New Recipes for the File

I made a couple of new recipes this week for the family and wanted to share them with you. I know we all need some encouragement in the area of cooking once in awhile. I was in a cooking rut again. I hate getting stuck there but this week I jumped out and my Hubby is so happy.

One of the things that I made was a Tomato Mozzerella Tart with Basil Garlic Crust. This was super, super good. It was very rich so I probably wouldn't make it alot, only when I need to a recipe for tomatoes and basil.

Today for lunch I made a WINNER that will be made more frequently. It was a Chicken Alfredo Pizza. It was superb! Hubby was grinning from ear to ear after biting into this delightful taste adventure. The next time I make it, I will:

1.) Make a roux at the beginning of the sauce. I will add flour to the butter so the sauce thickens up. She does not call for flour so the sauce was very runny. I added 1 T. of flour to the sauce and that worked. It thickened right up.

2.) Be sure to add spincach again. I added a layer of spinach after spreading the sauce and it made it even extra yummy. It also helped me think it was a little healthy!

Also I sliced some chicken breasts and sauteed them in olive oil with salt and pepper. They were delicious on the pizza and cheaper than buying the pre-made chicken slices.

I had a girl's day out on Tuesday with some really great friends and needed a crock pot meal for Hubby and the girl. I used another one from The Farmer's Wife. It was Crockpot Baked Ziti. It was really good. I do recommend making sure you have enough sauce. I used 26 oz. instead of the 32 oz. the recipe calls for and it needed more sauce. Don't skimp on the sauce. This was good and a great go-to recipe when I need something in the crockpot quick. I really like her blog. I found some great recipes that I want to try.

Then yesterday I was craving chocolate and remembered we had a container of chocolate frosting, so my daughter and I made a Wacky Cake. YUM! I love this cake because it isn't overly sweet and you don't need eggs or milk for it. It always turns out great.

Birthday Crafting

I am still here. Summer has been an especially hectic time for us. It started off with being in a horrible car accident over Memorial Day weekend. God totally watched over my family and only by His grace did we all get out with no major injuries. My hubby and I could hardly move for a few days but we healed up pretty quickly considering what could have been.

We bought a new-to-us vehicle, went on a few trips to see family, sold our house that had been on the market for 10 months, and in between all of that the girls have been sick off and on. We have battled Hand, Foot, Mouth Disease and I believe my youngest had Roseola.

Just last week my oldest turned 4! I can't believe it. I was determined to do some sewing for her for her birthday and I did. It felt so good to get a bit crafty again. It had been so long. I think my girls can play in the basement play/sewing room without killing each other for a longer period of time now. That helped alot!

So what did I make? Well, let me show you....

The first thing I did was find a small white T-Shirt at the Dollar Store and appliqued a number 4 out of vintage kitty fabric on the front. I added some pink ric-rac trim to the collar. Here's a piece of advice....When adding ric-rac trim to the collar of a t-shirt, do NOT sew it around the entire collar. The excited birthday child will not be able to squeeze her 4 year old head through the hole opening. You will then have to rip out half of the trim while your family is waiting to go out for lunch at Olive Garden and you will be so embarrassed for not thinking of this beforehand. So there! Free advice!

I also wanted to make a cute headband for her to wear with her birthday shirt. I found this great tutorial on making Scrap Flowers and went with it. I also sewed together two long skinny rectangles right sides together, turned them right side out, and sewed a finishing seam all around the outside. WAH-LAH...a head band that you can tie around your child's head. I hot glued my scrap flowers to the head band and felt all proud of myself. I think it turned out very cute.

As you probably know I make and decorate my girls' birthday cakes. I have so enjoyed this tradition. This year since Peanut was old enough to decide what she would like on her cake, I came up with 4 choices for her from ideas I found online. She got to choose from Strawberry Shortcake, Mr. Potato Head, Curious George and Cookie Monster. She picked Mr. Potato Head which actually became Mrs. Potato Head when I was decorating it. This was such an easy cake because I just used a star tip and grass tip to decorate then Potato Head pieces. So easy and so cute.

For the actual cake I made a homemade Pink Lemonade cake. I discovered this recipe a few weeks ago and knew I wanted to try it out for Peanut's birthday. It was so much yummier than something out of a box. Yum!

When she made her decision I remembered a tutorial I had seen online for felt Potato Heads so of course, I had to make one for her in honor of her cake choice. I also made a drawstring bag for her to keep the pieces in. I used sticky velcro on the pieces but have realized very quickly I am going to need to actually stitch them to the felt pieces.

I had so much fun making things for Peanut. It spurred me on to get busy on a bunting I had started making during winter but put aside. My triangles are currently in the dryer getting their perfectly frayed edges. I will be sewing them together hopefully tonight. Once the finished product is hung in the girls' room, I will post a picture. I am very excited to see how it turns out.

I also have a wreath and felt sitting on my kitchen table waiting to be turned into a something pretty to hang on my front door!

Baby Einstein Cake

My baby girl turned one on Tuesday. We celebrated a day early since Hubby had school and work all day on her actual birthday. I had a TOUGH time this year trying to decide how to decorate her cake. I could not make a decision to save my life and once I made a decision, I would change my mind. I couldn't keep track in my head what I was doing.

I kept searching online for ideas and had some of my own but they just didn't seem right to me. Can I just mention something here? Oh, yeah, I can, this is my blog. :) Some people out there...well they are spending way toooo much on baby's first birthday party. OH MY WORD! When you out-do yourself for the first birthday how in the heckfire (got that from Kayla Aimee) are you going to pay for the wedding? Come on, really? I feel bad for spending what I did and it surely was not much. I just was in awe of some of the party ideas and pictures floating on the world wide web.

I spent like one millioneth of what others might spend and we had a sweet time with preicous memories made. That really is what is important, isn't it. I would so love to link up some of those parties I saw, but I'm not the mean spirited or judgemental type so I won't.

So back to me trying to make a decision. FINALLY it hit me...the Baby Einstein caterpillar. We have a Baby Einstein dvd, Baby's First Signs that she loves. This 20 minute movie has saved my butt so many times during trying moments with my sweet little ornery girl. I can plop her in the Baby Einstein exersaucer that my beloved sister-in-law is letting us borrow, click on the movie, and say, "Do you want to watch the caterpillar?" She smiles, she giggles, she's content! Thank you caterpillar! And to show my gratitude to you, I honored you by decorating you on her first birthday cake.

He was so easy to make. It would have gone so much faster IF I had a couple more star tips and frosting bags. I had to stop a bunch of times to wash my one tip and bag and refill with another color. I wanted to put some purple on here but I had to add so much food coloring to the frosting to get the color bright, that when I added some red to my blue frosting, it looked horrible. Like pukey purple, so no purple! And there is a reason why the number one is in M&M's. I totally screwed up the frosting one, so I scraped and plopped on red M&M's!

I made a small "smash" cake for her to eat.


I used a dark chocolate cake mix because, frankly I think box cake mixes turn out so much better than homemade. I did make homemade Buttercream Frosting though. (I did not use clear vanilla like the recipe calls for and my white turned out fine.) YUM!

If you have never decorated a cake, it really isn't awful and hard. You can do almost anything with that star tip. It's crazy. I know the rage is fondant these days and I would like to give that a try some time, but that little star tips invokes so much nostalgia to me as I remember my mom piping out gorgeous cakes for loved ones so many times. She was super talented at cake decorating. I have just a fraction of that talent but am thankful that I have a fraction so my little girls can get Mommy-made birthday cakes each year filled with love.

I sure hope I never end up on Cake Wrecks, though. Yikes! ;)

Happy Birthday, Pumpkin!

Cake Balls

I was able to get to my dad's home for almost a week long visit. It was wonderful, just wonderful. I was missing home so much and aching to see friends from up north. It was truly a sweet visit. Part of the sweetness was getting together with a group of girlfriends from our old church and making Bakerella's cake balls. Yum! You do know who Bakerella is, right? If you don't, you must stop by HERE and visit with her. She is amazingness!

She created these little balls of sweet, yummy cake delight. They are adorable and can even be turned into cake pops. (I'm very sure they are low calorie too.)

My sweet friend at The Back Door opened her new home in the countryside for us. I was dying to see the homestead and her. She is a delight! (I just want to say something here for the public to read. I was thinking the other day that I used to live less than a block from her and I didn't take the time to get to know her. HOW SAD!!!! I wish I would have taken the time to step out of my comfort zone and gotten to know her then. I mean, she was a stone's throw away from my little green house. There would have been some extra sweet Back Door memories with her. Love you, Friend and thank you for hostessing!)

Now let me just say for a moment here...go ahead and giggle. Just go ahead and get it over with. You know you want to. I mean...cake balls???? What grown person can NOT giggle over that name. Oh, okay...so you're more mature than we are? Your mind isn't in the gutter like ours were? Maybe we had a bit too much fun with the name. But come on...all of us who were there are married, we're all grown-up, and we were starving for adult conversation, so yes....we giggled and cracked many jokes about the sweet little name of cake balls. A very sweet friend thought maybe we should call them cake bites when telling people about them. Oh Bakerella...did you have any idea when you named your sweet treats?

Ok...breathe...no more giggling. Grow UP!

We had fun. We crumbled. We mixed. We froze. We melted. We dipped. We tasted. YUM!

A piece of advice if you do find yourself craving some cake balls (no giggling). Melt your chocolate in small batches and do it in the microwave. We did some in a double boiler and it did not work well. The almond bark we melted in the microwave worked so much better. If you do it in small batches, you will have less crumbs in your melted chocolate to deal with too.

We made all sorts of cake balls. (I see that giggly sparkle in your eye. Focus...focus...focus!) The different types were cherry, strawberry, dark chocolate, confetti, lemon, and brownie. I did have a favorite. Is it ok to voice it here? No hurt feelings co-cake ball makers. The dark chocolate cake with chocolate frosting mixed in and dipped in white almond bark were wonderful.

And before BFF posts it in my comments...Hubby's nickname is NOT sweet cake balls.

Come on people.....GROW UP!

(For the record...this will be by far my most rebellious post. Heehee!)

Getting My Creative On

I have a couple of things to share with you....

My hubby's birthday was this past Monday, so I decided to make him a fun birthday cake. Hubby is very much into the tech world. He is an Apple loving man, so in honor of his love for all things Apple, I made him his very own iPod birthday cake.

I was very happy with how it turned out. He got quite a kick out of it.

My daughter who is 2 1/2 has been needing some work when it comes to color recognition. Now being a 3 year old preschool teacher, I tend to analyze everything and am a bit concerned that we are not getting the colors down. (The teacher in me also says, "It's fine...she will get it, just keep plugging away!) I decided to make color bean bags for us to use to work on the colors. I used the tutorial that I found here. I did change the measurements just a bit and didn't use quite as much rice. I busted a needle on my sewing machine due to using too much rice. They turned out cute and we have had fun with them. In fact tonight the bean bags were used as cupcakes while my daughter had an imaginary birthday party for her and I.

And I have to share this picture of my little one measuring her own fabric while I worked away on the bean bags. It was a proud moment.

50th Wedding Anniverary

The thing that has been consuming my time is over. We celebrated my parent's 50th wedding anniversary on Saturday. Much time over the past few weeks was dedicated to cleaning and preparation. I decided I would take on the cake. I have really enjoyed making Peanut's past 2 birthday cakes so I thought I could handle it. I also did it out of honor to my mom who used to make cakes for many family celebrations. A week ago I made GOBS of drop flowers out of Royal Meringue Icing. This type of icing is best because as they dry, they become very hard and won't break. I chose to use yellow and pale blue for the colors. Yellow was our theme color for this golden anniversary and blue was the color my mom used for her maid of honor's dress.

Thursday night I spent the evening baking GOBS of cake. I made two huge sheet cakes and 2 heart cakes. I knew right away that I wanted to use the Lady Baltimore Cake recipe. A friend of mine made it for one of my baby showers and it was soooo yummy. It was almond flavoring in it and is so wonderful. I will add the recipe at the bottom. I also made Lemon Curd to use as a filling for the sheet cake and Buttercream Icing for the cakes.

On Friday we took our cakes to Gigi's and I worked all afternoon and evening decorating them. My beautiful 2 year old daugther only took one swipe out of one of them after I had finished icing it. Thankfully it was not after I had finished decorating it, so it was easy to fix.

I am happy with how they turned out. They were simple but nice. I do need to practice my writing skills with frosting. My hand gets so shaky. I had to scrape the letters off a few times.
The decorations all were perfect. I dug out my mother's wedding dress so we could put it out on display and all of their wedding cards. While digging I found a wedding book that my mom had written the name of their wedding songs in. My techie hubby scanned a GOB of pictures and found the songs to use as background music for a video. It was the hit of the party...even more than my cake! Ha! He did a great job. The songs he used were "Because", "I Love You Truly", and "The Lord's Prayer". We needed one more song, so we chose "Love Me Tender" by Elvis, one of my mom's favorite songs.

We also had awnings set up in the yard with tables and chairs underneath for people to enjoy the gorgeous weather. We used gold paper to wrap the tables and white lights. There were also a GOB of mums sitting all over. It was so pretty. My mother-in-law made a great quilt that guests signed for my parents.

We served yummy food that my aunts and cousins helped with. There was cheesy dip with nacho chips, broccoli salad, ham salad on homemade sourdough rolls, potato casserole, cake, homemade cream cheese mints, nuts, and punch. It was all really good and we had plenty!

I am so thankful that it all went so well. It was a small party with close friends and family due to my mother's battle with Alzheimer's. My dad seemed to get more excited as it drew closer and really enjoyed himself during it all. I am so happy for that.

Here are a couple of pics from my parent's wedding on September 20, 1958.


Lady Baltimore Cake
1 3/4 c. cake flour (or regular unbleached flour)
2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
8 T. butter, softened
1 1/4 c. sugar
1/2 t. almond extract
3/4 c. milk
3 egg whites (about 1/2 c.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 2-8 inch round cake pans. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together well. Beat butter and sugar together in another bowl until fluffy. Stir almond extract into milk in another bowl. Alternately add half milk mixture then half dry mixture to the butter/sugar mixture, then once again, beating well after each addition until batter is smooth.

In a separate mixing bowl, beat egg whites until they are stiff but moist. Gently stir about a third of them into the cake batter until blended. Add the rest of egg whites and carefully fold them in.

Divide between cake pans. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes in pans, then turn out onto racks to cool completely.


"I Love You Truly"

I love you truly, truly dear,
Life with its sorrow, life with its tear
Fades into dreams when I feel you are near
For I love you truly, truly dear.

Ah! Love, 'tis something to feel your kind hand
Ah! Yes, 'tis something by your side to stand;
Gone is the sorrow, gone doubt and fear,
For you love me truly, truly dear.

What a perfect song for then and especially now for my parents.

Birthday Makings

My little girl turned 2 this week. In honor of her birthday and my new addiction to sewing, I made her some things for her special day. The first was a scrappy quilt to go on a baby doll bed that belonged to my mom when she was a little girl. The bed had been made by my great uncle for her. I remember playing with the same bed when I was a little girl. It was an ugly brown color and in desperate need of a new paint job. I painted it a pretty pale blue and made a quilt to go on the top of it. I also dug out my own baby doll, Suzie to give to my daughter. Here are some pics of the bed, doll, and Peanut with them.

I also made her very own apron. I found a great tutorial online. It was so easy. The only thing I did was add a pocket and a bow. I really wish I had put ric-rac around the pocket but Peanut was sick when I made it so I couldn't get to the craft store and I needed to get it done. Next time!

And for her cake I made a cute cow cake. I got the directions from the Family Fun website. I love, love, love that magazine. I need a subscription to it! Thankfully I can get free ideas off the site. Peanut is really into farm things so that is why she got a cow cake! She really liked it. The only candy that I used was Whoppers. The directions called for alot more, but I just used colored frosting instead.


I really enjoy making cakes, but am glad that I only do it like once a year. Heehee. Here is a picture of the cakes I made for Peanut's 1st birthday.

I am so glad that I am able to make things for my little girl. Homemade things have that extra special feeling to them. I am so grateful to my mama-in-law for getting me going on the sewing. I really didn't think I had it in me. She's pretty cool, that mama-in-law! I love her lots.