I Don't Just Bake Sweets

It seems I mostly blog about desserts... but I did try two new supper recipes in the last few days. Sunday I made home-made corn chowder and yesterday I made honey-garlic chicken legs. I won't post either recipe though, because neither was GREAT. They weren't terrible either though. I am not a huge soup fan so I thought maybe if I made it, I would like it better... I didn't. It wasn't the soup's fault. I even wished for the soup to turn out great because I had a funny title planned for the blog I would write about my delicious soup. The chicken tasted good and smelled fabulous, but it wrecked my black pan. I even lined my pan with tinfoil but the sauce got under somehow and I can't get it clean. I guess I just have a lot better luck experimenting with desserts and snacks than with "real" meal food. Tonight we are having sloppy joes - they will turn out great because I just have to add water and tomato paste.

I Can't Believe He's Two!!!

It was Jacob's second birthday this weekend... and that means CAKE! He is really into trains right now so I made him a "Choo Choo" cake. He ate the gummi bear passengers and the chocolate wheels first and then he ate my gummis and chocolates, and then he didn't want any cake. Oh well, we still had a fun evening!

Blow!

Cake!

So for playgroup this week I thought I would experiment on the kids... I have this recipe for allergen-free cupcakes. No milk. No eggs. No butter. No nuts. Sounds interesting for when you have nothing in your cupboard... and they actually turned out really great! They are very moist and chocolatey and delicious. Though I did make vanilla icing to put on top and used butter in that! Also, I think I have finally figured out how to put my recipes on these posts without them somehow looking completely different everytime. I'm not very good at computers. Anyways.... I took 19 cupcakes to playgroup (the recipe made 21 for some reason, and one needed to be taste-tested before I iced them and one needed to be tested after I iced them) and between 5 adults and 9 kids (though Daniel didn't eat one) only 1 was left. I saved it for Jeff.

Allergen-Free Chocolate Cupcakes

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Recipe By: Martha Stewart Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup baking cocoa

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup vegetable oil, plus 1 tbsp

1 tbsp white vinegar

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/4 cups water

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350.

Sift dry ingredients together.

Mix liquids together until well blended. Add flour mixture and mix until very smooth.

(Batter will be very thin)

Line muffin pan and fill each 3/4 full.

Bake 20-25 minutes rotating once.

Cool completely.

Dust with cocoa powder and/or icing sugar just before serving.

Move Over Reese...

Now here is a yummy treat!  No oven needed, just a microwave, and you can make your very own "Reese's Pieces."  Jacob kept saying "Mmmmmm.... Mmmmmmm" the whole time he ate one, it was cute. Then he asked for another. Seeing as how not healthy these are, I gave him a peach instead. I also forgot to follow the instructions to cut after chilling for five minutes, so the chocolate kind of broke apart a bit. I got busy shredding a gigantic zucchini that was given to me. I don't have a food processor so I hand grated it and it took about half an hour. So the chocolate was good and set by that point. After cutting and being annoyed with myself I remembered that if I had just let it come to room temperature it would have cut easily. Oh well, they still taste good. Keep chilled!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

2 ½ cups graham crumbs

1 cup peanut butter (I use creamy)

1 cup butter, melted (I use hard margarine)

2 ¾ cups icing sugar

2 cups chocolate chips, semi-sweet

Mix all ingredients (except chocolate) in medium bowl.
Press into 9x13 pan.
Melt chocolate chips (with 1 tbsp of margarine and peanut butter if desired)
Spread melted chocolate over crust. Chill 5 minutes and cut into bars before chocolate is completely set. Chill to set chocolate before serving.


PS. I grated 16 cups of zucchini, in case you wanted to know.