Swiss Roll Substitute

I couldn't get rid of the craving so I made a substitute: brownies with vanilla frosting. I get the frosting part and the chocolatey part. They weren't the same, but were good enough.

Horray for resourcefulness!

cravings

I saw a box of swiss rolls in the pantry. Instant craving.

Now I'm eating everything else in the world trying to get rid of that craving. Nothing is helping. The thing about cravings is, only the thing that you're craving makes it go away!

I don't want to break down and eat one- I know I will regret it.

I also don't have the time or ingredients to try and recreate one.

What do you do when this happens??

Chex Giveaway!

I know, I know. It's been two weeks and I'm sure you're all dying to know who gets the awesome 2 boxes of Chex and a $25 Kroger gift card, provided by Chex and Kroger via MyBlogSpark.

We (finally) have a winner!

Congratulations, Mami2jcn! Hope you enjoy making the Chex party mix.

Chex Holiday Recipes & giveaway!

I love Chex cereals. I ate chex when I was a kid, and more recently since both chex and I have become gluten free. I used to love the corn chex when I was younger. I could eat bowls of it.

I'm currently on a cinnamon chex kick. Seriously, that stuff is my motivation to get out of bed for work at 4am. I'll crawl out of my cocoon for good cereal.

I snack on dry honey nut chex when I'm out and about. I've used the chocolate chex as a replacement for rice krispies when I make rice krispy treats.

When I make Chex Mix (using only corn and rice chex, and Glutino pretzels), it hardly ever lasts more than a few days. It's so delicious and not at all hard to make.

Same goes for the classic Muddy Buddies. I have never met anybody who doesn't like puppy chow, and it makes a great little gift wrapped up in a pretty bag or tin.

They even make a pretty sweet gingerbread house roof.

I eat a lot of Chex!

Which is why I was super excited to receive the Chex Holiday Recipes gift pack from Chex and Kroger via My Blog Spark.

I'm also excited to offer a giveaway! It includes 2 samples of Chex cereal and a $25 gift card to Kroger. In addition, Kroger is putting Chex cereal on sale from December 2-25th so I can stock up on my cinnamon chex. Er, I mean, so we can entertain and create tasty, gluten free snacks and/or gifts for not a lot of money!

So what did I do with my samples?
I made some muddy buddies for the holiday snacking-age.

My dad really loves this stuff, and he's not much into sweets.

This time I also tried something different- I wanted to make a crispy coating on chicken nuggets. My camera is malfunctioning, so I'll borrow the picture from the web site. They were very yummy and easy.

There's a whole page of chex recipes on the web site, some gluten free and some that can be easily converted to gluten free.

So much chex! So little time!

To enter for the giveaway (provided by the awesomeness of Chex and Kroger via My Blog Spark), leave a comment sharing your favorite Chex recipe, or which one you'd like to try with your samples!

fail

What a long, tiring, problematic day.

I had wanted to post a beef stew crock pot recipe. I set it up last night and left for work this morning with the crock pot set to low. Only I forgot to plug it in.

I came home ten hours later to very microbiologically questionable un-cooked stew. UGH. Into the trash went fresh vegetables and meat and wasted food.

No beef stew for dinner tonight :o(

Wine and cereal it is.

Chicken and Corn chili

I tried this dish a few weeks ago at my friend's house. It was SO good that I just had to make it myself. Turns out it is ridiculously easy. I love love crock pot recipes.

Here's the link to the recipe on Allrecipes.com. The recipe says to cook 8 hours, but I didn't come home until after 10 hours and it was just fine. Not dry or anything. Of course I didn't drain the corn or the beans, for extra moisture. I also used black beans instead of pinto beans. NOM.

Please, be sure every ingredient that you use is gluten free. :o)

I originally wanted some avocado to go with it, but it had sat too long on my counter and was funky. Too bad, it would have really made this dish rock. Horray for leftovers! Lunch is going to be good tomorrow.

Robot Birthday Cake

First Birthday Cake!

Fondant robot parts, Betty Crocker GF Vanilla Cake mix.

Inspired by a picture that my friend sent me and wanted something similar; don't know the source.

Circles were made using piping tips- the small ones were made using a number 12 round tip, and the larger circles were just the larger end of the tip. I glued the fondant pieces together using a small paint brush and water.

If I were to do this again, I'd make sure the color of icing that I chose for the cake wasn't the same as some of the parts- they kinda blend in.

Overall, I thought it was cute. :o)