Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope you all enjoyed a day full of love, fun, and chocolate!

XO,
Cate ❤

Almond Joy Truffles

Valentine's Day is two days away and it's a day for spoiling my friends and family with homemade treats. I found a recipe for coconut truffles on one of my favorite blogs - How Sweet It Is. I followed the recipe almost exactly. The only difference is I topped my truffles with an almond before I enrobed them in chocolate. They are super simple and a tad messy (as you can see in the photo!), but I highly recommend making these.

How do you like to spoil your loved ones on Valentine's?

Cookie Butter Cups

Oh heeyy! I've been snowed in for almost 30 hours and I'm bored out. of. my. mind! What is a girl to do when she's stuck in the house for days? Make candy, of course! Most people stock up on bread, milk, and eggs when a blizzard is on its way. I, on the other hand, stock up on butter, sugar, and chocolate!

With not much else to do than watch the storm coverage (yes, I looked out my window and see it's snowing, thankyouverymuch), I decided I'd make some treats for the special Valentines in my life! At first I planned on making peanut butter cups, but remembered I had a jar of cookie butter in the pantry. I immediately changed my mind and decided to make cookie butter cups. Instead of just using cookie butter for the center, I decided to add some Rice Krispies for crunch and I think it was the perfect addition!

These were really simple to make and I think they'll make a yummy addition to my Valentine treat boxes... That is, if they last until the 14th! ❤

Cookie Butter Cups

Adapted from Iowa Girl Eats

Iowa Girl says her recipe yields 24, but I had lots of extra filling.  I will make more once I get around to melting more chocolate.  :)  I ended up putting chocolate in the cup, adding some of the cookie butter mixture and topping with more chocolate.  I put the cups in the fridge for about an hour to completely set.  Store in fridge.

Happy 2013 - Healthy Recipe Roundup!

Happy New Year!  If you're anything like me, you try to start the year off right with some healthier eating.  I've recapped some of my favorites from over the years.  After looking through some of my older posts, I found some recipes I'd forgotten about and haven't made in a while.  A couple of these recipes will definitely be on the menu over the next month or so.

Slow Cooker Sweet Potato and Black Bean Chili

Summer Shrimp Scampi

Spinach and Basil Pesto

Chicken Sausage with Apples

Shrimp Fried Rice - Under 500 Calories!

Pumpkin Oat Pancakes

Strawberry and Greek Yogurt Stuffed French Toast

I hope you try some of these recipes soon.  Have a safe and happy 2013!

Merry Christmas!

An Owl-Themed Birthday Party

A very special little girl turned 1 last week and her mom asked me to bake cupcakes and sugar cookie favors for her birthday party. The theme of the party was owls with a pink and brown color scheme. I immediately began googling images of owl cookies and decided to follow an adorable idea I found on The Adventures of Sweet Sugarbelle.  Her work is always beautiful and I feel so inspired every time I visit her site.

If any of you have decorated sugar cookies with royal icing, you know it is a lengthy process that requires decent time management skills.  The main reason I haven't started a side business for baking is that I am a procrastinator and this time was no different!  I baked the cookies Wednesday night and I should have started decorating on Thursday, but I was just lazy and didn't start until Friday afternoon.  I also decided to bake cookies in the shape of a number one just to make the favors extra special.  That meant twice as many cookies to decorate in one afternoon!  To say I was stressed would be an understatement, but I think I ended up managing my time nicely and I was pleased with the results.

Luckily, since I had to let the owls dry for a bit before I added the details, I was able to bake the cupcakes while the cookies dried.  I saved the frosting until the next morning so that they would be nice and fresh.  I decided to bake both chocolate and vanilla since I love both, but I have to say the chocolate cupcakes were the best I'd made!  I used my stand-by recipe, which is from my mom, but this time, the cupcakes baked up perfectly.  I think they were also the favorite at the party.  I had originally planned to make little icing owls to top the cupcakes, but my poor time management skills got the best of me!

As a surprise the the birthday girl's mom, I decided to make a special cookie for family and close friends.  I had Aubrey's face printed on wafer paper so that I could put her adorable little face on a cookie.  I've always said she was so cute I could eat her up, and now I can!  :)

Overall, I was happy with how the cookies and cupcakes looked.  Not to brag, but I got rave reviews from the party-goers!  I think the birthday girl really enjoyed her first cupcake!

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY, AUBREY!!!

Monday...

Here are some photos from my weekend. Hope yours was great!