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Showing posts from 2014

Clementine Cream Crepes

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Hello again my friends. This year is really flying by. I woke up and realized that we are one month away from Christmas! Goodness! I have to start getting seasonal decorations up! Speaking of seasonal things, it's getting to be citrus fruit season in the stores. Have you also noticed the bags of clementines and mandarin oranges everywhere? I usually see them under the brands of Cuties and Halos. They're so tiny and tasty. I had a flash of brilliance and bought a bag. They are great to send for the kiddos lunches, or drop a few in my purse to snack on at work. I've used clementines in cooking as well.  They are so easy to add since they're seedless and add a lovely and gentle sweet orange flavor. For fun, I made crepes and a sweet whipped cream- ricotta filling, enhanced with the juice and zest from clementines. They were divine! I knew I had to share the recipe with you, because they were too good to keep to myself. By the way, if you don't have access to

Past birthday cake gallery, part 2

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Hello, friends. I'm sharing more cake-y goodness today. Cake photos! WARNING: Some cakes are nice to look at, some cakes are less than perfect. It seems like every other cake has a problem. Now, let's get gawking! Everyone, jump in the time machine! Wait, what? Time machine? Back to 2011. We'll start with Tinkerbell and her fairy friends. I ordered this from Safeway's bakery. They had an example cake (click this for reference photo) on display that was very cute. It was a rectangular cake with layers and the fairies sitting in different places, like along a waterfall and stream.  The cake I took home was not layered and was nowhere as detailed as the example cake. No edge piping. Shortage of flowers and vines. Horrible cake writing. Shortage of talent on the decorator's part. Thanks Safeway. Total. Cake. Fail. 2012 was a bad year for birthday cakes. It  was also the year my son wanted a very fancy shaped homemade Optimus Prime Transformer cake. I attem

Frozen Cake

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Hello dear followers!  Is it really, officially Autumn? The weather is slowly cooling down, the days are getting noticably shorter. I suppose it will be Winter before we know it. Speaking of cold and winter, my daughter turned six last week.  She insisted on doing a Frozen theme. Well, my idea for executing the Frozen theme was pretty basic. I did not go all out like some of those mamas on Pinterest with way too much free time on their hands. I kept it simple. We gave out Frozen party favor baggies with various candies for the girls, and cars baggies for the boys. We gave her a few Frozen things as gifts. The cake was really the only thing that adhered to the theme. And I didn't even make it myself! I have been so short on time since school started! We ordered a half sheet cake from the Atlantis Bakery, simple white cake, white buttercream filling and frosting. I asked for light blue edge piping and darker blue text for "Happy Birthday Haley".  They offered an edible

Peach Pie

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One of my favorite things from childhood was eating fresh peaches from our peach tree. Back in Oklahoma, I had planted a peach pit it in our garden and it thrived! The tree was huge and just outside my bedroom window. We enjoyed sliced fresh peaches with sugar, peach ice cream, and peach pie. Mom always made the best peach pies.  I could never understand why people frequently added cinnamon to their peach pie. It covered up the peachy flavor. Fast forward to grown up Jenny and her house in Nevada. We planted our own peach tree a few years ago and it finally produced a nice crop of fruit. I devoured a few peaches right away, then we peeled and sliced the rest. We froze a bunch for later and made two pies. We even had sliced peaches and crepes for breakfast the next day! These pies were as simple as could be. No cinnamon. No almond extract. Just peaches, sugar, and tapioca to thicken the juices. And they were divine! Ingredients for one 9-inch pie 4 cups peeled and slic

Ulitmate S'mores

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Hello again, dear readers. It's almost summertime here in Nevada. You can basically say we had our one week of Springtime weather, so it might as well be called Summer already. We just had Memorial Day. The waterparks are open for business. People are out fishing and camping. It's time for every scout's favorite campfire treat. S'MORES!!!! I'm sure most people are familiar with the original s'more.  If you've seen the latest Hershey TV ad, then you've seen Hershey's chocolate teamed with Jet-Puft marshmallows and Honey-Maid graham crackers. Now, those are good, BUT I can up the ante. I can IMPROVE THEM!!! What you need is to think outside the s'more. You need to evolve the s'more, layer by delicious layer. You must know by now that is not health food. It's a devilish delicious treat. Let's start with the cracker. You can stick to graham crackers if you like. I picked up a box of Honey Grahams at Trader Joe's, as well

Split Pea Soup

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Hello again, my friends. I can't believe it's already May, the end of May at that!  April flew by! School will be out soon. The weather is getting quite warm. We had a few cooler, rainy days, but I think we are officially at the end of "soup weather." We'd had a ham so I had this huge ham bone with tons of meat still stuck to it. There are so many things you can do with the ham, like scalloped potatoes and ham, or ham salad. The ham bone is perfect for flavoring beans or peas. Split pea soup is the best when you have a whole ham bone. I've tried using little ham steaks cut up, but the flavor isn't there. You need the bone. It's the same as stock from beef or chicken. You need the bone and marrow for body and depth of flavor. Split pea soup is really easy, not many ingredients and not much work. It's great with some bread and a salad. Ingredients 1 bag dried split green peas (approx. 16 oz) 8 cups water (2 quarts) 1 white or yellow

Annie's Homegrown Lasagna Review

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Hello, dear readers. I have been a busy mama and trying to make new things at home has been a challenge. You might remember that I joined Influenster a while ago. I was very surprised when I was given something totally awesome to review. Annie's Homegrown frozen lasagna! OK, you're probably thinking "What's the big deal about frozen lasagna? It's not that great." Well, that's what I thought too. I've had other brands of frozen lasagna that were fairly bad with thick, pasty pasta, gummy cheese, processed meat, and sometimes it was all I could do to eat it because I was that hungry. We've eaten other products from Annie's and I'm happy with them. The kids love the bunny gummies and cheddar snack mix. They are so-so with the mac & cheese. I was definitely game to try the new frozen family size entrees. I picked up my box from Target.  They have other flavors, Mac & Cheese, Butternut Mac & Cheese, Chicken and White Chedda

Irish Soda Bread

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Hello again! It's March and we're nearing St. Patrick's Day. We have a few little family traditions. They are pretty easy to adhere to. We like to eat corned beef and cabbage, wear green, and go visit Grandma Rose for her birthday since it falls the week before.  Sometimes, we even go to the St. Paddy's Fair put on by our hometown church, if we are there the right weekend. One of my newer traditions is making homemade bread to go with dinner. I've tried a few variations on Irish soda bread, and this is by far the easiest. We love quick and easy, especially when it's tasty! There are many, many different recipes for soda bread. I've tried to keep this true to what Irish people would have made historically. No raisins, no sugar, no fancy stuff. Just plain, hearty bread. This is not light and fluffy white bread. It's dense, chewy, and crusty. You will definitely want to load it up with butter and use it to sop up juices on your plate. I lov