Spooky Cookie Cake

Gabe and I are invited to a Halloween party on Halloween night. I have to bring a dessert, so I did some online searching for cute Halloween ideas. There were tons of them, but most of them you need about 10 hours and some artistic ability to complete them. I just wanted something simple. So I found a cute cookie cake idea and decided to try it out. I started out by using the Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe I got from my friend. Instead of making cookie balls, I put all of the dough in a throw away foil pizza pan (12" size) and spread it out.
This is what it looked like before going in the oven:

I baked it at the same temperature she gave and just watched it for timing. I think I ended up baking it between 35-40mins. (note-after tasting it, it could have been less-it was a little over done for my taste). I think the recipe I found called for decorating it right after coming out of the oven. I decided to decorate it the following day.
For the decorating, I started by spreading about 1/2 cup of creamy peanut butter on top of the cookie (I microwaved it a little to melt it a bit). Then I sprinkled M&M's (halloween ones) and salted peanuts on top. To finish it, I used some vanilla frosting to create a spiderweb design on the cookie (I melted it a bit and used a baggie with a cut corner for piping it on). Here's the final result:

And after trying it, it was very tasty!

Early Thanksgiving

Last night in Buffalo, we had basically an early Thanksgiving. My cousin turned 40 early last week so this was her birthday dinner and my Aunt found out she's working on Thanksgiving day so she'll miss out on dinner. So, the birthday dinner became Thanksgiving-just a month early. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls-and apple pie and peanut butter pie for dessert. And of course it was all homemade! It was SO yummy!! Unfortunately, there were no leftovers so no turkey sandwiches for us this week :( I'm actually happy with how it all worked out. Gabe and I alternate Thanksgiving-one year in Buffalo with my family then the next year in Rochester with his. This is our Rochester year so it was nice to have a Buffalo Thanksgiving dinner as well since we won't have it for the actual holiday. It's scary to think that it'll be November this weekend-that means the holidays are right around the corner! But, I did start Christmas shopping over the weekend so that's always a good thing!

Halloween Party #1

Last night we had our first Halloween party of this year. My friend, Megan, and her husband have been having an annual party for the past few years. So we went to Buffalo for the weekend and went to the party last night. It was a good time! Gabe and I aren't really all that great of thinking of costume ideas and we hate to spend the money on something you'll wear once. So our costumes were courtesy of my work:

Gabe was Dr. Seymour Butz-Proctologist and I was Dr. Mel Practice-Plastic Surgeon. The party was fun-they had karaoke, lots of food, and the Sabres game on.

I brought a new dish to pass, which I got from my friend's blog, Heather Drive. It's a dip and turned out pretty good!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1/3 cup brown sugar-

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup confectioner's sugar-

3/4 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:1. In a small sauce pan, melt butter and brown sugar over medium heat. Stir continuously until the brown sugar dissolves.

2. Remove from heat and whisk in vanilla extract. Set aside to cool.

3. Beat the softened cream cheese and confectioner's sugar for 1 minute.

4. Slowly beat in the cooled butter/brown sugar mixture. Beat for an additional minute.

5. Stir in the chocolate chips.

6. Pour mixture into serving bowl and refrigerate. (Note: The mixture will be very liquid-like at first. Refrigeration is necessary to make it a better consistency. If you are running short on time, you can also throw the mixture into the freezer for a little bit.)

7. Garnish with additional chips (optional). (I used a spoon to scoop and position extra chips on the top of the dip. This is what my aunt did and I think it makes for better presentation.)Serve with vanilla wafers or graham crackers.(Another note: After refrigeration for an extended period of time, your dip will be very solid and un-dippable--your wafers or graham crackers will break! To achieve the best consistency, remove from the refrigerator 15-30 minutes prior to serving.)

Everyone enjoyed the dip-I used vanilla wafer cookies and chocolate Pirouline cookies (the rolled up wafer ones with filling in the middle). The only thing I didn't care for was I could taste the cream cheese-which I'm not a huge fan of, so for myself I might tweak that a bit.

We have another Halloween party coming up Friday!

Easy Chicken Bake

Tonight I'm making one of my favorite dinners. We haven't had it in a really long time so I can't wait to dig in!

Easy Chicken Bake
1 pkg Stove Top stuffing mix
1 cup hot water
1 1/2 lb boneless chicken breasts cut into 1 inch pieces
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
1/3 cup sour cream
1 bag frozen mixed vegetables, thawed and drained (you can omit/change these)

Preheat oven to 400. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of the dry stuffing mix evenly on the bottom of a 9x13" baking dish; set aside. Add hot water to remaining stuffing mix and stir until just moistened.

Place chicken over dry stuffing mix in dish. Mix soup, sour cream, and vegetables. Spoon over chicken. Top with prepared stuffing.

Bake 30min. or until chicken is cooked through.

Oh, did I mention this is off of the stove top stuffing box?!

Pride and Prejudice

Last night, Gabe and I went to see a viewing of the musical "Pride and Prejudice". It's based on the novel by Jane Austen and the composers are trying to get it on Broadway (his Mom is a HUGE Jane Austen fan and got us the tickets). So they had a viewing at Eastman Theater last night. What they did differently is that the orchestra was onstage instead of in the orchestra pit and there wasn't any set. The cast was made up of the same people they would take to Broadway but in the viewing they were able to carry their scripts with them. It was a one night only affair-red carpet and all!

Overall it was very good. I've never read the book (shame on me) so I wasn't very informed on the plot but it wasn't all that hard to follow. The cast did very well-they had only rehearsed a few times and I was very surprised at how many of them had their part memorized already. One neat thing they did was they incorporated Jane Austen writing the novel into the musical. She was in the entire production and it was pretty cool how they added her in here and there-it was like seeing her thoughts come alive as she was writing.

So, if it makes it to Broadway, it'll be interesting to see how it really comes to life-the sets they use, the staging, etc. And hey, it may be my first trip to NYC!

Suzy Homemaker!

Yes, that was me today! After getting home from the mall I decided to try making two things I've never made before.

First, was homemade applesauce. Never have done it myself, but how hard can it really be? I didn't have a recipe that I used-I looked at a few online and just sort of "winged it" myself.

Applesauce

8 apples-peeled and cored (I used a combinated of McIntosh and Cortland-peeled them then used an apple slicer that you push on the apple-pops out the core and cuts it into 8 pieces)
1 cup water

cinnamon (I used a few dashes out of the jar)

sugar (not sure how much I used-just added to taste-probably 1/4 cup or so?)

After getting the apples ready, I put them in a large saucepan (it was full to the top with the apples). I put in water and turned the flame on medium (note: really I think you're supposed to use about a cup-I filled up the pot about 3/4 of the way and as the apples cooked I started pouring the water out until there was about an inch left in the pan-I just didn't think they would cook with a full pan of apples but only a small layer of water. The inch I left in the pan stayed in the pan for good.) I let the apples cook until tender then removed from heat. I added cinnamon and some sugar and mashed until I got the consistency desired (I like it a little chunky). That's it! It didn't make much for using 8 apples, but what I tasted was fantastic! Can't wait to have some more! And it was really easy!

While the apples were cooking, I tried another recipe. You'll never guess where I found it-on the back of a hot chocolate packet! Thought it was kind of weird, but intriguing too! Since I'm a peanut butter freak, I had to try it!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 stick butter softened
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup hot cocoa mix (It was roughly 2 packets of mix-I used Nestle rich chocolate)
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup finely chopped peanuts (I used about 3/4 cup and it was more than enough)

Line a baking sheet or plate with waxed paper (I used saran wrap instead). Beat butter, peanut butter, and vanilla until creamy. Stir in cocoa mix and sugar until well mixed. Put peanuts into a shallow dish. Roll batter into 1 inch balls and roll into peanuts. Place on baking sheet and refrigerate until firm. Makes 24 truffles (mine made around 30).

Again-super easy. I haven't tried a finished one yet since they are in the fridge still, but I tasted the batter and it was pretty good which surprised me! You never know what you'll get from a hot cocoa recipe!

3 months!

We've been married 3 months today! Again, not sure where the time went since then!

We had a pretty low-key weekend. We went to the public market with Gabe's parents yesterday. Gabe had to go into work so I did some much needed house cleaning. Then we went out for dinner last night and watched "Semi-Pro" when we got home (it was just ok).

Today we went to the mall with Gabe's sister and our niece and nephew. For our wedding, we got our nephew, Owen, a gift card to build-a-bear. So today we all went to see him make his bear. It was the first time there for all of us and it was really cute. He picked out a really soft bear and we watched/helped them stuff the bear. Then he put in a giggle sound and heart into the bear. He made a birth certificate for the bear and they bought a cute soccer outfit to dress it in. Very cute idea for kids-I think he had fun!

After that, we grabbed some subs for dinner and I made a few things (see other posts from today). Amazing Race starts shortly so we'll be watching that! And we'll be "celebrating" by eating a piece of wedding shower cake!