Cooking Thursday: Chocolate Brownie Bundt Cake with Ganache, a Casserole, a Breakfast Bake & More!

 

Hello Beautiful Friends💗

The weekend is in sight! Have you been having a nice week? 

It's been busy around here. Matt went to the lake to help his folks with his Dad's post surgery needs, as he recently got a hip replacement. I opted to stick around here to give his Dad easier space for recovery - keep Ruby from being underfoot there etc. It's also been a nice time for me to catch up with some of my peeps. I had a fun evening with my Mom sharing chickie chip dinner (it was always one of her faves), and also a fun charcuterie and wine night with a neighbor girlfriend of mine. I'll share some recipes from both evenings in this post!

But first I wanted to share the recipe from Aaron's birthday cake. It was a chocolate brownie bundt cake with a chocolate ganache poured over the top. It was a recipe found at olivesnthyme.com It was basically the mixture of a chocolate cake and a brownie mix. In my case I used a dark fudge cake mix and a traditional brownie mix. He loves brownie sundaes so this was an elevated version of that. We had the cake with some vanilla bean ice cream. He gave it 2 thumbs up - so it was a birthday success!

Here is what the cake looked like out of the bundt pan before it was frosted with the ganache:

And here it is all decked out...along with the recipe:

Next up I wanted to share...or I should say re-share a couple of recipes I have under my recipe tab that some of you commented about on my post earlier in the week. One is for Chickie Chip Casserole. It's an old favorite my Gram used to make and it's a chicken mixture that has potato chips in it and you bake it as a casserole (I know sounds weird -but so good!) and we have it served on toast. I forgot to get a pic of it though.  You can find my post all about that recipe if you click here. I highly recommend it - I literally get a craving for it sometimes. Lol But it's also nostalgia for me. It has hard boiled egg in the recipe....and I omit that part. But if you like them my Mom says add it in. 😂

Next up is Blueberry French Toast Bake. I made this when Annie was home because it's one of her faves. She has told me this recipe is "fire". Lol And I gave some of the leftovers to my Mom & step Dad and he reiterated Annie's sentiments about it. 😋 I share all about it and the recipe if you click here.

Lastly I wanted to share about the fun charcuterie dinner I had with a neighbor girlfriend of mine the other night. I told her Matt was out-of-town and asked if she wanted to come over and catch up. She texted back 'yes, yes, yes!' and that she would bring the wine. So gabby girl dinner it was! 

Here's some pics of the spread...she hadn't gotten here yet, but I was all set and ready! :) 

I put out salami, cheeses, crackers, veggies & dip (including 2 different kinds of cukes from my garden), chips, watermelon, grapes, little meringues and cookies. Just a hodge podge of what I had around here. 

Lots of good finger foods and nibbles that went great with the sauvignon blanc she brought. But the highlight for us both was when I took:

some of these butter crips crackers and filled them with...

pieces of Babybel cheese I had melted a bit, a little piece of salami, and...

a dollop of this red pepper jelly. 

I had seen several things about "savory s'mores" and here are some images I googled to give you an idea what our savory s'mores looked like as I didn't take pics of them.

But to make savory s'mores you basically take a cracker of choice, a piece of meat, a topping of choice (like the red pepper jelly or you could do something like fig preserves or hot honey), and then put a melted piece of babybel or brie or other melty cheese. And put it all together in a little sandwich. 

We both went bonkers over how good they were! Also, you can skewer your cheese and cook it over a fire just like a marshmallow in a s'more if you want to. But I just melted them in the microwave  for a few seconds and then made the little sandwiches and they were stellar! 

Oh and speaking of food - I got this in our last thrive box and highly recommend if you're a pumpkin spice girlie. SOOO addictively good. And pretty low in calories. 

Enjoy!! 

xoxo