For the Love of Pinterest

Whoa . . .things are getting a little crazy this is my 2nd blog in a week! Whoo hoo! I would just like to be very upfront and tell you this blog will feature any Eli pictures or well any pictures at all. Rare I know, but that is just how this one is going to be.

So I am sure that most you have heard or maybe even experienced the internet time wasting sensation that is  Pinterest. Well, if you haven't I am not sure if I can actually explain it to you it is truly something that you have to experience for yourself. BUT as I once told a friend I am not entirely certain what it is or the point of it but I am totally hooked!!! Okay, I do know what Pinterest is . . .it is a web-site where you can go out and “pin” different things to boards like recipes, photo ideas, quotes, craft ideas, etc. You can follow others and they can follow you. Basically, it is a good way to share things with everyone on the world wide web. I have been “pinning” since before Eli came. A good friend had told me about the web-site and I put in a request to get an invitation to join. One at about 5am during one of my pregnancy potty breaks/I am to uncomfortable to sleep I discovered I had got my invite and immediately started pinning for about an hour. I told you it was addictive and a MAJOR time killer!

So after all these months of pinning I have finally made one of the recipes I found on Pinterest. Last night I made Cake Batter Pudding Cookies, the actually recipe can be found at this awesome blog <----click here. They did turn out pretty good and were tasty. Nick said they did taste a bit like yellow cake, which I believe was the goal. Sadly, I do not have a picture of them and they were actually some of my better looking cookies. They actually all came out round and relatively the same size! Huge score for me. I owe stroke of cookie shaping to the Small Scoop I recently purchased from Pampered Chef! That thing literally scoops out the perfect size for cookies! I anticipate having pretty cookies from here forward because of it. Now if you want to see a nice picture of the cookies I encourage you to check out the other blog, she took a lovely picture of hers.

I am proud that I finally made something from Pinterest and now look forward to trying more of those recipes I have been frantically pinning. See all that time wasting wasn’t for nothing after all Happy Pinning my friends!

Adventures in Cooking

Well, today I was out browsing the inter-web when I can across a recipe for Soft Snickerdoodle Cookies <----Click here if you want to see it. Now I LOVE Snickerdoodle cookies and actually up till about 3 or 4 years ago made them every year around Christmas. So with the snow falling today . . .YES March came in like a LION! Lets only hope it leave like a LAMB as the saying goes.

I thought today would be an excellent day to whip up some cookies. So naturally I did not have all the ingredient needed and had just got back from a trip to Wal-Mart. Luckily, my wonderful husband ventured out (the snow stopped) to pick up a few things for me. Isn’t he sweet!? So the cooking began! I will have to say 1st and foremost that I am not a perfect cookie chef. My cookies are never attractive unless it is those slap on a cookie sheet Pillsbury variety. I always envy those people who can make all there cookies the exact same shape an circumference. I do believe there is an art to it. My cookies on the other hand are more like snowflakes--- No two of them are ever alike!

That being said this cookie dough was some of the oddest I have ever worked with! Normally, cookie dough gets stiff enough for you to roll it in to balls, but this one just never did. I chilled it for the called for 15 minutes and then I actually stuck it in the freezer to get a little more chill, but I just never felt like it was write. The dough just kind of glopped, which made getting the cinnamon and sugar coating on a challenge.

How did they actually turn out you ask? Well, results were varied. I decided to use my Pampered Chef baking stones even though I have had trouble making cookies on them in the past. I know sometimes you have to cook things a little longer on a stone so I did that in hopes of having beautiful cookies. Despite my best efforts the 1st pan had to be completely thrown out, they just NEVER got done. They appeared to be done on the top and the edges but when I tried to get them out of the pan they just gooed up. Not sure if “gooed” is a word but it best describes what happened. The next pan also a baking stone turned out GREAT! Go figure?! 3rd pan yet another baking stone was yet another disaster . . .

I was able to salvage a few but most of them ended up in the pile you see here.

Pan 4 was actually a metal pan and those I cooked on it actually were partially burnt, and I backed of my cooking time in an attempt to avoid this.

I would honestly like to blame my oven for this entire fiasco. Not sure if that is true or fair, but it is a like easier than it being user error.

So would I use this recipe again? No probably not! I think the old recipe that my Mom has yields a much better result. Although we did get a plate of cookies out of this one . . .

See I told you I make unattractive cookies, but they are yummy!

Now for the worst part . . .CLEAN UP! Ugh!

A Dish Inspired by Star Trek Voyager

Invasion of the super nerd- I have cooked a dished entirely inspired by an episode of Star Trek Voyager. Does this make me truly crazed Trekie? Ummmm . . .maybe but if it does I am certainly okay with that! Now I know some are you are wondering what on earth I could have cooked, and before you ask NO it was not Klingon Blood Wine! I also know that there is another part of you asking- What in the world is Star Trek Voyager?! So lets start there.

Star Trek Voyager was the last GOOD Star Trek series, and I put a large emphasis on GOOD. Don’t even bring that Enterprise show up, some things are just better to be forgotten. Here is a brief synopsis of Voyager via Wikipedia:

Star Trek: Voyager (also referred to as ST:VOY or ST:VGR) is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe. The show was created by Rick Berman, Michael Piller, and Jeri Taylor and is the fifth incarnation of Star Trek, which began with the 1960s series Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry. It was produced for seven seasons, from 1995 to 2001, and is the only Star Trek series with a female captain, Kathryn Janeway, as a lead character. It ran on UPN, making it the first Star Trek series to air on a major network since the original series which aired on NBC. It was the only TV show on UPN to have seven seasons, making it the network's longest running show.

Set in the 24th century from the year 2371 through 2378, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet vessel USS Voyager, which becomes stranded in the Delta Quadrant 70,000 light-years from Earth while pursuing a renegade Maquis ship.^[1] Both ships' crews merge aboard Voyager to make the estimated 75-year journey home.^[2]

^{For a full synopsis click here.}

^{Okay, so now that you are thoroughly convinced that I am a SUPER TREKIE let me tell you what I made (drum roll please) . . . . Banana Nut Pancakes!!!}

^{During one pivotal episode of Voyager, well actually I don’t know how pivotal this particular episode was but for purposes of the blog it makes it sound more dramatic. So during the pivotal episode B’lana, the half Klingon-half human Chief of Engineering, is feeling particularly angry, which is not unusually. This chick is always mad about something! But this time she over comes her anger and at the end replicates her childhood favorite Banana Pancakes.}

Here is the episode I was telling you about, you have to fast forward to the end to see the infamous Banana Pancakes.

So that Nick and I could also overcome our Klingon anger issues I decided we needed some of our own Banana Panckaes. I searched one of my favorite web-sites Allrecipes until I found a good looking recipe for Banana Nut Pancakes <----click here for recipe or read below:

Banana Nut Pancakes

Ingredients

• 1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup whipped topping
• 1 cup pancake mix
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 1 medium ripe banana, mashed
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions

1. In a small mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Mix in whipped topping (mixture will be stiff); set aside.
2. In a bowl, combine pancake mix and sugar. Beat egg, milk and oil; add to pancake mix and mix well. Fold in banana and pecans. Pour batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto a lightly greased hot griddle; turn when bubbles form on top of pancakes. Cook until second side is golden brown. Serve with cream topping.

In order to save calories I did not make the cream topping, although I do think it would be really yummy. Even without the cream topping the pancakes were FABULOUS! Very easy to make and absolutely delicious. One thing I will have to say is that they were not the most attractive pancakes I ever made. They all came out looking like large wrinkly prunes, which I think had something to do with my pancake flipping technique. Wrinkled or not that were still good!

Having a bad day? Need to over come the Klingon in you? Whip up a nice stack of Banana Nut Pancakes I am sure it will cure whatever ails you!

Cobbler ♥ ♥

It’s summer and that means longer days, grilling out, fresh produce, and COBBLER! I ♥  Cobbler! I ♥  it particularly during the summer when you can get fresh berries and fruits. That said I never turn it down any other time made with frozen or canned berries and fruit. Over the last month or so Nick and I have been attempting to eat a little better in an effort to lose a little weight. So cobblers have been explicitly banned from being made; however, I broke that rule yesterday.

Thursday during a moment of weakness I decided watch Paula Deen on the Food Network, never a good idea if you are trying to diet. Amongst other tasty and fattening things Paula was making a Peach and Blueberry Cobbler and it looked FABULOUS! So I decided to break the Cobbler ban and try the Peach and Blueberry combination.

I did not make Paula Deen’s exact cobbler recipe since it required a dutch oven AND I have a full proof cobbler recipe of my own given to me by . . .you guessed it . . .my Mom.  Our cobbler recipe is very easy and allows you to substitute any kind of fruit and berry you want. I  have used this recipe many times in a pinch if I need to take something somewhere or we have someone coming over. So without further ado here it is . . . .

 

CRAZY CRUST COBBLER

1 stick butter
1 c. sugar
1 c. self-rising flour
1/2 c. milk
1 to 2 cups of milk
Melt butter in oblong pane (about 8X12X2). Make batter of sugar, flour, and milk. Place fruit in pan on top of butter. Pour batter over fruit. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until brown.
**Note: You may use any kind of fruit.

 

By the way, one of my favorite fruit combinations on this cobbler is blueberry and pineapple. I know it may sound a little crazy but trust me it is FABULOUS!

Here are some pics of my Blueberry and Peach Cobbler, I got it a little too juicy but it was still really good.

 

May the rest of your summer be filled with yummy cobblers! As for us it is back on the good eating train, but it sure was nice while it lasted!

Happy Baking!!

Memorial Day/Strawberries & Cream Trifle

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!! I would like to take this time to thank all of our Veterans and current service members for all they have done to defend our country. You fight for the Freedoms we all enjoy, and many times go unappreciated. So THANK YOU!

 

Strawberries & Cream Trifle

Well, Summer Time is here and with it comes one of my favorite summer eats . . . STRAWBERRIES!  I love them . . . Especially, the fresh locally grown ones!

We hosted a small cook out for the Oaks Family this weekend and I wanted to come up with a yummy dessert to make with strawberries. So I began searching on Allrecipes.com, my favorite go-to recipe sight, for good and easy strawberry recipes. I can across several decent looking recipes, but nothing I just loved. So I called my go-to recipe person . . .mom! With her help we took the good stuff out of several of the recipes that I found at Allrecipes.com, and came up with our good strawberry recipe. By the way, it was kind of my idea for it to be a trifle, I am always looking for an excuse to use my trifle bowl! :) 

Here is our recipe which everyone seemed to enjoy at our cook out:

Strawberries & Cream Trifle

Ingredients:

1 box Strawberry Cake Mix and ingredients needed to prepare it

2 quarts of fresh strawberries (the amount of strawberries is flexible)

1 8oz cool Whip

2 packages of Cream Cheese

1 cup of sugar

Instructions:

Slice up the 2 quarts of strawberries.  Set aside a few whole strawberries for decoration. Bake Strawberry Cake Mix according to instructions.   Mix together the cool whip, cream cheese, and sugar until well blended.

Once all of that is done you can put together the trifle. First, cut up some pieces of the cake to cover the bottom of whatever bowl you are using, then add some strawberries, and then put the cream cheese mixture on top of that. Continue these layers until your bowl is full, you should end with a layer of the cream cheese mixture that you can put the whole strawberries on top of for decoration. Then chill over night.

  The next morning you should have something like this:

***A couple of notes on this recipe. You do not have to chill it over night but I really felt like mine was better after it had been in the fridge over night. Also you can cut and sugar your strawberries over night if you prefer. This recipe is also really flexible and you could probably do any kind of cake mix you wanted to or even do angel food cake. Also I am not really sure how many strawberries I used, I am guessing at 2 quarts but you could really do as many as you wanted.

 

Now no good blog post is complete without a good Lord of the Rings clip and this one happens to contain the inspiration for the name of the above dessert:

 

If Strawberries & Cream are good enough for Frodo and Sam they are good enough for me!

Happy Memorial Day to you all and I hope you get the chance to enjoy some Strawberries & Cream Trifle!

Carrot Cakes Woes & Bays Mountain Fun

I love Saturday! I especially love Saturday when I do not have to do any home improvement projects and those have been few and far between recently. This Saturday was one of our 1st Home Improvement free Saturday’s in months and we really enjoyed it!

Carrot Cake Woes

In order to get things started off right I decided to do a little Saturday baking. So I decided to make my 2nd attempt at a simple Carrot Cake recipe my grandmother found in Guidepost. Here is the recipe if you are interested. I had made this Carrot Cake one time before and it is FABULOUS! It does not have raisins or coconut, two of my least favorite things. I also found that you could buy the pre-sliced and peeled carrots which really speeds up the process! I made the “stack cake” version of this cake the 1st time I made it and everything went beautifully! The cake dumped out of the little round pans perfectly. Given my past experience with “stack cakes” this was truly a magical moment for me. This time I was not so lucky. Unfortunately, neither of the pans of cake got quite done enough in the center. I am going to blame this on my oven, given its age and the fact that I want a new one. The 1st pan dumped out perfectly and began to put the homemade (yummy) cream cheese icing on it. Then came the 2nd pan, I dumped it out and it broke into about 10 pieces! I actually took the whole thing pretty well and went ahead and iced it just as it was. Then we renamed the whole thing Carrot Pile and you can see why below:

Though it may not look so pretty it taste delicious! Despite all my woes I would highly recommend this recipe. It is truly FABULOUS!

Bays Mountain Photography

Now for the rest of Saturday we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and spend a little time at Bays Mountain. Nick and I are both trying to get into photography and took our cameras with us to get in a little practice. Full disclosure: A good friend of mine from worked loaned me her Canon Digital SLR.  Well words can not describe how nice it is. Really the pictures say it all!

Let me share one with you, it is not actually from Bays Mountain, but it is one of the best ones I took this weekend:

This is a butterfly on the lilac bush in our backyard. This moment could not have been captured without the wonderful camera!

 

Okay, now back to Bays Mountain . . .

We also took some great pics at Bays Mountain.  Here are a few of the good ones we took at the lake:

 

We also got to see some pretty interesting stuff at the Wolf Pen. They were being feed a deer carcass (GROSS!) when we got there and we got some really great shots.  Just the wolves not the deer, no worries . . .

 

All in all, it was a wonderful Home Improvement Free Saturday!!!  May there be many more to come!

Satisfying My Sweet Tooth

So who doesn’t love something sweet to eat? Well, I know I am always up for a sweet tasty treat. As I have stated on my blog before I am not the worlds greatest chef by any means, however, I do have a bit of flair for desserts. Although they are not kind to my waist line, I have a hard time resisting. This Saturday I got a craving for something chocolaty. I did not know exactly what I wanted but I knew where to turn . . .Paula Deen. I knew that Paula would provide something tasty, fattening, easy to make, and especially chocolaty! Paula did not disappoint me, in the cook book The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cooking, I found the perfect recipe. Here it is . . . .

 

Old- Fashioned Fudge Pie by Paula Deen

2 squares (2 ounces) semisweet chocolate

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs beaten

One 9 inch unbaked pie crust

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a heavy saucepan over low heat. Remove the pan from heat and add the sugar, then the eggs; beat well. Pour the filling into the pie crust and bake for 25 minutes. Serve warm or cold with ice cream or whipped cream.

A few pics of the finished product

 

The pie is absolutely FABULOUS! I have had it both warm and cold and both were good, but I would recommend warm. I also put a little bit of cool whip with it and that really hit the spot! If this is any indication of how good it is- I made this pie Saturday afternoon and at this very moment we have one tiny piece left.

 

The next time you need to satisfy your sweet tooth, give this one a try. It is easy to make and just delicious!

A big thanks to Paula Deen for helping me meet my chocolaty needs!

Now time to do some extra Zumba to work all this goodness off! Oh well, all choices come with consequences!

 

Happy Baking!

Disasters in French Cooking

Tonight for dinner I made some rather unappetizing sandwiches. Now I am sure you are sitting there thinking it is pretty hard to make a bad sandwich.  Well, let me just tell you it can be done. Last week I went to see the movie It’s Complicated, which was great by the way and I totally recommend it if you have not seen it. In the movie Meryl Streep makes these yummy looking sandwiches for Steve Martin. They looked really cheesy and just yummy. My Mom and I actually commented on it during the movie. So a few days later I set out  on a Google quest to determine exactly what these sandwiches were. Google did not fail me and it was determined that the yummy looking sandwiches were actually Croque Monsieur, a fancy grilled ham and cheese sandwich.  Naturally when I found out that it was FRENCH and it looked EASY I thought I have to do it.  I am currently reading My Life in France by Julia Child (review of this book coming soon) and feeling very French inspired and literally invincible when it comes to cooking. Julia can have that effect. So Google yet again came to the rescue and I located a recipe that I felt I could accomplish

 

Croque Monsieur

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
• 1 cup whole milk
• Pinch of ground nutmeg
• 1 bay leaf

• 4 slices firm white sandwich bread
• 4 ounces thinly sliced Black Forest ham
• 4 ounces sliced Gruyère cheese
• 1 tablespoon melted butter
• 1/4 cup grated Gruyère cheese
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh chives

Preparation

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in small saucepan over medium heat. Add flour and stir 1 minute. Gradually whisk in milk. Add nutmeg and bay leaf. Increase heat to medium-high and boil until sauce thickens, whisking constantly, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Preheat broiler. Place 2 bread slices on work surface. Top each with half of ham and sliced Gruyère. Top with remaining bread. Heat heavy large skillet over low heat. Brush sandwiches with 1 tablespoon melted butter. Add to skillet and cook until deep golden brown, about 2 minutes per side. Transfer to small baking sheet. Spoon sauce, then grated cheese over sandwiches. Broil until cheese begins to brown, about 2 minutes.

 

Now I think my first crucial mistake was made when I selected a recipe that called for odd cheese, Gruyere. I learned from some research that Gruyere cheese is hard to find and expensive. So I substituted with Swiss, and I also did not have any nutmeg for the sauce so I substituted with cinnamon. This was all okay, right?WRONG!

The actual making of the sandwiches went okay, with the exception of the sauce that was meant to go on top before they went under the broiler. The sauce got a little too clumpy and kinda congealed before I could put it on the sandwiches. It really looks like turkey gravy when you let it sit out too long. Not a pretty picture.

Then there was the taste. At first everything seemed to be okay, Nick gave it a thumbs up, but then a few minutes later there was an after taste. NOT GOOD! Pardon the description but I believe the after taste consisted of swiss and cinnamon. Yum!!!

I am not sure what to blame this huge embarrassing failure on. Hopefully, this has satisfied my need to do experimental French cooking. I’ll leave that to Julia Child!

 

Now I am off to find an alternate dinner. Till next time my blog friends!!!

2010 and some Good Muffins

So the “New Year” blog is a few days late. I have had a bit of blog writers block in regards to this particular blog. There were so many ways I could go with it- The Best of 2009, the ever popular New Year’s Resolution blog, or I could have done some kinda retrospective about the past decade. A note on the decade thing, I know that technically we do not move to the next decade till 2011 but a lot of people are jumping the gun on it so  I considered the possibility myself. In the end I decided that I could do none of these blogs totally effectively. I have made some resolutions for myself but writing a blog about them would be a bit cliché, and my whole blog is kind of a Best of 2009. So instead of giving you the normal New Year stuff I am going to share with you a recipe I got from a friend form work and I made this weekend:

 

Simple Pumpkin Muffins

1 can of Pumpkin

1 Cake Mix

Mix together Pumpkin and Cake Mix. Do not add the additional ingredients listed on the cake mix box, you only need the mix. The batter will be think. Spoon into muffin tins. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

The final product

They do not make the most attractive muffins but they are SO EASY and SO TASTY!! I made mine using a spice cake mix  and added a little brown sugar on top. I have also been told that you can put cream cheese on top and that it is awesome!

Here is to hoping that the New Year is easy and FABULOUS! It’s 2010 people, lets all eat more muffins!

SNOW!!!!

Okay, so in case you have been living under a rock for the last 3 days, OR you don’t live in the Tri- Cities area, let me just tell you it SNOWED here!!! Paul Thurrott (the host of Windows Weekly and editor of The Supersite for Windows who lives in the Boston area) put out a tweet last night saying that they were going to get hit with a Category 5 Death Storm!! Not sure if Boston got hit, but I know our area got hit with at least a Category 3.

It all started on Friday afternoon at about 3ish, LUCKILY I had got off work early and was already home. I am truly thanking God for this, because shortly after I got home things starting getting BAD!!! When the snow came it CAME FOR REAL! Here are some pictures of the progression:

Friday-3:00PM

 

 

Friday-4:30PM

 

Friday-6:00PM

Saturday- 9:00am

I actually measured the total from our back porch and came up with . . .

Now when it initially started snowing  Nick & I were sitting home warm and toasty having a FABULOUS time. We were watching DVD’s, playing Christmas music, and doing a few home shores. The worst thing that happened was our satellite was out. Nick actually could have fixed the satellite by climbing up on the roof and dusting it off but I refused to let him. I told him we did not need to have a Christmas Vacation moment.

The best part about the snow was I got to make SNOW CREAM!!!! Growing up every time it snowed a good amount my Mom would make snow cream and I always LOVED it. For those of you who have never made it here is a recipe:

Snow Cream Recipe

1 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
scant 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
large bowl of snow (about 3 quarts)

Blend milk, sugar and vanilla. Stir in enough snow to make snow cream to an ice cream consistency.

One of the keys to snow cream is making sure you get CLEAN snow, you especially have to avoid the yellow variety if you know what I mean.

Collecting the Snow

Finished Product

 

Now while we were sitting home having fun many other people were experiencing  the BAD collateral damage that snow brings. My parents lost power early due to catastrophic event in which a tree took done a power pole very close to there house. They have now been without power for about 3 days. We also knew several people that sat gridlocked on the road for hours trying to get home and in some cases actually abandoned there vehicle and continued on foot. We also have not escaped the storm unscathed, our  pretty/shiny snow fun actually ended Saturday afternoon. We went out at about noon to get some groceries and a few other things and returned home to find the power was out. We spent one cold and dark night at home and it was NOT FUN! We lit a ton of candles, wore 2 layers of clothing, and burrowed in the bed for warmth.

Here is Nick talking on the phone by candlelight. I know you can not really tell it is him but trust me it is!

Now over 24 hours later we are still with out power and have been graciously been taken in by John and Nicole. We are so thankful to have a warm place to be tonight. BIG THANKS TO NICOLE AND JOHN!!!

We shall keep you updated on our electricity status, hopefully we will be back home by Christmas :) The Category 3 Death Storm got us but we are not completely down yet. With a little electricity we could emerge from this event victoriously!!!

On a side note I know this blog was not very Christmassy but I am going to count it as the 7th Blog of Christmas. It was about snow which makes me think of Christmas and Nick did ask if we could open presents during the pretty/shiny snow time.

Till next time- Stay Warm and Merry Christmas!!!

Chocolate Oreo Truffles- YUM!

Here is yet another Christmas treat coming at you with lots of yummy goodness. Are you ready . . . Chocolate Oreo Truffles!!

I make these little slices of heaven every year as a Christmas treat to take into work. They are always a hit and the bonus for me is that they are really easy to make!!!

Here is the recipe:

Chocolate Oreo Truffles

1 Bag of Oreo Cookies

1 8oz box of Cream Cheese

1 Packages of Chocolate Almond

Crush bag of Oreo Cookies in a food processor until finely blended. Place in large mixing bowl and combine with softened cream cheese until completed blended. Form into balls and place in freezer for 15 minutes. Melt Chocolate Almond Bark while the truffles freeze. Remove truffles from freezer and drop into melted chocolate one at a time. With a spoon make sure truffle is completely covered with chocolate. Remove from chocolate and place on wax paper to dry. Once truffle is dry, trim of excess chocolate with kitchen scissors.

*** Can substitute regular Oreos with mint or peanut butter flavored.

 

A few tips if you decide to make these:

1. I do not own a food processor and use my handy dandy Pampered Chef Food Chopper to  take care of the Oreos. You can do 3 at a times and it gets them really finely chopped. On a side not if you do not already own a Pampered Chef chopper I highly recommend getting one. They are FABULOUS!!!
2. I am always challenged when it comes to melting the Chocolate Almond bark. I did the microwave once and that worked okay. This year I did it in a good Rachael Ray Sauce Pan on the stove. Rachael Ray Cookware yet another FABULOUS product! Next year I may try to make my own double boiler and do it that way. Whatever way you choose just do not let the bark dry in the container you are doing it in. You have to re-melt the stuff to clean it out .
3. Don’t worry about how many you eat calories don’t count at Christmas right?

**Special thanks to my Mom for sharing this fabulous recipe with me!**

Happy Chocolate Oreo Truffle making!!!

Sausage Balls . . .well more like Sausage Lumps

Here it is the 2nd Blog of Christmas, and it is about another one of  my Holiday favorites- Sausage Balls! Now I know that Sausage Balls are not an exclusive holiday treat but I always associate them with Christmas.  I can always remember my Dad making Sausage Balls at Christmas. He would make huge batches and save them and I would even get to eat Sausage Balls for breakfast! Which I loved by the way being a non-traditional breakfast food eater.

So when my Mom called today to ask me if  I wanted some sausage I got to feeling all nostalgic and thought  lets make SAUSAGE BALLS! I picked up the sausage and got all the instructions from my parents and immediately ran home to make the goods.  Now I will have to say they were still as tasty as I remember and I WILL NOT reveal on here exactly how many I had but they were not as well formed as they could have been. They were not exactly spherical but more like disjointed lumps. My Dad did warn me this could happen if I did not use quite enough Bisquick, which it appears I did not. So that means I will sadly have to make more Sausage Balls :) PRACTICE makes PERFECT!! I am sure I can do better but they will never be quite as fabulous as my Dad’s.

Here is the recipe if any of you all want to give it a try:

Sausage Balls

1lb of Sausage

12oz of shredded cheddar cheese

2-3 cups of Bisquick

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes, until brown.

 

Enjoy!!!

Ohhh Honey . . .Honey Bun Cake is AWESOME!

 So every now and then I get the hankering to bake something and well that happened this weekend.  Before I launch into my weekend baking story I would just like to clarify that I am by no means a professional cook or even a very good cook. I mostly cook out of a necessity to live. Growing up my Mom use to practically beg me to spend time with her in the kitchen so she could show me how to cooks, but I would have rather watched football with my Dad than stand around the kitchen. SO when I got married despite my Mom’s best efforts I could put together a mean mac’n cheese and that was about it. Unfortunately, as a newlywed you can only have man’ n cheese so many times before your waist line starts to reflect it. Thus, I had to embrace cooking and learn things trial by fire. There were a lot of panicked calls to Mom which I am sure she was amused by, but I have now developed a fairly good respect for cooking. The one thing I have always enjoyed is baking even in my younger non-cooking days I loved to learn about anything that would satisfy my sweet tooth. Just to reinforce I am not an expert, cook I mostly just have the right tools and know how to read from a recipe (I don’t even do that to well sometimes).

Okay, back to my baking urge I got this weekend. When Nick and I got married a former co-worker, Regina, gave us a Pampered Chef fluted/bunt cake pan and a customized cake recipe book. She had actually made the recipe book herself and bound it. Such a sweet gift. I have used the recipe book several times because like me Regina also had a fierce sweet tooth and I knew she would only give me excellent recipes. This weekend I made the Honey Bun Cake recipe from her book. OHHHH my it was FABULOUS!! Below is the recipe if you would like to also experience this awesomeness.

 

Honey Bun Cake

Cake:

1 Box yellow cake mix

4 eggs

3/4 cup oil

8 oz sour cream

1 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

Mix 1st 4 ingredients together until well blended. Spread 1/2 of the cake mix batter into a 9 x 13 cake pan. Mix brown sugar and cinnamon together. Put 1/2 of this mixture over the cake batter in pan.  Add remaining cake batter and remaining cinnamon/sugar mixture. Swirl with butter knife.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes

 

Topping:

1 pkg chopped pecans

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

3 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix all topping ingredients together and pour over hot cake.

The cake is awesome! A special thanks to Regina for her wonderful Cake Book gift, it has come in handy many time.

Hope you have a fabulous time with your baking!

Good, Bad, and Fabulous!

So I started this blog over a month ago and then got a little lost as to what to do . . .I mean I could not fathom what I could write about that would really interest other people. THEN this week I had an epiphany, I could use this blog to fine tune my writing skills and talk about things I like and of course things I do not like on a variety of topics. I am talking everything from restaurants, stores, clothes, food, recipes, books, movies . . .the possibilities are endless. Thus . . .The Good, the Bad, & The FABULOUS!

So in the interest of starting this new blog epiphany off right here is something I had this week that was FABULOUS! (Cue drum roll) BUTTERSCOTCH BROWNIES! Ohhhh my, these were truly FABULOUS! My sister, Jennifer, actually shared the recipe with me with a warning that they were quite addictive and she was Ohhhh Sooo Right! I made them for Nick and I Thursday night and well I think we have already ate half a 9x13 pan, ooops! They were fairly simple to make and did I mention that they were FAT FREE . . .okay not really but that were very tasty and lets face it we all deserve a treat now and then. And I am choosing to pretend they are fat free ;)

Here is the recipe for anyone else that would like to join in the fabulousness . . .

Butterscotch Brownies:

Prep: 25 Min Bake: 30 min Oven: 350°

Cool: 2 hours Makes: 24 brownies

1 cup butter

2 cups packed brown sugar

3 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Maple Icing:

1/2 cup softened butter

3 cups powdered sugar

4 teaspoons milk

2 teaspoons maple flavoring (maple syrup works 2)

1. Grease a 13 x 9 x 2 – inch baking pan: set aside
2. In a medium saucepan melt butter. Add brown sugar, stirring until combined. Cool mixture for 10 minutes. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in vanilla.
3. Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt; stir in egg mixture. Stir in chopped nuts. Spread batter evenly in the prepared pan. Bake in a 350° oven for 30 minutes.
4. Cool in pan on a wire rack. Frost with Maple Icing. Let stand until icing sets. Cut into bars.

Maple Icing:

In a medium mixing bowl beat ½ cup softened butter with an electric mixer on medium speed for 30 seconds. Add ½ cup powdered sugar; beat well. Beat in 4 teaspoons milk and 2 teaspoons maple flavoring. Add 2 ½ cups additional powdered sugar, ½ cup at a time, beating well after each addition. If necessary, add a little more milk to reach spreading consistency.

I know that the recipe is long but it is simple and FABULOUS! I hope you enjoy it!