Yesterday, while I was writing my blog post on Duncan Hines, I kept having to stop because Zach is teething and he’s just wanting to be held. And, more than once or twice, I set him down and let him cry because “I’m in the middle of this sentence and if you let me finish this one sentence, then I’ll hold you, but you’re banging on the keyboard and I just. can’t. write.” Also more than once, I told him, “Zach! You can’t bite my nose! That hurts! I swear, I’m going to sell you to the zoo!”

I love Zach. I love him more than anything in the world. But sometimes, I fail to appreciate him.

It’s just like my dog, Echo. Today, I took him to the vet’s office because he has been itching like mad and pulling his hair out. I just so happened to get the dog that has seasonal allergies. Yeah, you know, I couldn’t have gotten any other dog in the world, the well-adjusted one that is happy all the time and never barks or scratches or anything else. Nope. I got the dog that falls down on the floor at your feet as you’re walking because he got tired, and now he won’t move. The dog I have decides that every place is a good place for a potty break, or that if he is in the middle of smelling something, his ears don’t work, because this dog can’t use two senses at a time (I’m not entirely sure he even has  that much sense, let alone is able to use them). And yes, the allergies, the scratching, the hair falling all over the floor. And more than once I said “Echo! Stop that! You’re getting hair everywhere! Dang it, dog, I’m going to sell you to the zoo!”

See, that’s my common threat these days. You’re not doing what you’re supposed to do? Fine. I’m going to sell you to the zoo.

Now, both Zach and Echo are really good about looking at me, rolling their eyes, and continuing to do what they’re doing, because, after all, “mom is not really going to sell us to the zoo. Obviously.”

Either I need to start getting better threats that my littles will actually believe (I used to say “I will throw you out the window!” and neither of them believed that one, either), or I need to lighten up. Seriously. How many times have I said “Zach! You’re TAKING a nap. It’s nap time. Lay your tooshie down.” Unless you have hidden cameras in my house and know the answer already, well, it’s a lot.

See, I love my Zach, and my Echo, intensely. I love them both more than anything in the world. But sometimes, when things aren’t going as scheduled, or the rug has been vacuumed five times today and there’s still little puffs of hair all over the place, it’s easy to say “Oh my gosh! Will you two just stop already?!”

Last night, though, I made a decision. And it’s far from perfect, and I did even say once or twice “Echo! Shush!” or “Zach! Don’t bite my nose! It’s not cool, man, it’s not cool.” But I also took about half an hour to just lay there with Zach and cuddle last night, talking, having a staring contest, rolling the toy ambulance all around the bed and saying “Vrrroooooooooooooooommmm vroom vroooom!!!” I took time to give Echo a long bellyrub. This morning, I sat with Zach on the rug, no TVs or Computers, and just listened to him play his xylophone and told him what a wonderful musician he is.

Because really, that’s all that your kids or pets want. All they want is five minutes of your undivided attention, and then, they’ll almost always let you go back to what you were doing, whether it’s blogging, or that phone call you need to make, or it’s the million and one other things on the to-do list. They just want you. They want you to take a moment to show them that they’re more important than the telephone, or the computer, or the television, or whatever else you’re doing right. this. second.

I’m not going to say I’m perfect from here on out. I’m not going to say that I’ll never threaten to sell my kids to the zoo again (because I probably will). But I am going to tell them I love them, and take a few minutes between tasks to slow down and say “You’re awesome. You are a great kid. You’re a sweetheart, and a good musician, and you’re just talented and fun to be around. And you deserve to be told that you’re the best thing that has ever happened to me, and even if I threaten to sell you to the zoo a million times, I’ll never actually do it, partly because I couldn’t pay them enough money to take you (in Echo’s case), but mostly because I love you so much that I’d never be able to part with you.”

Your kids are saying something, whether they’re yelling, barking, whispering, tapping your leg, growling, yawning, or giggling. Do you hear what they’re saying?

My challenge to you today (and to myself), is to take some time to give someone, whether it’s a kid, a pet, a parent, a sibling, or a friend, just ten minutes of your absolutely undivided attention. Don’t take phone calls, don’t take emails, just take time and listen to them, no interruptions, and hear what they’re trying to tell you. Then, a little later, repeat that process again. Don’t let that 10 minutes just be 10 minutes. Let it be 10 minutes now, and another 10 minutes later, and another 10 minutes after that. Rinse, lather, repeat, and it’ll turn out okay.

Guess what? The day has finally come. I will be arriving in New York, or rather… New Jersey… tomorrow. Seriously. This time tomorrow, I will have already reached Chicago, and will be en route to New Jersey. Wow.

It seems like just yesterday that I got my email and phone call from Duncan Hines letting me know that they would be flying me out to their test kitchen, and now the day has come. I’m (almost) packed. I’ve (almost) stocked the freezer with breastmilk for Zach. I’m (almost) ready. I’m… almost. There is so much to do and prepare, because this is literally the first time I’ve been away from Zach for more than 30 minutes since he was born last July. And now, I’m leaving for roughly 36 hours.

I have to do something to take my mind off of leaving for that long. So, what I’ve done is decided to post a list of my favorite songs about New York. I’ll be close enough to NY that I think it’ll count!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_m-BjrxmgI]

Hey There Delilah is one of my brother’s favorite songs at the moment. To the point that it gets played on repeat, no joke. In fact, he’s kind of the one who inspired this blog post because he said “You know what you should blog about? You should do something about Hey There Delilah. Since it’s in New York and you’re going to New York.” Cool kid, no joke. He helped me come up with ideas for many of my recipes for the Duncan Hines contest, and I love him infinitely.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPlcE3GcoFc]

America is easily one of my favorite songs, especially since it’s from one of my favorite musicals ever– West Side Story. It just makes me smile to listen (and sing along) to that song.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xQOb51qZ-c]

U2’s City of Blinding Lights is pretty clearly about New York, but for some reason, it still makes me think about Paris every time, probably because of the Devil Wears Prada, but that’s just me.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjsXo9l6I8]

I have no idea why, but every time I hear this song, I tear up a little bit. Every time I’ve been to New York, it really does seem like a city where dreams are made. It’s fast-moving, it’s exciting, and there’s just so much happening that it must have some sort of incredible spirit about it. I can’t get past how much I enjoy this song, even though it’s not my typical style of music.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqlJl1LfDP4]

I’m finishing with one final song about New York, the one that most people think of when they hear the topic of Songs about New York. To me, this is a song that pretty much everyone knows.

The last time I was in New York City was 2008. You know what else happened in New York City in 2008? They had a tornado. Or rather, they had a tornado warning. It lasted about 4 minutes, and the whole city was in panic. Truly, in panic– the news anchors were visibly shaking and their voices quavered, people were running and yelling through the halls of the hotel, trying to get to shelter, and… me being from Kansas, I ran over to my window and planted myself next to the window on the 15th floor. Was that smart? Probably not. Had there been a tornado, that would have been kind of dumb. But, it was what it was, and there wasn’t a tornado, so it all worked out.

Hopefully, this trip will be incredibly eventful, but avoid any major panic like the last trip!

Do any of you have songs that remind you of travel or about New York? I’d love to add them to my playlist if you think of some!

You caught me. I’ve been working on a fun series for you guys featuring some delicious baked treats based on some of the best summer drinks I could find. And this, trust me, this recipe is a true winner.

I knew I wanted to make some sort of baked good recipe based off of one of my all-time favorite summer drinks, a Cherry Limeade. And there are so many recipe options, from cupcakes, to pies, and more. However, the second I saw the cherry limeade bar recipe from Brooke over at Cheeky Kitchen.

I made a few minor tweaks to her bar recipe, but overall, these bars are addicting. I’m not kidding, you really need to be warned if you try these out. They’ll fly out of the pan.

You’re going to want to start out by preheating your oven to 350. Grab a cup of flour, a half cup of butter, a quarter cup of powdered sugar, and a dash of salt. Make sure your butter is softened first. I also added a small spoonful of softened cream cheese to this step (I’d say around a teaspoon or so). Go ahead and press that into a greased 8×8 pan.

I won’t tell anyone if you decide to double the crust recipe, then eat half of it before it’s baked. The crust just has that… perfect flavor. It’s buttery, it’s rich, it’s lightly sweet. Mmmm.

Next, you’re going to take a 10 oz jar of maraschino cherries and put about half of them into a blender or food processor (don’t even think about draining them! You want some of that juice!). I used this super cute food processor I got from WalMart for only $2 in a black Friday sale! In addition to the cherries, add a splash of grenadine syrup if you have it on hand. It’s not necessary, but I loved the extra cherry boost it added. Also, you need to put in half a tablespoon of corn starch. Now, puree it until it’s mostly pureed, but still has some chunks… you’ll want some bits of cherry left in there!

Spread that on top of your unbaked crust.

Now, pop that puppy into the oven for 15 minutes. While it’s in the oven, you can start the top layer.

In a bowl, mix 3 eggs, 1 1/4 cups of sugar, 3 tablespoons of flour, and 1/4 cup of lime juice. Mix it up really well, so the sugar dissolves completely.

Now, if you want your bars to have that lime “look” to them, go ahead and whip out your food coloring. While gel will give you a more vibrant color, I didn’t have any green gel coloring on hand, so I worked with my liquid, and just put about 10-15 drops of green and 3 or 4 drops of yellow. (The yellow was unnecessary. I just thought it added a prettier tint to it).

Check out that pretty green tint! Now that your lime layer actually looks like a lime and tastes like a lime, you can pour it on your first two layers (at least, once your timer beeps, anyway). Once you’ve poured that on your first layer, put it BACK in the oven for another 30 minutes (check on it… Brooke at Cheeky Kitchen recommended 20-25, but it took my oven almost a full 35 to get the bars to set). They’re done once they’re totally set and not wiggly in the middle.

Now here’s the hardest part. Let those cool completely. I know, I know. I snuck my first piece while it was still warm. And my second. My third piece was almost cool, though.

And that’s the beautiful finished product.

 

Trust me, these bars are one of the easiest things I’ve baked in a long time. You’re going to want to make these again and again. They’re that yummy. If you try these bars, I would love to see a photo or some comments on what you thought!

 

Do you guys remember a couple of months ago, I was practically begging you to look at my Duncan Hines Frosting Creations recipes? I ended up creating eight of them in total, though I believe only three of them ended up here.

The challenge was to create a recipe using the new Frosting Creations product and post it on their website. They mentioned that the judging would be based on overall creativity of the recipes, as well as the broad appeal of the recipe (after all, a recipe can be insanely creative, but have zero appeal, or have a ton of appeal, but not really be creative, necessarily). For the Duncan Hines challenge, you had to have a recipe that had both of the skills needed.

Out of all of the recipes submitted, Duncan Hines took note of my recipes, my innovative spirit, and my rockin’ blog, and selected me… little ol’ me… and 11 other great bakers to come tour the Duncan Hines test kitchen and spend some time with their fantastic Duncan Hines chefs.

I’m not even kidding. 12 of us. In the entire nation.

I couldn’t be more excited if I tried… When I found out, I felt incredible, fantastic, truly… amazed. I had entered the contest as a way to improve my baking skill and challenge my creativity. And the challenge did that! I’m a more confident baker as a result, a lot more fearless when it comes to creating and adapting recipes. Had I gotten nothing else out of the challenge, I would have been happy. But I am so lucky, and so blessed, and so incredibly excited. As soon as I found out, though, I also kind of felt incompetent. After all, there are 11 other bakers. Chances are, there will be several of them who are more experienced, more talented, more creative, and just generally more awesome than I am. I started to get worried. I started to lose my confidence. And then, I decided that this is the perfect opportunity to make some changes and to make myself feel more confident.

I went shopping. I bought two great tops that I look amazing in and feel incredible in. I bought new sleepwear because, duh, comfort at the end of a long day is essential. I bought new undergarments because I am one of those girls who firmly believes that, even if no one sees what you’re wearing underneath, the right underwear can make you feel confident and powerful. I pulled the whitestrips out of my stash in my cabinet. I chopped my hair off to a cute, professional style instead of the longer, stringier, tousled hair that I previously had, and I had my mom dye it. I trimmed, dyed, changed, worked, pinched, and pulled myself into a reflection of the newer, more confident baker I felt like I was inside. I wanted to reflect that girl on the outside, too.

Finally, yesterday, I got the really exciting part… my flight information! June 1, I’ll be flying out just before 9am, and I’ll finally arrive in New Jersey around 3pm. I will get to spend that evening and the following day fulfilling my dreams of spending time with the wonderful people at Duncan Hines, and, the following day, I’ll board a plane just after 6:30, arriving at my home airport after 11:30, only to drive an hour home and see my family again, and tell them all about the trip.

I should be receiving a clearer itenerary in the next day or two, and I’ll be able to find out exactly what kinds of great adventures I’ll be having and the things I’ll be learning. I’m so excited for my trip. I owe it all to my mom, who let me trash her kitchen over 8 times to bake and re-bake, and create, and figure out my recipes. I have to thank my brother, who helped me come up with ideas for the recipes I submitted– he is such a creative guy! And, I owe a lot to the HyVee near me, the only store who carried all of the other flavors I needed for my recipes. Now, the Frosting Creations are all over our area, but at the time, that was the only one carrying the frosting… after I had used up the frosting that Duncan Hines had sent me as part of their Very Important Baker program, I had to purchase more frosting, and ended up making about 5 trips back to that HyVee for more frosting.

I am so blessed, and so excited, and I can’t wait to tell you guys all about it.

In the meantime, check out my recipes on the Duncan Hines website. Each of the images below link to the recipe I created. All you have to do is click on the photo, and it’ll take you straight to the recipe. If you like what you see, I’d love it if you could click “like” on the recipe!

 

Last night, I made three failed batches of buttercream icing. Three. I tried fixing them, I tried working with them, and I threw them down the drain.

I’m insecure about my cooking abilities. I like to think that I am an amazing cook, I have many people tell me I’m great at it, and then there’s always that one night with the three batches of buttercream.

I was crying into the sink, saying “I just need to give up baking. This is just stupid.” I felt like the biggest phony in blogging history. After all, I’m always making recipes to share with you all, to show you these great, simple treats, and I’m not even capable of making buttercream. Seriously? Who can’t make buttercream? Pretty much every blogger who mentions baking can create a good buttercream.

And then I remembered, I’m not Martha Freaking Stewart. I’m not going to always have the perfect recipe on the first, third, fifteenth try. But it takes trying. And trying. And trying again. I can’t tell you guys how many times that I bake something to blog about, and then it doesn’t end up on here because it just didn’t turn out. I copy down the recipe exactly as I made it, write down information about what was wrong with it (too runny, didn’t set up, dry as a rock) and environmental factors (milk’s expiration date was yesterday but it smelled okay, it was a billion degrees in this house or maybe just 80 but still a billion, I used a fork instead of an electric mixer) and I file the recipe away. I bake other things. Sometimes I forget that recipe entirely. Sometimes I come back to it, tweak it, try it again with new milk or higher air conditioning or fresher strawberries or less sugar, and I see if, just maybe, this time it will work. If it doesn’t, I add my changes or tweaks to the recipe, write down what went wrong this time, and give it a few more days.

Does it seem like a waste of ingredients? Maybe. Although, failed or not, many of my attempts get eaten because I have an army of awesome taste testers (thank you mom, Jeffrey, dad, Mireia, Katie, Drew, Sabine, Carolin, Marius, Lucas, Sebastian and everyone else who I’ve subjected to my concoctions over the years). I also have a super supportive mom who lets me destroy the kitchen and fill every single clean mixing bowl with batter, icing, sauce, and more, and a family who is willing to show Zach “just three more Sesame street songs and then I’ll be done, promise!”

And so it goes. I get rid of the lumpy, weird buttercream (I tried every fix I could find online and it still wasn’t working). I set aside the recipe, I make something else.

I just want to encourage you today. I know from personal experience that, when you look at a food blog and hear the Hallelujah chorus, and then you go and make it and it looks like a completely failed attempt, well, I hear you.

Some of my recipes are good. I mean, really good (you guys have tried them and then told me so!) But I just want to let you know, if you try to make one of my recipes, and it didn’t work… yeah, well, many of them didn’t work for me the first, second, fifth times. A lot of the recipes I post required tweak after tweak before I figured it out. Don’t get discouraged! When you’re crying over a sink of failed buttercream, think about the recipes you’ve tried that turned out the way you wanted them to. Think about the good recipes you’ve made, the ones that have been worth your time and energy. Rinse out the sink, breathe, figure out what might have gone wrong, and make something else.

Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re incredible. You’ll pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and figure out something that works. Breathe. Love yourself today, and give yourself a big hug. You deserve it.

Because this? Well, this happens to everyone at least a few times.

I seriously made this meal almost a month ago, but we’ve been run-run-running so much that I hadn’t gotten a chance to post it. However, I know you guys are going to like it, so I decided to post it, even though it’s been several weeks.

The other day, I was in my local Price Chopper. They’ve just introduced a new in-store area called “Meal Central.” The idea is that you get 4-5 items you can use for a reasonably healthy meal at a pretty good price. Some weeks you’ll get spaghetti, pasta sauce, ground beef, and garlic bread. Other weeks, you’ll get salad, chicken, dressing, and a coating for the chicken. Sometimes you have to pay close attention- they put other great items that go with the meal near Meal Central (even though not all of those items are at the discounted rate… for example, if angel food cake is part of the meal deal, they may place strawberries nearby as something you could purchase separately that would enhance the meal). We frequently stop by the Meal Central area in our Price Chopper. It’s been a great source for meal ideas, and it’s been nice for those days where we’re at the grocery store and still saying “Umm… we planned a week of meals, but forgot to include tonight’s dinner!”

This was one day like that… I had made it all the way to the grocery store, list in hand, ready to grab the groceries for the week. But, when I got there, I remembered I had no dinner planned for that specific evening. And sure, I could have just shifted meals over a bit, but it is just easier sometimes to pick something out at the store. The meal deal that week included Smart Chicken chicken breasts (YUM!), some itty bitty yellow potatoes, rolls, and an angel food cake. I thought it would make for a good meal, so I loaded the items into my cart, clocking in at around $9. That’s not bad, I thought, but how on earth will I make 2 chicken breasts feed four and a half (baby!) people? Since we had the Angel Food cake included in the deal, and I knew I had picked up some Cool Whip on sale during a 10 for $10 the week before (only $1 for Cool Whip? YES, please!), I thought that I could grab some fresh strawberries (which just happened to be on sale, 1 pound for $1.99) to add to our cake. In the produce section, I passed bell peppers, and since red and green were both on sale, I decided to add them, and some mushrooms, to our cart. I decided then that if I chopped up the peppers (60 cents each), then I could make the chicken stretch farther, without adding more chicken to our budget. I knew we had pasta at home to serve it with, so that was perfect. I was still walking through the produce section, near the salad, and stumbled upon something amazing, though.

See, I’m a Kraft junkie. Anyone who knows me knows that I am absolutely stuck on Kraft. I would buy almost anything they’d make, because they make high-quality products with good flavor, at reasonable prices. I swear I’m not advertising for them (even though I totally would! Please, Kraft! Hire me! Haha). I just really like their products. So, when I saw a Kraft item I’d never heard of before, I was excited. When I realized it would fit perfectly into that meal plan, I knew I had to have it right away.

It’s called Kraft Sizzling Salads, and you get a salad dressing and coordinating sauce for your meats (the sauce I chose was aimed towards chicken, though I bet it would taste awesome mixed with ground beef for burgers, or on fish). I opted for the Tuscan Chicken variety, which included the Pesto cooking sauce for chicken and a Sweet Roasted Garlic Balsamic sauce for salad. Knowing we had some bagged salad at home (also purchased previously on a 10 for $10), I ended up grabbing the sauce combo for $1.99 (after sale and coupon).

For under $20 (including the items I had at home), I was ready to go. I checked out, headed home, and set to work.

The first thing I did was slice up the little yellow potatoes that they gave us, added a few tablespoons of butter on top, and covered them in foil, sticking them in the oven and setting the timer for 45 minutes. Then, I cut the chicken breasts into small chunks, and I cooked them over medium heat until they were fully cooked. I set those aside.

Following that, I put about 1 tablespoon of oil in my pan, and tossed in my peppers and mushrooms. I also began boiling my water for my pasta.

When my peppers were just barely tender, I added my chicken back in, and tossed my chicken and veggie mixture with 4 tablespoons of the pesto cooking sauce from the Kraft Sizzling Salads kit. I let that cook for about 5 minutes while my pasta finally started to reach an al dente state. While they were cooking, I removed the foil from my potatoes that were in the oven, and continued to allow those to cook for another 10 minutes.

I went ahead and put my pesto chicken and peppers into a bowl so they’d be out of the way. At this time, I also drained my pasta and removed my potatoes from the oven now that they were tender.

Finally (well, not really… finally… I mean, the dinner was a pretty easy meal to prepare) we sat down to eat.

The salad was topped with the sweet roasted garlic balsamic that also came in our Sizzling Salads kit, and I topped the potatoes with a touch of sour cream. The meal was full of color, and full of flavor. It was a hit with our entire family, from the little dude all the way up to my dad.

Our meals often consist of eating and then sitting around the table and chatting or playing cards or board games for awhile. Our table is kind of our family center… we do school work there, we enjoy meals together there, we play games there… we just are together the most when it’s time to be at the table. So it was no surprise that, an hour later, when we were ready to bring out dessert, we were still spending time together at the table, even though dinner had long passed.

Each of us enjoyed our angel food cake in different ways… mom is a pure strawberries kind of girl. She liked to enjoy her cake just topped with the bright red fruit and nothing else. Dad passed up the strawberries in favor of the Cool Whip and Chocolate Syrup. I decided to meet them both in the middle and put all three toppings on my cake.

And Jeffrey started with Cool Whip, but then decided that the perfect addition to angel food cake and Cool Whip was a little (or a lot!) of Jet-Puffed’s Mallow Bits, and of course, a drizzling of sweet chocolate. I thought he had the right idea, so I added a handful of them to mine, as well.

I love Price Chopper’s new Meal Central. It truly is the best place in the store for getting great meal ideas, especially ones you can make right away. But truly, this meal would have never been possible without the great Kraft products that dot the various sections of our store… after all, this meal wouldn’t’ve been quite the same without Sizzling Salads, Cool Whip, or Jet-Puffed, now would it?

Okay, I promise, I’ll stop with the Kraft promos in this post now… but only because the post is basically over. But I will tell you a cool story about Kraft that I bet none of you know.

My great uncle Freeman actually used to work for Kraft. He worked on Macaroni and Cheese. The funny thing? He actually isn’t a huge fan of cheese at all! You know what else my uncle Freeman used to do? He and his twin brother Leeman (no, I’m not kidding) worked on Air Force One. Freeman even got to roll out the red carpet for the Queen! Yes, THAT Queen! So, Kraft has a pretty long history in our family, and holds a special place in my heart. I even have a really cool Kraft truck bank that Freeman gave me! So, see, I’m not just a blind Kraft devotee… their foods and their company hold a pretty big place in my heart.

What’s for dinner around your place tonight?