Wednesday, June 30, 2010

You Win Some, You Lose Some - HAPPY UPDATE!!

After I posted the story of my giveaway prize gone wrong - full story here -I got a bunch of responses sharing in the outrage and also a few letting me know about their own giveaway dissapointments.
But now I can share my happy ending!!  It turns out the Post Office did in fact deliver the package to the wrong address,  and the recipient wrote "wrong address" on it and sent it back to the PO.

A few weeks later, the lovely Christine received it back!!  She brought it back to the Post Office and they agreed to re-ship it for free - yeay!!

So I now have my super cute tote bag and all is right in the world :)

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I also have an idea for a Swap.  It would be a recipe swap with a fun twist.  And this twist is oh so fun, and I think, super creative :)  I don't want to share my idea yet, but please let me know if you are interested.  If enough people say they would want in, I will post the idea and get the swap started!!
Also, please let me know if you would prefer a $10 or $20 swap and if you would want one swap partner or if you would be more interested in doing this in groups - thanks!!
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Thursday, June 24, 2010

Baking Challenge - June '10

It's time again for another Martha Stewart baking challenge. This month we have the Stone-Fruit Trifle with Lemon Mousse.



According to Wikipedia:
A trifle is a dessert dish made from thick (or often solidified) custard, fruit, sponge cake, fruit juice or, more recently, gelatin, and whipped cream. These ingredients are usually arranged in layers with fruit and sponge on the bottom, and custard and cream on top.
So we have three components to make for this dessert - the lemon mousse, the cooked peaches and the cake.

The lemon mousse was simple to whip up and definitely the most delicious part of the whole dessert.

Then the peaches - AAH!  Those suckers are so annoying the pit and slice.  After getting annoyed with them for this dessert and struggling with a peach dessert last summer, I am vowing to only use canned or frozen peaches from now on.  I know, I know, it's terrible - but so are those peaches!!!  Anyway, toss your peaches with a bit of sugar and roast them:


If you have leftover cake or scraps, those would be great.  You can also be really ambitious and bake a cake.  Or you can be like me and pick one up from the grocery store :)



Once you have all three elements, you just start layering! I don't have a pretty footed trifle dish, so I just used a glass bowl.


Mmm, mmm.  The lemon mousse was definitely the star.  This is such an amazing summer dessert - on it's own, with any kind of cake, with any fruit (i bet blueberries would be so good!).  If you don't want to make this exact dessert, make the mousse and serve/eat it however you desire.

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Monday, June 21, 2010

Joyful Heart Muffins

Some nights I get quite a hankering for sweets. OK, who am I kidding? I have an over-active sweet tooth every night, it's only some nights that I get off the couch and bake something :)

One recent night I decided to try out a healthy recipe to ease some of the damage.  I chose the Joyful Heart Muffins from Naturally Thin by Bethenny Frankel  {Full Disclosure: I am a total freak over the entire Real Housewives franchise, I even blogged about my encounter with NeNe back in November.  And my copy of Naturally Thin is signed :)}

Ingredients:
nonstick cooking spray - I used Pam for Baking
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup raw sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon almond extract - I didn't have any, but I did have Disaronno
1 teaspoon canola oil - I only had olive oil
3/4 cup oat flour - I was in too much of a rush to grind oats so I just used bread flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
dash of cinnamon
1/2 cup semisweet vegan chocolate chips - vegan? uh, I just used nestle

In one bowl combine the wet ingredients plus the sugar and allow the sugar crystals to dissolve:

My version of almond extract:

In another bowl, sift together the rest of the ingredients {except the chips}:
Ok, so I whisked instead of sifting - I was in a rush to eat these suckers!!

Now combine the two bowls and the chips, too!

Get your oven to 375 degrees and grease your muffin tin.  The recipe is designed to make 8 normal size muffins, but I wanted minis.  I was given a tip years ago, that if you don't fill all the wells with batter you should fill the emptys with water to ensure even baking.

And here they are baked.  I couldn't take this picture fast enough so I could get those suckers in my mouth.

They do have a different taste since there is no white sugar, butter or eggs, but they are still great!  They are very dense and I thought they were more like a brownie than a muffin.  And my hubby - who is ridiculously picky - ate and liked them.

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Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Cocktail Napkin Swap

Pink Martinis and Pearls hosted a swap recently with the cutest theme - cocktail napkins!

I went over to Homegoods to pick up the goodies for my recipient, Stuttering Shell,  since they always have great stuff.  I ended up finding a gift set that included napkins and wine charms in a cute summer fruit theme:

And my sender, Sweet Southern Prep, sent me these:
"Cocktails and Shopping could be Dangerous" - too cute!

Here's to a great Summer!
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Sunday, June 13, 2010

Well Hello Again!!

Wondering where I have been and what I've been up to?

I've been here, reading:
The Pioneer Woman

I started to hear all about Ree back in the fall when her cookbook came out. I was interested in checking out her blog and did so, but I was totally overwhelmed by the vast content and I left pretty quickly.

Then, almost two weeks ago, the TV was on but I wasn't really watching - I was playing on my computer. Any way, a rerun of Bonnie Hunt was on and Ree had a segment talking about Thanksgiving food and I decided to check out her blog once again.

This time I took a lay of the land, figured out how to tackle it all and chose a starting point. And let me say I very quickly got sucked in and there was no leaving until I read It ALL. That was 11 days ago and yes that is how huge her blog is - 11 days worth of reading. Way more than most books. And I didn't do much else besides eat and sleep - I found her blog to be all consuming. (I do admit - I did not read every photography or homeschooling post. I don't have the fancy camera equipment so lots of the info went over my head and I don't have any punks *hehe* so much of a the homeschooling posts were lost on me, too)

Now that I have gotten it out of my system, I can return to life as normal. But first I have 311 items in my reader :)

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Saturday, June 5, 2010

CSN Apron Giveaway Winner

We have a Winner!!

Thanks to Random.org...


The winner is Rebecca Anne

"Oh my goodness that pink and black apron is so cute! I've been following you for a while through my google reader, but I only just literally hit the "follow" button. :-)"


Congrats Rebecca - please email me at henderson1026@gmail.com to claim your prize.
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