A little savory and a little sweet.

Today I had to show off my chicken and noodles.  I started out with every intention of making chicken pot pie, but realized halfway through that I didn't have all the ingredients that I needed to make it.  Haven't we all done that?  I had slow cooked two chickens overnight in the crock pot with lots of good seasonings.

I then shredded the chicken, and added it to noodles, along with peas, carrots, celery, and onion that I had sauteed before hand.  I also used lots of seasoning and chicken bullion for good hearty flavor.

For dinner we had a little something sweet, but pretty low calorie.  It's a very simple dish, but I find it delicious.  Depending on your mood, you can make it whatever flavor that you want.  It's jello cake.  Now, when I worked at the nursing home, jello cake was a cake with holes poked in it and then jello poured over it and set. 

That's not my version of jello cake.  This cake was something that my Grandma K and I absolutely LOVED the stuff.  Surprising, my family loves it too.  I can make one and it will be gone within a couple of days.  Jello cake around here is to make an angel food cake, let it cool, and then you rip it into a million pieces.  Then, you choose a kind of jello that you want.  Make it, and then you pour it over the ripped up cake pieces.  Make sure that everything is soaked, and stick it in the fridge until set.  Add a small dollop of sugar free whipped topping, and it's a bowlful of joy!  I've made it in just about every flavor of jello known to man.  I usually always also use sugar free jello.  It's a treat that I don't have to feel guilty about.  :)

Spray on is not just for tanning!!!!

I have discovered spray on coloring!  I had seen it before, but never ventured to buy any. Hubs changed my world a couple of weekends ago when he placed two cans of the fun stuff in my cart.  Being very into air brushing, Hubs thought this would be a fun way to give some life to my creations. The coolness factor of this stuff is unbelievable. 

I decided to put this coloring to work for the cupcakes that I was making for the boy's big Valentine's Day bashes at school.  One boy was getting cupcakes, and one boy was getting cookies.  I went with a simple vanilla cupcake and a buttercream icing.  Then after the icing crusted a bit, I shot it with the spray can.  It was really fun.  It doesn't add a taste to the cupcake, and it enables you to give shadows and light to the cupcake. Of course, you really can't tell much from these pictures, again they are from my cell phone.  You would THINK at some point I could put together the act of being at Walmart and buying batteries.    In fact, the cupcakes look kind of orange, but they were red.

Next were the sugar cookies.  I decided to do something different for each kiddo.  I used a new food coloring, one that was extremely bright.  I nearly burned out my retinas decorating these suckers!  I absolutely fell in love with the sugar cookie recipe.  Literally days later, the cookies were still soft and delicious.  Again, the icing was a simple butter icing.  I wasn't sure that my oh so manly little boys would be willing to take bright pink cookies and cupcakes to school, but they were cool about it.  I got good reports from teachers and students alike!

Banana Cake!

I know that I am quite possibly driving you all insane with the constant cooking and posting that I have been doing the last couple of days.  But, when I get a day off like this today, I take advantage of it.  It may be days before I have the opportunity again.  I just wish SO much that I had prepared myself with batteries for my camera.  Sigh!  Oh well, I will know next time, right?

I was going to make a butter pecan cake tonight, but noticed that I had bananas on the counter that were getting perfectly ripe for banana bread.  But, then I thought, I don't really want banana bread.  It's what I always make with my bananas.  So, I thought, aha!  Banana cake!  I'd never made one before.  I made a triple layer round banana cake with a banana cream cheese brown sugar icing that I came up with.  I couldn't find a recipe that had what I wanted in my mind. 

Here is the result.  I spread a very thin layer of the icing in between each layer of cake, and a thin layer of icing all around.  This is because the icing is extremely rich.  I need some testing to give me their thoughts on it.  If David makes it to work tomorrow, this will go with him.  My son J, actually got to eat this slice.  I DID take a bite for taste testing purposes. 

May I present:

A fudgy, creamy, yummy tasting brownie!!!!!  Sorry that the picture quality is not good.  I am not about to walk to town in TWELVE plus inches of snow for batteries for my camera, lol!

These were SOOO much better this time!  I actually had to bake them for about 30 minutes, instead of the 20.  I don't know if my oven is off in temps or what.  I need to find that out.  I've never been a baker who went on times, I usually go by sight and touch, but I wanted to do this exactly as the recipe said before I started going crazy with it.  This recipe tells you to cold water freeze bath it when they are baked ,but I don't like the way that it makes the bottom of the brownie.  The reason for using that technique is that it stops the cooking process in it's tracks, leaving the brownie at that fudgy stage.  I like the thought, but am not so sure about the result.  I need a blast freezer.  Ha!  Good luck with that one, right? 

Nevertheless, these are delicious.  Chocolately, not too sweet, fudgy, yum~Of course, I feel the need to keep testing them.  Would they be better thicker?  What flavors can I add to them?  A cream cheese brownie?  Raspberry?  How about a bit of that peach jam that I made from the delicious peaches of Pate's Orchard?  How would THAT be swirled in some cream cheese in one of these brownies???  *doing the Homer Simpson drool*

Although I do not look forward to David driving to work tomorrow, I also will be glad to send these things out for others to munch on.  If anyone needs some heat and good food, head to our house.  If you can get here!

I am giddy with anticipation!!!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow is a snow day, and you know what that means!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  BAKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm going to retest that brownie recipe, make a butter pecan cake, and who knows what else.  My children crave fresh bread so maybe some of that too!  Ahhhhh, it does my soul good. 

The problem with testing

So tonight I began my journey to find the perfect fudgy brownie.  I found a few places that have done the work for me, and have tested brownie recipes for me.  I am a fudgy brownie kinda' girl.  So, after agonizing for days over a dozen different recipes, I finally settled on one that I wanted to try.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I have been making brownies all my life. I have good recipes for brownies and people like them.  However, I am a brownie snob.  When I eat a brownie, I want it to be a superior experience.  When you eat a brownie that I bake, I want you to remember it and crave it!

Tonight I baked it.  I followed the recipe to the letter.  Everything looked and smelled delicious.  However, after following the process, which included a  quick freeze cooling to make them more fudgy, I cut them open to reveal that the brownies were not completely baked.  Sigh! 

However, the taste is AMAZING.  I have found a perfect brownie recipe.  They are just sweet enough, have a strong but not overpowering chocolate flavor, and are fuuuuudgy.  I have decided that I need to put a temperature gauge in my oven.  The brownie was supposed to be cooked at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.  I cooked it about 22 minutes, and it still didn't finish out. 

The problem with testing stuff like this though, comes in the ingredients.  Flour, sugar, those are all relatively inexpensive.  But when you start adding the chocolate it gets expensive.  Butter is even expensive in this town.  I need to go to Sam's and check out getting it cheaper!  It's too expensive to buy ingredients in our town and test treats, I am sad to say.  I would love to be able to buy ingredients at reasonable prices in our town. 

I will continue my journey for the perfect brownie later this week.  If we have snow days, there is going to be a LOT of stuff coming from this kitchen.  :)  

Cupcakes, cupcakes, CUPCAKES!!!!

Happy Birthday to my oldest son JD today!  He's the big NINE today.  Every year we have some kind of a party for him.  For years I worked to create a shaped cake of a particular character that he enjoyed.  We've done Nemo, Spongebob, Spiderman, etc.  Then we got to the time period where I was driving me husband out of his blonde little mind.  He was determined that I not spend so much time killing myself in the kitchen during our children's birthdays.  So, we began the process of going to the local grocery store and buying a cake.  Which to me just was never the same.  A layer of cake topped with brightly colored (heavily dyed) whipped frosting.  It's just never been my personal cup of tea.  No offense to anyone who uses or makes them!  I have always been determined to give my kids two things.  What I never had and memories that they will treasure.  When they look back at their childhood birthday parties, I don't want them the remember going to the grocery store and picking out a cake. I want them to remember Mom in the kitchen creating something just for them.  I have some pictures of the cupcakes that I made this year.  These aren't pictures of all of them.  I usually make enough of whatever I have for the kid party and then the family party later, so I always make lots.

 This year I decided to go with cupcakes.  Cupcakes equals less mess, I thought.  I did a variety of several kinds of cupcakes and icings.  Now, these definitely aren't beauty shots.  I simply RAN out of time this year and David ended up icing a lot of them.  I also ended up quickly snapping shots of cupcakes as people were coming in, so, it doesn't really show what I wanted to.  I wanted to have these gorgeous pictures of cupcakes to show you all.  Oh well.  I'm sure it won't be the last time that I make cupcakes.  :)  This top picture of cupcakes is a combination of minis and regular sizes.  I wanted to do both.  The pink ones are strawberry cupcakes with a cream cheese icing.  The white minis are banana cupcakes with cream cheese filling.  And finally, the regular sized ones are Butterfinger cupcakes. 

 Here I have chocolate peanut butter cupcakes, chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes, banana minis with chocolate chip icing, and more strawberry. 

Finally here, we have regular sized strawberry cream cheese. 

It was definitely an interesting process.  I love the start of all of these cupcakes.  No part of any of these came from a box or a can.  The banana cupcakes were delicious.  They were moist, but not too heavy on the banana flavor. I expected them to come out like banana bread.  They did not.  Adding the cream cheese to the top of them was WOW.

The butterfinger cupcakes were a banana cupcake base with a butterfinger icing.  Loved the icing, but to me the mixture of the banana cupcake with it just wasn't right.  I think that I will have to experiment with these.  I'm not sure if a chocolate cupcake would go better or what.  I just know that it needs tweaking.  It seemed to be the favorite of several people though, so I guess we will just have to see.

The chocolate chip cookie dough cupcake is DIVINE.  The icing is fluffy, delicious, and makes your head spin with its creaminess.  The cupcakes are typically filled.  I had to forgo this step though, as time was slipping away.  For a chocolate chip cookie addict, these are mind blowing.  I made the full on cupcakes last week and sent them to the Hub's work.  They were devoured.

The chocolate peanut butter cupcakes were also delicious.  I still need to tweak them though.  They were something that I had never had before.  In the center of the chocolate cupcake, there is a peanut butter ball.  To me the chocolate cupcake was a bit dry and not as chocolately as I would like.  I need to tweak that.  I want a moister, more chocolate flavored cupcake.  The icing and my own personal recipe of peanut butter ball inside though, was perfect.  I like cupcakes with surprises in the middle.

Strawberry cream cheese, what can you say about that?  They were moist and delicious.  I have no idea how many of those cupcakes that the boy's Grandad put away before the rest of us even ate lunch! 

To me, cooking is about experimenting with food to learn about it, and making it your own.  As I work on these cupcakes, I will keep you posted.  Hopefully, I will get batteries in my camera, more time on my hands, and be able to post some amazing shots of these delectable treats!