Spiced Rice Crispy Treats

I found a recipe that added cinnamon to rice crispy treats and thought that some ground cloves wouldn't go amiss. And it didn't, these are tasty:

Spiced Rice Crispy Treats:

4 cups mini marshmallows

1/2 stick of butter

1/4 heaping teaspoon ground cinnamon

a pinch of ground cloves

5 cups rice crispies

Over med-low heat, melt marshmallows and butter.  Stir until smooth.  Remove from heat and mix in cinnamon and cloves.  Add rice crispies, stir until evenly coated.  Press into greased  8" square pan.  Let set and cut into squares.  Enjoy!

Chuy's Dip

I made the most delicious dip. It's very similar to the Creamy Jalapeno dip that Chuy's serves. Somewhere online, I found a recipe that claimed to be a copycat but after reading the ingredients I knew it wasn't even close (there are no tomatoes in the restaurant version). The comments were much more helpful. I tweaked the one that sounded the closest and I think this is very close to the real thing...Creamy Jalapeno Dip:

16 oz [light] sour cream

1 packet Ranch dip mix

2-3 large jalapenos, finely chopped (about 1/2 cup)

2-3 cloves of garlic, minced (I used 2 but next time would probably do 3, I really like garlic. Just taste as you go.)

1/3 cup chopped, fresh cilantro
Juice of a lime

Milk, optional

Mix the first 6 ingredients together. Use the milk to thin the dip to whatever consistancy you desire. I added maybe a couple of tablespoons. It was thicker than Chuy's version, but I was OK with that. Serve with tortilla chips. Simple. Easy. Delish.

Sweet Cuppin' Cakes?

Never fear, dear readers! I'm back. Of course, I never actually went anywhere. I'm not really sure why I haven't posted for so long. But here's a doozy for you: Yesterday, I made these Chocolate Balsamic Raspberry Cupcakes from Love and Olive Oil. The cake part was sooooooo good. Moist, light and fluffy, and chocolaty. mmmmmmm. I didn't have any almond meal or soy milk, so I just added more flour and used good ol' regular cow milk. The frosting.........well, it was a bit tart but good.......I just didn't love it with the cake. Too make it more pipe-able, I doubled the butter and added a bit more powdered sugar (I also used frozen raspberries rather than fresh).
And it has to be said: looking at this picture makes me think of this Cake Wreck. Just scroll down a bit, you'll see what I mean.

New Ring Designs!

These are a few of the designs that I have come up with so far. I'm selling them at the Gitalia Boutique in Pleasant Grove (UT). I'm so proud of them it's dorky.

These are the kid rings, or any size smaller than a size 5.

These would be the adult rings, or any size 5 and up.

The materials include (but not limited to) wire, plastic, glass, metal, or Swarovski crystal. Kid rings are all $2 and the Adult rings range from $3-$6, depending on what you want.

I'm so excited about the Ideas that i have come up with so far and I hope that I'm going to keep coming up with more. Have I said that I'm excited about these rings?

Chicken Chili Soup

A couple weeks ago, I got a recipe for Southwestern White Chili from a friend and finally, a couple days ago I tried to make it. If only I had checked the pantry first. After realizing I was missing a few ingredients, I decided to wing it. What I got turned out very tasty, but more like a soup than chili:

Chicken Chili Soup:

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 medium onion, diced

1 large jalapeno, diced

2 1/2 cups cooked chicken, cubed or shredded

1 (10 oz) can Ro-Tel

1 (5 oz) can green chilies

2 (15.8 oz each) cans white beans

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon chili powder

Juice of 3 limes (about 3 1/2 tablespoons)

Chicken broth

Toss everything into a crockpot. Stir and cook on high for 4 hours. We had it with sour cream and cheddar cheese, and it was delish.

Not-So-Creamy Spinach Alfredo

I love the frozen Bertolli pasta meal Chicken Florentine & Farfalle and I've been trying to recreate it at home. I didn't think it would be too hard, I just needed a creamy Alfredo-type sauce. I found a recipe and this is what ensued: Looks scrumptious, doesn't it? {heavy sarcasm} I'm pretty sure things went badly because I used whole milk and butter instead of cream. Let me share this tragedy with you.

Not-So-Creamy Sauce:

4 cloves of garlic, minced

4 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cups whole milk

10 oz package frozen spinach, thawed and drained

parmesan & mozzarella cheeses

cooked pasta

.

Melt butter with olive oil. Add garlic and cook for a couple of minutes. Add milk and simmer. Start getting nervous when the butter doesn't combine with milk and the sauce refuses to thicken. Think that the parmesan will save the sauce. Add it and the spinach. Watch it get worse. Desperately ask your husband for suggestions. Listen to his idea and throw in a bunch of mozzarella. Once the spinach and cheeses have clumped together, toss with pasta. Choke it down while apologizing profusely. Try to believe your husband when he says that it tastes fine.

Enjoy......or not.

Birthday Cupcakes & Fruit Dip

My oldest is now 3. Old enough to show preferences for things like movies. Originally, I had planned on doing a Toy Story themed party, but life got in the way and before I knew it, I'd run out of time. Instead, her birthday turned into a pink-and-purple-fest. It started with my daughter picking out Tinkerbell plates, cups and napkins. Then she wanted pink and purple balloons. So I got matching streamers and the p & p party was born: I used the same chocolate cake recipe from Martha Stewart that I used for my brother's wedding cake. I made the full recipe and got 48 mini cupcakes and 21 regular sized cupcakes. I had to tweak the cooking time. The recipe said 25-35 minutes for the mini, and they were done in about 15 minutes. Cupcakes were finished in less than 20, rather than the 35-45 minutes. I used this buttercream formula for the frosting. I made one batch but only had enough to frost half of the cupcakes. I took half of the frosting and colored it purple with vanilla extract. The other half I colored pink and flavored with cherry extract. They were delish. I loved the cherry frosting with the chocolate cake. This is kind of funny to me because I hated when my mom would add cherries to chocolate cake batter, blah! I still think that's nasty, but the cherry frosting was wonderful.To dress up the cupcakes, I melted white chocolate chips and wrote out 3's and H's on parchment paper. After they hardened in the freezer I peeled them off and plonked them on the cupcakes: Next time I'll use a mold. They were OK, but, well I like things to look nice and neat. That does not describe these H's:
Oh well. I also made a super yummy fruit dip. I love this stuff. It's fluffy and just the right amount of sweetness.

Fruit Dip:

1 7 0z jar marshmallow cream
1 8 oz tub of strawberry cream cheese
1/2 cup whipping cream, whipped and sweetened to taste (you could use Cool Whip if you wanted)

Mix the marshmallow and cheese together until smooth. Gently fold in whipping cream. Serve with any kind of fruit you have on hand.