Fall Brie En Croute

Here's a super easy way to make a Brie en Croute that adds in all the goodies of our fall season.  It takes about 5 minutes to prep.

Ingredients:
1 can of crescent roll dough
8 oz wheel of Brie
1/3 C chopped pecans
1 T butter
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 C dried cranberries
1/4 C brown sugar
1 egg, beaten

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Soak cranberries in water for a minute or two to take the edge off, then drain and pat dry.
3. In a small sauce pan, melt the butter.  Stir in pecans and cinnamon, toasting for 3 minutes.
4. Roll out crescent dough on a cookie sheet.  Place Brie, toasted pecans, cranberries, and brown sugar on top.  Wrap crescent dough around the goodness.
5. Brush top and sides of dough with beaten egg.
6. Bake for 15-20, or until nicely baked and browned.

Thirsty Thursday: Whiskey Cranberry Slushies!

It's safe to say that it's officially the "Holiday" season.  We just passed Halloween, Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and then the whole December fiasco follows right up on its heels.  There a more holidays in the last quarter of the year than we quite know what to do with.

I know, however, what makes those holidays go down a little easier - ALCOHOL!  That's right, kids, I'm endorsing imbibing to help keep those holidays bright.  It's with that in mind that when I saw Food Network Magazine's recipe for Whiskey-Cranberry Slushies, I knew we had to jump right in.  It's November 3rd, and there's no time like the present, right??

Super simple, just grab your ingredients...

Mix all the liquids (only 3 cups of cranberry juice) together, including your juice from the limes, and put in a large, shallow tuperware container.

Take out some cranberries and chop them up.  Do you know I've never tasted a fresh from the store cranberry before??  Wow, are they bitter!  I cringe to think how much sugar is added to make these even palatable!!

Then, shove it in the freezer, taking it out to stir evey half hour or so to keep it from truly solidifying. Give it a good five hours, depending (I suppose) on how potent your freezer is vs. how much whiskey you added.  This step seemed to take forever.  The slush took a long time to form, but then BAM!!!  It was ready right on schedule.  Who knew, right?

Once you have a nice slushie formed, fill up your glasses, top up with chopped cranberries, and a sprig o' mint go garnish.  Now, because I was having slush issues, and was concerned about having enough, I did some chopped ice too.  Couldn't hurt, maybe helped?  Doesn't matter.  The drinks were delicious!  I didn't add the remaining cranberry juice as the recipe called for, just filled with the slush and these drinks were amazing!  So much so that I'll be making them again for a big party.  The honey whiskey really helped, too.  I think that was Thomas' favorite part!

After a few, I'm sure you'll be racing the angel to the top of that Christmas tree!

On a PS note, remember how bummed I was about my mini caramel apples?  Well, we tried them again for our fancy dinner, and served them straight out of the pot.  Result?  Caramel still fell off the apple and more stuck to the plate than was actually eaten.  At least they looked cute, right??