Roasted marshmallow cupcake

I have sooo many great recipes to share with you guys. I finally got over my sinus infection and feel like cooking (and eating) again. Woopdido! This past week I made some great dishes and of course I'm going to post all the recipes here.

Lets start with these Roasted Marshallow cupcakes that I'm making for my daughters birthday party on Saturday. I'd never made them before and wanted to try them out before serving them at the party. My husband (aka the marshmallow hater) did not like them and even told me he wouldn't even bring them to work cause 'people might think its weird to have a marshmallow
on a cupcake'. My daughter however loved them and even told me while I was editing the pictures in Photoshop that she wanted to eat them. So sweet :)

• For the Cupcakes

  • 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 3/4 cup warm water
  • 1/2 cup whole milk
  • 1/4 cup sour cream
  • 1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
  • 3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 18 cupcake liners

• For the Topping

  • 1 bag of jumbo marshmallows
    
    
• 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line cupcake tins with cupcake liners.

  2. Whisk cocoa powder, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Stir in eggs, warm water, milk, sour cream, butter, and vanilla, mixing until smooth.

  3. Fill each muffin cup half way (about 2 ounces each). Bake until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, 15 to 18 minutes.

  4. Let cake cool slightly and change the oven to broil.

  5. Make the topping: Place one marshmallow vertically in the center of each cupcake. Put the cupcakes back into the oven (careful not to knock any marshmallows off) and watch them closely, as the marshmallows will roast in a matter of seconds.

  6. When the marshmallows appear golden brown on top and puffed slightly, take the cupcakes out of the oven and carefully press the marshmallows down, using your hand or a spoon, to cover the whole top of the cupcake.

Dino Eggs

These eggs are so cool!! I just can't get over it haha.
I took them out of the fridge this morning and kept
telling the hubbster to look at my eggs. 'Babe look, this is amazing! Im serious.
These are incredible. They are the coolest thing I've ever seen..' etc. The hubbster
managed to hide is enthusiasm pretty well but had to
agree that they indeed were pretty cool.

For the dinosaur eggs you will need water, hardboiled eggs
and food coloring. You will also need a plastic container w/
lid.

Boil your eggs and let them cool (yesterday I googled how
to cook the perfect egg. It said to put eggs in cold water
on the stove. Let boil for 1min. Take of heat, cover and let
stand for 12min. Put eggs in water w/ ice. And the eggs
came out pretty darn perfect..). Fill container with water,
put in a few drops of color (I used 20 drops of neon purple).
Crack the eggs (like you are going to peel it), but leave the
shell on! Put in water, make sure the water is covering
all the eggs. Cover container with lid and refrigerate over
night. When you peel the eggs they will look crazy amazing
and the kids will LOVE it :) HAPPY EASTER!

Brownies 1.1

So, Im at it again. My body was screeeaming for some brownie
action and I just had to make HALF a batch a couple of days
ago. My hubby is doing p90x so he was a debbie downer
and wouldn't have any, so I ended up eating 2 pieces
and ditched the rest in the trash (I HAD TO!! Or else I would
have ended up eating the whole darn thing!!).



This time I tried a recipe I found online. The recipe calls for
1 stick of butter and the frosting another 3tsp so I ended up
skipping the frosting.. I didnt want to cheat on my crappy diet
too much (can't wait for these darn weddings to be over so I
can get off my no-carbs-diet grrr).

Makes 16 servings

0.5 cups butter (1 stick/113gram)
1 cup (2.3dl) sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/3 cups (1dl) cocoa powder (I used Trader Joes, my new fav!)
0.5 cups (1.2dl) flour
0.25 tsp salt
0.25 tsp baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour an 8 inch square pan.
2. In a large saucepan, melt butter. Remove from heat, and stir in sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Beat in cocoa, cup flour, salt, and baking powder. Spread batter into prepared pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Do not overcook!

BBQ season

The weather has been kinda off here in so.cal this spring.
It goes from 95 to 55. Crazyness. But yesterday the weather
was really nice and it finally felt like summer is on its way.
We decided to get some steaks and cook them up on the grill. Mmmm.
I made oven baked potatoes and garlic bread. Delish!
Im on a no-carbs-diet but I've had the flu and yesterday
was the first day in forever I actually felt like eating and
cheated on the carbs :) So worth it!

For the potatoes you will need

Potatoes
Garlic
Carrots
Sea salt
Extra virgin olive oil
Rosemary
Garlic powder
Black pepper

Cut potatoes in wedges and rinse under cold water (the water
removes all the starch that will otherwise stick to the pan).
Put in casserole dish or on baking sheet. Mix in diced carrots
and grated garlic (I also put a few whole garlic cloves in my dish).
Sprinkle with oil and the spices. Bake at 440 for 40mins.

For the garlic bread you will need

French bread
Grated garlic
Olive oil
parsley (preferably fresh)

Mix garlic, oil and parsley. Slice bread and cover them
in the oil-mix. Cook at 200 F for 10mins.

Giant chocolate chip cookie

I got one of these cookiezilla cookies sent to my hospital room
when Abbie was born 3yrs ago.I think it tooks us 2 weeks to finish it, lol.
Today was the hubbsters B-day and we celebrated by
going to Knotts Berry farm and by making this ginormous cookie.
He's taking this to work tomorrow for their monday meeting, yeay
for you workmates that get to chomp down this goey chocolate
deliciousness!

You will need

1 Cup (2 sticks or 225gram) softened butter
3/4 Cups (1.8 dl) sugar
3/4 packed cups (1.8 dl) brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 1/4 cups (5.3 dl) flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips (4.5 dl)

Mix butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla until fluffy.
Add eggs, one at a time. Beat well.
Gradually ad flour, salt and baking soda
Cover a pizzapan in waxpaper. Put dough on top and put
waxpaper ontop. Lightly press down on paper and use rolling pin
to make a round pizza size cookie. Pull off waxpaper.
Bake on 375 for about 30mins.

Let cool and eat as is or decorate w/ your fave frosting.

Chicken drumstickelishious

Im not a big fan of drumsticks. But these were amaaazing!
You just mix all the ingredients, dump them in a bag,
throw it in the oven and taaada Amazing Chicken drumsticks.
They are totally kid/party/potluck/picnic friendly. We like.
For example we are going to Knotts Berry Farm tomorrow
and I'll bring some of these for my daughter for lunch.

For 8-10 drumsticks you will need

marinade:
0.5 cups of canola oil
1 tbs lemon juice
2 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs wing sauce (I used mild to make it preschool friendly)
1 tbs grated garlic

Some creole seasoning for broiling

Mix ingredients in a ziplock bag. Add chicken
and coat well. Bake on 350 for 30mins. Every other 10min
flip the drumsticks over and coat w/ marinade.
After 30mins turn on broiler, sprinkle creole seasoning on
the chicken and grill for aprox 8-10min. I think this would have
gone great with some tsatsiki but unfortunately I didn't have
all the ingredients for it at home when it was time to eat,
maybe next time :)

Pink, Smoked pork chops

In Sweden people eat smoked pork chops like crazy.
In salads, pasta, casseroles and whatever other way
imaginable. Its kinda pricey over here in the states,
maybe thats why its not as common? Anyway, go out,
buy some smoked pork chops and make this meal.
Its crazy easy (4 ingredients. HELLO!) and so good.
The leftovers are amazing to (yep, had some today).
Please enjoy.

You will need

Smoked pork chops (I'd say 2-3 slices/person)
1 can coconut milk (the original recipe calls for heavy cream,
I used coconut milk due to lactose intolerance and
because I'm on a diet and CM has less calories and fat.
If you use coconutmilk the sauce will be a little watery.
But if you substitute heavy cream you'll get a thicker
creamier sauce)
Chili sauce
Cherry tomatoes

Put pork chops in oven safe casserole dish.
Mix coconut milk with chili sauce (No exact measurements
needed, just poor and mix until pink).
Poor sauce over pork.
Cut tomatoes in half and put them in the dish
w/ the pork

Cook on 425 for 20mins.

Serve with pasta/rice/potatoes.
Mmmm



Of course I had to take some pictures of Abbies lunch to :)