Hospital Survival Gift (plus Sea Salt Caramel Corn)

My cousin Stephanie is having her second baby today! Joel should arrive sometime today. Paige, Laura, Stephanie and I grew up together so the girls and I put together this care package for Stephanie's hospital stay.

We included... an outfit and two onesies for Joel; a book, snack and "big sister" badge for Grace; a magazine and chocolates for Stephanie; and homemade sea salt caramel popcorn for Stephanie and her husband Shane.



I made the badge for Grace as well as the caramel popcorn. Get the recipe here. I didn't add the M&Ms this time but I am thinking of doing red & green ones and giving it away with Christmas gifts during the holidays.

Magical Peanut Butter Cookies

My grandmother (known to everyone as Pat) is diabetic. For her upcoming birthday, I made these diabetic friendly magical peanut butter cookies from Paula Deen.

(pic from food network)

SUPER SIMPLE to make. 4 ingredients. 12 minutes for baking. Done.

Gifting Cinnamon Rolls

I made cinnamon rolls from P-dub for a gift for new parents Trent and Amy. Mike and I also did their newborn shoot... Riley's a doll! Hopefully they enjoyed their cinnamon rolls. (Mike and I certainly enjoyed the ones we held back for ourselves haha!)








I'm not entirely sure how many cinnamon rolls her recipe is supposed to make... it says 8 servings but I was worried this meant 8 pans so I cut the recipe in half. I got two trays of 8 cinnamon rolls each. I also omitted the coffee from the icing recipe for my first shot. Definitely going to make these again and freeze for holiday guests!

Jalapeno Tequila for Mitzi's Bday

Some months ago, Mitzi ordered some kind of drink with jalapeno tequila. She really liked it and since then I've been looking for recipes to file away for her birthday.

Enter the spicy-cool blood orange jalapeno margarita recipe. Doesn't that sound awesome!? I love drinks with blood orange... yum.

Back to the gift. I bought some tequila, sliced up a jalapeno and dropped it in the bottle. I wrote the recipe for the margarita on a little card, tied it to the bottle, and hello, birthday gift!

photo from the kitchn

White Chocolate & Cranberry Granola

I experimented with this recipe as a possible favor for our wedding guests. (It was good but we ended up going with s'mores.) My best friend was a taste tester and requested more granola for part of her birthday gift. I made a batch and packed it in cute mason jars to bring to her when Mike and I went to Houston last weekend.

The granola makes the house smell so good... warm vanilla and cinnamon. I make the recipe as is and add in a large handful of dried cranberries and another large handful of white chocolate chips. (I didn't have them on hand but I think throwing in dark chocolate chips in place of half of the white ones might be good too!)

Cookies & Cream Bark

I made my sister this cookies & cream bark as part of her birthday gift. Its a really easy treat to make!


Adapted from Martha Stewart Living magazine:

about 1 lb. total your choice of chocolates (I used 2/3 semi-sweet and 1/3 white)
12-15 oreos, mixed use

Cover a 9 x 13 baking sheet with parchment paper.
Crush about 2/3 of the oreos. Set aside. Break the remaining oreos in half/quarters. Set aside.
Melt the chocolates (separate bowls if using different types). I used the microwave method - cut chocolate into pieces and microwave in 30 second increments, stirring each time, until melted. Pour the crushed oreos into bowl/bowls of melted chocolate and stir well. Spoon chocolates onto baking sheet (alternate flavors) and swirl to make a marbled pattern. (Smooth the mixture out as thin as you prefer.) Drop remaining oreos on top. Place baking sheet into refrigerator until hard. Crack into pieces and serve.

Birthday Cake Balls

Ann's birthday was this past week. The first to reach 2-7! The girls got together for dinner at Nick & Sam's Grill and then some fun time at Capital Pub.

But what is a birthday without cake? And why have regular cake when you can have cake balls??

I love these little things. They are a great size, easy to bring to dinner or a party and cute. Thankfully, this second attempt went much easier than the first time. Instead of dipping the balls completely into the white chocolate, I placed the cake balls on a cooling rack and poured the chocolate over them. Still not as good looking as a real bakery but they are yummy at more attractive than the first attempt.

Here's the simple recipe rundown:

Ingredients - 1 box cake mix and ingredients listed on the back, 1 can frosting, 1 box white chocolate or chocolate bark (candy coating would also work), sprinkles

Directions - bake cake according to box (I reduced the oil a little since my last cake balls were a bit oily). let cake cool completely then crumble with hands. mix in 2/3 of the frosting. if the mixture doesn't stick when rolled into a ball, add a little frosting to the mixture until it wants to adhere to itself when rolled into a ball. roll mixture into balls... you will probably get about 4 dozen. let harden for a few hours (I leave mine overnight) in the fridge. melt chocolate according to package. dip cake balls into or pour chocolate over cake balls and shake sprinkles on top before it hardens.

Here's what you end up with!



Yum! Happy Birthday Ann!

Comfort Food - Mac & Cheese Carbonara

A good friend of mine played nurse for her mom recently. To help make their weekend easier, I made a dish of ulta-comfort food - mac and cheese! But not just any mac and cheese, grown-up mac and cheese with garlic and pancetta. YUM. I got the recipe from Throwdown with Bobby Flay. Here is the full recipe.

I've got a few comments for the recipe... first, one food network website user said it cost them $80 to make this recipe. Yikes. Don't do that. Buy the cheeses that you like and that are in your budget. Lots of assortments of cheese will give you a great flavor for way less than $80.

Second. Temper the eggs before you pour it into the milk/flour mixture. (You temper by first adding a small amount of the hot liquid to the eggs stirring constantly. Do this two or three times until the eggs themselves have warmed up a bit. Then you can steadily pour the egg mixture into the large pot of milk/flour. If you pour the eggs straight into the hot liquid without tempering, you'll end up with sort of scrambled eggs in your liquid.)

Third. The cheeses. Like I said before, buy the ones you like or use what you have on hand. I happened to have sharp white cheddar, smoked mozzarella, and parmesan in the fridge. I picked up a small block of mild cheddar and had enough for the amount of cheese in the recipe.

Lastly, it took my mixture 12-15 minutes to thicken to the point of being a sauce... much longer than the recipe called for. Just be patient... my arm is totally sore today from stirring but it was well worth it!

So back to the story. I made Mike and I a really small dish so we could eat a little of the mac and cheese and I packed the majority of it in a foil container and gave it to my friend for the weekend with her mom. I had my bowl with a green salad... the mac is RICH so just pair it with something a bit lighter for a great meal. This dish has great taste. The garlic really made the dish for me. Here are a few pictures!

garlic cooking

the cheeses



pre-baking

the dish i made for mike and i.

we must have a mouse ;)

a mouse named katie... don't judge

Its the Great Cupcake!

Our good friend Jen celebrated a birthday this week. To celebrate, we headed to Cyclone Anaya's for margaritas and dinner followed by a giant cupcake and peartinis at Jen's afterward. Another great night with great friends!

The Great Cupcake

Eleventh Dish of Christmas - Coconut Shortbread

I made these cookies for my mom and her two sisters for Christmas Eve. I added a little extra coconut because they are BIG coconut lovers and I topped half with chocolate! Check out the recipe here from Big Girls, Small Kitchen, another blog I love!

I went ahead and rolled and sliced my cookies so I could package them a bit easier. According to my mom, they are very good!

Fifth Dish of Christmas - Cheesecake Marbled Brownies

I made cheesecake marbled brownies for some of my faves for Christmas! I don't eat chocolate but, I have to admit, the kitchen smelled really good while these were in the oven! Mike was dying to sneak a bite!









Merry Christmas girls!