I Heart CupCAKES!

Since I have a whole mouth full of sweet teeth (not just a single sweet tooth, like most people) when we were discussing plans for the baby shower I suggested we have the theme “How Sweet it is”. I then decided it would be the perfect excuse for me to get this giant cupcake pan I’ve had my eye on. (I’m also semi-obsessed with all things big and small). Handy Andy & I are going to make  a small version of our Giant Cupcake Stand, which will be the perfect display. (It’s all about presentation!) I got the idea from a bride who used our tutorial to make her own stand and it was super cute!

 

 

I also thought it would be a good idea to test it out a few times before the shower, just in case. We hosted Mother’s Day lunch and I thought that was a perfect excuse for my first attempt. The directions on the pan weren’t very specific so I searched online to find out more about using the cake pan. I ran across this site that had the most amazing tutorial to make this cupcake cake even better. What could possibly make a giant cupcake better you ask? How about a chocolate shell “cupcake liner”!!! SQUEAL!!

How cute is that?! I used the leftover red melting chips I had from a dish I made for Kim’s Twilight Party. I wasn’t sure I had enough, but it worked out fabulously! What do you think?

I did, however, learn in this experience that the bottom cake needs to bake quite a bit longer than the top. I only had one cake mix on hand so I just used it and baked it all at the same time, deciding I would try something different next time. It was good, but the top was a little over-baked. So, my advice would be to either bake the pieces separately or put the bottom in the oven for awhile first, then add the mix to the top after the bottom has baked awhile.

The cake was a hit at lunch so when my company sent out an e-mail asking for contributions for a bake sale we were having to raise money for the City of Hope of course I thought I had to try this again, with two cake mixes! I had already bought pink melting chips for the baby shower so I used them. I got strawberry cake for the top and devil’s food for the bottom. YUM! I also baked the pieces separately, first the bottom and then the top. I should mention that I also learned you need to level the pieces by cutting off the bulging top that cakes usually get. Not a big deal. Although, as I mentioned when I made a barrel cake I never let the cake cool long enough. Same deal here, a chunk of the top got stuck to the pan. What do you do? Simply fix it with frosting and nobody will ever know. This baby scored a $20 donation for our bake sale:

I can’t wait to make another for the baby shower. I love making cakes. (Especially when I don’t have to eat it all myself!) And just think of the other things you can do with this pan – you can make the candy shell to fill with candy or other goodies. I decided I love using the melting chips because the colors are so vibrant, and there’s no mess like when trying to use food coloring. (People thought the chocolate shell was a plastic container!)

Have you used this Giant Cupcake Pan? Do you have any fun tips or tricks to share?

Aha!

Call it a fluke, call it coincidence, whatever you like but I went to check my Google Reader today and guess what I found…the link to the blog where I got the idea for Drew’s Barrel cake! It’s called Texas Monkey and you REALLY need to check out her post and multiple awesome looking variations on this cake!

Candy + Cake = YUM!

My friend Drew turns 30 this month and his lovely wife has planned a surprise dinner for him. At this age what do you get someone for their birthday? A card? A gift? I figured a good fall back plan for Drew would be beer. But being the DIY-obsessed person that I am I always want to MAKE something. So what do you make a 30 year old man? Certainly not any of my cutesy or random crafts. I decided food would be a good choice. And, being a birthday, why not a cake?!

At first I thought it would be funny to do some kind of boob cake (Drew hearts boobs) but then I decided to go PG rated. I somehow fell upon a blog that had a basic tutorial on barrel cakes. (Wouldn’t you know I cannot for the life of me find the link now!) I was immediately drawn to the fact that this blogger pointed out how easy it is to make a fantastic looking cake even if the cake has lots of flaws. Perfect.

I bought a regular Chocolate Devil’s Food Cake mix and tried to find peanut butter frosting to go with my Kit Kats and Reece’s Pieces I planned to use with the cake.

I couldn’t find PB frosting so I bought cream cheese frosting instead. But then, when I got home and started making the cake I thought, “What would Alton do?” And I made my own peanut butter icing – delicious!

1 Cup Creamy Peanut Butter (I used Skippy Natural)
2 Cups Powdered Sugar
1 Stick Butter
3+ Tablespoons Milk as needed

Cream together the PB & butter. Gradually add the powdered sugar and milk as necessary to keep it thinned out, then beat the heck out of it for 3+ minutes. I kept adding milk (maybe up to 1/4 cup??) to make it really creamy so it wouldn’t tear the cake.

So, I baked my two round cakes (even though I think one is an 8″ pan and on is a 9″ pan – I figured this would be a flaw I could cover with frosting!). I hate letting cakes cool, but I suppose it’s pretty important when trying to layer cakes nicely, and, by the way, this is my first attempt at doing a layered cake.

Yes, my layers were slightly flawed because I didn’t let the cakes cool long enough. Oh well! If that happens simply place the chunk back on the cake if you can, or leave it off and fill the void with frosting. I frosted the cake with the (delicous) peanut butter frosting and you can’t even tell the layers are not exact!

Then I placed the Kit Kats around the edge. NOTE: Six Kit Kats is NOT enough for a 8-9″ round cake.

Off I ran to the grocery store to buy more candy. This particular cake took 9.5 Kit Kat bars. (Baby Kayden had the other .5 Kit Kat bar.) Then I tied a ribbon around the cake.

Finally, I dumped the bag of Reece’s Pieces over the top!

 To better transport the cake I got a plain cake box and dressed it up a bit with some scrapbooking paper. Voila!

Healthy Living

I often hear about husbands that gain “sympathy weight” during a pregnancy. I’m guilty of sort of hoping that would be the case with us but boy was I wrong!  Andy the Giant got back on his health kick quite awhile ago; he’s been going to the gym since last August and nearly every single day in 2010. He started a new eating plan – not diet, but more of a lifestyle change – about three months ago. He’s down about 20lbs and I’m up about 17lbs.

Andy’s body has been growing more lean and muscular while mine has been growing large, round, and squishy – See evidence below:

I would show you Andy’s photos but I don’t think that would make him very happy. =) Maybe when he’s all ripped he’ll let me post some.

Andy keeps telling me “It’s okay…you’re growing a person, don’t worry about it. When you have the baby and you’re ready to get back in shape I’ll be right here with all the tools and motivation you need.” Easier said than done…I already know I have no desire to spend 2-3 hours a day at the gym like he does. But, I have no problem eating healthier and making a fair effort to get more physical activity in my daily routine.

Although I could go to the gym and stuff now I’m going to play the pregnancy card and bow out for now; I’m too swamped at work and putting in long hours so when I get home I just want to have dinner and relax.  That being said, what I CAN do is get my eating in check. I’ve been lucky to not have any seriously bad cravings, and although I’ve hit the drive-thrus a little more frequently since being pregnant, I can’t say my eating is out of control.

I’m game for trying to eat more lean proteins and less carbs and fat, and watch my sugar intake. (I don’t just have a sweet tooth, I’ve got a mouthfull!) I’m not going to be as strict on myself as Andy is on himself, but it’s not so bad. He’s big on eating meals consisting of some kind of meat with a bunch of veggies and salsa. Tastes much better than it sounds.

He’s really good about preparing stuff for me to eat so I don’t have to whine about how I don’t want to make something “good” to eat and it’s much easier to have a frozen pizza or something. And, our new routine is to plan our meals and do most all the prep work on Sunday so we’re packed and ready to go for the week. We bought a bunch of single serve containers and stocked the refrigerator:

Lots of fat free cottage cheese, Greek yogurt with fruit, eggs, beans, lentils, and nuts (in the other yogurt containers). I’m not a big meat fan, but I am a huge fan of Smart Dogs soy hot dogs.

The thought of real hot dogs grosses me out but these babies are delicious and pack in 15 grams of protein in one jumbo dog! The downside is they are expensive. And that’s what we’ve found with healthy food, which is unfortunate. However, I think we can get by on less food since a lot of what we eat is full of fiber and filling.

Andy says our kids are going to have the best brown bag lunches ever. I said they are going to be begging their friends to trade their soy dogs for cookies. Maybe not. I was into eating healthy when I was younger but at that age you deal with what your family gets and my family was all about convenience and sweets. At least we’ll be setting a good example and starting early.

Dare to Eat Cookies!

 

This is probably my favorite challenge from Kim’s Dare to DIY Blog Party. I have been waiting to do this since I read “Eat Cookies”!

So, ladies and gentlemen, (do men really read this blog? If not, they probably should, right?! Especially THIS post.) Anywho…I give you Alton Brown’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Wait…You’ve never heard of Alton Brown? Seriously? The Mastermind behind Good Eats? You must be kidding me. Surely the Meckleys aren’t the only household that has Good Eats on 24/7 and DVRs every single episode?

Oh. Okay. Perhaps we are. You might have found humor in my exageration but I’m only slightly ashamed to tell you that is the God honest truth; Andy has Good Eats on every single day. I nearly broke his heart when I accidentally erased everything on our DVR, which included the Good Eats 10th Anniversary show. Oops. Luckily he has forgiven me. For the most part.

Regardless, let me tell you, as usual, Alton is on to something with this recipe! While watching this episode I realized the reason my chocolate chip cookies were often flat is probably because I used too much baking soda. Baking is not like cooking, you must be very precise in your measuring.

Andy & I made these babies a few weeks ago and he insistedwe go out and buy not onlly the proper ingredients, but a large scoop so we could make giant cookies. As it turns out,  we should’ve bought a Pampered Chef scoop because the $11 scoop from the Kitchens store was junk so I made Andy return it. The PC scoop is on my Christmas List if any of you wants to send us a gift.

But I digress…we made the giant cookies and they were everything I had hoped for and more!

Here’s what you need:

• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 2 1/4 cups bread flour
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons real vanilla extract
• 2 cups chocolate chips
• #20 ice cream scooper (or Large Pampered Chef Scoop!)

I agree that buying the proper ingredients makes all the difference; these cookies are amazing! I’ve decided these are the difference-makers:

• REAL vanilla extract
• DARK brown sugar
• BREAD flour

Believe me, you will taste a difference! This is what you need to do:

• Melt butter. Set aside.
• Sift together flour, salt, and baking soda. I think this is the first time I’ve ever sifted ingredients since my 7th grade home ec class, but I do it because Alton said to do it!
• Cream butter and sugars on medium speed.
• Add the eggs, milk and vanilla until well mixed.
• Slowly incorporate the flour mix until thoroughly combined.
• Stir in chocolate chips.
• Chill the dough (Another difference maker!!)
• Scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets.
• Bake for 14 minutes or until golden brown.

Recipe from the Food Network.

Mmmm….these are my absolute favorite! Andy’s too!

 

Fall Festival Party

The Meckley’s threw a Fall Festival/Wine Tasting/Halloween Party last weekend. Andy went all out with a fog machine, strobe light and a great Halloween playlist. The fog machine was awesome, but we had to disable the smoke alarms all through the house!

 

Only a few of us dressed in costume, but it was a fun night anyhow. I told Andy you know you’re getting old when everyone tells you that you threw an awesome party, you feel like you threw a good party, when everyone leaves you get things picked up and then get settled into bed and when look over at the clock you see that it’s not even midnight! Oh well, we all had a good time and I prefer that to our previous knock-down-drag-out-nights followed by a 2-day hangover. The party pretty much died down quickly after watching the Hawkeyes add another notch to their helmets after the nail-biting game against the Spartans. (Yay Iowa!)

Here’s a little run down of our menu and other fun photos:

Caramel Peanut Butter Apple Dip

 

A bag of caramels
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
Splash of milk
Splash of vanilla creamer

Cheese & Fruit for the wine

Cheese Dip
1 box of Velveeta cheese
2 lbs. of browned breakfast sausage

Everyone’s favorite Buffalo Chicken Dip

Apple & Pear Crisp Fake Out
Thanks to Kimba’s recipe
on A Soft Place to Land
Sadly, I don’t think anyone ate any of it! I had a bite later but need to
make it again because I know it’s super delicious.

Harvest Snack Mix
I adapted a recipe I found somewhere online. (Sorry, can’t remember
where!)
This is what I *think* I did:
Mix 4 tablespoons melted butter with 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves. (P.S. Note to self, DO NOT try to ground your own whole cloves in your Magic Bullet. You will ruin the plastic cup. Those suckers must be pretty rough or something. Not sure how or why, but I really messed up the cup and I had to toss it.) Then add a bag of popped microwave popcorn and 2 cups of pretzel sticks. Mix well, put in cake pan and toss in oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool, then add in however much you want of candy corn (or pumpkins as you can see), chocolate stars, I threw in some kind of Ritz mini-bites that had frosting, and a cup of Banana Nut Cheerios because I knew they’d never get eaten otherwise. Then again, nobody but me ate this mix. I kinda like it. 

And, last but not least on the menu, my favorite food item of
the night:

This was really fun. Not really easy to eat, and no one really ate much, but it was a great addition. Find a plastic (or in this case styrofoam) skull. Wash well. You could add plastic wrap as someone mentioned at the party but I did not. Mix 2 blocks of cream cheese with whatever seasonings, I used garlic salt & onion powder. Spread on skull and cover with torn pieces of
lunchmeat. I left the eye sockets, nose, and teeth uncovered and popped two
large olives in the eye sockets. Dave decided the head needed a little more so
he added a festive knife:

 

Andy added dry ice to the punch:

  

And to drinks (P.S. we learned you should not add to beer!)

 

I forced my tall blonde babe to dress up like Fred so I could
be Daphne. I pretended for a moment Tiger was Scrappy. Our wigs were terrible, looked nothing like the photo on the front of the package, but oh well, you get the idea, right?!

Of course I had to dress up the boys:

 

The Willetts were super cute all dressed up. Karen even made
Lena’s costume!

 The Duitsmans were great sports. They came from a wedding and
added accessories to their outfits to be in costume, though Tom almost
immediately took off all his cop gear. Amber made a great Flapper girl.

 

Demitrios decided to don my wig:

 And The Elliotts and I had a good time hogging Andy’s remote later in the night so we could kick some old school tunes and reminisce back to our Junior High and High School days. :::singing::: One, Two, Three and To Tha Four…Because I’m Real…Meet Met at the Alter in Your White Dress…

 

And speaking of back in the day, Schmeed even brought us a
bottle of Mad Dog. Funny! That brought back some memories. I never knew it was a form of wine!

All in all, a great night with great friends – some old, some new…Love you all!

Buffalo Chicken Dip

I know I’ve posted this before, but seriously, this recipe is worth repeating. And re-eating. Repeatedly.

 

 

INGREDIENTS:

2 Cans Chicken Breast (13 oz ea?)
1-2 Cups Shreaded Cheese
1 Cup Ranch (or Blue Cheese) Dressing
1 Cup Frank’s Red Hot Sauce
2 Blocks Cream Cheese

(This is a pretty decent sized recipe. You can divide it in half if you want but
I promise once you try it you’ll think making less is silly.)

DIRECTIONS:

Dump everything into a crockpot. Turn on whatever – low or high. Stir occasionally. Eat. Eat some more. Share with friends. If by some crazy chance you have leftovers this is also GREAT cold and can be reheated if you like it warm. Eat with tortilla chips, in a quesadilla or if you’re like me – by the spoonful.

You’re welcome.

Ever Wonder…

about the cleanliness of the restaurant at which you’re eating? Or if they had any recent health code violations? (GROSS!) Well, I happened upon a site that allows you to look up those very things in my county: http://www.scottcountyiowa.com/health/food_search.php 

Some violations are as simple as a crack in the floor tile but others are flat out DISGUSTING, and I quote, “3 ROACHES WERE SEEN IN THE DINING ROOM DURING THIS INSPECTION. WHEN ROACHES ARE PRESENT DURING THE DAYLIGHT HOURS YOU HAVE A MAJOR INFESTATION.” Ew!!!

If you live in another county try looking at their website as I bet they may have something similar. Careful though, it may make you lose your appetite! (Which, isn’t always a bad thing for some of us  who seem to be holding onto our “winter” weight for dear life.)

Control

This is a post about control. My control. Control of what I say and control of what I do. And this time I’m going to do it my way….

Okay…that was for all you Janet fans out there; You know what I’m talkin’ about!

Anyway…just a little update on my “healthy living” / 30 Day Shred idea. After looking for the DVD at several different stores (that apparently didn’t have it) I decided to go ahead and order the darn thing online. So, it’s on the way. Baby steps.

 

This morning I tried a “Green Monster Smoothie”  (which I found here - scroll down) only I added more berries so it was more like purple sludge. Never mind my little mess. Note: The Magic Bullet wasn’t the best option, the blender worked better.  

Ingredients included 1 cup Almond milk, 2 leaves of kale, small handful of spinach, small handful of each frozen raspberries & frozen blackberries, a banana, and 1 tablespoon of milled flax seed. Sounds gross, huh? Good news is that it tasted really good. Seriously!

Around 11:30 am I was close to gnawing off my right arm because I wanted to eat a donut the work peeps* brought into the office. Instead I decided to confess to you, Internet, so that I will maintain control.  But to be completely honest, I did help myself to some breakfast pizza. Though I managed to avoid the donuts during our morning meeting. Then they put the treats in the office directly across from me and I swear they were calling my name. I decided to manage another half hour until I devoured my portion controlled healthy lunch I packed in my new Fit ‘n Fresh lunch container I picked up at good ‘ole Gordman’s last night.

 

*Speaking of peeps, I have to remember to share some funny photos with you later!

Kudos Pampered Chef!

I believe I’ve mentioned a time or two how fond I am of my Pampered Chef products. Let me tell you a little story that explains WHY I love my stoneware so much.

Since Andy’s been doing like double time between work, working at home after hours, school and homework I thought I’d whip up some dinner the other night. Andy reminded me we had a bunch of hamburger in the freezer. Easy enough. They were in two pound packages so I thought I’d brown it all and divide it for a couple different meals, thinking about what a nice and efficient wife I was.

So, I browned the meat and divided it for the chili I was making to eat that night and put the rest aside for what we have deemed Mexican lasagna (some new concoction I recently came up with.) I prepared each respective recipe, if you consider tossing random ingredients together a “recipe” that is, served Andy his bowl of chili with a side of cheese quesadilla, and then tossed the Mexican lasagna into the oven (P.S. I used my Pampered Chef Deep Dish Baker…this is important information.)

After dinner we settled in the living room, each on our laptops. Andy was pulling cases for work and attempting to work on homework. I was poking around the internet (as usual) and working on the designs for a couple orders.

Fast forward about an hour and a half later:

Andy (peering in the oven door): “So…how long does this caserole thing need to bake exactly?”

Me: “OH <BLEEP!> I forgot to set the timer!!!” :::grumble, grumble:::

Feeling bad about wasting food, wasting money, and how I’m an idiot for rarely using the kitchen timer when I bake, I jumped up, ran to the kitchen, whipped open the oven door to rescue my surely-burnt-to-a-crip dish.

But, wait a minute…it didn’t look entirely burnt to a crisp. Nope, in fact it was just the little bit of cheese and tortilla chips on top. A couple good stirs and it looked fine!!! I tasted a bit, and it really was fine! Then I remembered, I used my trusty stoneware that does not scorch food like other dishes would have done. Yipppeee!! Our future meals were saved!

I totally should have taken a photo to show you but like using the timer, I forgot. But, for what it’s worth, there’s my testimony.

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