The Nifty Foodie

In a couple of short days, most of us will be surrounded by family and/or friends to celebrate Thanksgiving. I’ll never forget the first time we hosted Thanksgiving three years ago. I thought that being a married gal automatically meant my husband and I could magically throw together the perfect Thanksgiving.

Ha.

My mother came to our house early to bring her dishes, and to make sure I was still breathing (she knows best, right?). She found me in my pajamas with a sink full of dishes, no more counter space for prep and well, I was two steps away from crying (Ok, I actually did cry…), drinking, calling a restaurant to tell them “YOU WIN”. I learned a lot about hosting a holiday meal that year, and I have my mom to thank for that. I was so stressed about how much more had to be done, that I couldn’t even tell my husband how he could help me. I was overwhelmed, but since most of the recipes I was working on were Mom’s recipes, it was easy for her to step in and help out. By the time guests arrived, the food was ready, my hair was brushed and there was counter space in our kitchen again.

Moms are awesome, aren’t they? (Actually, if it wasn’t for Mom AND my husband, I probably wouldn’t have hosted a meal again…)

I felt like last Christmas was our first big hosting success. I felt like my husband and I truly had everything under control. When my in-laws arrived and asked what was needed, I wasn’t flustered at all. In fact, we really didn’t need help…I was sort of proud of us. I immediately called my Mom as people were eating to tell her that I did it without crying. It was a proud moment…for real.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who cried the first time they hosted a holiday meal?

Anyway, I wanted to share some of our family/friend’s favorite dishes with y’all. I may have made them at different times of the year, but they have all been hits, which I think would still be perfect for a Thanksgiving feast. If you are a last minute planner like me, feel free to squeeze one of these recipes in for the holiday!

Appetizers:

Crawfish Cheesecake
Mini Crawfish Pies
Cheese Fondue
Spicy Spinach Artichoke Dip

Side Dishes:

Spinach, Strawberry, Pecan and Feta Salad
Grilled Corn Grits
Mom’s Cornbread Dressing
Mom’s Sweet Potato Casserole

Desserts:

Pumpkin Cheesecake
Caramel Apple Pie
Pecan Pie Macarons
Turkey Cake Pops

What are your family/friend’s favorite dishes for Thanksgiving? Please share them!

“Thank you. What is it?”

“It’s a bundt.”

“Bunn-t?”

“Bundt.”

“Bonn—bonnk??”

Name that movie.

I can’t help it. Anytime I bake or eat a bundt cake, that scene pops in my head. As I was mixing this cake, I had the scene playing on YouTube at the same time. I’m a weirdo. I know.

Bundt cakes, to me, are a bake and pray type of cake. I say pray, because you know that moment where you’re holding a plate against the bundt pan getting ready for the infamous flipping of the pan? Yeah, I totally pray that the sucker comes out in one piece. It’s a huge bummer when you’ve worked so hard to bake a cake and the darn thing just sticks to the bottom of the pan. Of course the solution is to make a trifle, but a perfect, pretty bundt cake is so much more of a baking ego boost.

I wanted to make a fun patriotic cake, and instead of making the red, white and blue cupcakes that I made a couple of years ago, I decided that this would be the perfect time to make a red velvet cake. Red velvet is one of my favorites. I actually think it’s sort of a requirement to love a red velvet cake as a southern gal. This recipe was moist, had the perfect crumb and the icing was a perfect mix between a glaze and a frosting, which was great to just drizzle all over the cake to make the fun patriotic look happen.

Just a note: If you make any red velvet cake, I highly recommend Wilton’s No Taste Red. When making red velvet cake, you usually need a good bit of food coloring to make the cake red, and sometimes regular red dyes can add a bitter after taste to your cake if you add too much.

Red Velvet Bundt Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Source: Kiss My Bundt Bakery (via LA Times)

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 2 tbsp. red food coloring
• 1 tsp. white vinegar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 3/4 tsp. fine salt
• 1 tbsp. cocoa powder

For the frosting:

• 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 4 ounces unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups powdered sugar (sift after measuring)
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. To make the cake, in the bowl of a stand mixer, add the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar and vanilla. Mix on medium speed using the paddle attachment for about a minute.
3. In another large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder.
4. With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients 1/2 cup at a time to the wet ingredients. Make sure to do this slowly so that the batter doesn’t develop clumps.
5. Pour the batter into a 10-12 cup bundt cake pan that has been greased and floured (or you can use simple baking spray…just make sure it’s meant for baking, since those contain flour). Bake the cake for about 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.
6. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for at least 15 minutes. Then, (say a small prayer ha!) invert the pan onto a plate. (If the cake doesn’t feel like it’s going to come out of the pan, just let it cool for an additional 15 minutes.) Allow the cake to cool completely (about an hour) before frosting.
7. To decorate the cake, I ended up just placing the frosting (one color at a time) in a ziploc bag and cutting the tip off. Then, drizzle the frosting over the cake and add sprinkles. Enjoy!

I can’t believe it’s Christmas Day! This is my favorite holiday of the whole year, so of course, I had to make cookies for the occasion.

I know this is random, but I just wanted to share a local Christmas carol that just doesn’t feel like Christmas to me unless I watch this during the season. If you’ve been to NOLA (or, of course, lived in NOLA), you might have heard of a few of these things/places.

Hope you and your families have a wonderful holiday! Merry Christmas!

This past weekend was what I call my annual “bake-palooza”. When it comes to coworkers and neighbors, I just find it much easier to gift food. My idea is…when in doubt, give food.

Every year, I have so much fun coming up with the recipes for gifts. I have so many ideas written on paper, but I usually narrow things down to 5-6 recipes, just to remain sane. This was a new recipe for gifts, and it couldn’t have been easier. I based it off of bunny bait, which I bookmarked on my friend Amy’s blog. Of course, I changed the mix up to make it more Christmas-y and added holiday oreos for an even more fun Christmas colored addition.

The mixture of sweet and salty ingredients is what makes this mix so awesome, and just to let you know, it makes a LOT. I thought I’d have to make a double batch, but after making one batch, I realized I had more than enough for gifts.

Of course, I wasn’t going to call this bunny bait since, well, it’s not Easter. I had to call it something else. When I had it cooling on a silicone mat, I kept telling myself it looked like a Christmas elf barfed in my kitchen. Kinda gross, I know. Since I don’t have to guts to name a dessert “Elf’s Barf”, I decided to play it safe and call it “Elf’s Mix”.

Elf’s Mix
adapted from Sing For Your Supper‘s “Bunny Bait”

Ingredients:

• 1 bag of popped microwave popcorn
• 6 oz. almond bark
• 1 bag of mint M&Ms
• 15 holiday oreos, chopped
• 2 cups of pretzel sticks, broken into small pieces
• Christmas sprinkles

Directions:

1. Place the popped popcorn, pretzel sticks, M&Ms and oreos in a large bowl or pot. Place 4 oz. of almond bark in the microwave in 30 second increments, until well-melted.
2. Add the melted almond bark to the popcorn mixture and stir the mixture thoroughly. Spread the mixture out on a large silicone mat or wax paper. Top with Christmas sprinkles.
3. At this time, microwave the additional 2 oz. of almond bark in a disposable plastic piping back in 30 second increments until well-melted. Then, snip the end off of the bag and randomly pipe the almond bark over the popcorn mix. Allow the mixture to cool.
4. To serve, break up the mix into pieces and place in a bowl. Enjoy!

I absolutely love making holiday treats. You know it’s the holiday season in our house when our fridge has at least 5 lbs. of butter, 8-10 packages of cream cheese at any given time and 2 extra bags of flour and sugar in the pantry to ensure that I don’t run out of the essentials.

The big bake-palooza (as I like to call it) is this weekend. There’s quite a few coworker and neighbor gifts to make this year, which has me super excited! This year’s packages are going to have some old favorites and new ones too, which I plan on sharing with y’all next week.

While this particular recipe won’t be with the gifts this year (since they need to be refrigerated), I wanted to share these truffles with y’all, since this is still a delicious recipe if you’re looking for something to include with your holiday parties. I came up with this recipe for a local recipe contest with the newspaper. I was actually torn between an eggnog inspired dessert and a peppermint bark inspired dessert. This recipe idea won out though, because after asking some friends, it seems like a peppermint bark inspired recipe would be more popular, since quite a few people hate eggnog. Fair enough.

The great thing about these truffles is that they come together pretty quickly. It’s definitely an easy dessert recipe to add to your holiday menu! Just keep in mind since the recipe involves cream cheese, these truffles can’t sit out for too long without needing to be refrigerated. They actually taste a lot better cold anyway.

So, I’m sure you’re wondering how these little truffles did in the recipe contest! I won first place! FIRST PLACE! I still can’t believe it. The prize was a big deal too… $1000 to a local furniture store! (I can’t wait to share with y’all what we used that generous prize on, but I’ll save that for another post once it’s delivered.)

I’m also supposed to be in the paper tomorrow. Crazy, right? I’m completely giddy about that! I’m sure I’ll buy multiple copies for family.

Peppermint Bark Cheesecake Truffles
Source: an original

Ingredients:

For the filling:

• 1 pkg cream cheese, slightly softened
• 5 candy canes
• 1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar
• 1 cup (appx. 6 large) ground graham crackers
• 1/4 cup white chocolate chips, chopped

For the coating:

• 2 cups of white chocolate chips or almond bark
• 1/2 cup of semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips
• 2 crushed candy canes

Directions:

1. With a spatula, whip up the cream cheese to a stirrable consistency.
2. Using a food processor, grind 3 of your candy canes to a powder. Stir the ground candy canes, powdered sugar and ground graham crackers into the cream cheese with a spatula until everything is well-incorporated.
3. Place the last two candy canes in a quart sized plastic ziploc-type bag, and using a heavy bowl, crush up the candy canes into small pieces (not quite a powder, since you want these to add a bit of a crunch to your truffles). Add the candy canes, along with the chopped white chocolate to your cream cheese truffle mixture.
4. Chill the mixture well, for four hours or overnight.
5. When ready to assemble the truffles, divide the mixture into tbsp. sized balls and put the balls on a cookie sheet. By the time you’re done making the truffle balls, the mixture probably warmed up a bit, so place the cheesecake balls in the freezer for 5-10 minutes to firm up.
6. In the meantime, melt your white chocolate for the coating (either in the microwave or with a double boiler).
7. Take your cheesecake balls out of the freezer, and individually dip each ball in the white chocolate mixture. Place the finished dipped balls on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper for the chocolate to set.
8. Once the white chocolate has set, melt your milk or semi-sweet chocolate chips and add a small amount on top of each truffle, along with some crushed candy canes for decoration.
9. Enjoy these cheesecake truffles right out of the refrigerator and keep the truffles cold, since there is cream cheese in the recipe.