Halloween & Ghost Cookies

I hope everyone had a wonderfully spooky Halloween! Joey and I went to see my Grandpa in his nursing home with all my little cousins all dressed up in their costumes. It was delightfully adorable to see them all pretending to be dead prom queens, witches and ninjas. My oldest (little) cousin was Bob Marley, and man, was he too cool for school. Brady, my nephew, was Spiderman and so were my twin cousins that are also the same age.... so the three of them thought that was pretty neat!

After visiting my Grandpa, we went and bought some bags of candy (nothing like the last minute) and handed it all out to trick or treaters in the neighborhood. There were TONS of little baby Cardinals players, so that was cute. We didn't get many teenagers, but we also ran out of candy at like 8pm. Ha!!

We spent the Sunday evening prior to Halloween with my brother and his family doing a fun spooky appetizer themed dinner! My sister-in-law LOVES Halloween and really went all out with the food and decorations. We had mummy hot dogs, pumpkin dip, cheese ball mice... just to name a few. Her bean dip even had a face! My sister made witches fingers out of pretzel rods and green candy melts, but I didn't get a picture of those.

I contributed these adorable cookies to the dinner, and also to work on Halloween day itself. They were super easy to make and everyone was really excited about them. I got so many compliments at work!

 
TO MAKE: All you need are 3 ingredients that can be found at probably any store. I got them at Walmart! Just grab a package of Keebler Elf fudge cookies (I've seen Nutter Butters used too), white melting chocolate and mini chocolate chips.

Melt the chocolate as directed on the package and dip the cookies in halfway, shaking off the excess. Place on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper. Before the chocolate cools, place 2 mini chocolate chips at the top for the eyes.

I put the cookie sheet in the fridge overnight and put them on a festive little pumpkin plate and the chocolate stayed hard the entire night!

Like I said, any oval-ish cookie can be used... I just love the elf cookies because it looks like they are wearing a ghost costume! *Note the poor elf in the middle of the picture on the left who put his sheet on upside down. Whoops!



You also can't go wrong with temporary tattoos! I was the office Tattoo Artist on Wednesday.... love!

Now bring on Thanksgiving!

Festive for the Fourth!

In preparation for the Fourth of July, I grabbed my inner child and some nail polishes and got to work.

This seriously took me longer than it should have, but I am pleased with just how....defective..... it looks. Ha!

Fourth of July, here I am! I am ready for your plentiful BBQ, your booze and your yummy desserts.

And uh, celebrating my independence, of course. Duh.

I am debating on a couple recipes to try... I have a food day at work, a BBQ next weekend and probably something on the actual 4th itself with the in-laws.

Pinterest once again proved its worthiness when I stumbled across this brownie fruit pizza.

It's not totally 4th of July in its creation, but completely inspired. I think I will keep the banana on, just because I love banana, but it would totally work with just the combination of berries. I also was thinking of adding some kiwi, but maybe that's for another time.

I also will toot my own horn here, but last year I made these Red, White and Blue strawberries for my big family BBQ. They were a huge hit with every age group and took about 5 minutes to make.

 

 Please ignore this awful picture. Please. 

I also have been eyeballin' these pretties.

I would obviously need to buy a popsicle mold in order to emmulate the whimsy of these Firecracker Ice Pops, but I think it would be a great investment because my Pinterest food board is brimming with different homemade popsicles, and some even include booze. Heeeellllo, summer! 

But all this recipe entails is sugar, strawberries, blue berries and plain yogurt. Easy enough!

I'll letcha know what I come up with. ;) I love summer!

Kansas City Snapshots

Joey and I just got back from Kansas City! We celebrated my birthday there Thursday and Friday. We had a blast, and I wish we were still there.... but we had a jam-packed 2 days so I feel great about it.

In our two days, we checked into the hotel, shopped at Zona Rosa, ordered delectable birthday desserts from the hotel restaurant, went to the new Sea Life aquarium, ate sno cones by the fountains, went to a Kansas City Royals game with my friend Janna, watched fireworks, said goodbye to our hotel, and met with some friends for lunch.

Then we made the 3 mile trek across Missouri and here we are. :)
Time for bed!

Lawn Mower Cupcakes

So aren't these just the cutest cupcakes you ever did see? I mean, I guess I am biased since I made them, but I think they turned out quite adorable. If I do say so myself.

You can find the original recipe here, but I'm also gonna lay it out for you below. I just want to give credit where credit is due.

Ingredients:

- Frosted cupcakes (keep extra frosting on hand)
- Flaked Coconut
- Green food coloring
- Hershey's Nuggets
- M&Ms (4 brown and 1 red per cupcake)
- Licorice

Ice the cupcakes (I used a yellow box mix) with chocolate frosting. You probably could also use vanilla frosting dyed green to make the coconut blend more.

Put your flaked coconut in a ziploc bag. The bigger bag the better. Take 1 tbsp of water and add a couple drops of green food coloring, then pour over the coconut. Seal the bag, leaving air inside, and shake until the coconut is completely covered. Keep adding small amounts of water/coloring mixture until you get the color you want.

Dip your cupcake in your green coconut and patch up any missing spots.

Frost the bottom of your Hershey's bar and press it into the cupcake. Dab frosting on each M&M, 4 brown for the wheels and one red for the engine and press into place.

The handle was the hardest part to get the way I wanted. The original recipe calls for black licorice but personally, that's gross. So I went with the Pull & Peel to get a smaller handle, but it mostly was just limp. But I 'glued' them on with frosting as much as possible and used a kebab skewer to push them inside the cupcake.

So fun!! And cute. And summer-y!

Beach Cupcakes

Wow, it's been a long time since I've blogged. I'm sorry. As my way of apologizing, here are fun pictures of some beach cupcakes me and my sisters made! My sister-in-law is an HR Manager and really, really, REALLY loves her job. I wasn't even being sarcastic (surprising, I know) - she actually does!!

She wanted to make these cupcakes to take for a birthday celebration and my sister and I offered our services. It was a fun night filled with warding off small children from the chocolate cupcakes, the intense smell of Extra Bubble Gum and finding graham cracker crumbs EVERYWHERE including down my shirt. How did that even happen?

They were really simple to make, just a little time consuming because she made like 50. \
Crazy.

You'll just need:
- Cupcakes of your own choosing (obviously the white cake makes a more believable oceanscape but chocolate tastes better in my opinion)
- Vanilla frosting, one batch tinted pale yellow and one batch tinted pale blue
- Blue sprinkles
- Graham cracker crumbs
- Gumballs (or any round candy.. gobstobbers could work too I suppose!)
- Sticks of bubble gum
- Tiny cocktail umbrellas

All you gotta do is pipe half of the top of the cupcake with blue frosting for the ocean and the other half with the yellow for the beach. Then sprinkle the blue sprinkles over the blue frosting and the graham crackers over the yellow.

Voila! Your beach and your ocean. ADORABLE!

So many cupcakes.

Then, just mold a piece of gum into the beach chair position. We found it helped to hold the gum in our hands to make it warmer and thusly more pliable. Then take some frosting and secure it to the cupcake. 

Plop a gumball into the beach, or if you're like my sister, throw some into the ocean.. ha!

Finally, stick your umbrella in the sand for some much needed shade, and you've got your super adorable beach cupcakes right in time for summer!!

High Heeled Cupcakes

My sister in law, Erica, shared her most recent baking adventure with me last week and I was absolutely excited to share it with you. I asked her to take a picture and she happily obliged.

Behold: cupcakes that are high heels.

How adorable are these?!

Of course, she found these on Pinterest and knew that they would be perfect for the party that her and her friends were hosting. Besides, Erica loves anything and everything involving shoes, so I can say that I was not surprised when I saw this picture and how magnificent and detailed they were. Besides, she's a baking genius!

I think my favorite is the black one with the white piping and the hot pink cupcake liner. Fierce!

If you want to make these yourself - which seeing as how cute they are, I totally recommend it - definitely go out and buy Cupcakes, Cookies & Pie, Oh My! from your local bookstore or Amazon.

I own What's New, Cupcake? from the same author and have made a few cupcakes that have been a huge hit, including these adorable Corn on the Cob cupcakes I made last summer.

 

Happy Baking!!

Stuffed Crust Pizza

For dinner last night, I experimented with something awesome.

I had a refrigerated pizza crust, pizza sauce, pepperonis... and string cheese. I knew I was making a pizza, but then I decided WHY NOT MAKE THIS AN AWESOME PIZZA INSTEAD?!

So voila, stuffed crust pizza. :)

 

I basically just rolled out the dough, pushing it thinner around the perimeter. Then, I placed a string cheese side-by-side, pulling the dough up over each stick and firmly pressing down, sealing it in.

I covered it in pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese and pepperoni and baked it at 425 F for 15 minutes, or until the cheese was bubbly and the dough was cooked.

It was delicious. 

The only issue I had was in some parts, the string cheese firmed up instead of being melty and gooey. 

But I used Weight Watchers brand string cheese, so I'm wondering if I buy a package that is more fatty or whatever, maybe that would be help? I don't know. 

Regardless, it was totally yummy, super easy and relatively cheap (seeing as we have most of this on hand always).

Try it! You'll like it!

[photoaday] Day 6: Dinner... & super bowl recap

Day 6. Dinner

Yesterday was the superbowl, so as a loving and doting wife, I spent all day cleaning my apartment for our friends to come over and all evening in the kitchen cooking foods for them to eat.

Hold on, I'm patting myself on the back.

*ahem*

So today when I got off work, I did not want to be in my kitchen at all. AT ALL. Joey got home before me, so he stuck pizza rolls in the oven and I ate like a king.

Or you know, a college student.

No, more like an 8 year old boy.

At least my soda was diet?

Now I feel fat and gross.

But the super bowl party was fun! The pictures are below that I managed to snap on my phone. I didn't get a picture of any of the food, naturally. I really am terrible at this.

But, with the help of friends, I made Pigs in a Blanket, Pepperoni Pizza Puffs, Bacon BBQ Jalapeno Poppers and TONS of Buffalo Chicken Dip. For dessert we had Mini Banana Splits (so cute Kirstie!), Oreo Krispie Treats, Rolo/pretzel/M&M things and Frozen Banana and Peanut Butter Bites (yum, Carrie!).



 
   

All in all, it was awesome. I love having friends over, and even though our tiny one bedroom apartment was bursting at the seams and we had the screen door open in February, it was so much fun. And Joey was rooting for the Giants, so having him happy makes my life a little easier. ;)

Keep coming back every day this month to see my #photoaday grow!

(you can also follow me on Instagram (@kerrywoah), or on Webstagram here!)

Chili

One of the things that I regularly make for dinner that I am most proud of is my crockpot chili. It's basic in terms of ingredients, but I really don't like any other chili as much as I like my own. That sounds selfish... but it's true!

I don't have much more to say other than make it for yourself. You won't be disappointed. Or, come over and I'll cook it for you! ;)

CHILI

2 pounds ground beef
2 (16 ounce) cans kidney beans, rinsed and drained [I actually use 1 can of kidney and 1 can of pinto beans]
2 (14.5 ounce) cans diced tomatoes, undrained
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
2 medium onions, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tbsp cumin
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper

Cook beef over medium heat until no longer pink; drain. Transfer to a slow cooker. Add the rest of the ingredients. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours or on high for 4 hours.

I typically garnish with a sprinkle of shredded cheddar cheese while it's hot. De-lish! :)

New Years Eve

I hope everyone had an amazing new years eve. Mine was filled with crying (tears of happiness, more on that later), laughter, food, wine, family and amazing friends.

Joey's mom cooked Thanksgiving for dinner, so we were treated to turkey, ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. It was beyond delicious.

Then we went to our friends' apartment and had leftover Christmas cookies, drank wine out of coffee cups and watched the ball drop on TV. Perfect ending to a perfect night.

 

Other things transpired tonight, that I will have to wait to share. But I am super super super excited and cannot wait to tell you! <3

I also got an iPhone 4S for an after-Christmas present, so I should be able to post more of my day-to-day doings. I am pumped!

Today I am off to my niece's 7th birthday party.... she was the first baby born in 2005 in our area! 

She is my favorite (okay, only, but still favorite) niece and I love her to death.

Yay!!

Cinnamon Sugar Donuts

This morning I woke up and immediately thought, "I need to mail our Christmas cards!"

I have been putting off doing these cards because the thought of hand addressing all of them just reminds me of the wedding and how many invitations, thank you cards, shower cards, blah blah blah I had to send. I mean, obviously these are completely voluntary... but it just is a daunting task.

So to get in the spirit, I decided to start my day off being crafty. I made donuts!

I got the recipe from Little Bit Funky and knew I had to try them for a weekend breakfast.

They super easy to make.

First, fill your pan about 1/2 inch high with vegetable oil and heat on medium heat.

Meanwhile, lay out your biscuits and using a cookie cutter or something of the like, cut a hole in the center of the biscuits. [To make you feel better about yourself, I used the lid from a vodka bottle.]

Place the biscuits in the oil and fry until golden brown. Flip and do the same.

Melt butter in the microwave, approximately 2 tbsp, and combine cinnamon and sugar in a separate bowl. [I used splenda, so that's why my cinnamon sugar mixture looks suspiciously like sawdust. Splenda for baking is not fine, but it tastes the same to me and my diabetes thanks me.]

Once the biscuits *now donuts are done, place them on a paper towel lined plate to cool. [pretend there is a paper towel on this plate. I need to go grocery shopping...]

Once they are cool enough to touch, dip one side in the butter and let it drip off. Then place in the cinnamon sugar mixture and voila! 

Homemade donuts!

I also fried the little donuts holes, hehehe.

Happy eating!