Heart of Darkness Margarita AND A Giveaway!

You know, I don't know why I thought I would be recovered enough from my vacation to handle a Tuesday. So while I'm nursing a sunburn + dealing with a book hangover (you know the feeling after you finish a good book? you're like bummed it's over + not ready to move on to a new one? that's me.) I'll be sharing that book this weeeeeek! Plus a zillion sunset pictures. Plus a lot of other fun things. but I COULDN'T miss Cinco, where else would you get a margarita recipe?! we're giving away these adorable Kate Spade desk accessories!

SO, when I stopped at TJ's for the wine for last week's sangria, I thought "oh, I can totally grab margarita mix here!" I was wrong. Then I saw that this mango passionfruit juice was called "heart of darkness" so I was pretty sold. Anyways, this is about as easy as my tequila sunrise. I have to be honest, I didn't think that this was going to be as delicious as it was so this is the only picture I took. Hashtag bad blogger. Anyways. It's easy! Fill your glass with ice, pour in your desired amount of tequila, fill the rest up with heart of darkness mango passionfruit juice (no sugar! real juice! it's good for you, duh!) mix it in one of your many stadium cups on hand, splash of grand marnier (let's be honest, I only have that at my bar because my dad needed room in his bar + had a full bottle. so any orange liqueur is perfect, I know you have it because you're making my regular margaritas.) Mix a little more + enjoy!

Okay, now that you're enjoying your tasty margarita, it's time to start entering to win these adorable accessories for your desk!

Your workspace should always inspire and these dreamy, rose gold supplies and notepad definitely do the trick. Enjoy the stapler and tape dispenser (with fun idioms) to dress up any desk place. And use your cute pad for any kind of note.These ladies joined me to giveaway these great Kate Spade items!Amanda | Suz | Liz | Brooke | Kerri Kristyn| Kasey | Daisy | Faith | Nina

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Make Your Own Seasoned Breadcrumbs!!

I blog over at The Rambling Llama. You can mostly find me talking about my kids and husband, but every now and then you'll catch something sentimental like this. I'm happy to be taking up residence in Kasey's little corner or the Internets today! Totally jealous that she's enjoying culture across the pond!

Y'all, I don't know about you, but I tend to run out of things in my pantry at the worst possible moment. Let's take last Sunday for example. I had every intention of making Salmon Patties for dinner. Yum, right? I thought I had everything I needed. I was very excited about this salmon, and began prepping. Salmon? Check. Egg? Check. Seasonings and onions? Check. Breadcrumbs? Umm... not quite enough. Whomp, Whomp.

This is where my quick thinking came in handy. Of course, I didn't have any actual bread or flour to substitute for seasoned breadcrumbs. Nope... that would be too easy. And clearly we did not make a trip to the store that weekend! Oops. I did, however, have triscuits. Stale triscuits to be exact. Dill and sea salt stale triscuits. Yay. How was that going to work? Thinking on my feet, y'all! That's how it worked!

What You'll Need:

+ Stale crackers. Something with a flavor or seasoning would probably work best for this

+ A food processor or grinder

+ A handy, dandy storage tin. I used the old breadcrumbs tin.

Break up your crackers into small, bite size pieces. They tend to grind in the food processor a little easier this way. At least for me they did. Also, I don't recommend filling the container to the top. This way all of the crackers get to the blades.

Blend and mix with the food processor and store everything you don't use!

It's really THAT simple. I was pretty impressed with myself . The salmon patties tasted amazing, and now I have a small stash of breadcrumbs stored up for when I decide to make something like this... or meatloaf. Because I can almost promise that I will forget to get more breadcrumbs from the store next time.
I hope this helps y'all as much as it did me! What have you done to save dinner lately?

Want more Llama? 

Follow along:
  Blog || Twitter || Instagram || Pinterest || Bloglovin 

*comments have been turned off here, so go say hello to Melissa at here place!!*

DEEP FRIED TEQUILA SHOTS.

Apparently part of my new blogging plan is to include more recipes. That was a total surprise. but. These are too fantastic not to share. So when this was first posted on Oh. Bite It, at least five separate people sent it to me, because obviously. So I had to try it! Honestly. it's super easy and they taste like funnel cake. You don't even taste the tequila.

Okay. So, you'll have to forgive me, because I took all of these pictures like, two days after I got my camera. I'm loving it though, because I can see that in a couple of weeks my pictures drastically improved. So that's a plus right? ANYWAYS. This is so easy. Here's what you need:

• tequila, duh. 
• powdered sugar
• angel food cake (I got mine for $4 with my kroger plus card 'cause ain't nobody got time or eggs for that.)
• oil (I used canola oil, because I don't really know what the difference is + my dad said it would work fine... haha)
• pot 

First things first, this is going to make a mess. Don't say I didn't warn you, okay? I'm asking for a cute little personal deep fryer because I'm so obsessed with this stuff. So what you're going to do is chop the angel food cake up into cute little cubes. They're gonna stay about that size, so whatever you determine to be tasty poppable size. Then, get the oil warm. I test to see if it's ready by dripping some water in it, you'll know if it's ready. Okay! Now the fun part! I poured a bowl of tequila, woo wooooo! So don't soak it! Just dip it in the tequila. If you get it way too soaked it will absolutely explode. It's crazy. So, dip the cake in tequila, drop it in the hot grease for a couple seconds until it turns golden brown, and then take it out! let them dry on a paper towel, you know like bacon! Then sprinkle powdered sugar on top of them and enjoy!! Careful though, the booze doesn't cook out! 

Okay, so I didn't take any after pictures, because I was busy eating my tasty tequila bites. Let me know if you try this out! They're soooo tasty! 

Sopapilla Cheesecake!

Okay. I'm going to let you guys in on a secret, even if it diminishes my baking street cred. I have a super easy recipe for sopapilla cheesecake that will make everyone think you're super good at baking desert. I found it on pinterest or somewhere when I lived in Texas, but I've since memorized it and can't find the original one, for the sake of full disclosure. Anyways, it is sooo easy. Ready? Here's what you need: 

hi, my name is Kasey + I like to experiment with the sunset as my natural lighting, I didn't actually burn my dessert.

two cans of crescent rolls [when I lived in Texas, Albertson's carried unperforated crescent rolls. I've been on the hunt for those ever since. holla atchyo girl if you know where I can find them...]

two 8 oz blocks of cream cheese [I suggest leaving these out until they get soft, because cream cheese is tough without your stand mixer..]

1 1/4 cups of sugar

cinnamon

1/2 a stick of butter [err, 1/4 a cup?] melted!

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

greased 11x7" pan

Okay! Don't forget to preheat the oven. I always forget. Follow the instructions on the crescent rolls, usually it's 375, sometimes different brands try to pretend you need to set the oven special... In your mixing bowl, mix the cream cheese, one cup of sugar, and vanilla extract! This is a little tough, because cream cheese, so I definitely recommend a hand mixer or whatever, but a fork works just as well AND you get a workout. 

In your greased pan (I used my casserole dish because my teflon baking pan made a bigger mess when I tried to wash it...) line the bottom with the first can of crescent rolls. try to squish the seams together, it doesn't impact the taste, but it sure looks prettier... Spread the cream cheese mixture over the first layer of crescent rolls. Pro tip (hahaha, I'm not a pro..) -- if you don't already have one, invest in a rubber spatula, it spreads the filling easily AND helps you get all of the yummy insides off the mixing bowl. 

Spread the other can of crescent rolls over the top of your delicious cream cheese filling, again smooshing the seams together. Next! pour your melted butter over the top. omg, how good does it smell already? In a bowl, mix together 1/4 a cup of sugar and cinnamon to taste (okay, so I do a different amount of cinnamon every time, because of my issues with rules. A safe bet would be at least two table spoons so it's all brownish. yum.) spread that over top of the butter + bake for roughly 15 - 20 minutes, you're looking for a flaky golden brown color. Some ovens are different. Some crescent rolls tell you 9 minutes (which is a hilarious joke and big tease. it takes longer than that) 

There! Now tell everyone that you made the whole thing from scratch and you definitely didn't use crescent rolls instead of hand making some overly fancy pastry level so that you can really call it cheesecake. I won't tell anyone. Also! Let me know how yours turned out! Don't forget to take at least 50 pictures to find the perfect instagram shot... I mean...! 

Mini Chicken Pot Pies!

Oh man y'all. I'm hanging out over at Bri's place today, sharing my recipe that I halfway made up because I can't follow instructions. [anyone noticing a theme?] So go check that out! I'm keeping it short + sweet. Last night I made a super easy dinner thanks to my good pal Meredith gave me this recipe for baby chicken pot pies. Like the outstanding blogger I am, I didn't take like, step by step pictures for you. 

Here's what you need:

• Pilsbury canned biscuits (really any biscuits will work, but I would suggest two cans because it makes a lot of filling.)
• one bag of frozen vegetables (we went with just peas + carrots.)
• two small chicken breasts cooked + cubed (I cubed them, then cooked them, I think it's faster that way)
• one can of cream of chicken soup -- the condensed kind! 
• greased up muffin pan
• about half a cup of sharp cheddar cheese.

First of all, make sure you defrost the veggies all the way. Next, preheat the oven to 350 (or whatever the can of biscuits tells you to do!) Then go ahead and mix the vegetables and chicken soup, once the chicken is done mix that in too! Take the biscuits and spread them into the greased up muffin pan so that they kind of look like cupcake holders. Fill them up about 2/3 of the way with the veggies + chicken mixture (just like if you were making cupcakes!) and then sprinkle cheddar cheese on the top! Bake for about 15 minutes and enjoy! We only made 6 last night and then froze the rest of the inside stuff for another day. Super easy, super tasty! Do you have any tasty easy dinners I should try out?