Cupcake Wars

With my recent unemployment, I have taken up baking to occupy my time. This baking has come in the form of massive amounts of cupcakes. I checked out tow of my favorite websites: Food Network and Foodgawker. And came up with a couple of pretty magical recipes.

The first was a white chocolate raspberry from My Gourmet Connection. The frosting was simply divine and the raspberry garnish on top really made for a nice pop. For the second batch I decided to make a chocolate cupcake and two different types of frosting. I'm a huge fan of the hazelnutty goodness of Nutella so I had to do a Nutella Buttercream, with Nutella piped inside the cupcake and I love red berries and had to do something with Strawberry so I went for a Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

For my final batch of cupcakes I went for the classic Red Velvet. I felt it only necessary as yesterday was Valentine's Day. Paula Deen certainly came through for me with this simple recipe for Red Velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

I had such a great time making all these cupcakes. In fact, it was very therapeutic for me. There is nothing like being able to add the right amount of ingredients to a bowl, to make a little piece of heaven in your mouth, even if your life is blowing by at a 100 miles a minute. I enjoy the solitude of baking almost as much as I enjoy seeing the look on people's faces when I make something they like.

Happy eating!

SuperBowl Funday

I find it fitting that the first time I am actually posting anything with food or recipes is a result of the Superbowl; probably one of the biggest eating holiday's we crazy Americans participate in, and yes i just referred to the Superbowl as a holiday!

I took it upon myself to be the official Superbowl chef for my sister and her husband and their pack of football loving foodies. It was an exciting undertaking and I did a lot of research before hand (aka watching countless Paula Deen episodes on Food Network) to make sure the menu was worthy for game day. I decided on homemade Guac and chips, BBQ beer lil' smokies, twice baked potato skins with bacon, cheddar, chives and sour cream, chicken wings, meatball sliders, baked onion rings, and football rice krispies for dessert. I'm going to get better at taking pictures. I was drinking too much of the Superbowl punch I made (Corona, vodka, club soda, and limeade, delicious!) while cooking that I completely forgot about pictures. So here are a few.

I definitely recommend the potato skins they were very simple! (*note: brushing melted butter on the skins before baking the second time really gave them a little more crisp and a lot more flavor.) The wings were cooked in the slow cooker the day before and allowed to marinate further over night. It made the chicken tender and easy assembly for game day. I don't have a picture of the baked onion rings but they were fantastic. Just dip in sliced onions in a little bit of flower salt and pepper, then in an egg mixture and finally in some Italian seasoned bread crumbs...fast, delicious and healthier than frying them! The rice kripy footballs were straight off the official Rice Krispy website; cocoa Krispy's, butter, marshmallows and peanut butter.

I think all recipes were easy and scrumptious and made for a fabulous Superbowl Extravaganza.  I could care less about the outcome of the game and the boys didn't have to miss any of the action because their housewife was doing all of the work for them.

Success!