Turtles!

Ok these guy have nothing to do with cooking but I couldn't resist! I finally saw Sea turtles on the beach today! I was so excited...because I have wanted to see them since we moved to Hawaii! I have seen them in the water and from a distance but never this close...I was about 2 feet away! It was awesome...not quite as awesome as my husband scuba diving next to one but that's never going to happen for me since I am too scared to try it so this will have to do!

Pumpkin Cheesecake Brownies

So a friend of mine has been telling me about these great brownies she made for weeks now so I decided to give them a try. I am not personally a big fan of pumpkin but in an effort it to feel like fall I thought I would give it a try. She got the recipe at Beantown Baker and she was right they were great! I followed the recipe for the most part just making some minor adjustments mainly because I was out of a few of the ingredients and it was 10:00 at night and I was not about to go out for them.

You can check out the recipe that Beantown Baker used but I am going to give you what I adjusted it to.



Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake Brownies - makes 16 bars
Brownie Batter
3/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder -
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon

Cheesecake Batter
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 egg @ room tempature
1/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp flour
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease an 8x8" square metal baking pan.

Beat together melted butter, sugar, and vanilla, then beat in eggs one at a time. Combine dry ingredients and then gradually stir into butter mixture with a wooden spoon. In separate bowl, beat together cheesecake batter ingredients.




Spread about 2/3 of chocolate batter into prepared pan, and spoon cheesecake batter over. Dollop remaining brownie batter over cheesecake batter.

Swirl the batters together by running a butter knife back and forth through the pan.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until center is set. Cool completely on wire rack and chill before cutting and servingYUMMY!

Halloween Party

Well we did it!
We had our first Halloween Party!
Here are some pictures of the

"fun stuff"

we did!

This is a cheeseball my husband made into a face.

Some of the fun food we had...Peanut Butter "Eyeballs"
I also put spiders all throughout the house climbing the walls! My husband wasn't fond of this but that might have something to do with the fact he HATES spiders! LOL!
I love how it turned out though!

Sorry this picture is a little blurry...This was the main food table with the candlelabra I made using a candlelabra that I got at GW and sprayed black then added the skull and spider.
We had Cemetary "Dirt Dessert"
Little "Mummies"
"Brain" Dip

We also gave out costume contest prizes...I was in charge of the female and so I got this straw bag and added some fun ribbon to it and filled it with goodies for the winner!
Really liked the way it turned out!

We are really happy with the way it all turned out even if we had to change our costumes last minute and didn't get to finish decorating...but next year will be bigger and better!