February 28. National Chocolate Souffle day.

A Souffle is a french cake that is made with egg yolks and beaten egg whites, lightly baked and sweetened. It is tricky to make. It's probably up there with macarons. They can be a pain to make but once you get the technique down, it becomes really easy. It really is, you just have to be very careful.

The eggs should always be at room temperature. Cold ones will not be as stiff and could cause problems for your souffle.

For chocolate souffle's, always use good quality chocolate. 

Be very careful when you fold the egg whites into the chocolate, you do not want your egg whites to deflate.

Serve the souffle's immediately after you take it out of the oven as they quickly deflate.

Top with powdered sugar, ice cream, custard, or whatever you want.

ENJOY your souffle!

February 27. National Chocolate cake and Strawberry day.

CHOCOLATE. 'nuff said. haha
Okay so yes of course i'm making chocolate cake for dessert tonight.

Making my cake batter.

Making the chocolate frosting while the cake is baking in the oven.

Cake! Hurry up and cool down!!

I forgot to take a pic of the layers and frosting in between. 

But I made a small thin cake with only two layers so it's no biggie really.

And yes. The chocolate cake with the chocolate frosting was not enough. 

I also glazed it with chocolate ganache.  YUMMYYYY

Well since it's chocolate cake AND strawberry day today,

 I decided to make chocolate covered strawberries...

...and yes I put those on top of the cake too. So, I made chocolate cake with chocolate frosting with chocolate ganache and chocolate covered strawberries. Chocolate on chocolate on chocolate on chocolate.

Death by chocolate. *insert evil laugh here*

February 26. National Pistachio day. AGAIN?!

Okay, didn't I just do National Pistachio day?? There's two? Really?

Naaahhh...

Just go to my National Pistachio day for today. 

Eh.

February 25. National Chocolate covered Peanuts and Clam Chowder day.

I didn't really have time to make today's challenge from scratch today.

Went into my candy stash and found this!

There's my chocolate covered peanuts for today! hehe

OMG and it was soooo good! I need another one!

Ha! Like I said, no time to cook from scratch today so I got this instead.

Canned Clam chowder! haha

Sorry for the boring post today! :p

I still did it though! hehehe

Hope everyone had a great day!

February 24. National Tortilla chip day.

A Tortilla chip is a snack food made from baked or fried corn tortillas. It is usually served with salsa, guacamole, or queso.

Tortilla chips and peach-mango salsa (no pic) while watching the Oscars!

Did you just love that amazing performance by the cast of Les Mis???

Goosebumps!

February 23. National Banana Bread day.

Banana bread. Yummy.

Banana crunch. Even better.

So I made banana bread. And then I made my crunchy yummy topping.

If you remember my post from January 26, I made peanut brittle. I changed it a little bit and used 1 cup of corn syrup instead of 1/2 cup. Other than that, just follow the recipe and make the brittle minus the nuts.

After it has completely cooled down, break it up into pieces 

and put them in the food processor and pulse a couple times.

This is what it should look like. 

Now put it on your banana bread and you've got your banana crunch!

YUMMY!

February 22. National Margarita day.

Soooo... I have not been feeling well the last 2 days and I was supposed to go out last night but it got cancelled, and my headache just wouldn't go away. So I had to do the margarita a day late. My husband and I went out to Longhorn's for dinner tonight and I finally got my margarita!

I got a frozen strawberry margarita and it was perrrfect!

Yes it was good. I liked it. I liked it A LOT.

February 21. National Sticky Buns day.

Sticky buns are sweet rolls that contain cinnamon and brown sugar and has a sticky topping. These are usually served for breakfast or dessert.

Usually they are baked all together as a whole, 

but I like using my mini cupcake pan and bake individuals. Makes it easier for everyone.

Yummy sticky goodness!!

February 20. National Cherry Pie day.

So I totally made this day very easy for me and got my husband to get me one of these 99c cherry pies at the store. hehehe

And then I took a bite.

I made bacon cheeseburger pie for dinner tonight and I made some smoked salmon and fried eggs on toasted french bread with lemon-caper cream cheese for my mom.

I also have been up since 4:30 this morning.

Yes I am exhausted.

So to eat a dessert that I didn't have to make was awesome. haha!

G'nite!

February 19. National Chocolate Mint day.

According to my son, Sunday is cookie day. So we always make cookies on Sundays. We try to, at least. Well, we weren't able to make some last Sunday. We went to church and to lunch and then I was out til after dinner time, and had other things to do that we just didn't have anymore time to make any.

Kaiden asked me if we could make some cookies. I looked at my list for today's challenge and immediately I thought, okay, Mint Chocolate cookies!

So I made Mint Chocolate chunk cookies!

And I made lots of it.

February 17. National Indian Pudding day.

Indian Pudding is a traditional New England dessert that is made with milk, cornmeal, molasses, and spices like ginger and cinnamon, and then slow cooked in the oven.

I don't really like the strong molasses flavor and smell

so I added cocoa powder for a little bit more added flavor.

Not a big fan of the Indian pudding but ice cream on top of the warm pudding makes it tastes better! well, what doesn't with ice cream, right??

February 16. National Almond day.

Today would've been easy if I just took a picture of the slivered almonds that I had. Boring! It's not like chips or cookies or chocolate. Weren't even a snack pack, it was just half a bag of slivered almonds that I use for baking. Soooooooo I made Macarons.

I ground up my almonds and sifted them to make sure I get rid of the big pieces.

Whipping up my egg whites. I made these pretty late and i'm actually really tired right now I want to just go to sleep...which was probably the reason why I didn't have much patience with it tonight and possibly didn't whip them enough. hehe oooops...

They came out a little flatter than usual, which was expected. But they still look pretty decent and taste the same. I also had some nutella in the pantry so I didn't have to make my filling, which made it so much easier! 

I love how I didn't want to just take a picture of the bag of almonds and wanted to make something crazy with it, and then got tired and took shortcuts, but still managed to make them look and taste good!

Yay me! 

Gooooooooodnight! :)

February 15. National Gumdrop day.

Gumdrops are a type of bright colored gelatin-based candy that are coated with sugar. They are usually used to decorate cakes and gingerbread houses during Christmas time.

My husband got these and actually got spice drops. They are just like the regular gumdrops but instead of the fuitty flavors like orange, grape, lime, lemon, and cherry, they have a sharper and a little spicy flavor. They usually have cinnamon, cardamom, and mint in them. 

I should probably hide these from the kids, but believe it or not, 

my 4-yr old and 23-month old can handle a little spiciness sometimes. They actually ate a whole bag of spicy chips by themselves earlier today. 

February 14. National Cream-filled Chocolate day.

Aaahhh... Valentine's day. A day of love, flowers, balloons, stuffed animals, cards, love notes, movie dates, dinner dates, and chocolates.

I got lucky and got these as a surprise sent to our house from my wonderful husband. :)

The berries didn't even last 5 minutes. I totally inhaled them. Sooo good!

Thank you baby!

We got all these too from my mother-in-law. Her Valentines for me, the hubby, and her grandkids.

And yes, some of those are cream filled. Half of mine was. 

 Happy Cream-filled chocolate day!

I love Valentine's day!

Happy Heart's day everyone! :)

February 13. National Tortellini day.

Tortellini are ring-shaped pasta that are typically stuffed with meat or cheese. White sauce, Red sauce, Butter sauce, seafood, meat, vegetarian, ALL GOOD.

I made four cheese tortellini with roasted garlic marinara sauce topped with mozzarella cheese!

We had it for dinner and I also packed some for my husband to take for his lunch tomorrow at work.

Yummy!

February 12. National Plum Pudding day.

Plum Pudding is traditionally served on Christmas. It is actually more of a cake than pudding. And get this, it contains NO plums! ha! That's right! It has raisins - and "plums" was the pre-Victorian term for it.

Kaiden asked me what I was going to make for today and I told him I was making plum pudding. Well, he actually wanted pudding, but not the kind that I was about to make. He also loves raisins, dried cranberries, plums, etc. So I kind of cheated today and decided to make my son happy by making the kind of pudding that he likes with plums.

Not just any kind of plum! Chocolate covered plums!

If you know my son, you would know that he loves to help out in the kitchen, most especially when I'm baking. He likes to add the ingredients and do the mixing, and pouring, and all that fun stuff. So yes, he actually made this whole challenge today all by himself. :)

Little man was very happy! Can you tell??

hahahahaha!

 Adding the chocolate covered plums.

Of course he had to taste it again!

My son's masterpiece. His version of a "plum pudding"!