Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

To die for!
I'm late for work so more to come.

Ingredients
CUPCAKES
3 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1½ cups light brown sugar, packed
4 large eggs
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
1 cup milk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips (semisweet or bittersweet)
FILLING
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
6 tbsp. light brown sugar, packed
1 cup plus 2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
7 oz. sweetened condensed milk
½ tsp. vanilla extract
¼ cup mini semisweet chocolate chips
FROSTING
3 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup light brown sugar, packed
3½ cups confectioners’ sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
¾ tsp. salt
3 tbsp. milk
2½ tsp. vanilla extract
Instructions
CUPCAKES
Preheat the oven to 350° F. Using the paddle attachment on your mixer, combine the butter and brown sugar. Cream together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl . Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl. Alternating add the dry ingredients to the mixer bowl with the milk on low speed, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients, mixing each addition just until incorporated. Blend in the vanilla. Fold in the chocolate chips with a spatula.
Divide the batter evenly between 24 cupcake liners. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
FILLING
Cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl on medium-high speed until light and fluffy(about 2 minutes). Add flour, sweetened condensed milk and vanilla and beat until smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until the mixture has firmed up a bit, (about1 hour).
After cupcakes have cooled, fill the cupcakes by cutting a cone-shaped portion out of the center of each cupcake. Fill each hole with a chunk of the chilled cookie dough mixture.
FROSTING
Beat butter and brown sugar with the paddle attachment on high speed until creamy and fluffy. Mix in the confectioners’ sugar until smooth. Beat in the flour and salt. Mix in the milk and vanilla extract until smooth and combined.
Frost… Decorating… EAT!
 

Weekly Menu For March 12

Surprise! MIA much? I'll get into that in a moment.
This week’s menu is out of the new Gooseberry Patch Cookbook “Meals in Minutes 10th Anniversary Edition”. It's on sale now, just click on the book.

This cookbook showed up just in time for me to get back into the kitchen. There is nothing worse than a foodie on a diet. I seemed to have lost my desire to whip up yummy meals. My poor family. They are excited for this week to begin, everyone was checking out the recipes and making request.
Dessert of the Week:  Butterscotch Brownies, Milky Way Cupcakes (not GBP), Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes (not GBP)
Monday:  Parmesan Meatballs
Tuesday:  Chicken Tetrazzini
Wednesday:  Vermicelli with Shrimp
Thursday:  Make-Ahead Ham Bites
Friday:  Pizza
Saturday:  Coffee Braised Chicken
Sunday:  Salisbury Steak

Weekly Menu For December 5

Drum roll please.
This week’s menu is out of the new Gooseberry Patch Cookbook “101 Soups, Salads & Sandwiches”.

I am so excited to review a cookbook and even more excited to be able to share it with you. It wasn’t easy choosing which recipes I would use this week as there are so many enticing photos. Luckily it’s soup season, giving me time to try them all. For this week I tried to stick to the recipes that the whole family would love. Stay tuned, my next post will kick off the giveaway for this cookbook.
Dessert of the Week:  Custard Pumpkin Pie
Monday:  Chicken & Dumpling Soup
Tuesday:  Honey Barbecued Pork & Mustard and Thyme Potato Salad
Wednesday:  Macaroni & Cheese Chowder
Thursday:  Scrumptious Chicken Sandwiches
Friday:  Pizza
Saturday:  Family dinner @ BIL & SIL’s
Sunday:  Hungarian Mushroom Soup

Blueberry Buckle

Surprise!
I really am hoping that this a step back into the blogging world. Oh how I miss you all. Not only am I sharing this recipe I already have tomorrow’s weekly menu planned out and ready to post. We shall see how the week goes.
It’s blueberry season and my fridge is overflowing. My first thought was to make a Blueberry Pinwheel Cobbler. BUT someone forgot to buy the butter flavored Crisco. Duh! So I settled for Blueberry Buckle which I’m taking into work tomorrow to share with the gang. It smells so good!

Ingredients
1/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
2 cups fresh blueberries
TOPPING
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/3 cup cold butter
Directions
In a small mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in the egg. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with milk. Fold in the blueberries. Pour into greased 9-in. square baking pan.
For topping, combine the sugar, flour and cinnamon in a bowl; cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over blueberry mixture. Bake at 375 degrees F for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Birthday Girl

Fifteen years ago at 9:51a in a little hospital near Ft Drum the most amazing person was born. She is brilliant, intelligent, creative, a smart ass, beautiful and just plain fabulous.
Happy Birthday Haillie! I can’t even begin to express how proud of the young person you’ve become.

Captain Crunch Chicken

Captain Crunch cereal.
Boneless chicken.
Fun child friendly food. Right?
NOT for my finicky eater. What a little food snob butthead. *lol* I first made this last week when Christopher wasn’t home. Haillie and I loved it while Abby was whining “why would you do this?” Sigh. Anyhow, this quick fix meal was perfect for our busy day. The morning started off with me rushing to get all the laundry done. Check. Nephew’s birthday presents wrapped. Check. Skruffy needed a good walk before being crated. Check. Everyone ready to go and out of the house by 10:30a. Check. Did anyone remember the camera? Of course not. Even though I don’t have any photos of my cute nephews and niece I enjoyed the time spent with our family. If only they lived closer so we could hang out more.
This recipe is suppose to be a copycat of Planet Hollywood’s Chicken Crunch. I think it’s pretty darn close. Do you have a favorite copycat recipe and if so what is it?

Download Recipe
Ingredients
2 cups Captain Crunch cereal
1-1/2 cups corn flakes
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 lbs chicken breasts, cut in 1-oz tenders
vegetable oil (for frying)
Directions
Coarsely grind or crush the two cereals and set aside. Beat the egg with milk and set aside. Stir together the flour, onion and garlic powders and black pepper. Set aside. Dip the chicken: pieces in the seasoned flour. Move around to coat well, then shake off the excess flour. Dip in the egg wash, coating well, then dip in the cereal mixture, coating well. Heat oil in a large heavy skillet to 325 ⁰F. Drop coated chicken tenders carefully in the hot oil and cook until golden brown and fully cooked, 3 to 5 minutes depending on size.  Drain and serve immediately.

Waffle Of Insane Greatness

Snow day!
Even Christopher has a snow day which is rare. That makes this morning waffle time! A couple of post ago I shared my pancake recipe and a virtue friend of mine shared this waffle recipe with me. At the time we were waffle ironless. It is just one of those appliances that when it broke I kept forgetting to replace it. Well over the weekend Christopher remembered we needed one. Oh how we missed waffles. This will kick Bisquick’s waffle recipe’s butt.

Recipe from Food Network via Lynn (thank you!)
Download Recipe
Ingredients
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup whole milk or buttermilk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1-1/2 tsp sugar
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
Butter and syrup, for serving
Directions
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; mix well. Add the milk, vegetable oil, egg, sugar and vanilla and mix well. Let the batter sit for 30 minutes.
Preheat a waffle iron. Do not use non-stick spray on the waffle iron; the oil in the batter will allow the waffle to release easily. Follow the directions on your waffle iron to cook the waffles. Serve immediately with butter and syrup.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Family fun days should always end in fresh baked cookies. We went to the movies today and saw Gnomeo & Juliet. The gnomes were too comical and cute. Abby is already pestering to buy the movie when it comes out. Haillie was less than thrilled about the movie but still tagged alone to get out of the house.
Of course whenever we go anywhere that has a crane machine we must stop and try our luck. My “Crane Master & his apprentice” hard at work.

As always, we have a winner! They won two stuffed animals but were bummed that the baby Shrek fell out of the claw right before it was dropped in the shoot. Bummer.

The rest of our day was normal old chore detail. Christopher watched Nascar while doing his homework. The girls pooper scooped the yard. I gathered the trash. Laundry was started but the motor coupler broke bringing it to a halt. Then for dinner the kiddos helped me make a batch of gnocchi. Later when we had the munchies and nothing seemed to tempt our taste buds I decided it was cookie time. I whipped these up quickly. These are better if you let them sit and completely cool. Straight out of the oven they just don’t taste as peanut buttery as they should.

Recipe from All Recipes
Download Recipe
Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
1-1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1-1/4 cups peanut butter
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2-1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 ⁰F. Cream together butter and brown sugar. Beat in eggs, peanut butter and vanilla. Add flour, cornstarch, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Stir in chocolate chips.
Roll into balls about 1-1/2 teaspoonful's (or use cookie scoop) and place onto ungreased cookie sheets about 2 inches apart. Flatten slightly because they do not flatten much while baking. Bake for 10 –12 minutes.

Flowers & Twine

Christopher bought the kiddos and I our traditional Valentine’s Day flowers. Awww. I love me a man in uniform but a man in uniform walking through the door with three bunches of flowers in his arms. Be still my beating heart. Only one problem. I use to receive 200 Peruvian lilies, my favorite flower of all time. So I have a lot of tall big vases. With the addition of two daughters my bouquet has been downsized. *lol* I had to get creative this morning and grabbed the twine.

There is a ridge around the top of my favorite and simple vase. I double wrapped the twine around it and tied a bow. Then I simply knotted off four pieced across. And in the opposite direction I weaved and knotted. Simple fix.

Once the flowers were placed I felt it looked a tad loose and messy. So I pulled the knots inward to help them stand straight and tall. Simple and beautiful.

Valentine Goodies

I am slightly behind on my Valentines. The goodies are done but I have to finish up on my family’s cards. I just lots track of time and before I knew it the day was here. Oy. First I had a Valentine exchange to mail out. We were to keep it under $10 but I actually didn’t spend a cent on mine. First I started with a sheet of scrapbook paper cut into an 8.5” square.

I printed out my Valentine on the white side and then followed the instructions on how to make an “Antique-Style Puzzle Purse”.

I wanted to give a gift as well so I went through all my leftover fabric and picked out four different patterns. I then printed out two different size hearts to use as my cut outs.

Sowed them up with twine going through and stuffed them with cut up Walmart bags. Ta-da! A cute heart garland for the holiday.

Now onto my family. For Christopher and Abby I made a batch of Homemade Oreos. I will be posting a recipe later but if you’re impatient I got it from “Bake @ 350”. I loved her idea of the smaller heart indent in the middle. Too cute.

For Haillie I made Chocolate No Bake Cookies. To make them extra holiday special I spread them out onto a cookie sheet, chilled for a few minutes and then used a heart cookie cutter. Chilled some more and then broke them apart.

Enjoy your Valentine’s Day with your loved ones.

Day Of Love

“Friendship isn't a big thing – it's a million little things.” ~ Author Unknown

Date Night Gone Awry

Christopher and I are so bad at keeping up with our “date nights”. His schedule between ROTC, NG and online college courses is so jammed pack when he is home he is still usually doing paperwork for one or the other. BUT … it’s tax season! I love, love, love tax time for it means a grown-up date. Our routine is to harass and joke around with our tax lady for an hour or so, she is such a hoot. Then we go out to eat and chillax. Love it! So this morning I ran out and bought a new outfit, gave myself a mani, pedi and facial. Shaved my legs! I was all dolled up and ready to go. I felt like a million tax-free bucks. That’s when I got the call from my dear husband to see if I ordered the pizza. He forgot our tax routine. Pout. Of course I handle this like a true girl and didn’t say a word about it and just waited for him to figure out why I was pouting. *lol* He never did for our night had an oops. They ate their dumb old pizza, I didn’t because of course I’m pouting. Then we gathered up our paperwork and headed out the door. Our tax lady knows we always go out and she’ll be sure to ask us what our plans for the evening are. Well our appointment didn’t get that far. Someone forgot one of the W-2s at home. We aren’t pointing fingers here since I feel we are both at fault but maybe more me than him. He didn’t place it on my tax pile BUT he did ask me to grab it BUT I was busy with the puppy and forgot. Grrr. Now we get to do it all again on Monday night. Yeah for taxes on Valentine’s Day.

Lost In Electronics

I am sort of experiencing some technical difficulties. Christopher surprised me with a new laptop. I am so spoiled and he totally rocks! It’s a delicious coffee brown and sparkles.

This started a game of musical laptops and I’m our in-house tech support. Since there was really nothing wrong with my old laptop it was decided that I would take it back to factory settings and pass it down to Abby. Her currently laptop tends to overheat and shuts down during games. Well my laptop, that never gave me any problems crashed after the restore. Grrr. I’ve been working on fixing that and uploading to my new laptop since Thursday. Stress much. It’s amazing how many little things you overlook with a computer move. Like fonts. All gone. Or photo watermarks. Bye bye. So bare with me as I slowly get everything up and running again.

Re-Scheduling

Due to a scheduling conflict (aka Christopher is working once again) tonight's meal of chicken pot pie has been postponed to tomorrow night. Along with it will be Tuesday night's biscuits that never made an appearance to dinner.
Glad I plan our meals. *eye roll*

Snow Vs Soup

Dear Snow,
Go away NOW!
All day on Facebook were status updates complaining of children going to school in the midst of this horrible snowstorm. I was so confused because it wasn't doing a darn thing here. Normally if it's snowing where my SIL lives we are getting double the flurries. Not today. Then I received a call from the school, the kiddos were getting out early. For what? By the time the girls were home it was barely flurrying and now five hours later Christopher can't make it home. Grrr. It was a perfect day for loaded baked potato soup. Soup just warms me up on cold snowy days. This time I left the skins on and added some cubed ham. Delish. I think I will always leave the skins on. Next time I want to make it with baby red potatoes. That just sounds so yummy. With it being just the kiddos and I for dinner there was so much leftover. Tomorrow night should really be a fend for yourself night but I'm anxious to try the white cheese chicken lasagna. I'm not even hungry and that sounds good. After dinner was done and the kitchen was cleaned up we headed up to my room. What an exciting life we lead climbing into bed at 7:00p. I can't help it when Christopher isn't home the girls and I love watching TV in my bed. I love cozy girl time. There was nothing on and our favorite shows were repeats but we still had so much fun.

Fresh Cherry Crisp

Excuse my duh! moment. A few days ago when I posted the banana nut muffin recipe I had plans to post something even yummier. Ta Da! I have so many frozen sour cherries in the freezer I knew it was time to start using them up. Christopher and I have been eating vanilla ice cream topped with warm cherry crisp every night. Delish! He can't stop raving about it's deliciousness. I love when he loves something I make for him. Baking bliss.

Recipe so old I have no clue where it's from.
Download Recipe
Ingredients
4 cups pitted sour cherries
1 cup white sugar
4 tbsp all-purpose flour
Topping
1-1/2cups all-purpose flour
1 cup old-fashioned oats
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 ⁰F.
In a large bowl, combine cherries, white sugar, and all-purpose flour. Pour into 9x13” baking dish. In a medium bowl, combine 1-1/2 cups flour, oats, and brown sugar. Cut in butter and shortening until crumbly. Sprinkle over cherries.
Bake in preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes or until topping is golden brown.

Pancakes

Our big & huge snowstorm wasn't all that after all. The girls went to bed knowing there was at least a 2 hour delay. They were excited to sleep in and Abby was disappointed when she woke up. She was hoping for no school and going sledding all day. Sorry Doodle Bug. She turned chipper when she remembered 2 hour delays mean pancakes for breakfast. And that got me thinking, how do you make your pancakes? Even though I use Bisquick I add a bunch of other ingredients. It would probably be just as quick to whip a batch from scratch.

Abby always has to have plain silver dollar pancakes. Perfect for dipping. Haillie and I like a little more excitement in our flapjacks. Today we added chopped up bananas, they were amazing.

Ingredients
1 tbsp lemon juice
1-1/4 cup milk
2 cups bisquick
2 eggs
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
Directions
Heat griddle or skillet over medium-high heat or electric griddle to 375°F; grease with cooking spray, vegetable oil or shortening.
Mix lemon juice and milk; let stand 5 minutes. Stir in remaining ingredients until blended. Pour by slightly less than 1/4 cupfuls onto hot griddle.
Cook until edges are dry. Turn; cook until golden. To keep warm, place in single layer on cookie sheet. Cover with aluminum foil, and place in 200°F oven up to 10 minutes.

MIA

I shall return. Currently I have a case of strep throat that only allows me to sleep my days away. It's so bad Christopher has been doing the cooking. There is rumor that he will be staying home tomorrow to take care of me. Wish I felt better to enjoy it.

Christmas Re-Cap

What a whirlwind this last week has been. With all the holiday craziness, new puppy and Christopher's bronchitis I am spent. I don't think I have been this sleep deprived since Abby was a baby. I am craving normalcy so bad that I have already taken down all of our Christmas decorations, except for the tree. Our kitchen is clean and calm once again. I think I cleaned even more throughly than when spring cleaning. I love the peace and quiet of my kitchen in the morning. With no lights on except the strand above my cabinets.

So what did I get for Christmas? We kept it simple this year so no diamonds but a girl can't expect that every year. My favorite gift was a French press, a must have for all coffee loves. I didn't realize coffee could get even more amazing. I love my recipe book holder and of course Gooseberry Patch cookbooks. I received a lot of cookbooks this year. I love them! I almost have the entire month of January planned out with meals.

With the good comes the bad. Let me start by saying we are fanatics about the movie "A Christmas Story". We watch it while putting up the tree. I play it while cleaning, the girls watch it in their room and then on Christmas morning it plays continuously on TBS which we leave on. I bought my father the leg lamp one year because every man needs one. And while vacationing in Ohio we were excited about the idea of touring the house in the movie but sadly it was closed the week we were there. My sister being a "wise ass" gave me a pair of footed pajamas. I should have known something was up when she kept pestering on Christmas Eve for me to open just this one gift. Then I was forced to put them on for all to see. What is it they say about paybacks?