Cheesecake and Chocolate Strawberries

I have been craving the cheesecake truffle strawberries from Truffle Berries in Fairfield. If you are local to Fairfield and have never been there, then GO!!!! You will not regret it. She has a huge array of sweet treats.

My weakness at Truffle Berries was her strawberries dipped in cheesecake then in chocolate. It was heaven in the form of bad-for-you-fruit!

For some reason, those babies have been on my mind so I decided to whip some up (especially since the 99 cent strawberries at Ralph’s were too good of a deal to pass up).

I was a tad bit too lazy to make cheesecake so instead, I went instant…like J-E-L-L-O instant. Fortunately, they had a Cheesecake flavor instead pudding.

Once the pudding set, I dipped the strawberries into the cheesecake pudding then refrigerated them for about an hour.

The instant pudding didn’t quite harden the way I had hoped it would so my attempts at being lazy didn’t work in my favor this time. For my next attempt, I will be sure to make some cheesecake from scratch so I can get it the right consistency of thickness.

While the strawberries sat in the fridge, I used my handy dandy Wilton Melting Pot to melt milk chocolate wafers. If you like to use melted chocolates frequently, then I highly suggest buying this little pot. It melts the chocolate down smoothly and keeps it at a low heat to prevent the chocolate from re-solidifying.

When dipping the strawberries, do not make the mistake (like I did) of swirling them in the chocolate. If you do, you will get this cheesecake/chocolate mess.

Instead of swirling, dip each side of the strawberry into the chocolate. They will look MUCH prettier.

You can tell which ones were swirled and which were dipped.  

My taste testers approved of them so I look forward to trying it again with thicker cheesecake.

Let me know if you try this recipe out!

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Dining Chair Makeover–Easy Peasy Reupholstering

Our dining chairs were getting pretty filthy (thanks to my boys, Thing One and Thing 2). Pretty much everything from noodles to apple juice and chocolate milk has made its way to these chairs. I have been wanting to reupholster the cushions for quite some time, but would either forget or just get lazy.

One day, I came across Fashion Fabrics in Chula Vista. I found some fabric that was on sale for $1.50/yd so I figured it was worth a shot to try this whole reupholstering thing. If it didn’t work out, I wouldn’t be out of too much money since it was only $2.25+tax for 1.5 yards of fabric. SCORE!

The chairs needed some more cushioning so I purchased 2 yards of 1.5” foam from Joann’s Fabrics. To save money, I used a 50% off coupon. The foam is about $16.99/yd so it was cost effective to use the coupon.

Here are the chairs in all their stained glory. Gross, right?

I started by removing the seat from the chair. You can choose to remove the existing fabric and cushion or be lazy like me and just cover it all up with the new stuff.

The next step is to outline the seat on your foam. I used a sharpie to do this.

Once the foam was cut, I laid it out on the fabric and made sure there was enough allowance around the foam to allow me to wrap the fabric around the seat. There was about 3”  or more of extra fabric around each cushion.

Next the fun part – you get to play with a staple gun!

Lay the foam on top of the fabric and put the seat on top of that.

Pull the fabric tightly over the cushion and seat and start stapling about every inch. Don’t worry about the corners just yet. It will be easier to take care of them once you have finished securing all the sides.

Once you have finished your first side, then work on the side opposite of the side you just finished working on. Be sure to pull on the fabric tightly before stapling it down.

The corners were tricky so I did more of a pleat. I tucked the corners so there would be a pleat on each side of the corner. Be sure to use extra staples on the corners so it doesn’t pull up.

Once you are done stapling the fabric on, attach it to your chair.

Voila! The chair looks new again!

It is amazing what a little touch of color can do. I love the look of the new chair vice the old simple color one.

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Do you Pinterest? If so, feel free to  !!

If by chance you ever find anything on the blog you would like to Pin, I have made it easier for you to do so.

At the bottom of each post, you will now find a “Pin It” button. One click and you will be able to pin away! :)

Happy Pinning!!!

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The Dog Run–Good Eats in Chula Vista

My husband, boys and I are always willing to try new food places and had to try The Dog Run after passing it quite a few times and also after reading its great reviews on Yelp.

Since quite a number of the reviews were on the TJ Dog, I decided to try that one first. My husband and I also decided to share a plate of their delicious Bacon Ranch Nacho Cheese Fries (can you feel the pounds just transferring to you by osmosis as you read that name???).

The TJ dog consisted of a bacon wrapped hot dog, grilled onions and green peppers, tomatoes, mayo, mustard and a hot sauce.  With its conglomeration of toppings, I wasn’t quite sure how it would taste, but figured that it was worth a taste.

Two words – YUMMY and FLAVORFUL!

Combined together the toppings work deliciously together. Again, YUMMY! I’m not a big fan of green peppers, but on this dog, I’ll eat ‘em!

The staff is customer service oriented and very nice. They periodically check in with you to see how you are doing and ask if your meal meats your expectations.

We will definitely be back for more!

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