Red Velvet Cupcakes

So I've been wanting to try and tackle Red Velvet the past few months, and I tried a recipe from the ever-wonderful Pioneer Woman, but for whatever reason the cupcakes wouldn't cook all the way (I think it was my attempt at substituting for cake flour [which I now have a stock of in the kitchen]). Anyways, I found another recipe yesterday and I will post the link to it on here. They were good and they look pretty - but they could have been better. A friend of mine says she has a great recipe, so I'm going to try hers when she sends it!!

I also made Cream Cheese Frosting to top these and I even used the decorating kit for cupcakes that I got for Christmas. It made things SOOOO much easier than trying to spread on the frosting!!

Aren't these cute??

Karyl loved it...can you see the frosting on her nose?? She went right for the frosting first!!

Red Velvet Cupcakes from SimplyRecipes.com

These were super light and fluffy, and the red color was gorgeous!!!

My MIL's super-yummy meatloaf

Grandma B has an AWESOME recipe for meatloaf that I absolutely love. I made it about a month ago and took step-by-step pictures to post on here...and then just got lazy...

I am sorry, really I am....here is the recipe with the directions!!!

Preheat your over to 350 degrees

Here are all the ingredients that you'll need:

-About a pound of meat (I usually try to get closer to 1.25 pounds)

-1 egg

-A packet of Onion Soup Mix

-A small bottle of Russian Dressing (or the large if you're planning on using the rest for something else in the near future)

-Milk (enough to fill the small bottle of Russion Dressing half way - around 1 cup)

-Quaker Oats (the kind you use for oatmeal cookies...NOT instant oatmeal)

So, we'll start off easy...dump the defrosted meat into a decent size bowl

Then, crack that egg open and mix him up in to the meat

Once the egg is sufficiently combined, add the packet of Onion Soup mix....and mix...

Now, add the small bottle or Russian Dressing (or half the large bottle)...

Then fill up the bottle 1/2 way with milk and shake it up (with the lid back on of course), this way we get as much of the tangy Dressing flavor as possible, and we save ourselves from having to wash another measuring utensil from the milk!!

Then add about 2 good handfuls of oatmeal...enough that it makes a good showing throughout the entire lump of meaty uncooked meatloaf

This is what is will look like when it's all mixed...

then throw it into what I call a "bread loaf pan"

Our oven is horrible, not only is it smaller than a regular oven (it's like the Mini-Cooper of Ovens) but it heats weird, so I always have to cook things longer than usual....

That being said, I usually end up cooking mine for a little over an hour.

I would start with 40 minutes on your timer and check it...you want the edges to be dark and cooked, and the top to obviosuly be dark brown (like cooked meat). If you have a food thermometer, stick it in the dead center and look for it to read around 170 degrees. Otherwise, just stick a fork in the middle and spread it apart...does the inside look un-pink??

Keep in mind, there will look like there is a lot of "juice" bubbling around - and that is ok, this is a super moist (not mushy) meatloaf, so don't use the liquidity as a gauge for whether it's done or not. This one requires the un-pink test.

When it's done, pull it out of the oven, let it cool for a minute or two and then turn it upside down on to a serving plate (It might fall apart...that's OK - this guy is uber-moist and does not always allow for perfect slices, so it will never win a contest for it's visual appeal). It will be too big for a regular plate, so if you don't have something a little larger I would suggest just carefully cutting it in the pan and then sccoping it out.

So, that's our meatloaf!! Enjoy and please let me know if you give it a try!!

Recipe requests

Here are 2 recipes that were requested from the Holiday Bake-A-Thon....enjoy!!

Peppermint Meltaways

Chocolate Drizzled Cherry Bars - For this one, the actual recipe is no longer on their website (go figure) and I can't find my recipe book right now so this is a link to a forum where someone put the recipe up. It looks like the right one but I haven't verified that all the measurements are correct. I will type up the actual recipe when I find the book =)

By the way, when I have time later today I have a step by step tutorial for the yummy meatloaf I made last night (the recipe is from my ever talented mother-in-law....we call her Grandma B online and I like to believe the B stands for Betty Crocker!!)

Many new adventures

This Christmas I was absolutely spoiled with more kitchen gadgets than I can possibly imagine!! I got a juicer, a zester (the kind that will take off part of your finger if you're not careful), a simply divine strainer, my new Corelle dishes (YES!!!), some super-fun silicone cupcake sets to make animals and construction vehicles out of, and a cupcake decorating set to make them fun to look at as well as eat!!

Greg also got me some mini-muffin tins and my long wooden spoons for stirring in my big 'ol pot I got for my birthday!!

Why share this with you?? Because it means I have even more fun gadgets to start expanding my cooking experiments...

Oh, and my FAVORITE present this Christmas???

Of course it was kitchen related, and it came from my sister-in-law...

The Pioneer Woman Cookbook!!!

Oh, many, many hours will be spent with my nose in these pages...

She may even inspire me to touch raw beef...

Scarves!!!!

Why scarves??

A lady in my sister-in-law's ward is taking them to Afghanistan for the kids there and when my mother-in-law told me about it I decided I wanted to help.

I started out with the middle one, pink and white....it was so soft and kind of fun!! Then I made the all green one and added white to the fringe. Then I decided to go Sesame Street bold and do yellow and white with plain white fringe. These were so much fun to make and I was surprised at how great they turned out...and how warm they were!!

Then I decided to get creative and I asked Grandma B if she had a larger crochet hook than the size "K" I was already using, so that I could try using 3 different colors...and she came back down with this...

This is officially my new favorite crochet hook!! I don't know what size it really is, but I have dubbed it size "ADHD" because it's great for people like me with the attention span of a peanut!! I finished this scarf in under 30 minutes =)

Now I am working on another scarf out of some really fuzzy and soft yarn Grandma B had...I will take a pic of it and post it when I get the fringe on.

I forgot how much fun crocheting in mass could be....now I am wondering...if I made scarves from a nice soft yarn and out of more modern colors...and possibly made a matching hat (beanie) and added a flower or other accent, would people buy them on Etsy perhaps??

What do you think??

UPDATE:

Here is the newest scarf...this is the second one I've made and I really love the colors on it. This is made from a Boucle yarn which can be tricky to work with when you're crocheting, but the risk is well worth the reward I think!! This scarf is SOOO soft...I would wear it, and I'm not even a scarf person!!

Christmas Baking Bonanza

Ah the holidays, the perfect justification for what took place yesterday with my sister-in-laws. An amount of baking so massive that it should be outlawed in 47 of the 50 states (and no, that does not include Guam).

Rather than go through and give you a bunch of unecessary (but of course witty) commentary, I will just post the pictures of everything we made and let you druel...

Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

Peanut Butter Treats

Black Cherry Swirl Fudge

*I had a MUCH better picture of this...I will try to figure out what happened to it on the camera and swtich it later today!!

Peanut Clusters

Turtles

Chocolate Covered Cherry Bars

Butter Spritz Cookies

Haystacks (hubby's favorite!!)

Peppermint Meltaways

Mint Cookie Brownies

I can't remember the official name right now)

Oatmeal "Chocolate Chip" Cookies

You WISH you were taking one of those home with you, don't you?!?!

We had an AWESOME time baking and talking and tasting. It was fun to make some tried and true recipes, and to try some new ones. While we were experimenting with some new recipes we learned a few things that I would like to pass on to you that will hopefully help your baking adventures in the future....

*No matter what the recipe says, DO NOT use wax paper to line a pan for fudge....FOIL, FOIL, FOIL (and butter the foil).

*You can never use too much chocolate...I'd rather err on the side of overdoing it when it comes to the good stuff.

*My sister-in-laws are smart ladies...when you are making multiple recipes, separate them based on what needs to be cooked in the oven and what can be cooked on the stove...then you can alternate and maximize your time!!

*I have been doing this for years, but it bears sharing...make a copy of your recipe when you get ready to bake it, and have a pen handy. If you spill, you don't ruin your good recipe, AND, you can make notes for the next time and then go back and write them on the original later when everything is clean and dry.

*Just because they say "Strike Anywhere" doesn't mean you can....I don't know what's wrong with me but I couldn't seem to light the stinkin' matches!!

(OK, so that's not a baking tip per se, but it was irritating me to no end!!)

Happy holiday baking and Merry Christmas!!

I will work on getting links to the recipes, but until I do, if there is a particular recipe you would like, please comment below and leave your email address and I will get you the recipe!!

My first pillowcase

That's right, this was my first attempt at a regular old pillowcase...not bad, eh?!?!

Hubby's boss is a HUGE Steeler's fan, and we saw this fabric a while back and he decided that a pillowcase would be the perfect Christmas present for him.

His boss got a kick out of it!!

And I think I did a pretty good job...

My next sewing adventure....making our family stockings...we'll see how it turns out!!