Avocado Roasted Garlic Quinoa Salad

Typically you will see all sweets and parties here!  But today I wanted quickly to share with you a delicious and healthy salad ~ Avocado Quinoa (keen-wa) Salad

3 cups of cooked room temp or cold quinoa 

(for the roasted garlic flavor I use Roland brand and I cook it in vegetable stock)

1 can of reduced sodium black beans rinsed and drained

1 cup of room temperature corn

1 pint a little less or more of grape tomatoes cut in half

 2 avocados cut up into ¼ to ½ pieces

¼ of chopped red onions

Dressing~ (make you dressing 1^st let it come together for about 30 minutes if not longer) this dressing is so good!  Make an extra batch and save it for a taco salad or marinate some chicken! 

¼ of grape seed oil or a scant less

¼ of fresh lime juice

2 teaspoons of balsamic vinegar

1 chopped and minced clove of garlic

1 teaspoon of minced fresh ginger root

Dash of kosher salt

3-4 teaspoons of chopped cilantro ( more if you want to, I like just enough cilantro I don’t like to over do it)

Mix all the salad ingredients, then mix in the dressing and let it chill for at least an hour to let it all come together.  

Enjoy!  Do you like quinoa?  Its all the health rage now I think or apart of it with the amount of protein and heath benefits it has to offer.  How do you eat or serve the grain.  Let me know I would love to hear!

Peace Love & Quinoa~

Key Lime Curd Brownie Mini dessert

Still undecided of something different to serve for Easter? Keep reading! 

I love spring and all the bright colors we are beginning to see.  We have many options for baking and cooking with all the beautiful fruits and veggies that are growing!   When I have an idea for cooking or baking to bring certain things together I refer to the infamous The Flavor Bible, to be sure it is something that will work. If you like to cook or bake creatively, The Flavor Bible is certainly one that you should have in your kitchen! More on the book later.  

Last week I made batches of lemon & key lime curd, I wanted to be creative with the key lime curd and flavors of coconut and chocolate to make a scrumptious mini dessert.  I got out my flavor bible and was able to come up with this~

Brownie topped with key lime curd, caramelized strawberries, toasted coconut and macadamia nuts!

It is delightful I must say, perfect for spring!  

Here’s how to make this scrumptious dessert~

Prepare a batch of Key Lime Curd

Bake brownies I use Duncan Hines chewy fudge mix, let them cool.

Depending on the amount of mini desserts you are preparing, slice desired amount of strawberries.  Place the sliced strawberries in a bowl, sprinkle and lightly cover the strawberries with light brown sugar.  Let them sit for about 20 minutes and place them into a sauté pan and cook on medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring when needed. (see below)

While doing the strawberries, toast your coconut & nuts in a 350 oven for 5 minutes. 

Have a fresh whipped a bowl of fresh whipped cream ready for topping.

To assemble (pictures below)~

1^st layer is brownie circle.  I cut the brownies while in the pan using my serving cup.

Spoon key lime curd on top of the brownie

Top with the warm strawberries

Sprinkle with toasted coconut

A dap of whipped cream

Finish it of with toasted macadamia nuts

 I love my tasting party glasses with spoons from Pier 1.  I use them all the time to serve the perfect amount of dessert.  This actual dessert is a must try I promise!  You can taste every flavor in the dish, the warmth of the strawberries enhances the dish!

 The only thing this dessert is missing is a name~ what do you think?  Let me know!

Peace, Love & Key Lime Curd Brownie dessert~

On the Rocks with Salt! Margarita Saturday's Pinterest Board

Summer is almost officially here, although if you live in the Northeast part of the country summer weather has been making itself present a lot! This past week here in Philadelphia, PA we set records in the high 90's & 100 degree temps.  Tonight is the perfect evening now that the temperatures have come down a bit to have a Margarita Saturday!

image via Pottery Barn

This 2 tiered serving tray from Pottery Barn is perfect for the presentation of the theme.

Two summers ago my husband and I being that we have three children began having "date nights in" on Saturday's, one of the themes is a margarita saturday date night in!  We have mararita's mafe with Freshie's all natural mix, tacos, chips & salsa all the things you would have to enjoy your cocktails! 

image via Pottery Barn

I love this extra large margarita glass from Pottery Barn. 

Somtimes life calls for an extra large one for sure!

Want to join the fun and have your own?  I collected an inspiration board on Pinterest for the theme!  Click over to see! 


Click HERE to view the whole board

Roasted Tomatoe Salsa image via Martha Stewart



Melon infused margarita skewers

Layla Grace now has Trina Turk fabrics by the yard!  This would be perfect to make your own placemats to brighten up your table.

 
I created the board with recipes from Martha Stewart and my blog, decor from Pottery Barn and Layla Grace, serving pieces from Pottery Barn and Rosanna, Inc. and many more! 


Enjoy your Saturday!  How do you like your margarita?  I am definitely on the rocks with salt!  

Peace, Love & Margarita Saturday's,

Stacy

Brownie & Heath bar crunch infused Cupcakes

Brownie & Heath bar crunch Infused Cupcakes

My daughter and her basketball team had their last game this week and I wanted to bring them a scrumptious ending to a great season.  These girls are my biggest fans when it comes to my cupcakes.  You have to love being around them and hearing across the recess yard or down the halls "Mrs. Brennan your cupcakes are the best!" or "Mrs. Brennan when are you making cupcakes & cookies for us"  to me that is priceless and makes it all worth it!  

These cupcakes as one Mom noted "definitely worth the calories"!  Away we go here is what you need & do~

What you need~

Your favorite cake & brownie batters

Bag of Hershey's Heath Bar Crunch Bits

Muffin Pan

Cupcake Liners

Piping bag and large tip

A little of self control when they are finished it is hard to eat just one!

What to do~  

Preheat your oven to 350 

Prepare the batters in separate bowls & fill the cupcake pan with liners

Fill a piping bag with prepared brownie mix

Fill each cup with a heaping TBSP of cupcake batter ( to cover the bottom)

Pipe in brownie mix into each one like so~

Sprinkle the Heath Bar Crunch over the brownie mix (I just used a generous pinch for each one)

Cover each cup with cupcake batter until 2/3 full

Bake for 20 mins

Let cool and top with your favorite buttercream!  I used my basic vanilla and did not use a lot. The cupcake was if I don't say amazingly scrumptious!  

A perfect Scrumptious Ending to a great basketball season for sure!

Peace, Love & Infused Cupcakes~

Stacy

Scrumptious is a Fancy word for Yummy! Part 2~

Bringing you 4 more cookie recipes from my favorite bloggers!!  Kate Landers of Kate Landers Events LLC, The Super Chick from Celebrate Today the Super Chick Way! Kim from The TomKat Studio & Bird of Bird Craft Studio!  

This was an extremely fun feature for me and I gained some scrumptious recipes for sure and have plenty of scrumptious gifts to hand out to many for Christmas!!

Not so bad for my 1st Christmas as a blogger I shared a total of 14 Cookie recipes with all of you this season!  I surely hope you had a chance to bake a few!

I set up these cookies on my dinner table and as inspiration to have a few of your girlfriends over for cookies & cocktails to relax and catch up this holiday season!  I always enjoy my Christmas decor~ so I wanted to share a bit of what my table will look like come this weekend.  It is coming together...mainly missing my fresh flowers & green but I won't add them until Friday!  So here you have the final 4 cookie recipes!

Kate from Kate Landers Events, LLC favorite cookie is a Butter cookie.  While she didn’t have a specific recipe to share, I sought one out by googling “The Best Butter Cookie” and let me tell you I found it and here is the recipe.  Hands down the best, reminds me of something my Mimi would make when she would bake tins & tins of Christmas cookies for us.  I also opted to just decorate with sugar and not the icing.  I love a simple cut out Christmas Sugar cookie and I had fun decorating these this afternoon with my 3 year old!  

The Best Butter Cookie ~

via http://www.landolakes.com/recipe/2217/best-ever-butter-cookies

1 cup Land O Lakes® Butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 Land O Lakes® All-Natural Egg

2 tablespoons orange juice

1 tablespoon vanilla

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

Frosting

3 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup Land O Lakes® Butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 to 2

 tablespoons milk

Food color, if desired

Combine 1 cup butter, sugar and egg in large bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy. Add orange juice and vanilla; mix well. Reduce speed to low; add flour and baking powder. Beat until well mixed.

Divide dough into thirds. Wrap each in plastic food wrap; flatten slightly. Refrigerate until firm (2 to 3 hours).

Heat oven to 400°F. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface, one-third at a time (keeping remaining dough refrigerated), to 1/8- to 1/4-inch thickness. Cut with 3-inch cookie cutters. Place 1 inch apart onto ungreased cookie sheets; sprinkle with decorator sugar. Bake for 6 to 10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned.

Combine powdered sugar, 1/3 cup butter and 1 teaspoon vanilla in small bowl. Beat at low speed, scraping bowl often and gradually adding enough milk for desired spreading consistency. Tint with food color, if desired. Frost and decorate cooled cookies as desired.

My friend Genevieve from Celebrate Today the Super Chick Way! Loves her Peanut butter cookies!  These too are my husbands favorites I felt it necessary to make it a bit more scrumptious by chopping up some Reese’s cups and baking them on top! 

Peanut Butter Cookies:

Recipe from www.joyofbaking.com

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the butter and sugars until light and fluffy (about 2 - 3 minutes). Beat in the peanut butter. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat to combine. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to the peanut butter mixture and beat until incorporated. Fold in the chopped peanuts, if using. (If the batter is too soft to form into balls, place in the refrigerator for about an hour or until firm.)

Roll the batter into 1 inch (2.5 cm) balls. Transfer the cookies to the prepared baking sheet, placing about 2 inches (5 cm) apart. Then, using the tines of the fork that has been dipped in white granulated sugar, make a crisscross pattern.

Bake the cookies for about 10 to 12 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly browned around the edges. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Can be stored at room temperature, in an airtight container, for about a week. Freeze for longer storage.

Makes about 40 cookies.

Peanut Butter Cookies:

3/4 cup (170 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup (105 grams) light brown sugar

1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated white sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

3/4 cup (185 grams) peanut butter (smooth or crunchy)

2 cups (260 grams) all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup chopped peanuts or 1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Another sweet & spicy cookie is Bird of Birds Crafts shares with us a recipe that she has been baking for years for gingerbread cookies!  For these sweet treat that I used as an idea to let me friends know where to sit.  I am also using my baked cookies as gift tags this year with all my gift recipients’ names on a cookie to label them! 

Below is Birds recipe.  To bake mine I bought at the Fresh Market a ready to bake gingerbread squares.  I rolled them like dough and cut into little men.  A time saving trick in case you don’t want to bake them from scratch. 

Bird Party’s GingerBread Cookies~ This is the recipe I use every year and it comes from The Good Housekeeping Institute

350g plain white flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
2tsp ground ginger
100g butter
175g light soft brown sugar
4tbsp of corn syrup or clear runny honey or golden syrup
1 egg beaten
currants etc for decoration
1. Sift flour, bicarb. and ginger into a bowl
2. Rub butter until looks like breadcrumbs
3. Stir sugar in
4. Beat syrup with egg and stir into the mix, kneading to form a smooth dough
5 Roll to about 5mm thick and cut the shapes and decorate with currants
6. Bake at 190deg C or 375 F gas mark 5 for about 12-15 minutes
XOXO
Bird

Now for Kim from The TomKat Studio!  Kim is the very 1^st blog that I followed & shop I bought my 1^st custom printables for one of my girl’s party.  While Kim’s recipe isn’t an actually cookie, they certainly are a sweet treat and she also share a free printables with her recipe!! 

Chocolate Scotcheroos!

Chocolate Scotcheroos
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup sugar
1 cup creamy peanut butter
6 cups Rice Krispies
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I use a little bit more ;)
1 cup butterscotch chips (I use a little bit more ;)

Place corn syrup and sugar in 3 quart saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently until sugar dissolves and mixture begins to boil. Remove from heat. Stir in peanut butter. Mix well. Add Rice Krispies cereal. Stir until well coated. Press mixture into 13x9 pan coated with cooking spray. Set aside. 

Melt chocolate chips and butterscotch chips in a saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly. (OR melt using half power, 30 seconds at a time in the microwave ~ as I do!) Spread evenly over cereal mixture. Let stand until firm. (I put in the fridge for 15 minutes so they firm up quicker so I can start eating them sooner)

YUM. I promise.

There you have it!  For Scrumptious Sweet Treat recipes for you to try & share with your family and friends this holiday!!!  

Peace, Love & Christmas Cookies~

Stacy

Cocktails & Cookie Exchange Party Part 1 { New Rules}

Have you ever hosted one?  Or thinking to host one this season?

photo via Martha Stewart website

I hosted one last year for the 1st time, it was interesting in many aspects of the party.  From the invite, to setting "rules", to the rsvp's and then the actual event.


The first thing I did was read up on the web of what to do and how to host one.  I set a date, made a list of rules and set out an evite to all the quests.
The title was "Cookies & Cocktails" it was on a Sunday afternoon, 2 weeks prior to Christmas, perfect time for the girls to get together & relax in the middle of the holidays.  


These were my guidelines that were sent out with the invite:


Guidelines~
Please bring a platter or basket to present your cookies...be creative!
The cookies must be baked or bought from a bakery (there is a good reason, I'm not trying to be bossy ;))
The 4 dozen can be split between 2 recipes
Bring a container to take your new cookies home


Please RSVP with your cookie recipes that you will be bringing so we did not get multiple cookies.  


Pretty much what is out there that everyone does, not so hard right???  Wrong........................!  


What I got was 12 rsvp's and only 4 of my friends brought cookies.  When I was getting RSVP's people weren't too sure what they wanted to bake.  Then on the actual day one person brought burnt cookies, another person showed up at the end with her cookies after they were exchanged, just to mention a few.  People did bring containers, and the cookies were set up on platters but to me it still wasn't coordinated as I thought it be. I'm sure if I asked everyone could state something they would do differently after hosting one.  


So I learned a few things from hosting my first one to say the least.  I have not given up hope on these wonderful parties that are hosted so much around this time of the year.  BUT I have & will make a few changes to the guidelines.  
***************************
Updated guidelines~


Please rsvp as soon as possible.  I am providing the recipes for the yummy cookies & you can choose what cookie you would like to bake & bring!  But 1st come first serve so please email as soon as possible!   The recipes are not too hard and are very yummy cookies that you will enjoy.


Please bring your 4 dozen cookies in a container, upon arriving please place them in the treat bags(that I will provide) by the dozen.  Please attach the custom cookie label to the bag (provided) and place them on the table for the cookie exchange.  


There will be a chocolate chip cookie recipe, honestly if you can bring a snicker doodle cookies, chocolate chips are better in my opinion and who doesn't love a chocolate chip cookie recipe from scratch!   But if you do get this cookie, it must be from scratch.  No break and bakes are tollhouse logs.  


Please make sure that the cookies are from scratch.  If you burn your cookies or can not bake the cookies you are assigned PLEASE find a bakery to buy your cookies.  Of the 8 recipes all but 1 can be bought freshly baked from bakeries.  


Please be serious!  Cookie baking is ALOT of work but FUN and the end result is a scrumptious treat and no holiday is complete without cookies!!  You will go home with 4 dozen different cookies to enjoy.  


We need at least 8 people for this to be successful....but of course the more the merrier & we can add a few more cookie recipes if we get more to attend.  
********************************************
What do you think of the new guidelines??  


I have a very good feeling that it will work this time!  


Here is the good part!  All this week starting tomorrow I am going to share all 8 recipes with you along with Free cookie printables for you to give as gifts or for you to use at a cookie exchange!  


Check back every day!  Let me know your thoughts, I would love to hear!  


Love, Peace & Christmas Cookies~ 


Stacy

Pumpkin Cookie Recipe

Pumpkin Cookies!  Perfect for any day of the week for all!  A must try...very simple!!  

Recipe via Joy of baking

Preheat the oven to 325 make sure the rack is in the middle then in a bowl get together

2 cups of all purpose flour

1 ¼ teaspoons of baking powers

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1 teaspoon of cinnanmon

¼ teaspoons of ground ginger

1/8 teaspoons ground cloves

½ teaspoon of salt

Using a whisk gently turn and blend the ingredients together and set aside.

In a separate bowl with a hand mixer or mixer:

Mix the 2 eggs that are room temp and

1 ¼ cups of light brown sugar until smooth about 2 mins

Then add:

½ cup of canola oil

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1 cup of pure pumpkin puree

And beat together

Blend together the flour mix into the batter.  It is not a typical cookie dough consistency, when finished baking the cookies are soft like a cake. 

Line baking sheet with parchment paper and spoon small rounds onto the sheet I use a mini ice cream scoop.

Bake for 15-18 mins.  Let them cool for a few before removing. 

For the icing when cooled:

½ block of cream cheese or 4 oz room temp

2 tablespoons of unsalted butter

½ cup of confectioner sugar

½ teaspoon of vanilla extract

Blend the cream cheese, butter and vanilla, then add the sugar.  I piped the icing on you can do that or just a knife.

So get your bake on and Enjoy!!

Peace, Love & Pumpkin Cookies,

Stacy