A Big Thanks!

Thanks to all family members who have contributed over the past several months on adding to my ever-growing kitchen stock pile of amazing gadgets and gizmos galore! So what do I do? I delete all the things I received for Christmas, my birthday, and just 'because' reasons. Then, I stared at it and added all the things I've been talking about wanting lately. So, I've set my mission high, but I shall complete it! Let the sale searching begin!

Strawberry-Banana Cheesecake

Oh, how I've missed you my blogger babies! Life has been nothing short of a whirlwind lately. I'm five weeks into my Esthetics course which means after one more week of freshman training, my days will get longer and I'll officially be released into the wild to start treatments on people! With an Anatomy test looming over my life like a dark cloud, where else would I be but updating my long lost food blog! So, I've had these pictures sitting on my phone for awhile. I didn't use a real camera, I'm ashamed to say I captured these beauts with my handy dandy BlackBerry. I will go ahead and say that though I'm not a cheesecake lover, I think these went over well. I made them for my brother-in-law's 17th birthday since cheesecake is his favorite.

They're essentially the same cheesecakes, but one has a strawberry glaze on top. Here they are for viewing pleasure. Let me just also add that once I'm graduated and this deployment is over I'll be back in full swing! Until then, I hope your hearts are happy and tummies are full!

Poppy Seed Kolaches

Kolache, kolacky, delicious, scrumptious, same thing! I can pretty much look back and remember points throughout my life visiting a cafe on the outskirts of downtown Omaha with my family. The Bohemian Cafe, ah delicious, is definitely one of those places that pops up from time to time when you can't quite figure out where you should dine out at that night. While my dad loads his plate with extra gravy, dumplings, and saurkraut.. I can't help but to be anxious for dessert. They serve these amazing (and very cheaply priced) poppy seed kolaches. Mmm. I want one now even thinking about them. I'm quite certain that on my 6th grade graduation night we ate here, and for sure my high school graduation as well.

So, now that I'm in Omaha for the deployment, kolaches have been on my mind. In fact, now that I've got them on my mind, my mind is searching for new delicious ways to use this amazing pre-made poppy seed filling I picked up at HyVee. It tastes just like the filling from the ones that are homemade at the cafe, so I'm convinced it's the same stuff they use. Anyways, I think once I finally splurge for my ice cream maker attachment for my stand mixer I want to make some type of poppy seed ice cream, or maybe poppy seed kolache ice cream, using the pastries straight from the cafe. I'd use my own but we did not exactly perfect the recipe with the first go. The pastry was good and the filling was good, but they just weren't a match made in heaven for each other. With that said, I'm not going to post the recipe just because they didn't turn out just how I imagined them to, but I thought I'd share a photo either way! If you haven't ever tried one of these, I highly recommend finding a bakery that has perfected them, it's well worth the search!

Banana Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Ah, bloggeroos, these little creations were a hit. I made a full 2-dozen of them and they were all gone within hours. I took some to work, some to my aunt's and the rest stayed here, well, they stayed here for awhile, before entering the watering mouths of loved ones around me. Mmm. I may or may not have gone on and on about this cake my aunt T made at my cousin's son's 1st birthday. Wow, that was a mouth full of relations, huh? She made this banana cake and after everyone had gone home everyone was re-eating. The main course? Pizza. I opted out since it was from the place of my employment, I won't rag on the company I work for, but I will say their pizza is dis-gust-ing. Is that ragging? I thought it was more honesty than ragging, but to each their own.

My cousin sat down with a big piece of this and told me to try a bite, I shoved two-bites-in-one in my mouth with her fork and my eyes instantly got huge and I pushed my chair back as fast as I could to get my own heaping bowlful of cake. That's right, I didn't say piece, I said bowlful! Mmm. I'm not one to rant and rave over cream cheese frosting but even this stuff was amazing. I think I devoured said bowlful of cake within seconds and talked about the cake for the next week. I had emailed my aunt begging for her to share the recipe and finally after calling her work phone, yes I said it, work phone, and leaving a lovely little message I got said recipe. Now, I'm not sure if she was really busy (hey the lady does have two married children, a teenager, a set of 6 year old twins, a grandchild), oh and don't forget the husband (because we all know they may be more work than all the children combined, right?) orrrrrrr if she was trying to keep this delicious recipe for herself. So.. for now I won't post the recipe, but know that these were amazing in cupcake form, without frosting, with the frosting, and I can't wait until I eat some more of said cake.

Patriotic Berry Cheesecake

For the love of blog, I went out of my way to ensure I'd have some new posts for my favorite little followers. I made two of these little cheesecakes, took one to work and left the other to continue chilling in the fridge for the following day, yep, the 4th of July. Well I'd have you know that taking one of them to work and deeming the other one 'off limits' caused quite the stir back at the house while I was at work. In the chilling process of the untouched berry goodness, tantrums were thrown, feet were stomping, lips were pouted, phone calls were made, threats were unleashed, oh yeah, it got dirty. Needless to say I had to rush the remaining cheesecake from the tester pan back home once I closed work to ensure that the people back at home were allowed to try some. It all got eaten, I tried some myself, I'm really not into cheesecake, except I am quite fond of the crust part of cheesecakes, but that sort of void and nulls the point of the actual cheesecake, right? Right. So, I tried a small piece of this, for it being cheesecake I thought it was good. I had to go with the red, white, and blue theme to be patriotic and supportive of the troops. The 4th of July is one of the holidays that reminds you that you currently have your spouse deployed to a war zone. Real cool America, real cool. I took it with great shots- er- I mean strides.

Ingredients:
2 pre-made graham cracker pie crust
2 pkg. cream cheese (room temp.)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 large eggs
1/2 c. sugar (plus 2 tbsp. for berries)
1/3 c. fresh blueberries (plus a few extra for garnishing)
1/3 c. fresh raspberries (plus a few extra for garnishing)

Directions:
Combine cream cheese, eggs, vanilla, sugar (minus the 2 tbsp). Pour into pie crust pans. Let settle while you prepare the berries. In a food processor, combine 1 tbsp of sugar with 1/3 cup of blueberries, set aside. Rinse out processor and repeat steps with the raspberries. Swirl or drop berry mixture into filling however you desire. You can refer to my picture as to how I did mine. You could even fully swirl it throughout the mixture, that would have been really pretty too, didn't think about that until just now! I threw in a few extra whole blueberries for garnish on the top. Bake at 325 for 30 minutes or less, do not allow the filling to turn brown!

On a side note to refer back to the Oreo treat things I posted about recently, I made them again on the 4th to add a little, okay, a lot of sugar to my brother's last minute BBQ, and boy, that stuff is not pleasant to be sick with, so just a warning if your night is going to consist of a mexican themed fiesta complete, and only consisting of tequila, limes, salt, and oreo treat things? Pass on the oreo treat things I promise, they'll be much better the next day, tequila free and all!

Oreo Treats

That's right I said it, Oreo Treats. These are similar to Rice Krispie Treats but substitute the cereal for delicious crushed Oreo cookies and wha-la! Let's just say that the women of this family are emotional eaters and this last week was definitely an emotional one. We topped off our last big indulgent day with these delicious little things.

I know I've got to add an apology to my good ol' friend K for coming over and enjoying some. I made her take the rest of the pan home to her boyfriend because I knew I'd wake up first thing the next morning and eat them for breakfast if I didn't. Well, I guess I can't apologize for giving her the delicious treats but I did manage to let them set up in the freezer for a bit too long and when I went to cut a few bars out of the pan for us to eat a knife went flying and may or may not have landed... quite hard... on her little baby toe. Oops, sorry bff. The darn thing was bruised the second the knife hit it and only got worse the following day when she picture messaged her foot to my phone. I was going to add a photo of her bruising foot to the blog but I thought that A) It may take away from the tastiness of the treats and B) It was a little hard to see the bruise in the photo.

So, with all that said, I recommend these if you need something easy. I would use less marshmallows next time though!

Ingredients:
1 16 oz. pkg Oreo cookies
1 bag large marshmallows (I used the entire bag but next time I'll try only 3/4 of the bag)
4 tbsp. unsalted butter

Directions:
Place the Oreos into the food processor until they are totally crushed into smooth crumbs, there shouldn't be large chunks. Melt butter and marshmallows in a large bowl and then mix in Oreo crumbs. Once combined completely, place into a non-stick cake pan that's been sprayed with non-stick spray and flatten with a spatula. Place in fridge or freezer to set up a bit before cutting and serving. I thought they were delicious out of the freezer 10-15 minutes, but I love most things out of the freezer!

Lemon Cookie Re-do

I figured that since I put myself into a cookie induced coma last night that I should blog about it right? Right. I made my favorite CCC of course but I also had my mom requesting Lemon cookies too so I had to double both batches, you know, just for supply and demand reasons. I know that I've already blogged both recipes but I thought that since my Lemon cookie pictures weren't quite as pretty as I'd like them to be, I figured I would re-do them. I was dying to display something in my new white bowls from my mother-in-law and I think these were the perfect thing to do it with! Thanks again to her for the amazing new bowls she got me! It felt good to do some baking, although I have to admit that cooking in someone else's kitchen definitely throws me for a loop. Have no fear foodies, I made it through and thanks to dusting off my stand mixer and my Silpat liner, it was a success. Well, it was a diet fail, but a cooking success at least!

And stay tuned because if I'm able to convince the husband sometime soon that adding the ice cream mixer attachment to my mixer is an immediate must have.. I'll be posting some great summer recipes!