It's just too hot for any more t-shirt scarves at this time and I was drawing blanks on everything else.  I also gave her a bunch of photos from her wedding shower, bachelorette party and wedding and an album.  I had big plans to make an album but they fell through.  So, earrings it is.

Plus I made her a birthday cake.  It's my go-to chocolate chip poundcake which I have finally mastered over the years.  And by mastered, I mean it actually came all the way out of the pan instead of getting stuck in there and ripping apart.  Yay me!

The evening started with dinner at her favorite Mexican restaurant followed by game night at her house.  B and I were victorious at a game of LCR and scored $7 in prize money.  Have you ever played LCR (left, center, right)?  I was pretty skeptical at first but it ended up being pretty fun.

So in conclusion, Mexican food and cake are good, LCR is fun, and I'm still doing ok on my handmade presents. 

British Food and the Royal Wedding

In honor of the Royal Wedding, I decided to British it up a bit this weekend.  I wanted to make a Shepherd's pie so I browsed a few recipes on the Internet and they all seemed complicated so I  decided to make one up.  I knew Shepherd's Pie was a meat pie with mashed potatoes on top so I based my recipe on that.

Easy Shepherd's Pie

1/2 small onion, chopped

1 lb ground beef

1 8.5 oz can of corn

1 8.5 oz can of peas

1 8 oz can of tomato sauce

1 tablespoon of tomato paste

salt, pepper, garlic salt, Italian Seasoning

mashed potatoes (I used the pre-made kind from the refrigerator section because they were on sale)

Cook the onion until it is tender then add in in the beef.  Once that is cooked, add in the veggies, tomato sauce and tomato paste.  Add whatever seasonings you want.  Then let it simmer for a few minutes.  Place that mixture at the bottom of an 8x8 pan and then top with mashed potatoes.  Cook for about 30 minutes at 350 or until the beef mixture is bubbling and the potatoes are starting to brown.

Remember that Friend's Episode where Rachel tries to make an English Trifle but accidentally adds "beef sauteed with peas and carrots"?  Yeah.  That is what I was thinking about the whole time I was making this.  I wanted to make a Trifle but without actually having to look up a recipe.  So I just mixed a few things together that I thought would taste good.  I think trifles normally have jam in them but I didn't have any jam.

My fake English Trifle (also this is low-fat)
fat-free pudding mix
milk
small container of Cool Whip
carton of strawberries
a couple spoonfuls of sugar
pre-made angel food cake


Make the pudding according to the package.  Then add half of the Cool Whip to the pudding mix.  Save the rest of the Cool Whip.  Cut the strawberries into small pieces and add a little sugar and water.  Layer small cubes of the cake with the strawberries and pudding.  Then add a layer of Cool Whip to the very top. 

We needed a beverage and I did not feel like making hot tea so I went with beer.  I found this Oatmeal Stout at the grocery store and it said 'product of England' on it so I knew it would be the perfect compliment to my meal.

Overall, my English meal was really easy and pretty tasty, if I do say so myself.
Now on to the Royal Wedding.  My favorite fashion from the Royal Wedding was obviously THE DRESS.....I thought it was perfect for a princess.  Very classy, simple, elegant, awesome.  I liked Pippa's dress too and also the name, Pippa.

pic from people.com

I also love these hats.  Yes, they are crazy, but when else would you have to opportunity to make such a fashion statement?  I think they are kind of awesome.  Curly J's going to love it when I show up at her wedding in one.

pic from people.com

Did you watch the wedding?
What did you think?
What is your favorite British food?

The Best Dessert I've Made in a Long Time aka the Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich....

OK I'm back.  I have mostly recovered from my debilitating illness.  I kid, it wasn't debilitating, but I just do not handle colds very well.  On Friday when I got off work at 11 am (yeah it's awesome) I spent my afternoon baking cookies for the basketball team my husband coaches.  They had an ice cream social on Saturday to celebrate the end of the season.  We had a few cookies leftover but I was tired of eating just the cookies.  Plus it was really nice outside this weekend for the first time.  So we bought this...

This ice cream is good on it's own.  The cookies are good on their own.  But then I came up with a better idea...

Delightful...

These cookies are chocolate chip oatmeal.  I got the recipe from "What's Gaby Cooking."  This is a great site for recipes, especially if you like guacamole.

So what did you do this weekend?

What's your favorite summertimes dessert?

Cake Balls-Part 2: The Successes

And now, the riveting conclusion to Cake Balls-Part 1.............

So the cake ball pops were not a complete failure.  There were just a few bumps a long the way.  We actually ended up with many wonderful and semi-wonderful looking cake pops. 

How we made our cake pops:
2 boxes of cake mix
2 containers of icing
A bunch of Candy Melts from Michael's (we had 5 bags but only used about 3 bags)
Sprinkles
Cake Pop sticks (from Michael's)

1-Bake the cakes according to package (very important)
2-Let the cakes cool
3-Crumble the cake into a bowl and add about 3/4 of a can of icing
4-Mix the icing into the cake to form a dough (add more icing if you need it)
5-Roll the dough into little balls and then refrigerate or freeze them so that they are more firm (makes it easier to dip in the melted chocolate)
6-Melt the Candy Melts (or you can use real chocolate, I think Candy Melts (CM) are easier because they harden faster but real chocolate might taste better)
7-Dip a stick in melted CM then dip the stick in a ball and dip the ball back into the CM until it's coated.  Quickly add sprinkles before the CM hardens.  You can also let it harden and then write on it with more melted CM or draw designs on it with melted CM
8-Stick it in styrofoam to fully dry

T constructed a cake stand for us out of styrofoam and ribbon.  We started with the sprinkles and then B5 did an excellent job of writing letters (and drawing creatures) on some of the balls.  Basically the ones that T and B5 made are much prettier than the ones I made.  I also tended to shriek or yell when my cake balls did not turn out as planned.  It got pretty tense up in there (for me, not for other people).

Our biggest success by far was figuring out how to transport the cake ball pop cake from T's apartment (3rd floor by the way) to the bar later that night.  We sat in contemplation for a few minutes when we realized we would need something to put the cake in, in order to move it.  Then T decided to take action and after searching through her storage closest for a few minutes, T pulled out this drawer which ended up being the perfect thing to transport the cake.  (We cleaned and disinfected it before putting the cake in there by the way.)

So I took the cake to my house and then later was in charge of transporting it to the bar.  I was very freaked out the whole way to the bar and sat in the back seat with the cake to make sure it stayed safe.  I also yelled at B for going over speed bumps.

However, we made it and the cake was a success!

I'm not really sure what she was blowing out here as this cake ball
cake had no candles.  However, M seems to think it's hilarious.



Cake Balls-Part 1: The Failures

How it all started..........
Secret email chain between Me, Curly T, and Beezus5 in regards to Shanzie's Birthday party......
ME: should we make/buy cupakes or a cake or something for saturday night for shanzies bday partay?  what does she like?  will the bar allow that?
T: hey...sorry, for the delay in response...I didn't have to work today.  Yes...I think she would definitely appreciate that....and I would think that the bar would be fine with it since we are bringing like 20 people into their business (but B5 might know the establishment better).
B5:  The Bar would be fine with that. #1 i'm in with the waitresses, #2 i had some cake balls there a few nights ago for another dude's bday.
ME:  ooh maybe we can make cake balls.  i have wanted to try them
T:  my co-worker brought in cake balls for Valentine's day and they were delicious!!!
ME:  yeah i see them on food blogs all the time.  lets do it.  I THINK IT'S PRETTY EASY.  you just bake a box cake and crumble it up and mix it with icing and dip it in something.  we can add some sprinkles to make it birthdayish.  i'll look it up.

Of course I was the one who had to say "i think it's pretty easy."  In my head I should have known it wasn't going to work out as I planned (just like those Martha Stewart glasses).  So after a few more email chains we decided that B5 and I would pre-bake some cakes and take them over to T's house on Saturday morning.  She would get the stuff to decorate them and then we would make something amazingly beautiful, just like these.......

Picture from cakepops.com (much prettier pops than ours)

So anyways, my first big fail happened when I was making the cake.  The directions on the box said to add 1/3 cup of oil.  Apparently I thought it said to add 1 and 1/3 cups of oil.  Ooops.  I didn't realize this until the cake had been baking for like 45 minutes and it was still liquidy.  It finally baked and I decided since we were crumbling it up it would be fine. 

No, not really.   I should have known.  I mean the balls were pretty soggy even after I froze them.  The first one I tried to make ended up like this.....as did the next few. 

We finally got a few of them to stay on the sticks but an hour later we realized that they were actually leaking oil (yeah there was that much oil in them).  GROSS.  So we threw away all the pink cake.  Fortunately I did make a chocolate cake with the correct amount of oil and B5 made a yellow cake to use

Our next big mishap occurred when B5 threw one of the recently coated melted chocolate balls under T's kitchen table.  Ok she didn't really throw it.  She just dropped it.  I just stood there frozen and yelling while T and B5 actually figured out how to get the (hardening) chocolate off the carpet.  (I also took pictures. I'm sooo helpful in a crisis.)  Good times.

by the way, they got the chocolate up with clorex wipes, I think

So in conclusion, when you make cake balls don't add 4 times the amount of oil the cake recipe calls for and try not to drop the balls on the ground.  See what we had to go through, Shanzie.

Did we end up with any successful cake balls?  You will find out tomorrow in the riveting conclusion, 'Cake Balls-Part 2'. 

Valentine's Week-Galentine's Festival of Fun

If you hate Valentine's Day, then I'm not going to lie, you will probably hate me or this blog this week.  But I think you should stick around anyways.  Here is my view on Valentine's Day... I know that some people think it's just a made up holiday used to get people to buy greeting cards*** and expensive chocolates.  To me, it is just another reason to celebrate something.  And I always love celebrating stuff.  Plus it means I have more to blog about.  So this week is Valentine's week and I'm covering a broad spectrum of ways I celebrated and I am not just talking about me and my husband.  I celebrated with lots of people.  We will start off the week with Galentine's Day.....

Ok here we go....
1-What is Galentine's Day?  Ok well on that amazing show I keep talking about (Parks and Recreation), my idol, Leslie Knope (aka Amy Poehler) celebrates Galentine's Day each year with her girl friends on the day before Valentine's Day.  I think she seved them frittatas and gave them mosaic pictures of their faces last year.

So I decided to force my gal friends to come over for brunch this year.

I made them Oreo truffles.....

I made them Galentine's Day Cards (with the cool stickers my husband bought me)...

This one was for my friend, Tiffany.  I thought it was fitting since she's a math tutor.  I found these printouts for the inside of the cards here....Aren't they awesome?

This one was for Beezus5...

I set the table with their cards...

I made stuffed pancakes and I didn't burn them all this time....

Beezus5 brought us all heart cookies with lime icing.  They were awesome...

Here's the cookie recipe from Beezus5.

Lime Cornmeal Cookies

Cream - 2 sticks of butter -soft and 1 cup of sugar.
Beat in one egg by hand
Add 4 tsp of lime zest
2 tsp of lime juice
1/2 tsp of almond extract
Evenly mix in 1 1/2 cups of flour and 1 cup of yellow cornmeal
Cover and chill for at least 1 hour
To make glaze:
add 8 tbs of lime juice and 1/2tsp of lime zest to 3 1/4 cup of confectioners sugar (yes i know that sounds insane, but if its not thick enough the glaze will be too runny) Add food coloring.
Roll dough into balls and roll in 1/2 sugar, 1/2 corn mixture. Press down with the bottom of a glass. use a small heart shaped cookie cutter to cut the cookie, but not all the way. Place on pan at least an inch apart.
Bake at 350 for 14-15 minutes, turn pan 1/2 way through baking.
Remove from pan and put on cooling rack. When cool, paint on glaze with a teaspoon. Let sit for 15 minutes or until glaze is hard.

I forgot to take pictures of everything else (including the people who came.  I swear they are real people and not my imaginary friends.)  The other ladies brought coffee, mimosa's and coffee cake and I made some cheesy grits.  It was delightful and I hope it's something that can become a yearly tradition.  Happy Belated Galentine's Day to all my friends who came and to those who live far away (or that I only know from the Internet).  You guys were totally there in spirit. 

***-And just an FYI all the Valentine's Cards I bought this year cost 50 cents a piece at the Dollar Tree, well and/or I made them.

No-Bake Baking....

I decided to do some baking on Sunday but I actually went with items that didn't involve baking (more just melting)...

So if you want to make something really easy this week for a Christmas party or what not, here you go....

Chocolate Chow Mein Cookies...
1 bag of Butterscotch chips
1 bag of Chocolate chips
1 can (mine was 5 oz) of Chow Mein Noodles

-Melt the chips in a double boiler or the microwave and then stir in the Chow Mein Noodles.
-Scoop spoonfuls on to wax paper and let it harden

**I recommend breaking up the chow mein noodles a little before mixing them in or you will break you face trying to eat them.**

You can also do this with just butterscotch chips or with peanut butter chips or whatever.  I have also seen them with peanuts added in.

Next I wanted to make something vegan to send to my Mother-In-Law for Christmas.  So I asked Leah from Lovely Life of Leah for some help.  She gave me this recipe from the Alicia Silverstone book, The Kind Diet.  So I headed out to Earth Fare (sort of like Whole Foods) and bought..............

Crispy Peanut Butter Treats
Brown Rice Syrup (1 3/4 cup)
Brown Rice Cereal (aka healthier Rice Krispies) (1 box)
Carob Chips (1/2 cup)
Natural Peanut Butter (3/4 cup)

You basically just heat the syrup over the stove until in liquefies and then melt in the peanut butter.  Then you pour that on the cereal and mix it together in a bowl.  Add in the carob chips once it cools and then spread it in a pan.  The wax paper helped on that.

Veganlicious-OK so these weren't that bad.  I like the peanut butter flavor.  I was not a huge fan of the carob chips so I just didn't put that many in.

So that was my Sunday afternoon.

What did you do this weekend?

Gingerbread Cookies!-I'm Not a Total Failure

brothers

So after my major crafting fail on Saturday I really needed some success to pick me up.  My task for our work holiday party last week was to make a ginger cake.  After I made it, I realized I had all the ingredients (like molasses, ginger, allspice, etc) to make gingerbread cookies.  I have never made gingerbread cookies before so I decided to go for it.  I found a gingerbread cookie recipe in The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook that my sister (wut up L-Fab?) gave me for my birthday.

pic from anthropologie.com

Here's the recipe-ish...

Gingerbread Men Cookies (based on the recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook)
3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter (at room temp)
2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup molasses

1-Sift the flour, baking soda and other spices together in one bowl

2-Mix together (with mixer) the butter and brown sugar until fluffy

3-Mix in the egg and molasses

4-Gradually add in a few spoonfuls of the dry ingredients until you have a nice dough

5-Split the dough up into three sections and wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight (I only did this for a few hours)

6-Preheat oven to 325 degrees

7-Pull dough out of fridge and let is soften for about 10 minutes

8-Sprinkle surface with flour and roll out the dough (add more flour to the dough so it doesn't stick)

9-Cut gingerbread men shapes out and bake for 10-15 minutes

10-Let the cookies cool and then decorate

Poor little guy lost a leg.

So these turned out pretty well.  I brought some in for my co-workers and they seemed to enjoy them (except the heartbreaking part where you have to eat off the head).  I did not make the royal icing that the cookbook suggested.  Instead I took the easy route and used the quick drying cookie icing from the store.   Overall, these ended up much better than my snowflake etched glasses.

Have you ever made gingerbread cookies?
Do you think Ted Mosby would count these as a Christmas themed movie snack?

Easy Last Minute Thanksgiving Dishes

pic from wikipedia

Are you still looking for the perfect side dish or dessert to take to Thanksgiving Dinner?

Well here are some ideas...

I was feeling a little under the weather on Friday evening and Saturday morning so I spent a lot of time watching the Food Network in my bed.  I found this awesome show called 5 Ingredient Fix.  The host made a full 9 dish Thanksgiving Meal with all items having 5 ingredients or less.  Pretty amazing.  Now I haven't tried any of these but here were some of my faves that looked pretty easy to do.
-Brie and Onion Puff-Seems very simple as long as you have access to an oven and would make a great appetizer.
-Spicy Cranberry Chutney-It might sound weird, but she adds some jalapeno in to her cranberry sauce and I'm all about a little extra spice.
-Sauteed Green Beans with Garlic Chips-She actually fries the garlic in some oil before adding them to the green beans.
-Pecan Bars-These seemed easy to make and would be a great alternative to Pumpkin Pie (if there must be an alternative to pumpkin pie).

Now, if you are in charge of the dessert and want something a little different (or extra desserts), I definitely recommend the Mini Pumpkin Cupcakes with Honey Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting.  These were a hit when I brought them to work.  Plus Shanzie made them for her work the other day and they were gone by the end of the day.

If you have vegetarians or vegans coming to dinner, quinoa salad is always an option.  Here is a vegan one and a vegetarian one (with feta).

I also really like this salad I made a few months ago that has apples, granola, cranberries, and blue cheese in it.  It's ingredients are Fall themed and therefore would make a great addition to Thanksgiving Dinner.

Mac and cheese is always good.  I loveeeee the kind my mom (Gammy's recipe) makes but if you want something a little healthier, here's a recipe for one that has some squash hidden in with the cheese and noodles.

These rich and creamy cheesy potatoes are also a great option and a nice alternative to regular mashed potatoes.

But really if you can't figure out anything to make but want to take something to a Thanksgiving dinner, there's always the classic pumpkin pie.  It's really easy to make.  The recipe is on the back of the can of pumpkin and people typically like it (unless they have a weird aversion to pumpkins).  Plus I made two different pies this weekend and I'm pretty sure pumpkin pie is not that bad for you as far as pies go.  It doesn't have a ton of sugar in it and pumpkin has a lot of vitamins.  (This is in comparison to the other pie I made which had 2 sticks of butter in it and multiple kinds of sugar.)

So Happy Thanksgiving week!
Are you hosting Thanksgiving or going somewhere for Thanksgiving or do you live in Canada and have a whole different day for Thanksgiving?
What are you making for Thanksgiving?
What is your favorite Thanksgiving Dish?

Amish Friendship Bread-Look Shanzie, I did it.

So this girl I know, we will call her Shanzie, is always making this stuff called Amish Friendship Bread.  It is supposed to be a secret bread started by the Amish.  You get a starter bag of liquid mix from someone (probably Shanzie) and then you have to do all these steps for the next ten days and then finally you bake it on the tenth day.  It seems super hard.  But Shanzie is always offering me one of her starter bags.  Last time I accepted one I totally failed at actually making it.  So did Beezus5.  Apparently the guilt from not making it was too hard on Beezus5 and she's decided to never accept  a starter bag again.  I have decided to go for it since Shanzie offered me some more this week.  Although I did make her hold it and do all the steps up until 2 days before I was supposed to bake it.  I forget stuff.  So she did the first few steps for me.

I can't really give you the recipe as I do not know what was in the starter bag since it's an ancient Amish secret.  But I did have to add a bunch of sugar, flour, pudding, cinnamon, and milk to it.  And it's pretty good.  Although I'm pretty sure it's actually cake as opposed to bread.  I added some chocolate chips to a few of them.  Each time you bake a starter bag it creates four new starter bags.

I wish I could send my starter bags through the Internet to everyone who reads this blog but I think that might get messy.   I will have to force them on my mom and maybe try to make Beezus5 give it another shot.  Also please note that if you are giving this bread to someone that you have recently started dating, you are allowed to call it Amish more-than-friendship bread.  (I mean if you want to)

So has anyone ever heard of Amish Friendship bread?

Have you ever made it?

Would you consider something with 3 cups of sugar in it a bread or a cake?

Shanzie are you proud of me?

PS-Breaking news...you can actually look up how to make a starter bag on the Internet.  Don't tell anyone I told you that though.