Pancake Happiness

One of my favorite foods ever are pancakes.  I love pancakes!  I even like them more than waffles. Growing up we never had waffles (except at Waffle House), but sometimes on Sunday morning, Momma would make pancakes.  Daddy liked his with blueberries in them…but not me.  I always liked mine plain with powdered sugar on them instead of syrup.  Well this weekend, I made pancakes that were even better than ‘plain’ – and no…i’m not talking chocolate chip…

Funfetti Cupcakes

You probably saw this coming huh?  I am obsessed with sprinkles.  Funfetti is my favorite kind of cake (and now pancakes!!).  Who whouldn’t want to eat these?  They are so happy looking.  Funfetti is kind of like cupcakes… can you look at something like this and not smile.  I think not.

I used my favorite pancake recipe from (Joy of Baking) and added sprinkles.  I wish I had some of these right now.

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Sesame-Chile Chicken with Gingered Watermelon Salsa

It’s officially summertime!! Which means lots of fresh fruits and vegetables! 🙂 The first year Scott and I were in Charlottesville, we went a little crazy with the fruits and vegetables especially since I had a lot more time on my hands to make jams and salsas, etc. Sadly I have not made either of these since that first summer… However, there was one night that summer when we had excess watermelon and I’ve never used watermelon in any recipe so we figured we would experiment. Although now watermelon is in sort of a hip new restaurant item: watermelon, tomato, and feta salad which sounds delicious! At that time, I was not creative enough to come up with this recipe on my own, plus Scott would never have had feta.

However, I did fine this awesome recipe that we saved and have made a bunch of times to spruce up chicken on a normal weeknight. I found it in a Cooking Light magazine and love it! Here is a link to the recipe: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/sesame-chile-chicken-with-gingered-watermelon-salsa-10000001065509/ I only made minor changes based on what I had in the fridge: I used light sesame oil instead of dark and I used ginger out of a jar (mainly because I am just not a ginger fan so would never use fresh ginger in anything else!) I also did not serve with cilantro, because I hate cilantro (it tastes like soap to me..). Our ratio of watermelon to chicken is a lot different that cooking light’s picture, but the watermelon salsa is so delicious that I want to make sure I get some in every bite!

Since zucchini is so plentiful right now, we served it with a side of grilled zucchini brushed with some olive oil and garlic bread seasoning (delicious!)

Enjoy and happy summer!

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Maple Bacon Cupcakes

You could be having one of two reactions right now;

– YUMMY or YUCKY.

My vote is for yummy.  I know this sounds weird in a cupcake but trust me…it was delicious.

This is the recipe I used

http://www.vanillagarlic.com/2007/05/maple-bacon-cupcakes-with-maple.html

For once, I didn’t change a thing when making this recipe.  Normally I tweak a recipe even before I’ve made it the first time.  However, when it comes to putting bacon in a cupcake – I didn’t want to chance messing it up.  I figure too much salt or too much sugar and the delicate balance could be completely thrown off.

The good thing about this cupcake is that it’s not so sweet that it couldn’t be eaten for breakfast.

Maple Bacon Cupcake

 

These cupcakes were made especially for Axel’s 2nd Birthday.  He likes bacon.

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Ideas:  Bacon/Cheese cupcakes, Bacon Beer Cupcakes, Bacon Chocolate cupcakes…the possibilities are endless

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Blueberry Cupcakes

Remember that Blueberry-Lemon jam that I made a few weeks ago?  Well I decided to use it to make cupcakes.  I’ve been wanting to make blueberry cupcakes for a while but I couldn’t figure out how to do it without ending up muffiny or with hunks of berries…ick.  So this was the perfect way to get that blueberry flavor…without using actual blueberries 🙂

1/2 cup of butter
1/4 cup of sugar
1 cup blueberry jam
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup of flour
1 3/4 tsp of baking powder
1/4 cup milk

1) Cream butter, sugar, and jam together

2) add eggs

3) add flour and milk – alternating with flour being first and last additions

4) bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes

Icing

1/2 cup butter
8 oz of cream cheese
1 box of powdered sugar
1 tsp of vanilla

I drizzled some jam on top and added some blueberries and ta-da you have a beautiful and summery blueberry cupcake.

Blueberry Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

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Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

Pink Cupcakes?  These have Lacie written all over them!

This recipe is super easy.

1/2 cup of butter
3/4 cup of sugar
2 tsp of Crystal light pink lemonade powder
zest of one lemon
1 tbsp of lemon juice
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup of flour
1 3/4 tsp of baking powder
1/2 cup milk

1) Cream butter, sugar, and pink lemonade together

2) add zest, juice, and eggs

3) add flour and milk – alternating with flour being first and last additions

4) optional – add a little red food coloring if you want them to be pinker

5)) bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes

Icing

1/2 cup butter
1 box of sugar
1 tbsp of lemon juice
1 tsp of pink lemonade powder

These cupcakes are sweet and tart – super delicious.

Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

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Beef and Sausage Won Tons

Whenever I have sort of a low key weekend, I always try to make something that I can stick in the freezer so when life gets busy, I always have an easy meal in the freezer! Lacie is going to have to get ready for the amount of frozen meals I am going to put together in August (since my life is inevitably going to get busy in September!) and hopefully I can convince Lacie to let me steal a shelf in her freezer to store it all!  I have a couple of appetizer recipes that I like to make ahead of time and then keep in the freezer so if I ever need a little extra for a lunch or just feel like a small dinner, all I have to do is open the freezer and pull them out. Plus homemade stuff tastes A LOT better than the frozen store bought stuff (no offense to the Bagel Bite lovers out there!)

Here is one of the recipes that would be a lot of fun to make with kids or your significant other but can be a pain in the butt to make by yourself because they do take awhile! They are beef & sausage wontons and are actually super easy to put together, they just make a lot so sealing each wonton can be pretty time intensive. These appetizers can satisfy most meat lovers but have a fun twist being sealed in a wonton!

Ingredients:

• 6 oz ground sausage (sweet or spicy, your choice!)
• 1/2 lb ground beef
• 1 med onion, chopped
• 1 jalapeno pepper
• 1 c. grated cheddar cheese
• 1 lb wonton skins

Directions:

1.) Combine sausage, beef, and onions and saute until beef is brown.
2.) Add jalapeno and cheese and cook only until cheese begins to melt.
3.) Assemble: Place a won ton skin on a flat surface with corner pointed towards you. Put 1 tsp mixture in far corner and dot corner with water. Fold won ton skin over mixture. Moisten remaining corners and bring together and overlap, pinching firmly to seal.
4.) Deep fry in 350 degree oil for 2 min til golden brown.
5.) Can be frozen up to 3 months, reheat and bake 10-15 min on rack at 350.

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Enjoy! I promise I will get back to healthier, vegetable heavy meals next time! It will be impossible not to as the farmers market is in full swing! 🙂

P.S. I apologize again for my poor picture taking abilities…again the fact that I remembered to take a picture is still progress!

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In a Jam?

Hi Y’all

Weekend before last (Memorial Day Weekend), the husband and I went home for my Granny & Granddaddy’s 60th wedding anniversary (60 years…wow).  Every time I go home, I come back with tons of goodies from my parents garden.  Usually we get things that are canned or frozen so that we can save them up and use them over weeks…however this time around I also came back a huge grocery bag full of fresh blueberries.

Don’t get me wrong, I love blueberries (not as good as blackberries or strawberries…but definitely 3rd in the list of berries).  But how many things can I make with blueberries…and those things that you make with blueberries only use a cup at most…and then that leaves me with a grocery bag minus one cup of blueberries.  So what to do?  Make jam!!  I’ve never made jam completely by myself before.  My mom and I made strawberry jam together  a few years ago but this time I was on my own.  Well not completely, I had Paula Dean and my Ball Canning book.  I decided to use a combination of two recipes:

1) Paula Dean’s Blueberry Lemon Preserves: http://www.pauladeen.com/index.php/recipes/view2/paulas_homemade_blueberry_lemon_preserves/

2) Ball Canning Blueberry Lime Jam
http://www.simplycanning.com/blueberrylime-jam-from-balls-blue-book-of-preserving.html

What should have been a hour long project at most – turned into a two plus hour project.  I decided to strain my jam to get out most of the skins…this was a very messy process 🙂  But it was worth it, I have texture issues when it come to food and I did not want to eat preserves with big hunks in it 🙂  I also thought it would be a good idea to double the recipe so I could use more blueberries…I failed to realize that meant i would have to fit 13 cups of sugar into my dutch oven.  It worked…barely.  So my first jam making experience = success

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