The Nifty Foodie

Holiday Recipes

Santa’s Popcorn

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Disclosure: This post is sponsored by G.H. Cretors. All opinions are 100% my own.

Santa's Popcorn

One of my favorite parts of the holiday season involves making delicious goodies for the people that I care about. Family, friends, coworkers…you name it. After all is said and done, I typically make 300+ cookies, as well as various other homemade goodies. However, for the first time in years, I decided to not do the grand bake-palooza.

The simple why is that I just haven’t found the time to do it. As you guys can tell, my blog has become more of a back-burner project. It’s a bit sad, since I love spending time in the kitchen, and I look forward to sharing my big bake-palooza post with y’all every single holiday season. However, this is the first season without it, and hopefully the last. 🙂

This year, I’ve focused on easier homemade goodies, like this popcorn mix. Within half an hour, you have a tin-full of this delicious mix, which I’ve lovingly named Santa’s Popcorn. I imagine if Santa had a favorite popcorn, it would be something like this. 🙂

One of the biggest time-savers is using pre-made caramel popcorn. One of my favorite pre-made caramel popcorns is G.H. Cretors “Just the Caramel Corn”. The popcorn is still crunchy, the caramel is rich and flavorful, and it’s affordable!

Santa’s Popcorn
Source: a Nifty Foodie original

Ingredients:

  • 1 8 oz. bag “Just the Caramel Corn” popcorn
  • 1 cup M&Ms
  • 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted
  • 1/2 cup white chocolate chips, melted
  • various sprinkles

Directions:

  1. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment or wax paper. Pour the bag of caramel popcorn onto the lined baking sheet, in one even layer. Pour the M&Ms over the popcorn in one even layer.
  2. Drizzle the semi-sweet and white chocolates over the popcorn and M&Ms. Immediately sprinkle the popcorn mixture with as many sprinkles as you’d like, being careful to finish this step before the chocolate hardens. Wait for the mixture to cool.
  3. Enjoy!

 

All About The Turkey (+ GIVEAWAY)!

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Disclosure: Butterball provided me with a turkey gift check, as well as two other turkey gift checks to giveaway, in exchange for a post. All opinions are 100% my own.

You guys. I am the worst! My laptop has been going crazy for a couple of months, and it seems to be on its last leg. 🙁 I have so many recipe ideas to share with y’all, and now that I have a new laptop, I’m excited to be sharing some delicious food (as well as other random talk) just in time for the holiday season!

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In a couple of short weeks, it’s going to be Thanksgiving. I can’t believe I’m typing that, but it’s so true!

Whenever I’m planning out my menu for Thanksgiving, I always plan out the turkey first. How am I going to prepare it? When do I need to thaw it? How much turkey do I need? There’s a lot of thought that goes into the turkey, because it’s essentially the main event for the whole meal.

Now for a first-timer, that’s a bit overwhelming. I remember thinking…as long as my turkey doesn’t end up like Catherine’s (from Christmas Vacation). Goals, right?

Butterball has been known for years as being the professionals that home cooks turn to when it comes to all things turkey. For years, they have offered their Butterball Turkey Talk-Line services, but now they will be offering something new — week-long 24/7 text help!

Yep, you read that right…TEXT HELP. Butterball will be expanding their Butterball Turkey Talk-Line services, by allowing customers for the first time to text in their cooking questions. This will be offered from November 17-24. The service will help customers looking for how-to tips, cooking support and any other turkey questions that customers may have. Text help will be available 24/7 by texting 844-877-3456.

Other ways that you can get help through the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line include:

  • How-To Videos – available at Butterball.com or YouTube.
  • Website/Mobile App – Butterball.com and the Butterball Cookbook Plus App contain so much like coupon savings, trusted recipes, how-to videos, and key tips for success, to name a few big features.
  • Social Media – Butterball has presence on Facebook , Twitter , Pinterest and Instagram for tips, special savings, recipe inspiration, some behind-the-scenes looks at Butterball and more!
  • Live Chats – Talk to the turkey experts through Live Chats on Butterball’s website during the months of November and December for real-time suggestions/advice.
  • Email – You can always email Butterball here to get helpful tips and tricks conveniently in your inbox.
  • 1-800-BUTTERBALL – As always, you can call the Turkey Talk-Line experts from November 1- December 24 to get help with your Thanksgiving cooking questions.

There’s so many wonderful ways to get the help that you will need this Thanksgiving season!

The generous folks at Butterball want to offer TWO readers of The Nifty Foodie a turkey gift check!

To enter, use the Rafflecopter widget below (must be over the age 0f 18 and live in the continental US):

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Note: This giveaway is supplied by Butterball, and is open to readers in the continental US only over the age of 18. Entries will be accepted until November 14th, 2016 at 11:59pm (central standard time). Winner will be emailed (make sure you leave an email address in the form), and will have 48 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen.

 

PEEPS Butterscotch Nests + GIVEAWAY!

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Disclosure: Quarto Publishing Group provided me with a copy of the book, as well as one to giveaway, in exchange for a post. All opinions are 100% my own.

Peeps Butterscotch Nests

I absolutely love Spring. 🙂 The warmer weather, more daylight, pretty flowers and of course, I’ve professed my love for Easter candy! I’m a sucker for pastels, and Easter candy is everything pastel. Plus, there’s PEEPS!

I know a lot of people either hate or love PEEPS, and for me, I LOVE them! It’s kind of a childhood nostalgia thing. I have to get a pack (or three) every Easter. So, when I was offered a review copy of Just Born’s latest book Peeps-a-licious!, I was so excited to flip through this book! Not only are these recipes from Just Born, but quite a few food bloggers contributed their recipes to the book, too. There’s recipes from cute butterscotch nests to s’mores brownies and creme brulee. I also love that there are different holiday PEEPS featured throughout the book, like Christmas and Halloween. To me, it’s a really cute/fun book, and if you’re a PEEPS lover, I think you’ll enjoy it. 🙂

Peeps

I decided to make the butterscotch nests, because I thought it would be a simple, festive recipe to share with coworkers. All you have to do is melt the butterscotch chips, and the rest is mixing/assembling. They are just too adorable. The original recipe calls for jelly beans to be the eggs in the nest, but you can really use any egg-shaped candy.

PEEPS Butterscotch Nests
Source: Peeps-a-licious

Ingredients:

  • 11 oz. bag butterscotch morsels
  • 1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
  • 1 1/2 packages (18 oz.) crispy chow mein noodles
  • 15-20 PEEPS Marshmallow chicks (assorted colors)
  • 1-2 packages of egg-shaped candy

Directions:

  1. Melt the bag of butterscotch morsels in a medium microwave-safe bowl, in 30 second increments (being sure to stir the morsels after every microwave cycle).
  2. Once the morsels are fully melted, mix in the smooth peanut butter, until it’s a smooth consistency. In a large bowl, add the crispy chow mein noodles, and then drizzle the butterscotch/peanut butter mixture over it. Carefully mix everything together, until the noodles are well-coated in the butterscotch/peanut butter mixture.
  3. Prepare a sheet pan by lining it with wax paper or parchment paper. Then, spoon about 2 tbsp. of the mixture onto the wax paper sheet, shaping it into a nest shape (with a slight indentation in the middle).  Repeat until the all of the mixture is used up.
  4. Refrigerate the nests for about 30 minutes, until the butterscotch mixture has set. To assemble the nests, place 3-4 egg-shaped candies in the middle of the nest and place a PEEP chick on top. Repeat until all of the nests are assembled. Enjoy!

Do you want to win a copy of Peeps-a-licious? The generous folks at Quarto Publishing Group are offering a copy to one lucky reader of The Nifty Foodie!

To enter to win, use the Rafflecopter widget below (continental US readers only):

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Note: This giveaway is supplied by the publisher and is open to readers in the continental US only. Entries will be accepted until March 25th, 2016 at 11:59pm (central standard time). Winner will be emailed (make sure you leave an email address in the form), and will have 48 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen.

Quick Dinner Rolls

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Quick Rolls

This past week, the temperatures finally dipped into the 40s for us. I know that’s not really cold for those of you up north, but for me, all I could think about was SWEATERS…BOOTS…FALL! Finally!

As you may remember, we’re living with my husband’s parents while our house is being built. When the temperature dropped last week, his mom let us know she was cooking gumbo for dinner one evening, so of course, I had to make bread. Dipping bread in gumbo is one of my favorites, especially when it’s homemade bread.

Since it was a weeknight, I needed a quicker recipe, and this recipe from King Arthur Flour was perfect. In about an hour, the bread was ready for baking. The rolls were so tasty, too! I’m already considering the idea of making these for Thanksgiving…this quick(er) recipe would be perfect for a holiday dinner, since it makes 24 rolls. 🙂

Quick Dinner Rolls
Source: King Arthur Flour

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup lukewarm water
  • 2 cups warm milk (100-110° F)
  • 3 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and cooled until lukewarm
  • 2 tbsp. granulated sugar
  • 1 tbsp. salt
  • 2 1/2 tbsp. instant yeast
  • 6-7 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Directions:

  1. Place the water, milk, butter, sugar, salt and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer. Stir everything together, and let it sit for 6-8 minutes (until the yeast begins to foam).
  2. Add 5 cups of all purpose flour to the bowl and mix with a paddle attachment (or by hand) on low, until the dough forms a rough mass. Change the attachment on the mixer to the dough hook, turn the mixer on low. Add more flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until a smooth ball of dough starts to form. Knead for 4-5 minutes in the mixer (or by hand for 10 minutes), until a soft, smooth ball of dough has formed. The ball of dough should feel elastic and slightly tacky to the touch.
  3. Lightly spray the inside of a large bowl with cooking spray and place the dough in the bowl. Lightly spray the top of the dough with cooking spray, and cover the dough lightly with plastic wrap. Allow the dough to rise for 20 minutes at room temperature, until the dough appears to be full and puffy.
  4. Gently deflate the dough and pat out the dough into a rough rectangle, about 8×12 inches in size. Cut the dough into 4 long strips, and then divide the strip into 6 portions, making 24 dough portions. Shape the portions into round balls, and if necessary, lightly spray cooking spray on your hands to prevent sticking.
  5. Place the rolls in either one half-sheet baking pan, two quarter-sheet baking pans, two 9×13″ baking pans or four 8-9″ round baking pans. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Once the rolls are in the pans, cover the pans in plastic wrap, and allow the rolls to rise at room temperature for another 20-25 minutes.
  6. Once the oven has preheated, bake the rolls for 20-25 minutes, until the tops are golden brown and an internal thermometer reads 190°F. An optional step is to brush the baked rolls with melted butter. Serve warm. If you have leftover rolls, store the rolls in a plastic bag for up to 3 days.

White Chocolate Peppermint Mousse Pie

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Disclosure: I received a copy of “Southern Living Christmas All Through the South” at no cost to me, for a fair and honest review. Southern Living/YC Media is providing the giveaway item. All opinions are 100% my own.

White Chocolate Peppermint Mousse Pie

I’ve had a really rough past week. Two deaths in my family (one being my grandmother and the other being the family dog) happened, and I just don’t know how to stop randomly crying when I start thinking about a world without either of them. I know that humans > dog, and my grandmother and family dog don’t compare. They don’t. Just two large pieces of bad news, and I’m terrible at grieving. I do know that they are both no longer suffering ,and that gives me a bit of solace. It’s just really hard with the holidays around the corner.

I’m an early holiday celebrator. I just love the holidays, as I’m sure this is no secret to y’all. However, when my husband offered to take down the decorations this week (the same husband who is firmly in the post-Thanksgiving decorating camp), I said no. I’m just not feeling the holiday spirit right now. The idea of taking everything down and making the house Christmas-y is suddenly making me a bit overwhelmed. Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if I would be perfectly content just taking down the gift wrap and not decorating at all this year. This is so not like me. I’ve tried watching “Christmas Vacation”, listening to Christmas Pandora, and I’m just meh about it all. I know this has a lot to do with our family’s losses, so I’m hoping my mini holiday funk will pass.

In another attempt to get the holiday spirit back, I decided to make something with holiday flavors. I was sent a review copy of Southern Living Christmas All Through the South, and I picked out the most seasonal sounding recipe to me at the time to whip up: White Chocolate-Peppermint Mousse Pie. Peppermint Bark is one of my favorites around the holidays, and I thought with the chocolate cookie crust and white chocolate peppermint mousse, I couldn’t go wrong with this recipe. Something about whipping egg whites and heavy cream into fluffy goodness is oddly therapeutic. Just watching the components come together distracted me enough to forget about the bad news for a while. It was really pleasant…

Hopefully, I’ll shake out of this mini funk soon. I’m just going to take this weekend to relax a bit, since I feel like this has been the longest week ever. I need Monday.

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Cinnamon Sugar Roasted Almonds

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Cinnamon Sugar Roasted Almonds

The other day, I went to the mall and saw fall merchandise in the stores. I know it’s August, and it’s too soon…however, if you’ve read this blog for a while, you know I get crazy excited about seasonal changes early on. 🙂 In fact, this past weekend when I was at Starbucks, I asked the barista if they had pumpkin ANYTHING in the store. They had bread, and I totally ate it in 100 degree weather, while dreaming about cool, crisp fall weather and pumpkin spice lattes. 🙂 Is anyone else itching for fall?

I made these almonds a while back for my husband, since he’s crazy obsessed with almonds lately. He really loves Trader Joe’s Cinnamon Sugar Almonds, and I knew it would be a lot cheaper for me to purchase the raw almonds myself and make these for him.

I decided to make these when he was out of the house, so it could be a surprise when he got home. This recipe was super simple to throw together, and oh man, it made our house smell like one of those roasted nut carts that they have in the mall around the holiday season. It was well worth making this recipe, and I’m thinking about making these around the holidays for gifts now!

Cinnamon Sugar Roasted Almonds
Source: Taste of Home

Ingredients:

  • 2 egg whites
  • 6 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 4 cups raw almonds
  • 1/3 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees, and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk/beat the egg whites until they turn frothy. Mix in the vanilla extract. Add in the raw almonds, and fold the mixture gently until the almonds are coated.
  3. In a smaller bowl, mix the sugars, salt and cinnamon together. Then, add that to the almond mixture, folding gently until everything is mixed well.
  4. Divide the almond mixture into two pans, and then spread the mixture evenly inside the pan. Bake the nuts for 25-30 minutes, or until the mixture is crisp, taking the pans out once at 15 minutes to stir the mixture and re-spread the mixture out. Allow the almonds to fully cool, and place in an air tight container to enjoy later.

Red Velvet Peppermint Bark

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redvelvetcakebatterbark

One of the things I can’t get enough of lately is peppermint + chocolate. I’m obsessed with Chick Fil-A’s peppermint chocolate chip shake, and I’m pretty sure I’ve eaten half a bag of Candy Cane kisses. It’s just insane how much I love it, because usually I could give or take peppermint bark. Eggnog is usually my thing. I’m really not sure what’s gotten into me, but I’m not complaining!

I originally saw the idea for cake batter bark on How Sweet It Is. I’ve been wanting to do it with red velvet, and thought that it would be so festive to use red velvet cake mix in peppermint bark. The results were great! One of my coworkers tasted it, and then grabbed 4 pieces haha! It’s also very simple to make, and it makes a good bit!

Red Velvet Peppermint Bark

I packaged these in simple printed cello bags, and added Christmas sprinkles with the crushed candy canes for a more Christmas-y touch. Y’all know I’m all about sprinkles!

Red Velvet Peppermint Bark
Source: inspired by How Sweet It Is

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 lb. dark or semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
  • 1/2 lb. white chocolate, chopped
  • 1 tsp. canola oil (divided)
  • 3 1/2 tbsp. red velvet dry cake mix
  • 10 mini candy canes, crushed
  • Christmas sprinkles
  • red powdered food coloring

Directions:

  1. Melt the 1/2 lb. of dark/semi-sweet chocolate in a microwave safe bowl, along with 1/2 tsp. of the canola oil, until melted. You’ll want to do this in 30 second increments at 50% power, being sure to stir well between each microwave cycle. Pour and spread the chocolate, using a spatula, on top of a silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Allow it to set for 15 minutes.
  2. Melt the 1/2 lb. of white chocolate with the remaining 1/2 tsp. of canola oil, until melted. Microwave this in 30 second increments as well, at 50% power, being sure to stir well between each microwave cycle. Mix in the dry cake mix, as well as the powdered food coloring (a little at a time until desired color is achieved), until everything is well combined. Pour this over the set dark chocolate and spread the red velvet white chocolate carefully, making sure to cover the dark chocolate. Sprinkle the crushed candy canes and Christmas sprinkles liberally over the red velvet white chocolate.
  3. Allow the bark to cool completely before breaking into pieces and serving.

2013 Holiday Bake-Palooza

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2013 Bake-Palooza

This past weekend was a busy one in our kitchen. We had our annual holiday bake-palooza for coworker/neighbor gifts! I think after doing this for 4 years, we have figured out a good system for doing this. We were done much earlier than I anticipated, which is awesome. 🙂

2013 Bake-Palooza

At the end of the weekend, this was what we ended up with. The packaging this year was a mish-mash of items from Wal-Mart, Target, Hobby Lobby, Pick Your Plum, TJMaxx & World Market. This year was a year to use up leftover packaging from previous years, so nothing is really uniform. However, it doesn’t really matter to me, because I think it looks really fun sitting together.

The recipes that we decided on this year were:

To divide things up, about a month ago, I made all of the cookie dough and froze it using this method in the post. Then on Friday, we made all of the candy (2 batches of fudge, caramel, elf’s mix & bark)., and on Saturday, we baked up all of the cookies and made the bread. It really wasn’t bad at all, compared to previous years. The biggest time saver is making all of the cookie dough in advance, especially when you’re making 3-4 batches of each cookie dough.

2013 Bake-Palooza

These are trays that I made for each of our offices. I purchased these at Wal-Mart for $3, and they come with a lid and a handle. They hold a ton, which is perfect since we wanted to give our coworkers a nice variety of things to enjoy.

2013 Bake-Palooza

This is the inside of the tin in the first picture. We gave these gifts to neighbors, and they were the perfect size. We squeezed in some fudge, homemade caramels, as well as cookies.

2013 Bake-Palooza

Since I work on a very small team, I wanted to give little bags of treats to them as well. Sure, they could pull from the large break room tray that I made, but since my office is pretty large, I wanted to make sure they had their share of the goodies too. 🙂

Have you done any holiday baking yet? When do you plan on baking for holiday gifting?

Tree & Wreath Cupcakes

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christmascupcakes

This weekend is the grand bake-palooza in our house. I have the bags of pre-scooped cookie dough ready, and went on one last Target run for necessary ingredients for Mom’s fudge, Elf’s Mix & a few other recipes that I’ll be sharing on here soon. 🙂 I just love making these gifts every year…edible gifts are always a winner, and it’s fun to package them up. I’m a sucker for treat boxes, cellophane and a ton of curling ribbon. 🙂

This week, I was just itching to throw some cupcakes together. Sometimes, I just have to take those old Wilton tips out and go crazy with buttercream. I actually first attempted these with a grass tip, and they just looked so messy. However, a star tip (#21) did the trick.

I didn’t take pictures of every step with these cupcakes, because they’re pretty simple to pipe out, and you can easily see where I piped the stars.

I started off by thinly frosting (completely cooled) cupcakes with a layer of un-dyed vanilla buttercream (I used this recipe for the buttercream). To make the trees, I started with 5 stars on the bottom, then a row of 4 (between each star in the 5 row), and then 3, 2, 1. For the wreaths, I piped two stars next to each other, and continued in a circle around the whole cupcake. To make the bows, I just used a small round tip (#5) and piped a sideways “8”, and added the edges. The ornaments were made using the same tip, in small, random dots in the gaps of the piped stars. The tree trunks were piped with the same round tip in brown frosting.

I think these cupcakes would be especially festive with a confetti cupcake recipe, using holiday colored jimmies!

Are any of y’all baking this weekend for the holidays? I’d love to hear about what’s baking in your kitchen. 🙂 I’m sure I’ll be tweeting about the flour/confectioner’s sugar clouds in my kitchen.

Christmas Cookies & A Giveaway!

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handmadeholidays

It’s now socially acceptable to decorate with all of the Christmas things! I just felt like stating that to you guys. 😛

Since it’s now officially the holiday season, I think I’m going to ask a certain husband who isn’t afraid of heights to go in the attic and grab all of the Christmas decor. ::fingers crossed:: I seriously can’t take 3 steps on a ladder without taking deep breaths and telling myself “I think I can…I think I can…”.

I just love making cookies for the holidays. I bake so many for gifts, since it’s always a winner with coworkers and neighbors. I learned a great trick when it comes to baking in bulk for the holidays…make your dough in advance to freeze and then bake them all later. It makes things a lot easier when you’re making dozens of cookies at once. 🙂

What also makes things easier while baking is knowing that your favorite recipes will always come out the same when using quality ingredients. Over the past few years, I’ve learned that good, quality ingredients really do make a difference in your baking. For example, I used to grab store brand flour, and the results of my baking weren’t always consistent. I really thought it was me making a mistake in the recipe, but when I switched to a bag of King Arthur Flour, my favorite recipes come out the same way every time. I will admit that King Arthur Flour is slightly pricier than store brands, but to me, it’s worth it to use a brand that has such high quality standards when it comes to flour. You don’t have to order their flour online only either…they carry their flour at so many stores now (I recently saw their flour at Walmart for $3.95/bag!). Also, I’ve seen quite a few of their baking products, like espresso powder (which is so hard for me to find anywhere else…is it just me?) and specialty extracts, at Sur La Table. 🙂

cookies3

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