White chocolate peppermint popcorn bark | Popcorn & Chocolate

White Chocolate Peppermint Popcorn Bark

White chocolate peppermint popcorn bark | Popcorn & ChocolateI always love a good popcorn and chocolate mixture. I mean hello, we are Popcorn AND Chocolate. Although, I have to admit these days we have been heavy on the pop front with less choc. But, have no fear, we are fixing that right now by giving you this delicious chocolatey recipe perfect for the holidays! We give you white chocolate peppermint popcorn bark. Say that 3 times fast… and then go make this delicious bark and eat it 3 times fast. No, actually, bad advice, please do not eat this super fast. We want you to savor it and enjoy it. Plus, we don’t want any liability issues with chocking hazards.White chocolate peppermint popcorn bark | Popcorn & ChocolateOkay now that we have established you are going to savor this recipe, we should probably tell you what is in it. Well, you have all your main snacking options (popcorn and chocolate) and to give it a fun festive flair we added some big ol’ chunks of candy canes.White chocolate peppermint popcorn bark | Popcorn & ChocolateThis white chocolate peppermint popcorn bark is full of flavor. The smooth white chocolate melts in your mouth while the popcorn and peppermint add a nice crunch that makes you go back for more and more and more. Plus, look how festive and pretty it is! Plus, plus, it is super easy to make. So go make some right now!White chocolate peppermint popcorn bark | Popcorn & ChocolateNo seriously, what are you waiting for? Oh yeah, you probably need the recipe first.White chocolate peppermint popcorn bark | Popcorn & ChocolateIngredients:

  • White chocolate bar
  • 1 candy cane
  • A big handful of popcorn

Directions:

  1. Put some parchment paper onto a baking sheet or a flat surface you can transfer to the freezer.
  2. Melt your chocolate – you can either do this in the microwave or using a double broiler. We stuck to the easy microwave method.
  3. Once all your chocolate is melted pour it onto the parchment paper. Use a spoon to make it into one even layer.
  4. Smash the candy cane in a plastic bag so you get candy cane crumbles.
  5. Sprinkle the candy cane crumbles onto the chocolate layer. Break apart your popcorn and then add that on top.
  6. Stick your bark into the fridge or freezer for 20-30 minutes to harden. Once hardened, you can either eat it all then or store in an airtight container.

White chocolate peppermint popcorn bark | Popcorn & ChocolateThis holiday bark is so festive and easy to make you have no excuse not to whip some up right now!White chocolate peppermint popcorn bark | Popcorn & ChocolateIMG_9107

What I Ate Wednesday 9/16/15

Hi all! I’m here sharing a what I ate Wednesday for you. I thought it would be fun to show you what a typical day of meals for me is. Plus, who doesn’t love stalking what everyone else is eating??

Greek yogurt bowl

Greek yogurt bowl

Breakfast: Plain Greek yogurt with figs, strawberries, blueberries, ground flax seed, and Mamma Chia cinnamon pecan clusters. This is one of my go to breakfasts because it is quick, easy, and filling. I usually throw in whatever fresh fruit we have and top with my favorite granola or cereal – the more the better!

Quinoa salad with a side of grapes

Lunch: Salad with quinoa and roasted veggies with some cotton candy grapes on the side. Lately I have been trying to roast or stem a bunch of veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, zucchini) on Sunday so I can throw them into my lunches for the week. I also have been making a big batch of quinoa on Sundays. Can we talk about something for a second? Cotton candy grapes. Like what? How? Yum? These things taste exactly like cotton candy it is kind of crazy and you kind of need to try them. Okay done rant.

Luna bar

Snack: Luna Protein Bar. I like to have a snack around 3:30/4pm to tide me over until dinner. I had a meeting at this time so I had to grab something quick and this protein bar definitely did the trick. Plus who doesn’t love some cheeky afternoon chocolate?

Cuban salad bowl

Mind the messy avocado..

Dinner: Cuban Salad Bowl from Simple Roots. We love love love this salad bowl. We bought some plantains last week and needed to use them up so we whipped up this delicious bowl of goodness.

Tea and chocolate

After dinner treats: Celestial Bengal Spice Tea and some peanut butter chocolate. I love ending my day with a warm cup of tea even if it means I pee 9428 times in the night. I also got to have something sweet to go with it!

I hope you enjoyed peaking into my food life. Comment below what you ate today too!

Thanks Peas And Crayons for linking up!

August Favorites

Oh, okay, Summer I see what you have done there. You have done and gone straight to Fall. I guess I can be okay with this. I GUESS. So long as you promise to explode with pumpkin flavored everything (candles I’m eyeing you) and plaid styled clothing and lets not forget Halloween decorations galore. Can y’all believe August is over?? This summer flew by. I mean FLEW. Holy cow where does time go? Okay grandma stop ranting and get along with the post… If you couldn’t tell from the title we are here to talk about our goodbye to summer forever August favorites.

Princess taking over my parents bed... as per usual

Princess taking over my parents bed… as per usual

Home: Little miss Olive. We went home to NH in August and I got to see my giant horse of a dog. She hasn’t changed much.. still deathly afraid of the vacuum cleaner, still jumps (jump is a bit of a stretch..) onto your bed and takes up the whole thing if you leave your door open for one second, still begs for food by resting her head on our kitchen table (yes she is tall enough to do this. Oh how I’ve missed all her silly dogerisms.

Succulents

Some of our new succulents and some of our old ones that were taking over… pinky I’m talking about you

Also in home – new succulents! We bought some new succulents to add to our home when we were at Ikea (they have some awesome succulents) and also took the opportunity to re-pot some of our old ones that were taking over. Rose likes to propagate succulents by taking a leaf that has fallen off or plucking one off as long as it has visible roots and planting it in a new pot. She’s been doing it to all of our succulents so we shall see what grows.

Fitness Blender home pageWorkouts: Okay this might be an odd one but Rose and I both love (well as much as you can love a workout) using Fitness Blender for our daily workouts. They have easy to hard to my legs are going to fall off if I have to do another jump squat hard workouts that you can choose from. You can also choose how long you want your workout to be, which is great for me when I try and wake up early and workout. If you haven’t checked them out you should!

Me before you book coverBooks: As Rose mentioned in our June favorites, she read and loved Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. Welp, you guessed it, I finally read it and lovedddd it too. From the description of the book I was kinda like ehh but once I read the first few pages I was hooked and whizzed through the whole thing.

The Nightingale book coverAnd while I was reading Rose’s recommendation she finally read mine and loveddd The Nightingale. Since we haven’t quite figured out how to share Kindle books we just literally swapped Kindles for the month.

Boyhood movie coverMovies: Boyhood. I know this movie has been out for a while but we finally got around to watching it and both loved it. The boy in it legit has the same voice/mannerisms/thoughts as my brother so it was amusing to watch for me and only slightly creepy. Regardless, go watch this and not be creeped out because you don’t know who my brother is.

Unreal_CandyCoatedMCFood: Unreal chocolate coated candy. Umm because it is too easy and I have to… these chocolates are UNREAL. But seriously these chocolates are sosoosoo good. Plus they are made with 100% real ingredients so you don’t feel bad when you go and accidently eat the whole bag in one sitting. Check them out – they make all sorts of different flavors and candies. We bought ours at Whole Foods.

At Home Mini S’more Bites

Banana mini s'mores

Happy National S’mores day!!! Now this is a holiday worth celebrating! There is just something so perfect about a burnt marshmallow stuck between two graham crackers and some melted chocolate. However when you don’t have a fire handy to melt said marshmallows, things can get a bit tricky.
S'moresHave no fear though! We are here to share an at home s’mores version that only takes about 5 minutes and a microwave. We are going to keep it simple and sweet (just like the s’mores) and show you our mini at home s’mores.

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For the base of the s’more we used sliced banana. Next we took some melted chocolate and spread it onto the banana round. We added a marshmallow cut in half on top of that and then drizzled it all with chocolate and some graham cracker crumbs. Pop in the freezer for a couple of minutes for the chocolate to harden. And viola at home s’mores that don’t require making a fire or too much of a mess (until you eat them!)

Mini s'mores

We got a little creative and added other things into the s’mores, such as peanut butter, coconut, and toffee bits. It’s all up to what you are craving! I hope you have a great National s’mores day and get to eat some s’mores in some form or another!

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Homemade Easter Peanut Butter Bunnies

Bunnies in basket

Hippity hop, you know what’s coming soon? Easter! And you know what that means? Easter candy! You know what else is coming soon? Summer! And you know what the means? Bikinis and hellooo you have a figure under all those frumpy sweaters?

Peanut butter bunnies in basket

Now I am alllllll for celebrating every holiday in the book. Even if I am 23 years old and might be a bit too old to partake in certain aspects of holidays, it doesn’t mean I can’t still enjoy the holiday in general. I would love to still go trick or treating or do an Easter egg hunt but it might be a little unfair to all the kids so instead I have to find other ways to enjoy these holidays. For Halloween we threw an awesome party that allowed us to guiltlessly buy a ton of Halloween candy and decorations. For Easter we have decided to make our own yummy treats because as I previously mentioned, summer is soon and I can’t hide underneath my baggy sweaters/sweatpants throughout all of the season least I want to be a sweaty mess.

Bunny with eggs

These treats mimic the best candy ever: Reese’s! However, they do not have the added processed ingredients and sugars. Our homemade Reese’s are simple and pure and slightly too delicious to eat just one, or two, or three.. but at least you know exactly what is in them so go ahead, treat yo’ self. Treat yo’ 8 year old Easter candy loving self.

Peanut butter bunnies on crunch plate

For whatever reason the Easter egg shaped Reese’s always taste better than the normal Reese’s. Maybe because they’re bigger… When we saw this chocolate bunny mold we thought it would be perfect to get that big Easter egg Reese’s taste, plus look how cute it is! Who could resist that? Of course you don’t have to use a bunny mold for these, you can just use mini muffin papers to make little peanut butter cups or any mold you may have. Although, you will be warned they won’t taste quite as delectable.

Peanut butter bunnies

Okay, onto why you probably clicked this link to begin with, the recipe. All you need are some baking chips and some peanut/almond/nut butter of choice. If you’re doing white chocolate, we find that a white chocolate bar like Godiva or Ghirardelli works best since it melts down better. As for milk and dark chocolate, we’ve been into the Enjoy Life brand** Place about 1/2 cup of baking chips (more or less depending on how many Reese’s you want to make and how chocolatey you want each one to be) in a microwave safe bowl. Pop them in the microwave for about 20 seconds at a time, stirring so the chocolate doesn’t burn, until all chips are melted. Next, layer the chocolate into your tray or wrappers. We typically just use a spoon to do this and we try to keep the bottom layer pretty thin. Stick in the freezer for about 10-20 minutes just to harden a little bit. While that is in the freezer choose what peanut butter you want to put on your Reese’s. We like almond butter so we chose that but also put some of this banana chip peanut butter in some because yum. Take the tray/wrappers out of the freezer then put a layer of peanut butter in each. Top them all off with some more melted chocolate and pop back into the freezer for at least an hour. Rose likes to mash her almond/peanut butter with some oats and agave for a different flavor.

Peanut butter bunny and egg basket

Peanut butter bunny stacked

There you have it a super simple and very delicious and slightly, maybe, a tiny bit healthier than actual Reese’s recipe. We loveee these and keep making new batches using different kinds of chocolate (dark, milk, white) and different nut butters (maple almond, honey almond, cashew butter!). As you can tell we have gotten pretty good at the whole homemade Reese game. Let us know in the comments below what kind of chocolate and nut butter combo you would do. We’ve also contemplated putting a banana slice in them as well, such fun! Also, our next Reese’s adventure will be using chocolate nut butter on the inside and peanut butter chips on the outside because yum and why not?

Bunnies and hen towel

Happy Spring and happy soon to be Easter! Check back for some other fun Easter/Spring ideas soon!

Peanut butter bunnies crunch

Valentines Day Trays

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Valentine’s day is upon us my friends. I feel like this holiday is either dreaded or loved; I used to be someone who dreaded it but now I am slowly moving towards the latter category. With all sorts of Valentine’s goodies in stores and seeing fun blog posts and pictures of homemade treats on the internet, I’ve gotten excited for Valentines day this year. I guess I appreciate it more from a crafters standpoint nowadays, and have even given into the reds and pinks and heart shaped everything.

IMG_4879 We tend to be suckers for holiday goodies and end up falling into the trap of buying everything just because it is pretty and holiday related (exhibit a, and b, and c – okay I’ll stop now). Therefore, to justify our purchases we have decided to put together two Valentine’s day themed trays. We have done a breakfast in bed themed tray and also an evening dessert tray. These trays are quite versatile and are a cute way to say I love you. Even if you don’t have a date, you can share these goodies with a friend, a neighbor, or just enjoy it all yourself! IMG_9988 When you wake up in the morning on a holiday it is fun to be surprised with a present or homemade breakfast. On this tray we have put all the things that we would like to be surprised with in the morning, such as a cute hand made note, a delicious homemade breakfast, and some nice, warm tea. IMG_9992 IMG_0036 These little notes are simple to make – all you need is some paper, stamps and ink. We got most of these stamps at A.C. Moore last year for sale for super cheap. A homemade made card adds a cute little touch that shows your creative side. Plus, you can customize them to fit the person you will be giving it to. IMG_4905 IMG_0023 We also added a simple breakfast that you can make ahead and have ready to go in the morning with minimal work. We made Chocolate Covered Katie’s Customizable Breakfast Granola Cups. These were very easy to make and you can do so the night before and then just add in Greek yogurt or whatever filling you wish (peanut butter anyone?) We added some fresh fruit to the cups to make it a well rounded breakfast treat. IMG_0033IMG_4946 Lastly, we added two cups of warming tea to the tray. You, of course, could have coffee or even some mimosas if you’re feeling indulgent! We love these new mugs we got at Target. Target does it again!IMG_0087 Our second tray is more of an afternoon/night time treat tray. This one features rosé wine, some popcorn and some chocolate covered fruit delights. Some other ideas to put on it could be a movie to watch, a game to play together, or a candle to light. IMG_4960 IMG_0109 For the chocolate covered fruit, we bought this mold at A.C Moore for $2 and melted some chocolate chips in the microwave. We then cut out whatever fruit we had on hand – cherries, raspberries, and strawberries, blackberries – into little hearts. We piped a layer of chocolate into the molds and placed the heart shaped fruit on top. Then we stuck it in the freezer for about 30 minutes or an hour to harden. This treat is truly delicious, and it adds a nice indulgent counterpart to some salty popcorn. You all know we need some chocolate to go with our popcorn! IMG_0105IMG_0110 No nighttime treat would be complete without a glass of wine or a cocktail to pair with it. We went for some rosé as it is pink and fitting for Valentine’s day, but feel free to add in any cocktail or type of wine you prefer. There have been a lot fun cocktail recipes I’ve seen lately that would make a great edition to this tray. IMG_4992 We scattered the table with some heart confetti and some red arrows that Rose cut out to add to the festiveness of it all. The hearts were made with a little heart punch from A.C. Moore and some colored card stock. IMG_0092 We hope you enjoyed our two Valentine’s day themed trays. It was a lot of fun to put together and to make two different types of trays as well. Hope you all have a wonderful Valentine’s day!