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This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support  You may not have realized this, but even buttons get a day! And that day is today, November 16th. I'm glad buttons have a day because I have always loved them. From the time I played with them in my mother's big, musty smelling treasure chest of a button box until today, there is something so special about buttons. They are so cute, except in the book/movie Coraline, of course, when they are creepy. I have my own button box now, but it isn't as brilliant as my mom's was. But, when I do a project, it is often one of the places I turn to first. So, today for Friday Faves, I thought I would show you a few projects that are button-fabulous!  First I used a styrofoam ball and green, red and white buttons to make this ornament. I love it.  Next I made a wreath on this tablescape easel and hand lettered the greeting in the middle. You could a dd a bow to the wreath or use different shaped buttons. I just used what I have at home. I love displaying little things like this on my bookshelves during the holidays. Here are some other things that we would like to try! If you don't have a big stash of buttons, you can order them online here or here! Or, go to Walmart or any fabric store. You can find serving trays at Dollar Tree here. I am having so much fun playing with buttons, I can't stop, so you may be seeing more button projects form me, Ha Ha! I did do a Spring Button Project here a while back.  And, if you like the idea of little framed pieces on your bookshelves, look at these! 
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This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support
My dear friend Anita has a very green thumb and has a fantastic garden practically year round, which is a thing here in Arizona. She gave us some beautiful purple eggplant out of it recently.
I don't have a lot of experience with eggplant, but I knew that it pretty much takes of the flavor or whatever it is cooked with. 
I thought about using it to replace noodles in lasagna. But, I didn't know if I had to seed it or what! Here are a couple of things I learned about it as I studied it out:
My husband and I watched a couple of YouTube videos about cooking eggplant and I saw a really delicious looking recipe for Eggplant Parmesan. So, that gave me a different perspective about the Lasagna idea and I decided to do a mash-up of Eggplant Parmesan with Lasagna. It worked out very well and tastes wonderful. Here is how I did it. First make the sauce, then work on the eggplant.
Now, here is the real recipe:
If you haven't tried cooking with eggplant, I would highly recommend it! This recipe works great for a low-carb diet. I think you could even do away with the bread crumbs if you would like. Have you ever tried it? Drop us a comment below!
This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support
When we were working on our pie book and developing new recipes, one of my friends asked me if we made Chocolate Pecan Pie. She hadn't seen a recipe for it, but was thinking that the combination of flavors sounded good. I told her that I would give it a try and bring her one if it was successful. So, I started scouring Pinterest for the many versions of Chocolate Pecan Pie available.
One of my first tries.
Most of the recipes I found simply added chocolate chips to the pie, along with the pecans. So, I tried a version of that idea. It seemed promising. The pie looks really delicious, right? Well, my husband was unimpressed with the flavor. I have to admit that I was as well. I feel like the best part of the Pecan Pie is the custard below the pecans. In this case, the chocolate overpowered that creamy texture and rich flavor. Not to mention that as the chocolate chips cooled and rehardened, it made the pie difficult to slice! So, I checked off the chocolate chip method as a fail.
One of the beauties of Pecan Pie is that it is really super easy to whip up. A lot of the recipes I found made the process so much more difficult, so I gave those a hard pass. One day I was discussing the Chocolate Pecan Pie idea with Maddy and she suggested I toast and candy the pecans with brown sugar and cocoa powder to see if that would give the hint of chocolate that we wanted. I thought, "Genius!" So, I gave it a try. The pecans came out really tasty after I toasted them in a skillet with butter, brown sugar and cocoa powder. And, the crumbs from the toasting left a sort of chocolate swirl through the custard part of the pie. But, when it was baked all together, the flavor of the chocolate really didn't come through at all. I still liked this idea though, and may explore it further.
To make a long story short, the Chocolate Pecan Pie didn't make it into the ebook and my friend hasn't received her pie. A couple of other suggestions I may try are:
But really, I think the moral of this story is that not every really good thing has to be chocolate! I know, I know, unbelievable! But I have tweaked my Pecan Pie recipe over the years until it is a family favorite, with the perfect balance between the amount of pecans and the custard below them. My husband is firmly in the camp of not messing with the Pecan Pie at all! It is his all time favorite! Sometimes you just don't mess with a good thing.
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Author
Helen Reynolds: Mother of six children , grandmother to ten and counting! I love to cook, craft and create things and I especially love doing that with my family, So, when my lawyer daughter, Lindsey, and my artist daughter, Madalynn, and I came up with the idea of Hot Cocoa Bombs, this blog was born. Then, one more daughter, with her technical and science skills, plus creativity has joined in to round us out! Read more about us here! 
Click this link and visit 3WinksDesignShop on Etsy. Find our Hot Cocoa Bomb Idea Book, our For the Love of PIe e-book and more of our creations!
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