Little Bites O'Yum! - Easy Chocolate Mousse

I whipped these up to bring to a neighbor's BBQ recently and thought I would share the recipe with you!

2 boxes of Fillo mini shells (or you could sub yummy baked wanton wrappers)

3/4 cup softened cream cheese

1/2 cup marshmallow creme

1 large box of instant chocolate pudding

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1/2 cup skim milk

raspberries for garnish

With an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and marshmallow in a large bowl until smooth (if you stop here you will have a super yummy fruit dip!)

Add pudding and whipping cream to mixture and beat on medium speed until blended.

Add milk and continue beating until stiff peaks form (be careful not to over mix. It can be remedied with a splash of milk if you do.)

Pipe mousse into Fillo cups with an icing bag and frosting tip of your choice, or you can load a plastic baggy and snip the corner.

Garnish with raspberries and chill until served.

I filled 24 cups and had a bit of mousse left over. I just piped the remainder into champagne flutes, alternating with a layer of raspberries, and had enough for a dessert for two. Enjoy!

Time Wasters Wednesday - Making Vanilla and Lavender Sugars

Add a little unexpected flavor to your everyday recipes by substituting an infused sugar for a plain one! They are incredibly simple to make and extremely versatile. Vanilla sugar measures cup for cup in any recipe that calls for granulated sugar, and you can substitute 1/4 - 1/2 of the lavender sugar in place of the plain.

Lavender Sugar Recipe:

* 2 tbs. dried organic culinary lavender
* 2 cups ultrafine Baker's Sugar (regular sugar can be used, but I prefer Baker's sugar because it is great for dusting baked goods, sprinkling on fresh berries, and stirring into beverages. It is so fine that it almost melts instantly, which also makes it ideal for making smooth and creamy frostings/icings.)







Use a spice and nut grinder to reduce the lavender buds to a fine looking powder. (A mortar and pestle will work too)









In a mixing bowl, add lavender to the Baker's sugar.








Mix until evenly incorporated.








Pour into an air tight container and and let sit for at least 48hrs before using.


Vanilla Sugar recipe:

* 2-3 Vanilla Beans (Vanilla beans pack so much flavor, that you can reuse pods that were used in a different recipe. Just make sure they are dry.)
* Baker's Sugar to cover





Slice beans down the center, but do not scrape out. (No problem if you used the seeds for a different dish, the pods themselves are still highly concentrated with flavor.)

In an airtight container, pour the Baker's sugar over the beans until they are covered. Vanilla sugar needs a good 4-6 weeks to infuse before it is ready, (less if you use more beans). It also helps the infusion process if you give your sugar a shake every few days. Don't worry if seeds appear in your sugar, this will only make it more flavorful. The one really great thing about vanilla beans is that they will flavor your sugar for an insane amount of time. Just keep topping off your jar and you will have limitless amounts available when you need it!

Don't keep it to yourself! Why not share it with friends? When your sugar is ready, you can pour it into individual jars,(Ball makes some adorable 8oz jars that would work perfectly!), attach a little note, recipe, or custom label and give it as a gift. They would even make excellent inexpensive,(homemade) wedding favors!

Time Wasters Wednesday - A Glass and a Half Full

Am I alone on this, or did you find yourself needing to watch it a second time too?

Peddler's Podium - Have It Sweet

One of my most favorite food indulgences in life (outside of the cupcake), is a soft, ooeygooey, melt in your mouth, buttery, handmade caramel! Like cupcakes, caramels come in a tempting array of flavors, most of which I will devour without hesitation (Except those black licorice flavored ones!). However, nothing quite tops a well made salt caramel, or a Fleur De Sel caramel as the French refer to it.

I remember having my first one ever. It was at Marshal Fields of all places. I must have been like 15. Even at that tender age I knew that I was eating something special. It was dipped in chocolate and had a stripe of gray salt sprinkled across the top. Mmm... I have been on the lookout for those little bites of yum ever since! Just so happens that I stumble upon a shop on Etsy that sells some! Let me tell you that these have just been added to my MUST TRY list, along with their Mayan Chocolate and English Tea Time flavors! Wouldn't this just make the perfect Mother's Day gift? (hint, hint /wink)


I found these delectable yummies in a shop called Have it Sweet, and it is run by the Eco-conscious duo Vincent and Bethany of Glendale, California. Sweet confections may be the base of their business, but it seems to be that they put just as much time and effort into making sure they are running an eco responsible business as well! Check out their profile here to read about all the great ways this company takes strides to lessen their impact on the environment and the cause your purchases help support. Gives new meaning to guilt free snacking!

Peddler's Podium - Purpose Design

Always a sucker for delectable packaging, my heart once again skipped a beat when I stumbled upon the spice kits offered at Purpose Design. I have always thought that the color and textures of spices were naturally beautiful and am so excited to see them showcased in such a perfect way! The designer behind these creative kits is Julie, and her take on your basic kitchen spice is nothing less then an art form. From test tubes to tins, she makes spicing your food not only convenient, but surely inspiring! With kits spanning many different flavor families including customized kits, I am positive you will find a collection to suit even the pickiest of taste buds. A fan of Chai Tea? You can find tea kits, salt blends, and a smattering of homeware goodies in Julie's shop too. Wouldn't one these kits make the perfect gift? With all the upcoming summer celebrations, (weddings, graduations, housewarmings, etc.) you could guarantee your gift to be something unique, stylish, and handmade(my personal favorite)!

Blueberries anyone?

Nothing like a great breakfast, (or in today's case, brunch), to get you started off on the right foot. My children absolutely adore pancakes and since my husband is the worlds best father, he has made it a tradition to make pancakes at least one weekend morning each and every week. How sweet is he? And to top that off, this morning, he not only let me sleep in to the luxurious hour of 10, but he also served me my personal favorite. A stack of blueberry cakes smothered in blueberry syrup, with a glass of V8's Pomegranate Blueberry juice. Yum, Yum, Yum!

Boiling eggs . . . easy, No?

So yesterday was "graduation day" for my husband and I from the CPEO class that we have been taking once a week for the last 7 weeks at my son's school. It was a class offered by Minneapolis Public Schools and designed to "Connect Parents to Educational Opportunities" for their children. All in all my husband and I felt that the class was good, though as it almost always goes, those parent's who could have truly benefited from the information weren't there.
We didn't really learn much that was new, but it kept up our motivation to continue to be highly involved in the education of our children and to help prepare them for college. And I must say, it is quite heartwarming to hear your 4 year old shout out "I'm going to college!" in an auditorium full of parents just at the break in the speaker's speech :) So with it being our last class, we were asked to participate in a potluck. If you know me at all, then you know exactly what I brought. Deviled eggs.

Deviled eggs were something that was always made for holidays and special occasions in my home growing up, and they were one of those foods that everyone looked forward to. (They rank right up there with turkey and stuffing.) I am not exactly sure when the tradition began, but I happily keep it going :)

Now when it comes down to making these "little bites of yum", (pretty much what I call anything yummy that can be devoured in a bite or two), there are TONS of different ways. I will generally enjoy almost any, except those made with sugar. Yuck! (sorry Great Grandma-in law) But now what I find is a must in any good deviled egg recipe, is properly boiled eggs.


I was taught to boil eggs by just putting as many as you need into boiling water and guesstimating the cook time. But I couldn't help noticing that all of the yoke centers always came out looking greenish gray on the outside and not bright sunny yellow like the ones I saw in magazines, cookbooks, etc. So that sent me on a quest to find an answer. What I found, is that my (and my Mom's, and whoever taught her) method for egg boiling was causing the unfavorable discoloration in our yolks. So yesterday I tried a new method and sure enough, my yolks were perfect! Not only was there no discoloration, but I found the yolks to be more creamy and a dream to pipe through my Wilton's icing tips. So what was the method? I got my instructions from the egg experts at www.IncredibleEdibleEgg.org .

To get started, put as many eggs as you want or can fit in a single layer on the bottom of a pan or pot. Put the pan in the sink. Run water into the pan until the water is 1 inch over the eggs. Put the pan on a burner. Turn it to medium-high heat.

Let the water come to a boil. Put the lid on the pan when the water is boiling. Move the pan onto a cold burner. Set the timer for 15 minutes for Large-sized eggs (or for 12 minutes for Medium-sized eggs or for 18 minutes for Extra Large-sized eggs).

Put the pan in the sink when the time is over. Run cold water into the pan until the eggs are cool. Put the eggs into the refrigerator if you're going to use them later or peel them if you're going to use them right away. Be sure to use all the cooked eggs up before a week is over.

Here's a couple helpful hints:

When I know I am going to be needing to boil up a bunch of eggs, I buy my eggs in advance and let them sit in the fridge for a week (but no longer then 10 days) before I cook them. The reason for this is that I have found it much easier to peel aged eggs then ones fresh from the market. If you want nice centered yolks, you will not want to use eggs older then 10 days, otherwise the whites will thin out too much and cause the yolk to move around. If you find yourself not able to use older eggs, you can always use this nifty egg peeling method :)


Don't have an egg carrier and worried about your eggs slipping around during transport? Just put a layer of matchstick carrots on the bottom of a baking dish and place the eggs on top. They add great color and help your eggs to stay put!