Boredom or Craving?

Every now and then I have a craving. Not for something sweet or salty, but for something homemade and yummy. I don't care what. It's not so much a hunger as much as a desire to create. All last night I dreamt of these little strawberry cakes. I wanted to get up in the middle of the night and make them. Then I thought of making bread, then what should I make for dinner, should I start baking my own bread. It really turns into a bit of OCD.

What really drives this behavior? It could be the fact that I've been home sick WITH two sick boys for 5 days. If they were healthy, we could play outside or go to the park. If I was healthy, I could clean this pig sty I call my home. I could really take advantage of all this time off work. Instead I sit holding one child or the other, sometimes both, thinking of what delicious treat I could make next.

I'm really leaning towards the strawberry cakes. They just look to yummy not to try.

Brownies

These cute little "hamburger" cupcakes were so fun to make. And suprisingly yummy!

Here's the recipe I used for the brownie patty. Its really the first recipe I've used with only cocoa and not cubes of chocolate. It was exactly what I needed.

Melt 1/2 cup butter (one stick)

Mix with 1/2 cup of cocoa powder.

add 1/2 cup of sugar

And mix well

Add one egg and mix

Add another egg and mix

Turn up speed on the electric mixture and mix until light in color and fluffy like this.

Add 1 tsp vanilla

And 1 1/2 cups flour.

Mix with a spoon to prevent over mixing at this point.

Spray a small baking pan with this magical stuff.

Spread in the pan.

And bake at 350 for 20-30 min.

I then used a cup with the right size top to cut out all my brownie "patties".

Hamburger Cupcakes

My niece came and helped me make these super cute cupcakes. Don't they look like mini hamburgers! We had so much fun. It is definitely a great thing to make with your kids. But because my boys are too young, I though of this little girl who would love it.

I got the idea from Bakerella. I made my own brownie recipe for the patty, The Pioneer Woman's Yellow Cupcake recipe for the bun, a trusty vanilla butter cream recipe for the lettuce and condiments, and a sugar cookie recipe for the fries. (I will post my recipes at later time.)

You can most likely use any recipe for any of these components, but mine were pretty yummy. I'll admit that I didn't make them because I thought they would be delicious, more because they were so dang cute!

Some tips I found:

1. Under fill the cupcakes so that they don't go over the liners by much.
2. Mix the frosting with food coloring in a bowl BEFORE transferring into Ziploc bag.
3. Do a test run on the fries with several different sizes before committing to a full cookie sheet.
4. Cowboys don't eat "cute" food. Cowboys don't eat "mini" versions of food. (But don't let that stop you. I didn't!)

Have fun cooking!

Pumpkin Bread

I wanted to make a treat for my friend who has been having some very sad things happen lately. I wasn't really sure what to say, but I think that homemade food can really say it for you. Her and I happen to love pumpkin bread from Great Harvest. So I went searching for a recipe and found this recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Bread on a way cute site by a gal who lives here in Utah too! I love when I have things in common with people who are more creative or talented then I know how to be.

Anyway you must make this bread. It is the best!

It looks the best, right? Thats cuz it is.

Put 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour. Which by the way I just bought for the first time for another recipe. How lucky was that.

Then 3 whole cups of sugar. I made me re-think my choice of bowl size.

2 teaspoons baking soda. I prefer the Pure kind (is there any other?)

2 teaspoons cinnamon. I love recipes with cinnamon.

1 teaspoon nutmeg.

1 teaspoon salt.

16 0z, or 2 cups in my book, of pumpkin puree. There is plenty left over, so I will be making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.
Add that to a seperate bowl with 1 cup of oil, 4 eggs, and 2/3 cup water. Mix and then add flour mixture in 3 parts. Thats how I like to do it anyway.

Mix until combined.

Pour into two greased and floured bread pans.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50 - 60 min. Then ENJOY. I know you will.

Homemade Ice Cream Sandwhiches

These are so easy its embarrasing, but they are very tasty. You have to try them.

It was another rainy day on Sunday, and Tyke was very eager to help. He didn't really know what he was getting into.

He was ready to dig in and eat the cake mix. I spent half my time fighting him off.

I did get him to stir in the 2 eggs. If I looked away for two seconds the spoon was right back up to his mouth.

Then all you need is 1/3 cup oil.

He needed a little help stirring at this point. I usually do it in the electric mixer. It makes it a lot easier.

Bake at 350 degrees for 5 min. See how easy that was! Its disgraceful really. Not even worth a post.

So I decided to make them ice cream sandwhiches. I only had vanilla icecream so I had to make mine strawberry. So I took 3 scoops ice cream and about 5 strawberries and ran them through the blender.

Its nice and spreadable. It was really better then any store bought strawberry I've had. It tasted so fresh.

Now be careful that your cookies are fully cooled. Or the icecream will start melting before you can put the other cookie on. I stuck mine in the freezer and it worked even better.

I am not perfect so neither were my cookies. I stacked them all together and grabbed all the ones that stuck out the farthest. Those were pairs. I continued that process until all the cookies were matched up.

Then just one large spoonful of ice cream in the center of the cookie and no need to spread if the ice cream is soft, just top it with another cookie.

They were so yummy. Either serve immediately or freeze and thaw slightly before serving.

Rollup Pancakes (my family's crepes)

First you'll have to forgive the fuzzy darkness of these photos. It was early and I really couldn't tell how bad it was at the time.



When we were kids, my mom would make rollup pancakes, and we would eat them faster then she could cook 'em up. They were only for special occasions like our birthday or a holiday. So I wanted to share this special treat with my boys. Only I didn't let them have butter and granulated sugar like we had. They had to have raspberry jam and powdered sugar. (That's healthier, right?) They were so yummy!

Hopefully my food photography gets better so you guys believe me about how good they are.

Here's my secret. I make them in the blender. So easy, just throw it all in and blend until smooth. When its all mixed up it makes pouring on the griddle a breeze.


Dump in 1 1/2 cups flour and 1 tablespoon sugar.

1/2 teaspoon baking powder & 1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups milk (By the way, my cooking teacher said never to use this kind of measuring cup for liquids. So please don't follow in my bad behavior.)

2 tablespoons melted butter

2 eggs

And blend until its smooth.

Butter the griddle

Pour a small pancake size amount

Here's what makes them officially not crepes. I use the back of the spoon in a circular motion to spread the batter thin and even. Truely talented French chefs use a skillet and rotate to even coat the pan. I cannot do that, but I don't care because this totally works just as good.

The skillet needs to be medium. Too hot and they will cook to fast to spread, and may be crispy. Too low and they'll stick. Let them cook for 1 min or so on one side and loosen the sides and move towards the center to avoid tearing. But don't be discouraged I had a small pile of do-overs.

Flip and cook for 30 sec to one minute. You'll start to get the hang of it once you do a few.

Now you can put just about anything in these. Jam, powdered, sugar, lemon juice, pudding, chocolate, cream cheese...the possibilities are endless...and YUMMY!