You will need:

• Brown & Serve Dinner Rolls
• Ham- We used pre-sliced smoked ham
• Cheese- We used pepper jack
• 1/2 stick of butter
• 3 cloves of minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons of spicy mustard
• Worcestershire Sauce

We cut the rolls in half and placed mini squares of cheese and ham in each one.  Next, in a mixing bowl we mixed 1/2 a stick of melted butter, about 2 tablespoons of spicy mustard, 3 cloves of minced garlic and a few dashes of worcestershire sauce.  We put the sandwiches in a nonstick cake pan, brushed the tops with the mixture and covered the pan with aluminium foil.  We cooked them for 12 minutes on 350 degrees,  then uncovered them and cooked them about 3 minutes more.

They may not look as pretty as the recipe on Pinterest but I assure you they were so good!

Last week with the help of our neighbor Anna’s larger food processor (Thanks Anna), Ben and I made some more homemade salsa.  We had some tomatoes that we needed to used ASAP, so salsa it was.   Making salsa is one of my favorite summertime activities now that we have our own garden.  Salsa that is made from fresh veggies from your garden taste so much better than store bought salsa in my opinion.

We used my mom’s salsa recipe and let me just say that my mom knows what she is doing, I mean she does live in the tomatopolis of the world after all.

 You will need:

• Juice of 2 limes
• 20 Medium tomatoes (peeled, cored & chopped)

Need to know how to peel a tomato?  Read my instructions here.

•  1 cup of chopped cilantro (no stems)
• 4 Medium Onions
• 1 cup of chopped jalapenos (5 or 6 average sized peppers)

If you like your salsa less spicy like I do, cut the jalapenos in half and take out half of the seeds.

• Chili Powder to taste (We used about 1 tbs.)
• 1 cup of chopped green bell peppers (2- 2 1/2 medium sized bell peppers)
• 1/4 cup minced garlic
• Salt to taste

Use a food processor to chop the tomatoes, the onions  and the bell peppers separately and set aside.  Cut up the cilantro and the garlic by hand.  I guess you could put both of those into the food processor but we didn’t.   After everything is chopped up, drain the juice from the tomatoes.  Add all of the ingredients together and cook over Medium heat until your salsa is your desired thickness.

Enjoy!

Ben’s Watermelon Margaritas Recipe

Ingredients for 1 batch (serves about 5-6):

• watermelon (about 1/2 of a large watermelon)
• 2 cups Tequila
• 3/4 cup Triple Sec
• 1/2 cup of Sugar
• 1/2 cup of lime juice
• a few ice cubes
  

1.   Seed your watermelon and cut  into 1 inch cubes.

2.  Next,  put them on trays and put them in the freezer for a few hours.

3.  Once your watermelon cubes are frozen, add the tequila, Triple Sec, sugar, and lime juice in a blender and fill the rest of the blender with the watermelon cubes.

4.  Add a couple of ice cubes, blend and you are ready to serve your margaritas.

I suggest you make more than one batch, because these are so good that they go fast.

If you use this recipe, let me know what you think!

Cheers!

This past weekend I made Cake Pops for the 2nd time and did a couple of things differently, which I think made them even better.  In case you missed it, you can read my Cake Pops Tutorial here.

Cake Pop Tips:

• I used Pillsbury Moist Supreme Devil’s Food cake this time to make my cake pops and I honestly think they were better.

• Add vegetable shortening to the almond bark as you are melting it.  It actually says this on the package, but I must have missed it the first time I made cake pops.  I used about 1/2 of a package of almond bark, so I added a little less than a tablespoon.  This makes the almond bark a little thinner which makes it a lot easier for dipping.

• Instead of melting almond bark and then adding it to a decorator bag when you are decorating them, use cookie icing.  It already comes in a pouch which is really easy to use and it sets in about 4 minutes.  Once the icing is set (dry), you can place them on a serving platter without worrying about messing up your cute cake pops.  Using the cookie icing made my night a whole less stressful.

• Decorate some with finely crushed Oreos.   I added about 6 Oreos minus the creamy middle part to my food processor and crushed them up for about 30 seconds.  Once you have dipped the cake pop into the almond bark and it is completely covered, sprinkles the crushed Oreos on top.  Trust me, cake pops are really tasty this way!

Party Pretzel Tutorial

Once I was done making the cake pops, I decided to use my leftover ingredients to make what I like to call Party Pretzels.

Ingredients:

• Pretzel Rods (I used about half a package of them, which made about 20 or so.)
• Almond Bark (I used 4 or 5 squares.)
• Toppings!  (I used crushed Oreos, Rainbow Sprinkles and finely chopped pecans.)

Simply melt your leftover almond bark per the directions on the package and dip pretzel rods into the bark covering about 2/3 of the rod.  Over a plate, I sprinkled crushed Oreos, finely chopped pecans and rainbow sprinkles onto the pretzels and set them in a coffee cup to allow the almond bark to harden.  If you are in a hurry, you can pop them into the freezer for a couple of minutes.  Once I finished with the Oreos, rainbow sprinkles and the chopped pecans, I used the extras from the plate to make some party pretzels covered with all three toppings.  My party pretzels were a hit.  They are so great because  of the sweet/salty combination, plus they are really easy to make and can be made within 15 minutes.

Cheers!

If you decide to make some Cake Pops or Party Pretzels, let me know how it goes.

Cake Pops Tutorial

*You bake and you learn, Read my Cake Pop Tips here.

Supplies Needed:

• About 1/2 of a 12 oz. container of Butter Cream icing

• 1-Devil’s Food Cake mix + ingredients required for the cake (which may vary)

• Almond Bark or Chocolate Candy Melts

• Lollipop sticks

• Sprinkles or whatever you want to use to decorate the cake pops

• Cake decorating bag with decorating tips (optional)

Directions: 

1.  Make the Devil Food’s Cake according to the directions on the box and let it cool completely.  Since I was kind of in a hurry, I put the cake into the freezer.

2.  Use your hands to crumble up the cake into a large bowl.

3.  Add the Butter Cream icing and mix together with your fingers.  The icing acts like glue to make the cake mixture stick together enough to roll into balls.  Once the cake mixture was completely mixed up, I rolled it until a large ball and put it back into the freezer for a little longer.

4.  Line a cookie sheet with freezer paper or parchment paper.  Roll the cake mixture into balls and place them on the paper.  Having made these once now, I learned that the balls are less likely to fall off the lollipop sticks if they are smaller.

5.  Melt the chocolate or almond bark according to the package directions.  I do not recommend melting it in the microwave because it is really easy to burn the chocolate.

6.  Dip the lollipop sticks into the chocolate and insert them into the cake balls.  This will help keep the balls on the lollipop sticks.  Let the chocolate dry completely.

7.  Dip the cake pops into the chocolate, covering the pop with a thin layer of chocolate.  I used a spoon to help me cover the cake pop evenly.  Make sure the chocolate isn’t going to drip off.  If you are going to put sprinkles on them, add the sprinkles now before the chocolate dries.

8.   I covered a cardboard box with freezer paper and punched holes into it to hold the cake pops while they were drying.  You could also just place the cake pops on freezer paper with the sticks up (similar to the picture above).  Once all of the pops were covered with chocolate I put them in the refrigerator overnight.

9.  Decorate your cake pops!  Ben and I left some plain, decorated some with sprinkles and used almond bark to decorate the others.  We melted the almond bark, added food coloring and put the mixture into a cake decorating bag to make it easier to decorate the cake pops.

The cake pops were really fun to make and were really good.  Try them out and let me know how it goes! Good luck.

Before I made these cake pops, I read a couple of recipes and searched for inspiration.

I found these sites the most helpful:

Bakerella

Cake Pops Recipe

Little Miss Momma

How to make Cake Pops Video by YoYoMax12 on YouTube

Do you have leftover Cake Pop supplies?  Make Party Pretzels

This weekend I had many friends in town.  It was such a beautiful weekend.  The weather was nice and it was hot enough to enjoy strapless sun dresses, refreshing berry passionfruit cocktails and Fruitgasm!

Please ignore my horrible abbreviation of tablespoon.  Obviously the cocktails were enjoyed first. Thanks for the recipe Katie Kester.

Ingredients

• Chicken (We used chicken breasts cut into medium sized pieces.)
• Chicken Stock
• 1 can of Italian Stewed Tomatoes
• 2 fresh tomatoes, diced
• About 1/2 of a large white onion
• Carrots, diced (Add as many as you like)
• Celery, diced (We used two stalks.)
• 1 green and 1 red bell pepper from our garden
• 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• Egg Noodles

With the ingredients, we didn’t really measure anything.

First we chopped everything up.  Next we boiled the noodles until they were al dente and set them aside.  While the noodles were boiling we sauteed the onions, garlic, celery and carrots until the onions were almost done.  Once the onions were mostly translucent, we added the chicken.  After there was no pink visible on the chicken, we added the chicken stock, the noodles and the tomatoes.

Everything cooked for about 20 mins.  This soup is so good and I felt like it made me feel a little better!

Yesterday I felt the urge to bake.  I decided to make muffins using leftover cereal that was starting to turn stale  and some bananas that were turning brown.  I have made these cereal muffins a million times (my mom always made these for me when I was younger) but I have never added bananas.  I was pretty pleased with the result.  These muffins are easy to make and pretty hard to mess up.

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup honey (I had to use 1  cup sugar + 1/4 cup water  instead because I was out of honey)
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups breakfast cereal (I used leftover Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds)
• 5 mini bananas (2 regular bananas would probably be just fine)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Grease 16-18 medium sized muffin cups.
3. In a medium bowl mix all of the wet ingredients together, except the bananas and set aside.
4. In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients.  I put my 2 cups of cereal in my food processor for about 30 seconds before adding it to my other dry ingredients.
5. Add bananas to the dry ingredients.  I put my bananas into my food processor first because I enjoy using it so much but I think the muffins would have been even better if the bananas were less pureed.
6. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.
7. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full with the batter.  Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.  I had to put mine back in for a few extra minutes to make sure the middle was good and done.

Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 4 tomatoes peeled and sliced (Fresh tomatoes from your garden will work best!)
• 1/2 cup chopped green onion
• 1  frozen pizza crust (The kind that comes in a can like frozen biscuits.)
• 1 cup  shredded mozzarella (I actually only had a tiny amount of mozzarella, so I had to add shredded Colby-Jack cheese.)
• 1 cup shredded cheddar
• 1 cup cream cheese
• Salt and pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Place the tomatoes in a colander in the sink in 1 layer. Sprinkle with salt and allow to drain for 10 minutes.  This may take longer than 10 minutes.   Make sure and don’t over salt them.

Unroll your pizza crust and place in your pie pan.  Use about half of your tomato slices to line the pizza crust.

Sprinkle with salt,  pepper and green onions.

Combine the grated cheeses and cream cheese together.  I tried softening the cream cheese by placing the container of cream cheese in warm water which worked a little bit but I eventually had to just microwave it about 15 seconds.

Spread mixture on top of the tomatoes.  I also sprinkled the remainder of my leftover cheese on top.

Bake for 30 minutes or until lightly browned.

Slice and Serve!

Because of my recent tomato explosion, I feel the need to cook, bake or do something with all of the tomatoes I have on my kitchen table.  So Ben and I made salsa and also a tomato pie for True Blood Sunday.  I wasn’t really happy with my tomato pie but I tried it again last night and will post about it tomorrow.  I have been waiting to make my own salsa from my own tomatoes and bell peppers since we planted our garden.  I don’t care that the rest of the ingredients came from the grocery store because the tomatoes were so great and my bell peppers look fake because they are so beautiful.  For whatever reason, bugs don’t nimble on bell peppers and I like that.  We don’t use any pesticides in our garden.  So I am aware that insects and worms like tomatoes just as much as I do, but for whatever reason they are not into bell peppers.

For True Blood Sundays, my friends and I usually make Louisiana or vampire inspired dishes.  Although salsa isn’t really  a Louisiana or vampire inspired dish, making salsa from your own vegetables is a very southern thing to do.

Overall I thought our salsa was really good.   I love how fresh it tasted!  While making salsa for the first time I also learned how to peel a tomato.   Peeling tomatoes is actually really easy and I had no idea.

Peeling a Tomato

1. Wash your tomatoes and take the stems off.
2. Cut an X on the end without the stem.
3. Boil enough water to submerse your tomatoes.  Once the water starts boiling place them into the water.
4. After a few minutes, use a slotted spoon to place your tomatoes into a bowl of cold water.
5. Let them sit a minute or so then pull the skins right off.

Check back tomorrow for my tomato pie!