Flashback Recipe

I fail at this blogging thing, apparently. I was going through some old pictures and found a few of some delicious cupcakes I baked last fall.

Super Simple Pumpkin Cupcakes
Ingredients
*box spice cake mix
*1 can pumpkin (not pie filling)
*1 egg

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350*
2. mix together all ingredients until smooth (batter will be thick.) Pour evenly into lined muffin tin (or greased mini muffin pan.)
3. Bake 12-16 minutes for mini muffins, or 20-25 minutes for full size. (very moist, don't undercook!)
4. Remove from pan and cool completely on wire rack. Frost with cream cheese frosting.

I just use the canned frosting, because I wanted to make these with as little effort as possible. They were a huge hit, and they stayed moist for at least a week (just lightly covered.) mmm.

Best of 2010

Yeah yeah, this is a few days late. It takes awhile to go through all of these pictures, but here you go. I actually had a lot of fun going through all of these. I wil warn, though, that there will be a lot of puppy pictures. Apparently now that we have a small (fur-covered) child, we don't need to take any pictures of ourselves anymore. Works for me! So here you go, my life in 2010 summarized by a few pictures....

January

The last picture I could find from the holidays at home last year. Rarely do my sister and I take a 'normal' picture, as you'll soon find out...

February

I went on vacation to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic with my family. Kind of a last family vacation before I got married. :) We stayed at an amazing resort, one of the Palace Resort chain, and hung out in the sun all day. We also made friends with the bartender of the pool outside our room, and I tried some Saki shots. yum?

March

My birthday! The only picture I could find was from dinner at Royal Tokyo, the Japanese Teppanyaki Restaurant at home in Wisconsin. It's so delicious, and I even got to wear the birthday hat! :)

April

The highlight of April, no doubt, was being able to check out the new MN Twins stadium, Target Field. It's gorgeous, and we had perfect weather for my first professional outdoor baseball game. I look forward to attending many more!

May

Jeremy celebrated his birthday with a UFC gathering, including a surprise visit from one of his best friends who was away at training for the National Guards. My other present to him this past year was our 'little' puppy, Puckett, whom we adopted from the Animal Humane Society. Look how tiny he was!

June

So, we got engaged December of 2009 (that sounds so long ago!) Once we booked our wedding photographers, Snap.Grin, we realized we needed to take a few engagement pictures. Somehow, it ended up being about 70 degrees and 1000% humidity that day, even though we took our pictures right away on an early Sunday morning. Check out more of the pictures here.

July

One of my favorite summer traditions is checking out the bands at The Basilica Block Party. We (dad and I) first went quite awhile ago (6? 7? years) and I've tried to go to at least one night every year since then. The Basilica of St Mary in Minneapolis teams up with the local radio station, Cities97, to host a huge two-night outdoor concert every summer. This year we got to check out Guster (again!) and Barenaked Ladies. I was also introduced to Ingrid Michaelson, who definitely put out a good first impression. The best part? The main concert stage is held on the entrance/exit ramp for I-394! Love this city so much.

...

August

Even though we were incredibly busy, I can't really find any good pictures from August. So you get another picture of the pup, hanging out on our new bed. It was exciting to purchase some new furniture together, especially when IKEA has such wonderful deals! Oh! We also went to spend some quality time at the government center to submit our marriage application, so you can have a picture of that too.

...

September

Apparently all we did in September was wedding planning, and soaking up the weather. We sent out our invitations, I was thrown two awesome wedding showers, and I had my hair and make up trials. We also spent quite a bit of time outside, from what I remember. You're getting a picture of our invitation mess... and a picture of the dog again. This time, the picture is at the dog park, after he found a lovely mud puddle. I believe it took me over 30 minutes scrubbing him clean to get all of that gunk out of his fur coat. We still love him though.

...

October

I wish I had pictures from our Oktoberfest gathering down in New Ulm, MN! Instead, I found a picture of my sister and I at another concert. This time we got see Lady Antebellum at Northrop Auditorium. Northrop will always be one of my favorite concert venues, and this show was no exception. I also found a picture of the dog dressed up as a cow for Halloween. I'm surprised he sat still long enough for me to even take this picture at all!

...

November

So, we got married in November. The 7th, to be exact. Somehow we ended up with a weekend of 70 degree weather, sunny, and generally perfect. The next weekend we got dumped with a few inches of snow, so I can't complain about the weather at all. Our photographers, once again, were amazing. We loved all of the pictures from the whole day. Check out the rest of the pictures here or view all 900 here.

..

December

The last month of 2010 was certainly eventful for us. Jeremy had to have a surprise double hernia surgery the week of Christmas. He was a trooper though, and we still made it to (almost) all of our family Christmas gatherings. He even made the trip back home to Wisconsin with me for a few days. Sadly, though, I don't have any pictures yet from those gatherings. Instead, you get another wedding picture, because I just love them that much.

Wedding Pictures!

I love whoring out our gorgeous wedding pictures... so here you go!

http://stephjeremymarried.weebly.com

Sneak peak:

Cake Balls!

So I decided to try out a new recipe after a bunch of the ladies on The Knot were talking about cake balls. The directions seemed pretty simple, but I figured I should try looking up a few recipes just in case. I got some inspiration from Bakerella and some from All Recipes. Eventually I just said screw it and picked up stuff from the grocery store. I got lucky and scored a few boxes of cake and tubes of frosting... all on sale for $1/piece! So here's my recipe:

Ingredients

*1 box, Holiday Funfetti cake mix

*3 eggs

*1/3 C vegetable oil

*1 1/4 C water

*tube of Funfetti frosting

*1 lb chocolate almond bark

Directions

1. Bake cake according to directions on box in any size pan referenced.

2. Cool cake almost completely,

3. Crumble in large mixing bowl. The smaller the pieces, the better.

4. Stir in jar of frosting until well blended.

5. Form into even-sized balls. (Melon ballers or small scoop recommended!)

6. Cool cake balls in refridgerator 2-3 hours or until firm.

7. Melt almond bark slowing in microwave or double-boiler.

8. Dip cake ball into almond bark and coat evenly. (I used a fork to scoop it out, and atoothpick to slide off of fork onto wax paper to dry.)

9. Let harden completely, then store in fridge.

This made about 50 or so cake balls for me. You can obviously adjust the size as needed to adjust the yield.

Here's a few pictures of the process:

........

Baked, crumbled cake......cake balls waiting for coating

Finished product:

...

nom nom nom

Overall, they were delicious.... much tastier after we let them cool overnight, though. Cooling them also helped harden the chocolate coating, which improved the texture in my opinion. I loved the soft crunch combined with the gooey cake inside.

A few changes I would make next time:

*Decrease the oil/water in the cake mix to help dry out the cake a little. I've never tasted cake balls before, but these seemed a little too moist inside.

*Maybe fridge/freeze them longer too before coating?

*Mix a little oil into the chocolate to keep it runny enough. It hardened pretty quickly, which made it much more difficult to coat them evenly.

*Smaller balls so I can get more of them. They're very rich.

Being Domestic

Sundays tend to be my crazy cleaning days.  Although Jeremy and I try to keep the apartment at least somewhat tidy every day, I still feel the need to really clean at least once a week.  If I didn't hate emptying the container, I'd probably vacuum every single day.  Today was even more fun, as I tackled the bath tub/shower.  See, our little puppy decided to jump and wrestle in a mud puddle last weekend at the dog park.  Because we live in an apartment, I had no choice but to clean him off in the bathtub.  Said bathtub was then stained with mud for the last week, because I was too lazy.

Anyway, one of my new best friends are these little guys, the Scrubbing Bubbles foaming spray.  I just doused the bathtub walls and 'floor' with the foam, cleaned everything else in the bathroom, and went back to the shower.  It really only took one good elbow-greased scrub of the sponge and all the mud/grime/puppy filth wiped right off.


Now onto some baking... and menu planning for the week :)

Pumpkin Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I saw a recipe awhile ago on All Recipes that I really wanted to try baking.  It was for Pumpkin-Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.  I started with this recipe, but made quite a few changes/substitutions.  My recipe is at the end of this post.  They turned out deliciously well, and were pretty quick and easy to make.  I did have to wait awhile for the whole batch to bake, as my smaller cookies yielded a little over 60.  Not a normal cookie texture; more cake-like (well other than the first dozen which I burned. oops.)  Next time, I'll probably up the oatmeal and pumpkin, or add some pre-blended pumpkin spice.  I was surprised how slight the pumpkin taste was in the finished cookies.

Regardless, our apartment smells like autumn now, and I love it.  If only Mother Nature would cooperate with the weather....

Pumpkin Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Ingredients

2 cups wheat flour

1 1/2 cups quick cooking oats

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 cup pumpkin (NOT pie filling)

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla (or an oz. rum)

1 cup baking raisins

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. In medium bowl, loosely mix together flour, oats, baking soda, and spices.   In separate bowl (with hand mixer), beat together butter, vanilla and sugars until whipped and fluffy.  To sugar mix, add egg and pumpkin, beat well.  Add dry ingredients and raisins; mix until blended.

3. Drop tablespoon-sized dough onto lightly greased cookie sheets.  Bake 13-15 minutes or until cookies are firm and cake-like.  Allow to cool on baking sheets a few minutes, then cool completely on wire racks.

Makes approximately 60 2-inch cookies.

For nutritional information, generated by Spark Recipes, visit: http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1280300

mmm chili

So Mother Nature decided to taunt me for a few weeks with some gorgeous fall weather.  My response? Breaking out the Crock Pot, of course. One of my new favorite go-to recipes is chili.  Probably because it's one of those meals that is constantly changing, dependent on whatever is in my cupboards at the time.  The original inspiration for this recipe was found on All Recipes (my favorite website. ever.)  It started as a chili made with pork tenderloin: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Jerres-Black-Bean-and-Pork-Tenderloin-Slow-Cooker-Chili/Detail.aspx.


Jeremy and I agreed that yesterday's batch was the best attempt yet.  Although I didn't really measure everything, here's how the recipe currently stands:


Crock Pot Chili
*1lb of ground turkey, browned and seasoned with hamburger spices
*1-16oz jar medium salsa (the stuff with the big chunks of tomatoes and peppers)
*2 cans of black beans

*1 can chili beans
*1 cup beef stock (one can)
*1/2 cup frozen corn
*1/3 cup ketchup (to sweeten it up)
*1 tablespoon chili powder
*1 tsp oregeno powder
*1 tsp cumin
*1/2 tsp cardamom
*1/2 tsp fresh black pepper


I usually throw whatever other spices sound good at the time. This time it was a few dashes of hamburger seasoning and nutmeg and parsley, I think.  You can substitute the beef stock for beer, too.  That's what I usually do, but we only had really good beer in the house, which I didn't want to waste. ;)  

mmm chili and cheese.

I usually cook up the hamburger/turkey the night before.  Then just throw this all together in the Crock Pot, set it on low, give it a good stir, and leave for the day.  Come home, give it another good stir; add some water/beer if it gets too dry.  We typically serve it over some brown rice and top with shredded cheddar.  This recipe will make enough for us to get at least 8 (hearty) servings, and it's rather inexpensive too!