Happy New Year!!!

Just wanted to say this really quick because things are so busy!!

I will get my Christmas pictures and New Years party pics up on the weekend, or even by tomorrow night!! Depends on how tired I am!!! I have a lot of things on my mind right now that I want to blog, but I haven't had time to sit and do it!!!

Tonight I will be at my daughter Kami's house for a New Years party. We will be eating all night, playing XBox Rock Band, Guitar Hero-World Tour, Dance, Dance Revolution (to work off some callories!), card games like Scum, Phase 10, Mad Gab and others. We always have a lot of people, food and fun!!!

Wishing everyone to...

Love ya all!!!!

Merry Christmas!

Every year my ward has Pixie Week. You are assigned another family to take small gifts and treats to. You leave the gift on the doorstep, ring the doorbell, then you run like crazy. We usually get caught on Monday or Tuesday, but not this year. I thought the cake might tip them off, but we actually made it the whole week and didn't tell the family it was us until the Ward Christmas Party. So, this was one of the treats we left. Merry Christmas everyone!

Chicken Little

My friend's son was turning two and loves Chicken Little. She asked me to do a little cake for their family dinner. This is a 6 inch, white cake with buttercream frosting and marshmallow fondant decorations. The little glasses on his face were tough to get right.

Decorating and Parties

Well....Joe and I finally got the tree up yesterday! Woo Hoo!!! I kind of wanted it up before Thanksgiving, but it's been a little busy for all of us lately. I still have a little more to do, but it can wait until this weekend.

Later that night, we had Kami and the kids over for dinner and then went to our Ward's Christmas party. I have a great love of children and it's always gratifying to see their happy faces as they sing Christmas songs and their anticipation to see Santa.

Carlee was pretty grouchy before we went over to the church, but once she got there, she was fine. As the play started, she was singing her Faa-la-la-la-laaa's a little early!!

This was our Ward version of the Grinch and these were some of the singing trees.

The A____ family and the S______ family did a great job singing!!

Little Cindy Lou Who and her sister too!! They were so adorable!!!

After the play, we sang songs really loud so that Santa could hear them and come visit!! Carlee thought it was a little too loud!!

Carlee wouldn't sit on Santa's lap but Collin had no problem!! It was so noisy that we couldn't hear a lot what Collin was telling Santa, but I kept hearing "I want____and I want a laser tag gun and a ______ and a rock and roll guitar and a _____ and an airplane and a _______"!!! Oh my gosh!!! It seems like it went on a little more than it should have!! You can see a short video of it on my daughter's blog here. Then Santa gave him a bag of candy. Collin was pretty happy with that!! Poor Carlee couldn't have a bag of candy because it contained peanuts! We did scrounge up a couple of oranges that hadn't been put in with the other stuff yet.

Oh...if you go to my daughter, Kami's blog, check out my grand kids first school Christmas program pictures!! It was pretty cute and so are they!!!!

Strawberry Trifle

Thought I would post something a little less fattening!! heh heh heh!!!

This dessert is easy to make and oh so easy to eat!!!

You will need:

Angel Food Cake, cubed (store bought or home made)

Sugar-free jam (I used strawberry)

Fruit, (fresh or frozen) sweetened with Splenda (strawberries again)

Large box sugar-free pudding, made with package directions using skim milk (vanilla was used)

Cool Whip

Almonds (optional)

Now all you need to do is layer the items in the order listed, layering twice using half at a time.

These are really fun to make in clear individual glasses for parties also!!

Hot Artichoke and Spinach Dip

I found this recipe online somewhere and I just had to try it!! It's similar to the Applebee's dip and I looooove that one!!! It was real easy to make and was very good! I think I'll make it for our New Year's party!!

1 (10 ounce) box frozen chopped spinach, thawed

1 (14 ounce) can artichoke hearts, drained and roughly chopped

1 cup shredded parmesan-romano cheese mix

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

10 ounces prepared alfredo sauce

1 teaspoon minced garlic

4 ounces cream cheese

pepper (optional)

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Combine ingredients thoroughly in a bowl and spread mixture into a small baking dish (8"X8" dish).
• Bake for 25-30 minutes or until cheese are bubbling and melted.
• Serve with chips or bread.

I bought some of those skinny baguettes, sliced them, butter them and then toasted them on a frying pan. They were sooooo good that way!!!

Happy calories!!!!

Baking Treats for Gifts

This year, instead of buying gifts for friends and family, I'm planning on baking goodies for them like cookies and small cakes or something else, not quite sure yet. I have been looking about at the gift in a jar recipes in which I think would be nice to give out. I've seen a few where you can make cake mix in a jar to something simple as tea or hot chocolate mix. Anyone else planning to make food as a Christmas gift this year?

I've added a new blogger to my foodie blog roll if you would like to take a look at it. It's Vanilla Pumpkin - Homemade Baby Food Blog. There are also some other cool bloggers on my foodie blog roll as well.

Thanksgiving 2008

Hope everyone had a very

As you can see, I'm late getting my Thanksgiving blog up. It seems like all I've been doing is running lately and today I feel like a zombie!!

This will be mostly pictures of course. I forgot to take pictures of all the food!! I was only asked to bring my green beans and I threw in a banana cream pie.

This is Carlee, Kaitlyn, Collin and Peyton



Carlee was enjoying her food!!


Kaitlyn didn't mind getting stuck at the kids table!!


Wow! Collin ate most of his food!!!

It was great to have Peyton there with us!! He was taken away from his daddy about a year ago and was returned just before Thanksgiving!! We are all so grateful!!

The gang gathering around for the food!!

My daughter Kami and her hubby Eric. Thank you both for letting us use your house all of the time!!! I LOVE YOU!!!

The pie table!!! YUM!!

On Tuesday, the 25th, I was asked if I could make some sugar cookie for an order!!! Ummm...only if you don't want fancy ones!! The glaze takes two days to dry!! I was gone all day Wednesday and Thursday and the order was for Friday morning. Whew!! The lady that ordered them was fine with just plain ones. She loves our sugar cookies and just wanted them for her grand kids that would be visiting. I really didn't have time to do these, but I baked them Tuesday night, iced them Wednesday night, and stamped them Friday morning. I hope they liked them because they weren't my best!!!

Now on to the Christmas holiday cooking!!!!

Shoe Cake

A client asked me to make a cake for a baby shower with shoes on it. I was thinking baby booties. Nope - the shower was for a friend who has a serious love of stylish shoes, especially those designed by Christian Louboutin. These shoes are famous for their red soles. I found an online tutorial on how to make gum paste shoes. It was a challenge, but I love to try new things.

Dribbling Dolphins

My twin nieces are on a soccer team called the Dribbling Dolphins. Their mom asked me to make a cake for their end-of-the-season party. The dolphins are modeled from fondant. They were actually easy to make and turned out really cute. The cake is chocolate with buttercream icing.

21st Birthday

I did another version of the cake from the Pink Cake Box website. This cake was for a 21st birthday. It was very colorful, the client wanted primary colors. This cake always turns out great.

I Am Thankful for...COOKIES!!!!

These are my family's favorite sugar cookies!!

We make them for almost every holiday that comes along.

I'm not sure I want to share the recipe though!! I have shared with a few people in the past, but the way these cookies are made is a major undertaking!!! And...people don't want to pay for them either because I charge $1.00 and up for each cookie. They are very large and a lot of work! But they are the best cookies you will have ever had!

These were the only cookies that I was able to finish for Halloween. Things got really busy for me. I let Kami have these to her office party for her work. I usually make tons so that I can send some to my son that lives in Florida, but I didn't get any finished for him! Sorry Ryan!!!!

Now on to Thanksgiving!!



My daughter Kami and I made these for her Activity Day girls and to send to Ryan!



Yes...make sure you give thanks and appreciation to everyone around you, family, great friends, the gospel, our jobs, our homes and belongings, our health!

Gobble, gobble!!!

And Ryan...Kami made this one especially for YOU!!!

Chicken Fricassee with Chive Dumplings

Don't eat this if you're afraid of calories!!

I did replace the milk with skim milk and the oil with EVOO (extra virgin olive oil in case you didn't know that!)

Chicken Fricassee with Chive Dumplings



1 cup all-purpose flour


2 teaspoons salt


2 teaspoons paprika


1/4 teaspoon pepper


4 ~ pound chicken, cut up (I used thighs, since that was all I had)



Shortening or vegetable oil


1 cup water


3 tablespoons all-purpose flour


Milk


Chive Dumplings (recipe below)

• Mix 1 cup flour, the salt, paprika and pepper. Coat chicken with the flour mixture. Heat thin layer of oil in a 12-inch skillet until hot. Cook chicken until brown on all sides. Drain fat from skillet: reserve. Add water to chicken. Cover and cook over low heat for about 45 minutes.
• Remove chicken; keep warm. Drain liquid from skillet; reserve. Heat 3 tablespoons reserved fat in skillet. Stir in 3 tablespoons flour. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is smooth and bubbly; remove from heat. Add enough milk to the reserved liquid to measure 3 cups; pour into skillet. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir for 1 minute. Return chicken to gravy.
• Prepare Chive Dumplings; drop by spoonfuls onto hot chicken. Cook uncovered 10 minutes; cover and cook for 20 minutes longer.

Chive Dumplings

3 tablespoons shortening

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons snipped chives

3/4 cup milk

• Cut shortening into flour, baking powder and salt with pastry blender until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Stir in milk and chives. Drop by spoonfuls onto hot meat or vegetables in boiling stew. Cook uncovered 10 minutes. Cover and cook 10 minutes longer.
• Makes 10 dumplings

Recipe says that it serves 8 and is around 460 calories!! This is a "once you start eating, ya can't stop" meal!! It is Oooooh So Yum!!!

Indiana Jones Birthday

The next week was my other nephew Zack's 7th birthday. He was Indiana Jones for Halloween and had an Indy party. This is a chocolate cake frosted in buttercream with fondant pieces. The palm tree trunks are cereal straws. They worked great! My favorite part of the cake is the crocodile waiting for Indy's rope to break, so he can have a snack.

Star Wars

My nephew Caden asked to have a party with his cousins for his birthday. His family came up to Vegas and celebrated his 5th birthday at Pump It Up. Caden's new favorite thing is Star Wars Clone Wars. He asked for a Star Wars cake and was very specific about what he wanted and what color light sabers the characters had to have. The cake is chocolate with buttercream icings and fondant decorations.

No Time to Cook!

This is just some food pics that I haven't posted.

Not a big deal, but fun and delicious!!

Homemade pizza night!!

Kami and the kids were here. Collin loved making his own pizza!

Turkey Cutlets a la Me!!

Plain turkey cutlets that I smothered in a concoction of olive oil, parsley, finely chopped onions, tarragon, McCormick Garlic Pepper Seasoning Grinder.

Baked at 325 degrees for 30 - 40 minutes.

Sliced it and served it with mashed potatoes and sauted brussel

sprouts in butter and bacon pieces.

Sausage Potato Stir fry served in an acorn squash ring.

Eggless Pumkin Pie

It turned out good!!

Trout from the neighbors! Thanks!!!

I made it so late at night that we just had sliced tomatoes and cucumbers with it.

That's it for now! I've been very busy working on other things and

haven't had much time to do anything fancy!!