My Sweet and Miraculous December

Happy Holidays Everyone. Let me start with the Sweet part of my December.  As an Allrecipes Allstar, December was a month for our World’s Biggest Cookie Swap board" on Pinterest and a month for Cookies. Yum! My "World’s Biggest Cookie Swap board" has a variety of cookies to try. Please check it out  http://pinterest.com/janh1012/worlds-biggest-cookie-swap/  sponsored by Allrecipes.

Thanks to our sponsors Nestlé and Ladies Home Journal. They had lots of good tips and recipes to help me make my cookies and sweets for this Holiday season.

White Chip Orange Cookies    These cookies were amazing and my favorite! Great combination with just the right amount of butter, white chocolate and orange.  Everyone that tried them loved them and asked me for the recipe.

 Dark Chocolate Cherry Fudge   This is an easy recipe for some tasty fudge. I loved the Cherries in it. I also added a few marshmallows to the top for decoration and for the kids.

 Jumbo Dark Chocolate Cookies  These were like an explosion of Chocolatey goodness. Easy to make, too.

Sweet and Salty Toll House Cookies  If you are craving Sweet and Salty this the perfect cookie for you. The flavors of Chocolate with the salty pretzels and chips work real good in this cookie.



         Butterscotch Haystacks  

Crunchy and sweet stacks made with peanut butter, marshmallows and chowmein noodles. Easy to put together.

Now the miraculous part of my story that I just had to share with you. As some of you know that I was adopted and I have always wanted to know about my birth family. Well, I found my older sister in October, 2012. We were separated by adoption 47 years ago when I was 2 1/2 years old. Well my sister (Lillie) came for a visit for a whole week, a few weeks ago. We spent that time getting to know each other and having some girl time. We went to the beach a few times, shopping, cooked some good food and we had some long talks.  As we got to know each other better we found out how much we have in common and we developed a very special bond. It was a time that I will always treasure. It was hard to let her get on that plane to go home. It was a miracle that we found eachother and it made my Holidays even sweeter.

  

My sister Lillie

 I hope you are enjoying the holidays and  that you will try a few of the cookies I have mentioned. They will make your holidays a bit sweeter. Happy New Year!



 Disclaimer

I am an Allrecipes Allstar Brand Ambassador (a voluntary position) and I’m not compensated for my work with Allrecipes.com.

Products received from advertiser are only used for experienced-based reviews on My Sweet-n-Spicy Journey. The reviews, content and opinions expressed in this blog are purely the sole opinions of Janet Henderson-My Sweet-n-Spicy Journey



My Mini Celebration

Brrr it is a cold November morning for Florida as I sit here thinking about the festivities to come. I just finished planning my Thanksgiving Menu and I am real excited about it. Most of all, I am excited to have my family all together for the Holiday. Should be fun. Now that my menu is finalized it's time for my "Mini Celebration" My mini Celebration is where I like to test some of the recipes I plan to make for the big dinner and where I make notes of any changes that needs to be made before the Big Dinner.

Being part of the Allstar Ambassador program for Allrecipes and we get a monthly assignment and this month we have partnered with Cambell's Kitchen. I have used a lot of Campbell's recipes in the past so this is great for me. I thought I would include some of the recipes from my assignment in my "Mini Celebration". 

Let's start with Dessert! Yum!



These were amazing! Light and creamy mousse with a puff pastry wrap. My daughter's birthday is on Thanksgiving this year and she was so thrilled with these that she has requested these for her birthday/ Thanksgiving dessert. I might make these and send these home in gift containers for all my guests and of course my daughter. They look great and taste even better. I like these so much that I included the recipe or you can click on the link in the title and it will bring you to the recipe at Allrecipes.com

Praline Pumpkin Cornucoppias

Serves: 6

Prep Time: 25 Minutes

Cook Time: 15 Minutes

Ready In: 1 Hour 35 minutes

Ingredients

• Vegetable cooking spray
• 6 sugar ice cream cones
• All-purpose flour
• 1/2 (17.3 ounce) package Pepperidge Farm® Puff Pastry Sheets, thawed
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 (3.4 ounce) package vanilla instant pudding and pie filling mix
• 3/4 cup canned pumpkin
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup caramel topping, warmed
• 1/2 cup toasted chopped pecans                            

Directions

1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Wrap each cone tightly in aluminum foil, covering it completely and tucking any excess foil into the cone cavity. Spray the foil cones with the cooking spray.

3. Sprinkle the flour on the work surface. Unfold the pastry sheet on the work surface. Cut the pastry sheet along the fold marks to form 3 rectangles. Cut each rectangle lengthwise into 4 strips, making 12 strips in all.

4. Press the ends of 2 pastry strips together. Starting at the pointed end of the cone, wind the pastry strip around 1 cone, slightly overlapping edges of pastry (strip will not reach the bottom of the cone). Spray the pastry cone with the cooking spray and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon sugar. Place the pastry cone on its side, with the end of the strip facing down, onto a baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining pastry strips.

5. Bake for 15 minutes or until the pastries are golden brown. Let the pastries cool completely on the baking sheet on a wire rack. Carefully remove the foil cones from the baked pastry.

6. Beat the milk, pudding mix, pumpkin and cinnamon in a medium bowl with a whisk until the mixture is thickened.

7. Beat the heavy cream in a medium bowl with an electric mixer on high speed until soft peaks form. Fold the whipped cream into the pumpkin mixture. Spoon or pipe the mixture into the pastry cones.

8. Stir the caramel topping and pecans in a small bowl. Place the pastries onto serving plates and drizzle with the caramel mixture.





 "Moist and Savory Stuffing"

This recipe is very basic and good in a pinch but I like a little more flavor so I added some Italian sausage, butter and mushrooms to my stuffing then I put it in the oven to crisp up on top. Much better.

Quick and Flavorful Vegetables

I made these vegetables and they turned out really good. My husband doesn't usually like cooked carrots but he seemed to enjoy these as they were all gone by the time we finished eating. Which is usually a good sign.

 

Campbell's Green Bean Casserole

This is a classic. We make this every year and this is my husbands favorite. I bought some fresh green beans from Trader Joes and it turned out really good. Next time I am adding some bacon on top with the onions. Everything is better with bacon.

Swanson Ultra Creamy Mashed Potatoes

They were easy and turned out very favorful and creamy. Next time I will add a bit of Roasted Garlic to the recipe.

This months assignment was fun and my husband and I enjoyed eating all the good dishes. I hope you will try some of these recipes and let me know how you like them.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

 Disclaimer

I am an Allrecipes Allstar Brand Ambassador (a voluntary position) and I’m not compensated for my work with Allrecipes.com.

Products received from advertiser are only used for experienced-based reviews on My Sweet-n-Spicy Journey. The reviews, content and opinions expressed in this blog are purely the sole opinions of Janet Henderson-My Sweet-n-Spicy Journey.



Preparing for Halloween

October is one of my favorite months. I love the cooler temperatures, the leaves changing colors and most of all I love Halloween. This is the time of year that I love to decorate, bake and have a party or two. So when I received my October activities for Allstars Ambassador Program, and Karo was one of our brand sponsors for this month and I thought "Perfect"... this should be fun! 



Karo's Carmel Corn Treat Bags

  

One of the activities was to have a little party serving Karo products,   So I had a small party to help us all get in the mood for Halloween and I invited some family and a few friends. I made  Karo's Classic Caramel Corn Treat Bags which I put into a big bowl so everyone could create their own mix. I put Sour Gummy Worms, M & M's, roasted nuts and Candy Corn in little dishes on the side so everyone could customize their own mix.  It was very easy to make and it was so good that I almost had to make another batch, very addicting. 



Creepy Mini Pizzas 



I also made Creepy Mini Pizza's for the party and that used  Fleishmans Yeast (a brand affiliate of Karo) These were a big hit! So much so that I ran out of dough and had have a friend get some "other brand" of premade crusts at the store. Once everyone tried their Pizzas I was told that the crusts I made in this recipe were a whole lot better. I put out the crusts and then I put out dishes with all kinds of toppings and some different sauces and let everyone create their own pizzas. It was fun and everyone enjoyed them a lot. This picture is one of the homemade pizza's before it went into the oven. I never got a picture of the finished pizza as it was eaten too fast. A good sign! ( I have to get quicker with the camera)

 

Harvest Pumpkin Cupcakes

  I saw these Harvest Pumpkin Cupcakes on Allrecipes.com and I had to make them.  This used Argo Corn Starch and baking powder (also a brand affiliate of Karo).They were rich and spicy pumpkin cupcakes with a creamy orange cream cheese frosting. I decided that the frosting should be orange so I added some orange icing gel. They turned out amazing. The cupcakes had a bit of spice and were moist and the frosting had just a touch of orange flavor to where the flavors blended perfectly. Nobody could resist these.



Friends and Family



Here is one of the pumkins the kids were carving after we all ate.



Grandson, Brandon

These were just some of the things that I made for my family and friends. I hope you will give some of these recipes a try and that  you will enjoy them as much as we did. Happy Halloween.



 

 Disclaimer

I am an Allrecipes Allstar Brand Ambassador (a voluntary position) and I’m not compensated for my work with Allrecipes.com.

Products received from advertiser are only used for experienced-based reviews on My Sweet-n-Spicy Journey. The reviews, content and opinions expressed in this blog are purely the sole opinions of Janet Henderson-My Sweet-n-Spicy Journey