Epic Butterfinger Reese's Ice Cream Cake

My husband loves Butterfingers. He's not a big sweets fan, but it is his birthday so I decided to make a combination cake of ice cream, Butterfingers and Reese's cups. I didn't have a recipe, so I just bought ingredients that I thought would make an epic birthday treat and, let me tell you, IT WAS EPIC. Prepare yourselves for a sugar coma. 

This cake has it all. Butterfingers, Reese's, Ice cream, Hot fudge and peanut butter topping. DELICIOUS. It took lots of time and patience on my part to let it freeze completely. It was TOTALLY worth it. I'll never buy a premade ice cream cake again. The key is to freeze each layer individually! That way each layer sets and freezes.

Epic Butterfinger Reese's Ice Cream Cake

Prep time: 45 mins-1 hour

Chill time: 6-12 hours 

Ingredients: 

For the crust

1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs (about 8 sheets crushed)

1/4 cup sugar

5 tbs butter, melted 

Cake and topping 

1 half-gallon Vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt

8 Ice Cream sandwiches

1 tub Whip Cream, thawed

12 miniature butterfinger bars

12 small Reese's cups (the $1, 6-pack kind found with the other minis, or 9 large)

6 oz (1/2 jar) Hot Fudge Sauce 

Peanut Butter Ice Cream topping/syrup

Chocolate Magic Shell syrup

Chocolate syrup (optional-- but you've already come this far. Why stop now?)

Directions: (scroll to bottom to skip tutorial) 

Easy, fluffy healthy egg white & cheese muffins

So I wanted something healthy & hearty for breakfast, but also light. I saw a lot of recipes for egg white muffins with peppers, tomatoes, etc. BUT I hate vegetables in my eggs. Weird, I know. Eventually I came across this original recipe and decided to spin it to make it healthier and more my taste. I've never been a fan of whole eggs, so using only the white was an easy choice.

The result was a light, fluffy tasty egg muffin with zero guilt for eating. I only made one,
 but you could double or quadruple the recipe easily.

Nutritional Content (1 muffin):
Calories: 62
Fat: 3g
Sat. Fat: 1.8g
Cholesterol: 11.4mg
Carbs: 0.8g
Protein: 8g
Vitamin A: 3%, Calcium: 11.5%
















Ingredients: (makes only 1 muffin, double or quadruple for multiple muffins) 
1 egg white
1/6 cup of low-fat shredded cheese (I used Weight Watchers Mexican blend)
1/2 tsp parmesan cheese
pinch (about 1/8 tsp) of dried oregano and basil (or Italian seasoning blend)
pinch of garlic powder
small, small dash of cayenne pepper (optional -- I liked the added kick. Be careful with the amount.)
salt and pepper to taste

DIY Apron

I've been wanting a cute apron for a while. My cooking adventures usually end up in me ruining a t-shirt or two. Every apron I found was $20-$40. I couldn't bring myself to pay that much for something that was inevitably going to be covered in food and sauces. One day browsing Pintrest I found a tutorial for DIY tote bags and a light bulb went off! You can see the bag tutorial here: http://www.collectandcarry.com/2012/04/diy-geometric-painted-tote-bags.html

The finished apron. Total cost $5:

Supplies:
3 pack canvas aprons ($10 at Walmart. Found in the craft aisle)
Acrylic paint
Paint brushes
Painters tape

Fail proof crunch from the oven

Don't you just HATE it when you're baking breaded chicken or pork chops and your crust gets soggy? It's the absolute worst. I, for one, cherish a crispy crust. It's mandatory for any good chicken parmesan, oven-fried chicken leg, chicken nuggets, etc. So after some trial and error using my grandma's crust recipe and my own, I've found the perfect storm for crunchy crust out of the oven. It's a tri-fecta of bread crumbs:

1/2 cup crushed cornflakes
1/2 cup regular bread crumbs
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
Combine together and add your spices/herbs of preference

It really is fail proof, no matter what you use to bind it to the meat. You can use egg, butter, even milk (gets a little runny though -- be careful) to stick it on. I like this simple mixture because you can add your own spices and seasonings to make it Italian, spicy, lemon pepper. Roll your meat in your egg/butter/milk, coat well with the bread crumb/spices mixture, spray with Pam and let bake!

-D. 

Buffalo Chicken Tapas

So this recipe came about as I had been preparing different tapas from a book I got for Christmas. I wanted something buffalo-y but also cheesy. So I cut up some French bread and made these delicious little half sandwich tapas. YUM.

Ingredients:
1 loaf French bread, sliced into 1 inch thick slices
1 pkg frozen chicken bites or chicken fingers, cooked & cut into small pieces
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup shredded Mexican or Colby jack cheese
Buffalo sauce
Ranch

Macaroni and Cheese Egg Rolls

Post-holidays usually leaves you with an assortment of leftovers. Due to a stomach bug, the only leftovers I had were egg roll wrappers and crock-pot mac and cheese I had made but couldn't eat. After no eating, I was pretty hungry but wanted something more filling than just mac n cheese alone (granted, I had eaten it alone for lunch.) So I thought to put the two together to get a kind of mac n cheese bite.
DELICIOUS. Hands down, the most delicious invention I've tried yet. It's simple, fast and yummy.
Ingredients:
-leftover macaroni and cheese (I used my crock-pot mac, but I think Stouffers would work just as well. You can make a box brand, but I can't guarantee the results)
-shredded sharp, mild or Monterrey Jack blend cheese
-egg roll wrappers
-cooking spray
-salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Thoroughly cover a cookie sheet with cooking spray.
On a clean, flat surface layout an egg roll wrapper in a diamond shape. Add macaroni and cheese evenly the middle, making sure to leave about 1 1/2 inches free at each end to roll them (follow directions on wrappers). Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and shredded cheese (you can also put down some cheese before the mac n cheese to make it extra cheesy).
Roll the egg roll up like a burrito, folding the bottom half up around the filling in the middle first. Then fold the left and right sides in to cover the filling. Moisten the top flap's edges with water and roll the wrapper up fully, making sure the filling is completely sealed inside. In case you're a visual learner, here's a diagram:

Spray the egg rolls well with cooking spray and bake for 12-16 minutes until edges are golden to dark brown and wrappers are fully cooked.
Here's how mine turned out:

(There are also parmesan chicken and pesto chicken & spinach egg rolls in this batch) Leftover challenge complete!

Dilemmas, Dilemmas

Pretty much my whole life has been plagued by small dilemmas, especially in the kitchen. Half way through a recipe and you realize someone used all the milk, dropping the last egg on the floor instead of inside your cookie mix, and the list goes on and on. These leave you in quite a dilemma, where usually the answer is A) chunk the whole thing and get take out or B) in the famous words of Tim Gunn, Make it work. This blog is dedicated to making it work and outsmarting life's little dilemmas (though sometimes, you've just got to chunk it!)

To put in into perspective, we should take a trip back to 1998: 9-year-old me's first cooking adventure. My mom was asleep, and I wanted pancakes. So being the zealous (also quite overweight, I may add, giving my persistence to get the food I wanted) kid I was, I set out to make pancakes without knowing exactly what to use or how. My first idea was, clearly, flour and water. So I mixed the 2 together then cooked it... in the microwave. To my dismay, it was a chalky, disgusting mess.

But did I give up? Nope. That wasn't about to happen. I WANTED PANCAKES.

So I added more water and some corn meal and cooked it again. This goes on for a while, adding more and more ingredients until it was too far gone. I had to chunk it.

Fast-forward some 15 years and adult me still faces the same dilemmas, except now I can't wake up Mom to solve it. So I do it myself, with each success giving a Nelson-esk "ha-ha!" to life's little curve balls.

After hours of Google searches and trial and error, I've decided to share my best triumphs and hopefully help solve other kitchen adventures' dilemmas!