Book Review: Simply Delicious

How to write a cook book review without drooling all over the keyboard!?! I enjoyed perusing through Simply Delicious: Amish Cooking by Sherry Gore. I'll share a little about the recipes and such in a minute, but first to describe the book itself. Before the book arrived, I thought it would be bigger - as in taller, but it is really a nice size to handle and look through. I love that it is spiral bound, because it lays flat when opened and you can even fold it back to just see one page. Many of the pictures are full color - great food photography. I do like a cookbook with lots of pictures. I would love to have a picture for every recipe, but with over 300 recipes that would be a very large book! I also loved that the author started the book of with an introduction to Amish and Mennonite culture - beliefs and such.

The recipes are great! In the introduction the author says, "...these recipes require only the most basic commonly available ingredients... These recipes, like the Amish themselves, are straightforward and plain, but never boring." This cookbook is like a collection of recipes from your favorite church ladies. And I love the many of the ingredients are, in fact, things you often have on hand. Such yummy comfort food! I'm excited about trying some of the recipes and spending a little more time going through the book to find my favorites!

Ok. Now I'm hungry!!!!

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Thanks to BookSneeze for this review copy. My opinions are my own.

Finished Object Friday: A Cake on Fire

Well, not real fire.... unless you are counting the candles. As I mentioned earlier, Mark's brother Ryan turned 30 on Saturday and we had a little party for him. I can't resist a new challenge for a cake! Ryan has worked as a volunteer fireman in one of their local communities. He still has a fireman's heart, so I made him a fireman cake.

I did "cheat" just a tad - the fireman is actually a toy that I found. However, I was glad just to get it pulled together - I was still recovering from that nasty sinus infection. The "fire" idea was from a cake I pinned a while back. Unfortunately, the "fire" did cause some structural damage to the rice crispy house. It eventually fell apart (Much to the joy of several of the guys... they gladly ate the damage!) :) I recommend letting the rice crispies set up more before trimming, and maybe it would be helpful to cut the spots for the flames with a knife before shoving them in. Live and learn I guess. The fireman was pretty pleased with his cake.


How do you like that fire truck? I discovered that it isn't easy to find a simple fire truck... even in the biggest toystore in town!! I actually found this little toy set - fireman, truck and a few signs - at a closeout store. How random! I had a blast with that truck - the lights lit up and a siren went off when you pushed the button!!

The cake was made of my basic chocolate cake recipe... in retrospect, due to the popularity of the "house" I probably could have made the whole thing of rice crispy treats and everyone would have been just as happy! :)

The second cake for last weekend wasn't quite as detailed. In fact, I don't even have that great of a picture of it. However, the attraction was more in the flavor anyway... Mark requests his Mocha Truffle Cheesecake each year. I've never made him a "fancy" cake because cheesecake is his favorite. I must say, it is pretty yummy!!! (This is the recipe I use, although I make the crust quite a bit different.)

Happy birthday to my wonderful hubby!!!! 

How about you? Anyone else got a project to share? (You even got a bonus week to post something this month... aren't I nice?) ;) Maybe you've got some secret Christmas project you couldn't share until after the big day? (Or if you're like me, you did very little Christmas crafting this year... Here's big hopes for an earlier start for that next year!) ;) 

Finished Object Friday - 40th Anniversary!

Well, the second Friday in August just flew past me! I did think about this poor neglected blog, but just didn't get any posting done. Nope today is not Friday, but tomorrow is! :)

Part of my busy-ness last Friday was helping to plan a 40th Anniversary celebration for our pastor and his wife! What a wonderful thing to celebrate!!! Basically all of my Saturday was spent baking and decorating a cake for them. ("Thank you" my friend Clara for her help!!)



It was my first time doing a cake like this - I've never done tiers before, and I enjoyed it! Each tier was a different flavor - starting with red velvet on the bottom than chocolate and strawberry on the small top tier. I love doing those frosting roses - so easy and yet, it looks so pretty!!

I assembled the cake "on site" so it was hard to get a good picture of just the cake... ;)

Happy anniversary to a wonderful couple!!


And of course, a cake cutting picture:

Now it's your turn!! Maybe you have some fun school project or fall decorating! :) It's hard to believe that it's that time of year already! Where, oh where, did the summer go?? :)

Finished Object Friday - A Candy Cake

A friend of ours turned the big 3-0 a few weeks ago. And to help him celebrate I, of course..., made him a cake! I had a hard time figuring out what kind of cake to make because I had already made him an ambulance cake a few years ago. When I saw this cake (and another similar) on Pinterest, I knew it would be a good one for him!

It was very easy, quick and fun! Also a big hit! Funny thing though, several people thought it was a bowl of candy! (It fit right in with all the other candy bowls on the table.)

I ended up making a three layer cake (If I'm remembering right, I actually tripled my cake recipe. It made enough for 3 9 in. round pans with a little extra to make a couple of cupcakes) The three layers were just right to make it tall enough for the Kit Kat around it, and to make it like a bowl. I also used Mini M&Ms which I thought were more in proportion to the cake size and much cuter.

Anyway, it was a big hit, and chocolate OVERLOAD! YUM! :) Welcome to the 30's, Andrew!! :)

I know it's late in the day... but I'd still love to see what you have been up to lately! We can just have a "Finished Object Weekend!" :) 

Finished Object Friday - S'mores Cake

You may have noticed I have been out of pocket for a while! Sorry about that. I had something unexpected come up that was out of my control and it took up several days. But I am recovering from that busy time and am getting everything back on track. (Washed several loads of laundry last night... now to just get it all folded!!) :)

So, FOF is a week late, but we'll just pick up from here, if that's alright with you! ;)

I made this cake a few weeks ago.

You talk about YUMMY!!! The cake recipe is the one that I use for basically all the cakes I make. I realized recently that I have never posted the actual recipe here. It is always soo yummy and moist - and VERY easy. A good "first cake" for young bakers.

Here's the recipe:

Wacky Cake (or Chocolate Stir Cake)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

sift:

1 1/2 cup flour

1 cup sugar

3 tablespoons cocoa

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Add:

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup water

Stir in liquid ingredients until flour is consumed. Pour in 9x9 in pan. Bake 30 minutes or less (until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.)

Just some tips:

•  Greasing the pan isn't necessary unless you are removing the cake to decorate it. In fact you can mix it all up in the pan you are going to bake it in if you wish!
• For a 9x13 in pan, I double the recipe.
• And yes, there are no eggs!! I love tasting the batter! :) (and I've made it enough, I would probably know if I missed an ingredient!) 
• for something yummy, quick and simple, you can do as I did in the picture above. Just top it with plenty of marshmallows and chocolate chips and broil until the marshmallows are toasted. SUPER yummy! And you for this you can bake the cake the day before then add the toppings and broil just before serving.

So maybe you've made this cake before? Or maybe you've made something else in the last few weeks! Anyone else ready for some spring crafting? :)

Little Chefs

No, not this little Chef... (he's pretty cute too, I think, although my parents can't get over the "rat in the kitchen" aspect...) Anyway... I digress. I do mean "chefS." Yesterday afternoon I had four sweet visitors: three little girls, and they brought their mommy too!! :) After a fun, quick lunch (tuna and crackers, chips and salad), we made cookies! The big girls helped at the stove:

Oatmeal No Bake Cookies! (with plenty of supervision of course.) And their mommy did our lunch dishes! I sure got a good deal, didn't I? I need to have them over more often!! ;)

Time to dip them out!

Baby sister had to get in on the action! (Thankfully, most of the "hot" action was done...) ;)

(You know that poor last child that always, and forever will be "The Baby." Wait... nope. I don't feel a bit sorry for them. They are always spoiled rotten!!) heehee!

A big part of the fun is, of course, licking the spoons!!

Or is it eating the cookies at a table just your size with a mug of warm chocolate milk?? :)

Finished Object Friday: A Castle for Two Princesses

The absolute highlight of making cakes - especially theme cakes - is the reaction! And this cake was a big hit with two little princesses, but especially Faithie! I did share a brief preview of this cake back when I made it, but I wanted to give a few more pictures... plus it's time for FOF! ;)

I found the perfect candles for this cake! I was looking for sparkler candles, but didn't find any in pastel colors, but was so excited to find these "magic wand" candles. ;)

 

I got the main idea for a castle cake from the book Creative Cakes Anyone Can Make. (A great book on cake decorating made easy!) Faithie actually looked through the book with me and when we came to the castle cake, we knew it was the one! ;)  I also got some inspiration from Pinterest, of course! I have pinned so many fun cake ideas!!


The two "birthday" girls with their big sister. (We celebrated her birthday last fall, if you remember... with her cake made to order!)

Of course the fun part was eating the castle "turrets!" :)

So what have you been crafting lately (or, like me, not so lately...) :) If you are wondering what Finished Object Friday is, this link is for you! :) Happy Linking!!

The FINISHED Finished Object!

Yay! The cupcakes are done!




We had lots of help from our friend, Debi. This was my first time working with fondant. It was fun... it isn't necessarily the best tasting stuff, but they sure turned out cute!! :) Unfortunately, the papers didn't work out quite as well as I thought they were going to... they pulled away a bit from the cake. But they are still cute! :)

Chari Tree Chat

Whew. I don't know about you, but the last couple of weeks have been a doozy for me! As I mentioned in my last post, we had VBS at our church last week. That's a lot of work! We did a camping theme, and had lots of fun with that! We turned our church into a "forest!"



It's pretty funny asking to borrow Christmas trees in June! I thought the decor turned out pretty cute!

One of the highlights of our vbs was "Rascal." The kiddos loved him and he showed up in a different place each night (cooler, trash can, sleeping bag...) (Rascal is the fourth puppet we've bought of this brand and the kiddos love them - so realistic and cute too. We've only actually used one other so far, but Woolly is still a favorite.)


Saturday was our big picnic. Mark made "s'mores" since I was so busy with everything else. (Melt chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk, then stir in the marshmallows. Sandwich between graham crackers - super easy!) :)


Lorie set up an obstacle course for one of our activities. One of the "obstacles" was to set up a tent in the "rain!" I think that would have been my favorite part! (It was a little warm!) :)


So this week (after breaking down VBS stuff Monday evening) has been pretty slow - I really crashed. whew. I have got a lot of tomatoes from my garden, though. This picture is from a couple of weeks ago. I picked a lot more tomatoes this week!

My peppers aren't doing as well now, and neither are my cucumbers - it's way to hot! I picked a few watermelon, but they certainly didn't get very big! The one I've tasted so far was really sweet though! I guess these are what you would call "personal melons!" :)



One more thing: while doing some shopping for VBS prizes, I ran across some cds that I got super excited about! Maybe someone else remembers the Music Machine or Bullfrogs and Butterflies? I loved them as a kid (although I listened to mine on LPs!) :) I have been enjoying listening to some tunes from my "past" (and getting ideas of some songs to use for our kiddos.) Here is a bit from one of the cds:

The Bullfrogs and Butterflies cds I got don't have songs that I remember - I just found that there are actually four cds from this series. Maybe eventually I can buy the one I remember! :) 

I hope you all have had a great week!! Maybe it's time we all had some easy summer living, right? :)

Finished Object Friday

Whew! I don't know about you all, but I've had a whirlwind of a week!! Our church has been in VBS this week and I've been heading it up. We've been having a blast and the kids have been loving it! ...but boy, does this stuff wear you out! :) But on to FOF!

Before all the craziness of this week, we had a surprise birthday party for one of our good friends. And for me? a party calls for a cake! And if I can make a fun one I will. (Remember this one, and this one?) And since I had made an ambulance for our friend Andrew, I figured Jacob needed a cop car!

 

I didn't model this cake after his squad car, but I did the next best thing... Can you guess what car this cake is modeled after? (Here's a hint!) :) 

(The other side)

I have such fun making cakes!! (And really I'd much rather make one, than eat a dry grocery store cake. No offense to those of you that may like them...) :) Oh, and starting September 1 (happy birthday, me!) I can legally bake and sell my cakes from my home, thanks to our governor for signing the Texas Baker's Bill!! Who knows? Maybe you'll see more cakes here? 

Oh, and one last picture...

I think he liked his cake. :) It was fun to really surprise someone! (Unlike our last effort at a surprise party....) Of course, it was a bit easier since his birthday was still about three weeks away! heehee!

Now it's your turn!! I can't wait to see what you all have done!! :)

Summertime Treat

104 degrees. Really. It's only June. (I worry about what August will bring!) With that kind of heat here in East Texas, our main concern is keeping cool! (Thank you, Lord, for air conditioning!!!) Of course, cool treats are a must for summer. I wanted to share these popsicles I came up with - so light and yummy and pretty healthy too!!



I got this popsicle mold last month and I'm kindof wishing I'd bought two! My "recipe" was kindof by accident... I made this dessert for my mom's birthday, and had some leftover jello mixture. So why not try freezing it? Those were some of the best popsicles!! YUM! The best part is that the whipped topping makes a softer frozen treat - no teeth chipping! :) My second batch didn't have as much whipped topping, so the mixture separated a bit before it froze - still good, but I liked the first better.

Here is my first batch ready to eat:

(Yes, the top picture does have plastic knives in it. I find the ones with holes in the handles work best to keep the treat from sliding off. Spoons would be a little safer, but knives work fine for adults.)

I think these would be great for kiddos - you can stick all kinds of goodies in there! They can be eating healthy and not even know it! I make these with minimal sugar and my last batch I used blueberries, blackberries and strawberries! (but no nuts this time.)

Do you have a favorite popsicle recipe? Please share! I'd love to try some new ones!! YuM!! :)

Finished Object Friday

Happy Friday, all! Are you ready for the holiday weekend? It's been a really busy week for me - but a good one. Although kindof bittersweet because yesterday was my last day at my part time job. I will miss my coworkers and my "regulars!" :) My summer schedule is just so busy, that something had to give. Change is tough. always. for me. But I will have more time at home - and I'm looking forward to doing more "crafty" things! :)

But enough of my news.... I want to share a cake I made for a friend's very special birthday a few weeks ago! :)

We did a cowgirl themed party - so we needed a nice hat to go with it!

Close up of the cake:

And how about some cupcakes (with fun toppers?!) :)

One of the reasons I did a hat AND cupcakes was special for Lorie. She is allergic to gluten, so the hat (except for the candy band) was gluten free!! The cupcakes were just a mix - and quick.***Eta: Lorie's cake was from a mix as well. From the baking aisle in the grocery store. There are some good gluten free cake recipes out there - I just went the easy/cheaper-for-me route. :)  ***

Lorie sure enjoyed her cake! Of course, the fun part is blowing out the candles!

And it's always good to have a "little" help with that! :)

The fun part of her party was the "surprise!" We originally wanted to make the whole party a surprise, but she kept making big plans! Her surprise was that her parents were able to make it down and then spend the weekend here - she even got to go fishing with them (and Angie too...) Fun times!! :)

**Photo credits go to my cousin, Nathan. I thought I had left my camera at home, then realized after the party was mostly over that it was in my purse! Oh. well. It was nice to let someone else take the pictures!! :) **


Now it's your turn!! Maybe you've had more time than me to do some crafting this week. Or maybe you're like me and remembered a project you forgot to share! :) Happy linking!!

Finished Object Friday

Have any of you worked with royal icing? I haven't. But I came pretty close with these cookies! :)




The frosting is from a gingerbread house kit that I got on clearance after Christmas.  The frosting mix came in this bag... I wonder if they sell it individually? ...with just a little more water, it really would be royal icing! :)



Anyway, I had fun designing all kinds of different cookies. I'm no pro at cookie decorating, so it just shows how easy it is to make something cute out of royal icing. And the cookies were yummy, too!



Yes, some turned out cuter than others, but I had fun coming up with different designs.

One of the best parts? The cleanup!!

Since I used sandwich bags and the frosting cost just pennies, I just tossed the bags, frosting and all, when I was finished! (I don't particularly like washing frosting bags... can you tell?) :)

So now it's your turn to share! I have switched back to using the linky service I started out with. So you should be able to leave your links below. (Boy, I will miss the picture links, though... oh. well.) Happy Friday, everyone!

PS~ I have one more FOF! Do you know what it is? (hint: you'll have to come to my blog to find out... it won't show up in a reader... or on Facebook.) :)

Finished Object Friday

Last month was Pastor Appreciation Month. (I hope you "appreciated" your pastors!) :)  We had a "card shower" for our pastor and his wife - everyone wrote them a thank you card and included a gift card. They really liked that! :)  After church that morning we had a church potluck at my parent's home. Thankfully it was a beautiful day and everyone could be outside! :)

I made a cake for the occasion. Who doesn't love chocolate?

I had fun decorating this one... although in retrospect, I wish I would have made the top "layer" square... it would have looked less like a hat. But anyway... Here's what it looked like before the flowers.

(In my fridge - chilling out.)  :)

And most importantly, they really liked it! :)

So what crafty things have you been up to? Sorry this is a bit late... I should have posted last night but oh. well. :)  Happy Friday!! :)

Oh, and the linky tool will be open all weekend - so don't worry if you don't get something posted today. :)  We'll have fun anyway! :)

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