Valentine Sweets

When it snows I get in a baking mood. Today was one of those days especially since we were getting a lot of snow. A brilliant idea came to mind. I should bake a cake. I thought I had a cake mix but it turned out to be brownie mix. Then I remembered Ina Garten made a chocolate cake on her show yesterday. I googled the recipe & checked the ingredients. Everything was going good, I was getting excited until...Buttermilk. I didn't have buttermilk nor could I get out to get some. I wondered if I could just add butter to milk to get buttermilk, but I quickly nixed that idea. Then I remembered my Hershey's cookbook. There it was a chocolate cake & I had all the ingredients. I baked my cake from and made the icing from scratch.

The brilliant idea I had was to offer my baking services to others for valentines day. If you want a special cake for your sweetheart contact me through email & I'll see what I can do for you. Whether it's a Boston Cream Pie, Cake, Cookies, Cup Cakes, Sexy Brownies, Heart shaped cake, etc...Let me help make your valentine day special!

Peaceful Calm

I awoke this morning to a peaceful neighborhood. Snow covered the streets & all was calm. The snow continues to fall & we now have fluffy white snow hiding our grass. These photos are from the early morning when it had just started. Enjoy!

No more excuses!

Most of us throughout our lives have heard a phrase such as "You are just like your dad!" or "You have the temper of your grandmother!" etc. It's true in my family each of the cousins on my mom's side of the family have been told they have some trait of Mimi's. To tell you the truth as much as we loved Mimi, we all hate to be compared to her. She was beautiful but she could be bitter at times. We tend to blame our actions or personality on genetics. We might say "That's just the way I am" or "It runs in the family". I'm pretty sure I've used that phrase before.
This past weekend my beautiful cousin informed us she'd read somewhere that people who had their tonsils out when they were young tended to be over weight later on life. She pointed out that her mom, aunt, & I had our tonsils out & have struggled with our weight while the others (including her) hadn't had theirs out & have maintained their decent weight. I'll admit a bit of envy did come over me. I have beautiful cousins who haven't had to fight weight like I have, and then I thought if only I hadn't had mine out I might be small. I quickly snapped back to reality & realized my weight struggle began long before the tonsils were taken out. I'm not sure how accurate that study was she read. It could be all coincidence, but it ties in with the Bible study I'm doing.
We've been reading Calm My Anxious Heart. This week was entitled Content to be me. It deals with so many aspects from your body to your personality. Whether it's our weight, talents, mentality, personality etc... we have the ability to change. We can choose to change our ways and not follow in the footsteps of bad influences. Instead of blaming my weight on my tonsils or my asthma I can choose to eat healthier & workout. Instead of blaming my bad qualities on my Mimi or my stubbornness on my dad I can choose to change those. The point is to stop making excuses & do something about it. When you change you'll feel better, have more confidence, & others will see the change in you.
My hope is that I'll stop being compared to Mimi unless it's to say I look just like her. I'll take that because she was a beautiful woman!

Jalapeño Poppers! '¡Olé!

Recently I watched an episode of Arti Party. It's one of my new favorite cooking shows. She featured a recipe called Jalapeño Poppers. I could smell the smell through the t.v. They looked so good. I wish had 3D t.v. so I could imagine even more eating them. She said they were a quick & easy appetizer to fix for game nights. Fast forward to Super Bowl and voilà! I have a dish to fix. Preparing the mix was fast and easy. I read online that others added more salt than she recommended so I headed their advice and added a bit more. The time consuming part was cutting the peppers in half & de-seeding them. I used my Pampered Chef Santoku knife which was great for cutting throug the stems. I also used the Pampered Chef flexible cutting mats so it was easy to discard unwanted items into the trash. It took me a bit to find my niche in deseeding. After several attempts I ended up with a tea spoon (the kind you stir tea with) and I cradled the pepper in the palm of one hand. It seemed to go faster once I did that. She suggest wrapping the poppers with thinly sliced bacon. Walmart didn't have any marked thinly sliced so I just bought the regular. I cut it down the middle like she did. One half was thin & the other was medium thickness. I think she buys her bacon from a butcher because it was wrapped nicely in brown paper. I should try that some time. She stuck a toothpick in each of hers to secure the bacon. I opted out of doing that as I didn't have enough toothpicks & my hands were getting slippery from the bacon & cream cheese mixture.
Okay 25 minutes into it I can smell the bacon, onions, & peppers I can't wait to dive into them. Looking at them there is obviously grease from the bacon in the bottom of the pan. I will definitely be putting them on paper towels before serving. I did line the pan with foil so I'll have less of a mess to clean up!
All in all this was easy just a bit more time consuming than I thought. I think it's great to make with other people to cut down on the time. In just a few min I'll get to try it & tell you what I think....Can't you smell the bacon. Yummmm!
I baked them for 35 min because some of the bacon was thicker. I think mine would have been okay at 30 min like the directions said. Some of the stems did fall off. I used my Pampered Chef mini spatula to transfer them to the Simple Additions oblong plates. Wooooooo weeeeeeeee! Those suckers have some kick to them. Even though I de-seeded them & scraped the middle out they still had some hotness to them. After 2 of them my nose started to run. These are definitely a new favorite of mine. Try them! I think you'll like them!
P.S. I would wear gloves when preparing these like she suggest. I have a thumb & the top of an index finger that are burning. I didn't cut myself but for some reason they're burning.
For the recipe Bacon-Apple-Jalapeno Pop 'Ems on the Food Network

Capi's

A few months ago my friends & I decided to eat out once a month at a restaurant we don't frequent a lot. We picked a date in December, but when it came around there were conflicts with schedules. I finally decided to get the ball rolling. The holidays were over & I was ready to experience new foods with my friends.
We chose Capi's as most of us haven't eaten there before. Originally we had planned on 6 but due to the weather some plans got cancelled & we grew to 9. The restaurant had plenty of room to seat us. The bar had a bare tree (I think it was fake) on the corner with branches reaching out across the ceiling. Hanging from the ceiling were wrought iron candle plates that held about 12-16 candles in a row. In addition to the candles, white bulb lights were strung strategically from the ceiling. The bathroom was a conversation piece among our table. My favorite part was the sink! It was a deep clear glass bowl with a spigot that looked like a modernized water pump & the flow of water was so smooth. My friend Amanda pointed out that there was mouthwash & cups on the counter. I guess I was to engrossed with the sink that I didn't look at the rest of the stuff. I've never been to a restaurant where you could freshen your breath after eating.
The food is a mix of Mexico & Southwest. In my opinion the food was outstanding! I will say that there were some dishes that were confusing. We ordered both the white & yellow cheese dip. The yellow cheese dip reminded me of an Indian dish. Some of us thought there was curry in the dip. Another shocker were the re fried beans. The ones who had it didn't care for them. I tasted them & liked them. They weren't your typical re fried beans. They had more whole beans in them. Here again there as a spice we couldn't identify. Some thought it was oregano. I thought it had a woodsy taste to it. Similar to mesquite but not a BBQ flavor. I had the Halibut with rice (it reminded me of a sticky rice just not sweet) & Mexican squash. I loved it! Over all I think we all enjoyed it. The downfall was with us being a large group gratuity was included in the ticket which was 20%.
We've decided that the person or people who have a birthday that month will choose the restaurant. I'm excited to see where we end up next month. There are a few road trips we'd like to take. Looking forward to a fun year with my friends!