MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Enjoy and be safe!

Thanks so much for being with me through the year. I really appreciate all of the support and comments! 

Ghirardelli Sea Salt Escape

Description: The decadently rich and creamy milk chocolate in Sea Salt Escape is combined with bursts of sea salt and roasted almonds delivering an epicurean chocolate experience. Experience a moment of timeless pleasure with all natural Ghirardelli Gourmet Milk chocolate. Is your mouth watering too?

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

YUMMY!! I love oatmeal raisin cookies and this here is another amazing recipe I'd love to share with you. I have to admit I've never made them before today. *hangs head in shame* I decided to make them as a surprise for my mom, she loves oatmeal raisin cookies!

Since this was my first time baking oatmeal raisin cookies, I was shocked at how dense the cookie batter was. I was afraid that the cookies would be dry and hard but they weren't at all. They were beautifully browned and moist! I loved them!

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

Christmas is a few weeks away, and I always bake cookies during the holidays! I guess I'm hoping Santa will stop by and indulge in some lol. Today I'm going to share these amazing white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. I fell in love with these cookies when I had some from a local bakery a few years ago and since I can't get them anymore I just bake my own! I like to lightly toast my macadamia nuts to give them a nutty taste, you don't have to do this they'll still taste good. Bake these cookies and take them to the office cookie exchange or pot luck and watch everyone drool!

Influenster Cosmo VoxBox

A few weeks ago I received an email about the Influenster Cosmo VoxBox. I was so excited that I qualified for the box(since not everyone that signs up for one gets one) and was even more thrilled to find out I'd be receiving one! So here's what I got!! To learn more about Influenster please click here .

Rum Cake

So thanksgiving was a few days ago and I made the desserts! This year I decided to make the macadamia maple cupcakes and a rum cake. Usually my mom would make the rum cake just because I never wanted to, this year she made my pumpkin cheesecake(which I'll share in another post) and I did the rum cake. This cake is completely from scratch and it's the most amazing moist cake EVER! I didn't expect that it would be so moist and I was pleasantly surprised.

Macadamia and Maple Cupcakes

Well my brother just dubbed this THE BEST CUPCAKES HE"S EVER HAD!!!! I strongly agree with him. I love chocolate, hazelnut, but I mean this takes the cake!! I love that I came across this recipe and that I decided to try it, the only downside is that it only makes 10 cupcakes!! Like what recipe only makes 10 cupcakes not 12 but 10 ugh! Lol Anyways its super easy like ALL of my other recipes and super tasty!

Chocolate Hazelnut Cupcakes with Nutella Buttercream

Earlier this week at work I had 2 of my wisdom teeth extracted. It was a pretty good experience since I've never had any serious dental work done. After dealing with that I decided that I needed to treat myself to something sweet and of course delicious.

Pumpkin Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Frosting

I'm excited! It's fall and when fall is here my taste buds start to crave pumpkin pie,carrot cakes and apple pies. I decided after having dream about these cupcakes to make them! I love the smell of pumpkin and these taste amazing!

Fried Pork Wontons

I love fried pork wontons/dumplings whatever you want to call them I love them. I order these every time I eat out. Making them was SUPER easy and fun. There are other variations of this dish, you can use ground trukey,chicken or beef.  I used lean gound pork. Lean Ground pork has its own flavor and its not super fatty. This is a very simple recipe, it makes a lot of wontons (perfect for a party). Just add sweet chili sauce and life is good.

Easy Guacamole

Guacamole....oh how I love thee! Avocado is known as one of the best anti aging super foods and it's amazingly delicious too. You can eat avocado for ANY meal of the day. I've seen my mom make this numerous times and on a night where I needed a quick/healthy snack I whipped this up.

Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake

I had a horrible craving for chocolate...anything chocolate. I needed a slice of cake, a brownie, a chocolate bar I mean something chocolate so I decided to use the left over cocoa powder and whip up a decadent chocolate cake. I mean this fed every single craving I had. This recipe is simple but I didn't realize until I mixed all of my ingredients that it was A LOT more batter than I expected so I divided it equally among my bundt cake pan and my cupcake pan. Simple, right? Yes!

Spinach and Ricotta Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

Spinach?....again!?! YES! I love spinach. I could eat it in everything, well just about everything. I wanted to make something light and easy for dinner so I decided to try stuffed portobello mushrooms. It was so flavorful and honestly it was so filling. I really never thought much of mushrooms besides having them on my pizza but this summer I'm definitely going to be adding more of them to my diet. I pretty much placed all of the filling ingredients in one saute pan and then threw everything into my mushrooms and in the toaster oven. So easy and efficient. You're literally 20mins away from an easy, healthy dinner!

Sausage Gravy and Biscuits

Sunday morning brunch....sausage gravy and biscuits. I've been wanting to make this for such a long time and finally grew the guts to. It's definitely much easier than I thought. I don't ever remember having sausage gravy and biscuits growing up so this was a big surprise for my family! My brothers wanted second and third servings! I played around with measurements and ingredients so things may vary for you.  This is a very easy quick breakfast meal and you can cheat like I did with store brought biscuits!

Tres Leches Cake

I don't speak much Spanish but I know that Tres Leches translates to three milks...that being said this cake is made with....three different milk products. This cake is very popular in parts of Latin America and in many Hispanic households. There's many different variations of the cake using the same cake but soaking it in different liquids like alcohol or caramel. Today I did the traditional tres leches cake. I've never tasted it or made it so the only I could on was what my coworkers told me about it. Tres Leches is considered a "wet" cake kinda like tiramisu, and I love tiramisu so I figured it's worth a try.

Panko Crusted Mozzarella Sticks

Farm Rich or any other frozen cheese sticks ain't got nothing on these! I LOVE mozzarella sticks. Anytime I'm out at a restaurant I order these as an appetizer. Ain't nothing like ooey gooey cheese sticks with warm marinara sauce to dunk them in. These seriously didn't last more than 5 minutes in my house....we were watching basketball so this was the perfect finger food to nom on!

Stuffed Strawberries

Stuffed Strawberries......oh la la. The combination of the creamy cream cheese filling and the texture of the pecans give the strawberries such flavor and balance. I love strawberries and pecans and I really feel like this could be a healthy snack...granted you don't eat them all like I did. Hehehe!
I highly suggest trying to get strawberries from a farmers market or get them in season as they are much sweeter than the "watered down" ones from the grocery store.

Sour Cream Pound Cake

Say it ain't so! I actually baked a pound cake. If someone would've said years ago I'd crave pound cake,much less sour cream pound cake, I'd punch them in the face. For years growing up I hated the thought of pound cake. To me it wasn't real "cake" but about 2 years ago my mom changed my mind. My mom made a sour cream pound cake and it was so moist,dense and tasty. It seriously made me re-evaluate how I felt about pound cake. All in all now I'm in love with this sour cream pound cake! Thanks mom!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

I've said it before I love chocolate! I don't eat much cakes, believe it or not I don't even buy or make myself a

birthday cake! But this here is different. Years ago I brought a heart shaped silicone baking pan from a Valentine's clearance sale and I had the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies sitting around so I decided to throw EVERYTHING in the pan like a big cookie! My older brother loved it and paid me to bake him another one. I actually made this for my boyfriend this year for Valentine's day and I was so excited to get it to him I forgot to take pictures. Ooooh well.....only reason to make another one right!

Easy Turkey Meatballs + Bonus Turkey Meatball Subs PIC HEAVY

Ooooh how I missed the kitchen. This past week has been filled with restaurant and fast food eating and I missed being in the kitchen and tasting "real" home cooking! Last month I received my Fitness magazine in the mail and there was a recipe for whole wheat spaghetti and turkey meatballs....and I'd been drooling over this ever since then. I LOVE meatballs but never had the guts to make them after seeing this recipe I knew this was going to be easy.

Triple Chocolate Brownies

Oooh my!! Triple chocolate brownies.....honestly I don't know what I was thinking when I made these. It was a moment of weakness for me. It all started with a recipe for double chocolate brownies and I just went crazy. Brownies are always a big deal in my house, so this was something everyone was waiting for me to bake.I've tried A LOT of boxed brownies in the past and it's just not the same....everything food is so much better made from scratch!!

Baked Spinach & Artichoke Dip

A few years ago I made low fat spinach dip for my family's Super Bowl party and it turned out to be a HIT! Everyone loved it and no one knew that it was "low fat". This year I decided to take it up a notch and make spinach artichoke dip (that wasn't low fat). I've made it a few times since the Super Bowl and I might even make it once a week just because I love it that much!!
This recipe differs from the original one but it's still GOOD!

Chocolate Lava Cakes

I love chocolate....I mean who doesn't. My love affair with chocolate started when I was a
little girl. I'd choose chocolate ice cream over vanilla and strawberry, chocolate bars over candies! I could go on and on about my love for chocolate.....but I won't.
Chocolate lava cakes are everything to me. The way the chocolate oozes out just brings a smile to my face. This is one of the easiest,sexiest desserts one could ever make. You can add ice cream with it like I did or just eat it naked....the cake that is!