Happy Halloween! Snickers offer a yummy way to use up leftover Halloween candy!

My Favorite Brownies

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup unsweetened Hershey’s natural unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease an 8- inch pan. Set aside.

In a saucepan, melt butter. Remove from heat and stir in sugar, eggs and vanilla. Beat in remaining ingredients. Spread the batter into prepared pan.

Bake in pre-heated oven for 25-30 minutes. Remember oven temperatures do vary. Do not overcook.

Remove brownies and let cool on a wire rack 10 minutes before spreading frosting. Spread frosting on brownies while they are still slightly warm.

 To make frosting: Combine cream cheese, butter, vanilla and confectioners’ sugar. Stir until ingredients are combined. Spread evenly over top of warm brownies.  Sprinkle with chopped Snickers candy. (Milky Way, Butterfingers or Reeses’ Peanut Butter Cups work well too.)

My day begins very early in the morning. I have never been one who slept in and have always been that way since I was a little girl. I start my morning with a cup of coffee, and sit down in front of the computer to write recipes, my weekly newsletter, blog posts, answer e-mails and catch up reading about what’s going on with everyone and the world.

An hour later, I’m up preparing school lunches or finishing them from the night before and tackling with my husband getting kids ready for school and myself ready for work. I then spend 8 hours a day at the office, come home to fix dinner, get the kids ready for bed, and finish up any blog posts. Needless to say, usually by 3pm like clock work, I feel tired and ready to end my day. I would have all this energy in the morning and by 3pm I was ready to call it a day. Not a good feeling in my opinion.

In the medical office I work in, our patients complain of two primary concerns-The first is concern about reduced cognitive or mental functioning. Sometimes this manifests as difficulty remembering names or just not having the same degree of sharp mental functioning that was there in their more youthful days; The second is described as a lack of energy to do the things that you want to do and people presume it is attributable to “just getting older”. Patients described it as “more a lack of sustained vitality than “fatigue”.

The Secret Recipe For A Busy Mom’s Youthful Vitality 

I’m not one for taking medications, over the counter or prescribed and I’ve never really taken supplements before other than my pre-natal vitamins.  But when I heard about ageLOC Vitality from Dr. Loesch, and close friends and the postive results they were having, I thought I would give it a try. I haven’t experiened feeling anything like this in a very long time. I’ve been on ageLOC Vitality for almost a month now and after 4 days of being on it I started feeling:

1. Increased energy all day long, which is important when you’re a busy mom who’s day starts at 5am, works full-time outside of the home and has a personal business inside the home with children.  (I’ve cut way back on the coffee in the morning and no longer feel I really need the energy drinks.)
2. Improved mental focus and concentration, getting a lot more done in less time than I used to.
3. The best sleep I’ve had in a long time; I wake up feeling rested and ready to begin a new day.
4. Improved stamina during my weekday walks and a faster recovery feeling rejuvinated while increasing my miles. (I started walking 2-3 miles, now I can walk 5 miles and feel great!)

I’ve continued to feel this way all month long and it feels great! Believe me when I say, I don’t leave home without my ageLOC Vitality!

The perfect fall cheesecake! I can’t believe I wait this long every year to make one of my family’s favorite desserts. This elegant simple dessert is made every year in our home and the crust is even homemade.

Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake

Graham Cracker Crust:

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups graham crackers, crushed using food processor

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a small batter bowl, combine ingredients well. Press graham cracker mixture into an ungreased 9-inch pie plate or spring form pain. (Crust will go up the sides a little.)

Bake for 8-10 minutes or until crust is lightly brown. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. Fill with pumpkin cheesecake filling as directed below.

Filling:

Ingredients:

2 8-ounce packages of cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

3/4 cup pumpkin puree

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon pumpkin spice

1 pinch ground cloves

Dash of nutmeg

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar and vanilla. Beat until creamy and smooth. Add eggs, one at a time and blend well. Reserve 1 cup of filling, spread evenly over graham cracker crust, set aside.

To remainder filling, add pumpkin puree and spices and stir until well blended. Spread carefully and evenly over the top of filling already on crust.

Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes or until filling is almost set.  Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. Chill in refrigerator for 3 hours or overnight. Serve with whipped topping and a sprinkle of nutmeg and cinnamon. 

Recipe Note: To make this dessert even more delicious, try drizzling caramel sauce over the whipped topping. Yum!

Alternate toppings: Omit the pumpkin puree for a regular cheesecake filling and top with  Raspberry, Blueberry or Strawberry Sauce; Chopped Oreo Cookies; Pecans or Pralines with Caramel Sauce; Chocolate Sauce

A stone heats to the exact temperature of your oven, stays there and holds the temperature evenly.  It also doesn’t reflect your ovens hot spots.  These qualities make your foods far less likely to burn.

I just love my Pampered Chef Stoneware. My Large Bar Pan gets used pretty much for just about everything from making bacon in the morning for breakfast, to grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch and moist and delicious chicken breasts for dinner. The best part is those gooey, yet crisp edge chocolate chip cookies for dessert! For making smaller batches, I use my small or medium bar pan.

Pampered Chef™ Stoneware is made from natural stoneware clay. When fired at over 2000ºF temperatures, this clay produces a buff-colored stoneware that is unaffected by moisture and completely safe for use with food. After firing, each piece is hand finished, producing a one-of-a-kind creation. This is why no tow pieces of stoneware look or feel exactly alike.

Because it heats evenly and then retains that heat, stoneware produces exceptionally crisp crusts and moist interiors, promotes even baking and browning, and roasts foods to perfection.

If you do the grocery shopping for your family like I do, saving money is probably one of your biggest goals. But busy moms know that saving time is even more important. So today, I’m going to share with busy moms like you and I a new solution to saving time, putting cash in your pocket and time in your schedule.

The average person who clips coupons saves approximately $5.29-$9.60 per week and spends 3-7 hours each week coupon clipping to achieve those savings. What busy mom has time for that? I certainly don’t!

A Busy Mom’s Way To Coupon-Clip

 Shoppingnanning.com is the busy mom’s way to coupon-clip: It’s so easy and simple. Just input your regular buys, create your shopping list and go-to grocery store or super stores like Kmart, Walmart, or Target to shop, and for just $5.95-a-month you will get a “loyalty card” loaded with targeted coupons that not only give you the savings from the grocery store coupons, but savings from other sources as well. This website searches for coupons at all different levels to offer busy moms the best savings and loads the savings right on your card. At checkout, simply hand the card to your grocery store checker and your done!  They even offer everyone a 2-week trial period.

Click HERE to start your FREE trial and saving time and money!