I like...

Lots of things, actually. Today I like these:

Sushi

Air Conditioning

Scrapbooking sessions scheduled a mere 8 hours away!

Good friends

Laughter

Casual Fridays :)

It's Friday! What are you liking about today?

As requested...Lemon Cupcakes w/Raspberry Buttercream

Is a recipe without glorious pictures to go with it still a good recipe? Let's hope so, cause here comes one! (Well, there is one picture...I don't think that really counts, though...sigh)

Lemon Cream Cupcakes, adapted from Allrecipes.com

1 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
1 teaspoon lemon extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups sour cream

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add lemon peel and lemon extract; mix well. Combine dry ingredients; add to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream (batter will be thick). Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups with 1/4 cup of batter. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Remove from muffin pan to cool on a rack. When cooled, use a paring knife or offset spatula to make a cross in the top of the cupcakes to allow them to be filled with lemon curd.

Ina Garten's Lemon Curd

(http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/lemon-curd-recipe/index.html)

3 lemons
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 pound unsalted butter, room temperature
4 extra-large eggs
1/2 cup lemon juice (3 to 4 lemons)
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

Using a carrot peeler, remove the zest of 3 lemons, being careful to avoid the white pith. Put the zest in a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Add the sugar and pulse until the zest is very finely minced into the sugar.*
Cream the butter and beat in the sugar and lemon mixture. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and then add the lemon juice and salt. Mix until combined.
Pour the mixture into a 2 quart saucepan and cook over low heat until thickened (about 10 minutes)**, stirring constantly. The lemon curd will thicken at about 170 degrees F, or just below simmer. Remove from the heat and cool or refrigerate.

*I don't have a food processer, so I used a Microplane to zest my lemons, then just smashed the sugar and zest all to hell with a wooden spoon. The taste was divine, so I imagine this will work for you, too.

**This took me about 15 minutes to achieve the consistency I wanted, but I was a fraidy-cat and didn't want to scald my curd. Nor do I own a candy themometer to find out what the actual temperature of the stuff I'm cooking is at. Guess I need to compile one of those kitchen wish list things and start buying stuff, huh?

Raspberry Buttercream

This one is a little hard to provide a recipe for, but I'll give it a shot. Frosting has always been (cause my mama taught me so) more of a start-here-but-realize-you-may-have-to-add-a-bit-more-of-this-and-then-that-to-get-it-right kind of thing. Mama is not usually wrong about these things, and this recipe is no exception. Start here and hold on to your apron strings!!

1 stick of butter, room temperature

1/2 cup Criso

1lb powdered (10x) sugar, sifted

1 tsp raspberry extract

1/4 cup frozen raspberries with juice (thawed)

Sidenote: fresh berries sure are yummy, but I wanted the juice, so I used frozen. Also, it turns the buttercream a delicious shade of pink...let you conscience be your guide!

Cream the butter and Crisco together like a mad man - light and fluffy, people, light and fluffy. Add the extract and your berries and whip it...whip it good!

Either slowly add your sugar in while it beats or dump it all in at once and let it go. To me, it matters not, let it beat for a good 7 minutes or so and you will end up with a delightfully creamy, berryriffic frosting!!

At this point, if it's too stiff for your liking, add more berry juice, or extract or both. I added more of both for flavor, then balanced out with more sugar. I didn't want a "Hint of Raspberry" buttercream, so I took it up a notch - I was not disappointed and I hope you won't be either.

So you have your cooled cupcakes, your cooled lemon curd (if you haven't managed to eat it all already) and your fabulous buttercream. I found that the curd in a plain piping bag worked great for filling the cakes. Use your preferred method, and if it turns out to be the easiest thing you've ever done, drop me a note, I'll listen! Using your bag full of curd, insert the tip about a 1/2 inch into the crosshatch you cut on the cupcake and squeeze gently. The cupcake will puff up a bit and that should do it. Too much filling tastes mahvalous, dahling but makes an awful, drippy, sticky mess. Take it easy. Fill 'em all up and slap some of that lovely pink-ness of a buttercream on top and consume in droves.

(Piping lovely mounds of frosting and a delicate sprinkling of disco dust, edible glitter or other such embellishment is also an option. It just keeps them away from your mouth longer. Your choice, lovelies)

They are delicious! Make them!! If you do, and happen to take step-by-step pictures that you then forward to me to post in this blog, I'll be your best friend forever and ever so help me, Betty Crocker.

**UPDATE** I made these again and got a picture of the finished product!! Yay me!! They got rave reviews AGAIN, so I'm guessing this is a safe bet for my go-to cupcake :)

Girls Girls Girls

A few weeks ago, after much planning and deliberation, "The Girls" took of for a much-needed weekend of fun in the sun in fantabulous Destin, FL. Friday was travel day, we all met up at the hotel after dinner and headed out (in a taxicab, natch - responsibility first!). We had a great (short) night of drinking and dancing it up, laughing and talking. You know you're getting old when you hit the sack before 2 am on a GNO! Of course, that doesn't include the additional 2 hours of hard-to-remember conversation and laughter...I remember the laughing, just not the why...

Here is the whole motley crew, about 2 drinks in at The Village Door, a cool little bar with good music and a friendly bartender, whose name escapes me at the moment...but he did snap a nice little photo for us!

My girls, left to right: Tonya, Julie (in back), Stacie, Jessica, Marion and troublemaker-in-charge, ME, up front and rockin the hot pink! (Pink was a trend for me that weekend, not sure exactly why yet) I'm also bent at the knees at a crazy angle - I'm a good 2-4 inches taller than any of these girls, barefoot, AND I was wearing big old espadrille wedges to boot. Poor short friends o'mine! Stacie is not bent at the knees, just for some perspective :)

Before the sweating and drunkiness ensued, I snapped a few quick shots - this is Julie and I posing pretty - she hates pictures!

Tonya, Julie and I, post lemon drop shot #647...of course not really, but you can see there is (liquor-induced) happiness all around! And pink cheeks!!

Sorry about the gratuitious shot of Julie's girls. Sometimes they have a mind of their own.

This shall be henceforth known as "the point of no return". So funny. Tonya gave herself bunny...forehead?? And if that isn't t-rex arm on my part...well, I don't believe I will have ever seen it's equal. We were feeling it, to say the least. There are many fuzzy details of the night thereafter, but the important elements are fixed in my memory: we were TOGETHER and we had F-U-N!!!

This is the deliciousness that greeted us the next morning, after an early breakfast, much-needed coffee and a couldn't-have-made-it-without it "hair of the dog".

This, my friends, is the Emerald Coast of Florida. With any luck, any luck at all, the oil spill of catastrophic proportion won't ruin it for the next 5 generations. Cross your fingers.

I do feel very fortunate to have had some time to spend on this glorious stretch of coastline before it gets ruined with ugly sticky tar balls and nastiness. I hate that the thought even has to occur to me, but I couldn't help but drink it all in while I sat on the beach with the best of friends...it may never look like this again. But I digress...

I do that a lot. Bound to happen again, my friends, forgive me.

A few hours later, a few beers for some (who me? noooooooo), some much needed sunshine and it was time for lunch!! We cleaned up, hopped in the car and went to grab some yummy local seafood on the beach!! No we did not plan our ridiculously matchy-matchy outfits. Hard to believe, but true nonetheless. Sometimes we are just dorks.

Shocker of all shockers, we all ordered grouper sandwiches - fried, fried, fried - just what the old girls needed to feel 100% for some shopping! After lunch, we headed over to the Silver Sands outlets and shopped the afternoon away - unfortunately, no one scored any major items, but I picked up some stuff at Harry and David and found a few items to add to my kitchen wish list at Le Creuset! Julie skipped shopping in favor of a nap. Probably should have done the same...

Saturday night we fought off the exhaustion of too much sun, prettied ourselves up and headed out for a nice seafood dinner at a local joint that's been around for ages, Captain Dave's.

We are laughing in this picture because the little dude that was taking the picture for us had three cameras to juggle and the poor thing was getting heckled by one of the girls (who shall remain nameless). Typical us.

We had planned to make a night of it, but as I hinted before, we aren't as young as we used to be and we had a bit of sun that day, so we went back to the hotel and fixed a drink, got in our jammies and just hung out, old-school sleepover style. There were no pillow fights, sorry guys! (Like there are any men reading my blog. Ha!) It was hilarious and a perfect close to the weekend.

Oh, what an exercise in friendship and patience and love a girls weekend away is. I truly, truly love each and every one of these girls and I am grateful for the time we got to spend together hanging out and enjoying each other. As there always is with a gaggle of girls, we had a bit of drama, a bit of whining, a bit of trying to get everyone on the same page. At the end of the day, it was all worth it, but the next time I plan one of these adventures, someone please remind me of what I am getting myself into, m'kay? ;)

Tea and Cupcakes

Last Friday was Mother's Day Tea at Monkey Boy's preschool. Here he is having "tea". And here we are together, me sporting the Mother's Day bonnet that he made for me. Awww!

Wow, maybe I should have worn a little makeup last Friday! Who am I kidding? I'm gorgeous!

Chase and I had a lovely party with his classmates and their mommies. I have to say, we were a stylish bunch, all decked out in Texas-sized coffee filter bonnets! The mommies were all good sports and donned their chapeaus with grace and style. We even kept them from falling off and into the bowl of spinach dip...or "slime" as one little charmer put it. (Nope, not mine...all I got from him was a wrinkled nose and I big ole Ewwwwwww)

On Saturday, we were invited to a good old-fashioned low-country boil at a my hub's childhood friend's house to celebrate the passing of the bar. Yay! Congrats Rod!! Of course, this provides me with an ample audience and sounding board for baked goods! Cupcakes, to be specific, were on the brain! We'll get to my cupcake obsession some other time...that's a lengthy subject!!

I decided to bake Friday night, get my frostings prepped and then I could assemble and frost before we departed for the shin-dig on Saturday. Two flavors sprang to mind: Red Velvet (classic southern fave, especially for a southern-themed soiree) and my all-time favorite combo of lemon and raspberry. Specifically, lemon cake, filled with lemon curd and topped with fresh raspberry buttercream. I just gained another 4 pounds. Well worth it.

Here are just a couple pictures of my baking-in-progress. I might do further step-by-steps with recipes and great photos once I get myself wrapped around this whole blogging thing...need more time to channel my inner Pioneer Woman. Please forgive my 1975 formica countertops. Ktichen remodel is on the "To-do" list for sometime in the next decade.

Big globs of deliciousness, right? Right. The standard butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, sour cream. Well, sour cream isn't really the standard for red velvet, but I thought I'd give it a whirl...didn't have time to swing out to the store for buttermilk.

I thought this photo would turn out really pretty with the vibrant splash of red. I got more "crime scene" than I had hoped for. Also, if you see my husband, will you please remind him that a Kitchen Aid 5-qt mixer doesn't really take up all that much room, and even if it did, the benefits greatly outweigh the loss of counter space.

Please??

He doesn't believe me, and my buttercream is suffering needlessly. Thanks.

Here are the lovely Red(?) Velvets and Lemon Cream cupcakes prior to being frosted and embellished the next day. The RV was delicious and yummy right out of the oven, with no frosting whatsoever. (I had to taste almost a DOZEN minis to make myself believe it was true). I have always found scratch cake to be a little on the dry side, but the baking gods were on my side that Friday, yay! The lemon creams were good too, and I used Ina Garten's recipe for Lemon Curd...oh my heaven, it's amazing!!! I had a healthy dose of it straight from the spoon. Once or twice...or twentysomething. Who's counting?

This is where the gorgeous, well-composed shot of the frosted and decorated cupcakes goes, but...

There isn't one. In the flurry of departure, I forgot. I'm sawwy. I told ya, I'm new at this.

To paint you a visual, the red velvet cupcakes were topped with cream cheese frosting, some with chopped pecans, some without. On top of the raspberry (and a beautful pink shade it was)buttercream for the lemon cakes, I sprinkled "Raspberry" disco dust (Thanks BG!!) which made them oooh, sparkly. I can happily report, that even though I lack photographical proof, both versions of my cuppies found happy homes in the tummies of good friends and folks that I love!

Turtle Rescue!!

I have to being this entry with a little note about me and outdoor/woodland/swamp creatures...I'm not a huge fan. Oh sure, the occasional bunny or squirrel is fine, but my greatest fear about being mommy to a real "boy's boy" is the day when he starts bringing me frogs and lizards in his pocket, which everyone assures me is going to happen soon.

Well, it's kind of begun, but thank heavens I'm getting broke in easily.

Last night was the 2nd Florida native box turtle rescue missions we've been on in the last few weeks. Somehow, from somewhere, turtles are making their way into our (fenced) backyard.

This one was discovered by our trusty chihuahua watchdog, Rocco, and I quickly ran to it's rescue.
And then made hubby come pick it up. I think my exact words were "Rocco, no!" followed quickly (and loudly, as he was inside cooking dinner, the peach) by "Babyyyyy!!!! There's another tuuurtllle!!!!!!"

and he valiantly came to my rescue, as always. He then, not so valiantly, suggested to Monkey Boy that he and mommy should take the turtle out to the park where we had two weeks prior, released his brother back into the "wild". Great. Lovely. Monkey Boy was all about it and ran to fetch the turtle bucket.

Yes. I realize that my being afraid of a harmless box turtle is a bit ridiculous. I'm also paralyzed with fear by "harmless" tree frogs and the tiny little lizards that abound in Florida. I didn't say it was rational fear...eesh. It is fear, nonetheless, and it extends to a myriad of creatures with tiny little feet, not just those of the amphibian type. And turtles? Well, turtles are...they're just turtles, and I'm less equipped to explain the precise reasoning with the whole turtle thing. They're just well, ew. Oh well.

I'm reminded (by my own little version of Jiminy Cricket) that chances are, if you let your kid see every shining example of irrational fear and squeamishness that you possess, you are most likely going to end up with an irrationally frightened, squeamish kid, which of course, I don't want. So, I put on my big girl panties and off we go, turtle in bucket, to the Indian Mounds to give little pokey a new chance at life in a protected patch of forest with a pond.

Yes, this is me - fearful me, holding the turtle, just to show Monkey that he's harmless. Ew ew ew. Yes, I had palpatations, but managed to survive.

I just knew that pokey was a rabid turtle, about to go insane and turtle-bite-peck MM and I to death. I just knew it, and was ready to get him out of my hands and onto the ground quickly and without incident. Well, except for the quick photo op...if I didn't have evidence, would anyone have believed I picked him up? Hmm? Would you?

As luck would have it, (um, yeah, real lucky) there were mosquitoes the size of sparrows out and about at the Indian Mounds last night and we were really getting eaten alive by them, so we placed pokey down gently in the forest and hightailed it out of there.

He looks happy, right?

*No animals were harmed in the aforementioned adventure or the posting of this blog. I realize that it also has nothing to do with love, kneading, or any sort of culinary adventure. Sawwy. It's hard for me to follow even my own rules.*

My little fashionisto

This morning, Monkey Boy awoke happy and giggly...ate all of his breakfast, with little-to-no nagging and then...proceeded to have a meltdown over the shorts and t-shirt combo that I had picked out for him. Whah?

"I don't wanna wear that Rays shirt, mama. I want to wear the black one."

"You don't have a black Rays shirt, baby. The blue one is in the laundry, let's just wear this one."

"Noooooooooo!!!! I don't like that! I waaaannnnnnnaaaa wear another shiiiiiirrrttt"

"I don't like those new socks, they are wrinkly!!!" (Really? your socks are wrinkly??)

and so on and so on. If you have kids, you get the picture. If you don't have kids, well, be thankful you've not yet tangled with 3 year-olds that believe themselves to be the world's authority on everything. It's quite exhausting.

Monkey Boy tears down the hallway, in nothing but Batman underoos, hollering at the top of his lungs, extolling the heartache that has been caused by the threat of wearing a shirt that apparently finds offensive and begins to tear open his shirt drawer, selecting every shirt except one that will actually go with the shorts I picked out. Gah.

Finally, "he decides" that they baseball shirt is the right choice. By "he decides" I mean that I shove all the other shirts into the back of the drawer so he can't reach them, and wrangle the baseball shirt into his hand, maintaining that he picked it out all by himself. So what? I'm sneaky. Show me one mommy who isn't!

Yes, I realize that by indulging him in this outburst, I am setting myself up for future tantrums and wardrobe changes, but if he ends up being the only kid in this family, I have to play dress-up with someone!

Well...here goes!

Hi Anne!


Hi to anyone else that's reading this little project of mine, too! I'm not quite sure what I'm doing yet, but I have wanted to start a blog for a long time now, so here it is. I LOVE reading blogs, so makes sense that I would want to put one out there for myself, right? To explain the title, (catchy, no?) I am enamored of baking and cooking for the people that I love...

and others that I may not love, but like very much...

and pretty much anyone that will eat what I made.

It's true. It's in my blood. Thanks, family! Thanks a lot, I mean it.


Outside of exploring my exploits in the kitchen, I'm sure to be posting the newest goings-on about me, my husband (T) and son (C, Sweet Sugar, Bug, Monkeyhead, etc. - I'm a sucker for nicknames) and our lives in Tallahassee, Florida - a nice, fairly simple, unencumbered little life together. My triangle family, as I like to call it, even though the inclusion of Rocco the chihuahua makes it more of a square...I digress. This happens often - stick around and you'll get used to it.

All I really hope to accomplish with this little adventure is to have a creative outlet, and to put some of myself out there into the world, and hope that it makes someone (anyone, anyone at all) laugh, smile, cry or sympathize.

Welcome to my world friends!

Cindy