PEEPS Glorious PEEPS!

March 22, 2013April 14, 2014 ~ Angela ~ 26 Comments

It’s that time of year again folks!! Peeps are here!!

Technically, Peeps are becoming a bit of a year round thing. They have Halloween Peeps, Christmas Peeps, Valentine’s Peeps, star shaped Peeps for 4th of July….but the best Peeps are the iconic Easter Peeps in bright, happy Spring colors. Even if you don’t like to eat them, you have to admit they’re pretty damn cute!

Last year I told you about some of my favorite PEEPS related activities and tried my hand at making PEEPS Bunny cookies. (Is the word “Peeps” starting to look funny to you too?) This year, I bring you the Rainbow Peeps Trifle!

This oh-so-colorful and perfect addition to your Easter festivities was born from a failed attempt at making rainbow Easter egg cupcakes.

A friend at work gave me the Wilton Easter Egg Cupcake Pan. I decided that I was going to make swirly multi-colored eggs with said cupcake pan. I whipped up some white boxed cake mix, separated it into five different bowls, colored the batter in each bowl with my gel colors and then plopped some of each color batter into the egg cavities. I swirled the colors together with the handle of a wooden spoon and stuck them in the oven.

Then I watched them grow, and grow, and GROW (kind of like a Peep in the microwave)! Turns out I put waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much batter into each egg. When they were finally done baking I had eight swirly-rainbow conjoined blobs. The colors were exactly what I had been hoping for, the shape…not so much.

So, I ate one just for the hell of it and stuck the rest in a Ziploc bag. I wasn’t sure what to do with the rest of the “eggs” besides eating one for breakfast every day. I briefly entertained the idea of making cake pops but I made a gooey mess last time I tried those and I just don’t have the time for the rolling and dipping and drying and dipping again right now, so that was out. Then it hit me – I’d crumble up the cake and make a trifle!

And what better to put in a rainbow cake trifle at Eastertime than some brightly colored Peeps?!

Rainbow Peeps Trifle

Rainbow Cake

Box of white cake mix and ingredients listed on box
Blue, Green, Yellow, Pink and Purple gel colors or food coloring

!. Prepare cake mix according to directions on box.
2. Separate the cake mix into five bowls and add the coloring to the batter
3. Spoon blobs of the batter in a random color pattern into whatever cake pan you are using and give them a little swirl to mix up the colors. Don’t swirl too much or you will end up with an unattractive mess.
4. Bake according to the directions on the box for the type of pan you are using.
5. Let cake cool completely, then cut into bite-sized cubes.

Trifle

Rainbow Cake Cubes
12 oz container or Cool Whip, thawed
22 oz can of lemon pie filling
4 10 count packages of Peeps Chicks in the colors of your choosing (there will be extras – eat them!)

In a clear bowl (because a Rainbow Peeps Trifle is no fun if you can’t see all the layers) make a layer of the cake cubes. On top of that, spoon a layer of the lemon pie filling followed by a layer of Cool Whip. I used a piping bag to make the Cool Whip layer rather than trying to smear it around with a spatula – it kept things nice and tidy. On top of the Cool Whip make a ring of Peeps, alternating colors as you go around. Once that it done, start your second layer in the same order, topping off the whole thing with another Peeps ring.

Refrigerate until ready to serve.

And there you have it! A bright, fun and refreshing dessert perfect for gracing your table at Easter dinner (and a great way for me to redeem some seriously deformed should-have-been-egg-shaped cupcakes).

Cookies for a Cause

March 18, 2013March 23, 2014 ~ Angela ~ 4 Comments

Cookies are pretty awesome.

Cookie Monster (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I mean, what kind of weirdo doesn’t like cookies? They come in a zillion varieties, you don’t need utensils to eat them, you can dunk them in milk or turn them into ice cream sandwiches, they make fabulous birthday “cakes.” They are fun to bake and decorate, especially with family or friends. Some of my favorite Christmas memories are of making decorated sugar cookies with my mom, dad and brother. They are great for gifts, party favors, ~~breakfast~~.

You know the one thing that could possibly make cookies even more awesome than they already are?

If they tasted just the same but had no calories, you say?

Okay, okay, there are TWO things that could make cookies more awesome. That’s one of them. The other is when you get to make them for a cause, and I found a really good one!

I was poking around Facebook one day and came across a page for something called Operation Cookie Takeover. They were looking to have people volunteer to bake cookies to send to our troops in Afghanistan. Their original goal was to have 1,200 cookies pledged for shipment in March. They have now surpassed 11,000 cookies pledged and shipping started on Friday!

I am proud to be a participant in such an amazing event. I pledged two dozen cookies and I will be shipping them out today. I decided to make ice cream cookies, because like cookies themselves – who doesn’t like ice cream? It’s fun, and nostalgic and for me, always brings to mind memories of good times.

The last day to ship cookies is March 22, so it’s not too late if you’d like to join the fun! You can send ANY kind of cookies – they don’t need to be decorated. If you would like more information, please go here. Kudos to the folks at Operation Cookie Takeover for coming up with and organizing such a wonderful project and, as always, many thanks to all of the brave men and women who have served/are serving our country!

March 14, 2013 ~ Angela ~ Leave a comment

Since the gods of what’s-cool-now have declared Thursdays to be Throw Back Thursday, I thought I’d share my blog post about last year’s St. Patrick’s Day cookies. I had just started blogging, so I’m sure a whole 5 people saw it at the time… Enjoy!

Shake Bake and Party

It’s almost St. Patty’s Day!!! Since it falls on a Saturday this year I figure most people will be too blasted all day to bother reading my blog, so I decided to share my St. Patrick’s Day cookies a wee bit in advance! But first, a little music to set the mood from my favorite Irish band – Flogging Molly!

Okay. So, I had grand plans for shamrock cookies and pots o’ gold and I’m happy to say everything turned out better than I had hoped!! I even got some props and whatnot so I could take snazzier pictures than my standard fare of snapping shots of cookies just lying forlorn on my dining room table.

As you can see, I did not have a black icing disaster this time! To read about when I did – click here! I was a little worried at first, because when I…

View original post 259 more words

The Cocktail at the End of the Rainbow

March 13, 2013July 26, 2013 ~ Angela ~ 6 Comments

Today I bring to you a multipurpose libation.

With St. Patrick’s Day right around the corner, I am sure many of you are looking for a good green cocktail. Usually if an alcoholic drink is green it contains one of two things: green creme de menthe, or melon liquor. I have nothing against either flavor, but if you are looking for something a little different you have come to the right place!

Remember Little Hugs? Tiny barrels of sugar laden “fruit drink”…ahhh, childhood. Well, the lemon-lime flavor is the perfect shade of green to make a lovely St. Patrick’s day drink while steering clear of the usual suspects. I mixed it up with Pinnacle Whipped Vodka and some Sierra Mist. Before I tried a sip, I named it the Whipped Leprechaun.

After I tried a sip, I realized I had something on my hands that transcended March 17th. This thing tasted like one of those popsicles that I spent my summers slurping down as a kid. You know, the ones with the cream inside? I renamed it the Whipped Popsicle. Don’t want to box myself in you know.

This drink is perfect to celebrate St. Patty’s Day with or to sip by the pool come summertime, and I know from all the Facebook and Pinterest posts I’ve been seeing lately that a bunch of you are already thinking summer.

Whipped Popsicle

2 oz Pinnacle Whipped Vodka
Lemon-lime Little Hugs drink
Lemon-lime soda of your choice

Add vodka to glass. Fill 3/4 of the glass with the lemon-lime Little Hugs drink, and then top off with lemon-lime soda. Stir, add ice, consume (unless you are under 21 – in that case just go eat a popsicle and come back when you’re old enough!)

Drunken Irish Potato

March 8, 2013February 28, 2014 ~ Angela ~ 13 Comments

I know St. Patrick’s Day is still a little over a week away but I had to share this with you now so you have time to go out and buy the ingredients to make this yourself. You will thank me.

Every now and then I have a flash of semi-brilliance. Why this occurs when I am staring at my collection of liquor bottles and not when I am facing down a Statistics exam, I will never know. (Seriously, what crackhead made up statistics?)

Anyway, as I was waiting for the timer to go off on the cookies I am baking for Operation Cookie Takeover (more on that later) I stood staring at my booze shelf (okay, shelves) and thinking about how I wanted to make an Irish Potato cocktail. All of the recipes I had found contained Baileys Irish Cream, coconut rum or vodka, and cinnamon schanpps or Goldschlager. Meatloaf says two out of three ain’t bad, but my lack of the cinnamon booze was not going to make me an Irish Potato cocktail.

Then I saw my bottle of Rumchata. I thought to myself, Not only does it have a lovely cinnamon flavor – it has the PERFECT cinnamon flavor! Synapses firing, I got to work at mixing up this Irish beauty…

The Drunken Irish Potato

2 oz Rumchata
1 oz Parrot Bay Coconut Rum
2 oz Baileys Irish Cream
ice

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker, shake, drink, make another!

If you are having a St. Patrick’s Day party you should definitely serve this, and if you are hitting the bars – tell the bartender how to make this (and feel free to direct them to my blog for more fabulous ideas!). If you are going to drink nothing but beer, I don’t understand you, but have fun anyway. All of you, take a cab home.

Do Irish Potatoes Count As A Vegetable?

March 7, 2013March 2, 2014 ~ Angela ~ 9 Comments

St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner. That means it’s time for green beer, four leaf clovers and Irish Potatoes! I don’t drink beer, green or otherwise, and I’m completely lacking in the luck department, but holiday candy? I’m all over it!

Cream cheese, coconut, confectioners sugar, cinnamon… I was thinking the other day that these flavors would make a good drink. I found a bunch of recipes and plan on trying a few (has anyone ever had an Irish Potato cocktail???). After I did some research on drinkable versions of this little treat I go to thinking that I should also make an Irish Potato cupcake.

For the most part I am not yet brave enough to completely make up a recipe on my own, so for these cupcakes I combined two different recipes that I found online. I made the cinnamon cupcake recipe from Duncan Hines’ Snickerdoodle Cupcakes and topped the cupcakes with a Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting recipe from Allrecipes.com.

These were good, but they didn’t quite capture the flavor of the Irish Potato candy. Even though I added extra cinnamon to the cupcake batter, they were nowhere near cinnamon-y enough. The frosting was good, but the cream cheese flavor was definitely the most prevalent. If I were to attempt these cupcakes a second time I would cut the cream cheese down just a bit, add more confectioners sugar and definitely add more coconut extract.

Or maybe I would try this recipe that I just found…. It has an Irish Potato stuffed in the cupcake! My only problem would be trying not to eat all the Irish Potatoes before I got around to sticking them into the cupcakes. 🙂

Oh So Good!

March 5, 2013July 26, 2013 ~ Angela ~ 5 Comments

Oh’s! in the kitchen usually aren’t a good thing. They happen when you notice a pot boiling over, get splattered with bacon grease, or come home to find that your boyfriend’s dog got into a bag of groceries you forgot to put away and is now covered head to toe in cornstarch and smashed raspberries (yes it happened, and unfortunately I was too pissed off at the time to grab my camera and take a picture because someday I would find the whole thing funny).

There is one kind of Oh! that is good in the kitchen, and it comes by the box.

near 13th St & Lawry Ln — Oh’s Cereal (Photo credit: vikasiamoto)

I LOVE this cereal. It is my absolute favorite, which kind of sucks because sometimes it can be hard to find. I don’t know why every store don’t carry TONS of this stuff, cause I’d buy it! The sweet, crunchy little circles always hit the spot, so when I saw that my Dollar General had some, I did a little happy dance.

And then I bought some.

And then I made muffins with Oh’s topping.

Oh yeah.

First I made a batch of honey oat muffins with the Oh’s topping. They were okay, but not the flavor I was going for. Then my boyfriend suggested I make a banana muffin. So I turned to my trusty internet to find a good banana muffin recipe and I found what I was looking for on Food.com.

Banana Oatmeal Muffins (click here to view original recipe)

2 cups flour
1 cup quick-cooking oats
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 cups bananas, mashed
2 eggs
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

1 . Preheat oven to 375°F In medium bowl, stir together the flour, oatmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. In a separate bowl, combine the mashed bananas, eggs, vanilla and butter. Add the banana mixture to the flour mixture, stirring just until the dry ingredients are moistened.

2 . Spoon batter into greased muffin cups. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes (start watching around 12 minutes; oven temperatures vary) or until toothpick inserted into center muffin comes out clean. Let cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove muffins from pan and let cool on wire rack.

Oh’s and Oats Topping

2 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons oats

1/2 cup Oh’s cereal, crushed

3 tablespoons melted butter

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. After muffins have baked for about 5 minutes, remove muffins from the oven, add topping, then put muffins back in the oven for the remaining bake time.

The muffin has a nice density which balances perfectly with the crunchy topping. They were delicious, but pose one problem – do I have a muffin for breakfast tomorrow, or a bowl of Oh’s?! Decisions, decisions…

* I have to give a quick shout out to Jess at On Sugar Mountain for sharing her tip of using scrapbook paper for picture backgrounds. A wonderfully useful tip AND a recipe for Chocolate Dipped Potato Chip Cookies all in the same spot?! Thanks Jess! As you can see, I grabbed a few packs of scrapbook paper and am already having a blast with it!

The “My Car Tried To Kill Me” Cocktail

March 1, 2013March 23, 2014 ~ Angela ~ 4 Comments

You’re going to get a doubly informative post this evening! Not only will you get a new, delicious cocktail recipe – you will also get a little bit of car safety information! Sounds fun, no?

After work I went to the grocery store to get some baking supplies for this weekend. On my way home, my car suddenly began accelerating on its own. I was zipping along at 50 mph without even having my foot on the gas. When I pushed down on the brake, it felt like it was pushing right back up against my foot and it took way too long for the car to actually stop. Even then, the engine was revving. I felt like Danica Patrick!

Or not. I was actually afraid I was going to crash into someone or something and die. Luckily, I wasn’t far from home and made it to my house without incident (other than a minor heart attack).

Then I made myself a drink.

Meet the “My Car Tried To Kill Me” cocktail, aka The Chocolate Kahlua Cookie!

Directions

Using a standard sized shot glass (I was too freaked out to actually measure anything), combine in a cocktail shaker:

1 shot of Kahlua
1 shot of Godiva Chocolate Liqueur
Half a shot of Pinnacle Cookie Dough Vodka
Splash of cream or half & half, to tase
ice

Sorry that I don’t have a bunch of cute pictures. I took just this one and then had to go sit down and drink the damn thing. It’s definitely something I would make again, though preferably NOT after near death by Ford Taurus.

And this is where the auto safety bit comes in.

1. A quick Google search has revealed to me that last year the government was investigating sudden acceleration problems in the Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable model years 2001-2006. Apparently since no one has actually died (yet!) because of this issue they closed the investigation without issuing a recall. So heads up if you own one of these vehicles.

2. Should this happen to you while driving, it might help to put your car in neutral. I wish I had known this BEFORE I became Speed Racer this afternoon. Shouldn’t that be info you have to learn to pass your driver’s test or something? Might be important someday, yeah?

So, I know cars and booze are not something that you should normally mix but I think this combination is completely justifiable.

Stay safe everyone! I need another drink…

Oscar the Grouch

February 23, 2013February 22, 2013 ~ Angela ~ 5 Comments

I don’t really care about the Oscars. The best picture nominees are usually movies I have never seen (except for the year Inception was a nominee, I LOVE that movie), nor do I have any desire TO see. If it were up to me flicks like Wedding Crashers would be up for best picture, not films (based on musicals based on books) featuring Anne Hathaway with a bad haircut and a snotty nose.

Cover of "Wedding Crashers [Blu-ray]" — Cover of Wedding Crashers [Blu-ray]

In addition to my general non-interest in the nominated movies, by this time of year I have this huge sense of deja vu when it comes to these things.

Golden Globes nominees for best picture: Lincoln, Les Miserables, Django Unchained, Argo, Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty.

Oscar nominees for best picture: Lincoln, Les Miserables, Django Unchained, Argo, Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty.

SAG Award nominees for male actor: Bradley Cooper, Daniel Day-Lewis, Denzel Washington, Hugh Jackman.

He is nice to look at though, isn’t he? Belaj Bluaj Okuloj de Bradley Cooper (Photo credit: МОЛОКО)

Oscar nominees for male actor: Bradley Cooper, Daniel Day-Lewis, Denzel Washington, Hugh Jackman.

See where I’m going here? There are a few different movies or actors sprinkled in here and there but mostly – Been there, done that! I’ll probably end up watching anyway because Revenge won’t be on and I do enjoy the fashion a bit, but I will most definitely NOT be throwing an Oscar Party.

HOWEVER – I have seen quite a few cool Oscar Party food ideas the past few days, and I thought I’d be nice and share a few… If I were going to throw a shindig, I would totally serve up some Tuxedo Hot Dogs!

Tuxedo Hot Dogs {Oscar Party}, shared by Laurie Turk on Tip Junkie

There would be Oscar statuette cookies…

Oscar Cookies for Oscar Winners! (Photo credit: clarescupcakes.co.uk)

and of course, cocktails. Check out this article from Good Morning America featuring a specialty cocktail for each of the Best Picture nominees.

Are you throwing an Oscar Party? What are you serving? It’s not too late to put bow ties on some hot dogs…

Just One Tequila

February 22, 2013March 23, 2014 ~ Angela ~ 1 Comment

One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, ugggghhhhhhhh.

My stomach can’t handle a lot of tequila, but since today is National Margarita Day I HAD to make something! Before I get into that though, quick question: Why is National Margarita Day in the dead of winter?! It’s freezing and gray and miserable… Wait, maybe that’s why? I guess I could go for a margarita now that you mention it! Good idea!

I was inspired by the copycat Carrabba’s Blackberry Sangria I posted about earlier in the week. I used two of the ingredients (Tuaca and blackberry syrup) in my contribution to National Margarita Day.

Blackberry Margarita

1 oz tequila
1 oz simple syrup
2 oz Tuaca
juice of 1/2 small lime
splash of blackberry syrup (to taste)
salt or sugar to rim glass (optional)

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake, pour and enjoy!

A quick note to the lovely Joanne who found this bottle of simple syrup and was kind enough to purchase it for me – Thank you! I can’t tell you how many times I have been deterred from making a drink by seeing simple simple syrup in the ingredient list. I know it’s not that hard to boil sugar water but when I want a drink, I want A DRINK! I don’t want to COOK. : )

As you can see, I rimmed my glass with sugar. I know you are supposed to use salt but I couldn’t help it. It’s purple sugar and it just looks good. Besides, tequila already tastes kind of salty to me anyway so I don’t think missing the salted rim detracts from the drink.

This margarita is light on the tequila (for weaklings like myself) but definitely not lacking in flavor! The blackberry, lime and vanilla citrus flavors from the Tuaca are a perfect combination of sweet and tart.

Happy National Margarita Day everyone! Are you planning on celebrating??