Mini Me Mascarpone Muffins

I just found the best recipe ever. If you thought mascarpone cheese was just for cheesecake, well you were mistaken. I found a great recipe for mini cupcakes and it came out fantastic. I altered it a bit to make it my own and turned them into mini muffins. INGREDIENTS 8 oz. mascarpone cheese, 2 egg whites, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, 1 box white or yellow cake mix, 1 cup water,1 bag chocolate chips DIRECTIONS Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray a mini muffin tin with cooking spray. You can also use mini cupcake liners but I went without. In a large bowl combine the mascarpone cheese, egg whites and vegetable oil. Using a hand mixer, beat the ingredients until combined and creamy. Add the cake mix and water and mix until smooth, about 3 minutes. Fill the mini cups to just below the rim and bake until puffed and golden, about 18 to 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, let cool slightly in the tin then transfer the cupcakes to a wire rack and enjoy!!

All Bark and Lots of Bite

Chocolate bark is about the easiest thing you can make. You can do it up for any holiday or occasion. I just made some for a Halloween party and it took less than 15 minutes. First, decide what kind of chocolate you want to use. I used dark chocolate for one and white chocolate for another. Here's what I did: For the dark chocolate bark, I melted 2 dark chocolate bars. You can use pretty much any brand of chocolate you like, you can even use chocolate chips. For this one, I used 2 bars of Godiva chocolate. I put them in a bowl in the microwave and melted it, then I lined a baking sheet with wax paper and poured the chocolate on top of it, spreading it out (not too thin or it won't break right)- Then i put gummy worms on top and some Halloween-colored sprinkles to make it look spooky. I popped it in the freezer for 15 minutes, took it out and broke it apart. For the white chocolate bark, I did exactly the same thing, but instead of gummy worms, I put candy corns and the same Halloween-colored sprinkles on top. This is a fun dessert treat to make with kids. You can put any topping on it you want. It's like making your own candy bar. It's hard to see the gummy worms in this photo, but trust me, it looks great and tastes even better!

You Triflin', Good For Nothing Type Of Brotha

Who doesn't love a good trifle? Trifles are fun because you can mix and match them any way you want. I had all this lemon flavored stuff left over, so I decided to whip up a lemon trifle. Here's how I did it: Bake a cake! I just used a ready made lemon cake mix. After you bake it, let it completely cool. I had some lemon frosting, lemon pudding, lemon curd and coconut to throw in it, as well. If you have a trifle bowl, then use that. If not, a big clear bowl will work (you want it to be clear so you can show off all the layers). Start buy tearing up the cooled cake and putting it on the bottom of the trifle bowl. Then put a layer of pudding, a layer of lemon curd and a layer of coconut. Next put a final layer of cake and end it with lemon frosting and a sprinkle of coconut. This would be delish with strawberries or blueberries but I didn't have any so it is a fruitless trifle. Also, I didn't have a ton of frosting or lemon curd, so I could only do one layer. Most trifles are 2-3 layers. Be creative with your trifle. There are very few combos that won't taste good.

Hoppy Easter!!!

I love Easter because I love Easter candy and desserts. Last year I found a recipe for Peeps pie and I decided to spruce it up a bit this year. We had an office party and there were a ton of Peeps left over, so I took them home and made a pie and chocolate dipped Peeps.

PEEPS PIE
All you need is a ready made pie crust (chocolate or graham cracker- I used graham cracker for this one), a couple boxes of whichever color Peeps you like (we had the largest quantity of pink, so I used those), chocolate chips and shredded coconut.
You can really run with this any way you'd like. Here's what I did: I layered the bottom of the graham cracker crust with chocolate chips and threw it in a 350 oven until it was melted. I used a spatula and spread out the melted chocolate. Then, I sprinkled shredded coconut over the warm, melted chocolate. I then took the pink Peeps and threw them in the microwave for about 40 seconds (or until pretty melted- They will lose their Peep shape and the color will get swirly with white). Then, I just poured the marshmallows over the pie crust, topped it with different colored Peeps and let it set. Super easy and there are so many variations. Last year, I believe I used a chocolate crust and layered it with chocolate and peanut butter before putting the Peeps on top. Have fun with it. It's pretty much a s'more in pie form so go crazy!


CHOCOLATE COVERED PEEPS
This is a no-brainer. All you do is melt a bag of chocolate chips, dip the Peeps in the mixture and let it set on wax paper. I had some purple rock sugar, so I sprinkled that over the chocolate on the purple Peeps. I also had some shredded coconut leftover, so I sprinkled that on the chocolate that covered the bunny Peeps. Peeps on their own are kinda gross, but if you doll them up, they aren't half bad.

Whoopie Goldberg Pies

I have a new obsession...whoopie pies!! Who knew they were so easy to make. I was on foodnetwork.com looking up delicious Easter treats and a recipe for carrot cake whoopie pies came up. The beauty of this recipe is you can substitute with any cake mix and with any frosting.

Ingredients:
Carrot cake mix
A stick of softened unsalted butter
3 eggs
Grated carrots (optional)
Walnuts (optional)
A can of cream cheese frosting

Preheat the oven to 375. Put the mix, butter, carrots, walnuts and eggs in a bowl and beat until combined. Put the bowl in the fridge for about 30 minutes. The batter has to be a bit hard or it won't set right. Take the bowl out of the fridge and with an ice cream scooper, drop scoops of the batter onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Throw it in the oven for about 20 minutes or until set. Let them cool completely, put a healthy amount of frosting on the bottom of 2 cakes and squish them together to make a whoopie pie!! You can put raisins or nuts on the frosting before squishing, but I decided not to. I made this same recipe with lemon cake mix and lemon frosting and put coconut flakes on top of the frosting before squishing the 2 sides together. Happy Easter!!!

Asian Persuasion

I made an Asian-themed dinner last night and half of it turned out pretty good. I made salmon and bok choy on the grill with a yummy sauce but it stuck to the grill and wasn't very pretty. I also made fried rice, which I will post later today.I got all the recipes from Rachael Ray's magazine :)
For an appetizer, I made fried bok choy ravioli

Ingredients
1 cup oil
3/4 cup chopped onion
8 ounces bok choy, stems chopped and leaves shredded
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
Wonton wrappers (you can find them at Ralphs)

Directions
In skillet, heat 1 tbsp. oil over medium; cook onion, bok stems and garlic until soft, 7 minutes. Add bok leaves and cook 1 minute; season. Add heaping tsp. to wrappers, moisten edges and fold to seal. In skillet, heat remaining oil; fry ravioli until golden.

Salami and Apricot Scones

This is going to sound kinda gross, but I promise you it's delicious. I saw the recipe on Giada at Home on Food Network and I was intrigued. The way I look at it is, I love salami and dried apricots together on a cheese plate, so why wouldn't they be delicious in a flaky scone? You can make the scone dough from scratch, but why bother when there are some great mixes out there. I actually got an apricot scone mix at Gelson's. I followed the directions on the box, but instead of 3/4 cup of water, I added 3/4 cup of buttermilk. It comes with dried apricots, but I added my own as well to give it that extra tang, about 1/4 cup. Then I diced up some salami into very little bite-sized pieces and added them to the mix. I then added a teaspoon of dried thyme and a teaspoon of dried rosemary. Then spray a baking sheet with cooking spray and follow the directions on the box to bake. It's a sweet and savory treat that's surprisingly tasty!