Pepperoni Pizza Puffs

by penji1

Of all the little food items that I made for Camp Wrap Up, I think these were my favorite.  I’d like to make them again but maybe in a regular size muffin and have them for dinner.  They were delicious!  These are from a blog called Lick the Bowl Good.

3/4 cup flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon Italian seasoning

pinch of salt

pinch of red pepper flakes (left this out)

3/4 cup milk

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 cup cubed pepperoni

1/2 cup store bought pizza sauce

1  Preheat oven to 375.  Grease a 24 cup mini muffin pan.  In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, Italian seasoning, salt and red pepper; whisk in milk and egg.  Stir in cheeses and pepperoni; let stand for 10 minutes.

2  Stir batter and divide among mini muffin cups.  Bake until puffed and golden, about 20 – 25 minutes.

3  Meanwhile, microwave pizza sauce until warm.  Serve puffs with sauce for dipping.

Mini Corn Dog Muffins

by penji1

And another fabulous fun finger food item for the camp wrap up!  This one is from a blog called Iowa Girl Eats.  Just a head’s up, this recipe made a lot of these little suckers!  They were really good and I don’t even like corn dogs!

1/2 cup melted butter (or 1/4 cup melted butter and 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce)

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup cornmeal

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

8 – 10 hot dogs, cut into 1″ bites (my mini muffin pan must be smaller than hers because 1″ was way too big so I did about 1/2″ slices)

1  Preheat oven to 375.  Combine butter and sugar in bowl and whisk to combine.  Add eggs and whisk to incorporate.  Add buttermilk and whisk again.

2  In a separate bowl, combined baking soda, cornmeal, flour and salt and stir to combine.  Whisk dry ingredients into wet ingredients in 2 batches.

3  Spray mini muffin pan with non stick spray and spoon 1 tablespoon of batter into each cup.  Place 1 hot dog bite into the middle of each cup.

4  Bake for 8 – 12 minutes or until cornbread is golden brown.  Cool in pans for 5 minutes before removing.  Store leftovers in fridge.

Disney Family’s Mini Taco Cups

by penji1

Another recipe from Camp Wrap Up, all fun finger foods.  These were really easy to put together and really cute to look at and really tasty to eat!  The recipe came from the Disney Family website.  They must have been good because there weren’t any left after the party.

1 can refried beans

1/2 pound cooked taco seasoned meat

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 cup salsa

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup sliced olives (left these off)

1 bag Tostitos Scoops

Set chips on a large platter and layer with beans, meat, cheese, salsa, sour cream and olives.

See?  Simple!

Celery Pretzel Butterflies

by penji1

Big shindig here on Wednesday night but I just haven’t had time to put in all the recipes until now.  It was Girls Camp Wrap Up at my house so I got to spend the day cooking and baking and creating in the kitchen, it was a good day!  We ate and reminisced about camp and swam and watched the camp movie that Ann put together for us and then ate some more!  It was great fun!  While up at camp (which was back in June), I was sitting at a picnic table and this beautiful butterfly landed on me and seriously stayed there for like 5 minutes.

So when I was surfing around on the internet looking for food ideas for the party and say these celery butterflies, I knew I had to make them!  Here’s the link to the original site.

celery

cream cheese (I used peanut butter instead)

craisins or raisins

pretzel twists, the small ones

1  Cut celery into 2″ pieces.

2  Slice a thin strip off rounded bottom part of the celery to make a flat surface.

3  Fill celery with cream cheese or peanut butter.

4  Cut the craisins or raisins in half.  Place them on filling as eyes.

5  Place 2 pretzels onto filling as wings.

Cheesy Garlic Bread

by penji1

Made this for dinner the other night and it was so good, just like the cheesy bread sticks that you get at the pizza place.  The recipe is from a blog called Lauren’s Latest.  (Thanks to my husband Bob for helping me figure out how to put up a link to all these blogs that I’ve been getting recipes from!)  She made homemade pizza dough which I’ll give you the recipe for but I just used the pizza dough from WinCo.

Basic Pizza Dough

1 cup warm water

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

1 tablespoon honey or sugar

2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons olive or canola oil

3 cups bread flour (give or take 1/2 cup)

1  In a large mixing bowl, stir yeast and honey into warm water.  Let sit for 5 – 10 minutes or until bubbles form and mixture starts to foam.  Pour in salt, oil and half the flour and mix.

2  Once flour is incorporated, start adding remaining flour bit by bit until you get dough to a consistency that is slightly tacky but when you touch it, it does not stick to your hands.

3  Turn mixer on high and knead for 6 minutes.  Dough should be smooth and easy to work with and bowl should be clean.

4  Lightly grease bowl and dough, cover with plastic wrap and let rise 1 – 2 hours.

Yields about 1 pound of dough, enough for two 12″ pizzas

Cheesy Garlic Bread Sticks

1/2 recipe Basic Pizza Dough

2 tablespoons softened butter

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

1/4 pound grated mozzarella cheese

1  Preheat oven to 500 with pizza stone inside.  (My oven runs pretty hot so I had to turn it down to 450.)

2  Mix butter and garlic in small bowl.

3  Spread dough into a 12″ circle on parchment paper.

4  Spread butter and garlic mixture over dough and top with cheeses.

5  Bake 9 – 10 minutes or until bubbly and golden.  Remove from oven and let sit 1 -2 minutes before slicing.

Cupcake Gifts

by penji1

So happy to have a little bit of time off work so that I can have some fun in the kitchen!  I found these adorable little heart containers on the clearance rack at this cool store called “Tai Pan Trading Company” and knew that I could have some fun with them so I baked some large cupcakes, put some candies in the bottoms of the containers (like jelly beans, gumballs, Mike n Ikes, etc) then stuck the big cupcake on top of the candy and frosted them while sitting in the container and added some sprinkles on top to match the heart decorations.  They came out pretty cute!  They went to a couple of friends for birthdays and then also to a couple of ladies who I am supposed to visit each month but have been so busy that I haven’t gotten over to see them in a long time.  I’ve got some fun activities with the Young Women in our neighborhood lined up for this week and so of course I have some fun food planned for those activities so stay tuned!

Cake Mix Waffles

by penji1

And here is the chocolate waffle that we had for dessert last night with the homemade chocolate syrup and praline sauce and vanilla ice cream, delicious!  The waffles are super easy to make and you could make them in any flavor you like.  I also found these on a blog called “Cooking with Sugar” and the link is:http://www.cookingwithsugar.com/cake-mix-waffles-simple-cake-batter-makes-a-fun-dessert/.  The only thing that would have made me like these more is if they were a little crispier but that might just mean cooking them on the waffle iron for a little bit longer so I guess I just need to experiment a bit with them.

1 box cake mix of your choice

3 eggs

1 1/3 cups water

1/3 cup oil

1  Heat waffle iron and spray with cooking spray.

2  Prepare cake mix according to package directions.  Pour cake batter into waffle iron.  (I have a 4 section waffle maker and I used my large or cupcake scoop to fill each section and it was almost exactly the right amount of batter.)  Close lid of waffle iron and cook according to instructions for your machine.

3  Serve warm or cold with toppings of your choice.

Southern Praline Sauce

by penji1

And here is the second sauce for the chocolate waffle dessert bar, this one is to die for, like eat it right out of the jar, no ice cream or chocolate waffles required! (not that I’m going to do that right after I finish this post and no, that’s not why there’s a spoon in the jar . . .  ok, maybe it is).  Found this on a blog called “A Southern Fairy Tale” and here is the link:  http://asouthernfairytale.com/2011/09/24/southern-praline-sauce/.  Must hurry and type, sauce is calling to me!

1 1/4 cup chopped pecans

7 tablespoons butter, divided

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

3 tablespoons flour

3/4 cup light corn syrup

2/3 cup evaporated milk

1  Place chopped pecans in a microwave safe dish with 3 tablespoons butter.

2  Cook for 8 – 10 minutes (this was WAY too long in my microwave, I burned the first batch of pecans and Bob had to go to the store and buy another bag for me, expensive mistake, it only took about 4 minutes so watch them carefully!), stirring twice.  Watch the pecans closely to not burn them.  (She’s not kidding!)

3  In another microwave safe bowl (she and I both used a glass batter bowl like from Pampered Chef because it has a lip for pouring) place remaining butter and heat until melted.

4  Whisk in brown sugar, flour and light corn syrup until blended.

5  Cook on high 6 – 8 minutes, stirring twice, until the sugar is dissolved.

6  Add in evaporated milk and pecans and stir well.

7  Pour into jars.

The sauce will last 3 weeks in the fridge once opened and a couple of months unopened.

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

by penji1

I finally have a little time off work so we had some friends over last night for a barbeque and visit.  We made grilled pizzas for dinner and then for dessert, we did chocolate dessert waffles (recipe to follow) so I decided to make some homemade toppings for the waffles and this was one of them.  Tastes like Hersheys Syrup only much better!  And it couldn’t be any easier to make!  I found it on a blog called “One Good Thing by Jillee”, here is the link:  http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2012/03/homemade-chocolate-syrup.html.

1 1/2 cups sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup water

dash of salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

In a small saucepan, add sugar, cocoa and salt.  Whisk together gently.  Add water.  Bring mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally.  Reduce heat and cook 1 minute.  Remove from heat and add vanilla.  Cool. Store in refrigerator.

Pirate and Mermaid Fondant Birthday Cake

by penji1

I’m a little behind in my blogging so let’s see if I can catch up today (which means there might be a quite a few posts today depending on how far I get!).  This beautiful birthday cake is one that my daughter Courtney did all by herself!  It turned out awesome!  She made it for Ngaio and Ngati who are the children of her boyfriend Jaren’s friend Devon.  🙂  Ngaio wanted mermaids and Ngati wanted pirates and I think she did an excellent job of incorporating them onto the same cake. She got really creative and covered the top layer in brown sugar to make it look like the beach.  Way to go Cort!