Bridal Recipe Shower

Let me first start the explination of this post by showing you this invitation I made.  My brother is getting married in Feb and I wanted to throw a Kitchen/Recipe shower for his bride.  I created the whole invitation using my Cricut and regular home printer.  I found the wording simply by a google search and I thought it was just genious.

"Let's Shower our Bride,

A perfect Kitchen We Hope to Provide.

Add your Favorite Recipe for her File,

We'll Outfit Their Kitchen in Fabulous Style."

I wish I could take credit for the cake because it turned out so awesome! I took the invitation to my favorite bakery and asked them to try to match it...I think they did a GREAT job!

We had a table full of snackies...my favorite kind of food!

The meat,cheese and veggie kabobs turned out looking very nice!

The best part is yet to come!  I found a couple good blogs that had some nice ideas for decoration and then like always, I added my own touch to everything.  I bought several things off of the brides registry including untensils and dishcloths to put everything together.  Here are a few pictures:

Paper towel holder wrapped w/ dishclothes.  Very Simple!
Also a little hard to see but I stuffed an oven mit with utensils.

Utensil "Cake"
You can find the tutorial here

I used their engagement pictures and strung them along the mantle with mini clothes pins.

Lastly, I also saw this idea on a blog.  I bought a water/tea pitcher that was off the registry and placed a regular drinking glass inside.  If you look closely, you can see it in the top picture.  Then I cut up about 6-8 lemons and started placing them in between the pitcher and glass.  It was very simple and turned out beautifully!

Once the flowers are in, you can't see the glass inside.

Is it a Brownie? Is it a Cupcake?

So I don't know what to call these but they were fantastic! Brownie on the bottom, cake on the top and raspberry chocolate chip cream cheese icing.  It wasn't all that hard, just made a LOT of dirty dishes.  This was also my first time to make cream cheese icing with a fruit puree in it.  I need to work on the consistency but it did have great flavor!

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line 48 muffin cups with paper liners.


2. Whisk together the brownie mix, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup canola oil, and 1/4 cup water in a bowl. Stir just until fully incorporated, about 50 strokes; add about ½ cup chocolate chips; stir; set aside.

3. Mix the white cake mix, 2 tablespoons canola oil, 1 1/3 cup water, and 3 egg whites in a large bowl with an electric mixer on low speed until combined. Mix on medium speed for 2 minutes.

4. Spoon the brownie batter into prepared muffin cups, filling each cup 1/3 full. Spoon the cake batter over the brownie batter, until muffin cups are each 2/3 full.

5. Bake in the preheated oven until golden and the tops spring back when lightly pressed, about 20 minutes.



Icing
8 oz cream cheese; room temp
2 sticks butter; room temp
3 cups powdered sugar; sifted
2 tsp vanilla
About 4 oz raspberries (pureed in food processor)
½ cup chocolate chips

Mix cream cheese, butter, and vanilla in standalone mixer. Gradually add the sifter sugar.

Add pureed raspberries and chocolate chips.

Refrigerate for an hour before adding to cupcakes

***Make sure cupcakes are COMPLETELY cool before adding icing.***

Brownie Batter with the chocolate chips

Fill cups only 1/3 of the way with brownie batter

Cream Cheese frosting with the Raspberry puree

The finished product!

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Dip

This went over really great at Thanksgiving.  A lot like my other recipes, it was simple to make!

1 Can Pumpkin

1 Box Vanilla Instant Pudding

1 Large Cool Whip

Cinnamon & Sugar to Taste

Chocolate Chips to Garnish & Decorate

To me, this tasted the best with the green apples, but was also good with the GingerSnaps.

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Raspberry Lemonade Bars

After a while, you will realize that in my recipe posts, I either make up my own or I adjust the one I'm following.  Here is one that was adjusted/added to.  It was VERY simple and so TASTY even though it was a partial fail.  Here is the low down:

Get you a box of regular Lemon Bars
Prepare crust as directed
When it comes to the lemon-filling part, take about 6oz of fresh raspberries and run them through the food processor.
When you have a thick/soupy texture, add that to the lemon part and follow the rest of the directions.
Here is where I failed: bake LONGER than what the box tells you.  The raspberries make the bars extra soupy so it is a must to bake them longer than you think.  I was unable to get them out of the pan in an orderly fashion, that's why the pictures look questionable. :)
Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

No matter how they looked, they were very tasty and everyone loved them.  I will be trying this recipe again, I'll let you know if they are a success or a fail!

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Oreo Cheesecake Cups

We are Oreo eaters in our house!!! I found this recipe and thought it would be perfect.  It was very easy and the Oreo at the bottom is unexpected when you bite into it. Enjoy! :)

Makes 25-30

Ingredients:

42 cream-filled sandwich cookies, such as Oreos, 30 left whole, and 12 coarsely chopped

2 pounds cream cheese, room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten

1 cup sour cream

Pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Place 1 whole cookie in the bottom of each lined cup.

With an electric mixer on medium high speed, beat cream cheese until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Gradually add sugar, and beat until combined. Beat in vanilla.

Drizzle in eggs, a bit at a time, beating to combine and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in sour cream and salt. Stir in chopped cookies by hand.

Divide batter evenly among cookie-lined cups, filling each almost to the top. Bake, rotating pan halfway through, until filling is set, about 22 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Refrigerate at least 4 hours (or up to overnight). Remove from tins just before serving.

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Holiday popcorn

I made these popcorn clusters over the holidays and they went over really well! The only bad thing is I don't have measurements for any of it. You'll have to use your own judgement. I do know, however, 2 bags of popcorn goes a long way!

I used "naturally flavored salted" popcorn
Bakers white chocolate (just melt the entire package, you can't have too much white chocolate)
Crushed peppermint sticks
Peppermint marshmallows
Green sugar sprinkles

After your corn is popped, spread it out over a large cookie sheet. While your chocolate is melting, you will want to dump in the candy and marshmallows. Stir around a few times and then pour over your popped corn. Before it dries, add your green sprinkles for decoration. Now you have yourself a very festive treat!

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DIY Canvas

I stole this idea from Pinterest because I thought it was just genius! I had our family photo printed in 11x17 and found a blank canvas in the same size. [both things completed at Walmart]

Using a sponge brush, I laid the photo onto the canvas and used mod podge to 'glue' it down. After that was dry, I mixed some brown and black acrylic paint (mostly brown) and sponged it LIGHTLY onto the corners and edged. [you will want minimal paint on your sponge for it to come out right].
After that was completely dry, I did one more coat of mod podge. And here you have it:

Quick afternoon snack {Peanut Butter Cherrios}

My husband loves peanut butter and has been begging me to make these. I've had all the ingredients for a while, I just never got around to them. Make/prepare time was maybe 10 minutes...so easy!

Peanut butter Cherrios:
1 cup sugar
1 cup Karo syrup
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 tbs vanilla
5 cups honey nut Cheerios

In large sauce pan, combine sugar and syrup, while stirring, bring to a boil. Let boil 1 minute. Add P.B. and vanilla, continue to stir until smooth and runny. Place Cheerios in large bowl. Pour P.B. mixture over slowly, while stirring. Scoop out on baking sheet and let cool.
Enjoy!

After P.B. mixture has been added

Learing your "ABC's"

This year for Christmas, I thought a fun gift for the toddlers would be to create magnetic alphabet letters for the little ones to start learning their ABC's.  I simply got the raw wooden letters from Hobby Lobby, made sure I had each letter in the alphabet, plus extra letters to spell their name, fun paint colors and some self adhesive magnetic strips.  They were very simple to make and I think they turned out great.

 Side note: I painted the letters in their name all the same so they could eventually learn to spell it.