My Babycakes machine!

I was tooling around my fave thriftstore and what do I see?! A pink Babycakes mini cupcake maker!! I squeeeeeealed and about fell over at the 6$ price. It was pristine looking!

These are cupcakes. I was trying to decide how much batter to use and what spoon or implement works best for filling the wells.

Overfilled and slightly crunchy or underfilled – didn’t matter. 7 minutes for cupcakes rocks! At our xmas party I put some girls (hey, Jones Girls!!) in charge of it and they had a blast and did great!

Making Angry Bird Cupcakes

Saw these and showed them to the 13 yr old and he recreated them for the 8 yr old’s birthday!

Boxed cake mix cupcakes and this frosting. The frosting was amazing and made wayyyyy too much. It covered 2 boxes of cupcakes with loads extra! Turns out it is Martha’s 7 minute frosting. Gonna have to find a recipe that makes a smaller batch.

We went through our stash of cake decorating supplies and bought a few things at central market. The eggs are candy coated almonds. The eyes are mini choc chips jammed into mini marshmellows. The beaks are gummy orange slices snipped into thirds. The bag of large marshmellows for the bellies went missing so we improvised. And T came up with the black (from angry birds Rio) bird design all by himself.

We had a yummy dinner, opened gifts and then enjoyed these! And, yes, this is the best photo of all three kids. Do you know how hard it is to get all three to look at you and smile- and not imitate an angry bird or fake a smile?

Spaghetti Dogs!

  Pretty self explanatory. Cut hot dogs into chunks. Jam spaghetti (I happened to have fettuccini on hand- it works fine) into hotdog chunks. I found breaking the spaghetti in half and the hotdogs into thirds or fourths made for a great size. Boil the spaghetti spiked chunks until the pasta is done. Serve. No sauce needed but can be used. Me- I prefer my hotdogs sliced open with cheese crammed inside, wrapped in bacon and grilled or broiled. But the kids get a kick out of “cooking” this themselves so that is good enough for me.

Recipe Re-Run

I know I have posted this before but it deserves a re-post. We have been making this almost every day! They kids love to make sandwiched with it. Unfortunately it makes a small loaf and my math skillz are not up to calculating how to increase it (without having a breadmaker overflow issue). I like this with tomato bruschetta for breakfast. I have been using rosemary from my neighbors’ gardens (because I killed mine when I moved the pot to the other side of the yard). I chop it fine using my pampered chef chopper thingie. I am saving the stems (sticks?) because I saw Marth Stewart used them as skewers for something and I wanna try that. I make this on the speedy setting and can have a loaf ready in 2 hrs!!

Jo's Rosemary Bread - courtesy of Allrecipes.com

· 1 cup water

· 3 tablespoons olive oil

· 1 1/2 teaspoons white sugar

· 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

· 1/4 teaspoon Italian seasoning

· 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

· 1 tablespoon dried rosemary (note: I am using fresh)

· 2 1/2 cups bread flour

· 1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

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sugarfree chocolate pie!

http://genaw.com/lowcarb/chocolate_truffle_torte.html

Found this and have made it 3 times now. The kids dig it- although they eat good sized pieces!

Yummy!!

quick oven bread

I saw this link and have been making it quite a bit – some more successfully than others. It is really yum fresh from the oven and comes together in about 20 mins.

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It’s a cookin’ day!!

What am I doing today? Busting my bum with a solid stay home day!

I am cooking up a storm!! Hubby’s work has a cookie swap tomorrow so I am making my favorite oatmeal cookies and then thought I would make some gingerbread snack cake, too, aaaand a loaf of honey oatmeal bread in the breadmaker.

Giant Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup butter                                                   1 cup each sugar & dark brown sugar, firmly packed         2 eggs                                                               1 tsp vanilla                                                                                    1 ½ c flour                                                      2 tsp each cinnamon, allspice & cloves  (opt)                       1 tsp ginger                                                    ½ tsp each salt & baking soda                                                   3 cups quick oats

½ tsp soda

Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir together flour, spices, salt & soda. Stir flour mix into butter mix. Let dough sit at room temp for 2 hours. Drop by ¼ cup fulls onto lightly greased cookie sheets.

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scrapbooking recipes

 

 I scrap my recipes in 8 1/2 x 11 format and keep them in a 3 ring binder in regular page protectors.

This garlic chicken was a favorite when I worked 12 hours on the night shift.

All my recipes have to be tried (and a success!) three times before I put them in THE BOOK.

 

 

 

 

 

This Dill Dip is a hit at parties and the Dried Beef spread is AWESOME spread on bread or toast and is a MUST for Thanksgiving!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roasted Sticky Chicken – I always make 2.

I NEVER marinate overnight and it is WONDERFUL!

We have even done it for Thanksgiving instead of turkey (which is over rated in my opinion).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a recipe my mom wrote down so I just scrapped it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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ideas for fall

 

 

October 1st is when I told the kids we’d get all the Halloween decorations out of the attic.

Trust me – it is a PLETHORA!

I’ll post photos but I have quite a collection. So I was thinking about fall and going through my files to see what ideas I had saved.

 

We made these last year. Messy and not sure they were worth it. Might be good to distract the kids but I give it a 4 on a one to ten scale.

 

 

 

These were fun to make and easy cheesy.

I just loved the smiley face on the turkey below!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am hoping to make these this year. They use those funky pipecleaners.

 

 

 

Now if only we could get below 90 degrees everyday, it might actually start to feel like fall. We organized the kids’ coat armoire yesterday- sorted out the too small Elmo hoodie and set aside the orange LLBean jacket that was still grubby from last year and needs a wash. Tried on too big big winter coats and too small winter coats. I have a stash of coats I bought at the thriftstore and I am just waiting for the prices on ebay to start going up before I list them.

C’mon Fall!

 As for Food- this is from Linda (http://www.sundrymourning.com/) and they are my go-to for fall. Teachers, coworkers, bus drivers, principals- everyone just loves these. My sister in law prefers them without the chocolate chips (scandalous!) . I use canned pumpkin and gherideli choc chips (because I buy them by the truck size bags at Sam’s). I have made the giant size, the muffin tops, the minis and all sizes in between with this recipe.

Insanely Good Pumpkin-Chocolate Muffins

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour                 1 1/4 cups sugar                    1 tbls baking powder
1/2 tsp salt                                                1 tsp ground cinnamon        1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger                            1/4 tsp ground allspice        1/8 tsp ground cloves
1 can pumpkin [ ‘regular’ size can, not the large — original recipe calls for 1 CUP]
1/2 cup milk                                            1/2 cup vegetable oil             2 tbls molasses
Some amount of chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 400˚ and lightly grease a 12 muffin tin (I use paper holders). Sift (I don’t) flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and spices together in large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together pumpkin, milk, oil, and molasses. Pour wet ingredients into the dry and mix (I just do it all in 1 bowl- because I roll like that). Stir in your desired amount of chocolate chips (to taste). Fill the muffin cups 2/3s full. Bake 18-20 minutes, until tests done.

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We’ve been baking!

 

For Mantha’s birthday I wanted to make these cute Hello Kitty cupcakes. I’d ganked the picture off the web and was determined to recreate it. I think we did a pretty good job. The boys *loved* making them.

Here is what I found:

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                         Here’s what we made.

The generic pink wafer cookies were cheaper so we ran with those. I had tic tacs and m&ms. The whiskers are a Japanese cookie stick called Pocky. They sell it at HEB and it even comes in strawberry and an almond rocha style. The chocolate ones are really yummy! Crunchy light cookie sticks dipped in a good quality chocolate. They are about 2.50 a small box, by the way.

   Want some??

 

 

 

 

 

The other neat thing we made were Nicolas’ birthday cupcakes. He and his ‘Uelita made them and I set out the frosting and a baggie of plastic decorations. I walked off to do something and the next thing we knew Nicolas had “iced” all the cupcakes.

*sigh* I had taken out these plastic flies to make “amber necklaces” (like Trey made in science summer school) but Nicolas took a liking to them. He smeared a dab of frosting and plastic fly on each cupcake.

Trey refused to eat any of the cupcakes. We wondered if that was Nicolas’ strategy all along. Smart little buggar!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Yummy Brioche !

Central Market is a hazardous zone for my bank account. The other day I was there and picked up some Brioche rolls. Got home and all the kids just *LOVED* them. That was interesting. So I went looking and found this recipe.

It is so good and the breadmaker makes it easy. Had it toasted with butter (like it needs more!) this morning and yumm!!

Brioche Loaf (Breadmaker 1 1/2 Lb. Loaf)

• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 1/3 cup milk (70º to 80ºF)
• 3 tablespoons water (70º to 80ºF)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups bread flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

Measure all ingredients into bread machine pan in the order suggested by manufacturer. Process on sweet or basic/white bread cycle; use light or medium/normal crust color setting. Remove bread from pan; cool on wire rack.

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My new all time favorite bread machine bread!

 

I have been making this about twice a week. I make breadcrumbs out of the crust when it gets too hard (which I store in a jar in the freezer and Pete uses in his meatloaf) and we make french toast fingers out of whatever is left over on the weekend. This is for the large loaf size:

1 c oats (yep, raw oatmeal)

1 1/2 c water

2 Tbls butter

1/4 c honey (spray your measuring cup with pam to help w/ cleanup)

2 tsp salt

3 c flour

2 1/2 tsp yeast

opt: 3 tsp gluten (I use it because i use reg flour instead of bread flour)

Trey and Nicolas do all the measuring and pouring. This is not sweet (you would think the honey would make it sweet but it doesn’t).

I cannot wait till winter when we eat this with soup!

Deanna

Bakin’ Bacon

 

This is a great way to cook bacon and I am surprised more folks don't do it this way.

   I just line the bacon up in a baking sheet, Sometimes I will add brown sugar on top (careful with double dipping! sprinkle, then rub. do not put hand back into sugar) or sprinkle with a pepper blend (only a little, the flavor condenses as the bacon shrinks).

The brown sugar is my favorite I have to admit. Do *not* drain it on paper towels (when it cools the paper sticks to it and you end up picking bits off the bacon and out of your mouth).

When I make pepper bacon I use the Sam's club 5 pepper blend. It is in a big plastic shaker but it does condense so go easy. Also I think it has salt in it so it is not so good with salty brands of bacon.

I bake it at 350 or 400. Just keep an eye on it. Nothing worse than burned bacon smelling up your house. Here it is cooked about half way.

 

There is no splatter or mess to clean up like when you cook it on the stovetop. I drain the grease into a container. And if you have a large gathering (like we often have on Sundays) this is something the kids can help make and ya just keep re-filling the pan to make more.

You can use the drippings to cook your eggs or just pour them into old plastic containers for the trash (that’s what I do to preserve my septic tank. I freeze the containers and toss them out the day before trash day).

And I tend to reuse the same tinfoil a few rounds before changing it out.

A friend uses her broiler pan so the grease drips to the bottom.

I like to set my timer as a reminder. I cannot tell you how many pans I have burned because I was busy multi- tasking and forgot about it.

Yummy Corn Bread!

1 1/2 c all purpose flour
2/3 c sugar
1/2 c corn meal
1Tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 c milk
2 lrg eggs- slightly beaten
1/3 c veg oil
3 tbs melted butter

Preheat oven to 350. Good for muffins or in a cast iron skillet. Line or spray pan or cups. Combine dry ingredients in medium bowl. Combine wet ingredients in small bowl and mix well. Add to dry stuff and mix until just blended. Pour into pan or cups (cups 2/3 full). Bake 18-20 mins for cups or 25 min for pan or until tests done. Cool 5 mins. Serve warm.

Corn Chowder

I found this on another blog and am glad I printed it out because the blog is no longer there to use as a reference.

Chicken Corn Chowder
1 small onion- chopped
1 lb chicken breasts- boneless, skinless, boiled and cubed, chopped or shredded
(I use leftover grilled chicken breast or leftover rotisserie)
2 14 oz cans creamed corn
1 14 oz can chicken broth (I use my own)
1.5 cups milk
4 Tbls butter
16 oz cream cheese
3 tbls pace chipotle picante sauce (I use whatever is on hand or skip)
opt- few dashes of tabasco (I probably need it since I skip the picante sauce)

In a pot melt the butter, add chopped onion. Saute on med heat for about a minute. Reduce heat to low and add cubed cream cheesse. When that melts add creamed corn, broth, milk, picante sauce and chicken. Simmer until ready to eat.
- I use full fat versions but the original recipe said you can use lower fat versions.
-I like to serve this with tortilla chips or breadmaker bread or cornbread and I garnish it with bacon. Sometimes I add cooked bacon crumbles into the soup (if there is leftovers in the fridge etc)

Deanna