Blessing Day

Recently my nephew was blessed. We drove down to celebrate with my sister and her husband and while I was there I helped with the dessert table. They had a lot of people coming over for lunch afterwards so we made 48 cupcakes. We made cookie dough ones which was easier than cutting and filling 48 of them. We rolled and froze the dough the night before and then I made a white cake mix doctored up.

The frosting was a basic buttercream.

For another treat we made white chocolate popcorn and bought some Jordan Almonds. Yummy!

We also made sugar cookies. I got the cookie cutters off amazon and got a lot of remarks on how cute they were. I made a royal icing for the top, Bakerella has a great recipe for some.

The last treat I made was white chocolate mustaches. I found the molds on amazon and had to make them. With two girls it was fun to be able to do some fun boy stuff.

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Steak Noodle Salad

This was one of those recipes I came across and I couldn't get it out of my head, I had to make it. It all started with some left over steak. I needed to do something with it and thought I'd reinvent it into another meal. Well, I came upon this recipe on Pioneer Woman but I didn't have sesame oil so I decided on steak taco's. But I had to make this one so I went out and bought some sesame oil.

The finished product and trust me it was so delicious.

Worth the extra money sesame oil cost and trust me it's not cheap.

Worcestershire sauce and sesame oil mixed together. The Pioneer Woman calls for soy sauce but I never have soy sauce because of the high sodium so I usually substitute Worcestershire sauce. I used 1/3 cup.

The extra virgin olive oil.

The white wine vinegar. I keep some on hand for different recipes.

The brown sugar taking a dip.

The ground ginger joining in. The Pioneer Woman calls for ground ginger which I never have so I substituted ground.

Ok, so after I'm done with this you're going to wonder how this recipe even resembles The Pioneer Woman's but I just don't have fresh garlic. I buy the minced garlic and use that. What are you going to do?

The steak enjoying the marinade. Can you hear it sigh? or was that me?

These whole wheat spaghetti noodles have no idea the greatness they're in for.

Here they are basking in they're glory. Bask you beautiful noodles, bask.

I had to stop myself from eating everything.

4 ingredient ice cream

The other day, well a few other days ago, I went on vacation before I could post this, was President Thomas S. Monson's birthday and one of his favorite foods is ice cream. So, I made up a quick batch to celebrate.

He is the current president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

My double Cuisinart ice cream maker. It looks a little dirty but it's not, I amazingly spilled paint on it when I was painting my ceilings. It was a huge mess.

This is probably the easiest ice cream recipe out there. Cold milk, vanilla, sweetened condensed milk, and cream. The original recipe calls for salt but I leave it out so feel free to add some if you want.

I decided to make one mint chocolate chip. I chopped up some chocolate chips and added them to the ice cream.

Mixing all together. I added half a tablespoon of mint extract, perfect amount.

The other flavor? My husband requested. . . root beer. I used the extract to get a stronger flavor without diluting the ice cream. Turned out so yummy.

Here they are together looking delicious.

So, here is my tip for the ice cream. I don't actually use cream, I use half and half. The main reason? It's cheaper. No other reason really, just cheapness. Feel free to use either one. Another tip, home made ice cream freezes really hard so I find it easier to put the ice cream in Tupperware so I can microwave it before I scoop it out.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup cold milk
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 pint cream
pinch of salt (optional)

Directions:
Combine milk, vanilla, condensed milk, cream and salt. Poor into ice cream maker or put in freezer until it freezes.

If you want a flavor other than vanilla substitute the flavor in for the vanilla. If you are making two different kinds of ice cream use 1/2 tablespoon for each.

Key Lime Cupcakes

This was another option for my nephews blessing. I've never tried them before, saw the cute little key limes in the store and bought them.

Look at these cute little guys, hard to turn down.

Here's the batter all ready to go. I used some lime juice, four eggs, a yellow cake mix with the pudding, some water, and vegetable oil. I also added a few drops of green and yellow food coloring. Just to help with the appeal.

All lined up ready to be filled.

The cupcakes all filled and some of them have their tops on.

Here the little guys are some being ready to be juiced and some already juiced.

The filling was a little different and I have to say it wasn't my favorite. I added some green food coloring to it as well.

This is the frosting. Note this is not a low fat recipe.

Here it is with the powder sugar mixed in, I also added some lime juice to it.

Ingredients:
Cupcakes (adpated from Cupcakes! from the Cake Mix Doctor)
2 tablespoons key lime juice
4 eggs
1 yellow cake mix with pudding
1 1/4 cups water
1/3 cup vegetable oil

Combine ingredients and fill cupcake pan 3/4 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Filling (from Hoosier Homemade)
1 4 oz. vanilla pudding
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup key lime juice
4 drops green food coloring
1/2 cup powder sugar

Combine vanilla pudding, milk, lime juice, and food coloring. Add powder sugar. Cut a hole in the cupcakes and fill it with the filling then place the tops of the cupcakes back on.

Frosting:
1 8 oz. cream cheese
1/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon lime juice
3 1/2 cups powder sugar

Mix cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and lime juice. Add the powder sugar and mix together.

Apricot Streuselkuchen

It was my mom's birthday a week ago and I decided to break out of the cupcake mold and try something a little different. We have two apricot trees and so I have apricots coming out of my . . . well everywhere. I decided on a German streusselkuchen. I have never made anything German that I'm aware of but my brother lived there for a few years and said their desserts were fantastic so I thought why not. I got the recipe from The German Kitchen that deals only with German food.

This is the sugar, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg for the pie filling.

Here are the six cups of apricots and the dry mixture all together.

I got out one of my spring form pans, love these.

I started making the dough by mixing the flour sugar, vanilla extract, baking powder, and salt.

I added the eggs and the 14 tablespoons of butter. Yeah, that's a lot of butter. No wonder it tasted so amazing.

Here's where I ran into some trouble. I read the instructions and then I proceeded to forget them. I blame kids. I forgot to save 1/3 for the topping so I threw it all into my pan and proceeded to stretch it out. Then when I was all the way done I remembered the 1/3 and had to take some out. Learn from my mistake and take that extra 1/3 out.

The filling looking fantastic and sassy, can food be sassy? I think so.

I took the extra 1/3 and tore chunks off and dropped it on the filling. Not sure if that's what you're supposed to do but why not. I also folded over the dough.

Here it is all done. Now the dough was great but the filling, unfortunately I didn't add near enough sugar and it ended up sour. How sour you ask, so sour I couldn't eat it. We gave it to my 16 month old and she made that sour face, priceless. My parents were troupers and made it through the whole thing. Next time I'll try peaches.

Ingredients:
Filling:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
6 cups apricot
2 tsp. lemon juice

Mix the dry ingredients together. Mix the apricots and lemon juice together. Toss the dry ingredients with the apricots gently together.

Streuselkuchen:
3 1/3 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 eggs
14 tablespoons butter

Mix dry ingredients. Add the eggs and butter, mix together with your hands.

Take 2/3 of dough and spread out on a 9 inch spring form pan going up 1 inch on the sides. Make sure dough has no wholes.

Spoon fruit filling onto dough. leave 1/4-1/2 inch from the top of the dough.

Put the other 1/3 of the dough on top. Bake at 350 for 45-55 minutes.

S'more Tarts

Today is National S'more Day! My husband had a coworker come up to him and ask him where the s'more cupcakes were. I guess he assumed I would send some in. Instead of making s'more cupcakes I stummbled upon s'more tarts when looking at Amy Atlas' blog. She had so many cute ideas but the one that looked, easy and fast was the s'more tarts. You can get the recipe here. So while I made these I munched on marshmallows and chocolate and enjoyed myself.

The lady who made these threw a pampered chef party and so everything they use in the recipe is from pampered chef. Since I don't have much from pampered chef I had to use what I had on hand.

These are the pans I used.

Here the graham crackers are with the powder sugar and butter. I thought it was a lot of butter. If I make it again I'd add a few more graham crackers or cut out a little butter.

Here they are all mixed up.

I put them in the pans but I have to say I put too much in. Ended up being too graham crackery.

Here they are all cooked.

I didn't have the chocolate bars, I don't buy them for the one reason that they don't last in my house. I will eat them all. I used chocolate chips instead, I should have thrown a couple more in there.

Here they are with the half marshmallow's on top.

All done! Happy S'more Day, may it be sticky and sweet!