Last month for Scott’s birthday we discussed what sort of special dessert/snacky thing he wanted.  A lot of ideas were tossed around and he finally decided on Cinnamon Vanilla Cupcakes.

Those were his exact words.

Dude.  I don’t even know where he pulled that from! But in this house, whatever my hunny wants is what he’s going to get.

I poured over some websites and several of my favorite cookbooks and came up with a game plan.

This is how I work. I review several recipes to get an idea of how something is done and then I make my own version.

I fully expect that everyone else operates this way as well.  In my head no one follows a recipe exactly, we are all just a bunch of Kitchen Rogues blazing a path with a chef’s knife in one hand and a kitchen blow torch in the other.

Or something like that.

Andrea’s Cinnamon…

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The first time I had vegan chocolate pudding was when I picked up a small container of it from Whole Foods.  I read the ingredient list which was not scary nor was it long, so I dumped into the cart.  It did use silken tofu as a base and while I don’t really dig on tofu, I decided to be open-minded and give it a try.

From that point we were hooked and would purchase it on occasion when making a Whole Foods trip.  However, like most things at Whole Foods, their pudding was overpriced and on the small side (sorry WF but you know it’s true).  I decided to look into making my own.  I checked a few recipes online just to get a basic idea of what is needed, reviewed the ingredient list of the Whole Foods version and started experimenting.

What I am…

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I have come across a snack mix that is typically referred to as Puppy Chow.  It is a snack mix that is covered with tons of powdered sugar and is typically seen during the holiday season.  Has it made an appearance near you?

I have never eaten this snack mix before.  First of all it’s covered in powdered sugar which means it’s gonna be major sweet.  And secondly, it’s called Puppy Chow for frack’s sake.  I’m not eating that.  At the risk of sounding totally snotty, I don’t even feed my dog kibble, you think I’m gonna touch something that is named after some crappy dog food?

Fat chance.

I don’t know what prompted me to look into this snack mix a bit further but I did and realized that it’s pretty easy to make.

I decided to come up with my…

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I love granola and am pretty sure that I have always loved it.  I was never much into the chewy granola bars, I loved the crunchy more sturdy ones.  I always felt oh so healthy when eating granola.  It’s oats and nuts and sometimes fruit!  How can that be bad?

I also always purchased granola because for some reason I had it in my head that it was hard to make.  Eventually I started realizing how much money I was spending on granola because granola is flipping expensive!  I also became aware of how much sugar was in the granola.  I’m not a big sugar person anyway and when I realized just how much sugar is in manufactured granola, I sort of silently freaked out. I personally don’t want or need that much sugar in my life.

It was at this point that I started making my own granola.  It was a rocky start that resulted in plenty of burnt batches.  Lesson…

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Not that long ago I had a hankering for some chocolate zucchini bread.  Or at least I assumed this was the case, as I had never actually had chocolate zucchini bread.

Zucchini bread, yes.  But it was always the same way, spicy and more along the lines of like a carrot cake, spice cake kind of taste.  Lots of cinnamon, clove, and allspice in the mix.

That wasn’t exactly what I envisioned.  I wanted a dense chocolate quick bread with some zucchini in it.  I started looking around for recipes to see what I could find.  There were loads out there!

But they all had tons of sugar, white flour, and a load of eggs in them.

This is where my knack to never follow a recipe comes in handy.  I looked at the recipes to get an idea of the basic ingredients and then I created my own chocolate…

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The first time I’ve ever had bread and oil as part of a meal was back in North Carolina, about 7 years ago.  Scott and I had just purchased our first house and we were out having a celebratory lunch.  The server brought out a basket of warm bread and a little dish that she poured seasoned olive oil into, then quickly scurried away.

Me: What do we do with this? Do I just dip the bread into the oil?

Scott: I think so. I’m not sure what other options there would be.

Me: Okay. Although dipping bread into oil and eating it is a little odd.

Scott: Totally weird.

The concept was so foreign to me.  “You want me to what?! Dip this bread into some fat and munch away?”, was my thought process.

But you know what? It was fabulous.  And of course olive oil is full…

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I was first introduced to pimento and cheese when Scott and I lived in North Carolina.  I was working an overtime shift at my PT job at White Barn Candle (with an adjoining Bath&Body Works) and was on a short 15minute break.  I was starving and for some reason that is escaping me now, we had food in the back.  Someone brought in pimento and cheese sandwiches and I inhaled two of them.  I thought they were really good and told Scott all about them when he came to pick me up that night.

I started making them and fiddling around with recipes.  Turns out that Scott is pimento and cheese’s number one fan.  I’m surprised that he likes them so much because there’s not really much too them.  Another surprise?  I don’t really care for them.   I guess it was just the fact that I was starving and my blood sugar was too low…

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When I was in middle school it was the 80s.  Hair bands and mall teen pop queens were in their prime.  And the thing to do back then was hit up the skating rink on Friday night.  Especially when you lived in a super small town and there was nothing else for you to do at that age.  The skating rink was a happening place and I taught myself how to skate.  And backwards skate.  And skate going around the corners with my feet turned out, heels touching.  My favorite thing to do was skate backwards and stop with my stoppers coming to a sliding halt.  My skates were white with blue wheels and a blue stopper.  And Velcro because when you are at the skating rink, it is all about the skating and not about wasting time lacing up your skates.  Oh and secretly crushing on the boys who preferred video games until the couples skate was announced.  Eventually…

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Jalapeno poppers.  Jalapeno bites, whatever you call them they have been making the rounds at parties and gatherings for a while now.  They interested me but I also shied away from them since I tend to have a low tolerance for spicy dishes.  I’ve been slowly working to become more immune because when one has a husband who loves spicy stuff it starts getting harder to avoid it.

I finally decided to tackle bacon wrapped jalapenos.  Now, all recipes I have come across just call for some cream cheese in the jalapenos.  If you know me, then you’ll know that I consider that too plain.  Anyone can do that.  I wanted to put a twist in it.  Let’s bump this up and play around with it for a little bit and see what happens.  I went back and forth thinking about what I could do.  I wanted to keep it as simple as possible but still kick up the flavor.  Finally…

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Alright the first recipe of 2009!  Woo!  I would have had this up sooner but there were technical difficulties to be dealt with but everything is peachy now.

How are we all doing post-holiday?  We’re doing pretty darn good over here at the HQ.  Snackies were indulged in but not embarrassingly so.  Or at least I think so, it was the holidays and wine was involved which means it’s possible I’m forgetting something.  My big question is, do we have room for more snacks?

Yes!

Excellent my friends.  Here’s the deal, because my site was still new around the holidays my theme related stuff was just not happening.  One of my 2009 goals is to be more on the ball and make sure that doesn’t happen again.  Yes the holidays are over but there is still one more big thing that people usually get together for so they can party, eat, drink, and yell obscenities.  It’s just like Christmas really.

Naturally I’m referring to…

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