Keepin' it together

I picked up another tip from Pinterest (boy, this just doesn't get old, does it?). It's a great way to make baked potatoes and you can find the recipe on Seasaltwithfood. The first time I made these I had a little trouble with the cuts--it's really hard to stop just short of the bottom of the potato, especially if you have a really sharp knife :D

I usually ended up with two potato-halfes which I just pushed back together.
Then I had an idea. I wedged the potato between two chopsticks, so they stopped the knife on the down-cut keeping the potato in one piece. Brilliant!  I still need to improve on this method, as it got a bit hard to hold the two chopsticks together and holding on to the potato. Maybe I'll make a little potato-frame for next time.

 

Well, dinner turned out pretty well. Besides the awesome potatoes, I made some Schnitzel and everyone loved it! Mission accomplished.

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Speedy Pancakes

Once again, I found some awesome recipes on Pinterest; like these Pop Up Pancakes from makes and takes. So I was all ready to try this one on Sunday, until I noticed that I didn't have enough eggs for the batter--Rats!
Well, not to be outsmarted by my evil fridge (don't ask, that's another story), I was determined to make these yummy Pancake-muffin goodies. Luckily had just discovered Organic Batter Blaster. I'd seen it at the store and just thought I'd try it--it's pancake batter in a can (kind of like whipped cream)! Also, it's a lot quicker than making it from scratch (score!) They came out awesome; everyone loved them and I'll definitely be making them again. Yay Pinterest!

Don't these look scrumptious?

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Ready to take over the world

They're done! My Easter Bunny Ear Cupcakes are done. YAY! And, I must say, they don't look half bad--of course they don't look as fabulous as the one's from the Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle blog, but not bad for a first. After the prep work on Friday, we got down to the decorating Saturday. The Royal icing came out great (couldn't get it any stiffer, I had to scrape it off the whisk), and Katie really enjoyed decorating the cookies we made from the dough we didn't need for the ears.

After the cupcakes were done, I noticed that I didn't have any black decorations for the bunny eyes, so they ended up pink--maybe the bunnies have springtime allergies :D
Anyway, here is the bunny army ready to take over the world. These are the good ones, I have another plate with the 'zombie' bunnies that didn't come out so good.

And here are some of the cookies we made too.

Can't you just taste all that sugary goodness? Happy Easter everyone!!

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Hoppy Holidays

The other day, I saw the cutest ever (I think) Easter cupcakes on Pinterest--where else? They are a bit more work to prepare than your ordinary cupcake, since the toppers, in this case the bunny ears, are made of cookies. But they look so stinkin' cute, I think I will do the extra step and make the cookies--it's not like they're going to waste, right? Well, not in in this house, let me tell you.
So, Katie and I started making the cookies yesterday; she was a big help and did all the measuring and most of the cookie cutting (and, of course, some of the tasting too--hey, we gotta make sure they're done right!)
We used the Basic Sugar Cookie recipe from the Sweet Adventures of Sugar Belle site, which is a fabulous site; you should really go and check it out. The recipe is so simple and the cookies came out awesome!

Next, we'll make the Royal Icing (the recipe is also from the SugarBelle site) and prep the ears.

Stay tuned for updates on the cupcakes...

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Pinterest Picks - Halloween Favorites

Well, it's October and we all know what that means--my Birthday! Hehe, just kidding. It is my Birthday this month, but I was, of course, talking about Halloween.

So, here are my Pinterest Picks from my Holiday Ideas Board:

1. I really want to make these Pumpkin Cakes, they look so awesome and I do have the little bundt pans.
2. Haha these Vampire Pumpkins are so cute and funny and, apparently, easy to make.
3. How cute is this little Pumpkin Piggie?
4. This is a great idea for those hard, little pumpkins. I never have the right tools to carve these. And you can never have to many candles, right?
5. I've done these kinds of toothy Pumpkins before, but not like this beauty. Love those eyes!

That's it for this week's Pinterest Picks. Check back next week for Fall Crafts.

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That's it for Summer

Looks like Summer's over. One day it was nice and 80 degrees and the next day it was about 20 degrees colder. And soon after, the rain was back. Don't get me wrong, living in the great Pacific Northwest, I like the rain--just not non-stop for, you know, four months or so. I also enjoy nice, cool, sunny Fall days. Which reminds me, I better get started making Nick's Halloween costume. He wants to be Minecraft Steve (don't ask). I tried to get the Steve-Head online, but apparently it's quite popular and was sold out everywhere! But I managed to find some instructions to make it myself--sheesh, what did we ever do before the internet? Well, I better start getting out the Halloween decorations--time flies, right? I've picked up some great ideas on Pinterest already.
In the meantime, here is a shot from our last official summer outdoor cooking extravaganza. Nice, yummy corn to bid summer farewell. I got the idea for the color swatches from the Coffeeshop Blog. I used Kuler to pull the colors from the picture and create my own color swatch. If you don't feel like making your own, you can download Rita's here:

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Pinteresting, isn't it?

Since I'm spending such a great amount of time browsing through Pinterest recently, pinning, re-pinning, liking and commenting--not to mention sharing my finds via Twitter and Facebook, I thought I'd start sharing some favorites here on the blog.
If you're not familiar with Pinterest, there is a great article on The Blog Stylist. I don't know how I got along without it, now that I've used it for a while. You know when you browse various websites and see ideas for everything from laundry room organization to web design color lists and you want to mark those somehow? I usually made tons of lists (which I then promptly forgot about) or gobs of bookmarks which got too overwhelming after creating 35 menus and 76 items per menu (I know it's here somewhere, I saved it just yesterday... :p)
I suppose if you get carried away with Pinterest, you could amass loads of Boards and Pins, but I think because it's organized so visually, it will still be easier to find something this way as opposed to traditional bookmarks.
So, for the time being, I'm happily pinning and re-pinning. Here is my board for Favorite Recipies. Take a look. Happy pinning!

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