Jalapeno Popper Dip

This past week my Best Friend and her husband threw a housewarming party, but not just any housewarming party, it was a masquerade!

I was so excited I couldn't wait to start working on masks for my husband and I to wear.
We also needed a dish to bring to the party, I couldn't think of anything to bring right away so I searched Pinterest for some inspiration and recipes.
I came across a popper dip recipe.
It looked and sounded amazing and you can find the original recipe HERE.
Of course as you know we change the recipe a bit to suit our tastes.
The only problem with the original recipe is that my friend is Jewish and the recipe calls for bacon.
Substitute for bacon is usually turkey bacon, but I think we can all agree turkey bacon is bleh.
But there is hope that was found in the bacon isle at our local Walmart.
BEEF BACON!!!
How awesome is that? It fries up like pork bacon too which is amazing!

Alright to the recipe, you will need:
2 8oz packages of cream cheese
(make sure you let the cream cheese sit out to soften)
1 cup of cheddar cheese
1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese
1 6oz bag of frozen jalapenos (or 5-6 fresh)
1 cup mayo
1/4 cup green onion
1 package of beef bacon (minus 2-3 pieces... things happen...)

For the crust you will need:
1 cup of crushed crackers
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 stick melted butter

First you need to preheat your oven to 350, then fry up your bacon nice and crispy.

Like I said things happen and sometimes you loose 2-3 slices of bacon through the cooking process.

Bacon is delicious...

Next you put your cream cheese in a large bowl with your green onions

all your cheese and jalapenos then mix it up until everything is evenly distributed.

Next chop up your bacon. But if you crisped it enough it should fall apart in your hands like so.

Add to the cheese mixture.

Put the mixture in a baking dish.

Little one on the side for our roommate to try ^_^

To make the crust for the top you crush up some crackers and add the Parmesan cheese and spread it over the top of the mixture. 

My sincerest apologies I failed to take pictures of the last few steps and the final result because I didn't plan my day well, had to rush to finish, and get ready for the party. I plan to make this again and will post pictures once I do so.

The last 2 steps are to melt your butter and drizzle it on top of the cracker crust.

You then place the dish in the preheated oven (350 degrees) for about 30 mins until hot and bubbly.

Serve with crackers or chips!

The dip taste just like a jalapeno popper, super creamy, I loved it.

Rachel was quoted as saying "Awesomeness" and great with chips, crackers, and veggies. She liked it most with broccoli.

Everyone at the party loved it and they were very happy that it was kosher.

The party was awesome and almost everyone made their own masks.

(Rachel with a panda inspired mask and myself with a lacey gothicy mask) 

Here are some of the awesome party people!

Bat inspired

Meow =^.^=

Amazing crow inspired mask 

Ichigo inspired

Beautiful

My husband and his steampunk inspired mask!

Groot inspired and lovely peacock

Green Tea Soda

Rachel and I live in Florida, and just in case you didn't know it gets freaking hot here.

So swimming pools, beaches, springs, and lakes are must visit spots in summer, fall... spring... you know every season in Florida is hot!

So we always look for refreshing drinks that are both delicious and can cool us off.

This week we decided to give Green Tea soda a try.

For this recipe you will need:

4 green tea bags

4 cups water

1 cup of pineapple

1 cup blueberries

1 apple

a bottle of raspberry seltzer water

(not pictured) sugar or stevia to taste 

and a pitcher

You start off with boiling your water.

A little tip with your green tea bags, go ahead and cut off the tags. They would just end up in the water anyways.

Add your tea bags and boiling water to your pitcher.

Slice up your apple.

Add all fruit to the hot tea.

Put the tea in the fridge until it is cold and the fruit has helped to flavor the tea.

(about 3 hours)

Now you get yourself a glass fill it halfway with the fruit tea mixture and some ice.

Fill the rest of the glass with the seltzer water and add sugar.

Voila a healthy and delicious poolside drink to share with your friends!

And once you finish the drink you have a nice pool side fruit salad!

Rachel isn't a fan of green tea to begin with, so while she wasn't the biggest fan of it she said it wasn't horrible either. (She did drink 2 glasses of it)

This weeks pet pic is of Spot. He is a 16 year old Peekapoo (half pekingese, half poodle)

Fun story, when we got him as a puppy and I found out what he was I wanted to call him Pikachu, but my mom not wanting weird names for pets named him Spot.

He enjoyed some vanilla ice-cream while I ran my errands.

Hawaiian BBQ Chicken

So I don't know about you, but I have always liked my pineapple by itself.

No pineapple on pizza, ham, and above all chicken!

So when Rachel said to me "Hey, we should do Hawaiian BBQ Chicken."

First thing to come out of my mouth was "Bleh. ewwwwwwwwww! NO!"

But being the good friend that I am, I gave in with the promise that next week we will do a drink I have been wanting to try.

For this recipe you will need:

about 2 lbs boneless chicken thighs or breast

about 2 cups fresh pineapple

1/2 cup your favorite BBQ sauce

1/4 cup teriyaki sauce

and a slow cooker

(Set aside another 1/2 cup BBQ sauce

and 1/4 cup teriyaki sauce

for the end of the process)

Start by putting your chicken in the bottom of your slow cooker.

Add in your BBQ sauce and Teriyaki sauce, coating the chicken.

And throw in your pineapple.

Should look something like this

Set your slow cooker to high and cook for 4 hours.

I kid you not we were coming back in to her apartment after going swimming and you could smell this stuff cooking. The aroma was so wonderful, her neighbor's mouths must have been watering.

It smelled like wonderful sweet BBQ.

I could not believe that smell was coming from something something 

I have avoided like the plague most my life.

4 hours later we opened the lid to find this.

I tasted a bit of the cooked pineapple and my taste buds went crazy. 

It is hard for me to describe... but it was so delicious! 

Next you should remove your chicken from the crock pot.

Then strain out the pineapple and set aside.

We suggest you save the leftover juices to use in a rice side dish in the future.

Place the chicken back in the crock pot and start shredding.

Should be nice and tender and easy to shred.

During this time physics broke and as we were shredding this chicken it would go against gravity, on it own

I might add, and landed right in our mouths! 

I know, we are just as shocked as you!

Add in those cooked pineapple pieces in next.

Lastly you add the 1/2 cup BBQ sauce and the 1/4 cup teriyaki and put back on high for about 20 mins

While you wait you can prepare some rice to serve this on top of, or you can just toast some buns!

I have to say I really put my foot in my mouth with this recipe. It was so good I plan to make it again this month for my family. I can't rave about it enough.

\

Rachel of course loved it. It is sweet, tangy, and just amazing! Everyone needs to try it!

This week's pet photo is of Sate and Twi!

Sate loves boxes and decided to share this love with his little sister =^.^=

Vanilla Meringue Cookies

I am getting bad at these regular post I should be doing X_X

But good news I have a new job and I am working in a ice cream shop surrounded by friends, 

which always makes things better :)

Alright this week we decided we wanted something sweet. But we didn't want anything heavy like cookies or cake. So light and airy Meringue cookies were the perfect match!

Here are the ingredients you will need:

3 egg whites

1.5 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

3/4 cup sugar

dash of salt

Start by preheating you oven to 250.

It is very important to use room temp. eggs.

Warmer eggs whip faster, so you don't want to use fresh from the fridge eggs.

Add egg whites, vanilla, cream of tartar, and salt to a mixing bowl.

Beat with electric mixer until soft peak are formed. Should take about 4-5 minutes.

Next you add in your sugar, make sure you do it just a little bit at a time so you don't weigh down the mixture. Once all sugar is added beat until glossy stiff peaks are formed.

Prepare a piping bag (or a gallon size ziplock bag) cut out a corner and add an icing tip. I am not good at sizes but you can use a star tip of med.-large size. Or just a cut hole in the bag if you don't have tips.

Scoop in the fluffy mixture.

and start piping the mixture onto parchment paper or a non-stick mat on a cookie sheet. 

I have to admit while I was piping these I started singing "Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?" and proceeded to make little Meringue Snowmen. 

To bake these put in you preheated oven for about 45 mins. (If you make your cookies larger than 1 in in diameter you may want to leave in the over for about 50 mins.) Once cookies are done cooking turn off the oven and leave them there for an hour (torture I know!)

But once they are cool you can peal them off the cookie sheet and eat them up! They should be light and airy and oh so delicious!

Inside texture!

Our snowmen came out better than expected.

We plan to make these for Christmas this year.

So check back in December for instructions on how to make them look like cool little snowmen complete with coal and a top hat!

This is our cat Toby and he says "Sharing is caring" when you eat corn on the cob.

Seriously... don't eat corn without sharing with Toby. He will help himself!