Sunday, December 21, 2008

White Chocolate Mints




I acquired this candy recipe from a past workmate years ago and had to alter the recipe this year due to a main ingredient being out of stock. The original recipe calls for particular crushed red and green peppermint. I have only ever found it at a specialty store (mainly sells lots of baking items) in Little Rock called Vanness. However, they ran out early this season and were not ordering more. So, I found red and green small candy canes and crushed them for the mint. They worked well. These make great gifts as you can bag a few pieces in small cellophane bags. This batch made about 25+ baggies with about 3 pieces in each. Pic below.

Ingredients:
2 - 12 oz bags of white chocolate morsels
about 38 small candy canes, crushed or 1/2 bag of precrushed red and green peppermint

Instructions:
1. Melt chocolate morsels in a nonstick pan.
2. Take off heat and mix in mint.
3. Pour on cookie sheet. Spread out. Thinning the mix out helps in the breaking process and yields more candy pieces.
4. Sprinkle some mint shavings and cut pieces from candy canes on top to add color as the candy cane does not color the mint like the precrushed red and green peppermints. If you have the colored peppermints, you can opt out of sprinkling any on top as it is quite colorful.
5. Let harden. You can put it in the freezer for a quick harden.
6. Break into desired sizes. I used the tip of a knife and gently put pressure on the candy in the places I wanted it to break. Since this is a very sweet candy, remember not to make the pieces too big.

Small candy canes


Crushed mint


Melted chocolate

Mixed chocolate and mint

Spread out on cookie sheet. Can put wax paper under if want.

Sprinkled mint on top


Broken candy pieces

Bagged for gifts

Monday, December 15, 2008

Gooey Butter Cookies



I retrieved this yummy cookie recipe from Priscilla Bakes. These are delicious and very moist which is my kind of cookie. The powdered sugar somewhat disappeared on mine while cooking, so I added a little more for garnish when they were done. These make
a great gift as well by placing a few in a cellophane bag.

Ingredients:
1 8oz. pkg. cream cheese
1/2 c. butter, softened
1 egg
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1 yellow cake mix
1/2 c. powdered sugar

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter. Stir in egg and vanilla. Add cake mix; stir until well blended. Powder sugar your hands well. Roll balls into 1" or 2" and roll balls thoroughly in powdered sugar. Place 1" apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10 minutes. Leave on cookie sheet for 3 minutes or more before removing to cool on wire racks.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Uber Award


I was very honored and humbled to receive the Uber Amazing Blog Award from Vickie at Uncommon Artistic Endeavors, one of my most favorite blogs. Check out her blog for creative crafts and great recipes!

This award is a blog award given to sites that:
~ inspire you
~ make you smile and laugh
~ or maybe give amazing information
~ are a great read
~ have an amazing design
~ give you any other reason that make make you think they are uber amazing!

The rules of this award are:
~ Put the logo on your blog or post.
~ Nominate at least 5 blogs (can be more) that for you are Uber Amazing!
~ Let them know that they have received this Uber Amazing award by commenting on their blog.
~ Share the love and link to this post and to the person you received your award from.

Since I am so new to this food blog world, I do not follow tons as I have limited time to research food blogs right now. However, a couple of blogs that I love that I would give this award to have already received this award:

Uncommon Artistic Endeavors - Vickie is incredibly creative with her craft ideas and can create a variety of delicious looking recipes. Vickie was also a big help/encouragement to me when I first started my hobby blog.

Priscilla Bakes - Priscilla is a 17 year old talented girl who cooks in her mom's kitchen. Her recipes look delicious and her blog is full of fun.

Other blogs that I think deserve this award are:

Simply Recipes - I love how this blog is designed. The recipe title is your link to the recipe while only a blog blurb rests under the picture of food until you link to the recipe. This might inspire me to change the look of my blog as I like the more organized home page.

The Skinny Gourmet - This food blogger has found a way to make gourmet dishes in a healthy way. She has some interesting recipes that I can't wait to try.

Enlightened Cooking - This blog sports "original recipes for fast, fresh food with a decidedly healthy bent." Camilla has tons of great light dessert recipes as well.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Spinach Frittata



My preggo self was craving a frittata, but went blank on how to make it so I googled "frittatas" and used a recipe from Simply Recipes to refresh my memory and get ideas on ingredients. Of course, I tweaked the recipe. I used to make frittatas after we moved back from Australia in 2001 because we met a girl there who was glucose intolerant. Her diet was so restricted, but just about any style of frittata made her menu. Thus, she taught me how to make them. I should add here, frittatas are so easy to make!!!

So what is a frittata? According to Wikipedia, "a frittata is a type of Italian omelette that frequently features fillings such as meats, cheeses, and vegetables. Like a traditional French omelette, a frittata is prepared in a skillet. However, whereas an omelette is cooked on a stovetop and served folded, a frittata is first partially cooked on a stovetop but then broiled to finish and served open-faced." I chose to bake mine as I do not have the proper skillet to put inside the oven for this.

I am going to post my concoction. However, you can put whatever ingredients you want for your liking. I plan to try some different ingredients next time. However, this one turned out yummy, too. I will say this is somewhat chick food as it doesn't contain much meat. My hubbie liked it, but thought it was more of a breakfast/brunch dish. Ladies, you could eat it as a meal though and not think that probably. :) I served it with garlic French bread.

Ingredients:
1 lb fresh spinach leaves (about 1 bunch), cleaned, chopped
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 red bell pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
1 large clove garlic, minced (or garlic powder)
~2 oz chopped ham
10 large eggs
2 Tbsp milk
1+ cup grated cheddar cheese
~ 10 cherry tomatoes, chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 400°F. I let my casserole dish heat up in the oven as it preheated.
2. Cook spinach in 1/4 cup of water for a couple of minutes in a covered saucepan until just wilted. Drain water and set aside.
3. In a mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, and cheddar cheese. Add in tomatoes and ham. Then, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Set aside.
4. Sauté onions and red bell peppers in olive oil in skillet, until translucent, about 2 minutes on medium high heat. Add garlic and sauté a minute further. Add cooked spinach and mix in with onions, peppers and garlic.
5. Spread out spinach mixture evenly on bottom of large casserole dish. Pour egg mixture over spinach mixture. Use a spatula to lift up the spinach mixture along the sides of the pan to let egg mixture flow underneath.
6. Bake for 20-40 minutes, until frittata is puffy and golden. Remove from oven with oven mitts and let cool for several minutes. Because my dish was deep, it took a while for the middle to cook through. Because it was taking longer than planned, we ended up cutting the sides out to eat and put the middle back in the oven to continue cooking. That is why my pic of the frittata is only a slice on a plate as we started eating it before the middle was done. ha!