Baking up a storm....

It's hard to sit down for more than 5 minutes during the holidays, but I'm finally doing it. I have been baking up a storm. Thanks to some inspiration from a dear friend, I have discovered that besides making my favorite southern cuisine, I'm quite the baker....and I really enjoy decorating cakes and cupcakes. I'm definitely no professional, but some of the stuff doesn't look too bad! So here are some of the things I have made over the past month or so....homemade I might add...

My son's Shark Birthday Cake:

My daughter's Ladybug Cupcakes:

My niece's Rollerskate Cake:

Red velvet cupcakes for a family event:

Margarita cupcakes for another family event (i have to admit, these were good by not my favorite, too tangy or something):

Toy Story Alien cupcakes for my baby cousin:

My friend's Belle Cupcakes:

...and a gingerbread cake with orange cream cheese icing:

All of the icing on these cakes I used a basic and easy buttercream recipe (that a friend gave me) as a base. The cakes are all a butter cake recipe except for the margarita, red velvet and gingrebread cake (those are boxes from the grocery store).
Buttercream Icing:

3 cups confectioners' sugar 

1 cup butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

1-2 tablespoons milk or whipping cream, usually milk cause I have it on hand

In a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar together, adding sugar 1 cup at a time.  Mix on low speed until well blended, then increase speed to medium and beat for another 3 minutes, pushing down sides of bowl as needed with a rubber screaper. Add vanilla and milk/cream and beat for another minute. Dye with gel icing as needed.

Variations:

For cream cheese icing on the red velvet cakes, I added 12 oz cream cheese to the basic recipe above and 1/2 cup of cool whip.

For Margarita Icing and cupcakes, I used lime juice in place of the vanilla in the basic recipe above and added a little lime zest and dyed them green. The cupcakes are a white cake mix (box from store) but replacing the water with thawed margarita mix and adding lime zest.

Orange cream cheese icing and gingerbread cake...The icing is the basic butter cream recipe above, with 8 oz cream cheese added and 1 tablespoon of orange zest. Dyes colors as I needed. The gingerbread cake is just a box mix from the store.

Shutterfly, Oh Shutterfly, How do I love thee....

...Let me count the ways...or just the time I've saved in using you...

I discovered Shutterfly a little over a year ago, on the recommendation of a friend...and the rest is history. I used to spend countless hours, days, weeks and months scrap booking. Once I found shutterfly, no more of that AND I could actually share my creations with my parents and inlaws...instead of just showing them ONE book that took me weeks to make. Now I make myself a photo book and give them one for Christmas. I just completed this years book two days ago. It took me about 3 hours (probably would have taken less time if I didn't have 300 pictures lol). But needless to say, I put the kids to bed and made an entire photo book in one night.

We just had our family pictures made, so of course I want my kids sweet faces plastered on the front of our Christmas cards. I chose the card below (but with my kids' faces on it of course ;o) because it just fits my family. I think it took me longer to choose my card than it did to make my photo book tho...simply b/c there are sooo many cards to choose from.

This one was a close second:

Anyway, I have to say, I'm a little late to the digital age. My husband talked me into giving up my film camera last year, around the time I fell in love with Shutterfly....which works out perfectly for me....lol...and my fridge, which is holding a poster size calendar with a big pic of my kids right smack in the middle :)

My next Shutterfly project.....photo wall art.

So I'm making an edit to this post....my photobook came today (and I believe I just ordered it on Tuesday, so that was fast) and it's AMAZING.

Chicken and Dumplings

For Lisa....your kids are as picky as mine when it comes to eating, and my kids love this. I'm pretty sure I got it from my grandmother's recipe box. It's fairly low in fat and calories...BUT probably not sodium. I cheat a little from the original recipe because I HATE deboning a whole chicken, and don't have time for things like that. The original recipe calls for a whole chicken....I just use 3 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts and a few boneless thighs.
Broth:
chicken breasts and thighs as described above
2 cups water
6 cups chicken broth, divided
1 carrot, chopped finely in a food processor so my kids will eat it
2 stalks of celery, also chopped finely in the food processor
1 small onion, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Dumplings:
2 cups All-Purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3 T. shortening or REAL butter, shortening works better tho
1 cup or more of buttermilk

Directions:
1. Place the chicken, carrots, celery, and onion in a large pot with water and 4 cups of the broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cover. Simmer for about an hour.
2. Towards the end of the hour, begin making the dumplings...combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir until all ingredients are mixed well. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender until it resemble a course meal. Add the buttermilk and stir until moistened. Get the chicken out of the pot with a slotted spoon and set aside to cool. Keep broth warm and covered.
3. Turn dough onto a floured surface and kneed 4-5 times then roll out into a 1/4" thickness. I use a pizza cutter to cut the dumplings rather than tear them...into about 2" squares. You can make them bigger if you want, don't go too much smaller tho or they will fall apart while they cook.
4. Bring the broth in pot back to a boil and and remaining chicken broth (2 cups), then turn heat to around medium to keep at a simmer. Drop dumplings into broth, a few at a time and stir after each addition. When done adding dough, stir again, reduce heat to medium low and cook, covered, for about 1o minutes.
5. While the dumplings are cooking, shred the chicken into bite size pieces with a fork and add back to the dumplings and broth in the pot and heat through. Salt and pepper to taste and enjoy!

BBQ Meatloaf

For Ashley....my MIL's BBQ meatloaf recipe. I think the first time I heard the words BBQ and meatloaf, I grossed out a little. In my mind, we'd be dumping BBQ sauce on a dried up "loaf" of meat. But this is probably the best meatloaf I've ever had. I'm not sure where she got the recipe originally, but it doesn't matter, it still tastes good. When I make it here, I serve it with homemade mashed potatoes that I whip with mayo and butter (yes sounds gross but its my super southern grandma's recipe and it rocks), and some extremely over-cooked southern green beans (you know the kind with bacon drippings). The whole meal is probably high in fat, sodium and all kinds of bad stuff....but it's good for the soul.
You will need:
1.5 lbs of lean ground beef
1/2 cup of plain bread crumbs OR 2 packs of plain instant oatmeal
1 medium onion, finely chopped and sauteed in some cooking spray
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp. of salt
3- 15 oz. cans of tomato sauce
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1-2 T. yellow mustard
4 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

To put it all together: Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
1. Spray a large casserole dish with cooking spray. Mix raw beef, bread crumbs (or oatmeal), onion, egg, 1 tsp. salt, and 1/4 of one of the cans of tomato sauce in a bowl. Make sure it's even throughout. Form ingredients into a "loaf" shape and put into the center of your casserole dish.
2. Combine remaining ingredients in a bowl and mix well. You may have to adjust the vinegar and mustard to your taste a little at a time. Pour the sauce over the meat loaf in the dish.
3. Bake for 1.5-2 hours, basting occasionally. We use the extra sauce on the meatloaf as a gravy to go over the potatoes. Enjoy!