Out of Africa or a 16 year old's birthday cake?

I was so excited to make this zebra striped birthday cake for Kayla's 16th birthday party. It's hard to tell from the picture, but the sides are bright pink with green "pearls". It was a two layer chocolate on chocolate cake..YUM!

Hubby's Birthday Dinner

So for any of you that follow my husband's updates on Facebook, you probably read about the almost disaster that was my husband's birthday dinner. Since he was turning 40, I decided to make a meal of all his favorite things. We had Corned Beef, Cabbage, Turnip Greens, Sweet Potatoe Casserole, Butter Beans, Cornbread, and Yellow Cake with Chocolate Icing for dessert. For those of you that don't live around here, we were slammed with storms over the weekend. Just as I put everything in the oven or on the stove....we got one of those storms. Cool to watch, not cool when the power goes out. Yep...we lost power...for almost 2 hours. With a little quick thinking by my husband, all was not lost. We used the grill to cook the corned beef until the power came back on.

Here's a few recipes from that meal:

Corned Beef

Place meat in tin foil and wrap it up with 1/4 cup water. Seal and cook for 4 hours at 325 degrees. Drain the juice. Continue cooking outside of foil fr 30 more minutes basting every 10 minutes with saue.

Sauce

2 Tablespoons Butter

5 Tablespoons Ketchup

1 Tablespoon Mustard

3 Tablespoons Vinegar

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

--Bring to a boil and use to baste the corned beef

Sweet Potato Casserole

3 Cups Mashed Sweet Potatoes

1 Cup Sugar

2 Eggs

1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract

1/2 cup butter melted

Topping:

1 Cup Brown Sugar, packed

1/2 Cup Flour

1 Cup Chopped Pecans

1/3 cup butter

Mix sweet potatoes, sugar, eggs, anilla, and butter thoroughly. Pour into a buttered 1 qt casserole dish. Mix all the topping ingredients together with a fork. Sprinkle the crumbs on top of the casserole. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees

Chocolate Birthday Cake

Here's a picture of a birthday cake I made. I made the butterfly out of chocolate --all by myself!

I was asked to make a chocolate birthday cake so I thought I would share pictures. The butterfly on the cake I made using chocolate.

Dinner With Friends

Ok, so the picture is not great, but....Recently we hosted some of our bestest friends over for dinner. Here's a pic of the table where we ate on the back porch. Even though it's June, the coolness of the blues, greens, and white made it seem a little more comfortable outside than it really was. We served Steak or Chicken, my hubby's famous twice baked potatoes and my family's favorite salad. Here's the recipe for the salad:

1 bag of Spinach

1 carton of fresh strawberries, washed and cut up

2 cans of Mandarin oranges

Sugared Pecans

The dressing is made by combining Raspberry Vinaigrette and Honey. The combination is 1 to 1. It's super easy and tastes so good on a hot day.

Kids have the best ideas!

Last night over dinner, but before we had taken our first bite....it began. The conversation we have everynight. What new ideas could we come up with to making something taste just a little different and a little better. We have come up with a lot of good recipes during these brain storming sessions.....some of which are family favorites now. We are not snobbish in these discussions....anyone that joins us for dinner is invited to join in the conversation. It helps to that one of our new friends is a chef -- we love for him to participate! But one of my favorite people to get ideas from is my kids. All three of them have become quite the food critic. I can count on Ali to be completely honest with me and tell me what works and what doesn't. We are still working on the tact part, but hey, at least I know. The twins, David and Leanna, are great for ideas. See, they don't care about calories or fat content or how much fiber it contains. All they care about is "Does it taste good?". And that is how we came about last night's recipe. Now, I'm sure the Disney Channel or Nick maybe had a commercial about this, but the kids took the idea and ran with it.....here's what we came up with.....

2 of your favorite flavored Pop - Tarts
1 Scoop of your favorite Ice Cream
Melting Chocolate

Basically, you make a sandwhich out of the pop-tarts and ice cream. We haven't tried this yet, but I think you should let the ice cream get soft, so you could mold it to the correct shape to fit the pop tart. Next, put it in the freezer to harden the ice cream again. Then, melt the chocolate and dip the completed "Pop Tart Ice Cream Sandwhich" and freeze again. Now, there was debate as to if you should dip the whole Pop Tart or quarter the sandwhich and dip each quarter. I guess we will have to experiment with that.

Just imagine all the possibilites of goodies you could make.......Pop Tarts with sprinkles, without, chocolate, strawberry, brown sugar and cinamon, etc.....and wow...the ice cream!

We plan on trying this new recipe out this weekend. I'll let you know how it goes -- and hopefully post pictures. In the meantime, if you try this out or have any suggestions, please post your comments for others to see!

RIP Old Kitchenaide Mixer

It's Here! It's Here! Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus! My most prized kitchen gadget passed this last week after 12 years. I've moved on to bigger and better now. My new mixer makes the old mixer look like a toy. I'm so glad I have cake orders tonight!

Tomato Basil Dip

2 Packs Cream Cheese, room temperature

1 Jar Medium Salsa

1/2 Cup diced Sun Dried Tomatoes

1 Tablespoon Oregano

1 Tablespoon Basil

Mix all of the ingredients in a mixer and serve. It's even better if it chills for two hours. It is great for a dip, sandwhich spread, etc. Hosting a party? Carve a cabbage into a bowl. Cheap and easy clean up and it's a little unexpected!

Death by Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients:
1 Box of Chocolate Cake Mix
1 Can Pumpkin
1/2 Bag Mini Chocolate Morsels
3/4 Cup Water

Combine ingredients and fill cupcake pan and bake according to box directions. Don't add any of the ingredients on the box....just add the pumpkin, water, and chocolate chips. After they've cooled, top with your favorite frosting.......these are so good, they don't need frosting!

Cornfetti Salad

Looking for something different for your backyard BBQ? Try our Cornfetti Salad!

Ingredients:

1/2 Green Bell Pepper

1/2 Red Bell Pepper

1/2 Yellow Bell Pepper

1/2 Orange Bell Pepper

1/2 Purple Onion

2 cans yellow corn, drained

2 cans white corn, drained

1 Cup Mayonnaise

1/2 Cup Apple Cider Vinegar

Celery Salt -- to taste

To Make: Dice the veggies with your food processor. You can do it by hand, but that's just too much work for me!

Once the veggies are diced, add the other ingredients. Chill for two hours prior to eating.