Alcohol Flavored Cupcakes

Did you know if you substitue the water in a white cake recipe with alochol mix, it makes an alcohol flavored cupcake? You know, like margarita, cosmo, lemontini. The possibilities are endless with this and they come out tasting great. They're perfect for that girl's night out or bachelorette party, paired with the actual alcohol itself, of course.

Margarita Cupcakes

Originally posted on June 7, 2010

Welcome back to Cupcake Monday! These margarita cupcakes are phenomenal and super easy.

• Make the white cake mix per the instructions on the box


• Substitute the margarita mix for the water! The next thing you know, you’ve got these

I made a white butter cream frosting which paired well with the lime cupcake flavor from the margarita mix. Next time I think I might try out some lime frosting. The fruit slices are gummy candies and the straws are cut up normal straws.

Imagine the possibilities with these! Just substitute the margarita mix with any drink mix, mojito, cosmo, daquri…….you get the idea.

I’m linking up to all those awesome linky parties that can be found on my side bar. Be sure to check ‘em out.

Homemade Pickle Recipe

Good news everyone! Making your own pickles is really easy and really cheap. As in take some ingredients, toss them in a jar with cucumbers and wait a few days. That easy.

How crazy is that?

 

[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:6]

[Recipe adapted from A Way to Garden.com]

 

Hello, Our Favorite Recipes

This long weekend we cooked and ate like kings. I had no idea we were eating so bare bones until we had the time and money to make a real menu that consisted of our classic favorites peppered with a few new ones.

Allow me to paint you a picture. Saturday night, an evening of shredded buffalo chicken sandwiches complete with bleu cheese for dipping. Sunday, a new pasta dish with blanched spinach and canellini beans. And finally, on Monday night the husband took the time to make his best dish, chicken marsala.

Where we really like to go all out, when we have the time, is at breakfast. We have our two favorites that take entirely too long to cook and leave our kitchen in shambles. But god, is it worth it. Crepes on Sunday morning, Belgian waffles on Tuesday. All smothered in whipped cream that’s been fluffed courtesy of the Kitchen Aid.

As we sat at our dining room table, eating chicken marsala leftovers with a spinach strawberry salad for lunch (see? I told you we lived it up), I couldn’t help but wonder what in the hell have we been doing?

Week by week we dread Thursday as we develop a menu filled with cheap, quick meals. Bean burritos, spaghetti and grilled cheese are frequent guests. With a hurried time crunch and a lack of funds, it’s no wonder we’ve been avoiding the lackadaisical meals we have planned. Our menu has been adapted to just plain suck since I’ve been back to work.

So, thank you 4-day-long Labor Day weekend, for renewing our sense of food. Because if we couldn’t get away to the lake, eating ourselves silly on gourmet food made by ourselves is a pretty good replacement.

Here are a few of our favorite recipes:

• Emeril's Chicken Marsala - super crazy amount of time and effort but sooo worth it in the end. Best served with mashed potatoes.


• Emeril's Belgian Waffles - the best recipe we've found yet. Again quite a bit of effort, but blows bisquick out of the water.


• Crepes - Family Recipe. Jam is my favorite topping. Jake's is strawberries with whipped cream.


• Better Homes and Garden's Whipped Cream - be sure to heed the advice of chilling your bowl.


• Garlicky Pasta with Swiss Chard and Beans - a newbie that was quick and tasty. We approved and look forward to trying it again.

Microwaving An Egg Makes Great Healthy Home McMuffin

Alright folks, did you have any idea that you could microwave an egg in a coffee cup and have a perfect little scrambled egg omelet thingy in one minute? Well hold on to your hats, because you can and once you try this out you'll be making yourself bomb diggity homemade/healthier egg mcmuffins every single day. I kid you not.

[caption id="attachment_5339" align="aligncenter" width="800" caption="Image via Hello From the Nato's"][/caption]

Now, once I discovered this I discovered the simplicity that is an egg sandwich. Here's what you do:

Cook your egg in a coffee cup in the microwave (weird, right?)

Toast 2 pieces of toast & butter them

Put a slice of cheese, a couple slices of sandwich meat and your little egg pouf in between those two slices and protect the dickens out of it from your toddler who apparently has developed a taste for the thing. Or just be a good parent and share. Your call.

PS - pack a tortilla, cheese and salsa and have a breakfast burrito too!

[ one minute egg magic-ness  via From the Nato's]

Healthy & Quick Grilled Vegetable Burrito Recipe

As we adjust to our new work routine we've been trying out a few different dinner options. One week we made all the dinner's on Sunday and vacuum sealed them for the week. One of the meals we made were grilled vegetable burritos. And what would you know? The grilled vegetables were just as good reheated the next day or two.

To make your own grilled vegetable burritos I recommend:

zuchhini - get crazy with this. Get the yellow squash or the crazy squashes you'd never try usually.

bell pepper - anaheim peppers are also a tasty addition to the bell peppers.

onion

Slice vegetables and lightly coat in olive oil.

SMOTHER vegetables in taco seasoning.

Put on foil and grill.

The vegetables are better when slightly burned, so just set it and forget it (remember that commercial? My girlfriend actually owns one of those Ronko ovens and made me some pretty delicious meat in it one time.)

Toss the veggies around to evenly cook on the grill and bring 'em inside for delicious eating.

Serve with refried beans and tortillas (we love ours warmed over the stovetop flame) and voila! You've got yourself a healthy, filling and tasty dinner.

 

Starbucks Iced Cofee Copycat Recipe

After spending wasting another $3 on an iced coffee at Starbucks that tasted like complete crap, I got brave enough to try to make it at home again. You see, I've been trying to recreate this magical beverage at home for about a year now. I've tried Pioneer Woman's Perfect Iced Coffee recipe, which I was not a fan of (the mess, the time  were all a pain in the ass). I also tried leaving it in a french press overnight for easier cleanup and it still tasted like crap.

I figured if I could maybe get the sweetener down it could mask the grossness of the crappily brewed coffee itself. So I boiled sugar and water. This did not work either.

My husband came home with Starbucks' Indivisible Blend courtesy of a neighbor and low and behold, right on the side of the packaging was instructions on how to brew your iced coffee.

It should be stated here, that I did work at Starbucks for 3 years and made iced coffee daily. DAILY.  I'm sure you're wondering how I don't know how to make it. Well, everything is pre-measured for you, so you dump a bag of pre-measured coffee into an urn that has your liquid pre-determined. There aren't any measurements, which is where I was going wrong.

So, I'm here to tell you it's all about the measurements.

You need to brew a double batch of coffee, which is:

4 tbsp coffee grounds per 6 oz. water

Brew it in your coffee machine. No cheese cloth, no mess, no fuss, no 8 freaking hour wait.

After it brews, pour it over ice then throw it in the fridge.

And bam, you've got yourself iced coffee.

You might need to add more ice once the ice melts, but don't worry it's super strength, so it's good for it to be watered down from the ice.

Now, as for the simple syrup or "classic" as the hipsters of Starbucks would say, it's sugar water. I went wrong before by not adding nearly enough sugar, until I came across this post where they say to use the ration 1:2.

1 being the water, 2 being the sugar.

So, you boil 1 cup water then add 2 cups sugar  to it and stir/cook until dissolved. Bing bang boom.

Add as much or as little as you'd like to your delicious coffee beverage and top off with half and half (or whole milk if you share that with your toddler like we do).

And that, my friends is how you recreate yourself a $3 drink for free, within the comfort of your own home without the gamble of  those darn hipster Starbucks employees not making it to par.

Linking up this little diddy to these linky parties to hopefully inspire more people to break free from the bonds of Starbucks.

4th of July Cheese Flag Dip

This photo is taken from a post from 3 years ago so the photo quality isn't all that great. I do, however continue to make this dip yearly and thought it deserved to be shared, regardless should share it.

Oh, and I can always borrow the professional photograph from where I orignially got the idea years ago via Kraft Foods.



It contains:

cream cheese spread into a square

salsa poured onto cream cheese square in stripes

olives poured in the corner as the stars

and cheese to decorate the outside

Serve with wheat thins or ritz crackers.

Also, the best way to flatten your cream cheese into a square dip shape is between two sheets of wax paper.

Yum!

I'm participating in these linky parties.

 

The Pioneer Woman's Apple Dumplings

Over the weekend my mom came to visit. She recently bought herself Pioneer Woman's latest cookbook so naturally we planned our entire weekend's menu out of the book. Have you heard of her? If not, I strongly recommend becoming familiar with her stuff as it is all the rage these days. That and she's hilarious.

When my mom sent me her selections for the weekend complete with a shopping list, I noticed Mt. Dew on the list. I didn't see where that fit in to blueberry lemon pancakes, chicken parmesan and apple dumplings. Oddly enough, it was for the apple dumplings.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Image via Pioneer Woman Cooks"][/caption]



They were delicious. So much so that when I saw an empty casserole dish in the sink I immediately freaked out about where the leftover dumplings went. And so good that I went to a girlfriend's house for dinner and refused to bring the last two dumplings because I didn't want to share.

Click on the link below and the recipe is right on the interweb. Most of her recipes are, you don't even need the cookbook, even though the pictured instructions are awesome. Lemme know what you think!

Apple Dumplings | The Pioneer Woman Cooks | Ree Drummond.

Crepes Make a Grand Breakfast {Recipe & Detailed Instructions}

Our trip to Tahoe was, in theory, a celebration for Mother's Day. The husband and his Dad had been working hard on making sure the moms didn't have to do anything, which meant cooking and preparing for the trip. They collaborated on a menu, got the groceries bought and planned for a weekend of indulgent deliciousness which included a crepe breakfast.

Incase you can't tell, I've recently become a huge fan of crepes. We tried Julia Child's awhile back, only to discover they tasted like rum. So I got my mom's friend's recipe I had heard everyone raving about for years. Let me just tell you, once you make these you too will become a fan of crepes. The recipe is after the jump so click through to see how easy it is to make your own delicious crepe breakfast.

Orange Strawnana Smoothie Recipe

We are huge fans of smoothies in our house ever since we discovered how cheap oranges are. When you buy a huge box of them from Costco you have to be sure to use them up or else they'll go bad. After discovering an awesome orange juice recipe for our Vita Mix blender we took it up a notch and now make smoothies on a daily basis. Here's our favorite recipe.

Orange Strawnana Smoothie Recipe

2 oranges

3/4 cup frozen strawberries

1 bannana

whatever else you have in your fruit basket. I like to add a kiwi sometimes since they're so cheap and add some nutrition.

Blend and enjoy.

The World's Most Delicious Chocolate Cake Recipe

I forgot to share with you the chocolate cake I made when we had guests over for dinner the week before Easter, so here it is. It was my favorite chocolate cake recipe, which I normally make into cupcakes. Sometimes cake is better than cupcakes and a dinner soiree is just that time.

While browsing the Easter aisle I couldn't believe how cheap chocolate bunnies were and thought it'd make such a great decoration. While cute, it was a bit puny in the midst of a giant chocolate cake and could've used some more buddies, but for $1 he did the trick.

My favorite chocolate cake in all the world is the recipe off the back of the Hershey's cocoa powder, believe it or not. You think boxed cake mix is ok, until you discover a great recipe. It ruins boxed cake mix for you, fair warning.

Also, since the baby is drinking whole milk I used that instead of our usual 1%. Let me just say it took the cake up a few notches. I didn't realize it needed to be taken up anywhere but now that we've gone whole we'll never go back.

[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:4]

Enjoy!

Vintage Recipe Cards | Love vs. Design

So I share recipes all the time and they're typically via the internet. When someone sends me one I print it out, fold it into fours and put it in my cluttered, unorganized recipe box. How cute would it be if you shared your recipe with a cute recipe card like this? As if they weren't just plain cute, you can fill them out with Adobe Acrobat, so you can just copy and paste your recipe right in there before printing.

Vintage Recipe Cards.

Relief Society Potato Recipe

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Image via CookingLight.com"][/caption]

In the good ol’ days, growing up in Las Vegas, my family would visit model homes as a past time. Sometimes the builders would give out things for touring the homes, like oh, I don’t know, a honey-baked ham.

We got together with our family friends who were with us when we all received those glorious hams and were lucky enough to be introduced to Relief Society Potatoes. Creamy, cheesy, Relief Society Potatoes. From that day forward if ham was ever served in our home, Relief Society Potatoes were always served with it.

So in honor of all the ham that is going to be eaten this Easter weekend, I present to you the recipe for Relief Society Potatoes. I realize these are nothing new and also more commonly known as funeral potatoes. Maybe you’ve heard of them, maybe you haven’t. Regardless they are delicious and deserve to be shared.

[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:3]

 

Gwyneth and the Cookie

Over the weekend I got made a double batch of the world's best chocolate chip cookie. One for immediate consumption and the other for future enjoyment.

Gwyneth approves of this decision as she too has fallen victim to the passion that comes with these cookies.







It should be noted she would have eaten the whole thing if I let her. This is after she refused to eat her delicious lunch five minutes prior. Just saying.

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

The other week we had guests over for dinner and I wanted  a dessert that would not only be delicious but something we would enjoy as leftovers. Jake is constantly begging for chocolate chip cookies so I resigned to the usual Nestle Tollhouse recipe. I've never liked this recipe but am always at a loss for a different one. Needless to say they were a huge disappointment, flat and crumbly, a resemblance of toffee more than cookies.  I've tried adding extra baking soda before but that just made them airy. Long story short I'm fed up with Nestle Tollhouse's chocolate chip recipe and decided to find a new one.

I happened to come across Tidy Mom's blog post about the New York Times chocolate chip cookie recipe which she boasted to be "The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie." I bookmarked it as a good resource for my future cookie endeavors.

When my cookie loving Father-in-Law was coming over to babysit I knew it was time to try out this claim of "the best chocolate chip cookie." Let me just say, hot damn, these things are PHENOMENAL.

I followed the directions to the T. Don't be scared of the fancy "cake" and "bread" flour. Cake flour is available in the flour section of any store. It comes in a box as opposed to the normal bags. Bread flour can be found in the flour aisle as well. My pastry expert resource, Rachel Black, tells me to be sure and get the Gold Medal "Better for Bread" flour, that has yellow on the bag.

  I weighed them into the perfect "golf ball" size, which makes for a large cookie. I found a note on the recipe from My Baking Addiction's blog that says, "for regular sized cookies, use a heaping tablespoon and bake for approximately 12 minutes." So if a smaller cookie floats your boat, don't fear.

Everyone agrees, these are the best freaking chocolate chip cookies of all time.

In a quest to spread the word that is this magnificent recipe, here it is.

[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:1]

Now go forth and join the revolution of great, quality chocolate chip cookies for all! You will without a doubt wonder why you've been wasting your time on that Tollhouse nonsense all this time.

[Tidy Mom via New York Times]

Our New Official Go-To Breakfast

I came across this recipe for french toast souffle while going through a recipe-finding frenzy and I've made it almost every weekend since trying it out. Brunch with a girlfriend? Make this! Grandparents visiting? Wow them with this. Parents in town? Whip it up!

I kid you not. It is extremely simple with a few (inexpensive) ingredients. It's just enough to be a main breakfast dish and not need a buffet of side dishes. Some sausage (since bacon is so garsh darn expensive these days) and fruit and you're good to go.

Source: jennysteffens.blogspot.com via Lauren on Pinterest

Petite French Toast Soufflé Recipe
makes 4 individual servings

1 small loaf of french bread, cut into 1-inch cubes (5 cups)
4 large eggs

1 cup of half-and-half
1/4 cup of maple syrup (plus more for serving)
1 teaspoon of vanilla
2 teaspoons of cinnamon

For Serving :
1/4 cup of powdered sugar
maple syrup

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, half and half, maple syrup, vanilla and cinnamon...
  Add bread cubes and toss until all of the cubes are coated.  Pour into individual ramekins or one souffle dish.

Cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour and up to overnight.  Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes (for individual ramekins), 30-35 for one larger souffle.

Serve warm with powdered sugar and maple syrup.

Our New Official Go-To Breakfast

I came across this recipe for french toast souffle while going through a recipe-finding frenzy and I've made it almost every weekend since trying it out. Brunch with a girlfriend? Make this! Grandparents visiting? Wow them with this. Parents in town? Whip it up!

I kid you not. It is extremely simple with a few (inexpensive) ingredients. It's just enough to be a main breakfast dish and not need a buffet of side dishes. Some sausage (since bacon is so garsh darn expensive these days) and fruit and you're good to go.

Source: jennysteffens.blogspot.com via Lauren on Pinterest

Petite French Toast Soufflé Recipe
makes 4 individual servings

1 small loaf of french bread, cut into 1-inch cubes (5 cups)
4 large eggs

1 cup of half-and-half
1/4 cup of maple syrup (plus more for serving)
1 teaspoon of vanilla
2 teaspoons of cinnamon

For Serving :
1/4 cup of powdered sugar
maple syrup

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, half and half, maple syrup, vanilla and cinnamon...
  Add bread cubes and toss until all of the cubes are coated.  Pour into individual ramekins or one souffle dish.

Cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour and up to overnight.  Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes (for individual ramekins), 30-35 for one larger souffle.

Serve warm with powdered sugar and maple syrup.

Tater Tot Casserole {Recipe}

Tater Tot Casserole

Makes enough for small army. {Since the ingredients arepractically impossible to halve, I like to reserve half (before baking) into a Tupperwarethat gets popped into the freezer for later. Don’t worry, even with half thereis still plenty for leftovers.}

Ingredients

1 lb ground hamburger {we prefer ground turkey but it doeshave less flavor}

1 onion, chopped {leave these pretty large}

1 (16 oz.) package frozen tater tots

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 cup cheddar cheese {or more}

Make It 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Brown hamburger with onion, drain excess fatty fat

Combine hamburger and onion with remaining ingredients {usethe biggest bowl you’ve got}

Pour into large casserole dish

Bake 20 minutes or until tater tots are golden

Enjoy!

Notes:

While delicious, this casserole requires mass amounts ofketchup and hot sauce (Tabasco, Tapatio) of choice.

I’ve made it with the cheese mixed in and cheese just ontop. Trust me, mix the cheese in and then add some to the top if you please. Itadds tons of flavor and a more creamy consistency when mixed in.

I'm linking up to these sweet Linky Parties.

Tater Tot Casserole {Recipe}

Tater Tot Casserole

Makes enough for small army. {Since the ingredients are practically impossible to halve, I like to reserve half (before baking) into a Tupperware that gets popped into the freezer for later. Don’t worry, even with half there is still plenty for leftovers.}

Ingredients

1 lb ground hamburger {we prefer ground turkey but it does have less flavor}

1 onion, chopped {leave these pretty large}

1 (16 oz.) package frozen tater tots

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 cup cheddar cheese {or more}

Make It 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Brown hamburger with onion, drain excess fatty fat

Combine hamburger and onion with remaining ingredients {use the biggest bowl you’ve got}

Pour into large casserole dish

Bake 20 minutes or until tater tots are golden

Enjoy!

Notes:

While delicious, this casserole requires mass amounts of ketchup and hot sauce (Tabasco, Tapatio) of choice.

I’ve made it with the cheese mixed in and cheese just on top. Trust me, mix the cheese in and then add some to the top if you please. It adds tons of flavor and a more creamy consistency when mixed in.

I'm linking up to these sweet Linky Parties.

Easy Candy Corn Popcorn

Last Christmas I made this uber delicous White Chocolate Peppermint Popcorn. When I researched my archives to find the post I had surely written on this delicious treat, I was sad to see there wasn't one. I think it had to do with being nine months pregnant. Anyways, I have been patiently waiting to make it again. So when my girlfriend came over to watch Halloween movies I had my popcorn machine out and she brought a bag on candy corn. The next thing you know we're whipping up a batch of this:

This is no joke folks. I made myself  ill eating it. And the best part of all?
It's EASY.

• Pop your (about 1/2 cup of dry kernels) popcorn. {I have an air popper, if you don't I don't see why some unbuttered microwave popcorn wouldn't work}

• Put popcorn in large freezer ziplock bag, making sure to remove any and all un-popped kernels.

• Melt white chocolate almond bark (2 squares) in microwave. I do it in 30 second intervals stirring in between until it's completely melted.

• Pour chocolate over popcorn.

• Toss in some candy corn

• Shake

• Spread out over wax paper to cool

• Make yourself sick by eating only this sugary treat with a side of sugar cookie while watching Halloween classics like Hocus Pocus and Corpse Bride.

Tips
Please note this recipe can be eyeballed magnificently.

This would be perfect to put in a plastic baggie with a cute bag topper.

Or a great thing to bring to a Halloween party (it's coming to yours, Jessica) in a neat little bowl that doubles as a hostess gift.

Drizzling melted orange and yellow candy melts would also make this sweet treat that much cuter.