Tag Archives: recipe

Easy and Delicious Cranberry Sauce

There’s something special about homemade cranberry sauce accompanying a Thanksgiving meal. While it’s incredibly easy to pick up the canned stuff at the grocery store, it’s truly not that much harder to make it at home. This sauce can even be made ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator. My favorite way to eat this sauce is spread on a sandwich made of Thanksgiving leftovers.
Here’s what you need:
16 oz fresh cranberries
2 oranges
1 C sugar

Add your cranberries, the juice of 2 oranges, a little zest, and sugar to a sauce pot. Heat on medium high for about 20 minutes. Continue to stir. The sauce will thicken and the natural pectin in the cranberries will give your sauce a “jellied” effect. Remove from heat and serve either warm or cold.
That’s it, folks! Truly the easiest Thanksgiving recipe known to man!

Blood Orange Cocktail

Leave a reply

Up until a few weeks ago, if someone was to ask me what my favorite cocktail was, my answer would have been a Dark & Stormy. It’s my go-to. With dark rum, lime juice, and ginger beer, Dark & Stormies are crisp and light and a little spicey. A Dark & Stormy is essentially a Moscow Mule (which you might be more familiar with), but with dark rum as opposed to vodka.

If you saw my January Favorites post, you saw that I’ve been really into blood oranges lately. I made blood orange ice cream a few weeks ago and have been playing around with ideas for different blood orange cocktails. I decided to go with what I know and love and create a blood orange Dark & Stormy!
This drink recipe is so simple and it’s almost laughable to post a recipe, but I didn’t want to keep this masterpiece to myself!
1 shot of dark spiced rum (or 2 or 3)
Juice from 1-2 blood oranges
Ginger beer

Add the rum and blood orange juice to a chilled copper mug (because fancy). Fill the rest of the mug with Ginger Beer. Garnish with an orange slice. Enjoy!

Key Lime Pie Ice Cream

Leave a reply

Key Lime Pie is the quintessential Floridian dessert. I, however, prefer ice cream to pie- thus I’m sharing Key Lime Pie Ice Cream with you today! I’ve made this recipe several times this summer, and it’s been a big hit!
Here’s what you need:

1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup bottled Key lime juice
1/2 cup heavy cream
Dash of salt
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
12 graham crackers (3 full sheets), coarsely crushed, divided
lime zest and wedges (optional)

In a bowl, combine milk, lime juice, heavy cream, salt and sweetened condensed milk. Whisk and combine. Pour the mixture into your ice cream maker (I use the Kitchenaid ice cream attachment) and freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions.
Stir graham crackers into ice cream. Spoon ice cream into a freezer-safe container ( I just use a loaf pan), cover, and freeze until firm. Sprinkle each serving with a few graham crackers, lime zest, and wedges when you’re ready to eat! It’s soooo easy!

Aw Honey, Ya Baked! : Rice Crispy Cookies

Leave a reply

Guys, I have such a treat for you today! When I was young I remember going grocery shopping with my mom at Publix. Publix is a special grocery treat for Floridians (now most of the deep south) that cannot be beat. It’s where shopping really is a pleasure. One of my favorite things about grocery shopping at Publix with my mom was the free cookies once we made it to the bakery. My favorite cookie to get was the rice krispy variety. Cereal in cookies?! Best idea ever!!
Because it was such a standard favorite, my mom started making a similar cookie involving coconut and rice krispies. Little did I know that Ray’s mom made a similar cookie as well! And wouldn’t you know, it was also Ray’s favorite. Here’s how you make them:
Rice Crispy Cookies
1 C all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 C butter
1/2 C granulated sugar
1/2 C packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 C Rice Krispie’s cereal
1 C oats (the original recipe calls for quick-cooking oats, but I use whatever we have at the house – usually old fashion or steel cut)
1/2 C coconut flakes (unsweetened or sweetened – it just doesn’t matter)
1/2 chopped pecans
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl and set aside. Beat butter, preferably in an electric mixer, until light and fluffy. Add sugars to butter and beat until blended. Add egg and vanilla and beat until incorporated. Stir in the flour mixture. When everything is well combined, add the cereal, oats, coconut, and nuts. Put those bad boys on a greased cookie sheet and bake for 9-11 minutes! The cookies pictured are pretty small, but I’ve also made them much larger. You do you!

These are the perfect cookie! Everyone enjoys them and it’s nice to have an alternative to chocolate. I’ve made about 6 batches in the last 2 months for varies parties and get-togethers! They’re always a crowd pleaser!

Caramel Apple Sangria

11 Replies

This year for Friendsgiving, Ray and I decided to offer a fall/winter inspired cocktail. We knew we could go one of two ways. Apple based or cranberry based. This year we went with apple.We knew we wanted to make it in large batches to accommodate for the crowd. We chose a simple, but delicious Caramel Apple Sangria recipe.
Here’s what you need:
1 gallon Apple Cider or Apple Juice
1 large bottle Pinot Grigio
3/4 bottle Caramel Vodka
chopped apples for garnish
Mix, refrigerate, and serve!
Pro Tip – We used two different types of apples, red delicious and pink lady because that’s what we had on hand. The pink lady apples definitely help up better than the red delicious, which got a little mushy. I suggest using extra crisp apples like pink lady or gala.

We served this cocktail in a a medium sized glass drink dispenser. It was a big hit at Friendsgiving this year, but I think it would also be appropriate for a Christmas party!