and then there were four…

As I was perusing the interwebs, I saw an article about how to make your own twix bar. I was intrigued, and bookmarked it for future reference (since, I don’t have the ingredients to make them currently). However, it made me crave a twix bar. (Hello PMS!)

I looked over at Bill and said “Don’t you want to go to 7-11 and pick me up a Twix and a slurpee?” He looked at me and said “You’ve got two legs and car keys…if you want it, go get it!”

I gave him my poor, pitiful face and said “I’m your WIFE! The MOTHER of your CHILDREN!” (with my most dramatic, over-the-top voice) “Doesn’t that mean ANYTHING?” (Of course, I’m playing it up).

He looked over at me and said “Do you REALLY want to play that card right now? For a Twix and a slurpee?”

He had a point. I decided to forgo the Twix and the slurpee and am going to bed. I’m holding on to the card for just a LITTLE while longer.

So, three weeks ago we had Sophia’s second birthday party and celebrated Yo Gabba Gabba style. She had a blast and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

Here is our Yo Gabba Gabba decorated patio. All of my decorations were printed from my computer, and handmade. Nothing fancy, but helped saved a lot of money. The balloons really helped give it lots of color. I also used all of the Yo Gabba Gabba toys that the girls had for decorations.

I really liked how the birthday banner turned out. Blue construction paper and sticker paper with Yo Gabba Gabba-esque font printed on it. I made the party hats (printed Yo Gabba Gabba printables from Nick Jr. on sticker paper and hats in Yo Gabba Gabba character colors). I printed the Yo Gabba Gabba paper dolls and glued them to ribbon and hung them from the patio roof.

The kiddie table (also decorated with printables from Nick Jr.)

The food table: All Sophia approved. We had Peanut Butter and Jelly Sushi AND for a fun variation, Nutella and Marshmallow Fluff Sushi. I also made chicken and plain cheese quesadillas, Bacon Wrapped Pineapple Bites! and little smokies in a blanket. There were various dips and salsas and Bill’s mom brought a great fruit platter with this delicious cream cheese/marshmallow fluff dip. I also made pink lemonade but re-christened it “Razzle Berry Lemonade” which is what Muno’s mother makes for the gang in the “Family” episode.

Excuse the graininess of this photo, it was taken with my cell phone at 1 in the morning the day of the party as soon as I finished it. But this is the cake I constructed for my baby’s 2nd birthday. I was quite proud of it–it isn’t as fancy as a store-made cake, but it was EXACTLY what Sophia wanted, a green and pink cake. The inside was pink with chocolate chips. It was a Apple-Chip recipe my friend gave me. It was pretty tasty. Between each layer was a chocolate ganache I made from scratch. I iced it with homemade buttercream (any generic recipe will do). I forgot to take a solo picture of the inside of the cake, but it looked like a watermelon. I also made her the Ben & Jerry’s French Vanilla ice cream that I made for Olivia’s birthday, and like her sister, she wanted it BRIGHT yellow.

My icing skills need a little work, but I’m still quite proud. (Toodee fell off somewhere between the kitchen and the table).

Our Muno Pinata that was bigger than the kids! And yes…there was beer at a 2 year old’s party. But I didn’t provide it (if that makes it ANY better–apparently on really hot days, beer is a necessity for some folk).

Yummy candy.

The ring pops were a hit.

All-in-all we had an amazing day!

My newest quest is to eschew all store-bought breakfast items (just things like toaster pastries, cereal bars and granola bars–I still love a bowl of cereal!) and make my own. My reasons for this are that the girls LOVE that kind of stuff, but, because of my desire to give them healthy alternatives it can be a bit pricey to buy the organic, natural kind and I love to save money. Plus, even though what we buy is natural and healthy, nothing beats homemade!

I’ve started small, with muffins, and then realized that the girls really enjoyed a good mini muffin, so I just started converting all of my recipes into mini-muffin form. I’ve done this with my Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins, as well as many of the recipes in the Deceptively Delicious cookbook my mom gave me for Christmas (Believe it or not, there are some AWESOME recipes in that book–the girls loved the PB & Banana muffins).

Although we love sweet potatoes, especially my famous Sweet Potato & Apple crockpot recipe, sometimes we need help with the leftovers (because, how many nights in a week can you eat them?) so I started hunting for a mini muffin recipe that would allow me to use my leftovers. I found this one but didn’t want to use walnuts or raisins so I ultimately bastardized it and made it my own.

The final verdict is out, as my taste testers will be trying them tomorrow morning, but I found them tasty. Not quite as good as my blueberry ones, but still pretty darn good.

So, here is my version:

Sweet Potato & Apple Mini Muffins

2 cups of whole-wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (plus more for the topping)
3 tablespoons of applesauce (or if you don’t want to be uber-healthy, you can use the canola oil)
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar (I used dark because that’s what I had)
1 large egg
1 large egg white
1 1/2 cups mashed sweet potatoes
1/2 cup milk (I used 2%)
1 3/4 cups chopped, peeled baking apples (I used Fuji apples)
1/4 cup of wheat germ (can be omitted, I just wanted to try it out–couldn’t taste it!)

Your cast of characters:

1.) Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

2.)Mix the flour, baking powder and cinnamon in a bowl; set aside

3.) In another bowl, mix together applesauce (or oil), brown sugar, egg, egg white, mashed sweet potatoes and milk.

4.) Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add sweet potato mixture, stirring until moistened.

Do not over-mix!

5.) Peel, Core & Chop your applesNext time I will be mincing my apples since I made these mini muffins, the apple chunks turned out a bit big for my liking.

6.) Fold in the apples

7.) Spoon batter into greased (mini) muffin tins. Fill them pretty full. My first batch were a bit puny because
I only filled half-way.

8.) Mix a little cinnamon and sugar together and sprinkle on top of the mini muffins for a little extra crunch.

9.) Bake at 400 degrees F for roughly 10-12 minutes for mini muffins, or about 20-25 minutes for regular-sized muffins.

10.) EAT!

Super yummy!

Enjoy!

I became obsessed with Starbucks’ Chocolate Chip Banana Bread.

Obsessed.

So, in order to avoid going into massive debt, I researched and found a recipe.

Of course, as I do with every recipe, I changed some stuff around. Instead of a cup of white sugar, I used 3/4 a cup of brown sugar, and 1/2 a cup of white sugar (I know, it equals more sugar than called for, but trust me). I also used five small bananas instead of three (and mine were VERY ripe) and I added a tablespoon of vanilla extract. Also, I used mini chocolate chips.

So, with that out of the way, on to the pictures:

The cast of characters (that gross looking stuff in the ziploc bag are frozen bananas)

Well hello there, sexy.

What it will look like when you are done Mixa-Mixa-Mixa-ing.

After you’ve finished baka-baka-baking in the oven. It says to bake for an hour. I can say that if you use a bundt pan, you should only bake for 45 minutes. However, just finished baking another loaf in a bread pan…and you’re going to need the whole hour.

And now try not to eat the whole pan.

Seriously. Yum.

One of my favorite things to do with Olivia and Sophia is to bake cookies. It is probably the messiest project we take on (aside from finger painting), but they get such a kick out of being able to eat their creations, that I can’t refuse a request to bake.

Every time Olivia finds out our afternoon activity is baking, she runs to her room and proclaims: “I need my chef’s hat and my apron, so I can be a chef!” Both girls have hats and aprons, and they wear them every time–it’s adorable.

This time, I decided to try my hand at Snickerdoodles. I’ve never made them before. Since I had no chocolate chips in the house, and we had JUST made sugar cookies with royal icing, I thought this would be an easy cookie to make.

Plus it would be an awesome way to break in my new beautiful early Christmas present from my Mother-in-Law:

Isn't it BEEEUUUTEEEFUL?

I searched for a good recipe, and came across the Perfect Snickerdoodles recipe. It had good reviews, so I decided to give it a try. Of course, I changed it up (that’s just what I do, okay?) and did half butter/half shortening and used baking powder instead of the cream of tartar and baking soda (thank you Alton Brown!) because I didn’t have any cream of tartar.

I allowed it to sit in the fridge for a few days because…well, because I was lazy (and no, I didn’t promise the girls we were making the cookies that day–I try to always follow through on promises of cookie baking). But when we finally got around to making the cookies, the dough looked like this:

MMM...cookie dough.

So I started rolling the dough into balls. No exact measurement, just good sized balls of dough.

Balls of dough. Nothing exciting.

At this point I had been handing some of the balls to the girls and they were rolling (or, in Sophia’s case, destroying) them into a tiny bowl of cinnamon sugar. This is why some of the dough balls look like they have cinnamon sugar on them–Olivia got handsy with the dough balls.

After lots of rolling in a cinnamon sugar mixture, I put them on a baking sheet and did something I won’t do again.

I squashed the balls.

DON'T try this at home.

The recipe doesn’t tell you to smoosh them down, but in my infinite wisdom, I assumed that you would need to. Olivia kept asking me “Why are you pushing them down, mama? Why do they need to be smooshed?” And I kept saying “Well, I want them to cook all the way through, sweetie.”

I should have listened to Olivia.

Yours should look like the last one...not all the other ones.

I regret that I did not take photos of the finished product. They were delicious. Had I not smooshed them down, they would have probably been much softer, but even as crispy cookies, they were yummy. A lot like a cookie version of a churro.

Mmmm churros.

A huge mess was made, but it was totally worth it to hear Olivia call them “SNEAKERDOODLES” and then have Sophia call them “snick dooles” (and later “snick-er…..doodle”).

At parties past, Bill and I have done burgers and hot dogs on the grill or deli platters along with an assortment of dips, chips, veggies and the like. We always have our parties in the afternoons: After lunch, and before dinner. So, people aren’t usually hungry for a meal. Which means we have a TON of leftover food.

However, I am of the school that when you have a party, no matter how small, you provide refreshments for your guests. I’m a very good Southern girl.

After brainstorming ideas, I decided that hors d’oeuvres were the way to go. So, I started researching ideas and I found two that I had never tried before, and settled on a family favorite for the third. I also decided on making both a hot and a cold dip, along with a veggie platter and assortment of chips.

Yes. I overdid it, and we did have leftovers, but I still like the idea, and will just choose fewer recipes for Sophia’s party next July.

I made our family favorite, Lil’ Smokies in a Blanket. Yes, they are similar to “pigs in a blanket” but we use Beef  Lil’ Smokies, so it feels wrong to call them “pigs” in a blanket, but “cows in a blanket” doesn’t sound as cute. We usually just call them “Lil’ Smokies” and everyone knows that they will be wrapped in crescent rolls. However, I do NOT use Parmesan cheese or garlic salt. I’m not saying it wouldn’t taste right, I’ve just never used it before. We usually serve with BBQ sauce for dipping, but ketchup and mustard would be tasty also. So simple, and very kid friendly.

The hot dip is one a roommate introduced me to in college. We would make this and eat it for dinner. It was simply called “The Dip”, but after research, I have found it is also called Chili Cheese Dip. (Thank you, Captain Obvious) You can make this in the slow cooker so your oven is free for other things. It is REALLY good with Fritos (which is how we ate it in college) but I have found it is yummy with regular corn tortilla chips also. Admittedly, the ingredient list may sound unappetizing, but it is SO yummy.

I also made our favorite sour cream dip using Laura Scudder’s Green Onion dip mix.

After I had those familiar recipes down, I settled on TWO new ones:

Stuffed Mushrooms, Baby!

&

Bacon Wrapped Pineapple Bites!

It was only after I typed them out that I realized they are both very excited recipes.

I swear to all that is good in this world, both of them are delicious and I will definitely be making them again. I didn’t have white wine for the mushrooms, so we used sake. With the other recipe, I used fresh pineapple and center cut bacon. Word to the wise: use a deep pan or a roasting pan with room for drippings with the bacon wrapped pineapple. My bacon dripped off of my cookie sheet and caused the smoke detector to go off. Luckily I was working on these right before the party, and not the night before like some of the other stuff.

Stuffed mushrooms, on the move.

Remember me? mmm...I am cake. And I am delicious.

For the delicious cake, I used Pioneer Woman’s The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever

I doubled the recipe and did not making the frosting she makes for this cake. I did a basic buttercream frosting (times two). However, I like my buttercream more buttery, so I use a bit of butter extract (in addition to the vanilla) to help the flavor (since I like the consistency of it with the shortening). Olivia requested a “blue cake” so I emptied an entire bottle of blue food coloring into a third of the icing. I mixed a third of the icing with a jar of hazelnut spread for the cake’s filling and the other third I mixed with yellow food coloring for an accent color.

I forgot to buy a tube to stabilize the cake, so I used a slurpee straw. I still can't remember if we washed it first. Oh well.

I also made homemade ice cream to go along with the cake using a recipe from the Ben & Jerry’s cookbook Bill got me for Christmas last year. Someone was kind enough to repost it here. The recipe book is fantastic, if you have an ice cream maker, you MUST invest in this book.

Olivia also requested the ice cream to be yellow.

Looks weird, tastes gooooood

And no, the lopsidedness of the cake was not planned. I was using this cake leveler. Being that it is from Ikea and the whole little “decorating kit” cost me only $5, I can’t complain, but it was user error, not utensil malfunction. The leveler is a piece of thick wire (think piano wire or guitar string) strung across the bottom of the tool. You can move the wire up and down each side of the tool to get the desired size. Unfortunately I forgot to hook one side of the wire to the correct peg, so I ended up with a lopsided shave on the bottom layers. My mom (bless her) pointed it out to me so I was able to get (relatively) even layers for the other two tiers.

It still looked cute for a novice–but more importantly, it was SCRUMPTIOUS (Olivia’s new favorite word, thank you Jessica Alba!)

It’s been 2 weeks since I posted.

And I was doing so well, too! In my defense, we had house guests, everyone got sick, and now we are recouping. I have lots in store…I am determined to try and post at least 5 times a week. Maybe I’ve said that before. But this time, I mean it, dammit!

Things to look forward to:

• Probably some lamenting on how my baby is now 3.
• The ginormous Elmo pinata that Olivia had at her third birthday party.
• Our trip to Disneyland.
• A story about Disneyland with puke (don’t worry, I’ll forewarn you so you can skip it if you want)
• Funny site links (something I’ve been doing on facebook and now my good friend John suggested a feature on my site)
• Recipes for the party food (stuffed mushrooms at a 3 year old’s party? CHECK)

To hold you over, here is a photo of my first ever “fancy” cake. I’ve made plenty of cakes, but never one that involved using different sized baking pans. It was also completely homemade. I’m extremely proud, even if it should be on Cake Wrecks. Okay, so it would only be on Cake Wrecks if I charged for it, but…I know it’s a semi-hot mess. I’ll post the recipe soon!

Be kind...it was my first time. And NO it's not crooked, it's WHIMSICAL.

For now, I’m going with Me Likey for the “feature” name. It’s less crass, obvious enough without being bland, and goofy. Like me.

So, for today’s Me Likey, I give you a variation of this recipe because when do I not change stuff around?

Here’s what I did:

• 3 cups penne pasta
• 1/4 cup butter
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 cups milk
• 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
• 1 cup cream cheese
• 1/4 cup chicken broth
• 3 tablespoons spicy brown mustard
• 3 pinches ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups chopped cooked chicken
• 1/2 cup Italian Breadcrumbs
• 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 teaspoons butter, melted

Follow the same instructions. Originally I had used Panko breadcrumbs, but I am going to try it with Italian when I make it again. I also am going to add some garlic and maybe some onion powder, because it needed an extra oomph and we think that might do it. You could also play around with what type of cheese you used, though I would probably stay away from your more bitter cheeses, and keep it in the same general arena as cheddar, but it is basically a macaroni and cheese with chicken. It’s freaking good. Olivia ate it and she normally dislikes pasta (we’re still not sure why).

I am also going to tell you about Old Navy’s big baby & toddler sale going on right now (in store only, I think). Ya’ll know how thrifty I am, so you know this has to be good if I am buying stuff brand new. Almost all of their baby stuff (anything under 2T I think), is $5. I got Sophia this sundress and a cute little gingham summer top for $5 each. She didn’t need much else, since I have all of Olivia’s hand-me-downs and other stuff I found on consignment/thrift, but if you are having a baby or know someone who is having one, this is a terrific deal. Olivia chose three different summer dresses (she got the that last one in different shades of blue–which is apparently sold out online) for $10 apiece. I justified spending that much on summer dresses because Sophia will hopefully also be able to wear them one day. I promise, Old Navy isn’t paying me to tell you this–it was just a pretty good deal. Some of their quality has gone down, but for kids clothes, you can’t beat those sale prices.

As a quick aside: I went to the GAP outlet this weekend and found a cute little striped shirt for Sophia marked down from close to $20 to $9. I scoff at that price: I bought the same damn shirt in January from the thrift store—for $1, and you couldn’t tell it had been worn ( it couldn’t have been very old–it’s still in the outlet).

So yeah. Me likey.

According to WordPress, I have 199 posts. Which means THIS post is the 200th. Pretty nifty. Only took me 3 years and one month.

Maybe the next 100 won’t take as long.

I’ve been thinking about having a “feature” (if you will) where I post something I like once a week. Be it a recipe, website, blog, whatever. I wanted to call it something, and I’ve been brainstorming what would be an appropriate, amusing name. So far, I’ve come up with the obvious, “Shit I Like”, which is a little more crass and less witty than I imagined. I’ll keep thinking.

So in honor of my 200th post, my new “feature” idea and the fact that I had a three-hour nap today while Bill took care of the girls and am now well-rested, I give you the best recipe I’ve ever tried for homemade brownies. It’s also the only recipe I’ve ever tried, but it is pretty amazing.

Here it is: Brooke’s Best Bombshell Brownies

I don’t know who Brooke is, but these brownies are awesome.

If you have any ideas that sound better than “Shit I like” let me know. I’m working on it.

Catch up with Part One in case you missed it.

When Sophia was born, the first thing I said was “She looks like my grandma”.

I couldn’t put my finger on it, but, something about her was eerily similar to my grandma.

It took a few photos, but finally my mom saw what I was seeing.

I sent out birth announcements and my grandma’s sister (who is ten years older) told my mom and grandma that Sophia looked almost exactly like grandma did as a baby. Since my grandma has no baby pictures, she took her sister’s word for it. She did see the resemblance, she giggled in her cute grandma way and said “Oh my word, she has my tiny upper lip and that little crease under her nose like I do.”

I couldn’t wait for the two to meet.

My mom had been waiting for months for my grandma to meet her mini-me. She couldn’t wait to see my grandma’s face when she saw her in person, because apparently (according to my mom) the pictures do it no justice.

It was hilarious. They were both checking each other out quite intently, and I was trying to get Olivia dressed and ready, so I asked Grandma if she would hold Sophia.  She was all too happy to do so.

I expected Sophia to start screaming as soon as I was out of her sight, because that is how she has been behaving as of late.

I heard not one peep out of Sophia while I was getting Olivia and myself ready. She happily sat with her GGma and cooed, played and just stared at her. It was very sweet. I took a bunch of photos of the two together, and was surprised to see that they even gave me similar looks. THAT was weird.

I went to visit my father’s family a few days later. It was a bit surreal, knowing he wouldn’t be there. I still don’t think I’ve properly processed the whole idea of him being dead. But that’s a different post for a different day.

The one thing my sister and I remember from our childhood holidays spent with my paternal family were these tiny little lemon cupcakes my grandma made. They were mini-muffin size, just a bite of lemony deliciousness. My sister would always tell grandma “I want you to make these for my wedding, grandma.” Grandma would laugh and tell her she would.

Grandma didn’t disappoint! There they were in all their lemony glory. Oh they were so yummy, so I decided I would ask my grandma if I could have the recipe. I’m family, right?

So I asked her and she started laughing. LAUGHING! I thought “well, maybe she’s going to tell me they are drafted into her will” But no, she looks at me, places her hand on mine and says, “well, I tell you, you need to get a lemon cake mix and just follow the directions, but make sure you have those tiny little muffin pans.” She then proceeded to explain the mix of orange juice, lemon juice and confectioner’s sugar that you pour on them after they have baked–the extra special kick that makes them much more than “lemon cupcakes”. I was floored.

CAKE MIX? All my childhood memories of these things being some special secret family recipe that I would one day be able to recreate in my own kitchen is from a CAKE MIX?

Oh Grandma.

I’m secretly hoping the cake mix is only a recent development. She got too busy with life to make them from scratch, how her mother did it, her mother’s mother…you get the idea. I don’t know if they go that far back, but I would like to believe that they do.

I still think I’m going to try and make them from scratch. Just have to go out and buy those tiny little muffin pans.