Favorite Recipes of 2010

Today is the last day of 2010. It's hard to believe I started this journey of food blogging one whole year ago! Since then I've been having so much fun in the kitchen baking and cooking new recipes to share with everyone. I've posted 151 recipes to be exact!!! I have received so many wonderful comments from relatives, friends, and complete strangers. It has been an amazing adventure and I can't wait to see what 2011 has in store.

This April I am going back to college....cooking school that is! I am going to get a Certificate in Professional Baking and Pastries. I am so excited and want to soak up as much information, cooking skills, and recipes that I can! I have no doubt that this blog will only benefit from the classes I will be taking.

Before 2011 begins, I want to take a moment to highlight a few of my favorite recipes from 2010. Ones that I continually get positive feedback from; ones that I find myself making over and over again when we have company; my top 3 favorites!

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Kathie's Favorite Recipe #1 - Honey Lime Chicken Enchiladas

I have made these many times this year especially when we have guests over for dinner. Every time I make these, people comment how amazing they are. It is definitely one of my new favorite meals!



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Kathie's Favorite Recipe #2 - Mini Meat Loaves

I just love these little meatloaves. They are so full of flavor and so fun to eat. They also make a great freezer meal. You can make them for expectant parents (like I did), someone who is sick, or for your own freezer so you can have a ready-to-make meal on hand when you are short on time!



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Kathie's Favorite Recipe #3 - Tres Leches Cake

This is my hubby's favorite recipe of 2010 and I'm a huge fan as well! I've made this for several occasions this year - birthdays, dinner at a friend's house and even for Christmas!



Cheers to everyone on this New Year's Eve! May you all have a very happy and blessed 2011!!!

Filipino Chicken Adobo

A New Jersey church friend of ours introduced us to Adobo Chicken this past summer. I pretty much fell in love with it immediately. It was jam packed with flavor and the chicken was so tender! For some reason I started thinking about adobo this week so I "Googled" it and found this recipe on The Food Network's website. It turned out AMAZING!!! My husband said it was the best chicken ever and gave it a 10 out of 10!

I wish I could share smells over my blog because I don't think the picture does justice for this recipe. It is just so good, flavorful, and so tender! We loved it!!!

You can also add pork to this recipe. Thanks Feli for inspiring me to make this delicious dish!

Black Bean Soup

My little boy loves black beans. Every time we have something with beans in it (like cowboy caviar, black beans and rice, etc.) he always picks them all out and eats them immediately then asks for more. When I saw this recipe #1 I wanted to make it for him and #2 I thought it sounded really good too! It's a recipe originally from Paula Deen and has bacon in it. Yum!

Very good soup! I paired it with some TGI Friday's Chicken Quesadilla Wraps that I found in the freezer section at the local grocery store. It made a very easy and delicious dinner tonight. Needless to say, my little boy demolished his bowl and asked for seconds.

Best Spinach and Artichoke Dip

We had a dinner party with several of my husband's coworkers last weekend. There were 3 different appetizers and this was by far the biggest hit. We pretty much demolished the entire dish and I can honestly say it's the best spinach artichoke dip I've ever had! This recipe is a keeper!

Jalapeno Popper Dip

Several years ago (when I was in highschool) I worked at a rootbeer stand. One of my favorite items on the menu was Jalapeno Poppers. I still love them to this day! I saw this recipe and had to try it. It was so good and really did remind me of Jalapeno Poppers. This would make a perfect appetizer for a football game or New Year's Eve party!

Don't let the Panko bread crumbs scare you away. I didn't know what they were either. Panko is a flaky bread crumb used in Japanese cuisine as a crunchy coating for fried foods. Panko is made from bread without crusts, and has a crisper, airier texture than most other types of bread crumbs. Just look in your local grocery store next to the regular bread crumbs and you are likely to find them.

Holiday Cheese Truffles

These cheese truffles turned out great! I loved the presentation and their taste! They made a great additional to our holiday party that we hosted last weekend. You can roll the cheese truffles in whatever you like. I used pecan bits, fresh diced parsley, shredded cheese, and paprika. The recipe says it makes 24 truffles but I made mine a bit smaller which made about 34. Making them smaller made them much more bite-size.

Again, I just love the presentation of these little guys. Huge thanks go out to my brother-in-law and his wife for this adorable plate they bought me. l love it!!! :)

Reindeer Sugar Cookies

Can you spot Rudolph in this picture? :) I love these little reindeer cookies! The website where I got this idea from contains a sugar cookie recipe that you can use. Or you can take the easy route like I did and use already-made sugar cookie dough. My son had a cookie dough fundraiser a month ago so I had some in the freezer that needed to be used up.



The cookies in the picture above were made by taking baked sugar cookies and cutting them in fourths. The antlers are the letter "E" from a bag of alphabet pretzels I found at Meijer. I used mini M&M's for the noses.

The cookies below are bigger. I made one reindeer out of one baked cookie by just cutting a couple strips off the sides. I cut off the top edge of mini pretzels to make the antlers and used regular sized M&M's.

Mixed Up Snowman Snacks

My son's preschool Christmas party was this week and I wanted to take something fun to pass out to his classmates. I found this adorable idea on a blog call Gourmet Mom on-the-Go. It's called Mixed Up Snowman Snacks and it makes the perfect snack for little fingers. It consists of mini marshmallows (snowballs), mini chocolate chips (buttons and eyes), fruit roll up (scarf), pretzel sticks (arms), orange sprinkles (noses), and junior mints candy (hats). The kids are going to love these! Gourmet Mom even provides a link to the labels to print! Super easy and super cute.

*If I were to do this again, I would use either red or green fruit rollups for the scarves. The multi-colored fruit rollup just didn't look as pretty.

Pepperoni Pizza Puffs

I love these little pizza bites! They are so good and fun to dip in the pizza sauce. This would be a great appetizer to serve for a football game or birthday party. The leftovers were even good the next day. I will definitely be making these again soon!

Caramel Fondue

As promised, here's the caramel fondue recipe. My mom used to make this a lot when I was a kid. It can be served warm or cold. I served it warm, but the cold leftovers the following day were just as good!



Some of the dippers included apple slices, strawberries, and bananas. My personal favorite is the caramel fondue with banana slices! (At least the banana part of it is healthy! haha)

Easy Chocolate Fondue

Some of my husband's relatives stayed with us last weekend. It was so great to see them and spend time with their family. On Saturday night we had a Fondue/Game night. I served chocolate fondue and caramel fondue with all the fixings. It was so good!!! Fondue has always been a favorite of mine. I could just stand by the fondue pot and dip/eat for hours! :)



Some of the dippers included brownies, pound cake, and marshmallows. Mini oreos and cheesecake would also be good!



Here's the chocolate fondue recipe. Tomorrow I will post the caramel fondue recipe.

Santa Party Mix

I have found so many cute Christmas candy recipes this year! I've just been having a blast in my kitchen lately. Check out these adorable little Santa hats! Aren't they cute?!?!



They are made out of caramel bugles (you can use plain ones too) and mini marshmallows. I haven't had bugles for years and it was the first time I'd ever had CARAMEL bugles. They were so good that I seriously could have eaten a whole bag before I even started dipping them!

After making these Santa hats, you can add them to a chocolate covered party mix and it will be the hit of the party! Enjoy!!!

Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Snowmen

My almost-4-year-old and I had so much fun in the kitchen this morning! Isn't this family of snowmen the cutest?!?!?! I got a little extra creative and made the little babies by using pretzel sticks and mini marshmallows. I am in love with them!



The idea of using mini M&M's to decorate the snowmen came from a blog called Speckled Egg.



The idea of this cute couple came from a blog called Icing Designs. I just adore how the women have long eyelashes and scarves while the men are wearing hats.

Chocolate Covered Pretzels

Chocolate covered pretzels are always a huge hit with my family around the holidays. Have fun and decorate them with anything you can find in your pantry. I had made these for our Thanksgiving dinner but you could easily use red and green sprinkles instead.

A lot of times around the holidays you can find pretzels in the shape of Christmas trees too! Those are always fun to dip.

5 Minute Turtles

This is one of my favorite holiday candy recipes! These bite size turtles are delicious and so easy to make. All you need is 5 minutes and 3 ingredients!

Some members of my family do not like pecans, so this year I topped 1/2 with pecans and 1/2 with M&M's then dazzled them up a bit more my drizzling chocolate over the top. These are sure to be a big hit at your upcoming Christmas party!

Pumpkin Pie Bites

I know it's a little late for this recipe but I just now got around to posting it. Sorry...but perhaps you can keep it in mind for next year! :)

I made these little delights for our Thanksgiving Day dinner this year. They were yummy and pretty cute too!

Mexican Monkey Bread

I served this Mexican Monkey Bread with PW's cauliflower soup the other night. My hubby and I loved it! It's buttery, cheesy, and the jalapenos add a great kick to it!

This bread is best when served right out of the oven; however, we made ham sandwiches out of it the following day and they sure were good!