So simple...sooo good!

Last night, Lani & Chad called and invited themselves over after dinner. :-) Since we both had plans of just staying home and relaxing, we decided why not do it all together. So, I said I needed to come up with a quick dessert we could have. Lani found this recipe and emailed it over to me...and surprisingly, I had all of the ingredients on hand. When they got here, she and I made it together and threw it in the oven. It turned out awesome. It was very easy to make and it was delicious. We had it with vanilla lowfat frozen yogurt. I will definitely make this again.

Mixed Berry Crisp

Source: Epicurious

2 - 12oz bags of frozen mixed berries, unthawed (I used one 16 oz bag)

1/4 cup sugar

1 cup flour

1 tbsp lemon juice (omitted because I didn't have)

3/4 cup old fashioned oats

2/3 cup packed brown sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger (omitted)

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

7 tbsp chilled unsalted butter, diced (I used light)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine berries, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup flour and lemon juice in a large bowl; toss to blend well. Transfer berry mixture to 9" glass pie dish. Combine remaining 3/4 cup flour, oats, brown sugar, spices and salt in a medium bowl. Add butter; rub in with fingertips until topping holds together in small moist clumps. Sprinkle over berry mixture.

Bake until berry mixture bubbles thickly and topping is golden brown, about 1 hour (I baked for 45 minutes). Let stand for 15 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. **top with vanilla frozen yogurt or ice cream!

It was all about Desserts!

As I mentioned in the previous post, the baby shower was desserts only. You should have seen the spread...you could easily go into a sugar coma just looking at it all. I'll give you a quick rundown before I tell you what I made....fruit (ok, that's not so bad!), 3 or 4 types of cookies, brownies, candy, baklava, lemon squares, apple cake, chocolate fondue, cheesecake bites, cupcakes, strawberry cake, eclairs....have you had enough yet? I haven't even mentioned the desserts I made. I know, I know...overload!

Let's start with the Grape Salad (hey, it has fruit in it at least...yea, keep telling yourself that). This stuff is 100% deliciousness. No other way to describe it so let's get right to the recipe...you actually have to make it sometime. It's perfect for a brunch (I actually had it for the first time at my friend Ashley's bridal shower brunch)! I got the recipe from her sister but I found the exact one online, so you can go to Recipezaar to see it.

Grape Salad

2 lbs of green grapes
2 lbs of red grapes
8 oz of cream cheese, softened (I used light)

8 oz of sour cream (I used fat free)

1/2 cup of sugar

1 tsp of vanilla

for the topping:

1 cup of brown sugar, packed

1 cup of chopped pecans

Wash and stem grapes. Set aside.

Mix cream cheese, sour cream, sugar and vanilla by hand until well blended.

Stir grapes into mixture and pour into a large serving bowl (I used a trifle/parfait dish).

For topping: mix brown sugar with pecans. Sprinkle over grape mixture until covered. (I put 1/2 of the grape mixture, then 1/2 of the topping and then did another layer like that).

Chill overnight.

Next up is Quaker's Famous Oatmeal Cookies.

They were very easy to make and the dough was so yummy (yes, I tasted it...ok, a few times). The recipe on the oats container said to bake for 12-14 minutes. I baked for about 10-11. They were a little too crispy for my tastes as I prefer my cookies chewy. For 1/2 the batch, I added chocolate chips and those cookies turned out a little better. Overall though, tasty but not chewy and moist enough for me. Anyways, here's the recipe:

Quaker's Famous Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup of packed brown sugar

3/4 cup of vegetable shortening

1/2 cup of granulated sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup of water

1 tsp of vanilla

3 cups of Quaker oats (I used Old Fashioned oats)

1 cup of all-purpose flour

1 tsp of salt (optional)

1/2 tsp of baking soda

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl, beat brown sugar, shortening and sugar until creamy. Add egg, water and vanilla; beat well. Add combined oats, flour, salt and baking soda; mix well. (I split the batter in half and added 1/2 cup of chocolate chips to one half of the batter).

Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 12-14 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Remove to wire rack to cool completely. Makes approx 5 dozen cookies.

More to come in another post....

Had to go shopping for this one....

Is it a parfait or is it a trifle? I have no idea. Both sound good to me so call it whatever you'd like. In either case, I had to go buy a pretty little dish to serve my first one in. Thank goodness for Bed, Bath and Beyond. I had seen this simple little dish a hundred times and knew it was only $9.99. Not to mention, that 20% coupon that was burning a whole in my pocket. Fun times, I tell ya. Anyways, tonight we are invited over to a former knottie's home (Steph, are you a nestie yet??)...anyways, she just had a baby girl a few weeks back and she and Rob have invited a few friends over tonight. I decided to take a strawberry trifle...strawberry parfait...ok, whatever. You get the point. Before starting to make last night's dinner of scallops provencal, I took an ever-so-wonderful boxed cake mix and a can of sprite zero, mixed them up and threw it in the oven. By the time, I was finished with dinner, the cake had cooled so I broke it up into small pieces and started layering in my pretty new dish. Not much to say as these are pretty darn easy, but boy does it look good...just look past the ugly layers...it was getting late and I was getting tired! Can't wait to dig in tonight. I will comment on the choice of boxed cake mix. YUM! I chose Duncan Hines French Vanilla. It's light and airy like an angel food cake but has a bit more flavor...absolutely perfect for this kind of dessert.

Strawberry Trifle/Parfait

1 boxed cake mix (white or yellow)

1 can of diet sprite

1 large package of instant vanilla pudding

3 cups of ff milk (to make the pudding)

2 8oz tubs of ff cool whip

1 lb of fresh strawberries (They were big so I quartered them)

Mix cake mix and can of diet sprite. Bake according to directions. Let cool completely. Whip up the instant pudding according to directions using the milk. Crumble or cube into appox. 1 inch pieces. Layer 1/3 into bottom of dish, followed by 1/3 of the pudding, 1/3 of the cool whip, and a little less than 1/3 of the strawberries. Repeat 3 times...using the remainder of the strawberries on top. Yum, Yum, Yum!