Friday Favorites for the Holidays (4th Edition)

Hello hello, and welcome to my last Friday Favorites before Christmas! And yes, I realize it's Wednesday, not Friday... I wrote this post last night and since it was all ready to go, I thought I'd share it sooner than later in case you want to use any of the ideas I have for you here.

Since Christmas is only a few days away at this point, I was debating what to include in this edition since hopefully you've got most of your homemade treats made and all your gifts purchased and wrapped... What could be left? Hmmm.

Maybe you need a few ideas for simple, tasty appetizers? How about an easy item to include in your Christmas morning breakfast or brunch? I've gathered a few such ideas for you and have shared them below. Oh, and at the very end of this post I have shared a few holiday cocktails that look miiiighty tasty so be sure to read all the way to the bottom. ;)

Appetizer Ideas!

Beer Cheese Dip from TidyMom

(photo source)

I actually shared this recipe a while back in an older edition of my Friday Favorites. I still haven't made it but I still want to! It only requires four simple ingredients: cream cheese, beer, shredded cheddar cheese, and ranch dressing mix. It's not really on the healthy side but it sure does look delicious!!

Mini Apps on a Stick from Pillsbury

(photo source)

These are adorable! Pillsbury has tons of great ideas for different flavor combinations to make with these "apps on a stick" - smoked salmon with dill, caprese, turkey club, and dried fig and mascarpone to name a few. And each one contains only four ingredients!

Crescent Wrapped Brie

(photo source)

This is definitely one of my all-time favorite appetizer recipes. Love this!

Roasted Asparagus Wrapped in Prosciutto

(photo source)

Another favorite appetizer of mine! Simple and soooo yummy.

Breakfast/Brunch Ideas!

Well, for a little shameless self promotion, I suggest you check out my very own Barbershop Recipe Index and scroll to the breads/muffins/scones section. You may find a few tasty ideas there. ;) Another non-bread idea would be my overnight egg casserole. Judging by the name, you can probably tell that this recipe is able to be made ahead the night before. Anything that means less fuss and time on Christmas morning is always a plus!

I came upon this fabulous looking recipe for banana and candied walnut muffins from Kitchen Confidante on Pinterest this week. YUM!

(photo source)

Or maybe a baked oatmeal? This recipe from Our Best Bites looks awesome!

(photo source)

It calls for very simple ingredients that you'll likely already have on hand. Minimizing last minute trips to the grocery store means a lot this time of year!

Now, if you're looking for a more decadent brunch recipe, maybe you could try this baked french toast casserole with maple syrup from Paula Deen. This gets an average of 5 stars after close to 2000 ratings online - crazy! Something tells me this recipe is tasty. ;)

(photo source)

And lastly...

Holiday Beverage Ideas!

I recently re-discovered that I actually like eggnog, so I was looking up eggnog "adult" beverage recipes. I came across this yummy looking eggnog martini and really want to try it! I actually have the liqueurs on hand that it calls for (vanilla vodka and amaretto) so I am pretty sure I have no excuse not to make this!

(photo source)

Or how about this spiked apple pie? It's apple juice or apple cider with rum and cinnamon. Sounds deelicious to me! And it's served warm too. Perfect for the winter!

(photo source)

If you're a fan of the bubbly, this cocktail looks delightful! It's simply cranberries and champagne.

(photo source)

And finally, it wouldn't be the holiday season in my book without a peppermint-flavored cocktail. This peppermint patty cocktail looks perfect! It's milk, hot chocolate mix, peppermint schnapps, and whipped cream. Helloooo YUM!

(photo source)

And on a completely different note, my recipe for pretzel M & M cake mix cookies was featured on Boston.com's virtual cookie swap this week! Check out cookie #14 there and you may recognize the recipe. ;)

If you're celebrating Christmas, good luck with your final preparations these last few days! And if you're celebrating Hanukkah, Happy Hanukkah!

Friday Favorites for the Holidays (3rd Edition)

 Happy Friday! Love love love Fridays... Today is especially exciting because I am leaving work early to go home and BAKE! I was "hired" to make a couple desserts for a neighbor's dinner party, and although I did some of the baking/preparation last night, I have a bit more to do after work today. So I'm really looking forward to getting out of the office early and getting into my other "office," the kitchen. :)

(photo source)

And no, that's not my kitchen. :(  I would love all that natural light though!!

But before I do that, I must share some more fun and simple holiday treats and ideas! The countdown until Christmas is just over a week now...can you believe it?! I can't. If you're like me, you have a lot more to do. Hopefully you don't though! Maybe you're way ahead of the game. If so, good for you! No matter what stage you are in your holiday preparations though, chances are you could use a couple recipes that are super easy and quick. I'm all about efficiency, especially when I'm extra busy like I am during the holidays! Below are a couple easy sweet treats, followed by some gift wrapping ideas. Enjoy!

Rolo Pretzel Bites

These are AWESOME. I've made them before, and my cousin used to make them all the time (she was the one who gave me the idea originally!). Seriously. These are great. Simple, fast, and deeelicious.

(photo from Glorious Treats)

Homemade "Thin Mints"

I made these a couple years ago for the goodie bags I gave to my coworkers, and they were a huge hit. Love these! They're simply ritz crackers dipped in melted chocolate that's flavored with peppermint extract. If you need a last minute holiday treat to bring to a party or give as a gift, I highly recommend these!

(photo from Kraft Foods)

Chocolate Graham Toffee Treats

And I'm also going to put a plug in for a yummy goodie I made for coworkers last year, chocolate graham toffee treats. These involve a few more steps than the two treats mentioned above, but they are still very easy, let me tell you. And the combination of flavors in these? Divine. It's tough to eat only one of these!!

Recycled Gift Wrap

How fun is this? This is old wrapping paper or tissue paper, run through a paper shredder. This would be a great filler to use in a gift bag in place of traditional tissue paper. Or, you could use it to fill space in a gift box, as pictured below. Neat! Great way to reuse material... So save that leftover wrapping paper and put it to good use!

(photo from Martha Stewart)

(photo from Real Simple)

Lastly, if you have outdoor space, I love the decorations below in plant pots. Simple and really pretty! These could easily stay outside throughout the winter too, not only during the Christmas season.

(photo source)

Have a great weekend - last one 'til Christmas!

Friday Favorites for the Holidays (2nd Edition)

Hello hello! Is it really Friday already? Yessss. I think it is. This week actually flew by for me, and I hope it did for you too!!

For this week's Friday Favorites, I have a few more excellent ideas and/or goodies... Enjoy! :)

Reindeer Cookies

(photos from Home Seasons)

Are these not the cutest little cookies ever? Love them. And they're so simple too! They'd be a great little baking project for the kids.

And the holiday/winter season really isn't complete without edible snowmen, now is it? Check these out.

Nutter Butter Snowmen

(photo from Brown Eyed Baker)

Adorable, and yet again, easy!! :)

Homemade Snow Globes

(photo from Our Best Bites)

Talk about easy, fun, and creative. These are all that and more! The items needed are minimal - glass jars, figurines or fun little doo-dads to put inside, glitter, glue, and well, that's about it!

Using Cranberries for Decoration

(photo from Wedding Bells)

I think this is just so pretty! Simple decorations like this are often the best. There are some other great ideas for decorating with cranberries here too.

Finally, if you live in the Boston area, there's a great holiday market going on tomorrow, December 10th, in the South End. It's the SOWA Holiday Market.

(photo source)

There will be tons of vendors with crafts, jewelry, pottery, clothing, stationery, homemade goodies, etc. etc. etc.! I plan to go and hopefully get some creative Christmas gifts for people on my list. I'm quite behind on my shopping so I'm hoping to get a lot done here. :)

Have a great weekend!

Friday Favorites for the Holidays (1st Edition)

Hi friends!

It's been quite some time since I posted my Friday Favorites on the blog. In fact, it's been just over two months since I presented you with Friday Favorites. Whoops! I just felt like I needed a break from it for a bit. But, with the holiday season upon us, I thought it might be fun to bring you some ideas for holiday treats over the next few weeks!

What prompted me to bring you holiday editions of Friday Favorites was a blog post by the Cookin' Canuck that I saw today. This recipe for chocolate covered marshmallow pops needed to be shared with others! It just looks like such a fun, easy homemade goodie for the holidays - one that both kids and adults can enjoy eating and creating!

(photo from Cookin' Canuck)

And I love the three different ideas for flavors - candy cane, heath bar, and coconut. They'd all be great for the holiday season but the candy cane idea is especially festive! You could easily do others too - maybe colored sprinkles or chopped nuts?

Another great holiday recipe is this one for peppermint snickerdoodles that I saw a couple weeks ago on Taste and Tell. I saved it to one of my boards on Pinterest so that I wouldn't forget it!

(photo from Taste and Tell)

Don't those look sooo good? I've made variations on snickerdoodles before (maple, pumpkin) but I don't know if I would have thought to make peppermint ones!!! Brilliant! Be sure to head on over to Taste and Tell to check out the ingredient list too. There are only 5 items required to make these delicious little gems!

Finally, brought to you by the always creative Real Simple, here are two fun ideas for dispensing ribbon (if you are one of those people who loves ribbon for gift wrapping or crafts!!).

Use a paper towel holder:

Use a wire hanger:

I just love simple yet useful ideas like this, don't you?!?

Happy holiday season, all. :) I hope to have more fun, easy, festive ideas and recipes for you over the course of the next few weeks!

Friday Favorites, 9.30.11

TGIF to you! Did you know that during this past week, we had two very important "holidays"? Well, on Wednesday it was National Drink a Beer Day (which I did, don't worry!), and Thursday was National Coffee Day (yes, I had a cup in celebration!). Since two of my favorite types of beverages were honored this past week (don't worry; I enjoy each of them in moderation :)), I thought I'd share a few of my own Barbershop blog recipes that have featured or involved these two beverages.

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Kahlua Cream Cheese Frosting

You cannot go wrong with these cupcakes - I promise! The stout is what makes them great, I'm convinced. ;-)

Beer Onion Chive Cheese Bread

What a delicious savory bread! And it's super easy and quick to make.

Spent Grain Bread

Mike and I make this bread with the spent grains after we're done making our home-brewed beer. It's a hearty, tasty bread - and obviously a great way to not waste any grains!

Mocha Frosting

When searching through my blog, I realized I've only ever shared one recipe that used coffee as an ingredient! I've made other recipes with coffee in the past, but I guess I just haven't put them on the blog. This mocha frosting is amazing!! I made it for the darn good chocolate cupcakes I made for my grandmother's surprise 85th birthday party this past spring.

And I also wanted to share two recipes I recently found that involve coffee and beer (not together!!)... I haven't made these yet, but I hope to.

Homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte from The Pastry Affair

(photo from The Pastry Affair)

Doesn't that look amazing? The pumpkin spice latte is probably my favorite specialty drink from Starbucks, so I can't wait to try making my own at home! I haven't had one from "the 'buck," as I like to call it, yet this year. Gotta get on that! Or, I just need to make my own at home apparently. :)

Lastly, through Pinterest, I recently found this beer cheese dip that looks deeelicious. It's from a fun blog, The Tidy Mom.

(photo from The Tidy Mom).

Woohoo, there you have it - some tasty treats made with beer or coffee in honor of this week's past "holidays." Have a fabulous weekend!

Friday Favorites, 9.23.11, Welcome Fall!

Happy first day of fall!!!!!!!! At last, it's here. :)

Friday Favorites, 9.16.11

Happy Friday! TGIF! I need some new Friday-related greetings... Ideas? Thanks! :)

It was a quiet week for me in terms of baking. I did have time to bake but I chose to use my time for other things (e.g., wedding planning research!). But don't you worry. I won't let the wedding consume my life over this next year. Baking will be a priority again soon!

What did I make this week though? Pumpkin ice cream! Amaaaaazing. I can't wait to share that recipe with you soon. In the meantime though, I thought I'd share a few pumpkin-based recipes I drooled over this week. Fall officially begins next week, friends! We must come prepared with lots of pumpkin recipes. :) Of course, there are many other fall flavors of which I am a huge fan. But let's begin with pumpkin, shall we?

1) Pumpkin Pie Snickerdoodle Bars from Lovin' From the Oven

With a name like that, how can these not be good?? Oh my goodness.

2) Pumpkin Doughnuts from Steph's Bite by Bite

Recently discovered this blog and am highly enjoying it...  She's got some great recipes on there! And these pumpkin doughnuts with a caramel topping look to-die-for!

3) Pumpkin Bread Pudding from According to Kelly

Talk about comfort food. This is perfect for the cooler weather coming our way soon!

4) Pumpkin Hummus from Naturally Ella

I had to throw in one savory recipe! What a great idea for hummus. Never thought of making it pumpkin-flavored!

5) Pumpkin Pancakes with Cinnamon Butter from Raspberri Cupcakes

These would make the perfect fall weekend breakfast! And that cinnamon butter? Wowzahs.

Can you believe that I went to the grocery store yesterday specifically to stock up on canned pumpkin but I could not find any?!?? Yikes. Not good. Not this early in the season. Come Thanksgiving I might expect some difficulty finding it, but not this early on before fall has even started! Once I do find it, I am going to buy cans and cans of pumpkin... I may need to rent a storage unit for all the pumpkin I'm going to buy, folks.

Finally, do all of you know about Pinterest? Love love love this site! You've gotta check it out if you haven't yet. All of the recipes in my round-up today I found on pinterest. I am becoming slightly addicted to it. It's become especially useful for gathering wedding-related ideas. Come on over and follow some of my boards, if you'd like!

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!