Buried Treasure!

So the Pirate Party is over and the cupcakes were a success... they looked even cuter when set up with the little pirate bones! I did mention before that I was also asked to go ahead and do the photography for the party so the birthday boy's mom could go ahead and pay attention to the party without worrying about how many pictures she got and to be sure everything was caught on film. I got all the photos (almost 200!) cropped and onto a disk for my co-worker (the lucky mommy) and to her last Friday. She was SO excited and was in love with them! It made me very happy to see how happy she was. =) Hope you enjoy the photos!

Ahoy Mate!

The pirate party cupcakes were a success! They turned out so cute and with the setup at the venue, they were even better! I had a great time making them (aside from the burn I got on the oven door, sigh). I was also asked to take photos at the party for the birthday boy's mom. That made for a great time as well! I enjoy photography and hope to get into it a bit more soon. ;)

The party was amazing! The birthday boy had a pirate jumper, scattered pirate confetti, pirate colors, a ship's steering wheel, a present table, some pirate punch, and a bunch more! The best part for the birthday boy was the pirate who came with his parrots! This was an interesting show and everyone got to hold a parrot, including the birthday boy! Even though some of the parrots were bigger than his head, the pirate helped hold his arm so he could hold the big guys. It was so cute too, the birthday boy followed the pirate around everywhere he went and was talking about the birds. I told his mom it sounds like a pet bird might be in their future!

Arrrgh!

Time for some pirate cupcakes!! A friend of mine had told me about her son's birthday party a few weeks ago and I helped her out with a few ideas. I'd offered to take photos at the party to document his big '4', but the thought hadn't crossed my mind to offer my baking! Needless to say, she brought it up late last week, so it looks like I'll be baking some pirate cupcakes for the party this Sunday! I'm pretty excited since it's been a while since the last time I made something. This will be my biggest order yet at 45 cupcakes, but it should be loads of fun!

Good to be back

So there have been a few changes since I was last here posting... Biggest one is that we've moved! It's not far from our old place, but it's bigger and it's our own! Not to mention we LOVE it! <3


Anyhow, I've come across refashioning lately and am super duper interesting in trying it out. SO... I have to get my sewing machine out, change the needle, and get to finding some awesome fabrics or thrift clothes to change up. I'm really excited. That's not to say I won't be baking anymore... I love doing that too and will continue. Things have slowed a lot since I've been here and I hope to begin getting used to the new oven soon. =)

(S)Lacking....

I know I've been lacking on posts, photos, and creativity lately... sorry about that. I even have some pineapple cake I really want to make at home, but I haven't gotten around to it just yet. Work has been super busy and they just implemented mandatory overtime, so needless to say I haven't been home a whole bunch. I'd like to make the pineapple cake soon (well, into cupcakes, but still) and I was thinking about topping it off with a coconut frosting... how's that sound? =)

Strawberry Banana Cupcake

Since I still had some leftover banana cream frosting, I decided that I would try to top some lovely strawberry cupcakes with it. The end result was not that tasty, so I also made some strawberry cuppies with plain vanilla frosting. There was no issue with the flavors separately, but when put together the banana really took over and that's pretty much all I could taste. I think I'll leave the banana cream frosting to the chocolate cupcakes. However, since I made these ones just for fun I tried out a few of my other tips to see what I could do with them. Enjoy my random designs! haha ;)

Chocolate Banana Cupcakes

I was personally asked to make cupcakes for a co-worker's birthday last Friday. She said it didn't matter what they were so I started parusing and thinking. I came across a recipe for some banana cream frosting and couldn't pass it up. I checked with the birthday girl and asked if there was any fruit she didn't prefer. She said only orange was a no-go. So, I was off to make some chocolate banana cupcakes for her! They turned out amazingly awesome! They were so delicious! They went off with rave reviews here at work and I was so happy it all turned out to be tasty!

Made from scratch ~ soup & bread

I was talking to a co-worker the other day and she mentioned she makes Miso soup at home... now I love miso soup so I just knew I had to try it. It just so happens, a couple days later I found a recipe for homemade bread. So, Sunday night I made dinner from scratch. I chopped everything and put together the soup in my largest pot to cook on the stovetop. I made the dough for the bread in the morning and let it sit all day to rise. Come 6 o'clock on Sunday night everything was ready for cookin'! Dustin said it was delicious and I quite liked it myself. ;) 

No More Event Planning For Me...

Long story short, nothing is as they led us to believe. We've been told we're having pizza and we had a list of what items we had to order to pass out to the associates. =/  All in all, it just turned out to be a big waste of time and in the end I have pulled out from volunteering on these things. It's not at all how they said it would be and had turned into more of an obligation instead of a fun experience. Yes, I'm a little saddened by it but in the end the company is the same as it's always been...

New Order Fit For a Princess

I was asked about possibly coming up with ideas for a Snow White themed birthday party for a young lady. =) I still need to go searching and see what I can find... At first she wanted Snow White faces on all of the cupcakes, unfortunately I foresee that taking such a long time and so many supplies that I don't think they would be very affordable for a child's birthday party. I suggested we stay in the Snow White vein and try a theme, something from the movie. So she's going to look for ideas and so am I, then we'll get together and see what we find for what price. I'm excited!!

Event Planning?

So it seems that nothing was really thought out beforehand about these "events" we're supposed to be putting together. I've changed the proposal many times now and we've still not gotten approval... when this is supposed to take place on the 31st. I think at this point I've done all I can to expedite the process and see what can be done, but I've passed it up the chain here and will wait for them to let us know which way to go next. It might end up that nothing comes together and if that's the case I'll be sad. I've not only dedicated many hours to this, but all of the associates at our location deserve to be appreciated and that is what this was supposed to be about. Here's to crossing fingers that the best thing will happen!

Chocolatey Hearts

The other day when I made those monkey cupcakes, I made a full batch of mix so I had some left over after making the 15 that were ordered. I went ahead and cooked them up and decorated them a bit different to deliver to my "neighbors" at work (the cubies next to me). I thought it would be cute to do them with some piping, so I piped hearts on them... then some little swirlies... then added some edible pearls to make them prettier, haha. They were loved. =)  My neighbors really enjoyed them at 7 in the morning, lol. No matter the time... that's what I look forward to, my creations being enjoyed. =)

"Event" planner

I've been super busy this week working to help plan an associate appreciation event at work. Due to the short amount of time we had to put it together, I've been pretty scatterbrained. We put together quite the affair (mostly my ideas, if I may brag) and then were told upon submitting it for approval to disperse the funds, that most things we'd planned we're not allowed to do... Couldn't someone have told us this beforehand???!!!! Anyhow, we (I) changed plans and took some things out, put different ones in and it still sounded like a pretty good time. Then we were told we probably didn't have time to order all of the items. :sigh:  I did my best not to be defeated and yet again changed the plans. Now it's not so much a grand affair as it is just catering and presents/prizes... no more taco man, no more folkloricos, no more limbo, no more ring toss, no more relay, no more, no more. =(  BUT, we (I) still managed to find some (what we think are) awesome things to make goodie bags for all of the associates, we found a caterer who we could book on short notice, and we'll still have have a raffle and prizes. Not nearly what we'd planned nor as fun or team-building but nonetheless we were able to show appreciation for all of the people here and hopefully they feel loved by the company afterwards. =)

Monkeys, monkeys, everywhere!

I've finished the monkey cupcakes! I'm so happy with how they turned out. As usual, with my perfectionist ways I can think of things I could do differently next time to make them better. ;) But I love them for the little monkeys they are! Hope you like them too! =) 

Seafood Gumbo

I think my brain has been stuck on seafood recently... I was so inclined to make seafood gumbo for dinner last night that I looked all over the internet for bunches and bunches of recipes. I scanned through them all and found the common ingredients and went with that... with my own spin, of course. The one I made ended up containing okra, white onion, green bell pepper, tomato, chicken broth, shrimp, crab, turkey sausage, Zattarain's Gumbo base, and some Sriracha. I served it over some brown rice. It was DELICIOUS! Dustin and I both had seconds! lol The best part? The amount that I made allowed us a nice size first serving, a good size helping of seconds, and still enough left over for another dinner for us both and lunch for him one day. =0 Isn't that a ton?! It ended up costing more than we thought it would, but I accidently bought extra ingredients so that probably contributed to the higher price as well. So, was it worth making again? Yes. Will I soon? No. lol. Why not? you ask... Well, we both ate a lot! So I think we'll be sated for this food for some time. ;)

Ahh Ghosts!

I realize I've been lacking on the photo front lately. I keep meaning to attach pictures and then I forget, lol. Sorry! I put up a photo today of some ghost cupcakes I made for a co-worker's birthday in October. They were fun to make... even if I didn't buy enough at first and had to send Dustin to the store to get more... which I didn't end up using, lol. Long story... haha. I liked the way these turned out and they were pretty simple, so they were fairly quick to put together. I also got compliments on the flavor since it was so light and airy! I'd like to make them again, but am trying to figure out what other white figure I could make besides ghosts, lol. I can't really serve ghost cupcakes in Spring! ...or can I? ;)
PS - My younger brother's first care package from Dustin and I is officially on its way as of 12:15pm today!

Ceviche

I've managed to make ceviche twice in the last week. It was so yummy the first time and disappeared so quickly between just Dustin and I that I wanted to make more. The first time was Friday and I was in the mood for seafood... the second time was last night and we just couldn't decide what we wanted for dinner. We had to stop by the grocery store to drop off a RedBox movie we'd rented the day before. I'd been wanting some mustard pretzels so I decided to get some regular old plain ones and just dip them in honey mustard at home for a temporary fix (until I can get around to making my own). Since we were there, we thought we'd pick up something for dinner and couldn't decide. So I suggested ceviche and he was completely on board! lol
I'm so up for baking soon, so I'd like to figure out something to pawn off on my co-workers while also expanding my baking portfolio. ;)  If you have any suggestions, share them here and I'll do my best to see about making it. =)

Pretzels

I have been scouring the internet looking for a crunchy honey mustard pretzel recipe and for the life of me can't find one. I found one for a plain crunchy pretzel and a TON for a plain soft pretzel. After much consideration I've decided I just have to try making some soft pretzels, lol. The recipe I found yields 6 soft pretzels (doesn't say the size), so I'm thinking I'll make each one different. Maybe a plain one, one with butter/salt, a honey mustard one, etc. I'm pretty excited to see how they turn out and of course will post a pic on here once I get around to making them! ;)
I'm also looking forward to making those monkey cupcakes for next week! They're due for delivery next Wednesday, so Tuesday night should be a great time.

Jumbalaya

I realize I usually write about desserts... mainly cupcakes, but I feel the need to share about the dinner I made the other night. I decided it had been too long since we'd been to Yard House where I had my first meeting with an amazing jumbalaya. So I picked up some rice, turkey sausage, and seasonings at the store and set about making some jumbalaya. It was SO delicious! We both had seconds and I had to ask Dustin to please leave a little bit for leftovers, lol. I had the rest yesterday for part of my dinner and it was still good reheated! I was happy with my little jumbalaya! Come to think of it, I really should have taken a picture to share here, but it didn't even occur to me. :sigh: 
Anywho... I'd like to make something interesting soon and just might be making deviled eggs tonight. Now deviled eggs might sound random, but apparently a co-worker of mine thinks that hers are better so she's challenged me to bring in mine on a day she's bringing some... which happens to be tomorrow. I'm not sure if I'll be up to it after work, but the opportunity is there, lol.

Honey Nut Cocoa Krispy Treats

I happened to stumble upon another blog about cupcakes yesterday (Cupcake Project). I liked the pictures, lol, so I ran through the blog and read around. While there, I found a recipe for what she called 'Honey Nutella Rice Krispie Treats'... She used honey and Nutella instead of the typical butter and marshmallows. I was immediately in love with this idea and decided I had to try it for myself... with a few tweaks, of course. So I set out to make some honey nut krispy treats. 

The Ingredients:
4 heaping Tbsp of creamy peanut butter
1/2C of honey
4C of Cocoa Krispies

The Directions:
1. Put peanut butter and honey in a microwave safe bowl.
2. Put the bowl in the microwave for 30 seconds, take it out and stir.
3. Put it in for another 30 seconds.
4. Stir to mix. The honey and peanut butter should meld together nicely.
5. Add your rice crispies 1C at a time.
6. Pour into a greased (or non-stick) 8x8 pan and pack down.
7. Put in the fridge for at least an hour or more.
8. Enjoy!

Dustin and I shared a square last night after about an hour and half in the fridge (more like I ate and Dustin tasted). I thought they were very yummy! Definitely an awesome alternative to the regular old, tried and true Rice Krispy Treats. =)