High Altitude Cupcakes

http://n-omnom.blogspot.com/2012/06/ultimate-high-altitude-cupcake-recipe.html

kept everything the same. left a few cups of water in the oven in a separate container for moisture

Panera Mac & Cheese

Who knew Panera had released their mac & cheese recipe? Not this girl... until two weeks ago. This should be national news.

 HELLO! What are you waiting for? This is easy. And stinkin' delicious!

 This is all you need... yes, the hot sauce is supposed to be there. Threw me for a loop too. I actually added more than the recipe calls for.

And what goes better with mac and cheese than a good Greek salad? Nothing!

It is a relatively easy recipe... the only bad thing is that mine tasted quite floury. I think this can be avoided by letting the flour cook longer in the butter... Try it! You'll love it. And you'll save a bunch of moolah :)

cinnabon!

A while ago, I found a recipe for "Clone of a Cinnabon" and thought about it for months. I don't know why. To be honest, I have never had a Cinnabon in my life. Not that they don't smell amazing when I pass by the store in the mall or anything... I just never have given in.

Well, because this was my first time making cinnamon rolls from scratch, I waited until I had some back-up. Two weeks ago, an old family friend of Andrew's, Alexa, came to visit. I love Alexa... probably because we are so crazy similar in our likes and dislikes. Very strangely alike. We are going to open a bakery someday... you just wait and see!

Here's the recipe... I honestly can't tell you if they are truly the clone of a Cinnabon... but I can honestly tell you that they were super crazy good!

Start with dough. We discovered the butter works better when you let it get really soft... almost melted. Cold butter = bad idea.

let rise. roll it out. spread with butter. spread with cinnamon & sugar!

roll up, slice into pieces, and place in a greased baking pan. YUMMMMM!

Bake...

And slather with cream cheese icing!

Enjoy while warm with a lot of milk!

We did change a few things... we just used regular dry active yeast and let it rise in a warm oven after kneading. We didn't use a bread maker (I don't own one), and they tasted wonderful! 

5th Graders.

Sorry for my little blog break... my little guys took the writing SOL here in Virginia today and yesterday. These past few weeks have been a little nutso... encouraging them as writers, while trying to make sure they are as well-prepared as possible. Now it's over... and I am beyond proud of them.

Anyways... (I use that word way too much. Need to expand my vocab.) we are learning about the five kingdoms that scientists classify with... My kiddos were having a bit of a hard time distinguishing between vascular and nonvascular plants... so we did an experiment :)

Celery is a vascular plant... so I wanted to show them how things travel through the plant using the 'veins.' This also helped my kiddos with the independent/dependent variables they struggle with always. Ask me why 10-year-olds should be able to identify the control in an experiment? THEY ARE TEN.

We put the same amount of water in two cups... put food coloring in one cup... and then cut the celery and put one stalk in each cup.

I don't have any idea why this is so grainy... but this is the 'right after we put the celery in' picture.

and this is the 'after two days of sitting in food coloring' picture. SO COOL.

Argentine Lasagna

When I was little, I never had a fondness for lasagna or spaghetti... it was too simple. Not my favorite. Nowadays, I LOVE a good bowl of pasta with meat sauce... yum. Comfort food :)

I love cookbooks... I have a lot of cookbooks. Before my Grandma died, she gave me a big box of her cookbooks and I love those... kind of retro, but fun. Lots of microwave magic cooking :)

Anyways, I get cookbooks for my birthday and for Christmas quite often. I'm perfectly okay with that :) My mama got me a cookbook for my birthday this year titled A+ Taste of Home Recipes from Schools Across America... I love reading it. It's a compilation of recipes submitted by people who work in our school systems... Awesome!

I found this recipe for Argentine Lasagna and had to try it :) It's very different... but very, very yummy.

One tip I'll follow next time: thaw the spinach and peas overnight. You'll thank me later.

all your ingredients. Notice I said 'your'... that means you need to make it!

after browning the beef/mushroom/onion/garlic mixture, your house will have an incredible smell. Mine definitely brought the hubs downstairs FAST.

White sauce... red sauce... mix the two. DELISH. 

Ingredients:

• 1 pound ground beef
•  1 large sweet onion, chopped
• 1/2 pound sliced fresh mushrooms
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
• 1 can (6 oz) tomato paste
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 4 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese 
• 1 jar (15 oz.) Alfredo sauce
• 1 carton (15 oz.) ricotta cheese
• 3 cups frozen peas, thawed
• 1 package (10 oz) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
• 1 package (9 oz) no-cook lasagna noodles
• Fresh basil & parmesan for garnish :)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a Dutch oven (large pot), cook the beef, onion, mushrooms, and garlic over medium heat until beef is browned. Drain Stir in the tomato sauce, tomato paste, pepper, and 2 cups of the mozzarella. Remove from heat.
3. In a large bowl, combine the Alfredo sauce, ricotta cheese, peas, and spinach. 
4. Spread 1 cup of the meat sauce into a greased 13x9 pan. Layer with four noodles, 1 1/4 cups meat sauce, and 1 1/4 cups of the spinach mixture. Repeat 3x. Sprinkle with remaining mozzarella.
5. Cover and bake at 350 degreese for 45 minutes. Uncover and bake for 10 minutes more (or until cheese is melted). Let it sit at least 10 minutes before serving. Garnish with basil and parmesan if desired :)

white chocolate raspberry cheesecake

We are very blessed to be members (very recent! YAY!) of an amazing church. It's so awesome to be loved, challenged, and accepted by the church... and our small group in particular. Anyway, last weekend, we went to our small group leader's house (he's also the Pastor of Education) for a dinner party. I brought dessert... this white chocolate raspberry cheesecake that is INSANELY good.

Believe it or not, this was my first solo attempt at cheesecake. I haven't even participated in making a cheesecake in probably ten years. I remember making them with my mom... well, actually, she made them. I remember being banished from the kitchen. I grew up in a really old house and she didn't want us kids jumping in the kitchen and cracking the cheesecake.

I guess I've always had the idea that cheesecake is VERY hard to make and is very finicky. That may be true for some cheesecakes, but this one was very easy. When I put it in the oven after following the recipe, I let my shoulders relax and exhaled... I had done it. But then during the two hour wait, I was plagued by the thought that it would fall, crack, or my springform pan would spontaneously combust. Not kidding. I'm a bit of a worry-wart.

I only made a few changes to the original recipe: I doubled the crust mixture (reflected in recipe below) and  I used a good quality seedless raspberry jam, so I didn't have to go through the step of making my own raspberry filling. I saw that someone had recommended this in a comment on the original recipe... so smart. It saved at least 30 minutes and it didn't change the delicious-ness :)

Ignore the raspberries. Didn't use them! 

does anything bad ever start with an Oreo crust? Debatable. 

Melt the white chocolate in a 'double boiler' (aka a glass bowl on top of a pot of simmering water)

Yum. It was so delicious... and because it's so rich, it can serve a lot of people!

I baked it in a springform pan wrapped in foil (so water can't get in) and then put into a big Pyrex with about 1 inch of water. This helps the cheesecake stay moist and not crack.

adapted from allrecipes.com

Ingredients:

• 2 cup chocolate cookie crumbs
• 4 tablespoons white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 2 cups white chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup half-and-half cream
• 3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, mix together cookie crumbs, 4 tablespoons sugar, and melted butter. Press mixture into the bottom of a 9 inch springform pan.
2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). In a metal bowl over a pan of simmering water, melt white chocolate chips with half-and-half, stirring occasionally until smooth.
3. In a large bowl, mix together cream cheese and 1/2 cup sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time. Blend in vanilla and melted white chocolate. Pour half of batter over crust. Spoon 3 tablespoons raspberry sauce over batter. Pour remaining cheesecake batter into pan, and again spoon 3 tablespoons raspberry sauce over the top. Swirl batter with the tip of a knife to create a marbled effect.
4. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until filling is set. Cool, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 8 hours before removing from pan. Serve with remaining raspberry sauce.

broiled blood oranges

Aren't these babies beautiful?

and look at the inside:

Blood oranges are a variety of orange (hello, captain obvious), but they have a pigment that other oranges don't which gives them that purpley color. (Bonus: the specific pigment fights free radicals!)

They taste more intense... less sweet, almost like berries.

Anyways, try one. They're so yummy and also beautiful!

I've been hearing about broiling citrus for a little while now, so I decided blood oranges would be perfect to try.

I melted about a tablespoon of butter and then mixed in enough sugar to make a paste. I sprinkled some cardamom and cinnamon in there and then spread it on top of the orange halves.

I put the broiler on (I used the low setting) and put those babies on a cookie sheet and slid them in.

Wait five minutes... and ta-da. YUM. The sugar caramelized....

Next, I want to try putting the paste on the segments instead of halves. Such a fun and yummy dessert.