Feastin' on a Thursday

It has been awhile since I've been able to cook a real meal, sit down, and eat. D and I made our own alfredo with onion and spam, corn soup, and chicken kabobs with grilled pineapples and onions. We made the Alfredo Sauce with garlic powder, flour, milk, and parmesan cheese. The making of the sauce was a complete experiment. We had no idea if it was going to turn out okay, but fortunately, it was great! It was incredibly delicious and in my own opinion, I think it was a lot better than store-bought Alfredo. The kabobs were a lot easier than making my own alfredo sauce. The kabobs were grilled chicken (heavily decorated in lemon pepper and steak pepper), grilled pineapples (I grilled one side in a 350 F oven and grilled the other side as well), and fried onions.

Yum, yum, yum!

Summer-ending Snack: Skewers

After coming home from a welcome week event, D and I planned to make meatball/Hawaiian skewers. In the end, when D was making it, he forgot to add the pineapples, but it still tasted absolutely delicious! It was kind of nice relaxing while D made food for my roommate and me. It was the perfect late night snack before we start classes tomorrow. This is definitely a recipe I'm going to try again (but with grilled pineapples!).

All you need are skewers (or thin chopsticks), onions, bell peppers, your choice of meat (I chose teriyaki meatballs), and pineapples. It doesn't take too much time and it's a perfect appetizer or mid-day/late-night snack.

Superman cupcakes

I baked Superman cupcakes for another one of my friend's birthdays. I bought superman rings from Amazon {here} to decorate the top of the cupcakes. These cupcakes are pretty flexible: you can make it with vanilla or chocolate cupcakes and light blue or dark blue frosting. These are one of the most fun cupcake designs I've ever made. I again used the rosette design (like the Nutella frosting cupcakes) and sprinkled on some edible decor before inserting the Superman rings atop.

SUPERMAN CUPCAKES

the vanilla version, serves 12

Ingredients:

2/3 cup butter (softened)
3/4 cup superfine sugar
1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Frosting:

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

blue food coloring

or just buy blue vanilla frosting from your local grocery store.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin pan with baking cups.
2. In a large bowl, mix butter ans sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in eggs one at a time. Stir in vanilla and flour. 

3. Bake for 15 minutes. Frost when cool (mix all together until fluffy).

4. Add the superman rings on the top...and enjoy!

monkey cupcakes

When I first came across Martha Stewart's monkey cupcakes {here}, I deemed it a little hard for me. I danced around the idea for weeks until I randomly spotted this recipe {here}. It appeared extremely doable and though the monkey looks a bit different, I personally thought the latter was cuter. Because monkeys are D's favorite animals, I was determined to make them for our anniversary.

The funniest thing happened as I was making them. I locked myself and my roommate out while the cupcakes were baking. A lot of our friends came by our apartment to attempt to unlock the door, but after two hours, we had to call the locksmith...otherwise, our apartment would have probably burned down. The whole incident was hilarious, but at the same time, it seemed inappropriate to laugh. When we finally got the door unlocked, the apartment smelled of smoke and my cupcakes were completely black and burnt. So, take two...

MONKEY CUPCAKES

Ingredients:
1 box of yellow cake mix (if you want to skip the making of the mixture)
1 can of milk or dark chocolate frosting
1 box of Nilla Wafers
1 box of mini Nilla Wafers
red and black gel icing pens

Directions:
1. follow directions on the cake mix box (or make your own mixture!) and add slices of bananas into the cake mix
2. bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees and let cupcakes cool for 5 minutes before adding chocolate frosting (make sure frosting is flat)
3. break mini wafers in half and use as ears and use 3/4 of the regular wafers as the mouth area
4. use the red gel icing as the smile and black gel icing as the eyes and nostrils (you'll notice in my pictures that I used oreos for the eyes because Safeway didn't sell black gel icing)

homemade funnel cake

I've always enjoyed eating funnel cakes at carnivals and fairs, but I've never dreamt that one day I would be making it myself! I do have to admit, it's a little repulsive to see all the oil I had to use to deep fry the mixture, but the taste of the funnel cake quickly helped me forget. I used this recipe {here} and added strawberries (next time, I want to try bananas). The funnel cake tasted ten times better just because it was homemade and shared with friends! It definitely brought me back to memories of my hometown's annual carnivals and reminded me of the annual OC Fair. 

cream puffs

I haven't been updating frequently because I haven't had Internet in my apartment. Anyway, I made cream puffs last night and for all the salty and sweet lovers out there, cream puffs are the perfect compromise. It was a great dessert to finish off the night, and it's incredibly easy to make. I found the recipe here. The cream is extremely light and with the shells, it's so perfect. It's the perfect warm/cold mixture for a breezy summer night with the warm shells and chilled cream inside. I'm so glad I was able to bake with one of my roommates and bake something other than cupcakes (though I love it, I'm not much of a sweet person, so I end up making it for people without taking more than two bites). 

Chicken pot pie

First of all, I've noticed that food has taken over my blog...hence, the "eat" part of my blog name, I guess. I've always wanted to cook and bake, but I don't have the time when I'm in school...and living in dorms kind of make it hard to cook too. Anyway, I love chicken pot pie, so I decided to cook it from scratch for dinner. It's actually really quite easy {recipe here} so it doesn't take more than 15 minutes to prep before putting it into the oven. The only problem I encountered was the pie crusts. They take 45 minutes to thaw, but since I had just bought the pie crusts and needed to make it at the moment, I put them on the stove to thaw faster. That made it more difficult when transferring the pie crusts onto the pan. Other than that, it was relatively easy and incredibly delicious!

Shrimp Cocktail and Company

On Saturday night, I decided to make my own version of the shrimp cocktail. The sauce is different - it's made with mango so it has a tangy, sweet vibe to it. I got the idea from watching the Food Network during the afternoon. It's a low budget and time efficient appetizer or snack. Before boiling the shrimp, I cut the side in half to remove the black vein. The sauce is made with mangos, red pepper, lime juice, garlic, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of sugar. I threw everything into the mixer and I chopped up green onions to top it off. You can put sriracha sauce on top with the green onions, but I'm not a fan of spicy so I omitted that.

Afterward, D and I watched a bit of the Lakers game (I'm trying to convert him into a Lakers fan) and then, Tower Heist with Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller. Grrrrreat movie and great snacks!

Good Friday dinner

My floormate Brittany and I made bruschetta and buttered mushroom alfredo for dinner tonight. She is quite the cook (check out her cooking album, if you're her Facebook friend!) and she came up with the idea. I, of course, had fun being her assistent and documenting the making of this delicious dish. While I was dicing the tomatoes, I somehow confused my finger with the tomato so I have a nice cut on my index finger. The funniest part came when I told Britt what had happened and she looked at me and said, "Well, don't get blood on the tomatoes!" Thanks, Britt. The whole kitchen had one of the best aromas I have ever smelt after we were done. I can't tell you how delicious the pasta and bruschetta were...but seriously, it was worth the food coma. I cannot wait until dead week when Britt cooks for our floor!

Pie pops

Pie pops recipe found here! To start off spring break, I made pie pops with my big. I think the hardest part is making the dough...everything else is pretty standard. We used jam, but next time, I think I'll definitely try making a pie filling. It's really fun, and it doesn't take much time (after making the dough) - it's a really fun activity to do with friends!

Use cookie cutters to shape the dough. Make sure you put lots of flour on the dough to lessen the stickiness.

Choose your pie filling. Either make a filling (see above link) or stick with a simple flavored jam.

To get a nice Betty Crocker finish, use a cooking brush to coat egg whites on your pops. Throw away the yolk!

Enjoy!

Sugar cookies with apple slices

As mentioned before, I baked with my big. After deciding that we didn't have many ingredients, we selected an easy recipe: sugar cookies. The recipe can be found here. We found the sugar cookies to be a little plain so we added our own twist: frosting, an apple slice, and brown sugar on top. If you have a sweet tooth, this could be the best remedy! Even if you don't enjoy sweets (like me), this is a delicious dessert: the apple balances out the sweetness of all the sugar.

mac 'n cheese muffins for dinner

For Saturday dinner as mentioned before, my pledge class was responsible for cooking dinner. The Mac 'n Cheese muffins dish was inspired by this recipe. It didn't take too long (maximum, maybe 55 minutes), but with three girls baking the mac 'n cheese and desserts and three more girls baking the chicken, preparing dinner didn't take too long. I have to say making dinner and seeing the end products were pretty exciting. We also made cupcakes (chocolate and yellow), mashed potatoes (not pictured), and chicken with spices. The retreat overall was pretty memorable, but I think one of the major highlights was making dinner and bonding over cooking with my pledge sisters.