Cucumber Cream Cheese Bites

I'm all about fast, delicious and healthy bites when it comes to party food. For M's second birthday I wanted to make a veggie platter, but it was just too boring for me. So I decided to turn the veggies into simple and original bites sized snacks! Meet the cucumber cream cheese bites. c:

The best thing though is that you don't even have to prepare them ahead of time. All you have to do is slice up some cucumber and put everything in a platter with a knife to spread the cream cheese and let your guests make their own! You could even get creative and offer different toppings. It's almost like a cracker bar but with cucumbers instead.

INGREDIENTS

Cucumber
Cream cheese
Dried cranberries

Seriously though, these are delicious.

Do you have any quick snacks that you prepare for guests at special events?

On another note, I started to think about Christmas gifts. I know, kind of early, but I'm always late, and this year I promised myself I'd be early! As I was writing this post, I found out that Blurb is offering Canadians an exclusive 25% off photo books until October 31 (using code CANADA25). So I thought I'd turn my recipes into a book and give them away as presents. Good idea no?

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Blurb. All opinions are my own.

Maple Banana Nut Breakfast Lentils

A few days ago, I decided to try my luck at making lentils and you know what? They're ridiculously easy to make. Seriously. Just dump about 1/2 cup in a pot, add water about an inch over the lentils and boil until soft (you may need to add water as it's cooking). Adding a bit of salt as they're cooking adds flavor so I strongly suggest it, although not necessary.

So anyway, here I am, serving my lentils to my family, when my husband asks: "Hey sweety, are there any bananas left?" And I'm like: "Say-waaaaa? Bananas? In your lentils? Really?" He goes on to saying that's how he ate lentils at home, back in Mexico. So I figure, why not?

As I'm sure you've all guessed, I found it delicious; unusual, but delicious. The next morning, I decided to mix it up. I'm usually more of a toast person, boring I know, but quick and reliable! The only problem with toast is that it's not really long lasting energy and I always end up hungry 1 hour later. So you can guess what happened next... I decided to turn the left over lentils from the previous night's dinner into my protein packed breakfast. I wanted this to be a well balanced meal so with the fruit, I added some yogurt and sweetened it with some maple syrup. Oh goodness, what a treat it turned out to be.

Ingredients

Lentils (cooked)
Plain yogurt
Maple syrup (to taste)
Banana
Nuts (get creative)

Just mix all the ingredients together and serve; warm or cold, it's just as good! Let me know what you think if you try it!

Do you have any unusual breakfast treats?

Mini S'Mores on a Stick

Remember all that left over chocolate from Easter that we froze? Well, I just found a new use for it; gotta use it all up right?

We have a newborn at home, and I really wanted to go camping this year, like, really really. But, um, I don't particularly think it's a good idea to sleep outdoors at 15 Celsius with a 1 month old. So, I had to find a way to bring camping to us!

Ding!

(That's the sound of the light bulb that went off in my head) Backyard camping!!! We can enjoy the same things, and go to sleep indoors when it gets too cold. I know what you're thinking: "But it's not really camping without s'mores!" My answer: "S'mores on a stick; problem solved." I'm so proud of myself right now.

“Have you ever camped in your backyard? What kind of activities would you do to make it just like real camping?”

By the way, this is my first official try at food styling (or creating a mess, whatever you want to call it), what do you think? Win or lose?

INGREDIENTS

Mini marshmallows
Chocolate
Graham cookie crumbs

STEPS

1. Melt the chocolate. If you use the microwave, make sure you do it in small intervals. Heat for a few seconds, take it out, stir, repeat until melted. If you try to melt it all in one go it might burn.

2. Put the mini marshmallows on toothpicks.

3. Dip the mini marshmallows in the melted chocolate then in the graham cookie crumbs.

4. Leave out to dry and enjoy!

These little s'mores are such a tease, seriously, they just leave you wanting more (I haven't decided if that's good or bad yet...). Oh, and I may or may not have eaten all of the leftover chocolate as a fondue.