Jewelry Giveaway!

It's my very first giveaway and I'm very excited!

The lovely people at Sheyna Jewelry would like to give one of you this beautiful pair of earrings:

This is a fabulous site with tons of great pieces (I'm especially partial to the "LOVE" necklace).

Another great thing?  You can even design your own custom pieces!!  It's a pretty amazing site :)

If you'd like to enter to win the carnelian drop earrings, here's what to do:

1)  Follow my blog

2)  Like Sheyna Jewelry on facebook

3)  Post a comment here telling me your favorite piece :)

Good luck!  The winner will be picked randomly and announced 11/25!  The winner has been announced!

(ps, this giveaway is International!!  So US and non-US readers can both enter!)

Mulled Wine

(photo by the lovely OnSite Photograhy)

What do you do with all the extra wine from a wedding?  When I visited Soren and Bai in Frieburg, Germany last year, one of my favorite things was the Christmas market.  And in the Christmas market, they had mulled wine.  It was so tasty!

Well, after the wedding, John and I had a ton of leftover wine.  I'm a big white wine drinker, but the red wine gets emptied quite a bit slower.  So, I decided to see if I could make some mulled wine myself.  With a package of mulling spices, it couldn't be easier!

I recommend using less spice mix than the package directions.  It calls for a 2 bottles of wine to one package of spices ratio.  I used more like 3 bottles to one package.  It tasted a lot like my memory of the "glow wine" at the Christmas market.  I can't wait to use some of the spices in hot apple cider!

Does anyone else have a mulling method? :)

Cheesecake Bites

Resisting the urge to make this a blog devoted to our new puppy, I figure I'll go with something equally loveable: dessert!  The same night we had our pizza crescent rolls, our friend Lindsay brought some cheesecake over for dessert.  It was yummy, but there were four pieces left (I had two pieces... for shame).  Fortunately, we had a party to go to the next night, so I made cheesecake bites out of the leftovers!  It's really simple and the steps are a lot like the frozen bananas I made for my bachelorette party.

First, take the chilled cheesecake and make it into balls.  Crust can be included or not- I liked the texture it added.  Place on a metal pan lined with parchment paper (for easy clean up!)

Then, put the tray into the freezer for at least two hours- however long it takes for your freezer to make the balls firm.  Melt some chocolate chips (or chunks) in the microwave- but be careful not to let it burn!  I filled our kitchen with the smell of burnt chocolate... ugh.

These chocolate chunks were part of a wedding gift- thanks!!  They were delicious :)

Once the chocolate is melted, pull the tray out of the freezer and quickly roll the balls in the chocolate to get them covered.  This was messy and I'm not sure that there's a neat way to do it, but the end result was delish!  I put my cheesecake bites in the fridge to firm the chocolate until we left for the party.

They were so good and super easy to make!  Not only did John and I avoid eating the rest of the cheesecake ourselves, but we got to share a tasty treat with friends :)

Puppy Love

Meet the newest member of our little family: Inga!

She's a little girl who weighs about 5 pounds.  She is a sheltie mix...?  We're not really sure, but we do know that she sure is cute! 

Pizza Crescent Rolls

Long ago, when I visited the lovely Kim in D.C., she made chocolate crescent rolls by sprinkling chocolate chips in the Pillsbury strips and rolling them up.  They were delicious and oh-so-good with a bowl of fresh fruit and the idea got filed away into the way back of my mind.

When I was grocery shopping the other day, I was trying to think of new dinner ideas and the chocolate croissants came back to me.  I decided to try a savory, dinner version: pizza crescent rolls!

You will need:
1 package of crescent rolls
mozzarella cheese
and pizza toppings- we chose mushrooms and pre-sliced pepperoni

Pre-heat the oven according to the crescent roll instructions (ours was 375 degrees) and arrange the dough on an ungreased baking pan

Add a layer of cheese

Next, add the other toppings.  If you're using any veggies, you should pre-cook them so they're tender.  Concentrate the toppings at the widest part of the triangle of dough.  You can add an extra layer of cheese if you want (we did!).

Then, roll the dough starting at the wide part and ending at the tip.

We even topped ours with a little bit of cheese!  Finally, pop the rolls in the oven for the instructed time or until they are golden brown.

We left out the marinara thinking it might make the crescent rolls soggy.  The rolls were great without it, but if you really miss the sauce, a warm dish full would be a great dip for these rolls.  Yummy!

Stay tuned this week- I'll be posting a super easy delicious dessert AND some pictures of our brand new puppy!  She's coming to live with us tomorrow! :)

Bell Pepper Egg Rings

I really enjoy having breakfast for dinner.  Honestly, I'll take any excuse to eat bacon.  And recently, I made breakfast for dinner with bacon (of course), eggs, and some pepper rings.

I buttered up our griddle and used the pepper rings like egg fry rings!  They were a little bit messy at first (maybe I should have waited for the griddle to get hotter), but they cleaned up pretty nice!

I like my eggs cooked through- most would say over cooked- so I broke my yolks.  John likes his cooked like a normal person, so I did his over easy.  They were delicious.  The peppers added a great flavor to the traditional eggs and bacon.

Sweet and Salty Pumpkin Seeds

This is a recipe from Real Simple and it's true to the magazine's name.  After carving our pumpkins, I wanted to be sure and use some of the seeds for a tasty snack.  We had more than the recipe called for, so here are my ingredients:

• 3 cups of pumpkin seeds
• 3 tablespoons of melted butter
• 3 tablespoons of sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• a heaping 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon

First, clean the seeds in a bowl of water, rubbing them between your hands.  If you have some stubbornly slimy seeds, pop them in a colander after and run water over them

The pumpkin seeds float and the goopy stuff sinks to the bottom!

Pat them dry on a paper or dish towel and spread them out on a baking sheet.  The Real Simple recipe calls for a rimmed baking pan, but we didn't have one large enough.  I risked it on a rimless one and it turned out fine; you just have to be a little more careful :)

All clean!

Bake the seeds at 300 degrees until they are completely dry (after about 50 minutes mine were already toasty), then pull them out and toss them in the butter, sugar, salt, and cinnamon.

Turn the oven temp up to 350 and toast the seeds until they're golden brown.  Since mine were already pretty well toasted in the first round of heating, I put them in for just around 8 minutes.

Yum!  So good for snacking