Cake pops for the holidays

With all the groceries at our house in preparation for Thanksgiving (we have a lot since Brian went shopping and bought everything 3 times too much) our freezer and fridge are exploding. In the freezer I found some cake pops last night and I couldn't resist. I took out my white and chocolate candy melts, some sprinkles and got to work.

I only had 12 left, a perfect amount for our guests (and myself!)

The full assortment of the Thanksgiving / Pre-Christmas Cake Pops

Can you see the tiny candy canes?

                           

Confetti 

 Happy Thanksgiving!

Green Bean Casserole

Here we go my first try of a Thanksgiving dish, which I prepared last weekend for our annual "Friendsgiving" event at a friends house. It is always so much fun, lots of different foods on the table - good times. I decided on making a green been casserole which I have to admint turned out a little too greasy for my taste - but still so good!

Green Bean Casserole (Paula Dean)

Ingredients

• 1/3 stick butter
• 1/2 cup diced onions
• 1/2 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
• 2 cups sliced green beans
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 1 (10 3/4-ounce) can cream of mushroom soup
• 1 (2.8-ounce) can French-fried onion rings
• Pinch House Seasoning, recipe follows
• 1 cup grated Cheddar

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Melt the butter in a large skillet.




Saute the onions and mushrooms in the butter.




Boil green beans in chicken broth for 10 minutes and drain.




Add the green beans, mushroom soup, onion rings, and House Seasoning, to taste, to the onion mixture. Stir well.







Pour into a greased 1 1/2-quart baking dish.







Bake for 20 minutes, then top the casserole with the Cheddar and bake for 10 minutes longer, or until the casserole is hot and cheese is melted.

House Seasoning:

1 cup salt

1/4 cup black pepper

1/4 cup garlic powder

Mix ingredients together and store in an airtight container for up to 6 months.

 

I totally forgot to take pictures of the final product, and of course totally messed up the cheese edded not grated) BUT it was really good, not enough to feed a lot of people, but guess what.. I will have to make it again Thursday and learn from my mistakes. Not that much butter, grated cheese and double the amount!



Happy Thanksgiving!!



Carina

                                                                                                                                                                                                               

another pillow

I'm trying to not buy anymore fabric for the rest of this year and still do several fabric projects. I have so many left overs which I really need to use at some point. Why not for some christmas present crafts? 

I started with a new beige slip cover pillow, and since that was a little boring, I added some green petals.

I added several layers of different sizes of half rounds, sew them together and voila...

I might keep this one, since it kinda fits nicely on our couch and also to my new find from the Thrift Store!

How do you like my new lamp? For only 5 $ I brought it home last week. I already bought a new lamp shade, but of course it didnt fit! I'll also need to buy some spray paint to have the weird golden foot replaced. But one step after the other. First a matching pillow and then the finish of the lamp. :)

Oma's Apple Cake

Can you believe it’s Monday again? The weekend was so nice and relaxing and way too soon over.

After begging my grandma for her best apple cake recipe, I finally received it from her Friday. I started laughing. It’s written on a receipt and she didn’t give me any instruction on how to bake it, so I had to call her Saturday morning and find out! J

My grandma turned 90 this past June and I’m so happy that we are still talking on the phone every Saturday for the past three years I’ve lived in the States.

So after figuring out all the details on the baking instructions I just had to convert the German measurements into  Americans.

·         125 g (4.4 oz) Butter

·         125 g (4.4 oz) Sugar

·         2 Eggs

·         1 Tea spoon of Pour Lemon Extract

·         200 g (7oz) Flour  (I used wheat flour instead of normal, just b/c I still had it in my pantry.)

·         2  Tea spoons of Baking powder

·         1-4 (!) Table spoons of Milk

·         4 good Apples (that’s what she said) J - I was only able to accommodate 2.

  

After putting all ingredients in the mixer it just didn’t seem right. It was way to dry to become a batter. I put some more milk since it says 1-4 table spoons and still, just dry clumps spinning around. After re-reading the recipe I figured it out! I forgot the 2 EGGS. Makes sense and was so much better after I put them in.

Preheat your oven to 375Degrees Fahrenheit (190C). I used a spring form, greased all sides, poured the batter in and started to peel 2 apples. Slice them in thin pieces and lay them on top of the batter. 

Put in the oven (375F) and bake for about 45-60 min.

 

After the cake was a little cooled down I put sprinkled powdered sugar on top. YUMMY.

Oma was very proud of me and my first German apple cake in America.

                     

11/11/11

I'm obsessed with numbers. It makes me happy to look on my watch and it is 12:34 or 10:10. Today's date is my favorite and I had to sit in front of my computer staring at it until the time changed to 11:11.
Are you obsessed with anything?

I wish you a wonderful weekend (and sorry for the short post - but I wanted to write something with that special date in my posting) I guess I'm nuts.

Off to a nice one hour massage and then home to bake some apple pie with a recipe from my grandma.
I will share that with you shortly. Also there might be some projects starting this weekend. We will see.

I assume I'm not getting married or engaged today, so finally I can just enjoy that rest of the day and relax! :)

Stay warm!

Carina

Copy Kat

I found this great recipe over at http://kraftykat76.blogspot.com/ (Thank you Kat!) What is better than pretzels, peanut butter, chocolate and caramel combined in one bite!:) Exactly - NOTHING!

So last night I got my hands s-t-i-c-k-y.

Take Peanut Butter, Caramel Sauce and Pretzels

Melt chocolate in a bowl over hot water

While the water is heating up, spread peanut butter over pretzels. Make sure you do that on wax paper!

  

Pour some caramel sauce over the peanut butter pretzels. 

To make the chocolate a little easier to spread, put a little bit of vegetable oil and mix well. 

Spread the melted chocolate on top of the pretzel.  After you have some very sticky wax paper sheets full of pretzels put them in the fridge for 30 min. Take them out, turn the pretzels up side down and cover the other side as well. Put back in the fridge, let cool and enjoy a very jummy snack! 

Thanksgiving is just three weeks away!!

Did you notice that Thanksgiving is coming up in three weeks?

It will be the first Thanksgiving we will be hosting. Brians family is coming to visit and stay at our house. I'm already so excited and started researching on what to cook/bake.
I've been in the States now for about three years, but still don't know exactly what a MUST HAVE is on the dinner table (besides the Turkey).

I already have several recipes printed out and try to cook/bake them beforehand and freeze. I'm planning on not going to stress out and enjoy our first Thanksgiving together. Good plan, let's see how it will turn out.

On the menu right now is:

• Turkey
• Sweet Potato Casserole
• Green Bean Casserole
• Cranberry Sauce
• Stuffing

Dessert:

• Pecan Pie
• Pumpkin Cheesecake

I'm thinking of having a test run, just to make sure! :)

Anything else I need to take in consideration?

WEEKEND

and finally it is here - the weekend with amazing, but cold weather.

Brian was out of town for 9 days and I'm so glad to have him back. I hate being by myself at night. Also right now there is not really any reason to be scared in our neighborhood at night. Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn are filming "Neighborhood Watch" across the street from us (3pm - 6am) and the police is EVERYWHERE.
Yesterday I went over there with my american-mom Bj. It was fun, but freezing cold. Ben Stiller had one scene he was filming over and over again and we had to scream NO MORE MURDERS.

That was the view we had. Ben Stiller is the guy next to the E with the blue sweater and the white print.

We might even be on TV for about a tiny second when it comes out. After two hours of mostly waiting, we decided on going home. I heard them from my bedroom till well after 4am.
  
While Brian is now completely exhausted from working like crazy, he fell asleep the minute he saw the bed! :)

So I'm in blogland, looking for some new project to start on. Right now I'm working on my first Christmas present for the year, which I can't share with you until Christmas of course. 

But since I can't work on that project 24/7 I was thinking of improving my cake pop skills. There are so many awesome ideas out there and I just cant figure out how to create perfectly shaped figures. So for the next couple of weeks I will just try to make fun colors and cute decorational ones with different kind of cakes and hopefully get the feel for it to move to the advanced level. I have to say, they are already super delicous and I could eat about 20 a day. 

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Carina

Happy Halloween

  

                              

Since it is Halloween and I had some free time last night I decided on making some cake pops. On my friends request I used chocolate batter this time and chocolate candy melts. I was thinking of adding little spiders on the cake pop, but found that idea too disgusting to bite in, so that I just made some  safe and fun ones. 

  

Happy Halloween, hope you enjoy some trick and treating!