Chocolate Hazelnut Cheesecake

Nothing makes me happier that a successful party.  I love cooking for people, from full out plated dinners to just finger foods. It makes me happy when people enjoy my food.
This past weekend I hosted a party, and I made a numerous amount of food, but this this post I'm going to highlight dessert!
I have apparently been living under a rock, I don't know how I've never managed to have Nutella before. I've known about it for quite a while and how everyone loves it. I've even served it to small children with strawberries, but I've never actually tried it before. Holy cow, I didn't know what i was missing!!

I love chocolate and hazelnut together, and Ferrero Rochers are my favorite so when I came across this cheesecake I knew it was something that I HAD to make.

This Chocolate Hazelnut Cheesecake was a hit! Everyone loved it and it is so simple to make with just a few ingredients. This is a no bake cheesecake, just whip up the ingredients and chill it in the fridge until you're ready to serve!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 Cups Oreo Crumbs

1/2 Stick Butter, melted

3 8oz Packs of cream cheese, room temperature

1 1/2 Cups Nutella

Topping:

3/4 Cup Nutella

1/4 Cup chopped hazelnuts

10-12 Ferrero Rochers

Directions:

1. Combine Oreo crumbs and melted butter and press into the bottom of a buttered spring form pan. Chill in the freezer for about 10 minutes.

2. Cream together cream cheese and Nutella with a hand mixer and pour over chilled crust. Return to freezer until firm.

3. Spread remaining Nutella over top of cheese cake, sprinkle with chopped hazelnuts and line edges with Ferrero Rochers. Keep chilled until ready to serve.

Adapted from http://www.littlesweetbaker.com/

Breakfast Casserole

I'm sure you've heard breakfast is the most important meal of the day, right? I live for breakfast, I can eat breakfast food any time of the day and be a happy woman.

I've recently discovered this wonderful thing called a breakfast casserole. They are so easy to make and there are tons of different variations you can make.

The possibilities are endless!

My husband is a meat lover, so my go to is a sausage and potato breakfast casserole. I make one almost every weekend and it lasts all week to bring left overs to work.

Frozen ingredients are quick & easy.

 I usually buy bags of frozen peppers, onions and hashbrowns so I can whip this casserole up at any time.

 I saute the peppers and onions until they are soft and then set them a side.

 Next I brown up the sausage, drain, and they combine with peppers and onions in a casserole dish.

 I  add the still frozen hashbrowns to the sausage mixture and then move on the the eggs.

My secret weapon!

 A couple of years ago I watched my mother make some omelettes for family who stayed over. I noticed she was putting the eggs into a blender before putting them into the pan. At first I thought it was just a quicker way to scrabble all those eggs. Little did I know it would change the way I made eggs forever.

I will NEVER scramble eggs by hand EVER AGAIN. Even when it's just scrabbled eggs for myself. Whipping them up in the blender makes them so light and fluffy. I use the single serve attachment for my Ninja when I'm just making a few eggs, but when I make the casserole I pull out the big guy.

I add all my eggs and a nice amount of salt and pepper to the blender. I hit the blend button and just let it go for at least 30 seconds. You're looking for a nice frothy finish. Pour it over the sausage and top with cheese.

 I give it a quick stir before tossing it in the oven just.

Once it's set, pull it out of the oven, slice it up and devour!

I'm a huge fan of hot sauce on my eggs so i topped mine with some Chipotle Tabasco.

What's your favorite breakfast combination?

INGREDIENTS:

You really can't go wrong here, add whatever you like! Here's what I used...

1 lbs ground sausage

1/4 C frozen chopped onions

1/4 C frozen chopped peppers

2 C frozen hashbrowns

18 eggs

Shredded cheese

Salt & Pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

1. Saute onions and peppers over medium heat until cooked through, set aside.

2. In the same pan brown your sausage. I like to sprinkle salt & pepper in while it is browning.

3. Once the sausage is cooked, add it along with the cooked onions and peppers to a 13x9 baking dish. (you'll wan't to grease this first)

4. Scramble your eggs! I throw mine into my Ninja Blender and whip them up until they are nice and frothy. I also like to add more salt & pepper to the eggs while in the blender.

5. Pour the eggs into the baking dish and top with cheese. Give it a little mix and throw it in the oven for about 30 minutes or until the center is set.

6. ENJOY!

Honey Dijon Garlic Chicken

I try to step out of the normal quick easy dinners I also make, Tacos, Meatloaf, Spaghetti. Most of the time when I try new recipes they are hit or miss. Some times I like it, and the hubby hates it. Others he loves it and I couldn't care for it. This was a quick easy recipe that's good in both our books!

I adapted the original recipe from Rasa Malaysia I only changed the amount of garlic I used, and didn't exactly measure the amount of honey.

You can really use any type of chicken you want here, but I had some tenderloins in the freezer so that's what I used. The honey Dijon garlic sauce would taste really great on a nice pork chop as well!

I served this with a box of Pasta Roni, which I totally forgot I needed to make until after the chicken was cooked! Whoops!

Honey Dijon Garlic Chicken

Ingredients:

1 lb chicken
Salt & Pepper
2 teaspoons olive oil
6 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons honey
3 teaspoons Dijon Mustard
1/4 cup water
Pinch of salt

Directions:

Heat up a large skillet on medium heat and add 1 teaspoon of olive oil. Mean while sprinkle chicken liberally with salt and pepper on both sides. 

Fry up the chicken until cooked on both sides and remove from skillet.

Add the remaining olive oil to the pan and stir-fry the garlic until slightly browned. Add the honey, Dijon Mustard, water and salt. Stir to make sure all is combined. Let sauce reduce just a little. Add the chicken back to the skillet and stir to make sure the chicken is all coated and reheated if necessary.

Remove from heat and serve. Making sure to spoon all the extra garlic pieces and sauce onto the chicken!

(Read more at www.rasamalaysia.com)

Cajun Chicken & Rice

I've come to realize that most of the time when I cook dinner, it's always the same thing or some variation of it. Spaghetti, tacos, meatloaf, take out. I guess I'm just afraid of trying new things because I am a picky eater, and Mike doesn't like anything that doesn't have meat as the main ingredient.

I have a bunch of chicken cutlets in my freezer so I hopped on Pinterest and got some ideas for what to do with it. I ended up with a Cajun Chicken and Rice dish.

I don't have Cajun spice on hand so I had to mix up my own, it's fairly simple and uses some staple spice cabinet spices.

After combining the spices and chopping up the chicken breast I mixed the two and threw them in a pot to brown.

After the chicken browned I removed it and added some frozen peppers and onions to same pan and sautéed them.

Mean while I was cooking up a box of Zataran's Spanish Rice with added Rotel.

Once the rice was cooked, I added everything together in the same pot.

Added a few handfuls of cheese and mixed everything together.

It was very spicy! But it was good :] Mike and the roommate gobbled it up.

 

This recipe is extremely flexible!

Ingredients:

Cajun Spice mix

Any type of rice - cooked to directions.

Chicken breasts - diced.

Onions & Peppers - fresh or frozen.

Cheese  - any variety.

Directions:

Toss the diced chicken in the spice mix. Cook rice according to directions on package. Brown until cooked through and remove from pot. Sautee onions and peppers in the same pot the chicken was in. When rice is cook combine all ingredients and enjoy :]