Cherry Cheesecake Brownies

Cherry Cheesecake Brownies

A lil bit o deliciousness

 

So I have made these a few times and love them so much I thought I'd share the recipe.

Ingredients:

One box of Brownie mix (I used Betty Crocker this time)

One can Cherry Pie filling

One 8 oz Cream cheese

One egg

1/4 c sugar

1 tsp vanilla

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease cake pan -or- line with nonstick aluminum foil like me.

1) Make the brownies per the box directions, or if you are super fancy you can make your own but I cheat.

Plop into greased/lined cake pan and spread evenly.

2) Mix cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla until completely smooth-no one wants chunks of straight up cream cheese in their brownie. Drop on top of the brownie mix in globs.

3) Crack open that can of cherry pie filling and glob on top of the cheesecake/brownie. Take a knife and swirl it around a little. 

4) Bake for about 40 minutes.

TRY to let it cool enough before eating so you don't burn the craples out of your mouth:)

Radio Silence

My bad.

 

It has been just crazy here but I beg your forgiveness!!!

 

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving and successful Black Thursday/Friday shopping:) I know I did.

 

We had 20 or so people at our house for Thanksgiving and everything turned out great. Everyone brought a dish to pass and we had to make the turkey and ham. I also made an AWESOME Spinach and artichoke dip in the crockpot. The recipe can be found at the bottom of this post:)

 

Yesterday we took the little man to a parade with a marching band and a horse drawn sleigh with Santa! It was FREEZING though so the little guy was all bundled up! He was waving to everyone passing by, it was just adorable.

Then we went to Kraynak's in Hermitage, PA. Again we had to stand in line outdoors to walk through the Christmas land. It is basically display after display of Christmas tree's.

Then Hunter got to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what he wanted for Christmas. Can you guess what he said??

 

 

Toys.

 

I have not done much sewing/crafting until today. I had to tear down my sewing room to turn it back into the dining room which it really is. Big man was happy to have his dining room back-until I started bringing stuff back down today.

 

 He was hoping to have it clear until Christmas but I told him No Way, I have Christmas presents to work on!

 

I'm doing three pairs of super duper easy leggings in a hot pink and black houndstooth knit for three little girls. I love this pattern, so many cute peices to make later; if your wondering, I am using Simplicity 2156. I only worked on them for about 2 hours and have one pair done and the other two just need the waistband/elastic casing made. Told ya they were easy-peasy:)

 

Also--Little man is THISCLOSE to being potty trained. All on his own too. I think he just wants the skittles he gets as a reward. No going #2 but pee-potty all day long!!! YAY!!!! I know your as excited as I am. The day your kid is completely potty trained is a glorious day!



Spinach and Artichoke Dip

2 10oz frozen chopped spinach
2 8 oz cream cheese, softened. Regular or Low fat, NEVER fat free-it doesn't melt right.
1/2 cup parmesean cheese
3/4 half and half
2/3 cup shreadded monterey jack cheese
2 garlic cloves chopped
1 tbs finely chopped onion
1 15 oz can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped

Mix all together in a crockpot except  for 1/2 of the monterey jack cheese. Cook on high for a couple of hours. Top with remaining monterey jack cheese and cook on low for another hour.

Broccoli Cheese Soup

So totally random post today!

I made Broccoli Cheese soup today I thought I would share my "recipe"

 I have to preface this by saying:

I am a fly by the seat of my pants kinda girl when it comes to soups. I change it up regularly and always change it up!

Ingredients:

1/4 c Butter

1 onion, chopped

1 bunch of fresh broccoli <--This is one thing I NEVER substitute. It has to be the real thing.

3-14.5 oz cans of vegetable broth <-I prefer Swansons or Cottage Inn

8 oz give or take shredded cheeses

1 tbsp minced garlic 

1 can Campbell's condensed broccoli cheese soup-you could use cheddar soup, chicken, or whatever

 Directions

 Melt butter and add  chopped onion. Cook until onions are softened-starting to brown. 

Add chopped broccoli and cover with broth.

Simmer 10-15 minutes.

Add in cheese until melted. Today I used some mixed extra sharp Adams reserve cheddar and regular mild cheddar as well as a few oz mozzarella and for fun 4oz cream cheese softened. Be warned though do NOT use Fat free cream cheese it doesn't melt at all.

 Do I have more than 8 oz of cheese here? YOU BETCHA! I love cheese:)

Add in your cream of whatever or broccoli cheese soup base.

Warm thoroughly and enjoy!

Pumpkin Playdough

So today is Little Man's Halloween party and we were in charge of the treat bags for 20 2-3 yr olds!

We put in some random little toys from JoAnn's and I made ghost bags with white lunch bags and black card stock eyes and mouth. I decided that I needed one more homemade thing and decided on pumpkin playdough. I have seen this ALL OVER the place and decided I could adapt  own recipe from my basic 'dough recipe. 

I thought as a last minute Halloween post-I should share it with you!

To make 20 palm-ish sized pumpkins of dough (lol) you need:

2 c. Flour

1 c. Salt

1 tsp. Cinnamon

4 tsp. Cream of Tartar

1 tsp. Allspice

2 c. H20 

2 Tbs. Veggie oil

Yellow and Red food coloring

Directions

 

Mix dry ingredients in a large sauce pan or pot, mix with a whisk  until well blended.

Add wet ingredients and mix until blended. I used 28 drops yellow and 12 drops red food coloring.

Put pan on burner over medium heat and with a rubber spatula stir constantly-even if it feels like your arm is about to fall off! It took me about 6 minutes or so for the dough to form a dough. Try not to over cook it (it gets to dry)

Turn out when it cools a little on a clean counter top and kneed until smooth. 

Roll the pumpkin into a log and cut in half, cut that in half, then into fifth's to make 20. Roll into little balls.

I put mine in sandwich baggies tied off with green ribbon "stem" and drew on little pumpkin faces. 

These will keep about a week; if it gets a little to dried out you can dampen your hands and roll again.

Puss in Boots?

So I'm getting there.

The under shirt AKA as the doublet is done.

 

 

Sorry no "action" shots until it is all done and together! The doublet with out the rest is ...

ummm...

a little girly.

BUT it is necessary in the final look to be lace trimmed and puff sleeve-d to the max.

Although it is cute, it is crazy complicated in my opinion. Fully lined and button holes on crepe backed satin just turn out wrinkly no matter what. Unless someone has some awesome top secret tip for me--it does have an interfacing under that area already.

However, when he see's his costume he says  "Puth in Boot". So I'm thinking that I may have to get some cat ears and tail together so he really can be Puss in Boots.

Here's a peek at the tabard (the over jacket thingie)

Also in weekend fun :

AHHMMMAAZING 

Carrot Cake 

with homemade butter cream frosting

I know you are wondering where I got the recipe:) Well it came from this fabulous blog I just discovered called Mom on timeout. You can get this recipe (and the frosting recipe) HERE . 

I opted to do mine in a 9x13 cake pan because I don't have 2 9" round pans. My cake also did not want to come out of the pan. I opted to Ninja up the pecans to sprinkle on the top and only put them on "my half" of the cake. Big man doesn't like nuts...so we wont tell him that there are Ninja-d pecans inside the cake!! 

I'm taking some to work tomorrow so don't worry that I'm actually going to eat half a cake HAHA

We also took the little man to the Apple Fest this weekend. The only thing he cared about was the kettle corn. Even though we had already purchased some he walked up to every.single.vendor. that was selling it.

How stinkin' cute is he wearing these fake glasses?







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