Holiday Hostess

As the holidays are fast-approaching, there's often times when you'll find yourself staying at a girlfriend's house, spending time couch-surfing at an aunt or uncle or perhaps even staying with your grandparents! Below are a list of great hostess gifts that will be perfect when you're staying with someone!

Is your hostess a wine-o? I love this Lilly Pulitzer wine tote. Add your hostess' favorite type of wine and you've got a festive gift she'll love!

Is your hostess a big foodie? Specialty olive oil is a great alternative to flowers or even wine. A brand new olive oil shop opened here in Columbia and it's too cute! It really opened my eyes to the thought of olive oil as a gift!

Is your hostess very overextended this holiday season? Treat her to a manicure or pedicure! Add in a bottle of your favorite nail polish to go with it for some inspiration. Make it a date and go with her too!

Unsure of where to even start for a hostess gift? A candle is always a great option! I've posted about Capri Blue Volcano candles in the past, and they're my favorite scent. These candles are sold all over and make an awesome treat!

xxKatie

Recipe: Pinterest Crack-ers

I feel like so many different recipes have "crack" in their titles. As I've made Pinterest recipes, most of the "crack" recipes, call for Hidden Valley ranch mix...coincidence? 

I made these "Crack-ers" early this week and adapted the recipe a tad when I was making my own.

Ingredients:

1. 1 bag of oyster crackers

2. 1/4 c of oil (I didn't have an entirely full bag so I didn't need the entire amount of oil)

2. 1 package of ranch mix (I used Hidden Valley)

3. 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (I didn't have any of this, so I just used a garlic/herb dry marinade we had in our cupboard)

4. Light sprinkle of red pepper flakes (this wasn't included in my recipe, but my roommate made a similar recipe and included this in hers. It can get really spicy really fast though, so use it sparingly...)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 250*

2. Dump oyster crackers into a bowl and evenly coat them with the oil. I continued to flip them in the bowl while I was pouring the oil.

3. Sprinkle the dry ingredients over the crackers. I continually was flipping the crackers while doing this as well and sloshing them around in the bowl.

4. Spread the crackers out on a cookie sheet (I covered mine in tin foil for easy clean up) and put them in the oven for 15 minutes, mixing them up every 5 minutes.

5. VOILA, your crackers!

These remind me of ranch pretzels or ranch rice cakes that you can get in the grocery store, but these you can make at home! I divided my crackers into 2 small tupperware boxes and 1 larger one for storage. 

I ate almost an entire small tupperware of these the first night I made them! They are SO good and SO easy!

Happy cooking!

xxKatie

Snack Staple

There are a couple of snacks that we have at our tailgate (affectionately named "The Bittieboose" after a spin off of the "Cock-a-booses" that Columbia is known for!) almost no matter what. This fabulous, EASY dip is one of them!

When I first heard my friends talking about it, I thought it was called "Norse Dip" i.e. with some relation to the Norse countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) or someone's Norse relatives. I was VERY wrong.

The name is actually Knorr's Dip named after the Knorr's vegetable mix that you find in dried packets at the grocery store!!

Anyway, I've grown to love Knorr's Dip so much that I actually keep a Pyrex dish of it full at my house for weekly snacking!

When I say that this dip is easy, I mean it's so easy that easy is actually in it's name officially on the website! It's shown to eat with veggies, but thanks to Momma H (one of our tailgate Moms) I've learned that it's absolutely best with Fritos Scoops!

INGREDIENTS

1 package Knorr Vegetable recipe mix

1/2 cup Mayonnaise

1 container (16 oz.) sour cream

DIRECTIONS

Combine all ingredients in medium bowl. Cover and chill 2 hours to blend flavors.

Stir before serving. Serve with your favorite dippers.

I used Hellman's Mayonnaise and Breakstone's Sour Cream but that's solely because I had them both in my fridge! The longer that you let this dip sit, the better it gets! I couldn't help myself last night when I made it so I started dipping immediately, but it's definitely better the next day or overnight!

What are your favorite dips? Are they easy?

xxKatie

Would You Like to Chai It?

It's no secret that I often need a pickmeup during the day. Sometimes it's a snack, sometimes it's just a beloved ice cold Diet Coke, but other times I need a little something more. Enter: Starbucks Iced Chai

I'm actually drinking one as I type!

However, this little number can have a bit of a pricetag. While it's necessary sometimes, other times I can't just swing $4 unnecessarily for a drink that's gone in 5 minutes and sometimes, quite frankly, has a bit too much ice. (Take that Starbucks!)

So, I've started to make my own! Not how you'd think though. I don't really like the Chai concentrate that Starbucks sells, so instead I got the Walmart kind:

Often times, they even sell it in TWO-PACKS!

So basically the way it works is that you put ice in a big cup (or Tervis Water Bottle if you're me...to-go...obviously!) add as much chai juice as you want--I do about a 1:1 ratio--and then top it off with milk. SO EASY right?!

Yes, so easy. And cheap. One box of chai concentrate runs you about $4 and makes about 6 drinks when you add the milk in with it. Not a bad deal right. Usually too, the twofer pack is around $7! That's more than 10 drinks plus the cost of milk and you will still run WAY less than anything Starbucks could come up with!

Do you chai? What's your go-to drink? (Sorry for all those coffee lovers, that's just not my game!)

xxKatie

No Bake Chocolate Cake

How LUSCIOUS does that look?!

I saw this recipe while trolling Pinterest. It looks rather labor-intensive, but also VERY good!

The inside of the cake has tiny "biscuits" as the recipe calls them. They kinda remind me of dessert croutons!

You can find the full length recipe here with all the directional photos, but I'm also posting it below! I'll warn you that it's NOT the healthiest, but a cake like this once in awhile is TOO much fun!!

NO-BAKE CHOCOLATE BISCUIT CAKE RECIPE

Yield: 12 slices

Ingredients

For tiny biscuits:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoons  baking powder

Pinch of salt

6 tablespoons butter, softened

1/3 cup granulated sugar

2 large egg yolks

1/2 teaspoon homemade vanilla extract (double the amount if using store-bought)

For Nutella Ganache and Glaze:

1 cup heavy cream

200 grams bittersweet  chocolate, chopped finely

2/3 cup  Nutella

1/4 teaspoon salt

10 tablespoons butter, cut into small cubes and softened

Lacquer chocolate glaze 

Method

1. To prepare the tiny biscuits, sift together flour, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter on medium speed for a minute. Add the sugar and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, for about 3 more minutes, scraping down the sides with a spatula as necessary. Add the egg yolks and beat until fully incorporated. Beat in vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture and mix just until combined.

2. Cut a large piece of parchment paper, fold it in half, then fold over the three open sides to create a 6-by-10 inch envelope. Unfold the envelope, place the biscuit dough in the center of the 6-by-10 inch rectangle, flatten slightly with your hand, fold the envelope again, making sure to crease it firmly and roll out the dough from the center to the edges until you obtain a 6-by-10 inch flat dough. Transfer it on a cutting board and place in the freezer until hard, for about 15 minutes.

3. Preheat your oven to 350 F.

4. Take the dough out of the freezer, peel away the top parchment and cut the dough lengthwise into 21 even strips and then crosswise into 13 even strips to yield 273 squares.

5. Place the biscuits on parchment-lined baking sheets, leaving about a quarter of an inch space between them. Bake 12 to 14 minutes, rotating sheets from top to bottom and front to back halfway through, until the tops are dark golden brown. Let the biscuits cool on sheets. Biscuits can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature up to 2 days or longer in the refrigerator.

6. To prepare the chocolate and Nutella ganache, put the chocolate in a heatproof mixing bowl. Bring cream to a boil and pour over the chopped chocolate. Let stand for half a minute, then gently stir with a spatula until completely melted. Add Nutella and continue stirring until melted. Stir in salt and butter pieces.

7. Lightly grease a 4-cup mold and line with plastic wrap, leaving two inches of overhang for easy removal. Pour 1 cup of ganache in the mold and swirl to coat the inside.

8. Put the biscuits in a mixing bowl, pour over the remaining ganache and stir gently to coat the biscuits. Transfer the mixture into the mold and get rid of air pockets by rapping the mold against the counter. Cover the top tightly with plastic wrap, pressing it against the surface to create an airtight seal. 9. Freeze until completely hard, for 30-45 minutes.

10. In the meantime, prepare the lacquer chocolate glaze according to the recipe at the bottom of this post.

11. Place the cake on a cooling rack sitting on top of a baking sheet. Pour the glaze in an even circular motion on top, starting with the sides, allowing it to cascade over and coat them completely. Start pouring in the middle and as the glaze starts going down the sides, pour the glaze about an inch from the edge to help cover the sides evenly. Reapply glaze as needed. 1+1/3 cups of glaze is enough to cover the cake in a single shot, but you can use the glaze accumulated in the baking sheet if needed.

12. Allow the cake to sit until the glaze stops dripping, then move the cake to a serving plate and place in the refrigerator to set (don’t allow it to harden), for 30-60 minutes.

13. Wrapped airtight, the cake will keep fresh for a week in the refrigerator. Let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving.

This might get added to my summer to-do file! I really want to try it, and I'll let y'all know how it is if I try it!! It's perfect for my house since there's no baking involved, and it won't heat up my entire living floor!

xxKatie

Dessert to Impress: Pecan Pie Bars

I don't really like cooking from scratch. I cook from a box more often than not, and I enjoy recipes along the lines of "semi-homemade", like the show, instead of baking from scratch. This dessert recipe is one of those "semi-homemade" recipes, but not from the show, and I've been making it since Christmas!

If you like pecan pie, you will LOVE these! (And even if you don't really like pecan pie, or thought you didn't like me, you'll probably STILL like these too!)

This recipe sincerely couldn't be easier! This is what the finished product looks like!

Ingredients:

1 Tube of sugar cookie dough

1 cup light brown sugar

1 1/2 cups chopped pecans

2 eggs

2 tablespoons flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Recipe:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

2. SPRAY YOUR PAN! THIS IS SO IMPORTANT!

3. Spread the cookie dough out in your pan:

(All the finger prints will bake away!)

4. Bake until it is BARELY golden brown, it will finish cooking with the filling! You want it very light still!

5. Mix all other ingredients to make filling. It will be gritty and a little runny, these are both good!

6. Put filling into hot crust. You can flatten the crust a little before you add the filling, but the weight of the filling will help flatten it too!

7. Bake until the middle doesn't jiggle anymore. You want it to be solid! That's usually about 15 minutes when I make it, give or take, depending on  your oven:

It will look like that! You can see the crust has like almost NO color on it, like I said, just barely golden brown!

8. Let it cool completely! This is the hardest part!! I've cut into it before it's cooled all the way and it's really not as good! Be patient, this can sometimes take up to 2 hours!

9. Cut into cookie bars and enjoy:

This recipe is seriously SO easy and SO yummy! It's fun to bring to potlucks or to impress the in-laws! Plus it won't last long wherever you take it!

xxKatie

Through the Looking Glass

As much as I complain about my phone, I was thinking how funny the compilation of the pictures on it is. Think of your phone photos: snapped quickly, usually under silly conditions, or maybe in a funny place. Here are a few of my last phone photos:

My favorite study snack...you can see all my econ notes and econ textbook opened to Cobb-Douglas Productinon Functions and Other Examples of Technology (Chapter 18 for anyone in my class...).

My little baby Little smushed between two big trucks in my parking garage!

My first fashion show outfit!! 

My first USC baseball game! How do you like my pink Hunters on their second day out?

...More studying!

Showing off my bowtie-tying skills at work! A must during Carolina Cup season!

I couldn't help but share my fortune cookie a few days before I went home for Spring Break!! TOO cool!!

MMMMM, the pecan squares before being cut...still gooey and cooling! I'll be sure to post this recipe soon, so easy and so good!

What do your most recent uploads say about you? Clearly I've been snacking and studying a good bit of my time!!

xxKatie

Cookbooks

So I don't really cook often. That doesn't mean, however, that I don't like cookbooks! Here are a few of my favorites, and ones I'd like to try!

Greek Revival is written by USC's own first-lady, Mrs. Moore-Pastides! A portion of this cookbook goes to USC scholarships.

Of Tide and Thyme is the Annapolis Junior League's Cookbook--I've thumbed through this many times!

Cooking Rocks has some of the first recipes I ever tried on my own, including Honey Nut Chicken!

I would LOVE to try the Momofuku cookbook! All the desserts in here sound AMAZING!

100 Recipes Every Woman Should Know piqued my interest on Pinterest! I added it to my Books board, and I really want to buy this!

What cookbooks do you love? Anything you rely on?

xxKatie

Dip & Done

I went to an organization's potluck on Wednesday night and since it was a potluck, we all signed up to bring different things. What a great exam breaker! It was held by two friends at their ADORABLE home and another friend did all the cooking! We ate yummy bacon-wrapped, feta-stuffed pork tenderloin and all the side dishes that everyone brought including two types of stuffing, salad, two kinds of roasted potatoes, and not to mention all the appetizers and desserts!

I brought two dips from Pinterest to the potluck:

Cheddar Bacon Dip

16 oz sour cream

1 packet Hidden Valley Ranch Mix

3 oz bacon bits (from a bag, NOT bacos)

1 c shredded cheddar

I ended up doubling the recipe to suit the large group but we had TONS of leftovers that we were able to eat until yesterday. I served it with tortilla chips and pretzels and preferred it with the pretzels!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip

1 8oz package cream cheese, softened

1/2 c butter, softened

1 c powdered sugar

2 tbsp brown sugar (I used light)

1 1/2 tsp vanilla (I skipped this)

1 c chocolate chips

I c toffee bits (I skipped this)

Impatient me over here didn't let either the cream cheese or butter soften properly so this was a tad difficult to make for me. My poor mixer was on major overdrive trying to whip stiff cream cheese and butter. Also, this is best served after letting it sit out for about 1/2 an hour or so. Once it's soft it tastes better. We also found that it didn't really taste like chocolate chip cookie dough anyway, MUCH more like a cannoli filling! I doubled this recipe as well and it was a good size, but we still had plenty of leftovers.

Have any great potluck recipes that you like? Any go-to recipes?

xxKatie

Garden & Gun Magazine

Garden and Gun, "The Soul of the South" has arrived in my mailbox! My roommates were reacting funny to my subscription arriving, but I guess they'd never seen mine! I figured if they had never seen my previous ones, I may not have posted about it either! I got my subscription a few months ago on a steals and deals website and got my entire year for $3.50! Couldn't believe it! As soon as I saw the deal, I scooped it up not exactly sure when I was going to get it!

This issue just arrived in my mailbox and I couldn't be more excited to peruse it leisurely! Just the front cover looks so yummy!

I also subscribe to the email service! MANY of my emails get deleted or sent to spam, but my G&G emails are always always always read beginning to end! I often even click into the real site to read full articles or check out the entire photo albums.

Any other subscribers out there? I'm a HUGE fan!

xxKatie

Drink Recipe: Wild Berry Iced Tea

So I'm completely stealing this recipe from a woman I work with. She introduced it to me and since I tried it I can't get enough!

For this wildberry iced tea, all you do is combine 2 kinds of tea bags, sweeten to taste and add accoutrements as you wish.

Take one bag (or more if you're brewing a pitcher or larger amount) of Celestial Seasonings Wild Berry Zinger and one bag of a Green Tea of choice (I just used Celestial Seasonings too because they were close on the grocery store shelf).

+

And let it steep for 5-10 minutes. It will be a peachy-pink color and have a very light scent. It is VERY refreshing as is, but with a sprig of mint or a lemon it really does the trick!

It has gotten SO HOT here in Annapolis, we're breaking records left and right. The last thing I want is a soda and I get sick of boring old water so this really does the trick!

Once you're done steeping, let it fully cool and throw it over some ice in your favorite BIG ol' iced tea tumbler!

My three faves!

What are your go-to summer drinks?

xxKatie

Weekly Gratitude: 500

1. Thanks to my sister for making her prof pic a photo of us and saying get back soon to me. It means a lot gRe. I miss you a ton. You prolly have no idea.

2. Thanks to the boy who helped me with my shag final. I appreciate you putting up with me.

3. Thanks to Colleen for celebrating with me. It was extravagant, but we 150% fully deserved that celebration. I'm so thankful you took this class with me.

4. Thanks to Derek for always keeping an eye out for me in and out of shag class. Since I've known you from my freshman year first semester in college you've always been like an older brother making sure I was always ok. I appreciate everything you've done for me this semester in AND out of class again. You're going to do great things and I look forward to hearing about you in the future and telling all my friends I knew you in college.

5. Thanks to my old roommate for wanting to reconnect. I'm sorry that we fell out of contact and look forward to our very very long dinner/gab session that you can tell me ALL ABOUT your study abroad in ROME! Lucky biscuit!

6. Thanks to Easter for coming late. You reinforced fashion rules. Also thank you to everyone who followed the rules and didn't wear white pants or shoes yet. I wore BOTH on Monday. #winning

7. Thanks to Capstone for having the best cheese grits on campus. You make them stringy and delicious. I miss Miss Andrena like nobody's business.

8. Thanks to everyone who sent me notes saying that they liked my post about writing thank you's. It's a been thankful circle. And I like it.

9. Thanks to my mom for signing me up for college classes over the summer. She rules and I'm lucky to have such a baller mom. Y'all should be jealous.

10. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HAS BEEN AN LBP FAN FROM THE BEGINNING. TODAY IS MY 500TH POST. RAZ, Christine K., Kristen C., Harriet H., Grace R., Mom and Dad, Evalyse L., Katherine R., Caitlin S., Audrey M., Mary-Claire M., and a lot of my friends in high school. I think of y'all all the time when I have writers block thinking what RAZ's Journalism class would have told me to do. I couldn't have done this without any of your support almost 5 years ago! Woo!

xxKatie

Adorable Baking Supplies

So I was indulging in some online browsing and found the most adorable Etsy shop called Lulu's Cupcake Boutique that has such cute baking supplies:

I think these cupcakes liners were made for me!

How fun would these be to make some Gamecock Gamecake (get it?!) cupcakes? Add a few black plain liners in and it would be perfect for a party of festive tailgate. (Hmm, that might have to happen!)

Everyone's seen plain silver foil liners, but GOLD? That means they MUST be good! These would be fun for watching the Olympics or something where there's a lot of gold!

I just love the polka dots! You could easily coordinate the decorations with the liners...too sweet!

Y'all know I'm totally a sucker for pink. How great would these be for a best friend's birthday or girl's only type thing??

How cute is this silicone baking set from Target? I haven't totally grasped the silicone thing yet (I'll admit to still using the disposables...and I love baking...I feel like that shouldn't mix?) but this set is too cute!

This giant donut set from Williams-Sonoma would be SO much fun to make and decorate!!

I have a pan like this for petit fours, but it has 24 spots instead of 6 and we use it for cake and pound cake when guests come over. It is so pretty and delicate!

Eventually I'd like to try this too! Make one gigantic cupcake, but I imagine it being very hard to split up and eat!

I have this book and the ideas in there are unbelievable. Not only are they crazy creative and adorable, but they break the recipes down step-by-step so that decorating novices like me can attempt the looks. I'm not bold enough to make these cute pups, but it would definitely be a fun project!!

Do any of you guys have these? I love to shop online for fun stuff like this since I don't know of any specialty cake stores around!!

xxKatie

P.S: My friend Kathryn is super passionate about commitinseptember, so college readers especially check it out!

Major Sweet Tooth

So just about anyone who knows me, knows I love a good snack. I'm totally a die-hard sweets girl though. I prefer a cupcake to just about anything else. Sweets make me happy (which sounds bad...), and I am generally always craving them. I love baking, which doesn't help my sweets affliction! Some of my favorites include:

Funfetti Cake is my absolute favorite! I'm very particular about icing too (I'm not really a fan of all the icing that boutique cupcake places put on their cupcakes...it's too much for me. I end up shaving about half of it off and then eating it like a normal cupcake instead.) I always use Pillsbury Funfetti mix with Betty Crocker Whipped Fluffy White frosting:

Don't get the vanilla kind, it's too thick. This "Fluffy White" is the BEST to use in my opinion. You can dye it and the consistency doesn't change. I've used this to pipe numbers onto cupcakes too and it works great for that. It doesn't really set (which is a plus in my mind) so you always get a fresh-tasting cupcake!

These are my favorite brownies for when you're making a lot/an entire pan/enough for a family. (I'll explain in a minute). They are gooey, which is a brownie trait I LOVE, and everyone can get the kinds of brownie they like: corner, middle, edge. I'm personally a middle girl, but my mom's a corner, and the edge is always a happy medium. I also don't frost brownies...ew. If you're going to serve them with anything, please make it vanilla ice cream!

Ghirardelli used to (maybe 2 years ago...but I'm going to look next time I go to the grocery store) make a box mix that had a recipe for 4 individual brownies in cups. I made them once with two girls while I was babysitting and then another time for my family and it was SO good. This recipe (if I can ever find it again) would be perfect for a date night or to control your portion, although I can't imagine it was good for you. Just like the picture above, it had a chocolate sauce that you put in the middle of the brownie so that you got molten cups instead of your typical brownie. They were very rich and decadent so you only ever wanted to eat one (with one BIG glass of milk!)

This box is my favorite for cinnamon muffins. I can eat these babies just about 24/7 they're so good! They're obviously the best when they come right out of the oven, but I also like them as a snack before I go to bed. They're not too heavy, and quite yummy! I don't usually make a cake with this mix because I'm not that good at dividing the batter in half so that the two layers are equal, so I stick with muffins!

Also as far as baking for breakfast, the Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls with the regular icing are delish too! Talk about being a middle girl, the middle cinnamon roll was always fought over in my house when we were little (and maybe now too...). A few years ago they came out with cinnamon twists which were also good too, but I haven't seen them in a long time!

I always used to be a loyal Nestle Break and Bake cookie kind of girl, but my mom isn't a huge fan of the amount of chocolate in those cookies, so we've converted. These Pillsbury ones are good and very easy to make. As you can tell, I don't really make stuff from scratch. Two of my great aunts make all their cookies/cakes/etc. from scratch and when they visit us, I get my "from scratch" quota filled. All the measuring and buying lots of ingredients that you only use once a year (corn syrup, chocolate chips, baking powder, and everything else will sit on our baking shelf for awhile.) is a little bit much for me.

I LOVE to bake and eat all kinds of sweets...the easy way! What are your favorites? Do you have any tried-and-true recipes that I can add to my collection (of saved online recipes that I'd like to try one day when I have a few minutes to spare...) of special ones? Please let me know!!

xxKatie