Finally!!!

We are soooo far behind! But we promise to get back on the wagon. We finally got ourselves a Facebook page. Come like us by clicking the Facebook button over to the right. We're still new at this and figuring it all out but we'll work out the kinks. Thanks for hanging with us.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Yum. Coffee cake! My son LOVES the Starbucks Coffee Cake so I had to make this treat for him at home. It was silly easy and really tasty. Extremely moist and what's so great about it is that you can substitute the sour cream for your favorite vanilla yogurt.

Ingredients:

1 cup of room temperature butter

2 cups of white sugar

2 eggs

1 cup of sour cream or vanilla yogurt

2 cups of all purpose flour

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup of all purpose flour

1/2 cup of packed brown sugar

2 tablespoons of melted butter

1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 13 baking pan.
• In a large bowl, cream together 1 cup of butter and white sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in the sour cream and vanilla. Mix in 2 cups of flour, baking powder and salt. Spread 1/2 of batter in the prepared pan.
• Prepare the filling: In a medium bowl mix 1/3 cup of flour, brown sugar, 2 tablespoons melted butter and cinnamon. Spread second half of batter over the filling and top with remaining filling.
• Bake for 45-55 minutes in oven or until toothpick comes out clean.

Summer Squash Casserole

Another tasty recipe given to me by my mother-n-law who was born and raised in North Carolina. I love yellow squash but I love it even more in this casserole. Summer is all about squash and this is a delish dish to make. When I went to the grocery store this week I was happy to see that the squash was on sale for .99 cents a pound so I had to make this for my family.

Ingredients:

2-3 pounds of yellow squash, cut up

2 carrots, grated

1 onion, diced

2 cans of cream of chicken soup

tub of sour cream

1 box of chicken flavored stuffing

1 stick of butter

Directions:

In a large pot of boiling water, add your squash, carrots and onions and cook at a boil for 8 minutes. Drain water well from veggies and put into a large mixing bowl. With a hand blender, blend all veggies together, I like it well blended but a little chunky. Add the sour cream and cream of chicken soup. With a spoon, mix well. Add a pinch or two of salt and a few dashes of pepper. In a separate microwavable bowl, melt a stick of butter and then add your package of stuffing to it and mix well. Take half of the stuffing mix and mix into the veggie mix. Put veggies into a large baking dish or two small baking dishes and top the remaining stuffing on top, cover with foil and bake at 350 degree for 35-40 minutes.

Cake Ball Lollipops

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They are everywhere, Starbucks, A.J.'s Fine Foods even Saks Fifth Avenue even sells them for $35.00 for six of them. Not sure exactly when cake balls really became popular but I had to try them out after my beefer (aka best friend because I don't like to openly admit that I actually love this girl) Jaime posted a recipe she saw online for cake balls on Facebook.

Went to a super fun graduation party last night so I decided to make some for the girls who were all coming. I made 50. Took about 4 hours.

Because it was my first time, I now know what to do and what not to do. Like freezing the balls before dipping them in hot melted chocolate. And once they are complete don't refrigerate them but freeze them to prevent them from melting.

If you want to get creative I suggest trying these. They are cute and fun and anyone with a sweet tooth should have fun eating one!

For this recipe, I used the following:

• Red Velvet Cake (from a box)
• Vanilla Frosting (room temp)
• 2 packages of Melt Away Chocolate (from Party City) these chocolates are used for chocolate molds. Get two different colors, I used milk chocolate brown and red chocolate vanilla.
• 1 package of white chocolate chips
• lollipop sticks (you can purse at Party Stores or Michaels/Joanns)
• candy cover bags/ribbons if you want to go all out

Follow instructions on cake box. Once cake has cooled, I take the cake and pulse it in my food processor and then pour into a LARGE mixing bowl. Once all the cake has crumbled up well, add 1/2 to 3/4 cup of the vanilla frosting and mix well. I then take a cookie scoop and scoop out the mix and roll into a ball and place on a cookie sheet lined with waxed paper. I suggest using a cookie scoop because then all your balls will be the same size. Once all the balls are rolled up and placed on the sheet, add the lollipop stick in the center of each ball and place into the freezer for at least 30 minutes. If you don't chill your balls they WILL come apart when you dip them into the melted chocolate and the lollipop stick will not hold. Trust me, I learned from personal experience.

Once the balls have chilled out in the freezer, take your Melt Away Chocolate and melt in the microwave in a plastic bowl. Dip each ball into the chocolate and place onto a new cookie sheet with wax paper. If you place the balls back onto the cookie sheet that you pulled out from the freezer, your chocolate will crack, again, from personal experience. Dip all balls into the chocolate. You can melt other chocolate colors for that cute drizzle and if you do, take a zip-lock back with a few chocolate Melt Aways and microwave for 20-30 seconds then take scissors and cut the corner of the bag, small cut and you can use it to pipe the chocolate onto the balls.

I placed the balls back into the freezer for an hour before I placed into plastic bags and tired a ribbon around it since I was taking these to a party.

Shrimp Thai Toast

I love Thai toast and so does my family. I decided to make an "easy" version of it with an American twist. Easy, crispy and the topping is YUMMY!

Ingredients:

Oil

bread, cut into strips with crust removed

1 cup of cooked shrimp, diced

4 T of green onions

1/4 teaspoon of crushed red pepper or pepper flakes (more if you like it hot)

1 T of fish sauce

3 cloves of diced fresh garlic

pepper & a pinch of salt

1 package of cream cheese, room temperature

Place oil in frying pan and bring the oil to 375 degrees.

Set bread aside (cut into strips and crust removed)

In a large bowl, add all ingredients and stir well. Take the spread and generously add on each piece of bread. Once the oil is at 375, gently add each piece of bread into the hot oil and cook until the bread itself is a nice golden brown.

Enjoy!