Sunday afternoon No Bake Cheesecake

Cleaning out the pantry and I discover a Jello No Bake cheesecake (which is the hubby's fav) and a refrigerator pie crust left over from the holidays.  I ditched the boxed graham crust, popped the refrigerator crust in the oven, added some caramel and pecans and here you have it. A caramel pecan no bake cheesecake in a flaky crust. Best of all worlds! :) 

Sunday afternoon No Bake Cheesecake

Russian Tea Cakes

Also known as "Wedding Cookies". This is my mother-in-laws recipe and my first attempt at baking them. A co-worker and friend gathered on Sunday to bake and put together Christmas goodie boxes for fellow physicians and their staff members. We made a variety of treats, including these Russian Tea Cakes. They looked great in the boxes and tasted like the ones we had as children. Enjoy!

The Ingredients:
1 cup soft butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup pecans chopped fine in a chopper

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Cream together the first two ingredients, add the vanilla and then stir in the flour and salt. Add the nuts and mix well. Roll into 1" balls and place on a cookie sheet. (These will not expand so they can be placed close together). Bake for 12 minutes. After removing from oven roll each ball into the powdered sugar while hot. Set aside and let them completely cool and then roll each ball in the powdered sugar again.

Yields approximately 4 dozen.

Russian Tea Cakes

Nutella Pizza

If you're friends with me on Facebook, or you follow my blogs, you know all about my recent obsession with Nutella.  To quote Julie Powell, "Yum!"  It really is quite ridiculous because I do find myself eating it on everything.  Toast, homemade breads, on strawberries, with bananas....just right off the spoon.  Did I actually admit to that?  Actually, as I am reading what I am typing it sounds like I might be going a little overboard with my Nutella consumption and it possibly may be one of the contributing factors to my jeans being just a little too tight here lately.  Hmmmm.....

Now that you know all the background info, I am sure you can ONLY imagine the pure joy I felt when I ran across the idea for Nutella Pizza.  Thank you, THANK YOU Katerina, from Diethood , for posting this fabulous recipe!

It really is so simple to make and it will be gone before you know it.....

PRINTABLE VERSION
the basics:
your favorite pizza dough
1/2 cup of Nutella (or as much as you want!)
white chocolate chips
hazelnuts (I used almonds because that's what I had in my pantry)

making it:
1.  prepare your pizza dough and spread it as thin as you possibly can.
2.  put it on your baking sheet and bake at 400 for 10 minutes (or what your pizza dough instructions recommend)
3.  When the crust is baked, take it out of the oven and spread the Nutella over the crust and top with nuts and chocolate chips.
4.  Place back in the oven and bake for 5 more minutes.  (if you want the chips to melt, then crush them before placing them on the pizza)
5.  After five minutes take back out of the oven and let cool for a few minutes before slicing.

There you have it, Chocolate Pizza.  Try it, you'll love it!!

Nutella Pizza