Pumpkin Cupcakes

A few nights ago, Seth and I made pumpkin cupcakes! I have been seeing this super easy two-ingredient recipe around the internet AND I found the most precious pumpkin shaped cupcake pan at Hobby Lobby... so we gave it a try! Honestly, the cupcakes weren't as delicious as I would have hoped but we had a TON of fun and Seth seemed to think that the cupcakes were delicious! :)

Warning: Please excuse the way I look and my messy kitchen! haha

Not long after this picture was taken, I let Seth beat the ingredients all by himself...

Which may or may not have been a bad idea...

The finished product!

The super easy two-ingredient recipe is as follows... Mix together 1 cake mix and 1 can of pumpkin. Fill each space in the cupcake pan 3/4 full and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

I used a butter cake mix but I think if I tried it again, I would use a spice cake mix. Also, we iced our cupcakes with Paula Deen's cream cheese icing... which is always delicious! I posted that recipe here when I used it to frost a carrot cake for Easter a few years ago! The recipe is toward the very bottom of the post... and I left out the nuts when I made it for the cupcakes!

Evan's 25th Birthday

We celebrated Evan's 25th birthday on July 1st. We went out to eat at a Hibachi restaurant and then went back home for a casual summery party with a hint of a baseball theme (baseball is Evan's favorite sport). Here are a few pictures from the evening and the recipe for the Fresh Strawberry Tart that served as Evan's birthday cake! :)

Fresh Strawberry Tart

Ingredients:

1/2 recipe of 1-2-3 dough

2 T cornstarch or all purpose flour

1 cup milk

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 piece of vanilla bean

2 egg yolks

1 quart fresh strawberries

1 cup heavy cream

1-2 T Kirsch apricot glaze (or apricot jelly)

Directions

Butter and flour a 9 inch tart shell with a removable bottom. Pat the dough into the shell. Prick well with a fork and bake in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool.

Heat 3/4 cup of the milk with the vanilla bean. Mix the egg yolks, cornstarch, sugar and remaining milk. Add the egg mixture to the hot milk, stir and cook until thick. Spread on a plate and sprinkle with sugar to cool. Whip the heavy cream. Stir the Kirsch into the cooled egg mixture (pastry cream). Fold the whipped cream into the cooled egg mixture (pastry cream). Spread the mixture into the baked and cooled crust. Slice strawberries and arrange on the cream. Brush more apricot glaze on the top of the tart. (tart needs to be served the same day that it's made.)

1-2-3 Dough

Ingredients:

1 cup granulated sugar

2 cups butter

3 cups of all purpose flour

1 egg

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together until well blended. Chill. This amount of dough is enough to make 2 tarts.

Happy LONG weekend! :)

Easter Weekend and Coconut Cake

We couldn't have asked for a better "first holiday as a family"!!

On Friday night, we went to the Good Friday service at our church. On Saturday morning, there was another sweet baby shower for Seth (more on that in the next few days)! On Saturday afternoon we went to see the Easter Bunny... Seth wasn't exactly a fan... but the pictures are hilarious and I'm sure they'll be a family favorite for years to come! haha On Saturday night, we dyed Easter eggs and on Sunday morning the Easter Bunny came to see Seth (and Jack) before we went to church! After church, we had lunch and an egg hunt with my family at my grandparents' house and finally, we ended our weekend with dinner with Evan's parents! :)

Here are a few pictures from our weekend!

Waiting in line to meet the Easter Bunny... at this point, he was still smiling! ha!

Dyeing Easter eggs...

I think it's safe to say we enjoyed ourselves :)

So, I bought Seth's Easter basket a month or so ago and had it monogrammed. Then I decided that Jack needed a little Easter basket too, so I started looking for one to coordinate with Seth's... and I found one with the EXACT same pattern that was made by the EXACT same company at a pet store and it was already filled with dog toys and treats!!! I was SO excited... I realize you probably don't care but I just had to share my excitement! haha

This was Seth's first Easter basket of the day... little did he know that he was going to get THREE more!! haha My parents and grandparents and Evan's parents all gave him one too!! Thank goodness he isn't spoiled :)

My siblings and grandparents!

My siblings and parents!

My mom made Easter baskets for all three of us! :)

Checking out basket #2 (from Gigi and Papa) and #3 (from Mammaw and Pappaw)... with a little help from a nosey "big brother"! :)

"Hunting" for eggs!

And... Easter basket #4 from Honee and Pop! :)

A little snuggle time with Pop before dinner!

Here is the recipe for a delicious and super super simple coconut cake! My family has been making this for as long as I can remember! For Easter, you can dye the coconut green (like grass) and put jelly beans on top (for eggs) but it makes a great quick dessert any day of the year!

Coconut Cake

Ingredients:

1 box white cake mix

1 can Cream of Coconut

1 tub Cool Whip

1 pkg. shredded coconut

Directions:

Bake the white cake according to directions on the box. When the cake comes out of the oven, poke holes all over it and pour the can of Cream of Coconut over the cake. Cool cake completely. Frost the (cooled) cake with Cool Whip and top with shredded coconut!

Y'all, this cake is SOOOO easy and SOOOO good! If you haven't ever made it before, you definitely should! :)

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Wow. That was a LONG post but I had a lot to share! :) What a blessing for our first holiday with Seth to be Easter, the day that we celebrate Christ's sacrifice and our adoption into His family! Have a GREAT week! :)

White Hot Chocolate

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving... We sure did! We got a chance to spend some quality time with both sides of our family and we ate a TON of good food. I already gave you my favorite pie crust recipe so today, I thought I would give you a great recipe that I recently found for hot chocolate.

A few weeks ago, Evan and I had our community group (small group from church) over to our house. I made Paula Deen's "White Hot Chocolate" and set up a "hot chocolate bar" complete with dark chocolate shavings, crushed peppermints, mint leaves, marshmallows and whipped cream. It was really fun and the recipe is definitely a keeper! :)

White Hot Chocolate

Ingredients:

1 cup white chocolate chips

1 cup heavy cream

4 cups half and half

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

In medium saucepan, over medium heat, combine white chocolate chips and heavy cream. Stir continuously until white chocolate chips have completely melted. Stir in half and half and vanilla extract. Stir continuously until heated through. Pour into mugs and serve.

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In addition to our two Thanksgiving celebrations and a little black Friday shopping, we also cut down our Christmas tree this past weekend! Here are a few pictures from our time at the Christmas tree farm! :)

Cheers ;)

My Thanksgiving Essential

Let's ignore the fact that I basically haven't blogged in the month of November and skip straight to the good news... Thanksgiving is tomorrow!! Over the years, my family has celebrated Thanksgiving in different locations, with different people and with different dishes on the menu but one thing is always certain... there will be pie! We make homemade pies with homemade pie crust and though it's a little extra work, it's totally worth it! :)

My recipe for pie crust is a recipe that my mom saved from a home economics class when she was in high school. This recipe is really special to me because we've been making pies together (with this recipe) since I was a little girl. She would ALWAYS let me make my own little pie and even though it was never edible, we would always bake it and pretend like it was! :) Now that I'm married, I make pies at my house and she makes pies at her house and we take them to my grandparents' house for Thanksgiving but we always talk on the phone while we are baking... because this recipe can be frustrating and always calls for a little moral support! haha

Mom's Pie Crust

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups sifted flour

1 t. salt

3/4 cup shortening

1/4 cup water

Directions:

Sift flour and salt into a mixing bowl. Take out 1/3 cup of flour and mix with 1/4 cup of water to form a paste. Cut shortening into remaining flour until shortening is the size of peas. Add the flour paste and mix until well blended. Wrap in wax paper and chill for 20 minutes. Divide dough- place half on floured board to roll out. Roll out with short, light strokes- away from the center toward the edge to 1/8 inch thickness. Fold in fourths and lift to pie plate. Unfold. Pierce dough with fork in several places. Fill with filling and bake according to the directions on your filling recipe of choice.

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What are the Thanksgiving essentials at your house?

Halloween, Razorbacks and Cookies

We had a such a fun weekend!!! Here are few of the highlights:

On Friday, I went with my mom, grandma, Jack and Millie to my Aunt June's nursing home for a Halloween party. I told you that Aunt June was going to dress up as Miss America but she decided that she wasn't really in the mood to dress up on the day of the party! I also told you that Jack was going to be Super Man and Millie was going to be a ladybug... which actually did happen... and they were PRECIOUS!!! But, they got so excited when we arrived at the party that they wouldn't stand still for a picture! haha SO, here are a few action shots...

And here are some sweet pictures of them with Aunt June... they love her and she loves them! :)

And here's a picture of the whole gang!

After Aunt June's party, I drove straight to Evan's office and picked him up from work (where we changed into our Halloween costumes) and headed to Texarkana, TX, for an amazing Halloween party at my friend, Jaclyn's, house! It was a costume party, but we were supposed to wear all black... this is what we came up with...

Then, on Saturday, we drove to Fayetteville, AR, for the Razorback game!!

We had a pretty busy weekend and we drove a LOT but we loved every second of it!!

And now for the cookie part :)

I made no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies for Aunt June's Halloween party and here is the recipe:

No-Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:

1/2 cup milk

2 cups sugar

1 1/2 t. vanilla

1/2 t. salt

1 stick margarine

4 T. cocoa powder

3 cups quick cooking oats

1/4 cup peanut butter

Directions:

In saucepan, melt margarine, mix sugar and cocoa powder with it, add milk and vanilla. Put on medium heat and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add oats, salt and peanut butter. Drop spoonfuls of cookie mixture on wax paper and allow them to cool.

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Here's a picture!

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Whoa. Picture overload! I'm sorry! haha Looking at this post makes me wonder how we fit all of that into one weekend! :)

I hope you all had a great weekend too!!

Don't forget to vote today!!

Fresh Strawberry Cake

Tomorrow is the 17th annual Susan G. Komen Race For the Cure in Little Rock, AR. This race means so much to me and is a day that I look forward to all year long! This year will be my 9th year to participate! I just think it is such an awesome feeling to come together with thousands of other women who believe in the cause as much as I do!

Between my sophomore and junior years of high school, a close friend of mine lost her mom to breast cancer after a long and difficult battle. In college, several girls in my sorority had moms, grandmas and aunts who were fighting breast cancer and two sisters even lost their mom to breast cancer during those years. Right after I graduated college, I had a lump in my breast that turned out to be a benign tumor and had to be removed... and even though it wasn't cancer, it scared reality into me.

Breast cancer is very real and it is all around us. Just because we or the women we love don't have breast cancer at the moment doesn't mean that it isn't just around the corner. I don't say this to scare anyone but I think that we, as women, almost have a responsibility to support the cause of finding a cure for breast cancer and a responsibility to stand up for one another. That's why I love the race, because it is the perfect way to raise money for research while celebrating women and standing up for those who are fighting for their lives.

Not to mention, it's fun for the whole family!!

Here are a few pictures from the race last year...

So, in honor of breast cancer awareness month and race weekend, I will be wearing pink today and sharing a delicious recipe for Fresh Strawberry Cake with y'all... because it's delicious... and because it's pink! ;)

Fresh Strawberry Cake

Ingredients:

1 boxed white cake mix

1 box strawberry jello

1/2 cup crushed fresh strawberries

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup water

4 eggs

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together and beat 2-3 minutes. Pour into 2 greased 9 in. round cake pans or a 9x13 baking pan and bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.

Fresh Strawberry Frosting

Ingredients:

1/2 stick butter

1/2 cup crushed fresh strawberries

1 (1 lb.) box powdered sugar

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together and spread frosting in between the layers of cake then on the top and sides (or just on the top for a 9x13 cake).

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Are any of you "Racing For the Cure" in your city this month?

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

I hope everyone had a great weekend (despite a devastating loss for my fellow Razorback fans). The highlight of my weekend was the cooler weather that we (finally) had yesterday!!

And in honor of this long awaited fall feeling, here is a delicious fall recipe that I made last week on the first official day of fall. I found this recipe on a friend and fellow food blogger's blog: Lindsay's Menu.

I just had to try this recipe because I felt like chocolate and pumpkin were an unlikely pair and I had to see for myself how it worked... it totally works!! I LOVED this recipe!! Evan and I polished off the whole loaf with no help from friends or family... haha what?? At least it wasn't all in one night! :)

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1 heaping cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine first five ingredients and mix well. Add remaining ingredients. Mix together and pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake for 45-55 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. (Lindsay recommends that you cover your bread with foil for the last 10ish minutes so the edges don't get too dark.)

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Let me know what you think of the pumpkin/ chocolate combo if you try this recipe or have tried one like it! :)