Holiday Punch!

Great when entertaining, and reminiscent of a Dominican Republic vacation beverage! This is sure to be an instant crowd pleaser - so good! :)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of white sugar
2 and 1/2 cups of orange juice
2/3 cup lemon juice
1/2 jar (4oz) of maraschino cherries with juice
1 oz triple sec liqueur
1 (750 milliliter) bottle light rum
1 orange sliced into rounds
1 lemon sliced into rounds
1/2 cup of fresh pineapple chunks with 1/2 pineapple juice
1 litre of sprite
ice

Directions:

In a juice container, combine the sugar, orange juice and lemon juice - stir until sugar dissolves. Add the cherries/juice, triple sec, rum, fruit slices and pineapple chunks/juice. Refrigerate for 2 hours to allow flavours to blend.

Transfer to a punch bowl and add sprite, and ice just before serving.

Enjoy!

Snowman Cheese ball

Tis the season! :)

MS and I celebrated the upcoming holidays with some friends recently; and I saw the cutest snowman cheese ball idea on pinterest - that I just had to make! I combined two different recipes that I found and the result was absolutely delishness - I will definitely be making this again during the holidays, it was fantastic!

Ingredients:

8 oz. cream cheese
3/4 cup of shredded Cheddar cheese
3/4 cup of shredded Monterey jack cheese
1/4 cup of finely chopped fresh chives
1/4 cup chopped slivered almonds
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
dash of salt, couple dashes of pepper
1/4 cup of grated Parmesan cheese
carrot and peppercorns to garnish

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, combine the first 8 ingredients and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Divide the mixture into 3 different sized balls - shape and kneed into smooth balls and then coat with Parmesan cheese. Arrange on a serving tray to resemble a snowman; I used toothpicks to help the stability from ball to ball.

Add your carrot piece for the nose, and peppercorns for the eyes - and voila! :)

Enjoy!

Cookie Dough Dip

The name says it all, no?
The perfect thing about this recipe is that there are no eggs; it has the cookie dough goodness without the raw egg - or any egg at all for that matter. I had heard of this recipe previously, and have wanted to try it for quite some time; but without actually trying it myself I wasn't really sold on the fact that it could be that good. But then a few weeks ago, I attended my sister-in-law's stagette and had the opportunity to try it - and have been waiting ever since for an occasion to make it on my own, it was THAT good! :) My friends proved me right as well, everyone commented on how delicious it was and asked what it was made from - so, ladies, without further ado...

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of butter
1/3 cup of brown sugar
1 tsp of vanilla extract
8 oz of cream cheese
1/2 cup of confectioner's sugar
3/4 cup semisweet mini chocolate chips
1/2 cup skor bits

Directions:

In a small saucepan, melt the butter and brown sugar over medium heat - stirring as it dissolves. Remove this mixture from the heat and add the vanilla extract - set aside until cool.

In a small mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese and the confectioner's sugar for one minute.

Once the butter mixture is cooled - slowly add it to the cheese/sugar mixture and beat again until blended.

Add your chocolate chips and skor bits - mix well and then refrigerate until you are ready to serve.

Serve with your favourite small cookie - honey flavoured teddy grahams and animal crackers work well!

Enjoy!

Stuffed Mushrooms

This is my standard stuffed mushroom recipe from Kraft. It is really easy and always delicious! :)

(photo credit: Kraft)

Ingredients:

20 fresh mushrooms
3 tbsp butter
2 tbsp finely chopped onion
2 tbsp finely chopped red pepper
14 Ritz crackers finely crushed (1/2 cup)
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning

Directions:

Remove stems from the mushrooms, and finely chop 1/4 cup of stems and discard the rest. Melt the butter on medium heat, add chopped stems, onion and peppers; cook and stir until tender. Add cracker crumb, cheese and seasoning; spoon into mushroom caps.

Place on a foil lined baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes at 400 or until heated through.

Enjoy!

Eyeballs and Brains

This is a great recipe any day of the year but adding an olive to the top of the meatballs makes it a fun and festive way to have a Halloween dinner! Eyeballs and Brains is healthy and delicious!

The Ingredients:

• 1 pound lean ground turkey (could use ground chicken)
  
• 1/4 cup pesto
• 1/4 cup breadcrumbs
• 1 tbsp Italian seasoning
  
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 3 cups spaghetti sauce (jarred or homemade)
• Spaghetti Noodles

Cooking It Up:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Spray a baking dish with non stick spray and dump the spaghetti sauce into it.
• Place all of the other ingredients into a bowl and using your hands, combine until everything is well mixed.
• Roll mixture into balls and drop them into the sauce.
• To make them look like eyeballs: Press one black or green olive slice into the top of an uncooked meatball. Make sure the olive is secure (I didn't push them into the meatball enough and a lot of them fell off while cooking). Place olive side up in sauce.
• Cover the baking pan with foil and bake until meatballs are no longer pink and are firm to the touch, about 20 minutes.
• Cook spaghetti noodles while the meatballs are baking.
• Serve meatballs (eyeballs) over cooked spaghetti (otherwise known as brains!).

Happy Halloween!!