All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel
Trail Mix Cookies- soft cookies loaded with oats, chocolate chips, coconut, nuts, & raisins. Perfect to eat while hiking or just at home.
These cookies come loaded with everything- oats, coconut, nuts, chocolate, and raisins- so every one is a bit different and so good. They are perfection in every bite.
…Slow Cooker Almond Joy Chocolate Clusters are great to whip up for homemade holiday gifts. Making them is basically hands off as you use a slow cooker!
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It’s time to get baking cooking, making candy, and decking halls. Fa la la la la, la la la la.
I’m sure that you are just as stuffed as we are from Thanksgiving, but I’m still ready to cook up a storm. I’m not running out looking for the best deals today. I don’t do all that Black Friday Hoopla. I’m just going to get cozy with some cookbooks and plan out all that baking I am going to be doing this Holiday Season.
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Are you ready for Easter?!?! I am so ready.
I have lots of Easter-y stuff around to make a super, super cute Easter basket for Autumn. I had been hitting up the Target Dollar Spot and the local Dollar Tree to get lots of fun random things to include in her Easter Basket. Which might actutally be a bag, but you get the point. Lots of stickers, some barrettes, crayons, mini board books, and a flipping toy chick. And the ‘big’ toy is a pair of Doc McStuffin’s light up clogs. They are way too big but are super cute. I couldn’t resist because she loves to play dress up at daycare so, so much.
Plus, I picked up a bunch of eggs to dye with her this weekend. I’m sure it will be just one big mess but I think it will be a fun experience.
We painted some plaster eggs over the weekend and that was a great activity. Granted, she tried to crack them at first as we cracks the eggs for me when I make something. But once I explained they aren’t eggs to crack she got the point and got to painting. I’m going to have to keep those half painted eggs forever. So cute!!
Those eggs will last forever, but these Easter Chicks Cupcakes won’t!
These Easter Chicks Cupcakes are really Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes with some Green Vanilla Buttercream Frosting topped off with some green coconut ‘grass’ and Peeps chicks. But Easter Chicks Cupcakes sounds cuter.
I used a chocolate brownie cupcake base as I wanted the cupcake to look like the earth. The green frosting is the glue for the green coconut grass. And then the marshmallow Peep Chick finishes it off.
I used the traditional yellow Peeps Chicks but the Peeps Bunnies are just as cute.
I brought these cupcakes to daycare and the kids loved them.
Makes 24 Cupcakes
Ingredients
For the Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes
For the frosting
For the ‘Grass’
Process
Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes adapted from The Cupcake
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Post contains affiliate links.
I’ve been looking forward to Friday all week!!
Sure, it means it’s the end of the work week but what it really meant is that I got to share this recipe for German’s Chocolate Pie. Soo yummy!
Price’s birthday is Monday so I made this pie in honor of that as German’s Chocolate Cake is one of his favorites. I made him a German’s Chocolate Cake (< pardon the old photos!) for his birthday before so I wanted to do that again, but with a twist!
We both loved this pie! It’s such a good combination of chocolate, coconut, and pecans- all elements in German’s Chocolate Cake’s super rich condensed milk based frosting. The pie basically uses the same ingredients as the cake but with a twist.
When I was making this I was thinking it would be pretty dense from the sweetened condensed milk but it ended up being pretty light and fluffy, which is from beating the eggs very well when they are incorporated into the chocolate and butter. It still was really rich but the light texture helped make it feel a little less indulgent.
Anyway, since it’s almost Price’s birthday we are celebrating it this weekend. We always try to do something big and fun for birthdays so we have a trip planned. There has been plenty of research related to all the good things we can eat and things we can see. At least there will be plenty of walking to help work off all the BBQ!
Hope you have a great weekend!
Makes a 9″ Pie
Ingredients
Process
Inspired by Easy Baked
Yay! Today is Memorial Day!
We are sticking home today to hang out, cross some things off the to do list, and grill. We made steak last night so I think some hot dogs for lunch and chicken for dinner. Autumn even had her own piece of steak (not seasoned, well done) that she sucked on and then dropped for the dog. I swear I try to grab what she is about to do but she is sneaky. And when she isn’t dropping him food she hangs a hand over the edge for him to lick. Those two are going to be trouble as she grows up. It’s going to be too cute! And a bit awful!!
Anyway, we did some crafty stuff for our room yesterday and we’re going to do some stuff for her room today. I have most of the elements together for a gallery wall for her so I am going to put it up while mapping out some place holders for the 2 little canvases I am going to order. I just love to be able to create something new for our house. I only wish we did it more often.
Anyway, May has sped by and it’s now time for this month’s Secret Recipe Club post I was given the blog Sew You Think You Can Cook. Lauren shares recipes on her blog that she makes when she is not busy with quilting scrapbooking, and cross stitch. When she is not cooking and crafting she is an aerospace engineer… hello smarty! Sounds like a cool profession says the person who pulls out a calculator to figure out a tip. ha!
While I was eyeing a few of her savory recipes, like the Vineyard Chicken, her homemade Almond Joy bars jumped out to me. I hadn’t made candy in the awhile and never a candy bar like this. I was up for the little challenge!
I really suggest using a stand mixer to make these Almond Joy’s. The mixture is sticky and would require a bit of muscle so I think it’s best to use the stand mixer so you knew you evenly mixed everything together. If you need a workout then be sure to just a greased bowl and a wooden spoon. Assembling the bars is a breeze. The trickest part is the chocolate part. I never have much luck coating candy evenly, and neither did Lauren, so I decided just to coat the tops. If you are a pro at coating candy then feel free to do that instead, you’ll just need more chocolate.
So a big thanks to Lauren for such a wonderful recipe. As well, a very special thanks on this Memorial Day to her and her husband, who is in the Air Force!!!
Makes 24 candy bars
Ingredients
Process
Adaped from Sew You Think You Can Cook
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Check out my 2 years of Secret Recipe Club posts!!!!
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I’m so excited for the weekend!!
We have so much to do but it should be fun to enjoy the weekend and get a bunch of stuff done. Fingers cross on us actually tackling the to do list.
Plus, it’s going to be nice weather. Well, it might rain Saturday but it’s supposed to be warm so I can work with that. But Sunday is supposed to be even better. Also, it’s my first Mother’s Day, so that should be fun.
Price has agreed to help Autumn whip up breakfast for Mother’s Day while we lounge around in the morning. She was babbling to him that it might be hard to make waffles considering she can’t yet sit up, so he agreed to do the heavy lifting, but as long as she watched to learn how to make on of my favorite breakfast treats.
Man, I love waffles. I swear I could eat waffles every weekend. That and Eggs Benedict. Oh yeah, maybe I’m have some pie too. Okay, okay, I’m behave…
Every week I ask Price what pie I should make for my weekly pie post. Sometimes I offer him a few choices between things and other times he comes up with the idea completely. This week I threw some ideas at him, he veto’d them (for now), did some googling and found this pie. And this is how this pie came to be.
It reminds me of a mega coconut macaroon. It’s sweet, custardy, and very coconuty. I enjoyed it just like that but I think a chocolate drizzle would be amazing on it as well.
Makes a 9″ pie
Ingredients
Process
Sourced from All Recipes
It is finally going to be nice out tomorrow so we are going to test drive some cars!
I feel like I’m betraying our other car. Ahh poor Frank the Tank.
But Frank is just too small now. Not in the ‘we have a new baby and have tons of stuff small’ but ‘we have a new baby and no one can sit in the passenger seat now because of the car seat’ small. Yep, that’s what happens when your Scion Xa is the size of a matchbox car. It means with the car seat in the back you can’t sit in front. Well, you can but then your knees are touching the dashboard and that’s not the safest thing.
Now we are getting a new car so that it doesn’t mean that one of us is playing chauffeur.
Thankfully, Frank has been paid off for years so he is sticking around and will be the car we use when we are just running errands. I can’t ditch Frank yet! He only has 115K miles under the belt and he has plenty more in him!
Tomorrow we are looking at a Mazda CX5 and then next weekend we are going to check out a Toyota Rav4. Price has done endless research on endless models of cars and they are our top 2 cars.
Truthfully, I’m a bit nervous to test drive cars because I’m so used to how mine handles and this time we are going to get an automatic (for various reasons). Aside from rentals, I’ve only ever driven standard cars and when I drive automatics I tend to drive with 2 feet. I’m sure the sales guy is gonna love it…
Anyway, today is Pie Day here on the blog and Pi Day! #doublepieday
So I made this doozy of a pie for the occasion. This Frozen Samoa Cookie Pie is what happens when you stuff some Samoa Cookie pieces in and on a Cool – Whip based pie. And don’t forget the added coconut, caramel, and chocolate that is in and on the pie too!
This takes almost no time to whip up but the killer part is waiting for it to set up and freeze again. But the wait it worth it.
DIG IN!!!
Makes 9″ pie
Ingredients
Process
Inspired by Beyond Frosting
Next week we are off to the Florida Keys on our little ‘babymoon’. As well, we will be gone for Price’s birthday. Last year we were in Chicago for his birthday and this year we’ll be bumming it by the pool in the South Florida sun. I think he lucks out for his birthday while I freeze my but off for mine in January.
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It’s Secret Recipe Club time again!!
As usual I told Price to check out the blog and to pick out the recipe that I should make for this month. I only specified that I didn’t want to make a cake or cookies. So Price headed over to My Beautiful Disasters and checked out the recipes that Casey has made. He picked out the Coconut Cream Pie as I’ve been saying that I want to try to make more pies.
We loved this pie. It was so easy to make and tasted so good. Casey remarked that when she made it that it didn’t set up well. I didn’t have trouble setting it up but I did recently cook a chocolate pudding pie so I figured I would make sure I get it thick enough while cooking it instead of having it set up while chilling, just like when I that one. It just took some time and patience to stand there and stir constantly but it totally was worth it.
I’m so glad that Price picked this recipe from Casey’s blog. It was a fantastic recipe to make for SRC. I only wish I had planned enough in advance (when will I learn?!?!) to make her homemade pie crusts. I just grabbed a 9″ pie crust from the grocery store and baked it according to its instructions and let it cool completely. Simple. The only thing I did different was that I used the coconut extract instead of the vanilla extract in the whipped cream. I just wanted it to scream coconut!
If you love coconut then you’ll love this coconut cream pie!
Makes 12 slices
Ingredients
1 pre-baked 9-inch pie shell
Coconut Cream Pie Filling
Whipped Cream
Coconut Topping
Process
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Check out my previous Secret Recipe Club Posts
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Topping Matzo with chocolate, coconut, and pecans is how you create an easy, quick treat. You will be thinking, “Where has this German’s Chocolate Cake Matzo Bark been all my life?!”
I was so addicted to my Peanut Butter Lover’s Chocolate Matzo Bark that I immediately started to think of new fun toppings that would be utterly fantastic and delicious on Matzo. It hit me instantly… German’s Chocolate Cake Matzo Bark
Of course, I couldn’t make just 1 Matzo bark. I had to make another variety besides the Peanut Butter Lover’s Chocolate Matzo Bark so I raided my pantry for some fun bark toppings. I came across some pecans from a trail mix I was making so then I started to run with the idea of German’s Chocolate Cake by grabbing some coconut. It is one of Price’s favorite cakes so I knew it would be a hit in our house.
If you love German’s Chocolate Cake then you’ll enjoy this fun bark. It has a lot of sweet crunch to it that it is as tasty as it is loud!
Topping Matzo with chocolate, coconut, and pecans is how you create an easy, quick treat. You will be thinking, "Where has this German's Chocolate Cake Matzo Bark been all my life?!"
German's Chocolate Cake Matzo Bark
Yield:
12 people
Ingredients
Instructions
Samoa Cookie Cocktail – Now you can have your favorite Girl Scout Cookie in a fun adult drink! Enjoy!
Amanda picked the theme this week and it is the best yet!!!
I had just impulse bought a bottle of caramel vodka so when Amanda msg’d me that we should do a Girl Scout Cookie theme this week I immediently knew what cookie I would be recreating. A Samoa!
I needed to cover the chocolate, caramel, and coconut flavors in the cookies and I knew just how to do that with the bottles I have on hand (so proud of our random mix of boozes). Chocolate = chocolate liqueur. Caramel = caramel vodka. Coconut = Malibu rum. With those three you get a nice, sweet dessert cocktail that will packs a kick that no cookie can give you.
If you love Samoa cookies then you will love what we made this week! Be sure to check out Amanda’s Samoa Brownies… just try not to eat the whole batch yourself. I cracked this year and bought too many boxes of Girl Scout cookies, but once they are gone I’ll need to make these crazy, layered Samoa Brownies.
Makes 1 drink
Ingredients
Glass Garnishes
Drink
Process
Easter is my favorite holiday. I don’t go to church so I love everything else that has been slapped onto Easter. Dresses are pretty and frilly. Pastels are everywhere. There are no gifts- except candy. Cute animals decorate everything. I just about *squeee!!!* every time I see a cute little bunny on something. Plus flowers are blooming. I love how (to me) Easter celebrates spring and a new beginning. Everything is shedding winter’s greys and is layering on color. Flowers are starting to bloom everywhere from beneath your feet to above your head from overarching tree branches. And on those branches sit nests that have lovely speckled eggs on them.
These nest cookies are a perfect way to celebrate spring time! They are so easy too! The coconut part is super easy to bring together. The baking time might sound like a long process of checking them every 5 or so minutes or so but it’s just to ensure they will achieve a nice golden brown color while not letting the bottom burn. Other than that it’s super easy and so good. Coconut and chocolate go together so well so it ends up being a perfect pairing.
*makes 15 cookies*
Ingredients
Process
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