Wedding Shower Cupcakes

My mom has been helping me A TON with Lily this summer so I can work during the day, so when she asked me to help her make cupcakes for a bridal shower, I jumped at the chance to pay her back. I'd also been dying to try some grown up cupcakes, and I loved the examples in Hello, Cupcake and What's New, Cupcake? of cupcakes patterned after pretty fabric and pretty designs.

I was all set to make the brown and blue cupcakes on page 118 of What's New since they matched the wedding colors, and I bought all the things I'd need. So I was thrown for a loop when the Shower Czar informed me that someone else was making chocolate cupcakes and I'd have to find something else. Really? Did this someone else already have her stuff? Did she have a super cute design? Probably not. I fretted for a while and even considered defying the czar-- I mean, is there such a thing as too many chocolate cupcakes? In the end I decided I was too chicken to defy the czar, and back to the store I went for the ingredients for lemon cupcakes (I used the one in the back of Hello, sans the poppyseeds).

The icing on the proverbial cake, or cupcake, was that my syle-queen niece, Isabel, came over to help me decorate them. We monkeyed with a few techniques and several different designs before deciding that it would look cool to have several different designs on the plate. The plate, though beautiful, turned out to be too small to fit all of the cupcakes, so we were able to sample them. We decided that they were, after all, the perfect Sunday afternoon wedding shower cupcakes. Chocolate schmocolate. 

Summer = Basil

As summer winds down I'm thankful for one thing: that the basil in my herb garden that defines all that is good about summer will last long into the fall. I like to think of it as God's consolation prize for making me live in a crispy-hot climate. And while I find millions of uses for basil while it is flourishing - a mix-in for salads or salad dressing or a topping for grill-roasted vegetables-- nothing compares to a heaping plate of bright, peppery, velvety pesto.

I have rarely tasted pesto as good as my mom's, so I have a high standard to compare myself to. But my mom subscribes to the same cooking philosophy as I do-- our best meals are made from recipes tucked somewhere in the recesses of our hungry minds, refined to taste as we go. So... if you need a step-by-step recipe, head over to epicurious. But if you want to celebrate the last days of summer with the best pesto ever, do what my mom does: start with a huge bunch of bright, fresh, basil. Rinse it and throw it in the food processor with a clove of garlic, a snow-heap of grated parm, and a generous handful of toasted pinenuts. Drizzle in olive oil until you get the right consistency and season it with plenty of salt and pepper. The flavors are so distinct that you will easily be able to tell what you need more of. Once you get it right, toss it with freshly cooked pasta, top it with a bunch more grated Parmesan, and mangia! 

Cupcake "Rhys" Car

For my sweet nephew Rhys's 10th birthday (pronounced "Reece"), I made him this racecar out of cupcakes. He is an extraordinary kid and would have been fine with just a plain extra-chocolately cake, but I thought I would try my hand at something from the "What's New, Cupcake?" book.

I modified it a bit to suit Rhys's taste-- I the cupcakes were chocolate mint with chocolate frosting instead of vanilla with red frosting like the recipe calls for.  And to make it as authentic as possible, I subjected the race car to a wreck on the way to the birthday party so it looked NOTHING like this when the poor kid blew out his candles. But like I said, he's an extraordinary young man, so it didn't faze him at all-- he just shot me one of his signature grins along with a quiet but sincere "thanks, Lala" and I melted like the #10 melted in the wreck.  

Rhys, for this and many more reasons, you are my favorite double digit nephew!

A Texas Reuben

It's hard to find two things better than farmers markets and reuben sandwiches. So it's not shocking that the gorgeous round of rye I found at the farmers market on Saturday led to a stack of beautiful reubens after church on Sunday.

But these were not your mother's reubens.

I knew I had some sauerkraut on hand, but I sure didn't have any corned beef or pastrami lying around. (Corned beef would never make it to the "lying around" stage at our house since all three of us love it, along with most salty, fatty meats.) But like any self-respecting Texan, I did have some leftover brisket and pepperjack as well as some spicy brown mustard to stand in place of the thousand island that my husband would not let past his lips if you had a gun to his head. Out came my trusty griddle, and the Bbq Reuben was birthed in my kitchen. Or should I call it the Bbqben? Or the Reubq? Whatever you want to call this crunchy, tangy, spicy delight, it was a crowd pleaser and has not made its last appearance in this Texas kitchen.

I Could Be a Vegetarian

Is there such a thing as a bacon grease vegetarian? If so, then this dinner qualifies as vegetarian,

and I could so be one.

I realized this afternoon that I had an opportunity to make dinner at the farm and I knew right away what I'd start with.

Purple hull peas.

If you have never had purple hull peas, then you need to suspend everything you've ever thought about peas. There is none of the mush, none of the whatever is gross about regular old frozen green peas that most of us think of when we think of peas (which by the way is all I do with them).

Purple hull peas are my favorite summertime-at-the-farm treat, but I can tell you from scant experience, they are not easy to come by. Shelling them is not for the faint of heart, and supposedly picking them isn't that easy either. But they are so worth whatever sweat was used to get them to the table (Says the girl who didn't have to sweat to get them to the table. But I totally would have. Paid somebody to.)

So imagine my panic when Kyle told me a few weeks ago that deer had eaten the peas in my in-laws' garden. (Clearly there is not enough hunting going on around here.) Anyway, fearing I'd keep the grandchild away if there were no peas, my beloved in-laws traded some of their honey for a neighbor's peas. Whew! Crisis averted! But unlike previous summers, peas would not be plentiful this year.  Hence the reason I hurried to start the peas while Lily and Grammie were deep into a game of blocks, figuring it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission. All you do is stick them in some water with an onion and some salt and let them simmer for 30 minutes or so. Oh how I love a dish that is as easy as it is delicious.

Next on the menu for my veggiepalooza was another one of my farm favorites-- fresh yellow squash and zucchini, carmelized down in a bit of olive oil with an onion, salt and pepper. Yummo.

If peas are my favorite summer harvest, then my in-laws' tomatoes are a close, close second. Maybe even first and a half. These tomatoes are a distant relative to the red fruit you think I'm talking about. They have just the right balance of sweet and acidic, juicy and firm. They do have a thick skin so my MIL peels them, chops them coarsely, sprinkles some salt and pepper and serves them only to people we love.

So far, this is a purely vegetarian meal, with only organic, home-grown, just-picked veggies. But wait-- Texans can't eat their peas without cornbread, so Jiffy to the rescue. But do you know what country folk do to their cornbread? Me neither, but I do know that my precious MIL melts bacon grease in muffin tins before she pours the batter in to get a crispy, smoky brown crust on these little pockets of love. They were as good as you're thinking, and totally worth ruining the vegetarianism of this gorgeous dinner. 

God bless Texas!

Semi-Cake Mix Chocolate Cake

I have always loved baking cakes but I have sometimes been hesitant to make from-scratch cakes, because I was never thrilled with the work to deliciousness ratio.  I mean, why use a complicated recipe with 15 ingredients when you can get a perfectly delicious cake using a cake mix? And then I happened upon a very happy mixture of the two - no pun intended- when one of my cooking heros, the famous Cindy M, told me that she sometimes adds ingredients to cake mixes to make them yummier. Granted-- Cindy is known far and wide for from-scratch cakes that make you want to move in, but sometimes even the best bakers use mixes. Thankfully she's also generous, and she let loose some secrets to turning a so-so cake mix into a "oh my gosh I need this recipe" crowd pleaser.

My family is filled with chocaholics, so all of the birthday cakes made around here are some variation of chocolate. The variations for my brother Danny (bottom picture above) and his oldest son Rhys include extra chocolate. For Danny's cake, I added chocolate chips, chocolate pudding mix and a stick of melted butter in place of the oil that the recipe calls for. Yes, you read that right- what recipe does melted butter not make better? The filling between the layers was cream cheese mixed in the food processor with oreos, which, if you haven't tried-- stop reading right now and go to the store for oreos and cream cheese.

For Marlow's cake (top photo), I made the budding epicurean an extra-moist cake by adding a half-cup of mayo and a package of chocolate pudding mix. Are you getting my theme here? Extra fat- in the form of mayo, melted butter or sour cream, add something special to an ordinary cake. Chocolate chips, chocolate pudding mix or melted chocolate add an extra-chocolatey element. Fun fillings like the cream cheese-oreo mix or even store-bought frosting spiked with your favorite candy (think M&Ms or Butterfinger) add yet another delightfully homemade element to your semi-store bought creation.

As far as decorating goes, I like to personalize birthday cakes with colored sugars, rolled fondant, or piped flowers, all of which can be made by the most novice of bakers-- but that's another post. In the meantime, let me know what your fave add-ins are.

Why I Love Soup

....because I almost always have ingredients on hand for delicious soup.


....because it's a good way to get veggies into my kiddo.


....because it's easy to make a whole bunch at once.


....because soup usually freezes well.


....because if it doesn't taste great at first, there are easy ways to make it tastier (although not necessarily healthier, but refer to #2 to clear your conscience about that).


Ok... so now for the only reason I don't like soup: I don't really know how to write a recipe for my favorite soups because I just sort of make them. You know? So, here's my disclaimer: if you are a comfortable cook and you don't need a line-by-line recipe, keep reading. If you don't know your way around the kichen so well yet, come back another day for a real recipe. Or come over and watch me :)

So let me tell you about one of the new soups that I tried recently that my whole family loved (kind of a big deal). I called my mother-in-law the other day and as often happens with her and I, we ended up talking about yummy things we've recently made. She told me about a squash soup that immediately got my attention because we'd been getting a lot of yellow squash in our produce co-op and I was growing weary of sauteeing it or dipping raw pieces in ranch. I modified her recipe based on what I had and what we like, and here's what I did:


Squash Soup

1) Cut 2 pieces of bacon in small pieces (I use my kitchen shears to make it an easy job) and sautee with a diced onion (I sometimes use frozen chopped onion if I'm in a hurry. Or feeling lazy.), carrots and celery.

Optional: Add about 2 T. of flour and stir constantly for about 3 minutes. Add about one cup of broth and stir until smooth. This will make the soup a little thicker, and I don't always do it.

2) Add however many diced yellow squash, zucchini and sweet potatoes you have (I used 3 yellow squash and 1 sweet potato, but you can adjust according to your family's taste or according to what you have on hand) and sautee for about 10 minutes, or until the veggies get soft-ish).

3) Add the remaining broth (I used 2 cartons total) according to how much soup you want and how chunky you want it to be

Optional: Add half and half or heavy whipping cream according to taste, to make a creamy soup (And to get some extra calcium, or at least that's how I justify it). I used about 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream because that's what I had on hand.

Optional: Add a dash of cayenne. I think this is what made the soup so yummy, and the heat can be as mild or intense as you want. My family loves heat so I used a generous dash and everyone was happy. A scant dash would still be kid-friendly.

4) Let it simmer for about 30 minutes.

Optional: I like to smash up some of the vegetables to make a thicker soup and to make sure my daughter doesn't pick them out. I wish I had an immersion blender but I don't, so I just use a potato masher until it looks the way I want it to.

Serve with parmesan cheese. Delicioso!

I had planned on this soup being enough for a couple of meals, but it was such a hit that it was gone in one night. Lily, 3, who sometimes consumes less than 10 calories a day, ate 3 bowls! Kyle, who usually groans at soup, gave it a glowing review instead of his normal pat answer about soup being just alright (he gets points for being honest).

This soup has three of my old standbys for making soup extra delicious, plus one new one. My old ones are bacon, cream and parmesan, which would even make my shoe tasty. My new one is cayenne. I think it added a great element to otherwise ordinary ingredients and yet didn't make it too exotic, and thus unedible by the fam.

Let me know what your "old standbys for deliciousness" are, and what variations you've tried for a soup like this.