Recipes | Permission to Peruse

Potato Candy

April 30th, 2012 at 8:03 pm / Amy Bennett / 10 Comments »

Potato candy. I found out tonight that at least two of my friends do not know about potato candy and I am very scared there are more of you. My mom made it time and again growing up and it was just one of those things that I assumed everyone knew about. Apparently not and I’m here to fix that!

First, hang on to your seats folks because this candy is made from MASHED POTATOES! OK before you check out, I promise it’s so yummy. I wish I could just stuff a piece in your mouth and let it do the talking instead of trying to convince you but alas, it will have to do with a tutorial.

OK first off, the recipe is kind of sketchy. Anal bakers are going to hate this post. But hang with me because the good part is it’s pretty hard to mess this one up.

This is the recipe you go to when you have that last 1/2-2/3 cup of leftover mashed potatoes and it’s not enough to go around for another meal. The other thing is it works best with real mashed potatoes. If you’re not making The Pioneer Woman’s mashed potatoes you’re seriously missing out on life. It’s not hard. Really.

So if you have about 1/2 cup or so of potatoes left, put them in a mixing bowl with a teaspoon of vanilla. Then grab a whole bunch of powdered sugar. You’ll probably need about 5 cups for every 1/2 cup of potatoes. Stir the powdered sugar in about a cup at a time. It makes it really runny somehow, even if your potatoes were super thick. So, add in a cup at a time, working it in until it turns into dough. You’ll need to be able roll the dough out but you don’t want it crumbly. Think about something slightly less stiff as fondant. So once you get it to the right consistency, sprinkle your work area with powdered sugar and roll it out until it’s about 1/4” thick. Parts of mine were a little too thick this time.

Now get your peanut butter out and spread a thin layer across the top.

You don’t want the peanut butter very thick because it will be messy when you roll it up. I think I could have done this layer of peanut butter just a tad thicker. But I can never get enough peanut butter so there’s that. Ok. Now carefully roll up the dough like a cinnamon roll.

At this point, you can cut the roll in half and put it in a gallon plastic bag or wrap it in wax paper and then put it in the fridge to harden. Once it’s set about an hour or two later, take it out and cut it in 1/2” thick slices. And bam! Potato candy. Clearly I couldn’t wait to taste it.

potato_candy

This basically tastes like creamy powdered sugar dipped in peanut butter. Maybe like a peanut butter fudge. I don’t know. All I know is it’s good.

My mom always kept it sliced up in a Tupperware container, separating the layers with wax paper. Potato candy has a TON of sugar in it and it’s not good for you but definitely something you gotta try.

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Gluten-free Strawberry Pie

April 11th, 2012 at 4:13 pm / Amy Bennett / 1 Comment »

Gah, two recipe posts in one week, back-to-back, no less? Promise I’m not going to become a gluten-free recipe site but do you see this?

Mmmm. Gluten-free or not, this must be shared and must be shared immediately.

I had some Bob’s Mill All Purpose gluten-free flour on hand so I went with this pie crust recipe. Next time, I’ll cover the edges with foil, be sure to poke holes in the bottom and maybe knock off about a minute. My oven is rather toasty compared to others. Now to be fair, a gluten-free crust isn’t nearly as yummy as a regular, but it’s definitely good and honestly I’m not sure anyone would know the difference if you didn’t tell them.

The filling I got from this recipe. You basically cook some strawberries, water and sugar and thicken with corn starch and then fold in whole strawberries to your cooked strawberry mixture. I don’t like big strawberries to bite into in the pie, so I cut the second batch of strawberries into halves and quarters. But my favorite part about this one? You can see it a little in this picture but there’s a layer of sugary cream cheese on the bottom of this pie. I said yum, right?

Neither of these recipes were hard or time consuming on each step but a little time consuming overall because you have to cool things in between steps and then you have to let it all set in the fridge. Definitely give yourself time on this one. In any case, make one while the strawberries are good and juicy. If you’re in my area, be sure to get your strawberries from The Peach Stand. We’re actually looking forward to going strawberry picking soon and this gives me just the motivation!

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Gluten-free Cream of Chicken, Crockpot Ranch Pork Chops and Corn Casserole

April 10th, 2012 at 7:47 pm / Amy Bennett / 5 Comments »

OK, I admit. I’m awfully proud of myself today. I made cream of chicken soup from scratch. I don’t know why this is a big deal. Now that I’ve done it I see that’s it’s about as easy as it gets. It probably took me less than 15 minutes start to finish. But still, it makes me proud and happy:

Look at all that creamy goodness. I followed this recipe and used brown rice flour as she suggested to make it gluten-free.

The whole reason I made it because I saw this ridiculously easy crock-pot meal on Pinterest to make Crockpot Ranch Pork Chops and I’m all about the ridiculously easy crock-pot meals. Not a good fit for us though since the canned cream of chicken is full of regular flour (read: not gluten-free) and I’d either have to go buy something expensive at Earth Fare or go for it on my own. So glad I went for it on my own because I did 3/4 of this recipe, dictated by the ingredients I had on hand, and came out with about 4 cans of gluten-free, fresh, homemade cream of chicken for about $1.18 a can. I’m pretty sure you can’t beat that and it would be MUCH cheaper if you don’t need it to be GF.

So we made the pork chops tonight with the cream of chicken I made and yum. Yum, yum, yum.

Lexi had THREE helpings of the pork.

I paired it with green beans and some leftover corn casserole I had made for Easter. Follow my favorite corn casserole recipe from Paula Deen and use Bob’s Mill Corn Bread Mix instead of Jiffy to make it gluten-free. Easy peasy!

Enjoy!

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Puppies, Bikes and Cupcakes

March 23rd, 2012 at 8:15 am / Amy Bennett / 9 Comments »

How about a few random things?

1 – Our puppy Tucker has made it to 1 year and 1 day. Possibilities were sketchy at times. Sadly, many, many, many things were destroyed in the process. A blue tooth, Nine West shoes, more markers, pencils and pens than I can count, a pool skimmer, grill brush, pool lights…oh I could go on. Scott tells me it’s worth it. Possibilities are sketchy.

2 – Both Emma and Lexi are now riding their bikes. We did not totally fail as parents. We actually went on a family bike ride the other night and it was a pretty darn good feeling.

3 –This has no story except to say Emma was the one taking the picture. I found this in my camera and this is why I’m scared of her being a teenager and thought you should be warned of my impending meltdown. Those eyes cut through any fuzziness of the picture. They are LOUD and CLEAR.

4 – I also need to confess I made cupcakes although I know how bad all the sugar is. They’re from the King Arthur Gluten-free cake mix with my mom’s icing recipe. They were divine. If you couldn’t tell by Lexi’s face.

5 – On a serious random note, please pray for my family. My grandfather is very sick in ICU with pancreatitis. My father-in-law has diverticulitis and is having surgery today and will be in the hospital for the next week. Praying for peace for the family, healing for them and wisdom for the doctors. Thank you.

And if you’re feeling chatty, tell me the worst thing a puppy ever destroyed at your house.

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How We’re Coping with Gluten-Free – Week 3

March 9th, 2012 at 12:14 pm / Amy Bennett / 9 Comments »

We’re going on 3 weeks of our diet changes. One thing I want to be clear is Lexi is not particpating fully in either of these. While she eats some of the gluten-free products and I make all of our dinners GF and milk free, she still eats the regular bread, cereal, ice cream, etc. And while Emma is milk-free, Scott and I are not. So we drink regular milk, have GF products that have milk in them, etc. So basically we’re managing 3 different diet needs.

But even that said, this week was SO MUCH better than last. So much. While I’m not 100% happy with what we ate (wish we could have had less red meat, less grains and more veggies), we ate and there was very little complaining. I was tallying it up last night and I realized I had cooked every meal for ten days straight other than Sunday dinner at Scott’s parents’. That’s a lot of meals in a row for me. I’m sure it’s some sort of record. And I have to say, this week I kind of liked it. While our grocery bill has obviously gone up, our eating out category has drastically dropped and it feels good to know that while the meals aren’t perfect, it’s a lot better than fast food. And ya’ll? I like the meal planning. It’s worked out great for us to either shop on Saturday or Sunday and buy for the whole week.

I thought I’d share some recipes and products that have absolutely saved us these past 3 weeks, broken down my meals.

Breakfast

Van’s blueberry waffles. Emma eats these every morning with syrup. OJ for a drink.
Granola bars. I sub with Bob’s Mill gluten free oats and Bob’s Mill gluten-free all purpose flour (and 1.5 tsp of xanthum gum so it will hold together) and I have a bar every morning for breakfast with some OJ. Emma would eat these but she can’t have the butter in them.
I bought Bob’s Mill Pancake mix but haven’t tried it.
Crystal swears by these waffles.
We also do bacon, eggs or a smoothie as alternates.

Snacks

Lots of fruits for the girls when they’re at home. Their favorites are bananas, apples, grapes and kiwi.
Zucchini bread
Banana bread
Smoothies with Silk Vanilla Almond Milk

I always have at least one of those breads made. I alternate between the two and Emma eats that for snack after school. I’m pretty sure she would eat the entire loaf if I let her. I wish it didn’t have so much sugar in it but I’m just going with it for now.

Lunch

Rudi’s or Udi’s Gluten-free bread. It’s not the best thing ever but Emma has been a trooper and eats her PB&J’s at school.
Vegan mayo. I use this to make Emma some tuna salad for her. Sometimes I put it on bread for lunch and sometimes she just eats it as a snack after school.
Glutino’s pretzels. Both the girls love these.
Pre-packaged fruit. I don’t know what it is but they hate eating fresh fruit at school. Is it not cool? I don’t know. But the packaged fruit is the next best thing.
Applesauce packs

Dinner – main course

Steaks
Salsa chicken in the crock-pot. Just put a few chicken breasts and a jar of salsa in. Shred it towards the end. You can either make tacos out of it, put it over rice or just eat it separate.
Spaghetti with alternate noodles. We tried rice noodles last time and trying quiona noodles tonight.
Manwich. We tried Rudi’s hamburger buns and they were horrible. They soaked in all the juice and made it very dry. We all ended up opening up the sandwich and eating the meat plain which was just fine.
Sweet potato chili. This was delicious. Scott’s parents and my sister all tried it and liked it. Lexi wasn’t a fan and I think she hate some sort of leftover that night.
Amy’s gluten-free, dairy-free spinach pizza. Emma will eat the spinach pizza but I buy Lexi and Amy’s small cheese pizza and just bake them together.
BBQ. Put a boston butt in your crockpot all day with a little water, salt and pepper. Shred after you get it out.
Pot Roast. I don’t like potatoes and carrots in mine so I just put a chuck roast in with one package of onion soup mix and 1/4 cup of water. I even made the gravy with corn starch.

Dinner – sides

Baked potatoes. Earth fare has non-dairy cheese and sour cream Emma uses while the rest of us use regular.
Refried beans. Emma didn’t like these but Scott and I loved them with the salsa chicken.
Any kind of Alexia potato fries. We’ve done both yukon gold and sweet potato.
Spinach. Turns out we like spinach. Lexi of course hated it but Emma asked for me to make it the next night.
Cauliflower mashed potatoes. I made this with the roast and put the roast gravy on them. No one knew it was cauliflower instead of potatoes. Amazing. It felt so good to get up from that meal and not feel too full.
I also use canned or frozen corn, green beans, carrots or peas as a side.

Desserts

Chocolate Cookies
Earth fare Gluten-free chocolate chip cookies
Dairy Free ice cream. You can get this in any store. Just look for a yellow wrapping at the top.
Oatmeal raisin cookies. These didn’t bake well for me but it still tasted good.
Peanut butter cookies

Miscellaneous

Smart butter is what I use for Emma on popcorn, potatoes, bread. I actually really like it and use it too.
Dino’s BBQ sauce. I got this recommendation from Katie and it’s really fabulous if you like it both sweet and a little kick. It was too hot for Emma and Lexi hated it but Scott and I loved it.
Agave nectar for sweetner in smoothies and coffee

So that’s what the last 10 days or so have looked like.

In really good news, Scott has seen no acid reflux at all. Before, he would only see a few good days in a row before he’d need to take some medicine. He did have one incident this week when he ate gluten by mistake and threw it all up that night. The doctor said it was a normal reaction when you are cleansing yourself from gluten. He also said it could be related to the bad fats they used to make it. I think that speaks a lot to how his body must be changing because of the diet changes.

Emma has only had one stomach ache in the past week and it was one morning she woke up and I can’t say it wasn’t just because she was hungry. She was fine as soon as she ate. She also has been MUCH more regular.

As for me, I’ve lost another pound or two, I rarely get bloated and my skin is looking so much better. Someone at work just saw me for the first time in a few weeks and immediately commented on my weight and skin. That was a great confirmation for me. I’m just enjoying having no cravings. For at least a week now, I haven’t had ANY food after dinner. We eat between 5 and 6 and sometimes don’t go to sleep until 10 or 11. I think that’s huge.

Truth be told, I’m not sure we’ll go back to gluten. This week really proved to me we could happily be gluten-free and I’m not impatiently counting down until our check-up at the end of the month. Feels great!

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Another Reminder to Eat a Healthy Diet

February 4th, 2012 at 8:00 am / Amy Bennett / 6 Comments »

Do you need some reading for the weekend? Perhaps something else to mull over while you do laundry? Over the past few days I’ve gotten completely lost in cancertutor.com. I found it on a Google search after our friend Joy, who is battling breast cancer now, was talking the other night about how much diet affects/causes cancer.

The site’s purpose seems to claim many alternative cures to cancer, AIDS and other diseases for which I can make no claims. They seem legit but it’s a tough call to make a leap of faith on the kind of processes they are suggesting. Many are quick to label it quackery. On the other hand, I think all of us could agree there are natural solutions for our bodies’ health issues.

A small part of the site which I’ve been fascinated with though are the articles on how to Prevent Cancer and The Cancer Diet, which isn’t required for me but I think includes some interesting facts about how food and cancer are related. Most of the the stuff we know…lots of fruits, veggies (heavy on the green ones, including grass), nuts, beans and little to no meat are best. But there are many other nuggets (no McDonald’s pun intended) that I’ve found like how bad peanuts are for you. As I’ve heard before, sugar feeds cancer cells. Food like margarine, french fries and aspartame cause cancer.

I don’t know what to think of the site but I do know at minimum it was a good reminder to eat a healthy diet which I have STUNK at the last few months. Ugh! Why is it so hard? Why can’t blackberries taste like a banana split?? And many apologies for posting this on Super Bowl weekend! How about a side of guilt with those wings?

I’m very curious if anyone is familiar with any of these treatments or is pretty smart about a cancer prevention diet. Would love any information, stories and particularly any healthy recipes you have!

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Caramel Apple Cider Recipe

December 7th, 2011 at 8:33 pm / Amy Bennett / No Comments »

This is a super quick post tonight but I just have to share. We had our small group over for our White Elephant Exchange. At the last minute, I decided to make a Caramel Apple Cider recipe I saw in a blog post. Well, it called for whipped cream and caramel on top. The problem was it was 30 minutes until go-time and I had neither whipped cream or caramel. Since the title is Caramel Apple Cider I figured it was pretty important to include. Google to the rescue! I made both the whipped cream and caramel sauce while the the cider was simmering and the whole deal was a huge success. Everyone agreed it tasted like apple pie in drink form. Seriously best cider I’ve ever had. I thought I’d link to all three posts since I’m not responsible for any of them.

Caramel Apple Cider

Caramel Apple Cider Recipe from LeAnn at She Cooks. You’ll know her as the Executive Director of Operations of Lysa TerKeurst’s Proverbs 31 Ministries.

Whipped Cream

I’ve actually made whipped cream several times. The last time was a dud but this recipe was a winner.

Caramel Sauce

The caramel sauce was SUPER easy. And I’m so proud I have a jar of it left in the fridge.

So there you go. If you’re entertaining this year, this is a MUST . Thanks to LeAnn!

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Top Ten Tuesday – Butch’s Spaghetti Casserole

June 21st, 2011 at 12:01 am / Amy Bennett / 7 Comments »

OK, to be fair, it’s not really a top 10 list. Well, it is the top 10 steps if you want to make Butch’s Spaghetti Casserole. Actually, I really don’t know if it’s Butch’s Spaghetti Casserole but my father in law is the one I learned it from so to me it is.

There’s nothing much healthy about this but it’s one of those meals that is super easy to make and feeds a huge crowd. For father’s day, it fed 6 adults, 2 kids and we had at least 5 servings left over. If you can make spaghetti you can certainly make this!

1 – Brown 2 lbs of hamburger and cook 1 lb of noodles. There are no noodles in this picture but, you know, I’m not Pioneer Woman!

2 – When the meat is done, mix in 2 jars of Prego Traditional spaghetti sauce. So ok, you could use a different kind. Or not. It really is the best.

3 – While the noodles finish, let the sauce simmer and put in two cans of Cream of Mushroom into a 9×13 baking dish. And if you don’t have a Pampered Chef stone one, find one RIGHT NOW.

4 – Drain the noodles. Yes, I really took a picture of that.

5 – Dump the noodles on top of the cream of mushroom in the baking dish

6 – Stir the noodles and soup and flatten out a tad.

7 – Pour the meat sauce that’s been simmering on top. No need to stir a thing.

8 – Sprinkle about 2 cups of shredded cheese on top. Freshly graded!

9 – Cook on 350 for about 25 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the sauce begins to bubble on the side.

10 – Stick some garlic toast in the oven!

Be sure to give each serving a little stir and you’ll have some creamy spaghetti goodness! Throw it on top a piece of garlic toast for a few bites. Mmmm….

Find more Top 10 posts over at ohamanda.com

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Top Ten Tuesday: Simple Healthy-ish Lunches

March 29th, 2011 at 1:09 pm / Amy Bennett / 7 Comments »

Ever since I did the Daniel Fast I’ve forgone (for the most part) my usual lunches of Chick-fil-a, Taco Bell, leftover pizza or cereal. To say I ate unhealthy was a bit of an understatement. But it was just me and I was always in a hurry while doing other things during my lunch break and I just needed something to get by. And I was a little addicted to Taco Bell. And it’s Mountain Dew.

However, those days are gone and I have been really good at trying to eat something of value. Most of the time, this ends up looking like a kids’ lunch box, usually 3 or 4 snacks rolled into a lunch. There’s nothing profound here but I feel so much better when I’ve eaten off this list! And I guess it’s working because I’ve kept off the 6 pounds I lost during the fast! I have to give a shout-out to Jo-Lynne and Kristi for always inspiring to eat better!

Carrots with ranch (admittedly the ranch should go)
Cottage cheese (full fat!)
Strawberry yogurt with granola (I’ve also heard rave reviews over greek yogurt with honey)
Mixed nuts (don’t expect any pecans or cashews to be left after my turn!)
Garlic hummus with pita chips
Fruit – whatever I have: strawberries, grapes, etc
Baked potato (with only butter and salt. ok and maybe a little sour cream sometimes)
Salad with balsamic vinegar and oil
Tuna salad plain (with Nayonnaise (vegan mayonnaise) instead of Miracle Whip)
Egg salad plain (with Nayonnaise(vegan mayonnaise) instead of Miracle Whip)

Pretty sure I should have a ton more veggies on there but that is what I’m able to conjure up for now.

What else would you recommend?

Visit ohamanda.com for more Top Ten Lists!

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My Experience with The Daniel Fast

March 1st, 2011 at 12:00 pm / Amy Bennett / 14 Comments »

This is going to be a long one. Click in if you’d like to read about my experience with The Daniel Fast

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Homemade Hummus

February 24th, 2011 at 1:18 pm / Amy Bennett / 6 Comments »

Who knew making hummus was so easy? I guess I didn’t. And with an ingredient like Tahini, it scared me off a bit! I had NO CLUE what it was and in fact, when I was at the store this morning I had to Google a picture just so I would have a clue where to look. When I read it was ground sesame seeds, I headed for the spice/baking aisle. No dice. A clerk pointed me to where they have the almond butter and Nutella with the peanut butter. And ouch, at $8.95 for a bottle, I was really doubting whether it would be worth it.

I picked out this recipe from The Barefoot Contessa. As the comments suggest, it’s strong on the garlic, but it’s just what I love. I haven’t done a side by side cost comparison but I’m guessing it’s a pretty big savings as you could actually get 8 batches from the one jar of Tahini. And there are NO chemicals in this one! It made quite a bit and with a few carrot sticks, it made for a nice snack or even quick lunch.

I’m looking forward to trying different spices. Have you ever made hummus? Have any recipes I should try?

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Baked Potato Soup Recipe

January 31st, 2011 at 12:00 pm / Amy Bennett / 1 Comment »

I totally missed the Soup Swap over at Southern Fairytale. I thought it was Saturday yet I was a week late! But no fear, it’s never too late to share a good recipe. When we went a few weeks ago to talk to a couple from our church about adoption, she served baked potato soup and it was SO GOOD. If you ever had Rafferty’s soup, the taste of this is so close, albeit a little thicker. I made a bowl of this last week and it’s so easy and everyone, including the girls, loved it. I have to thank our host for providing the recipe to me and hopefully she wouldn’t mind that I share it (she mentioned she got it from a magazine so I’m not sharing a personal recipe!).

This is not the pic, but this is the closest thing I could find in a quick Google search. Credit goes to this blog.

4 large baked potatoes, baked, skinned and smashed – leaving chunks
2/3c butter
2/3 c flour
6c milk
3/4tsalt
1/2t pepper
4 green onions (I left these out so the girls wouldn’t complain)
12 slices bacon, fried and crumbled (I use "real bacon pieces")
2c shredded cheddar
1c sour cream
1/2 lb Velveeta

Melt butter in stock pot, add flour and mix well, gradually add mil stir continuously until thickened and bubbly
stir in potato pulp, Velveeta, salt, pepper and 3/4 of the onions cheese and bacon. Cook until heated and add sour cream.
can put in crock-pot to keep warm and serve, top with remaining onions, cheese and bacon.

This gave us about 6 adult and 2 kid servings.

Heat up a loaf of French bread, slice on the diagonal and enjoy!

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Weekend Recap and Snow Day

January 10th, 2011 at 4:49 pm / Amy Bennett / 7 Comments »

Weekend

So I finally set down my ruler and pencil and have given the floor plans a break. No floor plan pictures today! I think we’ve done all we can and we’re just going to have to wait until the snow melts enough for someone to get over and look at the house.

We had a low key weekend this weekend. I had to work on and off through the weekend on a conversion we’ve been working on for six months. It went smoothly and it feels good to have it out of the way. Other than getting out to the mall, the grocery store, church and Sunday dinner, we were at home doing stuff like laundry, cleaning, cooking and exercising. Yes! Exercising! I bought a few new workout DVDs with my Swagbucks and Opinion Output rewards at Amazon. I’m not committing to any exercise goals but I have been trying to do some type of something in the evenings. How’s that for noncommittal?

Snow Day

As for today, I’m sure you’ve heard that we are getting 4-6” of snow dumped on us as we speak. It’s beautiful, but really, a pain. The kids are home basically going back and forth between 2 rooms. Scott is sleeping from working this weekend so they’re having to be quiet. I work from home so snow is not stopping me from having to work today. And to top it off, Scott has been called in for two additional 12 hour shifts this week, totaling 7 days straight working. So now he actually has to be out in this mess working all the wrecks out there. Yay us! So, besides the snow cream, I’m really not jumping for joy over this snow. If I didn’t have to work then it might be a different story. But no. I hate to be a buzzkill but keeping it real!

On a high note, I did make some very yummy French toast this morning. I’ve never been good at French toast but I think it’s because I never used French bread. I took a note from my mom’s friend that cooks it when we visit in Pennsylvania and bought a loaf at the store yesterday and then followed these instructions. Enjoy!

I’ll leave you with a sure-to-be-famous “Amy story”. I have many in my past.

Last night the girls and I were trying to switch from Wii Sports to the Wii Fit DVD. I put the Wii Fit DVD in the Wii but it wasn’t recognizing it so I tried to eject it so I could clean it. Nothing! I went online and then followed all the online recommendations for ejecting one. I put out a complaint/plea on Twitter about what to do. Best I could tell, I was going to have to get it sent back to Nintendo to get fixed. It was REALLY stuck though. I could even get another DVD in the Wii and get it to eject that but the Wii Fit was lodged somewhere that couldn’t get out. Well. This morning I told Scott about it hoping that he would have some magic fix. Turns out he did. He hit the eject on the PS3…right where I had put in the Wii Fit DVD. Fail, Amy, fail.

Oh wait, in other big news today, Lexi lost her front tooth. She now looks like a legit kindergartner.

OK, now my blog has been down so long that I have a few snow pictures. Girls eating snow and then jumping on the trampoline with 4” of snow:

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Italian Walnut Salad

November 5th, 2010 at 4:48 pm / Amy Bennett / 7 Comments »

I need to tell you about this salad. It doesn’t really have a name, I just made that up for the purpose of this post. In fact it was my mother’s creation on a whim. She’s good at salads like that. I LOVE a salad but I’m extremely picky about the dressings. I can tell you every restaurant in a 10 mile radius that has the “right” kind of ranch. I’ve tried so many recipes but have never found one I like. Anyway, I’m digressing from THIS dressing and salad.

We had lasagna for Lexi’s party on Wednesday so Mom put together this oil and vinegar dressing she had served a few weeks ago and took note of the proportions.

Italian Dressing

1/3 cup of oil (I used olive)
1/3 cup of vinegar
1/3 cup of sugar
1 tbl of Pampered Chef’s Italian Seasoning Mix

Now, there may be a right way to make this dressing but here’s what I did.

Pour the vinegar, seasoning and sugar in a jar
Shake.
Add the oil.
Shake.

Voila! I poured about 1 tablespoon on my salad right away. You can also use a blender. In that case, you can pour the oil in as the other is mixing with the blender on. It’s best to let it sit to get all the flavors, but mine tasted just fine right away. You can store in the fridge for 2 weeks. (According to a quick google search. Please don’t sue me if you get a tummy ache).

Anyone that likes their dressing a little sweet will LOVE it. But the dressing is not all that makes this salad wonderful. The other secret is to take just a few pieces of Candied Walnuts, chop them up and spread on the salad. YUM. MO. Now, if you not only have a sweet tooth but ALSO like a lot of crunch to your salad, this is PERFECT.

The rest of the salad can come and go. Cheese, mushrooms, broccoli, carrots, whatever you please. But don’t skip the dressing or walnuts! I’m sure Mom would jump in here and mention that she likes cut up pieces of apple and sometimes raisins when she makes it like this.

Enjoy!

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Lexi’s Cupcake Flower Birthday Cake

November 3rd, 2010 at 11:13 am / Amy Bennett / 16 Comments »

This weekend I realized that omigosh, Lexi’s birthday is in 3 days and we haven’t picked out a cake yet. Normally, they can not WAIT to finally pick out a cake from the grocery store. They have always loved going by the cake case and deciding on which they will pick for their birthday. Well, sadly I think they are getting a bit old for that so a cake was not on the forefront of my mind. So a-googling I went! I was inspired by this cupcake cake and thankfully Lexi approved!

And this is what we came up with:

It’s not as professional as the inspiration and Lexi REALLY wanted blue flowers instead of the pretty pink but overall, I’m super proud of it and Lexi LOVES it.

And I’m happy to say we took some pictures along the way so you could see how it’s done!

First, Lexi wanted yellow cake. Sorry to all my chocolate-loving family including myself that will be eating yellow cake tonight.

Next, Daddy got involved a cut some board to 20×30” and wrapped it in tinfoil.

After the cupcakes cooled, I arranged them how I wanted them. I put the puffier ones in the middle with the smaller ones would fit better.

Then I made some of my mom’s icing. I separated them into 4 bowls, the largest going to the blue that is not pictured. We used this really cool NEON food coloring I got from Harris Teeter.

Then, I got to decorating. This is approximately 9pm at night so sorry for the bad lighting and hair.

Then, dear goodness, I actually broke out my cake decorating set. I have to say, I had fond memories of my mom doing this very same thing the night before my birthdays. Mom, thanks for all the hard work you always put into our birthday cakes! I put 3 purple dots at the edge of each flower near the middle. And then outlined each flower so it made it look more like one cake.