Watermelon Smoothie

I had a lot of watermelon chunks in the leftover from my parents at our beach house so I quickly froze them before they went bad. So glad I did! When I came back with my in-laws I made delicious & refreshing watermelon smoothies to go with dinner the night I served sweet potato pizza & cheeseburger soup.


Ingredients:
3 cups watermelon cubes, frozen
1 cup fat free plain yogurt
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
(may need to add additional yogurt or ice as needed)


Directions:
Place all ingredients in a blender and mix until smooth. 


What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Peach & Mango Bellinis

Cooking Club's theme this past month was Barefoot Contessa inspired recipes. We all made a recipe from one of Ina Garten's cookbooks or found one online. I was in charge of cocktails for this dinner club meeting so I made Fresh Peach Bellinis and made it my own. So yummy! I got these great champagne flutes from my mom as a wedding present years ago and like to bring them out every so often. Bellinis are the perfect occasion! Check out the other Barefoot Contessa courses at our Cuisine Queens website! :-)

Ingredients (serves 8 to 10 people):

• 4 peaches
• 2 champagne mangoes
• 2 tbsp of sugar or equal
• 2 tsp of lime juice
• 1 bottle of sparkling wine or champagne, chilled
• I used Peach Seltzer water for a non-alcoholic version (we have some pregos in our group)

Directions:

• Chop fruit into small pieces.
• Place fruit, lime juice, & sugar into a food processor.
• Puree in processor until mixed well.
• Pass through sieve (optional) and leave out skins & bits.
• Place 2 tbsp of the puree in each champagne glass
• Fill with champagne and serve.

For a non-alcoholic or low cal option use peach seltzer water instead of champagne/wine.





My husband & I had an awesome dinner on the back porch (the weather has been fantastic)   and I tried out the bellinis on him before making them for cooking club the following night. They were a hit! They also paired nicely with leftover Southwestern Pasta Salad & these AMAZING BLT Lettuce Wraps which I made for the first time that night! YUMMO!


What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Purple Cow Smoothie

Our cooking club recently did a challenge where everyone had to bring a dish (we break it down into appetizer, salad, soup, entree, dessert, drink, etc) that contained the same main ingredient and we picked VANILLA as our special ingredient. There are lots of great recipes out there that include vanilla and with the help of All Recipes Ingredient Search you can find a lot of them.  I got to do the dessert beverage and went with a smoothie/milkshake. It was delicious!



Ingredients:
1 cup grape soda
4 cups vanilla bean ice cream
20 ice cubes
1 tbsp vanilla extract
milk


Place ingredients in a blender, add enough milk so that it blends smoothly. Feel free to change the ice cream or purple smoothie amount depending on the taste. I liked just having a hint of the grape flavor and more vanilla flavor. 


What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

Slow Cooker Irish Coffee

Cooking club's theme this month was Slow Cooker. Woo-hoo! I signed up for the alcoholic beverage and attempted Irish Coffee. AMAZING. It's the perfect night cap or after-dinner dessert. It was so good I made it again the following night. I had this awesome Kahlua coffee that I used. Any regular coffee will do though. If you are not a big coffee drinker, then it's the perfect recipe. And if you are not a big alcohol/Bailey's drinker, then it's still the perfect recipe. Everything is mixed together so well that you don't taste too much of the Bailey's and you don't taste too much of the coffee. It's just a perfect drink for entertaining guests. You might think of using decaf coffee depending on what guests are coming over. Enjoy!


This served about 8 people


Ingredients:
6 cups of freshly brewed coffee
1 cup of Bailey's Irish Creme 
1 tbsp of cocoa powder
2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
container of fat free cool whip


Directions:
Combine coffee & Bailey's in slow cooker.
Mix in cocoa and whipping cream.
Cook on low for 3 hours.
Serve in coffee mugs/glasses and top with cool whip





What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? I would love to know that you visited my blog. Please leave me a message letting me know you were here! Did you try out a recipe? Let me know! I would love to hear from you :-)

The Ultimate Cosmopolitan

For cooking club this month we had to make each other's favorite dishes. I got to make my friend Courtney's favorite cocktail, cosmos! It was a lot of fun -- doing the research, shopping in the liquor store, and making the final product. The first thing I learned is there is a lot of recipes out there. Do I use regular cranberry juice or some other type like cranberry-apple or cranberry-pomegrante? Do I use triple-sec, vermouth, or cointreau? What type of vodka? Store bought lime juice or freshly squeezed lime juice? Then the hardest part, how much  of each? I wound up gathering several different recipes, watching a couple of videos online, and then merged them together to create my masterpiece.


1 Part Vodka (I used Smirnoff Cranberry flavored)
1/2 Part Cointreau (orange flavored, better than triple sec)
1 1/2 Part Cranberry Juice (I used Diet Cranberry Juice)
1/4 Part Lime Juice (I used Rose's Lime Juice because a lot of recipes included it)
Garnish with lime wedge


I wound up making this recipe for 10 people so I had to multiple the recipe by 10. Luckily, I had a martini shaker big enough to hold it all. 

From Target -- Holds 64 oz!!!

Final Product:

Fruit Smoothie

I love to make fruit smoothies in the blender.  For this one I just used 1 cup of frozen strawberries from Costco, 1/2 cup of skim milk, 1 container of weight watchers raspberry flavored yogurt, and 1 small scoop of vanilla flavored low fat whey protein. It came out to be only 3.5 points for about 2 glasses worth.