Ketchup to My Macaroni

P-Dub's Bacon-Wrapped Jalapenos!

2008-12-22T22:26:00.000-08:00

mmm, m-m-m.
Words cannot begin to describe how yummy these little guys are.
I must resort to the use of moans and groans to honor them.

Little jalapenos wrapped in a bacon blanket!
The cream cheese oozes right out..

go here and make these right now. Or you'll regret it.

oh, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Strawberry Vanilla Cupcakes

2008-08-07T13:12:00.000-07:00

In order to expand my scanty vocabulary, I'm going to embark on a plan to endeavor using big words in this blog. Or maybe just today's entry, who knows? Sorry, not reputable for perseverance here.
OH, WHAT NOW!!! 3 big words right there. haha.. off to a good start! :)

I've actually cooked up a bunch of dishes in the past 2 months, but have not been able to post them up. okay, fine, I'll be honest - yeah, I've been procrastinating. Procrastinating like there's no tomorrow, to be correct. But hey! At least I've managed to convene this blog and write a couple posts! While E., on the other hand, hasn't even made her debut. ha! I win. Brownnie pooint.
To be fair, I've had more leisure time than E., who is now off on a cruise ship enjoying herself somewhere on the coast of Mexico.. That lucky woman.

Hmm, what should I write about today? Eenie-meenie-minie-mo.. got cha.
Because I kinda maybe sorta miss her, today's post will be about STRAWBERRY VANILLA CUPCAKES that I made for E.
Here 's the story behind these cuties. I apologize in advance.. I'm not a good raconteur. So if you'd rather not try to make sense of a verbose, faltering, circumlocutory, amateur prattle, I strongly encourage you to please, skip the next paragraph.

So this was about a month and a half ago, the day of E.'s dance recital. (Yes, E. is a dancer - she has been dancing her whole life basically) Being very un-artsy, I don't go to dance recitals on a daily basis. so I wasn't sure if I was supposed to get her a bouquet, you know, to give her after the recital? (Sorry, English teachers out there - I'm leaning on the fragments and incomplete flow of ideas today.) But then a sudden realization hit me - flowers are no good; they just crinkle up and die; but FOOD she can eat! So that pretty much sums up the story of how I came to bake her cupcakes.

Anyway, I adapted the recipe from a delightful little book called Deceptively Delicious, which happens to be one of my measly cookbook collection consisting of a wowing 2 books. I love this book though - it uses REAL ingredients, low fat stuff, none of that high-cholesterol inducing fats, and tells you how to hide veggies in your food if your kids have a thing against veggies.

Originally Lemon Raspberry as written in the book, but I've found this successful with Strawberry Vanilla, or Blueberry Vanilla as well.

It's so cute, so versatile.. You can dress it up with whatever you'd like.
Oh, if you want the recipe, let me know! via comment/email/ etc.

I love these because they're pretty fail-proof. Can't hate that.
Basically all you have to do is:

mix up the dry ingredients
fill each cup 1/2 way with the batter
plop down some strawberry vanilla filling
cover up with rest of batter, and bake.

and voila! Out of your own oven comes little beauties filled with strawberry cream.

Oh, I remember this. Back at that time, I did not own a standard dozen cupcake pan, nor paper liners. Oh, the pain of buttering the little aluminum pan..
Haha, thank God for paper cupcake liners!

Look at them chilling on the cooling rack. MMM I can almost smell them...
You see the bowl with the leftover strawberry filling?
I'm gonna use that to make some icing on top.

like this. And garnish with strawberries, blueberries, chocolate-covered strawberries, and oreo crumbs. Whatever else your creative culinary mind can think of.
You see, E.'s wonderful sister doesn't like chocolate (GASP! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? right?) so the three w/o chocolate were for her. She started dancing this year, but too bad I didn't get to see her morning recital.. it's okay though, some day she'll be dancing in an airband for homecoming. That's right. Some day. In the next nine years.

Hehe, dressed it up to make it more presentable. I had a lot of trouble with that cellophane though.. It wasn't thick enough. Watch out for flimsy cellophane, folks!

Close-up. So when I went to Michaels, this cute sticker caught my eye. and i just HAD to get it. "Home-made" how cute is that?!

Aw, there she is. with all her dance make-up on.
I can't tell if she's enjoying it or not.
Look! I blurred the background. Yes, one of the only things I am capable of doing on photoshop.
Incompetent, slow, unsophisticated. Yeah, call me names.

Well, I sure wish I could go devour some cupcakes right now.. But I gotta go cook some more!
-ella.

Easy Peasy Oatmeal Cookies!

2008-07-27T18:33:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to: There Is Nothing Like by Hillsong United. you MUST MUST MUST listen to Hillsong. :)such an amazing praise team.

anyways. toooo the cookies we go.
One day waay back in May, I had the urge to bake some cookies.. or maybe I just wanted some cookies to gobble down? Who knows. But does that really matter?

anyway,
This recipe is adapted from a random website that I have now managed to forget.. But the important thing is that these cookies are unbelievably EASY!
I guarantee, anyone and everyone can make them. Fail Proof!

Easy Peasy Oatmeal Cookies aren't eaten for their beauty, or goodness, but they're more for "oh, I think I want to bake some cookies all of a sudden! I WANT THEM NOW, this INSTANT!" kind of thing.
Aside from being quick & easy, you only need a few ingredients!
and that's the beauty of these babies.

First, preheat the oven to 350. and
Meet the all stars:

plus any other cuties you want to sprinkle on - aka chocolate chips, nuts, craisins, and so on.
Sadly, at the time I didn't have any cuties handy. So my cookies were just .. oatmeal. and some pinenuts I ran into.

I happened to have had some Sunny Select Apple & Cinnamon Oatmeal in my pantry, but you can use any kind of instant oatmeal out there - yes, I said ANY kind. This recipe is pretty tolerant.

dump your 3 pckts of instant oatmeal into a mixing bowl.
rip, tilt, pour.
repeat three times.

escort your choice of cuties to the bowl.
I know I know, pinenuts don't go with the word "cute", but this is all I had.

add in the rest of the ingredients.

Oh, the egg makes this soft. So if you're looking for a granola-type cookie with a crunch, I suggest you omit it.
Now, get ready for some dirty hands!

Using your bare hands, form the dough into teeny globs.
Or, of course, you could use an ice cream scoop to make perfect balls, but that takes away
the home-y feeling of these punks. However, I'm no one to interfere with your cooking journey. Go ahead - use whatever floats your boat.

and lay them on a small cookie sheet covered with foil.

my hand would like to greet all of you.

"hello"

pop the pan in your hot little toaster oven.
bake for about 15 minutes, until they're beautifully browned on the edges.

your kitchen will start to smell mmm, deeelish.
so the foil kind of glared and you can't really see the cookies, but they're all done.

close-up.
again, these aren't the prettiest cookies you'll encounter.

but they're oooh so eaasy.
store em in a container.
watch the lid steam up.
:)

okay, i'm out.
-ella