02.10.15

Cookie Butter
Went up to the teacher's lounge for lunch and came across this tasty pair!

12.11.14

Who Wants an Oreo?
Staring to get some gifts ready for next week while also enjoying some treats from this week.

08.25.14

Restaurant Week...Summer Style
We only made one reservation for the week...Shanahan's. We had yummy filets and a great evening with Matt & Dana!! 









Prior to our evening out, my "sneaky bison" at work got my Monday started off GREAT with a baggie of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups...absolute YUM!!

08.14.14

Summer S'more
Is there ever really a day that S'mores aren't absolutely YUMMY!?!? (Even without a campfire.)

07.14.14

Birthday Dinner
We visited our favorite steak house tonight for my birthday...there was just a little dessert leftover. (Chad also thought the "siamese raspberry" was funny.)

05.06.14

Store-Bought Cupcakes...Pimped Out!
Well, I was in charge of a dessert for our ladies golf league's opening night. I had great plans of something homemade, but my plans had to change.

After looking through Pinterest I decided to go with cupcakes. I didn't have the time to make the cupcakes or frosting this week, so I decided to "pimp out" the store-bought cupcakes with toppings ideas I had found while looking online. 

The one thing you loose with this method is the custom flavored cupcakes and frosting, but it saves a lot of time and still gives you customized cupcakes! If you wanted, it would actually be very easy to add some various flavors to the frosting. You could use cinnamon, nutmeg, or various extracts. You would need to carefully remove all of the frosting into a bowl, mix in the flavor and then re-frost.

Below I've outlined what I did with my King Soopers cupcakes. One thing I did for several of the cupcakes was remove a little of the frosting...I think the store bakeries always use too much.

BEFORE

AFTER

Peanut Butter Cup
-chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream frosting (removed some of the frosting)
-chopped up Peanut Butter Cup Minis for the topping

Caramel & Chocolate Pretzel
-vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting AND
-vanilla cupcakes with chocolate buttercream (didn't remove any of the frosting)
-melted just a small amount of chocolate in the microwave and drizzled it over the pretzels and let cool before adding them to the cupcake
-drizzle caramel ice cream topping on top

Coconut
-chocolate cupcakes with vanilla whipped cream frosting AND
-vanilla cupcakes with vanilla whipped cream frosting (removed some of the frosting)
-placed coconut on a plate and rolled cupcake around to top

Oreo
-chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting (I would use the whipped cream frosting next time.)
-I removed all the frosting into a small bowl. In a Ziploc I crushed up Oreo minis and mixed them in with the frosting. I then re-frosted the cupcakes. (I didn't actually use all of the frosting.)
-I also chopped up some of the Oreos and sprinkled them on top.

Fruit
-chocolate cupcakes with vanilla whipped cream frosting AND
-vanilla cupcakes with vanilla whipped cream frosting (I didn't remove any frosting.)
-place the fruit of your choice on top...I used a raspberry

Pretzel Bites

Pretzel Bites
Decided to make some treats for the class I'm teaching tomorrow night. It won't take the place of green beer, but hopefully they will appreciate them. 

Easy to make treats and they can be done for any holiday.













Here's what you need:

• Square pretzels (I used Snyder's of Hanover.)
• Chocolate candy melts (Wilton is the brand I use.)
• M&Ms (For this particular batch I used mint due to the fact they were three different shades of green.)

Here's what you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
3. Arrange the pretzels on the sheet.

4. Place one candy melt on each pretzel.

5. Place baking sheet in the oven for about 2 minutes. You will want to keep a close eye on the chocolates. You only want to get them melted enough so that the M&M can be pushed into the melted disc.

6. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and lightly press one M&M into each disc. You will want to move quickly.

7. Let the bites cool. This should take about an hour, depending on the type of chocolate you've used. If you are in a hurry, you can place them in the fridge for a little while.

Other options:

1. I had pretzels and discs left over, but no M&Ms. So I replaced the M&M with a whole pecan.
2. Use Rolos or Hershey Kisses in place of the candy melts. You can still top them with either M&Ms or pecans.

02.28.14

Restaurant Week has Come to an End
Our final restaurant was Jing in DTC, another new place for us. See the seafood options I was very excited. Enjoyed the Crispy Tuna Roll, but was disappointed in the Parisian Prawns. The final sweet of the week was Toffee Chocolate Mousse Cake...not too bad, but would have been better with some caramel. :)











I did have to post my "Wendy" pic today as well. Panera lunch wasn't anything exciting, so I chose her drink from our "after-training" refreshments.

02.26.14

Sweet, but not Great
Made our way to McCormick & Schmick's for Restaurant Week. This was our first time there and we weren't overly impressed. Other then the food not being spectacular, my martini was in a chipped/cracked glass and both of our desserts came out on dirty plates. After several recommendations, we were a little disappointed.

02.23.14

Dessert
Well, made our way to the second stop on Restaurant Week...Shanahan's. Great steak and yummy dessert. (I did enjoy last night's dessert much better though.)

02.07.14

Wine & Chocolate
Tasting event at Bubbles.