My love

I love being in love! I'm so excited to marry him! Less than 4 weeks away!!!!

Teriyaki Marinade

I bought a little mini me grill at Wal-mart! Scott and I used it and made a delicious (and romantic) dinner in the desert! I made a marinade for the chicken and found it off allrecipes. It sounds weird, but Scott and I couldn't get enough of it!!

INGREDIENTS

• 1/3 cup water
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon crushed garlic (I actually did 3 cloves)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• (not in original recipe) I added 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger too
  

DIRECTIONS

1. In a medium bowl, mix water, brown sugar, soy sauce, garlic, and cinnamon. Place desired meat in the mixture. Cover, and marinate in the refrigerator at least 2 hours before grilling as desired.

Toffee Brownies

Ok, so I'm not a great fan of Paula Dean, but I was on the Food Network website and I stumbled upon one of her shows and decided to watched a clip of an episode... of course the title had easy and toffee in it so I was curious! It looked delicious!!
So after I watched it, I had to try it! I made it, and it was really was heavenly!!! They are super super easy to make. Enjoy!

Here's the recipe, try it out!

1 (17.6-ounce) package brownie mix with walnuts (except I didn't use one with walnuts)
Vegetable oil cooking spray
3 (6-ounce) candy bars with almonds and toffee chips (recommended: Symphony brand)

Prepare the brownie mix according to package directions.

Line a 13 by 9-inch cake pan with aluminum foil and spray with vegetable oil cooking spray. Spoon in half of the brownie batter and smooth with a spatula or the back of a spoon. Place the candy bars side by side on top of the batter. Cover with the remaining batter.

Bake according to package directions. Let cool completely, then lift from the pan using the edges of the foil. This makes it easy to cut the brownies into squares.

The beautiful colors of autumn!

Look...autumn really exists in Arizona!! I love this time of the year!

Spooky fun!

We had a really fun Halloween! A couple nights ago, I was reading Lisa's blog and saw this picture.
And it gave me this sudden urge to make and decorate a Halloween cake, (I used to decorate cakes with Emilee all the time in jr high!) Scott's always up for anything, so I knew this was going to be really fun! I did a little googling and decided to do a haunted house on the cake! So here's how it turned out!
It was so much fun! Scott's so awesome to do this kind of stuff with me, we had some laughs biting off these teddy grahams' heads. We used up so much frosting!!! It must've been almost an inch thick on the cake itself!

And then on Halloween, we had to think of a Halloween costume for Scott really fast, so we made him a nerd! Oh, and Scott made sure to act like a HUGE nerd all night!
He's the cutest nerd I've seen!
...And I was just a boring witch!

The beginning of autumn!

Since fall is just around the corner, we wanted to make an autumn wreath! So we went to Michael's and to our surprise, all the fall stuff was half off! YAY! It was a lot of fun, and it turned out cute!
Maria and Ian did one too! It turned out really cute too!!Too bad we don't have our own door to stick it on :) So...instead we put it up at his parent's house!

Yummy in my tummy

The best dessert in the whole world is CHEESECAKE!!!
So, we decided to try this one...
Nilla Praline Cheesecake!!
It turned out really good! Delicious!

Ours looked pretty good next to the professional one! YAY for baking!! Here's the recipe, try it out!

66 NILLA Wafers, divided

1-1/4 cups sugar, divided

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) margarine or butter, melted

3 pkg. (8 oz. each) Cream Cheese, softened

1/2 cup Sour Cream

1 tsp. vanilla

3 eggs

25 KRAFT Caramels

3 Tbsp. milk

1/2 cup Pecan Pieces, toasted

Make It

HEAT oven to 325°F. Finely crush 50 wafers; mix with 1/4 cup sugar and margarine. Press onto bottom of 9-inch springform pan. Stand remaining wafers around edge, pressing gently into crust to secure.

BEAT cream cheese and remaining sugar in large bowl with mixer until well blended. Add sour cream and vanilla; mix well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating on low speed after each just until blended. Pour over crust.

BAKE 45 to 50 min. or until center is almost set. Run small knife around rim of pan to loosen cake; cool before removing rim. Refrigerate 4 hours. Microwave caramels and milk on HIGH 1 min. or until caramels are completely melted, stirring every 30 sec. Cool slightly. Pour over cheesecake; top with nuts.

How to Toast Nuts

Toasting nuts adds crunch and intensifies their flavor. To toast nuts in the oven, spread nuts in single layer in shallow baking pan. Bake at 350°F for 10 to 15 min. or until golden brown, stirring occasionally.

One fun project

So, I got this table from a friend of mine for free for my new home when I get married! Here's what it looked like...













Scott and I decided to find chairs, so we got a sweet deal on craigslist on these solid wood chairs!
So, we spend a whole day sanding, painting, and staining our table...and here's how it turned out!


It matched PERFECTLY! I love projects! We just got a solid wood table and chair set for less than $100!