Keeping Up With the Holidays

Ho, boy! It has been a pretty crazy month. I recently entered an entrepreneur challenge with my husband and my brother. We are working on building a statistics calculator for non-math and non-computer-science researchers (so basically everyone else who finds stats and coding stats hella difficult). It was a great competition, with some good competition.

Luckily, we got first place! My brother and I were super surprised when they announced our team. Actually we sat there in disbelief for a while until my husband said "That's us!" We were really stoked accept our $500! It was awesome!

Here we all are looking like some thugs! Personally, I feel I just look pissed off and not so much tough. There is another one of us just looking super excited and cheesed out, but my sister has that one for safe keeping. Proof that I'm not a hardass in real life. I just act like one *wink*

That competition fell right around the same time as Thanksgiving. So it was a pretty busy month. This Thanksgiving I decided to try out a dessert along with a savory cheese roll. I'd have to say, things turned out pretty dang awesome even in the kitchen. I'm super excited about these tasty cheese rolls. They were a huge hit with my family and I had requests for seconds (even thirds). The cool part is for those of you who are gluten-free, these guys are right up your alley. One thing that really threw me off about the recipe is how runny the batter is. Don't let that fool you. These poof right up in just a few minutes in the oven. I think it is the air that gets in the batter from using  my hand mixer that makes a huge difference. I tried it once with the standing mixer and didn't get the same poofy results. Here is the link to these tasty guys. You can totally follow her recipe and get the same results every single time. You can have these guys alone, with blended refried beans, or with Thanksgiving dinner. These rolls go with just about anything and everything. They are also super addicting, so beware!

Now we go on to some tasty desserts. I made these NILLA banana truffles. I adapted the recipe from Krafts Food. I personally enjoyed my version, but I'll need to go back and try the original. I made them dipped in semi-sweet chocolate and white chocolate; and sprinkled crushed peanuts and pecans on top. The white chocolate coated truffles had a nice rich sweetness, with the nuts providing a great crunchy contrast. The semi-sweet chocolate coated truffles reminded me of chocolate dipped bananas. I could imagine coupling those with some vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.  

NILLA Banana Truffles (yields 36)

Ingredients 

2 small ripe banans
1 box of NILLA wafers
1 pkg (8 oz) Philadelphia cream cheese
6 oz white chocolate
6 oz semi-sweet chocolate
1/3 cup finely chopped peanuts and pecans

 Directions

1. Crush all the NILLA wafers in a food processor or by hand
2. Mix the wafers, cream cheese and bananas in a large bowl until well blended 
3. Shape mix into 1-inch balls and place on a cookie sheet
4. Place cookie sheet with truffles in refrigerator for 15 minutes to let firm up (they are easier to dip if they are cold)
5. In the mean time, place your white chocolate in top portion of a double boiler to melt
6. Remove the truffles from the refrigerator 
7. Once the chocolate has melted, begin dipping the truffles one at a time into the chocolate and placing back on the cookie sheet
8. Once you're halfway through the truffles, sprinkle peanut and pecans onto the top
9. Replace the truffles back in the refrigerator to allow the chocolate to firm up and the undipped truffles to firm up again. 
10. Repeat the same dipping process with the remaining truffles and the semi-sweet chocolate
11. For the last refrigeration, keep in the refrigerator for 1 hour or until firm. 

Store these guys in an airtight container in the refrigerator. I let them rest at room temperature for 15 minutes before serving.