Cake Pops

After making cake pops (all chocolate) for my manager's birthday some friends were saying that all strawberry would be really good and so I decided to make some for them.. I also had several requests to know how to make them so I decided to take pics this time.

Warning: make sure you have plenty of time before starting because it will take a few hours from start to finish (once the cake is already baked and cooled)

First:

Bake a cake as directed on the back of the box and let it cool COMPLETELY

Second:

C r u m b l e the cake (I do it by hand) so the entire thing is in little pieces

Third:

Mix frosting into the cake so it gets moist enough to 'mold' and stick together....

I only end up using about 2/3 - 3/4 of the frosting....

make sure you just add a little at a time

(if you put too much the balls are going to be too moist and won't work)

Fourth:

Form balls with your hands and put on wax paper or foil....

I make mine a about the size of a ping pong ball

Fifth:

When you are done forming the balls stick them into the freezer for about 20 minutes...

transfer them to the refrigerator...

You don't want them frozen when you dip them

(as they defrost they will crack the outer coating)

Now it's time to dip....

First:

Put one package of candy melts at a time into a microwave safe bowl (not too deep) and heat up...

stirring it every 30sec or so until smooth...

usually about a minute is fine

(for the entire batch you usually need two bags)

(my "secret" to getting the coating to a manageable thickness is adding a little bit of vegetable oil...

a tiny bit at a time)

Second:

Taking a few cake balls out of the fridge a few at a time dip the stick into the coating...
stick into the ball (make sure not to put it more than half way through the ball)...
let it set for a few seconds...
then dip into the coating and let any e x c e s s drip off into the bowl
(if you want to put s.p.r.i.n.k.l.e.s now is the time)

Third:

Place the sticks into a big square of styrofoam

 (so the top of the pops aren't flattened while they dry and harden)

I decided to wrap them individually....

it took a while, but they turned out cute so it was worth it :)

Mexican Shredded Beef & "pink" Rice

I had a special dinner request for something I had never made before...I looked online at a few different recipes and then thought about what I had seen in the past and this is what I came up with...

In my crock pot I put a pot roast with some water and added to it:

1 tbsp ground cumin

1 tbsp ground coriander

1 tbsp chili powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground red pepper

1 cup picante sauce

I put it on LOW for about 5 hours and then on HIGH for another hour or so and then took it out, shredded it and put back into the crock pot on LOW to stay warm.

I cut up some serrano peppers, onion, and tomato.

I cooked the veggies in a little bit of vegetable oil to speed up the process.

When they were cooked up I added the beef that I had already taken out of the crock pot and shredded.

I also made some "pink" rice (white rice with tomato sauce mixed it) to go with it.....

I would put how I made the rice but let's just say I still need to get some more practice in before I do that...

it did taste ok, but nothing I would recommend for anyone to make..haha!!

{Skinny} Pumpkin Cupcakes with Pumpkin Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting

The weather is finally starting to feel a little bit more like fall than it is summer! (Well, at least it seemed that way the other day when I made these....!)
To celebrate I decided to make {skinny} Pumpkin Cupcakes with Pumpkin Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting and all I can say about them is THANK GOODNESS THEY'RE "SKINNY" - they are so good & easy!!!

The batter itself was so good I could have eaten it all & licked the bowl clean...I decided against that so I wouldn't get sick & decide I didn't like pumpkin anymore! There are way too many pumpkin recipes to be made during the next couple months to get sick of it now! ;-)

The frosting kind of reminds me of the pumpkin cream cheese that they use to have during fall at 42nd St Bagel before they closed....I would wait ALL year just for that stuff -- it was amazing! BUMMED doesn't even come close to how I felt when I knew I couldn't have anymore of that but now that I have these I'm in trouble!

I did decide to only frost half of the cupcakes and then I wrapped up the other 12 (in plastic wrap and then foil and put them in a ziploc bag) and popped them into the freezer! I also froze the frosting so that I can just frost one or two at a time so I won't eat them all at once and gain all my weight back, it is easier to do this than to eat them in "moderation" or to have self-control - when deserts (especially pumpkin ones) moderation and self-control go out the window and I can't have that so to the freezer they must go!

Chicken & Veggies

On my produce shopping spree I came across fresh green beans and decided to get some instead of the frozen ones or the good ol' cans. I have never cooked fresh green beans before but figured if I threw them on the stove with some olive oil and garlic it would do the trick...it always does.

For dinner the other night I decided to make chicken with green beans and some sautéed zucchini - I love chicken and I love having vegetables because you can pretty much eat as many as you want without worrying about calories or fat...always a plus.

I decided to take a peak at the recipes online for green beans even though I didn't need one so I could see if maybe there was some totally off-the-wall recipe that looked good. I didn't really find anything because I decided I wanted to have them more simple, as close to the fresh thing as possible. I did notice on some of the recipes it said to put the beans in a bowl of ice water after cleaning them....I decided to do this and let the beans "chill" while my olive oil & garlic was heating up. They were yummy!

**I have no idea what that did or what the point of it is...but I felt "cool" doing it..haha**

Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

Similar to my dad loving ketchup & salsa but hating tomatoes, I love all sorts of banana foods but am very picky about which fresh bananas I will eat. In the past have been able to find boxed banana cake mix but have not been able to find it anywhere the past few months....so I started looking for recipes to make them from scratch.

In my all you magazine there was a recipe for Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting - perfect...just what I had been looking for! As I was making the cupcake batter I was thinking that it seemed pretty similar to a recipe for banana bread.............and when they came out of the oven my thought was confirmed. The cupcakes were good, but they reminded me more of a mini banana bread.

I liked the frosting and it was nice & creamy - but I will continue looking for a recipe for banana cupcakes. I would make these again if I was wanting banana bread though.

Hearty Tex Mex Squash-Chicken Casserole

Not long ago a friend came across this recipe on myrecipes.com for Hearty Tex Mex Squash-Chicken Casserole and recommended it so I decided to give it a try!

I decided to make it when I got home from work, but because there was so much to be done before it could go in the oven we had a pretty late dinner - NEVER underestimate chopping time - ha! I won't be making this after work again....but I will make it again......delicious!!!

Thank you Kymberlee for the recommendation :-)

i LOVE produce

Everytime I go to the grocery store it seems like my cart has a lot in it before I even leave the produce section....I just LOVE produce!  Since I changed my eating habits and started to lose weight back at the end of May fresh fruits & veggies have beome my friend (more than ever before) and they just taste so good!

I went to Sprouts on my lunch break just to grab a "couple things" last week..... and THIS is what I ended up with...

When I got home from work and started putting everything away I decided to make some guacamole & salsa to go with dinner (soft tacos with carne asada) - although I could eat just eat it with a spoon and be happy!

YUM!

{plenty of} pineapple

Today I am going to visit some friends that I haven't seen in months at their new apartment. They're going to BBQ hamburgers for lunch so I said I was going to bring something....as if I needed an *excuse* to bake!

I still don't know what went off in my head that gave me cooking/baking "fever" - but I'm loving it!!!

I wasn't sure what I wanted to bring with me but I do remember comments about a Pineapple Upside Down Cake I had made in the past......

I was going to make a Pineapple Upside Down Cake but have been on such a cupcake craze lately that I really wanted to make the cake into cupcakes instead. I found a blog with a recipe for Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes!! This is exactly what I was looking for....the recipe for the cake I usually use is a boxed mix, but this recipe was homemade!

These cupcakes were so easy to make and the only real difference between making the cake and the cupcakes is that in order to make the pineapple slices to fit in the cups you have to cut about 1/3 of the slice and make it a smaller ring. The rest of the process was the same:

first: spoon an even amount of the butter & brown sugar mixture amongst the 12 cups

second: put one pineapple slice (with 1/3 of each slice removed) on top of the mixture & place a maraschino cherry in the middle of each pineapple slice

third: when batter is made pour some into each cup until about 2/3 full 

When these little beauties came out of the oven I was super excited!

They are so CUTE

& they are delish

BUT.....I didn't stop there.....!

Recently I came across a recipe on the skinnytaste blog for Pineapple Bliss Cupcakes and they are the only other thing that keeps popping into my mind aside from anything pumpkin!

Since the weather is about to start cooling down soon (I hope) I wanted to make these now... since I will be the queen of pumpkin pretty soon these will not make the cut for a while if it doesn't happen now. I figure bringing two desserts wouldn't hurt anyone, and there won't be a bunch of extras sitting around our apartment tempting me. This recipe is a "skinny" one though which is a big plus!

These were probably, hands down, the simplest cupcakes I have EVER made!

To make the cake all you need is:

(dump both of them into a bowl & mix together...then fill cupcake pans!)

While the cupcakes were cooking I made the frosting:

(drain the can of crushed pineapple, mix with the cream cheese, and 3/4 cup of the marshmallow creme & mix...I didn't frost all of the cupcakes yet and put the frosting in the refrigerator. The recipe says that they recommend eating the cupcakes within a few hours of being frosted so I will do that before I leave.)

so tasty & refreshing

great guilt-free, "skinny" treat

{stuffed} bell peppers

Monday was Labor Day and I was one of the lucky ones who actually got the day off! I wish I could say I relaxed or did something fun, but I spent the entire day studying for finals and working on research for my Philosophy term paper.

The kitchen had been calling my name all day, all I wanted to do was cook or bake something...I didn't have any idea what to make and I didn't really care what it was....I just wanted to do it.  I forced myself to stay away from the kitchen until almost 6pm when I figured that dinner was a logical enough excuse to cook something. :)

I had four green bell peppers that needed to be used and I love {stuffed} bell peppers so I looked around and knew I did not have all the ingredients that I use with the recipe I usually follow so I decided to make it up as I went along.

After cleaning and de-seeding the peppers I put them into a pot of salt water to soften them a little (until the green color gets a little lighter) and while they were soaking I looked around to see what I could use.

I had some leftover ground turkey that I had cooked up a couple days before with some spinach, onion, and green onion so I used that in place of the usual ground beef.

I also would usually use white or brown rice depending on what I had at the time, but the only rice I had was a package of Roasted Chicken flavored instant rice...so it would have to do.

I did have a couple cans of tomato sauce so I put that into a sauce pan on the stove with some more onion, lots of minced garlic, and a little bit of sugar to sweeten it up and weaken the strong taste of tomato.

When I got the sauce to a flavor that I liked I mixed it together with the rice (after heating it up) and the ground turkey mixture.

I ended up with the perfect amount of filling to stuff all four peppers completely, not overflowing but didn't have any extra like I typically would have if I had followed my typical recipe. I topped them with some grated parmesean cheese and cooked them at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.

** I didn't care for them as much as the normal recipe I use, but for being thrown together at the spur of the moment they were ok....and if the mister went back for seconds they couldn't have been too bad! ;-) **



FUN da-middles

 I was given a box of FUN da-middles to try...

(first impression: I don't like boxes of mix that only make 12 of something when it is typically 24)

first: (put just enough batter into each cup to cover the bottom) 

second: (squeeze the frosting into each cup & stay away from the sides if you can) 

third: (fill each cup with the rest of the batter, make sure to cover the filling)

 here is the inside after they're cooked...filling is H-O-T!

it doesn't show them frosted on the box but i LOVE frosting so I did it anyway

**final impression: they were actually pretty good & they were gone in no time**