June 11, 2011- Cupcakes

Katie had chicken strips and grapes for dinner.  Ben, his mom, and I had cupcakes for dinner after Katie went to bed.  We ate a late lunch at P.F. Changs and just weren't hungry for another meal.  My cupcake was mint chocolate.  Ben's was triple chocolate.  Jennifer's was mocha flavored.  All were quite tasty.  

Our future sister-in-law, Kate, is moving to Washington to live with Spencer.  She is enrolled in the Family Nurse Practitioner program at the University of Washington and starts in just a week or two.  They have been on the road, driving here from Chicago, over the past couple of days.  They will arrive tomorrow and we spent the day preparing a surprise for them.  Jennifer and I created "welcome" posters, one for Kate and one for her dogs:)  We let ourselves into their home and left them fancy desserts, wine, flowers, chocolates, an umbrella for Kate, and treats for the dogs. 

Tuesday, 11/30/2010

We celebrated 2nd birthdays with our PEPS group tonight.  Barb, Tad, and Ronan hosted the party.  Barb made a fantastic beef stew and fixed up gnocchi to go with it.  Continuing with our cycle of potlucks, we also had snacks for the kids, a spinach and strawberry salad, and crusty bread.  I signed up to bring the dessert.  What fun to make the birthday cupcakes:)  I used a recipe my friend Taran passed to me several years ago for a spice cake made with cream sherry.  Usually made in a Bundt cake pan, it was different to go the cupcake route with the recipe.  Thankfully, it worked great!  Here's the recipe:

SPICE CAKE

Ingredients:
1 yellow cake mix
1 small vanilla instant pudding
2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup canola oil
3/4 cup cream sherry
4 eggs

Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter and flour a Bundt pan. 
2.  Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl.  Add oil, sherry, and eggs. 
3.  Bake for 25-35 minutes.  The cake is done with a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean.
4.  Loosen the cake from the pan with a spatula.  This helps it from sticking to the pan when you turn it over.  Place on a plate and let cool completely.
5.  It tastes great with a cream sherry/powdered sugar glaze on top, or just powdered sugar.  For the glaze, mix a small amount of cream sherry with a large amount of powdered sugar until it reaches a very gooey, non-translucent state.  Pour over top of cake and let harden.  Voila!

Note: This recipe made 6 large and 12 medium sized cupcakes that were all bulging at the top.  I baked them for 23 minutes.  Since the cakes were mainly for 2-year-olds, I didn't think the cream sherry glaze was appropriate.  I frosted the cupcakes with store bought cream cheese frosting instead. I added green sprinkles for the boys and purple sprinkles for Katie. 

Tuesday, 11/2/2010

Tonight we had dinner with our PEPS friends.  Sara, Aaron, and Ari hosted.  We had lasagna, caesar salad, and garlic bread with ice cream sundaes and chocolate cupcakes for dessert.  As usual, the food was great!  Sara also put out bowls of crackers for the kids to munch on and a cheese plate for the adults.

Since we weren't able to get together at a pumpkin patch two weekends ago, we decided to take our group Halloween costume photo tonight instead.  And by group, I mean the kids.  It is always entertaining trying to get them to sit still long enough for a group photo.  The easiest one was definitely when they were all still 5-6 months old:)  Here are the kids in all of their Halloween finest. 


Jackson as Thomas the Train.
Ronan as a frog.
Katie as a kitty.
Ari as a giraffe.
Oliver as a vampire.



Tuesday, 9/28/2010

My friend Lyle came over for dinner tonight.  We enjoyed chicken piccata, roasted garlic couscous, and grilled asparagus. I prepare all of the ingredients for dinner throughout the afternoon, while Katie allowed it:)  At 5:30pm, the only thing I had left to do was slice the chicken, pound it into cutlets, and dredge them in flour.  I was a little worried dinner would be really late when Ben said he was stuck in bad traffic downtown.  Thankfully, he got home before Lyle arrived, and we were able to tag-team with the chicken prep and Katie entertaining. 

I have fond memories of the first time we had this chicken dish.  My parents had to wait over a month to visit Katie when she was born, due to the extremely snowy winter in Spokane.  When they finally arrived, this was one of the meals I planned to make for them.  As you can imagine, Katie needed to eat at the exact time I was supposed to make dinner.  So, I turned the recipe over to my parents and let them fix it instead.  It was a delicious meal that I will always remember.  It was fun to relive it tonight.  Here's the recipe.

CHICKEN PICCATA
from Cuisine At Home magazine

Makes 2 servings
Total time: about 30 minutes

Ingredients:
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in half and pounded into cutlets.
Salt and black pepper
All-purpose flour
Nonstick spray
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1/4 cup dry white wine
1 tsp. minced garlic
1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp. drained capers
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
Fresh lemon slices
Chopped fresh parsley

Directions:
1.  Season cutlets with salt and pepper, then dredge in flour.  Coat a saute pan with nonstick spray, add oil, and heat over medium-high.
2.  Saute cutlets 2-3 minutes on one side.  Flip cutlets over and saute the other side, covered, 1-2 minutes.  Transfer cutlets to a warmed platter; pour off fat from the pan.
3.  Deglaze pan with wine and add minced garlic.  Cook until garlic is slightly brown and liquid is nearly evaporated, about 2 minutes.
4.  Add broth, lemon juice, and capers.  Return cutlets to plan and cook on each side for 1 minutes.  Transfer cutlets to warm plates.
5.  Finish sauce with butter and lemons.  Once butter melts, pour sauce over cutlets. 
6.  Garnish with chopped fresh parsley and serve immediately.

Notes:  This makes enough for 3 people if you are serving with a couple side dishes.  Also, I've never garnished with parsley and it still looks and tastes great. 

For dessert, we had large lemon cupcakes with buttercream frosting.  I have Duncan Hines and Pillsbury to thank for the cake mix and frosting:)  This afternoon, I thought Katie would enjoy watching me frost the cupcakes.  I sat her on the edge of the counter, stood in front of her to keep her from falling off, and then showed her how to do it.  She seemed to enjoy watching; so, I asked her to get the next cupcake for me to frost.  She picked it up and promptly buried her little teeth in it.  "Cake" she said confidently!  I guess she wanted to make sure she claimed one for later:)