Wednesday, February 29, 2012

No Bake Nutella Cheesecake



Inspiration: Pinterest (those of you who have not joined - do so!) www.pinterest.com
It is a ridiculously fun, inspirational and addicting website.

pinned from  http://www.mybakingaddiction.com/no-bake-nutella-cheesecake-recipe/ 

Recipe: Made as listed above, but altered a few things (being a chef, I tend to do this to recipes 99.99999% of the time)

1. I put them in 4 separate mini trifle dishes 

2. For the topping I made one of my mama's famous trifle layers (equal parts fat-free whipped cream topping and softened reduced-fat cream cheese, I do THAT to recipes 100% of the time, and then fold in enough sifted powdered sugar to make it as sweet or unsweet as you like.  Top it with that, not just cool whip!

3. I garnished it with crumbled reduced fat oreos (already had them, its just as yummy and less expensive!)

Review:  Wow!  Sooo rich and creamy, yet light and easy.  I am going to do it again with peanut butter in place of nutella and with crushed reeses on top... pb and nutella are my week spots!  

OR you could even do graham cracker crumbs in place of oreos for the crust, eliminate the nutella and add fresh fruit to the top. Whala, no bake individual berry cheesecakes.  




Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Hi Y'all! Welcome to my new blog...

I have decided that Facebook is just not the appropriate platform anymore to share all my DIY home projects, weekend cooking and other personal tidbits going on in The Van Buskirk household.  So, I am starting a personal blog full of yummy food, crafty inspiration and exciting travels.  Hope y'all enjoy and come on back to check out what is going on over at the Van Buskirk's :)

To start off I thought I would share a few photos that sum up our past year in a fun little photo collage that I made for free on a neat site called www.photovisi.com.  Here is a brief outline of our 2011-2012 highlights... we got married, bought a house, traveled to Paris/Amsterdamn/The Loire Valley for our honeymoon and traveled to NYC and Pittsburgh for our friend's weddings, had our first Thanksgiving/Christmas in our new home as newlyweds and last but not least celebrated my 27th birthday.  Whew!  Can't wait to see what this year brings :)