THE LONG AWAITED JUNGLE CUPCAKES!!!!!

I did these cupcakes for my little brothers jungle pals themed 1st birthday party. I seen the idea on bettycrocker.com and just had to try it out. They are the cutest things ever!!! I love them and had a lot of fun making them. They were a huge success.

Another Birthday Cake

I just wanted to post a pic of this birthday cake I did for one of my friends at work. It was a cherry chocolate cake and had royal icing drop flowers on it.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Peanut Butter Cookies

1 Cup Unsalted Butter

1 Cup Peanut Butter

1 Cup Granulated Sugar

1 Cup Brown Sugar

2 Large Eggs

2 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour

1 Tsp. Baking Powder

1/2 Tsp Salt

1 1/2 Tsp. Baking Soda

Mix together the butter, peanut butter, sugar and brown sugar. After you've mixed those, beat in the eggs. In a seperate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix into the wet batter. Let chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour. Roll into 1 inch balls and place on baking sheet. Flatten each ball with a fork, making criss/cross marks on them. Bake in a preheated oven at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes or until they begin to brown. Enjoy!

Baked Potato Soup (Thanks Danielle, for this awesome recipe!!)

I got this recipe from my friend, Danielle G.( See I told you I would make it :) ) It's one of the best soup recipes I've made here lately. Something different to try when you're stuck in the same old chicken and noodle/chili/tomato soup rut.


Baked Potato Soup




Ingredients:



8 Medium/Large Potatoes, peeled and cut medium dice

Water * about 1 Gal. / 4 Quarts *

2 T Chicken Base

1 Cup Onion *I used frozen*, Medium Chop/Dice

2 T Garlic Powder *more or less to your liking*

2 Cups shredded cheddar cheese *whichever kind you like, or Colby jack* Extra cheese to top soup

Bacon *cooked crispy, however much you like* to top soup with

1 ½ Cups Sour Cream to go into soup, extra to top with

2 Cups Milk

A slurry *mix 8 T of cornstarch with 8 T water*

Salt and Pepper To Taste





Directions:



1. Dice all 8 potatoes and place in a large pot *2 Gallon *. Cover the potatoes with cold water, about a gallon. The water should be about 3 inches above the diced potatoes. Place the water on the stove, turn the burner to high. Add your chicken base and onions now.



2. After your potatoes start to boil, let them cook for about 10 minutes *or until done to your liking* on medium high. While they are boiling, this is when you can cook your bacon.



3. After you cook the bacon and set it aside, grab a medium size/ 2 quart bowl. Pour all of the milk into this bowl, along with the sour cream. Whisk the milk and sour cream together. Gradually ladle in about 5 ladles of the chicken stock from the soup base mixture, enough so that the mixture is heated up slowly so it does not curdle up. Add the cheese to the milk/sour cream mixture.



4. After the potatoes have cooked for 10 minutes or to your liking, add the milk/sour cream/cheese mixture to the pot and stir in. Add the garlic powder now, salt and pepper, stirring everything together. Turn the burner back to high and bring the soup to a boil. When the soup comes to a boil, slowly add the slurry, mixing with a spoon each time you add it. Be sure the soup is boiling before adding the slurry and the whole time you add the slurry, this is how it thicken the soup J.



5. After adding all the slurry and allowing the soup to thicken for about 3 minutes, turn down to low and let thicken more. Chop the bacon into little bits, you can top soup with it or stir all of it into the soup. As long as it is finely chopped it will not become soggy in the soup. After the soup thickens up the rest of the way, it is ready! Serve topped with bacon, sour cream, and if you want, more shredded cheese!



6. Enjoy!





*Note: If your soup isn’t thick enough, add a little more slurry. Equal parts/ 1:1 ration of cornstarch and water.

Hard Candy!

Old Fashioned Hard Candy (Hard Tack Candy)

2 Cups Granulated Sugar

2/3 Cup Light Corn Syrup

3/4 Cup Water

1 dram(1 tsp) LorAnn Gourmet Flavoring

Food Coloring

In a large saucepan, mix together sugar, corn syrup and water. Stir over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Bring mixture to a boil without stirring. When syrup temp. reaches 260 degrees, add color. Do not stir; boiling action will incorporate the color into the syrup. Remove from heat at 300 degrees or when drops of syrup from hard, brittle threads in cold water. After boiling action has ceased, add flavoring and stir. USE CAUTION WHEN ADDING FLAVORING TO AVOID RISING STEAM! Pour syrup into lightly oiled candy molds or onto greased cookie sheet and score to mark squares. When cool, break into pieces and dust with powdered sugar to prevent sticking. Store in air tight container.

** You can find the flavoring at most grocery stores in the baking aisle, some places have a small display near the pharmacy of the store, which is weird but I've found them there before. If you can't find them or they dont carry the flavor you're looking for visit http://www.lorannoils.com/ for a complete selection of flavorings. **

Probably Should Have Done This A While Ago !!

So, normally around christmas time is when I make the majority of my candy, especially my hard tack candy (hard candy). Which everyone is so eager to get their hands on, however, I was a little late this year, and was bored today, so I decided to make a batch. I'm waiting for it to set up right now, but as soon as I can take some pics, I'll post the recipe. :)

Cream of Wild Mushroom Soup

You can find the original recipe at  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/cream-of-wild-mushroom-soup-recipe/index.html   . However, I altered this recipe to suit my husbands taste. I feel that the way I altered it makes it closer to what we know as cream of mushroom soup.

Cream of Wild Mushroom Soup

1 pkg (2 caps) Portobella Mushrooms

1 pkg Cremini Mushrooms

1 Tblsp. Olive Oil

1 stick unsalted butter, 1 Tbsp unsalted butter

1 Cup chopped Onion

1 Cup chopped carrot

2 Tsp minced thyme, 1 tsp minced thyme

Salt

Black Pepper

1/4 Cup All Purpose Flour

1 Cup Dry White wine ( I did half wine half water b/c I was unsure of how much it would effect the taste)

1 Cup Half and Half

1 Cup Heavy Cream

Palm Full of dried Parsley Flakes

6 Cups Water

Clean the mushrooms with a dry paper towel. Coarsley chop all of the mushrooms into bite sized pieces.

To make the stock, heat the olive oil and 1 Tbsp. butter in large pot. Add about half of your chopped mushrooms, the onion, the carrot, 2 Tsp thyme, salt, and pepper. Cook over medium-low heat for 10-15 minutes, until the veggies are soft. Add 6 cups of water, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes. Strain, reserving the liquid. You should have about 4 1/2 cups of stock, if not add some water.

Meanwhile, in another large pot, heat the remaining stick of butter. Add the remaining mushrooms and cook for 10 minutes or until they are browned and tender. Add the flour and cook for a minute. Add the white wine and stir for another minute, scraping the bottom of the pot. Add the mushroom stock, the remaining thyme, 1 1/2 tsp salt and 1 tsp pepper, bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15  minutes. Add the half and half, cream, and parsley, season with salt and pepper again to taste, heat through but do not boil. Serve Hot! Enjoy!

Recipe Organization

For the past few years I've been avidly collecting recipes. Anything that had a recipe on it  I'd keep, because you never know when you'll just want something different or someone will be looking for a certain recipe. I love reading recipes and making them. Sometimes it turns out awesome, other times not so much. Anyway, I had accumulated a decent sized box, filled to the top, with recipes. I had been racking my brain about how I wanted to go about organizing them. I had thought about recopying all of them onto recipe cards and then filing them into several recipe boxes. But that seemed to tedious, besides I'm so OCD that I'd probably waste more cards just trying to get my handwriting exactly how I wanted it. That idea, out the window. So now what do I do. I had thought about retyping them all and submitting them to my recipe box on kraftfoods.com and then making a cookbook out of them. It too would take so much time and I'd have to pay for the cookbook. Another idea out the window. I started researching some organization techniques and ran across one that just seemed to simple. I don't know why this wasn't the first idea. It was just a 3 ring binder with tab seperators. This was one I was willing to tackle. I already had an extra binder lying around and instead of the actual tab pages. I just bought the post-it flags, that you can write on and attached them to cardstock. It was much cheaper that way. And now I don't know why I waited so long to do this. I seperated my notebook into 12 categories Drinks, Tea Time, Mexican/Chinese Food, Appetizers & Snacks, Rice Dishes, Pasta Dishes, Canning Recipes, Soups, Misc., Dough Recipes and Desserts. Unfortunatly, I ran out of room so the desserts tab had to be left out and it will get it's own notebook. I was done organizing 4 years worth of recipes in about 3 days. I will be posting pics of the notebook, so maybe you can get some ideas. You may not even have the same "tabs" as me, that's just worked best for my recipe book.

Pineapple Yummy Cake

This recipe comes from a friend of mine, Carmen, thank you!

Pineapple Yummy Cake:

1 Tub Cool Whip

1 8oz Pkg Cream Cheese

1 can crushed pineapple (save the juice, you may need to get a second can if there's not enough juice for the recipe)

1 Pkg Yellow or White Cake Mix

Coconut (Shredded and Sweetened)

Nuts (Your Choice, I used Cashews, another good one would be Macadamia's)

Prepare your cake mix according to the directions, only replace the water that is called for in the directions with pineapple juice. Bake and allow to cool. Meanwhile, mix together the cool whip, cream cheese and crushed pineapple. Chill until the cake is done cooling, this will help firm the icing up a bit. Spread the icing evenly over the entire cake. Next sprinkle the coconut over the top of the cake, making sure to press it along the sides as well. Take about a handful of nuts(you can use as many or as few as you'd like, or not at all) and pulse a few times in the food processor, or you may just roughly chop them. Next sprinkle the nuts over your cake. You can also put chunks of pineapple on top for garnish, but it's optional. ENJOY!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cake

This is a very very simple cake. Doesn't cost much to make but is still delicious.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cake

1 Pkg Chocolate Devil's Food Cake Mix ( And of course the eggs, veggie oil and water)

1 container vanilla icing

1/4 cup Peanut Butter

6 miniture Reese's Cups

Bake the cake according to the directions on the box. After it's done allow to cool for at least an hour so that you'll be able to easily apply the icing. Meanwhile, you'll can mix your icing. Add the 1/4 cup of Peanut Butter to the containter of vanilla icing. Mix well. Once your cake is cooled (which mine is two cakes baked in the  9" round pan, you can use whatever shape or size pan you want, you can even do cupcakes), place one cake on desired dish and spread an even coating of icing, this will be the cake "filling". Take your other cake and place directly on top of the first cake. Dollup a large amount of icing on top of the cake and begin spreading on top and then down the sides of the cake. Remember it's easier to take icing away than it is to hide the crumbs from not using enough icing. Once, completely iced to your liking, take the reese's cups and roughly chop them up. Now just sprinkle them on top and you're good to go! If you're making cupcakes rather than a cake, then you can just slice the reese's in half and place a half on each cupcake or this way will be fine too. Hope you enjoy!

Cakes!

Although I've baked many a cake for myself and my husband, yesterday was the first time I got to bake one for someone else. Recently, I've been getting into cake decorating and I wanted to try my hand out and doing a birthday cake for someone. I wasn't able to do anything elaborate, mostly because I only had storebought icing and it wasn't thick enough to do some of the piping I wanted to do. It wasn't anything fantastic but the person I did it for seemed to like it alot. I really enjoy being able to create something edible and people really get excited about it and really enjoy it. I truly think that this may be my calling. I know that this is not the best I can do, but it's one of my first and it will all come with practice.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog!! If you love cooking, baking, trying new recipes or just like reading recipes, then you will find something on here to sink your teeth into. :) I like to cook everything from the very simple to the more lengthy recipes. I really enjoy baking and have been having lots of fun making and decorating cookies and cakes more recently.