Pepperoni Rolls

     My grandparents are from West Virginia and no, they are not cousins. Anyways, in West Virginia, they make something called pepperoni rolls. My whole family is obsessed, we will call up our favorite bakery and have them shipped to us all over the US. If anyone we know is going up there, we beg them to stop by and get us about 3 dozen of them.  Yes, 3 dozen per family. They are that good, so the other day my grandparents and I decided to try out making them. Ours weren’t perfect but they were pretty darn good.

Ingredients:

Pepperoni

Pizza dough (bread dough might be better)

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 350.

2) Slice pepperoni into small sections then quarter it.

3) Cut the dough into sections and wrap around the pepperoni. Place on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for about 15 – 20 minutes or until golden brown.

4) Enjoy!

P.S. I know I promised more vegetarian recipes and I will start with some great ones in the new year! Soon! I promise!

P.P.S. Sorry my posts haven’t been as regular, coming home for winter break hasn’t been a break at all, I have been busier than ever and it’s been kind of tough. Anyways, look for better posting next year (it’s one of my goals)

Peppermint Bark

I love peppermint bark and the best part is I can make it in 10 minutes flat plus it only takes three ingredients. I make it as a little gift for my professors and they are always so touched. It’s the perfect gift that shows you are thinking of them without having to spend too much money.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cup Rice Krispies

11 oz White Chocolate

Peppermint Candies

 

Directions:

1) Place the peppermint candies (about 1/4 cup) in a plastic baggie and SMASH THEM into crumbs.

2) Melt the white chocolate. (I am lazy and use a glass bowl in a microwave, at 30 second increments to not burn it)

3) Stir in the rice krispies.

4) Pour the mix on a parchment or wax paper lined cookie sheet. Flatten out and sprinkle the crushed peppermint candies on it.

5) Place in fridge for 5 minutes to harden then cut or break apart.

6) ENJOY but not too much otherwise your waist will not thank me.

Homemade Buttermilk Cornbread!

         So that buttermilk tip I shared yesterday, yeah it totally got used to make this cornbread. And we used the butter to make honey butter for the cornbread, it was delicious. I used to just buy cornbread mix (FYI, Krusteaux is the BEST) but I am kind of liking this whole homemade thing, and it doesn’t take too much extra time to make each recipe, maybe 15 minutes but the results seem to be worth it. Anyways, this was the perfect touch to a quite Friday night with friends!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/3 cups Corn meal
• 1 1/2 cups Buttermilk
• 6 tbsp Butter
• 1 cup Flour
• 3/4 cup Sugar
• 3 Eggs
• 1  1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp Salt

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 450 degrees and grease a loaf pan. (be warned, ours filled a medium loaf pan and a small one)

2) Combine all ingredients in a bowl until well mixed. (EASY)

3) Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown! Top with HONEY BUTTER (Seriously, you will love it)

P.S. There aren’t any more photos because we ate it too quickly, sorry! But, hey, it was that good!

Homemade Brownies

      I have been on such a homemade kick this fall, from these breadsticks to chocolate chip cookies to applesauce to potato chips. And I LOVE IT. Seriously, it has been so much fun and while yes, it does require some more time, it’s not as much as we like to think. I love knowing exactly what I am putting into my body and having so much control over it, unlike when you buy those packaged mixes. Plus, everyone has just been amazed and impressed with all the new goodies I have been whipping up. So I just knew I had to try to make brownies from scratch and let me tell you, you will not be disappointed! They were delicious. Enough of my rambling on onto the good stuff:

Ingredients:

• 1 stick Butter
• 1 1/2 cups Chocolate Chips
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 2/3 cup Flour
• 1 cup Sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a pan. Melt butter in microwave, remove and stir in chocolate chips until melted.
2) Add eggs, one at a time and mix well. Then stir in sugar.
3) Add flour, salt and extract and beat until just combined.

4) Pour into greased pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Use a toothpick to insert and if it comes out clean, then they are done!

And why yes, I do have the perfect brownie maker! An Easter gift last year from my mom, the resident Easter Bunny!

Homemade Potato Chips in the Microwave!

So I discovered a beautiful thing the other day, you can homemake potato chips in a Mircowave in under 7 minutes! Hallelujah ! I can satisfy my cravings and still make a bit healthier plus keep up with my homemade kick. Anyways, there are only “4” ingredients and minimal effort involved. My type of snack.

Ingredients:

• 1 potato
• Pam or other cooking spray
• Olive Oil
• Salt

Directions:

1) Slice the potato no thicker than 1/16th inch pieces. This takes effort, make sure your knife is sharp!

2) Spray cooking spray on the plate then place slices on the plate. Coat lightly with Olive Oil and Salt.

3) Bake 3 1/2 minutes on EACH side. They should be starting to brown when finished on the second side.

4) They will be hot when you remove them, I like to put them on another plate so I can eat them quicker!

P.S. Be careful because your roommate might beg you to make her a plate too!

Homemade Breadsticks

I have to admit, after realizing how easy and yummy these homemade biscuits were, ones from the frozen aisle at the grocery store started to look bad. I knew I could make some on my own and thanks to pinterest, I had tons of ones to pick from. I finally decided on these, because it’s top with butter and garlic, yummy! These were quite the hit at dinner, I had over some friends and somehow we managed to eat all of them in one night. OOPS. Not only that, but they only take 45 minutes to rise, so you could make the dough. Let it rise, and start dinner. Then just pop them in the over a few minutes before you want to serve dinner, which is perfection for me.

Ingredients

• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 4 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt

Plus for the topping

• 8 tablespoons butter
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons salt

Directions:

1) Dissolve yeast in a bowl with sugar and warm water. Let it sit for about 10 minutes till it’s frothy/foamy

2) Mix flour, butter and salt in to the water mixture. Start to knead dough. (fyi, just cause it says four doesn’t mean you wont need more flour, you have to add it until it feels right. The dough should stick to itself.) Don’t over knead it, just enough so it’s doughy.

3) Then tear off pieces and make little breadsticks and place on a greased cookie sheet to rise for 45 minutes. Cover with a cloth and place in a warm area.

4) Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place breadsticks in heated oven.

5) Melt butter, garlic powder and salt together. Halfway through the bake time (about 6 or 7 minutes), pull breadsticks out and brush (or spoon) with garlic butter mixture.

6) Once breadsticks have finished cooking (12 to 15 minutes in total), take the breadsticks out of the oven and brush (or spoon) with the rest of the garlic butter mixture.

7) Eat them while they are hot and enjoy!

What’s your favorite type of dinner bread? Or do you just not discriminate like me?

Housewarming Gift: Cake Platter

        
  A cake platter can be a great gift, especially if there are some home baked goodies inside. I highly recommend Brie Bites or Strawberry Cookies. I got this cake platter for my birthday, when I got this also! I decided though beautiful the cake platter was a bit to dull for my tastes. It need a touch of gold. And out came my handy dandy paint pen! I watched an episode of trash tv (Don’t judge me on my RHOBH obsession), while carefully painting the outer edge gold. It took a few layers (3) but in the end it gave it that perfect touch of class! Now the cake platter looks more expensive too, and you can’t beat that!



   
   Happy First Day of October! How do you plan to celebrate the coming of fall?

Martha Stewart Monday: Painted Glass

I accomplished another thing off my fall project list! Yay! Now just left is the chandelier, which I am kind of majorly dreading. This one was actually quite enjoyable and would make a great housewarming gift. You could do it and send it with this teapot.  I made these for my sister Aurora, of this cake fame, see Brandon had glasses with “B”s and Aurora wanted some of her own.  You can find the enamel in any craft store in a variety of colors; the weird thing is though you have to bake it. It’s what sets the paint.  Weird but better than having it come off in the dishwasher.

Materials:

Glasses

Thin paint brushes

Enamel

Stencil

Spray Adhesive (I use a 3M kind)

Directions:

1)      Clean and dry glasses. Then use spray adhesive to attach to the glass, use tape as well to really secure it. (I like to spray the stencil then attach it to the glass)

2)      Paint! Be careful it doesn’t bleed; I like to use thin layers and then keep going over to get desired opaqueness. You can also do the reverse of the stencil with I think it looks really cool sometimes.

3)      Then bake according to directions

.

So what do you think? What would you put on a glass? Your initial? A funny quote? Design? 

Weekly Wonderings: July 27, 2011

Fish the kids will eat!

I've been busy all summer, here I thought I was coming home to relax but trying to help my mom around the house has been quite trying. When I try to watch a movie with my boyfriend, I fall asleep within an hour while still on the phone with him. I don't know how she does it. Taking in two 10 year old foster kids is a crazy amount of work, between taking them to and from camp and their doctors' appointments, it is full time job and she also teaches. I've been trying to think of fun things to do with the kids all week, so here are my fun for kids and adult ideas:

Smores and Science, yes please!

If only we had enough milk cartons…

Trix on stick, what more could a kid want!

Sushi for kids!

From Pinterest of course! What have you been pinning recently? 

Father’s Day Gift: BBQ Sauce

      My father is one of the hardest people to shop for not only that but he just buys himself whatever he wants. So it is always an issue come holidays to find him gifts, June is the worst because it's Father's Day and his birthday. It's always a mad scramble to try to find him something. He's from the south at heart, thus his sweet tea must be hand brewed and BBQ is a staple of his diet. Not having a ton of money to drop on a father's day gift, I came across this great recipe for bbq sauce. The ratings were all great on Allrecipes.com and I will just leave it at: I was licking the spatula after pouring it. 

Ingredients:

• 1 cup ketchup
  
• 1 cup tomato sauce
  
• 1/2 cup and 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  
• 1/2 cup and 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
  
• 1/4 cup unsulfured molasses
  
• 2 teaspoons hickory-flavored liquid smoke
  
• 1 tablespoon butter
  
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
  
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
  
• 1/8 teaspoon chili powder
  
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
  
• 1/4 teaspoon celery seed
  
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
  
• 1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
  

Directions:

1. Pour, pinch and scoop all ingredients into a pot on simmer at medium heat for 30 minutes.
   
2. Pour into mason jar and decorate!
   

*Adopted from Big Al's KC BBQ Recipe, makes enough for a 12 oz Mason jar plus another half cup for you to use for dinner!

What are your plans for a father's day gift?

Martha Stewart Sunday: Body Scrub

  
  I love a good sugar scrub, they make even the most roughest of knees feel silky smooth but I don't love is how expensive they are; my last purchase of one was over 30 dollars. So I was delighted to find that Martha had put up directions on how to make your own. They are great to use for yourself or give away as cute personalized gifts, since you can change the essential oils to match the person. Also, there are tons of variations on the mixture allowing for complete customization. I changed Martha's recipe a bit, since I love the smell of brown sugar.

Basic Body Scrub:

2 cups of Organic Cane Sugar, Epsom Salt and/or Brown Sugar (I used a three part equal mixture)

1 cup oil (Use Sesame oil (Neutrogena makes a great one) and/or Olive oil)

Essential Oils (You can find these at organic sections of groceries or in craft stores, like Michael's, where the soap making ingredients are)

Food Coloring (if you want to dye it, but that really only works if you use only Epsom salt)



My Pom Scrub-

3 part equal mixture of salt and sugars

2/3 cup sesame oil, 1/3 olive oil

3 pipettes full of vanilla pomegranate essential oil



Container-
You can use canning jars, or Tupperware to plain glass jars. I used a leftover plastic container that used to hold my favorite sorbet, Talenti's Roman Raspberry. The sorbet is delicious and the plastic jar it comes in is great to re-purpose for other uses!

Directions:

1. Pour ingredients in container and mix! The consistency should be a bit over oily, you want the scrub to stay together in your hands, not crumble into little pieces.
   
2. Decorate the container- you can print out labels or modpodge paper around the container, just make sure it is waterproof!
   

Here are some other great scrub recipes:

Coffee Scrub
Four Great Sugar Scrub Recipes
Traditional Sugar Scrub with Vitamin E

And here is a link to Martha's readymade clip art template labels.
Scrub Label 1 and Scrub Label 2



Do you have any great homemade beauty recipes?