Posted by nicole

Green Velvet Graduation Cupcakes

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Graduating college is a big deal! It’s tradition for me to make cupcakes or cookies for my sister’s graduation (high school, associates degree, undergraduate, and soon to be graduate!). Her schools colors are green and yellow so I opted for a “green velvet” cake and my tried and true cream cheese frosting.

Velvet cakes, I’ve found, are actually a pretty good crowd pleaser. It’s not a vanilla cake, and not quite chocolate. And these were even more awesome because I made some edible graduation caps to go on top. I was inspired by this post and used colored candy melts with my brownie bite pan and candy cup mold. And yes, I sorted out all the green colored mini M&Ms and cut the green out of strips of rainbow sour belt, but I was determined to have a super cute graduation cap and tassle!

The cupcakes were a hit and we surprised my sister at an end of the year Girl Scout event with a mini party in our hotel room.

caps in progress
Party setup in hotel room

Healthy Spinach Artichoke Dip

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Spinach artichoke dip is one of the things that I sometimes indulge myself in when I eat out at restaurants. It always seemed a mystery how the dip would be perfectly gooey, cheesy, and warm. I’m not going to lie, I have rushed into a dish of dip too early a few times and burned the roof of my mouth.

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So you can imagine my surprise when I found out that not only was spinach and artichoke dip easy to make, but it’s also easy to make healthier. I’m not going to say that this is healthy because it is spinach and artichoke dip. I’m also not going to say that I have devoured a big dish of only this for dinner, because that would be crazy, right?

I crafted this recipe from one that I saw on Washingtonian and have served it fresh on Super Bowl Sunday, used it as a spread on a sandwich, and re-heated it for a side for normal weekday dinners. It’s easy to customize to add more or less moisture and flavor, so mix it up to your liking! Serve with chips, crackers, or pretzels (trust me, they’re all good).

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February #TeaSwap

Custom Hapa-tite mug!
Full Swap
Loose Leaf Tea

The first round of the tea swap I organized in January was a great success! I was paired up with Suzie, who asked if I could procure some limited edition Spice & Tea Exchange Chocolate Candy Cane tea for her, which I was happy to oblige since it sounded delicious!

Suzie was so awesome and sent me a customized Hapa-tite mug!! I can’t express how much I’m in love with it. In addition to the mug and some tasty Amish Market treats including cinnamon graham pretzels (which were devoured immediately), she sent me:

Fronteir Tea & Tea Bags
Amish market Treats
Hand-written Touch

This package completely blew me away! It was the first thing I got in my new house and I was excited to tear into it. Sadly, I haven’t tried any of the teas yet (too busy eating those pretzels), but I’ll be sure to share my thoughts on Steepster and maybe even here. Most of these companies are completely new to me, and I’m so excited to try them all. Suzie went above and beyond the tea swap minimum requirements!

If you want to get in on the next tea swap or share one that you participated in, head on over to the tea swap page!

Tea Swap Sharing

Thai Cabbage Salad

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For this month’s Secret Recipe Club, I was paired up with Karen from Karen’s Kitchen Stories. It was incredibly hard to decide what to pick from her wonderful assortment of recipes. I had “narrowed” it down to sixteen finalists and had to tap my fiance to help decide.

Karen has some beautiful bread recipes, including Danish Apricot Braid, Demerara Sugar & Honey Challah, Gruyere Cheese Bread, Hokkaido Milk Bread, Kimmelweck Rolls, and Whole Wheat Challah. I have never made bread before (unless you count banana bread or zucchini bread!), so I was excited to try one of her recipes, but in the end I chickened out.

I wanted something pretty easy and quick since I wanted to make the recipe as soon as possible when SRC buddies were announced. We had just put an accepted offer on our first home and the thought of packing and baking at the same time was overwhelming. Plus, we recently discovered a Lao/Thai restaurant nearby that makes amazing salads and thought this might be a close re-creation.

If you have a food processor, this salad is easy peasy. If not, you might want to buy pre-shredded ingredients. I like the color that the purple cabbage adds, but it is noticeably tougher in texture than the green cabbage. In the future, I’d use 3/4 green and 1/4 purple cabbage, or all green cabbage.

I made extra dressing because that’s the best part. I plan to have it tomorrow with some spinach, broccoli/carrot slaw, and baked tofu.

Checkout the other recipes in this month’s Secret Recipe Club round-up, or head over to Karen’s Kitchen Stories and check out other amazing recipes such as Spicy Parmesan & Herb Grissini, Biscoff Cheesecake (!!), Boca Negra Cake, Boston Cream Pie (my all time favorite dessert), Chocolate Hazelnut Madeleines, Ovaltine Macarons, Asian Take-Out Style Spareribs, General Tso’s Chicken, and Mini Chocolate Espresso Pots de Creme.

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COCOZIA® Organic Coconut Water

Coconut water is supposed to be good for you, right? Then why do they all taste so horrible? I’ve tried several different types of coconut water and my absolute favorite is Harmless Harvest Raw Coconut Water. It is the only coconut water I’ve tried that actually tastes like fresh coconut water, BUT it is quite expensive at around $5 per bottle.

My second favorite brand of coconut water is COCOZIA. It as strong of the odd, sour, artificial taste that other brands have. I think that it is the pasteurization process that modifies the flavor, which is why the raw coconut water tastes much better. I also like Coco Cafe Coconut Water & Coffee as well as Zico’s chocolate flavor, but that’s because they’re loaded with sugar and flavorings. COCOZIA ranks higher than Vita Coco, Zico, and Trader Joe’s Coconut Water for me in terms of taste. I also like the packaging since it seems more economically friendly than plastic bottle (though the individually wrapped plastic straws negates that a bit).

From their site:

COCOZIA® Coconut Water is exactly that: a pure, natural hydration source containing not only water from the green coconut, but essential electrolytes too.

ELECTROLYTES
COCOZIA® contains a natural abundance of potassium and magnesium, as well as other electrolytes. Electrolytes are directly involved with body hydration and muscle function. Better to get yours from a natural source like COCOZIA® than from a sugary, synthetic sports drink alternative.

COCONUT WITH A STRAW
That’s how they drink coconut water in the islands, but fortunately, COCOZIA® has made it a little easier for you here! All the natural elements and flavor, without the need to carry a coconut to your work-out!

Unfortunately, the only place that I have seen this coconut water is online on Amazon. $25 for 12 cartons of coconut water is not too bad of a price, especially if you’ve tried other coconut waters and haven’t cared for them.

Disclaimer: I was contacted by Epicurex and provided a case of Cocozia Coconut Water free of charge. All opinions are my own.