Last Minute Easter Ideas

For some reason Easter seemed to sneak up on me this year. For those of you that were as unprepared as I was, here are some great last minute ideas. By this time, the stores seem to be all picked over. I picked up some everyday items that you can use to create Easter gifts!

First, I made some bunny munch. Thank you to Bloom Designs Online for the inspiration.

I mixed every day snack items and some bunny marshmallows together to make the bunny munch.

Package the bunny munch in treat bags and tie with ribbons. I found these cute tins from Target for only $1. You can find festive ribbon and treat bags at Michaels or your favorite craft store.

I also wanted to make an Easter basket. Why spend money on an Easter basket when you can make it yourself? I made this Easter basket with just a grocery paper bag! Go to Ellinee blog to find out how to make the basket. I'm not even going to attempt to explain how I made it. It was slightly complicated and took a couple hours, but it was fun! I then stuffed the basket with some bunny munch. I also made some carrots by stuffing piping bags with gold fish and tying with green ribbons.

S'moretini

 

Happy Thirsty Thursday! I present to you the drink of the week...a S'moretini!! If you are looking for a delicious and unique dessert drink here it is! Enjoy!

Referral Source: How Sweet It Is

Makes One Martini

Ingredients:

• 1-1/2 ounces Smirnoff marshmallow "fluffed" vodka (You can also use vanilla flavored vodka if you have that on hand instead)
• 2 ounces Godiva chocolate liqueur
• 1/2 ounce Bailey’s Irish Cream liqueur
• 1-1/2 ounces milk
• chocolate syrup
• graham crackers
• mini marshmallows
• skewers
• blow torch (or just some other way to toast the marshmallows...i just like an excuse to use a blow torch)

Recipe:

• Place graham crackers in a sealed plastic bag. Crush graham crackers into crumbs using your hands or a rolling pin. Place crushed graham crackers on a plate.
• On a separate plate pour a thin layer of chocolate syrup.
• Dip a martini glass first in the plate with chocolate syrup and then in the plate with the crushed graham crackers. This will make the rim. 
• On the bottom of the martini glass pour some chocolate syrup. 
•  Take a skewer and place three mini marshmallows on the end. Toast the marshmallows using a blow torch. Set aside. 
• Place ice, vodka, chocolate liqueur, baileys, and milk in a cocktail shaker. Shake and pour in the martini glass. Add marshmallow skewer on side of drink.

Floating Island

A floating island (ile flonttae) is a french dessert of meringue floating on creme anglaise (a custard sauce that is the basis for a lot of french desserts). I saw this recipe on The Chew today (my new favorite show!!). It looked too good to pass up and I already had all the ingredients! You can see the original recipe here. I did alter the recipe slightly by baking the meringue in the oven instead of poaching it. I tried poaching it but I didn't like the texture of the egg. The creme anglaise makes the dish. Its licking the plate good.

Meringue Ingredients:

• 6 egg whites (room temperature)
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
• zest of 1 orange
• 2 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Creme Anglais Ingredients:

• 1 cup light cream
• 1/2 cup fat free milk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup sugar

Meringue Recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Separate 6 egg whites. Set aside 4 egg yolks for the creme anglais.
   
3. Whisk the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt with a mixer on medium speed until froathy.
4. Mix cornstarch and sugar together. Place half this sugar mixture in the egg whites. Whisk egg whites and sugar for 3 minutes. 
5. Place mixer on highest setting and add the rest of the cornstarch and sugar mixture. Mix until you see stiff and shiny peaks. 
6. Add the orange zest and vanilla to the batter and whisk until combined.
7. Fold chocolate chips with a plastic spatula into the batter.
8. Drop two tablespoons at a time on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. 
9. Bake for about 20 minutes. 

 Creme Anglais Recipe:

1. Heat cream, milk, and vanilla in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and remove from heat. 
2. Whisk egg yolks and sugar together until it turns a pale yellow color.
3. Add a third of the cream mixture to the egg yolk/sugar mixture. Whisk together. This will temper the mixture to ensure that the eggs do not cook when it is mixed with the hot cream. 
4. Take the egg yolk mixture and pour back in the saucepan with the remaining cream. Return saucepan to the heat. 
5. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened.
6. Remove saucepan from heat and let cool.

To serve, place creme anglais on the bottom of a bowl and float meringue on top. Enjoy this dessert with your favorite coffee, tea, or dessert wine.

Banana Bread with Cinammon Sugar Butter

Whenever I have overly ripe bananas, I always make this banana bread. I love this recipe because it substitutes apple sauce for sugar which makes it much healthier. I decided to have something extra special with it by making cinammon sugar butter this time. I guess this defeats the purpose of making a healthy banana bread but whatever! It tasted delicious. Hope you enjoy!

Banana Bread Recipe
Recipe Source: Skinny Taste
Makes 1 loaf in a 8x5 inch loaf pan


Ingredients:

• 5 ripe bananas (the more ripe the better!)
• 1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 1-1/4 cup of all purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp butter, softened 
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 2 egg whites
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• baking spray

Recipe:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease pan with baking spray.
• Whisk together dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, and salt).
• In a seperate bowl, cream together butter and sugar using an electric mixture.
• Add eggs, banana, apple sauce, and vanilla to the butter. Beat at medium speed until mixture is thick. 
• Add dry ingredients to the banana mixture. Mix at low speed until combined.
• Pour mixture into loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes.
• Let cool on a baking rack for 20 minutes before serving.

Cinammon Sugar Recipe
Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 4 tsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Recipe:

• Beat three ingredients together with an electric mixture. Serve with banana bread, toast, bagels, etc. Its yummy!

Foodie PenPals Guest Post

For the month of March my foodie penpal was Seema. Since she doesn't have a blog of her own, she was nice enough to write a guest post for me. See below for the goodies I sent Seema! Also, check out her ginger peach tea syrup recipe. I'll definitely be trying that soon!

Take care,

Lauren

 Hi Girls Gone Food Readers!

I’m Seema and I’ve been an avid healthy living blog reader for the past two years. One of my friends sent me a link to a cupcake recipe off of a blog and I’ve been hooked ever since! Beyond writing comments on blogs, I didn’t see too many opportunities for blog readers to join in on fun events in the blogging community until I chanced upon Foodie Pen Pals (FPP) one day. This grand (and now trans-Atlantic!) food exchange was started by Lindsay over at The Lean Green Bean and I was lucky enough to get my first ever FPP box of goodies from Lauren.

My box was overflowing with delicious snacks! Lauren managed to incorporate a wide variety of items I’d never tried before along with some familiar favorites. 

The first item I pulled out was the Plush Puffs gourmet marshmallows. Marshmallows are delicious in general, but these were low fat and s’mores flavored! I promptly scarfed down a few of these cocoa dusted, chocolate chip and graham cracker studded gems. Later at night, my sister and I roasted a few and ate them between some pieces of chocolate and graham crackers. I don’t know what to call the final products other than s’mores crack haha…Lauren, I think you might have sparked an addiction :-)

 

The next two items went really well together. I had mentioned to Lauren over e-mail that peaches were my favorite fruit and I was delighted to see TWO peach items. I enjoyed a mug of ginger peach tea along with a generous helping of California peach preserves on toast.

 The tea had great flavor and I used it again the next day to top pancakes. I started using fruit flavored teas in different recipes a few years ago and here’s a fun way to add flavor really easily to pancakes, ice cream, over a fruit tart, etc.

Ginger Peach Tea syrup

Ingredients: (for 1 serving)

1/2 tsp ginger peach tea

1 clove mashed with a mortar and pestle

1/2 cup water

4 slices of frozen peaches

1 tsp of peach preserves

-       Add the tea and the mashed clove to the water and bring to a boil

-       After boiling for about 5 minutes, strain the tea and return the liquid to the pot

-       Add the frozen peaches and peach preserves

-       Stir over medium heat until you reach your desired consistency (I don’t like mine too thick)

I still use maple syrup on my pancakes but from time to time, I like to make something different. I topped the pancakes with chopped pieces of crystallized ginger, banana slices, chia seeds, the peaches from the syrup, and some syrup.

The other items were equally awesome and I’ve been packing them as snacks in my lunches. She sent: Zico coconut water (LOVE this! It’s so refreshing – reminds me of my yearly visits to India), double chocolate dipped peanuts, coconut macaroons, fun size packs of fruit snacks and almonds, dried banana slices, and wasabi coated edamame (those last ones…wow! They definitely packed a flavor punch – a must try if you’ve never had them and are familiar with wasabi).

Thank you so much Lauren for a great first FPP package!

Sincerely,

Seema

Foodie Penpals

I'm super excited to write this post and tell you all about Foodie Penpals. This was my first month participating and I absolutely loved it. Foodie Penpals is organized by Lindsay at The Lean Green Bean. Every month, Lindsay sends you the name of someone and you send them a package of food. In return, another person sends you a package as well. Not only is it a great way to connect with other food bloggers and readers, but you also get to try new and different foods from all over the country. To sign up or find more out about the program, click here.

For the month of March, Emily from Ultra Epicure sent me a package. I was so excited when it arrived! Emily sent me some goods from the farmers market and a couple of her favorites from Trader Joes. I was blown away by how delicious everything tasted!!

I'll start off with my favorite item, the cinnamon pistachio biscotti bites. I'm a little embarrassed to say that it only took me a couple days to finish them. They were absolutely amazing!!

Emily named these the best biscottis I'd ever eat and she was right!! These cinnamon cookies were sweet and crunchy with soft pistachios baked inside and they were crusted with sugar. I am completely going to miss these!

Next, Emily sent me almond-cumin shortbread. The buttery cookies were fantastic. They were buttery and savory with a hint of sweetness to them. You could definitely taste the cumin which was a bit unexpected but totally delicious!! Emily suggested having them with chocolate and I agree!! YUM!

Next came the chocolate truffles. Each truffle was a different flavor: rum raisin, caramel, mocha, rum, kirsh and cognac. My favorite ones were crusted in sugar (of course). They were made by a french man (how fancy!!) and were completely amazing!!

 Finally Emily sent me some limp balm and some tea. She must be able to read my mind because I could live off of these two things alone!

The lip balm is made with cocoa butter, shea butter, beeswax, honey and stevia.

And the tea is ginger pear white tea from Trader Joes. I was happily surprised to see this tea as I LOVE this flavor.  I've been drinking it iced and its delicious!

I can't thank Emily enough for the effort she put into my package. I loved each and every item! It was such a great experience and I already can't wait until next month!!

Corona Ritas

It seems like everyone is going on vacation to someplace tropical and warm. While I don't have any vacation plans in the near future, I had a way to fix this problem.... Margaritas!! Margaritas always make me feel like its summer and I'm on vacation.

I made corona ritas for the first time this week and they are SUPER delicious! A corona rita is simply a margarita with a Corona beer tipped upside down in the glass. As you drink the margarita, the Corona comes out of the bottle. The two drinks taste amazing together because the corona cuts the sourness in the margarita. It is fabulous! If you want to see another version of this drink check out my cherry corona rita here.

Ingredients:

• Corona in 7 oz bottles (The smaller bottle fits better in the margarita glass.)
• Sweet and Sour Mix (I prefer to use this as opposed to a sweet sugary margarita mix because the sourness goes well with the Corona.)
• Tequila (I used Jose Cuervo Silver, but if you like a stronger tequila taste use Jose Cuervo Gold.)
• Optional: Blue Curacao to add color 
• Ice

Recipe:

In a blender add 3 oz tequila, 9 oz sweet and sour mix, and 2 cups of ice. Blend until smooth. Splash some  blue curacao on the bottom of a margarita glass, and top with the frozen margarita mixture from the blender.Turn a corona bottle upside down into the margarita and drink away! This recipe will make one big margarita.