Easter cupcakes

I had a few cadbury eggs (like 50) left from last Easter. so, I made some cadbury cupcakes.

Ingredient List:
one box chocolate cake mix
eggs
oil
water
cadbury eggs
frosting, vanilla and cream cheese
green food coloring
reeses eggs
cupcake liners
oven set at 350F

Take cadbury eggs out of foil. Freeze until solid (I did mine over night). Prep chocolate cupcakes as box states. Put liners in cupcake pan and small spoonful of batter. Put in cadbury egg. Pour more chocolate cake batter over, to cover. Bake as box instructs. Cool, then frost with green frosting and eggs. I mixed vanilla and cream cheese frosting together in the mixer with green food coloring then spiked it on cupcakes for grass.

Look at all that Cadbury goodness deep down inside! :)

Baked Beans

My dinner tonight? Baked beans and corn muffins!  Talk about a perfect (solitary) meal.

 

 I started out with 1.5 cups of dried beans.  As you can tell, I have a variety in there.  Pinto, Black, Northern White, Kidney, and Cranberry beans.  I cooked them at a slow boil for about 2 hours, then threw in about 2 cups of frozen crinkle cut carrots and 1 cup of frozen diced onions, then boiled another 7 minutes and drained it all. I then preheated the oven to 325F and greased a large baking dish (with a lid if possible, or wrapped with tin foil). In a separate bowl, I combined 3/4 cup (ideal) brown sugar, 1/2 cup ketchup, 1 TBS apple cider vinegar, 1 TBS yellow mustard, 1/4 cup crumbled bacon, 1 tsp maple syrup extract, and several cups water (as it cooks, you may have to add more water. I started with 2 and added 1 cup later).

Everything set to be combined into deliciousness.

Meet my beans. Aren't they fabulous?

I mixed everything up in my baking pan, sealed it tight, then put it in the oven. All the recipes online told me I should bake for about 3 hours. I kept peaking at it, though, and finally got so hungry that I had to sneak some out for dinner. It was great, but still needed a bit of time to soften up.  The beans are currently back in the oven with some extra water.  I served my huge scoop full of beans with fresh corn muffins. (See my corndog recipe. Add 2 TBS frozen corn for each 3 TBS of corn meal mix)

Sorry the picture is so dark. I was too busy wanting to eat this to try and take a magnificent photo.

BBQ Steak Sandwich!

Hello all.  With the beauty of spring surrounding us, I have started cooking up again.  That, and it is spring break, so I have excess time on my hands!

For lunch today, I made myself a steak sandwich. Eye of round steak was on sale at Meijer this week. That was my poison!

I started with 1 TBS flour, a little salt, and a little black pepper.  After my steak came to room temperature, I dredged it in the flour mixture. (I read online that letting your steak come to room temperature before cooking helps it to be more juicy).

Steak, sitting in a lovely bath of flour, salt, and pepper

Then, I fried it in a little pam on a skillet. (It got a bit smokey, and YES, my fire alarm went off! Oops).   A minute or two on either side was all that it took to cook the steak, as it was a very thin slice.  I dropped some frozen, pre-sliced onions into my flour mixture and tossed them around, then got rid of the extra flour. Once my steak was happily resting on my plate to be eaten later, I threw the onions (about 1/4 cup) and 1 TBS bacon crumbles in the skillet to brown up.  I topped the steak with a slice of reduced fat muenster cheese, plopped the onions and bacon on top, poured on a little bit of Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce and put it all inside a toasted English Muffin that had a bit of mayo on it.  I served it with asparagus (pop off the ends and steam for 7 minutes), carrot sticks, and Special K cracker chips - sour cream and onion flavored.  Yum!

Such a happy plate!

Look at all those onions, bacon, and BBQ sauce sitting happily on top of my steak and cheese sandwich! YUM!

Yes, this was officially FOOD!

A True Beezo Bowl

I would like to start this all about by sincerely thanking the individual who sent me my very own Beezo Bowl.  My parents received a package at their house, addressed to me!  Inside, a beautiful bowl made just for me!  There was no evidence to be found as to who sent the package.  Thank you to my anonymous friend! If it wasn't supposed to be anonymous, let me know! 

Chocolate Brownies:

The first recipe I have is a gluten free, low carb, low calorie, low fat chocolate object.  My sister, Emily, has to eat low carb. For her birthday, she sent me this recipe.  I thought it would be disgusting, but I was wrong!  It is supposed to be for a cookie, but I never could get it to stop oozing, so I turned it in to a brownie.  Oh yeah, each one is about 53 calories each!!!!


1 1/2 cups of Ideal powdered sugar (you can use real pwd sugar, too, it is just more calories)
1/3 cup DUTCH processed Cocoa
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon instant coffee *optional*
1/4 teaspoon baking powder (my own addition. This makes the brownies more fluffy, less dense) 
                whisk dry ingredients together
2 egg whites (I use the kind in a carton)
1 teaspoon vanilla
                gently stir this in to the dry ingredients
1/2 cup semisweet or dark chocolate chips
                gently stir in to the brownie mix

Pour mix in to a parchment lined and lightly pam sprayed 8x8 pan. Bake in a 350F preheated oven for approximately 30 minutes. Once cooked, move parchment to a cooking rack.  Slice in to 9 brownies. ENJOY!!!

Hummus:


I got a great recipe for Hummus from the ladies in my bible study. In the past, I haven't wanted to make it because you have to have tahini for it, but they gave us a great tip - you can use almond butter or peanut butter instead. I went one step farther and used Better'n Peanut Butter.  It is a peanut butter substitute I found at Trader Joes.  It has 85% less fat and 40% less calories than regular peanut butter.

15 oz can of garbanzo beans, drained. Reserve the liquid
3 Tablespoons tahini, pb, almond butter, or better'n peanut butter
1/4 C fresh lemon juice (or more)
1 - 3 garlic cloves (depending on preference)

Place beans, garlic, and tahini in food processor. Add lemon juice and 2 Tablespoons of garbanzo liquid. Blend until smooth. Add more water if too thick.  May garnish with parsley and drizzle with olive oil.  Refrigerate. 

Another idea they gave me was to spread humus on an english muffin, then to top with cheese (I used Trader Joes lite provolone) and broil until cheese is bubbly. YUM!

Low Fat Strawberry Cake:

This is another bible study recipe. So delicious!

16 ounces White Cake Mix (read the labels. There are lower calorie/fat ones out there. I used Betty Crocker)
2 - 6 ounce  packages low fat strawberry yogurt
3 egg whites (I use from a carton)
3/4 cup water
1/3 cup oil (I use apple sauce)
8 ounces Cool Whip (Lite or FF)
Strawberries to garnish

Mix together cake mix, 1 package yogurt, egg whites, water, and oil (or applesauce).  Pour in to 2 - 9 inch cake pans that have been prepped with pam and a light dusting of flour.  Bake in a preheated 350F oven for 30 minutes. Cool.  Mix together the cool whip and second container of strawberry yogurt. Frost cake with this and garnish with strawberries. Store in the fridge.

As you can see, we were a bit hasty with frosting this cake. We wanted to eat it. It is delicious.  I think this recipe would lend itself to some alterations:

Use coconut yogurt and garnish with lightly toasted coconut
Use any berry yogurt and garnish with mixed berries
Use pineapple coconut yogurt and garnish with pineapples and coconut

The possibilities are endless!

Candy Mountain

For my brother's birthday this year, I made him 2 pies (strawberry rhubarb and apple) baked inside of 2 red velvet cake, frosted with cream cheese frosting. For Thanksgiving, I baked him 10 pies. As you can tell, I went a bit overboard both times.  For Christmas, he started sending me all sorts of things he wanted made.  I finally told him he only got one dessert, so to think long and hard about what it was before the decision was made.  Here is what I was sent:

So, being the idiot that I am, and with much assist from my mother and sister, we printed off the schematic and went to the grocery store. Oh, he also said I got bonus points for chocolate chip cookies and for pecan pie goop. Well, we purchased everything on the list.  The very next day, I got to baking.  In a 9" cake pan, I made 1/2 or a brownie box, 1/4 of a red velvet cake box, 1/2 of my bisquick magic crustless pumpkin pie, and a dozen break and bake chocolate chip cookies.  I set them all to cool on the counter, then went out for lunch. 

Once I got back, the assembling began.  I lined a 9" cake pan with plastic wrap and layered: brownie, vanilla ice cream (used a hot knife and cut it from the box in slices), mini ice cream sandwiches, caramel sauce, hot fudge sauce, hazelnuts, then LOFTHOUSE COOKIES (I couldn't find the oreos at the time), pecan pie goop and pecans (Emily had made some of the goop and I plopped it on there), and a giant chocolate chip cookie.  I pushed down on all the layers to make it nice and solid, wrapped in more plastic wrap, and threw it in the freezer.

For layer 2, I lined another 9" cake pan with plastic wrap and started from the top down.  Crushed snickers started it all, then slices of vanilla ice cream, crushed butterfinger, some cream cheese frosting (cream cheese, butter, vanilla, powdered sugar), the thin red velvet cake, reeses peanut butter cups, ice cream, gummy bears, gummy worms, gummy dinosaurs, and gummy fish (they were a bit out of order, but for the purpose of stacking, they had to go here), then regular sized cookies and cream ice cream sandwiches. Yet again, this was all squished with plastic wrap and put in the freezer.

On Christmas night, assembly took place.  I pulled on the plastic wrap and lifted out the 1st layer and then added the 2nd layer (which I flipped so as to follow the diagram).  I put on the layer of frozen pumpkin pie and oreos that I finally found in a hidden bag in the house.  Emily and Mom were working on the whipped cream. It was misbehaving.  It was going to be both the mousse and the whipped cream, but everything started to melt in Candy Mountain.  I poured chocolate sauce and caramel all over the oreos. Mom plopped fresh whipped cream on top. Sprinkles and one cherry topped it all. 

Here is Candy Mountain, complete with Charlie the Unicorn

Slicing it open.

Here are all the glorious layers

Faintly melted.  At this point in time, it was 7" tall.

In the end, it was only missing chocolate mousse, but did have the bonus of chocolate chip cookie, lofthouse cookie, as well as gummy fish, worms, and dinosaurs.  It has to be sliced with a bread knife that is heated in hot water.  We decided that while it was delicious, the gummy items should not have been in the dessert. They are too hard to cut through and chew, and just not very delicious amongst everything.

Joel (my brother) called a truce.  No more crazy desserts for a while!  He wrote me today to tell me that the guys at work today ate some more of Candy Mountain, but that Candy Mountain fought back. 

(I named it Candy Mountain, with thoughts of the following youtube clip: Charlie goes to Candy Mountain)