Cinnamon Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

Welcome to Friday! Do you have big plans? I do - I'll be cooking for tomorrow morning's Stampin' Up! party - two brunch dishes. :) I can't wait to try them!

But that's tomorrow. :D Today, I'm sharing this Cinnamon Cream Cheese Coffee Cake from Meili's Baked Goodness.

This is a good coffee cake. It's packed - it's a very heavy cake. :) I overbaked it a little, I think - the edges were SUPER dry. Of course, that's partly the whole wheat flour. But I followed the directions exactly.

I think I'm going to give this one a NO, THANKS. It's good, but there are a LOT of good coffee cake recipes out there still waiting to be tried. :) Let me know if you decide to try this, and what you decide about it. :)

Have a wonderful weekend! Be sure and try something new - and let me know what you think! Be blessed~!

Bread Machine Challah

Happy Wednesday! :) This is GOOD stuff, people - I'm telling you already it's a YES, PLEASE!!! You want to go make this now. Mom was sad Dad had gone gluten-free, because it would have made incredible French toast. :)

I didn't do anything differently to this. Be sure your yeast isn't too old, and you'll get a great rise out of it! I did butter the top when it came out of the oven, but that's all I did differently from the recipe from Dine & Dish.

OK, I'm outta here - I have SO much to do! :D The show may be over at the beginning of October, but the procrastinating from the last eight weeks is starting to catch up with me, and there's LOTS to do!! Christmas will be here soon! Ho, ho, ho! :D

Candy Corn Fingernails

Happy Monday! :)

Sorry about last week; I just got totally wiped out, and spent every spare moment - which weren't numerous! - resting. But now that the show's up and running, and I only have to be there Friday and Saturday, I should be doing MUCH better. :D

Today's post is from Julie Ann's Art, for candy corn fingernails. :)

Now, I haven't a clue why I'm into nail art all of a sudden - but I am. :D I did a fun one this weekend that I'm looking forward to sharing soon. This one I did last week - and got lots of comments on it. :)

I didn't find the tutorial until a few minutes ago - I was just working off a photo. SO, I painted my nails white, then did the orange, and finally the yellow. And looking at her tutorial, I'm not sure I'd go with the orange first - I'm thinking the yellow, to make sure I get great coats of it down. You can see through it on the photo! But I would definitely do this one again - it was really cute. :)

Do you do your own nails? I figure I save about $40 a mani - and getting it done in a salon usually means they completely peel off in 24 hours. Go, me! :D

OK, I'm outta here! Rest and work are the orders for this week. If you want more info on the show I'm doing, drop me an email! :) Or leave me a comment. Have a wonderful day! BE BLESSED!!!

Shrimp (or Crab) Louis

Hope you're having a great week! This is one of those recipe I'm not quite sure how to review, but here we go. :D

It's for Shrimp or Crab Louis from Food.com.

So. I will tell you right now that we didn't make the dressing. We didn't have everything, and my dad's not too adventurous when it comes to dressings. :D So we used thousand island on the side. We did do the rest of the recipe, however, using - as you can tell - shrimp.

This got a NO, THANKS from me. I just don't care too much for shrimp and tomato together. And I think I added more shrimp - we love shrimp around here. :D But since I used the recipe more for the method than the dressing, I won't do it this way again.

But it was beautiful. :D

OK, I'm outta here! Have a wonderful day! Be BLESSED!

Mighty Tasty Mini Lasagnas

Happy Monday! Did you have a good weekend? I did; although Kenn's been so busy he doesn't know if he's coming or going, we took Saturday night to go out for dinner to celebrate our anniversary. We'd already planned to take Sunday off - we were going to go to Atlanta for the weekend, but he couldn't take all the time off to go. So, we woke up to the electricity off. That makes it difficult to get projects he needed done, OR get ready to go anywhere. So we took the day off, anyway. :) It felt REALLY odd, and I was REALLY tempted to go do what I was supposed to be doing, but I didn't. I hope I don't pay for that later....

Oh, well. Too late now. :D

Today's recipe is for Mighty Tasty Mini Lasagnas from Catching Fireflies.

Now, then. I used my mom's Pampered Chef brownie pan to make these in; the original did it in regular muffin tins, but I thought, since wonton wrappers are square, why not go more with the shape of them?

These are a YES, PLEASE! recipe. They were super easy to assembly-line make, easy ingredients - I tend to keep everything but the ricotta in my fridge, anyway - and pretty yummy. I do wish I'd had some ground beef to bulk these up a bit, but they were still good. I've got some in my freezer, too - I tend to be the only one who eats stuff like this, so I didn't make too many. :) That was another nice thing about the "recipe"; you really don't have to make a lot of them! I'm also going to tag them as frugal; they're not expensive to make, if you price it out per cup!

OK, I'm out of here. This is our last normal week of rehearsal for CINDERELLA, then into tech week and opening! :) Have a wonderful day! Be BLESSED!

Pumpkin Spice Pancakes

Happy Friday! Well, until today, it felt like fall might be on its way - but we're back up into the 90s if the forecast holds correctly today. :::sigh::: :D Still, with canned pumpkin, we can make it taste like fall any time of the year!

Like with today's recipe for Pumpkin Spice Pancakes from Annie's Eats.

These were a definite YES, PLEASE! for me. Kenn swears up and down he doesn't like pumpkin, so this time, I didn't even offer him any pancakes. :D My mom wanted them to taste more like pumpkin pie, but they're PANCAKES, Mom. :D I loved them.

The good news is that they freeze beautifully! So I was able to eat pancakes whenever I didn't want to cook - I just popped them in the microwave to warm up to butter-melting temperature. :D Yum! I didn't change a thing in the recipe, either.

OK, I'm outta here! Tomorrow is our 17th anniversary. :) Have a wonderful day, and a blessed weekend!!!!

Baked Egg Boats

Happy Wednesday! :) I hope you're enjoying your "short work week" - although, if you work at or from home, you KNOW there's no such thing! :D

Today's recipe is for Baked Egg Boats from Spoon Fork Bacon.

This was a surprise for me! It definitely gets a YES, PLEASE! - although I didn't have QUITE what I needed as far as bread goes. I used a PIECE of a baguette, and hollowed it out. I spilled some of the egg, so I should have added another to the mix. I used ham cubes and Monterrey Jack cheese. (I don't really like gruyere.) The texture of the bread changed into this light, crispy, delicious little puff every time I took a bite. :) If you have company for breakfast or brunch, these are easy to whip up and serve; they don't take too much time in the oven at all.

Let me know what you think! Two breakfast recipes down, one more to share with you - THIS week, anyway. :D Have a wonderful day! Be BLESSED!!!

Cannoli French Toast

Happy Labor Day! Are you enjoying your long weekend?? :)

I think this is going to be a week of breakfast posts. All three this week will feature breakfast or brunch foods. How does that sound? :D

Today's is Cannoli Stuffed French Toast from Two Peas & Their Pod.

Do you remember when I posted these Easy Cannoli Cups? Yeah, I figured you didn't. Go ahead and link to the post. I'll wait for you to refresh your memory. :D

OK. So I had extra filling, and I popped it into the freezer to see how it would do. The answer is, meh. :D It might be fine if I thawed the whole container and then whipped it, but I didn't want to do that - what you see above is the only serving I wanted to make - I mean, I was the only one around to eat it! :)

However, the filling worked for this - and I didn't want to make up a whole lot more filling. But if you don't have cannoli filling in your freezer, by all means, today's recipe is a great one! :)

This is a YES, PLEASE! - although I would definitely save it for a special occasion. I mean, chocolate and cannoli filling between two pieces of French bread French toast?!? Yum. And DECADENT. :) Although it tastes very sweet, it doesn't have a load of sugar in it. But I would definitely suggest the confectioner's sugar dusting on top, and not syrup. :D

I hope you'll try it - and try to do it with someone special. It's more fun, I guarantee. :D Have a wonderful day! Be BLESSED!