LOTS of Baking and Cooking comin' up!

Well, with the holidays coming up, this is about the time when I start looking for recipes that I want to try over the next 2 months. We've had a busy weekend so far and I've done alot of baking in preparation for it. I've been meaning to bake a coffee cake for breakfasts and even got fresh raspberries for it, but I wasn't able to do it until today. I also had the joy of baking 2 1/2 dozen cupcakes for a choir that is coming to our church tomorrow and our church is serving them lunch, cream cheese brownies for a fall fest tomorrow evening and of course I made the fresh raspberry coffee cake. I've included some pictures below to send some baking creativity your way....what have you been baking or cooking lately?

Dinner from tonight!- I made steaks, peas and homemade macaroni and cheese! Definitely a great end to a busy Saturday. Thanks to Rita and Randy (my in-laws) for the steaks. Because of the snow that you'll see below, we couldn't stay for dinner, but they sent steaks home with us for dinner!

 

 

 

Going home from my in-laws, we went through a ton of snow.

Heading home from my in-laws, the cars in front of us.

Once we got home, we found very little snow. We didn't get pounded until later in the day!

Fresh raspberry coffee cake with milk....oh so yummy!

Chocolate Marshmallow Cupcakes for a choir that is coming to our church tomorrow.

And...just so you're not wondering, Ryan and I both taste tested the cupcakes and they were amazingly moist and soft, but still oh so good. And they're actually healthy....definitely liking that! Enjoy!

Icing Smiles, Inc + Cookie Club =

So I know in my last post I explained that I'm part of a non profit organization that offers cakes to children in need at local medical facilities. You can go to www.icingsmiles.org to find out more about it- it's definitely a worthwhile organization. As part of that, there is a Cookie Club in which each month we will get a theme for the cookies in which we need to create and mail cookies to children and families who need a little surprise! For November, it's all about smiling faces and pumpkins so of course I did a test run of some pumpkin cookies that I decorated and sent to Ryan's work. I'm sure all 60+ will be gone by early this week if not mid-week. I have high expectations from them so if I don't get empty containers back.....well, it always happens! Here's a few examples!

News, News and more News

Ok, so I know it's been awhile again. It's been a busy few days recently and it's only getting worse as the school year goes. As I've gone, I've been trying to snap pictures of some dinners so they're below.

Cheesy Broccoli and chicken Alfredo-surprisingly healthy and it even passed the "Ryan test".

CSA fresh corn on the cob and cauliflower and macaroni and cheese. Oh so cheesy and oh so good! Again, it passed the Ryan test...I must be doing well recently!

Oven "Fried" Chicken legs....always a keeper and definitely a great comfort food! Instead of bread crumbs and fatty stuff, I use Fiber One cereal crumbs and egg substitute to stick the crumbs to the chicken. Of course, I take off the skin to take off extra fat and calories that are not needed. These are good without all of that!

Quiche- Ryan's first quiche and he liked it! I used corn and kale in mine. Of course you can't forget the cheese, so we had that as well!

A rare glimpse of the hungry man before dinner and before his food has disappeared.

Eggplant Parmesan and low fat buttered corn. Definitely a quick meal, but oh so delicious!

One of the quickest and healthiest meals in awhile- a large salad, fresh from the CSA farm and grilled chicken with some low fat, low calorie dressing. Definitely filling and oh so yummy!

Tilapia with roasted veggies. Light, but a little something different than the normal meat and potatoes kind of meal.

Roasted eggplant, squash, red and green peppers, and onions- all CSA and all oh so yummy. I used this in so many ways- roased veggie sandwiches, wraps for lunch, on pizza and whatever I decided to use it for. This is a quick, and easy way to use and add vegetables to lots of different dishes without worrying about what to do with each type of veggie individually. I just roasted them with a little oil, salt and pepper and some simple garlic powder and spcies.

This was something that I did not think we would like- Turkey stuffed cabbage. This was a Hungry Girl recipe and used CSA cabbage with veggies and turkey stuffed inside with some simple spices and tomato sauce. It started out not as good, with the cooking time taking longer than usual I thought, but once they were cooked, we realized what we had been missing all these years! I'll be making these again and changing the filling as I go!

Donut Acorns-I made these as small treats for a business fair I was involved in at church. The bottom is a donut hole with chocolate frosting and crusted pretzels on top and half of a pretzel stick for the "handle". They were definitely cute and oh so delicious!

My first of two attempts at making my own homemade caremel. Apparently, it has to be cooked for at least 16 minutes, so the second time around turned out as caremel. The first time was just a sugar syrup that I still have to find a use for since I wasn't going to throw out the ingredients. Hmmm....

Green apple Caramel Apple Cupcakes....I made these for the business fair and Ryan's work buddies benefited as well. The inside is a fresh apple cupcake with homemade caramel filling then it's topped with cream cheese frosting, green sugar to create the green apple and half of a pretzel stick and mint leaf to show the top of the apple. Fun to make and definitely fun to eat!

Another view of the Caramel Apple Green Apple Cupcakes.

Homemade with chunky tomatoes for sauce, green peppers, arugula, more tomatoes, cheese and pepperoni under all of that as well. Was very good and very veggie loaded!

"Cookies" I made from frozen pie dough I got from the store. I took decorations along to the business fair and let kids decorate them while their parents shopped.

I've also been working on some of my baking and have found a great resource for this...it's a company called Icing Smiles Inc, which is a non-profit organization that provides birthday and special event cakes for children and their siblings/family who has major medical concerns that often prevent them from having a cake or celebration. I would create and donate the cake for these children and would get more experience in the process. We'll see what this turns into, but I'm definitely looking forward to my first cake for these kids. They deserve it!Along with cakes, I'm also part of the "cookie team" which creates cookies based on a theme and sends them to kids who may need a little pick me up. November's theme is smiley faces and pumpkins. We'll see what I come up with for those!

I'm also working on expanding my baking to church functions and to try to help others and benefit them. I know I am looking forward to the holidays to get my creativity moving and seeing what I can come up with! You never know where I'll come up with ideas and when you'll see some goodies showing up! See you there!

Exciting News

Hi all,
Wow, it's been an exciting week or so and definitely awhile since I've been on here. First of all, I appreciate all the support that you all give me!

Ready for my big news? Ya sure?

I'm officially a part of a "small, home" business fair at my church. The preschool is having a fundraiser that has small home business like Creative Memories, 31 Purses etc. We will each have a table to display and sell our products and take orders. What am I selling, you may ask? LOTS of things....crafts like baby blocks that can be personalized, no sew blankets, and of course baking for the upcoming holidays. I'll have treats to sell and cupcakes for kids to decorate as well. It's definitely exciting since I'm hoping to get some orders for the holidays and to make some extra money for us since I'm working part-time right now.

If anyone would like to order anything, let me know! I'm always taking orders for any baked goods, crafts for gifts or whatever....I deal with the creativity while you take the credit for it! I'm so excited for this opportunity at the business fair and hope to be able to come home with LOTS of orders!