Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Banana Bites

It's a mouthful, literally. These tasty snacks are easy to make and delisious. With the recent heat here in Baltimore, MD these frozen sweets help to cool down. I got the idea from Pinterest, but made a few adjustments. If you want to follow me on Pinterest Click Here. Here's how to make these treats:

Ingredients:
- 2 Large Bananas
- Natural Peanut Butter
- Dark Chocolate Chips
- Milk
- Toffee Bits

Instructions:
1. Peel bananas and slice them into pieces 3/4" thick.
2. Using a Melon Baller scoop out a small amount of banana (this will make a little boat for your peanut butter)
3. Fill scooped out sections with peanut butter
4. Place dark chocolate chips in a small dish and add a little milk. Pop it in the microwave for 20 seconds at a time adding more milk and continuing to heat until chocolate is melted and whiskable.
5. I used a fork to lower banana pieces into the chocolate, using a spoon to cover the top with chocolate. Then fork lift the banana out of there and place it on a parchment paper lined pan. (trick: I tapped the chocolate covered banana fork against the side of a dish. this creates an even layer of chocolate and keeps chocolate from spreading all over the paper)
6. Continue until all bananas are covered. Sprinkle with toffee bits and freeze a minimum of 3 hours

This snack is completly healthy... It's fruit after all... Right? (wishful thinking)

xOxO - M

Glow-In-The-Dark Bubbles

Looking to wow kids one evening now that it's warming up outside? You will have to pick their jaws up off the ground when you spring this one on them. Take a bottle of bubbles or make your own by combining 2/3 a cup of Dawn dish washing soap + 1 gallon of water + 3 tablespoons of glycerin, and include the contents of a standard sized glow stick. You will have awesome glowing bubbles! Making your own bubbles and need wands? Use pipe cleaner and bend them into fun shapes for kids. Check out an example:

     

xOxO - M

Make Your Own Flavored Water

As the weather warms up it is important to stay hydrated and this year making your own flavored waters seems to be quite popular. I have included my top five recipes (from Southern Living & Eating Well) and top five tips to making your water stand out in the crowd. 

Top Five Recipes

1. Citrus - Cucumber Water (6-8 Servings)

- 1 Large Lime - Sliced

- 1 Large Lemon - Sliced

- 1 Large Orange - Sliced

- 1 Large Cucumber - Sliced

- 1 Half-Gallon of Water

2. Cucumber - Melon Water (6-8 Servings)

-1 Large Cucumber - Sliced

- 1/4 Cantaloupe - Cubed

- 1/4 Honeydew - Cubed

- 1 Half-Gallon of Water

3. Herb - Berry Water (6-8 Servings)

- 1 Cup Fresh Blueberries - Lightly crushed (skin fully pierced)

- 2 Sprigs of Rosemary 4" - Bruised

- 1 Half-Gallon of Water 

4. Lemon - Lavender / Basil / Mint Water (6-8 Servings)

- 4 Large Lemons - Sliced

- 1/4 Cup Lavender or 1 1/2 Cup Mint Leaves or 1 1/2 Cup Basil Leaves - Bruised

- 1 Half-Gallon of Water

5. Fruit Water (6-8 Servings)
- 1 Granny Smith Apple - Sliced
- 1 Lemon - Sliced
- 1 Pear - Sliced
- 1 Orange - Sliced
- 1 Cup Raspberries - Lightly crushed (skin fully pierced)
- 1/2 Cup Mint Leaves - Bruised
- 1 Half-Gallon of Water

Top Five Tips

1. Bruising Herbs
This water is PRETTY! Keep it that way by bruising herbs and not slicing them into 'sip' size choking hazards. Lightly rubbing herbs between your hands prior to incorporating them allows their flavors to be expressed while looking lovely!

2. Piercing Semi-Permeables
Sometimes its good to have a thick skin, but not when attempting to infuse water. Fruits such as blueberries and  raspberries should be lightly muddled and others such as apples, pears and citrus should be sliced.

3. Flavored Ice
Pour your flavored water into ice trays and freeze to keep beverages from losing flavor as your party progresses. (Another bonus is to add these cubes to iced tea, lemonade or even sodas for a fruity kick.)

4. Mandolin Trick
If you have one of these your prep time is going to be a breeze. Set your mandolin to 1/4" to 1/2" (depending on the fruit) and slice away! The greater the surface area exposed the more tasty your water. Keep in mind, though, that you want your fruit to hold it's structure and not disintegrate.  

5. Patience is a Virtue
In this fast paced culture of instant gratification we want it and we want it now! Make your water before you go to bed. It will be perfect in the a.m.

xOxO - M

D.I.Y. Upholstered Wall Treatments

I tend to be a big D.I.Y.er when it comes to furniture rehabbing. There are a lot of really easy and inexpensive ways to inexpensively create one-of-a-kind pieces for your home. One recent venture was to make a wall panel installation for the wall behind my sofa. It was super easy and so I wanted to share instructions for those who have requested them after seeing my project pictures on Facebook.

Materials:
-12" x 12" Canvas' (Buy @ Michael's in Value Pack)
- Staple Gun
- Staples
- Pencil
- Exact-o Knife
- Fabric (I used fabric that I had covered an ottoman with that complimented the color of my green sofa)

Instructions:
1. Place fabric printed side down on the ground. Place the framed canvas facing down on the fabric. use the Exact-o knife to cut the fabric in a square shape 16" x 16"
2. At the corners of the square cut slits 1" long to keep fabric from bunching in the corners.
3. Staple fabric to the wood frame doing the 4 sides first and then fold the corners neatly and staple. (make sure you are pulling the fabric so there are no wrinkles, but not so tight that your pattern is stretching)
4. Once you have your canvas' recovered you can iron and hang them anyway you like on the wall. This is how I patterned mine:

 

I will be posting how to turn an old coffee table into an upholstered ottoman in the near future! Here is what the finished product looks like though:

 

 

xOxO - M

 

 

 

McKenzie Wild

Hey All! Guest Blogger Whitney has started her own blog called McKenzie Wild! Her posts can be found here: McKenzie Wild Blog and they are AWESOME! I hope you will subscribe to her and support her efforts!

xOxO - M

Guest Blog Whitney: Welcome to Baltimore, MD Growlers!

Pinehurst Wine Shoppe. Where everyone knows your name.

To all Baltimore COAEH Readers:

 

            Have you heard? Growlers are in! And if you haven’t jumped on board with this beer-buying-trend, you are missing out on the best way to enjoy the freshest craft beer.

What’s a growler?

            Dating back to the 1800s, when patrons carried fresh beer home from their local pub in     pails, the name “growler” allegedly comes from the fizzing sound as CO₂ escaped from the lid. Flash-forward to the twenty-first century, a growler simply refers to a reusable glass jug filled with delicious beer straight from the tap!

Thanks to legislation passed last July, Pinehurst Wine Shoppe became the first retail establishment in Baltimore to sell growlers. With a 13-tap growler station, Pinehurst sells and fills growlers 6 days a week. Manager, Gordon, says, “Why not growlers?” Not only are growlers the freshest way to enjoy craft beer but environmentally friendly. In less then a year, Pinehurst has sold 1,400 growlers and filled over 5,000. (To put that number in perspective: that is over 30,000 beer bottles NOT in the landfill!!)

But I think the best part about buying beer in growlers is the ability to taste the beer before you buy it! Which brings me to my Saturday afternoon.

Every Saturday, Pinehurst hosts “Tap Takeovers” featuring one brewery or beer manufacturer on all 13 taps! Last Saturday, Dog Fishead Ale was the featured brewery so I enlisted the help of my sister’s boyfriend, Martin, and we walked over to try some delicious beers. We had our work cut out for us, as clearly we needed to try all 13 beers!

As usual, there was a large crowd, growlers in tow, sampling and discussing the various beers to determine what to fill their growlers with that day.

Martin & I joined the fun & Charles, the resident beer connoisseur, started our tasting with the peach (sour) and we ended with the 120 IPA (20% alcohol!). As we sampled each beer, Charles explained the flavors, recipe origin, alcohol content, etc. I love hearing the different ingredients and seeing if I can actually taste them!

Here is what we tried:

 

Here is what we thought:

·         Martin’s favorite: Rhizing Bines. A Dogfish Head / Sierra Nevada collaboration 8% alcohol.

·         My favorite: Namaste

                  (Which Charles accurately predicted would be my favorite the day before!)

·         Least favorite: Probably the peach because it was very sour.

·         The 120 IPA 20% alcohol by volume . . . It was good, but I think a sip was enough!

 

 

Located on the corner of Bellona Ave. & Gittings Ave., Pinehurst is truly the Shoppe around the corner for its surrounding neighborhoods (remember I mentioned I walked over!) “And don’t you want to go where everyone knows your name, and they’re always glad you came?!

Cheers!

~Whitney Elizabeth (Thanks Mere)

Pinehurst Wine Shoppe

6242 Bellona Avenue

Baltimore, MD 21212

 

*This post is not endorsed by Pinehurst Wine Shoppe. The opinions expressed are my own.

Cookie Jar: Blueberry Lemon Cookies

 

These are ridiculous! I wish I had somewhere to take them right now!! The great thing is there are so many possibilities to add to the simple base recipe! They would also be super yummy with a cream cheese icing! Try your own creation and let me know how they turn out! I am already thinking of Strawberry / Basil or Dark Chocolate / Cherry!

 

Soft and Fluffy Cookie Base:

- 1 Cup Unsalted Butter, Softened

- 1 Cup Granulated Sugar

- 2 Eggs, Room Temperature

- 1/2 tsp Salt

- 1/2 tsp Baking Powder

- 1/2 tsp Baking Soda

- 3 1/4 Cups Cake Flour

- (Whatever Mix-Ins You Like!)

 

For Bluberry - Lemon Cookies...

- 1 1/2 Cups Blueberries

- Zest of 1 Lemon

- Juice of 1 Lemon

- 1/2 tsp Cinnamon

- 2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

- 1 Cup White Chocolate Chips

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. If using extracts incorporate them now. If a seperate bowl, whisk dry indredients. With the mixer on a low speed (unless you want to make it snow indoors) slowly add the dry ingredients into the batter. Carefully fold in any mix-ins. Allow dough to cool 2-6 hours in the referigerator. Scoop 1 tbsp amounts of batter on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or foil. Bake 11-14 minutes or until bottoms are golden brown.

 

xOxO - M

Guest Blog Whitney: Keep Calm and Plan On!

Hello again Confessions of an Entertaining Hostess Readers! True Story: I got a call from the bride-to-be 3 days before the wedding asking if I could PLEASE plan the decorations (that she kind of forgot about, but really wanted) for the her post-reception party. Since it was her wedding day & we have been friends for 17 years . . . I enlisted my mom to help and we made a plan.
Oh, her only instructions . . .  “make it cute” and stay within the budget, $70.
So in case you ever find yourself in a similar situation here’s how we did it:

1. Make a list & prioritize:

We created a list of everything we needed and prioritized based on cost. There were a few “musts” we set aside money for those. For example, we wanted balloons in the bride’s wedding colors. I called Party City and got the price for 20 balloons ($1 each) and we set that $20 aside.

               

2. Make a Plan:

             With only 3 days, so there was no time to spend shopping around. We decided to start at the dollar store and see what we could knock off our list there. After that we planned to go to Michael’s where we had a coupon. (I have the Michael’s app on my phone, which downloads coupons automatically every week!)

3. Make flexible plans:

            We originally wanted 12 mason jars but the sand was expensive and we would need A LOT of sand to fill up an entire mason jar. So when we found cute 8oz bowls for $1 and needed ½ the sand, we changed gears.

4. Use what you have!
 

 

Shells were originally on our shopping list, but we couldn’t find any we liked for the right price. We had a box of sand dollars in our garage. A little bleach + paint = the perfect shells for our decorations.

So what can you accomplish in 3 days for $70?
 

 

We made 12 votives to place on each table with decorative sand (in the wedding colors!) and battery-operated tea lights.

Supplies: Michael’s: sand, ribbon, rose bowls. Dollar Store: tea lights & white ribbon

P.S. With red, white, and blue sand & citronella candles these would be the perfect decorations for a 4th of July BBQ!

 

We decorated 4 vases and had originally planned on using flowers from our garden to fill these vases, but when we found out all the flowers from the reception were simply going to be thrown out, we grabbed them! 

Supplies: Dollar store: vases. Michael’s: ribbon.

We made 2 of these prints celebrating the bride’s new last name!

Supplies: Dollar store: frames. Michael’s: burlap fabric & black paint.

 

Meredith, thanks for letting me guest blog again! & Happy entertaining!