Recipe Recap: Turkey Burgers, Cajun Sweet Potatoes, and Cherry Rum Lemonade

Another food post without any pictures. Tsk tsk. But the recipe links have pictures so check those out.

We made Sweet Hawaiian Turkey Burgers with Cajun-style sweet potatoes last night. Wow, what a great meal! The burgers were definitely sweet, and I think next time we make them I'll temper the sweetness with some red pepper flakes or maybe even just add some jalapeno slices to the burger as a topping.

We had some Cajun seasoning in the cupboard so I was lazy and used that with some brown sugar instead of making it from scratch, which I've done once before so I can still say the original recipe is very good as well. I cubed one sweet potato, shook it in a bag with the olive oil and spices, then baked them at 390 degrees (my oven runs hot) for about 30 minutes, stirring after 15 and 30 minutes. Then I baked them for an additional 8 minutes and broiled them for a few to get the outsides a little crusty.

We girls went out Saturday night (not to worry, there are DEFINITELY pictures from that), and I made a cherry rum-spiked lemonade for sipping before we headed downtown. It's similar to my other beer-vodka lemonade so I really didn't doubt that I would like it. Heather, Chelle, and I each drank it and all thought it was very yummy. It's a great summer drink that I think would be good as a slushy drink, too.

I made mini banana cupcakes last night and will frost them tonight. I'm using a peanut butter frosting on half and a honey buttercream on the other half. I will definitely snap a few photos and report back on which frosting works best. I've got my money on the honey buttercream. As much as I like peanut butter in general and peanut butter on bananas specifically, I'm just not too sure about the banana cupcake-pb frosting combo.

Recipe Recap: Mississippi Mud Cupcakes

Heather's birthday was last week and we celebrated with a girls' dinner at PF Chang's and I of course jumped on the opportunity to try a new recipe. Heather is chocolate's biggest fan and when I found out she loved marshmallows almost as much, well, this recipe was a no-brainer.

Now, Kristan (that's Kris-TANNE) warned me not to fill my cupcake liners very full. I tried to heed her warning, I really did. But I wasn't very successful. Can you blame me? Chocolate batter, chocolate frosting, and marshmallows - of course more is better!
















Kristan recommended four or five marshmallows per cupcake. You can see I pushed the limits there as well.
















Oh yeah, once I covered everything with more batter, I could see that I wasn't doing very well in the follows-directions-well category. Do those look 1/3 to 1/2 full to you?
















What do I get more my overzealous efforts? Fallen cupcakes.
















But guess what? Fallen, suddenly hollow cupcakes are vessels for more sweets. I stuffed those suckers full of even more mini marshmallows then filled what was left of the hole with frosting. (Sorry, no pictures of that step, but just imagine this hole filled with yumminess.)
















I would say these turned out pretty good. I think I could've done without the frosting-marshmallow combo prior to baking although it did make for an ooey-gooey middle so if that's your thing, then go for it. I didn't love the frosting off the bat, but when I finally ate a cupcake with the frosting on it, I became a fan. It was a simple frosting that came together easily so I think I'll use it again. But I'll probably make 1 1/2 to 2 times the recipe. I don't know if it was the holes I had to fill or what, but I didn't have enough frosting.

I apologize for not having good after pictures, but I did want you to see what these ended up looking like when cut (or bitten) into.
















Heather said it was a little too much frosting and Kim wasn't too keen on the marshmallows. Chelle and I couldn't comment because our mouths were full of cupcake, but I'm pretty we were quite happy with our dessert.

Recipe Recap: Sour Cream Coffee Cake with Maple Glaze

Wow, I'm Stephie Crocker this week! I promise, I do more than just bake.

I also take pictures of what I bake and then I blog about what I've baked. I sometimes even eat what I bake.

I really only make something if I have a reason to contribute it to a party or get-together; the McHusband and I don't need to eat an entire batch of cookies, a pan of brownies, or a whole Bundt cake by ourselves. I guess we've just had a busy social calendar lately.

I made this coffee cake last week to bring into the office. I have a Bundt pan that's about half the size of what you'd consider a "normal" Bundt pan and it worked great for this recipe, which called for the coffee cake to be made in a bread pan.
















This coffee cake was really easy to throw together and exceeded my expectations. I mean, I figured it'd be good enough and serve its purpose at our breakfast meeting, but it ended up being worthy of writing home about. One of the guys at the meeting asked to take some home with him and he informed me the next morning that he'd just finished the last of his three slices.

Each slice of the coffee cake was moist and had just the right amount of the brown sugar-cinnamon layers. The glaze gave it a little crunch factor.

I'm not a huge fan of maple syrup (give me the fake Mrs. Butterworth's stuff any day) so I wasn't too sure about the glaze. But it turned out to be very tasty and a very nice complement to the coffee cake.
















I liked this coffee cake so much, in fact, and I had the leftover sour cream that I needed to use that I decided to make it again on Sunday and stick it in the freezer for future use. Keep your fingers crossed that it's as good the second time around.

Sorry I don't have any pictures of the inside. I'll try to do an updated post when we cut into the one in the freezer and will include some interior shots.

{Recipe here}

Recipe Recap: Lemon Cream Bars

I told you about these bars a few weeks ago but didn't have any pictures for you to drool over. I made another batch of the bars for a Women's Night in the 'hood and made sure to photograph their deliciousness.
















I made these in my just-slightly-smaller-than-9x13-pan and still made the extra crust/topping like I did the first time. I don't think I'll ever make that part according to the recipe.
















These are so easy to put together - the hardest part is squeezing the lemons for the juice - and they are very tasty. The lemon flavor is there, but it's not in your face like it can be in some recipes.

If you're looking for something summery to contribute to a get-together, give these a try. They were a hit at two parties, one office, and a neighborhood gathering.





















{Recipe here}

Recipe Recap: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough-Stuffed Cupcakes

I made Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough-Stuffed Chocolate Cupcakes to take to Chelle and Jeremy's cookout. Most of the people who had those AND the brownie-stuffed cupcakes liked the latter better. Not that they didn't like these enough to eat them, they just preferred the others. I think I did, too.





















I doctored up a cake mix according to Tidy Mom's instructions:
1 box cake mix
3 eggs
1/2 c. melted butter
1 c. water

For the cookie dough centers, I used Nestle's mini break-and-bake cookies. I spooned some batter into my liners, then plopped (yes, I'm pretty sure that's a technical cooking term) one of the unbaked cookies into the middle.
















Then I covered the dough with a little more batter before putting the tins in the oven.
















Unfortunately, I can't remember where I got the frosting recipe from so I don't know who to credit, but here it is.

3 sticks room temp butter
1/2 c. vegetable shortening
7 - 8 c. sifted powdered sugar
1/4 - 1/2 c. milk

Cream butter and shortening until smooth, approximately 3 minutes on medium using paddle attachment. Slowly add sugar. Once all added, crank speed up to med-high and whip for approximately 1 minute. Add milk depending on how stiff you need/want your frosting.

To the butter cream, add:
1/2 c. flour
1/4 c. light brown sugar
1/2 t. vanilla extract
pinch of salt
milk as needed

This frosting was good if you like a stiffer, almost crunchy bakery-style frosting. I liked how well it piped onto the cupcakes, but I don't know that the flavor was anything to write home about.
















I had a few left over break-and-bake cookies so instead of popping them raw into my mouth, one after another (which I SOOO could've done), I baked 'em up and used them to garnish the cupcakes.





















Aren't they cute?
















The McHusband liked the little cookie halves. I sent leftovers into the office with him, and I think a couple showed up minus their cookie toppers.

Memorial Day Weekend Cookout

Let's see, it's June 5th so it seems an appropriate time to blog about the Memorial Day Weekend cookout we went to at Chelle and Jeremy's last weekend. Hey, cut me some slack, Memorial Day was really late this year so it was probably going to show up here in June no matter what.

Anyway, as always, we had a great time hanging out with everyone. Who was there? Bruce and Heather were there with their girls, Jovyn came down from VA, Terry and Vickie, Shawn and Vanessa, neighbors Kendall and Adam, coworker Hustler, and Kevin S. graced us with his presence (and Kristen's yummy cookies) later in the evening.
































The neighbors, Kendall and Adam.
















Heather was giving me a hard time about my pants being too big. What do you think?
















While we girls were out on the patio causing trouble, the rest of the gang was on the screened-in porch.
















At one point, I went inside to refill my drink, and when I got back I saw that my camera had been used to take some, uh, interesting shots.































































A few random shots just cuz.


































































It was another great night spent with good friends. I'm not gonna get all sappy, but the McHusband and I are lucky to have these people in our lives.

It doesn't matter if we're just hanging out at someone's house, out to dinner on a Friday night, celebrating a birthday or helping each other with some project - I appreciate all those shared moments and love all the memories we're making.

New bed!

So after we decided on a new mattress, we went furniture shopping. We've been using the furniture that was in the McHusband's room growing up and while we very much appreciate that it was given to us, it was just time for us to get our own stuff.

I really thought it was going to be much harder for us to agree on what we wanted, but what we got was pretty much the first set we saw. We shopped in Cary at Home Comfort then ran up and down Glenwood Avenue, popping into every furniture store we saw just to confirm that what we were pretty sure we liked best really WAS what we liked best.

Turns out, it was. But that was okay, all that getting in and out of the car fueled our need for fro-yo at The Skinny Dip, which was conveniently located just a few stores down from Home Comfort. (Side note: If you haven't been to one of these DIY fro-yo places that are popping up all over the place, go immediately.)

We opted to try to pick the furniture up ourselves once we found out that we really could only do a Saturday delivery, which wouldn't work out for us for a couple of weeks. And since we're of the instant gratification generation, that just wasn't going to fly. So the McHusband took his truck to the warehouse and they loaded up the bed and the bureau. The nightstands won't be available until after the 10th.

Thank goodness one of our neighbors was available to help get the stuff inside and upstairs last night. The McHusband and I could've gotten all but one piece by ourselves, I think, but the footboard with its drawers was over 200 pounds.

So at 8:00 last night, my hottie McHubby started putting the bed together.
















As you can see, Tucker was nearby and ready to help at any moment. Morgan was nearby, too, but I wouldn't exactly say she was ready and willing to jump in to assist.
















(That's my hair straightener on the floor by her. She'd pulled it down in her quest to get the bath mat just so for laying on.)

It took a couple of hours to get the bed set up, but it was finally ready to accept some overnight visitors. If the McHusband and I had worked any harder, I think we would've been too tired to actually climb up into the bed. (Don't mind the crazy hair and shiny face; I'd worked out then ran up and down the stairs eleventy-million times.)
















Doesn't matter how high off the ground you are, the mattress still feels the same.





















(Another side note: My walls aren't army green, they're a muddy gray-brown.)

We didn't get to the bureau so it and the two platforms for the old bed are hogging all the hallway space. The McHusband will deal with that tonight.





















The new bed, with its headboard and footboard, which we didn't have before, takes up MUCH more space than we're used to. I think our room is big enough to handle it and it's nice to have grown-up furniture in there. It'll be a couple of weeks before the next update, I'm sure, but hopefully I'll have the room all pulled together and won't just be showing you pictures of furniture. I have an idea for doing a paint treatment on the wall behind our bed so we'll see if that pans out...