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It’s…National Nutty Fudge Day!
Here’s are two perfect recipes to celebrate your love all things chocolaty and nutty! This is a simple recipe that I have used a gazillion times courtesy of the great people at Domino Sugar (Make sure check out their site for other yummy recipes!)
Nutty Chocolate Fudge (Photo Credit: Domino Sugar)
My husband always uses this recipe and has been designated as the official “fudge maker” in our family – especially at Christmas! This is the famous recipe for Kraft’s Fantasy Fudge (secret ingredient? Jet Puffed Marshmallow Creme!)
Fantasy Fudge (Photo Credit: Kraft)
Mother’s Day Brunch / Tea Party Theme
My mother’s birthday always falls on or right near Mother’s Day so we always have an extra special celebration for her. She loves the whole tea party concept and we are doing in now for the third year in a row! It’s always fun to have the girls together, we wear our pretty sundresses and of complete with a fancy hat. Some tips I have learned from doing a tea party lunch the past few years:
- Send out a nice hand written invitation (it’s always more special and personal to send via mail than email)
- Purchase pretty pastel cloth table linens (table cloth, cloth napkins, rings)
- Flowers, flowers and more flowers!
- Have a gorgeous centrepiece
- Name cards for the table
- Pretty plates, tea cups and tea pots
- Nice set of silverware (not plastic ware)
- Just make it all incredibly gorgeous and FUN!
- Oh and lastly…a variety of tea, tea sandwiches and desserts (and lemonade too!)
(My secret: you don’t have to spend alot of $$$ to make things beautiful for your party. I purchased most things at Ross Dress for Less Marshall’s and TJ Max. Michael’s or WalMart for the flowers. Dollar Stores too!)
This year our menu is the following:
~ Desserts ~
Classic Angel Flake Coconut Cake (You won’t believe how delicious this cake is! I make it for Easter and also for other special occasions. Its a certified hit whenever I make it!)
Oreo Cookie Balls (So simple to make! So delicious to eat!)
Peanut Butter Balls (My mom’s favorite!)
Sugar Cookies (This recipe is for Christmas cookies but they are so delicious and I make them all year long – the best sugar cookie recipe I’ve ever used)
Oreo Cookie Balls
(Photo Credit: Kraft)
~ Lunch Recipes ~
Tarragon Chicken Salad (I’ve made this many times – delicious!)
Cucumber and Strawberry Tea Sandwiches
Goat Cheese and Pecan Tea Sandwiches
Classic Angel Flake Coconut Cake (Photo Credit: Kraft)
Lemon-Orange Chiffon Cake
(Photo Credit: Jennifer Davick; Styling: Lydia Degaris Pursell)
January is National Oatmeal Month!
Happy New Year! Let’s eat some oatmeal!
I must confess that I have a horrible sweet tooth. If I am eating a bowl of oatmeal I will literally stick 1/2 a stick of Land o Lakes Butter in my bowl ALONG with a large healthy (well, not really healthy but…) scoop of brown sugar. Who’s with me???!!! So, as you can almost feel my excitement as I write this, I love Oatmeal Cookies. Being that I am more of a baker than say – a regular meal maker – I have made and tested out several types of these recipes in my lifetime and I have to say that this Quaker Oats recipe is truly the best one I have ever come across. Enjoy your cookies! Oh and a disclaimer…I dont remommend eating oatmeal with a 1/2 stick of butter and mounds of brown sugar BUT if you must? Enjoy it! 🙂 Here is the recipe for these yummy cookies http://www.quakeroats.com/cooking-and-recipe/vanishing-oatmeal-raisin-cookies.aspx
Friday’s Dessert w/ Alcohol: Strawberry Margarita Cupcakes
Happy Friday y’all! Here is a delicious recipe to make your heart (and tummy!) happy as we begin the weekend. Here is the recipe for Strawberry Margarita Cupcakes courtesy of Confessions of a Cookbook Queen (make sure to visit their fun site full of yummy recipes). Here’s wishing you a wonderful weekend! 🙂
(Photo from Confessions of a Cookbook Queen)
Cake Batter & Sprinkles Dip Recipe
I always love to come across fun and simplistic recipes to make that have (a) ingredients that I can buy at my regular and nothing fancy grocery store and (b) ingredients that I can pronounce and don’t have to “google” to figure out what the heck they are and lastly (c) something that doesn’t require strange utensils. As you can probably figure out from me for the past year since I have been blogging on here – I am a real simple and low-key kind of girl 🙂
Here is a fun, delicious and simple recipe that I came across recently that we make everyone in your house happy. It’s great for the kiddies and also great for the kid in all of us! Here is the recipe for Cake Batter and Sprinkles Dip courtesy of I’m Topsy Turvy that I am sure will be a big time success whenever you make it and people will be asking you to make it again and again. I am making this for my mother’s birthday party next weekend too!
Let me know if you make it and let’s compare notes…
Cake Batter & Sprinkles Dip (Photo from I’m Topsy Turvy)
Friday’s Dessert w/ Alcohol: Cotton Candy Martini – Cotton Candy Cosmo Recipe
So I came across this recipe tonight for alcohol infused cotton candy – awesome! It’s incredibly easy to make too (which always inspires me way more than something that has too many things going on at once). The main ingredients consist of well, cotton candy. Oh yes and cotton candy vodka (didn’t even know THAT existed!), Cranberry juice and x-rated fusion liquor. Check out this yummy adult beverage (er’ dessert) right here courtesy of The Cocktail Envy. Enjoy yourselves and have a fantastic weekend (and if you are my friend Erin in Minnesota? You can drink these while you are out shoveling snow!)
Cotton Candy Martini – Cotton Candy Cosmo Recipe (The Cocktail Envy)
Strawberry Mousse Cake
Celebrating Easter has always been a huge deal in our family. When I was a little girl, my mother would let me pick out a special Easter dress (usually frilly and pink) along with a special pair of pretty white shoes. To top it all off – had a matching hat and white gloves. We went to Easter mass on Sunday and afterwards was the big, huge family meal. Growing up in a large Italian family, my grandmother would host the dinner for all of the family and there was always a delicious baked ham (and homemade ravioli to make sure dinner was “Italian-ized”) of course, my grandmother made her homemade Almond Biscotti and Poppyseed Rolls for dessert.
The desserts are almost the best part of the meal and being that I am ME (and I am always the host these years) – I always focus more on what I will be making for the desserts rather than focusing on the meal itself. Sure, I can make a really awesome macaroni and cheese (my oldest son called me the other day for the recipe! Score!) and mashed potatoes that would make you wanna come back to my house for every year afterwards (maybe that’s why I am the chosen host haha) but the desserts are just ultra special. Every year I am trying to find some inspiration on how to make something “new” for my special Easter dessert and this year I have chosen this awesome dessert from Southern Living. Its called Strawberry Mousse Cake and if you have been following me for a while, you know my son Charlie is a strawberry maniac (birthdays are always a strawberry overload with strawberry cakes topped with strawberry icing + strawberry ice cream) so I am going to try to score some major Mom points this year 🙂
For other Easter dessert recipe and party planning ideas (and these can also be used for a Spring brunch/tea party, Wedding and Baby Shower, Mothers Day get-together) you can check out here for other ideas as well.
I hope you have a wonderful time with family and friends – however you celebrate!
xoxoxoxo
Coleen
Strawberry Mousse Cake (Southern Living)
Friday’s Dessert w/ Alcohol: Caramel Appletini Cupcakes
Happy weekend y’all! How about some Apple Vodka infused into your cake ingredients! After researching many places and coming across many “alcohol in dessert recipes” I believe this is probably the one that I have really been excited about. Oh, anything with Bailey’s in it too. You can find the recipe right here from the fantastic recipe site at Just A Pinch.
Cheers to a fabulous weekend!
Caramel Appletini Cupcakes (Photo from Just a Pinch)
Creamsickle Cake
I remember eating creamsickles, fudgesickles…any thing with “sickles” on the end of the word as a kid. The sweet memories of hearing the music from the ice cream man’s truck and whatever us kids were doing? We were totally done and dropped it when the ice cream truck rolled around. As a matter of fact, one of the neighborhood kids took it so seriously, she jumped out from her bath and ran down the street naked to stand in line to get her ice cream. She was only five years old and didnt get the concept that she was streaking…she only knew that when the ice cream man’s music was blaring? You ran outside and stood in line patiently with the other neighborhood kids. Clothed or not haha! Didn’t you hate it when there was a mean ice cream man and he would actually keep driving and make you run after his truck? Oh the meanies!
This also brings to mind Eddie Murphy’s stand up routine from long ago when he talks about his childhood and the ice cream man rolling up the street and the kids running and chasing the ice cream man and the kids screaming “ice cream…ice cream!”
Creamsickles just bring me back to the days of innocence and youth. Days of the ice cream man and playing in sprinklers in the yard on hot summer days and thinking that those days would never end.
Here is a recipe for your own creamsickle concoction – in a cake! – courtesy of Save A Lot. When using these ingredients, keep in mind that you can also vary the product brand and use whatever brands you prefer or that you have on hand – even though Save A Lot’s are quite yummy too (for other Save A Lot recipes click here). Enjoy the cake and I hope when you bite into it that it makes you feel like a kid again and brings you back to the days of standing in line for and chasing the ice cream man too! 🙂
Creamsickle Cake (Save A Lot)
Sugar Pie's Sweet Shoppe 