Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

This is the frosting I made to go inside Luca's birthday cake - it wasn't strong enough to stand up between the cake layers but it made delicious cupcake frosting!

I pureed a handful of strawberries in my food processor, didn't need that many so next time I'll just do 2 or 3 of them (but the excess didn't go to waste, I added it to my plain yogurt). This is similar to buttercream frosting, adding cream cheese made it super smooth and creamy tho...and the berries turned it pink and delicious! So good.

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 oz. cream cheese (1/2 regular size block), at room temperature
fresh strawberry puree
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
3 cups. confectioners' sugar

Beat the butter and cream cheese together until smooth and fluffy. Add the vanilla, salt, and confectioners' sugar until they start to blend together and then slowly add a teaspoon of pureed berries a little at a time (so it doesn't get too runny) until it reaches frosting consistency.

Florian's Sauerkraut

Florian makes the. most. delicious. sauerkraut. ever. It's taken me years and years to like sauerkraut but now I don't mind it every now and then...until I had Florian's. And now I love it and will be making this so often!

I didn't ask him if I can share the recipe, I'm hoping he doesn't care...it's just so good I couldn't wait to share so you'll get to enjoy it too :)

I don't have the amounts, I'll just tell you how he told it to me:

Saute diced onions, carrots, and bacon in clarified butter. Add   some stock (I can't remember how much, I'm thinking like 3 cups). Add sauerkraut (note, depending on the kind of sauerkraut you use you might want to rinse some or all of it. Florian is German and goes to the German market to get the sauerkraut for this dish, if it's too salty or strong he rinses it - not sure how our regular old sauerkraut might differ). Cook that for a while and then add some finely chopped apple, grated russet potato, a couple bay leaves, a few juniper berries, 1/2 teaspoon cumin.

That's all I got and until I make it for myself I won't have better measurements. Feel your way around with how much of everything to use - it all cooks down together so let it go until all the liquid is absorbed. I think he said like an hour (but watch it in case I'm not remembering that correctly!).

Luca's Birthday Cake

Yesterday I told you about using a 5" disposable paper baking pan to make this birthday cake - which made the perfect miniature sized 2-layer cake. I made some strawberry cream cheese frosting to fill the cake with, but when I put the top layer of cake on the soft fluffy filling it basically slid right off! BFF Mary if you're reading this does it remind you of anything? MacArthur's Park maybe? LOL!!! Anyway, I scraped the filling off and replaced it with vanilla buttercream, frosted the whole thing with more buttercream and added lots of sprinkles. Topped with bath toys (I washed them before putting on top of the cake!) and a candle - pretty cute. And it was a hit, literally. He kept smacking his hands on the top of the cake before devouring a large portion of it :)

Disposable Paper Cake Pans

I had a bit of a quandary the other day when I needed to make cake for two back-to-back separate events - and neither of the events needed a whole cake. I offered to make a mini cake for a one-year-old's birthday party (for him to eat and mess up all by himself - his mom requested no chocolate) and I also wanted to have cake for the rest of the people at the party, and the other event the request was for white cake with chocolate frosting. I had the idea to make one big batch of doctored cake mix (added sour cream, an extra egg, instant pudding, a teaspoon of vanilla) and divide it up into separate kinds of cake.

I'll show you the birthday cake tomorrow, but the main point of this post is the disposable paper pan I used to make the small cake. I don't have a small cake pan (just the normal 8 and 9" sizes) but wanted the birthday cake to be bigger than a cupcake. In the way back of my baking cabinet I found a few of these 5" disposable pans meant for baking cakes and bread in and then being able to give them right in the pan. Or for bake sales, etc. I wanted to frost the sides of his birthday cake so didn't want to leave it in the paper pan, so after baking and cooling one 5" cake (I put about 2 cups of batter in the pan so it was pretty thick) I just peeled the paper off, split the cake in half and decorated like a normal layer cake. It was the perfect size - a miniature 2-layer cake.

I've never done this before and wanted to share in case you haven't either! I will definitely be making this size cake again - doing it this way let me have enough cake batter to make 12 cupcakes for the other event and the rest of the batter I made into small mini-cupcakes for the birthday party.

Prosciutto Wrapped Mozzarella Sticks

I'm going on a short trip that puts me in the air almost as long as I'll be on the ground (!) and I want to pack some snacks. Especially since my layover is only an hour in Chicago, no time to grab something before boarding the second flight and even though I'm sure I can make it all day without eating and survive, why take the chance? ;)

The easy route is to pack a couple granola bars or some trail mix, but I won't want those things when it comes time to eat them - good intentions until the boredom and munchies kick in. Hard-boiled eggs are an excellent snack full of protein but no-one wants to smell them (or tuna fish!) on an airplane! Plus I can't eat them without salt and pepper so that's not very practical anyway. Hmmm...

I was going thru my photos and remembered an easy appetizer that Janis brought to our house one day - mozzarella sticks wrapped with slices of thin prosciutto. Very simple to make (the directions are also the name of the dish!), can be made ahead of time, aren't fragile, and taste great. This seams like it'd make a great airplane snack too! Prosciutto is an Italian dry-cured ham sliced super thin, since it won't be out of the fridge all that long I'm not worried about eating it at room temp. In addition to a cut up apple with one of those prepackaged tubes of peanut butter and a small bag of m&m's should keep me from starving. And I'll throw in a granola bar just in case :)

New Candles from Old Candles

There is a candle that Anthropologie sells that smells AMAZING. Truly my favorite candle, but they aren't cheap so I usually just appreciate them when I'm in the store - at Christmas they were doing a good sale though so I ordered one. When it arrived I could hear the candle before I even saw the candle because it was smashed to bits and the glass was making so much noise! I immediately called the company,  they felt bad and sent a new one. When it arrived I could hear the candle before I even saw the second one, it was also broken!!! I called the company again and once again they said they'd send another, but the third candle never showed up...so it's either floating around somewhere, stolen, or they just didn't bother. (I did get a refund so all good). I couldn't bear to throw the smashed candles away tho, they smell SO good - even broken I was enjoying the scent and kept them around. I got the idea to (carefully!) pick off the broken glass and salvage the wax, remelt it and make myself a new candle. I'm so happy about this I can't even tell you.

Other than the whole gingerly picking off the broken glass step, this was very easy. Cut up the candle into small pieces and put in a heatproof container (empty tin cans work well but I didn't have one big enough so I used a Ball jar), set the container into a pan that has about an inch of water in the bottom (creating a double-boiler) and melt the wax very slowly over low heat. Seriously, I probably don't need to tell you to be careful, pay attention, and don't walk away from melting wax...but I'm going to say it anyway so no one hurts themselves and blames me.

While the wax was melting I prepared the new candle holder (I got a heavy glass holder for 2 bucks at Tuesday Morning) by sticking down a wood wick to the center bottom of the holder. Keep it in place by adding a little dab of wax to the bottom of the wick, hold in place until the wax dries. Once the wax on the stovetop is melted and smooth, carefully pour it into the candle holder and let it re-harden. Then trim the wick down to about 1/4".

This was so easy and I still had more wax so I found another container (a terra-cotta pot) and made another candle, this time with a regular wick - I thought the wick was covering the hole in the bottom of the pot but once I poured in the wax I realized (see the picture for just how I realized) the wick didn't seal up the hole! So I scraped the wax off the counter and re-melted...duh. The regular wicks are soft and don't stand up on their own - you need to keep it upright and centered, so stick the bottom down the same as with the wood wick and wind the portion that is above the candleholder around a pencil. Lay the pencil across the center of the holder, pour the melted wax in, leave the pencil across the top until the wax has hardened.

I actually had a third candle arrive broken (from a different source) but it didn't
smell as good and was too hard to remove from the broken holder so I threw that one out

oops, the wick didn't seal up the hole in the bottom of the terra-cotta pot! 

Ham Pasta Salad

Dave is going to a photo party and needs a dish to pass - we have ham left over from Easter last week and I decided to make a cold pasta salad for him to take. Actually I was going to make a dessert but he's worried there won't be anything he can eat - if you're worried about that then the rule of thumb is to take something you know you can eat! That way at least there is one thing that'll work. So...ham pasta salad it is.

I made up the dressing for this salad and it turned out pretty tasty if I do say so myself. I don't have exact amounts, just add until you like how it tastes. I mixed together equal parts mayo and plain greek yogurt (about 1/2 cup each), a big tablespoon of dijon mustard, some lemon juice, a bit of olive oil to help loosen the dressing up, cayenne, paprika, pepper, and just a little salt (the salad has the salty ham so don't add much). Whisk it all together and taste if you want to adjust the seasonings. Fold into a bowl of cooked pasta shells, chopped ham, thawed frozen peas, and a big handful of shredded cheese; mix well until the dressing is completely incorporated and covering all of the pasta. If it seems dry just make up another batch of dressing.

I'm not sure he's going to remember to bring home my bowl, so I put the salad in a large plastic container and topped with a bit of finely chopped italian parsley to make it look a little nicer ;).

Swedish Fish

I don't eat much candy and when I do it isn't gummy chewy things so I've never had swedish fish candy...but if it tastes anything like this yummy drink I might be missing out! This isn't overly sweet and with the lime juice it has just the right bit of tart to it - don't let the name stop you from trying this drink.  I found the recipe here, but I didn't put it with ice in a shaker like a martini - it tasted great just mixed together in a glass with a bit of ice. And I definitely didn't put a swedish fish candy in it for garnish...!

2 oz. vodka
2 oz. cranberry juice
1 oz. Rose's lime juice
1 oz. triple sec

Shake with ice and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with a swedish fish candy.

DIY Heating Pad

My neck and back have been bothering me so I went to an ex-ortho nurse turned massage therapist today that does NOT give the kind of relaxing massage that sounds like heaven right now but works on the painful issues instead...so I can't really say I had a "massage", more like intensive therapeutic work! Anyway, you don't care about that and it's not my point hahaha...she mentioned that heat would be helpful to loosen things up and I said I have an electric heating pad and she said what would be better is one of those microwaveable packs that only stay hot for a few minutes and really target the areas that need it. I don't have one of those here but I do have scrap material, a couple bags of small dried beans, and a sewing machine...so...about 10 minutes later my heating pad was made.

I cut up an old pillowcase into a rectangle about 6" x 19". Turn the right sides facing each other and sew around all open sides leaving a couple inch gap in one end so you can fill it. Turn the whole thing right side out, fill it with the beans (you can also use rice), hand sew the little opening or do what I did and just machine sew across the entire end to close it. I did this because (a) it's for me and no one will ever see it so it didn't need to look perfect and (b) I was sitting at my machine and it's way faster to machine sew than hand stitch hahahah - which is sort of (c) I'm lazy. If I was making these for gifts I'd totally do it the right way and hand sew to close the opening!

I shaped a piece of paper into a cone as a makeshift funnel 

In the middle of making this heating pad Dave brought me Sarge's new stuffed hedgehog that needed a trip to the "hospital" because his nose was bit off and the stuffing was coming out - I had to stop what I was doing to fix it because Sarge was driving me crazy wanting it back!

 Right now I have it on my neck while blogging this and it isn't even warm - just the weight of it feels SO good....ahhhhhhh.....some relief! Oh, I forgot that when I was filling the pad with the beans I added a few drops of doTerra lavender oil in case the beans smelled funny after heating them. So it feels good AND smells good :)

one year ago: household emergency kit
two years ago: Sheryl's stuffed mini sweet peppers

Low-Carb Pizza

Feel like pizza but don't want the crust? Check out the low-carb pizza I made - let's be honest, it doesn't taste like pizza with regular pizza crust,  but for way less calories and carbs this is a great substitution! I loved it actually and will def be adding this to my lunch ideas. Didn't feed it to Dave so can't give you his take, but for me it's delicious and a keeper.

I saw the recipe online but changed it  - you can google and find other recipes (look for "keto pizza") but this is what I did to make a small 8inch pizza for my lunch:

Mix together 1 egg and a big handful of shredded cheese (I used an Italian blend, mozzarella will also work - probably 3/4 cup). Spread the mixture on a parchment lined baking sheet into a thin round circle (or whatever crazy shape you'd like your pizza) and bake at 400' for about 15 minutes until the crust turns golden. Remove and let cool for a couple minutes. Top with pizza sauce (if you're really trying to keep the carbs low find a pizza sauce that is low in sugar), whatever toppings you want (I did turkey pepperoni and chopped canadian bacon), then a handful of shredded mozzarella. Return to the oven and bake for another 5 minutes or so until cheese is melted and the pizza has turned even more golden brown.

before baking

after baking a few minutes remove from oven and add toppings

topped with turkey pepperoni and canadian bacon, bake a few more minutes

voila! "pizza"!!