Halloween mixtacular

As another halloween passes, i see all of the adorable costumes my friends are dressing their kids in and remember trick or treating as a child. Amazingly, i was one of two different characters every year until i was 13. The first, i used my cousin's old dance costume and went as a genie or jasmine. My second, i wore an old dress sewn by my grandmother with its matching yellow bonnet and apron and went as Dr Quinn Medicine Woman. I was in love with that tv show growing up.

The other thing i remember about Halloween is caramel apples and candy corn. So when i saw this recipe online for Caramel Apple Cupcakes, i absolutely had to make them for halloween. These delicious cupcakes are made with shredded granny smith apples and filled with homemade caramel. They were a huge success and well worth the 4 hrs of hard work.

Holiday Baking

It's been a while since I've written anything, and you'll have to forgive me because I have been caught up in my kitchen. Mike handcuffed me to the stove so I could finish my holiday baking and get my goodie boxes out to my friends and co-workers. Over the past few weeks I have managed to make:

12 Dozen Snowflake Sugar Cookies (decorated)
8 Dozen Chocolate Chip Cookies
6 Dozen Molasses Cookies
6 Dozen Snickerdoodles (Sorry Hillary, they all got eaten)
2 9x9 pans of peppermint fudge
1 9x9 pan of rocky road fudge
60 dark chocolate covered candy canes
24 white chocolate covered Hershey's candy canes
24 chocolate mint cupcakes with mint icing

48 egg nog cupcakes with rum icing

  36 vanilla bean cupcakes with chocolate orange frosting

If you are interested in any of the recipes, let me know and I'll post them up here. I've also had the joy of selling 3 photograph prints this month! So far, it's been a good December and I've had a lot of fun with the great people in my life! Also, if you are curious how I get the frosting so pretty, I bought a kit that comes with a pastry bag and giant decorating tips. See Best Ever Cupcake Icing Kit at BakeItPretty.com

Holiday Decorations

Thanksgiving is officially over, Black Friday come and gone, and tomorrow is Cyber Monday. This weekend is historically the "decorating weekend," at least in my family. As I pulled all of the tubs and boxes of decorations out of the garage and sorted through everything this year, I began to think about how much work I put into decorating my house every year, just to pull it all down a month later. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love decorating my house for the holidays and having friends and family over, I love putting up my tree and hanging the ornaments with my family. But I know that there are many people that start decorating in August just to get all of their ornaments and art up.

How much decorating is necessary to equip your house to host friends and family? Are you considered a scrooge if you don't put anything up beside your Christmas tree?

Just a thought as I go back to work hanging ornaments from my ceilings.

My Stock Up Shopping Trip

Today, I went all out and stocked up at Fry's, Safeway, and Albertsons. I bought 142 items for $113.85...which means I saved a total of $146.71. You gotta love coupons when you average $0.80 per item with meat and produce included. Now I am not a hoarder, nor do I have an extreme amount of space in my kitchen. I also don't have room for a stock room in my house. Therefore, I will be donated 30 cans of food that I bought to St Mary's Food Bank, through the canned food drive at my work. Everything else is just going to have to get used within the next 6 months. I did miss out on 4 tubes of toothpaste that would have been free, except somebody cleared all of it from the grocery store before I got there.

Here is my list of what I bought....

2 1/2 lbs Jennie-O 93%Lean Ground Turkey
4 Cans Dole Tropical Fruit
4 Bags of Nestle Chocolate Chips
2 16oz Containers of Cornstarch ($0.29 each)
2 3-bar packages of Crisco Shortening Sticks
4 boxes Betty Crocker Cake Mix ($0.49 each)
2 2-lb bags of C&H Brown Sugar
1 4-lb bag of C&H Sugar
1 2-lb bag of C&H Powdered Sugar
8 cans of Campbells Chunky Soup
1 Gal Milk
20 6-oz containers of Yoplait Ligh
1.12lbs Gold Delicious Apples
3 1-L Smart Water
2 Tide Detergents
1 Axe Detailer (free)
1 Axe Body Wash ($1.38)
6 boxes Kleenex with Lotion ($0.66 each)
8 cans Campbells Homestyle chicken soup (0.75 each)
24 cans Campbells Cream of Chicken soup ($0.24)
4 jars Heinz Gravy ($0.75 each)
4 cans Hormel Chilli with Beans ($0.41 each)
6 cans Del Monte Veggies ($0.49 each)
6 cans Swansons Broth (FREE)
4 cans Ocean Cranberry Jelly ($0.49 each)
2 boxes Kelloggs Pop Tarts
1 20 oz Dr Pepper (Mike HAD to have soda even though it would have been cheaper to buy a 2 liter)
2 5-lb bags Kroger All Purpose Flour
2 Bags Dole Salad
2 Containers Kroger Whipped Cream
1.78lbs Banana's

Update: I went back to the grocery last night to stock up on some other deals I missed. The crest toothpaste was still out however, I picked up:

2 cans Pringles ($0.49)
2 Gillette Shaving Gel (Free)
2 Heinz Gravy (earned $0.50)
3 Swanson Broth (2 Free, 1 @ $0.50)
1 Bag Ricola Cough Drops (FREE)
1 36ct Reynolds Cupcake Wrappers ($1.59)

I had a $1.50 off purchase coupon from my last shopping trip, after tax this totaled $1.43, savings $16.99! 

Deep Fried....what?

In celebration of three amazing years together, Mike and I took the day off of work to be with each other. So far, we have signed up for Scuba Open Water Certification (one of his gifts to me) and travelled to the Arizona State Fair. If you look at the state fair website, you can find a link to everything they have deep fried. This includes: Deep Fried Snickers, Deep Friend Kool-Aid, Deep Fried Pudding, Deep Fried Beer, Deep Fried You-Name-It.

When did our society become so obsessed with deep frying everything? Just splitting Indian Fry Bread with Mike was enough grease to make me sick. It's no wonder such a high percentage of our population suffers from heart-disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes. If we keep pumping ourselves full of grease, fat, and sugar, how do we expect to live long, full, and happy lives?

My October Blog of the Month...

Systems have been acting up at work, so I decided to take a little break, before I unplugged my laptop and throw it through the inoperable windows. Regardless of if they care I was looking at a cooking blog, I decided it was the option least likely to get me promoted to customer. As tomorrow is the halfway point to this month and we are approaching the 2 month countdown line for the holidays, I was considering what to give some of my friends and co-workers for the holidays. As I am flat broke and extremely good at one thing (cooking) I decided to look for fun holiday themed recipes. With that I introduce EggNog Cupcakes and Peppermint Mocha cupcakes via The Ungourmet blog. This blogger introduces us to fun recipes, awesome failures, and tempts us with pictures of delicious food. Check it out, let me know what you think! A new blog to come in November...maybe. The Ungourmet Blog

Hot Grease... Cool Glass..... Bad Idea and a Great BLT Recipe

This evening, Mike decided to make me BLT's (bacon, lettuce and tomato for him; bacon, lettuce and turkey for me). Because he doesn't like getting popped by the grease of the bacon...cooking the bacon naturally falls to me. After cooking 9 pieces of beautiful, thick cut bacon, I was trying to do the smart thing and dump the bacon grease without pouring it down my drain and garbage disposal. I took a glass out of the sink and poured the bacon grease straight from the stove into a nice cool glass.

.... thirty seconds later... POP! The glass split the entire way around the circumference just above the bacon grease line. Needless to say...if you're cooking bacon (or anything that creates grease) wait until the grease cools a bit before pouring it into a container to dispose of.

Since I'm talking about cooking bacon for BLT's, I thought I'd publish Mike's awesome recipe for BLT's

Ingredients:

Bread
Roma Tomatoes
Thick Cut Bacon (enough for 2 pieces per sandwich)
Arugula
Mayonnaise
Fresh Basil leaves

Slice the tomatoes 1/4 inch thick. Cook the bacon until crispy. Mix 1/2 cup mayonnaise with 8 or 9 finely chopped basil leaves. Spread the mayonnaise on one side of the bread. Place 2 pieces of bacon on the bread. Layer with the tomato slices, arugula, and the second slice of bread. Cut in half and serve with your favorite sides.

We used regular white bread, as it was what was in the house, but a stiffer bread like a baguette or ciabatta bread would go well with the sandwich.