To mourn celebrate the end of another football season, here’s some great recipes that will definitely disappear if you serve them at your Superbowl parties.

Restaurant Style Queso Blanco

Restaurant Style Salsa

Crawfish Pies

Crawfish Cheesecake

Pork and Sausage Jambalaya

Berry Mash Bruschetta

Sugar Cookie Bars

Peanut Butter Cheesecake Brownies

Oreo Cupcakes

Oh, and if you have an occasional puppy bowl break, I’m pretty sure the dogs at your party would love you for these!

Peanut Butter and Pumpkin Dog Treats

The winner of the cookbook giveaway is:

Cece who wrote:

And I remembered to tweet
https://twitter.com/#!/PicklePicnic/status/160090998872088576

Congratulations, Cece! To redeem your prize, please email me within 48 hours at niftyfoodie@gmail.com! Congratulations!

A couple of weeks ago, I was scouring Target’s 90% off post-Christmas sale. By the time that sale comes around, all of our Christmas stuff is put away in the attic, but I usually don’t have my sights set on decor at that point. I go to the 90% off sales for birthday wrapping goods. I know that sounds weird, but when you can buy bright colored curling ribbon, white or kraft tissue paper, and/or solid colored gift bags for pennies on the dollar, it’s completely worth it. Sometimes I also go in hoping to score some hidden treasures to keep Lane Bryant in business, like a bag of Ghirardelli holiday candies or in this case, a bag of cinnamon M&Ms.

When I originally saw these, I was hesitant to purchase them, because I didn’t know if these M&Ms were a subtle cinnamon spice or red hot cinnamon-like chocolate candies. I’m not a big fan of red hots, so I didn’t want to take a chance. Well, that is, until the bag was 90% off. Who can refuse a big bag of M&Ms for thirty cents?

So, I gave them a try one night and was pleasantly surprised. These M&Ms had just a hint of cinnamon spice, which proved to be a little addictive. So, before I ate the whole bag, I got to googling and saw these cookies on Picky Palate.

I thought my problems were solved. Bake up these cookies to bring to coworkers and use up all the M&Ms. However, the quality control side of me took over, and before I knew it, 3 of these cookies were gone. There’s nothing like a freshly baked cookie…just couldn’t help myself here…these were insanely good!

To prevent myself from no longer fitting in Lane Bryant (they have size limits, too haha!), I put these cookies away in a container to bring to coworkers. Thankfully, these cookies were so awesome that by the time I went back in the break room to heat up my lunch, my cookie plate only had crumbs remaining. I’d say these were a winner.

Cinnamon M&M Oatmeal White Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from: Picky Palate

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks softened unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp. pure vanilla extract
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 bag white chocolate chips
• 1 9.90 ounce bag Cinnamon M&M’s

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Using a mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar and white sugar in a bowl for 2-3 minutes on medium to medium-high speed, until the mixture is light and fluffy. Scrape down the bowl and add the eggs and vanilla extract. Mix for about a minute on low, or until well combined.
3. In another bowl, mix the flour, baking soda and salt together with a whisk. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the dry mixture to the wet mixture. Add the cinnamon, rolled oats and white chocolate chips and mix on low until the mixture is just combined.
4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat. With a medium sized cookie scoop, scoop out the dough and place each cookie about an inch apart on the sheet since these cookies spread a little. Press the cookies down slightly, to just flatten them, and press 4-5 M&Ms on each cookie.
5. Bake the cookies for 9-12 minutes (I let them go for 12 minutes, which made them barely brown along the edges), and allow the cookies to cool for a few minutes before moving the baked cookies to a cooling rack.

Just a quick reminder. Today is the last day to enter to win one of these four awesome cookbooks! Your chances are great, so check out this post to see how to win!

::lifts pinky::

Doesn’t pain perdu just sound so fancy? It feels like one of those breakfast dishes that just screams “I’m fancy! Order me!” when I see it on a menu. But really, pain perdu isn’t that fancy. It’s french toast made using day-old french bread (rather than sliced bread). Now that I wrote that out, I no longer feel fancy after eating that on Sunday morning. Oh well.

The last time I enjoyed some pain perdu was at the Ruby Slipper in New Orleans. Their pain perdu is not just your average pain perdu….it’s BANANAS FOSTER pain perdu. If you’re ever in New Orleans, I highly recommend this place for a delicious brunch. It’s one of those places that you want to get there early for, though. We locals (well for me, former local since I live an hour away from NOLA now) know about this place, so it’s always packed as the morning goes on.

Since we had some leftover french bread from dinner the day before, I thought it would be a great start to our Sunday to enjoy some pain perdu. Also, it’s strawberry season out here, so there’s always a pint of local strawberries in the fridge. It was completely meant to be.

This pain perdu was just awesome. Next time, I might add more cinnamon and nutmeg though, but otherwise, this was delicious. It’s also a Cooking Light recipe which to me, made this dish even better.

Pain Perdu with Louisiana Strawberry Sauce
Source: mildly adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup 2% reduced-fat milk
• 2 tbsp. sugar, divided
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp. grated whole nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 8 (1-ounce) slices diagonally cut day-old French bread (about 1 inch thick)
• 2 cups of sliced strawberries
• 2 tsp. orange rind
• 4 tsp. butter
• 1 tbsp. confectioner’s sugar

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, add the milk, 1 tbsp. sugar, cinnamon, vanilla extract, nutmeg, salt and beaten eggs. Stir well with a whisk. Place the bread slices in a 13×9″ pan and pour the wet mixture evenly over the bread slices. After a minute or so, turn the bread slices to coat the other side with the wet mixture. Allow the bread to sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes, turning the slices a couple of times, until all of the wet mixture is absorbed in the bread slices.
2. Place the strawberries, remaining 1 tbsp. sugar and orange rind in a small pot over low heat. Cook the strawberry mixture for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. In a large non-stick skillet, melt half of the butter over medium heat. Place 4 of the bread slices on the skillet and cook for about 3 1/2 minutes on each side (or until the bread is golden brown). Remove from the pan, melt the remaining 2 tsp. butter and cook the other 4 slices the same way.
4. To serve, sprinkle each serving with confectioner’s sugar and top with the strawberry sauce.

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway! I loved reading about your first kitchen adventures. Some of you had me laughing (I’ve been there with the disasters) and some of your stories warmed my heart.

The winner of the cookbook giveaway is:

Cece who wrote:

And I remembered to tweet
https://twitter.com/#!/PicklePicnic/status/160090998872088576

Congratulations, Cece! To redeem your prize, please email me within 48 hours at niftyfoodie@gmail.com! Congratulations!

Four years ago, I started this blog as a challenge to myself. I wanted to be able to do more than boil hot dogs or cook a mean scrambled egg. At the time, I moved back in with my parents after finishing my degree, and I felt that I should contribute more in the house since my parents both worked fairly late.

I wanted to cook dinner.

I remember the day before I started my blog, I went to the Winn-Dixie near my house and purchased everything necessary to make turkey meatballs that evening. I kept thinking that there was no way I’d mess this up. I mean, meatballs. How can you mess up meatballs? And thankfully, I didn’t mess up the meatballs. They were delicious.

The next day, I got a little bolder and bought everything I needed to make biscotti. That evening, those came out without causing the smoke alarms to go off.

I was hooked. So, that evening I started a food blog, because I knew I could do this. I could learn how to cook.

I started watching Food Network more, and bought my first cookbook. I wanted to learn terminology in recipes. What the heck is folding anyway? Saute? Braise? So confusing. To give you an idea of how rough the beginning was, I used to cook my chicken in a layer of water, wondering why it didn’t brown. ::sigh::

At some point, my Mom noticed my efforts in trying to learn, so she gave me hands-on lessons too. I think I learned the most from my Mom. To me, she’s completely a pro. I’ll never forget the time we went to a local craft festival, where they served this amazing crawfish sauce on top of fried eggplant. She replicated it perfectly.

I want to be just like her someday.

After four years of challenging myself in the kitchen, I can safely say that I’m perfectly comfortable with trying almost any recipe. There are still some kitchen fails, but that’s what carry-out pizza is for, right?

It’s been so amazing to watch this little chunk of cyber space grow into a blog that actually comes up when you search it on Google. Google knows I exist. That’s pretty darn cool.

It’s also been wonderful to become friends with so many of you. I haven’t met you in real life, but sometimes I feel like I can tell y’all anything. Not anything like my social security number, but still, I can share a lot with y’all. I want to thank y’all by offering one of you a copy of one of my favorite cookbooks.

Source: Barnes and Noble

These cookbooks are my favorites. Since I’ve been blogging for four years, I figured I’d give you 4 choices. Cheesy, right? I know….

One reader will win a copy of either one of these cookbooks pictured above (your choice). If you’d like a chance to win one of these books, just leave a comment telling me about the first recipe you attempted in the kitchen. I’m not talking about heating up Stouffer’s lasagna or boiling hot dogs (although there’s nothing wrong with those things…love me some Stouffer’s). I want to hear about your first real kitchen adventure.

For an additional giveaway entry, post this on your Twitter and comment back with the Twitter link: “I just entered @niftyfoodie’s 4th Blogiversary Giveaway to win a free cookbook. Enter here: http://bit.ly/z8cRRx “

You have until Tuesday, January, 24th at 11:59pm to comment.

Just a note: Only continental US readers can enter this giveaway.

FTC Disclosure: These prizes are provided by The Nifty Foodie.

I look forward to sharing more recipes with y’all in the upcoming year. Thanks so much again for reading!