Gerber Sandwiches

Not many people outside of St. Louis have heard of these delicious sandwiches. They are a family favorite and are so simple to make. They are cheesy and yummy, and so so good!

Ingredients::

1 loaf French Bread

1/4 cup garlic butter, you can also substitute for butter and garlic salt

3/4 lb deli ham

1/2 lb provolone cheese

paprika

Directions::

1. Slice the loaf of bread lengthwise

2. Place on cookie sheet

3. Spread butter on both pieces of bread

4. Put a layer of ham on both pieces of bread

5. Top it with a healthy layer of cheese

6. Sprinkle with a dash of paprika

7. Put it in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 10 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly

8. Enjoy its tasty goodness!!

Snickerdoodles–not just a Christmas Cookie!

I love snickerdoodles!!! Normally my family only makes them during the Christmas season, but I love to enjoy them all year long! So here is my recipe, the cookies come out chewy and just a light golden brown on the bottom!

Ingredients::

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions::

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Cream together butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar, the eggs and the vanilla. Blend in the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Shape dough by rounded spoonfuls into balls.
3. Mix the 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon. Roll balls of dough in mixture. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.
4. Bake 8 or until set but not too hard. Remove immediately from baking sheets onto cooling racks.

Store them in an airtight container and enjoy!!!

Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes

This was another one of the delicious desserts my SIL and I made for Easter this year. They were super easy and super yummy!!

Ingredients::

 packed brown sugar

1/4 cup  butter, melted

2 cans (8 oz. each) pineapple tidbits in juice, drained

1/2 cup  chopped Pecans

24 maraschino cherries

1 cup  boiling water

1 pkg. (3 oz.) JELL-O Lemon Flavor Gelatin

1 pkg.  (2-layer size) yellow cake mix

4 eggs

2/3 cup  oil

2 tsp. lemon zest

How to::

1. Heat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

2. Mix sugar and butter in a medium bowl; stir in pineapple and nuts. Place one cherry in bottom of each of the 24 paper-lined muffin cups. Cover with pineapple mixture

3. Add boiling water to gelatin mix; stir for 2 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes

4. Beat remaining ingredients in a large bowl with mixer until well blended. Add gelatin and mix well. Spoon over pineapple mixture in baking cups. The cups will be completely filled.

5. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Remove from pans onto wire racks. Invert onto plates just before serving, and remove the paper liners.

You can also use orange flavor gelatin and orange zest if you don’t favor lemon! These were a hit at Easter and I definitely plan on making them again!!

Another One of My Loves

My three loves in life::

Photography, Graphic Design, and Baking of course!

In this post I’m going to highlight a project I am working on at the moment.

First of all, my wonderful, beautiful friend Lauren is getting married in August! You can follow Lauren on her blog as she goes through her wedding planning process. I was so excited when she came to me to ask for my skills in designing her wedding stationery. Lauren has so many great ideas, so designing her stationery has been a great process.

Lauren is getting a lot of her inspiration from MASON JARS!! Thats right! Which right there makes me super happy. The first part of the stationery is the Save the Date. Lauren came up with a great idea to make them business card size and print them on magnet paper. This is a great idea for a lot of brides for a number of reasons. 1. It is DIY friendly, which for a lot of brides these days is the only way to go! 2. You can stick the Save the Date on your fridge, which is a lot better than ending up in the trash. The colors for Lauren’s wedding are gray and yellow, which I love!! So here is the finished product. Granted, this picture is not of the actual magnets, but just imagine it stuck on your fridge 🙂

Tea Party Petit Fours

Every major holiday my sister-in-law and I try to make a dessert that goes along with the holiday. Here is one from a past Thanksgiving::

This was one of our early creations a few years back. Let me tell you coloring the frosting was not an easy task. But I think the end result turned out well for one of our first creations. Definitely a little heavy on the icing, but if you like a sugar rush it was great!

So our creation for this Easter 2011 was a step or two up on the difficulty level. We decided to go with some brownie petit fours. They were super good, and generally easy to make! So here we go!

Ingredients::

24 brownie squares (1 inch), split–recipe below

1 tub cool whip thawed

2 squares BAKER’S Semi-Sweet Chocolate, chopped

1/4 cup  whipping cream

24 flower candies–found at most baking supply stores. We found ours here.

Brownie Recipe::

Ingredients::

1 cup(2 sticks) butter

2 cups sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 eggs

3/4 cup Hersheys Special Dark Cocoa

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1.Heat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Grease a 13x9x2 baking pan.

2. Place butter in large microwave-safe bowl. Microwave 2 to 2-1/2 minutes or until melted. Stir in sugar and vanilla. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well with spoon after each addition. Add cocoa; beat until well blended. Add flour, baking powder and salt; beat well. Pour batter into prepared pan.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from sides of pan. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars. About 36 brownies.

Petit Four Directions::

1. Split each brownie in half.

2. Fill each brownie with cool whip so they are about 1/2 inch thick with cool whip.

3. Melt chocolate in a double boiler.  Be careful on this step. Melt on low heat to slowly melt the chocolate otherwise it will burn. After the chocolate is melted turn off the heat on the stove and slowly mix in the whipping cream until combined well.

4. Spoon a small amount of melted chocolate onto each brownie.

5. Top each brownie with a candy flower.

Here is the finished product!

A Blog You Should Definitely be Reading

First of all let me give you a little bit of background on the wonderful woman that writes this blog. Her name is Jewel Staite. Some of you might know her from Stargate: Atlantis as Dr. Keller. Or my personal favorite as Kaylee on “Firefly” and “Serenity.” Well Jewel just happens to be a major foodie and wino. I hold both of these things close to my heart. So of course, Jewel started her own blog following her adventures in the culinary world. One of my personal favorites was her post from her recent trip to Paris. Oh yeah. I can only dream of going there and indulging in all of the wonderful food and wine they have there. Here is a link to said post. I oh so enjoy getting the e-mail update when Jewel posts a new blog. So please, get acquainted with her blog and experience awesomeness.

http://happyopu.net/

Chicken Club Pizza

I found this recipe in the Food and Family magazine from Kraft Foods. My wonderful Mother-in-Law(MIL) got me a subscription to the magazine for Christmas. They come in the mail quarterly and come with a ton of fabulous and easy recipes! I varied the recipe a bit and it turned out FABULOUS!

Ingredients::

 (13.8 oz.) refrigerated pizza crust

1/4 cup  Reduced Fat or Light Mayo

1/2 cup Light Ranch

1-1/2 cups  Shredded Cheddar Cheese

1-1/2 cups finely chopped cooked chicken(pre-cooked rotisserie chicken works great!)

8 slices  Bacon, cooked, crumbled

1 cup finely shredded lettuce

1/2   tomato, finely chopped

1/2 cucumber chopped

1/2 onion sliced

1 red bell pepper chopped

HOW TO::

1. HEAT oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit

2. UNROLL pizza dough on baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray; press into 15×10 rectangle. Bake for 10 minutes.

3.  MIX mayo and 1/3 cup of ranch dressing; spread onto crust. Top with half of the cheese. Then place chicken, onion, red pepper, bacon, and remaining cheese.

4. Bake for 5 minutes or until crust is golden brown and the cheese is melted. Top with lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumber. Drizzle with remaining ranch dressing.

As you can see I have not posted in FOREVER! So I will be catching up hard core within the next few weeks. Prepare to be excited!!

Christmas Cake Balls

I’m totally making these for all my friends this season!! If you would like to make them, here is the recipe:

Ingredients (make around 80 rum balls)

1. 3 dark fruit cake from supermarket (1kg each)
2. 1 bottle 250ml Rum (any brand will do)
3. 500g cooking white chocolate chips
4. 1 bag of Jaffas candy
5. 1 bag of Allen’s Snake jelly candy (we need the green snakes ony)
6. silver cachous

Methods

1. Crumble the fruit cake into a large bowl, try to break the big lumps into smaller bits.
2. Pour some rum slowly into the mixture.
3. Use both hands and mix the rum and cake thoroughly.
4. drizzle more rum while keep mixing into the cake and make sure all cake are covered in rum until a nice moist texture, but not too wet.
5. Scoop a spoonful of the mixture into your palm and roll them into the size of a golf ball.

To decorate
6. Cut the green Snakes jelly diagonally to form a leaf shape.
7. Melt white chocolate over simmering hot water. Then let it set aside to cool down a little.
8. When the white chocolate has thicken a little, spoon a dollop on top of the rum balls and let it drip down on the side.
9. Top it with a Jaffas Candy. Then put 2 green leafs on the back of the Jaffas.
10. Decorate with some silver cachous.
11. Once filled up a tray of rum balls, put it in the fridge and let the white chocolate to set.

Tips:

1. Keep the rum balls in an air tight container in the fridge to seal the rum flavour in or else it will be evaporated. It also helps to keep the rum balls moist and won’t dry out.
2. Before taking to party, make sure take it out of the fridge few hours prior and let it set to room temperature. It will help to release the rum flavour and the rum balls will soften up, just nice to eat.
3. Sprinkle some icing sugar on top for that little extra snowy touch.

French Vanilla Strawberry Cupcakes

Ingredients:

Cupcakes:

1 French Vanilla Cake Mix

1 Cups frozen sliced strawberries-keep frozen

Icing:

1 Cup Shortening

4 Cups Confectioners Sugar

1/4 Teaspoon Salt

1 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract

3 ounces heavy cream.

1 cup frozen sliced strawberries-thawed

Directions:

Cake:

Mix cake mix according to the directions on the box. Prepare muffin pan-makes two twelve cup pans. Spoon a small amount of cake mix into the bottom of the cups-just enough to coat the bottom. Then place on strawberry slice in the cups. Top cups with remaining cake mix. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. A good way to check they are done is to use a fork or toothpick- if it comes out clean they are done.

Icing:

1. Cream shortening until fluffy. Add confectioner’s sugar and continue creaming until well blended.
2. Add salt, vanilla, and whipping cream blend on low speed until moistened. Add additional whipping cream if necessary (up to 2 ounces). Beat at high speed until frosting is fluffy.
3. Mash strawberries into a slush like state. The lightly fold into icing.

Wait until cupcakes are completely cooled before icing!

Baking is Love

I never go a week with out baking. Literally. You can ask my husband, who has a love/hate relationship with my baking skills. On an almost daily basis he is welcomed home from work with the smell of something delicious in the oven. Take today for example-I made a pumpkin pie and banana bread. For no special reason. Just because I had an itch to bake. But my obsession does not stop there. It trickles off into the world of cooking as well. And yes there is a difference between cooking and baking. Baking often uses the products: milk, eggs, flour, sugar, baking powder, and butter. I believe when baking you never use the stove. Cooking on the other hand does involve the stove. When baking I almost always use a recipe, be it from a book, website or magazine.  But when I cook I wing it 90% of the time. I rely on the basics of a recipe I recreated long ago but change it up every time with what I have on hand. My husband is amazed when I have the entire pantry spread out on the counter, and when he asks “whatcha makin?” I respond with “I’ll know when I’m done.” Every experience at the stove/oven has its own outcome. I will be honest, not every attempt I have made has been successful. Anytime the words “potato” and “pancake” are put together my husband reminds me of the “one time I ever made anything he absolutely could not bear to eat.” So here I am, to put those experiences up here (good and bad) so that maybe you can be inspired to not go a week with out baking.