Stuffed Frech Toastiness!

So I woke up this morning wanting to make something better than I normally make...so I decided to make some stuffed french toast!

This was easy and soooo good! I mixed an 8 ounce bar of fat free cream cheese with some vanilla extract, granulated and powdered sugar. I didn't measure anything, I just kept tasting until I was satisfied with the sweetness. I mixed this until it was smooth and spreadable. I then mixed a bowl of eggs, milk and some more vanilla. I spread the cream cheese mixture on the slices of bread, and then put two slices together like a sandwich. I melted some butter in my skillet over medium heat. I dipped each of the sandwiches in the egg mixture and cooked each side in the skillet until browned. While I was cooking the stuffed french toast, I heated some strawberries with granulated and powdered sugar. After the stuffed french toast was done, I topped with the hot strawberry sauce, and then we feasted!
This was a great start to this cold Saturday!

Soft Sugar Cookies!

Last week when I went grocery shopping, I picked up a box of those really soft cake-like sugar cookies with the icing and sprinkles. They are made by a company named Lofthouse. I love those cookies so much...they may be the best cookies I have ever had. I decided that I wanted to try and make some myself. So I spent an entire day looking for a recipe that I thought was suitable for what I was going to attempt to make.

The recipe I settled on ended up being a pretty good match. This batter does not make a rollable dough, but one that you drop instead. I could have refrigerated the dough over night and rolled the dough into balls in my hand, to make a smoother looking cookie, but I wasn't patient enough this first time, plus Trent was really looking forward to them.

I used my new mixer for the cookies! I creamed 1 cup of butter, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 egg. Then added 1 1/5 teaspoon of baking powder, 3 cups of flour, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt and mixed completely. I dropped about a tablespoon on the cookie sheet for each cookie, three per row. The dough doesn't grow a whole lot, so three per row is good. I cooked the cookies at 325 for about 10 minutes. You could probably do about 8 or 9 minutes. Do not cook any longer that 10 minutes, or they will start to brown and get dry. You are looking to bake a really light buttery looking cookie. It should barely be firm on the outside, and very cake like on the inside. Let them cool completely, and if you can, let them sit in a container over night on the counter before eating. This makes them even more moist inside.

While the cookies were cooling, I made icing to ice the cookies with. The icing recipe I used did not taste like what comes on the store bought cookies, but it was still good.

For the icing, I combined 2 cups and a little more of powdered sugar, 1/2 cup of Crisco, a teaspoon of vanilla extract, about a tablespoon of butter flavor, and a little bit of water. I mixed this until it was smooth and spreadable, with no chunks. You can thin this out with more water, and you can thicken it with more powdered sugar if you get it too thin.

After the cookies were cooled, I spread a glob of the icing on each cookie with a cake spatula, and then put some sprinkles on each cookie.

This recipe made between 2 and 3 dozen cookies. I think that I ended up with about 18 cookies.

I am going to work on finding a better icing recipe to use with these cookies, although I do love this icing.

Cookies are so much fun!

New Years Dinner

We decided to start this year off with a bang! For dinner on new years night we had fillet mignon, and lobster, with wild rice and broccoli.

Theses were just frozen lobster tails. I filleted the lobster tail and seasoned with salt, pepper, and olive oil. I Then threw them on the grill, meat side down for about 5 minutes, then flipped them over for a few more minutes, and finished them off meat side down for about a minute.

The fillet mignon were fresh from the butcher. I seasoned them with salt, pepper, and olive oil. These were grilled for about 6 minutes per side. So melt in your mouth tender!

I steamed the broccoli and seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter. I sauteed the wild rice with a little butter, and then boiled for about 30 minutes until it was tender.

I served this all with a little cup of melted butter, and a glass of red wine.

This was the best start to the new year! Cheers!

Rib Ticklin Good

These ribs were delicious. This is all we had one night...ribs and baked beans. I used raspberry chipotle marinade on these instead of barbeque sauce. I rubbed the raw pork spare ribs down with some of the marinade, we threw them on the grill on medium heat and cooked them for about 10-15 on each side. After we took them off I rubbed them down with some more raspberry chipotle marinade. They were so delicious!

Cake!

Last week I made another 1234 cake, with the same icing recipe, but this time I colored the icing with blue and green food coloring, and I put sprinkles in the cake batter and on top of the icing. I was feeling like birthday cake! It was delicious, and we even got to share it with Josh!

Today I made a yellow layer cake with "Less Sweet Buttercream Icing". I found this recipe and decided to use it because I love buttercream icing, but sometimes I cannot eat it all because it is normally extremely sweet. The icing was delicious! Trent loved the icing, he likes it better than the fluffy white icing I used on the last two cakes that I made. The less sweet buttercream icing is made with 2 pounds of powdered sugar, 3 sticks of butter, 1 cup of shortening, vanilla and salt. This made allot of icing, so I have left overs, which I think I will use to make cupcakes this week and take to work.

For the cake, I used a Wilton yellow basic yellow cake recipe. This cake did not have allot of flavor to me, so I don't think I will use this exact recipe again. I might alter the recipe slightly and try to give it more flavor, but I have another recipe that I would like to try next. This cake is a basic flour, sugar, butter, eggs, baking powder, vanilla recipe. I personally think it had too much flour, and not enough sugar and butter.

The texture is great, and is much fluffier than the 1234 cake, but the 1234 cake definitely tastes better. The 1234 cake is more like a pound cake. The texture of the Wilton basic yellow cake is light and fluffy.


I'm determined to find a yellow cake that taste good, is light and fluffy, and is versatile. The icing is all delicious, so I will continue to use the recipes I have made so far!

Cowboy Food!

Tonight we had barbecue baked potatoes. We love barbecue baked potatoes! This is very easy to make. I've been making this for myself since I was in high school. I baked two very large potatoes. I also oven baked some chicken breasts. When the chicken was done I chopped it up and poured some barbecue sauce all over it and mixed it up. I cut open the baked potatoes and mixed some butter, salt, and pepper in. Then I topped the potato with the chopped barbecue chicken, more barbecue sauce, cheese, and chives. Very easy and very tasty!

Food!

We had chili earlier on this week, I just haven't posted it on here yet. It was delicious as always. We normally only have chili as it starts cooling off and throughout winter. Chili is simple, you brown some ground beef, you drain it, add it back to a pot, then you add chili powder, paprika, salt, pepper, garlic, onion, tomato paste, water and you simmer for about 30 minutes until the tastes blend and you get the desired consistency. You can add water if you cooked too much liquid out. We always eat it in a bowl with fritos and cheese. You can also add beans, which I love, and or rice.

I also made a cake a couple of nights ago. I made what is called a 1,2,3,4 cake. The ingredients are:

1 pound of butter

1 cup of milk

1 teaspoon of vanilla

2 cups of sugar

3 cups of sifted flour

4 eggs

You need to cream the butter with a mixer. Add sugar and keep mixing. Add the eggs one at a time. Add the flour and milk a little at a time. Then add the vanilla. Keep mixing for a few more minutes. Pour in a greased cake pan or pans. Bake for 25-30 at 350.

While the cake was cooking I made my icing.

Ingredients:

4 cups of sifted powdered sugar

1 cup of shortening

1 teaspoon of vanilla

And water a little at a time depending on the consistency you want

Put all of the ingredients in a mixing bowl. Beat with a mixer. You have to beat this for awhile, adding water a little at a time to make it creamy. This icing is very sweet but very good. I added a little butter extract to make it taste a little buttery, and so that it wouldn't be so sweet.

After the cake was done, I let it cool for about 30 minutes, then I iced it. Yummy and simple!