Everyone has a recipe for Hershey’s kiss cookies, but I wanted to make these extra Valentines-y. So I made up a cocoa cookie and melted a special V-Day raspberry kiss right into the cookie, then used a heart cutter to cut them out after baking.

They came out tasty and adorable. I’m sure they’d look great wrapped up in a big red heart box, but mine will never get there, I’ll just keep them all for myself…

ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Valrhona cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
2 sticks (1 cup) butter
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
raspberry Hershey’s kisses, unwrapped

Aren’t these raspberry kisses adorable? I love the stripes!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prep baking sheets with silpats.

In a bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and the vanilla until combined.

Add in the flour mixture until the dough is formed.

Make small round balls of dough and place them on the prepped baking sheet.

Press an unwrapped raspberry kiss into the dough. The kiss will get a little melty and bake right into the cookie. Bake for 10 minutes.

When you take them out of the oven use a small cookie cutter and cut a heart shape right around the melty kiss. Let them cool for a bit on the pan, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Will there be extra cutter remnants? Of course, but just bag ‘em up and eat them, or grind them up for a nice cookie crust later.

These are the cutest little valentines and the heart shape makes them extra sweet. I even made some with regular chocolate kisses for all the chocolate lovers out there!

Gina M Maddox
February 3, 2012

I love making 7 layer mexican style dip and serving with tortilla chips! Thanks for the chance to win!

Thanks for reading everyone!

Pretty red Jell-o hearts make great Valentines but when they are Strawberry-Lilikoi, they taste even better!

ingredients:
1 small box (3 oz) strawberry Jell-o
1 packet Knox gelatin
1 cup boiling water
1 cup Strawberry-Lilikoi Hawaiian Sun juice

In a small bowl combine the Strawberry Jell-o, Knox gelatin packet, boiling water and Strawberry-Lilikoi juice. Stir to combine until the gelatin has dissolved.

Pour into an 8×8 glass dish and refrigerate until firm.

Using a small heart cutter, cut out Jell-o pieces and serve.

I admit my favorite way to eat it is how I had it for breakfast every morning when I lived in Italy: nutella on toast. But I also love to use it in baking – here are a few of my fave nutella-ish recipes:

Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies (recipe here)

Mochi filled with Nutella (recipe here)

Strawberry + Nutella Pies on a Stick (recipe here)

Banana Nutella Bundt (recipe here)

If you follow me on twitter you know I like to post pictures of how much I save when I go grocery shopping. I’m no ‘extreme couponer’ I just buy what I need for meal planning, no 500 sticks of deodorant here.

People always ask me to give them a tutorial on how I save money. Today’s the day! Saving money is fun and can be time consuming, but it just got easier.

Vons (Safeway for all you Hawaii readers) invited me and a few bloggers to their headquarters and showed us how to use Just For U, a new way that savings are tailored to the things that YOU frequently buy!

You go online and add your deals to your Vons Club Card and the savings are automatic, so there’s no coupon clipping/forgetting them in the car etc. The money just comes off during checkout, no fuss! Not only that, you get one dozen free eggs just for signing up for Just For U – hey, you’re already ahead! The program is currently in California and Hawaii and about to roll out in the next month.

Vons took us to a local market where we shopped using Just For U and I ended up saving 54%. Not bad. Here’s how I did it – first I registered for the Just for U program, then I added digital coupons and then my favorite page: Personalized Deals. That’s where you get EVEN CHEAPER prices based on your purchasing history. Since I meal plan and use basic pantry ingredients, this is great.

You can even email all your deals to yourself so you have your complete list with you. This is awesome if you shop for groceries with your list on your phone like I do.

Now let me show you the ways of the couponing force, my young padawan…

1. Personalized Deals
So I needed lemons. At the store they are 88 cents and even if I walked in with a club card I’d still have to pay 88 cents. But with my Just For U personalized deal, they were selling lemons JUST FOR ME at a mere 33 cents. Come on!

This deal was seriously just for me, the woman next to me did not have this offer in her online deals. Vons must know I do Lemon recipe Week every year I guess…

2. Digital Coupons
So as far as the digital coupons go, once they are loaded they’re always in there. Barilla pasta sauce was 2/$4. Which means $2 for one jar. I had loaded a digital coupon for one dollar off, so in the end I only paid $1.00 for the regularly priced $3.29 jar of sauce and I only had to buy ONE not like a hoarder’s 100 of them.

3. Stacking Club Specials+Personalized Deals+Coupons too!
Finally – you can also STACK deals, which is key to saving a lot of money. Orville Redenbacher popcorn was on sale for 2/$4, basically $2 each. But my Just For U price was $1.49 PLUS I had a paper coupon for $1.50 off two, thus making the regular $3.59 popcorn just 75 cents!

So that’s my little ‘how to save $$’ tutorial. See how easy it is? And now I’m going to make it easier and let you save 100%! Vons generously gave me a gift card and since I saved $50, I’m going to give the $50 to you!

This is Super Bowl weekend and even if you don’t watch football, parties are a lot of fun. I should know, I throw a lot of them. Leave me a comment telling me what your favorite party food is to make OR eat! (You have from now until February 6th, midnight pst.)

If you need party food ideas I have plenty for you right here. Vons is having a ton of Superbowl shopping deals this week and thank you to them for their generosity in hosting the blogger event and providing the gift card!

Disclaimer: I received a gift card from Vons/Safeway. Opinions expressed are my own and are not influenced by any form of compensation.

Whole chickens cost way less than smaller packs because having to break them down yourself is a pain. Instead – use a whole chicken with minimal work and still maximize the savings of buying whole by throwing it in a crock pot! And using Hawaiian Sun jelly gives it those nice flavors of the islands.

Cooking a whole chicken in a crock pot gives you nice succulent chicken that is easily ‘pulled’ and makes a delicious meal with very little work. Now don’t you feel better now that you’ve saved all that time and money? Ahh…

ingredients:
1 whole chicken
one 10 ounce jar guava jelly
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup orange juice
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Hawaiian Sun jams and jellies are from Hawaii but can be found in most Asian markets and online.

In a small bowl mix together the guava jelly, apple cider vinegar, orange juice, soy sauce, brown sugar and garlic.

Wash and dry the chicken and place it in the crock pot. Season with salt and pepper then pour the jelly mixture on top.

Cook in the crock pot on low for 6-8 hours. Yes, this is what it looks like. Sort of like it’s taking a bath. Odd.

Using two forks, ‘pull’ the chicken into shreds and serve.

In the Marvel Universe late last year Wolverine opened the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. This new mutant school is imaginary of course but that doesn’t stop them from having a pamphlet with faculty, a list of classes and of course: a twitter feed.

My friend Sarah’s fave Marvel character is Phoenix and last year I made her Phoenix/Jean Grey cupcakes. So this year for her birthday, I took the JG school logo and made lolly cupcake toppers. I like to imagine them being laid out for the Jean Grey School homecoming.

ingredients:
white chocolate
black frosting

Make the lollys by melting white chocolate in a double boiler and pouring them into molds. Pop them out and set aside.

I copied the image of the logo off my phone. Using a #2 tip I piped black frosting in two simple parallel lines.

Then added the straight line for the G and the curved edges to finish it off.

Sarah loves Coke about as much as she loves Jean Grey so I made some Coke-float cupcakes and placed the finished lollies in as toppers.

I wish my mutant power was to be able wash dishes using only my mind. School’s in session!

She knows my love of Hello Kitty and desserts so I knew this had to be good…

Whohoo! Hello Kitty shaped daifuku! Little tender cakes filled with a sweet chestnut filling. Have you ever seen anything so adorable?! Why don’t we sell this on the regular here in the states? I’d buy them and eat them everyday. This was even cuter than the things I saw at the Sanrio dessert cafe in Hawaii!

Cutest food ever from halfway around the world and man, was it tasty!

Have leftover Kalua Pig? Unlikely! But if you do, make fried rice of course!

ingredients:
3 cups white rice, cooked
4 slices of bacon
1 cup kalua pig, cooked (recipe here)
1/2 cup corn
2 eggs
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 Tablespoon oyster sauce
pepper to taste

Chop the bacon into small pieces and cook until crispy. Set aside to drain.

In the same pan over medium high heat add the cooked white rice. To the sizzling rice add the eggs, soy sauce and oyster sauce. Stir to combine.

Once the eggs are cooked and the rice starts to cook through, add the bacon, kalua pig and the corn. I had cooked my kalua pig with cabbage which added some nice color to the dish. Season with pepper to taste.

See all of Vader’s past lunches, here.