Cupcakes and the Martha Stewart Mafia

This is my long awaited for cupcake post! I know you were just all waiting with baited breath, right? Right? And really, what is baited breath? Sounds stinky.

Back to the cupcakes. I made cupcakes for Easter this year. And yes, I know it was weeks ago, but these cupcakes can be made any time of year! Make them right now! Go on, I dare you to make them now!

No, I won’t make these cupcakes and bring them to your house for you…

At any rate, I decided that Johnny (my stepdad) needed coconut cake for Easter. You see, his mom made a coconut cake for Easter every year and I still remember that cake and I knew it was one of his favorites. So I decided to follow that theme and make coconut cupcakes. Unfortunately, my mom does not like coconut. Normally I’d just let it go, make the cupcakes and let her fend for herself (what a fabulous daughter), but this was for Easter which signifies the end of Lent, for which my mom gives up sweets every year. And that truly is a sacrifice since that woman loves her sweets! One of her favorite cakes is carrot, so carrot cupcakes and coconut cupcakes it was! I pulled out my favorite cupcakes book which just so happens to be Martha Stewart's book (it's the only cupcake book I own, but even if I had more this would be my favorite) and I found her coconut and carrot cupcake recipes. Not too shabby, huh?

So now, about the cupcakes. First of all, we all know that Martha never does anything simple. You look through the book and see recipes that call for specific brands of chocolate, unsweetened coconut, specific cocoa powders and a wonder called the seven minute frosting. The carrot cake recipe called for a pound of carrots....finely shredded. Yeah...so I was really happy that Jack brought home the mini pre-peeled carrots, that is until I started shredding those little bad boys.Yeah...

So I  shredded and I shredded, all the while cursing Martha under my breath and thinking what a sadist she is. But then it occurred to me. Martha has people. She has people who provide whatever she needs at that exact moment. One pound of shredded carrots...done. A package of some fancy dark chocolate....they run right out. A pound of peruvian pickled pears....on the next flight. Whack some other home/craft/decorating guru...no question. Yes, I am jumping to the conclusion that there is a Martha Stewart mafia and there is a legion of people....let's just call them minions who stand ready to fetch whatever it is she needs. Which brings me to my next point...I need minions. They don't have to be particularly well trained or even do things quickly, just someone to pick the pacifier up twenty times, wipe Jay's hiney when he goes to the bathroom, pick up the hundreds of toys left on the floor by my children. I'm not asking for much. I wouldn't even make them grate carrots!

Back to cupcakes. I finally did get smart and throw my carrots in the food processor and that worked just fine.
These cupcakes were so delicious that you didn’t even need icing. We ate a couple for breakfast the next morning.
But of course there has to be cream cheese frosting and Martha’s recipe for that was pretty easy and it turned out so yummy!! I could just eat it straight out of the bowl without putting it on the cupcakes…oh wait, I did!  But I also iced cupcakes…
Hello precious little cuppycake…

Oh my…

And then there’s the seven minute frosting…I actually saw Martha make this on her show one day and was very intimidated. It looked a little complicated. Using candy thermometers, and streaming things and lots of whipping. If I didn't have my Kitchen Aid I would never have tried this. But it was actually much easier than I had thought it would be. I was a little worried after adding the sugar syrup in that everything had deflated and liquefied, but amazingly enough it came back together and made this beautiful shiny frosting.
One thing about it is that you really need to eat the cupcakes the day you frost them. As they sat around for a day, the frosting didn't look so hot. But it's good and not too sweet so paired with these sweet coconut cupcakes it was wonderful.

And then the flaked unsweetened coconut on top looked so fresh and clean. These I will also make again, but I think I'll have to or Johnny will get angry...and no one wants to see Johnny angry...

So that's cupcakes. Here’s the part where I would normally post a recipe for these treats, but to be honest, I feel the far reaching arms of her private mafia would find me and break my kneecaps. So just buy this book. I promise you won’t regret it! 

The long and short of making Baby Food

The main reason I hear people use for not making their own baby food is that it takes too much time, they don’t have time, too time consuming, etc. But there are several shortcuts one can use to make it quickly. I generally like to get two or three meals going at once. Get everything on the stove and cooking and the process each one, washing out the processor by hand in between. This afternoon I made three dishes in under an hour. From the book “Blender Baby Food” by Nicole Young. Unfortunately the camera was outside and me being focused I just worked on through.

My first step was to peel and slice the apples and start them cooking in a bit of apple juice. As those simmered, I started a pot of oatmeal. Once I started the water for that, it was time to cook some corn in butter. While everything cooked, I sliced peaches and then added the oatmeal to the water. I blended the oatmeal with the peaches and bananas, then cleaned the processor. By this time the corn was ready so I put it in the processor with some sour cream. Processed that and washed again. Now my apples were tender and could be added to the processor with some ricotta cheese, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. Three meals finished in an hour and everything washed and put in the dishwasher. That’s enough food to last through the week.

So before you think you don’t have the time, multitasking can be your friend.

Missing Monday

I had fully intended to post a brilliantly written entry about my cupcakes today. I took beautiful pictures, even came up with witty discussion to describe and enhance my post. Then Jack took off to the Master's practice round with our camera...containing the memory card....on which my precious cupcake pictures were stored......

So hopefully I'll be able to put something up because these cupcakes were so yummy!

Disclaimer

I posted something on my facebook the other day. Something that I thought was funny, but others didn't find it so. There were several comments made on that thread both supporting my right to free speech, and expressing the opinion that the joke wasn't so funny. Some people took it a little far. I tried to post again stating that it was a joke and things got worse. People on my friends' list began attacking one another and I did nothing. I acknowledged a post that was written on my wall by someone on one side and inadvertently hurt someone else. I should have had their back too, but was too afraid that if I jumped in the argument that I would make things worse.

Now I'm afraid I've lost a good friend. I don't know if she'll read this, but I feel just sick over the whole thing. I'm reaching out all ways that I think I can to try to mend this fence.

Everyone please get the message to Jennifer that I'm sorry and this is my public apology that I did the wrong thing and I didn't have her back. This is upsetting me in so many ways.

Jelly Bean Brittle

So how many of you noticed that I posted something the last two Mondays, then this week didn't? I promise I'm trying to post every week, but we got hit hard by the stomach virus last week. Nell came down with it Sunday night, then Jack and I proceeded to get it Monday night. We carted Jay off to Gigi and Papa's to try and spare him, but Wednesday afternoon he came down with a very mild case of it too! All in all, I spent four days at home last week. My boss accused me of just wanting to lay out of work, but I would have found something way more fun to do if that was the case! In the midst of all this, we discovered that Nell still had the UTI that was diagnosed the beginning of March! So she was put on a new antibiotic for that as well. So fun times in the Taylor household! Hence not having the time/brain meats to put together a decent post.

So here is one for Easter and it's a quick easy treat that you can throw together for someone's Easter basket. Often I make a seasonal treat, but it's right before the holiday so I take pictures and mentally think that I'm going to post them next year in time for people to make it, but this treat you can literally have in about an hour, and most of that is letting the candy "set up." It take all of five minutes to make and uses simple ingredients.

1 package of white bark candy coating
1 bag of jelly beans
(see?)

Melt the candy coating according to package directions (I use the microwave directions and this stuff is melted in about three minutes). While that is melting, line a cookie sheet (the kind with an edge, not just a flat baking sheet) with a piece of wax paper. Pour the melted candy coatin onto the cookie sheet and sprinkle the jelly beans over it.

Like this

And really close up...

Then just break up into pieces and put into bags for gifts or in a basket to serve or just eat the whole thing and chase with a bottle of pepto-bismol!

Once again, this recipe came from an old issue of Simple and Delicious!

Homemade hot Pockets

Who doesn't love a hot pocket?





bacon cheeseburer rollup

1 lb ground beef
6 bacon strips, diced
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 8 oz pkg velveeta cheese
1 tube large (16.3 oz) buttermilk biscuits
ketchup
mustard

Cook beef, bacon and onion in skillet. drain Add cheese cook and stir until melted. remove from heat. Flatten each biscuit, spoon beef mixture 1/3 c. fold sides and ends over and filling and roll up. Place seam side down on a baking sheet 400 18-20 minutes

A lot of the recipes I make come from the Taste of Home Simple and Delicious magazine. I highly recommend it! I've been a subscriber for about five years now and love going through my past issues to find more recipes and remake things that we loved before.

paula deen

Understanding a little bit about me will help in your reading of this post. I do not take and have never taken medications for mental health reasons. I have not had delusional ideations which interfere with my daily life, plese don't have me "1013"ed...

No, on to my fantasy. You see, I'm in love with a woman. Paula Deen, to be exact. I want to hang out with her and maybe even move into her pool house (no, I don't know for sure that she has one, but I'm sure she does). I want to sit across her counter from her as she cooks and taste everything she makes. I will be her official taste tester! She needs one of those, right? So how will I make this happen? You see Paula has a grandson named Jack who was born five days after my son Jack (who we call Jay). So one day we'll visit Savannah and we'll go to her restaurant. During the meal she'll be so taken by my son that she'll come over to visit and when we realize how much the boys hav in common, she'll insist that we move down and she'll take care of all our financial needs for Jack and Jay to be permanent playdates!

See, I'm not crazy at all.....

That being said, a while back I made this...

I don't have any pictures of the process because I honestly wasn't sure that it would turn out well

You see there's no cheese in this casserole and normally that's a deal breaker for me, but Jack says that anything with that much mayonnaise and potato chips has to be good.

I fell in love with this casserole and you will too. A couple of things I did were to use leftover rotisserie chicken in this dish. We always have rotisserie chicken left over and a lot of times I make a chicken salad, but lately I've started cubing it and freezing it for use in casseroles...like this one! One other thing I changed is that I'm not a huge fan of hard boiled eggs, so I left those out too.

Paula Deen's Savannah Hot Chicken Salad Casserole

2 cans cream of chicken soup
1/2 c slivered almonds
2 c diced celery
4 hard boiled eggs sliced
1 1/2 c mayo
1 tbs worcestershire
4 c cooked cubed chicken
1 tbs prepared mustard
10 oz bag potato chips crushed
1/4 cup finley chopped onion

Butter 13x9x2 casserole. Stir together soup, mayo, mustard and worcestershire. reserve 1 c. chips and almonds. place half remaining chips in casserole. Layer 1/2 chicken, celery, onion, eggs and almonds. Spread 1/2 soup mixture on top. Repeat layers. Top with reserved chips and almonds. 350 for 30-40 minutes.