The Sweetest Thing of All, A Valentine's GIVEAWAY!

This Giveaway is now closed.

So with Valentine's Day coming up, I wanted to send one of my readers a little Valentine package. So here's what I'll be sending:

• 1 little bag of Jelly Belly jelly beans


• 1 little box of Necco conversation hearts


• 1 little bag of Hershey's Kisses Cherry Cordial


• 10 pack of blank floral note cards w/envelopes

Comment below telling me of a special Valentine's you've had!
(please leave me contact info also)

Giveaway ends: 7 pm pst, Monday, February 2, 2009

Bonus! Earn up to 4 more bonus entries by:
-Mommy bloggers! become a member of my Facebook Bloggin' Moms group
-Foodie bloggers! become a member of my I'm A Food Blogger! Flickr group
-Following me on Twitter and twittering this giveaway
-Following me through my blog widget (at bottom of blog)

Leave an additional comment for each extra entry or if you are already doing any of these.

The fine print:
-Open to USA readers only please
-Be sure to check my blog, and your email to see if you won!
-Winners will also be posted on my Twitter & Flickr
-I will choose a random winner using Random.org and blog who it is
-I verify your email/click-able name, blog posts, groups and button placement on blogs

Good luck!

You know, the Mr. & I don't get all lovey dovey here for Valentine's, that's ok. I get the kids a little something special and bake a treat, and they do the school thing but that's it.


When I was younger, my oldest sister gave me the nickname Jelly Belly so they've always reminded me of that. Do you know what my most favorite flavor of the bunch is? POPCORN! Yes! I love it! I know a lot of people dislike it, so send them all to me! :)

oh, I hate that my gifs have borders and formated wrong. ugh

Check out more Bloggy Giveaways here!

Tuesdays With Dorie: Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread

Heather of Sherry Trifle chose Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread for this week's TWD. I love gingerbread and chocolate but have never had the pair together, in fact I would never have thought to pair them up.

For this recipe Dorie listed an optional ingredient I am not familiar with, stem ginger, young ginger that has been peeled and preserved in a sugar syrup. Since I didn't feel like going out of my way too much looking for some, I just threw in some extra fresh grated ginger (and because I was out of ginger powder). I made this in a 9x13 pan and baked for 36 minutes (at 30 mins, it was still wiggly in the center).

*I just realized it should've been a 9x9 pan, even after reading Dorie's note on TWD! Oh well, it's still a cake, and came out just as good as any other.

I doubled the icing, because I baked it in a 9x13, I had more surface to cover.

Dorie also suggested serving this with ginger-infused whipped cream. YUM! So of course I did! Just heat up the whipped cream with fresh ginger, let steep, cool in the fridge, strain, and then whip up with a little powdered sugar to sweeten.

My review on this is, it certainly has some bold flavors going on, I wasn't crazy about it, and it wasn't super kid friendly here either. There's the ginger flavor, with all the chocolate, and then the chocolate icing enhanced with the coffee. After letting it sit even longer (I baked it the night before, and we ate it for dessert the next night), the icing (much like a ganache) just melted in your mouth, mmm. Then it turned on me day 3. It became dry and crumbly. Day 4 even worse. Day 5, the last 3 pieces are headed to the trash. Sorry Dorie!

I know other TWDers liked this, but I will probably stick to my basic gingerbread recipe.

Homemade Tomato Soup

Tomato soup is a favorite around here, and one of the soups Mr. loves, even though he hates tomatoes in every other form. So instead of buying canned soup, I thought I could make my own. I went to trusty allrecipes and decided on this one. As with lots of recipes from there, I changed it up with the suggestions of others, see my notes* on how I made it.

4 cups chopped fresh tomatoes*
1 sliced onion*
4 whole cloves*
2 cups chicken broth
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons white sugar, or to taste*

In a stockpot, over medium heat, combine the tomatoes, onion, cloves and chicken broth. Bring to a boil, and gently boil for about 20 minutes to blend all of the flavors. Remove from heat and run the mixture through a food mill* into a large bowl, or pan. Discard any stuff left over in the food mill.
In the now empty stockpot, melt the butter over medium heat. Stir in the flour to make a roux, cooking until the roux is a medium brown. Gradually whisk in a bit of the tomato mixture, so that no lumps form, then stir in the rest. Season with sugar and salt, and adjust to taste.

Notes: I doubled the recipe, used 3 large cans whole toms, sauteed chopped garlic in olive oil add the chopped onions (1 large) and saute until tender, used a pinch of ground cloves,. Pureed with a submersible blender (instead of a food mill) and then added the roux as described in the recipe. Added 2 tbl sugar and 1 cup milk.

The dinner rolls are these, with some garlic herb seasoning mixed in. Same with the croutons.

*these are the only 2 pictures I have left of this, they are the ones I submitted to the recipe, so they are small. My computer ate all the others. haha (I'm not laughing about it though)

Recap: Snickerdoodles and an Award!

These are such a popular cookie in our household and at my old job. They were always requested at every potluck/gathering we went to. Now that I'm a stay at home mommy, I don't get to bake them as often, which is a good thing (for me) , I suppose. Remember I made them here?

Ooh, just after I posted this, I saw I had an award waiting for me! Thanks SO much BOTDA!

Snickerdoodles

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
Cream together butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar, the eggs and the vanilla. Blend in the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Shape dough by rounded spoonfuls into balls.
Mix the 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon. Roll balls of dough in mixture. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.
Bake 8 to 10 minutes, or until set but not too hard. Remove immediately from baking sheets.
Makes about 4 1/2 dozen.
*In our oven now, I bake them at 350' for 10 minutes.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Berry Surprise Cake

This week's TWD gave a challenge for many of us. Mary Ann of Meet Me in the Kitchen chose Dorie's Berry Surprise Cake. Many of us had flat sunken cakes, myself included. See the bottom layer, that is cake #1. It's not even 2" tall. Knowing that would not be enough for even for a trifle instead of a cut out cake, I decided to make another one. After all I had all that yummy filling! My second cake came out much better, it rose and did not sink as much. The only thing I did different from cake #1 was, I whisked the mixture for a few minutes longer. I then decided to layer to the cakes, still hollowing them out and filling them (one thing that did happen to #1, was it was SO dense in the middle, good thing it was hollowed out). For the syrup, instead of liqour, I used seedless blackberry preserves, worked great! I cut the center well out smaller, I couldn't bare to eat this cake, with not much cake at all, I wanted cake with the filling! I really stuffed the cake full of blackberry cream cheese filling, so full the cutout ended up being a mound on top. No worries, a double batch of topping evened it all out. I made a blackberry coulis (sauce) as Dorie suggested would go well with this, and it did! All in all, this was a yummy cake, but a lot of work or components rather, to get it together. I'd have been fine with just a simple vanilla cake layered with the filling and whipped cream. This cake also reminded me of this recipe I made.

I wanted so much to use raspberries instead, I even went searching for our local farmer's market, but they are not in season for them yet and the grocery stores wanted $4+ for a tiny thing! I found blackberries on sale, so I used them instead. I also had some great prep photos to go with this, but my computer ate them, if somehow I am able to recover everything that was lost, I'll post them.





Blackberry Coulis

POM Juice Winners!

I hope everyone had a great 3 day weekend here in the U.S. We spent part of the weekend at the Monster Jam truck show, the kids love that. It's our 2nd year going, so we were able to meet and greet some of the drivers who weren't there last year but were this year. (I'd share a picture but...)

I was a little shocked this morning when I turned on my computer and found out that my settings had all been set back to the original state, even loosing my files and erasing my Picasa! My photo files included!! I am so bummed, I had a lot of blog photos to be posted and if I can't get them recovered I will be so sad! Anyone know how that could even happen, just like that, things were fine last night? My virus program hasn't alerted anything.

So some good news, especially for 3 of you! Here are my 3 lucky POM Juice winners! If you see your comment posted here, you must email me to claim your coupon so I can send it to you!

(I got ahead of myself, and I forgot to copy/save the winning Random.Org numbers)

#1 LeslieVeg

#2 Chrystina

#3 Fourkidsmom

Congrats to you guys, be sure to email me to claim your coupon! Everyone else, stay tuned for more Giveaways in the near future!

POM: Dessert and a Giveaway!

This Giveaway is now closed.

I came across this Pomegranate poached pears recipe and knew that after making Dorie's pear tart, I had the perfect excuse to poach more pears and use my POM juice!
Since I still had the poaching juice leftover from the tart, I used that and 16 oz of POM juice. Brought the pears to a boil for 15 minutes and let them sit in the juice until cool, cored and sliced them and placed them back in the juice to sit over night, to achieve a darker red color. Served them over some vanilla ban ice cream, yum!




So, how would 3 of you like to try some POM juice yourself? If you visit their website, you'll see they have a recipe section to give you some other ideas besides just drinking it.
"Packed with potent health benefits, POM Wonderful Pomegranate Juice is the real Antioxidant Superpower. "



I have 3 coupons to giveaway for a FREE 16oz bottle of POM Wonderful juice, any flavor. Just comment below telling me how you heard about my POM Giveaway!

Giveaway ends: 7pm pst, Monday, January 19, 2009 .

I'll pick 3 winners and they will be posted in a new blog entry, so be sure to check back!

If you want, earn up to 3 more bonus entries by:
-Bloggers, become a member of my Facebook Bloggin' Moms group
-Foodie bloggers, become a member of my I'm A Food Blogger! Flickr group
-Following me through my blog's widget (at bottom of blog)

Leave an additional comment for each extra entry or if you are already doing any of these.

The fine print:
-Open to USA readers only please
-Be sure to check my blog to see if you are a winner
-You will have 3 days to respond or I'll choose another winner
-I verify your email/click-able name, blog posts, group memberships and button placement on blogs

Don't forget to come back to my blog to see if you're a winner! Good luck!

Zucchini Bread

This recipe is one I came across probably when I started blogging. I went to pass it along to a friend, and realized I've never blogged about it but have made it many times before. I found the recipe online here, from a B&B. My husband really loves the smell of this baking.

For this loaf here, I used the last of my nutmeg, and a sprinkle of allspice, finely ground pecans, walnuts and substituted 1/4 Cup flour with almond meal. I baked it for about 45-50 minutes with parchment over the tops so it wouldn't brown too fast.

3 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 cup oil

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda (for flavor purposes, I may use 3/4 tsp next time)

3 cups flour
2 cups grated, unpeeled zucchini

3 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup chopped nuts

1 cup raisins (I omit)

Beat eggs and sugar, add oil and spices, and blend. Add all dry ingredients, flour, and zucchini, and mix. Stir in vanilla. Add nuts and raisins, coated with a little flour. Pour into loaf pans or mini-loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees check at 45 minutes for doneness. Makes 2 loaves.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins

This week's recipe was chosen by Rebecca of Ezra Pound Cake, Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins. We all love cornbread here, so this was definitely a go! I love my cornbread sweet with honey and butter. I also like to add corn to it. Making these more savory with the cilantro, chili and peppers was a great idea. They came out great. I only baked mine for about 15 minutes and that was perfect.

*I have to come back here and be honest, my review has changed since the one I ate after it was just baked, lol. We ate these later for dinner, and they just crumbled away. Also the chili flavor seemed off to me, maybe I wasn't used to it being in my cornbread. I think I'll stick to my Jiffy corn bread and add these veggies to that. :)

So sorry Dorie.

Pizza Hut Winner!

The lucky winner of one Pizza Hut Natural pizza is #31 micaela6955! Congratulations! Check your email, Twitter and blog for my message. :)

*Be sure to visit my blog often as there are more Giveaways to come!

Easy Chocolate Sauce

Quick! I needed a plan B! Plan A recipe (to be blogged) was taking too long, so I needed something to go with our vanilla bean ice cream, as I had promised the kids some already. Chocolate sauce!

I searched my trusty recipe website and found this one with ingredients I already had on hand. Going with other's suggestions I changed the original recipe. This came out FANTASTIC!! It's great for chocolate milk, ice cream, whatever dessert you would use "chocolate syrup" for.

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa (I used Hershey's)
1 2/3 cups white sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine all ingredients except vanilla, stir well to incorporate it. Bring to a boil and let boil 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Sauce will thicken as it cools. Store in refrigerator. Makes about 1 pint worth.

Don't forget to enter to win a Pizza Hut Natural pizza through my blog giveaway!