Thanksgiving Update and Moving into Christmas

For Thanksgiving we had dinner at my grandmother's home. It was great having all the family there. There were a few missing members but that is all thanks to my sister. I did not dwell on it though I made the best of the situation and held my tongue like a good girl.

We had turey and ham and dressing and al the fixings that go along with it.

My kids played with cousins (minus 2 of them) and had a great time. I already have my tree up and we are getting into the groove of things around here.

Stay tuned for more updates and maybe some more recipes :)

Cake Pop Update #2

Sunday, I did Alabama themed Cup Cake Pops. I did the bottoms in white and the tops in red. They looked a little plain and the white chocolate did not hug the sides like the dark chocolate in the Christmas ones I made before. I am thinking that if I do these again I will use some cute Alabama ribbon to make them 'pop' a little more but they turned out cute in the end.

Here are pics.. I even took pics of the process : )



Above you can see I was getting ready.. I made the balls, molded with the cookie cutter shape on bottom and was ready to dip.



All dipped and sticks are in, back to the freezer for a few minutes....this is what I meant by the white melts not holding like i wished they had... well they held, they just did not give the cupcake bottom effect.




All dipped in red now, cute, but still plain. At least this was good information to know for next time. Just strange to me how different they looked than the ones I did a few posts back, those were REALLY cute and I will be doing more of those tomorrow.

Here are a few more pics after I started getting them all done and wrapped up:

















More to come after the holidays. I will post my Muffin recipe in the morning and pics of my muffins. Yes, I am attempting homemade muffins... lord help me... : )

Broccoli, Chicken, Rice & Cheese Casserole

That's what we had for dinner last night. Before I could get a picture of it it was gone. Must have been good : ). I thought I would share the recipe with you all so you could try it out too.


Ingredients:

3 boneless skinless chicken breast halves- cooked and cut up

2 cups cooked rice

1 can Cr. of chicken soup

1 can cr. of mushroom soup

1 packet of dry onion soup

16 oz of Velveeta cheese cubed

Broccoli Flowerets- about 2 cups.. more or less as you like


Directions:

Mix everything together in a large bowl- Cooked Rice- soups- onion soup mix- chicken- cubed cheese- broccoli and pour into 9 X 13 baking dish.

Cook at 375 F for about 20-30 minutes. Uncover for last 10 minutes of cooking.. to make the cheese nice.

I Have An Idea

Now, before you panic, let me say, this idea is a good one : )!!!

After watching the movie Julie & Julia I was inspired even more. I don't know if it's all about this cooking phase I am going through or what it is but I was so motivated!!

So my idea is: I want to start blogging about all the dishes I discover and try out. Now I know I have posted some new recipes I found on here already but it did not really hit me what I could do with my blog until I watched that movie last week.

My daughter and I were out last night picking up the things I needed for the Alabama/Auburn Cupcake Pops and we decided to go into Books A Million. I looked around for The Pioneer Lady- Ree Drummond's cookbook and ended up reading for an hour before actually making my way to pick up what I needed. The book is amazing I have to say.

So what I am going to do is, print out a ton of recipes that I would like to tackle and try to do one per day. Whether it be something sweet or maybe a meal for the family. I will take pictures of the process or the finished product or maybe both if I can remember that I do have a camera again!!

I just think it would be something great to keep me busy as well as help teach my daughter to cook seeing how they will be out of school quite a bit over the next few weeks for the holidays.

So off I go to start looking and planning. This will be great because I can add all of the new findings to my Recipe folder and maybe have them all made into a book for my daughter when she is older. With pictures included of us cooking together. Now how sweet is that : )!!!

Cupcake Pop Follow-Up

Ok so I know I promised pictures of my second attempt at Cake Pops since I did not have a camera for my first try, so here they are below. I think they turned out great!! I did some that were just Red and Green Cake Pops too... that little cookie cutter shaper for the cupcakes was starting to drive me insane. Take a look:














I had a great time playing with these little creations. This afternoon I will be making another variation of these little Cupcake Pops. My husband is a freak for SEC College Football, so I will be making Alabama and Auburn Cupcake Pops for him to take to work tomorrow to share. I will post pics of those too. Maybe I will take pics of the process this time if I can keep the chocolate off the camera : ).

Family Time Today

Today I got to spend some time with one of my sisters. Now, with that said there is a reason for my post. My sisters ( who are also twins) and I have not been speaking lately. By not speaking I mean not communicating at all for the last 6 months or so. They pulled away from the entire family for the most part. Not together but both in their own ways. It's been a rough 6 months I will just say that.


Now one of them has come to her senses. She has no kids so I really wasn't as worried about her so much so and the other one who has two kids. I am still worried and drive myself insane abut her but I know that if I just have faith in God he will show her the way in His own time.

It was an awesome day today. Alabama football and my sister and my Dad all here at my home together. It almost felt like old times again. It was a great game and great family time I have to say. We cooked dinner for everyone and afterwards my sweet tooth reared again and I was back in the kitchen making sweets to share.

I made chocolate covered pretzels. They were so yummy! I changed the type of chocolate I was using and had picked up some Wilton's melting chips during my trip to Wal-Mart this week and it made a total difference in dipping things and the way it covered. I knew it would secretly but with my cake pops before I just could not wait that long to make them. I know the next cake pops will be amazing!!

Here are the pretzels, well, what is left anyway:






And I also tried doing chocolate covered marshmallows with some marshmallows my son had left after he raided the bag while we watched the game, haha, he is just too cute!! They turned out great as well, and also were eaten up as fast as they could harden on the wax paper.

Here they are:




So here they are together:




I am going to be making the cake pops again soon but did not want to dive into that with company here tonight. Maybe tomorrow, I still have to pick up some styrofoam to stick the sticks into.

Now a question- I don't know if any of you can see it in the pictures but when the chocolate hardened it left a white look to them like spots on the chocolate.... is that normal??? Can it be fixed? If so, how do I keep it from doing that?



: )

NEW DIGITAL CAMERA!!!!

I got a new camera FINALLY!!!! Now I can finally take pics of my baking adventures and show you all what they look like afterwards!! Yay!!!


In case you are wondering I purchased the Kodak EasyShare c182. It is a 12 mega pixel camera with 3X zoom and large display window on the back. Love this little camera. What I did not realize at first was that I needed a memory card.. no big deal though, I grabbed an 8 gig card for 20 bucks!!


Ok so I am looking forward to taking lots of great pics!!


:) :) :)

Sweets Coming Up

I have a couple of sweets I plan to finish up in the next couple of days. I bought the ingredients at the store tonight. Cake Pops and Chocolate Coated Marshmallows.

Ok so the first round with my Cake Pops did not go like I wanted them to. So I am going to do them again, some Vanilla coated and some Chocolate coated. This time I have sucker sticks, maybe this will make a difference when dipping and coating.


Also, I was in Wal-mart over the weekend and as you know they put out bakery items on sale every now and then for half price. Well, they had the chocolate coated marshmallows in bags for sale and I thought well, I can do those myself!!!

So I am armed with more chocolate bark coating, marshmallows, cake ball ingredients and I even bought pretzels to dip in chocolate!!

My Husband comes in and says "I don't know what has gotten into you lately but I like it!" : ) Yay me!!

So stay tuned for more on those ventures, and anything else I may come up with between now and then.

Wednesday Dinner and Dessert

I have been on a cooking kick for a few weeks now. Tonight I tried yet another new meal I have not done before and a new dessert.

Cheese Lover's Pasta Roll-Ups courtesy of Kraft Foods Food & Family Magazine



Ingredients:


1 egg, beaten

1 container (15 oz.) POLLY-O Original Ricotta Cheese

2 cups KRAFT 2% Milk Shredded Italian* Three Cheese Blend

4 green onions, chopped

1 Tbsp. Italian seasoning

1 jar (26 oz.) spaghetti sauce, divided

16 lasagna noodles, cooked

1/4 cup KRAFT Grated Parmesan Cheese



Directions:



HEAT oven to 375ºF.

MIX first 5 ingredients until well blended.

SPREAD 1/2 cup spaghetti sauce onto bottom of 13x9-inch baking dish. Spread each noodle with 3 Tbsp. cheese mixture; roll up. Place, seam-sides down, in dish. Top with remaining sauce and Parmesan; cover.

BAKE 40 to 50 min. or until heated through, uncovering the last 10 min.


Tips from Me:

1. I would recommend using only 2 green onions instead of 4 as it seemed to overpower a little bit.

2. The directions called for 16 lasagna noodles yet when I got done I still had 3 noodles left and no more mix... so either go very light on the spread or make a little more spread than it calls for.

Other than those two things it tasted absolutely delicious!!

NEXT up DESSERT!!!


Peanut Butter Cup Pie also Courtesy of Kraft Foods Food & Family Magazine:





Ingredients:


1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened

1/2 cup plus 1 Tbsp. creamy peanut butter, divided

1 cup cold milk

1 pkg. (3.4 oz.) JELL-O Vanilla Flavor Instant Pudding

2-1/2 cups thawed COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, divided

1 OREO Pie Crust (6 oz.)

3 squares BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate


Directions:

BEAT cream cheese and 1/2 cup peanut butter in medium bowl until well blended. Add milk and dry pudding mix; beat 2 min. Whisk in 1 cup COOL WHIP; spoon into crust. Refrigerate until ready to use.

MEANWHILE, microwave remaining COOL WHIP and chocolate in microwaveable bowl on HIGH 1-1/2 to 2 min. or until chocolate is completely melted and mixture is well blended, stirring after each minute. Cool completely.

SPREAD chocolate mixture over pudding layer in crust. Microwave remaining peanut butter in small microwaveable bowl 30 sec.; stir. Drizzle over pie. Refrigerate 4 hours or until firm.

This one is amazing. Just enough peanut butter. It sort of reminded me of the Peanut Butter Fudge Shake you can get at Sonic : )

Hope these are enticing to you as they were for me, I enjoyed making them and hope that some of you will as well.

Trick Or Treat

Just a few quick pictures from Trick Or Treating...

Husband - Lacey and Sara my step daughters and in front-- Whitney and Dylan.



Dr. Whitney...



Bumblebee from Transformers.... : )



They had a great time!!