Easy Beef Sheperd's Pie

So, I owe you the finished product photo.  But I really couldn't wait to upload this recipe.  I don't even know if the name suits the recipe but here it goes.

Ingredients
1 lb of lean ground beef
1 medium size frozen mixed vegatables.
worchesshire
paprika
salt amd pepper
mash potaotes

Directions
First cook the ground beef then add the rest of the ingrediants.  The amounts here will make enough for one meal for 4 people. You may double it and separate and freeze half.  You may buy those powdered mash potato mixes but you are already cooking this in advance so making mash potaoes from scratch really isn't that hard to do on a weekday.  This is a meal my whole family likes and is just right for cold weather.

 
Once I make the finish product I will add the photo.  We are having this meal the week!

Easy Pot Pie

courtesy of Jhill345

Ingredients 
(This makes for two large pies)  I make you and freeze the rest of the filling for next time
deep dish pie crust (store brand)
1 package of frozen vegetables
1 can of potato soup
1 can of chicken cream soup
1 cup of water and 1 cup of milk
2 -3 chicken breasts

Directions
I boil breasts taking them out before they over cook.  Remember you will finish cooking in the oven.  In a large pot I mix all ingredients, seasoning at your pleasure.  Once everything is fully mixed I transfer everything to pie crust.  I bake for 40 minutes at 350 degrees.

Hope you enjoy it.  It is super easy and a very economic meal.

Better late than never - Our family Valentine post

Hi!  I have been writing and editing and writing and editing this Valentine post.  I am suffering from a severe writers block.  Please understand, I am inferring I am a writer at all or that I can even write.  But usually I know where I want to go with my post.  I don't post often so I have time to think, edit and deliver what I want.  But not now, I am all out of desire and/or drive.  Work stress has gotten to me, terrible threes have gotten to me and just the general economic state of affairs of our country have gotten to me.  So I will just say what I have to say and post my pictures.
Chip and I decided to celebrate Valentine's Day the Saturday night before.  We rented Julia & Julie (or is it Julie & Julia?) and had this delicious treat!

The Ticket Kitchen

Trust me and follow the link, it's a cute idea and their chocolate is spectacular.

My hubby bought me perfume and I got him Netflix streaming (his dream come true).  We had a quiet and romantic night.  Little man didn't wake up in the middle of the night, also that was a plus.

That same Saturday, but in the morning hours, Carr and I enjoyed some craft and sit down time together.  For those that have three year old boy toddlers, you know how difficult that can be.

We worked with glue glitter.

 Carr decided that he didn't want to cut anything heart shaped.  Another great surprise is that he loves water colors and paint.  Thank you Melanie!  Your birthday gift has given us hours of joy for Carr and quiet for Mommy.

Ripping tissue paper was also an experiment we liked.

Mommy decided to make Valentine cupcakes for home and for work.

 Yes, if you thought they were cherries, you guessed correctly.  More pictures to follow what I call now "cupcake madness".

Stickers from Mimi and Papa!

Love that face!

Such a handsome little man!

I baked for the first time ever Red Velvet Cupcakes.  I added my own personal twist to them...cherries!

Red Velvet Cake:

2 1/2 cups (250 grams) sifted cake flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons (15 grams) regular or Dutch-processed cocoa powder

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups (300 grams) granulated white sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup (240 ml) buttermilk

2 tablespoons liquid red food coloring

1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar

1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) 
2. Mix all ingredients
3. Bake in the preheated oven for approximately 25 - 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean.

This was my first try at red velvet.  It turn out great!  Here is where I got the recipe from:
Read more: http://www.joyofbaking.com/RedVelvetCake.html#ixzz1FjEKr1ls

 I made yellow cake cupcakes for Chip...they're his favorite.  Yellow cake and butter cream frosting.

Yellow cake ingredients

• 1 cup butter
• 2 1/2 cups white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups milk
• 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Mix all ingrediants together the pour batter into prepared pans.
2. Bake in the preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool.

I have always done this recipe even in Argentina.  I got this recipe from a high school friend and translated to English.

We also prepared little boxes with treats.

Well, that is all the post.  Hope you enjoyed this even though I posted it so late. I am hoping I get  my mojo back to post some more soon.  Have a great weekend!

Birthday preparations - Part two: The Cake

Simple White cake Recipe

1 cup of white sugar

1/2 butter 

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 and 1/2 all purpose flour

1 3/4 teaspoons baking poder

1/2 cup milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a pan or line a muffin pan.
2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth. Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven. For cupcakes, bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch.

Chocolate cake

1 box of chocolate cake mix
1 box of chocolate pudding
1 large bag of chocolate chunks
3 tablespoons of milk and 3 tablespoons of butter

Directions

1.  Mix cake according to package directions and stir in chocolate chunks. Pour into pans and bake according to package directions.(cook for 35 minutes on 350°F)

2. Let cool completely.

Decorating a cake is hard stuff.  The essential part is learning the difference between icing and frosting.  Huge!  Which I admit I didn't and that would explain why everything looks so running.  Wow, something so basic and that had a huge impact on the cake.  Another thing that I did check and totally steered me wrong was the amount of coloring that went in the frosting, two tubes and I only got this peony substitute for a grayish color.   Black is not that changing of white icing, you need lots to actually make it change.  Obviously, it is all dependant on the amount of icing and the size of the tubes.  Thankfully this is not a cooking blog and I have nowwhere said that I was an expert.  The amount of icing a big bowls worth and the tubes are the smallest size that you can buy.

I am not an expert or even an aficionado to even expect this to look like a building with a Spider man on top but somehow the mommy guardian angel came, gave me a hand a made this.  It's not great but you should have seen my son's face when he opened the refrigerator and saw the finished cake.  He actually loved it!  And that my friends was enough for me.

Maybe this is the last try at making a birthday cake but a part of me loves to do something from scratch in honor of my little man.  I might try something else next time, who knows?  I would love to hear some suggestions as to what would be good ideas for next year.

It is all in the details

There are moments in life that you would love to freeze and be able to tap into them whenever you want.  Moments that do or might repeat themselves but in different ways or under different circumstances.  I could easily put baking with my child for the first time for Christmas in my top 5 memories of this holiday season.  We shared an activity together and hopefully as he grows he will understand and agree that giving yields more rewards than receiving.  The pride and satisfaction that you get from a job well done builds character and fortitude, which are virtues that I want my son to have.

Carr loved to help, especially if it involved getting dirty!

I have to admit that being a neat freak and having a hard time delegating made this task challenging.  You can say I learned much more than Carr did that week.  I learned that sometimes you just have to let go, that everything has flaws and that you can strive for perfection but that you owe yourself time to have fun.  Instead of a monumental task that I had to do by myself, I enjoyed time with my son and was blessed with the results we achieved.

Any time you can have with your children is time well invested.  Our children grow up so fast, that in a blink of an eye the moment is gone. I also know that when you look back you don't recall the stuff you accumulated over time, what you remember are the moments that impacted your life.  I want to fill my life with memorable moments that will keep me warm and smiling in my old age.  I want to look back and say wow, we did everything we could and not I wish we did this or the other.  Life is too short and time is too precious.

Here are the recipes  and photos of our Christmas baking adventure: 

Gingerbread Cookies

 Link to recipe

6 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 cup packed dark-brown sugar
4 teaspoons ground ginger
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
1 teaspoon finely ground pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
2 large eggs
1 cup unsulfured molasses

Mix all your dry ingredients and then add your wet ingredients.  Divide flour mixture in 2 batches Shape dough into a disk, and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours (up to overnight).

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Shape dough into 1/2-inch balls, and space 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Refrigerate 20 minutes.

Roll balls in granulated sugar. Bake until surfaces crack slightly, 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool on sheets, 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire racks, and let cool completely. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container up to 3 days

Christmas Sugar Cookies

Link to recipe 

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons brandy, or milk
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Sift together flour, baking soda, and baking powder into a large bowl. Set aside. Put butter and brown sugar in the bowl mix on medium speed until fluffy. Mix in spices and salt, then eggs and molasses.  Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Divide dough into thirds; wrap each in plastic. Refrigerate until cold, about 1 hour.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Bake cookies until crisp but not dark, 12 to 14 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks.

Packaging the cookies made easy!

I bought this kit that Martha Stewart makes for cookies.  The package looked gorgeous.

 Easy Homemade Wheat Bread

3 cups of whole wheat flour
2 1/2 cup of warm water
2 packets of yeast
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup of honey
1/4 cup of milk
1/4 cup of oil
3 to 4 cups of unbleached all purpose white flour

 

Directions:  Mix water, yeast and a tbsp of honey together in a large bowl.  Pour in the 3 cups of wheat flour and mix well.  cover bowl with a towel and let rest in a dry place for 20 minutes up to a day.

After resting pour the rest of the honey, oil, milk and salt.  Begin adding the white flour a 1/2 cup at a time.  Knead it for 5 to 10 minutes until smooth and elastic.  Divide dough into two loaves and place in bread pans.  Cover pans and let rise for about 1 1/2.  Bake @ 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes depending on your oven.

 I would love to give credit to the original recipe maker but I got this recipe from a friend and I cannot find this exact recipe online.  

One of the best things that I learned  this year is making my own bread.  There is something about baking your own bread that makes you feel empowered.  I really cannot explain why baking bread makes me feel all warm and cozy.  I love being able to make two loaves while I am cooking a meal or cleaning .  It is a super easy recipe and it is highly adaptable to your schedule and availability throughout the day.

Hands in dough.

Best helper ever. Christmas 2010

I truly hope you enjoyed the recipes and make some memories of your own.  Have a great start of the New Year!

Chip's Apple Pie

I call this after my husband because frankly I learned to make for him.  I looked at tons of recipes for it but I couldn't find anything easy and appealing .  So after trying some out I settled with this combination recipe:

Filling
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 tsp group cinn.
nut meg
5 med apples thinly sliced
1 lemon
vanilla to taste

I haven't baked the crust yet.  That is my next project before Christmas.

Yellow Squash Bread

This is the greatest recipe ever.  Especially during squash season.  I had sincerely exhausted every recipe for summer squash and zuchinni I had.  I came across this recipe at cooks.com:

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,194,140183-236205,00.html

 

Ingredients
3 eggs
1 cup of oil
2 cups of sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp cinnamon
2 cups of shredded yellow squash
3 cups of self rising flour
nuts are optional

Mix eggs, oil, sugar, and vanilla with mixer.  Add other ingrediats.  Mix with spoon.  Bake at 325 F for 45 to 60 minutes for a loaf.
I will add pictures soon :)