Sunday, January 29, 2012

Speechless Sunday

via
I miss the bridgescaped City of Roses and its bicycle clogged streets, pouring down rain and plaid flannel shirt, tree hugging, tattooed, mass transit riding residents. I'll be back one day.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Sopapilla Cheesecake

Last weekend in January 2012. I just can't believe how fast the year has started off!

I babysat my niece today and we made a recipe I pinned from My Yellow Umbrella called Sopapilla Cheesecake. I'm fairly certain I'm not eating any more food for the rest of the day, as I nearly ate half the pan. It is such a simple and tasty treat!


2 cans crescent rolls
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp butter, melted
cinnamon
sugar

Preheat oven to 350 and grease 13x9 inch pan. Unroll the first can of crescent rolls and spread onto the dish. Mix sugar, cream cheese and vanilla. Spread onto the dough in the pan. Then unroll and spread the second can of crescent rolls on top, pinching the sides together. Spread melted butter across the top and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar mix.

These would be great for small gathering. I'm thinking maybe my next book club meeting!

Friday, January 27, 2012

Pumpkin Roll Filled with Cream Cheese

I made this recipe last holiday season but completely spaced on posting it. I had two cream cheese filled pumpkin rolls pinned and decided to try this recipe to see if I could pull off such a dessert.



To start off, I have never known what a jelly roll pan is and after googling it, realized - I think - that is is a glorified cookie sheet. It has higher sides, from what I read. So, as according the the recipe's instructions, I pulled out my cookie sheet and got to mixing.

1 cup sugar
3 eggs
2/3 cup pumpkin
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup flour

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line the jelly roll pan/cookie sheet with parchment paper. Mix 1 cup sugar with the 3 eggs. Then, add in the pumpkin. Next, add in all dry ingredients - baking soda, cinnamon, salt, flour. Combine thoroughly.

Spread the batter evenly onto the pan. Bake for 12-14 minutes, until cake is "springy" and bounces back when pressed with finger.

You're not done! While the roll is baking, lay a dishtowel on your counter top and cover it in powdered sugar. This may get a little messy, but once the pumpkin roll is done baking, flip onto the powdered sugar towel and immediately roll up, while it's still hot. (If you need a visual, Nicole's post of this recipe has photos.)

While the roll is setting, make your cream cheese filling by mixing the following:

2 Tbsp butter, softened
8 oz.cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup powdered sugar

Now, unroll the pumpkin roll and spread the cream cheese filling all around, then roll it back up. Now you should have a pretty powder sugared pumpkin roll, filled with cream cheese! Remember to keep this in the refrigerator if you need to store it for a bit.

I'd really like to make another "roll" like this, so if you've got one, pass it along please!

National Chocolate Cake Day

I'm not sure if you've heard, but today, January 27th, is National Chocolate Cake Day. This just fits right in with Mom's Crazy Cooking Challenge because in 11 days I will be posting a chocolate cake recipe. In honor of the day, I made my cake to link up, so make sure to come back and check the recipe out on February 7th. Here's a sneak peak.



Until then, drool over these delicious looking chocolate cake recipes, if you must look at your calories instead of consume them.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Gingerbread Cookies

I have a handful of recipes to share that I made during the holidays and just didn't quite get posted. I'm posting them because you can still totally make them, despite being the end of January, or pin them for next holiday season! 



Never had I made my own gingerbread cookies until trying this recipe that I found on Culinary Concoctions by Peabody. As she points out, she adapted it from McCormick and Co. website. You know the spice brand? They are nice and soft so long as you avoid overbaking them.

3 cups flour
2 tsp. Ginger, Ground
1 tsp. Cinnamon, Ground
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. Nutmeg, Ground (I used fresh)
1/4 tap salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
1 cup white chocolate chips

Mix flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg and salt together. On medium speed, beat butter and brown sugar, until light and fluffy. Then add molasses, egg and vanilla, beating until well mixed. Finally, slowly mix in dry ingredients you combined at first on low speed, until all ingredients are well mixed. Refrigerate in airtight container or saran wrapped for at least 4 hours, or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and place 1 inch dough balls, rolled in white sugar, 2 inches apart on cookie sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until edges of cookies just begin to brown. If desired, place a Hershey kiss or a couple white chocolate chips in the middle of each cookie immediately upon removing sheet from oven. I didn't do this as immediately as necessary and my chips did not stick on the cookies because they didn't melt. Doesn't matter too much because they are tasty with or without a hint of chocolate.



Also, because I am a blog addict, I encourage you to hop on over to Culinary Concoctions by Peabody and check out her stuff. I really want to try these Triple Berry Filled Vanilla Bean Sugar Cookies. Bad. Like right now. Oh and her Snickerdoodle Hot Chocolate? Yes please!

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

What the...? #1

Holy. Smokes. Yes. I am still alive. Thanks for being patient and not writing me off as a blogger. I haven't posted something with any substance for weeks. After starting to volunteer coach, Thanksgiving and Christmas hit and I posted far less than the blissful summer days of the past. Then, 2012 appeared and bam! we are over halfway done with another January. Crazy, crazy.

For a while now, I have been wishing I had some laugh worthy google searches that people land at my blog, like Erin at His & Hers. Bev over at Flamingo Toes shares funny ones each week, too. But mine seem boring. Rather, very normal, as in it makes complete sense that someone would type "itty bitty baby booties" into google and end up on my blog.

Slowly, however, I have saved up some funnier ones and thought this would be a fun post to reemerge into posting regularly again. Here we go, the first edition of What the...? Themed mostly around searches that make you wonder why on earth someone would type that into google, let alone land on my blog.

chicken and cheese rolls from the 30's
       This really wouldn't be super strange if the last 3 words were left off. But narrowing it down to from the 30's? Huh?! This recipe for Baked Chicken Cheese Filled Rolls (not from the 30's) must have reeled them in.

because i love you fin skrift
       Again, without the last two words, this one would be a totally normal search. But "fin skrift" just makes the search ridiculous. Maybe it was fat fingers on a phone typing...maybe. I'm about 100% certain they found this anniversary gift I made my friends this past summer.

watermelon stereotype
       Someone please tell me what a watermelon stereotype is, when you have a minute of course. No rush. I've posted loads of watermelon related things, so who knows what qualified as a stereotype. Or why my blog popped up in the results.

superman birds cake
       Does superman have birds? Are birds superman-like? Who wants this combination on a cake? I even tried typing this into google to see what content on my blog comes up in a search. Want to know what it is? Nothing on the first page, which means someone was far deeper into the results of this search than I am willing to look. 

halloween+cupcakes+knife
       What exactly were they looking for? A knife going through a Halloween cupcake? I just don't quite understand why knife was part of this search. I do appreciate the implied Boolean logic in making sure all three words show up in search results. My guess is they came across my Halloweenified Cookies & Cream Cupcakes


"fried mashed potato" -egg -eggs
       Maybe the best one on this list, just because it's so hard to make sense of it. Using the "-" signifies alternate endings for one of the words they searched, but friegg/s mashegg/s or potatoegg/s just don't work. I'm sure something from my Mashed Potato Cakes post appeared.


Well, that will do for now. Please share any funny searches with me if you have them! Cracks me up. Yes, I've been known to start typing words into google just to see what others have searched for. And if you need more funny searches check out Whoogles.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...