Totsy....horrible!

So everyone loves to save money right? Including me!! I will penny pinch at all angles I can, so when I found this site called Totsy I was overly excited to say the least that I could get name brand clothing for cheap prices. Well I am beyond disappointed with this site. As you will see the reasons below.

1. Great prices but horrible service!
2. The wait time.
3. The products are not what they claim to be, ( I ordered dock martin leggins) & they came as the brand name of E Crush!
Below you will find the item I recieved and the problems I have had to deal with up to today!
Okay so here is a break down of why I won't recommed Totsy to anyone!! First I placed the order for these adorable leggins that had seemless rings! How cute right? Well I placed that order on 8/21/12 and said the shipping date should have been 9/10/12 and they were not shipped as of 9/11. I called and spoke with Maggie (a supervisor) and was informed that sometimes the company they buy products don't ship ontime and hence the delay in my order being shipped. (Which I can understand) However a friend ordered these exact same leggins 3 days after me and she got it on a "blowout-sale" and from what Maggie said those items sometimes get sent out quicker. My friend that ordered them, was refered by me and I have yet as of today get the $15 dollar refereal credit from them that they claimed I would. I called on 9/12 and spoke with Kevin- *** ext. whom said that the systems were down but that he would credit me for both people who bought things from my refered (yet to get either) said he would credit and get it on as soon as systems were up. (again, have not gotten at all). Today 9/22 I got my package in the mail, You have no ideal how excited I was that it finally came. Only to have my excitment turned into disappoitment by finding the item I have posted above. I don't even want the item after all this. How and their make up for the problem with shipping was to give me free shipping, which was actaully creditied by Maggie!

Choclate Chip Banana Muffins

Forgive me for not being up to date on my Deliu-cious blog; I’ve been super busy the last week getting my daughter ready for Kindergarten. It’s been a long and fun journey with her home, but she needed room to shine and being in school is just the place for her to shine. Almost all of my followers should know that my family comes first, but with my daughter being gone at school it leaves a lot of open time for me to conger up some great recipes. With that said I think I have discovered my new favorite breakfast item!

These little bambino’s are super cute, portable and not to mention delicious! You can make them ahead of time and give throughout the week!! Plus I love the fact that it’s all the amazing flavors of a pancake without all the mess of standing over a skillet and waiting for the perfect moment to flip pancakes. I know, I know get on with it already. My new favorite breakfast food is Chocolate Chip Banana muffins!!

Ingredients:                                                     Servings: 24
1 small banana
1 cup all-purpose flour (substations can be made fell free to ask in my blog what else I’ve done)
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
2 tbsp. sugar
2/3 cups buttermilk
1 egg
2 tbsp. maple syrup (or pancake syrup)
2 tbsp. butter, melted
¼ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (plus some extra for toppings if you wish)
¼ cup mini chocolate chips
Syrup for serving, if desired.

Directions:
Preheat oven 350 degrees; Spray a mini muffin pan liberally with cooking spray.
In a medium sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and sugar.

In a separate medium sized bowl, Whisk together buttermilk, egg, banana, syrup and melted butter until just incorporated.

Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until fully incorporated (there will be some lumps). Add Chocolate chips to evenly distribute.

Using a spoon, scoop the batter into the prepared mini muffin pan, by filling each muffin tin approximately 2/3 to ¾ full. Top each tin with 2 or 3 chocolate chips. Bake for 8-9 minutes, until golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out with a few dry crumbs attached.

Let cook for a minute or two in the pan, use a knife and circle around the edges of each muffin and pop them out.

Serve warm with syrup for dipping. Store in airtight container (I stored my in the refrigerator). Reheat in the microwave for 15 second increments until desired temperature.

final product

 

Meatloaf Cupcakes

Today I made meatloaf cupcakes. Sounds kind of strange when you think about it, and something I normally wouldn’t eat as a ‘sweet’ item. But the cupcake part is just solely for the type of pan I used. Why use a cupcake pan you may be asking, well honestly it’s more to help with portion control and to cut cooking time in half!

The process was fairly simple, mix meatloaf as if you were making a regular loaf style meatloaf. And then portion it out into the cupcake pans.

Ingredients1 teaspoon olive oil
1 cup chopped onion (I buy and use the pre-chopped)
1 teaspoon dried oregano. (I used Gourmet Garden’s Organic Oregano)
2 garlic gloves, minced (I buy pre-minced garlic so it I used 2 teaspoons)
1 ½ pounds ground beef. (I used the 90/10 extra lean meat)
1 cups of Italian bread crumbs
¼ ground black pepper
¼ sea salt
2 Large eggs and cooking spray
                                                                                                                                                                                            Additional items you could use
1 cup ketchup, divided
1 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons mustard
** I don’t typically use these unless I am cooking for a lot of people as my daughter don’t like mustard nor Worcestershire sauce.

Mashed Potatoes
4 cups peeled potato (I use red potatoes or Yukon gold)
¼ cups of 2% reduced-fat milk
3 tablespoons butter
¼ cups Philadelphia cream cheese
½ teaspoons sea salt
¼ teaspoons ground black pepper

Garnish (if preferred, but didn’t use this time around)
3 tablespoons chopped chives
4 pieces cooked bacon and chopped.

Preparation
Preheat oven 350°
Mix ingredients in large bowl, (If you choose to add the Ketchup divided add too).
Spoon the meat mixture into 12 muffin cups coated with cooking spray. Top each with 2 teaspoons ketchup. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes or until a thermometer registers 160°. Let stand for 5 minutes.

While the meatloaf is cooking, make mashed potatoes.

Put the potatoes into a pastry bag with a wide star tip and pipe the mashed potatoes on top of the meatloaf. Sprinkle with bacon crumbs and chopped chives.
**If you don’t have a pastry bag as I don’t you can use a sandwich baggie and cut a small part of the corner of the bag off.

My Little Helper Liljana, She mixes the Meatloaf mix as
 I prepare the potatos

MeatLoaf cupcakes before cooked.

Meatloaf cupcakes cooked and toped, My daughters request was
for greenbeans on top drizzeled with katchup

 

Nutella Cookies

NUTELLA COOKIES

It’s my understanding that everyone loves Nutella, the delicious hazelnut spread. So when I came across a recipe for cookies I was like a kid in a candy shop overly excited about the endless possibilities of items I could incorporate in them. I have an adorable 4.5 year old little girl that LOVES to get into the kitchen and help her mommy cook and this recipe was just easy enough to allow her to do it by herself, yep I said it all by herself!

Difficulty:          difficulty of this recipe is easy as an almost 5 year old can do it alone.
Prep time:         about 5 minutes or more depending on who is in the kitchen doing it.
Cooking time:   I estimated between 5-9 minutes depending on each person’s oven.
Servings:            About 24 depending on how big you make your cookies.

So as you know the main ingredient is Nutella, but there are only 3 other ingredients in this simple yet cleaver idea for a chocolate cookie.



Ingredients:
1 Cup Nutella ½ cups Sugar
1 Cup All Purpose Flour
1 Egg



 Preparation Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 F
Blend all ingredients together well. Form 1" balls.
Pace onto cookie sheet. Press down frimly with bottom of glass. Bake for 7-9 minutes or until
set. Cool.

**In order to make 1” balls I used a 1 TBSP (tablespoon) measuring spoon and I packed into the spoon a little tight as the mix is a little hard to work with. From there I proceeded to shake it gently onto my cookie sheet.

**I also adjusted the recipe a little as I thought ½ cup of sugar would make them the cookies too sweet therefore I only used 1/3 cups of sugar. And I still thought they were sweeter than a normal chocolate cookie. Over all the process was easy and quick. The final product turned out wonderfully and tasty!

Introduction

Hello my dear fowler’s, I am very much an amateur cook and quite honestly an amateur to new foods and different taste. Are you asking how someone can write a blog about cooking when they are new and stubborn with their taste?

Well for so many years, actually all my life I have been eating the same thing. One could say that I didn’t think quite outside of the box when it came to food, and I give part blame to my parents but 100% of the blame to myself.

Recently I began really getting into Pintrest. Now in case you don’t know what pintrest is; it’s an online site that you can tack everything you ever imagined to. Such as recipes, hairstyles, crafts and clothing you would wear. The possibilities are endless.

So who am I? Really no one special to the world but to my two girls and my husband of over 8 years I am the world. I would love to be the little 50’s house wife but this isn’t the 50’s. While I would love to be a 50’s house wife, I don’t want to cook like they did with all that butter. I want a healthier option for my family.  

With all this said my motive for the blog and my cooking is to keep me inspired to try new things. I could run down of a list of things I have NEVER ate before this week and you would be surprised that I ever lived on Chicken, Rice and Hamburgers for so long, but it’s true I did, and now I almost regret not trying new things when I was in Europe (Albania) because I was afraid, even though the foods smelled amazing.

So what do I need from the people following my blog, well I need support more than anything! I can cook a mean meal and be terrified to try it, why because it’s something new! Some could say I am afraid of change and to a degree I am, but with your help and some wonderful ideas I will try everything and anything at least once.

Stay tuned for my next post and if you have an idea for a meal please feel free to send it my way! Here’s to new experiences and hopefully mouthwatering tastes!

P.S. Oh and I would like to give a special thanks to Joan G for helping with the Blog name it’s so clever!