I was in a Valentine’s kind of mood last weekend when I was trying to decide what to make for our Book Club’s potluck dinner.  For some reason my personal inner calendar was way off and I was 3 weeks ahead of myself thinking Valentine’s was this week!!  So since I had Valentine’s on the brain I decided a nice Valentiney dessert was in order – what says love more than chocolate and strawberries!

This dessert is a variation of one of my other favorite strawberry desserts – Strawberry Cream Pie.

I added a bit of chocolate to today’s version  ( O.K., more than a bit) and it is quite divine!  Doesn’t chocolate make everything better!?

The base of the pie is a graham cracker crust. You could use a store bought one but a homemade one is so easy to make and tastes so much better it’s worth the little extra effort.

The crust is then filled with a lovely combination of cream cheese, chocolate, whipping cream and a bit of brown sugar.

Refrigerate that for a while (about 6-8 hours or overnight) and then cover the top with a nice layer of juicy red strawberries.

Melt our remaining chocolate chips in a freezer ziploc bag (a regular ziploc bag will be too hot to hold on to!) and clip off one corner to create a pipping bag – then just drizzle the chocolate over the top!

A nice drizzle of chocolate finishes it off!

Who wouldn’t feel loved after eating a piece of Chocolate Berry Pie!?

I’m excited to let you all know about a new feature at Your Homebased Mom.   Now I have a new way for you to save all the recipes you find here on the blog and it’s called Ziplist.  It’s your own personal online recipe box.  How cool is that!?

Thanks to a partnership with Ziplist, the same company who powers the recipe boxes behind MarthaStewart.com, WholeLiving.com and WomansDay.com (not to mention a lot of other of my favorite food bloggers), you can save recipes from any of those sites as well as mine and the recipes all get saved to the very same recipe box.

You still have the option to print them as well.

So things may look a little bit different.

Now with each recipe you will see a print button as well as a Save Recipe button.

Just click on the Print if you want to print off a hard copy to put in your recipe files or you can start an online recipe file by clicking Save Recipe

Next you will be asked to establish an account – it’s easy, just your name and a password.

Then you can save the recipe to your own online recipe box!

The other cool thing?  It will generate a shopping list for you!!

It will then let you know which things you probably need to buy and which items you  may already have on hand at home.  You can then email this list to yourself or print off a copy to take to the store with you.

You can also access the Recipe Box and Shopping List in my navigation bar – right next to the Recipe Index.

I’ll be working on making all look a little bit prettier but it’s ready for you to use right now.  Let me know what you think and how you like it and start saving those recipes!!  Have fun!

A nice cup of herbal tea and my favorite English treat – shortbread.

I like my shortbread thin and crisp – not thick. You may remember the yummy lemon poppyseed shortbread I shared almost two years ago.  It is lovely and is the perfect companion to a cup of tea.  I decided to change up the flavor a bit this time.

I used the same basic shortbread recipe but instead of lemon and poppyseed I added toffee bits.  Just one word – Yum!  I can’t imagine anything not tasting yummy after you add toffee bits to them.

The recipe is an easy one.  Everything goes into the food processor.

And then just pulse until clumps form.

If you don’t have a food processor you can even do it in your blender.  The next step is to put it into your tart pan.  I used my 9 inch removable bottom tart pan.

Use your fingers to push it into the pan nice and evenly.

The next step is to bake it at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, just until the edges start to turn golden brown.

The next step is important.  One I have forgotten before.  You need to cut the shortbread into pieces before it cools.  If you don’t you will end up with one big mess!  Trust me o this one.

The next step is easy – enjoy a piece!

With our without a cup of tea.

You don’t even need to have a tea party to enjoy a piece of shortbread.  Make it just because.  I think it would make a lovely Valentine treat for someone special.

So instead of a yummy chocolate/strawberry dessert recipe today you get a yummy chicken recipe.  I promise the dessert recipe will come.

About a year ago we determined that my daughter Cali has a lot of various food allergies.  A whole new world of ingredients, cooking and way of eating opened up to us.

I have discovered a new sense of excitement – discovering a recipe that isn’t usually gluten free but is adapted to be gluten free.  I love it!  Those of you who don’t have people with food allergies in your life may not understand but it is quite a thrill.

Today’s recipe is gluten free but if you are like my son Clark who “only eats food with gluten in it” (he’s quite the comedian) you will want to give this recipe a try.

Normally breaded food is out for people with gluten issues but not anymore.  I have found a fun and delicious way to do it that is also gluten free.  I used chopped cashews and sesame seeds as the breading.  Delicious!

The chicken is cut into bite size pieces and marinated in a combination of garlic, ginger, lemon juice and rind,chicken broth,  soy sauce or tamari sauce if cooking gluten free and salt.   Allow the chicken to marinade for 3 hours or overnight (I only did it for an hour!)

Next,  I chopped up the cashews in my food processor and combined them with the sesame seeds and cornstarch.

You are then ready for the cooking process.  I used my cast iron skillet and vegetable oil (about 1 1/2 inch deep)

Dip the chicken into the chopped nuts, cornstarch and sesame seeds and coat all sides.

Then place into the hot oil.  You know your oil is hot enough when you insert a wooden chopstick or skewer into the oil and bubbles form around it.

Cook the chicken on both sides until golden brown.  You will need to do it in batches.

The chicken will be nice and golden brown when it is done.

I covered it with  a yummy apricot sauce made from apricot jam with a few things added in.  I love the sweetness it brings to the dish.

You have the lovely crunchiness of the cashews and sesame seeds with the nice sweet addition of the sauce.

Served over rice and you have a nice gluten free dinner!  My husband is always complimentary of everything I cook but I know when he really likes something because he will repeat himself multiple times during the meal.  This was one of those meals!

I still had a few of my Christmas pillows on my window seat so I decided to turn one of them into a Valentine pillow.  The pillow was covered in burlap and had the word Believe stamped on the front.  I simply turned the pillow over and used the backside for my Valentine pillow!

My pillow is good size and measures 17 x 17 inches square.

If you are starting from scratch just cut your fabric a 1/2 inch bigger on all sides and this will give you a 1/2 inch seam allowance.  Sew the heart onto the pillow before you sew the pillow sections together.  Since my pillow was already made I just stitched mine right onto the pillow.

I folded a piece of 12 x 12 paper in half and drew a half heart onto it and then cut that out.  Opened it up and that was my pattern.   My heart is 11 1/2 inches tall and 11 1/2 inches wide

I made marks all the way around the edge of the heart pattern so I would know where to stitch.  My stitches are 3/4 inch long and there is about 3/8 in between each stitch.  Of course it is handmade so it is not perfect or exact!

When you place the pattern onto the fabric DO NOT center it.  Push the heart up an inch or two so that you have more space at the bottom.

This way you don’t lose the bottom of the heart when the pillow is sitting upright.

I used 1 inch wide red satin ribbon.  You will also need a needle with a really big eye so that you can thread the ribbon through the needle.

Start at the bottom of the heart and leave your self a nice long tail.  The amount of ribbon you need will vary depending on the size you make your pillow and heart.

Since my pillow was already made up I had to just slip my needle under the fabric and try not to pull up the fiberfill that was inside the pillow.

Just sew all the way around the pattern and then tie a bow at the bottom and you’re done!!  You can then sew your pillow front to the back leaving an opening on the bottom to insert your pillow form or your fiberfill stuffing and then stitch up the opening.

So cute!!

Also, as an extra little Valentine’s treat and because I love you here is the downloadable printable for the Valentine quote I did up.

Another idea I saw on Pinterest!

Just click on the link and download it.  It is done in an 8 x 10 format.  You can print it right at home!

Downloadable Valentine Printable – 8 x 10

Happy Valentine’s Day!!