Here are a couple of must have recipe's, in my kitchen anyway. Why is it that it's so easy for me to find great dessert recipe's, but can't track down a good, easy, crowd-pleasing dinner recipe?
Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles
- 8 squares of Baker's Semi Sweet Choc.
-1/2 C creamy peanut butter
-8 oz cool whip
-finely chopped nuts, coconut, crushed oreos, or any other topping of choice
Melt Choc. in micro stirring every 30 seconds until melted. Add peanut butter and let cool to room temp. Once it's at room temp FOLD in cool whip and put in fridge for 2 hours. After it's chilled roll them into small balls and roll in the toppings of your choice.
*store them in the fridge so they don't melt.
Mousse au chocolat
300 g chocolate (a little less than a full package of choc. chips- I recommend semi sweet)
3 large eggs
500 ml whip cream
Melt chocolate in a hot water bath (water boiling). Once choc melts, remove from heat. Beat eggs lightly, then stir them into the melted chocolate quickly so the eggs don't cook. Let it cool down. Whip the cream until cool whip texture, or just use a tub of cool whip (worked great for me). Fold all together and let it set in the fridge for the night.
* Got this recipe from a girl on exchange from Germany. I didn't read the recipe very thoroughly so instead of making it an hour before taking it to dinner I had to make something else. When I got home that night and made it I had used cool whip and the next day when it was ready it was amazing. We topped it with more cool whip and fresh black berries. I can't stop thinking about it. Yum.
Brazilian Chicken Cutlets with Raw Tropical Sauce
( this is the recipe I blogged about a while back)
-1 large ripe Mango chopped
-4 Plum Tomatoes seeded and chopped
-1/2 medium red onion, chopped
1/4 C cilantro, chopped
Juice of 1 lime
A few Dashes of hot sauce
Salt and pepper
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
1 C flour
2 eggs
1/2 C bread crumbs
1/2 C grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 tsp granulated garlic
1 lemon, zested and cut in wedges
4 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
Preheat oven to 250*F.
Prepare raw sauce by combing the mango, tomato, onion, cilantro, lime juice, hot sauce, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl. Stir gently to combine.
Flatten chicken into cutlets by butterflying each piece then pounding out to 1/4 inch thick.
Set up three shallow dishes on the counter. To one dish add flour, to second add eggs and beat with a little water, to the third add the bread crumbs, grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, granulated garlic, and lemon zest.
Bread the cutlets by first tossing in flour, then in eggs, then in bread crumb mixture.
Heat 2 TBSP of olive oil in large skillet over medium heat. Once oil is hot, cook the cutlets in batches until golden brown on each side and cooked through, 4-5 minutes per side, adding more oil as needed between batches. As each cutlet is golden brown and done, transfer it to a baking sheet and keep warm in the oven while the others cook.
Serve the cutlets with the raw sauce on top and lemon wedges to squeeze over the cutlets if desired. Enjoy!
Our poor snowman was melting away and starting to scare the kids so we had to take care of him. 
From the outside looking in the "grass" probably looks pretty nasty, and I suppose it kind of is, but for us it is a sight for sore eyes.
From the outside looking in Taj and Eden may look like the sweetest kids in the world, but... Just kidding- they really are angels.
Taj jumps up to "save" Eden when she whimpers or falls. He goes with me to get her out of her crib 99% of the time and with a voice only a sweet little boy can make says things like, "hey Little's" or "Morning Sunshine", and one of my favorites, "We love you!"
