(A little late) Holiday appetizers and dessert recipes for anytime of the year

As always, the holidays rushed in and out faster than we could enjoy them. I was anxious to make all sorts of new foods and appetizers, but didn't seem to have enough time to get them all done. However, there are several that I made for our Christmas party that are definitely worth sharing. Unlike my husband, who can whip up a gourmet meal from milk, eggs, and butter, (not exaggerating, I don't know how he does it! ) I have to follow a recipe and like many, I like scrolling through the pictures on Pinterest to see what looks appetizing and worth trying. If I do have an idea of what I want to cook, allrecipes.com is a great place to find delicious recipes that others have already tried and many even add their own twist and share it in the comments. You have to check it out.

The appetizer recipes that I have to share with you have been tried and approved by friends and family and I'm sure that you will enjoy, too.

Bacon-Jalapeno Cheeseballs

6 slices bacon
1/4 C chopped pecans
8 oz cream cheese
1/2 C shredded cheddar cheese
2 TB chopped fresh parsley
1 garlic clove or a Tb ready minced garlic
1/4 ts ground cumin
pinch cayenne pepper
1 ts lime juice
1/2 tn Worcestershire sauce
2 jalapeños (ribs and seeds removed), finely chopped and divided; however, if you like spicy food, leave in some seeds for a good kick
Buttery crackers (for serving)

Cook the bacon until crispy then transfer to drain excess oil. Allow to cool slightly, then crumble and divide in half.

While the bacon is cooking, preheat oven to 350 F. Spread the pecans on a baking sheet and toast for 5-7 minutes, or until fragrant.

In a medium bowl, stir together the cream cheese, cheddar cheese, parsley, garlic, cumin, cayenne, lime juice, Worcestershire sauce, half of the minced jalapeños, and half of the crumbled bacon until well combined. Season the mixture to taste with salt.

On a large plate, stir the toasted pecans, remaining minced jalapeños and remaining half of the crumbled bacon together until evenly distributed. Shape the cream cheese mixture into a ball (the mixture will be sticky, I found it easiest to shape if I just barely wet my hands first). Roll the ball in the pecan mixture until coated on all sides.

Now, the following was not written in the recipe, but I found was a good way to refrigerate.  I cut two large pieces of Saran Wrap, sprayed each with spray butter and then placed a cheese ball in each piece. I wrapped them, placed them on a plate and refrigerated them until ready to serve; at least an hour.

When you are ready to serve, line the plate with crackers and center with the cheese ball.

Courtesy of http://traceysculinaryadventures.com/2012/10/bacon-jalapeno-cheese-ball.html

Ready for a couple of more great recipes? Click on the pictures below:

Ham Rolls, Wheat & Flour Tortilla PinWheels

Sea Salt Chocolate Caramel covered pretzels  

Feel free to leave a comment to share your experience making and tasting this delicious recipe. If you added your own twist, please let me know, I love trying variations of the same recipe!
Have a great day!

I love sharing pictures of what I've done, so if you'd like to share my pictures, please give me the credit for my pictures by adding a link to my page. I do not take credit for any recipes posted unless I specify that I created the recipe. I will give credit and post links to the sites where I found the recipes I tried and hope you will do the same.

Ham and Tortilla Pinwheels

Ham Rolls, Flour tortilla rolls, Wheat Flour Rolls

I have seen this recipe many times and actually learned how to make the ham rolls from an aunt of mine many years ago.  Since I had a many people over with different tastes, I didn't just want to make ham rolls, so I decided to add a little variation for everyone's taste buds.

When making these rolls, I don't have a specific recipe that I go buy because sometimes I'll add a little more chives to the cheese or a little more chives and cheese to the ham. If this is your first time making them, you will get the idea and make them your own.

For the ham rolls, you will need:

• Thin-sliced ham
• 1 package of cream cheese
• 1 package of chives
• butter crackers to serve with

The cream cheese needs to be at room temperature so that it is easy to mix, but if you don't have time to wait you can use a hand-held mixer to soften it. (You don't want to put it in the microwave unless you are overly cautious and feel it every five seconds.) Add about 1/2 cup of chives, but again it all depends on your taste. If you really like that chives taste, then add to your liking because the ham, cheese, and chives are a perfect flavorful combination. Mix it all by hand or again a hand-held mixer.

Lay some wax paper on the table, and overlap a row of ham making sure that it overlaps about a 1/4 to a 1/3 so that it doesn't fall apart when you cut it.  The amount of rows is really up to you, but I think about 5 rows of 4 is a good start and just make another roll if you have leftovers.

The next part can be a little difficult but I read that if you pat the ham down with a paper towel, you take away some of the  moisture therefore making it easier to spread the cheese mixture onto the ham.

After you spread the cheese mixture, as thin or thick as you'd like, it is time to roll the ham.  Keeping the ham on the wax paper, roll it and wrap it in the same wax paper and place in the refrigerator for at least an hour until ready to serve.  Finally, cut the roll into 1/2 pieces and serve with butter crackers.

The Tortilla rolls are essentially made the same way except for the following:
Place an individual wheat or flour tortilla on wax paper, spread with cheese and chive mixture, roll and cut when ready to serve. If you really like the ham flavor, you can layer the tortilla first, then the ham and topped with the cheese mixture. Always remember to make your food your own. So, don't be afraid to add or remove ingredients.  If you do, make sure to share it with us so that we can try it, too.


I hope you and yours enjoy these great rolls as much as my family and friends!

In case you missed it, make sure to check out the recipes for my 

Bacon Jalapeno Cheese Balls and Sea Salt Chocolate Caramel Covered Pretzels

Bacon Jalapeno Cheeseballs

Sea Salt Chocolate caramel Covered pretzels

I love sharing pictures of what I've done, so if you'd like to share my pictures, please give me the credit for my pictures by adding a link to my page. I do not take credit for any recipes posted unless I specify that I created the recipe. I will give credit and post links to the sites where I found the recipes I tried and hope you will do the same.

Sea Salt Chocolate Caramel Covered Pretzels

Sea Salt Chocolate Caramel covered Pretzels

This is the last of the three holiday recipes I've been dying to share with you. However, if you are on a diet, don't even bother making these for your family if you think you can only eat one. I made sure to give away as many as possible because I found myself eating just one....uhm..yes...Every time I walked by the table! LOL Trust me if you have a sweet tooth, these are definitely for you!

I saw this recipe somewhere on Pinterest or the web, but when I was ready to make it, I couldn't find it, but it didn't look like it was difficult to make so the following is what I did:

• 6 oz of melted Milk Chocolate Almond Bark
• 1/2 Bag pretzels
• 1 bag Caramel squares
• Sea salt

Melt the chocolate on a low setting on the stove, but you can also do it in the microwave if you follow the directions on the packaging.  Lay some wax paper on the table and drizzle some chocolate on the paper, then place 2 or 3 pretzels overlapping on the chocolate, then, drizzle a little more melted chocolate over the pretzels. Make about 10 clusters repeating the same process. After you have finished the chocolate, melt the caramel in a pot on a low setting and drizzle over all of the clusters. While the caramel is still warm, you can sprinkle the sea salt and if you have any leftover chocolate and/or caramel, you can drizzle the rest over the clusters.  Depending on the size of the pretzels and how much chocolate and caramel you add to each, you may be able to make between 10 and 20. It's probably easier to make 10 at a time, but that is totally up to you.

Let them set at room temperature or stick them in the refrigerator if you are in a hurry, but make sure to check on them because if you leave them in there too long they get too hard. You just need to leave them in there long enough to set; about 10-15 minutes. You can store them in plastic baggies or containers.

If you missed my first 2 recipes, click on the images below for their recipes.

Ham and Tortilla Pinwheels

Bacon Jalapeno Cheese Balls

Colorful Crochet Baby Blanket

I crochet several blankets a year and usually have several projects going at once. This is my latest one and probably the one that has taken the longest to finish because of the zigzag pattern.  I find that time consuming projects like this seem to be the most fulfilling to me and I always look forward to the end product.  

I found this pattern at Michael's craft store in the yarn isle and just had to try it, but with my own twist of three different colors and two yarns at once.

If you want to try it, the pattern is a difficulty level 2, considered Easy and if you know how to read crochet patterns, this is not a difficult pattern to follow. You can find the pattern HERE from Red Heart. I hope you will enjoy this project as much as I did.

From my Creative Heart to Yours,

Enjoy!

Michele

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Upside-Down Pineapple Cakes

The following recipe is one that was given to me years ago and I have made time and time again. The great thing about this recipe is that it doesn't contain a lot of bread in comparison to the typical upside down cake recipes.  This is, however, the first time that I make it in individual cakes and fortunately, the amount of batter is perfect for these molds.

The cakes turned out delicious and even though I forgot a main step at the beginning which was adding the brown sugar to the melted butter before arranging the cherries and pineapples, I decided to do it afterwards and it turned out just fine.

I hope you will enjoy this recipe as much as my family did and will continue to use it in the years to come.

The instructions are very simple.

Melt the butter in a skillet or as I did, add an equal amount of butter to each mold or 10" cake pan and put it in the oven to melt. Once melted, remove from the oven and add the brown sugar to coat the bottom of each mold. I added more than the 1/4 cup that is recommended.  Drain the pineapple saving the juice and set aside and arrange the pineapple pieces in the mold.

In a mixing bowl , mix the remaining ingredients and pour over the pineapple and sugar mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes if baking in a round or square pan or about 30 minutes for individual small cakes.

From My Creative Heart to Yours,

Enjoy!

Michele

*You are welcome to share this recipe and may use my picture only for sharing the recipe. Please add a link back to my blog. Thank-you.

Butter Pecan Cake

Butter pecan is one of my favorite ice cream flavors, therefore when I found this recipe on Pinterest, I just had to try it.  Honestly, I wasn't crazy about it. It's not that it was bad, it was very tasty, but it just wasn't sweet enough for me. I love rich flavors. My husband, sons and daughter absolutely loved it because it's not extremely sweet. SO, if you are not into very sweet sweets, then this is definitely the cake for you.

The preparation was a little time consuming, but according to feedback, it was definitely worth it!

(The recipe calls for 3 layers, but I only baked two which is plenty of cake for 6 persons.)

To Make the Frosting:

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a large skillet. Add pecans and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until toasted – about 8-10 minutes. Remove from heat and cool completely.

Beat cream cheese and 1/2 cup butter at medium speed until creamy. Gradually add sugar. Beat until light and fluffy. Stir in buttered pecans and vanilla. Cover and chill at least 1 hour.

To Make the Cake:

Place white chocolate in a bowl and pour boiling water over it, stirring until smooth. Set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease three 9-inch round cake pans and line with wax paper. Grease and flour wax paper.

Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating well. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating after each addition. Stir in melted white chocolate and vanilla.

Combine buttermilk and baking soda. Add flour to butter mixture, alternating with buttermilk mixture. Begin and end with flour. Mix at low speed after each addition until blended.

Beat egg whites to stiff peaks. Gently fold into batter. Pour batter evenly into prepared pans.

Bake for 20-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of cake comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Then, remove from pans to wire racks to cool completely.

Spread frosting between layers and on the top and sides of cake. Garnish, if desired.

Store in refrigerator.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as my family enjoyed it!

From my Creative Heart to Yours. ENJOY!

Michele

Birthday Cakes

One of the things that I don't get to do much anymore is baking, but when I do, I love to go all out.  I make the hard candy decorations at least 3 days in advance so that I am sure that they are completely hardened and typically make a butter cream icing.  

The first cake you see above was for my daughter's 11th birthday. She was going through her Gir phase so we threw her a Gir themed party. You can't see the front of the cake very well, but I made the letters of her name with the hard candy icing. I found the font that I wanted for her name online and traced it on wax paper, then I piped the icing on the opposite side of the paper and left it there to harden.  The Gir face was also copied onto wax paper and once again piped the icing over the outline of the face, then, I just filled in the rest.

The chocolate cake was to die for.  I decided to make my own version of the Chocolate Wasted Cake; I call mine-Chocolate Overdose. -Two Layers of Fudge Chocolate Chocolate Icing -2 Bags of Hershey's Chocolate morsels - Almonds -Bite size pack of Snickers for toppings -Melted chocolate morsels drizzled over the top. If you are a chocolate lover, this is the cake for you!

The white cake is simple and pretty.  It is a two layer butter cake with butter cream icing, strawberry slices and chocolate drizzled over the top.

The heart cake is also a butter flavored cake mix with butter cream icing. The flower and leaves were made a week in advance from hard candy icing.

You can find more cakes I've created on Pinterest and a board with great cake decorating ideas. Don't forget to follow me to stay updated.

From my Creative Heart to Yours.

Michele

Baby Blanket - Crochet Shell Stitch

These are only two of my latest crochet projects. Before finding out that my son was having a baby girl, I decided to crochet a pink baby blanket just because I liked the chunky yarn. I thought that even if he had a boy, I could just give away the pink one. Well, I get to keep it because in fact, he is expecting a baby girl.

My sister liked it so much that she asked me to make a blue one for one of her coworkers.  It doesn't take much to get me to start a new crochet project, so of course, I agreed!

I don't have the pattern for these two blankets, but for anyone that crochets, I used a shell type stitch and crocheted until I reached the size I wanted.

From my Creative Heart to yours,
Enjoy!
Michele

Oreo Chocolate Cream Cake

I enjoy baking special treats, especially cakes for my kids' birthdays, so much so that the only time I have not baked a special cake for a birthday in 20 years was 2 years ago for my daughter because I had back surgery and I just didn't have a choice. 

Yesterday was the birthday of a young man that is like a son to me; his favorite treat is none other than Oreos. Like for my other two kids, I love making something special just for him, so what better idea than an Oreo type cake. I searched online and checked Pinterest and finally found one that caught my attention, but was skeptical about the icing because of the ingredients. Fortunately, the cake came out perfect. It wasn't too sweet and even though it was made from scratch, it wasn't too time consuming.  

If you don't like cakes that are too sweet then I think you will love this. It has just the right amount of flavor and sweetness. I'm sure it will be a hit for anyone that is a fan of Oreos.

You can find the recipe HERE, but just in case something happens to the site, I copied the recipe below. 

Cake

1 1/4 cups All-purpose Flour
2/3 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder (or Hershey’s Special Dark)
1 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
3/4 cup Unsalted Butter
1 1/2 cups Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla
3 large Eggs, room temperature
1 1/4 cups Buttermilk

Frosting
1/2 cup Flour
1 1/2 cups Milk
2 tsp Vanilla
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) Butter, softened
1 1/2 cups Granulated Sugar
25-30 oreos

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two 8-inch cake pans with butter and flour.

Into a medium bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of a standing mixer, or a large bowl using a hand held mixer, beat together the butter, sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy. About 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated and scraping down sides as needed.

With mixer on low speed, add 1/3 of the dry ingredients, mix until incorporated. Then add 1/2 of the buttermilk, mix until incorporated. Repeat until the last 1/3 of flour has been used. Mix until incorporated and then beat for 1 additional minute.

Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared pans. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the sides begin to pull away from the edges. Allow to cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Turn the cakes out onto the racks and allow the cakes to cool completely.

While the cakes are baking, prepare the frosting. In a saucepan, whisk together the flour and milk and cook over medium heat until the mixture thickens (I would compare it to mashed potatoes). It is very important to whisk continuously so clumps don’t form. This took me about 4-5 minutes, but it’s best to go by texture.

Set milk mixture aside in an ice bath and allow to cool completely.

In a medium bowl, (or bowl of a standing mixture fitted with a whisk) beat together the butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and beat for 1 minute. Add the cooled milk mixture and beat on high for 3-5 minutes. If it looks separated, keep beating.

Cake Assembly

When the cakes are completely cool, cut each cake in half* horizontally. Use 1/3-1/2 cup of frosting to fill between each layer. When all the layers are stacked, set aside 1/2 cup of frosting then use rest to frost the outside.

Using a Ziploc bag and a rolling pin, crush all but 6 of the Oreo cookies. Apply the cookie crumbs to the sides of the cake**.

Use the reserved 1/2 cup of frosting to create 6 swirls on the top of the cake, place a cookie in each swirl.

From My Creative Heart to yours,
Enjoy!
Michele

About Me

Hello All! Welcome to what I hope will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I hope to not only share with you all that I have picked up and tried from around the net, but hope that you will share with me projects you've done or maybe even some you would like for me to try.

My creative interests include baking, cake decorating, crocheting, sewing, and photography, almost anything creative and definitely anything challenging.

I've been sewing for as long as can remember. I began making clothes for my Barbies when I was 5 using my grandmothers old Singer pedal sewing machine. Growing up, I seemed to always be interested in anything creative, whether it was styling my younger sister's hair, dressing her up for pictures, redoing my mother's front yard or simply drawing.

I got married at 18 and a year later had a son.We decided that we wanted to be a good old-fashioned family and I would stay home. This was great for me because not only would I be able to spend quality time with my son, but I could learn every aspect of homemaking.  The first thing I went back to was sewing. I learned to make little jumpers for my son and I recall even making a dress for myself.  Five years later, I had a daughter which gave me the opportunity to make beautiful dresses.

I've been married for 22 years now and I don't think there is anything creative that I have not tried and am not willing to try, but there are several that stand out and I know I will continue to do. I don't sew much anymore, but I will bring out my sewing machine if anything needs mending. I bake and decorate cakes; I especially love this because I can make some extra cash on the side. Every Christmas and Thanksgiving holidays, I bake pies, with my specialty being apple, but I always take requests from my family.  Then, there's crocheting. I learned to crochet 15 years ago and have made at least a blanket a year. This year, I am expecting my first grandchild and am enjoying experimenting with different baby blankets. What a great excuse! :-)  Last, but not least, is photography. I love taking pictures of nature and old buildings, but nothing tops taking pictures of my family.

Like many others, I look for inspiration online and especially Pinterest. I even started a board specifically with the pins that I have done.  There are an endless amount of ideas and creations out there, things that otherwise we wouldn't know we could do at home which is why I decided to write my own blog.  I want to share my versions of pins or ideas out there and share any that I have created myself and will make sure to give credit where credit is due and hope that anyone that takes ideas from my blog will do the same. There is nothing worse than seeing someone take credit for other people's work.

This pretty much outlined my hobbies, but there is much more to me and probably just way too much to mention. Ha, ha. After the last economic downfall, we fell on hard times and being a stay-at-home mom, I felt absolutely useless. It really got me thinking about my future and that if something ever happened to my husband, I would not have and education nor any outside of the home work experience, so I did what needed to be done. I went back to school. While homeschooling my daughter in elementary school and my son in high school, I made the time to go back to school and ace all of my classes. Needless to say, it is the best decision I could have made. My kids are grown up and don't need me as much as they used to, so that college degree was a great idea as a solution for empty nest syndrome. lol  By the way, I got my degree in Computer Science-Information Security, but I don't just work on intrusions, viruses, malware, I do website design,run several websites, social sites, and Photo editing and restoration. Yes, I definitely keep busy and thus the reason that I will try my best to keep up with this blog.

So here we go! This is my first blog and am ready to post a great recipe after this goes up. I hope you will not only read and share my blog, but if you have the time, try out some of the recipes or projects and let me know how they went. I would love some input!

From my Creative Heart to yours,

Enjoy!

Michele

CLICK HERE to find me on Pinterest!