Mexican Street Corn Pasta Salad

 At work we have a tradition of holding a potluck lunch on an employee's last day. We had an opportunity for one last week. Another co-worker offered to bring gorditas. Having never tried them before, I was looking forward to it! Knowing what she was bringing, helped me pick what to bring. I scoured my saved recipes on Pinterest and saw this one for Mexican Street Corn Pasta Salad. 

The recipe was super easy to put together and turned out really good! I even received compliments from my two Mexican-American co-workers. Yes! 

Because this dish is served cold, it is a perfect one for a potluck. Bring some extra cotija cheese for everyone to sprinkle on top of their portion and your serving bowl will be empty before you head home. Or if you're lucky like me you'll have just enough to have a portion later. 

*Because I'm not a fan of onions or cilantro, I left those out and it still tasted really good.

Guava Cream Cheese Pound Cake

One of my very favorite things on the planet is my cream cheese pound cake. I don't even remember where the original recipe came from, but I make it as often as I can justify. It is creamy and just has the best flavor. 

Recently I had ordered some guava paste online to make guava and cream cheese pastries. With the remaining guava paste packages, I was thinking about making a guava cake. I saw a recipe for guava pound cake where the author said she substituted one cup of sugar for guava paste in her original pound cake recipe. So I chose to do that with my cream cheese pound cake. It turned out so good! 

To top my guava pound cake, I attempted to make lime Swiss meringue buttercream. That was a fail. On my first attempt, it was both soupy and curdled. After fighting with it, I gave up and scooped it into a bowl to mess with the next day. The next day I played around with it again by heating it up and re-whipping. That fixed the curdled part, but it was still too loose. I tried cooling it in the fridge and then whipped it later after bringing to room temperature. It is thicker than it was, but more like a whipped cream thickness. That's ok! I have just been topping my pound cake slice with a dollop of my lime Swiss meringue cream and have been perfectly happy! 

 

Pineapple Teriyaki Chicken

I came home from a spouses' club event with a pineapple. It was one of the prizes from our Luau themed event. I love pineapple and have no problems eating it by itself, but I wanted to make something with it. I considered making a crockpot recipe, but my last batch of crockpot chicken came out super dry. Plus, the crockpot is a pain to clean in our tiny sink. 

After searching Pinterest, I decided to try my hand at making teriyaki sauce for chicken and throwing in the pineapple. 

I loosely followed a recipe from Build Your Bite for the sauce, but because I did not have all the ingredients I had to go off-book a little bit. I was a little nervous that it would come out gross, but I was pleasantly surprised by how tasty it was! 

Peanut Butter Pretzel Magic Cookie Bars

We are dessert people, if you did not know that already. Like one of the contestants on the most recent Great British Bake-Off said, I don't just have a sweet tooth. I have sweet TEETH. 

I had a can of sweetened condensed milk and a couple sleeves of graham crackers in the pantry and thought "let's make magic cookie bars!" But I did not have any coconut. I scoured Pinterest for a variation that included items I actually had on hand and then checked my Beale Officers' Spouses' Club cookbook. It's one I hardly ever use and so sometimes I open it up and look through to justify keeping it. I found a recipe for PMS Bars which had pretzels and peanut butter chips instead of coconut. I used that recipe as inspiration and went off-book a bit for this my creation. 

Introducing my Peanut Butter Pretzel Magic Cookie Bars! They are sweet, crunchy and delicious. If you love the sweet-salty combo, then these will be right up your alley. I have NO idea how many pretzels or how much peanut butter I used, so if you make these use your best judgement. In my opinion, you cannot really have too much of either ingredient. 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Baklava

We had a very non-traditional Thanksgiving this year. We ate zero turkey, no normal Thanksgiving sides and no pie. I actually did not mind it. I had some traditional Thanksgiving meals twice prior to Thanksgiving, so that was checked off for me and Charles did not seem to really care. Instead, we made reservations at a local "American" restaurant where I had a steak and Charles had salmon. It was very delicious and relaxing. No stress about cooking and no dishes to clean up afterward. Of course, it is a lot easier to eat out when not in the United States where everyone celebrates Thanksgiving. For Germans, it was just a normal Thursday. 

In lieu of pie, Charles requested one of his favorite desserts--chocolate peanut butter baklava. I found the recipe a few years ago on Pinterest. I do not make it very often. It's an easy recipe, but because of the phyllo dough it is a bit of a process to put together. But if you love baklava and the chocolate-peanut butter combination, then you will very much enjoy this one! 

As the recipe states, it is extremely helpful to have everything ready at your workstation before starting the phyllo dough process. I have made this recipe by myself, but it is 100% better if you have a buddy that helps out. The way we do it is I butter and layer the phyllo and Charles adds the peanut butter and chocolate chips. Plus it is just more fun to do it together. 

One piece of advice, do not make this while hungry. Because we had an old person dinner scheduled (our reservation was for 4:30pm) and I made this prior to that, I was pretty hungry while preparing this. I have a tendency to get a little grumpy when I am hungry and I snapped at Charles over who knows what when we were starting to make this. For the health of your relationship, avoid baking while hangry. 

Sorry no pictures. But trust me, it is yummy!

 

Chocolate Peppermint Sugar Cookie Bars

During the holidays, I love chocolate and peppermint anything! Peppermint mocha...yes please! Peppermint hot chocolate...mmmm! Peppermint sprinkled on homemade brownies...double yes! So when I saw this recipe for chocolate peppermint sugar cookie bars I knew I had to give them a try! They turned out really delicious, but you have to eat them pretty quickly because the cookie base hardens quicker than other cookies. 

Gingersnap Cheesecake Bars

I have been working part time at the Thrift Shop on our base. It's not a dream job by any means, but it has given me something to do (not that I really needed one more thing to do between all my volunteer gigs) and some extra travel money. We had a potluck for lunch in honor of Veteran's Day and to celebrate one of our regular volunteers who is heading to the States for the winter. 

I scoured Pinterest for some ideas of something I could bring that did not require being warmed up since I was coming in to work in the morning and wanted to make sure my item was still going to be tasty a few hours later. I had this recipe for Gingersnap Cheesecake Bars saved and knew it was the perfect time to try it! Charles is not a huge fan of cheesecake, so he would not appreciate it as much as my co-workers and volunteers would. 

I received many rave reviews on the bars so the recipe is a keeper! The original recipe was for a 13x9 inch pan, so I halved it for this occasion, but seeing how quickly they were devoured I should have made the full recipe. The recipe card below is for half the recipe so if you want a full pan just double all the measurements. Enjoy!

 

Tamale Pie

I have posted about this recipe in the past, but it was just a link to the original recipe I found through Pinterest. This has become one of my go-to recipes and it is so delicious! It's warm, gooey and packed with flavor so it is great anytime of the year. It's fairly easy to put together, but if you choose to cook the chicken in advance like I do, it takes a little bit of prior planning. My suggestion is to cook extra chicken so you have some for tacos, too! For tamale pie, three chicken breasts is sufficient for the recipe. 

You could also try the recipe with shredded pork or beef, but chicken is my favorite. 

Oktoberfest Quiche

I am not normally one to go off-book when it comes to recipes. I love following directions. I love rules. I am not a confident cook. However, I had this idea to make an Oktoberfest or German themed quiche to bring to a Fest potluck with the other residents in our apartment building. I searched Pinterest and did not come up with anything exactly like what I had in mind, so I combined ideas from a couple different recipes and came up with my own Oktoberfest Quiche. It is a little risky serving something you have never made or tried before, but it turned out pretty tasty! 

This was my first time wearing my brand new dirndl! I am in love with it and so glad I found it in the sale section. Not only did I save a bunch compared to buying a current season style, but I had my eye on this exact one from my online browsing. Finding it in my size at 50% off made my day! And of course Suzie was a big hit in her "dirndl". 

In addition to my Oktoberfest Quiche, I brought my German Apple Cake. This is one of my favorite things in life and this time I made a salted caramel frosting instead of the typical vanilla buttercream. Yummy! It's not authentically German AT ALL! Germans would never make something that sweet, but it was made with apples we picked in Germany, so that makes it more legitimate to me. 

Apple Cider Rum Punch

During the fall there is nothing more refreshing and delicious than a glass of apple cider. I'll take it in just about any form--cold, hot, slushy... I was attending a social function and wanted to bring a fall beverage for everyone to enjoy and ran across a recipe for apple cider rum punch. I had to settle for grocery store apple cider, but I bet this would be even better with some freshly pressed cider. 

Cheesy Beef and Pasta

Do you ever try new recipes, save them and then completely forget about them? That is the case with this recipe. I was looking through recipe files on my computer and saw this one. I honestly cannot remember even making it, but because I took the effort to create a recipe card for it, it must have been tasty. Make it and let me know what you think!

Creamy Parmesan Mashed Potatoes

Need a good potato side? I've got you covered!

Strawberry Lemon Bars

Strawberry and lemon is a great combination for sweet and sour! It also makes a great dessert. Bring these to your next summer potluck and everyone will leave happy.

Peanut Butter Fudge Pie

We love anything chocolate with peanut butter! It is really the ultimate combination of sweet and salty. I had a recipe pinned for a Peanut Butter Fudge Pie with Peanut Butter Salted Caramel that sounded amazing. I adapted slightly out of laziness. I did not have any caramel topping and did not feel like making my own. 

The pie turned out really delicious even despite one little mishap with my ingredients. When buying roasted peanuts, I just grabbed a container that said "Golden Roast" on the label. AFTER making the pie, my husband told me that he noticed the back of the label included ingredients like paprika, garlic, onion powder... Ugh! We ate the pie for dessert and I honestly could not tell, but I would definitely double check next time I purchase peanuts for any purpose. 

Brie stuffed garlic bread

Potlucks always push me to try new recipes! I love to search Pinterest for new ideas and often come across some real winners. I hosted an event at my house and wanted to make something with brie cheese, but did not want the standard baked brie with crackers. I came across a recipe for brie stuffed garlic bread and it was perfect! So cheesy, gooey and delicious!

Blueberry Danish

I had purchased a box of puff pastry with no real plans on how to use it. With an HOA board meeting coming up (yes, I'm one of those crazy people who served on an HOA board), I wanted to bring something to share with my fellow board members. I found this recipe on Pinterest and thought I would give it a try because I love cheese Danish and adding blueberry and almond could only make it better! They turned out really great. I really should make these again soon...

Lemon Cream Cheese Cake

One of the neighbors on my street planned a potluck for everyone and I used it as a chance to try out a new recipe. Originally I planned to try a recipe for lemon poppy seed bars, but the grocery store on base was out of poppy seeds so I decided to try for something else instead of stressing out trying to find them at another store. I ended up grabbing some cream cheese while at the store...just in case. When I returned home and searched Pinterest for recipes for lemon desserts, I found this one for lemon cream cheese cake and thought it sounded good for a summer evening get-together. 

It is always a risk trying a new recipe for an event. I worry a bit about if it does not taste good. That was especially on my mind for this occasion because we are new to the street and I had never shared baked goods with my neighbors, so they would have no idea that I am generally a good baker. Luckily they told me the cake was really delicious and I confirmed when I tasted it! It did not have as big of a lemon punch that I thought, but that may be because instead of lemon zest I used a couple drops of lemon essential oil. I also had to bake it quite a bit longer than the recipe stated, but I am not sure if that is an issue with the recipe or with my oven. If you try this one out, just keep an eye on it and take it out when it is no longer very jiggly in the middle. 

Beer (or hard cider) cheese

The very first time I made this recipe was for an Oktoberfest party we hosted. I made it again last year for a St. Patrick's Day themed bunco game night. My friend Alysha liked it so much that she has requested it several other times since then. It's so easy to put together and tastes amazing! You can serve it in a fondue pot or right from a stove top sauce pan.

It tastes delicious served with pretzels, bread of any kind, broccoli and green apple slices. Really you could dip old tennis shoes in this and it would taste amazing!

Pineapple Rum Cake

Wow! Has it really been since June that I last posted? Well, I am still alive and have been busy, busy, busy.

Recently I had to purchase some rum for a fondue recipe. While at the store I saw pineapple rum and on an impulse bought a bottle. Fast forward a couple weeks, I attended a murder mystery party and we were asked to bring either an appetizer or dessert. I thought, what can I make with that pineapple rum? I searched Pinterest for inspiration and came across a recipe for Rum Cake. I wanted to punch up the pineapple flavor, so I experimented a little with the recipe. It turned out pretty tasty, so I thought I'd share the recipe on here.

I hope you enjoy!

Soft Gingerbread Cookies (Vegan-style)

I love reading, but mainly Kindle books which makes me unusual among other readers (at least the impression I get from my book club is that they prefer real books). For this past month's book, we read Washington's Spies. I thought it sounded interesting since I enjoy history, but for some reason this book fell flat with me. But, as usual, I gave it a try and finished it in time for our book club meeting.

This month I hosted book club at my house. When I host, I like to cook and bake. It's just part of hosting, in my opinion. One of our regulars follows a vegan diet which proves to be slightly challenging when I menu plan. But luckily I was able to come up with a couple options that were pretty tasty.

For a sweet treat, I baked soft gingerbread cookies. I have made them before, but not a vegan version, so I was a little nervous about how they would turn out. They came out great! Maybe a little too good because I can't stop eating them!

To make them vegan, I substitute coconut oil for the butter and a flax seed mixture for the egg. Easy as pie...well, cookies. Here's the original recipe if you want it: One Little Project.