Special Double Celebration

Reyna's Birthday Celebration

Sweet Day to all you :)
It's been a pretty laid back week for me. We spent most of our time outside enjoying the warm weather. As expected the kids is loving every minute of it which make this summer so much fun. As, I promise from previous post that I'll be posting my daughter's 5th birthday celebration and Father's Day, here it is! I know its kinda late, BUT its not to late to get some birthday ideas and recipes that you might want to try on your next birthday celebration.
Anyways, We did celebrate Reyna's birthday with few of my friends. It was so much! I made them a Strawberry jello ( refer to the pictures above ) macaroni salad espesyal, chocolate crinkles, boiled pork and my friends bring some delicious dish as well to share.
After an awesome get together with my friends. We (Hubby, Me and Garyn) also treat Reyna to her favorite restaurant Red Robin for delicious burgers, pizza and fries dinner. It was scrumptious!!

After 3 days, we celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. Then, next day we celebrated Reyna's birthday party and Father's Day with my family. It was a blast and fun day being with my family.
Here's a glimpse of Reyna's birthday celebration and Father's Day.:)

FOOD:  The birthday celebrant requested the dish on her birthday. Starting off with  Lumpia Shanghai, Sauteed green beans, Pancit bihon,  Beef Caldereta. My mother in-law made us some delicious deviled eggs, cheesy baked potato and hotdogs. My sister in-law brought some scrumptious wings for everyone to enjoy.
 Yum! Can't get enough of this food.:)

CAKE
As per request by birthday celebrant, chocolate cake with strawberry icing and sprinkles. The process of icing the cake is super easy and I love it. We decided at the last minute to get another cake from the store in addition to the one that I made and it works just perfect!
We paired the cake with vanilla and strawberry ice cream-the best way to end our delicious meal.

Father's Day

My kids made their Daddy a card ( I did order the card online for free- wink!) which makes it more awesome and bought his favorite chocolate bars. Then, The Sommer's ( hubby's sister and brother in-law) gave this delicious picnic basket filled with sweet goodies, cheeses and spreads, peanuts, popcorn, candies, chocolates, sausage and a bottle of red wine. Everything is just delicious! a perfect Father's Day gift and my hubby is loving it.

- That's how we celebrated Reyna's birthday and Father's Day. I hope you find some interesting recipes that you might want to try on your next party/ get together. I would suggest try to bake your kiddies his birthday cake or cupcakes, I'll promise you! It it so much FUN to make them. Share me your Father's Day escapade and your favorite food to have on your birthday.
Until next time everyone! Keep browsing some delicious recipe here on my blog... See you around:)

P.S- Thank you so much to family and friends who always make Reyna's birthday an special one, for being so generous as always. I love you!:)

Share the LOVE!

Holiday Gift Ideas-#1

Holiday Gift Ideas for Love Ones

Happy Wednesday Everyone! I'm pretty sure that every single one of you already put the Christmas Tree up, well ME we just did it last night. Yay! I'm excited seeing my kiddos getting excited and also looking forward for Christmas. I made some Beef Caldereta for dinner and Chocolate Crinkles for our dessert for our perfect dinner last night! Thinking about Christmas is just around the corner, some of you maybe already have the gift wrap up and ready to go, or still in the process of shopping, and maybe some of you, like ME still scratching my head of what to get for my love-ones this Christmas.

Thinking about gifts for special someone or even for our husband/wife is sometimes harder than we thought. There's a lot of things to consider What to get? Where to buy or get the good deal? How much money you plan on spending? If it is a surprise gift consider the size of the product. Remember! It's hard to hide big stuff  and eventually you ended up confessing about your gift before Christmas. To help you! and ME,( hahah) I've come up with this Wednesday Gift Ideas, Yup! I'll be posting some gift Ideas only for the month of December every Wednesday. So, I'll be happy if you visit my blog and see what I come up with... wink:) Remember the important of Christmas is not the amount we spent, Its always the thoughts that we put into. Let the spirit of Christmas be with us..! Let start by asking questions?:)

Does  he/she like to SHOP ? 

- I would say that GIFT card, GIFT Certificate or CASH is perfect for this category. Unless you know his/her size, favorite store, color and such.

CLOTHING-

SHOES/ SANDALS-  I think GIFT CARD to his/her favorite store is just perfect for this one.

BAGS-  Designer bag is always a hint!

JEWELRY-  Nothing fail to impress someone this holiday.

Does he/she like WINE? 

Personalized wine basket - Fill the basket with his/her favorite wine, cheese,crackers and wine glass. Or you could treat him/her to a wine tasting adventure.

Does he/she like to COOK?

-Kitchen Gadgets- AWESOME! I love to cook and experiment in the kitchen this is just GREAT!

-Baking Basket- compose with Apron and baking equipment, OR it could be personalized according to his/her liking. Get all the ingredients of your favorite cake, brownie or cookie recipe put all together in one basket and attach the recipe.

-Cookbook- Find the his/her favorite cookbook and you can simply just put it along with your Baking basket.

Does he/she like CRAFTS?

-Personalized gift basket idea is perfect, filled with his/her favorite crafty materials and also gift card  to his/her favorite craft store is always a big hint.  

-DIY Christmas Card- :)

Does he/she like Coffee?

-Coffee Maker- There's a lot of varieties nowadays in the market for all the coffee lover out-there. The best one is the Keurig and its affordable!..:)
-Coffee Basket- Can't go wrong of a coffee basket for coffee lover. Just simply put his/her favorite coffee flavor, coffee mug, few crackers to with the coffee and Gift Card to his/her favorite coffee shop like Starbucks:)

Does he/she like Sport Fanatic Movie Lover
-Personalized basket- His/her favorite t-shorts or sweatshirts with his favorite team, hat, pop corns,chips and candies if you have budget for GAME TICKET then go for it.:)

Does he/she like to TRAVEL and OUTDOORS ADVENTURE?
Plane Ticket is sound so GOOD! but lets face it, Its expensive. So, let make something cute and fun!
- Little Travel Basket- compose with magazine about travel and places, travel size lotion, toothpaste, toothbrush all health and care you could think of you that he/she might need for travel.
- I'm not a very adventurous person but I think good brand SHOES is perfect for this, Anything else you could think of? Please share!

This is only few gift Ideas I could think right now, If there's anything that I missed, anything at all. don't hesitate to leave me a comment. After all its Christmas time to share and give.!
I'll see in few days for more recipes and next Wednesday for another gift ideas.:)
xoxoxo-sweetcuisinera

Chocolate Crinkles Recipe

Chocolate Crinkles Everyone

Chocolate is made by roasting and grinding cocoa beans. Unadulterated chocolate is called unsweetened chocolate, baking chocolate or bitter chocolate. Bittersweet, semisweet or sweet chocolate has been enhanced with different amounts of sugar, vanilla, or lecithin. Milk chocolate has added dry milk. White chocolate is not chocolate at all; it contains only cocoa butter from the cocoa bean with sugar and vanilla. ( source: http://www.food.com/library/chocolate-224 )

Are you chocolate lover? If YES! I got perfect sweet treat recipe for you! I'm also die hard chocolate lover and finding this perfect recipe is awesome. This chocolate crinkles cookies are combination of sweet,  fudge brownie texture and that powdered sugar is just a perfection to this cookie. I'm in-love with this cookies, they are simply delicious! This is actually one of the most popular cookies back while I was in thePhilippines and my most favorite!.. and now, baking it fresh in my oven is amazing!! It's not only it took me back to those fun memories but also It makes me happy sharing it to my love-ones. My inspiration behind this cookie is my friend Cherry, she found the recipe at ( Allrecipes.com- source ) So, here I am making my own chocolate crinkles..although I followed the recipe mentioned on the source I add 3/4 cup flour to the original recipe, for the reason that the cookie mixture is kinda wet and hard for me to form little balls.. and I can't wait for 4 hours waiting for the cookie to chill. The result is still good, you still have that brownie bite and the sugar just add the perfection to the cookies. You can either follow the recipe at (allrecipes.com) or my version, It doesn't matter they are both taste delicious. I actually gave some to my mother in-law ( Cheri ) and I received really good feedback about the cookies.. She loved them! Talking about my in-laws, We painted my kiddies room today. It was long and tiring process but we finished painting the two rooms and the result... Beautiful!  It truly transformed the boring room into interesting one. This is probably the reason why my arms little hurt..:) I should go to bed....zzzz
by the way, Don't forget to get the recipe and try it at home. This is truly one delicious dessert.. Let's start baking!:)

Ingredients:

2 3/4 cups of flour

1 cup cocoa powder

2 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup confectioner sugar

Directions:

1.) In medium bowl, mix together cocoa powder,sugar and oil. Beat the eggs one at time using electric mixer then stir vanilla extract.

2.) Combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir it into the cocoa mixture. Cover the dough and chill for 1-2 hours into the fridge.

3.) Preheat the oven 350 degrees. Line the cookie sheets with parchment paper. If it happened that your out of parchment paper, non stick spray will work just fine. That's what I used.:)

4.)Roll the dough into little balls about an inch, coat it with confectioner sugar and put into the prepared pan.

5.) Bake the chocolate crinkles for about 10-12 minutes. Serve hot or cold and Enjoy!!!:)

Notes:

-I found it easier to roll all the cookies into tiny little balls, then roll everything into confectioner sugar. 

- Feel free to make this chocolate crinkles as big as you want, make sure to adjust the cooking process as well.

-Please be advice about the cooking time, sometimes its varies depending on the oven your using.