Chocolate Pudding Pie

I remember when I was younger my Mom would make this delicious chocolate pudding and cream cheese pie.  It was very simple but I can't remember the receipe!  Ahhh!  So I found this receipe posted on a discussion group and made it for our 4th of July dessert and it was fabulous so I wanted to share with you!

Original Receipe:

Crust
11 x13" pyrex dish

2 sticks of butter
2 cups of flour
1/2 cup of pecans

Mix till crumbly. Bake at 350 for 15 min. Let cool.

Cheese Filling
1 8 oz. package of cream cheese-soft
1 cup powder sugar
1 cup of cool whip

Mix and spread on crust.

Pudding Filling
3 small (3.9 oz.) packages of instant choclate pudding
3 cups of milk
1 cup of cool whip

Mix pudding, Fold in cool whip. Spread over cream cheese mixture.

Top with cool whip.

Suggested to buy 1 lrg. and 1 sml. cool whip containers to make this dessert.

My redenition:

I modified it slightly because I wanted something quick and easy so I bought a prepared shortbread pie crust in the baking aisle.  This brought on another issue that this receipe made too much filling for a pie pan so I had to cut it down.

I used 1 8 oz. package of Neufchatel Cheese (1/3 less fat) put probably could have gotten away with using 4-6 oz. and cutting back the powdered sugar accordingly.  In addition, I used only 1 small package of instant chocolate pudding (not because I wanted to but because I accidently grabbed 1 package of cook & serve and 1 package of instant) mixed with 1 cup of milk. 

Needless to say it was a hit with my family and it took me all of about 15 minutes!  Enjoy!

Bandana Dress

This just might be the easiest dress I have ever made...Well, maybe that is because it is the only dress I have ever made, but still!  Thanks to Trey and Lucy for the super easy tutorial.  It may have taken me slightly longer than 15 minutes to crank out the first one but after that I was flyin'...

Here is one I made for a friend for a baby shower!

For the embroidery part I did go through 3 bandanas until I got the monogram to stitch correctly.  I wasn't using enough stabilizer so here is what FINALLY worked for me.  I used one layer of Sulky Totally Stable Iron-On Tear Away Stabilizer (same stuff I use on t-shirts) and then I hooped a heavyweight tear-away like Sulky Stiffy Stabilizer and used an adhesive spray Sulky Temporary Spray Adhesive to attach the bandana to the hooped stabilizer.  By the way I also purchased my font from AKDesigns Boutique...it's the #12 Bold font!

By the way, be warned that the 100% cotton bandanas will shrink up about 1-1.5" on each side after you wash them (and they get a lot softer than they are in the stores).  I think this dress cost be a total of like $2.15, can't beat it!

Ham and Cheese in Puff Pastry

I am a little obsessed with the Food Network!  I just don't have the time to watch it as much as I wish but I did have time to catch Ina Garten and love to share this recipe with you.  I'm not a huge fan of ham but the Ham and Cheese in Puff Pastry just sounded too good (and it is).  Did I mention it is E-A-S-Y?

Since it is just my husband and I who would eat this (my daughter doesn't like mustard) I changed up the receipe a bit so here is what Idid...

Instead of using 2 pieces of puff pastry I used just 1 piece and folded it in half to make the pastry.  Also, I had some leftover frozen ham from Easter in the freezer so I diced it up in bite sized pieces and used it instead of the sliced deli ham.  This gave me 3 servings, which is just perfect for us because I don't like left-overs.