Superbowl Sunday!

It's Superbowl Sunday!  Are you ready for today's game?  Who are you rooting for today?  Go Niners!

Need some last minute ideas for some party food?  Try some of these quick bites below.  Spend less time in the kitchen today and more time watching and enjoying the game!

• Pb Chicken wrap
• Spinach Artichoke Dip
• Bacon Jalapeño Poppers
• Taco Bowls

Lasagna Bites

Pin Rating: 4

I've seen a lot of different bites recipes on Pintrest and have pinned a couple of them.  I've finally had a chance to make the lasagna bites so I was very excited for this one.  I actually read up on a few different lasagna bites recipes and in the end got pinspiration from 2 of them (Here and here).  One thing you have to know about me is that I am a huge lover of lasagna.  Every italian restaurant I dine at I must try their lasagna.  (So far I think the lasagna at Macaroni Grill is the best because they use a thin pasta for the lasagna noodles.  If you guys know somewhere even better I must know!)  But because I'm such a huge lasagna fan, when I actually bit into the bites I was disappointed.  The extra crispiness from the wonton wrapper was nice, but I felt like it lost it's lasagna identity.  I debated between a 3.5 or 4 but in the end gave it a 4 because it did taste good, it just didn't live up to my high lasagna expectations.   

Ingredients:

• Mini muffin tins (silicone ones work best)
• Wonton Wrapper Sheets  (I was lucky enough to live close to an asian supermarket, but in case you don't, you can find them on Amazon.)
• 1 1/2 cup Ricota cheese
• Cooking spray (optional)
• Meat sauce
• I used 1 lb of ground turkey
• 1 24oz jar of sauce
• 1/2 small onion chopped
• Salt & pepper to taste
• 2 cups of Mozzerella (I was generous with the cheese :))

Preheat oven to 375° F.

Regular sized muffins: 18-20 minutes

Mini muffins: 10-12 minutes

I made my own adjustments to the recipe in terms of the size I used for the bites but other than that I followed the recicpe and layering instructions.  I also tested out the original size in the full muffin tin as well as made the mini muffin sized lasagna bites.  I ended up liking the smaller bites better.  

Copy Cat Applebee's Spinach Artichoke Dip

I ran across an awesome blog on Pintrest in search of this artichoke dip - The Budget Savvy Diva.  Her website is filled with tons of budget friendly recipes and deals.  Definitely check it out if you have the chance.  I did make minor changes to the amounts in the ingredients but the items are still all the same.

Also, before I dive into the blog post I wanted to give a quick shout out to the members of http://bloggingitforward.com/ for helping me make some changes to my blog.  So you'll probably see some changes to the website in the near future, and it will all be for a better blogging experience for you and me.  :)

Pin Rating: 4.5

This recipe was easy to make and tasted great.  However, I think there is probably a more delicious spinach dip out there.  Even though this dip was served fresh, it didn't seem as too many people were eating it.  My friends seemed to have gravitated towards other dishes that was served.  I also realized I didn't take too many pictures because it was my last dish that needed to go into the oven and the guest were already arriving.

Ingredients:

• 10oz bag of fresh spinach
• 14oz artichoke hearts drained & chopped
• 1 cup shredded parmesan cheese
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 8-10oz alfredo sauce
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 4 oz softened cream cheese
• 1 tsp pepper
• Chips or bread for dipping ;)

Oven 350 degrees.  Bake time 30 minutes.

Game Night - Dice Cheese Blocks

The dice cheese blocks were pinspired by this pin here.  Unfortunately the pin link itself leads you to a blog round up which leads you to a dead source.  On the other hand, the pin image itself gives you the right idea just not the materials.  So here's my blog post on what I used an how I made it.

Pin Rating: 5

Ingredients:

• Frozen Grapes (I had grapes left over from the PB+Chicken salad wraps 
• Frozen grapes are easier to cut in my opinion and it also holds it's shape well.  You can also use olives but since I had left over grapes I used those instead.
• Cheese block (Or some sort of soft cheese that you can mold)
• Toothpicks 
• Crackers
• Dice (for a sample on where to place grapes if you care for accuracy)

Oven Cooked Bacon & Bacon Jalapeno Poppers

Original Pin: http://pinterest.com/pin/231724343298689221/

Original Blog Post: http://www.hellohue.com/2011/01/pop-em-like-theyre-hot.html

Pin Rating: 4.5

Duration:
Prep time: 20-30 minutes
Bacon Bake time: 17-20 minutes @ 400˚ F
Popper Bake time 15-20 minutes @ 375˚ F

One thing that I liked about making the Honey sauced chicken in the crock pot was that I can just prep it and then have time to make a second dish.  Also, if you haven't tried oven baked bacon you're in for  treat!  These poppers weren't as delicious as the chicken but they're still a quick, easy and delicious appetizer to bring to a party.

Yields 16 pieces

• 2 jalapeño
• 1 can of crescent roll
• 2 oz cream cheese
• 5-8 slices of bacon (the more the merrier!)  
• Baking sheet
• Foil

Homemade Taco Shells & Bowls

Pin Rating: 5

Duration: 20-30 minutes (7-10 minute cook time per batch)

Mini Rant about the pin: The taco bowl pin drove me a little nuts because when I went to go look at the original instructions there were none!  This was an actual upload by a user so it didn't link up to a website and the pin itself didn't have any instructions.  I'll repin my own picture in a bit with instructions so that there's a good copy out there on Pintrest for everyone to repin.   End of rant. :)

Last month my boyfriend decided he wants to start budgeting a little better so we went grocery shopping.  Some Guerrero corn tortillas were on sale so we grabbed a pack.  Once we got home he decided to have a snack and took one bite of it and almost immediately had a frown on his face.  Apparently these are not the tortillas that he likes.  So since we bought them and we have them I turned to Pintrest for some ways to spice them up a bit so that they're more to his liking.  This quick and simple recipe did the trick!  He loved them and said they were way better this time.  (I made this over at my boyfriend's house and only had my phone so pictures aren't that great but hopefully you can get a good idea of what is going on)

Here's the original pin for the taco shells: http://pinterest.com/pin/231724343298465668/  I used the instructions from this pin to make both shapes of tortilla.

What you'll need:

• Cooking oil (spray or have a brush handy is recommended)
• Tortillas
• Oven rack
• Muffin tin
• Oven @ 375°F

First microwave your tortillas wrapped in paper towel for at least 30 seconds.  This gets them soft and flexible so that they won't break as easily when you're handling them.  I didn't have a brush handy or a spray so I poured some olive oil onto a plate and then dipped the tortilla evenly on both sides.

Tater Tot Casserole

http://pinterest.com/pin/165296248794584047/

Pin Rating: 3.5

Prep Time: 30-45 min

Cook Time: 45 min

Helped my sister out with dinner on Friday night and changed the original recipe for this breakfast casserole with healthier ingredients and items we had in the fridge. The results of the casserole was tasty but by following the assembly instructions from the website I feel like it could have been assembled better.  I'll put in the instructions I used below and my suggestions for changes if you're planning to attempt this yourself.  I also added in chopped onions and bellpepers per my sister's request.  If you're not great with a knife in the kitchen you can forego this section and it'll cut the prep time in half.

• Ground pork, breakfast sausage, ham or bacon  (I used ground breakfast sausage)
• 2-4 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 2 cups milk
• 4 eggs ( I used 3 eggs and 3 egg yolks since my sister had egg yolks left over from her most recent cake bake)
• 2 lbs of frozen tater tots ( Used 1 bag of sweet potato tots)
• 1/2 bell peper
• 1/2 onion
• Casserole dish

Washed the bell pepper and chop off the top.  Next you want to take out the "pit" of the bell pepper and toss that out.  Helps if you just slice off the pieces connecting the center (shown in picture above).

Cut the bell pepper in half.  As tempting as it may be to lay the bell pepper skin up, it's actually easier to cut it with the skin (outside) facing the cutting board.  Then cut the bell pepper into tiny slivers.  Once you cut them into slivers, continue to cut/chop them into squares.

PB + Honey + Banana Tortilla Snack

http://pinterest.com/pin/231724343298238613/

Pin Rating: 4.5

Duration: ~5 min 

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted any updates.  Been working on sewing my Halloween costume and took a mini vacation last weekend so I've been away from the computer.  Here's a quick snack I made for lunch the other day.  Real easy to make and put together assuming you have all the ingredients ready at home.  When I originally saw this pin on Pintrest I thought it was a PB&J banana tortilla.  I was slightly disappointed that it wasn't jelly and actually honey.  Taste wise I guess it makes more sense this way.  However, I did give it a 4.5 because despite all the honey and butter and banana the tortilla taste stood out and was pretty bland to me.  Also lunch got a little messy with the honey and banana wanting to slide out of the tortilla ever so often.

Ingredients are as follows:

• Some sort of buttery spread (PB, almond, sunflower seed...etc)
• Honey
• 2 Small (~6in tortillas)
• 1 banana

Tip: Microwave the tortilla for about 20-30 seconds before you do anything.  This will allow for the tortilla to roll/wrap a lot easier without cracking or breaking.  Then I spread the almond butter on.

Egg Drop - Breakfast in the oven

Brand new to blogging so please forgive the frequent post changes and format updates. And not to mention phone quality photos I'll be sharing.  I'm recently unemployed and have a lot more free time on my hands so I was trying to figure out what to fill that idle time with (besides the job searching of course).  My interest are kind of all over the place: all things Disney, crafting/sewing/DIY, cooking, party planning, cosplaying, etc...so blogging about one thing wouldn't work out for me.

Lucky there's Pintrest where all of my different interest are organized!  Not to mention some of the best and nifty ideas can be found on Pintrest.  I realized that there are so many pins and pinboards to flip through but how many of those things do we actually use/try in real life?  So this blog will be filled with my attempts to find some of the best and easiest pins to try out.  I'll try to rate the pins on how realistic they are to do or not based on a 1-5 pin rating (5 being the easiest and best) to help other pinners out.

So here goes...


Today's pinspiration came from a pin from foodgawker.com (http://www.kayotic.nl/blog/egg-drop).

Ingredients: Onion, ham, cherry tomatoes (Thanks Kathryn ), shredded cheese, smokies

* Chop ingredients then saute

* Distribute evenly into oiled ramekins

* Add some shredded cheese

* Crack an egg and drop it into the ramekin. (I only made 2 to eat so I put the other 2 in the fridge for tomorrow.) Made sure to pop the yolk and get the egg to spread spreaded evenly.

* Popped it in the mini toaster oven which was preheated to 350 degrees.

* After 10-15 minutes pulled them out - added salt pepper and nom nom nom!

http://pinterest.com/pin/231724343298238477/

http://pinterest.com/pin/231724343296999378/

Pin Rating: 4.5

This is a super simple pin recipe that didn't take that much time to prep and put together and turned out delicious.  I didn't think it was a 5 star only because of the fact that if you're already sauteing all the ingredients why wait another 15 min and just break the eggs into the frying pan?  But it is good for if you're making breakfast for more than 2-4 people and/or want to just pop the ramekin in the oven and get something else ready or ready for work.  I also liked it because the ingredients are simple and should be a part of your household staples so you should be able to whip it up.  Also easy to make this in bulk on a sunday and don't break the egg in it and save that for another day so breakfast can really be ready in 15 minutes! 

Downside is if you don't already own ramekins but there's a second pin where they made it with cupcake/muffin tins as an alternative to ramekins.