Holidays

Christmas Tree 2018 (And a Surprise)

Finally, the tree went up at our house over the weekend. I’ve been pretty much chomping at the bit (horse term) to get that tree up. I would like to say it went up without any hitches, but it didn’t… NOT. AT. ALL. In fact, I think the term hitches is a nice way of saying how things went on Saturday when we put the tree up. Sad day! Part of me wants to jot those memories down and part of me wants to forget it ever happened. No use in dwelling on the past, right? Let’s just say, Christmas is my favorite holiday (followed so close by Thanksgiving and all of the rest of the holidays) and I used the phrase, I Hate Christmas. Sadly, I try to teach Abug not to say hate. It’s something I try to instill in Abug, don’t hate. Yet I was so frustrated I kept saying HATE. Hypocrite! (that was directed at me, not you :))

The Tree

A few years ago we bought this tree at Lowe’s on sale after Christmas. Best purchase we’ve ever made when it comes to Christmas trees. It goes together so nicely and yeah, I love this tree. Plus, I’m a white light girl and hubby is a colored light guy… This tree flashes back and forth between white lights and colored lights. Best of both worlds!

My friend Harriett told me I needed to make a tree skirt for my tree, but it was too late to start it when she suggested that… so next year. I’m holding you to that Harriett! So Abug decided she was going to put the tree skirt on the tree… (more…)

Thanksgiving 2018

And just like that, Thanksgiving is over.  I saw a meme the other day that I actually saw a year ago… something about spending 10 hours cooking for it to be gone in 30 minutes and then spending 5 hours cleaning up or something. haha. But that’s kind of the fun in Thanksgiving!

It’s also funny how short weeks feel the longest sometimes. Thanksgiving is always the 3rd Thursday of November. And that week, every year feels so long! Probably because of the anticipation of what is to come that week. That’s what I’m going with anyway!

This year, we had plans to leave Tuesday after Abug got out of school to head to my aunt and uncle’s house in Oklahoma. I love when we get to go see them. I have a pretty small family as is, so when we don’t get to see each other on holidays it makes it feel so weird. Weird is the only word I can see to describe it. My family did get bigger when I married my husband, but still… unfortunately they don’t care for me very much so I’ve heard. I get blamed for things that are out of my control and that sucks. But my husband, he’s my rock. He loves me and that’s what matters!

Anyway, Tbug couldn’t come down with us because she had a dentist appointment on Wednesday. My parents weren’t able to come down until Wednesday night so they brought her with them. It was a big happy family!! (more…)

Caramel Apple Cake

It’s no secret, I love Christmas. The last few years they haven’t been quite up to par like normal, but I still love Christmas none the less. Now… I am a true summer girl. But… I love Christmas. I’ve posted quite a few times on Facebook about X number of days until Christmas or X number Monday’s or better yet, It’s August, can I put up my tree yet? I’m only partially joking. In previous years I listened to Christmas music all year long… I’ve kind of broken that habit.

Then I saw another post I shared on Facebook last week that said, does anyone else feel like June and July flew by in like 5 seconds, or something like that… That’s basically the gist of it anyway. And then… I got accused of wishing them away because I love Christmas. Touché… We are none-the-less in August. The commercials are going CRAZY about back to school shopping. CRAZY right? Didn’t the kiddos just get out of school? Tbug starts back the 15th and Abug starts pre-school after Labor Day. Holy crap! Let’s not think about the pre-school thing. It makes me want to burst out crying.

Anyway… Another thing that comes with August is apples. Okay, okay, that’s a fall thing but hello, you give teacher’s apples, right? So for Dive Club Meeting last week I made a Caramel Apple Cake (and German Chocolate Cake Cookies, yum!). Yum! By the way, do you pronounce it Care-a-mel or carmal? I typically go the latter. (more…)

Neapolitan Mousse Cake

Guys, it’s time to start thinking about my birthday cake. Yes, I’m making my own birthday cake. I chose to. Yup, that’s right, I want to. Remember, pretty cakes make me happy. You see that one above? That one is gorgeous and made me happy!! In fact, I’m debating if I want that one for my birthday or not. There are sooooooo many cakes to make, I just can’t decide what I want.

Neapolitan Mousse Cake

I must admit, the cake rounds are finally getting their act together. That little punch out in the middle is GREAT when you are trying to do a huge tall stacked cake when you need to put a dowel in the middle to help stabilize them. Used to, you had to try and hammer them through the cardboard and hope it worked. Now… you just have to find the middle and you have extra help. (more…)

Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Icebox Cupcakes

I swear, I’ve been obsessed with cakes and cookbooks. Well, the cookbook thing isn’t anything new. But this new, pretty, big, fancy cakes thing is new. I can’t tell you how many cookbooks I’ve at least picked up here recently if not put in my Amazon cart. No, I haven’t bought all of them… but a couple here and there. And the websites and the YouTube channels. Oh gosh, someone needs to break me of this habit. Although, right now I need to point out that so far this week I haven’t done ANY baking. I’m almost feeling at a bit of a loss.

Like I said, it’s become a new obsession I guess. The pretty cakes make me happy. One of the cookbooks I did pick up was the Simply Beautiful Homemade Cakes by Lindsay Conchar of Life, Love, & Sugar blog. Guys, no one asked me to say this, but the cakes that she put in this cookbook are just beautiful. I’ve made two of them actually. Although, these are cupcakes, not a cake… but aren’t they just beautiful? (more…)

Tiramisu French Macarons

The same day I made the Strawberry Lemonade French Macarons, I made Tiramisu French Macarons. I really like Tiramisu and when I saw this recipe over on Tatyana’s Everyday Food, I just knew I had to make them. The question was…. when. I was back and forth, back and forth on which ones to make between these and the Strawberry Lemonade French Macarons… but when I made the Spumoni Cake, I had 10, yes 10 egg whites just sitting around so that meant… hello, multiple flavors of French Macarons.

Now, this might also be the place to mention that when you make one French Macaron shell batter, clean all your equipment before starting on the second round of batter. If I would have done that, I would have had 3 types of French Macarons, but when I didn’t clean my equipment, it tainted my egg whites and they didn’t meringue up like they were supposed to. So just remember, wash between batters! It’s important!

The only thing you don’t have to wash is the beaters on the hand mixer because all they touch are egg whites and some sugar. Easy enough. (more…)

Strawberry Lemonade French Macarons

I have been on a French Macaron kick lately, but I guess when you make French Buttercream, you have a lot of egg whites left over. If you didn’t know, French Buttercream is made with egg yolks. Don’t worry, they’re cooked! But we’re not really talking French Buttercream right now… we’re talking French Macarons. Hey, just a thought… Do you think that French Macarons and French Buttercream were made to be compliments so you don’t waste eggs? Just a thought.

But since I’ve had so many egg whites lying around, I thought French Macarons were in order. I love making them. I don’t have them perfected just yet… And practice makes perfect. Plus at our last dive club meeting, I made my friend Danielle a deal that I’d make her French Macarons if she’d make hubby some deviled eggs. He loves them and I’m not a fan so I don’t typically make them. In fact, I’ve only made the once in my life. It was fun boiling the eggs and then seeing if I did it correctly to see if the shells would peel correctly.

Speaking of Deviled eggs, I saw a deal at the grocery store where you crack the egg, pour it in, boil it, and it makes a perfect deviled egg. Interesting! (more…)

Family Fourth of July

I’ve talked about our Family Fourth of July quite a bit this week between the Spumoni Cake, the Wacky Cake, and the Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches. A lot of food talk huh? I also made a Greek Pasta Salad. Holy Yum! But hello, where are the pictures of the fireworks? I’m so glad you asked!

I spent quite a bit of time coming up with what desserts we were going to take. Then making sure I had all the ingredients. Finally, the execution.

(more…)

Wacky Cake with Perfect Party Icing

I really think people don’t believe my now 4-year-old can actually cook. There are some kids I’m sure their parents say can cook and maybe they can, maybe they can’t, but my kids, both of them have grown up in the kitchen with me. I started Tbug helping me as early as I could… she came into my life at 6-years-old. And Abug has done nothing but live in the kitchen with me because as a baby I wasn’t sure what to do with her while I cooked.

And yes, there are some people who give women in the kitchen a bad rap because of all the feminism/sexism mumbo jumbo, but I personally LOVE to cook. I haven’t always… but I have since my late teens/early 20’s. When I was a kid, I had better things to do with my time I guess. I wish I’d have started earlier.

But this is a post about Wacky Cake… not me. I’ll try to remember that…

So when we were getting ready for my husband’s family shindig, I asked Tbug what she was going to make for the party. I didn’t quite give Abug such an option because, well she’s 4 and may not know what all there is. She’d have probably told me Mac and Cheese or something like that. Truth be told… maybe I should have let her take that as her contribution. There were few sides it felt like, maybe because I didn’t care for most of them… but there were lots of desserts. (more…)

Spumoni Cake

I broke my blog this morning. I could get to the actual blog, but to write new blog posts, that’s what I broke. I couldn’t even get there. I don’t know why. Thanks to my brilliant husband, he fixed it. I made him think. So here we are, back up and running, again. I joke that I keep him around to fix my blog. It is a joke but he has fixed it for me more than once.

Back around the 4th of July (which was last week… wow!), my husband’s family had their yearly get-together. I got busy trying to decide just what I wanted to make to take. If you’ve noticed, here lately I’ve been really into cakes. So of course, I had to choose a cake. I also chose to make Cherry Cheesecake French Macarons because I had a bunch of egg whites just sitting around. I’ll explain later… obviously. (more…)