Biscuit follow up

The left over biscuits went fast as the next day we made these beauties for lunch.
They were absolutely to die for with turkey, fresh romaine, and organic tomatoes from a local farm. All with a spread of brie cheese !
Bon Appettite!

Happy Birthday to me! ....um belated lol

As you can see I've had many posts saved up over the summer and never got the time to post them. Now that Autumn is on its way things have slowed down a bit and I can catch up.

So my birthday was actually August 30th. For my birthday my awesome sister got me this Gothic birthday cake. Both me and my husband love Gothic things that are reminiscent of Victorian or "Interview with the Vampire"
So it was hilarious and gorgeous to see this come out of the box.

Done in a wonderful whipped frosting since I tend to find butter cream a little to thick and heavy for my taste.

One last lovely picture of the beauty. I loved the art on it so much I almost wanted to cringe cutting into it. Glad we did though cause the cake was delicious!

Learning to make Biscuits

So during this summers fun me and my cousin bubbles decided to surprise my husband with a home made squash soup and biscuits. If you noticed a recurring theme on this blog it's squash. My husband absolutely adores squash and pumpkins in just about any form of food.

When I was a child I loved cooking and baking with my mother and also my grandmothers. It is what sowed the seeds of my love of being in the kitchen.
It was so cool to instead of be standing beside my mother learning from her to find myself teaching my sister and cousin this summer. In some ways surreal to see myself saying or doing the same things that were said to me when I was little.

It really was enjoyable. I highly suggest if you've been nervous about teaching baking or cooking to your children to try it. To see the joy they have at seeing what they can make with their own hands and the joy of seeing others enjoying the treats they made is priceless!

Plus doesn't she look just darling wearing my Apron!!!

The funnest part for her was getting to handle the dough and roll it out. We used just a basic biscuit recipe that is in my great grandmother's recipe book.

Tenn. Home Biscuits Recipe
by, Deborah Lund

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. baking powder
4 tbsp. butter or margarine or oil or shortening (lol basically whatever you have on hand. we used oil)
2/3 cups of milk or water (we used milk)

Mix dry ingredients first. Then add butter or which one you use, and use a fork to mash it and mix it in. Then add milk or water all at once and stir quickly by hand. Form into ball and knead only a couple of times. Then form into biscuits. Bake at 425 degrees for 12 minutes.

It's a pretty simple recipe and yet dipped in the soup, or covered with honey butter or my personal favorite Nutella they are phenomenal.

Bubbles loved needing the dough and cut out all the biscuits herself.
Which turned out to be a good thing because hers turned out the perfect shape and size and mine always turn out lopsided.

See how nice and even hers looked.
While the biscuits were baking we worked on the soup.


Cream of Chicken and Squash Soup
by Angel Reid aka me

1/2 chicken or whatever meat you have on hand
1 squash (we used a butternut squash that was from an elderly gentleman's home garden)
2 potatoes
cornstarch or flour for thickening if you want i t
rosemary, parsley, and Bay leaves
1 cup of milk or cream
chicken or meat broth
half stick of butter


The day before on low I cooked the chicken in some water to make home made chicken stock. You could do this easily in a crock pot. Every so often I'd check to see how far down it boiled and add a little more water to it. After the chicken is well cooked i took it out and put it in the fridge to cool and use the next day.

The next day I halved the squash and scooped out the guts and seeds. Place it in a pan with a little water in the bottom and bake for about an hour at 350 degrees.

For the potatoes i just cooked them in the microwave for 4 or 5 minutes until soft because i was to lazy to bake or boil them.

When the squash is done you scoop the soft parts out of the rind, and put in the pot of stock, add the milk butter herbs, potatoes, and mash with a potato masher.

While that is simmering on medium on the stove, shred up the chicken you boiled earlier and chuck into the soup. I love how boiled chicken practically falls apart it shreds so easily. I also used fresh rosemary from a plant we have in our back yard. Let it simmer till everything is nice and hot stirring occasionally. If you like your soup thicker just add some cornstarch once its hot or flour to thicken it.


Oh look and the biscuits are done just as you finish with the soup! I love when things work out so perfectly! Don't they look delicious. We sprayed the tops with a little spray butter to get them nice and soft.

Tada shredded chicken squash soup with amazing biscuits.
Bubbles really did a fantastic job, and husband was super happy and surprised to come home to this hot and cozy meal.

DInner rolls and Roast Beast!

I have this cute cousin staying with me for the summer.

She was very excited to learn some things in the kitchen. She loved getting to wear my spare apron and even did much of the measuring, and mixing herself. She requested to learn to bake some kind of bread and make a nice dinner for my husband for when he gets home from work as.


So this materialized into our wonderful plan to make home made dinner rolls from scratch. She learned how to double a recipe, and knead dough properly.
Her favorite part was kneading the dough because she loved the feel of the flour on her hands.
(definitely related to me in that aspect!)

The rolls turned out fantastic and the family gobbled them all up within minutes.
There was definitely no leftovers.
Served with tasty rolls was roast beast (called that ever since we saw the grinch)
Steamed asparagus lightly oiled and salted, and some mashed potatoes with home made gravy. Don't forget the glass bottled mexican coke with cane sugar numnumnum.
A feast fit for our king aka The Hubby!

Muffins!

Home made muffins for a tasty fancy breakfast!

So okay maybe muffins aren't the fanciest, but for us cereal eating folks it counted.
I used a basic muffin recipe and then added some fresh raspberries that I had to the mix. We then served them with some frozen grapes which were refreshing!
I also used a large muffin pan so they'd be like the ones from Mimi's cafe. If you plan to do that you'll definitely want to double the recipe or even quadruple it so you have enough to make big fluffy muffins.

What don't you drink milk in wine glasses for fancy breakfast *lol*
We had lots of fun even if we are silly!

1rst Year Anniversary

Today is our 1 year Anniversary! Hopefully we'll have many more to look forward to in the future.

A little sneak peak at some of the romance. Needless to say it was a phenomenal day and even more wonderful evening.

I surprised him with a very romantic treasure hunt. He amongst the cards and trails of chocolate kisses leading around the house he found a home made cheesecake (his fav dessert) surrounded by hand dipped chocolate covered strawberries. (took everything for me not to eat them while i was dipping them they looked so good) a bouquet of flowers, a hand painted picture frame with pictures of us from our wedding, and a candlelit room strewn with rose petals and ...... oh that's where the tour stops (private show people lol). We also toasted our year together with some sparkling cider using the glasses from our wedding. Needless he was very surprised and loved all of that. It was awesome seeing the look on his face when he saw everything.

He took me to one of my favorite Italian restaurants called Carabba's.
The pasta there is fantastic and fresh warm baked bread baked in a wood stove.
They also gave us a phenomenal dessert complimentary as a Anniversary gift. I also recieved a Massage which was sooooo nice!

I'm so thankful to have found such a wonderful man!

Stuffed Peppers

Last week I decided to surprise my husband with these stuffed bell peppers.
I found a pack of six for five bucks at costco that came with two of each color but green. Now normally I can't stand bell peppers myself, but I knew my husband loved them. He had a pretty bad day at work and needed some cheering up.

The recipe like many of mine I just developed myself as I went along. The results were fantastic, although I have to say we all agreed that the orange peppers tasted best with the filling.

Stuffed Bell Peppers Ing.
6 whole bell peppers (any color you desire)
1/2 lb of ground beef.
1/2 onion
1 jalapeno pepper
1 cup of rice
two small cans of tomato sauce (or one can of marinara sauce)
lots of shredded cheddar cheese
1 clove of garlic (or you can use some garlic powder)
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 tablespoons oregano
1 tsp of basil
salt and pepper

Instructions
1. chop up the onion, and garlic finely. Also take the inside seeds out of the jalapeno and chop up finely. Put all these into a pan with ground beef on medium heat to brown. I also added some salt and pepper.

2. Cut off the top of the bell peppers. Use a spoon to scoop out all the insides. Place them in a glass pan. Sprinkle a good portion of cheddar cheese into the bottoms of each pepper.

3. When beef and vegi's are browned add the 1 cup of rice and 1/2 cup of water to the pan and cover with lid.

4. Pour the contents of the tomato sauce cans into a bowl. add 1 1/2 tablespoons oregano and 1 tsp of basil to the tomato sauce. Mix well and then add to the rice ground beef mixture. Make sure to stir often mixing the ingredients so they don't stick to the bottom of the pan.

5. Once the rice mixture is cooked and the rice is the right texture take off the heat and sprinkle lots of cheddar cheese onto the filling and then mix it in.

6. Set the oven to preheat to 350 degrees. Fill each pepper to the top with the filling. Once all the peppers are full put more cheese on top and if you like put the little tops back on. Add another cup of water into the pan with the peppers. Place in the oven and bake for 45- 50 minutes.

These are a major hit, and especially tasted good with orange bell peppers.

Angel's Pumpkin Soup vid

Since my husbands favorite vegetable is pumpkin. I made the attempt to come up with a creamy pumpkin soup recipe for him.
My mother caught it on video, so don't mind how awful i look or my voice, just stare at the pumpkin soup. It really was tasty, and there was no leftovers by the end of the night!

and here is the video of the final product. I always add toasted pumpkin seeds because they add a nice salty mild crunch to the soup.

Fun with crafts again!

Lately I haven't been posting as much. This is do largely to me being in a more crafting and sewing mood then baking. So you might see a mix of posts.

My first experiment was in making fleece hats. I found that fleece has this wonderful affect of hypnotizing whoever is near it to touch it. It's so soft and fluffy and warm people just can't resist. Yes not even I made my will save vs the fleece.

The first experiment was this cute flop eared bunny hat which is for a young cousin of mine.

I used white buttons for eyes and sewed on a scrap of black for the nose using a zig zag stitch around it. The mouth is dotted on with permanent black marker and then gone over with zig zab stitches in black to darken it a little. Also this hat has little ear flaps to keep her ears toasty warm on cold days. I hope she gives the bunny hat a cute name!

While working on the bunny hat my younger sis made herself an awesome Dino hat with spikes. I designed it but she did all the cutting and sewing herself! It looked so cute on her she didn't take it off almost the entire time she visited. She even wore it to the zoo where many young boys were very jealous.


Then we combined our powers of "awesome" to create this hat four our mom. I designed it and sewed the basic hat, the side roughs and the eye. She cut out the pieces and sewed the ears and the white rim. The eye is colored with permanent markers in various colors on white fleece. I zig zagged black around the white eye to put it on the hat and darkened the ring with black marker.

With these plethora of cute hats coming about the hubby wanted one of his own in his Goth style.
So I made this warm and much larger black goth hat for him. The patch is a leather patch with embroidered skull design on it that I found at walmart in their craft section. He wears it to work now when it's cold since he has an outside job, and it keeps his head and ears very warm he tells me.

Belated post from Christmas

So these happened at Christmas, but they were on my little sisters camera, and she finely sent them to me. My husbands favorite things in the world besides cheese is Cheesecake, and pumpkin anything.
So for Christmas my sister and I made him a homemade pumpkin cheesecake.

We even whipped fresh whipped cream to top it. This was her first time piping and she did a fantastic job!

Also to celebrate the holidays we decided cookies were in order.
Something chocolaty and fun. These are called fudgie wudgeys but my husband says they are chocolate orgasm cookies.

They are baked as little balls of chocolate fun and then rolled in powdered sugar when they come out of the oven. The recipe was from a set of cookbooks my stepmom got me called "With Heart & Soul" and "Heart & Soul: among friends"by Roxie Kelley and friends. These books are fantastic! They have the most darling illustrations in them and the recipes are phenomenal. So far we have tried four recipes from each book and every single one has gotten tasty results.

Here is me and my sister forming the cookies together.

Me and my sis cooking together.

Egg Rolls

So a few weeks ago I decided to do some experimenting and made an "Asian" feast for me and my honey.

It started with some egg rolls filled with carrots, cabbage, chicken, mushrooms, and artichoke.
I found that even though they are daunting egg rolls are super easy to make and you can put any range of fillings in them. You can find the wrappers right around the fresh mushrooms or bags of salad at the grocery store.
I then used some sausage filling and leftover banana squash I had mashed up with lemon pepper and made croquettes. I was really nervous about these ones but the hubby loved them, and had wished I'd made more of them.

Then for the finale was some home made honey mustard sauce to dip into and onigiri's.
Now I've tried to make onigiri several times in the past and they always turned out tasteless and nothing compared to the one's I'd tried from the japanese market.
This time I finally found a great sushi rice recipe. Even though the hubby didn't care for them my sister and I loved them and ended up finishing off all the onigiri and rice the very next day.
I found my problem was I kept trying to use the onigiri sprinkle seasoning from the stores, and they just don't taste good to me. So instead went with a classic sushi rice flavor. It was just right.
You can find the sushi rice recipe Here
Definitely worth making again.

Fun with crafts

So around Christmas time I got into a craft mood, and haven't come out of it yet.
My mom showed me how to make cute bento bags using placemats bought at walmart and target. The first one I made for my husband as a gift. I hand embroidered his name into it and made a tassel for decoration.

I like the size of these bags they are a little bit bigger then normal bento bags so I can fit a drink and a cup of yogurt or pudding in beside or on top of the bento.

Then I made this for my best friend Kitten.
She is the mistress of all lol, so I made her an appropriate bento bag.

The designs on this one I put on using fabric puff paint in black. These are often very cheap and you can get them at walmart for around 65 cents.
I've been working on more recent craft projects but without my camera I'm going to have to take pictures using hubby's phone. Hopefully should have another update soon.

Old Bento

So this is a bento i did last month for my honey to take to work. He apparently had taken some picts with his phone so sorry for the poor quality.

The lower part of the bento is a potato casserole mix with some jalapeno poppers (they are from Costco and quite yummy) With a little babybel cheese.

Then to help balance out what i thought was a little too starchy i made him this cute salad.
The carrots i sliced and hand cut into little flowers. I also cut the cheese into cute shapes, and added some grape tomatos.

Because he has a bigger appetite then i do I put a bag of vegi chips in his bento bag alongside the rest of the food, and a bottle of some juice.
This was all packed into one of my brand new bento's that my sister got me for Christmas.
Isn't it cute! She also got me a red one.

After Hollidays Bento

Happy holidays everyone!

Hope you had a fantastic time. Me and my family had a fun, hectic, and busy time. I did several fun dishes that i'm still trying to get some of the video from to post here. Until I figure it out here is my most recent bento.


This was made for my hubbies lunch with a brand spanking new bento box I got for christmas from my little sis. I also got a matching black bento with yellow bag.

A two tiered lunch bento. The bottom has a cuppy full of Shephards pie which I've frozen in little silicone cups for perfect bento proportions. If you are taking it from the freezer just put the cup alone in the microwave for a few minutes before you leave the house and then put it in the bento.
I've seen people do the same thing for little spaghetti nests and bento size pizza's. The cups are microwave, dishwasher and oven save up to 500 degrees. So are super great for making bento size proportions or for using as a divider for colder foods.

There is also some bagel bites with slices of a polish salami that David got for Christmas.
The top part was some fresh slices of apples and a few blackberries all sprinkled with some cinnamon sugar.

I packed it up with a side ziploc of vanilla wafer cookies since he has a bigger appetite then me and a little bottle of cold water.