I love having both my mom and my mother-in-law in town, but it made for a busy Sunday! This morning we had brunch with Pete's mom, and I made a new make-ahead French toast that was so delicious.





The recipe is here except I used real eggs instead of egg substitute. Very yummy. And Mint Bellinis, too. We also went out to dinner with my mom and my sister's family, so it has been a day of eating!

Among all the cooking I did get time to work on a new project.



I do have all the pieces cut for the master quilt and I'll try to piece the top this week. Then I'll have three weekends to get it quilted to meet my May goal. It's nice to be able to still work on other projects, though!

Labels: cooking, family, quilting

As the weekend winds up I hope you all had a good one! I got in my first swim of the season yesterday - not that it hasn't been warm enough before now! No April snows for us like for our friends up north.



Pete's birthday was last week and we went to my mom's tonight to celebrate, so I spent a little time this afternoon making honey peanut cupcakes. I must be on a peanut kick right now.



The honey taste came through wonderfully, and the cake was a little spongy and very tender. Love these recipes.



And of course I had to take my camera since I knew my nephew was going to be there...

Hope your weekend was good, too!

Labels: cooking, family

I hope everyone had a nice weekend! For those of us in the States, it was Super Bowl weekend. I'm not a huge football fan, but it was actually a really good game! If you found the game fast approaching without any snacks, next time try this - I call this my White Trash Queso...

Brown 3/4 pound ground beef with half a chopped onion and half a chopped bell pepper (you can skip the veggies if you don't have time to chop).



Combine in a crock pot with 1 block of Velveeta (cubed) and 1 small jar of your favorite salsa.



Cook on high until melted, ~30 min but stir often to make sure it doesn't burn. Then turn off and enjoy with your favorite tortilla chips! Just turn back on low occasionally if it's gets cool.

Be careful, this gets eaten quickly! If you have a big crowd I'd recommend a double batch...

Labels: cooking

One of my Christmas presents from my sister was a cookbook she knew would be right up my alley... It's called Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey - Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth.



I've made two recipes from it now and they've both been delicious! Tonight I made the Gooey Caramel Butter bars - anything that uses a whole bowl of caramel has to be good!



And I just love the styling of this book. It's sweet, just like the recipes! Lots of cute fonts and scalloped edges, and at the top of each recipe is a little story about where it came from and why Jill likes it.





And the most important part - the finished product is delicious!

Labels: cooking

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. The long weekend was very nice, and though I've had to be back at work this week, it is very quiet in the office.

As you can tell, I've been very busy, doing things like teaching my nephew to bake.



I think he has a little ways to go with hand-eye coordination before he can completely take over...

Labels: cooking, family

Yesterday was one of those days that was just amazing. Believe it or not, I was only up for about 12 hours, but I made the most of them. I started the day by sleeping in until 10:30. I honestly can't remember the last time I slept past 8am, and even on the weekends I'm usually up by 7am. I obviously needed the sleep! Thanks to Peter for distracting the dog so I could sleep in so late.

I moved from the bedroom to my craft room to finish up a little project that's been almost done for months, and then got to work in the kitchen. First I made cranberry-almond granola to snack on at work.



Then I whipped up some dinner for a few nights from my birthday present to myself: Don't Panic: Dinner's in the Freezer. I made Pecan-Chicken Roll Ups (not the official name) and we had them for dinner last night, plus I have four more servings in the freezer. They were quite good! This is the second recipe I've made from this book and so far it hasn't let me down.

Finally, I had to try the apple cake mentioned by Amy because I had promised to bring something in to work today. As Amy said, it was amazing! A big hit with my coworkers.

I also got some reading in for my book club meeting Sunday, did quite a bit of cleaning and laundry, enjoyed Peter vacuuming without being asked (love that!) and went to bed at 10:30 ready to get some more sleep. Just about a perfect day!

Labels: cooking

I did some more baking this week - this time I made gingersnaps! I decided to try something different on a few of them and dipped them in melted almond bark. They taste great and look really pretty!!





We're heading to Austin tonight and Schlitterbahn tomorrow with some kids from church. Hopefully I won't get too sunburned! I also hope I'll have time to squeeze in some crafting on Sunday, since we're coming back tomorrow night. I have so many things I want to try!!

Labels: cooking

I take pretty much any excuse to bake. I try to keep all the necessities around (eggs are the hardest, since I don't use them for much) so I can make some cookies or cupcakes when I feel like it... I think I mentioned recently that some friends of ours had a baby last week, so I used that as an excuse to bake some cookies! I did keep some for us, so that was an added bonus.

I really love the whole process of dough becoming cookies. This time I made my mom's peanut butter criss cross cookies...



There is something very satisfying about smashing down the balls of dough with a fork to form the criss-crosses.





And they are delicious! Thanks, Mom, for letting me do the smashing when I was little, and passing on the recipe now that I have a kitchen of my own!

Labels: cooking

Here is photographic evidence that you should always cool baked goods in the pan for a little while before turning them out on a rack to cool:



And from the end, where you can see all the pieces that have fallen off the cake:



Luckily I was already going to frost the cake, so I was able to put it back together and make it stick with a yummy cream cheese frosting. And like Peter said, it won't taste any different!!

Disguised cake:

Labels: cooking

Since I'm a good neighbor, I slaved over the stove to make yummy candy for everyone near us. Okay, so the peppermint bark and Oreo bark, and even the toffee, are really easy... The peanut brittle is easy too, but just a little stressful because of how fast you have to do everything at the end, and it takes a long time standing there stirring to get it up to the right temperature... Anyway, Peter thought the presentation I had for giving this stuff away looked cool, so I thought I'd post a picture:

Labels: cooking