Red Velvet Cupcakes

I have made these once before but I think the recipe I used was a Paula Deen recipe. This time I used the one off the McCormick website. They make great extracts! They turned out great and made plenty. I was able to send everyone home from a party with some.

Red Velvet Cupcakes from: McCormick Website
Cupcakes:
2 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of butter, softened (I used unsalted)
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
1 bottle of red food coloring (I just used a big dollop of gel coloring)
2 teaspoons of vanilla

Frosting:
1 8 ounce package of cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 tablespoons of sour cream
2 teaspoons of vanilla
16 ounces of powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the flour through the salt together. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add sour cream, milk, food coloring and vanilla. Slowly add in dry ingredients just until blended. I used my 1/4 cup ice cream scoop to fill 30 lined muffin cups. Bake for 20 minutes (until a toothpick comes out clean). Cool in pan for a few minutes, then remove and cool completely.
Make the frosting by mixing the cream cheese and butter until blended, then add the sour cream and vanilla. (the website says to mix the 1st 4 ingredients together, but this didn't work as well for me and I was mixing like crazy to get a few lumps out) Add the powdered sugar slowly. Frost your cupcakes. I used a Wilton's 1M frosting tip in a ziplock to get the swirls. I love the swirls! I was a little leery of the sour cream in the frosting. I have never heard of adding this, but the frosting was really good. I kind of wonder if it cuts the sweetness down a bit. Refrigerate the leftovers. I thought refrigerating these made them more dense and I liked that.

Halloween pillow and popcorn

I wish I would have gotten more into Halloween this year. It's just been so cold and dreary! I did make this  pillow though.

Sad that this was the only decoration I actually had out. I didn't even ask anyone to help me get the decorations from the attic.

I started with this shirt my husband decided he couldn't stand to wear anymore. When I first thought about making a pillow out this shirt, I was thinking of sewing a pumpkin on. A black cat would be cute also.

I got this template off the Country Living website. I think I enlarged their template 144% to get the size I wanted. I pinned it like crazy and sewed it with my sewing machine. Hand sewing would also work. The back of the pillow has the button front of the shirt so it is easy to cover a pillow I already have.

I also made this popcorn and forgot to take it to the adult dress up party we went to. I was too busy worrying about our costumes.

It is a cross of 2 recipes I saw on a couple of blogs. One for Candy "corn" popcorn at I Heart Nap Time and another for Payday caramel corn at Shugary Sweets. Both of these sites always have great ideas and I visit them often.

Tonight we have trick or treating in our town. Halloween was delayed because of Sandy. Luckily our area did not see much more then some rain and wind. My son did get a day off of school for it. I went to Kmart last night and bought all of my candy. I ended up not paying anything for the almost $22 bill. I was able to use my points and I still have a few dollars left over. Love that!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake Bars

I have seen a lot of recipes for this on other blogs. I used the recipe from Baking Blonde. My guys love cookie dough anything so this went over well.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake Bars from: Baking Blonde

Crust:

1 ½ cup graham cracker crumbs

4 tablespoons of melted butter

1 tablespoon of sugar

2/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Cookie Dough:

5 tablespoons of melted butter

1/3 cup brown sugar

4 tablespoons of sugar

dash of salt

1 teaspoon of vanilla

¾ cup flour

1 cup mini chocolate chips

Cheesecake:

8 ounces of cream cheese, softened

¼ cup sugar
1 egg

1 teaspoon of vanilla

Extra mini chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Butter an 8x8 inch pan and then line with parchment paper extending over the sides. Butter the parchment paper. Mix the crust ingredients and press into the bottom of the pan. Bake 6 minutes and let cool. Mix the cookie dough ingredients together. Mix the cheesecake ingredients together with a mixer and pour over the crust. Drop the cookie dough by spoonful over the filling. Sprinkle with some extra mini chips and press them and the dough down into the filling a little. Bake for 30 minutes or until set. Cool and then refrigerate for 2-3 hours.

Peanut Butter Cheesecake Pizza

My youngest son loves this!

Thank goodness it is easy to make. I have to confess that the first time I made this, I somehow dropped the pan of hot pizza on the floor and had to remake almost the whole recipe. Major fail, but I am glad I had enough ingredients to make another batch. I am sure anyone that knows me at all would not be surprised as I am a major klutz. Now I need to learn how to drizzle melted chocolate artistically!

Peanut Butter Cheesecake Pizza from Taste of Home- Fancheon Resler

1 tube refrigerated cookie dough or 2 cups of my recipe for sugar cookies

8 ounces of cream cheese, softened

2 eggs

½ cup sugar

1 cup peanut butter chips

1 cup chopped, unsalted peanuts

1 cup milk chocolate chips

1 teaspoon of shortening

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Press the cookie dough onto an ungreased 14 inch pizza pan or a jelly roll pan works. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, until golden. Beat the cream cheese and then add the eggs and sugar. Spread over the crust. Sprinkle with the peanuts and peanut chips. Bake another 15-18 minutes until the center is set. Cool 15 minutes. Melt the chocolate chips and the shortening together in the microwave. Drizzle over the pizza. I sometimes buy the chocolate and peanut butter bag of chips and either separate them by flavor or sprinkle half on the pizza and use half for the drizzle. Either way, you get the peanut/chocolate flavor and half opened bags of any flavor of chips are dangerous for me to have sitting around the house. Remember to refrigerate your leftovers.

Best Yet Sugar Cookies

I usually prefer frosted sugar cookies, but these ones are pretty tasty. My Mom got this recipe from someone in the PTA group at my grade school. That means I have been eating and/or making them a good 25 to 30 years! My Mom would alternate red and green sugar to roll them in for Christmas. Don't let the butter and oil in the recipe turn you off. It did freak me out at first and using 3/4 cup of oil works out also.  I think the combination is key to the texture of these cookies. I am sure the cream of tarter has something to do with it to. I have often used this recipe for the sugar cookie dough used for cookie pizzas. I think store bought dough tastes like baking soda.

Best Yet Sugar Cookies
2 sticks of butter or margarine
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup of oil ( I use canola, but vegetable is okay)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons of vanilla
5 cups of flour
2 teaspoons of baking soda
2 teaspoons of cream of tarter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cream the butter and the sugar. Add the eggs, oil, salt and vanilla. Combine the dry ingredients together separately and then add to the wet mixture. Roll into balls and then into sugar. Place on a cookie sheet and flatten each cookie with a glass dipped in sugar. Bake until barely golden around the edges. 8-10 minutes. Makes about 10 dozen, depending on how large you make the cookies.

Couscous Cakes

These may not look like much, but they are one of my husband's favorite things to eat. We saw the recipe on Food network one cold weekend morning. I hardly watch any TV right now, but in the winter months I like to wake up weekend mornings with some of the food shows and DYI on HGTV. Lots of coffee with the occasional shot of Irish Cream or Kahlua are usually in my hand. I think the show was 5 Ingredient Meals but I don't even know if it is still on. I liked it though. I am really not a fan of all of the challenge shows on that station. Show me something I can make myself and my family would like to eat. I don't need to see drama about making some cupcakes. Ugh! I changed the recipe a little to suit us and the kind of things we have in our pantry.

Couscous Cakes Adapted from: ClaireRobinson-foodnetwork

1 ¼ cups water

1 cup of couscous

2 tablespoons olive or canola oil

2 large eggs

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon of pepper

2 tablespoons of dried parsley

3 finely chopped green onions

In a medium pan bring the water and some salt to a boil. Add the couscous and oil. Cook for one minute. Turn off the heat and cover for 5 minutes. Stir the couscous to break it up and let if cool about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Beat the eggs together and add them and the rest of the ingredients. Shape into small cakes. I use my measuring cup for a 1/3 of a cup. Fry in about 2-3 tablespoons of olive or canola oil about 6 to 8 minutes on each side. Drain on paper towels and serve. I always double the recipe and it feeds the 4 of us. We like these with Japanese mayonnaise, which is 2 heaping tablespoons of mayo, a squirt of lemon juice and a shot of hot sauce(Sriracha) or we just use spicy BBQ sauce.

French Bread

This french bread recipe comes from a book my Mom gave me about 16 or 17 years ago when she was getting ready to move out of my childhood home.

The book is called Once-a-Month Cooking by Mimi Wilson and Mary Beth Lagerborg. The book I had was the original 1986 edition. I wish I kept this book, but I must have been in a purging mood and got rid of it. That was most likely when we moved to PA from IL. It had some great ideas and I still make the granola and Balkan Meatballs recipe from this cookbook. I see there are newer additions out. I may have to pick one up. You can find it on Barnes & Noble's website.

French Bread from: Once-a-Month Cooking

3 cups warm water

1 package of yeast

3 tablespoons of sugar or honey

1 tablespoon of salt

7 ½ to 8 cups of all purpose or bread flour

Dissolve the yeast in one cup of warm water. Add the sugar and salt and let stand for 5 minutes. Stir in the additional 2 cups of warm water and 3 cups of flour. Add the rest of the flour a cup at a time. Knead the dough for 8 to 10 minutes on a well floured surface. Grease a very large bowl and the top of the dough. Cover and let rise until the dough has almost tripled. Sometimes I make the dough before work and do the last rise when I get home.  You can shape into 4 baguettes or put into 3 ungreased 8x4 loaf pans (my lazy, preferred way). Let rise for another 45 minutes, covered. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and bake the loaves for 15 minutes. Reduce the oven to 350 degrees and bake another 30 to 35 minutes. Once I reduce the oven temperature, I lay a piece of foil over the tops of the loaves so they do not brown too much.  This is a nice, sturdy bread. I like to slice the extra and put it in a freezer bag. That way we can have homemade bread any night of the week. I just pop it into the microwave. It also makes great toast.