CHRISTMAS PUPPY CHOW RECIPE

Merry Christmas!! I hope you're having a wonderful morning with your family.

This year, I made a special Christmas treat that turned out super yummy (don't let the name fool you!) so I thought I would share the recipe with you!

Holly's Christmas Puppy Chow

(makes 18 servings)

Ingredients:

9 cups Corn Chex cereal

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup butter

1 tsp pure vanilla

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 bag Christmas M & M's

gallon sized Ziplock bags

Directions:

Pour the cereal into a large bowl. Set aside. In a microwave safe bowl, melt the chocolate chips, peanut butter, and butter, stirring after every 30 seconds until smooth. Stir in vanilla. Pour over the cereal and gently stir until all the cereal pieces have been coated.

Transfer the cereal mix into a large food storage plastic bag (I used a 1 gallon sized bag). Carefully pour the powdered sugar into the bag. Seal the bag. Shake until all of the pieces are covered. Then add M & M's to your liking (I'm not sure exactly how much I added, just add until you see pretty red and green M & M's throughout the bag). 

Optional: Transfer to a new bag so that it looks nicer (the bag you used to mix everything up gets pretty messy looking). You can also add festive tags to the bag and give it as a gift!

I hope you have a very Merry Christmas! xo!

JUICING, AND MY FAVORITE JUICE RECIPE

Wes and I recently bought a juicer, and we're loving it! I thought I would share my favorite juice...

Every morning I've been making grapefruit apple juice rather than my old breakfast beverage (coffee or an energy drink). You just juice one grapefruit and one apple - it's super easy. It's actually really energizing, and about a million times healthier. Wes likes to make green juice in the morning, which I also really like.

There's a lot of hype about juice cleanses right now too, but I don't really think that's a good idea for me. I'm sure it's super healthy, but it seems a little extreme. I think I might go crazy. haha Have you guys ever done a juice cleanse?

If you've been thinking about getting a juicer, I highly recommend it! You get all of the nutrients from consuming all those fruits and veggies, without actually having to eat that many fruits and veggies.

We have this juicer, which is pretty pricey, but everything that we read said that the cheaper juicers don't work well and you'll end up buying the more expensive one anyway. It also comes with a ton of juice recipes, which is great for people who don't know what they're doing (like me!). 

Do any of you have a juicer? What is your favorite juice recipe?

PS. Lots of great recipes here!

5 PUMPKIN DESSERTS

Just a warning: this month's posts are going to be full of all things fall!

Yesterday, painted pumpkins. Today, pumpkin desserts. You can also expect pumpkin food (non-desserts) and drinks in the future. I like pumpkin stuff. It's delicious. The good news is, you won't have to scramble around before family get-togethers this fall for something to make because I did all of the searching for you (and now I'm hungry).

Here are the 5 pumpkin desserts I found that made me drool the most (I excluded pumpkin pie because it's kinda boring. Delicious...but boring):

Recipes:

Brown Butter Pumpkin Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting | Pumpkin Cheesecake

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies | Pumpkin Fudge | Pumpkin Doughnut Holes Baked with Cinnamon Sugar

EASY, HOMEMADE ICED COFFEE

I need a little boost in the morning and before workouts, but I don't really like plain hot coffee, and drinks like Redbull have a lot of sugar or artificial sweeteners. What I do love is iced coffee, but going to Starbucks for an iced coffee every morning can start to add up. I have seen some other homemade recipes, but they all had a lot of ingredients and I don't really want to be measuring a bunch of ingredients first thing in the morning.

Here is the easy way I make it at home:

1. Pour your hot coffee in the bottom of a glass. We have a Keurig coffee maker, so we have to put a certain amount of water in the machine to make it brew. Because of that, I usually just make half of a cup of coffee (I'm kind of a coffee lightweight haha) but you could just make really condensed coffee or get these packets. You want it to be condensed because the ice will dilute it.

 2. Add ice cubes, one by one, to the glass and stir each time to keep them from sticking together.

 3. Add a spoonful of sugar or sweetener. I use the all natural sweetener, Stevia but this is up to you!

 4. Add 2 spoonfuls of your favorite creamer. I use fat free french vanilla creamer.

5. Add milk (I use almond milk) until it gets to the top of the glass. You're done!

 I usually put mine in this travel container that I got for $1.00 at Walmart:

Why I love this iced coffee:

- it saves money

- it saves time

- drinking through a straw doesn't stain your teeth as much

- if you make it with natural sweetener and fat free milk and creamer, it's much healthier than from a restaurant

- it's so good! seriously.