Pecan Pie Muffins

I have a tendency to keep dark brown sugar in my pantry just from buying for a new recipe I want to try. I forget about it & I end up with multiple bags of it! I was thinking of what can I do with all these Dark Brown Sugar, so I found a bag of Whole Pecans & figured I'd make these wonderful Pecan Pie Muffins! I adapted this from Trisha Yearwood's recipe but made some slight adjustments. 

These are good with Tea or Coffee in the mornings or an afternoon snack. The consistency should resemble a toffee pudding but golden on top. 

Here's this SIMPLE recipe and hope you give it a try. 

Ingredients:

1 cup chopped pecans

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

2 large eggs

1 stick butter, melted

Dash of Vanilla

Directions: 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place paper liners in 9 muffin cups and spray with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, combine the pecans, sugar and flour. Make a well in the center of the mixture.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs until foamy. Add the melted butter and stir to combine. Pour the egg mixture into the well in the dry ingredients, stirring until moistened.

Spoon the batter into the cups, filling each almost full. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in a muffin, about 20 minutes..

And Viola! The house smells so good by the way! 

Cauliflower Crust Pizza

Hi Everyone! Yes, my first post for 2015! I have to be better this year. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. Speaking of the holidays, it's really hard to start the new year right knowing you've probably went a little overboard with the food, I mean how can you not try your Aunt's favorite dish, or your relatives Pecan Pie on the table right?

All this came down too starting to introduce your family to "Meatless" dishes as much as you can. I'm not one too to promote it, but giving a go would not be bad at all!

I had to think of a favorite dish that does not involve any meat but yet satisfying at the end, so here's my first Meatless dish.

Give this a try, I can tell you, your picky eater at home will not even notice the "dough" which is the Cauliflower!

Ingredients:

1 large egg, lightly beaten

2 1/2 cups cauliflower, grated (about 1/2 large head), I doubled mine.

1 1/4 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

2 Tablespoons Grated Parmesan Cheese

Kosher Salt and freshly ground pepper

1 cup grape tomatoes, sliced in half

1/4 cup Pizza Sauce (you can use any favorite brand of yours)

3 cloves garlic, crushed ( I added more than 2 cloves as I love garlic, you can lessen the amount if you want too)

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (you can add more depending on the amount of heat you like)

Fresh basil leaves, this is optional (I added them anyways, as it just completes the Pizza flavor)



Directions:

1. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper, and then preheat oven to 425 F.



2. Grate the cauliflower using a box grater until you have 2 cups of cauliflower crumbles. *Use the big side of the grater* . Next, place in a large bowl and microwave for about 7-8 minutes, or until soft. Remove from the microwave and let it cool.



3. Mix the one cup of mozzarella, egg, parmesan cheese and salt & pepper. Once combined, pat into a baking pan that's 13 x 9 (this is what I used) OR if you and to actually make it look like a Pizza shape, pat it into a 10-inch round on the prepared pizza pan.

Spray very lightly with nonstick spray and then bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.



4. Remove from oven, then top with Pizza sauce, 1/4 cup mozzarella, garlic, grape tomatoes & red pepper flakes. Return the whole pan in the oven until the cheese is melted & bubbly, like for another 10 minutes.

Top with basil before serving.



Notes: 

I actually added the basil on the pizza and baked it, it turned out just fine and little welted

I wish I kept the "crust" in the oven just a tad longer so it will be a little crispier.

See how pretty it looks! Loving the beautiful colors. Hey, color is appealing to the eyes which makes the dish even tastier lol ;)  Hope you try it one day.

Shrimp Scampi Cheesecake Appetizer

When I first saw this recipe, I was a little hesitant to make it as the title alone is making this dish so RICH! To my surprise it was, but the Shrimp and Gouda Cheese and Cream cheese combination works well, it is rich in flavor but it's something that you would want for more.
This recipe got adapted on www.allrecipes.com

This original recipe makes 12 servings it says, however, BEWARE it actually makes ALOT. I ended up putting the remaining mixture in the fridge and actually bought more Puffed Pastry to make 2 batches and I still had more left! it makes great left over "Mac & Cheese" pasta dish! I used the no yolk egg noodles and ended up baking it at 350 deg for another dish out of this recipe!

Ok, let's move on to the ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 onion
• 6 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1 pound fresh shrimp, peeled & deveined
• 12 shells puff pastry, baked
• 4 tablespoons butter or margarine

• 3 ( 8 ounce), packages cream cheese softened
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 heavy cream
• 16 ounces smoked Gouda, grated
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 
  

Prep: 45 mins

Cook: 25 mins

Ready in 1 hr 10 mins

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large skillet over medium-low heat, warm oil and saute onions and garlic until onions are translucent; set aside to cool. When cool, pour off liquid reserving garlic
3. Cut shrimp into 1/2 inch pieces, reserving 12 uncut for garnish. In a large skillet over medium-low heat, melt butter and add reserved garlic and all shrimp; cook shrimp for 2 to 4 minutes or until done.
4. Remove center circle and a small portion of inside of cooled puff pastry shells.
5. In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese until creamy; add one egg at a time and beat until well mixed. Add cream, Gouda, onions, shrimp and salt.
6. Spoon filling into puff pastry shells.
7. Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until filling is browned on top. Garnish with whole shrimp and chopped chives; serve. I actually omitted the chopped chives, although I bet if it were topped with it, it might've made it more tastier and the chives will sort of offset the richness. 

Pao de Queijo (Brazilian Cheese Bread)

Hi Everyone,
I first heard this bread from our neighbor who gave me a bowl this past Easter Sunday. I thought I'd give this a try and make it from scratch, I was pretty amazed how quick and delicious the bread turned out! No waiting for any dough to rise! As you will see, I have alternate the recipe a little bit as my pantry at the time did not have one of the ingredients listed to make this bread, however, it turned out just fine.

This is best eaten fresh from the oven. If you need to reheat it, I'd say putting it into a toaster oven for a bit to heat thru or if you are really in a hurry, then I suggest to reheat  in microwave, but be very careful as the result could be rubbery! If you are to reheat in the microwave then I recommend about 10-15 seconds depending on how strong your microwave is.

Here we go (adapted from simplyrecipes.com)

Prep: 5 minutes  Cook: 15 minutes
Yield: enough batter for 16 MINI muffin sized cheese bread

**The recipe is very basic, you can and I recommend to dress it up and add ingredients to it like minced jalapeños since it's a "cheese" bread and add according to heat you desire.

Ingredients:
1 egg
1/3 cup olive oil (if no olive oil is present, canola oil/vegetable oil will do)
2/3 cup whole milk
1 1/2 cups of Tapioca Flour (in the Asian Grocery store where I live, I did not find Tapioca Flour, however I found Tapioca Starch - which is the same, so don't worry)

1/2 cup of grated cheese (your preference), I used a mixed of shredded cheeses. Although according to this recipe, they used Mexican Farmer's cheese which is Queso Fresco.

1 teaspoon of salt

Preheat Oven to 400 degree Fahrenheit. Grease a mini-muffin tin (I sprayed Pam).

Put all the ingredients into a blender and pulse until smooth.

You can store this batter up to a week in the Refrigerator if you like.
Pour the batter (batter should be runny) into your MINI muffin pans just right before the rim. As yyou can see I over poured some!

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, my oven lightly browned the bread in 15 minutes, so I pulled it out. Bake until all is puffy and just lightly browned.

Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack for a few minutes.

Enjoy!!

***Please note that this bread is very chewy, and the consistency is alot like a Japanese Mochi***

Easter DumDum Lollipop Craft

Well hello everyone! I can't believe that I'm posting this before the Easter holiday rolls in! I usually have the tendency to post things after the fact rather than before. I have this easter craft a try and they turned out so cute I might have to say!
These took a little bit of time to make as I had to wait for the paint to dry, then you have your trusty glue gun in hand to put everything together!
These bunnies were for my son's Easter Class party this week, and these were an addition to a pre-made treat bag for them to take home. The kids can either keep it as is or they may end up just tearing everything out and enjoy the candy, which is totally cool.

Let's get to it, here is what you'll need:

(Adapted from SpanglerCandy.com)

• Assorted Dum Dum Pops in springtime colors
• 1" flat wooden hearts
• Wooden beads (Make sure the hole in the bead is big enough to accommodate a Dum Dum stick.) I used beads just slightly smaller than the Dum Dum Pop and I did have a hard time sticking the pipe cleaners into the hole, so make sure you follow the size it needs
• White acrylic pant
• Foam brush
• White pipe cleaners
• Small pink pom poms
• White pom poms (in two sizes)
• Self-adhesive googly eyes ( I did not find these at the Michael's craft store, I ended up hot gluing them, it's fine)
• Hot Glue

How to make them:

1. Paint the wooden hearts and balls with white acrylic paint. These will be the bunny feet and the bunny heads.

2. Once dry, take a spring colored Dum Dum Pop and glue the top of it to a wooden heart. Make sure the top of the heart is showing - these are the "bunny feet."


3. Thread a bead onto Dum Dum Pop - this is the "head."

4. Affix eyes to the head. It's easiest if you use stick-on eyes, but you can also glue them on if you prefer. Also glue on a pink pom pom for the nose and two smaller white pom poms for the teeth.

5. Then glue on two larger white pom poms to either side of the Dum Dum Pop to make bunny arms. (This part I was not able to add as let's just say, I forgot and I did not have time to run to the store!) - but by all means, I think adding the "paws" will complete the look :)

6. Finally, take two 3" lengths of white pipe cleaner. Make a loop with each. These are the ears. We were able to stick the ends inside hole of the bead and secure with a small dab of glue. Then Glue the other pompom's as the bunny Tail.

Well... look at that! And in just a few easy steps (or should we say hops?) you have adorable Easter bunny lollipop creations!

CHOCOLATE cake you say?

Yes, that's right. CHOCOLATE. Not sure how and why I ended up making a Hershey's Chocolate cake with only 3 people in the household on a weekday? Well, as I was cleaning my pantry, I was trying to move away the Hershey's Cocoa Powder to give way for me reaching some cupcake liners, then I somehow held on to the Cocoa Powder container and looked at the back of it and started reading these simple ingredients that I had in my pantry, well close to 2 hours later, a "Perfectly" Hershey's Chocolate cake has been baked w/ Frosting and all from Scratch!

I have to say, it's super moist and just taste good! Followed the instructions to a tee. Highly recommend this cake, it can also be done into a bunt cake, cupcakes and baked in a 13x9 inch baking pan if you wish. I did not alter anything at all.

I apologize in advance as I was trying to condensed some photos and did not have a picture by picture step of how to do this cake, but it's really simple to follow.

As adapted from Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake 

FOR THE CAKE
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
(2)  9 in pans

FOR THE FROSTING
1/2 cup butter or 1/2 cup margarine
2/3 cup cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions:

CAKE DIRECTIONS: 
Heat oven to 350 degrees

Grease and Flour 2 (9) inch pans, I recommend to place parchment paper so that way it won't stick.

Add your DRY ingredients together

Then add your WET ingredients, Egg, Milk, Oil and Vanilla

 Beat on medium speed 2 minutes.
 Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin)
 Pour into 2 greased and floured 9" round pans.

7. Bake 30-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
8. Cool 10 minutes, then remove to wire racks and cool completely.

9. Frost with "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Frosting. 

Note: This also makes about 30 cupcakes.

FROSTING DIRECTIONS: 
1. Melt butter.
2. Stir in cocoa.
3. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating on medium speed to spreading consistency.
4. Add more milk, if needed.

Now LOOK at this Moist, Rich Chocolate Cake! Hope you try making this one day!

Ciao,
Darlene

Reindeer Candy Canes D.I.Y. (Very late post)

Hi Everyone! and Happy New Year! Yes, this post is super late and I apologize. When it was my turn to "lead" my son's Christmas party this year I had to really research on some fun interesting activities for the class to do for 2 hours before their dismissal. I found some really cool crafts on www.orientaltrading.com and most especially on Pinterest (my go to fave site).

I had a hard time of thinking of give aways for the students to take home, I did not want a goody bag of stuff they will never use, so I stumbled upon these really adorable and festive Candy Cane Reindeer's on www.pinterest.com !

I'm glad I started making these like weeks before the party as these could be time consuming but yet fun to do once you have everything prepared.

Here's what you'll need:

Candy Canes
Yarn (light and dark brown)
Hot Glue
Wiggly Eyes
Mini Pompoms
red satin ribbon (1/8 in x 10 yards)
mini jingle bells
scotch tape

Store: Michael's Arts and Craft Store

1. Take two candy canes and press them together with them facing opposite sides (resembling the antlers), grab the end of the yarn and start wrapping the 2 candy canes together.
As you can see from the picture below. To make it look clean, I scotched tape the bottom of the candy cane so that the extra plastic does not look like the reindeer's have feet!

I recommend to hot glue the ends of the yarn to secure it. I tried Elmer's glue but overnight, the yarn started to lift.
Once you have the body all wrapped up, you can hot glue the Wiggly Eyes! Look, they are coming together.

2. Next, hot glue the Nose (Red pompoms):

3. Next, get an 1/8 in x 10 yd red ribbon and tie it around the reindeer's loosely, BUT before I hot glue, I insert a mini jingle bell (it really jingles! from Michael's Art/Craft store) and then hot glue both ends to make it look like a belt. 

TIP: Do not glue the belt too tight around the reindeer as the mini jingle bell will be awkwardly sticking out, it just doesn't look good. 

4. I wish I had taken a photo of the final product, but I was not able too. I'm sure if you can see it from the picture below (the girls Candy Canes on the Left of the photo).  I've also added the names of each student, divided by the girls (light brown and I added a ribbon) and the dark brown are the boys. 

I actually enjoyed making this craft, I think it turned out pretty cute! You can also use the same concept and buy the pastel colored candy canes for an Easter Class Party or Birthday Party to make it look like a Bunny, just change the color of the yarns and nose! 

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Cheers,

Darlene