Happy Valentine's Day!

Easy Cupcake Icing (even for me!)

Behold! I actually baked something pretty darn cute. Now, I love to cook. I don't do anything fancy, but when I have the time and the energy, I really do enjoy cooking up a good meal. Baking, however, is not my thing. Sure, I have mastered the Ghirardelli boxed brownie. But anything I've ever attempted to bake and make pretty? Total failure. I'm a perfectionist and I lose my patience. Seriously, nothing amazes me more than those of you that can decorate picture-perfect cakes and cookies. I am in awe and green with talent-envy! I've accepted that I will never master this craft. So if I need exceptional looking cakes or cookies, I pay someone else to do it. My mom was not a baker either - even less so than me. So I did not grow up around it. I can vividly remember going to a friend's house in junior high and going into the kitchen to find her mother taking a fresh batch of cookies out of the oven. Heavens! Cookies out of the oven?! I thought those only came in boxes from Kroger!

BUT! While I'm not an avid baker, once in a blue moon I'll decide to give something a try if it looks easy enough. Last week we had our monthly neighborhood bunco game and for whatever reason, I decided to make cupcakes. The only cupcakes I usually make require no frosting. Frosting anything scares the hell out of me. I cannot tackle frosting to save my life. If you can successfully frost a cake, you are light years ahead of me. I think I could handle the tube kind where you just whip it around all swirly-like on top. But that would require making frosting and also baking supplies I don't own. No thanks. That all sounds really messy.

A few weeks earlier, the hub had gone on a marshmallow roasting frenzy with the snow and all, so we had an open bag of those jumbo marshmallows in our pantry. Suddenly I remembered reading somewhere about microwaving marshmallows on top of cupcakes to make perfect frosting. Or icing. Whatever you call it. (Is there a difference?) That's when I decided to attempt the cupcakes for bunco night. And wow, I was so impressed with myself! I did not try one (I am not huge on sweets, which is probably another major factor in why I don't bake much), but I gotta say they looked pretty darn cute! This is a lousy camera phone pic, but here's a few of the finished cupcakes (or muffin cakes, bestest!)...




It was so easy peasy - even for me. Just grab a box of your favorite cake mix (or if you're the do-it-from-scratch type, more power to you). Bake standard size cupcakes according to box direction and set aside to cool. For the frosting, you'll need the jumbo marshmallows (one for each cupcake) and any sprinkles/confetti you want to top it with. I used the standard white and the strawberry pink marshmallows for Valentine's Day!



For the marshmallow topping, top one cupcake with one jumbo marshmallow and microwave for about 15 seconds. If it falls off while nuking, no big. You are only microwaving it long enough for the marshmallow innards to get gooey. You don't want the whole thing to burst open. As soon as you see it just begin to swell, it's done.




Immediately after removing from the microwave, gently mash the marshmallow down and it should easily spread over the top of the cupcake. If it's being stubborn, nuke it for a few more seconds. But it should easily go down and allow you to "mold" it the way you want it without getting sticky. Top with sprinkles, etc. and viola! I've also seen recipes on how to do this in the oven but that scared the hell out of me. It involved broiling and I would surely set our house on fire.

So yeah, three cheers for my pretty cupcakes! Glad to have these in my back pocket if I ever feel the need to bake something cute.

Valentine's on the Cheap

I've been de-cathed and I'm back at work!  Feeling tired and a wee bit crampy still, but OK.  And large, I feel large.  I'm on estrogen for the next three weeks and it makes me quite *puffy*.  So not really loving that, but whatever. 

 

So hey guess what... I'm in the AJC today!  Just a quick mention of our standing Valentine's tradition (fondue at home) in an article with some money-saving ideas for the holiday, but hey, I feel famous for being quoted.  Of course they left out the best part of our tradition - we do it all in Valentine jammies!  If you get the Atlanta paper, it's on the front page of the "Living" section today.  Read it here.

 

Can't believe Valentine's is less than 3 weeks away...  what other budget-friendly ways to celebrate do you suggest?

Snowbunnies.

Hope you Georgia gals are enjoying the snow! Other than taking 1.5 hours to get home last night (when my commute is usually 15-20 min), I'm loving it. From inside though. By the fire. The doggies LOVE it. Here are a few pics the hub snapped last night when it was still coming down...

That's at least 3 inches, don't ya think? Haven't seen this much snow in I don't know how long. This is not normal.

We're waiting for the roads to clear up some and then we're headed up to Ellijay to join my parents at a cabin. Here's a peek...

Isn't it dreamy? Now if we can just get there! We'll be back tomorrow afternoon for our traditional Valentine's Day fondue. It's the one day a year we whip out the fondue pot and we wear Valentine's jammies while we eat. We started doing it, gosh, like 5 or 6 years ago and now it's just what we do. Can't wait!

You've got two more days...

...to enter my giveaway over at Make Room for Style! And y'all, there are only a few entries so far, so you've got a pretty fair chance of snagging the prize - which is a free 2-hr photo session (on-location!) with Atlanta's own Chikadeez Photography.

Now this photo session can be anything you want it to be... but if *I* were to win, I'd totally have shots of my three doggies taken (that should make for an interesting 2 hours). Check out the gallery of animal photos over at Chikadeez - sooooo sweet.

For more details and to enter, hop on over here. Get on it!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope you all have a happy heart day filled with lotsa love! XOXO!

Lori - I brought the truffles to work today and they are a HIT! Thanks again for the great recipe!

*Blush*

Aww... I was just in the middle of crunching some massive numbers when, to my surprise, a beautiful bouquet of gerbera daisies (one of my faves) arrived! Hehehehe... I had told the hub not to spend any money on Valentine's Day (and let's just do cards), so he sent flowers today. So sneaky. He's the best. :-)

Come and get it!

So my crockpot chicken was sooooooo good last night. There was no real thinking involved, so it totally could've been hit or miss. I just grabbed stuff out of the pantry that I thought might work. A definite hit, though! Here's what I threw in the pot before running out the door yesterday morning...

- 2 frozen boneless chicken breasts
- 1 can of Progresso's Carb monitor Chicken Cheese Enchilada Soup
- 1 can of Rotel, drained (Mexican blend with lime & cilantro)

The soup was quite tasty - I'd never had it before. And the dish had a great kick to it. Doing it over again, I'd add a cup of uncooked rice I think. Didn't think about that at the time. The chicken was so yummy... just fell apart.

I'm going to the grocery tonight to get the goods for our Valentine fondue dinner. And I think I'll get the stuff to make Lori's truffles to bring into the office - those look so good! And I'm totally not a big sweets person - but those have few enough ingredients that I think I could like them. I don't like desserts with too many "ingredients" - including ice cream. My limit is 2 really with ice cream. Mint chocolate chip - fine. But I can't handle like Rocky Road or Turtle Tracks or whatever - WAY too much going on. So anyway, I'll be playing in the kitchen tonight. I just hope I have enough energy. I always make these optomistic to-do lists during the day, but when I get home, I'm just worthless and don't want to do anything!

Countdown to Valentine's...

I know there are a lot of cynics out there that hate this day... but I freaking love it! And I always have - not just when I've been in a relationship. I think it's also a fun time to send sweet nothings to family and friends. No, I really do get why some people loathe it - I was atually DUMPED on Valentine's once and the guy had the nerve to give me a bag of Valentine Hershey kisses. Seriously? "I don't wanna be with you, but have some chocolate." Whatev... I met the hub that following April. I even have married friends who "veto" the holiday because they think it's just a ridiculous commercial ploy. (Um, actually I'm thinking your husband brainwashed you to believe that so he doesn't have to buy you flowers.)

Anyway, yes, I love any reason to celebrate anything, so I love Valentine's Day! After each holiday, I look for the next one on the calendar. So after Christmas and New Year's, I look forward to Valentine's. And it's not that the hub and I do anything over the top for it... I just think it's fun. We used to always go out somewhere swanky, but one year we decided to stay in for whatever reason and do fondue. We put on jammies and just chilled out together over a fondue pot. It was so much fun that we've done it every year since. It's kind of become our little Valentine's Day tradition (and really the only time we break out the fondue pot). The really dorky part is that we put on Valentine PJ's. The hub has this great white pair with big red hearts all over them. I'm sure he'd die if his friends ever saw him in those... haha! So I'm totally counting down the days till our fondue evening next week. We'll probably go shopping Wednesday night and get all the meat and veggies and cut them up ahead of time. All the time is in the prep work - so we like to have it all ready come heart day. We usually do filet, chicken, shrimp, and sometimes pork. And some veggies - usually just mushrooms I think. Oh and my favorite - cheese fondue with bread and apples to start. We also make some yummy dipping sauces for everything. I totally model the whole thing after my usual feast at Dante's. Mmmm...

So it'll be a cozy evening at home for us. It actually works better that way this time of year - unless V-day falls on a weekend. My work schedule wears me out during tax season - so getting dolled up to go into town to a restaurant will have my head on the table before the second course. Do any of y'all have any fun Valentine traditions? Or maybe just some exciting plans? My dad is taking my mom to the mountains for the weekend. It was so sweet - he arranged the whole thing back in December and told her about it over Christmas. She's SO excited. My dad can be such a romantic. Tell me your plans!