Everyday Cupcakes

Thanks to a VERY old Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook my dad gave me a few months ago, I found this recipie and made these moist and delish cupcakes that aren't too sweet and balance out frosting quite well.

I made some of these on Friday when our friend Rachael was over. She desperately wanted some cupcakes and freaked out when I started making these from scratch. They are super easy and I made a double batch because, contrary to popular belief, 12 cupcakes just isn't enough! We used both strawberry and chocolate frosting...and the combo was very nice...but use whatever frosting is your favorite and I promise, you won't be disappointed.

Everyday Cupcakes
1/2 cup shortening (I used butter)
1 3/4 cups sifted  flour (I use whole wheat flour, but really whatever you have around)
1 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Place shortening (or butter) in mixing bowl. Sift in dry ingredients. Add egg and half the milk; mix till flour is moistened. Beat 2 minutes at low speed. Add remaining milk and vanilla; beat 1 minute longer. Fill paper bake cups in muffin pans half full. bake at 375 degrees (f) for 18 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool and frost.

Peanut Butter Banana Bread Bundt Cake

A long title, I know.

The other day I was asked to bring some sort of sustenance to a long event where food might be scarce. Seeing as how I had a large quantity of blackened bananas, I decided to make bananna bread. As my original recipie called for only two ripe and mashed bananas (and there were four on my counter), I decided to adapt my recipie and see how things turned out. Please forgive me because some of the measurements aren't really measurements at all. I just added things until I was satisfied with how the batter looked and what the consistency was like. For me, baking is all about trial and error...some times you win and some times you lose. Either way, it was delicious so I say that's a win in my book!

1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
5 tablespoons butter
1 1/3 cup mashed ripe bananas (2 medium)**
1 egg
2 egg whites
2 1/2 cups flour**
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup walnuts**
1 cup chocolate chips**
1/2 cup peanut butter**

**If you stick with the listed ingredients, minus the peanut butter, the recipie turns out great. But if you use more bananas than listed, throw in the peanut butter and a little extra flour. The chocolate chips are optional, but I loves me some chocolate and you know, I use semi-sweet dark chocolate so they're healthy, right?

Preaheat oven to 375 degrees (f). Grease pan and set aside

Beat sugars and butter in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add banannas, egg and egg whites.

Sift flour, baking soda and salt in to medium bowl; add to banana mixture. Stir in walnuts and chocolate chips (if you want them). Pour into prepared pan.

Bake one hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from pan; cool on wire rack 10 minutes. Serve warm, preferably with a nice pat of butter.

Of course, since I added so much extra stuff, I had to use a bundt pan so I had just one loaf. I decided to take some artistic liberties and added nice walnuts to the bottom of the bundt pan, prior to spreading the batter in evenly.

It looked wonderful and recieved many compliments. So take, bake and enjoy!

Falling In Love Chocolate Mousse Pie

In relation to the last post regarding the Marshmallow Mermaid Pie, I also made this pie for our "food featured in film" dinner party.

This one was ridiculously delicious and the amount of mousse that it makes could probably fill at least two pie shells. I took the extra mousse and used it to dip fresh strawberries in. Honestly, I would probably just make the mousse again sans pie shell because it was just that good!

Falling in Love Chocolate Mousse Pie
9-inch baked pastry shell
1 14-oz. can condensed milk (not evaporated)
2/3 C. water
1 (4 serving) pkg. chocolate pudding mix (not instant)
1 1-oz. square unsweetened chocolate
2 C. (1 pt.) whipping cream, stiffly whipped

In large saucepan, combine condensed milk, water and pudding mix; mix well. Add chocolate. Over medium heat, cook and stir rapidly until chocolate melts and mixture thickens. Remove from heat; beat until smooth. Cool. Chill thoroughly; stir. Fold in whipped cream. Pour into prepared pastry shell. Chill 4 hours until set.

Marshmallow Mermaid Pie

A few weeks back we attended a dinner party where the theme was "food featured in films".

You would think that this would be an easy category, but honestly, all of the easy things like fried green tomatoes or pizza were taken. I dug in a little and remembered that "Waitress", an independent film from a few years ago, featured quite a few different pies.

This one was called Marshmallow Mermaid Pie. It was good, but you definitely have to like marshmallows to like this...the other "off" part was that I used the graham crackers we had taken camping the week before so there was a slight campfire taste to the pie that just didn't seem to go along with it...but meh!

Here is the recipe, should you want to attempt this pie. It was pretty easy so if you ever feel like pie making or if you have some random dinner party to attend, why not?

Marshmallow Mermaid Pie
9 graham crackers
1/2 C. sweetened, flaked coconut, toasted
5 Tbs. butter or margarine, melted
34 lg. marshmallows (8 oz.)
1/2 C. whole milk
1 1/2 C. heavy or whipping cream
1 oz. unsweetened chocolate, grated

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine coconut and graham crackers in food processor until coarse crumbs form. Combine crumbs and butter with fork. Press to bottom and side of 9-inch pie plate. Bake 10 minutes and cool on wire rack. Heat marshmallows and milk in 3-qt. saucepan over low heat until smooth, stirring constantly. Remove saucepan from heat. Cool completely (30 minutes.) In large bowl with mixer at medium speed, beat cream until stiff peaks form. Fold marshmallow mixture into whipped cream with grated chocolate. Spoon filling into cooled crust. Refrigerate pie at least 3 hours or overnight. Top with mini marshmallows, maraschino cherries and rainbow sprinkles.

My Mind - A brief glimpse

"My mind as both empty and occupied, all of the thoughts buzzing far below the surface."  - Laurie King, "The Language of Bees"

This is generally how my mind feels. Like there is a torrent of activity going on below the surface...I know that it is there, that things are being processed, but on the surface I might have a jingle running through my mind or a gentle hum.

There have been many times where I know I should be thinking, almost aloud, in my head, where I should be digesting the happenings of the day or of a certain event, but the buzz is there without a singular thought popping into consciousness.

How apropos that this quote should show up today, when I have long since tried to phrase how my mind works.

Anniversary Trip

After a crazy summer full of ups, downs and running around like chickens with our heads cut off, we decided to take it easy for our anniversary trip this year.

Instead of going on a marathon road trip where we see the sights, get very little sleep and try to cram a ton of activities, sights and experiences into one little three day weekend, we took a liesurely drive to Glenwood Springs and spend most of the weekend there.

It takes beween 2.5 and three hours to get to Glenwood, but the drive is very scenic and easy as it is all on I-70.

We decided to take Dave's new/used car for this trip for a few reasons. First, it was our first time being able to take out the Frau (what we have named her) out on a trip that lasts more than 30 minues as well as the fact that we didn't need to take the Explorer as we weren't planning on heading into mountainous territory (ok, we were in the mountains, but we weren't off-roading). There's also that little fact about gas mileage...but you know, just a mere trifle in today's economy =)

Here's a pic of The Frau in case I didn't share one before...

Since we waited until the last minute to plan this anniversary trip, we were torn as to where we should go. There were discussions of heading back down to Mexico for a long weekend or even heading over to San Francisco to see the sights, but after buying a new/used car, something local and relaxing seemed to be just what we needed.

Due to the last minute planning, we didn't get much of a choice in our lodgings, but we ended up staying at a fairly high rated (thanks trip advisor), yet budget friendly lodge. They had an indoor and an outdoor pool, along with a hot tub and sauna, plus a nice breakfast bar in the mornings which was nice when not overrun with the other clientele.

The first day was travel and then taking in the sights of the town. We stopped in Vail for lunch after getting lost in the maze of luxury condos and resorts. We arrived in Glenwood in the early afternoon and decided to walk the downtown area, check out the shops, and stop in at the local brewery.  Dave and I love visiting local breweries. Its something we try to do when we visit a new town. My favorite thing to do is to get a flight or sampler of the different beers they brew...I also do this at vineyards/wineries when available.

After our foray into the different styles and tastes of beer at the Glenwood Canyon Brewing Company, we headed over for a nice anniversary dinner at the Italian Underground Restaurant. It is down in the basement of a building, small and intimate. The staff was great, but I have to say that my Italian food is much better than what we got that night. Its hard to go to Italian places though because we generally make better food...such is the curse of being taught by Dave's Grandma!

The restaurant is in the basement of this building...

Some nice gentleman decided he would take our anniversary picture

After that, a dip in the pool and hot tub, our night was complete. The next day we decided that we would try to go to Hanging Lake. Unfortunately just about everyone in a 100 mile radius decided that they wanted to do the same thing, so we ended up turning around and heading back into town. Luckily for us though, we saw another trailhead and decided to stop and go on a nice hike. We ended up hiking for about three hours at the Grizzly Creek trail. It was beautiful, challenging and hot, but I'm so thankful that we decided to stop and partake in the fresh air. We could have gone farther, but lunchtime had come and gone, so we decided to take a break in the freezing cold mountain stream and head back down the trail.

 (As always, you can click on any of the images in this blog and it will enlarge the image for you)

After a semi-quick lunch at Vicco's Charcoal Burger Stand (which was good, but overpriced and you had to wait while they slaughtered the cow and grew the potatoes), we ended up at the Yampah Vapor Caves. I have to say that the caves are a wonderful way to spend your afternoon/evening. Its a natural sauna heated with the hotsprings water. We spent at least three and a half hours going from cave to solarium (so we could cool off), stretching our sore muscles after our long hike and just in general having a nice relaxing afternoon. We decided that since we spent so long in the Vapor Caves, we were going to put off going to the hot springs pools for another time since it was ridiculously crowded and pretty much just your standard pool, except that it is heated naturally.

Here's Dave at the Charcoal Burger Stand

Here's a pic from the Vapor Cave's website...

The next day we decided that since we were only an hour away from Aspen, and since visiting there is on my Colorado To-Do list, we would meander that way and have a nice lunch. Well, we drove there and tried to find somewhere to park and then somewhere to eat. Both of those things were pretty much impossible to do. Aspen is not really what I thought it would be. I thought that it would be a high class mountain town, similar to Steamboat Springs, but it was kind of like being in a Denver suburb, only in the mountains. We ended up skipping lunch and headed to the Maroon Bells, which we ended up turning around at because the road up was full of bikers and tour busses.

So we headed back to Glenwood, which was fine with me, and just relaxed for the rest of the afternoon before heading to dinner. I do wish that we had visited the Hunter S. Thompson Memorial, but we realized that we missed visiting that when we were almost back to our hotel and we didn't feel like turning back around.

Once we reached town, Dave wanted to see the house where their longtime friends of the family used to live. He spent quite a bit of time up in Glenwood when he was younger, but the friends have since sold their house and moved down to the metro-area.  He remembered how to get there and was flooded with childhood memories. These were people who knew Dave's parents before his mom went crazy and his dad, well, his dad has always been his dad...so ?

After that we went to a nice, romantic dinner on the river at a place called, aptly enough, Rivers. 

It was a nice end to our relaxing anniversary trip. There were other things we could have done while we were there, other sights to be seen, but in the end, we have been running at full tilt for the entire summer and we just wanted to rest and relax. Coming home was nice...and I maintain that there is seriously nothing better than climbing into your own bed after a few days at a hotel.