Lemon Cheesecake Ball

Once again I've managed to get super behind on recipe blogging--I know that because I last served this at a baby shower I hosted in OCTOBER! It's almost February, so I am seriously slacking! As far as the recipe goes, this was absolutely perfect for a baby shower since it's a little bit of a "girly" food. It's also really yummy and can easily be made in advance.

10 oz. cream cheese
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
Zest of 1 large lemon
4 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
3 Graham crackers

Combine the cream cheese and sugar in a medium bowl. Stir together with a spoon or spatula until well combined and smooth. Mix in the lemon zest and juice until smooth. Transfer the mixture to a piece of plastic wrap and shape into a ball wrapped tightly in the plastic. Refrigerate until firm, at least 3 hours. Reshape if necessary once firm. Coarsely crush the graham crackers and transfer to a plate or bowl. Roll the cheese ball in the crumbs until evenly coated. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Serve with fruit (I especially like it with green apple slices and strawberries) and/or crackers.

Source: annies-eats.com

Flat Bread with Thyme

This is another recipe from Real Simple magazine and it is quite literally "real simple". It hardly even requires a "recipe" but it was yummy, easy and cheap, while making a nice addition to a dinner with my family.

1 lb. pizza dough (since I was in the "real simple" mode, I just used a tube of the refrigerated dough, but I'm sure this would be even better with homemade dough)
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
1/4 teaspoon each kosher salt and pepper

Shape the pizza dough into a rectangle and place on a baking sheet. Brush with a little bit of olive oil and bake according to directions. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix together the olive oil, thyme, salt and pepper. Remove dough from oven, transfer to a cutting board, brush with the thyme mixture and cut into pieces. Serve warm.

Chocolate Icebox Cake

This is a great dessert for when you want to make something in advance. The recipe comes from the Real Simple magazine--and it definitely lives up to it's name and is a very simple, easy dessert.

2 (15 oz.) containers Ricotta
12 oz. semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled
9 0z. package chocolate wafer cookies
1/4 cup shaved semisweet chocolate

In a food processor, puree the ricotta and melted chocolate until very smooth. Line an 8 1/2-by-4 1/2-inch loaf pan with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on 2 sides. Layer the ricotta mixture and half of the chocolate wafer cookies in the pan, then repeat (3 layers of the ricotta mixture and 2 layers of the cookies, beginning and ending with the ricotta mixture). Refrigerate for at least 12 hours and up to 2 days. To serve, remove from pan, slice and sprinkle with shaved semisweet chocolate (my slices didn't turn out quite as pretty as I would've liked, so I also added a drizzle of some chocolate sauce that both upped the chocolate flavor and camouflaged my not-so-cute slices---perfect!).

Easy Thai Pasta

I definitely have tried a few recipes that are pretty similar to this, but what can I say? I'm a sucker for easy recipes and I always LOVE a good peanut sauce!

1/2 cup Italian dressing
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons crunchy peanut butter
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 lb. whole wheat pasta (any shape is fine)
Peanuts, snow peas, celery and bell pepper

Cook pasta according to directions. Meanwhile, in another pot add the Italian dressing, soy sauce, honey, PB and red pepper flakes and stir together to combine. Continue to heat sauce, stirring occasionally. Add veggies and cover, when there is about 5 minutes left for the pasta to cook. When pasta is done, drain and add to pot with sauce and veggies. Stir to combine and serve warm.

Pesto Grilled Cheese

OMG, these were amazing! There isn't really any special recipe to follow (I did get the idea, though, from closetcooking.blogspot.com--one of my very favorite cooking blogs) since it's basically just a grilled cheese with some pesto added in. But seriously, if you love grilled cheese and if you love pesto (which really, why wouldn't you??) you must make this immediately!

It's just these four little ingredients:
Good bread
Butter
Pesto (I just used store bought)
Provolone

I served this with my easy cream of tomato soup and it made for quite the delicious dinner!

Very Easy Chocolate Chip Cookies

My mom had us over for dinner recently and served some delicious homemade ice cream sandwiches for dessert. Colin talked about those ice cream sandwiches for days! After many mentions of how awesome those ice cream sandwiches were, he moved passed the hinting phase and asked (possibly even begged) me to make some. We already had Blue Bell vanilla ice cream, so I just googled for an easy chocolate chip cookie recipe that would work with the ingredients I had on hand. This was the one I came across and the cookies were both very easy and very delicious. They also made perfect little ice cream sandwiches!

1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup walnuts, chopped (these were optional but I included them)
12 oz. chocolate chips

Mix wet ingredients and sugars. Sift in dry ingredients, add walnuts and chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoons onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

Source: Cooks.com

Halloween "Trash"

I know Halloween has come and gone (seriously, what has happened to 2010?!!), but this is too easy and tasty not to share! It's not a super new and creative recipe or anything, but it was quite popular at my work Halloween party. If you want to really go with the "trash" idea, this could be served in a brown paper bag, as suggested by Southern Living. Here's what the trash consists of:

Carmel popcorn
Pretzels
Carmel peanuts
M & Ms
Candy corn
Gummy worms
Dried tropical fruit mix (included bananas, coconut, mango, and pineapple pieces)
Craisins


We took a little roadtrip to attend the wedding of a college girlfriend of mine this weekend and made a non-Halloween version (subtracted the candy corn and gummy worms, added almonds, cashews and goldfish). For this occasion, Colin renamed it "snack zone" and I have a feeling snack zone will now be requested for all future Sanburg family road trips!