Valentine Mail Boxes

I totally stumbled into an idea today! Target had these adorable little tin mailboxes complete with flags, and I bought enough for my nephews. I was going to just buy some stickers and let my 4 year old go wild with them. But when we were getting ready to work, he says, what about Star Wars stickers, that's what we should put on them. Well we didn't have them, but I HAD seen Star Wars valentines, and thought with a little decopage, I could make a cute little box!

Supply List:
Extra paper valentines
Tin maiilbox
decopage
foam brush

I worked in small areas, put a little decopage down, laid on a valentine, and held it in place a couple minutes. I cut a few of the valentines so there was a collage effect to it, and I also had to work around where the flag was fastened, but this was a very simple project. Probably only 15-20 minutes a box. After I got the box covered, I put on another layer of decopage and let dry. I'm stuffing them with little goody bags. I'm THRILLED with how they turned out!!! I only hope I'll be able to find these little tins again someday, but I also thought a dollar store tissue box cover would turn out well.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Mini King Cakes

Thankful for something to do, I was excited about a baking order this week for a friend. She wanted something Mardi Gras themed, so I thought it would be fun to make mini king cakes in cupcake tins. They weren't too tough, and I experimented with coloring as much as I could. I'm pretty happy with the results!

Mini King Cakes

I remember king cake vaguely from my childhood, someone my dad worked with had a wife that baked them every year. I really only remember them to be sugary goodness. So I set out recipe searching and saw Emeril has a recipe on the Food Network. Emeril IS New Orleans, so I figured his would be as good as any. I followed his recipe pretty closely. I omitted the citron in the dough, I don't keep that on hand. Check out his recipe and come back to me after your first dough rise:)

I wanted to make these colorful, so once I passed the first rise, I rolled out the dough into a log and cut it in thirds. I set one aside to leave as is, and put food coloring on the other two (green and purple). For the green, I only had liquid dye and it worked fine. For the purple, I had gel, which typically I prefer, but for this recipe, stick to liquid. The gel didn't spread well and made the dough sticky again. Truthfully, neither had the effect I was looking for, I really wanted the dough to be solid colors.

Once I had the color in as good as it was going to get. I separated each into 12 balls, maybe golf ball sized. This almost perfectly made a dozen. I had a very small taster left over:) Next, I rolled one ball in each color into a snake.

Now braid the three colors together.

And round the ends together into a ring.

You don't need to pinch it together, just put them seem side down in cupcake liners.

I let them do their second rise in the muffin tins and then baked them at 350 for about 15 minutes.

Then for the best part, the glaze and sugar! I put the glaze in a shallow bowl and dipped the top of the cakes in and kept them held upside down until most of the dripping subsided. I sprinkled them liberally with yellow, green, and purple sugar. Done!

The lemon in the glaze is pretty strong, I enjoy lemon desserts, but I didn't remember that in the flavor profile of a king cake. These are yummy, but I'd be interested in knowing if that is traditional or if I happened upon a "bam"ed up version:)

UPDATE: I've researched more and talked to friends and family in New Orleans and this does NOT seem to be a traditional king cake, which I suspected. I'm going to try again this weekend and will post the updated recipe. Really seems like most traditional versions are more of a braided cinnamon roll....and no lemon flavors.

Hello....Is this thing on?

I know, I really should decide if I'm doing a blog or not. I have a couple projects photographed and ready to be shared with the masses, so I'll try to get them out this week. To apologize, today is a two-fer!

Tomorrow is my son's Valentine swap at preschool and we needed 20 valentines and I wanted to make a pinterest project for his teacher. Got BOTH done today, yay productivity!

Crayon and Pencil Vases

Inspired by the adorable pencil vases trending on pinterest lately, I set out to the dollar store to create one for Evan's teacher for Valentine's Day. I got two packs of 16 count pencils and the round vase for $3 from the dollar store. I ran some other errands and thought since it's preschool, wouldn't crayons be cute? So I picked up a 64 count box for $3. I had the square vase at home, it's been circulating around my house forever with no real purpose because it's so narrow.

All you need are the above mentioned supplies and a hot glue gun. Put a stripe of hot glue on one side of your crayon or pencil and put in place on the vase. You only need to hold it for a minute, it will set quickly. It's really that simple! I laid out the crayons first to put them in color order, but now I think, I may have left it more random, it may have looked more young, which is what I was going for. I worked from the bottom, and realized as I worked around I'd be short a few crayons, so I purposely put 32 crayons on the bottom and the remaining 32 on top, leaving a gap all the way down the glass. I put in the pencils to fill the space and I actually love the way it turned out! Since I had the pencils and the square vase laying around, I whipped up that one too and will give them both to his teacher as a set.

A couple crayons came loose immediately, only two or three. I was working with a 4 year old highly curious about the process, so I'm sure that happened due to lack of concentration. No big deal, I just stripped away the dried glue and re-did them. It's holding together perfectly now!

Creature in the sea Valentines

OK, clearly my next project needs to be DIY light boxes so my pictures are clearer. I'll work on it.

Evan needed 20 valentines to share for his party. Yet again, I was inspired by fish valentines that were circulating on pinterest, but I wanted to be a little more homemade about it. So I bought a Wilton sea life candy mold, red and pink melts, and candy sticks. This was my first time with candy molds, though I've free handed on wax paper with melts for cake decorating embellishments. The candy molds seemed even harder, not sure how that is possible. But to get into tiny little spaces in those molds was making me crazy!!! I eventually ended up using a toothpick for most of the details, which worked well, but time consuming. After I got 20 made, I got on the computer and made up my own little valentines that are the size of business cards. The cards say "Happy Valentine's Day! Of all the creatures in the sea, I'm glad we swim in the same school." Cute and not girly:) Evan will sign them all in the morning and I can package them up.

Yet another unemployed holiday saved by pinterest. How did we ever survive without it?!?!

Pastry Braids

Hope you didn't think this was a daily blog:) It's not that I don't have the time I suppose. It's more that I can't afford the supplies for daily baking and I absolutely do NOT need to have yummy baked goodness tempting me. I lost 50 pounds (weight watchers online) in 2010 and ran/walked a half marathon in October 2011 and I really would like to maintain a somewhat healthy & active lifestyle:)

Of course one must indulge occasionally and I was itching to do some baking, so last week I thought up a little pastry. I've seen this braid technique all over the internet lately and I ALWAYS have basic baking ingredients on hand, so I knew I could come up with a dough easily. I'd been stumbling around online and came across a recipe that appeared to be for copycat refrigerated crescent rolls. I'm a big fan of those, they are so versatile for savory and sweet bites. I'm still working through some christmas cookie pantry items, so I had partial bags of  chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and caramels. That sounded delicious warm and melty in pastry dough, so I got to work.

The crescent roll dough recipe was easy enough, but it makes a TON of dough. I cut the recipe in half and STILL had enough dough for two large braids. I split the dough, used half for a savory braid and the other half for the sweet braid. Two notes about the dough...1. it was much stickier than I thought, I might add more flour next time, probably 1/2 cup and see what happens....2. it did NOT taste or have the texture of those refrigerated crescent rolls.  It was perfectly yummy and still perfectly versatile, but not the end result I expected.

Braid Dough (cut in half from original recipe)

1 cup milk

1 package of active dry yeast

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup shortening

1 teaspoon salt

3 eggs, beaten

4 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I'd actually go for 5 cups)

Heat milk to 110 degrees, add yeast, stir until dissolved.

In large mixing bowl (or a kitchenaid in my case:) ), cream sugar, shortening, and salt. Add eggs, mix well. 

Add half the flour, then add milk mixture, mixing until flour is moistened. Add remaining flour and either knead by hand or let your kitchenaid dough hook do all the work for about 6-8 minutes. Place dough in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise in warm place until doubled about 1 1/2 hours.

Now for the fun:) Roll out half the dough into a rectangle. Use kitchen shears or a pizza cutter to cut strips 1/3 of the way toward the center on both long ends of the rectangle. Fill in the middle with your choice. For the savory version, I used shredded chicken, shredded cheese, salsa, and green peppers. For the sweet version (pictured), I used:
6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
3 ounces peanut butter chips
6 caramels (cut into a very small dice, about the same size as the chips)

Next fold over strips one at a time, alternating sides each time. You really can't mess this up. The strips nicely tuck themselves in this way, and on the last strip, you can just tuck it under so the edge doesn't show. Melt a little butter and brush the top. I chopped up some pretzels (I love a good salty sweet treat) and sprinkled them over the top.

Bake at 350 degrees about 30 minutes. 

mmmmm.....melty goodness.

It got at least 12 slices.

The savory one with the chicken, I sliced thicker, as it was dinner and you need a little more substance:)

OK, both were yummy! BUT I would change a couple things next time.....

1. DOUBLE the insides. The bread to filling ratio was a little off and I LOVE bread. But filling was just too skimpy in both versions.

2.  I think I'll use kosher salt instead of pretzels. The pretzels were fine out of the oven while they were warm, but they were soggy as left-overs. And most of it fell off before it ended up in my mouth anyway.

3. I would use a caramel sauce instead of caramel candies. Again, warm, it was perfect....but room temperature, those seized right up and just stuck in my teeth.


The filling possibilities are endless! Will definitely continue to improve and create the pastry braids!!!

Pretzel Rolls

I only discovered pretzel rolls about a year or so ago from a local bakery who also sells a small selection of their products in local grocery stores. These are the best way to eat a ham and cheese sandwich, I've sliced them up to serve with fondue, and I've snacked on them with peanut butter or spreadable pub cheese. They are a little on the pricey side, so when I came across several recipes online, I knew I had to try to make them at home.

I had to make pretzels because 1. I got a brand new Kitchenaid Pro for Christmas that I hadn't used yet, and 2. we got a 25 lb ham for Christmas. The ham was nice, but that's a lot of ham for a 3 person family, especially since the third is a preschooler whose food groups consist of cereal, peanut butter sandwiches, chicken nuggets, and apples....in spite of my daily offering of healthy yummy new foods. I'm not crazy about lunch meat style sandwiches, but if I get to eat ham and cheese on a pretzel, I'm all about it! So about 2 in the afternoon, I decided I was making pretzel rolls to have sandwiches for dinner. 

Isn't it lovely?! SOOO much better than the Kitchenaid Classic
I'd abandoned in lieu of a hand held mixer the past few years.

I'd give these an easy rating, maybe moderately easy because they are slightly time consuming. But most of that time is set it and forget it rising time. I picked this recipe from Pennies on a Platter and it said it takes 2 1/2 hours, so I thought I was good to go...

Supplies:

3/4 cup water

1 teaspoon instant yeast

2 1/4 cup flour

2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted then cooled to room temperature

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup baking soda

1 egg, beaten

Kosher or pretzel salt to top rolls

Stand mixer with dough hook

3 quart or so soup pot

baking sheet lined with parchment paper

I followed the recipe, which says to put the water, yeast, flour, butter, sugar, and salt all in a mixer and bring it together and let the dough hook knead it for about a minute. Next time I make this recipe, I'm going to let the yeast "bloom" with the sugar and water a bit and then add it with the rest of the ingredients to mix together. Though the end result was ok, I had rising issues with the dough. I know salt can kill yeast, so if the yeast had already bloomed a bit before salt was added, I think that would solve the rising problem.

I let dough hook work until the mix pulled away from the bowl.

Scrape dough off hook, put it back in the bowl, cover with a towel, and let rise an hour or until it doubles in size. I started having an issue here. I waited an hour and it didn't look like much had happened. But I only gave myself a couple hours to get this done before dinner, so I just kept going with the next step.

Before

After an hour....yep, I don't see a difference either

 Put your "risen" dough on a lightly floured surface. I kneaded it just a minute to get back to a nice round shape and then decided to cut into six rolls. I didn't do a very good job at getting them even, but it's just for our dinner, so I didn't care. Shape in to rolls and put on parchment lined baking sheet covered with a towel to rise again for 30 minutes.

Before Rise

After 30 minutes....maybe a little bit of a rise this time.

Get your oven heating to 425 degrees and fill your soup pot with 2 quarts of water and the baking soda. Bring to a boil and then drop your rolls in. I let them cook one minute, then turned them over and let them go another minute. (Next time, I'm also making at least a double batch of dough....while baking soda is inexpensive, you make this huge pot of water for six rolls?!?!? Crazy talk.)

 Put your rolls back on the parchment lined baking sheet. Brush rolls with the beaten eggs and then slice an "x" in the top of each roll. Sprinkle with salt. I had to settle on table salt, and it worked, but I would suggest kosher salt at minimum. I didn't really get that nice crunch on the top of the finished pretzel.

 I set my timer for 15 minutes and they weren't quite as dark as I like, so I let them go another 5 minutes and they were perfect.

In spite of the poor rise, they turned out delicious! I enjoyed my ham and cheese pretzel roll for dinner and for lunch again yesterday:) Apparently, these will freeze really well too, but with the small batch they make, I can't imagine anyone having leftovers that would last long enough they needed to be stored:)

Smoky Roasted Chicken Tortilla Soup

Savory day today!!! It got COLD all of the sudden here, and that always screams "TIME FOR SOUP!". The favorite soup, by far, in this house is Smoky Roasted Chicken Tortilla soup. I've adapted a recipe from Rachel Ray, it's really pretty close, just a couple small minor adjustments. I've made it for pot lucks a few times and it's always a big hit. It's pretty easy and not too expensive to make. I almost always have everything on hand except the bacon. Try it, you'll like it:)

Smoky Roasted Chicken Tortilla Soup

Supplies:
3 cups chicken stock (I use low sodium, low fat)
1 lb pulled roasted chicken
4 slices thick cut bacon
1 small onion chopped
4 cloves garlic
2 chipotles in adobo sauce plus spoonful of sauce
28 oz can fire roasted tomatoes
sour cream (I use light)
shredded cheese (I use 2% mexican blend or pepper jack)
tortilla chips (strips are easier to spoon, or this is great for scoops too)

First you need to decide about your preference on soup consistency. My house enjoys the flavor of onion and tomatoes, but we don't love biting into chunks of them in our soup (or chili). So I don't mess much with attention to uniform onion chopping because I blend the onion and tomatoes with an immersion blender about half way through this recipe anyway. If you like a chunky soup, then chop your onion finely and set aside.

Here's my "major" alteration to the original recipe....roasted chicken. Roasted chicken is a staple in this house. It's only $1 more than a raw whole chicken would be and the grocery store did all the time consuming flavoring and roasting for me, totally worth it. It doesn't take long to pull and shred it, I take away the skin and as much fat as I can, and I get about one pound of chicken that is perfect for so many things...soups, nachos, enchiladas, sandwiches, pizza, cresent roll wraps....there's really no limit to shredded chicken recipe creation. I made this soup the first time the way Rachel did, and it was a good soup, but the shredded roasted chicken is what made this soup a monthly dinner.

It's inexpensive, ready to eat, and offers the delicious all day comfort food we all crave.

Next the smoky part....prep the bacon! Stack the four slices of bacon and slice into 1/4 inch wide pieces. My next side step of the original recipe is here. The Rachel version has the bacon cooking in 1 tbsp of olive oil. I try to make this as slim as possible, and it's bacon, the fattest meat I cook with, it doesn't need that extra fat. I truly don't get the point of cooking fat in more fat, so I skip the olive oil. You'll have plenty of bacon fat to cook your onions in, seriously, save yourself the couple extra calories:)

Cook in 3 quart or larger soup pot until crispy. I didn't keep track, but I'd guess it took about 5-10 minutes to get crispy. You really have to keep an eye on it, the bacon will go from crisp to burnt in 2 seconds. I usually set up my chicken next to the pot so I can pull chicken while I keep an eye on the bacon. I spoon out the bacon when it's crisp and let it drain on paper towels while I put the rest of the soup together.

Now, you want a little fat to help start the onions and all that brown is perfectly delicious flavor that you'd never get out of box soup mixes. But you don't need all of it. I pour out all but about 1 teaspoon or so. Add your chopped onions and minced garlic (I use a garlic press) to the teaspoon of bacon fat reserved in your pot and cook about 5 minutes. They'll start soaking up all those yummy bacon gems off the bottom of the pan for you, how helpful!

Next add in the canned tomatoes. I stir these around and scrape up the bottom of the pan to make sure I got all that flavor in. If you're serving chunky soup style, you  need to finely chop your chipotle and then add them in. Since I like a smoother version, I just put the two full chipotles in and get out the immersion blender.

With the exception of the whole chipotles, this is what "chunky style" would resemble.

For my smoother version, I use the immersion blender and puree the onions, garlic, tomatoes, and chipotles.

Add the chicken stock. Now, I've had plans to make this soup and stop right here.

Top with bacon, sliced avocado and you'd have a tomato soup perfect by itself or even better with a BLT.....but my husband believes dinner includes substantial meat, so in goes the chicken and bacon and I let simmer about 10 minutes or so.

This makes about 6-8 servings. Top with your tortilla chips, shredded cheese, sour cream, etc. and enjoy!

Cherry Cheesecake Brownies

Happy New Year!

I had a rare adult night out opportunity and needed to take something sweet. Normally, I would make this from scratch, but I'm a little burnt out on the baking and crafting after the holidays, so I checked out the pantry to see what I could come up with that was a little less labor intensive. Chocolate Fudge Brownies and White Chocolate Cherry? Sounds delish to me!

Try the baking section of your grocery store for sweet cheeseball mixes, or specialty gourmet stores.
This one came from a specialty spice shop in my local antique district.

I wanted individual servings and thought I could make brownies in muffin tins and then top them with the cheeseball mixture and a little flare and they would be perfectly festive. 

Supplies:

Brownie Mix and box ingredients (oil, water, egg)

White Chocolate Cherry dip mix and package ingredients (butter and cream cheese, both room temperature)

chocolate candy melts

maraschino cherries

zip top freezer bag

muffin tin and cups

small cookie scoop

small offset spatula

I mixed the brownies according the box directions, then got out a small scoop (it's about 1 1/2 tablespoons) and put one scoop in 12 muffin cups. I had more batter, so I got out more muffin tins and experimented on the second batch with two scoops in each cup. 

One Scoop

Two Scoops

The one scoop  batch baked at 350 degrees about 20 minutes. The two scoop batch baked at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. 

I got the brownies out and let them cool. At this point, I decided I wanted the one scoop one for my take-a-long dessert. 

While I waited on brownies to cool, I mixed up the cherry cheese mix.  I grabbed another small scoop (this one MAY be slightly smaller, but it's at least 1 tablespoon) and put one scoop on each brownie (There was enough to cover 18 brownies total, no matter if they were one scoop or two)

I got out my small offset spatula and spread the cheese mixture in an even layer over the brownies. I did NOT  go all the way to the paper, I noticed when the brownies came out of the oven, the paper really grabbed some oil and they weren't very attractive looking anymore. After I put on the cheese mixture, I popped them out of the paper cups. You MIGHT be able to skip the paper cups all together, but brownie likes to stick to pans, so I don't know if I'd risk it, especially in those small muffin cups.

They were shaping up well, but needed a little flare, so I got back in the pantry and pulled out chocolate candy melts and maraschino cherries. I tried the chocolate first, but then the maraschino cherries didn't stay put, so now you'll know to put the maraschino on top of each brownie BEFORE you top with chocolate:) Put about 1/3 cup of melts in a zip top freezer bag and pop in the microwave for 30 seconds. Squeeze with your hands to mix it together and check for consistency.  If you still have lumps, put back in microwave for 10 seconds at a time until it feels smooth. Cut as little of the bottom corner of the bag off as you can and use like a piping bag to scatter chocolate over brownies. Putting those cherries on first basically puts them in a chocolate cage and will transport SOOO much better:) Refrigerate your masterpieces until you are ready to serve.

Single Scoop

Double Scoop (note the rolling cherry....)

I took the single scoop version to the party and I think they were enjoyed. My husband, who's not a cream cheese fan, even liked them. I had one and thought they were good, really resembled a denser version of a cupcake. I had a double scoop left over today and LOVED it. I'm a chocolate girl, so the double serving of chocolate only improves it for me:)

Definitely a successful semi-homemade option for those of you who do NOT enjoy hours of baking before you go to a party. Enjoy!