Helloooo Luvah.....

This bad boy is making it's way to my home as we speak. I cannot wait to get my hands on it! This was my birthday gift from the hubby this weekend. I am dreaming of all the things I can make...Let's see...Chocolate cake, sugar cookies, red velvet cupcakes, creamy frosting for the cupcakes. I could go on and on. However, this probably means I will be gaining too many extra pounds, but what the heck?! At least we'll have a good time in the process...

Making Whoopie...pies, that is....

So lately I have been salivating over all of the yummy whoopie pie recipes I've seen. I attempted to make the box version they sell at the grocery stores. Eh, not my favorite nor my kids. So I saw a recipe using a cake mix for the tops and bottoms and I thought I'd give it a whirl. We're having a pot-luck at work tomorrow so I thought I'd let my co-workers be the guinea pigs for this concoction.
I picked up a caramel cake mix and whipped up the top and bottoms. Uber easy. I took another filling recipe and mixed all that together and it definitely wasn't a pretty sight when I turned on the mixer.It.went.everywhere.  I learned my lesson on that one!
After that disaster was cleaned up I put the filling on the tops/bottoms and then rolled them in some fun Halloween sprinkles. I took them to the kiddos to test and moments later I heard my youngest say "These are a-maz-ing!". I've never gotten quite that response from him. Makes a momma melt!

My New Adventure....

This is me. This is me when I run. This is not a pretty site. I've wanted to be able to run for a long time. It seems like a great way to blow off steam. People all around me are running. At the bus stop I see runners. Family members are running. So in an effort to at least attempt to start running I challenged my son and myself to do the couch25k program. I may or may not have given him a little monetary incentive. I did W1D1 of the program and I was pleasantly surprised I didn't drop dead on the treadmill. Sooo, we'll see how this really goes in the next few weeks. Now I'm not saying that at the end of all this I'll still want to run, but it's a challenge for me and my son to complete. And if I do want to continue then, well, maybe I'll do a 5K with my kiddo.

Oh, where has the time gone...

My beautiful baby girl went to the Prom last night. Where has the time gone? Just yesterday I remember her running up the driveway after getting off the bus. Sigh.....

Chirp, Chirp..

I think that's the sound baby chicks make. I've loved making different kinds of cupcakes for a while now, but I've been dying to make some cake pops. I've made the traditional cake balls in different flavors, but they just didn't have the pizazz of cute cake pops. I found Bakerella's website a long time ago and I even attempted to make the cupcake cake pops without success so I gave up. My dad was in town visiting this past weekend and we went to our usual stomping grounds Barnes and Noble. I thought, "Let me at least look at Bakerella's cake pop book I have been salivating over...." Well, needless to say the book came home with me. I had a cake mix in the pantry and whipped that up and impatiently waited for it to cool down. I made the cake balls and dipped them in just plain 'ol chocolate to see if I'd have success with at least the coating. I did, so I had to wait until my day off today to run out and get the rest of the items to try one of the recipes in the book. Well, about an hour after I got home this is what I finished up with...

Now I realize that my little chickadees are not exactly the most round in cake pop form and the pics are not the brightest due to the nasty weather, but I am pretty proud of the outcome. The hard part will be eating them since I don't want to!

Yummy Layered Salad Recipe...

I recently received two different magazines in the mail. My youngest did some type of program at the beginning of the school year and it looks like my family donated their magazine subscriptions to me (it is much appreciated!). As I was looking through the Southern Living mag I noticed a pic for Southwest Layered Salad. Looked yummy so I hopped on-line to search for the recipe. I printed the recipe earlier last week and finally made it to the store to pick up the ingredients yesterday. Let me tell you this was soooo good~at least in my opinion. It was hard to wait the two hours in the fridge (and I may or may not have eaten it before the two hours because I am impatient like that). I couldn't resist! The only thing I did differently from the recipe is omit the cornbread as I am not a huge cornbread fan. It turned out wonderfully anyway!

Here's the website info:http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=10000000642233

Hope everyone enjoys!

Yummy Stuffed Pizza Rolls

Today I attempted to make some stuffed pizza rolls from the Our Best Bites website/blog.

http://www.ourbestbites.com/2009/06/stuffed-pizza-rolls.html

Let me tell you they were so good I didn't even get the chance to take pictures as they were gobbled down so quickly! On the blog they used hawaiian pizza toppings, but I used the basic pizza standby-pepperoni and cheese. (I did sneak in a few with some chopped up chicken breast I had in the fridge.)These were so easy to make and I can see us definitely making them again in the near future. As I am typing this the kiddos are already planning for the next batch!

New Year's Day 2011

So here it is, New Year's Day already. How did 2010 go by so quickly? In the grand tradition that is New Year's Day we made our black eyed peas. I didn't follow a specific recipe of any sort I just threw together some things in a pot and it turned out pretty yummy! Here's what I did:

4 cans black eyed peas (I admit I am a total slacker and didn't use the dried version)
6 slices of bacon
1 medium onion
3 large carrots
3 stalks of celery
4 cubes chicken bouillion
Approx 4 cups water

First I cut up the bacon and fried it in a dutch oven. After it was nice and crisp I put in the chopped onion, carrots and celery and cooked until tender. While those were cooking I opened and drained each can of beans and rinsed them. Then I added them to the pot. Next step I added approx 4 cups of water and brought it to a boil. When it started to boil I added the bouillion cubes to the pot and let simmer until cooked through.
When we have beans I always like to have some crunch or add other items when I go to eat them. Usually I add some tomatoes, but today I added some jalapenos and fresh cilantro instead. Really it's because I forgot the tomatoes, but I won't admit that part to the hubby.
Happy New Year!