Taco Casserole with a Surprise Crust

by penji1

Taco Casserole with a Surprise Crust

I made dinner this week for a dear friend who had surgery.  I actually made two of these so that my boys could try it too because I knew that they would love this and they did!  The recipe comes from a blog called “Cents Less”.  It was easy, quick and yummy which, as we know, are my three favorite things in a recipe.  I also made the “One Pot Mexican Rice Casserole” to go with it.  I will definitely be making this one again.  Here is a look at a serving so you can see all the yumminess under the toppings: Taco Casserole with a Surprise Crust

1 pound hamburger

1 packet taco seasoning (I also added 1 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed)

2 cups nacho cheese Doritos, crushed

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup salsa

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided

2 cups shredded lettuce

2 medium tomatoes, diced

1  Grease 9 x 13″ pan and spread crushed Doritos on bottom of pan.

2  Cook hamburger and taco seasoning until done.  (Then I added the can of pinto beans.)

3  Spoon hamburger over the Doritos.

4  Beat cream cheese then slowly add salsa until well combined.

5  Spread cream cheese mixture over hamburger.

6  Top cream cheese with 1 1/2 cups shredded cheese.

7  Top cheese with lettuce and then tomatoes and then remaining 1/2 cup of cheese.

8  Bake at 350 for 10 – 15 minutes or until cheese on top is melted.

Topsy Turvey White Fondant Wedding Cake with Blue Accents and Dinosaur Toppers

by penji1

Topsy Turvey Dinosaur Wedding Cake

Here is Ken and Sonja’s official wedding cake – a topsy turvey cake with polka dots in Sonja’s wedding colors topped with adorable bride and groom dinosaurs!  I think this cake came out really cute and was perfect for them!  The cake is a brown sugar cake taken from the White Almond Sour Cream cake recipe (I simply replaced the white sugar in the recipe with brown sugar and replaced the almond flavoring with vanilla) and then iced with our favorite Basic Buttercream Icing.  We covered the cake with Wilton White Fondant and then colored that white fondant to get the right colors for the polka dots and dinosaurs.  We put a little ribbon around the bottoms of the layers to fancy it up for the wedding and ta da!  Done!  Love it, love the colors and they had a little dinosaur joke going when they were dating, so perfect!  Congrats again to Sonja and Ken!

Movie Slate Fondant Groom’s Cake

by penji1

Rice Krispie Treat Movie Slate Groom's Cake

Two of my cute friend’s got married on Saturday and the bride asked if we would make the wedding cake and a groom’s cake too.  Since I work with them both in the movie biz, we decided to do a slate cake for the groom’s cake.  The groom used to work for Nat Geo and now works for the LDS MPS and the bride wanted to include that on the groom’s cake, also the groom doesn’t like cake (who doesn’t like cake?) so we made a rice krispie treat cake for him instead.  I used my 12″ square cake pan, sprayed it really well with cooking spray and then made 2 batches of rice krispie treats and pressed them into the pan as tightly as possible.  I let it sit for a good long while before I turned it out of the pan and then let it sit for another stretch so that it would harden up just slightly.  We frosted the rice krispie treat “cake” with our favorite buttercream icing then covered it with Wilton white fondant.  We were both surprised at how smoothly the rice krispie treat cake came out.  We used Duff’s black fondant for the decorations except the for the Nat Geo logo which was made from the Wilton white fondant dyed yellow.  Congrats to my dear friends Sonja and Ken!

Chocolate Chip Pecan Coffee Cake

by penji1

Chocolate Chip Pecan Coffee Cake

Dinner last night with the fam plus my nephew Wyett and my niece Amber and her family.  I made spaghetti with my homemade sauce, a salad, some easy homemade rolls and this beautiful cake for dessert.  It said it was a coffee cake but I just drizzled some frosting on it and it was good to go, so good in fact that there is none left!  The recipe comes from my “Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor” cookbook.

1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

1 (18.25 oz) yellow cake mix

1 (3.4 oz) vanilla instant pudding mix

1 cup milk

3/4 cup oil

4 eggs

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1  Preheat oven to 350.  Spray bundt pan with cooking spray for baking (the one with flour in it).  Sprinkle pecans evenly over the bottom of the pan.  (I added a couple of tablespoons of Trader Joe’s Turbinado Raw Cane Sugar to give it a little extra sweet crunch.)

2  Blend cake mix, pudding mix, milk, oil and eggs on low for 1 minute.  Stop and scrape down sides.  Blend on medium for 2 – 3 minutes more until batter is thick and well combined.  Fold in chocolate chips.  (I added another 1/2 cup chips to the 1 the recipe called for.)  Pour batter into pan, smoothing top with spatula.

3  Bake until cake is golden brown and springs back when lightly touched with finger, 55 – 60 minutes.  Cool in wire rack for 20 minutes before removing from pan.

(I mixed about 1 cup of powdered sugar with 2 – 3 teaspoons of cocoa and about 4 milk caps of milk with a whisk to make a somewhat thicker glaze then just drizzled it over the cake.)

White Bean and Ham Soup

by penji1

White Bean and Ham Soup

Trying to use up the last of the Christmas ham.  I haven’t tried this one yet but Bob said it was delicious.  The recipe comes from a blog called “Dashing Dish”.

soup:

4 cups chicken broth (or one 32 oz box)  ( I used four 14.5 oz cans)

1 1/2 cups (12 oz) ham, diced or cubed (I used about 2 cups)

1 small onion, diced (didn’t have an onion so used about 1/4 cup dried chopped onion)

1 cup carrots, chopped

2 large celery stalks, chopped (I used 4)

1 small head cauliflower (about 3 cups), finely chopped (I used about 2 cups of broccoli florets instead)

2 medium zucchini, chopped (left this out)

3 (15 oz each) cans cannellini beans, drained (or any white beans)  (I used Great Northern beans)

2 teaspoons garlic, minced (or 1 teaspoon garlic powder)

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 tablespoon dried parsley

1 tablespoon honey or 2 packets Stevia

additional add ins (after cooking):

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

bacon, cooked and crumbled over

1  Spray crock pot with nonstick cooking spray.  Mix all ingredients together in crock pot (except for cheese and bacon).  Cover and cook on high for 4 – 6 hours or on low for 8 – 10 hours.

2  After cooking ladle 1/4 – 1/2 of the soup (more of less depending on how creamy you want it) into blender and blend until smooth.  Add pureed soup back to crock pot and stir in cheese.  Serve with bacon.  (I didn’t do step #2 because I wasn’t home when it was done and Bob ate it as is out of the crock pot.)

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Maple Cream Truffles

by penji1

Maple Cream Truffles

We celebrated Jaren’s (my son in law’s), birthday last night so I decided a special treat was in order so I experimented with these truffles and they came out great, so yummy and so easy!  I used these Maple Syrup Cream Cookies that I found at Costco:

Maple Syrup Cream Cookies

and this recipe for “Easy Oreo Truffles” and created something truly delicious, if I do say so myself!  Here’s how:

1/2 the box of Maple Syrup Cream Cookies, 22 oz or 1 tray

1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened

1 bag Wilton candy melts in desired color/flavor (I went with white chocolate)

1  Crush all cookies with food processor until finely crushed.

2  Mix cream cheese and cookie crumbs in large bowl.  (Your hands are going to be the best way to do this and get it completely mixed together.)

3  Roll mixture into 1 tablespoon sized balls (I used my Pampered Chef mini scoop which is the perfect size) and set on wax paper.

4  Melt candy melts according to package directions and carefully dip balls in chocolate.  Place on wax paper until set.

UPDATE:  I made these again for my friend Sonja’s bridal shower and they came out so cute that I just had to add a picture of them (can you guess her wedding colors?).

Maple Cream Truffles

White Chocolate Decadence Brownies

by penji1

White Chocolate Decadence Brownies

Happy New Year everyone!  I kicked off the first day of 2015 with these beauties which are delicious by the way however, I would have liked a bit more white chocolate so when I make them again I think I will add some white chocolate chips to the brownie batter.  The recipe comes from “Your Homebased  Mom”.

brownies:

1 cup butter

1/2 cup white chocolate, chopped

4 eggs, beaten

2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

frosting:

1/2 cup butter

1/3 cup white chocolate, chopped

3 cups powdered sugar

2 tablespoons whipping cream (or more if needed for right consistency) (I didn’t have any whipping cream so used milk instead)

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1  Preheat oven to 350.

2  To make brownies, melt butter and white chocolate in short intervals in microwave or in a double boiler.

3  Whisk in eggs and then add sugar.

4  Add flour and vanilla.

5  Pour into greased 9 x 13″ pan.

6  Bake 25 – 30 minutes.  Cool then make frosting and frost.

7  To make frosting, melt butter and chocolate in microwave or in double boiler.

8  Remove from heat and add powdered sugar, whipping cream and vanilla.

Peppermint Chocolate Cake

by penji1

Peppermint Chocolate Cake

And the last recipe from Christmas, another dessert, it was good but not great, nothing earth shattering, just chocolate cake with mint chocolate on top, could have used another layer, like a ganache layer and then the candy on top but then you know me, the only thing better than chocolate, is more chocolate!  The recipe comes from a blog called “Roxana’s Home Baking”.

1/2 cup butter, diced

1/2 cup Coffee Mate Peppermint Mocha Liquid Creamer

3 tablespoons cocoa

1 cup flour

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 egg

1/4 cup buttermilk

1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

4  oz peppermint bark or peppermint candy, chopped (I had a bag of Andes baking chips so used those)

chopped candy cane, optional

1  Cook butter, coffee creamer and cocoa over medium heat until butter is melted and cocoa is dissolved.  Let cool completely.

2  Heat oven to 350 and grease 9″ spring form pan.

3  Stir together flour, sugar and baking powder.  Stir in egg, buttermilk and peppermint extract.

4  Slowly stir in chocolate mixture until just combined.

5  Pour batter into pan and bake for 33 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

6  Remove cake from oven, let cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing.  Top with bark or candy as desired and allow to cool.

Buttermilk Pie

by penji1

Buttermilk Pie

I’m not really a pie lover or a pie maker but the Thanksgiving Maple Cream Pie went well so I decided to give this old fashioned Buttermilk Pie a try and was not disappointed!  Bob said it best when he said it tastes like an old fashioned buttermilk doughnut, which it does.  The recipe comes from Better Homes and Gardens and is definitely worth a try if you like this kind of dessert.

1 pie crust of your choice, homemade or store bought (I used a Marie Calendar’s frozen pie crust)

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

3 tablespoons flour

3 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1  Preheat oven to 450.  Prepare pastry and line 9″ pie plate.  Line pastry with double thickness of foil and bake 8 minutes.  Remove foil and bake 4 – 6 minutes more or until crust is lightly browned then cool.  Reduce oven temperature to 350.

2  In saucepan, melt butter over medium low heat.  Stir in flour and sugar and remove from heat.

3  Beat eggs on medium just until fluffy, about 1 minute.  Stir in buttermilk and vanilla.  Gradually whisk buttermilk mixture into butter mixture until smooth.  Pour into crust.

4  Place pie in oven and carefully tent whole pie with foil.  (If you put the pie pan on a cookie sheet, this is much easier to do.)  Bake 50 – 55 minutes or until center is set when gently shaken.  Cool on wire rack for 1 hour.  Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours before serving.