Sponsored Archives - Page 6 of 27 - mamachallenge | Real Solutions for Real Parents

Apple Spice Rose Tarts

September 29, 2017 By Autumn Rose Reo 15 Comments

Need to make an impression, but don’t have the time? Be the apple of everyone’s eye with this Apple Rose Tart recipe with ginger! It’s the best thing since Apple Pie.

Thanks to Central Market Apple Festival for getting me to branch out with apples and partnering with us for this sweet treat.

This is the time of year that my insatiable desire to bake kicks into high gear.

It could be the cooler temperatures that let me turn on the oven or the apple cinnamon potpourri that I’ve plugged into the house that smells like I’m already cooking, but nothing says fall more than breaking out the apron to get my bake on.

For me thumbing through Granny’s old cookbooks curled up with a hot spicy mug of apple cider and a furry blanket is the perfect way to spend a day…

Then reality sets in.

Too bad carpool, conference calls, and all that other craziness that comes up daily doesn’t allow for hours of baking joy. And what normally happens I’ll have the perfect opportunity to make something special for some event and then I’ll have ZERO time to make it.

I go through my head trying to think of all the great things I could make and then reality sets in and I pick up a box of cookies. #mamachallenge

This recipe for the apple rose tart is the best of both worlds: looks impressive but without much work at all. Slicing up your apples might be the hardest part.

However, the best part is you can use whatever apples you choose. I’d suggest using anything that has a red/pink hue, but when you head to Apple Festival at Central Market, you have more than 35 varieties to choose from. A trip through produce is better than going apple picking in the orchard because you have the best in-season apples from all over the country and guides to help you choose just the right apple.

At this apple wonderland, you can try and learn about so many varieties of apples. A few caught my eye like The Diva®, and the Crispin (juicy and ideal for dessert), but it was the Jonamac that became the apple of my eye. Described as having a “rich, sweet flavor with cinnamon spice notes – and great for baking,” I knew this bright red baby was coming home with me (along with many others!)

To make these rose tarts you only need seven other ingredients including puff pastry, cream cheese and of course, a little sugar and cinnamon.

The only other thing you’ll need is a good sharp knife to cut your beautiful apple into thin slices after you’ve cut it in half and removed the core and sees.

However, there are a few notes you need to make note of for rose tarts.

Cut the apple horizontally on both halves to get the perfect slice.

Ideally you’re looking for the apples to keep the pretty red skin on as much of the slice as possible.

It’s important to put the slices into a bowl of water and lemon juice and slightly cook.

This serves two purposes: may seem like an extra step, but if you don’t follow, your slices will break when you try to roll them and the skins soften and maintain the red color rather than burn when they bake.

Believe me, I tried it both ways to make sure what steps were absolutely necessary. Can you spot the apples that were slightly cooked and the ones that weren’t?

Use a pizza cutter to make your four cuts into the puff pastry dough.

First cut in half and then half those halves for the exact right size.

Roll and fold is the name of the game.

The fun part is actually the rolling up the dough. When you roll up the pastry, the apples (which are malleable because they’ve been slightly cooked), bend and make the rose. It’s so pretty to see how each one comes out different like every real rose does.

And don’t forget to fold up the puff pastry in half after you’ve added the apples! (It doesn’t work out well either.)

Put the tarts in the oven and for the next 35-40 minutes enjoy the aroma that will take over your kitchen. And then you’ll have around eight lovely apple rose tarts ready for presentation and for your palate pleasure!

Apple Spice Rose Tarts

Author: Autumn Reo of mamachallenge.com

Print Recipe

Description

These easy rose tarts will make you the apple of everyone’s eye.

Ingredients

Scale

1 apple
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3 tablespoons water
2 sheets puff pastry (normally what you find in a pastry box.
1/4 cup cream cheese
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger (enhances the apple and cinnamon combination.)

Instructions

Cut an apple in half longwise to remove the core.
Thinly slice the apple halves horizontally.
In a bowl, add the apple slices with lemon juice and water and microwave for 2 minutes.
Pat dry the apple slices and set aside.
Roll out one of the puff pastry sheets and cut into 4 even strips (pizza cutter works great.)
Spread cream cheese on 2/3 of the puff pastry and sprinkle sugar onto the puff pastry strips.
Lay apple slices peel side up and overlap to cover the pastry.
Sprinkle cinnamon and ginger on apples.
Fold the pastry puff in half lengthwise and roll up to create tart.
Place apple side up in a greased muffin pan.
Bake for 40 minutes at 375 degrees.

Notes

This recipe will make 8 tarts.

During the Apple Festival at Central Market don’t miss the other “applelicious” products for you to try and sample to heart’s content. Apples are so versatile you can appreciate them in everything from your salads, your entree, your dessert and even in your liquid libations like apple cider. Check out the Apple Festival online along with several recipe ideas and more, here.

This is a sponsored post for Central Market.

Workout Your Way with Curves

September 28, 2017 By Autumn Rose Reo 13 Comments

Want a workout that’s easy, effective and empowers you? This one-stop-shop is all that (and more) and has a 25 year success record.

Thank you Curves® International for sponsoring this post and getting me to get moving for me!

I love to work out.

Well let me rephrase…I love how I feel and how I look AFTER I have worked out.

It’s getting the energy to do it that’s hard.

And considering time is something I don’t have a lot of, working out is often what gets put on the bottom of the to-do list right there with kid-free time with my friends.

I’m sad to say that both of these often get the shaft even though we all know they are necessary for a healthy well-being!

So in efforts to keep 2017 a year for healthy change, Girl Time (which included a lot of wineing) would turn intoCurves® Time by working out with my girls.

The idea was supposed to be something all of us would be comfortable doing and easy for us to catch up while we got in our workout time!

On our first trip, we received a warm welcome from our coaches and in no time went to work!

And thankfully there wasn’t a lot of confusing exercises or instructions – you just listed to the music and gave it your best shot for two rounds of interval cardio and machine work. We finished up with a series of stretches – and man, you needed those.

Ironically, it didn’t feel like work but I could tell from the heavy breathing (and a pulse check – part of the workout), I was making a difference all while hanging with my friends. #multitasking

That day we committed to a month-long promise to keep each other accountable to working out together as a team. And keep us moving when we wanted to skip out when it seemed like there were too many other things to do.

There was sign on the wall that I always look at that makes so much sense.

And all it takes is 30 MINUTES!

So many of us put ourselves on the bottom of the list. Ironically, not doing something for yourself, especially when it comes to your health is how you become better for everyone else.

Make FALL into a good habit this season and make time for you and if you want, your friends too. Now’s a perfect time to sign up for Curves® since they’re celebrating 25 years of making a difference!

And make sure to keep following me on social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) to see me check-in my progress. And because I did a health assessment when I began my Curves Journey (it’s part of their process too!), I’ll reveal what happened to me after 30 days!

About Curves

Curves® is a one-stop-shop for every woman’s fitness needs. By enrolling in the Curves Fitness® Program, women are able to participate in a 30 minute, total-body workout on strength training machines. These circuit classes are designed to burn fat, increase strength, and kick start weight loss. Curves® members not only work every core muscle group in just 30 minutes, but they also become a part of a supportive group of empowered women.

Are you ready to get #CurvesStrong?

This post was sponsored by Curves International but the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Peanuts to Pinot: Pad Thai with Spicy Peanut Sauce

September 13, 2017 By Autumn Rose Reo 2 Comments

Wonder what peanuts and pinot have to do with each other? Plenty. And we’re serving up a recipe for Pad Thai with Spicy Peanut Sauce to really show off this all-star Texas pairing.

Thanks to the Texas Peanut Producers Board for their partnership and giving me a chance to learn this legume in a whole new way.

To say I love wine is an understatement (and not in that mama needs her “sippycup” kind of way.)

I’m not a wine snob but a wine dork, one that really loves everything about wine and have for a long time (I actually wrote a research paper on the Texas Wine Industry and Tourism 12 years ago), took wine classes, and yes, enjoy sitting there just sampling wine. I love to travel to wine country (there is more than one you know) and am fascinated with how geography, science and passion come together to create a glass of vino. (See, I told you I was a dork.)

So when I had the chance to visit Lubbock (a perfect place for peanut making and the home of the Texas Peanut Producers Board) to learn about peanuts, I was interested to see agriculture at work, but didn’t know what to expect. Until of course, I got on the field to learn about peanuts (yes, there’s a lot that goes into peanut planting, processing and promoting!) and the relationship between peanuts and wine. (Bet you didn’t know there was one, huh?)

A Few Peanuts to Ponder:

One acre of peanuts will make 30,000 peanut butter sandwiches
Peanut butter is the leading use of peanuts in the U.S
It takes almost 850 peanuts to make an 18oz jar of peanut butter!

Many peanut farmers (like Mason Becker) are using some of their fields for grapes for the purposes of winemaking (or viniculture.) In fact many of the areas of Texas referred to as the “New Napa” like Fredricksburg and the Hill Country, actually grow their grapes in West Texas around the Lubbock area because the region’s climate is similar (and in many ways, better) than Italy and its European counterparts.

However, the idea of TEXAS wines, while not new to Texas as our first winery was in the 1600s by Franciscan priests, it certainly has changed in the last 20 years and thankfully for the better. Names like McPherson (Lubbock!), Messina Hof, Duchman, and Brennan are big names that have received some big accolades, but one of my favorites that I met was the three families behind Trilogy Wines.

A new winemaker, right out of the gate produced an award-winning Malbec that earned them several titles including Best of Class at the 2017 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. And while the Malbec was silky, vanilla and herby, it was some of their others like their Pinot Grigio that really got my attention (I bought a case.) But best of all, these guys had been growing peanuts before that in the same field that these amazing grapes were coming from.

So it got me thinking a lot about (and hungry for) peanuts and grapes, together. Not so much in that PBJ way (I’m not a fan for the record AT ALL), but more like in the pairing of these two Texas crops in dishes…like one of my favorites, Pad Thai. The combo of the fruit from the pinot, the creaminess of the peanut butter, and the crunch of those Texas peanuts, make it an all-star dish anytime. (And did I mention it doesn’t take long at all to make?)

Win-Win!