Recipe

Aurora’s Pancakes

She’s amazing. She makes the women I dream about look like short, fat, bald men.”

Name the TV show that quote is from? If you know me… you know it is a quote from Friends. I claim myself to be a somewhat Friends aficionado. The series started in 1994 and ended in 2004. In 1994 I was 11 years old. I can’t really say I remember watching that as a kid. Probably a little above my maturity level then? But I became more and more of a fan the older I got. In fact, I own all 10 seasons + the game + the unofficial cookbook.

I absolutely LOVE pancakes. I really think it is a love at my house… minus hubby maybe… but does his opinion count? Maybe…. haha! The opinions that do count are mine and Abug. The sooner he learns that the better, am I right? When I was pregnant with Abug, there was one night early on in the pregnancy, I wasn’t even showing nor had we told many people, that I just down right, belligerently WANTED pancakes. The next morning, the hotel we stayed at had them, and they were just meh. (more…)

Sugar Cookie Challenge

I’ve been issued a Sugar Cookie Challenge. Let me explain…

When we were in Cozumel this year, Deb and I were talking to one of the owners of Cozumel Marine World. On his shirt was the logo for Underwater Digital Fiesta Expeditions. I asked Alex and Deb what that was. Turns out it is a yearly get together where you learn to take better underwater photos while learning about and testing out the latest and greatest in digital underwater photography equipment. WHAT!?!?!?

If there’s one thing you should know about me by now, I LOVE photography. My underwater photography skills lack quite a bit, but I’ve only been diving for 4 years. In those 4 years, I was off limits in diving for a year because of my cute little three-year-old. So I’ve been diving 3 years. Yes, I have 100 dives in under my belt… but….. They highly suggest you don’t start carrying a camera underwater with you until you’ve at least dove 50 times. Well, I didn’t totally listen to those words of advice, but I always made sure I was comfortable enough diving before I took a camera with me. It’s an added responsibility.

I immediately started talking about how I wanted to go to this photo fiesta. Hubby laughed and issued me a challenge. If I could sell 300 dozen cookies, I could go. Holy cow! That’s not 300 cookies… that’s 300 dozen cookies. That equals math I can’t easily do in my head. That is 3,600 cookies.

Challenge Accepted….

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Eat Like a Gilmore – Luke’s Meatloaf

When my husband and I got together, I was a Friends aficionado. It was sad really… I would quote lines and say things like crazy to the point he had to start watching it just so I didn’t have to explain myself all the time. Now we can call him a Friends aficionado also. He had a couple shows he was that way with too, one of which included Gilmore Girls. I had watched Gilmore Girls on and off, but never really paid a lot of attention. It was just usually on for background noise.

One day I was going through the Friend’s series again. He made me promise that once I was finished I had to watch Gilmore Girls start to finish. He owned all the seasons. I agreed. Man, that show is quite addicting! I really want to be Lorelai. She’s so spunky and the way she dresses. I really want her closet.

6 months to a year ago or so I found out someone wrote a cookbook. Hubby and I picked up the cookbook. I read through it but never really made anything from it. Sadly, that’s the way with most cookbooks I own and I own a lot.  Until now…

Eat Like a Gilmore: Luke's Meatloaf with a side of Mashed potatoes because who doesn't eat mashed potatoes with meatloaf! | Midwestern at Heart

Luke’s Meatloaf

If there is one thing I can tell you about the Gilmore Girls, if you’ve never watched the show… They love to eat. Bam. That’s really all you need to know. ha! Well that and with all they love to eat, Lorelai is skinny minnie. How in the heck. Oh wait, that’s right, it’s TV. Oh and she also lives on coffee. But let’s save that talk for another day, okay?

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Baking Challenge – Checkerboard Cake

I’ve mentioned a few times that I challenged myself to the “cupcake” challenge this year. You know… the Food Network January/February 2017 cupcake for every month challenge. Then a couple weeks ago I was talking to the hubs and told him that I needed a challenge for next year. He laughed at me saying, “But Nicole, you still have the rest of this year. We’re only at July.” I know, I know, but I’m thinking ahead. My idea was to do a pie for every month. Come on… who doesn’t like pie. And I may still persue that… who knows…

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Root Beer Float Cupcakes

Every so often I wind up looking up National holidays. Not the big ones that we all know like Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc… I’m talking the little ones… Like the one that hapepned on Sunday. What was Sunday? I’m so glad you asked. August 6th is National Root Beer Float Day. Nothing big, but still kind of fun to acknowledge.

Last week I wound up on a blog while doing some research and saw a recipe for Root Beer Float Cupcakes. I got it stuck in my head I needed to make those on National Root Beer Float Day. It combined 2 things in to 1. Root Beer Floats and cupcakes. And since I’ve been trying to teach myself how to make cupcakes, what better thing than to put my new fangled knowledge to work, right?

So nothing unusual about the beginning of these cupcakes… mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Easy peasy… But then comes an interesting part… Place the liquid ingredients in a sauce pan over medium heat and melt together. Oh, and some of the liquid… none other than Root Beer because hellow, these are Root Beer Float Cupcakes, right? All of this was done in a bowl with a whisk… as in no electric mixer required for this step. This step=the making of the cupcakes.

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Piña Colada Cupcakes

Were you afraid I forgot to make the July cupcake from the challenge? Never fear, here is the Piña Colada Cupcake. I really think this was one of the cupcakes everyone was looking forward too, that and last months. February’s was good too. I think May’s was the worst IMO. I have a feeling May’s will always be the worst IMO… So the way to start this cupcake was to boil my Pineapple juice. Can I tell you a secret? I had to boil it twice and I forgot about it both times. Whoops.

The first time I forgot to shake my juice together. So it really didn’t boil down to a thick syrup, which made me decide to start again. The second time I walked away and forgot again that I put it on to boil. Nothing happened either time except I came back to the above picture. No big deal.

The boiled juice was actually for the icing but I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget because it needed to be completely cool before I could use it. A few hours later I started back in on the cupcakes. This time I mixed the dry ingredients together in a bowl. It says medium bowl but seriously, I could have used a small bowl for the dry ingredients.

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How To: Can Tomatoes

The other day I was down at my grandma’s and she made a comment that really kind of stuck with me. As you know I started a garden this year. This is my second attempt but first successful attempt at a garden. That’s cool, right? I planted green beans, corn, tomatoes, peppers (assorted), and carrots. At my house, we really don’t eat many raw tomatoes, so I called my grandma up and asked her to help me can them. She agreed. So what exactly did she say that stuck with me? That she was proud of me for learning how to do this because it is becoming a lost art. Wow! It was one of those things I thought of but never really made note of.

How to: Can Tomatoes

Midwestern at Heart: How To: Can Tomatoes. This is my Grandma's tried and true method of canning tomatoes so you have fresh tomatoes from your summer garden all year long.

The first thing you want to do is decide what you think you’ll use these tomatoes for. I told her I was going to use these for tomato sauce or pasta sauce eventually. Keep that in mind when trying this method!

I have a mixture of Beefsteak and Roma tomatoes in my bucket.

Midwestern at Heart: Bucket of Tomatoes

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Sundae Cupcakes

I’m really hoping that one thing I will gain from this Cupcake Challenge I put on myself is to learn to make the most perfect, most consistent cupcakes. So far…. It hasn’t happened, but I am getting closer…. maybe…

I truly think that out of all of these cupcakes, this is one that most everyone was looking forward to. I know I was kind of dreaming about them. And they definitely top the cake over last months. maybe top the cupcake? Would that be icing… like the icing on the cake. Okay, I’ll stop now!

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Reuben Nachos

I have to credit my love for cooking to my grandma’s yes, but later in life to Rachael Ray. Now I know a lot of people don’t like her and I have my moments where I just want her to come to reality because she always says, Your local store has blank blank blank. Well I live in Middle American and Rural America at that and our local store doesn’t always have things she refers to, example shallots.

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