Originally posted January 3, 2016 as “countdown to new year’s: chocolate tart;”. Updated November 20, 2024 for content and clarity. I originally made this tart for New Year’s Eve back in 2016 and now, 8 years later, I’m revisiting my classic chocolate tart recipe (spoiler alert: it holds up!). This wasn’t exactly my first post (that was cheddar pepper popcorn) on the blog (back then tipsychocochip), but it was the first chocolate-overload post I made. So in celebration of my 500th post on Best with Chocolate, I wanted to glam it up and even add a raspberry layer to make…
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Continue ReadingThe mimosa bar for our New Year’s Eve Countdown Bash came out super cute! I decided that four was the perfect number: four fruits, four juices, four champagnes! Champagne Now we decided to use Andre as the champagne. It’s not classy, but if you’re going to mix with super sweet juices and mix the champagne, no need for the good stuff. We did reserve a bottle of “good stuff” for the actual midnight toast though! For champagne varietals, we had: (1) Brut, (2) Extra Dry, (3) Spumante, and (4) Blush. We also had some sparkling cider which is a perfect non-alcoholic varietal!…
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So today was a flurry of shopping, baking, and cooking! I’m exhausted but excited. It was lucky that I took the day off from work so I had enough time to do everything that needed to be done for our kick-ass New Year’s Eve Party! We pulled out all the stops. I’ve got a whole trivia game about 2015 ready, set with prizes; I made some props for us to use in a makeshift “photobooth” (more like a golden photo corner); and of course, the drinks — a mimosa bar! I’m super excited about it all but especially the mimosa…
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So let’s go with: I’m going to whip these out again one day and impress someone. They look amazing. They taste even more amazing. And you can pretend that they’re healthy (they’re not). I did forget to add that extra drizzle of caramel, but you know, that’s how these things go. I used McIntosh apples because that’s what I had lying around the house, and I wasn’t able to make the nice rings that the gunny sack described. Because my apples were softer, I just cut out from the center instead, making sure not to cut through the base.…
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This past week was a struggle. Actually, all (two) weeks since Thanksgiving. Even with the Hello Fresh meals eliminating some meal planning and grocery shopping, I’ve felt like a crazy person. Just this past weekend there was our company holiday party, a LAN party with the guys at work, a visit to a Shiba inu adoption event, brunch with friends, and an entire day driving to and advising for my sorority. While all those things were fun, needless to say, it’s been a little crazy. I could have used a weekend break from the weekend! I remember when I was…
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So we made individual garlic monkey breads as a quick side to caesar chicken tortellini the other other night! They were quite tasty, and simple to boot, considering I pretty much always have some biscuit dough floating around in my refrigerator. At the grocery store I had only been focused on picking up ingredients for the tortellini, so side dishes didn’t really cross my mind. But I got home and was thinking, you know what goes great with caesar salad and tortellini? Garlic bread! But alas, no fresh crusty bread, so what’s a girl to do to get her garlic…
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So a friend sent me a Hello Fresh discount code for 1/2 off a week’s delivery and I forgot about it for months until I got a reminder e-mail from Hello Fresh (guess those reminder e-mails do work!). And it was almost Thanksgiving, so I figured I’d have an order delivered the week following; that way I wouldn’t have to go grocery shopping when I got home after traveling for the holiday. I’ve only made one recipe so far and here’s my conclusion on Hello Fresh: it’s convenient, but I see no need to have a weekly or even a…
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These are yum and fun to pull out! I found that the recipe I used (see below) was actually a bit sweet, and judging by my taste-test of the batter, I think the cookies lost some of their cake-batter-ness with the addition of the sugars. No, I didn’t eat 4 cookies worth of dough … >.>. Shhhhh. Next time I think I’ll try leaving out the sugar. Or maybe make a full batch leaving all sugar out of one half, and adding only brown sugar to the other half. Will have to do some experimenting. I know all my friends…
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I’ve been cooking up a storm lately, so we’ve been eating leftovers out the wahzoo. They’re delicious, but they impede my cooking because I don’t want to waste food! So I made pot pie filling the other day for an easy Monday dinner before I go to volleyball. But I was ravenous when I got home, so I had to make an appetizer/side. These “pizza rolls” were perfect! So easy to make and so yummy! T approved. The ones pictured here are made with mozzarella and cheddar cheese! But you can use whatever kind of cheese you like, e.g., pepperjack…
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I recently discovered that I don’t mind brussel sprouts. I honestly had never tried them before last year when I first made this recipe. To be fair, it was because my mother hates them and obviously never made them for us growing up because she didn’t want to eat them. So to my young self, since everyone said brussel sprouts were icky, they were obviously icky! Child logic at work for you. I actually discovered that I liked brussel sprouts at a cooking class. I use the term “like” loosely here. I like them for a vegetable — they’re still…
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I really wanted to make these lamb kebabs! I’d never really made lamb before, and these looked simple and tasty. The spices were definitely aromatic as you heat them up on the stove, although I didn’t do a wonderful job of mixing them well into the meat. Ad I’m always worried that the meat will turn out tough, and that’s not what you want, especially for kebabs. Once I formed the kebabs, I actually ended up freezing them because T and I had way too many leftovers to eat at the time, and I didn’t want the meat to spoil!…
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So we might’ve moved in over a month ago. We also might’ve had our party just under a month ago. But I did just re-make this pepper cheddar popcorn and wanted to share it with the world. Mostly because I made it by accident, and those are the tastiest recipes. Plus it’s just so fun to watch the kernels popping …! We decided to have a beer tasting housewarming! Since everyone we invited was coming from all over, we just had everyone bring a 6-pack or a growler of some awesome local beers! We got an awesome variety, and we downed…
