Archive for August, 2010
Anniversary Cupcakes…Completed!
Yay! The day is here! The cupcakes for my friend are done and they were a big hit at her anniversary party! Today I am going to show you the process of putting them together. This was a super fun project and I cannot wait to try more new things with cupcakes! I definitely stretched the limit with how many different things you can do to one cupcake, but I think they still looked cute! I little busy, but still funky and fun. I was so happy to be able to make these for J on her special day.
First I iced the refrigerated cupcakes (super chocolate with chips recipe…YUM!) with the basic buttercream icing recipe. One batch was enough to cover all of the cupcakes and still have enough to color pink and put the dollop on the top. After I put the white icing on, I dipped the top of the cupcake into white sugar sprinkles. Just make sure to put enough of the sprinkles in a bowl and dip the cupcake top in before the icing hardens.
Next I placed the pink icing I colored into a piping bag with a decorative tip. Anything with a larger opening will do. I made a quick pink swirl on the top of each cupcake. It is so tempting to just swipe those right off with your finger and eat them!
After I put the “cherry on top” I CAREFULLY placed a candy heart in the middle of each cake, gently pushing the long bottom into the cake like a pick. These are incredibly fragile, so be gentle!
I then put each of the “D and J” fondant pieces on each cupcake, making sure it didn’t over crowd the candy hearts too much!
Last, but most certainly not least, came the homemade cupcake wrappers! How FUN! These were such a blast to make and I think they came out so cute! I placed them in a white cake box (with a cardboard piece in the bottom) for transport. The only thing that I really had to learn with this project: make sure your cupcakes aren’t too tall when they are finished! The hearts were already pushing on the top of the box and then when I had to slam on the breaks on my way to dinner….at least 1/3 of the heart pieces broke. The great heartbreak of 2010. So sad…but the ones that were still together were still awesome.
Happy Anniversary D and J!!!
Tags: anniversary, buttercream, Cupcake Toppers, Cupcakes, Hearts, icing, sprinkles
Anniversary Cupcake Toppers
To continue with my posts about the cupcakes I am working on for J for her anniversary, tonight is a quick one about the toppers I am making. I have decided I am going to take this opportunity to try a whole lot of different things that I haven’t done yet. So far, I have made the cupcake wrappers and a candy heart topper. Tonight is an additional topper, made out of rolled fondant. I only 
needed a small amount of fonday so I decided I didn’t want to make my own. I went ahead and bought the Wilton rolled fondant from the store and was incredibly disappointed. That is the first time, to my knowledge I have actually tried pre-made fondant. No wonder everyone always complains about the way fondant tastes! I will stick with my marhsmallow fondant! It is SO worth the effort! In any case, since I was only making little toppers I still used the rolled fondant.
I rolled the fondant out on a surface sprinkled with cornstarch. I then cut the fondant into the appropriate sized pieces using a pizza cutter (best way to cut the fondant in my opinion). I used some of my (clean) rubber stamps to stamp the initials D and J for the lovely married couple of 7 years! I wish I had an ampersand stamp to put in the middle, but didn’t, so I used a star.
After I cut and stamped the pieces I laid them on a water bottle covered in a piece of parchment paper so they pieces would dry out in the curved shape I wanted. From beginning to end this only took about 20 – 30 minutes.
Tags: Cupcake Toppers, Cupcakes, decorating, fondant
Weekly Menu
I have been thinking about posting my weekly menu to the blog for several reasons. I am pretty good about putting together a weekly menu but usually by the end of the week the scrap of paper I have written it on has gone missing or is splattered with food. I have tried menu boards, dry erase boards, a notebook…hopefully this will work! I can post our weekly menus and I will have a great list of weekly menus to refer back to. Plus, no more digging all around the kitchen looking for my scrap of paper that my child took off the fridge!
Weekly Menu
Monday – Chili
Tuesday – Croatian Chicken Moskva
Wednesday – Tacos
Thursday – Parmesan Pork Roast
Friday – Homemade pizza
Weekly Menu – Our Family Favorites
According to Kelly, one of my favorite crafty blogs to read, is conducting a menu exchange. You are supposed to compile your family favorite recipes together and submit them. Then you will have access to so many new recipes! I can’t wait to add some new recipes to my cookbook. Like Kelly, at According to Kelly, we have been eating the same old thing everyday all summer and frankly I am tired of it! A week of our family favorites would go like this:
Day 1 – Chicken Divan Casserole
2 cups of rice, cooked
2-4 chicken breasts (I usually only add two chicken breasts to make the meal stretch more), cooked and chopped
one bag or box of broccoli, steamed
one can of condensed chicken soup
about a cup of mayonaise
one and a half blocks of extra sharp cheddar cheese
Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Place mixture in a lightly greased 9×13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.
Day 2 – Garlic Pepper Chicken
One whole chicken
Garlic Pepper seasoning
Olive oil, butter, or something similar like Smart Balance
Clean out cavity of chicken completely. Place chicken in slow cooker. Rub olive oil or butter sparingly on chicken. Cover generously with garlic pepper seasoning. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.
Day 3 - 4 Ingredient Chili
3-4 large cans of tomato sauce
1-2lb hamburger meat, browned
one chili seasoning packet
2-4 cans of kidney beans, drained
Combine all ingredients in slow cooker. Cook for 6-8 hours on low. Serve with sour cream, cheddar cheese, and cornbread!
Day 4 – Hamburger Pizza
pizza crust of your choice (we use Publix pizza dough or Boboli for this recipe)
sauce of your choice
1 T olive oil
1lb hamburger meat, browned and seasoned
1lb cheddar cheese
toppings of your choice: lettuce, tomato, olives, etc
Rub olive oil on pizza crust. Cover with sauce. Add cheddar cheese and humaburger meat. Add tomatos, olives, and all other toppings (except the lettuce). Cook according to pizza crust directions. Add lettuce. Enjoy!
Day 5 – Chicken Enchilada Casserole
2-3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3 cups (12 oz.) Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
½ cup onion, chopped
2-3 cans (10 oz.) green chile enchilada sauce (mild)
1 cup sour cream
1 small can chopped green chiles
18 corn tortillas
Salt and pepper chicken breasts to taste. Bake in a greased baking pan about 20-25 minutes @ 350°; cool and cut into bite-size pieces. In a bowl, combine the chicken, 2 cups of the shredded cheese (I usually shred my own; don’t care for the taste/consistency of the preshredded stuff, plus it is cheaper to do it myself), chiles (I drain off a bit of the liquid, but that is a personal taste) and chopped onion. Grease a 9×13 baking dish. Pour a little bit of the enchilada sauce in the bottom of the pan and spread to lightly coat. Pour sauce into a shallow dish. Coat both sides of six (6) of the corn tortillas and place in the bottom of the baking dish, overlapping. Spoon half ( ½ ) of the chicken mixture over the layer of corn tortillas. Dot (by spoonfuls) with half cup of the sour cream. Repeat process with second layer. Coat both sides of remaining six (6) tortillas for the top layer. Pour remaining sauce over the top. This is where the “optional” third can of sauce comes in if needed. Sprinkle the top with the remaining cup of cheese. Bake 20-25 minutes at 350°.
Day 6 – Shephard’s Pie
1 lb hamburger meat, browned
1lb cheddar cheese
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
1 bag of mixed vegetables, prepared
2 packages of boxed mashed potatoes or one batch of homemade mashed potatoes, prepared
Combine first four ingredients together and put in casserole dish. Top with prepared mashed potatoes. Bake at 350 degrees for 20m or until hot.
Day 7 – Parmesan Tilapia
Tilapia filets, defrosted
Dill (we use the Pampered Chef All Purpose Dill Mix)
one block of grated parmesan cheese
olive oil
Place Tilapia filets in a 9×13 dish. Sparingly coat with olive oil. Cover with dill to taste. Bake at 350 degrees for 20m or until almost cooked completely. Cover fish with grated parmesan cheese and bake for another five minutes. Serve immediately!
Tags: Cooking, Jennifer, Weekly Menu
Drawing With Chocolate/Candy Melts
Remember During 30 Days and 30 Bites when I tried drawing with melted chocolate? Well, I was incredibly unsuccessful. Maybe not incredibly, but pretty darn close! I tried again, only this time took the easy route and used Wilton’s candy melts. Boy did that work a lot better!!!
Today is day two of working to create the cupcakes for J’s wedding anniversary. Last time I posted was to show you the homemade cupcake wrappers that will be going on the cakes. I am getting more and more excited as each day goes by! Today I worked on the toppings for the cupcakes. I used the candy melts to create intertwined hearts. I placed a small amount (a few wafers goes a long way when it comes to making candy outlines) into a freezer quality storage bag. I placed the bag in the microwave in ten second intervals, squeezing the bag in between to smooth the candy. When the candy was at piping consistency (30 – 40 seconds of melting total) I made sure there was no air in the bag and squeezed the melted candy to one corner. I snipped off a small piece of the corner of the bag, just enough to allow a steady stream. If you are looking for a thin outline, it is important that you cut off a very small amount of the plastic to keep the hole very small.
Now that the candy is ready, pipe your design! Place a piece of wax paper on a cookie sheet and pipe your pictures onto it. I drew freehand with the candy since all I was doing was hearts. If you are looking for something more intricate, print the picture out first and place it under the wax paper, as I did in the previous candy post. Before the candy has time to harden (the melts harden pretty quickly when you are piping them out this thin) tap the cookie sheet on the counter a few times so air bubbles can escape and to take away the rough edges of your outlines.
You should notice that the bottom heart in my design continues down pretty far. That will be the part of the candy that will stick into the cupcake, hidden away from the world.
Put the candies in the refrigerator until you are ready to use them but be careful…they’re fragile! I can’t wait to make the cupcakes and put all of it together!!!
Tags: Cake Decorating, Candy, Choc, Cupcake, Cupcake Toppers, Drawing, Hearts, Melt
Sausage and Egg Casserole – Freezer Food Friday!
My friend B is the Freezer Food queen! She has really helped me to see the benefits of keeping a freezer full of homemade prepared food. Just about anytime you open my freezer, you will find individual portions of this Sausage and Egg Casserole that I adopted from one of B’s recipe. My husband loves being able to grab one of these and hit the road to work. He can heat it up when he has a moment in the morning at the office.
Sausage Egg Casserole
1 roll of Jimmy Dean or breakfast sausage of your choice
10 eggs beaten
16 oz low fat cottage cheese
1lb shredded Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese
2 4oz cans diced green chile peppers
1 cup flour (whole wheat or white)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/3 cup butter, melted
Cook sausage. Drain and set aside. In a large bowl, beat eggs. Add cottage cheese, shredded cheese, and chiles. Stir in sausage. Cover and refrigerate overnight. –> I almost always skip this step. The only time I cover and regfrigerate it over night is when I want to cook it in the morning and eat it hot out of the oven (like Christmas morning or on a weekend).
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir in the melted butter and then stir whole flour mixture into the egg mixture. Pour into a greased 9×13 pan. Bake 40-50 minutes or until lightly browned. Let casserole cool for 10-15m before serving.
If you are freezing the casserole, cut individual portions and place side by side (without touching) on a cookie sheet or tray. Cover with tin foil and freeze. Once frozen, bag individual portions into freezer bags. Mark with name and date.
Linking up to:
Make Your Own Cupcake Wrappers/Liners
Oh. My. Gosh. I have had WAY too much fun crafting this evening! Just call me Martha! Why? Well, in the next couple of days I will be making cupcakes for a friend of mine. We are having a Girls’ Night Out to celebrate her 7thwe
dding anniversary. A fellow military wife, J suffers what we must deal with on a regular basis. Her hubby is out on the ship with mine and is not here to celebrate their anniversary together. Not only that, but she is VERY preggo and will be giving birth before her husband returns home.
Needless to say, I wanted to do my own little part to make this a special day for her even though she is celebrating it sans husband! After talking to her about making a cake, the hamster wheel in my head started turning and I decided I wanted to have a little more fun with it. I changed my mind from a cake to cupcakes and decided to go the full mile when it came to making them super cute. So tonight is the first post related to the anniversary cupcakes.
Okay, enough of the background…what did I do tonight, you’re asking? I made homemade cupcake liners, or wrappers, or whatever you would like to call them. I have seen the super cute wrappers in the store but just haven’t been able to bring myself to spend the money on them and really, none of them have been EXACTLY what I wanted. So I decided to take on the task of creating them myself. I did a little research online and found a few other ladies who have tried the same thing. Why reinvent the wheel?! This template that I found on Skip To My Lou is the one I used to begin my own. However, I extended the top of mine another centimeter or so because I wanted the wrappers that extended above the top of the cupcake. I also inserted a tab so I would not have to have tape on the outside of my wrapper. With the tab, I was able to put the tape inside. I also did not print the wrappers directly onto the colored paper. There are only two templates on the given paper. I cut one out and traced it four times on larger paper. This, of course, was a little bit of an added pain (multiply by 24), but saved paper and came out the way I wanted it to look.
***important suggestion – use paper that is colored on BOTH sides. It does not look nearly as nice
when you have white paper on the inside. Even if you are cutting the paper to normal size, the white will still most likely be seen.
After tracing the templates onto the paper I used an exacto knife to cut them out. This requires a steady hand, but it is important to know it does not have to be perfect. It is going to be wrapped around a cupcake for goodness sakes! The last thing people will be checking is i
f it is 100% symmetrical! The first couple were definitely rough around the edges, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly and started to breeze through the cutting process. Since the only two sided paper I had was plain, I decided I would use my stamping materials to embellish the paper. SO FUN! Put some paper down (or you can stamp prior to cutting) under the cutouts and make sure the stamp overlaps the borders of the paper and especially both ends where the tab and insert are. This helps hide the imperfections of the cutting job!
Insert the tabs, tape the inside and voila! Homemade cupcake wraps!
Linking up to :
Tags: Cupcake, Cupcake Liners, Homemade, Marissa, Paper Craft, Stamp, Wrappers
Stitch-A-Long: Month 7
Catching up!!! Month 7 (July) is done before Month 8 is over! Definitely no lazy days of summer around here … from May through August 6, work and school just plain wore me out! I have spent most of the rest of August just trying to recover some energy. I’ve given myself permission to “take-off” (from working on my dissertation) until the conclusion of the Labor Day weekend. So, I’m going to try to get Month 8 and 9 done by then … I “believe” that I can do it – will let you know how that all works out!
Tags: cross-stitch, Debbie, Stitch-A-Long
Knifty Knitted Headbands
I am so excited to post my most recent craft knitting project! I have been knitting hats left and
right for all sorts of babies and really, was quite tired of it! But I have all of this yarn that needs to be used. Really a ton of yarn that I can’t do anything with except for odd projects. When I first started knitting several years ago I thought it was fun to just buy random yarn. I thought one or two skeins would do it for a project. Little did I know back then, that is no where near true. I don’t every buy yarn anymore without a specific project and the exact number of skeins I need! I still have boxes and boxes of this random yarn now. The problem is, for the sake of being frugal, I do not want to start any projects that I have to go buy yarn for! So I am forcing myself to go through the odds and ends. Ugh.
You guys are going to get some interesting gifts this Christmas, family!!!
My daughter has been begging me to knit her something so I thought what would be a better quick project than a little headband to keep all that hair out of her face!? I knew it wouldn’t be too tough to make one up. I went VERY basic for this first one. All the little girls are going to be getting at least one of these for the next several holidays! I should also say though, that this headband looked great on me too! The size does not need to be changed for a child or adult. ONE SIZE FITS ALL!!! Instructions are below.
Knit Headband
Materials:
- Light worsted weight 100% acrylic yarn (or whatever you desire)
- Size 6 US double pointed needles (or whatever you desire)
- Yarn Needle
i Cord Beginning:
- Cast on 4 sts. With these 4 stitches knit an i cord for 10″ (don’t know what an i cord is? here is a great tutorial!).
Body Increase:
You will now turn your needle at the end of each row as usual for the body of the head band.
- Row 1 (wrong side): P4
- Row 2: K1, M1, K2, M1, K1
- Row 3: P6
- Row 4: K1, M1, K4, M1, K1
- Row 5: P8
Body:
You have now increased to begin the body of the headband. Now work the body of the headband in garter stitch (knitting every row) until the body measures 9″. When you have reach desired length you will decrease down and then work another i cord.
Body Decreases:
- Row 1 (make sure you are on the right side or the band will be curled in different directions!): K1, K2tog, K2, K2tog, K1
- Row 2: P6
- Row 3: K1, K2tog, K2tog, K1
- Row 4: P4
- Row 5: K4
i cord Finish:
Finish the band with another 10″ i cord and tie off. Using yarn needle, weave in ends.
“Nuts About You” Military Care Package
Okay, so my computer harddrive CRASHED and I was without a computer for what seemed like an ETERNITY!!!! I should mention that the computer was exactly one month and one week old when it crashed! Gees-o Pees-o! In any case. The computer doctor (Best Buy’s Geek Squad) fixed it and I have now been able to reinsert the IV that pumps the internet through my blood! Thank goodness.
So one of the first things I had to do, naturally, is contribute to the wonderful blog that threads me together with my mother and sister. Awwww….
The topic of this post is a sad one indeed. My husband has recently deployed for the next SEVERAL months on an aircraft carrier. I am so lucky to be married to such an amazing man who doubles as an officer in the U.S. Navy. Thank you, darling, for serving our country! Unfortunately, this service comes with something all military wives grow accustomed to: a lot of time ALONE. The boys leave to go out to sea (or overseas) and we, the wives, are left at home to keep the house, keep the kids (alive), keep the bills, keep the pets, keep up with the neighbors, friends, and more. I do have to admit that it can be an absurdly difficult job, often thankless.
My husband, good thing for him, never falls short when it comes to thanking me for all of my hard work! I try my hardest to show my appreciation for him as well, and one way is to send him care packages; often. The first package I sent him during this cruise (deployment on the ship) had the theme “Nuts About You!”
I created a card with this picture of an elephant showing his love for peanuts on the front, and the headline “I’m Nuts About You!” Inside I included a short note for him and how much I appreciated him.
In case you didn’t know, you can order a FREE military kit from the United States Post Office. You cannot do this online, it must be done by calling 1-800-610-8734 . You will select your language and then select 1 (for priority mail). Tell them you are requesting the free military kit and they will deliver it to your door quite quickly. You don’t have to be in the military to do this, just sending things TO someone in the military. Just reorder when you run out. The kit contains:
So, I filled the large flat rate box with every kind of nut I could find. Plain peanuts, gourmet almonds, cashews, nut clusters, trail mix, chocolate nuts…all sorts! I HAD a picture of the contents of the box before I sent it. The picture now lies in the same grave as my crashed harddrive, so you will have to use your imagination. There were around 15 – 20 different types of nuts.
My husband, and the rest of the men and women in the office, loved it! The office is often full of oreos, chips, and other snacks the men crave from home, so they appreciated something different to add to the mix.
The next package I sent was just an envelope with some magazines in it. I try to stay away from the typical subscription magazines because they are often sent to the ships a-plenty. Instead, I look for the special editions sold only in stores. Let’s hope one of my husband’s favorite past time is not reading my blog on the ship, because he hasn’t received this one yet!
I am trying to send him at least a little something on Monday of every week. When you are sending packages, keep in mind that the ship and other military mail systems are often MORE than slow! We once had a package take 5 months to arrive at the ship! Who knows where it was lost that whole time?! The nuts package only took 8 days though, so we were very excited!
