Popcorn Balls & Butternut Flop

Okay, so I've resigned myself to the fact that I suck at getting in a post everyday & will have to be satisfied that I'm doing this at all. Oh well, moving on.

For Family Home Evening last week we made popcorn balls. It's a recipe I found of Paula Deans on foodnetwork. The woman knows how to make a popcorn ball. Jon says he would prefer them a little crunchier so if that's the case with you just cook the syrup to soft crack I think. (I've never actually tried this though.) We made them orange in honor of Halloween & gave them out to some friends. We're making another batch this week to give out at the trunk-or-treat on Saturday.

I had a brilliant idea to use up some won-ton wrappers in my fridge. Butternut-sage ravioli in a brown butter sauce. I liked it, but Jon & Christopher said it was okay as long as they picked off the craisens & walnuts & Ethan-who also picked off the craisens & walnuts-didn't like it at all. I said I was going to blog it anyway because I wanted to blog flops too & Jon said "It's not a flop. Not like mom's clam linguini." (Sorry Mom Whipple, I don't think you'll ever live that down.) Anyway, I baked the squash before I realized the won-ton wrappers in question were already bad so I ended up making fresh pasta & in corporating a little sage into that as well. It made a load of filling (3 or 4 times too much for the amount of pasta we made) but I'm just going to add some chicken broth to it & make it into a soup for lunch tomorrow because the boys both liked the filling alone. We had a salad beforehand which I ate with Poppyseed & Caramelized Onion dressing & the males all drowned in Ranch.(Long sigh.) It's a bit labor intensive if you're making the pasta fresh, but not so much if you just use won-ton wrappers. Even though it wasn't a hit with the men in my house, I'm going to give the recipe for it anyway because I liked it alright & because maybe one of you could make some improvements on it. For the recipes.....

Feelin' Frenchy

So, Sunday we had crepes for breakfast because I'd been craving them. My husband may be hard to impress culinarily speaking, but my kids always come through for me. I made 40 or so crepes & every single time both boys said "Wow mom, you're so cool!" They're fans of anything you can flip. I get the same reaction from pancakes.=) For lunch we had Croque Madame which is Frenchie for a grilled ham & cheese w/ an egg on top. They loved that. Christopher ate two sandwiches-and they're filling. I saved 8 crepes (minus the two I ate late last night with vanilla ice cream & raspberry sauce) and we're having dinner crepes tonight. I'll admit, it was a fight to save that many, but I was successful. Last night we had a picnic in a local park together. It was great until it started to get a little dark. Ethan, bless his little chicken-butt heart, started crying & Christopher-ever the obliging older brother-started talking about wolves coming out to eat us. Once we were in the van & he had calmed down a little bit I told him that when he's scared he can say a prayer & Heavenly Father will help him to be brave. He asked where Heavenly Father was & when can we go see Him. I told him that Heavenly Father is in Heaven & I don't know when we get to see Him, but the only way we can is if we make good choices & repent when we make bad ones. Christopher then pipes in with "Well, then you don't get to go see him yet, because you yelled at me." From the mouths of babes. I swear, that kid... Anyway, here are the recipes...

Bacon Tomato Cappalini and a Wedding

To start, I mistyped a measurement in the Mac & Cheese. There wasn't enough cheese, but if you made it I'm sure you realized that and fixed it. So....some good news. I'm doing a wedding cake at the end of November. The weekend after Thanksgiving to be precise. I'm actually doing the wedding cake, the grooms cake and an additional 1/2 sheet cake for the family the night before. The bride, a girl named Katie, had a picture of the exact cake she wanted-with a few color changes-so that makes that part really easy. It's really pretty; 3 tiers of red velvet cake with raspberry filling with almond flavored cream cheese icing covered in marshmallow fondant (which isn't as gross as the other kinds) with silver swirled fondant accents and violet and off-white flowers of various sorts. It's going to be loads of fun and I promise to take pictures of the process so you can 'watch' it being made. The grooms' cake is a devils food cake with chocolate icing and a nutella filling. It's to be decorated as a boxing ring for two 'rock-em sock-em's; one dressed as the groom (the loser) and one dressed as the bride (the winner). A little weird, but it will be fun too. Anyway,we had Bacon-Tomato Cappalini for dinner so I'll share that recipe too. I'll post the cake & icing recipes when I do the cakes in November.Recipes.........

White Chili, Cornbread, & Stove-top Mac & Cheese

We had a semi-cool day yesterday, so I jumped at the chance to make White chili since I've been craving it. If you've never had white chili, it's made with chicken instead of beef and uses cannellini beans instead of kidney beans. It's delicious, and approaches perfection when served with warm cornbread. So we're eating dinner last night and Christopher asked us what beans grow. (When he was little he wouldn't eat carrots until I told him they made his eyes grow strong. Now he loves carrots and he asks what nearly everything he eats will grow. If I know, I tell him-ie milk grows bones, meat grows muscle, etc-and if I don't I make it up. Did you know peas grow your nose and broccoli grows your hair?) Anyway, before I could think of anything, Jon pipes in with "They grow your bum. Beans are a magical fruit." It was all I could do to get him to not finish that little ditty. Just what I need. My 4-year old singing about magical farting fruit. Lovely. I'm also including the corn bread recipe for those who don't use Jiffy and my Easy stove-top mac & cheese which we're about to sit down and eat for lunch. It's not any harder than making the Kraft boxed variety, but it's cheaper and healthier. Anyway, here're the recipes....

Apple Harvest Hoedown...

I do some volunteer work with an organization called The Gathering Place. We meet once a month and provide free respite care for those with Alzheimer's, dementia or other conditions needing 24-hour care. Each month we do games, exercises, crafts, music, entertainment, memory exercises and we have a home-cooked meal. I'm supposed to be taking a break from doing things as per my doc. but I convinced my mother-in-law (who I enlisted as a regular volunteer but who turned out to be the BEST resource I have & she now basically does everything=P) that making lunch probably wouldn't kill me so I get to help again this month. (I know you're only taking care of me ma.) I only get to do the main dish, someone else is doing the dessert. However, I really DO love cooking so I played with apples a lot this month. I couldn't find a recipe I liked for a main dish that used apples but would be economical to make. After all, we have to feed 30ish people with a total of $50 for all the food. So I thought a bit and came up with this Chicken, apple & stuffing casserole thing and tested it on my family tonight.(The meeting's on Friday, I'm not cutting it close at all.) It was a hit with them so I'm trying it out on The Gathering Place gang this Friday. It doesn't seem to make a whole lot, but it's really filling. I'm going to serve it with some home-made rolls & I'll give that recipe too. I'm not sure if the casserole recipe is exactly right yet, so if you have any suggestions chime in. I'll also share the recipe for my kids favorite new breakfast concoction; an apple saute that is easy & fantastic on pancakes, waffles, cake, ice cream, whatever. So, here are the recipes....

Got a little lazy this weekend.....

I'm trying to post at least one recipe per day so that-eventually-I'll have all the recipes I love online. This weekend was General Conference weekend and I failed miserably. This is just a catch-up post to get back in the swing of things. I figure it's a good day to do it since I'm stuck on the couch trying not to throw up. Love being pregnant. Yay. The catch-up recipes will be a collection of cream soups since that's what I ate all weekend. I'll do potato soup, cream of poblano soup, broccoli chowder & cauliflower soup. The kids were GREAT during conference on Saturday. They listened to the whole first session quietly and  1/2 of the second before they got restless. Not so much on Sunday, but still not bad for a couple of little heathens. Since Conference though, my 4-year old has been saying "you shall...." whenever he wants us to do something. As in "Daddy, you shall come and look at my bedroom." He's such a little weirdo. I love him. If you want the recipes...

Saved by soup.

TMJ is not fun my friends, not fun. I'm not sure about all the technical stuff, but for me it means that eating a mini muffin nearly causes tears. We will be having soup the next few days. My husband really loves some soups, but he thinks soup should be relegated to the cold weather season and suffers in silence the rest of the year when I make soup. Those of you who don't live in the south are thinking, "Well, October IS cold weather season, so that's good." Let me explain, when you live on the gulf coast "winter", as it is loosely dubbed, consists of 1 1/2 months of weather that makes you think, "Hmm, maybe I'll wear pants instead of shorts today." I MISS SNOW. (griping over now). So tonight I'm making minestrone. It's hearty enough for my hubby and anything I can't eat without actually chewing I can just leave out of my bowl. Cooked carrots are soft right?=) Want the recipe?

Muffins & Measuring cups

With my other pregnancies I never really had cravings (unless you count the fact that I threw up EVERYTHING but vanilla ice cream and skittles for about 8 months with my first child). Not so this time. Cravings ALL the time. Yesterday it was muffins. I'm not really a muffin person, but sometimes you just need a muffin. So I e-mailed my friend Leah and she sent me her Anyfruit Muffins. I'm not really a baker, I'm a cook. This is primarily because I'm too efficient (read lazy) to measure things properly. I'm more of a dump & taste kind of girl which doesn't work quite as well with baking as it does with cooking. In fact when I did wedding cakes for some friends I ended up buying an electronic kitchen scale so I could still dump things in but also have it turn out right every time. I reccomend this to all you lazy bakers out there. Measuring cups are so passe-get a scale!=P Want the muffin recipe?