recipe

Top Gifts for Her (Or You!) | 2014

What women want– that’s a mystery men have been trying to figure out for centuries! I don’t think this topic is something I can easily sum up in a blog post, but I’m here to help you answer “what women want for christmas“!

I know it’s not even Thanksgiving yet, but my Christmas shopping is already off to a strong start! Some of you might roll your eyes, but I live for this time of the year! I just love shopping for the perfect gift. It can be a lot of work, but nothing beats finding the ultimate gift that puts a smile on their face.

Below, I pulled together a complete collection of amazing gifts for any girl in your life. It’s important to keep in mind that every girl is different and therefore you need to pick a gift that suits her personality. Try using the collage below as inspiration. For example, accessories are a great gifting option (no sizing!), so maybe you decide to buy mittens. If your girl is a little funky, the bear mittens below would be perfect! But, if your girl is more classic, maybe a plaid print or leather gloves would be better. I love to get inspiration for ideas from the internet and then tailoring them to fit my friends and family.

Use this list to get you started, you do still have over a month until Christmas! 🙂 Love an item below? Share in the comments!

Madewell Blanket Scarf ($65) / theBalm Eyeshadow Palette ($36) / H&M Polka Dot Pajamas ($30) / Forever 21 Bear Mittens ($9) / kate spade Polka Dot Candle ($40) / kate spade Initial Pendant ($58) / J. Crew Polka Dot Journal ($18) / Tacolicious Cookbook ($16) / Tory Burch for Fitbit ($195) / kate spade Bow Earrings ($29) / Nordstrom Pom Pom Slippers ($34) / S’well Waterbottle ($35) / Frends Headphones ($150) / C. Wonder Buffalo Check Keychain ($18) / Old Navy Knit Beanie ($15) / Old Navy Plaid Flats ($24) / kate spade Bow Eyemask ($38) / Gap Jersey Backpack ($50)

DEALS:

Madewell– 20% off [code- YOURGIFT]

J. Crew– 30% off [code- SHOPNOW]

Gap– 40% off [code- BFRIDAY]

C. Wonder– 30% off [no code needed]

Stacked Cannolis

My husband and I have tons of fun experimenting in the kitchen together and this past weekend was no exception! We decided to take on the feat of making cannolis for the first time. As we finished up our dinner, we started reviewing the cannoli recipe and quickly realized we were unprepared. Who knew you needed a cannoli mold to make that tube shape? I quickly researched alternative ways to make the cannoli shape without a mold. I read a few recipes that said you could cut off the end of a broom handle or make a mold out of aluminum foil. Besides the fact that I use a dustbuster instead of a broom, I wasn’t loving the alternative options. It all sounded a little messy to me, so I decided to get a little creative and try stacked cannolis!

They actually turned out great and were super easy to make! We used Alex Guarnaschelli’s Homemade Cannoli Recipe from Food Network (which is delicious by the way) and tweaked the preparation to make them stacked instead of the traditional cannoli shape. Once you cut the dough into circles, you put them right into the hot oil and fry them into flat discs. We put a spoonful of the filling between each layer and topped the tower with the last of the filling and a few raspberries. Didn’t they turn out adorable? Bonus- they taste delicious too!

Craving a delicious italian pastry? Instead of making a batch of cannolis, consider trying this posh spin on the traditional dessert.

Turkey Burger Lettuce Wraps

Nothing feels more summer than a backyard barbecue. I love being outside, playing yard games and grilling out with friends. But what usually comes with a barbecue is unhealthy foods- like burgers, ribs and hotdogs. Don’t freak out! I’m not suggesting to get rid of burgers, (I love burgers as much as the next girl) I’m just offering a healthy alternative- Turkey Burger Lettuce Wraps!

With some easy substitutions, burgers become a healthy option you can feel good about eating. Just look how fresh and delicious they look!

First, you need to make your “bun”. To help keep these burgers healthy we ditched the bread. We love veggies, so swapping out the bun for a lettuce wrap was a no-brainer! These large romaine hearts work great for this. Make sure to cut up several leaves and layer them to give you the added crunch and to hold the burger together.

Next calorie-saving substitution- choose turkey over beef burgers. They are much leaner and still taste great! We love the Jennie-O turkey patties. These patties are already molded, you just have to throw them on the grill!

Now you have a bun and a burger, time to add your toppings. Get creative! We stayed classic for this one with pepperjack, ketchup, mustard and pickles. But other great options include a slice of turkey bacon, barbecue sauce, tortilla strips, etc.

We finished this meal with a side of fresh strawberries. Although chips are an easy side for a burger, fresh fruit is a much better option. You save calories and get WAY more nutrients. And summer is a great time to take advantage of all the delicious fruits that are in season.

With all the calories I saved on swapping out an ordinary burger for this turkey burger lettuce wrap, I think I earned myself a beer!

Now this is my ideal summer meal:

Breakfast Tostada

Ever find yourself holding the refrigerator door open, staring at the food on the shelves, racking your brain for quick, healthy meal? Why not try, Breakfast Tostadas?

My husband travels a lot for work and I am often left preparing dinner for one. This week I found myself tired of my usual go-to dishes. I wanted something quick, healthy and able to be made with ingredients found in my kitchen. That’s how I came up with this yummy breakfast tostada! These ingredients are staples in our kitchen, making this a gourmet, easy meal to throw together at a moments notice.

My favorite side for a breakfast tostada is hash browns, but since I had a heavy lunch I swapped the potatoes for fruit! And if you know me, you know my sweet tooth. I cannot end a meal without dessert! My favorite dessert these days is frozen Chobani bites. All you have to do is store your yogurts in the freezer instead of your fridge and you have a frozen treat! Once frozen, the Chobani bites are the perfect amount and only 100 calories! Today I chose to go with the Raspberry and Dark Chocolate Chunks flavor, yum!

BREAKFAST TOSTADA

Ingredients:

1 corn tortilla

1 egg

black beans

corn salsa- I love Trader Joe’s Corn and Chile Tomato-less Salsa!

1 piece turkey bacon

fresh cilantro, chopped

Instructions:

1- Preheat oven to 450 degrees (I used my toaster oven) and bake corn tortilla until golden brown

2- Cook turkey bacon in skillet and chop into small strips

3- Heat a couple tablespoons of black beans until warm and mash with fork

4- Cook one egg, I prefer mine over medium. EGG TIP- Want to cook the perfect over easy or over medium egg? Stop the flipping! Crack an egg on a frying pan over medium heat and season. Immediately cover with lid. This will help cook the white of the egg without having to flip the egg and risk breaking the yoke!

5- Once the egg is cooked to your liking, spread your mashed black beans on your tortilla and top with the egg

6- Now add your corn salsa, bacon strips and cilantro and dig in!

Fresh Fruit Fajitas

Do you like mexican food? How about fruit?

My husband and I love them both and we thought we would try something different by combining them into one delicious dish! We are always trying new recipes and ideas in the kitchen and we love to pair up unexpected flavors. That’s how we came up with our latest creation, the fresh fruit fajita!

First, we started with our fresh produce from the farmer’s market. Didn’t we snag some amazing looking fruits and veggies?

Next, julienne the bell peppers and dice the jalapenos. Sauté the cut veggies in olive oil and hot sauce (I suggest leaving out the hot sauce if you are sensitive to spicy foods)

While you vegetables are sautéing, cut cooked rosemary chicken into bite sized pieces.

After heating your tortillas, add chicken pieces and top with sautéed peppers and cut stone fruit.

Don’t these look awesome? We served our fajitas with farro. We mixed the cooked farro with corn, black beans and halved grape tomatoes, a quick easy side!

Now you have a complete, healthy meal to serve for dinner!

FRESH FRUIT FAJITAS

Ingredients:
1 lb of chicken
1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
1 green bell pepper, cut into strips
2 red jalapeños, diced
1 yellow peach, julienned
1 nectarine, julienned
grape tomatoes as topping, diced
8 corn tortillas
½ Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
½ Tbsp of hot sauce
rosemary and black pepper for rub

Instructions:

Season chicken with rosemary and black pepper and cook on medium-high heat.
Heat extra virgin olive oil on medium heat and add cut bell peppers, jalapeños and hot sauce. Sauté for 6-8 minutes, or until vegetable start to soften.
While vegetables are sautéing, cut cooked chicken into bite sized pieces.
Heat corn tortillas for a couple minutes in toaster over or on hot skillet to warm.
Now you are ready to assemble your fajitas! Start with your warm tortillas and add chicken. Top with peppers, sliced stone fruits and tomatoes.
Serve with your favorite side and Enjoy!

Frog Treats

As you may have noticed from Monday’s post, I love themes! And I found the theme we chose for my sister’s baby shower, Frogs, Snails and Puppy Dog Tails, was a BLAST to put together! Today I want to follow up with you and share the recipes we used for our frog treats.

Watermelon Frog– I originally found this idea on Watermelon Creations and loved it! I ended up modifying it to make it a little easier for the watermelon carving newbie I am.

Materials Used:
2 Watermelons
2 Large Googly Eyes
Assorted Fruit to fill watermelon
Toothpicks

1- Set one Watermelon on its end and cut the mouth-opening (start at the top middle, cut a few inches down then make horizontal cut out to the edge), take the mouth chunk out, you will use this later.

2- Find the angle you want your frog to sit (this will depend on the size and shape of your watermelon). You want to make sure your guests can reach in and the fruit won’t spill out. Once you find the angle, shave off a small amount where your melon meets the table, but don’t break through the rind! You don’t want your melon to leak!

3- Use a melon baller or a spoon to scrape out the inside of the frog. Again, make sure you don’t break through the rind at the bottom

4- Use the shaving from the bottom of the frog and shape it into the two eyes. Next, glue your large googly eyes to the melon eye cutouts, hot glue worked great for us. To get the eyes to stick up, stick toothpicks in the eyes and stick into the body.

5- Since our watermelon was on the smaller side, we used a second melon for the legs and feet. Cut the second watermelon in half. Now, choose the thickness you want of your legs and slice a ring with that thickness off the half of the melon. Then cut the ring down the middle, making a semi-circle. You now have 2 legs!

6- Use the mouth chunk to make the feet. Cut the chunk in half and scoop out all the melon. You should now have 2 triangles. Cut the points off to match the thickness of the legs and shape into two matching feet.

7- Now that you have all your pieces, stick toothpicks in the feet and legs to make sure nothing moves around.

8- Last, fill with assorted fruit and serve!

Oreo Frogs– I found this adorable idea here on made to be a momma. These were a ton of fun to make and were not only cute, but delicious too! They were everyone’s favorite treat at the party. For reference, I bought vibrant green candyquick (1 12 oz package makes 1 dozen frogs) and the large candy eyeballs (12 in a pack).

Pond Punch– This was a fun drink to add some diversity to the beverage selection. I found the recipe here on food network, but only used half the sugar it called for and it was PLENTY sweet! We also offered champagne to mix with the punch, which turned out delicious!

Lily Pad Chicken Salad– This was a great healthy option to balance out all the sweets on the table. Lucky for me, my brother-in-law has an awesome chicken salad recipe he gave me (see below). After mixing together the chicken salad, put a couple tablespoons on each lettuce wrap and enjoy!

Dalton Chicken Salad
1 ½ lbs chicken breasts
3 celery sticks
½ lb of seedless purple grapes
2-3 hard-boiled eggs
4 oz of sliced almonds
1 Tbsp paprika
1 tsp garlic salt
salt and pepper to taste

1- Season chicken with seasoned salt and black pepper and cook on grill

2- Broil almonds in oven until brown (watch closely, they burn easily!)

3- Dice all ingredients (except almonds) and combine in a bowl

4- Slowly add mayonnaise (or miracle whip for a lighter option) until covered

5- Add roasted almonds, paprika, garlic salt and salt and pepper to taste

Want more? Check out the Snail Eats and the Puppy Dog Tails from the shower!

Snail Eats

Now we will focus on the snail portion of the party! My sister’s baby shower on Saturday just wouldn’t have been complete without these adorable snail dishes.

Pesto Snail Rolls– These were a huge hit and looked exactly like snails (the adorable cartoon ones of course!). We got the recipe here from Recipe.com

Chocolate Hazelnut Peanut Butter Pinwheel Cookies– These cookies looked like snail shells! They were a little labor intensive, but definitely worth it. The recipe is from Jif, found here. I ended up altering the recipe slightly to make the dough more manageable. I left out all the butter and added ¼ cup of flour to the peanut butter dough. I baked mine at 350 degrees for 10 minutes and they turned out perfect!

Turkey and Ham Pinwheels- We needed a few options that were a little more substantial, so we chose these Pesto Tortilla Pinwheels from Home Cooking Memories. These were great as is. We chose to make both turkey and ham pinwheels and added two toothpicks to act as antennae.

Mr. Snail’s Veggie Garden (Assorted Veggie Tray)- This is an obvious one. We always have a veggie tray at all of our parties; we just decided to give this one a fun nickname to fit into the theme!

Want more? Check out the Frog Treats and the Puppy Dog Tails from the shower!

Don’t Bail on Puppy Dog Tails!

Last, but not least, we have the puppy dog tails! My sister has three of the world’s cutest dogs and they are always wagging their tails. My mom and I had to make sure the baby shower on Saturday lived up to my sister’s puppy dog tail expectations!

Go Fetch Cheeseball- Cheeseball is a family favorite of ours and can be found at any family gathering we have. Of course, we had to give it a name to match the theme, but the ingredients are the same from our tried and true family recipe.

2 (8 ounce) packages of cream cheese, softened
1 lb sliced ham, diced
1 bunch of green onions, chopped
2 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce

Combine all ingredients thoroughly and shape into round ball. Serve with crackers.

Puppychow- There are a million puppychow recipe variations out there and most of them are delicious! For the shower, we chose to serve snickerdoodle puppychow, found here at Your Cup of Cake.

Puppy Dog Tails– Lastly, we thought these were too cute to pass up (it also didn’t hurt that they were delicious!)

Dip pretzel rods into melted white chocolate and cover in toffee bits, let cool.

Want more? Check out the Frog Treats and the Snail Eats from the shower!

Frogs, Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Do you know what little boys are made of? Apparently the recipe calls for frogs, snails and puppy dog tails.

My older sister is pregnant with a little boy (the first baby in the family) and my mom and I had the pleasure of throwing her a baby shower this past Saturday. My sister chose the theme of frogs, snails and puppy dog tails and I think it’s safe to say we took the theme and ran with it.

My family is big on celebrations. My sister and I always had the most elaborate parties growing up, they ranged from dalmation themed with ice cubes made of milk and choc chips to Hawaiian themed with actual hula girls there to teach us moves. My mom was always finding a way to make our parties interesting and exciting and this baby shower was no exception.

Basics for a good party include food and drinks, entertainment and favors!

First, we will focus on the most important aspect of a party, the food! We wanted everything to fit into the frogs, snails and puppy dog tails theme so we got a little creative.

Frogs: fruit filled watermelon frog, chocolate covered Oreo frogs, chicken salad lily pads and pond punch.

Snails: pesto snail rolls with carrot antennae, chocolate and peanut butter swirl cookies, Mr. Snail’s vegetable garden (veggie tray) and turkey and ham pinwheel wraps

Glamourita Chocolate and Peanut Butter Snail Swirl Cookies

Puppy Dog Tails: go fetch cheeseball, puppy chow and puppy dog tails (chocolate and toffee covered pretzel rods)

Next, it’s important to have a couple fun games to engage everyone. We had a diaper raffle where anyone who brought a pack of diapers got entered to win a prize! This is a win/win, giving the mother-to-be tons of diapers to start with and giving a few lucky winners a great gift basket! Next we did a cute matching game of candy names and pregnancy terms found here. This one ended up stumping a bunch of us, but we had a couple guests who got them all correct! We also did a cute observation game where we told everyone to pay attention to the mother-to-be as she walked around with a tray full of baby items. After she left the room, we asked the guests questions about the mother-to-be, like what color is her nail polish, what kind of shoes is she wearing, etc. Most the guests pay little attention to the mother-to-be since they are trying to focus on remembering the items on the tray; it’s a fun curve-ball to throw into the mix of traditional baby shower games.

Last, but not least, are the guests’ favors. I am a huge candy fan and especially a fan of candy buffets. They are not only great favors, but add great decoration to the party. We chose all blue and white candy for ours; we had a mix of chocolate, taffy, gummies, jelly beans and more. It’s a cute way to say thank you for coming to your guests. Girls not only grabbed their favorites, but took some home for their families too!

Everything turned out great, but the fan favorite was definitely the Oreo frogs! They were such a cute visual addition to the party and actually tasted great too! I had a blast making all these treats and setting everything up with my mom. Are you interested in any of the recipes or ideas? Check out all the step by step details of the party here- Frog Treats, Snail Eats and Don’t Bail on Puppy Dog Tails!

Summer Fruit Salad

TGIF! This Friday I’m hoping to get my weekend off to a FRESH start and I thought I would share one of my go-to fresh-to-death dinners with you. This salad is great anytime, especially in the summer when you are looking for a quick, light meal. And as an added bonus, since these are ingredients we snack on often, my husband and I usually have some combination of them in the fridge.

The key to a good salad is keeping it interesting. It’s easy to find reasons to pass up the healthy salad option for dinner, so don’t make it any harder on yourself by making it boring or too labor intensive. Check out my list below of must-haves for a great salad.

1- Greens- we prefer the crunch of freshly cut romaine

2- Protein- chicken and turkey are my go-to lean meats

3- Veggies/Fruit- whatever is in season, right now we are loving berries!

4- Cheese- gorgonzola, bleu cheese and parmesan are regular acts in our kitchen

5- Nuts – we usually go for slivered almonds or pecans

6- Dressing- keep it light and let the ingredients shine!

In this salad we used grilled chicken, green apples, strawberries, gorgonzola cheese, pecans and a homemade vinaigrette dressing. By choosing a stronger cheese like blue cheese or gorgonzola, a little goes a long way and you don’t find yourself piling on needless calories.

Another great tip is to ditch the croutons! There are so many other healthy ways to add crunch and texture to your salad. I personally chose nuts, but other great options include baked corn tortillas (cut into strips), sunflower seeds or even baked quinoa clusters!

And last, but certainly not the least calories, is the dressing. This is where most people get in trouble. These days I try to stick to homemade dressings so I know exactly what ingredients are in them. Our favorite mixture includes olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, garlic salt and pepper. Try mixing it up by using flavored balsamic vinegars; we use pineapple and strawberry balsamic vinegars all the time!

Whatever ingredient combination you choose, have fun with it. Make sure to mix it up so you don’t get bored and don’t be afraid to try whatever is in season at the market, that’s how we end up coming up with some of our favorite combinations!

I hope you enjoy my healthy salad tips, let me know your favorite ways to keep salads interesting and yummy and enjoy your weekend!

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BREAKFAST TOSTADA

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FRESH FRUIT FAJITAS

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