Smiling at the future

Peppermint Marshmallows

2011-12-23T15:54:00.005-06:00

Did you know that you can make marshmallows in your very own kitchen? Neither did I, until I saw them on Joy the Baker's blog. I decided I NEEDED to make them for myself. So do you!

Pour some gelatin and water into your stand mixer. If you don't have a mixer....borrow a friend's. I don't think there's a way around it.

While the gelatin and water are getting to know each other, combine corn syrup, sugar, and water in a pan. Don't count the calories. Just tell yourself that marshmallows are mostly air.

Bring this to a boil and keep it there for a minute.

Take it off the heat, turn your mixer on high (the gelatin has now become....well, gelatinous), and slowly stream the boiling sugar mixture in. FOR THE LOVE, please be careful! Burning sugar isn't something to mess around with!

This is what the mixture looks like at first. Not very marshmallow-y.

Five minutes in, it's more recognizable.

After 10 minutes, add peppermint extract (but only if you're feeling crazy!) and pour the whole mixture into a pan that's oiled and lined with plastic wrap. Grab another piece of plastic wrap, spray it with a non-stick spray, and press it against the top of the fluff.

Marshmallow fluff....mercy.

Wait a couple hours for the mixture to set up, and then get ready to make a mess.

Set up a coating station. Marshmallows are sticky, and they need to be contained. Powdered sugar is just the guy for the job.

Peel off the top plastic wrap, lift the whole concoction out of the pan, and turn it upside down. Slowly peel the bottom plastic wrap off, and voila!

Spray a sharp knife with non-stick spray, and cut the fluff into cubes.

Toss them in small batches in the powdered sugar. Aren't they adorable!

These were so easy and didn't require much time or effort. This was a great addition to some goodie boxes I made this year - much easier than rolling out and cutting cookies!

Here's a link to the original from Martha Stewart. She even has a video! I figured, if she can do it, I can too! :-)

Skillet Cookie

2011-12-23T15:35:00.005-06:00

Once upon a time, a girl named Paige had a blog. She enjoyed baking and taking photos to post, but then life happened. It does that sometimes. She spent the next 11 months travelling, taking classes, teaching some punk kids, and figuring out life. While she doesn't have ANYTHING figured out yet, she decided that it was time to bust out the camera.

And the cast iron skillet.

To make cookies.

Yes, cookies. In a cast iron skillet. Just get over it and join the fun.

Start by melting some butter over low heat. Add sugar and vanilla, and remove it from the heat for about five minutes.

When it's cooled down, add an egg. Then stir in the flour, salt, and baking soda.

Throw in some chocolate chips and walnuts and spread it out evenly in the pan. Do NOT eat the dough! You're trying to lose weight, remember?...maybe that's just me.

Pop this beauty in the oven for 15 minutes or until it comes out golden brown. I had mine in for about 20 minutes, and it was really set in the middle (so leave it in less for a gooier cookie!).

The beauty of this is that I couldn't sneak a bite before taking it to a Christmas party!! If you steal a normal chocolate chip cookie, nobody knows! But this required patience.

It divided up nicely into 16 servings. These pop right out of the pan because of the melted butter they started with.

Here's a link to the original for the recipe. I HIGHLY recommend it! Did you notice that I didn't use a mixer or any mixing bowls for this? That is my favorite part! Only one dish, start to finish - and it looks cool to serve in, too!

Enjoy!

Pasta e Fagioli - Olive Garden style

2011-01-31T19:50:00.004-06:00

Snow days.

Ah, how I love snow days. When I was little, snow days meant hours of reading Babysitters' Club, playing Oregon Trail, and maybe venturing out to throw some snowballs at my sister.

Now, snow days mean sleeping in, catching up, cleaning my house, baking bread, and fixing a big pot of soup.

Tomorrow is a snow day - I got a head start on the soup. :-)

I love Olive Garden's pasta e fagioli soup - it's kind of an Italian chili. This is seriously a perfect copy of that recipe. Love it!

Start by browning 1/2 lb Italian sausage and 1/2 lb ground beef.

Chop up some carrots, celery, onion, and garlic. You'll need about a cup of each veggie, and 2 cloves of garlic.

Toss these in the pot with the browned meat, and let them hang out for about 10 minutes. Good things will happen.

Pour in two 14-oz cans of diced tomatoes, one 15-oz can of tomato sauce, another 8-oz can of tomato sauce, 1/2 cup water, a tablespoon of vinegar, one can of great northern beans, and one can of red kidney beans.

Mix it all together and add one teaspoon each of basil and oregano, then half a teaspoon of thyme. Salt and pepper the soup, and let it groove (a.k.a. simmer) for about an hour.

About 10 minutes shy of the hour mark, boil some water and cook the pasta to go in the soup. The original recipe suggested ditali pasta, but HyVee didn't have any, so I just got some small shells. I used a 7 oz box.

Toss these in and stir to combine.

Mercy.

I happened to have some fresh parmesan on hand, so I grated some on top of the soup.

This is a perfect winter meal, and so easy to throw together!!

Here's the link to the original recipe.

Cookie Extravaganza!

2011-01-06T15:16:00.008-06:00

This Christmas I made 10 dozen cookies.

Excessive, I know.

But I love giving cookies away, and I made 4 new recipes this year.

I made Pistachio Sandies (similar to Russian tea cakes or Mexican wedding cookies) - delicious!

I forgot to take a picture of these all dressed up with powdered sugar. But they were even better. :-) I included the recipe at the bottom of this post.

I made spicy molasses cookies (courtesy of The Pioneer Woman)

Also very tasty.

But then I made these.

Chocolate candy cane cookies.

Also from The Pioneer Woman.

These turned out to be beautiful. But not tasty.

The cookie kind of tasted like cardboard. But I really like the idea, so I might try to find a better chocolate cookie idea.

Pistachio Sandies

1 cup pistachios, skins removed

8 oz butter, softened

2 1/4 cup flour

1/3 cup powdered sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp water

1 cup extra powdered sugar for dusting/rolling

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grind the pistachios into a course meal. Place butter into a large bowl and beat for 30 seconds. Add half the flour, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and water. Beat until blended and then add the rest of the flour. Stir in the nuts. Pinch off 1-inch pieces of dough and roll into balls. Place onto a cookie sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes. Allow to cool all the way and then dust with powdered sugar.

Lemon Butter Cookies

2011-01-05T15:50:00.006-06:00

I have a cookie extravaganza post coming up, but I wanted to highlight this cookie.

It's light and crisp and fantastic.

I got this recipe from Sassy Radish, a cooking blog I've had been following lately.

I didn't take pictures of the dough process, so I'll just refer you to the above link. You have to let the dough rest overnight - I shaped mine into a long rectangle so I would have little square cookies. This was a great idea. :-)

After it's rested, brush it with an egg yolk and roll it in sugar until it's totally covered.

The more sugar, the better. Always.

Slice it up - this makes a lot of little cookies.

I got all 50 bazillion of them to fit on one cookie sheet, so that worked out well! Make sure you use parchment paper so they pop right off.

Aren't they cute?

They just need about 12 minutes in the oven, rotating them halfway through.

Lovely! You should most definitely make these at your earliest convenience!!

Caramel Pecan Brownies

2010-12-29T23:47:00.008-06:00

Since I've been taking requests for treats lately, a friend requested caramel brownies.

I delivered.

And these are spectacular. I took the recipe from Bake at 350.

These aren't entirely homemade. But no one needs to know.

Mix together a box of german chocolate cake mix, 1/3 cup evaporated milk, and 3/4 cup melted butter.

Spread half of the mixture onto the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Bake for 6-8 minutes in a 350 degree oven. While it's baking, prepare the caramel mixture. I'll get to that in a second.

Sprinkle 1 cup of chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of chopped pecans over it.

Bliss. Pure bliss.

Unwrap a 14-oz package of caramels (this is crazy time-consuming....maybe enlist some help) and combine it over low heat with 1/3 cup evaporated milk.

Pour directly over the love happening in the pan.

Mercy.

Top with the rest of the brownie batter. It looks weird, but it's good to have little rivers of caramel flowing through the brownie.

Bake for another 15-20 minutes - the caramel will be bubbling, but you don't want it to burn.

It doesn't look nearly as weird when it's cut up. Wowza.

The layer of chocolate chips and pecans kick it up from delicious to ridiculous.

These brownies are ridiculous.

And totally worth it.

Peppermint Cheesecake

2010-12-20T13:22:00.005-06:00

I've started taking requests.

I needed to break out of the things I usually make, so before a Christmas party I hosted, I asked some people what dessert they wanted.

Cheesecake it was.

I've only eaten cheesecake a couple times....I'm not a big fan, so making this was an adventure.

Start with some chocolate wafer cookies.

Grind these up into tiny crumbs and combine them with melted butter and sugar. Press them down and along the sides of a springform pan.

Do you see how close my laptop was to the pan? Probably not a good idea.

Mix up cream cheese, half and half, vanilla extract, peppermint extract, eggs until smooth and gorgeous. Stir in some crushed up peppermint candies (I used candy canes).

Pour the mixture over the crust in the springform pan and pop the pink cheesecake into the oven for about an hour and a half. This, by the way, is 45 minutes longer than the original recipe called for. Yikes.

When I pulled it out, it wasn't completely set, but I was tired of waiting on it, so I just hoped that it was good enough!

After spending the night in the fridge, it was perfectly set and ready for taste testing.

Delicious! This is a really great and easy cheesecake recipe that could really be tweaked and changed!

Peppermint Cheesecake

(serves 10)

Crust

1 9-ounce box chocolate wafer cookies

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

Filling

2 lbs. cream cheese, room temperature

1 cup sugar

4 large eggs

1/4 cup half and half

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp peppermint extract

1/3 cup crushed peppermint candies

For the crust:

Wrap the outside of a springform pan with aluminum foil. Finely grind the cookies with sugar in a food processor. Add butter and press mixture onto bottom and up the sides of the pan. Refrigerate while preparing filling.

For the filling:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat cream cheese in large bowl until smooth. It is really important to start with room temperature cream cheese! Add sugar and beat until well blended. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating until blended after each addition. Beat in half and half, and then the extracts. Stir in candies and pour into pan.

Bake until filling is mostly set and the edges are puffed - this will probably take between an hour and an hour and a half.

Refrigerate overnight.

Decorated Christmas Cookies

2010-12-11T20:04:00.010-06:00

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I was inspired to bake some cookies. Not just any cookies.

Beautiful cookies. Decorated with royal icing. These are legit.

And the icing only require 4 ingredients (I added lemon extract, as well): powdered sugar, corn syrup, meringue powder, and water. I followed this recipe.

After sifting the powdered sugar....

You mix everything in a stand mixer (which I can do now!!). I forgot to take pictures of that. Whoops.

And I really thought I'd taken pictures of tinting the icing red and green and filling the piping bags. But I didn't! Oh well.

Moving on...outline your cookies with the royal icing (I used a #3 tip) and let that sit for at least 10 minutes so it could harden and create a space that I could fill with flood icing.

Create the flood icing by mixing water with the royal icing. I used another piping bag and filled it in with icing. I used a skewer to get it into the corners because I didn't have any toothpicks. I adore these snowflakes.

I did the same thing with these little trees.

The corn syrup in the icing makes them shiny!

Once the icing had mostly set up, I did something very sneaky.

I mixed together water and meringue powder to make a kind of glue, and I used a pastry brush to apply it to certain parts of the cookie. I put sprinkles all over it, and after I shook off the excess, which you can see at the end of the post. (Somehow my pictures got out of order!)

I did the same thing with the snowflakes - I love how they turned out!

I made dots on the ornaments, which I liked, but I'm not very good at outlining circles yet.

This one's just for you, Candice!! :-)

I found a girl cookie cutter, so I designed a few different outfits.

Here's the outcome of the "glue" on the tree cookies. :-)

This was my first time using piping bags and royal icing....you should try it!

My Green Machine :-)

2010-12-10T23:00:00.012-06:00

My beautiful shiny new green KitchenAid mixer came in the mail on Monday. But this was finals week!! So I had to wait until tonight to use it...and it was delightful.

I recently ran across this blog: Bake at 350. This woman makes some killer decorated sugar cookies, and I needed in on that. So I borrowed her recipe and ran with it!

She starts by creaming cold salted butter and sugar.

Notice that I used my new mixer.

I kind of love it.

Since the butter's cold, it'll take a little longer than usual.

Add in an egg and vanilla extract. She also suggested almond extract; I had lemon extract on hand, so I used that. It was a great choice!

Pour in flour and baking powder, and mix to combine.

This dough is kind of funny, because it ends up crumbly, and you're left saying, "How did I mess up a sugar cookie recipe? Really??".

But it's supposed to be like this! You just need to knead it with your hands to get it to a good cookie dough consistency.

I took about half the dough and put it on a piece of parchment paper. There's no need to chill the dough before rolling it out because we started with cold butter, remember?

Dust everything in sight with flour, and roll it out to your desired consistency.

FYI - that is too thin. But it happened.

As my students say, "It's like, whatever."

As I say, "I'm over it."

I got cookie cutters at Sur La Table last night. I had never been to that remarkable place... I love it!

I cut these out and put them on another piece of parchment and stuck them in the freezer for 5 minutes before baking them - that is the key to keeping crisp edges! And it worked!

Repeat with the remaining dough, making sure to reuse all the scraps. At the end, when I didn't have quite enough left for another cookie, I just grabbed the extra pieces and baked them as a snack. :-)

Before they were baked....

And after! They are delightful and popped right off the cookie sheets (because they're full of butter!).

These were my favorites - look at these adorable snowflakes!!

And I made lots of little trees and ornaments and people.

Tomorrow is my first experiment with royal icing (because these are WAY too cute to leave alone!!).

Here's the recipe for the cookies (adapted from Bake at 350):

3 c flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 c sugar

2 sticks salted butter, cold

1 egg

3/4 tsp lemon extract

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Bake for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees.

Pumpkin Bars

2010-11-29T11:18:00.004-06:00

Is it too late for pumpkiny treats?

Is pumpkiny a word?

Either way, these pumpkin bars are delicious. To be totally honest, I didn't really like pumpkiny things before I made these. (Didn't I just say that about blueberries? This has been a life-changing month, I suppose!) I even worked at a pumpkin patch, and I didn't like pumpkin treats!

All of that has changed. These pumpkin bars are superfacil (also not a word, but Spanglish for "super easy"!) and superdelicious! I originally got these from my pastor's wife, Christie (who is an amazing cook - I wish she had time to blog!).

I teamed up with my dear friends Rachel and Erin for a baking extravaganza about a month ago and we made these and some darling owl cookies that I'll show you soon.

This first recipe starts with butter. Unsalted, of course.

Mix together sugar, butter, eggs...

flour, cinnamon, milk, baking powder, baking soda, salt, pumpkin pie spice, and

pumpkin!

After you've tossed all the ingredients in one bowl (how awesome is that?!), mix it until smooth...

and pour it in a 9x13 baking pan.

Gorgeous!

Bake for 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees. While it's in the oven, whip up some frosting! Powdered sugar, vanilla, milk, and butter....delish. :-)

Frost the pumpkin bars after they've cooled for a few minutes (if you can stand it!). These are seriously so easy, and they'll make a believer out of any pumpkin-hater. :-)

Here's the link to the original recipe on the Land O' Lakes website.

Blue. Berry. Muffins.

2010-11-25T12:51:00.005-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

The last month has been crazy busy, so although I've been baking, I haven't been sharing it with you!

I'm thankful for a lot of things today, primarily my dear grandma, who's in the hospital with a lot of pain today. Our family Thanksgiving meal has been postponed, so I made blueberry muffins to take to the nurses and my parents.

In all honesty, I don't really like blueberry muffins. Um, let me rephrase that - I didn't like blueberry muffins UNTIL today. Mercy! These are delicious!

The blueberries came all the way from Canada via my dear friends Daniel and Victoria Meade. :-) Thanks again, you too!!

These beauties start with browned butter. I first experimented with browned butter when I made this plum cobbler back in August, and I decided it wasn't as scary as it sounded. Just heat butter over medium heat - it'll crackle for a few minutes and then little brown specks will appear in the bottom of the skillet. This is what you want!

Mix that with flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder, vanilla, and blueberries.

Grab the most plain muffin pan liners you can find (it'll make me feel better about myself).....

And use an ice cream scoop to divvy out the batter.

Mix together cold butter, sugar, and flour to make a streusel topping and sprinkle some on each muffin.

Twenty minutes later, these gorgeous babies are ready!

This is a crummy picture of the inside, but it was delightful! Fluffy, moist, and not too sweet. This is a perfect lazy morning recipe. :-)

Here's the link to the original recipe (from Joy the Baker, of course!).

Cinnamon Roll Muffins

2010-10-13T10:42:00.006-05:00

Next month I'm going to buy a KitchenAid mixer.

My first project will be cinnamon rolls.

But I didn't want to wait that long to have homemade cinnamony goodness. So when I saw this recipe for cinnamon roll muffins, I just HAD to try them.

Start out with warm milk and yeast.

Stir them together and add them to a mixture of flour, sugar and salt.

Add oil and an egg...

And you'll end up with a smooth batter.

This is obviously not a REAL cinnamon roll recipe - there's no dough!

Divide the batter evenly into a greased muffin tin.

This next step is very important.

I, however, skipped it.

It was my downfall.

You will soon see.

PLEASE let this batter sit for 10 minutes! It needs to set up before the next part.

Mix together cinnamon, sugar, and butter and sprinkle it on top. Use your finger to push it in slightly so it's set.

Put the batter in a cold oven and heat the oven to 350 degrees. It will rise while preheating and look like this!

Ok, so, theoretically, after 20 minutes, you should have beautiful muffins that pop out effortlessly from the pan.

I didn't.

I let them cool for about 10 minutes, and I turned the pan over.

This is what I found.

Hey! That's all the cinnamon and sugar that was supposed to be INSIDE the muffins!

Bottomless muffins.

That's what I had.

Never fear! I decided to just frost them as they are and pretend nothing was wrong. :-)

They really are delicious.

I just need to start reading directions!

And, of course, after drizzling the frosting over the upside-down bottomless muffins, there is a lot of frosting left over.

I definitely did NOT take a spoon to this and enjoy it far too much. :-)

You can find the original recipe here. Enjoy!

Apple Walnut Bread

2010-09-13T11:18:00.003-05:00

Fall is almost here!

I spend my Saturdays at the pumpkin patch in the fall, so I won't be blogging as much in the coming weeks (probably). But I do have a lot of really delicious recipes I want to try, so I'll do as much as I can!

I started with this bread.

It really shouldn't be called bread.

It's a cake.

But it's baked in a bread pan, so I can eat it for breakfast, right?

Good.

You can too.

Start by grating some apples.

Mix up all-purpose flour, wheat flour *just to make you feel better about eating it for breakfast!*, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Then whisk together buttermilk, melted butter, eggs, and vanilla.

Combine the wet and dry ingredients....

And throw in the grated apples, chopped up walnuts, and flax seeds *if you're feeling really crazy!*.

Pour into a bread pan and dust the top with cinnamon and sugar. This makes the top crunchy and sweet. :-) Exactly what you need to get going in the mornings!

Bake at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes (mine took almost an hour, but I had a slightly smaller bread pan than the recipe recommended.

Your breakfast needs to be SO good that it motivates you to get out of bed in the mornings.

This bread is that good.

One word of warning: I found out the hard way that this has to be refrigerated. I kept it wrapped up in my pantry, and it spoiled before I could finish it. :-(

Don't let that happen to you!

Here's the link to the recipe. Enjoy!

Chicken Pesto Pizza

2010-09-05T22:50:00.003-05:00

Let's face it.

Pesto doesn't look very appetizing.

But have you ever actually tried it?

It's delicious! And it's especially delicious on pizza dough with chicken.

I made some. It was superfacil. (That's my really correct Spanish word for "really easy!")

You start with olive oil, basil (I hit up the farmer's market), parmesan cheese, garlic, nutmeg, and either almonds or pinenuts.

I used almonds. Pinenuts were about 3 times the price, and I'm on a teacher's salary.

Don't judge.

Toast the nuts for just a couple minutes.

Grate the parmesan cheese. Freshly grated cheese is always so much better.

Toss the basil, almonds, parm, garlic, and olive oil into a food processor (I stole my mom's - I don't think she's noticed yet!). Blend until you get a good consistency.

Like this! Mmm....add nutmeg, salt, and pepper to taste. If you are a pesto junkie and want to make three batches, like me, grab some freezer baggies, date them with your preferred language, and throw them in the freezer!

So now it's time to DO something with this beautiful sauce! How about pizza?

If you don't have the time or resources to make your own pesto but still want to make pesto pizza, grab a jar of this the next time you're at the grocery store:

I love this stuff. Even though I now know how to make my own pesto (and have enough to last about a year!), this is still really great.

Ok. It's pizza time.

I got this pizza dough recipe from my dear friend Candice, who left me two years ago for Texas. She's pretty great, and so is this dough.

It's super easy and quick, and doesn't even need to be kneaded. It just needs to rise after it's stretched out on the pizza stone, either before or after putting the ingredients on. (The recipe is at the bottom of this post.)

I sprinkle some cornmeal onto a pizza stone, stretch the dough out over the stone, spread on some pesto, toss on some pieces of cooked chicken, top it with cheese (I use the 6-cheese Italian blend), and throw it on a grill.

Have you ever had grilled pizza?

I'll never go back to oven-baked pizza.

Even in January.

I'll shovel my deck for this pizza. That's how good it is.

And it bakes in 4 1/2 minutes! I crank the grill up to about 500 degrees and, very soon, the crust is fully baked and the cheese is melted. It's perfectly crunchy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside.

Here's a close-up:

Delicious. The dough can really be used as a base for just about any kind of pizza; I just think it goes best with pesto.

Enjoy!

Pesto

2 c basil

3/4 c Parmesan cheese
3/4 c olive oil

1/4 c almonds or pinenuts

3 garlic cloves

nutmeg, salt, and pepper to taste

Pizza Dough

2 tsp yeast (1 packet)

2 T sugar

1 c warm water

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/2 c flour

2 T oil

Mix together the yeast and water and allow the yeast to proof. Add the rest of the ingredients; mix until combined.

Yes. It's really that easy!

Browned Butter and Plum Cobbler

2010-08-29T22:35:00.003-05:00

Do you like plums?

Do you like cake?

Then go ahead and clear any plans you made for this evening. Because you'll need to make this.

When I hear the word "cobbler", I think of the cherry cobblers my grandma used to make with the super tart cherries from our backyard. They turned out super ooey and gooey and didn't have very much topping - only fruit. Since I don't usually like mushy baked fruit, I have stayed away from cobblers.

Until yesterday.

Let's talk about this.

It starts with browning some butter in a cast iron skillet.

Brown 1 stick plus two tablespoons (so, 10 tablespoons total) and then pour the butter into a bowl to be used in a bit.

Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and milk.

Grab a couple of your most willing (and hungry!) volunteers and put them to work!

Erin sliced up some gorgeous pears.

Victoria whisked the browned butter into the batter.

Pour the batter into the cast iron skillet.

And then the magic happens.

Wowza.

Pop that into a 350 degree oven for 35 minutes.

This will happen.

Yes, please!

But wait! We're not done yet!

Sprinkle some sugar on top. This creates an even crunchier topping to the cobbler.

Put it back in the oven for 10 minutes until it's bubbly and golden.

Slice it up and top it with some ice cream.

A-mazing. It's cakey and buttery and not mushy at all! Just the way I like it! All thanks goes to Joy the Baker for another uber-delicious recipe.

The worst part of this cobbler?

Eventually it's gone. Make sure you have enough for seconds! :-)

Homemade Pop-Tarts

2010-08-22T21:47:00.005-05:00

Ah, Pop-Tarts. They bring to mind two main memories for me:

1. My dad brought home Pop-Tarts for the first time when I was in 5th grade, and I ate them everyday for breakfast for a year straight. Every day. No joke.
2. I have a student in my first hour who consumes 4 Pop-Tarts every morning in my class. Holy cow.

I saw a recipe to make these treats from scratch over at the Smitten Kitchen blog, and they've been on my list to try for about a month now. I finally got a chance to make them yesterday, and I'm so glad I did!

I made two versions, but her website gives suggestions for many more. I made half Nutella and half cinnamon-sugar.

Here's the process:

Create the pastry dough by combining flour, sugar, salt, and pats of cold butter.

Use a pastry cutter (or your fingers!) to combine these until....

it looks like this! There should still be some little chunks of butter; this makes for a flaky crust. It ends up very similar to pie crust.

I whisked milk and an egg together and combined it all until the dough came together into a ball.

Divide it in two; you need a top and a bottom for the Pop-Tarts!

Roll out each ball of dough into a roughly 9x12 rectangle; it needs to be about 1/8 inch thick. The thinner the better! You don't want too much pastry. I used a 9x13 baking pan to help me measure. You should make sure your edges look a little better than mine do; you'll find out why in a minute.

Cut the dough into thirds, and then into thirds again. You'll end up with 9 little rectangles.

This part was stressful for me.

I wanted it to be perfect!

But I felt kind of funny busting out a ruler.

So they ended up looking kind of funny.

You'll see.

Brush the whole thing with eggwash, and then it's time for the filling. As I mentioned, I filled half with Nutella.

Have you ever tried this delicious treat?

You should.

I make a mean Nutella thumbprint cookie....maybe that'll be a post later on.

Nutella is a chocolate hazelnut spread sent from heaven.

Or Australia. I heard they like it there.

I spread a very generous tablespoon of Nutella love on half of the tarts, and I combined cinnamon, sugar, and flour and spooned it onto the others. I wish I had put more filling in, because I didn't roll the dough out thinly enough and had a bad proportion of too much pastry to not enough filling.

Don't be like me!

Don't these look amazing?!

Notice the badly curved edges on a couple of them. That made the next step quite difficult.

Once you've spread the filling onto the pastry, carefully top them with another piece of dough. They need to match. Otherwise you won't have enough pastry to cover the filling, and it ends up looking like a Pop-Tart trainwreck.

Whoops.

Move these onto a baking sheet, and prick the tops with a fork several times to allow the steam to escape. Otherwise you won't end up with flat pastries. I also crimped the edges with a fork to make them look like the real deal!

These guys go in the fridge for 30 minutes and then into a 350 degree oven for 20-25 minutes.

When they come out, you don't even need to toast them!

Amazing!

Grab a glass of milk and enjoy!

Empanadas!

2010-08-14T10:59:00.005-05:00

Over the summer, Vanessa and I have been blessed to get to know a new friend. This new friend is from Missouri, so he had to leave sometime, and that time is today. A few of us decided to have one last meal together before he left, so I made one of my absolute favorite things.

Empanadas!

These beautiful little guys hail from Argentina, and so does our new friend, so it was all quite fitting.

And delicious.

You start with puff pastry dough.

These are frozen, so start by taking them out of the freezer about 45 minutes before you need them.

While they're dethawing, you can prepare the filling for the empanadas. Empanadas can be filled with just about anything, and I totally want to try some new things. But for now, I used the tried and true ground pork and onion combo.

To die for.

Almost.

For some reason I completely forgot to take pictures of the process, but here's what you do:

Chop up a yellow onion and throw it in a skillet with some shortening (I didn't mention that this is good for you, right? Because it isn't.). Caramelize it a bit and then put it in a bowl. Add 2 tsp of Spanish paprika, 1 tsp of cumin, and 1 tsp of crushed red pepper flakes.

Brown one pound of ground pork in the same skillet, and then add that to the onion mixture. Toss it together, throw in a tablespoon of vinegar, and you're done! Super simple.

Now back to the puff pastry.

It comes with 2 sheets in the package. It's been sitting out like this for 45 minutes, so it's time to unfold it.

I used to cut circles out of this, but that wasted a lot of dough, so now I cut it into 6 rectangles and then trim the edges just a bit to round them out. The empanadas are half-moon shaped, so we want rounded edges.

Flatten them out as much as possible - we want these guys to be as big as we can make them!

Take some water and put a thin layer around the edge of each dough circle. This will help the sides stick together when we fold them.

Grab the filling and heap a couple spoonfuls into one side of the dough circle. Leave room to seal the edges, and make sure there's enough dough to fold over.

The kind of tricky part is putting them together. Once you've folded the top over, you need to pinch the fold shut. You can either use your fingers or a fork.

Gorgeous! There's one more step. It's crucial.

Eggwash.

Crack an egg, stir it up, and brush it on the tops of the empanadas.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes (mine take exactly 22 minutes). They'll be golden, bubbly, and crispy.
I wish my little cell phone camera could do them justice!

You cannot just make these for yourself. That would be selfish. You need to invite several of your favorite people and share the love with them!

Armand, Jelaine, Trey, Natalie, and Stephen were the fun guests of this "last supper", and we all immensely enjoyed this Argentine dish!

Nessita versus Marble Cheesecake Brownies

2010-08-05T22:05:00.010-05:00

:) So, this is the first time I, Vanessa, have posted about baking...

Though I absolutely love baking, it hasn't really happened this summer. I've felt a bit preoccupied with adjusting to life after college. I suppose getting asked to make 4 dozen cookies for tomorrow night spurred up the baker inside of me again! :) I was reminded of some really kind friends and coworkers and how they have served me this summer and filled with gratefulness and a desire to show my thankfulness to them in baked form...

So here was today's lovely adventure...

Inspired by the lovely Smitten Kitchen blog! One of my favorites :) Come these delicious Marble Cheesecake Brownies

I admit, mine are not so beautiful as hers. I was incredibly nervous about the swirling part...but I think they turned out equally delicious and hopefully will be a sweet treat for my coworkers and thank you for a few friends!

Here's the remarkably simple ingredients for the delicious brownie batter. It always astounds me how so many different delicious things can come from such simple basics!

So I combined the butter and chocolate and melted it down...

Then mixed in the rest...

Then made the simple cheesecake batter and mixed it with Chocolate chips which i then "attempted" to swirl into the brownie mix....it doesn't look amazing...I admit...

But the finished product looked ready to devour!

Here is the lovely finished product!

Deliciousness! :)

Red Pepper Chicken Curry

2010-08-05T21:08:00.005-05:00

Does the thought of making Indian food scare you?

Me too.

But I did it anyway.

And so should you.

A few weeks ago I made this red pepper chicken curry, along with some naan and mango ice cream for a few friends. Today I made it for Becky and her novio since I'm spending a couple days in Overland Park, KS before flying out to Boston.

Here are the ingredients:

You will need some Indian spices. Don't let this intimidate you! The spices are pretty inexpensive at Indian markets (or you can have a world traveling roommate who actually GOES to India and brings them back with her!).

This is garam masala.

It is a combination of several different spices and it smells divine.

But you don't need it quite yet.

First we need to make the curry. Roughly chop the red peppers, onion, garlic, and ginger and toss them in a blender. Add the juice of a lime, coconut flakes, and water.

Liquefy the mixture....

until it looks like this!

Take the garam masala and the curry powder and stir fry them in some oil for a few moments.

I wish you could smell this.

Absolutely divine.

Notice the plastic spoon in the very hot pan.

Don't do that. Ever.

I melted Becky's spoon. Whoops!

Add the vegetable paste and bring to a boil.

Chop up 2 or 3 potatoes.

And throw them in a pot. Don't overcook them, though - they'll continue cooking once they are in the curry.

Chop up some cooked chicken to about the same size as the potatoes and put them in the curry.

Let that simmer for about 30 minutes. While that's working, prepare some naan! Vanessa made some homemade naan a few weeks ago, but today, since I'm visiting my dear friend Becky, I decided to go the easy route and pick up some naan at the local Indian market.

I brushed it with olive oil and chopped garlic and popped it in the oven for about 10 minutes.

About 15 minutes before the curry is done simmering, toss in the cooked potatoes.

The funny thing about Indian food is that it doesn't look very appetizing.

But take my word for it, this is fabulous. Over some rice with naan on the side....mercy!

Red Pepper Chicken Curry

2 sweet bell peppers
1 large onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 inch piece ginger, chopped
2 tbsp coconut flakes (I left these out because I didn't have any - you shouldn't)
2 tbsp lime juice
1 cup water
1 tbsp garam masala
1 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp chili powder
2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast, cooked
4 tbsp plain yogurt (to be added in at the end - this is optional)
2-3 potatoes, chopped

What to do with all those Romas....

2010-08-05T14:37:00.007-05:00

I have a garden. You remember all those early blog posts when I showed you pictures of baby tomato and cucumber plants, right?

Well, it's been quite prolific this past month. And when Roma tomatoes come in, they come in force. Dozens at a time.

What's a girl to do with all those tomatoes?

Make marinara sauce, of course!

Here's what you need:

12-14 Roma tomatoes, an onion, parsley, tomato paste, ground oregano, basil, garlic, salt and pepper.

If you don't have fresh tomatoes, canned crushed tomatoes work just as well! I've tried it both ways.

If you do have some whole tomatoes to use, you have a bit of work ahead of you.

You have to peel and seed those suckers!

Bring a pot of water to a boil....

And throw the tomatoes in. Let them bob up and down for about 20 seconds....

Then throw them in an ice bath.

The skin will come right off!

Once that's done, chop them in half....

And pull out all the insides. They would really water down the sauce, and you don't want that.

In the meantime, have the onion cooking in a big pot on the stove.

So now you have a bowl full of peeled and seeded tomatoes.

You can throw them in a food processor, but I prefer a slightly more rustic method.

Hands on.

This gets messy. You definitely can't answer the phone during this step!

It's also difficult to take a picture of this step. Yikes.

Crush them until there aren't any big pieces left....

And dump in the rest of the ingredients (the exact measurements are at the end of this post).

Pour it all into the pot with the onion.

Let this simmer for about 20 minutes, then add a few splashes of white wine. I didn't actually have any open bottles when I made this particular batch, so I left this out - but you shouldn't!

One very important thing to remember when cooking with tomatoes - they are really acidic, so you should add some of this VERY secret ingredient:

Brown sugar! It really balances out the acid.

Make sure it's really well incorporated, and once it is, you have a delicious marinara sauce, ready to take on the world!

I like making a batch of meatballs and tossing them in at this point. I use this recipe by Alton Brown. I modify it slightly by using 3/4 lb. of ground pork sausage and 3/4 lb. ground round and not use lamb. I also omit the spinach. Absolutely delicious.

Marinara Sauce

12-14 roma tomatoes, peeled and seeded OR 2 14-oz cans stewed tomatoes

1 can tomato paste (use two cans if you opt for using fresh tomatoes)

4 tbsp fresh chopped parsley

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp ground oregano

1 tsp sweet basil

1 tsp salt

1/3 cup finely diced onion

1/2 cup white wine

2 tbsp brown sugar

ground black pepper

Apple Crisp...yes, I know it isn't fall yet!

2010-08-03T22:41:00.006-05:00

Today I'm going to share with you the most delicious apple crisp I personally have ever encountered.

It all begins here.

Apples. Granny Smith. They are perfect with the sweet topping, plus they were on sale at HyVee. Score!

Wash, peel, core, and slice the apples into 1/4 inch pieces. Put these in an 8x8 or 9x13 pan (I used a 9x13 because I doubled the recipe).

Mix together flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, oats, and finely chopped pecans.

While the cinnamon's out, sprinkle some (along with some granulated sugar) on the apples and toss to coat them.

Mix softened butter into the flour mixture with your fingers. This will take a few minutes; I suppose you could also use a pastry cutter, although this ends up being more doughy than a usual topping.

Sprinkle the dough mixture on top of the apples and press it down; this is a lot of topping! You won't regret it. Trust me.

Stick it in the oven and wait patiently - this sucker takes 50 minutes to bake.

Let it rest for at least 15 to let the juices calm down. You'll be glad you did.

Then dig in! I didn't actually get a picture of the cut final product....I ate it too fast.

Whoops!

Here's the recipe (and the link to the original copy!):

Filling:

5-6 medium apples, peeled, cored, and sliced

3 tbsp granulated sugar

1.5 tsp cinnamon

Topping:

1 1/3 cups flour

1 1/3 cups brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 stick butter, softened

2/3 cup chopped pecans *these are a must!*

1/3 cup oats

Bake at 350 degrees for 50-55 minutes.

Salsa!

2010-08-02T19:04:00.002-05:00

I love salsa dancing. I learned how to dance in Mexico, and so even though I'm not very good, I just love the music and the people who do it.

I also love salsa.

But I'm kind of picky. Does that surprise anyone? It shouldn't. But when you make your own food, you can be as picky as you want!

I'm picky with salsa in that it's gotta be really finely chopped and blended. No chunky salsa here, people.

But this recipe obviously works either way, if you and I are opposites!

Here's the cast of characters (the recipe is at the end):

I spent FOREVER chopping all of that, and throwing in some roasted jalapenos, salt, and pepper, as well.

This is probably perfect for most people.

Not me! It needed a spin in the food processor.

Perfect!

Let the salsa hang out in the fridge so all the flavors can get to know each other. Then grab some chips and some of your favorite people and dig in!

Salsa (from Alton Brown)

6 Roma tomatoes, chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced

2 seeded and minced jalapenos

2 roasted jalapenos, minced

1 red bell pepper, diced

1/2 red onion, finely chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

1 lime, juiced

kosher salt and pepper to taste

Bread and Butter!

2010-07-30T16:03:00.011-05:00

I have a confession.

I am a wanna be.

I want to be an excellent baker. So I only post my successes on here! Trust me - for every blog post I am willing to share, there are at least as many mishaps. Perhaps one day I will tell you the tragic tale of the caramel corn.

But today I want to teach you how to make bread. I've tried to make bread before, to no avail. But this is so easy, even I could do it! It's yet another of my favorite recipes from Joy the Baker.

You start with 3 3/4 cups of bread flour (I used King Arthur's, of course!), 2 tsp of dry active yeast, 2 tsp salt, and 1 1/2 cups warm water. Toss it all into a mixer and beat with the paddle until it all comes together.

Switch to the dough hook, mix for two more minutes, and let it rest for 5 minutes. Then mix it again for 3 minutes. I don't know why; I just followed the instructions. And good things happened.

Take it out and knead it, using additional flour. It should be smooth and gorgeous...like this! Put it in an oiled bowl, and turn it so that all sides of the dough are lightly coated. Cover it with plastic wrap and a towel, and let it rise for an hour and a half. Punch it down, and let it rise for another half hour.

Prepare a floured surface....

And dump the beautifully risen dough onto the counter!

Separate the dough into two halves, and form them into rounds. Cover them with a damp towel and allow to rise for 45 minutes to an hour.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees, and during the last 20 minutes of rising, put a baking sheet upside down in the oven. Put the dough onto the sheet and score them to allow them to expand. I use a razor blade - it is way sharper than knives and doesn't drag the dough as much.

Right after popping these in the oven, I tossed 1/4 cup of water onto the oven floor to create steam. I repeated this a couple minutes later.

After baking for 20-25 minutes, these little guys will be ready for you!

While the bread was baking, I took the opportunity to whip up some butter (again, Joy the Baker inspired me). I took 2 cups of heavy whipping cream and beat them with the wisk attachment until the butter had separated from the buttermilk. I strained it and rinsed the butter under cold water and then added some sage from my garden. So easy!

This is the tasty result:

Paige vs. the Cabinet

2010-07-29T17:02:00.003-05:00

I built a cabinet last week.

Never mind the fact that it came in a box from Target and had predrilled holes.

Never mind the fact that it took me 2 hours, although the box said it could be done in "minutes."

Never mind the fact that, after spreading everything out and looking at this mess, I said to Natalie, "This is a job for a man."

I quickly came to my senses. I have a hammer! I have a screwdriver! I can do it!

So I read the directions....

And I began.

Eventually it started looking like a cabinet.

Two hours later, I had this beautiful cabinet with swinging doors to house all my baking supplies! It's perfect.

Next up: bread and butter. Get excited.

Homemade Cheez-Its

2010-07-19T12:29:00.006-05:00

Why should you spend your evening making these delectable treats instead of just running out to the grocery store?

Because you can. And you should. And they are 10 times better and healthier (don't read the ingredients too carefully....). Oh, and they have red pepper flakes in them, so they've got a kick. Delicious.

You start by grating a lot of cheese. Get your muscles ready.

Mix the cheese with flour, red pepper flakes, salt, and butter (the amounts are at the end of this post). I used a pastry cutter; the original recipe suggested a food processor (I definitely don't have that luxury).

It should look like this when you're done.

Add the milk....

And it will come together in a beautifully cheesy ball of dough.

Roll it out with a rolling pin (or your hands, or a glass, if you don't have a rolling pin....) until it's about 1/4 - 1/2 inch thick.

Trim the edges. I saved them and rolled them back out later.

I cut the dough into strips, because the original recipe is for cheese straws, and I wanted a mix of straws and squares.

I transferred these to a baking sheet and stuck them in the oven.

Then I rolled out the edges from the first batch (I tried to make these even thinner than the straws) and cut those into little 1-inch squares. I poked the tops with a fork so they wouldn't expand too much.

Cute!

These really taste similar to a cheez-it, but they are so much better. They bake up to be slightly puffy and flaky. You need to make these, ASAP.

Homemade Cheez-Its

1 1/2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces

3/4 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 tablespoon milk

Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

One display of God's magnificent glory in our backyard

2010-07-18T14:55:00.009-05:00

Last Wednesday, we had an incredible storm blow through Nebraska...

"Can anyone understand the spreading of the clouds,

the thunderings of his pavilion?

Behold, he scatters his lightning about him

and covers the roots of the sea.

For by these he judges peoples;

he gives food in abundance.

He covers his hands with the lightning

and commands it to strike the mark.

Its crashing declares his presence;

the cattle also declare that he rises."

-Job 36:29-33

The heavens declare the Glory of God and the firmament shows HIS handiwork

~the sky truly turned golden on Thursday night after the storm died down a bit

It cast a tremendous and mystical light on everything...

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.

The Lord is God,

and he has made his light to shine upon us.

I love how the raindrops on our windows could turn everything into an impressionist painting...

"Has the rain a father or who has begotten the drops of dew?"-Job 38:28

And God said,“This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”-Genesis 8

Mightier than the thunders of many waters,

mightier than the waves of the sea,

the Lord on high is mighty! -Psalm 93:4

Pillow Cookies!

2010-07-12T15:04:00.004-05:00

I know what you're thinking.

What on earth is a pillow cookie?

Well, first of all, it's a dream come true. It's also life changing, and maybe even a bit overwhelming.

It's a brownie inside a chocolate chip cookie.

Yup.

Don't try to make sense of this. Just accept it, bake it, and eat it. As soon as possible.

Bakerella (the inventor of cake bites) posted this recipe on her blog two weeks ago, and I dreamed about it until Saturday night, when a movie night provided the perfect opportunity to bake!

You start with a box of brownie mix. I love brownie batter, by the way. I try to do all my brownie baking alone, so I don't have to share.

Bake the brownies, and let them cool.

Then you make the cookie dough; I followed the recipe on Bakerella's blog, although I'm sure you could substitute your favorite cookie recipe (or just buy premade dough at the store!).

Then you drop it by 1/2 cup-fuls onto parchment paper. Yes, you heard me right. Then you cut a one-inch piece of brownie and smoosh it on top of the cookie dough.

My lovely assistant, Erin, did the scooping. She is an excellent scooper. Also, she is super cute. Wouldn't you agree?

Again, just to make sure you get this, we used a FULL half cup of cookie dough for each cookie. Really, you could probably use less, but you've got to get enough to wrap around the brownie.

Once you've smooshed the brownie into the cookie dough, work the dough completely around the brownie and form them into little dough balls. They are so big that only 6 fit on the cookie sheet. And they still baked into each other. Yowza.

While these were baking (at 350 degrees, for 16 minutes), I decided I needed to pray. Gluttony is a sin, and I was about to ask all of my friends to eat these! Lord have mercy.

That is a big cookie.

Confession: That was not the biggest cookie.

But look at the inside of that thing! Ohhhh.....incredible. Notice the glass of milk in the background. That's a must with this recipe.

Next up: red pepper chicken curry, naan, and mango ice cream!

Feeling Patriotic

2010-07-05T00:23:00.007-05:00

The flag cake arrived in one piece to the party, and when it was finally time to cut it, I was nervous.

Do I look nervous? I was.

I carefully cut the first piece, hoping I had assembled it correctly....

Shazam! Flag cake!

It looks more like a flag from the other side. :-) Here's a peek at the inside of the cake.

Happy Independence Day!

Paige vs. The Flag Cake

2010-07-04T23:43:00.018-05:00

Last week I was browsing blogs (as I often do), and I ran across this post by 17 and Baking. A flag cake! I thought, "I'm going to a 4th of July party; this will be perfect!

Little did I know it would become a monster that would consume my Saturday morning!

I gathered all of the ingredients, Mama Martina's mixer (thanks again!), and my dear friend Rachel Hoppe.

We made three 9" round cakes --> one red, one blue, and one we left white. (I found the recipe here).

The blue looked like a bomb pop on the red spatula!

Aren't these colors gorgeous?!

We thought so.

Once the cakes were baked and cooled, it was time for me to assemble them. This was the scary part. I bought a cake leveler at Hobby Lobby for $3, and it worked really well. I sliced both the red and white cakes in half.

So I ended up with two red layers, two white layers, and a full blue layer. I set one of the reds and one of the whites aside; these will be the bottom of the flag (they are on the rack in the back of the photo).

The other red and white, and the blue layers I stacked together....

And grabbed Vanessa's favorite mug, which happened to be the perfect size for my needs. I put it in the middle of the cakes, and cut around it, through all the layers.

I ended up with this: a red, white, and blue ring, and then a red, white and blue circle in the middle. You can discard (a.k.a. eat) the red and white rings, and the blue circle. They won't be in this cake.

It would be good to have a cake plate on which to assemble this. If you don't have a cake plate, then find the prettiest plate in your cabinet. Mine happened to be from the set I found in my scary basement!

Remember the red and white layers that I didn't cut? Place the white layer down on the plate and frost it.

And then the uncut red layer.

And then frost the red layer. Lay the blue ring on top.

Frost the inside of the blue layer, and lay the white circle in the middle. Frost that....

And lay the red circle on top. You're done!

I frosted the whole thing...it looked very unassuming when I brought it to the party!

Vanessa took pictures of the final result....I'll post those tomorrow!

Paige vs. the Basement

2010-07-01T17:19:00.011-05:00

If you have been following my blog, a few weeks ago I posted about needing to go into my basement for a tornado warning. I mentioned how I would rather have the tornado take me away than spend any time in my basement.

Today I cleaned out that basement.

And I lived to tell about it.

This is my view as I descended into the abyss.

After about an hour of work, I wasn't so keen on continuing.

But I didn't have much of a choice.

This is what I was up against. Sorry for the poor lighting; there are only two lightbulbs down there.

View of the stairs going up.

View from the stairs looking left. That little stuffed dog gives me nightmares.

View from the stairs looking forward. Yikes.

There is a really scary cabinet in the darkest corner of the basement. I dared open it today, shined the light in, and found....plates!

I have a better picture later.

This is the result of my labor: piles of broken fans, lamps, picture frames, window screens, christmas trees and wreaths, insulation, random tubs full of who knows what....all left by the previous owner.

And, of course, what basement would be complete without 27 cans of paint?

There were some buried treasures, though. I found this sweet lock box, in which I was hoping to find gold or silver or something else equally wonderful.

Instead, I found....

Gift tags. Who locks these away? Do they think the Grinch is going to steal them?

These dishes were a nice surprise, though. They have pale blue flowers around the edges and in the middles, and there are a lot of them.

My favorite find was this sweet stop watch. It's legit, and it even works!

The next post will be another baking adventure! I've gotta get out of the basement and into the kitchen!!

Cake Bites!

2010-06-30T17:38:00.012-05:00

A new friend of ours turned 22 on Saturday, and I made a massive amount of red velvet cake bites to celebrate!

If you haven't eaten a cake bite, please believe me that one bite will change your life.

I know that I tend to exaggerate, but seriously. These are amazing. (The originator of this recipe is Bakerella - she does some pretty amazing things!)

Let me show you:

1) Mix up a batch of red velvet box cake mix. I love how bright the color is!

2) Bake the cake, and let it cool completely. Then break it into pieces and put it in a big bowl.

3) Add a whole jar of cream cheese frosting. Don't count the calories; just do it.

4) Mix the cake and the frosting together until they're completely combined.

5) Put the mixture in the fridge for about an hour, then roll into little balls. I put mine on parchment paper. Put these back in the fridge for another hour.

6) I put lollipop sticks in them to make them cute and easier to dip. Then I melted some Baker's chocolate and dipped away!

Warning: If you buy cheap almond bark and add green food coloring to it, bad things happen.

I don't want to talk about it.

7) Put the dipped cake bites back in the fridge to let the chocolate set up, and voila!

Instead of treaties with other countries, we should just offer them cake bites. Bin Laden would come out of hiding for these.

How does your garden grow?

2010-06-30T12:00:00.009-05:00

How does my garden grow? I'm so glad you asked!

The green beans are growing beautifully - they are crispy and delicious and make life worth living.

I've been told I exaggerate.

I had a picture of strawberries to put here, but since I'm using my phone camera for all of these, it didn't turn out very well. I'm trying to pick the berries and flowers off so the roots can go deep for next year, but I did have the opportunity to sample one last night. Delicious, but really sour. Yikes.

Roma tomatoes! We have dozens on the plant right now. I'm so excited to spend a whole day in the coming weeks making tons of pasta sauce!

This, my friends, is what happens when you don't buy a lattice in time. Holy cow. Cucumber explosion!

Baby cucumbers!

This is the biggest of the gang so far - I anticipate being able to feed several third world countries with the amount of cucumbers that have taken over.

And of course, the herb garden. It kind of wimped out, except for the sage and parsley. The basil, lavender, thyme, and rosemary didn't really do very much. I was hoping to have enough basil to make enough pesto to last until Jesus comes back. But we don't actually have ANY basil. Rats.

Cake bite blog to follow! Have a lovely day!

Paige and Vanessa vs. The Weird Voice

2010-06-22T20:59:00.008-05:00

So, the last two times our doorbell has been pushed, I have thought I heard a strange sound right after the actual doorbell sound. It goes like this:
"Ding ding dee-ding ding ding. Wah wah wah wah wah wah."
Just like the lady in Peanuts.
Literally, it was a voice.

So Vanessa and I went on a hunt. Where was this voice coming from? Was it coming from the sound box?

No, Becky's boyfriend cut the cords on that a couple months ago. It's now just there for decoration.

Was it in the tall cabinet?

Nope. But we're getting close.

Was it in the game cabinet?

Nope. But we're still warm.

The pantry?

Nope. That was too far away.

The back porch?

Definitely not.

Vanessa thought of looking in the island. I thought this was silly.

But look!

What's this?

We found it! This silly little box was saying, "Please replace tone battery."

Conquered. Little box, you will haunt our home no more.

Sweet Summertime

2010-06-16T16:23:00.011-05:00

Two updates in one day! Incredible!
A lot of random things have happened to me this summer, so here's a quick update for all you faithful readers!

1) Vanessa moved in! Hopefully soon we will collaborate on a blog post. She has much better pictures than I do, and she definitely needs to get some pictures of her room up - it's awesome! I'm so glad to have her here! :-)

2) I got a new car. I traded in Shunganunga (my Jeep Liberty), which I loved, but cost me too much money....

...and I got Cecille, a 2010 Toyota Corolla. She is sleek, classy, and cost-efficient.

3) We had our first big storm of the year, which prompted Natalie and I to descend into the abyss known as the basement when the tornado sirens went off.

We almost decided we'd rather be taken by the tornado. Isn't this terrifying?

The winds knocked down a 15 foot long branch from a tree in the front yard.

Thankfully, my dad came to the rescue and hauled it off!

4) I turned 23 last Saturday. We had a party here with a bunch of sweet friends, and we partied til dawn. Almost. It was entirely too late. But so much fun!
Vanessa and Diana Martina collaborated to make me this beautiful cake. Thanks again, ladies!

5) This week I have the privilege of hanging out with this handsome guy.

Snickers! Love of my life. My family is out of town, so my favorite little dog and I are having some adventures.

Naps, mostly.

6) And lastly, Vacation Bible School is upon us. I am halfway through the week with a group of twenty 4-year-olds, and I'm exhausted. They are too cute, though - yesterday they did some painting during craft time, and they had to wear smocks.

Really, could they get any cuter?!

Have a great day!

Paige vs. The Last Day of School

2010-06-16T16:09:00.010-05:00

I understand this happened two and a half blessed weeks ago, but I have a few pictures I wanted to post, so here you go!

Behold: The Scantron. Savior of all frazzled teachers during finals week. I may or may not have given it a hug.
I was delirious.
This puppy can grade 30 100-question multiple choice tests in less than a minute.

I had written "Buena suerte" on the board right before their *killer* final. It means "Good luck".
One student misread it and thought it said "Buena muerte", which means "Good death." He thought that was more appropriate (considering the difficulty of the test) and rewrote my message, complete with a drawing.

Here's a close-up of the skeleton's head. Death by Spanish. Whoops!

But despite the fact that I beat them into the ground with their final, they still love me! These are a couple messages left for me on my white board. I also got a couple really sweet notes.

A big shot of the whole board.

By the end of the day, nothing could make me happier than the message in this shot: "Grades have been submitted."

For the last time. :-)

It looks like an ordinary classroom, but if only these walls could talk!

Wow! What a year. What a blessing it was to have 147 students entrusted to me to teach and build up (and tease mercilessly). They challenged me, humbled me, and unbeknownst to them, sanctified me. I look forward to another year of educating young minds! :-)

She considered a field...and bought it.

2010-05-25T21:43:00.008-05:00

Let it be known that on May 25, 2010, I purchased my first home.
:-)
It was a long and winding road that ended here - Omaha Title and Escrow. Isn't their part of the sign a bit small? I thought so, too.
The paperwork made sure to point out the fact that I'm single.
As if I wasn't aware.

But when I came home tonight and greeted my house, I knew it was mine. All mine.

And I love it!

Paige vs. the Snake

2010-05-24T14:49:00.011-05:00

A few weeks ago a terrorist visited my home.
I didn't consider the snakes to be terriorists until that afternoon, when one took it upon him or herself to slither through the slats of my back porch.
I declared war.
My dad and I (and my valient little brother, Snickers) went on a snake hunt. We looked in all corners of the property - under bricks, vines, leaves, bushes, and finally by the deck - the most likely of all locations. We found two snakes pretty quickly, but they wriggled under the deck before my dad's weapon of choice could snag them.

Here's Snickers, trying to find them for me.

Some hide under these bricks.

The next day Natalie and I found this in the very spot I first found a snake. Its skin
seems to be a form of mockery of the snake's part: "You'll never catch me!" I see it as a foreshadowing:
I got this; I'll get you next!"

I had two plans of attack: mothballs, and this cat, who has taken it upon himself to live under the front porch, meow incessantly, and NOT catch the rascally snake.

Today, I was out watering plants and I saw this in the very spot I had earlier spotted the snake skin:

Yes, folks, that is a dead, headless snake.

Vengeance is mine.

Spring has sprung!

2010-04-26T18:15:00.013-05:00

Hello, faithful readers! I apologize for the lack of posts - I had originally planned to only update when Vanessa was here, but spring has sprung while she is away, and I decided that you all need to see the beauty popping up around my home!

First, these beautiful daffodils surprised me with their sunny faces when I go home from spring break.
THen my lovely magnolias started blooming!

My hostas have been plotting all winter to take over the front sidewalk again, and they are slowly carrying out their plans.

This one is particularly fiesty.

I have been planting some, too. These are hopefully going to get really big and spill over the front of the planter. This is right by our front door.

My dear friend Elizabeth helped me plant these herbs. I like the look of the little herb family. We have parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme in the big one, and lavender, chives, and basil in the smaller ones.

These little guys are guarding my back door. I have planters on either side.

I cheated and bought one actual plant. This is a roma tomato plant, and he is growing very happily in the afore-blogged raised vegetable bed.

Everything else has been started from seed in the windowsills.

Here we have broccoli,

lettuce,

and shy little cherry tomatoes, which are just starting to peek out.

For some reason, this oregano got left out of the happy herb family. I need to reconcile them.

Spinach and green beans are going to have to wait a bit, though - they're going straight into the garden!

Paige and Vanessa Versus the Vegetable Garden

2010-04-05T00:23:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday we took it upon ourselves to build a raised vegetable garden. We had all our plans (thanks to Pioneer Woman and Bob Atkins), all the materials (thanks to Home Depot and Paige's bank account), and all the man power (thanks to James and Dan).

Here is how it unfolded...

Cute gloves: Check

Self Confidence: Double Check

Reindeer, a very important element of the perfect Vegetable Garden: CHECK!

Paige became a master driller...

Our one-armed nameless gnome was pivotal to the success of the afternoon.

Omagrow dirt and newspapers!

Dan showed that stake who was boss!

Finished picture to be put later..because at this point (the last tenth of the project) Vanessa decided she should try to be helpful instead of snapping pictures of everyone else's productivity...

*Edit:

Here is our finished product!

above is a tribute to the boys who so perfectly mixed the sand with the compost for our strawberry box. :)

Paige and Vanessa versus the blog

2010-04-05T00:11:00.000-05:00

Welcome to our blog...

Here we will document our misadventures as two blondes living in an old gray house.

We had quite a difficult time coming up with a blog title, so we gave up.

Some of our Ideas (like the platonic form) were...

abiding in beauty

busy while waiting

smiling at the future

two blondes in an old house (not two old blondes in a house)

but all of these were thrown out for the oh so creative name- Paige and Vanessa...we're pretty imaginative aren't we!

In the weeks and months to come (once Vanessa finishes school -4 more weeks!!!!!!) we will find ourselves battling many ridiculous obstacles (most of which we bring on ourselves), and going on many excellent adventures. Our first was this Saturday's project: Building a vegetable garden.

More to come...later...