Strawberry Cream Crepes with Chocolate Drizzle

These are absolutely delectable and make a gorgeous presentation! The best part? They're easier to make than pancakes. No, really! These would make a perfect Valentine's night dessert for your little ones or your significant other... or for girls night! Because really, what's better than chocolate and strawberries with a light-as-the-clouds cream cheese filling? That's what I thought. 

What You'll Need:
serves 2-3
for the crepes:
1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup whole milk 
1 tbsp sugar 
1/4 tsp salt 
2 large eggs
1 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
for the filling:
1/2 lb strawberries
1 tbsp sugar
4 oz cream cheese
4 oz mascarpone cheese 
1 cup powdered sugar 
1 tsp vanilla extract 
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream 
for the drizzle:
1/2 cup chocolate chips 
4 tbsp heavy whipping cream 

What To Do:
To prepare the crepe batter, combine all of the ingredients in a blender and blend until completely smooth, about thirty seconds. Cover and refrigerate the batter for an hour. 

Meanwhile, Rinse and chop the strawberries, storing in a bowl. Sprinkle with sugar and stir to fully incorporate. Cover the strawberries with a paper towel and allow to sit at room temperature until ready to use. 

Heat a nonstick skillet to medium  heat and spray with cooking spray. Pour batter into the skillet (will be runny) and swirl to ensure it's evenly distributed. Allow to cook through and then flip it over with a spatula. Remove and all to cool on a plate. 

To prepare the cream filling, beat together cream cheese, mascarpone cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla on medium speed until fully combined and fluffy. While mixing, slowly add the heavy whipping cream. Continue to beat until you reach the desired fluffiness. 

To prepare the chocolate drizzle, place chocolate chips and heavy cream together in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 30 seconds and then in 10 second intervals until fully melted, stirring each time. Add more cream for a thinner consistency if desired and stir well. 

In the middle of each crepe, spread a generous amount of cream filling. Layer strawberries on top of that, and roll together carefully with the seams down. Drizzle chocolate over each crepe and garnish with extra strawberries. 

crepe recipe adapted from Martha Stewart

A Fun Valentine's Day Gift for the Board Game Aficionado

You may absolutely adore Valentine's Day- the celebration of love- the hearts, sparkles, and chocolate abounding. 

Or you may completely detest this Hallmark Holiday, obviously used to commercialize something meaningful into a box of chocolate and red roses. 

I guess I fall somewhere in between. I do celebrate Valentine's Day but for the past four years it has been with homemade gifts and/or dinners. I thought I would share a really fun, inexpensive gift to make if either of you love board games! 

A personalized version of Monopoly! All you need is a foam poster board, a sharpie, scissors (and a box cutter if possible), a printer, glue and colored paper. Here's what I did:

Create your board!

• Using a regular Monopoly board as a template, cut a square out of the foam poster board. Using a box cutter makes a cleaner cut. 
• Draw your spaces around the board, in pencil then with Sharpie. 
• Create your logo in the center, mimicking the official name and trademark information. 

Choose your properties

• I incorporated places that we met, favorite date spots, places we lived, where we worked, etc. I printed small photos that represented each place to glue onto their space on the board. I listed the values of each space as represented on my regular Monopoly board. 
• For railroads, I used the cities which we have lived in. Instead of Go, I made a Home space. Instead of Jail - the Doghouse. For Free Parking, I made a little Mt Bonnell space, a famous Austin lookout. I replaced the luxury tax with a credit card bill, and income tax with a tithe. 
• I glued strips of colored paper on each section- you could also use different colored Sharpies and just color the tops! 
• For houses and hotels, just cut uniform shapes from colored paper- quick and easy!

Create Chance and Community Chest cards

• In my game Chance became "Get Lucky" cards and included an equal number of good and bad personalized fortunes and consequences. 
• Community Chest became Family Jewels. I read through the official Monopoly versions and modernized/personalized them! 

Print or create monopoly money

• I printed my own money by searching each monopoly denomination in a Google image search, re-sizing them all to be the same, creating sheets in a power point file, printing and cutting each out. 
• You can always just sub in the money from your official board game though and save yourself some time!

Don't forget your game pieces

• Create or find an item that represents each of you!

This project does take quite a bit of work, so be prepared to put in some time to make it perfect. I loved reminiscing about our relationship as I put this together. When I gifted it, we played a round and it was so fun to read through the cards and see how it all worked in actual game-play. And now, the board makes an adorable keepsake! 

Have you ever given or received a homemade Valentine's Day gift? 

Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries

We whipped these up for youth Bible study on Valentine's Day.

I happened to forget to bring Graham cracker crumbs 

and chocolate to drizzle on it,

but these were still deeelicious and pretty! 

I saw the idea on Pinterest and checked out

this this and this

What You'll Need:

1 lb strawberries

1 8oz package cream cheese, room temperature 

1/2 cup powdered sugar 

1 tsp vanilla extract 

graham cracker crumbs

semisweet baking chocolate 

What To Do:

Using a small knife, hollow out the strawberries. Try to go as deep as you can without puncturing the bottom. Beat together the cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla until well combined and fluffy. Fill a piping bag (or a plastic ziploc bag) with cream cheese mixture and pipe into the strawberries. I didn't, but you can totally dip the end in graham cracker crumbs, and drizzle with melted chocolate. 

Now these are a little labor intensive 

but I had four awesome students helping me out

so it went pretty quickly! 

And they were definitely easier than these guys from last year

I think even though valentine's day has come and gone,

these would make a special treat for any day. 

I would sure feel loved if someone made them for me! 

hint, hint ;)

Happy Friday y'all! 

Valentine's Day Blog Gift Swap!

In case you haven't noticed, I love these things ;)

There's something exciting about getting mail...

especially packages...

especially when you don't know what' s inside! 

Alissa at Rags to Stitches and 

Caroline at Good Times Never Seem Sew Good

hosted this awesome swap for the day of love

I was paired with Kassi over at Truly Lovely.

She and her sister Kayli

share lots of fun projects, recipes

and stories!

Kassi's awesome!

She sent me tons of goodies.

She sent a sweet Valentine's card!

Heart shaped cookie cutters

a notepad 

awesome turquoise earrings

(i LOVE these)

purple nail polish

And a Scentsy car air freshener

I put this in my car as soon as I opened the package!

I had so much fun getting to know Kassi.

Go check out her post and see what I sent her! 

Even if you're not a fan of Valentine's,

celebrate love today.

"Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends"

John 15:13