What I Have Been Doing For The Past Month

Details and recipes to come.....after I take a nap.

My Contributions

Another successful Thanksgiving dinner at my parent's. This year I was in charge of the sweet potatoes and a dessert. Of course I brought two desserts. In my defense the first was more of a salad than a dessert (but it did have candy bar pieces in it.) I found the super easy apple salad recipe here.


I don't think this one needs much explaining. Apples=good, candy bars=good, pudding=good, and whipped topping=gooooood. So put all together and called a salad - I say good.
I also decided to go with something a little less traditional since I knew there would be a pumpkin and a pecan pie on the menu. I chose to make these oatmeal-cranberry-sour cream bars.

The only thing difficult about the bars was remembering the name when everyone asked me what they were called and if they could have the recipe. The sweet tanginess of the filling made them different than most others I have made. I will definitely be making these again.

I used the recipe photos from Taste of Home and Betty Crocker, respectively, because they both turned out exactly like the recipe photos. That's a first!

Happy Thanksgiving

Flowers or a Card?

When you cannot choose between flowers or a card here is an option.

An Apple A Day....or two or three or four

My husband's favorite fruit (and possibly food) is an apple. And when I was in a baking mood I searched for an apple recipe and I found this apple bread. I did not use the topping ingredients listed, but instead used a little brown sugar, flour and apple slices. I ended up baking the bread for 55 minutes. The smell of this bread baking took away my apprehension of trying a new recipe and there was no apprehension necessary. My husband devoured this bread. It was dense and hardy yet moist. We enjoyed it for breakfast with warm maple syrup.

Another Chocolate Covered Birthday

My dad is not a huge cake lover so I was hesitant to make a typical birthday cake for his big day. After a huge birthday meal I decided a light snack was all we would need. I remembered my husband's birthday and came up with the idea of inserting candles into marshmallows and covering them in chocolate. He got his candles and blew them out too.

Happy Halloween!

From All Things Domestic

Headed to the Coast

My mother-in-law requested lemon cake balls to take with her on her trip to see her sister in Hilton Head, South Carolina. I guess they probably have enough shells out there already but I thought I would add a few more to the population. Click here to find out how to make the sand dollars and shells out of candy clay.

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Get Your Motor Running

Happy Birthday Pam!

I made Apple Streusel Muffins for a co-workers birthday. She loves Harleys so I went with a "chrome" theme. I found the recipe for the muffins here. I decided to omit the walnuts in the streusel topping because you never know everyones taste and I didn't want to be "that guy" who's treats go untouched. Not a worry there. I snagged my container when I saw there was only one left. I wanted one for myself.

The muffins were very good. Very moist and tender just as described in the recipe. To go along with the muffins I made cinnamon butter by combining a stick of butter, 1/2 cup of powdered sugar and a tablespoon of cinnamon. It was wonderful! People were eating it without the muffin, I also made vanilla cream cheese by combining softened cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla. It was gone before the muffins were. Sorry, didn't measure out this one but it was getting late and all of my measuring utensils were dirty.

Portfolio

Click here to view this photo book larger

S'mores 6 Ways

I guess I should have posted this during the summer when these were actually made, but the need of a warm fire on this cold night prompted me to post it now, so here are some ideas for "fireplace s'mores." At least I have this posted before the first snow.

S'mores Trifle

Chocolate Covered Mini Marshmallows with Graham Cracker Crumbs

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Happy 97th Birthday Grandma

For the past 17 years or so we have been trying to get together to celebrate my grandmother's birthday. Every year it seems to get a little bigger. This year the family took my grandmother to church and after had a light lunch at my parent's home. I was in charge of the dessert buffet. The menu included brownie bites, raspberry cheesecake bites, and my mom's lemon cake bars. Happy 97th Grandma! I better start planning for next year.

Chocolate Covered Cherries

My mother-in-law loves chocolate covered cherries so I have come up with creations inspired by her.

Chocolate covered cherry and double chocolate covered cherry cake pops

-cherry chip cake, cherry frosting, chocolate coating

and chocolate cake, cherry frosting, chocolate coating

Chocolate covered cherry cupcakes-cherry chip with cherry and chocolate frosting and chocolate with chocolate covered cherry middle

Chocolate covered cherry trifle

-chocolate cake, chocolate pudding, cherry pie filling, whipped topping and chocolate curls

Thank You for the Peppers

We received a nice surprise over the weekend - fresh jalapenos from my aunt and uncle's garden. They have tasted my cranberry salsa (recipe to come)and know that it contains jalapeno peppers (hint maybe?) I made them this thank you note in appreciation.

Where are you Summer?

It has been so unseasonably cool here that when a co-worker asked me to come up with something for her to take to a bbq I thought it needed to be something that tasted like summer since it didn't feel like summer. Her only request was she wanted them to be hand held and she wanted to use umbrellas. One trip to a supercenter and I was set

Summer Desserts-lemon cake pops-coconut cream mini desserts-pineapple jello shots

Lemon cake pops

lemon cake, cream cheese frosting, vanilla candy coating, crushed vanilla cookie crumbs

Coconut cream mini desserts

vanilla cookie crumb and vanilla candy coating crust, coconut cream pudding, whipped topping, toasted coconut

Pineapple Jell-O Shots

pineapple gelatin with whipped topping

Rise and Shine

People in our office are always trying to find a reason to bring food. I don't even know what was the occasion for our last "treat day" but we were supposed to bring in a breakfast item. Of course I could not follow the rules exactly. I decided to bring mocha cake pops.

Coffee = breakfast =done deal.

Mocha Cake Pops

devils food cake

chocolate frosting

instant coffee granules

chocolate coating

coffee flavored chocolate curls

coffee stirrers

Blow out your Bananas

My husband and I celebrated his birthday in a rather unusual way - with chocolate covered bananas. Easter was two days after his birthday and I was going to make a carrot cake and his parents were coming the following weekend and I was making his requested strawberry cake so I knew we would be caked out. Daniel loves chocolate covered bananas and the added crushed Butterfinger didn't hurt either.

Before and After

Working for a wholesale grocer, I bring home many sales samples to try, some good, some not so good. This being the latter. The plain white box was labeled Tamale and Enchilada so I wasn't expecting much but I think what I found was worse than I imagined. Not being one to waste food, I set out to salvage this frozen meal and with a little help from some frozen vegetables and fresh cilantro, dinner turned out to look pretty good.

First Post

Okay, I have no idea what I am doing but that is sort of how I do things. I start something and figure it out as I go and it usually ends up as something else entirely. I guess that is why I make so many trifles. Cases in point. (I promise to add the recipes to these in future posts) Most of these trifles started as a cake or bread recipe but somewhere along the way went horribly wrong and needed crumbling, pudding, whipped cream, etc. So this blog may not be a trifle, but in the end who knows what it will become.